“Brutus!” I cried.
“Harriet!” Dooley exclaimed.
“What are you doing here?” we both asked in unison.
The buff black cat shrugged. “Same thing you dumbbells are doing. Conducting an investigation into the murder of the warbler.” He grinned. “And this time I’m going to beat you. I’m going to catch the killer and tell Chase.”
“You keep forgetting you can’t talk to your human,” I reminded him.
His smirk disappeared. “Don’t you worry about that. I’ll find a way.”
“You can’t do this,” said Dooley. “You can’t take over this investigation.”
“Watch me. I’m a cop cat, remember? You’re just a bunch of amateurs.”
My eyes swiveled to Harriet, who hadn’t spoken. “How could you?”
“Yeah, how could you, Harriet?” Dooley asked, sounding even more upset than I was. He’d always had a thing for the snowy white Persian.
“I think Brutus is right,” she said, lifting her chin. “I just don’t think it’s fair of you to give Odelia this advantage. Someone has to level the playing field, and I think Brutus is just the cat to do it. How else is Chase ever going to succeed in this town?”
“You never had any qualms about helping Odelia before,” I pointed out.
“That was before.” She gazed at Brutus lovingly. “Before Brutus arrived.”
“Look, Chase is the one with the unfair advantage,” I said. “He’s the cop.”
“Yeah, it’s Odelia who needs all the help she can get,” Dooley said.
“Odelia is not a cop,” Brutus said. “So she shouldn’t even be involved.”
Again with his narrow-mindedness, I thought, and returned my attention to the conversation inside. It was almost as if Brutus was simply trying to distract us. “Don’t listen to him, Dooley,” I said. “Just ignore them both.”
“Look,” Chase was saying, “we know you were fed up with the constant stream of escorts, night after night. You wanted Johnny all for yourself, but you couldn’t have him. So you worried that very soon Johnny would pick one of the newer, younger models over you, and kick you to the curb and that would be the end of the line for you. At forty-three you’re too old for the boy toy business, and you don’t have any other marketable skills to sell. So you decided that if you were ever going to cash in it had to be now, before you were pushed out. So you killed Johnny, knowing you’d be set for life.”
Jasper was shaking his head throughout. “I would never hurt Johnny. I loved him!”
“We talked to his lawyer,” said Chief Alec. “He confirmed that Johnny made sure that even after he died you would be taken care of. He left you the house and enough money to live out your life in luxury, enjoying the kind of lifestyle you’ve grown accustomed to.”
“I don’t care about all of that!” Jasper cried wildly. “All I cared about was Johnny!” His face took on a pleading expression. “I’m not a murderer, Chief. I would never do that.”
“So why are your fingerprints on the vial?” asked Chase. “Explain that.”
“I can’t. But I never touched that vial, I swear. I hated those drugs. But Johnny was addicted to them. Night after night he needed his fix.”
“And you got into a huge fight about it last night,” said the Chief.
“And not for the first time, either,” added Chase.
“Of course I fought Johnny on that. I could see what that stuff was doing to him. How it was turning him into a shadow of the man he used to be. His career floundered. He hadn’t written a note of music in years, and couldn’t even carry a tune anymore. He’d completely lost the command of his voice. That angelic voice of his had been reduced to a hoarse whisper.”
Chase exchanged a grim-faced look with the Chief. “You saw the destruction and you knew it was only a matter of time before he overdosed, so you decided to speed things up before he took in another lover.”
“Why would I do that? I loved Johnny! I wanted him alive and well and making music again! The last thing I wanted was for him to overdose or to die from taking that horrible stuff.” Then something seemed to dawn on him. “Wait, are you telling me he didn’t die from an overdose?”
“He was poisoned,” the Chief confirmed. “Some exotic kind of venom administered in the vial containing GHB. Which had your fingerprints on it.”
“So how did you do it?” asked Chase. “Where did you get the venom?”
“I told you, I didn’t do it,” said Jasper, rattling his cuffs helplessly.
“Then who did?” asked the Chief.
Jasper stared up at him. “I think I have a pretty good idea.”
Dooley and I both pricked up our ears, and so did Brutus and Harriet.
Jasper leaned in. “One of the boys kept coming back. He’d quickly become one of Johnny’s favorites. And obviously had high hopes to replace me in Johnny’s heart. But Johnny didn’t care about him. All he wanted from him was the physical satisfaction he could provide and then send him on his way. The guy obviously didn’t like this. He wanted more. He wanted it all.”
“Who was he?” asked the Chief.
“His name is Chico Fetcher. He was with Johnny last night. After all the other boys had left, he was still with him.” He shook his head. “He’s crazy. He would get high on G but it would have the worst possible effect on him. Made him go nuts. He once jumped from the roof straight into the pool. I’m sure that if anyone killed Johnny it must have been him.” He looked up, tears in his eyes. “I tried to warn Johnny so many times. Even last night. I told him he should stop welcoming these people into our home, but he got mad.”
“And kicked you out.”
“No, never,” said Jasper angrily. “I left, because I couldn’t stand seeing Johnny destroy himself. Or be destroyed. And now it’s too late. He’s dead.”
“This Chico…” said the Chief, checking his notebook.
“He’s the guy who jumped out of the window,” Chase said. “Probably thought he could fly.”
“Did we bring him in for questioning?”
“We did. He’s next door.”
Chase rose and pointed an accusatory finger at Jasper. “This doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, Jasper.”
He gave him a pained look. “I know it doesn’t. I’m in hell now.”
Chapter 6
After Odelia had dropped off Max and Dooley, she decided to go and have a little chat with her dad. Her uncle had already messaged her the coroner’s preliminary report: John Paul George had been killed by a vial of GHB that was poisoned. That, in conjunction with a preexisting heart condition, had caused his ticker to throw in the towel. Uncle Alec and Chase thought Jasper Pruce was the obvious suspect, but she decided to follow a different lead.
If a vial of Liquid G had killed Johnny, she was going to find out where that vial had come from, and who had tampered with it. Only one vial had been spiked with venom, and it was the only one that had carried a pink seal with a tiny unicorn. Johnny’s seal. So the killer must have known about this.
There were no puncture marks found on the seal, so the venom hadn’t been injected into the vial. Which meant it had been added before being sealed. And who else could have done that other than Johnny’s dealer?
She parked her Ford pickup in front of the doctor’s office and went inside. As usual, her grandmother was at the reception desk, a few patients patiently waiting until Odelia’s dad, who was the town doctor, was ready.
“I need to speak to Dad,” she told Gran. “It’s urgent.”
Gran, a wizened old lady, seemed annoyed Odelia had interrupted her game of online Scrabble. “What’s this about?”
“There’s been a murder,” she told her. “John Paul George was found murdered in his pool this morning.” She didn’t mention she’d found him there, as she didn’t want to make the old lady worry too much.
“The singer?” asked Gran. “Ooh, I liked him. He was a regular hottie.”