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

Kathleen’s eyes went wide. “Karl? A murderer? You must be joking!”

“I’m afraid I’m dead serious.”

“At the very least he’s a potential witness,” said Odelia. “So can you perhaps tell him to come back down so we can ask him if he saw something when he was out there?”

Kathleen had gone a little white around the nostrils, and looked even more distracted than before. “Karl!” she yelled. “Come down here a minute, will you?”

Dutifully her husband came pounding down the stairs, and within moments had joined them again. “And?” he asked, looking nervous and sweating even more than before. “What’s the verdict?”

Just then, a pink-haired teenage girl appeared behind Karl Bunyon, and said, “What’s going on? What’s with all the yelling?”

She was dressed in an oversized Minnie Mouse T-shirt and looked sleepy-eyed.

“Go back to bed, Suzy.”

“But, Mom!”

“Go back to bed! I’ll explain everything in the morning.”

“Oh, all right,” she grumbled, and stomped back up the stairs.

“There’s something I need to ask you, Mr. Bunyon,” said Chase.

“Of course, officer,” said Karl with a nervous chuckle.

“Not this night, but last night, when you took Chouchou into the woods the first time, along with several other cats, did you happen to notice something out of the ordinary?”

Karl frowned and looked from Chase to Odelia and back. “Something out of the ordinary? Like what?”

“Well…”

“They want to know if you killed that bum,” his wife now supplied. She’d crossed her arms in front of her chest.

Karl didn’t respond at first, then he blinked and said, “Killed that bum? What bum?”

“A bum was killed out in the woods and buried there,” Kathleen supplied. “It was all over the news, Karl! God, I can’t believe you didn’t see that. Anyway, Miss Poole and Officer Kingsley want to know if you had something to do with that.” She gave her husband an angry look. “More specifically they want to know if, apart from kidnapping cats, you’re also in the habit of murdering bums and burying them in the woods.”

A high-pitched whinny was Karl’s response, but when no one joined in, Karl seemed to realize this wasn’t a joke but serious business. “Of course not!” he finally exclaimed. “I’m not a killer. I only did what I did because of my allergies, and because I was afraid to admit to my wife that I’d lied about loving cats as much as she does. But murder!”

“Okay, all right, “said Chase, holding up his hands in an appeasing gesture. “Look, the body was found close to where you left those cats, and on the same night. So did you happen to see anyone out there?”

“No. No, I didn’t,” he said, and looked truthful enough as he said it.

“Okay, Karl,” said Chase. “I want you to come into the precinct tomorrow and make that statement official, is that understood?”

“But, officer…” said Kathleen.

“We’re not going to talk about the cats,” Chase said. “If you’re not pressing charges, we won’t press charges either. Isn’t that right, Odelia?”

“No, I’m not pressing charges,” Odelia confirmed. More than being angry with Karl, she felt sorry for him now, and didn’t want to add to the problems he was already facing.

“Okay, so as far as we’re concerned, the cat business is over and done with. But only on the condition that you don’t go out and start kidnapping cats again—are we absolutely clear on that, Karl?”

“Yeah. No, of course I won’t do this again. Absolutely.”

“Then I’ll consider this matter resolved,” said Chase with a touch of finality.

Though as they left the house, and judging from the look on Mrs. Bunyon’s face, it was clear the last word about Karl’s anti-cat initiative hadn’t been spoken yet.

Chapter 15

The next morning we were up early, and traveling along our usual haunts to collect those nice little tidbits of information and gossip our human likes to gather preparatory to writing her articles for the Gazette: usually we do the rounds of the whole town, starting with a visit to Kingman, then on to the barbershop, where another one of our contacts usually is able to supply us with some juicy bits hot from the lips of Fido’s clients, and then of course there’s the police station, where we like to spy on Uncle Alec, also known as Chief Alec, our town’s chief of police. Now I know that Uncle Alec likes to keep Odelia in the loop, but there’s always stuff that falls through the cracks, and it is for this reason that Dooley and myself found ourselves out on Uncle Alec’s windowsill, ready to do our bit for the furtherance of the information mill churning out fresh grist.

As luck would have it, Uncle Alec and Chase were engaged in a meeting, discussing recent events, and more in particular the discovery of the dead body in the woods.

“So I hear you caught your catnapper last night?” the Chief grumbled.

“Yeah, but his wife isn’t going to press charges,” said Chase as he sat across from his superior officer, his long legs stretched out before him, his strong arms crossed in front of his muscular chest. “And since we’re not pressing charges either, it looks as if Karl Bunyon is off the hook.”

“And he’s sure he didn’t see anyone out in those woods?”

“Nope. Didn’t see anyone.”

“And you’re absolutely convinced he’s not the killer we’re after?”

“Pretty sure. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy who’d go around murdering innocent vagrants, Chief. In fact you should have seen the guy. You would feel sorry for him, too. First dumped by his first wife, and now having to live with the cat of his second wife even though he hates cats.”

“I thought you said he’s allergic to them?”

“Pretty sure he simply hates cats.”

“Okay, all right,” said the Chief as he dragged his sausage-sized fingers through the few remaining strands of hair on his large dome. “So we got the coroner’s report and it takes us exactly nowhere.” He frowned darkly at his computer, as if it had personally offended him, and said, “Body of an unidentified male between fifty-five and sixty years of age, fingerprints not in the system. All we know is that he was shot through the head with a .38 caliber bullet, and that he’s been living rough for the past couple of years.”

“So basically a bum.”

“I don’t think that’s the politically correct term, but yeah, basically a bum. And so far we’ve got nothing.” Uncle Alec then happened to glance in my direction and rolled his eyes. “And if you’ve got any sense, Max!” he said, raising his voice, “You should be out there gathering clues for me, not spying on whatever I have to say in here, all right!”

I gave the chief a one-nailed salute, and said, “Come on, Dooley. Nothing to see here, I’m afraid.”

And we were just about to jump down from that windowsill when suddenly the door to Uncle Alec’s office burst open and a red-faced man stormed in and yelled, “I want to press charges, Chief. I want to press charges against your brother-in-law!”

Dooley gave me a curious glance. “I take it we’re going to stick around a little longer?”

“Oh, you bet we are,” I said, and we both hunkered down again.

“What are you talking about?” asked the Chief indignantly.

“Tex Poole is your brother-in-law, is he not?”

“Yeah, he is. So what?”

“So he hacked my company’s computer system last night, and installed what is commonly termed ransomware on the entire system, and now he’s asking for one million dollars in bitcoin or else he’ll keep my company hostage!”

Uncle Alec and Chase shared a look of concern, then the Chief turned back to the red-faced man. He had one of those square heads you don’t see very often, and his neck wouldn’t have looked out of place on an old turtle, but otherwise he wasn’t as old as all that. I would have pegged him in his early fifties or late forties. He also had a large belly, one that stuck out from the vest of his dark blue suit.