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

“Okay, let’s do that,” he said. “How about tomorrow?” He slapped his brow lightly. “And here I’m planning again.”

The elevator had arrived on the second floor and they got out, then walked over to room 216. Chase knocked and then stood back. The door opened and a man appeared. He was unshaven, unkempt and was dressed in his pajamas.

“Yeah? What do you want?” he asked gruffly.

“Burt Scofield?” asked Chase.

“Who wants to know?”

“I’m Detective Kingsley with the Hampton Cove Police Department,” said Chase, holding up his badge once again. “And this is Odelia Poole, civilian consultant. We’re investigating the murder of your business partner Kirk Weaver. May we have a word?”

The man stared at Chase’s badge for a moment, then at Odelia, and finally nodded and stepped aside. “Sure. Come on in.”

They stepped into the room and Odelia wasn’t surprised to find the room in as messy a state as its occupant: clothes were strewn all around, room service trays littered the coffee table, couch and chairs, and wet towels had been dropped to the floor, some of them doused in weirdly colored substances she didn’t want to know the origin of.

“Take a seat,” he said, as he shoved aside some of the trays and made room for them on the couch. “Sorry about the mess. I’ve been so busy working, and now with Kirk dying on me…”

He dragged a hand through his unruly mop of dark hair, then rubbed his face. “How did he die? The reports weren’t very specific.”

“Stabbed,” said Chase curtly.

“Stabbed where, exactly? I’m just…” he added when Chase gave him a curious look. “I just can’t believe what happened. He was my business partner for ten years, and my friend for twenty. We went to school together. High school, then college. I’ve known Kirk all my life and I just can’t believe he’s gone all of a sudden. It’s like a nightmare.”

“He was stabbed in the chest,” said Odelia. “He died instantly, or at least that’s what the coroner said.”

“He didn’t suffer?” asked Burt anxiously.

“No, it doesn’t look like he suffered. It all happened very quickly. So quickly he didn’t even know what was going on.”

“Thank God for that,” murmured Burt as he dragged up a chair and took a seat. “So what do you want to know, detectives?”

“You were Kirk’s business partner in what sense?” asked Chase. “Were you involved with the TV show?”

“Yeah, the TV show and the company,” said Burt. “Um, our company is called K-Bear, K for Kirk and B for Burt, and the bear we just added because it sounded cute. We developed the show but also sell products, run courses, consultations, Kirk wrote books, made instructional videos, we have a line of pet products, pet food and toys and such.”

“And was business booming, would you say?”

Burt hesitated, then swallowed with difficulty. “Look, I’m going to tell you the truth here, okay? But I hope you won’t go blabbing to the media.”

“We don’t blab to the media, sir,” said Chase a little stiffly, not mentioning the fact that a member of the media was currently sitting in their presence in the shape of Odelia.

“I actually work for a newspaper,” said Odelia, who didn’t see the need to hide the fact from the man. “But I promise not to mention anything you decide to tell us in confidence.”

Burt nodded. “No, things weren’t going well, to be absolutely honest. Kirk made a couple of bad investments, and he borrowed from the company to pay back some of the loans he took out, and at the moment we’re leveraged to the hilt. To the point where Kirk’s death is likely to deal us the final blow. I don’t think K-Bear will last another month.”

“What bad investments?” asked Odelia.

“He, um, invested in a company that develops automated milking robots for cows? Only there were some technical issues and the company went belly-up. He also invested in a flying cab app? Like Uber but with flying cabs? Only the technology isn’t there yet, and a couple of the cabs crashed and burned—literally. So that didn’t go anywhere either. And I think there was a company that wanted to be like the Tinder for celebrities, only they managed to get hacked and then sued. By the celebrities. There’s more, um…”

Chase held up his hand. “I think we get the picture. Kirk wasn’t a savvy investor, and he lost all of his money and then some.”

“Not just his money. I discovered, a little belatedly, that he’d also taken out loans against the company, and so he’d effectively invested my money, too.”

“How come you didn’t notice this sooner?” asked Odelia.

“Because Kirk was in charge of our finances. I’m more the idea man, you see. I develop new projects and products, and Kirk was the guy who made it all possible. I trusted him. He was my best friend.”

“And he let you down.”

“Yeah, to put it mildly,” said Burt sadly. “He kinda destroyed me.”

“Where were you yesterday morning around eleven, Mr. Scofield?” asked Odelia.

Burt frowned. “Um… I think I was right here. Yeah, I had breakfast downstairs and then I came up to try and salvage what could be salvaged by contacting our investors.”

“Can anyone confirm you were here?”

“Oh, sure. I talked to one of our main investors through Zoom. They’re in China, and very keen to expand K-Bear into the Asian market. Only not so keen after I told them Kirk had just lost all of their initial investment money. Why? You think I killed Kirk?”

“Just asking questions, Mr. Scofield,” said Chase, jotting down a couple of notes.

“So I take it you guys don’t have a suspect yet?”

“I can’t really comment on an ongoing investigation,” Chase said.

“Well, I didn’t do it, if that’s what you think. I loved the guy. I mean, was he a flawed human being? Of course he was. Flawed in more ways than one. But he was my friend, and I was sure we were going to get through this. If only he could stop flushing our future down the toilet.”

“Are you aware that your friend was having woman trouble?” asked Odelia.

“Oh, yeah,” said Burt, nodding vigorously. “It was the story of his life. Kirk was one of those people who kept falling in love. He only had to look at a woman once to know she was the one for him. And then five minutes later he’d see someone else and know for a fact that she was the one for him, too. A serial infatuator, he called himself.”

Odelia had another, less kind, term for the kind of man Kirk had apparently been, but refrained from voicing the thought.

“Have you been in contact with his wife?” asked Chase.

“Sandy. Yeah, she’s staying at the same hotel. We kinda try to ignore each other. Sandy isn’t happy with Kirk right now, and has filed for divorce, which he wouldn’t grant her, on account of the fact that he was still in love with her.”

“He had a funny way of showing it,” said Chase, “considering he was having an affair both with Allison Gray and Allison’s niece Mia.”

Burt closed his eyes. “God, what a mess.”

“He didn’t tell you about that?”

“He did, he did. He said he’d fallen in love again, and then again, and both women were amazing. I told him to watch out. Dating both the aunt and the niece was asking for trouble. And looks like trouble finally found him.”

Chapter 20

“I think we should ask Chloe,” said Dooley as we both stared at the droppings the mouse had left for our perusal.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t know what to do, and neither do you, so why don’t we ask someone who knows everything there is to know about everything?”

It was a good idea, I had to admit. I had no experience dealing with mice, and neither did Dooley, and from what I’d seen of Harriet and Brutus handling—or rather, not handling—the previous mice infestation, they had no clue how to handle these rodents either, so that only left Chloe to help us deal with this emergency.