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

“Oh, let them talk. I know I was doing the right thing.”

“You were caught stealing!”

“Caught planting stolen evidence,” Chase quietly corrected her.

“I was trying to help your daughter!”

“Please don’t help me anymore, Gran,” Odelia pleaded. “Your help is not helping me.”

“So this is the kind of thanks I get! After all that I’ve done for you?! Anyway, I can’t stand around here arguing. I’ve got things to do and people to see. So I wish you all a good day, and don’t call me—I’ll call you.” And with these words, she was off, leaving a lot of bemused glances to rake her retreating back.

Chapter 26

“Max?”

“Mh.”

“Max!”

I opened one eye and saw that Harriet desired speech with me.

“Yes?” I said, and yawned prodigiously, stretching myself in the process. I’d been quietly dozing in a corner of Odelia’s office, while my human worked away at a couple of articles: one about two elderly ladies being arrested for trespassing—no mention was made of the jerrycans, at the request of the police department—and one about the arrest of a suspect in the case of arson that had claimed the lives of three tragic victims. Suffice it to say she had her work cut out for her.

“You have to do something!” Harriet said.

“What,” I said, “do I have to do?”

“You have to convince the other members of the commission to let that vote swing my way!”

“What vote?” And then I remembered. “Oh, that vote. Look, Harriet, I can’t let the vote swing your way. We’re a neutral commission and we’re going to find a solution that is beneficial to everyone.”

“But Max—you’re my friend! My best friend!”

“I know I’m your friend, Harriet, but Shanille is also my friend, and I’m going to be fair and square about this thing.”

“Look, if you do me this one little favor I’m going to make it worth your while.”

“How are you going to make it worth my while?” I said, wondering what she’d come up with.

“Well, I’ll…” She paused, thinking hard. “I’ll, um…”

“Yes?”

“I could give you some of my food,” she suggested. “Some of my Cat Snax. In fact why don’t I give you all of my Cat Snax for the next three months—six months,” she quickly interposed when she saw the dubious expression on my face. “A year!”

“Look, I don’t need your Cat Snax, Harriet. I have plenty of Cat Snax of my own. And what’s more, I still have to live in this town, and if I’m going to be corrupted by your offer I won’t be able to show my face around here again. And neither, I have to warn you, will you.”

“But I have to win this thing! I threw down the gauntlet and if I don’t win now cats will laugh at me—I’ll be the laughingstock of the whole town!”

“You probably should have thought of that before you started quarreling.”

“Oh, Max, you have to help me. You simply have to make the vote swing my way. I need to get rid of Shanille.”

“I’m sorry, Harriet.”

Her expression turned hostile. “And here I thought you were my friend!”

“I am your friend. And I’m trying to do the right thing. And you know what would help a lot? If you’d go up to Shanille and apologized.”

“What?! Me apologize to that harridan! Never!”

I watched her stalk off and wondered, frankly, how we were ever going to get out of this mess, when suddenly the door swung open and a woman entered. I didn’t recognize her, which is saying something, as I know a lot of people in this town.

“Miss Poole?” the woman said. “Miss Odelia Poole?”

Odelia looked up from her laptop. “Yes?”

“My name is Francine Ritter. I used to be married to Franklin Harrison—the man who was killed the other night in a fire?”

“Oh, of course. Please take a seat, Mrs. Ritter,” said Odelia. “What can I do for you?”

Mrs. Ritter was a fair-haired woman in her late thirties, dressed in a purple tunic and black leggings. Her hair was frizzy and she looked a little unkempt.

“The thing is, my ex-husband hadn’t paid child support in months, and I’d been hounding him to come through.”

“You and Franklin had kids?”

“Yeah, two little girls. And ever since we got divorced it’s been really tough, and Franklin didn’t make it any easier, with his refusal to pay for the girls.”

“Any reason he refused to pay?”

“Plain meanness, I guess,” said the woman with an embarrassed smile. “Frankly I didn’t know what kind of man I married until a couple of months into the marriage. When we were dating he was the sweetest guy on the planet, always buying me gifts and showering me with affection. But after the girls were born, he seemed to lose interest in the life of a married man and father. He started going out more and staying away longer, and didn’t take up his share of the work in raising the girls. And when I discovered he was having affairs with other women, I finally decided that enough was enough.”

“As I understand it Franklin died destitute,” said Odelia. “His dad cut him off, and he was living in a squat house after he was evicted from his apartment for not making rent.”

“I know. I heard about that. But he was still the father of my girls, and he didn’t keep his end of the bargain, so now I’m trying to talk to his brother. Set up a meeting. They need to take their responsibility and step up. But so far they’ve been ignoring me. They won’t take my calls, they won’t answer my letters.”

“Can’t you hire an attorney? Go to court?”

Mrs. Ritter blushed. “I’m afraid I don’t have the money, Miss Poole. The Harrisons are very wealthy people, and I feel—I feel I don’t stand much of a chance. The arrangement was between Franklin and myself. They’ll simply argue they have no obligations to me.”

“I understand,” said Odelia. “So what do you suggest?”

“Couldn’t you perhaps talk to them?