The Mysteries of Max: Books 31-33 by Nic Saint (interesting novels in english txt) 📕

organize. Besides, why are you so anxious for our human to have babies anyway? She’s still young. She has plenty of time to start a family.”

“But if she doesn’t have babies now she will kick us out!”

“How so? I don’t get it.”

“Okay, so Shanille told me that women should get pregnant on their wedding night. That means that they’re blessed. If they don’t get pregnant on their wedding night, it means that something is wrong with the marriage, as the man cannot… perform?”

I had to suppress a smile at this. “I don’t think you should listen to Shanille, Dooley. Her world views aren’t always, um, an accurate depiction of reality, let’s put it like that.”

“But if Odelia doesn’t have babies immediately, she’ll be upset with Chase, and she’ll get divorced. That’s what Shanille said. If the husband can’t perform, the woman has every right to ask for a divorce, because the only purpose of marriage is to have babies, and plenty of them.”

“Okay, so let’s get this straight. According to Shanille, if Odelia doesn’t have babies immediately, she should file for divorce, as it’s a sign that Chase isn’t the right guy for her?”

“That’s what Shanille said. And she told me to look out for that stork. If I miss it, and those babies get delivered to the wrong address, Odelia will kick Chase out and get a divorce! And then she’ll be sad, and she might kick us out, too! Because we like Chase so much,” he added quietly.

“Look, Dooley, this is all just a lot of baloney. Please don’t listen to Shanille. If she tells you a lot of stuff that doesn’t make sense, you ask me first before you go start believing her, okay?”

“So… was she lying, Max? Was Shanille lying when she told me that Chase needs to perform or else? And what does she mean by that?”

“Um…”

“I asked her if she meant that Chase had to sing for Odelia. You know, perform a song? Or maybe a dance? And she looked at me and shook her head and walked off. So now I still don’t know what she meant.”

“Well, you called it, Dooley,” I said. “When a couple gets married the husband has to perform a song and a dance. And if they do it right, they’ll make their brides very happy.”

Dooley smiled. “I’m sure that Chase did a great job. I’ve heard him sing and he’s aces.”

Chase is a wonderful human being, a great cop, and an amazing partner to our human, but what he is not is a singer. In fact Chase can’t sing if his life depended on it. And I’ve never seen him dance, but somehow I don’t think he’s aces in that department either. But if Dooley was happy to think that he was, good for him. I wasn’t going to rob him of that particular illusion.

“You keep watching out for that stork, Dooley,” I said therefore. “But if it doesn’t arrive soon, I don’t want you to worry, all right? Stork or no stork, Odelia loves Chase, and I’m sure that he loves her, too. So there is no danger of divorce in their near future.”

“That’s good to know, Max,” my friend said earnestly, “cause Shanille really had me worried there for a minute.”

And since Odelia was such a wonderful human, we decided to give her a helping paw by spying on Uncle Alec, who, for some reason I couldn’t quite fathom, didn’t seem as eager as usual to share information with his favorite niece.

So we rounded the building, hopped up onto the Chief’s windowsill, and lay in wait, making sure we weren’t seen, and pressing our ears to the window to pick up those telling clues Odelia likes us to supply her with.

“So it was definitely murder?” we heard Uncle Alec ask Chase.

“Yeah, no doubt about it,” said Chase. “And we know who did it, too, which is a first.”

“Joshua Curtis. Notary clerk. No priors, not even a speeding ticket. In every respect a model citizen. And now this.”

“The toxicology report is clear: all three of these guys died from smoke inhalation, and all three had Rohypnol in their blood, which proves they were knocked out prior to their deaths.”

“So they were knocked out first, then someone set fire to the building?”

“Exactly. So now we know what happened, and we got the killer. Only thing we don’t know is why. Why did Mr. Model Citizen suddenly bust loose and decide to slay three?”

Chapter 13

Odelia, in spite of the fact that she wasn’t the man’s attorney, and she wasn’t a police officer either, still was granted access to Joshua Curtis. She’d told the desk sergeant that the man was her client, and no further questions were asked. Such was the advantage of being the Chief’s niece that five minutes later she was sitting in one of the interview rooms talking to the suspect.

Joshua looked a little worse for wear, compared to the last time she’d seen him: his shirt was untucked and his chin was dark with a shadow of stubble. He also looked a little sleepy, and clearly hadn’t enjoyed his short sojourn in the pen.

“So are you finally going to tell me the truth, Joshua?” she said.

“What do you mean?” he asked, warily dragging a hand through his tousled hair.

“You weren’t walking your dog last night, were you? You don’t even have a dog. So what were you doing at the house on Parker Street?”

He hung his head in resignation. “Look, all I wanted to do was have it out with the guy once and for all, all right?”

“What guy?” asked Odelia with a frown. “What are you talking about?”

“The guy! The guy Melanie was seeing.”

“But… I thought you said you didn’t know who he was?”

“I… well, I may not have told you the complete truth,” he admitted. “His name is Franklin Harrison, and apparently he was living in that squat house for some time. Even though he hadn’t told Melanie. He’d told her he