Purrfect Model, page 5
It took some time, but from the hard mental work an idea was born, so brilliant in its simplicity it took his breath away. And as he picked up the phone, he was actually smiling to himself, knowing that it was the only course of action open to him. The only course of action any concerned husband could take.
CHAPTER 10
That evening we were all enjoying a nice evening in—though of course almost all of our evenings are evenings in—when a call came that, judging from the look on Odelia’s face, seemed more or less urgent and of a decidedly serious nature.
“Is it an art gallery?” asked Harriet excitedly. “Have they seen my painting and are they going to offer me an exhibition?”
“It’s probably the supermarket,” said Brutus, “telling Odelia that the cat food you ate is being recalled.”
“Haha,” I said. “Very funny, Brutus.”
“No, but I’m actually serious for once,” said Brutus. “It happens all the time, you know, that these big brands are forced to do a recall. Last week they had to recall an entire shipment of baby food, which turned out to contain arsenic.”
This time I gulped, for I had indeed heard similar rumors in the past. So was it now our turn to become the victims of the mysterious phenomenon of perfectly good food turning out not to be as safe as advertised?
But then Odelia said, “We’ll be there in five minutes, Uncle Alec,” and hung up.
I sighed with relief. Clearly it wasn’t the supermarket, unless Uncle Alec had lost his job and was temping there now.
“There’s been a burglary,” Odelia explained to Chase, who’d been watching a movie about World War II. The war quickly lost its appeal when the topic of a burglary came up, and he switched off the television and got up from the couch.
“Hey, I was watching that,” said Dooley plaintively. “Now I’ll never know who won the war.”
“Where?” asked Chase curtly, all business all of a sudden.
“Tucker Street,” said Odelia, then frowned. “Isn’t that where Jay and Laia live?”
“Let’s go,” said Chase, already on his way out the door.
“Now that’s a dedicated cop for you,” said Brutus proudly. “Even when spending a nice evening with his family he can’t wait to catch the bad guys.”
Grace, who’d been gurgling happily, now gurgled some more, reminding Odelia and Chase that they might be ardent investigators, but they were also parents, which came with certain responsibilities, like taking care of their kid.
“We’ll take her along with us,” said Odelia after a moment’s hesitation, and so it was a full contingent of Kingsleys that filed into Chase’s pickup, which is a lot nicer than Odelia’s. Of course it’s not his pickup, per se, since it belongs to the police department, and in that sense actually to the people of Hampton Cove.
“Maybe we should buy a new car,” Odelia now said as she held Grace on her lap, which probably isn’t the right way to travel with a child in a car. “A family car, you know. Like a Volvo, maybe?”
“A Volvo!” Chase cried, aghast at the mere mention of the V word.
“You know what I mean. A car where we can install a safety seat for Grace.”
“We can put her in the back,” Chase suggested.
Odelia glanced over her shoulder, through the steel mesh partition that was put in place to keep violent prisoners from attacking the driver, and shook her head. “I don’t think so, babe.”
Us cats, of course, didn’t have the benefit of such careful consideration, since all four of us were in the spot usually reserved for the bad guys that habitually ride in the back of Chase’s squad car after having been arrested for their crime.
At least we didn’t have to wear handcuffs.
“It doesn’t have to be a Volvo,” Odelia continued. “It could be a minivan.”
“A minivan!” Chase cried, as he took a firmer grip on the steering wheel.
“I mean, I love my old pickup, but maybe it’s time to trade it in.”
Grace must have sensed she was the topic of conversation, for she said, “Brmljgup,” and released a trail of drool that slid down her mom’s front.
“She has a funny way of communicating,” Brutus remarked.
“Yes, she does,” said Harriet. “Do all infants drool so much, Max?”
She seemed to think I was the expert on human infants. “I have no idea.”
“I think they do,” said Brutus. “At least the ones I’ve seen all have a problem keeping their saliva in their mouths.”
