Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Crime

Something occurred to Odelia. “How long have you lived here, Mrs. Cranberry?”

The woman smiled. “I moved in about six months after Donna moved in. Yes, I’m a stalker, Miss Poole, though not the dangerous kind, I can assure you.”

“And yet you sued Donna when the contraption you bought from her website malfunctioned, you joined the neighborhood protest against the wall she was building, and…” Chase leaned forward in his chair, tapping his notebook smartly. “… perhaps exacted your own kind of revenge when the lawsuit you filed against your idol was thrown out?”

Maureen shook her head decidedly. “I would never do that. I would never harm Donna. Ask anyone. I was her biggest fan and it pained me to have to file charges against her. I tried to get donna.vip to reimburse me and compensate me for the damage their steamer caused but they simply refused. Filing that suit was the only recourse I had to get my money back.”

“And you insist losing the lawsuit didn’t inspire you to take revenge in some other way?”

“It did not. Like I said, I would never do anything to hurt Donna. She was my role model, and not just mine. A lot of women looked up to her for advice and leadership. She was an amazing person. One of a kind.” She sighed deeply. “She will be sorely missed.”

Chase sat back. “Where were you this morning at seven, Mrs. Cranberry?”

“I was over at Alpin’s house. Alpin Carré? He’s the leader of the neighborhood association and was organizing the protest. We were preparing for the demonstration outside Donna’s house. We met at six as we still had a lot of ground to cover. Banners to prepare and signs to put together. Some of the other women brought cake and Alpin provided coffee and tea. We made a fun time of it. We finally set out to march on Donna’s house at nine.” She shook her head. “If only I’d known Donna had passed away, I would never have come.”

There was a sound from the next room, and Maureen sat up with a start.

“Is anyone else here?” asked Chase, his hand moving to his holster.

“No. I live all by myself,” said Maureen, a trembling hand moving to her lips.

Chase got up and moved over without making a sound, treading carefully. He’d taken out his gun and was aiming it in the direction of the noise. For a moment Odelia wondered if Donna’s killer was now coming after Donna lookalikes as well. She followed at a safe distance, Maureen right behind her, her hand on Odelia’s shoulder, as they slowly made their way to the next room.

“What’s in there?” Odelia whispered.

“The kitchen,” Maureen whispered back. Then she added, “I must have left the door open!”

That bit of information, coupled with the grunt of astonishment from Chase, told Odelia who the intruder was even before she’d reached the door and entered the kitchen.

Three cats sat looking up at them from the kitchen floor, with one cat seated on the kitchen counter, snacking on a very delicious-looking meatloaf: Max. When he finally noticed they were no longer alone, Max looked up, his face covered in crumbs of meatloaf. “Oops,” he said.

Chapter 20

For the rest of the day, I was confined to the house. House arrest, Odelia called it. Bummer. Luckily, Dooley had opted to stay behind and share my punishment. Harriet and Brutus, not surprisingly, had not. They were out and about somewhere, continuing their investigation. Harriet, after having supplied Odelia with the identity of the vajayjay woman, had become cocky, and now truly believed she was the second coming of Sherlock Holmes or something, and no longer needed my or Dooley’s assistance in solving this particularly heinous crime.

Good for her. If she didn’t need me, I certainly didn’t need her. But if she thought she could catch Donna’s killer, she was dead wrong. What she hadn’t grasped was that Maureen Cranberry was innocent, which meant she’d led Odelia and Chase on a wild goose chase.

At least I’d had some prime meatloaf. Whatever Maureen Cranberry’s faults, she prepared one mean meatloaf. The meat had been tender, succulent and tasty. Just the way I like it.

I opened one eye when Dooley’s insufferable snuffling told me he was somewhere nearby. He looked up at me expectantly. The moment Odelia had delivered the verdict, I’d plunked myself down in my usual spot on the couch and hadn’t moved from it. I swear, this diet was slowly killing me, not only robbing me of my physical strength but also of my will to live.

“What do you want, Dooley?” I grumbled, closing my one eye again.

“Aren’t we going to continue our investigation?” he asked excitedly.

“What investigation? If you hadn’t noticed, we’re grounded. We’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”

“But we have the computer! We can find clues, just like Harriet found that clue about the woman with her burnt business.”

I groaned. “If you hadn’t noticed, Dooley, that was a rubbish clue. Nothing came of it.”

“That’s because it was Harriet finding that clue,” he said cleverly. “But we’re not Harriet, Max. We’re the real sleuths in this household. If we put our minds to it, I’m sure we’ll find out more than Harriet ever could.”

I opened my eyes. Had Dooley just delivered an intelligent statement? I believed he had. And it was so unlike Dooley to make sense that I actually sat up and took notice. “What did you just say?”

“That we’re better sleuths than Harriet and Brutus?”

I nodded. “You have a point, Dooley. We are better sleuths. In fact we’re ace sleuths.”

Reluctantly, I abandoned my spot and jumped down from the couch. Dooley had already taken up position in front of the computer and I joined him. We both stared at the screen, which was black.

“So… how does this work, exactly?” I asked. I have to confess I’m not much of a computer cat. I love lying down on the keyboard when Odelia is working, and making sure she can’t see the screen, but that’s as far as my knowledge of computers goes, to be perfectly honest.

“Just do something, Max,” Dooley suggested. “If Harriet can do it, so can we.”

He was right, and his statement totally galvanized me. So did the fact that my tummy was full of that delicious meatloaf. Odelia might not like it when I eat my fill, but I certainly did. I took a stab at the keyboard and to my surprise the screen flickered to life.

“Hey! How did you do that?” asked Dooley.

“No idea. I just did this…” I stabbed at the keyboard again and some letters appeared on the screen.

“Oh, my God, Max. You can type!”

“Yes, I can!” I said enthusiastically, and stabbed at the keyboard some more. More letters appeared, forming one long word that didn’t make any sense. But it was something. We were going places! I decided to use the backspace key to remove all those funny symbols and start over. So I carefully typed in donna.vip and we landed on Donna’s website. There were a lot of funny things for sale there, so for the next half hour or so, Dooley and I had fun clicking through to the pages of all these items and reading the descriptions. There were those jade eggs Gran had ordered, and for the first time we understood they weren’t actual eggs but served an entirely different purpose. Something to do with pelvic muscles, whatever that was. And then there was Maureen Cranberry’s V-steamer, which appeared to be beneficial for personal hygiene and improved fertility.

“What’s fertility, Max?” asked Dooley.

“I think it’s a kind of plant.”

“Oh, right. Like a fern.”

“They must have misspelled ferntility.”

“Humans.”

“Yeah.”

There was a lot more stuff, and it was all weird and wonderful, sort of like the Discovery Channel. There was a prisoner’s ball and chain, a toothpaste squeezer, nipple clamps, very expensive paper wipes, a pouch with magically charged stones, gold dumbbells for weightlifting, a facial massager, a heated couch, and… the same kind of rocket that Odelia keeps in her bedside drawer but this one was made of gold. It was called a dildo and its purpose wasn’t immediately clear to me.