Purrfectly Deadly

Chapter 11

After she had finished writing her articles for the day, she decided to drop by the library to have a chat with her mother. Mom usually had good ideas. And she knew a lot of people through her work at the library. She wasn’t convinced that Uncle Alec had locked up the right guy, and if he thought he had, he wasn’t going to look any further. She felt very strongly he should continue the investigation, but if he wasn’t going to do it, she certainly was.

She walked into the library, and saw that her mother was pushing the book trolley, placing recently returned books back on their shelves.

“Hey, Mom,” she said as she walked up to the woman who was like the spitting image of herself, only three decades older.

“Hey, honey,” said her mother. “I hear you’ve been busy today?”

“Yeah, we had an actual murder case to tackle,” she said as she picked up a book and placed it in its rightful place.

It didn’t surprise her that her mother already knew what had happened. Sometimes she wondered why Dan even bothered to put out the Gazette, as the stories he wrote were old news by the time the paper dropped into people’s mailboxes. Maybe they just wanted to see the pictures that went with the stories, or check up on some detail they might have missed.

“Is it true that the boyfriend did it?” her mother asked now.

“I don’t know. Uncle Alec seems to think so but I have my doubts.”

“Then that makes two of us.”

“It does?” she asked, surprised.

“I’ve met Jasper Pruce,” said her mother, “and he didn’t strike me as a man capable of murder. Such a sweet young man.”

“He’s forty-three.”

“Is he?” asked her mother. “He looks a great deal younger.”

“He probably moisturizes.”

“I’ll bet he does. And not the cheap brands, either.”

“So you met him, huh?”

“We have. He’s in here all the time. He loves his romance novels,” she said with a smile. “He also loves to chat, and he struck me as a very earnest and very nice man. Very concerned about his husband’s health.”

“They weren’t married, Mom.”

“Well, for all intents and purposes they were. Besides, I’m sure they would have gotten married if Johnny hadn’t been married already.”

Odelia frowned. “Married already? What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you know? Johnny married that woman, what’s her name…”

“Johnny was married… to a woman?”

“Sure.” She snapped her fingers. “Bryony Pistol. Used to be his backing vocalist back in the eighties, when he was still carving out a career. They got married at some point and, at least according to Jasper, they still were.”

“But why? Why didn’t he divorce her?”

“Well, he did owe her his career, so maybe that’s why? And they had a daughter together, of course. She must be in her late twenties now.”

“A daughter!”

Mom shook her head. “And you call yourself a reporter. Yeah, Johnny pretty much owed everything to Bryony. She came from money, and supported him in the early days of his career, when he was just a struggling artist. It took him several years to break through and get his first big hit.”

“I’m Your Bi-ba-boy. I loved that song.”

Her mother stared at her dubiously. She might like Jasper, but she was obviously not a fan of Johnny’s music. “Anyway, Bryony paid all the bills and basically squandered her family’s fortune to make it happen for Johnny, simply because she believed in his talent so much.”

“She squandered her own money?”

“All of it.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. Lucky for her the gamble paid off. Big time. Johnny became a global superstar. And then he told her he liked boys better than girls so they separated. This was the nineties, I think. I’m a little fuzzy on the details.”

“How come I didn’t know about this?”

“Because Johnny valued his privacy. I doubt you’ll find this information anywhere. If Jasper hadn’t told me, I would never have known. It was obvious the whole Bryony business didn’t sit well with him, though.”

“Nor would the whole Jasper business have sat well with Bryony.”

Her mother held up her hands. “That, I don’t know. I never met Bryony. She’s not a library person, apparently,” she said with a look of distaste.

For Odelia’s mother, there were only two types of people in the world: people who liked books, and people who didn’t. It was obvious which kind she favored. “I wonder what Bryony thought about this whole drug thing.”

“Why don’t you ask her? I’m sure it’s an angle your uncle Alec hasn’t thought about yet. And it would make for a great article for your paper.”

“You just might be right,” she agreed.

“Of course I’m right.”

“Now about dinner tonight. Don’t be late, because we have a guest over.”

She groaned. “Not Chase Kingsley again?”

“Yes, Chase Kingsley again. I really don’t know what you’ve got against that man.”

“He keeps showing up.”

“Well, that’s because he’s a cop, dear. Cops have a habit of showing up everywhere. They wouldn’t be doing their jobs if they didn’t.”

“But why do you insist on feeding him? I’m sure he can take care of himself.”

“I doubt that. Living with Alec as he does the man would simply starve to death if he didn’t get fed, and so would your uncle himself, for that matter.”

“I’m sure that Alec cooks, and so does Chase.”

“And I’m sure they don’t,” said her mother decidedly. “Now please be punctual. Dinner will be served at seven, and I expect you to be there.” She frowned. “Why do I have the feeling I’m forgetting something?” Then her face cleared. “Oh, that’s right. Can you bake a cake, honey? Your gran was going to, but she forgot she had bingo at the senior center this afternoon.”

