Odelia looked a little disappointed by this. She, of course, had every reason to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding the precious rock. She had an article to write, after all.
“But if you do manage to find out what happened, perhaps you’ll give the Gazette the scoop?” she asked now.
The little man’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t do scoops, Mrs. Poole,” he said in a measured tone that left no room for doubt as to how he felt about journalists. “No scoops, no snoops.”
After the duo had left with the Pink Lady, Odelia turned to Chase.“No scoops, no snoops—that was a dig, wasn’t it? A dig at me, because he thinks I’m some kind of snoop?”
“Or maybe he simply meant it in general,” said Chase. “At any rate, the diamond is finally gone, and now we can rest easy again.”
“Maybe you can rest easy, but I want to find out what happened, and if I understood that insurance guy correctly, I won’t have to expect any help from him.”
“Isn’t your uncle still involved? He said he was going to try to get to the bottom of this business, wasn’t he?”
Odelia gave her hubby a grateful smile.“Thanks, babe. Looks like I know who to call first.”
“Odelia, before you do that,” I said. “Can you talk to Wilbur Vickery? He went on two dates with this woman Loretta Gray, and since she walked out of their last date she hasn’t been answering his calls or messages and he’s feeling really down in the dumps.”
“Loretta Gray?” said Odelia. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
“The book your mom is reading,” said Chase.
“What book?”
“The book about the Pink Lady. The writer is also named Loretta Gray.”
“Do you think they’re the same person?”
“Probably. She’s definitely in town, since your mom met her yesterday, so maybe she’s dating Wilbur now?”
“Dating Wilbur,” said Odelia, then shivered slightly. “Imagine that.”
“Oh, and we just found out a big secret about Tex,” Dooley piped up, “but since it’s a secret we’re not supposed to tell anyone. Just thought you’d want to know.”
Odelia slowly turned to Dooley, then said,“Dooley, is this a joke?”
“No joke,” said Dooley with a smile. “A secret.”
Odelia now took a seat on the sofa right next to my friend, looked him straight in the eye and said,“Tell me everything. Right now.”
22
“You know, Max,” said Dooley, “instead of becoming a vet, maybe Tex should become a hairdresser. Now that Fido is gone he could take over the salon.”
“I think that’s a great idea, Dooley.”
We were traveling in Odelia’s car in the direction of the police station, and we were just passing by Fido’s salon. A For Sale sign had been placed in the window, a sad testament to the notion that Buster might never return, and would spend the rest of his life with the flat earthlings of Mount Shasta, California. Okay, so maybe that hadn’t been my best idea ever. You can’t hit them all out of the park!
“I still can’t believe Dad would want to stop being a doctor and become a vet,” Odelia said. She hadn’t responded well to Dooley’s news.
“But he seems to be very good at it,” I said. “Sam the pigeon was very satisfied with the services Tex offered him. If it hadn’t been for your dad, in fact, Sam might be dead right now, so that’s at least one pigeon’s life saved.”
“No offense, Max, and I know this Sam is probably a good friend of yours—”
“More of an acquaintance than a friend, but go on.”
“—but I care more about the health and safety of the people of Hampton Cove than that of a single pigeon.”
“Oh, but Tex saved a lot more lives than just Sam’s,” said Dooley. “In fact if Sam is to be believed, he’s like Hampton Cove’s very own Dr. Dolittle.” He turned to me. “I just thought of a joke, Max. Should I say it?”
“Go ahead,” I said.
“Tex could call himself Dr. Poolittle. From Poole and Dolittle—get it? Poolittle.”
“Oh, I get it, Dooley,” I said with a small smile.
“Dr. Poolittle indeed,” Odelia grumbled, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter. Judging from the whiteness of her knuckles Dr. Poolittle would find no support from his daughter in his new endeavors, even though I had no doubt she would watch his future career with interest.
“So when are you going to talk to Wilbur?” asked Dooley. “And offer him some relationship advice?”
“Frankly I don’t give a hoot about Wilbur or his relationship,” Odelia muttered as she resolutely steered the car right past the General Store, where presumably Wilbur was still bombarding his latest conquest with hundreds of messages, and set a course for the police station instead.
Life is about priorities, after all. When you have a story to write about a precious diamond, and your dear old dad has decided to burn his career to the ground, the love life of Wilbur Vickery has to take a backseat. Collateral damage, I think some people would call it.
We’d arrived at the police station, and Odelia parked her car, then got out, allowing us to hop down to the ground to follow her inside.
We passed Dolores, the precinct’s crusty dispatcher, who waved to us in greeting while barking into her phone, “No, ma’am, this is the police, NOT the DMV!”
And then we found ourselves in Uncle Alec’s office. The big man was behind his desk, looking a little frazzled. His hair was standing in all directions—or at least what little hair he had left on his wide cranium, and when we entered he was on the phone, gesturing for his niece to take a seat. “No, Charlene, I don’t know when the Sheikh will arrive. Oh, he’s already here? Well, he sure as heck didn’t tell me. An official reception at Town Hall? Do you really think that’s necessary? Keys to the city? Are you sure… Yes, Charlene. If you think it’s a good idea.” And after adding, “Yeah, love you, too,” he hung up. Somehow that last sentence hadn’t sounded as loving as it could have.
“Did I hear you correctly?” asked Odelia. “Is Sheikh Bab El Ghat in town?”
The Chief nodded, then dragged ten weary digits through the devastated area that was his scalp.“The town council wants to organize a reception for the Sheikh, the whole nine yards—champagne, canap?s, invite the whole town, the works. As if I don’t have enough on my plate already.”
Odelia gave her uncle a strange look.“I just had the Sheikh’s insurance guy at the house and his expert, and they didn’t mention anything about the Sheikh being in Hampton Cove.”
“Maybe they didn’t know. Guys like that don’t exactly like to make their travel plans known to the whole world. No, yeah, the guy arrived late last night. Wants to meet the Wynns and thank them personally for finding the stone. He’s staying at the Star—apparently renting a suite on the top floor for him and however many of his wives he decided to bring along on this trip.” He tugged at his nose. “I just hope no nutters get it into their nut to camp out in front of the hotel hoping to catch a glimpse of the Sheikh or, worse, decide to try and shoot the guy.”
“Shoot the guy? Why would anyone want to shoot the guy?”
“Because that’s what people do!” said the Chief, throwing up his hands. “They like to shoot at stuff, just because they can. Now why are you here? Did we have a meeting? I can’t remember.”
“I’m here to talk about the investigation into the disappearance and recovery of the Pink Lady. I want to find out how that diamond got into that safe deposit box at the Capital First Bank.”
“Uh-huh. Okay. So I talked to the bank—”
“And they told you that that safe belonged to Craig Bantam.”
The Chief stared at his niece.“How…”