“I don’t believe for one second that Tex killed Jaqlyn,” said Wilbur. “I’ve known Tex for years, and the guy just doesn’t have it in him to commit murder. It takes a special kind of person to kill a man in cold blood, and believe you me, Tex Poole is not that person.”
“Oh, I think you’re absolutely right, Wilbur,” said the priest, slurring his words a little. “But I also think you’re wrong.”
“How do you figure that?” asked Wilbur, whose eyes were distinctly unfocused. “I mean, he either did it or he didn’t do it, if you see what I mean.”
“He did it… and he didn’t do it,” Father Reilly specified, continuing to fog the issue. “Why don’t I explain myself?”
“Please do, father.”
“Tex Poole was a mere instrument of the devil, my dear Wilbur. He didn’t want to kill Jaqlyn, but the devil took possession and made him raise his hand against a fellow man.”
“The devil, eh? Nasty piece of work, that one,” Wilbur concurred.
“He most certainly is. And wily. Extremely wily. And I think it’s plain to see who the real culprit is in this case.” He dropped his voice to a whisper, and both Wilbur and Kingman leaned in. “Omar Carter.”
“Omar Carter?” asked Wilbur, as if hearing that name for the first time.
“Omar Carter,” Father Reilly confirmed.
“Oh, Omar Carter!” said Wilbur.
“One and the same. He and Jaqlyn Jones must have fallen out, and so Omar decided to get rid of him—shut him up before he could spill all of Omar’s dirty little secrets.”
“So…” Wilbur swayed a little, like a willow in the breeze. “So what you’re saying…”
“What I’m saying is that Omar took possession of poor Tex and used him like a tool.”
“Tex Poole, Omar’s tool…”
“Satan never leaves home without donning a disguise, my dear Wilbur. In this case he ever so cunningly disguised himself as the leader of a new cult named Soul Science.”
Wilbur took a long and galvanizing gulp from his glass. Things were getting a little complicated for him. “So… Omar is Satan, who killed Jaqlyn because… why, exactly?”
“Because Jaqlyn had decided to leave the fold. Never leave the fold, Wilbur!”
“Never leave the fold,” Wilbur echoed.
“Leave the fold and die.”
“But I don’t want to die,” Wilbur intimated.
Kingman’s head was swimming. So now Omar was the killer? But how? And why? This was getting trickier and trickier. And he now wished he had one of those notebooks detectives like to carry on their person. If he didn’t write down this abundance of clues and hypotheses he was likely to forget one or two of the more spectacular ones.
He moved on from his master and his master’s cohort, and decided to take a little break to gather his thoughts and draw some preliminary conclusions. In detective shows the lead detective always gets a brainwave at some point, and tells himself, ‘But of course! Why didn’t I see this sooner!’ This invariably comes on the heels of that crucial moment of personal crisis when he frowns to himself in utter confusion and mutters to his loyal but goofy sidekick, ‘There’s something I’m not seeing. Something I missed…’
Kingman felt he was at the latter stage: he was missing something. He sincerely hoped the final stage would soon be upon him: the lightbulb stage.
And he was sitting and thinking when two men approached. They were both heavyset, with the kind of square and pockmarked faces only a mother could love.
“You shouldn’t have done it, Mike,” said one of the men, addressing his friend.
“How could I have known he was gonna drop dead on us?” said the other reasonably.
“Just don’t tell Francine, will you? She’ll never forgive us.”
“She should thank us.”
“You know what she’s like. Even though the guy was scum, she still stood by him.”
“Something I’ll never understand.”
“Well, she’s finally rid of him.”
“And good riddance, too.”
Suddenly a woman came walking up, and smiled at the sight of the twosome. “Mike and Kenny—you guys still here? I thought you left already.”
“We couldn’t leave now, Francine,” said the man named Mike. “Leaving you to cope with the cops all by yourself? Never.”
“Are the police still out there?” asked Kenny.
Francine nodded, her smile disappearing. “They just took away Jaqlyn’s… body.” She stifled a sob, and Mike took her into a hug, quickly joined by Kenny.
“It’s gonna be all right,” said Mike a little gruffly. “Your big brothers are here for you.”
“What would I do without you guys?” said Francine, sniffling.
“That’s what family is for, little sis,” said Kenny.
Kingman had a hard time controlling the wealth of emotions welling up in his bosom.
But of course! Why hadn’t he seen it sooner?! Francine’s two brothers had killed Jaqlyn to protect their sister from the man’s shenanigans! Eureka! He’d solved the case!
Chapter 33
Harriet was a cat with a mission. She had the feeling she’d made a complete fool of herself with the Soul Science thing, both in the eyes of her housemates and her friends, and she now felt the strong urge to redeem herself by solving this particular crime.
“We have to find who did it, Brutus,” she said therefore. “It’s very important to me.”
“And we will, twinkle toes,” her partner in life and sleuthing said.
They’d been roaming Jaqlyn and Francine Jones’s backyard for a while now, but so far no clues had fallen into their laps, so to speak.
“I can’t go back to Odelia empty-handed, sugar bear,” she said, continuing to develop her theme. “So promise me we won’t go home until we’ve caught the killer, sweetums.”
“We won’t go home until we catch the killer, baby cakes,” said Brutus, though not wholeheartedly, she felt.
It wasn’t merely her reputation that was at stake here, but also the future of Tex, that wonderful human who’d selflessly taken care of them for all those years. After all, if it hadn’t been for Tex, none of them would have a home to begin with. It was Tex, with his quiet support and kindhearted generosity, who had made it possible for Odelia and Marge and Vesta to adopt no less than four cats in the first place, and offer them the kind of life to which they’d now become accustomed.
And as Harriet let her eyes dart across the faces of the dozens of people still roaming about, and still filling their bellies with the dead man’s food and drink, she suddenly caught sight of a familiar face and grumbled, “Stop me before I do something to that cat, Brutus. Stop me now,” she repeated when Brutus made no attempts to stop her now.
Shanille had caught sight of her, too, and gave her the kind of supercilious look she’d perfected since rising through the ranks of Master Sharif’s feline following.
“Harriet,” Shanille said coldly as they passed each other by.
“Shanille,” said Harriet, adopting an equally icy tone.
“Nice to see you.”
“Likewise.”
After a final frosty glance, they both sailed on.
“Stop you from doing what, cuddle cakes?” asked Brutus, late to the party as usual.
“Oh, Brutus,” Harriet sighed, and headed straight for the food table. She was in urgent need of a pick-me-up, and besides, a sleuth was like a shark: they never stopped moving.
And it was as she neared the refreshments table that she saw that the waiters, still out in full force in spite of the recent tragedy, had placed the remnants of what had once been a fish dish on the ground behind the table. She smiled, momentarily forgetting all about clues and killers, and took a tentative nibble. Approving of the offered treat, she settled down to do some real damage, quickly joined by Brutus, happy for this respite.
Next to them, two humans had taken up position, and were talking quietly amongst themselves. They were an older man with a gray buzz cut and a red and veiny bulbous nose, and a young woman with a blond bob, cornflower blue eyes and a pretty face.