Odds Ball (Margot and Odds Cozy Mystery Book 3)

by Audrey Claire

  Margot’s eyes widened. “Do you believe Odds?”

  “Why not?” He sank to his knees and studied the floor with his head lowered.

  Margot left him to it to search the bathroom. She had spotted Mr. Sandifer’s suitcase on the wall side of the bed, but she didn’t want to dig through the man’s personal things, especially since they had no reason to be in his room other than Odds’ quirks.

  When Margot returned from the bathroom, Lyle was unashamedly going through the suitcase. “Anything?” she asked.

  “No.” He sighed. “I confess, I was a little excited with this adventure until now. If I’m going to be confined, I thought to enjoy a bit of excitement before I go.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t keep mentioning it,” Margot snapped, and then covered her mouth. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.”

  “No apology necessary.” Lyle dumped Steven Sandifer’s clothes into the suitcase and started to close it.

  Margot grabbed his wrist. “You can’t just put them back like that. If you’re going to rifle through a man’s clothing, you should make it look like you never touched them.”

  His eyes twinkled. “Are you an expert, Margot?”

  “My ex-husband, Lou, I did start searching his things toward the end. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I wanted to confirm what I had started to suspect. After many years of marriage, he ran off with a younger woman. That old fuddy-duddy actually thinks she loves him.”

  Lyle squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “No matter. It’s all in the past now.”

  He looked at her as if he didn’t believe it, but Margot raised her chin. She was made of stern stuff, and it didn’t matter if sometimes she got lonely.

  “When I was married to Lou, I didn’t have any close friends, not in New York at least. Now that I have more humble means, I’m much happier, and I have Odds and Nancy and Kenny, and the rest of the people who live in my apartment building.”

  “Well, that is what’s most important, isn’t it, Margot?”

  “Yes, it is!”

  “Good. And don’t worry. As you can see from the state of this room, Steven Sandifer isn’t a neat man. These clothes were already stuffed into the case unfolded.”

  She sniffed in disgust. “I guess you never know about people.”

  A sudden yowl outside the room alerted Margot that Odds was back. She started for the door, but Lyle tugged her back and pressed a finger to his lips. “He’s not alone,” Lyle whispered.

  Margot almost groaned out loud to find Lyle guiding her toward the closet. Maybe this darn adventure should have been called Odds Closet! She resisted a moment at the doorway to the closet, but Lyle gave her a gentle but firm push and pulled the door to behind him.

  “Stupid cat,” Sandifer complained. The sound of a key card landing on the table was followed by Sandifer coming into view as he sat down. Margot almost cried out when she saw that he held Odds and gave him a shake. Tears filled Margot’s eyes. How dare he. She was about to storm from the closet when Lyle held her still and covered her mouth. An instant of fear shot through her as she recalled the man beside her was a murderer even if he did seem kind.

  Margot struggled to get free of Lyle’s hold, but he whispered into her ear. “Wait, Margot. Don’t be rash.”

  How dare he tell her not to be rash. He didn’t know what she and Odds had to go through, and it was true that Odds made fun of her and called her crazy. He left her looking silly when he didn’t respond the way she knew he could when others were around. Still, he had saved her bacon on too many occasions. Odds needed her.

  “Nosy cat should stop following me around,” Sandifer said. “Where’s your owner? No answer? Well, I better take care of you before she catches up and gets in my way. I have just the thing for you.”

  Margot stopped fighting Lyle. She listened, wide-eyed and then pressed her eye to the closet opening to see what Sandifer intended to do. He held Odds by the scruff of his neck in one hand and bent over to the trashcan with the other. When Sandifer retrieved one of the chip bags, she shook her head in amusement. Odds wouldn’t eat potato chip crumbs. He liked to eat human food but not junk.

  Beside her, Lyle stiffened, and his hand fell away from Margot’s mouth. She turned to look at him, but she couldn’t make out much of his facial expression in the dark. “What is it?” she whispered.

  “That,” he said. “A seed.”

