Ник Сайнт - Purrfectly Deadly

“Well, if the shoe fits…” riposted Whitehouse gruffly.

“If your niece finds herself in a pickle, I’d say she’s the one responsible. Not me—not anyone else in the Yard—she and she alone!”

“So she is a suspect?”

“Of course she’s a suspect!” he yelled. “She was meeting some guy at the time of the murder and refuses to tell me who he is and why they were meeting. Innocent people don’t refuse to share this kind of information!”

Even before he’d finished talking, he knew he’d said too much. He was giving this man critical information from his investigation. This odd American who proclaimed to come after anyone who harmed his niece.

“I see,” grunted Chief Whitehouse. “In that case, I’ll have a word with my niece. I’m going to extract this piece of information from her, Watley, and then I’m going to share it with you. Together we’re going to crack this case!”

Watley massaged his temple. “Please don’t interfere with my investigation.”

“Don’t worry, buddy, I won’t. I’m just going to talk to Harry, that’s all. Get her to spill the beans.” He barked a curt laugh. “I like this, Watley. I like this intercontinental cooperation we’ve got going here. Just like old times.”

“Please. Sir. I really don’t need your help,” he said curtly.

“You don’t have to thank me, Watley. Just doing what needs to be done!”

“I’m not thanking you, and nothing needs to be done!” he cried.

“How would you feel,” the other man rumbled, “if you had an orphaned niece, living all alone in a big city, her boss murdered, and no one around to help her? No family, no job, no future prospects, hounded by the cops…”

“Hey! I’m not hounding your niece!”

“I’m going to get to the bottom of this and then I’ll get back to you, Watley. Can I call you Darian?”

“No, you may not!”

“Great. Just call me Curtis. Much appreciated, Darian. And say hi to your mom and dad, will you? My wife still raves about those dinner parties.”

“Wait—you can’t do this!”

“Good day to you, too,” the chief growled, and promptly disconnected.

Watley stared at his phone. What the hell had just happened? But then he knew exactly what had happened. For some nebulous reason, he’d just been coerced into an intercontinental investigation into the Buckley murder.

“God,” he groaned as he raked a hand through his dark mane. Just what he needed right now. Some gung-ho small-town cop to add to his problems.

He quickly rose again and swept from his office. Before her uncle started throwing his weight about, he was going to make Henrietta McCabre talk, and he was going to do it now. He didn’t care that she was an orphan, she was going to tell him exactly what had happened under that underpass.

Chapter Five

Ten minutes later, he was chauffeuring his car through London morning traffic, en route to Valentine Street, where Henrietta McCabre was apparently housed. When he arrived, and finally managed to find a parking space, he strode up to the house and pressed his finger on the bell. He hadn’t told her he was coming, lest she made up some excuse. When he heard her melodious voice inquire about his identity, he barked, “Inspector Watley, Miss McCabre. I have a few more questions for you if you don’t mind.”

Whitehouse might call this hounding. He called it proper police work.

After a brief pause, she buzzed him in, and he found himself in the narrow hallway of a clean-looking house. She called from upstairs, “Second floor, Inspector!” and he grunted and started to make his way up the stairs.

When he arrived on the landing, he saw that she’d changed into something less sodding wet than the day before. A pair of pink linen pants and bright yellow linen shirt. It became her. She was an attractive young woman, he had to admit, but then he’d noticed that already when he’d interviewed her before.

With her short bob of blond hair, fair complexion and lithe frame she looked anywhere between eighteen and twenty-five, though he knew from her file she was, in fact, twenty-three. Her nose tilted up at the tip, and her eyes were large and of a remarkable golden hue. All in all, she looked entirely too pretty to be a suspect, and he really couldn’t imagine she was involved in anything as nasty as murder. But then if his years in the Yard had taught him anything it was that looks could be deceiving. For all he knew here stood a cold-blooded accomplice to murder.

“Pancake, Mr. Watley?”

“Inspector Watley. No, thank you, Miss McCabre. I never eat when I’m on duty.”

“Suit yourself,” she said, inviting him in. “I just baked up an entire batch. Didn’t know what else to do, to be honest. Being out of a job and all.”

The smell of freshly baked pancakes did indeed waft invitingly from the small space. Small but cozy, he thought as he briefly inspected the living room with TV nook and kitchen nook. It was airy and light, and the color scheme was the same as her clothes: lots of bright pinks and yellows.

“I just got a call from your uncle,” he said, opening the proceedings.

She halted in her tracks. “My uncle?”

“Chief Whitehouse of the Happy Bays Police Department. He seems to be under the impression you need protecting from the big bad policeman.” He grimaced and pointed at himself. “From me, in fact.”

Her face reddened slightly. It became her well, he thought, before instantly stomping on this thought. She was a suspect. Nothing more.

“Oh, I’m so sorry about that,” she murmured, looking mortified.

“I can’t imagine that you are. I mean, you must have told him, right? You must have called him last night and asked him to put in a word on your behalf.”

She frowned. “No, I didn’t. Well, not directly. I mean, I called my cousin. But all I asked her was if her dad knew someone at Scotland Yard.”

“And now he does know someone at Scotland Yard. And you do, too.”

“I meant someone I could talk to about…” she gestured ineffectually. “…stuff.”

He pulled out a chair in the kitchen nook and took a seat. “Let’s cut to the chase, Miss McCabre.”

“Harry, please.”

“Where are you on your alibi, Miss McCabre?”

She gulped slightly. “My… alibi?”

“Yes. Remember I asked you where you were yesterday between three and four and you failed to inform me? Now perhaps, after mulling it over, you might be able to elucidate me? Or did your uncle advise you not to disclose this information?”

A blush mantled her cheeks. “My uncle said no such thing. I haven’t spoken to him in ages.”

“Oh, that’s right. You spoke to your cousin,” he said skeptically.

“Look, I could tell you where I was,” she said with a shake of the head as she flipped another pancake onto a plate, “but I’d rather not, you see?”

“No, I don’t see. This is very serious matter, Miss McCabre.”

She smiled. “Why don’t you just call me Harry? All my friends do.”

“I’m not your friend, Miss McCabre. I’m a Scotland Yard inspector investigating a murder,” he insisted. “And what I’m most interested in right now is ascertaining where you were yesterday between three and four. In other words, around the time your employer was brutally murdered.”

She sighed. “Look, you’ll probably think this is all very silly, but if I tell you where I was… There’re other people involved, see? I mean, if it were just me, I’d tell you where I was in a heartbeat, but it’s not just me, is it?”

“Who else is involved?” he asked, following her movements with an interested eye. Those pancakes really did smell quite delicious.

“I can’t tell you! That’s just the point! Look,” she said, taking a seat at the table across from him, “Mr. Buckley did some of his deals, erm, well, under the table. I mean, they weren’t exactly shady deals or anything like that, it’s just that his clients preferred… discretion, I guess you could say.”