Purrfect Model, page 3
“Yeah, they pretty much cut me off,” said Laia. “Which is why I think it might be them. Trying to put pressure on me to dump Jay.” She clasped her fiancé’s arm. “Which I will never, ever do. We’re in love, and they’ll just have to accept it.”
“Okay, so did you talk to your parents about this?” asked Odelia. “The online orders, the flaming paper bag, the, um, gigolo thing?”
“I called Mommy, but she’s blocking my calls, and so is Daddy. So finally I dropped by the house, but they refused to let me in, or even to see me.”
“So you can’t be sure your parents are behind this?”
“No, but who else could it be?”
“We did say it might be Bud,” said Jay quietly.
“Bud wouldn’t do this,” said Laia. “He’s not crazy. Bud is my ex-boyfriend,” she explained. “He took it pretty hard when I broke up with him.” She darted a quick glance at her fiancé. “Or what about Loretta?”
But Jay shook his head determinedly. “Not a chance.”
“Who’s Loretta?” asked Odelia.
“My ex-girlfriend,” said Jay. “But I’m sure she’s got nothing to do with this.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think we should rule her out,” said Laia. She gave Odelia a hopeful look. “So can you help us, Mrs. Kingsley? Dan said you’re simply the best.”
“He said that, did he?” said Odelia laughingly. “Do you know Dan?”
“He’s a friend of the family.”
“Of course he is,” said Odelia as she tapped a thoughtful pencil against her notebook. Then she tore off a page and placed it before the young woman. “Can you write down the names and information of the people you just mentioned? Your ex-boyfriend, Jay’s ex-girlfriend… and your parents, of course.”
Laia’s face lit up with delight. “So you’ll take the case?”
“I’ll take the case,” said Odelia, and I could tell she was more than a little bit intrigued. As was I, I have to admit. I mean, what’s not to like? Mysterious packages, flaming paper bags containing dog doo-doo, and of course hot young bombshells who turn out to be Gran’s best friend Scarlett Canyon? Bring it on.
Dutifully Laia jotted down the names and contact details of the people she thought might be doing this to her and her fiancé, and handed it to Odelia.
Her only stipulation, when Jay mentioned fees, was that she could turn this into an article for the paper once the culprit was caught. And an interesting article it would be. Human interest and all that. Though it had stirred my feline interest, too.
CHAPTER 5
Odelia actually felt disproportionally glad that Jay and Laia had walked into the office. Ever since she’d had Grace, her usual workload had slackened to some extent, and to be honest she’d felt a little bored sitting at home and not being able to tackle a really juicy case the way she was used to.
And even though this case wasn’t exactly the biggest case she’d ever handled, it still inspired her to go out there and do her bit for the sake of a young couple’s future happiness. And if she could squeeze a great story out of it, even better.
So it was with a spring in her step that she breezed into the Hampton Cove police precinct and strode up to the reception desk. If it was true what Laia said and the police had given them the runaround, she wanted to know why that was.
Behind her, Max and Dooley had hardly been able to keep up, but they still tried, since it was obvious that they, too, were chomping at the bit to dig their teeth into a nice fat case again.
“Hey, honey,” Dolores rasped. The crusty receptionist wasn’t actually smoking a cigarette at that exact moment, but she had all the hallmarks of a woman who had just smoked one, smoker’s voice and all. “What brings you here?”
“I just had a young couple in my office who claim they’ve filed a complaint and were given the runaround by you,” said Odelia, not beating about the bush.
“Is that a fact?” said Dolores, not impressed. “Who’s the couple?”
“Jay Green and Laia Twine. They’ve been getting parcels sent to them that they didn’t order, and Jay’s name is out there advertising him as a gigolo, when he’s anything but.” She gave Dolores a quizzical look. “Any of that ring a bell?”
“Yeah, now that you mention it, I think it does,” she said, nodding. “Handsome young guy? The artistic type?”
“Yep, that’s him.”
“Honey, they’re yanking your chain. The guy is obviously a gigolo, only he’s afraid to tell his girl, and so he made up this cockamamie story about a stalker being after him or whatever.”
