Purrfect Bachelor, page 6
Harriet gulped, and so did Brutus. “Not the pound!” Brutus cried.
And there ended Harriet’s dream of becoming outrageously rich by selling bitcoin to unsuspecting people. It worked for Elon Musk, but clearly it wasn’t gonna work for her.
Oh, hell and damnation!
Chapter 14
Dunc Hanover was hard at work in his atelier. His main claim to fame were his life-sized papier-mâché figures. They were colorful, lifelike, and had brought him all over the world, in museums and exhibitions from New York to Paris or even Lisbon, Portugal, where they had a particular predilection for his remarkable and original work.
His atelier, basically an old glue factory that had been turned into lofts, was located on the outskirts of town, and it was where he was always happiest. He could have worked from home, of course, but ever since he’d become engaged, his future wife preferred if he kept their home life and his professional life separate.
And he didn’t blame her. Like a lot of artists, he had a tendency to get a little obsessed when he was working, and forget not only about his surroundings but even himself: he forgot to eat, take a bath, get dressed. He could easily go for days with only the bare minimum of personal care, and that wasn’t the kind of thing a loving partner enjoyed.
So when he was working on his next project, he liked to do it here, and make sure Justina didn’t have to fret when he waltzed through the living room looking like a scarecrow. She knew that he always came out of these periods of frenzied creativity, and when he did, he was like any regular Joe. It was the life they’d made for themselves, and they were both more than happy with it, even though other couples might not be.
He stood back and inspected the latest model he’d been working on. It didn’t quite look the way he imagined it yet. The chicken-wire framework was there, and now he had to start draping large pieces of papier-mâché onto that, before letting those dry, and then the next part could begin: applying his trademark bright coloring. And when that was done, a final thick layer of varnish added the finishing touch.
A noise had him look up in surprise. When he glanced over, and saw who his visitor was, he frowned. He didn’t like to be disturbed when he was working. It took him out of his creative flow. “What are you doing here?” he grumbled, his eye having turned back to size up the next challenge. And then he had it: the frame was too big. Too large. Of course. And he probably would have set about to fix the proportions if not a heavy object had come crashing down on the back of his skull.
Moments later he was spread out on the floor.
Chapter 15
Odelia had picked up her husband in town, and together we made our way to the atelier where according to his fiancée we would be able to find Dunc Hanover, the well-known artist. I’m saying well-known even though I’d never heard of him. But since he had a Wikipedia page, and on this Wikipedia page it said he was famous, I guess it must be true, since Wikipedia never lies, does it?
“So let me get this straight,” said Chase, who was riding shotgun for once. “It wasn’t Jona Morro who drove the car that fateful night, but Dunc Hanover?”
“According to the notebook that Jefferson Gusta kept it was Hanover,” said Odelia.
“And Gusta fixed up the car the next morning, and got rid of any evidence that Hanover had been involved in a hit and run with deadly consequences.”
“What I don’t get is how this notebook suddenly turned up thirteen years after the fact, and who hand-delivered it to Kristina.”
“We better have a little chat with Gusta later.”
“Gran also called.”
Chase smiled. “Reporting from her undercover mission, is she?”
“Yeah, turns out that Jona Morro was the one behind the bitcoin business. He’d told Omar to collect money from his clients to invest in their bitcoin fund, but to keep everything off the books. Omar thinks he needed the money to pay back a gambling debt. He claims that his business partner owed money to the wrong people, and that’s why he was killed yesterday.”
“We better look into that as well. So that would mean that Morro’s death isn’t connected to the Careens.”
“According to Omar Wissinski, at least.”
“Pity Morro isn’t around anymore to confirm or deny.”
We’d arrived at the old factory building that had been turned into fancy lofts, and Odelia parked in front of the building. “Nicely done,” she said as we approached.
And they had indeed done a great job. They’d kept the red brick, but had completely remodeled the building, and added all the modern conveniences your homeowner likes, like a video intercom and a state-of-the-art elevator. It all looked very expensive.
“I wonder how much these lofts go for,” said Chase as we waited for Mr. Hanover to buzz us in.
“Why? Are you in the market for a loft?” asked Odelia.
Chase shrugged. “Just curious.” He frowned when no response came, and pressed the bell once more. “Looks like our Mr. Hanover isn’t home,” he finally announced. He pressed more bells, and finally someone buzzed us in, probably just to get rid of the noise.
We entered and the elevator soon whisked us up to the top floor, where the artist had taken up residence.
When we arrived, the steel door was ajar, and so we pushed our way inside. It was a spacious loft. In fact it looked as if it comprised the entire floor, which was enormous.
“Hello!” Chase called out, and his voice echoed in the vast space. Above us, slanted windows offered a view of a blue sky, and around us, large sculptures testified to the presence of the artist.
“They’re papier-mâché,” Odelia explained as we studied one. The work of art was bigger than Chase, and was very colorful. It also shone as if it had been freshly varnished. “It’s Dunc Hanover’s claim to fame. I once interviewed him, and he’s very proud of his work. Says it’s his ambition to create at least a thousand of these figures in his lifetime.”
