The Mysteries of Max: Books 31-33 by Nic Saint (chrome ebook reader txt) 📗

“I don’t know, Suzy.”

“If he was, you would tell me, right?” she asked, giving him a slightly suspicious look. “I know he was your best friend, but you have to tell me the truth, Todd. If he was cheating on me with some bimbo, I have a right to know.”

“He wasn’t cheating on you, Suzy. If he was, I would have known about it. Darryl and I had no secrets from each other.”

“I don’t know,” she said, sniffling. “Darryl was always so popular. It made me feel very insecure and he knew that.”

“You were the only one for him, Suzy, I swear.”

“Yeah, that’s what he said, but you know what he was like. He left Lucy for me, and when he did my friends all told me that soon it would be my turn. I’d find myself in the same position and I’d discover he was cheating on me with some other girl.”

“Look, I have no idea what happened, all right? But it was an accident. So he must have been out there for some reason, and it was dark, and he missed a step and fell in. That’s all I know.”

“He could have been scouting the place, I suppose,” she said doubtfully.

“He could have, although we always said we’d never do construction sites. Too dangerous. But then who knows what he was thinking. Darryl liked to live on the edge.”

“He did. That’s what I loved about him. And now he’s de-ea-ea-ea-ead!”

“She seems really sad, Max,” said Dooley as Todd took out more paper tissues and handed them to the crying teenager.

“Yeah, she does,” I said.

“So at least she didn’t kill him.”

“No, at least there’s that,” I said, as this case was starting to look a little opaque in my opinion.

“You do think he was murdered, don’t you, Max?”

“I don’t know, Dooley. So far it looks like an accident, but then you never know.”

“If it was an accident, it’s a very big coincidence that the stepdaughter of the man who was out in those woods was dating the dead man,” said Dooley, causing me to regard him with mounting admiration.

“Exactly what I was thinking, Dooley.”

“It’s all very confusing,” my friend said.

“Of course it could all be unconnected. The dead man in the woods, and the dead DJ.”

Dooley cut me a knowing look. “Max, how long have we been helping Odelia solve these mysteries?”

“Um, a long time?” I ventured.

“And how many times has something like this turned out to be a simple coincidence?”

“Um, never?”

“So I think we both know this won’t be a coincidence either.”

He was right, of course. But then how did it all fit together? That was what I’d like to know.

Chapter 22

And since we couldn’t exactly make heads or tails of the whole thing, and when Odelia finally emerged from her meeting with Chase and told us she was going into the office to work on some of her articles and we were free to do as we pleased, we decided to head on home. Sometimes the best thing you can do to solve a mystery is to do exactly nothing. No, that’s not entirely true: the best thing is to take a step back, and let things stew for a while.

Something was definitely stewing when we arrived home, for a large container stood parked in front of Marge and Tex’s place, and workers were walking in and out pushing wheelbarrows loaded up with what looked like debris and dumping them into the container.

“Are Marge and Tex redecorating, Max?” asked Dooley as we sat taking in the scene for a few moments before venturing inside.

“I don’t know, Dooley, but it certainly looks that way.”

But since the front of the house looked a little dangerous for two small cats such as ourselves to pass through those front lines, we decided to circle around and attack the thing from the rear, always a good strategy in times of war—or house renovations.

But the back of the house was even worse, and the kitchen was unrecognizable: workers were pounding with very big pneumatic hammers at the wall that divides the kitchen from the living room, and already large holes had been created. So either this was a rave, judging from the sound those jackhammers made, or something even worse!

“They’re destroying the whole house, Max!” said Dooley.

“Looks that way,” I agreed, equally annoyed that nobody had bothered to send us the memo that our home was going to be a construction site for the foreseeable future.

And then we saw Gran, who stood at the heart of all the hubbub, a yellow hard hat placed on her head, and a dust mask in front of her face. She was discussing something with a very large and burly man, who also had a hard hat on his head, and was dressed in blue coveralls. From time to time he yelled something to the other people destroying Marge and Tex’s nice house, and then he resumed his conference with Gran.

“Gran!” yelled Dooley. “What is happening!”

But of course she didn’t hear us. And then when a large piece of ceiling dropped down on the kitchen floor, it looked like things were turning ugly, and we beat a strategic retreat.

We regrouped in Odelia’s house, which, much to our delight, wasn’t the scene of men with hard hats using power tools to tear down the walls. Things there were exactly as they’d always been, and we discovered that our food bowls were still there, and filled to the brim, too, and so were our litter boxes—though luckily not filled to the brim.

“What’s going on?” asked Dooley. His question was addressed to Harriet and Brutus who sat on the couch, looking particularly glum.

“Gran has started her kitchen remodel,” said Harriet, “only she forgot to tell Marge.”

“She’ll blow a fuse when she gets home and discovers what Gran has done,” said Brutus.

“That’s not a kitchen remodel,” I said. “They’re tearing down walls!”

“Gran mentioned something about wanting to open the place up,” said Harriet. “She wants to