  Margot looked back at Sandifer. Sure enough, he held something pinched between his forefinger and his thumb. Margot took Lyle’s word for it that the item was a seed, but she couldn’t see it with her naked eyes. Not from across the room. Her eyes weren’t what they used to be.

  “One should do it,” Sandifer was saying. “No, two to be safe. Now be a good beast and eat it.”

  Lyle lunged from the closet. “Stop right there!”

  Lyle’s back blocked Margot from being seen, but she heard Odds’ hiss and Sandifer cry out when the cat must have scratched him.

  “How did you get in here?” Sandifer demanded.

  Odds scurried for the door, and Margot ran after him. “Odds, you didn’t swallow that thing, did you? Spit it out!”

  When she reached him at the door, he did an about face and scurried beneath the bed. Margot paused to catch her breath and leaned against the wall and then glared at Sandifer. “You’re an awful man, Mr. Sandifer. Odds didn’t do anything to you. To treat him in such a way is unconscionable, and I will be contacting my friend Detective Crandell.”

  Sandifer dropped the seed back into the chip bag and tossed it into the trash. He rose slowly to his feet, his bearing calm and collected. “Please do call the police. After hearing that this man murdered my business partner, I find him in my room, along with you, Ms. Gardner. All I can think is that you were an accomplice to the murder, and now you’re here to kill me as well.”

  Margot laid a hand over her chest. “I would never…”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Really? Because he would and did. Yet, for some reason you’re here. I spoke with Zabrina earlier.”

  “What does my niece have to do with you?” Lyle snapped.

  Sandifer stuffed a hand into one pocket. “I explained that I’ll be there for her as she makes sense of her life from here on. I never imagined she would send you here, and I don’t understand why the police are letting you run around free.”

  “Zabrina didn’t send us here,” Margot said. “We…” She broke off because she couldn’t actually tell him Odds had been the one hanging outside of his room, raising their interest.

  “Well, whatever the reason, I’m asking you to leave, unless you want me to call the police. I’m sure the front desk knows where I might find the detective.”

  Lyle sneered. “I won’t be threatened by the likes of you. Cordova looked down on us, my family and my sister, and I put up with it because she loved him. When he abandoned her that put an end to my tolerance. You don’t get to do the same.”

  Margot glanced from one man to the other as Lyle faced off against Sandifer. She too had seen the arrogance in the man as if he thought she and Lyle were so much dirt beneath his feet. Ignoring the two of them, she set her bag on the floor and dropped to her knees to see if she could spot Odds under the bed.

  “Kitty, kitty, come on, Odds,” she called.

  Glowing eyes reflected at her, but Odds had backed up against the wall and wasn’t moving.

  “Odds, don’t be afraid. The mean man won’t hurt you.”

  Above Margot, Lyle and Sandifer continued to argue, each trying to outdo each other with their intelligence and choice of words. Lyle being a retired schoolteacher didn’t need to be ashamed of his vocabulary, but Sandifer seemed confident in the success he had obtained in business. Both of them hurt Margot’s head, and all she wanted to do was collect Odds, swallow headache powder, and go to sleep.

  “Odds,” Margot implored him. “If you don’t come now, I’m leaving this room, and you can stay here with him.”

&n
bsp; That propelled the pesky thing. He darted from beneath the bed and ran full tilt at Margot. She jerked backward to avoid a collision and bumped her head on the trashcan. The entire thing tumbled over. Odds yowled and then barreled into her bag.

  “Out!” Sandifer shouted. He crashed down to his knees and cleaned up the mess from the trashcan. With frenzied movements, he dumped the entire trash bag onto a tray and stomped over to the door to wrench it open. “Don’t come near me again, or I will have the police arrest you.”

  They had no choice. Lyle reached to help Margot to her feet. Before she straightened, she gathered her bag with Odds in it and headed toward the door. Neither she nor Lyle said a word as they were herded out to the hall and Sandifer slammed the door behind them. The final click of the lock got Margot walking along the hall to return to Nancy’s room.