There were dozens of them spread around the atelier, like sentinels standing guard. They reminded me of that army a Chinese emperor was once buried with, though they had been made of terracotta, and not papier-mâché, of course.
We ventured further into the artist’s space, and soon came upon what looked like a brand-new installation. Several half-finished figures stood at attention, and a few that were only in their initial stages and consisted of what looked like chicken wire sculpted into the shape of a human. As I understood, this was the framework the paper was to be draped on.
And then I saw it: one of those chicken-wire figures was half-finished, with pieces of wet paper stuck to them. Only when I looked at the head, it looked very lifelike indeed. Too lifelike, in fact. For inside the frame, a real person was standing… and he looked very much dead to me!
“Odelia!” I cried, pointing to the figure.
“Oh, my God!” she said, and she and Chase quickly hurried over. But when Chase felt the man’s pulse by pressing his fingers into his neck, he shook his head.
“He’s gone,” he said as he stepped back.
Fifteen minutes later, the place was buzzing with activity. Abe Cornwall had arrived with his team, and they were dusting the area for prints, looking for DNA evidence, and checking the body.
“Well, he’s dead, all right,” said Abe finally. He removed his plastic gloves.
“How did he die?” asked Odelia.
“Too soon to tell. First we have to get him out of that… thing.” He frowned. “What is it?”
“One of his papier-mâché figures,” said Odelia. “He was famous for them.”
“Looks like the killer has a warped sense of humor,” said Abe. “He seems to have wanted to turn the artist into one of his works of art.”
Just then, a loud voice called out, “Oh, my God! What’s happened!”
We all turned, and found ourselves looking into the familiar face of Omar Wissinski.
“What are you doing here, Mr. Wissinski?” asked Chase, none too friendly.
“I just got a call from Dunc,” said Wissinski. “He said he was getting married!”
Chase and Odelia took the insurance broker aside, out of sight of his friend’s dead body. He looked very much stricken, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he hadn’t yet fully recovered from that thump on the head he’d received the day before.
“Dead?” asked Omar. “But I-I don’t understand.”
“We think he was killed,” said Chase, never afraid to be the bearer of bad news.
“Killed! But why? And by who?”
“We don’t know yet. So tell me, why are you here?”
“I told you. Dunc said he was getting married.”
“So you came to congratulate him? Suggest to be his best man? What?”
“No, of course not! I came here to stop him!”
Now we all stared at the man.
“He’s a little nutty, isn’t he, Max?” said Dooley.
“I’m not sure, Dooley,” I said. “Maybe there’s a method to his madness.”
“Look, I’m Dunc’s buddy,” Omar explained.
“Yes, I know. You were good friends with Dunc Hanover.”
Omar shook his head irritably. “Not just friends. I was also Dunc’s buddy.”
“You mean like in the AA?” asked Chase.
“Yeah, exactly like the AA. That’s where we got the idea. You see, we’re confirmed bachelors, all of us, and the buddy system was supposed to make sure we all stayed that way. So of course when Dunc told me he was getting married, I had to see him.”
“To talk him out of it?” asked Odelia.
“Yes, of course! It’s what a buddy does. I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I’d simply let him go through with it, now would I?”
“But… marriage isn’t an addiction, is it?”
Omar gave her the kind of look one gives a layperson. A person who just doesn’t get it. “Look, we all swore a solemn oath many years ago, that none of us would ever get ensnared by a woman—or a man, for that matter. And we took our oath very seriously. We like the bachelor life,” he said, spreading his arms. “It’s the only life for any sane person. And I was Dunc’s buddy the same way that he was mine.”
“Who else is in that group?” asked Chase.
“Well, Jona,” said Omar, “and Sergio Sorbet and Joel Timperley.”
Chase and Odelia shared a look. It was those five joyriders again. The ones the Careens accused of having killed Poppy and then closing ranks to hide the identity of her killer.
“The five of you swore a solemn oath never to get married?” asked Odelia.
“Yes, we did. We were eighteen at the time, and even though we all had girlfriends, we hated the idea of being tied down. I have to add that for all of us, our parents didn’t exactly set the example of what a happy relationship should look like. All of them were in a bad marriage, and so we decided that marriage was the last thing we wanted.”
“And you stuck to your guns and never married.”
“Until now, with Dunc.” His face sort of crumpled. “And now he’s dead!”
“Do you think his death has got anything to do with this bachelor’s pledge?”
Omar frowned and fingered his corrugated brow. “I-I don’t know.” He looked up. “You think it might? But how?”
“One of your merry bachelors, perhaps?”
“Are you crazy? Of course not. Dunc is one of my best friends.”
“Where were you just now, sir?” asked Chase.
“I was at the office. You can ask my new secretary. Miss Canyon. She’ll confirm it.” He was staring at Chase, as if horrified by the notion that he’d ever hurt his friend—and bachelor buddy.
“He looks very disappointed that his buddy is dead, Max,” said Dooley.
“Yeah, now he doesn’t have anyone to keep him from getting married,” I said.
“Is marriage such a bad thing?”
“It depends if you’re in a good marriage or a bad one, I guess.”
“Chase and Odelia are in a good marriage, though, right?”