“Cake?” she asked. “I don’t have time to bake a cake, Mom. Why don’t you buy one from the general store?”

Her mother’s face puckered up into an expression of distaste. “You know those aren’t freshly baked, honey. They make them in some factory somewhere by mixing a bunch of chemicals and other goop. No, what we need is that chocolate cake of yours. I’m sure Chase will be impressed.”

She glared at her mother. “You’re trying to set me up with Chase again, aren’t you? First Gran, and now you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, honey,” said her mother primly. “But you could do a lot worse than Chase Kingsley. He’s a nice, big, strapping young man, with a nice, secure income, a good position in this community, and I’m sure he’ll make some girl a very happy bride some day so why not you?”

“His position in this community is pretty rocky right now, and if he doesn’t watch his back he’s going to be out of a job soon, too,” she said.

Mom rolled her eyes. “Still with that horrible harassment thing?”

“Still with the horrible molestation thing. There’s several petitions doing the rounds to have him kicked off the force. I even saw one at that health food store you like so much. The one that deals GHB under the counter.”

“Well, then you’ll just have to make sure those silly charges go away, won’t you?” asked Mom as she plunked another large volume onto the shelf and decidedly pushed it into place. “You know as well as I do that Chase is innocent of those silly charges, and I’m sure that if you clear his name he’ll be ever so grateful.” She gave her a knowing glance. “And a grateful man is a marrying man, honey. Remember that.”

She left the library feeling a little annoyed. First her grandmother tried to push her into Chase’s arms and now her mother. It was a concerted matchmaking effort that didn’t sit well with her. If she was ever going to choose a mate for life, as her grandmother put it, she’d do it herself, without anyone’s help. Besides, clearing Chase’s name wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

Back when he was still an NYPD detective, the wife of a suspect had accused him of molesting her, and those charges had lost him his job and, very briefly, his freedom. And they weren’t going away. Instead, they’d followed him to Hampton Cove, where his job now hung in the balance.

Chase claimed he’d caught the NYPD commissioner and the wife of the mayor of New York in a torrid affair, and they’d set up this molestation claim to discredit him and shut him up. Since arriving in Hampton Cove, he’d apprehended the killer in another murder case, that of a well-known bestselling novelist, and that had gotten him a reprieve from the mayor of Hampton Cove, but it didn’t sit well with several concerned citizens that a cop on the Hampton Cove Police Department was an NYPD reject, so they’d been pressuring the council and Mayor Turner to have him dismissed.

Odelia had promised to look into the case, but so far had nothing to show for her efforts. If Chase’s old boss was having an affair, he was very discreet about it, and so far she only had Chase’s word on the matter.

As she was crossing the street to pick up the necessary ingredients for the chocolate cake her mother wanted her to bake, she saw a guy selling something from the trunk of his car, and she was reminded of Orville’s words.

She decided to have a closer look and, arriving there, saw that the guy’s customer was none other than her own grandmother! The feisty old lady was negotiating with the salesman, who stood gesticulating wildly. He had slicked-back raven hair and was wearing an actual three-piece suit.

“Gran?” she asked when she’d joined the odd couple. “What is this?”

“Oh, there you are, honey. I was hoping to run into you. So what do you think, huh?” she asked, holding up a small plastic baggie in one hand and a glass vial in the other. “Powder or liquid? I was thinking liquid, as you know I have trouble swallowing.”

Odelia’s eyes swiveled to the trunk of the guy’s car, and when she saw the baggies of white powder, clear glass vials, more baggies with pills in different colors, she had a pretty good idea what was going on here. She directed a hard look at the guy. “Are you selling Liquid G to my grandmother?”

“Hey, she wanted something to help her sleep,” the guy said, holding up his hands. He then tapped a small vial. “This will help her sleep just fine.”

“This will help her sleep forever,” Odelia said, planting her hands on her hips. “You’re that drug dealer, aren’t you? The one who’s trying to muscle Orville Haggis out of the market?”

The guy took a good look at Odelia. “And you’re that reporter, aren’t you?”

“Odelia’s the best reporter in town,” said Gran proudly. “She’s the one that catches all the bad guys before the cops ever do.” She then grinned at the guy. “She even caught herself a drug dealer just before, didn’t you, honey?”

Well, news certainly traveled fast. But then what else was new?

The next thing she knew, the guy slammed the trunk of his car closed, and then he was bolting away from them, barreling down the sidewalk.

“Oh, crap, not again,” she groaned, and took off after the guy.

“You go get him, honey!” her grandmother yelled. “I’d help you catch him but my hip’s acting up again! In fact now might be a good time to try this here happy stuff, just like the guy said.” And she flicked the vial curiously.

Horrified, Odelia shouted over her shoulder, “Don’t drink that, Gran!”

But even as she glanced back, she saw that the old lady was already knocking back the vial with visible relish. And as she was sprinting after her second drug dealer of the day, she managed to snatch her cell phone from her pocket and press it to her ear. “Chase? I’m on Main Street, chasing another drug dealer. And my gran just took a hit of GHB!”