  Chapter Ten

  “Well, that was an exercise in futility,” Lyle complained. Margot felt his gaze on her, and her cheeks burned. She kept a hand raised to her forehead to avoid looking him in the eye. Lyle tugged her to a stop and made her face him. “Are you okay, Margot? Did you hurt your head?”

  “I’m fine.” She rubbed the sore spot. “I’ve clunked my noggin harder than this plenty of times. You ask Odds. Frustrated is what I’m feeling right now. We searched his room and came up with nothing. I’m not sure what I thought we were looking for in the first place.”

  Lyle got an odd look on his face. “We didn’t exactly come up with nothing.”

  “Margot!”

  At Nancy’s shrill call, Margot froze and then turned to see her friend whisking down the hall wearing a housedress, bedroom slippers, and her hair up in curlers. Margot frowned. Where in the world had she found those?

  Nancy reached her and grasped Margot’s hands. “I woke in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and you were gone. Where did you go? Surely, you’re not still looking for the murderer?”

  “Nancy.” Margot tried to shush her, but her friend wouldn’t be stopped.

  “I would have asked Odds, but you know I can’t talk to him like you can.”

  “How was she asking me anything when I wasn’t in the room?”

  Margot peeked into her bag to see Odds looking up at her. His smart mouth hadn’t lessened, but she sensed he was still shaken up over Sandifer’s treatment of him. Margot had half a mind to go back and tell the man what she thought of such cruelty to animals, chiefly to Odds.

  “Nancy, dear, Odds was with me. He’s not in the room.”

  Nancy shook her head. “My vision isn’t too good in the middle of the night, but I’m pretty sure I saw his glassy eyes in the corner on the chair.”

  “Where you laid your dress when you removed it?” Margot asked.

  “Yes, that’s right!”

  Margot lifted a hand to her mouth and spoke softly to Lyle. “The dress has sequins.”

  One side of Lyle’s mouth rose. Nancy noticed Lyle for the first time, and her entire countenance changed. She raised a hand to her hair, frowned in alarm, and then seemed to dismiss the concern. “You must be Lyle Barber, Jimmy’s father. It’s so nice to meet you at last. I’m Nancy Shirley, Margot’s dearest friend and a widow.”

  “Liar.”

  Nancy hooked her arm through Lyle’s before he could complete two words, and Margot scowled at her. “Will you escort me back to my room, Lyle? I think I got turned around coming down here to look for Margot.”

  “Uh…of course,” Lyle said. He glanced over his shoulder at Margot as Nancy tried to drag him away.

  “Of all the…” Margot mumbled under her breath, but she followed the two. As she walked, she realized she had been doing just what Odds had accused her of doing—keeping Lyle away from Nancy. Her friend had more gumption for seeking out a husband than a woman half her age. “To claim to be a widow, that’s too much.”

  “You’re just mad she took him from you.”

  “No one took anyone, Odds. You hush. Besides, you shouldn’t have been running around making me chase after you. The idea that you would disturb Mr. Sandifer with your shenanigans was too much. It’s not as if we found anything in his room.”

  “We did.”

  She stopped walking, and Lyle and Nancy turned the corner just ahead. Margot opened her bag, and Odds jumped to the floor. “What do you mean? What did we find?”

  He sat down in front of her, blinking. Margot wagged a finger at him.

  “Don’t start pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about. You dropped a hint. Now spill it, young man.”

  Odds raised his hindquarters and stretched his back out. He stood straight and walked around in a circle, doing a good imitation of a dog. Then he lay down again and washed his ear. Margot somehow managed to keep her shoe on and not toss it at his foolish head.

  “Well, if you’re going to be like that, Odds, then you can find your own way back to the room. Perhaps you can find your way back home, too.”

  Margot started to walk on, but Odds leaped to his feet and circled her ankles. She stumbled and had to reach out to the wall to remain upright. Rather than the wall, her hand fell against a door panel, and she looked over to gauge where she was. She and Odds stood in front of the business center. A mechanism that matched the bedroom lock showed, she would need a key card to enter the center. Margot gazed beyond the glass to the inside. Several computers sat atop a long table, a printer, and a fax machine.

