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

“Absolutely. Frankly I have a feeling he hasn’t been entirely honest with me. Even though he says he’s told me everything, I still feel he’s holding out.”

“You bet he is. Did he tell you that he and Melanie Myers used to be an item?”

“No, he did not.”

“They weren’t together long, but the guy is still carrying a torch for the woman.”

“That, I noticed. Though I thought he was mostly looking out for his friend.”

“I doubt that. I think he was jealous, and couldn’t stand that Melanie was seeing Harrison. So he killed him and tried to make it look like an accident by setting fire to the place.”

“How did Harrison end up a squatter?”

“Well, turns out that Franklin Harrison has a brother named Marvin, and from what I understand Franklin was the bad boy and Marvin the responsible one. Franklin was always the rich kid with the gazillions of friends, partying all the time, and getting into all kinds of trouble, while Marvin’s main focus was the family business.”

“Real estate, right?”

Chase nodded. “Commercial and industrial real estate, mainly. Herbert set up the company and turned it into a goldmine, and hoped his sons would take an interest. Only Franklin decided he was too busy spending daddy’s money to bother with the business.”

“And dating married women,” Odelia added.

“Exactly.”

“So while Marvin minds the family store, his brother is living it up.”

“Only at some point Daddy must have had enough, and decided to cut him off. So Franklin found himself without funds, and living as a squatter in the dump he died in.”

“And what about those two other guys?”

“Took us some time to identify them. They were both badly burned.” He glanced down at his little notebook. “Aldo Kali and Tomio Iberia. Both well known in connection to multiple drug-related incidents. Been arrested multiple times the last couple of years.”

“Drug dealers.”

“Looks like Joshua set fire to the room those two guys were sleeping in, with Franklin in the next room, which is why they were burnt to a crisp, and Franklin only suffered minor burns, though there’s still extensive damage to his lower limbs and his arms.”

“But you think Franklin was the intended target.”

“Absolutely. You should have seen what we found on Joshua’s phone. Pictures of Melanie, videos of Melanie, and in his office a diary completely devoted to Melanie.”

Odelia processed all of this. “I don’t know, Chase. I just don’t see him as a cold-blooded killer. You’ve seen him. You’ve talked to him. He’s as straight-laced as they come.”

“Those are often the worst offenders, babe. You know that as well as I do.”

“But killing three people, just because one of them was having an affair with the woman he’s been in love with for years? If that’s true, then why didn’t he kill Jason Myers?”

“Because Jason is his best friend. And even though he probably hates the fact that Melanie ended up with Jason, he more or less got over it. And then along comes this spoiled rich kid Harrison and starts something with his precious Melanie—his dream girl. I think he got so angry he wasn’t thinking straight. And Harrison just had to die.”

She smiled at her husband. “Looks like we’re working the case together again, only this time my uncle isn’t supposed to know.”

“Yeah, and better keep it that way. He’s been getting all kinds of flack about the wedding, and he’s not in a good mood right now.”

“What do you mean, flack?”

“Oh, just the usual, you know,” said Chase, a little evasively.

Just then, the door opened and one of Chase’s colleagues stuck her head in. It was Sarah Flunk, one of the officers, and when she saw Odelia she said, “Oh, there she is. Miss Grinch who stole our wedding.” And shaking her head, she closed the door again.

Chase and Odelia shared a look of understanding. “I think I see what you mean,” she said dryly.

Chapter 16

Since Uncle Alec clearly didn’t want us to spy on him, we decided to try a different tack: we snuck back into the precinct and decided to spy on Dolores instead. Dolores Peltz is at the heart of the police station, as the station dispatcher and desk sergeant she knows everything there is to know about what goes on in that place. So it was with great expectations that we took a seat next to her desk, and settled in for the duration.

We didn’t have to wait long, for soon after we arrived a woman and a man walked into the station, claiming to be one of the victims’ mother and brother.

“I want to see the person in charge,” said the woman. She was the matronly type, and clearly used to getting what she wanted. Her hair was done up into a sort of tower of hair, and she wore plenty of makeup. Her son was the clean-cut business type, with a nice suit, tortoiseshell glasses perched on his nose, and sandy hair that had all the hallmarks of having been arranged by a very expensive hairdresser. Not Fido Siniawski, in other words.

“And you are…” said Dolores in her raspy smoker’s voice.

“Franklin Harrison’s mother,” said the woman. “And this is my son Marvin.”

“Could you please take a seat in the waiting area?” said Dolores. “I’ll get someone to come and talk to you right away.”

Mother and son removed themselves from the scene, and soon we were surprised by the arrival of Odelia, our very own human.

“Dolores,” she said, “who are those people?”

“The Harrisons,” the dispatcher said. “Mother and son. Here to see the manager.” She flashed Odelia a little grin.

“I want to run something by you,” said Odelia.

“Sure, go ahead. Though I have to tell you that I’m probably one of the only people in this town still willing to talk to you right now.”

“How so?” asked Odelia, looking surprised.

“The wedding, silly girl! You can’t dangle a big carrot like that in front of people’s noses and then yank it away again at a moment’s notice.”

“I’m sorry. But we simply couldn’t go through with it.”

“Oh, you don’t have to explain to me,” said Dolores, waving an airy hand. “I understand perfectly. If my wedding had ballooned to such ridiculous proportions I wouldn’t have wanted to go through with it either.” She gave Odelia a reassuring smile. “Don’t you worry about a thing, sweetie. People have a very short memory. Just you wait and see. This time next week they’ll have forgotten all about it.”

“I hope so,” said Odelia. “Father Reilly wants me to do the wedding the first weekend of February, Wilbur Vickery the second weekend, and Ida Baumgartner in May. The three of them pulled their diaries and are trying to fix a date. They didn’t ask me for my opinion, so they clearly don’t need me to be there. Probably just to pull my checkbook.”

Dolores laughed. “I can just imagine their faces when they found out the wedding was canceled! They must have been so annoyed!”

“Anyway, so I wanted to ask you about last night’s fire.”

“Uh-huh. Shoot.”

“So you got the call, right?”

“I got three calls, in fact.”

“Three calls?”

“Sure. Just lemme check.” She tapped a few keys on her computer. “Here we go. So the first call came in at eleven forty-eight, okay?”

“Who made the call?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t give me a name. Said they wanted to report a fire on Parker Street. Then the second caller didn’t give me his name either. This was at eleven fifty. And then a minute later your grandmother called in.”

“Okay.”

Dolores took off her reading glasses. “So the second caller sounded kinda winded, as if he was walking and talking. And of course we now know that the second caller was Curtis, as he was calling from his own phone, the dumbass.” When Odelia gave her a look, she added, “You have to be pretty dumb to call in your own crime from your own phone, Odelia!”