Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Crime

So I skewered the meatball from between the two buns with one nail and popped it into my mouth. Yummy. Then I went looking for a second meatball, which I hoped was in there somewhere.

“Max! Someone’s coming!” Dooley suddenly yelled. “Too late!”

“What are you guys doing in here?” asked Odelia, entering the office at a trot. She picked up a file from the desk and glanced down at me. She took one look at the meatball sub—now sans meatball—and her brows knitted into a frown. “Max! You’re cheating on your diet again!”

“No, I’m not,” I said.

She planted a hand on her hip. “I can see the sauce dripping from your lips, Max.”

Oops. I quickly swiped my tongue along my lips. “There. All gone,” I said, then burped.

She shook her head. “Oh, Max. What am I going to do with you?”

“I told him he shouldn’t!” Dooley said.

“Tattletale!” I hissed.

“Come on, you two,” said Odelia. “We don’t have time for this. We’re about to interrogate Dexter Valdès.”

She ushered us out of the office and closed the door. I could have told her this wasn’t necessary, as I’d already determined there wasn’t a second meatball inside that sub. Uncle Alec must have dug it out and eaten it himself.

We followed Odelia down the corridor and then into a small room, where a mirror offered a view of a second, even smaller room. We hopped up on the table at Chief Alec’s instigation and made ourselves comfortable while Odelia joined Chase in the next room and sat down across from Dexter Valdès. In my personal opinion the man only barely resembled Ricky Martin. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks stubbled and his hair unkempt. He might have been younger, but right now he looked like a much seedier and disheveled version of the fabled Latino heartthrob and hit sensation.

“So, Dexter,” said Chase, opening the proceedings, “you hate Donna Bruce so much you’re happy she’s dead, huh?”

The man seemed a lot less vocal about his hatred of Donna Bruce than before. He gave Chase a wary look. “Look, dude, when I said that I didn’t really mean it.”

“Oh, backpedaling are we?”

“You had a fight at Pier’s Pont just now,” said Odelia. “When the owner called the police you were trying to shove a billiard ball down the throat of another patron, telling him your wiener was the biggest wiener in wiener history. Is that correct?”

Dexter nodded. “That sounds about right. In my defense, he made fun of my wiener.”

“Could this be related to the article Donna wrote about your wiener?” asked Chase.

“It’s got everything to do with that article,” Dexter confessed. “If she hadn’t written that article my life wouldn’t have turned into a vaudeville act. Now everyone is making fun of my wiener. I haven’t even had a girlfriend in months, all because of that damn article.”

“So you did hate Donna Bruce, and you did want to kill her,” said Chase.

The man threw up his arms. “How would you feel when someone shared the size of your wiener with the world, dude?”

“I’d feel comfortable enough in my own skin not to let it bother me,” said Chase.

“Bullshit. No man likes to have his wiener become the butt of a joke. I suffered, all right? And that’s just what she wanted. My wiener isn’t tiny. At least not as tiny as she made it out to be. My wiener is just fine. In fact my wiener is nothing short of majestic and I can prove it.” He got up and started removing his pants, which was a little hard to do with the handcuffs restricting his movements. Chase pushed him down in his seat again.

“Sit down, buddy,” the burly cop said. “I’m not interested in the size of your junk. All I want is for you to tell me where you got those bees and how you got them into Donna’s house.”

The man’s eyes widened. “Bees? What are you talking about?”

“You stole those bees and then you transported them to Donna’s house. How did you know how to handle them?”

“But I don’t know anything about bees.” Then understanding seemed to dawn on him. “Oh, you think I killed Donna? With bees? Are you nuts?”

“No, but I think you are if you’re going to claim you’re innocent. You practically confessed to murdering your ex-girlfriend. Now all we need to establish is how you did it.”

“But I didn’t kill her!”

“You just told us you did!”

“No, I didn’t! I just said I’m happy she’s dead. I would never hurt anyone—least of all Donna. She might have written all that stuff about my wiener but I genuinely liked her. We had a great time together.” He squinched his eyes closed. “Look, dude. I say a lot of dumb shit, but that doesn’t mean I mean any of it.”

“Then tell me where you were at seven this morning, when Donna was murdered.”

“At Pier’s Pont, of course, where you guys picked me up.”

“You expect me to believe you hang around at bars at such an early hour?”

“No, I expect you to believe I hang around at bars at such a late hour. I’d been there all night. Just ask Johnny, the bartender. He knows my face. I’m a regular.”

“Johnny Dusky,” Chase muttered, checking his notes. “That would be the guy who called in the altercation.”

“Yeah, I think he got annoyed when I started rearranging the furniture,” Dexter said with a grin.

Dooley gave me a nudge. “Looks like the guy didn’t do it, Max.”

“Looks like you’re right,” I agreed. “Another dead end, huh?”

“We seem to be running into a lot of dead ends lately, Max. Do you think we’re losing our touch?”

“It’s this diet. It’s making me feel weak. I can’t think straight when I’m hungry, and I’m hungry all the time.”

“You just had a giant meatball!”

“Just the one, though. I could eat ten giant meatballs and still feel hungry.”

Just then, two more cats joined us. They were Harriet and Brutus.

“You guys!” Harriet yelled, gracefully jumping up on the desk. “I know who killed Donna!”

“You do?” I asked.

“She does,” said Brutus proudly, also joining us. “We figured it out together, didn’t we, sugar pie?”

“We sure did, scrunchy munch.”

“So?” asked Dooley. “Who did it?”

“Maureen Cranberry!”

Dooley and I exchanged a puzzled glance. “Who’s Maureen Cranberry?” I asked.

“She’s a woman who filed charges against Donna Bruce for burning her… you know.”

Curiouser and curiouser. “No, I don’t. Burning her what?”

She leaned in, and faux-whispered, “Her business!”

“What business?” asked Dooley.

Harriet heaved an exaggerated sigh. “She bought one of those vajayjay steamers and accidentally burned her vajayjay.”

“What’s a vajayjay?” asked Dooley.

“A woman’s business!”

Dooley turned to me. “I don’t get it, Max.”

I had to admit I didn’t get it either. Harriet was now definitely speaking in riddles. Just then, Odelia and Chase walked out of the interview room, while Dexter was led out by a uniformed officer, probably to cool off in one of the cells. “Hey, Harriet—Brutus,” said Odelia. “What’s up?”

“We found the killer!” Harriet cried.

“Yeah, it’s a woman who burned her business on a vajayjay steamer,” I said. “Whatever that is.”

“Maureen Cranberry,” Harriet clarified. “I found her name after a long and very thorough Internet search. She ordered one of Donna’s vajayjay steamers and ended up burning her business so she sued Donna for damages and extreme emotional suffering and trauma. She lost, though, but I’m sure she’s still very sore.”

Odelia smiled. “I’ll bet she is.”

Chase frowned. “Who are you talking to?”