  An odd thought popped into Margot’s head. She fished inside her bag for the key card and used it to open the door to the business center. Before she walked inside, she hesitated and listened for Lyle and Nancy. No sound reached her from the hall ahead, and she had a moment of feeling miffed that Lyle had dismissed her so quickly for Nancy.

  “Never mind that, Odds,” Margot said stiffly. “It’s always been us, so we’ll look into this on our own.”

  Margot sat down at a computer and pressed a button on the keyboard. At least with computers she wasn’t ignorant. She had learned a few things on her own, and Kenny, her teenage neighbor and friend, had taught her as well. Margot followed the instructions for logging onto the computer using Nancy’s room information and then brought up Google. She paused at the entry line and chewed her bottom lip.

  “What was his name, Odds?”

  The cat had jumped to table and sat beside her watching the screen with what she believed was an expectant expression. In reality, Odds always looked wide-eyed as if denying he had been up to anything just in case someone accused him.

  “Odds?”

  “I don’t know your name. How will I remember his?”

  Margot thumped the side of her fist on the table. “You do too know my name. Why must you be difficult?”

  “Claudia?” Bright eyes.

  “Odds Gardner, if you don’t behave yourself…”

  “Bad Man.”

  “Very specific,” she snapped. “We don’t know he was bad anyway.”

  She tapped her lip, thinking. Somehow she knew this was important, and it might be a little help to Lyle, Zabrina, and Jimmy. She had to remember. Then it came to her. Smiling, Margot typed the name into the search engine and clicked the button to go. Nothing happened. She clicked again and began pounding on the key.

  “You’re going to break it.”

  The screen went blank.

  “Oh, dear.”

  “Told you.”

  “Hush, Odds.” Margot started over, but this time the screen came up as not having an internet connection. She moaned and dropped her head into her hands. Of course, connectivity would be spotty with the storm raging outside. She had been so encouraged when she logged in and was sure her idea was a sound one.

  Weariness weighted Margot down, and she began to drift off. When a knock sounded at the door, she yelped and surged to her feet, ready to scream down the hotel.

  “Lyle! You frightened me half to death.” Margot pressed a hand to her chest as she opened the door for him.

  “I’m sorry, Margot. I called yo
ur name. You didn’t hear me. Are you all right? When we reached the elevator and you weren’t there, we got worried.”

  Margot frowned at him. Then Nancy appeared and hugged Margot. “Dear, I thought someone had dragged you away. Don’t scare me like that. What am I going to do without you?”

  Margot smiled. “I’m fine. Nothing as dramatic as all that, but I’ve had an idea, and I wanted to look into it. Unfortunately, the internet isn’t working.”

  “Can’t it wait until morning?” Nancy looked at the computer as if she thought it might attack.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  Lyle sat down in the chair Margot vacated. “What did you have in mind, Margot?”

  She hesitated in case he thought she was stirring up the pain his family had suffered. Especially if she was wrong, he would be hurt all over again. That was the last thing she wanted to do. Still, Lyle sat glancing up at her, and she couldn’t recall Lou ever offering her such an expression of respect and trust that she wasn’t just an ornament in his life. True, she had never tried too hard to understand his business, or world affairs either.

  “Well,” Margot began, twisting her hands together.

  Odds’ tail brushed her hand, and she took it as a sign of encouragement.

  “I wanted to look up Ronald Abbott.”

  Lyle paled. “Why would you want to do that? Even if he is a man as disgusting as Brock Cordova, it doesn’t change the past.”

  “What about the past?” Nancy wanted to know, but neither Margot nor Lyle explained. Margot didn’t want to rehash Zabrina’s mistake and the turmoil she had thrown her family into.

  Lyle turned away from Margot to face the screen. His fingers raced over the keys, and both Margot and Nancy leaned toward him impressed. She didn’t know what he did, but somehow he got a connection. Maybe the storm had eased just enough for that moment. Either way, a list of results appeared on the screen. One after another weren’t helpful. They were old news or unrelated or some other Ronald Abbott. Then on page three, Margot caught her breath.