by Nic Saint
“Don’t worry, you guys” said Odelia. “I have plenty of other brushes.” And she removed the one I’d broken and snapped another one on top of the device.
“Oh, shoot,” Dooley muttered.
And so began a new chapter in our lives: from that moment on our snappers would always be squeaky clean, and plaque-free—whatever plaque is.
“Plaque is the enemy,” Odelia explained. “We have to fight plaque.”
“Great,” I said as I grimaced. That toothpaste tasted horrible. “Can I go now?”
“Yes, you can,” said Odelia, giving me a pat on the head. “You did good, Max. Next!”
Harriet, of course, was the next one to experience the miracle of the electric toothbrush, and before long she had a toothpaste smile, too.
“Plaque is the enemy,” repeated Dooley reverently when it was his turn.
“That’s right,” said Odelia as she carefully applied brush to teeth and gums.
“And here I always thought dogs were the enemy,” said Brutus. “Just goes to show you’re never too old to learn new stuff.”
Soon all of us had taken a turn on the hot seat and as we smacked our gums and tried very much to get the horrible taste of mint out of our mouths, Odelia put away the brush.
“Tomorrow, same time, same place,” she said, sounding entirely too happy.
One thing I need to have a word with Odelia about, though, is sharing stuff. I mean, when I passed by the bathroom later that night, I saw how Chase was brushing his teeth with the exact same brush Odelia had used on us. Now I know that humans think sharing is caring, but I, for one, would prefer my own dedicated toothbrush. After all, you never know where Chase’s mouth has been, right?
And when he suddenly took the brush out of his mouth and stared at it, muttering something about a weird taste, then smelled it and grimaced, I could tell he was of the same opinion.
Chapter 25
The next morning, bright and early, Odelia decided to drop by Courtyard Living, the landscaping company Boyd Baker used to work for. She’d discovered it was still in business, though now it probably belonged to the next generation of owners, or an entirely new one.
Courtyard Living was located in an old warehouse, where now a dozen small businesses were housed. She parked her car in the parking lot and got out. The warehouse used to be part of a candy factory, which had moved to another part of town fifteen years ago. She looked around. Someone was putting a display stand outside and carrying clay sculptures to place on top of it, and a wholesale clothes store was opening its doors, welcoming their first customers. It all looked very industrial chic and she liked it. Giving a new purpose to old factory buildings was a good thing. Better than to allow them to run down. She set foot for the landscaping place and as she walked in, several men dressed in green coveralls walked out, carrying gardening tools.
Once inside, she went in search of the owner, according to the website one Amabel Margarit. She found her in a cluttered office, her desk a big mess, papers covering every available surface, and a large whiteboard nailed to the wall with the weekly planning.
“Amabel Margarit?” she asked as she knocked politely. “My name is Odelia Poole, and I’m a reporter for the Hampton Cove Gazette.”
“Oh, right, come on in. I have it here somewhere,” said Amabel, rooting through the documents on her desk and shoving a snake plant that had seen better days out of the way. “Your boss called me last week and I told him I hadn’t changed my mind—just hadn’t gotten round to it yet. Ah, here it is.” She produced a piece of paper, wiped off a few smudges of dirt, and proudly handed it to Odelia.
She then gave her a pleasant smile. Amabel was a sturdily built young woman, with dark hair and thick-rimmed glasses, and looked entirely too young to ever have known any member of the Baker family.
Odelia glanced at the piece of paper. It was the text for an ad in the Gazette, along with a picture of a garden, presumably one Courtyard Living had worked on.
“Um, I’m actually not here for this,” she said, “but I’ll take it, of course.”
She looked up to see Amabel handing her a fifty-dollar bill. “Here. That should cover it, right?”
“Thanks. I’m actually looking into the murder of a man who used to work for you.”
Amabel did a double take and placed her hands to her chest. “Oh, my god. Who?”
