“Canada. Her parents live in Toronto, so she and Angel are staying with them for now. Until Marigold can find a job and rent an apartment. She said she wants to start a new life. Without Francis.”
“Poor Francis,” said Brutus.
“Poor Marigold!” said Harriet. “Imagine having to wait years and years for a wedding proposal, and then when finally one comes along, nothing happens!”
“Francis did talk to the bishop,” said Shanille, “and explained the situation. So the bishop said he should simply live together with Marigold, but be discreet about it. That way he could remain a priest, and be with Marigold at the same time. But Marigold didn’t see it that way. She didn’t want to be Francis’s guilty secret. If they were going to be together, it had to be official, not in secret.”
“The bishop probably didn’t want to lose a good priest like Francis,” said Brutus. “Which is why he came up with this compromise. Marigold should have said yes, then everybody would have been happy.” When both Shanille and Harriet stared at him with daggers firing from their eyes, he said, “What?”
“Are you crazy?” said Shanille. “Marigold has been in this situation for years! She felt she deserved better than being tucked away in some corner of Francis’s life. Like a leper. And she’s right.”
“I guess so,” said Brutus dubiously. He stared at the priest, who was passed out, and thought he was taking the whole thing very hard indeed. But then who could blame him? If Harriet walked out on him he would also take it hard. Though he probably wouldn’t go to a shack in the woods with a car full of altar wine.
“Okay, so here’s what we’ll do,” said Harriet. “We can’t leave him like this. So we talk to a good friend of his and she’ll get him out of this terrible situation.”
Shanille eyed her with suspicion.“What friend?”
“Why, Gran, of course!”
CHAPTER 19
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Once again our humans had decided to call on Mr. Crowley, hoping to confront him with the new suspicions that they were about to level against that uber-ambitious young designer. When we arrived at the hotel, the receptionist kindly informed us that their esteemed guest was still on the premises as far as they could tell. At least he hadn’t checked out yet.
But when we arrived on the third floor, and made our way to his room, persistent knocking didn’t yield any meaningful result. Hollering, “Police, Mr. Crowley—open up!” didn’t affect a lot of movement either. And so finally a maid was called in, who kindly opened the door for us with her passkey.
A very curious sight played out in front of us: as we entered, we had a perfect view of a man’s underpants, as he tried to scrabble through the window. The underpants didn’t give us a lot of clues as to the man’s identity, other than that he was probably male, and that he favored red polka dots on his undergarments.
He was also wearing red socks, but no shoes. And when finally Chase grabbed a firm hold of one leg, and Odelia of the other, and pulled, there was a sort of rending sound, and a loud whine as if from a caged animal, and Edmundo Crowley fell back into the room, his face red and angry, and his mood below zero.
“This is police harassment!” he cried as he put on a show of umbrage. “I will bring charges against you people, just you wait and see! You can’t do this!”
“Where were you going in such a hurry, Mr. Crowley?” asked Chase, who wasn’t the least bit impressed by the man’s diatribe. “And in your underwear, no less.”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business, but if you must know I was trying to get some fresh air. But since this darned window is blocked, the only way I could get out was by squeezing myself through it. Stupid thing.”
“I realize that Brooklynites have a special way of doing things,” said Chase, “but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a man trying to take in fresh air by wedging himself in like this.”
“Looks to me like he was trying to escape,” said Odelia.
“Now why would he do that?” asked Chase.
“Because he’s guilty, no doubt.”
“Guilty of what, I wonder?”
“Oh, cut the theatrics, will you?” said the man. “What do you want?”
“We wanted to ask you about your whereabouts this afternoon, Mr. Crowley. Let’s say between two and three?”
“What do you mean?”
Chase sighed.“It’s a simple question. Where were you between two and three?”
“Why?”
“Indulge us, please.”
“If you must know, I was here, working on my next collection.”
“Can anyone vouch for you?”
“Well… no, actually. Why? What’s going on?”
“Two people were murdered,” said Odelia. “And one of them is Jeff Felfan, Stephanie Felfan’s husband.”
To his credit, the man blanched when the news hit him.“M-m-murdered?”
“Yes, Mr. Crowley. The man you tried to drive off the road yesterday was murdered. Do you own a gun?”
“A g-g-gun?”
“Yes, a gun.”
“N-n-no, of course not. Why would I need a gun?”
“So if we were to arrest you and get a warrant to search your computer, we wouldn’t find a search history indicating that you were in the market for a gun?”