“So what about these shipments that keep arriving? All of it stuff they never ordered but are expected to pay for?”
“Nonsense. Did you take a good look at the guy? I’m sure he’s very successful at what he does, and so the women who pay for his services send him tons of gifts. Nothing wrong with that.”
“What’s wrong is that these companies are expecting him to pay.”
But Dolores didn’t look convinced. “Oh, come on. That’s the story he’s been telling his girl. Of course he can’t admit he’s been getting gifts from his clients, so he made up this cock and bull story about some stalker.” She shrugged her bony shoulders, almost pulling them up to her ears. “Let her figure it out for herself is what I say. If she wants to be hoodwinked by her boyfriend, that’s her business.”
“He also mentioned something about a paper bag of doo-doo on his doorstep.”
Dolores laughed a raspy laugh. “One of his clients must be really unhappy with him, huh! Guess he didn’t give her what she wanted. Happens all the time.” And then she laughed some more, the story obviously having tickled her funny bone. When she saw that Odelia wasn’t joining in the merriment, she finally pulled herself together and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Look, if you want my advice, I’d tell the kid to come clean. The sooner he does, the better. And if this girl really loves him, she’ll forgive him. And if not? Well, he’s only got himself to blame, right?”
Just then, the phone belted out a musical tone, and she held up a finger as she picked up. Looked like the conversation was over.
Odelia turned away and glanced in the direction of the swinging door that led to the heart of the police precinct. Should she bother her uncle with this? Or Chase? But then she decided not to. If what Dolores said was the official police line, they weren’t going to be much help. And besides, this was her case. Her story, and she had to decide if Jay Green was a gigolo and a liar, or if he was for real, and he did indeed have a stalker issue.
So instead of barging into her uncle’s office, she headed back out, two cats hot on her tail.
“What did she say?” asked Dooley. “Why didn’t she take Laia’s story seriously?”
“Dolores thinks that Jay really is a gigolo,” she said as she stood conferring with herself on the sidewalk, figuring out her next course of action.
Dooley promptly turned to Max. “What’s a gigolo, Max?”
“Um…” was Max’s eloquent response. “Well…” He gave Odelia a strained look.
She crouched down and tickled Dooley under the chin. “A gigolo is a man who keeps lonely women company,” she explained. “Women who have no husband but still want to enjoy the company of a man, and so they pay him for the privilege.”
“Oh, so he’s like a nurse?”
She grimaced. “Yeah, something like that.”
Max mouthed, ‘Thank you,’ and she gave him a wink.
CHAPTER 6
Bud Zuk, Laia’s ex-boyfriend, turned out to be the tennis pro at our local tennis club. He was certainly dressed like a tennis pro, in white tennis shorts and shirt, swinging his tennis racket like he meant business. He also had one of those funny wristbands on his left wrist, but I saw that his right wrist was bandaged up.
“Had an accident?” Odelia asked the moment we sat down with the guy in the club canteen.
He held up the damaged appendage and studied it for a moment, as if contemplating an alien object. Finally he said, “Just a light sprain. The doc says it should be fine in no time. And I intend to hold him to that promise!” He laughed, flashing two rows of perfect white teeth.
All in all he was a very attractive young man, fully tanned and looking very fit.
“I don’t think he sprained that arm, Max,” said Dooley, who sat next to me underneath Odelia’s chair. We’d both tucked in our tails, so as not to make them a prime target for any passersby. Humans do love to trample on a cat’s tail, you see. Must be some innate taste for the sadistic.
“You don’t?” I asked.
“I think he burned it when he was putting that burning bag of dog doo-doo on Laia and Jay’s porch.”
“It’s possible,” I conceded.
“By the way, how do we know that doo-doo belonged to a dog?” my friend now added to his musings. “It could have been cat doo-doo.”
“Considering there was a lot of it,” I said, “it’s safe to assume that excrement was of canine origin. Cats don’t produce that much, you see.”
“It could have been human doo-doo. Humans produce a lot of doo-doo.”