“His name is Boyd Baker, and he died fifty-five years ago. But at the time he worked for this company.”
“Fifty-five years,” said the woman, adjusting her glasses. “I’m twenty-eight, Miss Poole.”
“I know. I just hoped you could point me in the right direction. Names of people he worked with, maybe. Addresses. Something.”
The young woman nodded. She darted a glance to a filing cabinet in a corner of the office. It was one of those old-fashioned sturdy metal things, that make a pleasant clunking sound when you slam the drawer home. She crouched down and opened the bottom drawer. “Now let me have a look-see. I took over Courtyard Living from my dad, who took over from his dad.”
“I’d hoped as much,” said Odelia gratefully.
“And any old personnel files my dad and granddad had, they kept in here. These days I keep everything in the computer, but if the old archive is still intact… Yes. Here we go. Boyd Baker.” She took out the file as Odelia’s heart made a little leap of excitement. She placed it on top of her desk and studied it for a moment. “So what do you want to know?”
“I’d like to know about his colleagues. Maybe some of them are still around.”
“Fifty-five years…” She studied a pink card, covered in near illegible writing.
“His daughter told me he and his colleagues used to hang out at a bar after work. The Rusty Beaver? It’s a flower shop now.”
“Yeah, that name rings a bell. Our workers changed venues since the olden days, though. Now they hang out at the Brimming Beaker, which is just around the corner.”
“Could I take a quick peek at Mr. Baker’s personnel file?”
“Oh, sure. Be my guest,” said Amabel, and handed her the file folder.
Odelia took a seat on the only chair that wasn’t covered with objects, and leafed through the contents of the folder. There wasn’t much of great significance there, as she’d feared. Boyd had started to work for Courtyard Living when he was eighteen, and had been an okay worker. And then, as she flipped a file that contained information about his paycheck, a scribbled note fell out. She picked it up and saw that it was some form of job assessment. In capital letters the words POLICE INTERVIEW had been written. It also contained a summary of the interview. Apparently Boyd had been accused by one of the company’s customers of absconding with valuables belonging to the family where he’d done a job. And whoever had written these notes had added GET RID OF HIM? and underlined it three times.
She looked up. “Who is Mrs. Clifford?” she asked. “Aurelia Clifford?”
“The Cliffords were important clients of my grandfather and my dad, too,” said Amabel, looking up from her computer. “Um, they used to live in one of those big mansions out on what is now called the Billionaire Mile. I don’t think they still live there, though. Mrs. Clifford died many years ago, and her family got rid of the mansion.”
Odelia studied the document a little longer, then tapped it with her index finger. “Any idea how I can get in touch with Mrs. Clifford’s relatives?”
Chapter 26
Even though we’d struck out the first time, Dooley and I were once again on our way to the macaw, in a second attempt to make her talk. And I mean this in the most benign way possible, of course.
“I can’t believe Harriet and Brutus negotiated the mice retreat,” I said as we walked along and soon found ourselves on familiar ground once more.
“Yeah, they did a great job,” said Dooley.
“No, but I mean, it should have been us, Dooley, to create such a heroic moment, not Harriet and Brutus.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“Because we’re the heroes.”
“We are? I didn’t even know this.”
“Haven’t you noticed how we always come up with the missing clue, that oh-so-important piece of evidence that nails the perpetrator? Or how we are the ones to save Odelia from harm?”
“I hadn’t noticed, actually,” he said after a moment’s reflection. “I always thought we did this together. As a foursome, I mean. That it didn’t matter who got the credit.”
“Well, if you look at it that way…” Now I felt like a cad, of course. An egotistical cad. But Dooley was right. It didn’t matter who got the credit, as long as whatever we were working on got resolved, whether it be chasing a colony of mice from the basement, or solving an old crime.
“I think Harriet and Brutus are very clever,” said Dooley, rubbing it in some more.
“I think so, too,” I said. “But are they clever enough?”
