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

do not have a badge,” she said, “but if you want to check my credentials you can always get in touch with this person.” She handed Mrs. Dibble Chase’s card. “He’s the detective investigating the case and I’m sure he’ll vouch for me.”

“Mh,” the woman said, clearly not impressed. “So what do you wanna know?”

“Well, did you see anything suspicious last night? People entering the building or exiting?”

“I saw one guy exiting the building. Nice-looking fella. Looked like a lawyer. Not the kind of person you’d expect in a place like that.”

“And what kind of place is that?”

“A crack house,” the woman spat. “Filled with junkies and slackers. I’ve been complaining to the cops for months, but do you think they even showed me the courtesy to come and talk to me? No way. But now that three people are dead suddenly they all show up and start asking a million questions. If you people had listened to me sooner, this would never have happened!”

“I know,” said Odelia. “So apart from the clean-cut type, did you see anyone else?”

“No one,” said the woman, shaking her head. “Of course it’s not as if I spent all night looking at that wretched place. I’ve got better things to do, me, and so does my husband.”

“Can I talk to your husband, perhaps? Maybe he saw something?”

“He didn’t see nothing.”

“But—”

“Nothing!”

“Just one more question, Mrs. Dibble. Did you happen to call the police last night? Or your husband?” she hastened to add when the woman started shaking her head.

“I did not,” said Vanda Dibble.

“Well, someone called the police.”

“Two old ladies were out here, staking out the place. They called the cops.”

“I know, but one more call was placed. Or actually two. The clean-cut individual, as you so aptly described him, called 911 and so did the two old ladies, but there was a third 911 call, and I was wondering…”

“Well, it wasn’t us. Now if there’s nothing else…” She started to close the door. Then suddenly there was a loud scream that came from somewhere inside the house.

“Vanda!” a man’s voice called out. “I got ‘em! Busted them fair and square!”

The woman quickly turned back to join her husband, and Odelia decided it behooved her to enter the house and see what was going on in there.

And as she followed Mrs. Dibble into the living room, then through to the kitchen and out into the backyard, she was met with a fascinating scene: there stood an old man, with a face as florid as his wife’s and eyes as hard her hers, brandishing a gun at two old ladies. And those two ladies were… Gran and Scarlett!

“What are you doing here?” Odelia blurted out.

“You know these two?” asked Mrs. Dibble, whirling around.

“I caught them with these,” said Mr. Dibble, and pointed to four empty jerrycans, lying at Gran’s feet. “They tried to sneak into the tool shed, if you please!”

“You told me to get rid of them!” Gran cried. “So I figured what better place to dump them than here with these two killers!”

“I told you to take them to the police!” said Odelia.

“How do you know each other?” Mrs. Dibble tried again.

“I was gonna call the cops as soon as we planted them in the shed,” Gran explained.

“I told you this was a bad idea,” Scarlett hissed.

“It was a good idea. Only I hadn’t counted on the old coot with the gun,” Gran hissed back.

“Hey, who are you calling an old coot!” said the guy.

“You, you old coot,” Gran snapped. “Just admit it, you killed those people! You set fire to that building across the street, didn’t you? Confess!”

“Oh, just call the cops already, Bart,” said Mrs. Dibble. “These two are obviously nuts.”

“She’s my grandmother,” Odelia now explained. “So maybe you shouldn’t call the police?”

“I thought you were the police!” said the woman, suspicion making her face flush.

“She’s not a cop,” said Gran. “She’s a reporter.”

“A reporter!”

“And a civilian consultant,” Odelia added weakly.

“That does it. I’m calling the cops,” said the woman, then snapped, “The real ones!”

Chapter 22

“What were you doing with those jerrycans?”

Vesta gave her interrogator the stink eye, which admittedly was a little hard since he was her grandson-in-law and she’d just seen him get married to her beloved granddaughter. Still she thought she did a pretty good job under the circumstances. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “What jerrycans?”

Chase’s eyes narrowed. He was in full-on interrogation mode, Vesta saw, and she pitied the crooks who had to sit here and submit to this kind of treatment. She was pretty sure they’d all crack under the strain. She wouldn’t, of course, since she was a lot tougher than most crooks.

“You were seen inserting four empty yellow jerrycans into a tool shed located on the private property of Mr. and Mrs. Bart and Vanda Dibble. There are three witnesses who saw you: Mr. Bart Dibble, Mrs. Vanda Dibble, and Odelia Poole.”

“Frankly there were two more,” she said. “Max and Dooley were also there, but I guess they don’t count, do they?”

The cop stared at her for a moment. “No,” he said finally. “They don’t count. So let me ask you again. What were you doing with those four jerrycans? Where did you get them and why were you trying to hide them in the tool shed belonging to the Dibbles?”

In turn, she narrowed her eyes, too. “I plead the fifth.”

“This is not a courtroom, Vesta. This is a police interrogation. All I want from you is an answer to a simple question: where the hell did those jerrycans come from?”

She was pretty sure Odelia had already told her husband all about those jerrycans, which made this interview pretty much a waste of time in her view. Still, she wasn’t going to incriminate herself. No sirree. So she leaned forward and placed her elbows on the table. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Chase.”

“We’ll see about that,” he growled, then abruptly got up and left the room.

“Those intimidation