“I think it’s because they don’t have teeth,” said Dooley. “I saw a documentary once and it said that young humans are born without teeth, and that it takes months before they get them, and once they do, they lose them again, and then it takes years before they get their final ones. It’s all very complicated.”
“It’s no different for cats,” I said. “Kittens are also born without teeth. Only it doesn’t take months but weeks before they get them, and months before they get their permanent teeth.”
“Sounds like cats are a lot quicker off the mark,” said Brutus proudly.
“Well, I hope Grace gets her teeth soon,” said Harriet, “cause last night she drooled all over me. And the worst part was that I didn’t even notice until it was too late. I was practically standing in a puddle!”
It seemed to me that Harriet was slightly exaggerating, but I refrained from comment. After all, what did I know? Like I said, I’m not a baby expert. To me these small humans are very strange, and their behavior most puzzling.
We had finally arrived, and Chase parked behind a fellow officer’s squad car. Tucker Street used to be located in a bad part of town, but has been gentrifying, with many houses being torn down, and others being turned into apartments and lofts, all of them now available at a hefty premium, as is often the case.
The street itself had been partly excavated, and signs everywhere announced that ‘Tucker Street says NO to cobblestone!’ Or even ‘Cobblestone? NEVER!’
“What’s a cobblestone, Max?” asked Dooley, who had noticed the same thing.
“They’re a square sort of granite stone,” I said, “used to pave the streets.”
“They’re very inconvenient for cyclists,” said Harriet knowingly, as if she drove her bicycle up and down cobblestone streets all day long.
We all got out and picked our way across the excavated street to the scene of the action: several police officers stood milling about, shooting the breeze, and then we spotted Uncle Alec, who came walking up to us, wiping his brow, as if all the cares of the world were resting on his burly shoulders, as oftentimes they did.
“Why all the uniforms?” asked Chase. “Did the burglar get away?”
“Worse,” said the Chief as he pointed in the direction of a man who sat crouched next to what looked like a body. “He’s dead.”
“How did that happen?”
“He broke into one of those upstairs apartments,” said the Chief, pointing to the house in front of which the dead person was lying, “but as he was leaving he must have slipped and fallen and broken his neck. Or at least that’s what I think happened. I’m waiting for Abe to confirm.”
Abe is Abe Cornwall, the county coroner, and the man who’s called upon in situations like these to determine if a person is dead, and if so, what made them that way.
We walked up to the coroner as he worked his magic, and as he got up, with a distinct creaking of the knees, he scratched his scalp, from which an abundance of electric gray hair sprouted. “Well, looks like you’ve got yourself a dead one, Alec.”
“Yeah, I knew that already, Abe,” said Uncle Alec. “But did he fall or what?”
“That is certainly what it looks like. Dead on impact, I’d say.”
“Christ,” said the Chief as he gazed up at the windows of the house.
“Do we know what apartment he broke into?” asked Odelia.
“Yeah, one Jay Green,” said the Chief.
Odelia gasped, even as she rocked Grace in her arms. She’d turned the kid’s face away, so she didn’t have to see the unhappy burglar who met such a sad fate.
“That’s the couple I’ve been helping,” she said.
“Helping with what?” asked her uncle.
Ever since Odelia had her baby, her uncle hasn’t been all that keen on her working as a police consultant anymore, on account of the fact that he feels that a young mother shouldn’t put herself in danger. But of course Odelia being Odelia, she went right back to work the moment she could.
“Jay and his fiancée Laia are the victims of what looks like a harassment campaign by a stalker, and they’ve asked me to find out who’s behind it.”
“And? Who is behind it?”
“I’ve only just started to investigate, Uncle Alec.”
“Could be this guy right here,” he said, pointing to the dead burglar.
Just then, Laia came walking up to us, looking distinctly distressed.
“Oh, God,” she said. “One of the neighbors called us and told me that our loft had been broken into. We came home as soon as we could.”
“You were out?” asked the Chief a little gruffly, as if the girl was personally to blame for this burglary.