He gave me a strange look. “Max? You’re acting a little weird.”
I licked my lips. “It’s because I don’t feel I’ve done anything substantial on this case. We talked to one witness, and struck out, we didn’t chase away the mice, and I can’t even fit through the pet flap.”
He smiled. “This is about the pet flap, isn’t it?”
“I guess it is,” I said with a sigh.
“You’ll fit through the pet flap again, Max,” he promised. “Just keep doing your daily exercises and before you know it you won’t get stuck when you try to come and go.”
His words warmed my heart. It was exactly what I needed to hear. “Thanks, Dooley,” I said. “You’re a true friend.”
“And so are Harriet and Brutus,” he reminded me, “and it doesn’t matter who solves what crime, or who finds what clue. We’re all in this together, Max, as a family. A team.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, a little shame-faced. Sometimes Dooley surprises me with his wisdom. And it’s in moments like this that I am reminded that we should never judge a book by its cover. Dooley’s cover might not be all that much to look at, but he has a big heart, and a keen intelligence when he decides to use it, and that’s what matters.
We’d arrived in Morley Street, and we both took a deep breath.
“This is it, Dooley,” I said. “We need to extract a confession now, you understand?”
“No, Max,” he said. “We just need to have a chat with a friend, and if she tells us something important, great. And if not, also fine.”
Damn, I thought as I stared at my friend. Who’d abducted Dooley and replaced him with Tony Robbins?
We moved between the houses and into the backyard and arrived at the same verandah we’d visited the day before.
Camilla was perched on the same spot, and when she saw us poking our heads through the window, she shouted, “Stranger danger! Stranger danger!”
“Hey, that’s what I’m supposed to say,” said Dooley.
“We’re not strangers,” I told the parrot. “We were here yesterday, remember?”
“Yes, we come in peace, good bird,” said Dooley. “We’re kindred spirits, all creatures of the Lord, and we wish you no harm whatsoever.”
The bird eyed us with its head cocked to one side, but at least she’d stopped mimicking a fire alarm.
“Remember we asked you about a skeleton buried in the wall of our basement?” I said. “Well, we know his name now. Boyd Baker. And we also know when he died and how.”
“Someone knocked him on the head and he didn’t recover,” said Dooley. “So they must have hit him pretty hard, and then they decided to bury him in the wall.”
“This happened fifty-five years ago,” I said. “So does that ring any bells? Any stories you might have heard about this guy?”
“Anything you can tell us will help us a great deal,” said Dooley. “We want to bring the murderer to justice, because that is what we do.”
“Yeah, well, the killer will probably be dead by now, but the relatives want closure,” I said. “His son and daughter are still alive, and they’ve wondered all these years what happened to their dad.”
Camilla was silent for a moment, then she spoke, and this time it wasn’t to address Alexa and ask her how dangerous cats were. “I remember the Bakers,” she said. “We used to live just down the street, and the Baker kids used to play with my family’s kids.”
“What was your family called?” I asked, wanting to get all the deets before she lapsed into silence again or, worse, turned foghorn on us.
“The Haddocks,” she said. “This is a long time ago. I was a young macaw then, and had only just arrived in town. But the Haddocks treated me well, and even allowed me to fly around the house. The kids especially were very affectionate, and used to talk up a storm, asking me all kinds of questions. I loved it. I still see them from time to time, even though they gave me to their niece—my current human,” she explained.
“Oh, so you don’t live with these Haddocks anymore?”
“No, I don’t. The kids grew up, and Mr. and Mrs. Haddock moved into an apartment and unfortunately couldn’t keep me. And since the kids all live on the other side of the country, and one even overseas, they decided to give me to Laura Haddock. A wonderful person,” she said warmly, “and I couldn’t be happier.”
“That’s great,” I said, genuinely happy for the parrot. “So… about Boyd Baker?”
