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

There was a moment of silence, then raucous laughter filled the air, as it rose up from two hundred throats.

“You must be crazy!” cried Hector loudly, slapping his tiny thighs with mirth.

“Yeah, you’re one big crazy cat if you think we’re going to accept such an arrangement,” chimed in his wife.

“I have a better idea,” said Hector, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Why don’t you move to a more suitable location and we’ll take the entire house. How about that, huh?”

“Yeah, that’s our proposition,” said Helga.

“Take it or leave it!”

“Why you little brutes,” Shanille growled, suddenly a lot less kindly than before. “You should be ashamed of yourselves. You barge in here and think you can simply take over the house? Shame on you!”

“Oh, get lost,” said Hector, making a throwaway gesture with his paw.

“Yeah, take a hike, sister,” said Helga, and in a matter of seconds the basement was empty again, the mice flowing into those little holes with unparalleled speed and coordination.

Shanille was gently fuming, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “Of all the impertinent, annoying, disgraceful…” she began.

“See what we’re up against?” asked Brutus.

Harriet gently placed an arm around Shanille’s shoulder. “You know what you should do, Shanille?” she asked.

“What?” grunted the choir director.

“Say a little prayer,” said Harriet sweetly. “I’m sure it’ll make all the difference.”

“Oh, go to hell,” growled Shanille, and was off.

Chapter 26

Three people were sitting in Chief Alec’s office and none of them looked particularly happy. There was Alec himself, of course, his deputy Chase Kingsley, and also Alec’s niece Odelia, who was pretty much part of the team.

“Let’s review the facts as we know them,” said Alec as he dragged a weary hand through what few hairs remained on his scalp.

Odelia’s uncle had called the meeting because of his dissatisfaction with the investigation, as he called it. He had a very good suspect in jail, who looked perfect for the two murders, but there were several small things that made him uneasy in his mind.

“First off, the murder of Heather Gallop. No phone was found, either on her person, or in her hotel room, and yet she’d called Dan and set up an appointment.”

“Unless Dan stole her phone,” Odelia offered.

“We would have found it,” said Alec. “We searched both his office and his house from top to bottom and found nothing out of the ordinary, except a ridiculous number of gnomes, too many for a grown man to feel comfortable collecting, but that’s neither here nor there.”

“My dad collects gnomes,” Odelia pointed out. “And he’s not afraid to admit it.”

“The UPS guy, who wasn’t a UPS guy,” Alec continued. “Highly suspicious if you ask me, as was the phone call to lure Dan out of his office.”

“Presumably to give the killer, dressed as a UPS guy, enough time to sneak into his office and murder Heather,” said Chase.

“Two. Jack Warner’s murder. Jack told me only last night that he had important information to share, and wanted me to meet him today. Only he never made it, because he was killed. What information? And was he killed because of it? Also, we haven’t found Jack’s phone yet, which his wife says he always carried on his person.”

“And Dan didn’t have this phone either,” said Odelia.

“Unless he dumped it,” Chase said. “On his way out of the hotel.”

Police had searched high and low for that phone, though, and hadn’t found it. So either Dan was the most cunning killer they’d ever met, or he wasn’t Jack’s killer at all, and had been framed. Again. Odelia was inclined to believe the latter, while her uncle and Chase were inclined to believe Dan wasn’t as innocent as he made out to be.

Uncle Alec leaned forward. “Look, “ he said, addressing his niece, “the only evidence about this UPS guy is a cat. A cat who could be mistaken.”

“I don’t think Buster is mistaken,” said Odelia.

Uncle Alec heaved a sigh. “I don’t believe I’m asking this, but what do you know about this Buster? In your opinion, is he a reliable witness?”

“He’s one of Max’s main sources of information. Buster belongs to Fido Siniawski, and as a barber Fido manages to extract more confessions, confidences and gossip from people than any other person in town. And Buster is right there to listen to all of it. So you might say he’s one of the best-informed cats in Hampton Cove. So yes, if Buster says he saw a UPS man enter the office, you can bet that he did.”

Uncle Alec sat back in his chair, which creaked as he shifted his weight. In spite of the diet his new girlfriend had put him on, he still had a long way to go. “You’re putting me in a very tough spot here, honey,” he said finally. “I have everything I need to finger your boss as the killer, except for these loose ends.”

“We could try to find this UPS guy,” Chase suggested. “I mean, is it possible that Buster saw a man who looked like a UPS guy but wasn’t?”

“He says he was wearing the brown uniform with the letters UPS,” said Odelia.

Uncle Alec rubbed his face. He looked haggard. When an investigation wasn’t going well, he often looked as if he’d slept in his clothes and hadn’t had taken a shower in days.

“Look, I’m going to charge Dan.” When Odelia started to protest, he held up his hand. “I’m sorry, but I have no choice. I have a witness who saw him standing over the guy with the murder weapon.”

“A witness who died,” Odelia pointed out. “In suspicious circumstances, I might add.”

“I disagree. The woman fell down the stairs. No indication she was pushed. None whatsoever.”

“I don’t think he did it,” said Odelia stubbornly. “Dan simply isn’t that kind of person.”

“You heard what Maria Power said. People tend to act weird when she’s involved. Men go nuts, and so do women. And I think Heather Gallop had something very valuable to offer Dan, and when they couldn’t agree on the price, he killed her and simply took it.”

“Oh, so now you don’t think she was his girlfriend and he killed her because she wanted to break up with him or because she was pregnant?”

“No, I don’t think she was his girlfriend.”

“Did you manage to get in touch with her folks?” asked Chase.

“Yeah, I did. And get this. She used to work for Rupert Finkelstein’s daughter.”

Both Odelia and Chase sat up a little straighter at this. “The director?” Chase said.

“One and the same. Finkelstein’s daughter died a couple of months ago, and it’s not inconceivable that Heather managed to lay her hands on something very valuable indeed.” he wiggled his bushy brows. “A copy of his famous version of Romeo and Juliet.”

“And that she came to Hampton Cove to interest Dan in that same copy,” said Chase, nodding.

“Which sounds to me like a motive for murder, wouldn’t you agree? Big collector and fan like Dan? I’m sure a guy like that just might stoop to murder for the chance to lay his hands on the most sought-after movie of all time. A copy of the one and only Gnomeo.”

Chapter 27

It was a long way back to town, especially since we were used to going by car, and now had to rely on our own four paws to carry us home. Add to that the fact that a mouse’s paws are even smaller than a cat’s, and it was slow going at first. Then Dooley had the great idea to suggest that Elsa jump on his back and hitch a ride, and so she did.

I wasn’t entirely at ease after that. It’s bad enough for a cat to have to travel in the company of a mouse, but even worse to carry one on one’s back.