“That’s true,” I admitted. “Humans are indeed big doo-doo producers.”
“They should have taken a DNA test down at the station when Jay brought the doo-doo in for questioning.”
“I don’t think he ever did take the bag into the police station,” I said. “And he certainly didn’t take it in for questioning, Dooley. I mean, how does one question a bag of doo-doo, whether human, canine or feline?”
“No, I see your point,” he conceded. “It’s hard to question doo-doo, isn’t it?”
But the notion of taking a DNA sample was a valid point, and one I made a mental note of to relay to Odelia once this interview was over. If Laia and Jay had kept the bag as evidence, of course, which might not be the case.
“So you’ve been talking to Laia, huh?” said the tennis pro, casually leaning back and nursing a soda. He smiled a wistful smile. “How is she these days? Doing well, I trust?”
“Like I said, she’s the victim of a harassment campaign,” Odelia reminded him.
“Yeah, you mentioned that,” said the pro. Then he frowned, and it was obvious that the penny had finally dropped. “She’s not accusing me, is she?”
“She mentioned you in passing,” said Odelia smoothly. “She claims you took it pretty hard when the relationship ended.”
“Well, she’s right about that. I did take it pretty hard.” He shrugged. “Then again, these things happen, and I’ve put the whole thing behind me. I mean, did I think we were meant to be together? Sure. Absolutely. Which just goes to show: you just never know. But life will throw you these curveballs sometimes.”
“Had you been together long?”
“Didn’t she tell you? Laia and I have known each other since we were kids. Our parents are best friends, you see. Have been for years. My dad is president of the club, and Laia’s dad is his treasurer. And I guess they thought we’d end up together one day, and when we did, it made the old buzzards very happy.”
“But it wasn’t to be.”
“No, it wasn’t to be. Jay Green arrived on the scene, and Laia took a shine to him, and suddenly her childhood friend was old news.” He spoke with a touch of bitterness, I noticed, even though he tried to keep his tone light and cheerful.
“So how do you feel about Jay?” asked Odelia.
“Oh, I think he’s probably a great guy, and a great artist, otherwise Laia wouldn’t have chosen him as her boyfriend. But apart from that…” He toyed with a paper umbrella that someone had left on the table in front of him. “Look, I don’t really know the guy, okay? We don’t exactly move in the same circles.”
“How did Laia and Jay meet? Do you know?”
“No, to be honest I don’t. One day she just told me out of the blue that she’d met this artist fellow and that she was breaking up with me, and that was that.”
“That must have upset you a great deal.”
He flashed her another smile. “It was a painful experience, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to turn psycho and start harassing them. I’m not that kind of guy.”
“You’re sure you didn’t leave a bag of flaming… excrement on your ex-girlfriend’s doorstep?”
He shook his head decidedly. “Absolutely not. Such poor taste.”
“Or sign Jay up for a dating site, promoting him as some kind of gigolo?”
This time he actually laughed out loud. “Oh, my God, that’s the funniest thing I ever heard! That actually happened?”
“Yes, it did. Jay gets messages and calls from strange women, wanting to engage his services.”
He gave Odelia a clever look. “Are you sure he’s not secretly a gigolo, and when Laia found out he made up this story about being harassed?”
“That’s what the police think,” Odelia admitted. “But not what Laia believes.”
He took another sip from his drink. “She always was too naive for her own good. I’ll bet you this guy Jay is bad news, and now that Laia is caught in his web, he’ll do anything to keep her.” He arched a meaningful eyebrow. “Her family is loaded, you know. Her parents made their money by launching one of the first online gambling sites. Last I heard they’re billionaires. And I don’t know if this is a coincidence or not, but Jay Green popped onto the scene exactly one week after Time Magazine devoted an article to Algis Twine, calling him the original cyberbillionaire, long before anyone had even heard of such a thing.”
“So you think Jay is stringing Laia along.”
He held up his hands. “Awfully big coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”
“Okay, but let’s assume for a moment that Jay isn’t a gigolo, and that he really is the victim of a harassment campaign. Can you think of anyone who could be behind this?”
