“Uh-huh,” said Lil Ran, clearly confused about this. “And how about you, sweetheart? Are you also a dog in a cat’s body?”
“No, I’m a cat,” said Harriet. “And proud to be one. But I’m also a cat who stands by her man. And if my precious angel decides he wants to be a dog, he has my full support.”
“Oh-kay,” said Lil Ran, looking even more confused. “Oh, hey, Max and Dooley,” he said, recognizing us. “Are you two also dogs now?”
“No, we’re still cats,” I said. “But we decided to keep an eye on Brutus. He’s going through a difficult time so he’s very vulnerable right now, and we don’t like leaving him alone.”
“No, I see your point. Brutus seems… confused.”
“So where do I sign up?” asked Brutus-slash-Rambo excitedly.
“You don’t really sign up,” said Rufus.
“We’re a very relaxed operation,” said Fifi. “We just hang out and shoot the breeze.”
“So who’s your conductor?” asked Harriet.
The dogs all shared glances.“Um… we don’t really have a conductor,” said Rufus.
“No conductor?” said Harriet, her eyes gleaming and her ears pricking up excitedly. “How about I’ll be your conductor from now on?”
“Um… well, sure. Why not?”
“Okay, gather round, you guys. The basses over there, the sopranos here, altos right here in front of me, and the tenors on the left. Now what kind of material have you been working with? Which compositions do you like to tackle? Which composers?”
“Um…”
“Oh, you guys!” She turned to me, eyes sparkling, and I could see what was happening. So I shook my head, but the train had already left the station. She clapped her paws. “You’re so lucky! I’m gonna turn dog choir into the best choir this town has ever seen! And then we’re going to compete with cat choir and we’re going to show Shanille what a real choir should sound like. Now for our first song I would like to suggest a simple thing—to warm up those vocal cords. It’s calledWho let the dogs out!”
“Oh, dear,” I said. And judging from the looks on Rufus and Fifi’s faces, this sudden takeover of dog choir by an ambitious cat like Harriet and a wannabe dog like Brutus wasn’t going down well. Who let the dogs out? Harriet did.
I decided to take a backseat, as I wasn’t really in the mood for any more trouble tonight, and when I glanced over my shoulder, who should I see but… Chase!
“Max, come over here,” said the cop. I saw that his squad car stood idling at the curb. “Odelia needs you,” he declared shortly, and then held the door for me.
“Dooley!” I called out. “Odelia needs us!”
We both only needed one word, and moments later we were cruising along the road with the burly cop, on our way to Odelia’s rescue.
16
Odelia watched as Chase placed Emma under arrest. The girl was still swearing up and down that she hadn’t touched Carl. That she hadn’t even known he was home.
Carl, meanwhile, had been taken away in an ambulance to the nearest hospital. He’d suffered a vicious blow to the head, presumably with the golf club that was found next to his body. His skull had been fractured and it was a miracle he was still breathing.
“You better give me the names of your associates,” said Chase as he addressed Emma.
The girl was already a lot less cocky, but refused to give up her colleagues.
“I already told Miss Poole,” she said. “I’m not a snitch.”
They were still in Carl’s office, seated in the small nook he presumably reserved for his meetings. Emma sat sagged on the Chesterfield, with Chase towering over her, while Odelia stood by to take notes. Uncle Alec, meanwhile, was coordinating his team to comb through the house for clues, and to look for possible members of Emma’s squad.
“Look, if you don’t give me those names you’ll go down for this, Emma,” said Chase. “You’ll be the only one who gets charged and convicted while your friends all get off. Now is that fair? Is that right? I don’t think so.”
“I’m not going to name names, detective. These people are my friends.”
“Nice friends,” said Odelia.” To leave you behind like that.”
“They had no choice,” said Emma, giving Odelia a dirty look.
“And what if Carl doesn’t make it?” Chase asked, “and this turns into a murder inquiry?”
“We had nothing to do with that, I swear. If you’re looking for Carl’s attacker, why don’t you look at Miss Poole? She was right there when it happened. She could have picked up that golf club and hit Carl over the head with it.”
“If this is your line of defense it isn’t doing you any good, Emma.”
But Emma wasn’t impressed. Instead, she clammed up completely, and refused to talk until she’d been provided with a lawyer who could advise her of her rights.
And so she was duly escorted away by two officers and taken to the precinct.
“I don’t get it,” said Chase once Emma had been carted off. “The Hampton Heisters have never been involved with this kind of violence before. They’re thieves, not murderers. Why would they suddenly change their MO?”
“Maybe Carl caught them and they panicked?” Odelia suggested. “Emma said they didn’t think he was home.”
“I don’t know,” said Chase. “The girl doesn’t strike me as a killer. You?”
“No, she doesn’t,” Odelia admitted. “But that doesn’t mean anything. We don’t know who her friends are. They could be a lot more dangerous than her.”
“So you saw four of them take off, right?”
“Yeah, four.”
“So that means they’re a five-person crew. We’ll need to dig through Emma’s list of friends and known associates, and see if we can’t nail them that way. Cause I have a feeling she’s not going to give them up. Especially now that she’s decided to lawyer up.” He glanced in the direction of Abe Cornwell’s team, the county coroner, who were dusting the office for prints, and had placed the golf club on the desk. “Let’s hope we can lift a couple of good prints off that thing. Maybe we’ll know more when we do.”
“If this was a crime committed in a panic, there’s a good chance that we’ll find those prints,” Odelia agreed.
Chase was scrolling through Carl’s phone, which had been found on the floor. “Now this is odd,” he said after a moment.
“What?”
“You’re not in his calendar. Some woman named Zoe is. A meeting at nine-thirty.”
“Maybe Zoe was his code name for me?” That didn’t sound very plausible, though.
Uncle Alec walked in, accompanied by a very large man with a shaven head. He looked as if he spent most of his time at the gym.“This is Gustav,” said Uncle Alec. “Gustav is in charge of Carl’s security. Tell my detective what you just told me, Gustav.”
“Well, Carl told us he had a date tonight, and so he gave us all the night off,” said Gustav, looking a little shamefaced—presumably because he’d failed at his task of keeping his boss safe.
“I had an appointment with your boss,” said Odelia. “But that was a business meeting, not a date.”
Gustav shrugged his broad shoulders.“He didn’t say anything about a business meeting. He just told me he had a hot date and to make the usual arrangements.”
“And what were the usual arrangements?” asked Chase.
“Each time Carl had a date he wanted us to clear out so he had the house to himself. He also liked us to leave the front door unlocked, and the alarm turned off as well as all the cameras. He didn’t want us to know who was coming, most of the time, and didn’t want to be filmed either, having had a bad experience with a previous security team.”
“What bad experience?” asked Odelia, though she could already imagine.
“The team leader filmed one of his dates and the footage ended up on TMZ. Since then he likes to have the system turned off whenever he entertains a woman at the house, and for the staff to clear out. Not even the chef is allowed to stay on.”