Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Advice. Purrfect Passion. A Purrfect Gnomeful

Instead of Lady Chatterley or her lover, it was Allison who was blushing at Odelia’s words. “Well,” she said finally. “Well, really.”

“Is it true, though?” asked Odelia.

Allison hesitated for a moment, then finally sighed. “Yes, it’s true. But please,” she immediately implored, “don’t say anything to Mia. It will break her heart. I think she was in love with Kirk, probably hoping he’d propose, the silly girl.”

“Why silly?”

But Allison gave her a pointed look, and Odelia immediately said, “Silly of me. Of course he wasn’t going to propose, if he was engaged in a torrid affair with you.”

We’d reached a little iron bench and both women sank down onto it, with Dooley and me deciding to lie down on the grass, which was soft and cool. It tickled my belly a little, but that’s what I like about grass. Plus, it smells nice.

“Look, it wasn’t as if I planned any of this,” said Allison. “It simply happened. In fact I had no idea he was carrying on with Mia until last week, when she happily revealed they were in a relationship. It came as quite a shock to me, I must confess, to know I was having an affair with the same man my niece was hoping to marry. And then of course the man was still married to his wife, too. And it wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t still have… relations with her at the same time he was carrying on with me and Mia.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because I once saw him walk out of his ex-wife’s hotel.”

“Why didn’t you break it off?”

“I was going to. I was going to tell him this couldn’t possibly go on like this. He’d have to choose: me, his wife or Mia, and not keep us all in the air like so many juggling balls.”

“He must have had quite the libido,” Odelia commented.

“Yes, he had stamina, I have to give him that.”

“Did you love him?”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Let’s just say we supplied each other a certain… service. He was a fiery lover, and it had been years since anyone had made love to me quite so vigorously. But I had no feelings for the man, just like he had no feelings for me.”

“Did he love Mia, you think?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“But she had feelings for him.”

“Yes, it was obvious to me that she loved him with all the fervor of youth. It pained me to see her pining for the man, and I knew that sooner or later he was going to break her heart, the poor dear. But what could I do?”

“You could have told him to leave.”

“Mia would have hated me for it.”

“She would have hated you whatever you did.”

“Yes, that’s true,” said the woman, then laughed. “The irony doesn’t escape me, Miss Poole. Me, the first Gabi, chairwoman of the AAA, making a mess of things like that.”

Odelia looked the woman straight in the eye. “Did you kill Kirk, Allison? Because he wouldn’t stop sleeping with your niece?”

Allison nodded, and I held my breath. I had a feeling she was going to confess. But then she said, “I can see how you would think that. But no, I didn’t kill Kirk.”

“You didn’t have a big fight and accidentally—”

“Oh, a crime passionnel ?” She laughed. “You think too much of me, Odelia. I didn’t love the man enough to commit murder. Was I upset with him? Of course I was, not for my sake but for Mia’s. And did I fight with him when I found out? Yes, I did. But that was last week, when I gave him an ultimatum: either stop fooling around with Mia and get serious, or break it off with her. He did neither, and I’d planned to have another strongly worded talk with him tonight. But someone killed him before I could.”

“And that killer wasn’t you.”

“That killer wasn’t me. Besides, you can ask your grandmother. When Kirk was killed I was downstairs talking to her and Scarlett.”

“I think the coroner’s report will show that Kirk was killed before my grandmother arrived,” Odelia argued.

“Well, arrest me if you must, but I swear to you that I had nothing to do with the man’s death.”

“I believe her,” said Dooley, and unfortunately I had to admit she sounded very convincing to me, too. And Odelia must have come to the same conclusion, for she smiled and placed a hand on the woman’s arm.

“I think you should tell Mia, before she hears it from someone else, or reads about it online.”

Allison nodded. “I know. It’s a conversation I’ve been dreading for days.”

“Make it soon,” Odelia advised her.

“I just hope she won’t hate me forever.”

“She won’t. Not when she realizes what kind of man Kirk Weaver really was.”

“What kind of man was Kirk?” asked Dooley.

“I think the word for a person like him is womanizer,” I said as Odelia and Allison got up and resumed their perambulation.

“A womanizer?”

“A man who carries on with several women at the same time, or one after the other, and can’t seem to settle down with a single one of them.”

“So do you think there were more women in his life, Max?”

“Could be, Dooley,” I said.

“So maybe one of them killed him?”

I glanced at my friend. “You know, Dooley. I think you’re on to something there. We better tell Odelia.”

We followed the two women from a distance as we enjoyed our stroll. It was better than being cooped up inside the house with a dead man upstairs. The only thing marring what could have been a perfect walk was the fact that my tummy was rumbling. I was hungry, but had been afraid to tell Odelia. She would have told Allison, who would have offered us some of Jasmine’s food. And the last thing I wanted was to snack on Jasmine’s kibble and watch the Persian walk in on us in the kitchen. I was pretty sure she would have scratched us across our faces where we sat, same way she’d scratched Kirk.

“So weird, though, right?” I said. “I mean, a cat whisperer who doesn’t like cats, and uses a hairbrush to hit them when they don’t do as he says. A family man who’s secretly conducting affairs with his client and his client’s niece at the same time. It makes you wonder what other things this Kirk Weaver had to hide.”

“I don’t think he was a nice man,” said Dooley, and that pretty much summed it up.

Chapter 12

That night, Chase sat reading on his phone while Odelia brushed her teeth in the bathroom. He was frowning at the screen. Like apparently all of Hampton Cove, he’d sent in a question for the Gazette’s advice column and the answer had just been posted online. His question had been straightforward enough: ‘Dear Gabi, I’ve been engaged to be married for quite some time now, but for some reason I can’t seem to bring myself to lock down a date for the wedding. Something always seems to crop up and the time is never right. What do you think I should do? Burning Heart.’

The answer had surprised him: ‘Dear Burning Heart, instead of whining about your engagement you should urge your future uncle-in-law to show some more ambition in life and further his political career. Being stuck in a dead-end job as he is, it’s time to supercharge his ambitions and take the reins of this town firmly in both hands.’

Somehow he had the impression that whoever this Gabi person was, she’d somehow guessed who he was, and wanted him to push Alec to… do what, exactly? Run for mayor?

Then he dismissed the thought. Still, he wasn’t any the wiser, which irked him.

Odelia walked in from the bathroom and got into bed. She was also frowning.

“What’s wrong, babe?” he asked. “Still thinking about the case?”

“Yeah, I was wondering if Allison told me the truth or not. How can you tell, Chase, if a person is speaking the truth? Or lying to your face?”