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

“Yeah, he did. Died in a fire, right? In some crumbling old building? Sad way to go.” She shivered. “To die by fire. Terrible business. I hate fires, you know. Always afraid one will start and it will kill me.”

“I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about, Jane,” I said.

“That’s what you think, Max. There was a fire here a while back. I could see the smoke. I thought that was it. I was going to be for it. But luckily it went out again. Probably Chester burning some old leaves. At least that’s what Jake told me later.”

“Chester? Who’s Chester?” I asked.

“Chester Sosnoski. The gardener. He’s great. Keeps the place looking shipshape. He’s probably the best gardener for miles around. Or at least that’s what Ruth says.”

I glanced around, and had to admit that Chester did a great job: the grass was cut to perfection, the flowerbeds were all immaculate, with not a weed in sight, and all in all the gardens looked more like a golf club than our own backyard. Then again, the Harrisons probably had a lot more spending power and could get the best gardener that money can buy. We have to make do with Gran occasionally remembering she’s supposed to have a green thumb, and Tex finding the time to mow the lawn.

We said our goodbyes to Jane the talking pony, and decided to go for a little stroll, especially after learning that there were no other pets around, so it was frankly pointless for us to enter the house, since there would be no kibble to be had, unfortunately.

And we’d walked perhaps half a mile or so when we came upon a small structure that at one time had been an animal shed, but that now showed signs of fire damage.

“This might be what Jane said she saw,” Dooley intimated.

“Yeah, might be,” I said, “though it does look as if this fire happened a long time ago.”

“They probably want to tear it down but haven’t gotten round to it.”

Just then, a man dressed in rubber boots and a green anorak that had seen better days came stomping up, accompanied by a man who was also in rubber boots but otherwise immaculately dressed.

“So this is where they want the pagoda,” the man in the anorak said.

“Excellent location, Chester,” said the well-dressed man. “I’ll get busy on the plans.”

“She wants it ready as soon as possible.”

“Not a problem. I’ll make it a priority.”

“I think that man is an architect,” I explained to Dooley, “and that man is Chester the gardener.”

Looked like I was right: the dilapidated structure had been earmarked for destruction, a nice pagoda about to take its place.

“Let’s get back to the house,” I suggested. “Odelia will probably be finished by now.”

And so we set a course back to the house. Suddenly the man named Chester uttered a loud cry, and yelled, “Cats! Where did they come from?! Catch those darn cats!”

Looks like we’d overstayed our welcome!

Chapter 29

“So what did you guys discover?” asked Odelia.

They were driving back to town, and she was still mulling over everything that was said.

“Nothing much,” said Max.

“The Harrisons bought a pony for Francine’s daughters,” said Dooley, “but now they don’t come around anymore and the pony doesn’t have anything to do and she’s bored. But lucky for her she has a bird friend called Jake who tells her everything that goes on.”

“Poor pony,” said Max. “Has to stand there all day and nobody is riding her.”

“Yeah, the mom refuses to have anything to do with her former daughter-in-law,” said Odelia. “Or Francine’s girls. Which is such a pity.”

“Oh, and the gardener is called Chester and he doesn’t like cats,” said Dooley. “He even chased us but we were too fast for him—isn’t that right, Max?”

“Yeah, we were too fast for the guy,” Max said with a grin.

“He chased you?” said Odelia. “But why?”

“No idea,” said Max. “He seems to think cats are a pest.”

“Some gardeners do think cats destroy their nice lawns,” she admitted. “Digging holes to do their business in.”

“We would never do that,” said Max indignantly.

“We might eat the grass,” Dooley said. “Especially if it’s nice grass. We do like a bit of nice grass, right, Max?”

“Yeah, but how much damage can one cat do? Nobody will miss a few blades of grass.”

“I’m still happy he didn’t catch you,” said Odelia. “Some of these gardeners have pitchforks, and they don’t mind using them.”

“Pitchforks!” said Dooley, his voice skipping an octave. “Yikes!”

“I probably should have told them I was bringing my cats along, that way you wouldn’t have been in any danger.”

“Oh, dear,” Max murmured.

“Max, pitchforks!” Dooley cried. “But I don’t want to die by pitchfork! That sounds very painful!”

“I don’t think we were ever in any danger, Dooley,” said Max. “And I didn’t see any pitchforks—did you?”

“No, I didn’t see any pitchforks, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there!”

“You made it out alive, and that’s the main thing,” said Odelia.

Just then, her phone chimed, and she pressed one of the earbuds into her ear, and pressed the button on the phone. “Odelia Poole speaking,” she said over the noise of her ancient car’s whining engine.

“Hi, Miss Poole,” said a familiar voice. “This is Francine Ritter. I came to see you this morning?”

“Oh, yes, of course. I just paid a visit to your former in-laws, Mrs. Ritter.”

“There’s no need, Miss Poole. I just talked to Marvin Harrison on the phone, and he’s agreed to pay me what his brother owed me. He’ll even throw in a little bonus.”

“He did? But that’s great news!”

“Isn’t it? I’m so happy I could cry.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful news.”

“Thanks, Miss Poole,” said Francine. “Thank you so much for all that you’ve done.”

“I didn’t do much,” said Odelia, feeling much relieved. “I just had a little chat, that’s all.”

“Well, anyway, just thought you’d want to know.”

After they’d disconnected, she thought back to her conversation with Marvin and his mother. Clearly in spite of Ruth’s hard words, Marvin had managed to convince her to take a less cruel stance, and pay the mother of her grandchildren her due.

“What happened, Odelia?” asked Max.

“That was Francine Ritter. Marvin called her. He’s going to pay her the back child support. Isn’t that great?”

“That is great news!” said Max.

“You should ask him to let the kids play with Jane again,” said Dooley. “He really needs to do that, so that Jane will be a happy pony again.”

“Well, let’s hope that relations will get back to normal and Ruth will invite her granddaughters over for visits again,” said Odelia. Marvin looked like a decent person, and she hoped he’d continue to do right by Francine and his two little nieces.

For a moment, she lapsed into thought, and soon found her mind drifting back to the case of Franklin Harrison’s death. For some reason something was still bothering her about the whole business. And suddenly she decided to have another chat with those disagreeable neighbors—the Dibbles.

“Are we going to visit the Dibbles again?” asked Max after she’d steered the car in that direction. That cat never missed a trick.

“Yeah, I thought I’d apologize on Gran’s behalf,” she said. “And maybe ask them again about that phone call. See, that keeps bothering me, Max.”

“What does?”

“So there were three phone calls, okay?”

“Uh-huh.”

“One of those calls was Gran, the other one was Joshua—so who was the third caller?”