“Yeah, we were at the cinema,” said Laia, nodding. She glanced briefly at the man at her feet, then asked, in a tremulous sort of voice, “Is that… him?”
“I’m afraid it is,” said Odelia, her voice exuding a lot more warmth and sympathy than her uncle’s.
“Is he… dead?”
No one replied, since it was pretty obvious what the answer was. Instead, Uncle Alec said, “Would you say that anything was stolen, Miss…”
“Twine. Laia Twine.”
The Chief frowned. “Twine as in Algis Twine? The gambling king?”
Laia nodded with a touch of embarrassment. “He’s my dad.”
A window had opened upstairs, and Jay’s face appeared. “Sweetie—your necklace. It’s gone!”
“Oh, no!” said Laia, clutching a distraught hand to her neck. “Not my necklace!”
“What necklace is this?” asked Odelia.
“It’s a necklace I got from my mother. It’s worth a small fortune.”
“Are you sure it’s missing!” Uncle Alec shouted to the man upstairs.
“Yeah, I can’t find it anywhere!” Jay shouted back.
Uncle Alec grumbled something under his breath, then stomped in the direction of the door. “This is no way to conduct an investigation,” we could hear him mutter, and then he disappeared inside, ready to take Jay’s statement in connection with Laia’s priceless necklace.
I saw that Laia was staring down at the body of the burglar again, who lay face down on the gravel. “He must have taken it,” she said, her face white as a sheet.
Chase must have noticed the same phenomenon, for he quickly took her by the arm and led her away. “Let’s go inside, Miss Twine,” he said courteously.
“When… when can I have my necklace back?” she asked, as she staggered a little, leaning heavily on Chase’s arm now.
“As soon as the investigation is done,” Chase assured her.
“If Mommy finds out, she’ll kill me,” said Laia, and disappeared inside with Chase.
“Well, I guess that’s just about enough excitement for one evening,” said Abe as he stretched his weary form. He then told his people to wrap up the body and take it to the coroner’s office.
“When can Laia have her necklace back?” asked Odelia.
“Soon,” said Abe, looking a little distracted.
“You look tired, Abe,” said Odelia commiseratively.
“You wouldn’t believe my workload right now,” said the coroner. “My fridges are overflowing with stiffs. It’s as if they all made a pact to die in the same week.” Then he smiled at Odelia and poked a tender finger in Grace’s cheek. The kid took hold of the man’s frizzy hair and studied it, then giggled happily.
“She probably thinks it’s cotton candy,” said Odelia.
“Maybe it is!” said the coroner gamely.
Grace certainly enjoyed the moment, until she yanked at the man’s hair, hard, and he let out a yelp of pain. Looks like it wasn’t cotton candy after all.
“I’ll send my report to your uncle as soon as I can, all right?” he said, his mood slightly less exuberant. I guess nobody likes their hair being yanked, no matter how cute the perpetrator. And then he grabbed his coroner’s bag and was off, presumably working through the night to get on top of his workload.
“Better him than me,” said Odelia as she stared after the man.
“I don’t like that guy,” said Dooley. “He always smells funny.”
“That’s because he works with dead people all the time,” said Brutus with a slight grin. “He cuts them open and he removes their heart and liver and stomach and intestines and uses a buzz saw to drill a hole in their skull so he can scoop out their brains. And of course that kind of thing leaves a stench.” He brought his face close to Dooley’s. “The stench of death!” he added with a sort of ghoulish delight.
Dooley shivered. “Crikey!”
“Don’t worry, Dooley,” said Harriet with a reproachful look at her boyfriend. “I’m sure he washes his hands each time he cuts open a dead body.” She glanced up at Odelia. “So what are we still doing here? We know who stole the necklace. It was the dead guy who face-planted on the sidewalk. Mystery solved. Let’s go.”
“Not so fast,” said Odelia. “There’s a story here,” she explained. “A big story. I can smell it.” And then she, too, disappeared inside the apartment, presumably to get some more background information on the burglary.
