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

he enjoyed dumping cats in the woods, because if that became known it could cause him to lose his kids. So he panicked and killed the witness and tried to hide the body.”

“Okay, so the problem with that,” I said, “is that a clever killer would also get rid of the murder weapon, and definitely not put it back in his own gun safe.”

“I like that, Max,” said Odelia, pointing at me. “That’s why I want to run the other suspects by you one by one and see what you guys think. The first one is Charlie himself, who was seen hanging around the Bunyon residence, and could easily have gained access to the house and grabbed the gun from the safe.”

“Possibly,” I agreed, “though highly unlikely.”

“Charlie’s motive would have been to get the money Pete owed him, and they could have gotten into some kind of tussle and the gun could have discharged by accident.”

“Who is Charlie?” asked Dooley, who had trouble following the barrage of different names pertaining to the case.

“He’s the bum who might have killed the other bum,” said Brutus, who was able to keep up.

“Oh,” said Dooley. “Okay.”

“And then there’s the stepdaughter,” Odelia continued. “Suzy could have taken her stepdad’s gun and given it to her raver boyfriend Darryl, or any of his friends, who could have used it to kill Pete. So let’s suppose that Todd Park, for instance, shot and killed Pete. Then Darryl, who was hard up and needed the money, could have blackmailed his friend, at which point Todd pushed Darryl down that shaft to get rid of him.”

“I like this theory,” I confessed. “Though it doesn’t necessarily have to be Todd Park. It could be any one of Daryl’s raver friends.”

“We probably should talk to some of these raving friends,” Harriet said.

“Raver friends,” Brutus corrected her gently. “Though they might be raving, too, of course,” he quickly added when she shot him an angry look.

“And that brings us to my final theory,” said Odelia, “and this is the one Kathleen Bunyon suggested: Grace Kramer could have taken the gun and killed Pete so she could put the blame on her ex-husband and take the kids from him once and for all.”

“Unlikely,” was my verdict. “Grace wouldn’t have had easy access to the house, like the stepdaughter would, and besides, she would have had to sneak in twice: once to take the gun and once to put it back. And both times she needed to do it unseen by anyone, which would be a big risk for her.”

“Yeah, I agree with you, Max,” said Odelia. “And Karl does, too. He told me he doesn’t think Grace is capable of murder.”

“Though clearly Grace seems to think Karl is,” Harriet pointed out. “No, I like the ex-wife for this. She had a clear motive, and she seems vindictive and clever enough to get her hands on that gun. Maybe she even hired a professional to do it for her.”

“A hitman?” I asked, and couldn’t keep the skepticism out of my voice, unfortunately.

“And why not? People hire hitmen all the time.”

“I don’t think people hire hitmen all the time, Harriet,” I said, “or the streets would be littered with dead people.”

“Nitpicky,” Harriet snapped. “You are so nitpicky, Max.”

“So what do you think?” asked Odelia. “Chase is convinced Karl is guilty, and so is my uncle. But I’m not so sure. I talked to him and he doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d do this kind of thing.”

“I think we need to talk to those ravers again,” I said. “Todd Park, for one, but also some of the others that knew Darryl. See what they have to say.”

“Okay,” said Odelia, nodding. “I’ll try to convince Chase and we’ll set up some more interviews.” She got up, then glanced at the house. “You know? It looks pretty terrible now, but maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing. After all, the house was old when Mom and Dad bought it, and at the time they didn’t have the money to do the kind of remodeling they had in mind. So maybe now they’ll finally be able to build it just the way they like.”

“See?” said Harriet after Odelia had left. “Even Odelia thinks this was a good thing.”

And she was right. Like they say: every cloud has a silver lining. And this disaster might have one, too. Though looking at Tex’s murderous frown each time he darted a look at his mother-in-law, I had the impression he didn’t see that silver lining yet. In fact he looked more like a man who had silver daggers on his mind. Or even silver bullets.

Chapter 28

That night cat choir had a different quality than usual. Mainly because practically all of the cats had followed our example and were wearing… collars with inbuilt trackers! And I must say they were wearing them proudly.

Shanille had one of the nicest collars: hers was inlaid with what looked like gold thread! She was parading the gizmo for everyone to see, and for a moment I thought she must have raided the church coffers to get her paws on all of that gold, but then she explained how Father Reilly had talked to Gran, who’d told him the whole story of the catnapping, and how our collars had saved our lives, causing Odelia and Chase to quickly and efficiently find us in the middle of nowhere, and since Gran said she could make him a good deal, the good priest hadn’t hesitated and had procured a collar from her.

And so there Shanille was, safe from any attempts at catnapping, and with Father Reilly knowing at every moment of the day or night exactly where she was, and ready to come to her rescue in case anyone tried any funny business.

Kingman, too, was wearing what looked like a pricy gadget, with what looked like diamonds, but which could also have been glass, and he told us pretty much the same story: Gran