Ник Сайнт: Purrfect Crime

“No, I can’t! I’m sorry! I was just—I was just—I don’t know what I was thinking! All I know is that I can’t do this without you guys. Brutus—Dooley—Max. We’re a team, right? We make a great team.”

Odelia smiled. “I’m glad you think so, Harriet. So… are you sure you don’t want to do this all by yourself?”

“No, I don’t!”

Odelia shrugged. “Okay, then. I guess we’re all on board again.”

“Yay!” Harriet squealed, doing a happy dance on the backseat.

Odelia locked eyes with me and gave me a wink. I returned it with relish.

My human, people. She’s the greatest.

“So from now on Harriet is in charge. You will all follow her lead,” Odelia said, and drove off.

My human. She’s completely nuts!

Chapter 7

After dropping off the cats at the house, Odelia headed for the police station, to assist Chase while he interviewed the man they’d arrested outside the Donna Bruce residence. Judging from his behavior he was now the prime suspect in the murder of the celebrity lifestyle guru.

She parked in front of the station house and got out. There were a bunch of reporters camped out in front of the squat building, and she wondered if this was going to pose a problem for the investigation. When celebrities were murdered, the accompanying attention sometimes worked disruptive, pushing the people in charge of the investigation to make rash decisions they wouldn’t otherwise make. Then again, this was Chase Kingsley. He wasn’t the kind of guy to allow emotion to trump reason.

She hiked her purse up her shoulder and headed inside, keeping her head down as the reporters studied her curiously, probably wondering if and how she was connected to the case. Fortunately for her, she had one of those unremarkable faces that easily get lost in the crowd, so they quickly dismissed her and went about their business of interviewing each other on camera.

She waved a greeting at Dolores, the big-haired receptionist manning the front desk, and made her way to her uncle’s office at the end of the hallway. When she swept inside, Chase was pacing the room, looking slightly agitated, while her uncle was seated at his desk, his feet up, hands behind his head, the picture of calm and poise.

“I’m telling you, Chief, this is our guy. He’s obviously bearing a grudge, he was at the scene, and he is as hostile and aggressive as they come. Now all we have to do is establish means and opportunity and we’re home free. Oh, hey, Odelia. We were just discussing the arrest of Alpin Carré.”

“The guy who hit you over the head with his placard.”

Chase’s jaw worked. “That’s the one.”

She took a seat in front of her uncle. “So you think he might be our guy?”

“I’m ninety-five percent positive.”

“And I’m not,” said Uncle Alec. “I know Alpin, Chase. He might be a hothead but he’s not a killer. Heck, the guy is a publisher. And a very successful one at that. Publishes these books about angels and the healing power of crystals and stuff like that.”

“Healing power of crystals? “

“Yeah, he had a real bestseller last year with The Shed . I don’t know if you’ve heard about it. Everybody was reading it.”

“The book about the guy who finds God while sitting alone in his shed?”

Uncle Alec nodded. “They’re turning it into a movie starring Chris Pratt. I think they tapped George Clooney to play the voice of God.”

“Great choice,” said Odelia. If God had a voice it would be Clooney’s. Though in this day and age of gender equality and feminism, maybe Meryl Streep was the more politically correct option.

Chase made a slashing motion with his hand. “Look, I don’t care if the guy can walk on water. He’s clearly unhinged, so in my book he’s our prime suspect.”

“What about the ex-husband?” asked Odelia. “Hillary Davies seemed pretty sure he was the one.” She turned to her uncle. “Is he in town?”

Uncle Alec nodded. “Yes, he is. He recently moved to the Hamptons in an effort to see more of his kids. Though I’m not sure if his ex-wife was all that happy about it.”

“Why don’t we interview the placard swinger first and then look into the ex-husband?”

“I already set up an appointment,” said her uncle. “You’ll see him this afternoon. And now you better interview Alpin before he talks God into rescuing him from his cell.” He gave Odelia a wink. “Or talks to his lawyer, which is more likely.”

They both sat down in front of the irate publisher, who sat shackled to the table in the interview room. His hair was mussed and he was sporting a bloody nose and a black eye but otherwise appeared to have calmed down considerably since his run-in with Chase’s fist.

“Look, I can’t be in here,” he said the moment Odelia and Chase walked in. “I have meetings to attend—plus, I have to take my daughter to her ballet lesson and my son to his little league game—I’m also the trainer, you see, so I can’t afford to be late. A dozen kids are counting on me.”

“You should have thought of that before you assaulted a police officer,” said Chase gravely.

“I—I wasn’t thinking, okay?” asked the guy, running a hand through his red mane. “I just wanted to talk to Donna. She’s been fighting us on this wall issue for months and frankly I’m fed up.”

“What’s the story behind this wall?” asked Odelia.

Alpin sighed. “About a year ago Donna filed the necessary paperwork to build an extension on the west side of her current property, adjacent to mine. At first all she wanted was to build a gazebo, which was fine by me, even though it would have been right next to my pool. So I called her and asked her if she was going to throw parties at this gazebo or what? She said she was building it as a temple of solitude—a place for her to meditate in peace and quiet. So I gave her my blessing and said to knock herself out. Only she must have realized she wasn’t going to get a lot of peace and quiet if she was building this temple of solitude twenty yards from my pool, so she filed new plans, which included a twenty-foot wall!”

“That’s… high,” said Odelia.

The man scoffed, “You don’t say! That monstrosity was going to block out my sun. Right next to my pool! And then she came up with a plan to extend this wall all around her property, which would affect not just me but two of her other neighbors as well. And to make matters worse she was also going to cut an access road that is used by pretty much the entire neighborhood. So as you can imagine, the neighborhood association wasn’t too happy about this.”

“Did you try and talk her out of it?”

“Yes, I did. We all did. We organized a meet, but she never showed up. Instead, she sent her lawyer, who said we didn’t have a leg to stand on and that her client was adamant to go through with her plans regardless our protestations.”

“What did the council say?”

“Apparently they were all big fans of Donna’s cause they told us she had every right to put in place measures that would increase her sense of safety and security. There had been several threats made against the lady’s life and she was forced to tighten security measures.” He held up his hand. “Which I totally understand. But not at the expense of the entire neighborhood. I’m sure that if we could have sat down with Donna and talked things through, we could have made her see reason. Instead she chose to bulldoze her plans through and shove them down our throats!”

“And you weren’t having it.”

“Damn straight we weren’t having it!”

“So you killed her,” said Chase.

The man’s face morphed into an expression of shock. “Killed her?!”