Dooley stuck his nose in the air and sniffed. “I don’t smell anything,” he said.
“Which is probably a good thing,” I said. Like Harriet, I was ready to go home.
CHAPTER 11
Vesta had to admit this art class was absolutely her thing. There were plenty of friends and acquaintances present. People like Scarlett, of course, her best friend, but also Marge, and then there was Charlene Butterwick, practically her daughter-in-law, Vena Aleman, the vet, Blanche Captor, Dolores Peltz, Sarah Flunk, Bambi Wiggins, their mailwoman. Even Marcie Trapper was there, their neighbor. It was almost a who’s who of everyone who was anyone in Hampton Cove.
“Very cozy,” she told the man who was seated next to her. He was, in fact, the only male in attendance, apart from Chanda Chekhov, the teacher, a whiskered fella with lots of hair and a sort of laidback approach to the creation of art.
“Yes, it’s one of my favorite art classes,” the man returned politely.
His name was Gallagher Davenport, and he looked as much like an artist as any artist Vesta had ever seen: dressed in a sort of snazzy orange coat with frilly lace trimmings, and a green felt hat on his head, in spite of the fact that temperatures inside were soaring, to say the least. Probably on account of the nude male model who was supposed to put in an appearance any second now. No one needs a nude male model with goosebumps. It detracts from the appeal.
“Art runs in the family,” Vesta revealed, glad to find such a listening ear in this fellow artist. “My daughter is over there,” she explained, waving to Marge, who didn’t seem all that pleased with the presence of her mom for some reason. “And then of course my cat is an artist, as well.”
When the guy regarded her a little strangely, she took out her phone and showed him a video she’d shot just that afternoon of Harriet and Brutus hard at work creating their own unique brand of art.
The man sat up with a jerk as he took her phone and regarded the video with the sort of attention to detail your true art lover likes to see.
“But this is amazing, my dear lady,” he said finally. “And you say this is your cat?”
“Yeah, absolutely. That’s Harriet,” she explained, pointing to Harriet, who was standing on top of a chair giving directions. “And that’s Brutus. He’s doing the grunt work, and Harriet is guiding him. She’s the real artist in the family, see.”
“Absolutely amazing,” the man murmured as he seemed entranced by the spectacle.
“Bob Ross is Harriet’s personal favorite,” Vesta prattled on. “Harriet can watch Bob Ross any time, day or night. She simply never tires of watching the guy. I believe she considers him her role model and her guiding light as an artist.”
“It’s very soothing to watch two cats creating art like this,” her fellow student conceded. “Very soothing indeed.”
“Oh, absolutely,” said Vesta. “I watched them for half an hour this afternoon and I never had such a great nap.”
The man suddenly turned to her. “Say, my dear lady, how much for the two of them?”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, unprepared for the sudden turn the conversation had taken.
“How much do you want for both cats? They are a pair, correct? One is the creative genius and the other the executor?”
“My cats aren’t for sale, buddy,” she said, and yanked her phone from the man’s hands.
“I’ll give you a hundred bucks for the both of them.” And when she gave him a look of astonishment, he wrongly interpreted this as her driving a hard bargain, and quickly came back with, “Okay, two hundred bucks, but that’s my final offer.”
“Like I said, my cats are not for sale,” she reiterated with a touch of frostiness, and shook her head at this mercantile streak in one whom she’d considered a fellow creative.
Gallagher Davenport opened his mouth to make one final comment—perhaps raising his offer even more—but Chanda now cleared his throat, desiring speech.
“I have an announcement to make,” Chanda said. “I’m sorry to say that our model for the evening hasn’t shown up.” When loud cries of disappointment greeted his words, he hastened to add, “But I’ve arranged for a replacement. A man who has graciously agreed to fill in the void that our handsome young friend has left by his absence.” He now turned to the door, through which a man came walking, dressed in a dressing gown. “Fellow art lovers, please welcome… Tex!”
