“Emma chose to be involved with this gang, Mrs. Hudson,” said Ellie. “She chose to participate in these high-profile burglaries, so it’s not as if she simply tagged along.”
“Who are you?” asked Mrs. Hudson, giving Ellie a not-so-friendly look.
“Ellie is my… intern,” said Odelia.
“Well, I suggest before you start casting aspersions on people you first check your facts,” said Emma’s mother. “Because I know for a fact that this is nothing like my daughter. And I also know for a fact that she would never raise a hand against anyone. So whatever the police are saying, she can’t possibly be involved with this—no way.”
“She was caught red-handed,” Ellie pointed out, also getting a little worked up. “Odelia caught her personally breaking into Carl Strauss’s house last night.”
“How is Carl?” asked Mrs. Hudson. “Is he going to be all right?”
“He’s still in a coma,” said Odelia. “We went to see him this morning and the doctors have no idea when he might come out of it.”
“Or even if he’ll come out of it,” Ellie added.
“This is a nightmare,” said Mrs. Hudson. She then directed a pleading look at Odelia. “Can’t you put in a good word for Emma? You saw her, you met her. You must have seen that she’s not like these other people she got mixed up with.”
“She did strike me as a highly intelligent young woman,” Odelia admitted. “But I think she also realizes that she made a big mistake.”
“I know,” said Mrs. Hudson ruefully. “Please talk to the police, Miss Poole. I know you have a lot of pull with them. Tell them that Emma is not a violent person. She just got swept along with these Hampton Heisters people and somehow things got out of hand.”
In spite of herself, Odelia felt sorry for the woman. It wasn’t easy for her to watch her daughter languish in the police lockup. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said therefore, earning herself a frown from Ellie, who clearly wasn’t as taken in with Mrs. Hudson as she was. “But if you get the chance to talk to your daughter, you need to tell her togive us the names of the other members of the gang. It would create a lot of goodwill for her, and the judge will be more lenient with her as well. I think it would make a big difference.”
“If she agrees to see us, I’ll tell her,” said Mrs. Hudson, already a lot more subdued than she had been when she first barged her way into the office yelling accusations.
“Just tell Emma to cooperate, Mrs. Hudson,” Ellie advised. “That’s the best thing you can do for her right now. Simply tell her to cooperate with the police as much as she can.”
Mrs. Hudson nodded and got up.“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for the advice.”
Once she’d left, Ellie said, “How could you promise to help her? She’s clearly guilty.”
“Even guilty people have rights, Ellie. And I think Mrs. Hudson just might be right in that her daughter got mixed up in something that simply snowballed out of control.”
“I think she knew exactly what she was doing. And it wouldn’t surprise me if she took a swing at Carl, too.”
“I guess the police will have to decide what happened.”
“I thought they always listened to you?”
Odelia smiled.“Not always.”
Her phone rang out a pleasant tune and she saw that Charlene Butterwick was trying to get in touch with her.“Hey, Charlene,” she said.
“Odelia, you really have to do something about your grandmother,” said Charlene.
Oh, dear.“What did she do this time?”
“She tried to bribe me!”
“She did what?”
“Offered me money in exchange for a building permit. Fifty thousand dollars if I would allow her to build an extra few stories on top of the house. I told her what she was doing was illegal, but she insisted!”
“I’m sorry, Charlene. You know Gran. She’s a little…”
“Nuts!”
“… eccentric.”
“Your uncle’s already had a strongly worded talk with her, but I was hoping you could have a conversation with her, too. I know she respects you and listens to you.”
“Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn’t. Gran has a mind of her own, and oftentimes she doesn’t listen to anyone.”
“Well, I just hope you’ll be able to impress it upon her that this kind of behavior simply will not stand. Imagine if people find out about this. And they discover that I didn’t press charges. Can you imagine the damage this will do to my reputation?”
“I know, and I’m sorry, Charlene. And I will talk to her, I promise.”
After she’d hung up, and seeing Ellie’s questioning look, she shrugged and said, “Family stuff. Nothing to worry about.”
Ellie chuckled.“Trust me, I know all about family stuff.”
The door opened and Max and Dooley walked in, looking a little perturbed. Unfortunately she couldn’t talk to her cats now that Ellie was in the room with them, but that didn’t mean her cats couldn’t talk to her. And they did—very vociferously, too!
“Odelia, Wilbur just chased us away from the General Store,” said Max, “because he and Gran got into some kind of argument last night, and Gran hit his car with her car, and now he doesn’t want us near the store again.”
“He called us spies,” said Dooley. “Spies for Gran.”
“And also, a man has been spying on us and filming us. He’s a big man, young, and seems to know a lot about us, and also about you—he knew that we’re your emissaries and how we collect bits of news for you and everything!”
“He’s Carl Strauss’s sex maniac buddy,” Dooley announced, quite surprisingly. “He’s probably upset with you because he thinks that you attacked his sex maniac friend last night, and now he wants to find out more about you.”
Never before had Odelia felt so hamstrung by the presence of another person in the room. She wanted to ask Max and Dooley about a million questions, but just had to sit there and play dumb!
“I’m going to get some coffee,” said Ellie. “Do you want something?”
“You know what? Could you maybe run down to the bakery and get me a couple of donuts? I suddenly have this incredible craving for donuts.”
Ellie grinned.“You really have that cop DNA, don’t you? Sure, I’ll get you some donuts.”
The moment the girl had left, Odelia burst out,“What’s all this about a sex maniac guy stalking you and filming you? And what in the name of all that is holy has gotten into Wilbur all of a sudden?”
And before long, and in as few words as possible, Max and Dooley recounted to her the events that had transpired that morning. And before Ellie returned carrying a bag of glazed donuts with sprinkles, Odelia’s life had been made a little more complicated still.
23
We’d arrived home after an eventful day spent in town, and were pleased to find that we had the house to ourselves. And so after having eaten our fill, both in crunchy kibble and what was left over from the pouches of soft food Odelia or her mom or grandma like to dole out to us in the evening, we decided to go and sit outside for a while and enjoy those last rays of sunshine of the day. And I was just about to head out when I saw through the window that Ted was taking his dogs for a walk again—and this naturally included Brutus and Harriet, who were now part and parcel of his canine family.
Harriet looked distinctly unhappy, but Brutus was manfully persistent and pranced along in Rufus’s wake.
“Poor Harriet,” said Dooley. “Maybe we should ask her to leave Brutus and come back to us?”
I also felt sorry for the Persian. Slowly but inexorably all the things she loved were taken away from her: she couldn’t sing the soprano parts in cat choir anymore, and she couldn’t even eat her favorite cat food any longer.
Rufus must have seen us glancing out at them through the window, for he gave us a little wave. Oddly enough there was a slight sense of frustration in his eyes, too, if I read his expression well, which I think I did.