And before they could stop him, he was out the door.
“I don’t know about this,” said Odelia. “Rocamora sounded very convincing.”
“Psychopaths always do,” said Uncle Alec. “Now get lost, will you? And get me the evidence I need to wrap this case up nice and neat!” he added as Odelia left the office, Dooley and me in tow.
“What do you think, Max?” asked Dooley once we were out on the street again, and on our way to Odelia’s car. “Did he do it? Along with his girlfriend?”
“I don’t know, Dooley,” I said. “He does seem like the perfect candidate, doesn’t he? He must have hated Isobel for her refusal to grant her blessing for the wedding. And now with her out of the way he’ll get his wedding and the benefit of a very large family fortune. That’s an excellent motive for murder. And let’s not forget he has confessed to being on the scene when the murder was committed. We even have photographic evidence and a witness who saw him there.”
“It does look very bad for him, doesn’t it? And for his girlfriend.”
“It does,” I agreed. Which meant that this case could be wrapped up today.
“Not so nice for Alison, though,” said Dooley. “If she was involved, she’ll go to prison, and if she wasn’t involved, her boyfriend just killed her mother.”
“Yeah, that wedding is definitely off, I’d say.”
We hopped into the back of Odelia’s aged pickup, and settled in for the duration. Since the backseat of the car is mostly used by the four of us, its smell is very familiar, and very pleasing to a cat’s sensitive nose. And so I dug my nails into the nylon cover while Odelia pulled the car into traffic and we were on our way.
“Where are we going?” asked Dooley.
“The coroner’s office,” Odelia informed us. “Abe asked us to drop by. And now that Chase is busy arresting Alison Droba, I guess it’s up to us to do the honors.”
I swallowed away a lump of uneasiness. I don’t like the coroner’s office. It’s very creepy, with dead people stuffed away in fridges, and Abe Cornwall cutting open dead bodies like some benevolent butcher. Not exactly my kind of place!
“We don’t have to watch as he cuts open a person, do we?” I asked.
Odelia smiled at us in the rearview mirror.“You can stay in the car if you want.”
“Good.” But then I thought better of it. What kind of a feline sleuth would I be if I allowed my humans to do all the hard work, while I lounged around in cars? “Or maybe we’ll tag along,” I said finally. “But we might wait in the corridor.”
“Suit yourself,” said Odelia, then lapsed into thought as the car ate up the miles.
“I don’t want to see more dead bodies, Max,” said Dooley quietly. “I’ve seen one, and that’s about all I can stomach for a day. My ration reached, you know.”
“Same here, buddy,” I said. “So let’s agree now that when we spot a dead body, we’ll take cover, all right?”
“Deal,” said Dooley, well pleased with my sensible approach to the matter. “We’ll hide under Abe’s desk the moment he starts trotting out dead bodies.”
CHAPTER 21
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Fortunately for us Abe received us in his tiny office. Of dead bodies there was no trace, but documents piled high on his desk were plenty. Also present was a skeleton, located in a corner of the office, grinning at us with malevolent delight.
“I’ll keep an eye on that skeleton, Max,” Dooley assured me. “And if it makes a move, I’ll scream, all right?”
“Good thinking, Dooley,” I said. Even though I didn’t think that skeleton had a lot of life left in its bony limbs, a careful cat is prepared for any contingency.
“I can see what you’re thinking,” said Abe once he’d lowered his voluminous corpus in the chair behind his desk. He adjusted his glasses and gave Odelia a quizzical look. “And you’re absolutely correct. But I have my reasons.”
“What am I thinking?” asked Odelia, amused.
“You’re thinking: why did I have to come all this way out here, if you could have sent me your report through the swift powers of the internet?”
“You’re right. That’s what I was thinking,” Odelia confirmed.
“The thing is that my report is in need of some explanation.”
“Well, let’s have it then,” said Odelia, settling in.
“It hasn’t moved yet, Max,” Dooley told me. He was keeping a close eye on that skeleton. “So far so good.”
“Okay, so as I thought, the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the back of the head—more in particular the occipital bone. The weapon you’re looking for would most likely be some blunt object. Could be a baseball bat, candlestick—something smooth and heavy. So that is what killed her.But what I wanted to talk to you about are these.” He had turned his computer screen, and a series of gruesome pictures now appeared.
I had to look away, but Odelia seemed transfixed.
“What are they?”
“At first glance I thought they were a series of knife wounds. But on closer inspection these couldn’t have been produced by a knife. A sharp object, yes, but not sharp enough to create a clean entry wound. The wounds are frayed, as you can see here and here and here.”