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

But Odelia picked up all three bills, took Kathleen’s wallet and put them back.

“Now that’s just silly,” Harriet muttered. She was probably thinking how much Cat Snax Odelia could buy from that money.

“Look, I’ll look into your husband’s case, all right?”

“Oh, thank you!”

“I’m not making any promises, mind you, but I will take a closer look.”

“Thank you so much, Odelia,” said Kathleen, getting up. “And I’m sure that if you do look into this, you’ll find that it’s that woman who stole Karl’s gun. Grace is the killer.”

After Kathleen had left, Harriet said, “You should have accepted that money, Odelia. Do you realize how much cat food three hundred dollars will buy you?”

“Or you could have used the money to buy your parents a new house,” said Dooley, taking a more practical, or should I say altruistic view.

“I can’t take Kathleen’s money, you guys,” said Odelia, “cause I’m not so sure her husband isn’t guilty of murder.”

“Well, like you said, you’re going to find out, right?” said Dooley.

Odelia shook her head. “I’m afraid there’s not much I can do. This is as clear-cut a case as I’ve ever seen.”

“Poor Kathleen,” said Dooley. “She really believes her husband is innocent, doesn’t she?”

“She does,” I confirmed. “But Odelia is right: the case is pretty clear-cut.” Unless… “What if the daughter took the gun?” I suggested.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Odelia intimated. “But why? Why would a teenager kill a homeless man?”

“For kicks?” I suggested.

“Max!” Dooley cried, horrified.

“No, but it happens,” I said. “Some teenagers simply like to kill people for kicks. And maybe this Suzy Bunyon is just such a person. Or maybe her friends are—like Todd Park. Or the late Darryl Farmer.”

“You might be onto something, Max,” Odelia said. “I’ll definitely look into that.”

Chapter 25

Once again Odelia was sitting across from her husband at the precinct.

“So you’re actually suggesting the ex-wife did it,” he said musingly.

“It’s just a thought,” she said.

“A thought Kathleen Bunyon came up with, and for good reason, too, for she’ll soon find her husband in jail for a very long time, convicted of first-degree murder.”

“Look, I’m not saying she’s right. I’m just asking you to take the broad view, and consider all the possibilities. Not just focus on Karl now that you’ve got him and the gun tied to the murder.”

“Okay, so let’s assume for a moment that Kathleen is right. And that Grace Kramer stole her ex-husband’s gun from his safe and shot a homeless person just so she could frame Karl and take his kids away from him.”

“That’s all I’m asking: to consider the possibility.”

“Well, if that were the case, why would she bury our John Doe deep in the woods where no one was supposed to find him except for the fluke appearance on the scene of your cats? Look, the body wasn’t buried in some shallow grave where it would easily be found. It was buried deep, and far from anywhere. It’s obvious that Karl—”

“Or the killer.”

“Fine, or the killer, didn’t want that body to be found. The fact that we did was just a fluke. And don’t you think that if Grace Kramer wanted to frame her ex-husband she would have buried that body where it would be found immediately? Or maybe even leave it out in the open. If she shot him with Karl’s gun, why not dump that body in the park? Or even prop it up on a bench in front of Town Hall? Why bury it where no one was supposed to find it? And before you tell me people would have looked for John Doe, no they wouldn’t. It’s obvious this is a man who’s not missed. No missing person report, and no one has come forward, even after we put a sketch on the local TV station.”

“So maybe he’s not local.”

“No, I’ll bet you he isn’t local. But you see how ridiculous that Grace Kramer theory is if you get right down to it?”

“Okay, I’ll grant you that. So how about Max’s theory?”

“And what is Max’s theory, pray tell?” he asked with a magnanimous smile.

“That Suzy Bunyon took that gun from her stepdad’s safe, and gave it to her raver friends to have some fun with. And so they went out and shot a homeless man for kicks.”

Chase sat back and thought about this for a moment. “Huh,” he said finally.

“Right?”

“I like this theory a lot better than the Grace Kramer one, I’ll tell you that.”

“Why don’t I go over to talk to Suzy Bunyon and find out what she says?”

“You do that,” Chase agreed. “She’ll probably talk to you a lot faster than she would me.”

“Deal,” said Odelia, and got up.

“So what’s happening with your folks’ house? Think they’ll be able to rebuild it?”

“Talk about a mess,” said Odelia. “Now the contractor is blaming the builders, and the builders are blaming the contractor, and when all is said and done it’s going to take a while before my parents will have their house back.”

“And a lot of money.”

“Unless the insurance kicks in.”

“Will it? Kick in?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether the contractor has insurance.”

Chase grinned. “Good luck with that.”

“Usually newlyweds move in with their folks until they’ve saved up for a place of their own,” said Odelia, “but this time it’s the other way around.”

We found Suzy Bunyon at home studying in her room. If Kathleen thought it was odd for us to pay her daughter a visit, she didn’t mention it. She’d asked Odelia to do anything in her power to get her husband out from under this murder charge, and Odelia had given her word that she would, so this was all part of the process of eliminating suspects and trying to find out what exactly had happened that fateful night.

“Hi, Suzy,” said Odelia as she approached the pink-haired teenager. Suzy glanced down at Dooley and me, and frowned. “Do you always bring your cats with you?”

“Yeah, I guess so. They like to follow me around, and I find it’s easier to let them.”

“Uh-huh, okay,” said Suzy dubiously. She was seated at her desk, a book on geometry open under a reading lamp, but the presence of a large box of Kleenex told me that she still wasn’t over the tragic death of her boyfriend.

“So your dad is in jail on suspicion of murdering a homeless person,” said Odelia, opening the interview with a shot across the bow, so to speak.

“My stepdad,” Suzy immediately corrected her. “Karl isn’t my real dad.”

“Okay, your stepdad. So your mother has asked me to find out what happened, because she just can’t imagine that your stepdad would be involved in a thing like this.”

“So?”

“So you know that the gun he kept in his gun safe was used to murder this person?”

“Yeah, Mom told me.”

“So I want to ask you this straight out, Suzy, and I hope you’ll give me a straight answer: did you ever take that gun out of your stepdad’s gun safe?”

“What? No, of course not.”

“But you did know the combination of the lock?”

“Duh. The guy used his own birthday. How dumb do you have to be?”

“So you admit that you opened the safe?”

“I did open it. Once. Just to see what was inside. I figured Karl kept his stash of dirty magazines in there, but instead I found that he kept a gun.” She smiled. “I never knew that dopey Karl was a gun nut. Turns out that he is.”

“Karl swears up and down that he only kept the gun in case of an emergency.”

“What kind of an emergency could an accountant possibly have? A paper cut?”