But Tex shook his head.“Nothing I can think of. We were having a nice time here, all of us, so this murder business came out of the blue. Must be a burglary gone wrong,” he added his opinion.
“Was anything stolen from your room?”
Tex glanced around, as if the question hadn’t occurred to him, and frowned. “I don’t think so,” he said. “My phone is still here, my wallet… Your purse, honey?”
“Purse is here,” Marge confirmed. “And so is my phone. Nothing stolen, I think.”
“Good,” said Odelia as she tapped her tablet. “And how are you holding up?” Her voice was tinged with a note of concern. She had put her detective cap off and was donning the worried daughter cap now.
“It was a big shock,” Marge confessed.
“You knew Isobel well, of course.”
“We did,” said Tex. “Have known her for years.”
When nothing more seemed forthcoming, the parents still continuing to be strangely reticent, we took our leave, after Odelia had issued her usual warning not to leave the premises, and if anything came to mind, to tell her immediately.
“I had the feeling they were hiding something,” I told Odelia the moment we left the room.
“I had the same impression,” our human confirmed. “But what?”
“You don’t think they murdered Isobel, do you?” Dooley asked, shocked.
“No, I don’t think they killed Isobel. But they’re lying about something.”
CHAPTER 13
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When Chase had returned from his excursions, he regrettably informed us that he hadn’t found any suspicious footprints below Isobel Droba’s window, owing to the fact that the drainpipe didn’t end in a nice flower bed, as it often does in an Agatha Christie novel, but on the paved forecourt, which isn’t as susceptible to footprints as loose sand.
“And what about cigarette butts?” asked Dooley, who seemed to have developed a keen interest in this staple of many a Sherlock Holmes story.
“No cigarette butts either,” Odelia informed us with a twinkle in her eye.
“That’s too bad,” said Dooley. “I definitely thought there would be butts.”
“No butts,” I said, and then it was time to enter into our investigation proper by talking to Michele Droba, the victim’s sister-in-law.
Michele met us in one of the downstairs rooms, this one a modestly appointed living room where cream-colored leather couches awaited us, as well as a smattering of modern art paintings adorning the walls.
“Perlita Gruner’s work,” Michele explained when she saw Chase checking out a painting of a green apple on a red background. “She owns an art gallery in town.”
“Just to be sure: this isn’t your home, is it?” asked Chase.
“Oh, no. It belongs to a friend of mine. Cyril Baskerville. He rents it out as an Airbnb. It’s perfect for us, since it has two tennis courts out back as well as a swimming pool. In fact we’ve been using it for just about forever—long before Airbnb even existed. Back then Cyril rented out the place through a real estate agency owned by his brother. When his brother retired he switched to Airbnb.”
“But you’re still here,” said Odelia with a smile, which Michele returned.
We all took a seat, and Chase launched into the interview.“First off, my sincerest condolences, Mrs. Droba. Isobel’s death must come as a great shock to you.”
“It does,” Michele confirmed. “Isobel and I were very close, and losing her is like losing a sister.”
“You weren’t actually sisters, though, were you?”
“No. Isobel was married to my husband’s brother.”
“Did you have a chance to see if anything was taken from her room?” asked Odelia.
“I did, yes, and as far as I can tell her laptop is gone, and so is her phone and her wallet. Looks like the person who broke in and killed her took everything.”
“The odd thing is that this burglar, this thief, didn’t target anyone else.”
“He probably wasn’t expecting to be caught,” said Michele. “And so when Isobel wasn’t in bed as he’d surmised, and caught him red-handed going through her things, he must have killed her and escaped the same way he came in.”
Chase nodded thoughtfully.“Have you had problems with breakins before?”
“No, never.”
“And there’s no alarm system? No CCTV cameras on the property?”
“There is an alarm system, but we don’t arm it unless we leave the house. And now during this week it’s never armed, since there’s always someone here.”
“And what about cameras?”
“No cameras, I’m afraid. Cyril believes they might scare off potential guests.” She smiled. “Not everyone likes to be filmed, Detective. Or their every movement clocked by some unknown security person miles away who can do who knows what with the footage. Put it on YouTube, perhaps, or turnit into a TikTok video.”
“I see,” said Chase. “So we have no way of knowing who this mystery burglar-slash-killer was.”