“Boyd Baker was a horrible person. He used to yell at his wife all the time. Screaming and shouting. Flaming rows. There was even a rumor he was an alcoholic and came home reeking of liquor most nights.”
“Is that a fact?” I said, giving Dooley a knowing look. “Rita Baker told our human that her father was a warm and loving man, and that her childhood was a happy one.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Camilla. “All I know is that those were the stories I heard. And the number of times the police had to come and intervene were numerous.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “So not such a happy home after all.”
“No, not a happy home at all,” the macaw said. “Or at least not in my recollection. Of course we all remember things differently, and you can’t always believe everything you hear. Take the Haddocks for instance. Rumor had it Mr. Haddock liked to play with toy trains. But that wasn’t true at all. He didn’t even collect trains. What he did like were toy soldiers. You see? Toy soldiers, truth. Toy trains. Lie. Very easy to believe in the lie and dismiss the truth.”
“Yes, well, I don’t think there’s such a big difference between toy soldiers and toy trains, though,” I said.
The bird’s eyes went wide. “Are you kidding me? There’s a world of difference, and you wouldn’t believe the number of times I intervened on Mr. Haddock’s behalf and told the pets in our neighborhood the truth. But do you think they believed me? Of course not. Kept spreading foul lies. Especially the cats, of course, because cats are vicious.”
“Excuse me,” I said. “That’s where you’re mistaken. Cats are not vicious. In fact only last night a dear friend of ours negotiated a truce with an entire colony of mice and managed to get them to evacuate the premises, all without a single hair on their heads harmed. So don’t you go spreading foul lies about cats, you hear?”
The bird was gloating, I could tell, but I couldn’t stop. It’s tough to have to listen to a bunch of lies.
“See?” she finally said. “I say one little thing and immediately you fly off the handle.”
“I was just trying to set the record straight.”
“And I was merely pointing out a few hard truths about your species and—”
“No, you weren’t. You were spreading falsehoods, and I, for one—”
“You can’t handle the truth, cat!” suddenly the parrot shouted, and both Dooley and I were taken aback for a moment.
“Now look who’s the violent one,” I said.
“Oh, don’t talk to me about violence,” said the bird. “Violence is having your wings clipped just because some vet was given bad information at the
university.”
“Trouble with your vet, huh?” I said. “Trust me, I’ve been there. Do you know that last time I went to the vet she pulled three teeth? Three teeth!”
“Oh, three teeth is nothing,” said the macaw, and lifted her wing then parted her feathers. “See those scars? That’s where she stabbed me with a needle the other day. Allegedly so she could administer a vaccine, but we know better, don’t we?”
“Oh, yes, we do. This vet kept poking me with so many needles I thought for a moment she’d mistaken me for a pincushion!”
The bird laughed heartily. “What’s the name of your vet?”
“Vena Aleman.”
“Mine, too!”
She stared at me, a smile on her face. “Well, maybe you were right. Maybe not all cats are vicious.”
“It’s the vets that are the vicious ones,” I said.
“Too true,” she said, and flew over to where we were sitting, and held up one foot. “Put it there, pals.”
So I high-fived her, and so did Dooley.
“You should drop by more often,” she said. “It’s nice to shoot the breeze like this.”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “Next time we find the dead body of one of your old neighbors in the basement we’ll be sure to tell you all about it.”
She laughed, and so did Dooley and myself. And when moments later the bird’s owner walked in, and saw her macaw fraternizing with no less than two cats, she yelled up such a storm I thought for a moment she had macaw blood herself.
Chapter 27
When Odelia entered the garage of Courtyard Living, she noticed that an older man who’d been sweeping the floor suddenly put down his broom and started walking away.
“Mr. Crocket?” she called out, her voice echoing in the large space. A flatbed truck used for gardening purposes stood parked in one of the garage bays, and large pallets stacked with bags of manure and mulch lined the far wall.
The man, if he’d heard her, didn’t heed the call. Instead, he moved even quicker.
