Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Alibi

“He’s over there,” said Big Mac, gesturing to the library. “That spiffy-looking dude on the steps? He was here last night. I would recognize him anywhere. He looks like Brad Pitt before he was Brad Pitt.”

“How do you know what Brad Pitt looked like before he was Brad Pitt?” I asked.

“My human is a big fan of supermarket tabloids. He can’t go through a checkout line without buying a stack of them. And they always have those unflattering ‘before they were famous’ photomontages. I love them. You should see what George Clooney looked like.”

Dooley had been thinking hard. I could tell, for his tongue was sticking out of his mouth. Finally he voiced the question that was bugging him. “Wasn’t Brad Pitt always Brad Pitt? Or did he change his name?”

Big Mac decided to ignore this outburst. Instead, he raised a point of interest. “Have you found the pizza guy?”

“I don’t think the pizza guy is a high priority.” I explained how two people on Big Mac’s list were now languishing in the Hampton Cove lockup, both competing for the dubious honor of being Chris Ackerman’s killer, so his pizza delivery guy wasn’t exactly on anyone’s radar right now. I further argued that pizza guys don’t go around killing their customers with expensive fountain pens. He agreed that there was something in that.

“Still,” he said. “He didn’t smell right.”

“He was a pizza guy. He probably smelled like a pizza guy.”

“That’s the thing, see,” said Big Mac. “He didn’t.”

“So what did he smell like?” I asked.

“Soap.”

“Soap.”

“Yeah, soap. Freshly washed and bathed.”

“So he was a fastidious pizza guy. So what?”

“Pizza guys have to smell like pizza,” he insisted.

He was obviously old-fashioned that way, so I decided not to argue the point. As I saw it a pizza guy could smell like soap if he wanted to. In fact it was preferable. Nobody likes his pizza delivery person to smell like old socks or stinky pits. Bad for business, if you see what I mean. You want the pizza person to project that wholesome, clean image.

The pizza discussion had gone right over Dooley’s head, as his next words indicated. “If Brad Pitt wasn’t Brad Pitt before he was Brad Pitt, then who was he?”

“Oh, Dooley,” I said with a sigh.

Big Mac tapped the car door with his paw. “Gotta go, fellas. People to see, pizza leftovers to gobble up. Catch you later, all right?”

“See ya, Big Mac,” I said, and watched the big cat wobble across the road. Then I thought of something. “Hey, Big Mac?”

“Yo,” said the big cat, turning.

“Wanna join cat choir? Tonight at the park. Practically all the cats of Hampton Cove will be there. We hang out, sing some tunes, shoot the breeze. What do you say?”

“I can’t sing, dude.”

“None of us can.”

He shrugged. “I’ll think about it.” He held up a paw and I returned the gesture. As he walked away, he softly sang, “I’m lovin’ it.” Yep, he really did love it.

There was a momentary silence after Big Mac had left, then Dooley said, “So about Brad Pitt…”

Chapter 27

Odelia and Gran had a hard time getting Chris Ackerman’s latest son to give them the time of day. As it was, he was giving exclusive interviews left and right, passing out quotes like candy. More media people were arriving by the busload—magically multiplying like Agent Smith in The Matrix —and suddenly the young man was the hottest thing in town.

And who could blame the media for converging on this latest sensational story? Chris Ackerman was, after all, a world-famous author, and his mysterious murder had only made him more famous. And now here was a son no one had ever heard about, turning Ackerman, who in all honesty had looked more like a stodgy old college professor than a Calvin Klein underwear model, into someone who sold magazines and invited those all-precious clicks.

Before long, the scene turned into something out of a Mel Gibson movie, with reporters hitting each other over the head with their microphones and pimpled, pasty-faced and overweight cameramen staring each other down, ready to rumble.

“Your colleagues are nasty ,” said Gran after a female reporter with nails like Rihanna had stomped on her toe. She was rooting around in her purse, presumably in search of her can of Mace, and Odelia quickly thought of ways and means to avert the impending disaster.

“They’re not my colleagues,” said Odelia. “A lot of these people are celebrity gossip bloggers, so they’re more your colleagues than mine.”

Gran took offense. “I’m nothing like them. I ply my trade with dignity and poise.”

“Which is why you can’t wait to mace them.”

“It’s all about the competitive edge, honey. This is a cutthroat business.”

And if she didn’t stop her grandmother, throats would definitely get cut.

At that moment, though, the whoop of a police siren sounded nearby, and soon cops were descending on the scene.

“We better get out of here,” said Odelia. “Before the riot police starts busting heads and breaking bones.”

“They better don’t break my bones or I’ll sue them for millions.”

“Your son heads the police department!”

“Never let sentiment muddle your thinking, honey. I saw that on Mary Poppins .”

They both moved to the side, and watched as Uncle Alec’s troops returned order to the mob scene. Chase spotted them on the edge of the crowd, and sauntered over.

“What’s this I hear about some dude telling people he’s Chris Ackerman’s son?”

“Better ask him yourself,” said Gran. “We tried to interview him but there was no getting through those nasty reporters. Oh, and before you ask, he’s one of the people I identified this morning. You’ll find his sketch in your files.”

“His name is Aldo Wrenn,” said Odelia. “Only now he calls himself Aldo Ackerman.”

“Whenever a celebrity dies there’s always a rash of these bogus claims,” said Chase. “Remember when Prince died? Over seven hundred people claimed to be his siblings.”

“I could have been Prince’s sister,” said Gran. “What?” she added when Odelia gave her a piercing look. “I’m not saying I am his sister. Just saying I could have been.”

“What makes you think you and Prince were related?” asked Chase, genuinely curious.

Promptly Gran lifted the leg of her colorful track pants to display a bony white calf. “Just look at my legs.”

Chase looked at Gran’s leg. “N-nice,” he said in a slightly choked voice.

“I should think so. These are some princely legs. I’ll bet Prince’s sister has legs just like these and so does his momma. And then of course I’ve got a voice just like Prince.”

“You do?” asked Chase.

“You don’t have to be beautiful. To turn me on ,” the old lady began to sing in a reedy voice. It sounded nothing like Prince, but she was shaking that leg, and batting her eyelashes like a pro. A pro pole dancer, though, not a pro singer.

Chase suppressed a smile. “That’s pretty awesome, Mrs. Muffin,” he said finally.

“Just call me Vesta. I think it’s time we got on a first-name basis,” she cooed, placing a hand on Chase’s bicep while she recuperated from her impromptu dance routine.

Chase had the good decency to blush. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

Uncle Alec walked over, and Odelia was happy to see he came bearing gifts in the form of Aldo Wrenn—or Ackerman. The moment she and Gran had discovered Aldo was the seventh person Big Mac had identified, she’d shot off a message to her uncle. And a good thing, too, considering Aldo’s impromptu press conference had almost gotten out of hand.