He drew a wrinkle between his brows for a moment, then nodded thoughtfully. “Have you talked to Loretta Everyman?”
Odelia consulted her notes. “Jay’s ex-girlfriend?”
“Yeah. Real piece of work. Real skank, if you catch my drift.”
“How do you know so much about Jay?”
That clever look was back. “The moment Laia told me she had a new boyfriend, I made it my business to find out more about him. Laia has always been my best friend, Mrs. Kingsley, and even though she broke up with me, that doesn’t change the way I feel about her. Look, frankly I was worried about her. I still am.”
“So you hired a private detective to spy on Jay?”
“No, nothing like that. I just asked around, and let me tell you: the stories I heard weren’t good. But when I confronted Laia with them, she said I was just being jealous. So for my own sense of self-preservation I decided to step back.”
“Very noble of you.”
“I know,” he said, not catching the irony. “But hey, even though I adopted a hands-off approach, I still worry. How can I not? I care for Laia. Always have, always will.” He nodded. “She’s a great gal, and Jay Green doesn’t deserve her.”
CHAPTER 7
“For a man who says he has no hard feelings toward his ex-girlfriend Bud sure has a lot of hard feelings toward his ex-girlfriend,” Dooley remarked as we climbed back into Odelia’s battered old pickup.
“You’re right about that, Dooley,” said Odelia as she tapped her keys against the steering wheel. She turned to us. “So what did you think? Could he be involved? Or is Jay hoodwinking his girlfriend, like Bud says?”
“Hard to tell,” I said. “One thing’s for sure, Bud holds a serious grudge against Jay.”
“Yeah, I got that impression, too.”
“I don’t think he was being fair,” said Dooley. “A gigolo provides a very important service to humanity. With all those lonely women out there, it’s very decent and very kind of him to provide some company to all those ladies.”
I shared a smile with Odelia. “It’s not a given that Jay really is a gigolo,” said Odelia. “He claims he isn’t, so there’s that.”
“He’s probably one of those discreet benefactors,” said Dooley. “Who do a lot of good but don’t want people to know about it. You know, like a modern saint.”
This time Odelia actually had to laugh, earning her a confused look from Dooley.
“We better have a chat with this…” She consulted her notes again. “Um, Loretta Everyman.”
“What’s a skank, Odelia?” asked Dooley, without missing a beat. “Is that like a skunk? Cause I saw a documentary about skunks on the Discovery Channel and when they get scared they spray you with something very smelly.”
“A skank is a not-so-pleasant person,” I said. “Perhaps a little sleazy.”
“Do you think Loretta Everyman will spray us with something very smelly when she doesn’t like us? Cause I just finished grooming myself, you know.”
“No, I don’t think Loretta will spray us with something smelly,” I said.
Odelia cranked her car in gear and backed out from between a Tesla and a BMW. These tennis club people sure had a lot of money to spend on cars.
“Maybe one of these days you should buy yourself a new car,” I suggested, not for the first time.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she said with a sigh. Then had to use all her strength to yank hard at the wheel, making sure she didn’t hit a nice Porsche.
I guess back when they made her pickup—in the Stone Age, I mean—they hadn’t invented power steering yet, and expected people to develop extra muscles to make their cars go where they wanted them to go. Then again, Odelia is plenty strong. If you can squeeze an entire infant out of your tummy, you have to be.
Loretta Everyman worked the counter at our local supermarket. No, not the General Store, where our friend Kingman is more or less in charge, but the supermarket located in the strip mall on the road into town.
Loretta was hard at work sliding her customers’ wares along the scanner when we approached.
“Could I have a quick word, perhaps?” Odelia suggested, placing a can of cat food on the counter, which was an excellent choice indeed. “Jay Green told me to talk to you,” she clarified when Loretta stared at her, uncomprehending. At the mention of her ex-boyfriend, a sort of dark cloud slid across the young woman’s face and she grunted, “I have no idea who that is.” She picked up the can of cat food, scanned it and slammed it down again. “That’ll be one ninety-nine.”
