Ник Сайнт - Purrfectly Hidden. Purrfect Kill. Purrfect Boy Toy

She inserted her key into the ignition and moments later the engine of her old but trusty pickup truck coughed to life. And then she was moving through the driving rain back in the direction of the homestead. She wanted to talk to Max and Dooley and find out if they’d discovered something on their travels. She didn’t hold out a lot of hope, figuring that animals have an even shorter lifespan than humans, so there wouldn’t be any pets around from the time of the murder. Still, Max and Dooley had come through for her before, and they might very well do so now.

And as she parked her car in front of the house, she briefly wondered about the burgundy Toyota parked across the street from her house. She didn’t think she’d ever seen it around, then figured one of the neighbors must have bought themselves a new car. She got out and hurried to the front door, holding her purse over her head to protect her from this sudden and unexpected storm, and let herself into the house.

She searched around for her cats. It was only when she’d called out that suddenly Dooley’s head poked in through the pet flap and when he saw her let out a happy though slightly plaintive meow.

“Oh, hey, Dooley,” she said. “Where is Max? And where are the others?”

“Max is outside. He still doesn’t fit through the pet flap. And Harriet and Brutus are in the basement doing hanky panky so I decided not to bother them.”

She laughed. Dooley probably didn’t even know what hanky panky was.

“Are they, now?” she said, and thought about checking the basement to see what they were up to for herself. But of course she didn’t. She was a firm believer in giving her pets their space, and if Harriet and Brutus were indeed doing what Dooley said they were doing, they deserved to be left in peace and enjoy themselves. So she withdrew her hand from the basement door and went in search of Max. She could hardly wait to hear his report on all the things he’d discovered in the case of the mysterious basement skeleton.

While Dooley was inside greeting Odelia, and telling her to open the door so I could get in, I smiled before me at Dooley’s quaint conceit. It was a little tough sometimes having to tell Dooley all kinds of stories. Like telling a kid that Santa Claus is real, and that the tooth fairy will come and collect their tooth when they’re sleeping. Then again, it was also heart-warming that Dooley was still a baby in a lot of ways, and the responsibility of being both friend and surrogate parent was one I took very seriously.

The door behind me slid open, and I slipped inside. “Finally,” I said, immediately moving to the radiator to heat up my chilled bones.

“So what did you find out?” asked Odelia, not wasting time with preliminaries or how-have-you-beens.

“Well, we discovered that there is an animal living in Hampton Cove who’s probably the oldest animal alive. According to Kingman she might even be more than fifty years old, or possibly even sixty or seventy, so she was probably alive when the skeleton found its way into that wall.”

“Boyd Baker,” said Odelia as she put the kettle on for a cup of tea. “That’s his name. He used to live next door with his wife and two kids. He died fifty-five years ago, or at least that’s when he disappeared from home never to return.”

“Boyd Baker,” I said, storing up this information. “So we talked to Camilla, who is a macaw, but she refused to cooperate, unfortunately. She seems to have some sort of irrational fear of cats, and kept saying the most insulting things about us.”

“She’s afraid we’ll eat her,” said Dooley. “Which made it hard to talk to her.”

“Right,” said Odelia as she took a cup from the cupboard, selected a tea bag from the tin, and aimed it into the cup. “In other words, you struck out.”

“Yes, we did,” I admitted.

“Kingman said there might be animals even older than Camilla,” said Dooley,” but since they’re mollusks they probably won’t have a lot of interesting things to tell us about this Boyd Baker.”

“No, you’re absolutely right,” said Odelia with a sigh as she took a seat on one of the high kitchen stools, took her notebook from her purse, and studied her notes. Odelia is a very avid note keeper, which is probably a good thing for a reporter. Cats, on the other hand, have to carry all of our notes inside our heads, as we don’t have pockets to put a notebook, or the opposable thumbs to handle a pencil. Luckily we have a lot of brain capacity, so we simply file all the information away up there in our noggin for later use.

“We could always go back and visit Camilla again,” I suggested. “Maybe this time she’ll be more amenable.”

“Yes, maybe she was in a bad mood,” Dooley agreed.

“If you think it’s worth a shot, why not?” said Odelia, and enjoyed her tea for a couple of minutes while she read through her notes.

I wondered where Chase was, but decided not to ask. When Odelia is busy working on a case, or a story, it’s best to simply leave her be. Humans function a lot better when they’re not interrupted every five seconds.

Which is why the interruption, when it suddenly came, was so annoying.

Chapter 20

Marge was in the basement, while Gwayn was whacking away at some pipe or other. She winced at the clanging sound and hoped the man knew what he was doing and not destroying what was left of the house’s plumbing system.

“There,” he finally grunted as he gave the pipe one more whack, possibly as a parting gift. “That should do it.”

“So… it’s fixed now?” she asked, almost afraid to utter the words in case she might jinx the repairman’s magic.

“I hope so.” He moved to a corner of the basement and opened the small tap that had been installed there. And when the cool, clear stream spouted from the tap, Marge almost whimpered with delight.

Instead, she clamped her hands together and said, “Oh, thank you so much, Gwayn. I thought I’d never see the day.”

“Just a minor issue with a rusted valve,” he said as he wiped his hands on a rag then started placing the instruments of his trade back inside his toolbox. “So how about that body? They ever find out who it belonged to?” he asked as he directed a curious gaze at the hole that was still plainly visible in the outer wall.

“My brother says it’s Boyd Baker, the man who lived here before we bought the house. My daughter is looking into it, and Alec, of course,” she added, wondering why she would put more faith in her daughter’s investigative qualities than her brother’s. “Tex and I bought the house from Boyd’s widow Phyllis. Apparently he disappeared fifty-five years ago, and this is where he ended up.” She placed extra emphasis on the number fifty-five, just in case Gwayn would be amongst those who thought the body belonged to her dearly departed dad, murdered by her mother.

“The Bakers, huh?” said Gwayn with a frown. “I remember Ma Baker, of course. Didn’t she pass away a couple of years ago?”

“Yes, she did. Her daughter and son are still with us, though.”

“Yeah, I seem to remember my dad doing some work for the Bakers back in the day. Though I could be wrong, of course. Names and faces,” he added apologetically. “My mind is like a sieve. Dad was much better with faces. He could see a person once and never forget what they looked like. Amazing gift, especially in our line of work. Well, then,” he said. “I think that should do it. I’ll check upstairs and then I’ll be off.”

“Thank you so much, Gwayn. You’re a miracle worker.”

“Yeah, well, wouldn’t want you to be without water all night, would we?” he said. He moved up the stairs, Marge right behind him. In the kitchen, Vesta and Tex were still arguing about the future of mankind, or Tex’s dream of becoming the next winner of The Voice and a musical talent to be reckoned with, but when Gwayn walked in they both shut up. They might not like each other very much, but there was one thing they both agreed on: never hang out your dirty laundry for the whole world to see.