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

Scarlett said. “Show her what we found in the guy’s bedroom.”

Gran took out her phone and showed something to Odelia I couldn’t see.

“Can you show us, too?” I asked therefore, and Gran happily complied. I think she would have shown these pictures to anyone, except her son maybe.

The pictures showed a very large painting of a very naked… Melanie Myers!

“Is that Mrs. Myers?” asked Dooley.

“Yeah, looks like,” I said.

“But… why isn’t she wearing any clothes?”

“Um, she was probably taking a bath,” I said.

He craned his neck to take another look. “So where’s the bath? All I see is a couch.”

“Um…”

“So who is she?” asked Scarlett. “Some movie star? Singer?”

“The wife of his best friend,” said Odelia, looking much sobered.

“The wife of his best friend?!” said Gran, and shared a meaningful look with Scarlett.

“See? Told you he was weird,” said Scarlett.

“Okay, so clearly the guy is head over heels in love with the woman,” said Gran. “But that still doesn’t mean he killed anyone!” she hastened to add.

Odelia furrowed her brow as she thought this through. “So he had four empty jerrycans of…” She took a sniff from one of the jerrycans. “… gasoline in his garage. And a nude painting of Melanie Myers hanging in his bedroom.” She heaved a deep sigh. “It’s getting harder and harder for me to convince myself he didn’t do it, you guys.”

“Yeah, looks that way to me, too,” I said.

“At any rate, you have to give these to the police. You can’t keep them.”

“I have no intention of keeping them,” said Gran. “These are for you!”

“Well, I don’t want them.”

“We can’t give them to the cops now. They’ll want to know why we took them.”

“How did you get in, by the way?”

“With my master key set.”

“Lock picking set,” Scarlett said.

“Master key set!”

“What a mess,” Odelia said, dragging her fingers through her blond mane.

“We could always put them back,” Scarlett suggested.

“And get caught? I don’t think so,” said her friend.

“Look, just come clean,” said Odelia. “Uncle Alec won’t be happy, but he won’t be too upset either. After all, you can always say…”

“Yes?”

“Well, you could say…”

“Uh-huh?”

Odelia threw up her hands. “I have no idea what you could say, but I do know you can’t keep these.”

“Like I said, I wasn’t planning on keeping them. They’re yours.”

“Oh, God.”

“The guy’s your client! You should keep them!”

“I’m not keeping those jerrycans, Gran. That’s evidence in a crime. And not just any evidence, either. This is crucial evidence!”

“Well, duh. Why do you think I took it, dummy?”

“Gran is in big trouble now, isn’t she?” said Dooley.

“No more than usual,” I told him.

“So just tell us honestly,” said Scarlett. “Do you really believe this Joshua Curtis guy is innocent?”

Odelia shrugged. “Right now I’m not sure what to believe. I’m just trying to get a clearer picture of what’s going on here. And hopefully in the process find the truth.”

“You know who could have done it?” said Gran, wagging her finger at no one in particular. “Those neighbors.”

“What neighbors?” asked Odelia.

“The neighbors! We saw them peeking through the window, didn’t we, Scarlett? And then pretending like they hadn’t seen us.”

“I talked to Dolores today,” said Odelia thoughtfully, “and she mentioned that the neighbors have been launching a regular avalanche of complaints the last couple of months.”

“See!” said Gran. “I knew I was onto something!”

“Even a broken clock gets it right twice a day,” Brutus muttered.

“I heard that!” Gran shouted.

Chapter 21

“That tip about the neighbors was a good one, I have to give her that,” said Odelia as she steered her aged pickup through Hampton Cove, on her way to Parker Street.

“Like Brutus said, though,” Max intimated, “even a broken clock gets it right twice a day.”

“Yeah, but Dolores said much the same thing: the Dibbles really wanted those people gone. Is it too much to imagine that they might have gone to extreme lengths to get what they wanted?”

“I guess we’ll soon find out,” said Max, and she threw him a grateful smile through the rearview mirror.

Dooley and Max were in the backseat, as usual, while Brutus and Harriet had opted to head on home. They weren’t in a sleuthing mood, apparently, and Harriet had said something about a showdown at cat choir she needed to get mentally prepared for, whatever that meant.

Odelia parked her car across the road from the derelict structure, now deserted and festooned with crime scene tape, and glanced up at the house where the Dibbles lived, husband and wife. She saw the curtain move, then drop back into place. “At least they’re home,” she told her cats, who were following in her wake.

“Now let’s get them to talk,” said Max.

“So if I’m Numpty, and you’re Dumpty,” said Dooley as they walked up to the house, “then who is Humpty?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Dooley,” said Max, sounding a little weary.

“Could it be,” said Dooley, “and this is just a theory, mind you. But could it be that Humpty is the name of the stork?”

“No, Dooley,” said Max, “Humpty is not the name of the stork.”

“How do you know? Have you ever met the stork?”

Odelia smiled as Max had to admit that Dooley had him stumped.

She pressed her finger against the mother-of-pearl bell button and listened to the loud buzz of the bell as it sounded inside. Moments later the door was opened a crack and two suspicious eyes studied her carefully. “Yes?”

“Hi, my name is Odelia Poole and I’m investigating last night’s murder. The murder that happened just across the street? You didn’t happen to see anything?”

“I already talked to the cops,” said the woman, for now that the door was opened a little wider Odelia could see that it was indeed a woman. She would have pegged her in her late sixties, with a florid face and a hard expression in her eyes. Not a woman to be trifled with.

“I know, but I’m just working a different angle.”

“Do you have a badge? The policewoman who was here last night had a badge.”

“No, I