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

He waited for Max to laugh uproariously, but nothing came. Not even a chuckle or a chortle. So once again he decided to show his friend how it was done and guffawed loudly and with solid conviction.

“I didn’t want to tell you this, Dooley,” finally said Max, after giving him a curious look—exactly the kind of look a doctor would give a patient before having him admitted to Bellevue, Dooley imagined. “But your jokes need work. A lot of work.”

“What kind of work, Max?” he asked. Your up-and-coming comedian likes to take these little criticisms on board.

“Well, for one thing your jokes aren’t funny.”

“Mh,” Dooley said, nodding. “I see your point,” he said, filing Max’s comment away for later use.

“What’s going on over there?” asked Max now, and gestured to the offices of the Hampton Cove Gazette. It was where Odelia worked, and a very nice office it was, too. With a very nice boss named Dan Goory. He looked like Santa Claus, only without the pleasant rotundity. Or the red-cheeked cheerful face. Or the bag of presents and the use of a stable of reindeer. On second thought Dan didn’t look much like Santa Claus at all.

Dooley looked over to where Max was pointing. Odelia was there, and so was her uncle and her boyfriend Chase. And when Dooley saw the ambulance, his heart skipped a beat. Or two.

“Oh, no! An ambulance! Maybe Dan died!”

“Dan didn’t die,” said Max. “He’s standing right there, talking to Uncle Alec.”

“Oh, so he is,” said Dooley, much relieved. He quickly checked off the names of potential victims in his head and came to the reassuring conclusion that all the people he loved and cared for were alive and accounted for. Which begged the question: “So who died?”

“Let’s go and find out,” Max said, and they headed on over to dig deeper into the mystery of the ambulance standing in front of Odelia’s workplace.

“What happened?” asked Max as they sidled up to Odelia.

Odelia looked left and right—she didn’t like to be seen talking to her cats for some reason—and said, “According to Dan the victim’s name is Heather Gallop. She contacted him yesterday and made an appointment. And then afterward she sent him a one-word text that read, ‘Gnomeo,’ so Dan thinks it’s got something to do with Maria Power.”

“Who’s Maria Power?” asked Dooley immediately. He’d discovered that when he didn’t ask questions immediately he often forgot to ask them later, so better do it now.

“She’s a famous movie actress from the seventies and eighties who lives in Hampton Cove. Dan is a big fan. He’s also the president of the official Maria Power Fan Club.”

“So this Heather Gallop is dead?” asked Max, getting to the heart of the matter as usual.

“I’m afraid so,” said Odelia.

“How did she die?” asked Dooley. He darted a worried glance at his friend. “Was it cancer?”

“She was hit over the head with a garden gnome,” said Odelia.

“Murder,” said Max, nodding.

“Murder!” Dooley cried. “In your office!”

“Dan’s office, actually,” said Odelia.

“Did Dan have something to do with it?” asked Max.

“If so he’s not admitting it,” said Odelia, and rose from her crouch to rejoin the conversation between her uncle, Chase, and Dan. The latter didn’t look happy, which was understandable. If someone murders one of your visitors with a garden gnome, it probably comes as something of a shock. Plus it might scare away future visitors.

“Let’s go inside and have a look,” Max suggested, and padded into the Gazette building and then straight into Dan’s office.

There wasn’t all that much to see, as the body had already been removed, probably by those nice people that drove that big shiny ambulance with the flashing lights. People dressed in white were combing the office for traces of things murderers sometimes like to leave behind, whether they want to or not, and the county coroner, a thickset man named Abe Cornwall, was muttering something to himself as he studied the room.

Max paused in front of a glass display case in a corner of Dan’s office and Dooley joined him.

“What are you looking for, Max?”

“Gnomes,” said Max.

“Gnomes?” asked Dooley, wondering if the tumor that Max was suffering from was one of those brain tumors. He’d seen a documentary on the Discovery Channel about brain tumors, and they sometimes did very strange things to people’s brains. It kinda displaced them, squished them so hard they stopped working like they should.

“Looks like Tex isn’t the only one who collects the horrible things,” Max remarked.

Dooley followed his gaze, and saw to his relief that the display case was filled with gnomes. So the gnomes were real, and not merely a figment of Max’s diseased brain.

In the same display case a collection of pictures had been placed, all of them depicting the same woman.

“Maria Power,” said Max, masterfully reading Dooley’s mind before he’d even uttered a single word. It just goes to show how Max and Dooley were attuned. How their minds worked as one mind. Though of course minus the brain tumor in Dooley’s case.

“I wonder what the connection between these gnomes and this Maria Power is,” said Dooley.

“It says right there in that framed article,” Max pointed out.

And indeed he was right again. The title of the yellowed newspaper article—possibly from Dan’s very own newspaper—was ‘Gnomeo and Maria: a most lovely pairing.’

“Gnomeo and Maria,” said Dooley, then got the joke and laughed heartily. “It’s just like Romeo and Juliet, isn’t it, Max?”

“Yes, it is,” said Max, displaying a slight smile of amusement. “It seems like today gnomes keep popping up wherever we go.”

With the swiftness of motion that was his hallmark, in spite of his size, Max turned on his heel and made for the door, Dooley right on his tail.

“Do you think Odelia is going to ask us to assist her in cracking the case?” he asked.

“Pretty sure she will,” said Max. He turned and smiled. “Doesn’t she always?”

To see that smile on his friend’s face warmed Dooley’s heart to such an extent he had to wipe away a tear. Max might be dying of cancer, but he wasn’t going down without a fight.

Maybe a good murder case was exactly what he needed to lift his spirits.

Even if it was his last one…

Chapter 6

As Dooley and I walked out of Dan’s office, I couldn’t help but pick up a very distinct but pleasant scent. It clearly belonged to a human and it wasn’t Dan or Odelia’s. I figured it might belong to one of Dan’s frequent visitors, or one of those strange people dressed all in white going over the crime scene with a fine-tooth comb.

But then, just as we were leaving, I noticed a second glass display case. This, too, was dedicated to Maria Power, and contained a plastic mannequin dressed in a very nice green silk dress with sequined bodice. At the foot of the mannequin a picture had been placed showing the real Maria Power wearing that self-same dress.

I studied the picture for a moment, and saw she was a very handsome woman indeed.

She had those high cheekbones some men go all gaga over, shiny auburn tresses, a wide mouth and remarkable green eyes. She was smiling in the picture, and judging from the background had every reason to: I could see palm trees, a nice beach, and those clear azure waters you find in your better-quality beach resorts.

And as I took another sniff I finally decided the distinct scent had to come from the dress. And it was with a little sigh that I left the office. Humans sometimes smell very nice indeed.

“So who do you think did it, Max?” asked Dooley as we were once again walking along the sidewalk.