“And so you decided to sabotage Neda’s directorship, and when that didn’t work, you quit.”
Janette’s face took on an expression of bitterness. “You are very well informed, Mrs. Poole. Did Wilbur tell you about that, too?”
“It doesn’t matter who told us,” said Odelia. “What matters is that you said Neda was your best friend, and now it turns out she wasn’t, and in fact you did whatever you could to undermine her.”
“You went to see her this morning, didn’t you?” said Chase, as he leaned in. “And you argued, just like you did this morning in church, and she said something outrageous that made you even more upset, and finally you gave her a shove and she fell and hit her head. And when you realized she was dead, you emptied her safe, which happened to be open, and decided to make it look like a robbery. Isn’t that what happened!” He pounded the counter with his fist, and caused the vase to jump up and pay attention.
Janette flinched, but calmly said,“No, that’s not what happened, Detective Kingsley. Yes, I did put up those flyers. And yes, I tried to undermine Neda, but I didn’t go over to her house this morning, and I most certainly did not kill her.”
“Oh, please,” said Chase.
“What you’re conveniently forgetting is that Neda and I weren’t the only two people interested in that directorship. There was a third person who desperately wanted to lead that choir. And she probably resented Neda becoming director even more than I did.”
“Yoko Bricknell,” said Odelia.
“Yes, Yoko. Sweet, darling Yoko. But you should have seen her face when Francis announced he’d chosen Neda. She could have killed her—and I’m not sure she didn’t.”
After leaving Janette to her flowers, we all repaired to the police station, for a meeting with Uncle Alec. A chance for Odelia and Chase to report to him about their progress, and for the Chief to share with them any information he might have gleaned.
Until now access to the police station has always been prohibited to both Dooley and myself, and so when we arrived together, out of sheer habit we stopped in front of Dolores Peltz’s desk, the station dispatcher and receptionist, and decided to wait for Odelia and Chase to return from their meeting. But much to our surprise, Odelia beckoned us on, and with a smile told us that her uncle, on her instigation, had lifted his unreasonable embargo, and that we could consider ourselves ‘cats grata’ from now on.
It was a nice change, I must admit. I don’t mind sneaking around and getting my information by means of stealth and such, but being able to sit in on a conversation is much easier, of course.
Just as we walked on, a man walked into the station, and approached Dolores. He told her he was there about this morning’s car crash, and could he speak to a police officer?
I was torn between wanting to find out more about this car crash—for some reason they’ve always fascinated me, and I can watch a nice car crash for hours, not unlike the next rubbernecker—and proceeding into the station house proper. But then the prospect of setting paw inside this holiest of holy places took precedence over my rubbernecking, and so I followed Odelia and Chase inside Chase’s place of work.
If this kept up, soon I’d be sent to police academy to train as a police cat!
9
“So what have we got?” asked Uncle Alec, as he gave Dooley and me a not-so-friendly look. Clearly Odelia had twisted his arm in making him accept our presence there, but he wasn’t happy about it.
“Well, so far we have interviewed Cher Shorn—that’s Neda’s secretary—Raban Pacoccha, her gardener, and Janette Bittiner, one of St. Theresa Choir’s members, and also Neda’s rival for the much-coveted post of choir director,” said Odelia, giving her uncle a brief overview of the investigation as it stood so far.
“So what do you think? This gardener looking good for the murder? Or Janette?”
“Both, I would say,” said Chase. “Raban Pacoccha, at least according to Cher Shorn, is a man always in need of money, to fund his drug habit, and Janette Bittiner confessed to putting up those flyers all over town, calling Neda a Jezebel, and pretty much suggesting she and Francis Reilly werehaving an affair.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” the Chief grunted. “So what about the gardener?”
“He’s been arrested once or twice for drug use,” Chase confirmed, “though lately he’s kept his nose clean, so to speak.”
“And Janette?”
“Clean record. Though she did admit that she and Neda fought tooth and claw over that choir directorship.”
“You better have a chat with Francis Reilly,” the Chief suggested. “Find out what the deal was with that choir business. So how about alibis?”
“Neither Raban or Janette have an alibi,” said Odelia. “Raban was working in Janette’s garden, but has no witnesses to corroborate this, and Janette dropped her dog off at the pet parlor, then went shopping—or so she says. She could very easily have paid a visit to Neda, and gotten into another argument. Things got heated, she gave Neda a shove, which made her hit her head, and gameover.”
“And if Neda had left that safe open, Janette could have decided to empty it, to make it look like a robbery gone wrong,” Chase finished the story.
“I’ll arrange for two search warrants,” said Uncle Alec, nodding. “One for Janette Bittiner and one for Raban Pacoccha. If we’re lucky we find the gold and the jewels, and we’ve got our killer.”
“What did Abe say?” asked Chase.
“I haven’t gotten his report yet, but I called him and he says everything points to accidental death. She hit her head, cracked her skull. No other wounds on the body, and her bloodwork looks clean, too. No, I think your theory looks like the most probable one,” he added, pointing to his niece. “Either the gardener or Janette got into a fight with Neda, there was some pushing and shoving, she hit her head and that’s it. And frankly if it wasn’t for that safe there wouldn’t even be a case. People take bad falls all the time.”
Just then, Dolores stuck her head in.“Chief, I’ve got a guy here wanting to know if a witness has come forward about that traffic accident this morning on Groveler Street? Man or woman on a red bike? One of those rental bikes?”
“No, Dolores,” said the Chief. “Haven’t heard anything about a witness on a red bike.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Ask Sully to take a statement,” said Uncle Alec, waving off his dispatcher with an impatient hand. “I don’t have time for this. I’m up to my neck in this murder business.”
“And what a fine neck it is,” said Dolores with a cheeky grin.
Uncle Alec, who has no neck to speak off, directed a dark frown at his insubordinate subordinate, but his frown hit the door, as Dolores had ducked out again.
“So what’s next?” asked Chase.
“You tell me.”
“I would like to talk to Yoko Bricknell,” said Odelia. “Janette says Yoko hated Neda even more than she did. She also wanted to direct the choir,” she explained.
“You do that, and don’t forget about Francis,” said her uncle. “I’ll arrange those search warrants and send a couple of uniforms to go through those places with a fine-tooth comb.”
Odelia and Chase both got up to leave.“Oh, and better check Janette’s flower shop,” said Odelia. “It would be the perfect place to hide some valuables.” When her uncle gave her a questioning look, she added, “Buried in a flower pot?”
“Great thinking, honey,” said Uncle Alec with a nod. “Well, off you go. Catch me a killer.” He then shot a nasty glance at me. “You, too, Max. Make yourself useful.”
I could tell he didn’t like the presence of two cats in his office, and so I said, “We’ll catch your killer for you, Uncle Alec,” just to make him realize he was doing the right thing, giving us his confidence like this, and access to his office.