“Oh, yes, a very good one. And so are Marge and Tex.”
“And Brutus and Harriet.”
I smiled. “They’re not married yet.”
Dooley looked up at this. “Do you think they’ll ever get married?”
“I doubt it. I’ve never heard of pets getting married.”
“I have. Some dogs owned by people on Fifth Avenue in New York recently got married. They had a whole ceremony with an actual priest, and a big wedding feast for all their dog friends afterward. It was a big to-do.”
“That’s dogs, Dooley. Everyone knows that dogs are weird.”
“True,” he agreed. “Dogs and humans both.”
Chapter 16
Justina McMenamy was a beautiful woman, and if her fiancé Dunc Hanover had lived, would have made a gorgeous bride. As it was, their marriage wasn’t to be, and after Justina had cried bitter tears of shock and surprise, she turned angry, and lashed out at her fiancé’s ‘so-called friends’ who surely were to blame for the man’s death.
“They did it,” she said as she spoke to Chase and Odelia, seated at her kitchen table in her cozy little home. “They’re the ones you should talk to.”
“His bachelor friends?” asked Odelia.
“Of course! They swore a stupid oath that they would never get married, and clearly the oath also assumed that they would do whatever it took to prevent any one of them from getting married—including murder!”
“So you think Wissinski, Sorbet or Timperley killed your fiancé?” asked Chase.
“Absolutely.” She sighed and seemed to sag. “Dunc wasn’t like them, you see. They were all trust fund kids. Rich spoiled brats. But Dunc wasn’t. His parents weren’t rich like the others. His mom was a seamstress and his dad worked for Amtrak. But somehow he’d become friends with them, and even though he wasn’t in the same social class, they accepted him, and invited him to hang out. They even paid for him to be included in school trips that his parents couldn’t possibly afford. And even after they left school, they all remained friends. But by then Dunc had discovered his passion for art, and decided that he wanted to become an artist. And they backed him, against his parents’ wishes.”
“He was a great artist,” said Odelia. “We saw his work at his atelier.”
“He was a genius,” said Justina. “An absolute genius. And he made it all on his own. He became famous and wealthy through his art, not because of an inheritance or his parents’ trust fund, which made him all the more heroic in my opinion.”
“But why would his friends want to murder him?” asked Chase. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does to them. They have this warped idea that marriage is evil, and that it must be prevented at all cost. Which is why Dunc didn’t want anyone to know that we were together. He never wanted to be seen with me, and never mentioned me to his friends.”
“You were his guilty secret?”
“Yes, I was. At least to those four idiots. They wouldn’t have accepted it if Dunc had come right out and admitted that he’d fallen in love and wanted to get married.”
“But he must have told them at some point—he told Omar Wissinski this morning.”
“Omar was the one he was closest to. So it stands to reason he’d tell him.”
“Do you think he told the others, too?”
Justina nodded. “He must have. And you see what happened. He told them and now he’s dead. Draw your own conclusion. I know I have.” She broke into a fresh wave of tears, with Odelia handing her a tissue to stem the flood. “He was such a sweet man. So tender. Not like the others.” She shook her head. “I never understood how he could be friends with them. They were so different. So very different.”
“Did Dunc ever mention an incident that took place thirteen years ago?” asked Odelia. “A hit-and-run accident where a little girl was killed?”
Justina frowned. “I don’t think so. I think I’d remember if he did.”
“We have reason to believe that it was his car that was involved. The day after the accident a green Mustang was brought into a garage and the mechanic was asked to make sure that all traces of the accident were removed. The mechanic kept a notebook, recording every job he did, right down to license plates and the work involved. Which is how we know that it was your fiancé’s car that killed Poppy Careen that night.”
“He never mentioned any of that to me.”
“What do you think happened to that Mustang?” asked Chase.
“Dunc doesn’t even own a car. He got rid of it years ago, and has refused to drive one ever since.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“He hated cars. Said they are the cause of too much pain and suffering.”
Chase and Odelia shared a look. “That could be why he got rid of it,” said Odelia. “Because of the accident. He refused to drive a car ever again after what happened.”
“It’s possible,” Justina allowed. “But like I said, he never mentioned an accident to me.”
“Thank you for your time, Miss McMenamy,” said Chase, getting up.
“Talk to his friends, will you?” said Justina. “Find out which one of them killed Dunc.” Her voice broke. “And make them pay. Make them all pay!”
Chapter 17
“Odd,” said Dooley once we were in the car again.
“What is?” I asked.
“Well, he was an artist, and now he’s been turned into a work of art himself.”
“Yeah, as if the killer was trying to make a point. But what point? And why?”
“Do you think his friends killed him because he wanted to get married?”
“It’s possible, of course,” I said. “But it seems like a very weak motive to want to kill a person, don’t you think?”
“Unless you really, really hate marriage.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I thought about Justina’s words. She really seemed convinced that one of Dunc’s friends was behind his murder, so at the very least we had to talk to them. But still, it all seemed like a strange coincidence that first Jona Morro would be killed, and now Dunc. And Jona’s murder seemed connected to his gambling habit, while Dunc… “Do you think Dunc was a gambler?” I asked, addressing Odelia.
