Ник Сайнт: Purrfect Sidekick. Purrfect Deseit. Purrfect Ruse [calibre 5.14.0]

“And please don’t send them the bill for the removal of their collars, Gran,” Odelia added with a grin. “I think they just might get very upset with you if you do.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Gran said reluctantly. She sighed. “I should have known it was too good to be true.”

And as Odelia assisted in the taking down of the temporary stand, I glanced in the direction of the street, and just caught how a bike messenger was hit by a speeding car.

The bike messenger flew across the hood of the car, then tumbled to the ground, his bike tossed into the air and landing on the sidewalk. The car pulled to a stop a couple of meters further, and immediately the driver got out and hurried over to lend assistance.

Gran, Scarlett and Odelia, alerted by the sound of the impact, all raced to the scene, but by some miracle the bike messenger simply got up, looking slightly dazed, took stock of his possible injuries, and then declared, surprise clear in his voice, “I think I’m fine.”

What wasn’t fine was his bike, though, which was pretty much banged up, and wouldn’t work anymore. Across the hood of the car that had hit him, a big dent had appeared, along with a nice set of scratches where the handlebars had impacted.

And as driver and messenger arranged things amongst themselves, exchanging phone numbers and personal information, and soon a police officer emerged from the precinct to see what was going on, I took a good long look at that bike, and then it hit me.

Now I know that it’s one of those clichés in mystery stories to say that the lead detective suddenly ‘sees all’ in a flash but I can promise you that at that moment I really did ‘see all.’ I saw who’d killed Pete the homeless person, and I also saw who killed Darryl Farmer. Or I should probably say I had a hunch I just might know who had.

So I turned to Odelia and said, “Have you talked to those ravers yet?”

“Not yet,” she admitted.

“I’d like you to check something for me first,” I told her. “Something important.”

She gave me a look of significance. “What did you have in mind?”

Chapter 30

Except for the intermittent hooting of an owl, all was quiet in the woods that night. Dooley and myself were there, of course, and so were Odelia and Chase, but apart from the four of us, no creature stirred or made itself heard. Except, that is, for the person who was busily trying to remove an object from a hollowed-out tree nearby.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Chase muttered.

“Shh!” Odelia whispered back.

The man, for it was a man, had stuck his arm into the tree all the way up to his armpit, and was rooting around, his face illuminated by the flashlight he was carrying. It was a familiar face, and even Dooley seemed surprised when he recognized it.

“Let’s move in,” said Chase now.

“No, we have to wait,” said Odelia. “Are you filming this?”

“Absolutely,” said her partner.

And then the moment was finally upon us: the man had found what he was looking for, as his face lit up with a smile, and he retracted his hand, removing a gun from the recesses of that tree trunk. “Gotcha!” he said as he studied the lethal little gizmo.

“You called it,” said Chase, stepping to the fore and holding up his own gun and pointing it at the man. “Gotcha. Drop the gun, Mr. Kramer. Now!”

And so Fred Kramer, for it was he, immediately dropped the gun, and simultaneously his jaw dropped a few inches, too.

“How–how did you know?” he blurted out.

“Don’t mind about that. Turn around, hands behind your back. Fred Kramer, you’re under arrest for the murder of Pete Jessup and Darryl Farmer.”

“No, but seriously,” said Mr. Kramer. “How did you know?”

But Chase wasn’t deterred: he kept reciting the Kitchen King’s Miranda rights, and soon the man had been placed under arrest and was being led back to the clearing where he’d parked his car, and as Chase removed the branches from the hood of his own car, which he and Odelia had used to conceal the vehicle just in case my hunch was right, he led the fallen king into the squad car and took off with his arrestee, while Odelia and Dooley and I walked the couple of hundred yards to her car, also neatly concealed.

Everything so we could nab a killer— and it had been worth it, if only for the stupefied expression on the man’s face.

“Looks like Gran will have to choose a different kitchen supplier,” said Dooley.

“Yeah, looks like,” Odelia agreed. “And now,” she added, as she put the car in gear, “you’re going to tell me exactly how you figured it out, Max.”

“Yeah, I think I’d like to know, too,” said Dooley.

I settled in comfortably on the backseat. “The trouble for our Kitchen King started back when he wasn’t a king yet, but merely a prince. You see, Fred Kramer didn’t start out a kitchen mogul. Fifteen years ago he worked for one, as sales manager for a kitchen supplies company in Colorado. And guess who also worked for the same company?”

“Our John Doe—or Pete Jessup as his real name turns out to be,” said Odelia as she expertly steered the car back onto the dirt track leading out of the woods. “When you asked me to dig a little deeper into Fred Kramer’s background, and especially his work history, it didn’t take me long to get a positive ID from the CEO of the company he used to work for,” she explained. “He told me that before he’d terminated both their employments, Fred Kramer and Pete Jessup had worked for him, respectively as head of sales and chief accountant, both accused of embezzlement and both asked to leave.”

“Fred landed on his feet, and left the past behind, but Pete didn’t. He hit rock bottom and lost not only his job and his marriage, but also his self-respect, all of his friends and his house. So he ended up living on the streets—no money, no future, no prospects.”

“That must have been tough,” said Dooley feelingly.

“Well, he only had himself to blame,” I said. “If you steal from your boss, you probably shouldn’t expect any favors.”

“So how do you think Pete happened to end up in Hampton Cove?” asked Odelia.

“Coincidence,” I said. “I’m sure he had no idea that his former partner in crime had built up a new successful kitchen business out here, and it must have been a big shock for Fred to bump into his former associate.”

“Who immediately put the squeeze on him,” Odelia said, nodding. “Probably wanting money in exchange for his silence.”

“So Fred decided that the only option that would give him peace of mind was to get rid of Pete once and for all. So he told him to meet him out here in the woods, and he shot and buried him, knowing no one would come and look for the guy. But then of course Karl Bunyon’s catnapping shenanigans rode roughshod over Fred’s plans.”

“So… how did Fred Kramer get a hold of Karl’s gun?” asked Dooley.

“Well, from time to time it was Fred who’d drop the kids off at the Bunyons, not Grace,” Odelia explained. “And he must have gotten wise to his former employee’s gun safe—maybe Karl even showed it to him, and opened it in his presence—and that’s when the idea must have hit him.”

“To steal Karl’s gun?”

“Not steal it,” I said. “To switch it with his own gun, the one he picked out of that tree just now. The plan was to switch guns with Karl, kill Pete, then return the gun to Karl’s safe, something he could easily do when he picked up Grace’s kids or dropped them off. So just in case Pete’s body was discovered, which was a remote contingency, but still a contingency he needed to consider, the bullet would lead the cops to Karl, not Fred.”

Odelia nodded. “And so when you told me to let it be known that the bullet we found in Pete wasn’t a match for Karl’s gun, you secretly hoped…”