“I very much doubt that, Flame,” I said. “I think you’ll find that anyone can murder anyone with any type of weapon, whether it be knives, guns, or poison.”

  “I guess you’re the expert.”

  “There’s one more thing I need to ask you. The safe. What was in it, do you know?”

  “Well, he kept his stash in there,” said Flame. “Money and drugs.”

  “But when we arrived on the boat this morning, it was empty.”

  “That’s because he handed everything in that safe to Sebastian Poe. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Well, as I already told you, Poe came to visit him last night. And I think it’s safe to say Robert freaked out big time when he saw the man, since he had supposed that he was dead. We all did. But there he was, alive and well. Okay, maybe not so well, since he looked terrible. But definitely alive. And so after ascertaining that Poe was indeed the man he said he was, Robert sort of collapsed into a heap and started blubbering and wailing and apologizing to his old friend. He said the whole thing had been an accident and he had never wanted to hurt him. But Poe had said some nasty things, and so he had thrown that bottle at him, not knowing how awful the consequences would be. They talked for hours, and finally, Poe said he forgave him, and that as far as he was concerned, they could be friends again. It was a pretty bizarre scene, to be honest, and I wasn’t sure what to think of it. Poe behaved really strangely, as if he wasn’t all there. He said he’d been living on some island, and gotten himself in some kind of trouble and now he needed money. Lots of it.”

  “And so Robert gave him the contents of his safe?”

  “Yes. Every last cent and also all of his pills and the drugs—all of it. Poe said he’d sell everything and use the money as a kind of dowry. He said he’d gotten the daughter of the tribe leader pregnant, and if he didn’t marry her and provide for her, they might kill him.”

  “Sounds like he really got himself in a pickle.”

  “I’m not sure I bought all of that, to be honest. Like I said, Poe was behaving erratically. But Robert believed every word and said he was so happy that his friend was still alive.”

  “And then Poe left with the money.”

  Flame nodded. “I know you think Poe killed Robert, but I’m not so sure he did. Why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? Robert was a lot more useful to him alive than dead. He could always come back to demand more money, and Robert would have given it to him, no questions asked.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I said. “Unless he was so upset about what happened that he decided to get even. Like you said, he wasn’t thinking straight, and in his erratic state of mind, he might have decided to kill his friend.”

  “It’s possible,” said Flame. “But I still think it was Suzanne Palmer.”

  I nodded and thanked the doggie for her candid testimony. It couldn’t be easy to spill the beans on her human like that. I know that if I ever had to testify against Odelia, I wouldn’t like to tell all about her private stuff to a complete stranger. “So are you going to be all right now, Flame?” I asked.

  “Oh, absolutely,” said Flame. “Eric is a nice guy. I’ve met him many times, and he loves dogs. So I’ll become part of his family now, and I’m sure I’ll be fine.” She sighed. “Though of course, I’ll always miss Robert.”

  “I know you will,” I said.

  We looked up when the scene around us seemed to turn even more animated than it had been before. And when all of a sudden Eric Ross was led away, I thought I detected a note of concern in Flame’s voice when she said, “And the hits, they just keep on coming!”

  CHAPTER 25

  Odelia felt a little nervous when she accompanied her grandmother and Scarlett to the police station. Her uncle had summoned them after Eric Ross’s arrest, and that could only mean one thing: that the man’s lawyers had decided to question the validity of the search of his hotel room, claiming they had violated his right to privacy, and that any evidence found was inadmissible and should be thrown out by the judge in case their client was arraigned.

  “You shouldn’t have gone in there,” Gran said as they drove to the station.

  “I shouldn’t have gone in there! How about you shouldn’t have gone in!”

  “I had every right as a member of the watch,” Gran claimed. The old lady was in the passenger seat while Odelia drove her old truck to the police station, with Scarlett in the back with the cats. “I looked it up, and it’s called the plain view doctrine. When you see evidence of a crime through the window, you’re allowed to seize said evidence without a warrant.”

  “Gran, you’re not a cop! You can’t just go barging into people’s hotel rooms and search through their stuff.”

  “The same goes for you,” Gran pointed out. “So I guess we’re both in the wrong, and I’m sure your uncle will give us hell.” She sighed. “Why I raised that boy to be a cop, I’ll never know. Now if he had followed my advice and run for mayor instead, this would never have happened.”

  “How do you figure that!” said Odelia.

  “Well, as we all know, the mayor is the boss of the police. So whatever he says goes. So if Alec had been mayor, he would have made short shrift of all this privacy nonsense. Besides, perverts don’t have a right to privacy. So I’m glad we caught this monster, and I hope they’ll lock him up for the rest of his life.”

  “Fat chance,” said Odelia. With the unlawful search, the judge would have no other recourse than to let the man go. Or at least that’s how she read the situation. She wasn’t a lawyer, of course, so she could be wrong. The four cats had been conspicuously quiet, and she now glanced at them through the rear-view mirror. “So how did it go with Flame, Max?”

  “She thinks that Suzanne Palmer did it,” Max announced. “Figuring hitting him with that Golden Globe didn’t get the message across and deciding to finish the job. Though I doubt it. Suzanne doesn’t seem the type to go around poisoning her employers, even if they are jerks. Oh, and Robert had recently been fired from his job as James Fox. The production company had received several complaints from a crew member—all anonymous, though Ross knew it was Marcus O’Reilly. To spare themselves any possible embarrassment in the future, the producers decided to cut the actor loose and hire a new guy to play James Fox. Though it could be a woman, of course. Though they’d probably have to change the name.”

  “We’ll have to talk to Robert’s agent,” said Odelia, making a mental note. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, that Poe was the one who received the contents of his friend’s safe last night. He said he was going to marry the daughter of the chief of the tribe he’d been staying with, and he needed to pay dowry to the girl’s family after he got her pregnant.”

  “Now that is a system I like,” said Gran. “If only it existed here, then Chase would have had to pay me so he could marry you.”

  “I think you’ll find that if that were the case, Chase would have had to pay Dad,” Odelia pointed out.

  “Same difference.” She turned to her friend. “Did you get all that, honey?”

  “What did I get?” asked Scarlett.

  “What Max just told us?”

  “You know that I don’t understand your cats, Vesta,” said Scarlett. “So I’m afraid you’ll have to translate.”

  And so Gran did and told her friend all about what Flame had told Max. By the time the story was done, and they had discussed the ins and outs of the case, she parked her car in the police station parking lot, and they all got out. Normally she wasn’t nervous about being summoned to her uncle’s office, but now she was. Somehow she had a feeling he wouldn’t be pleased with them.

  They passed the reception desk where Dolores Peltz was busy talking on the phone. As they walked by, the woman made a slicing gesture with her hand across her throat, and that told Odelia all she needed to know about their upcoming interview with her uncle.

  “Don’t you worry about a thing, honey,” said Gran, who must have sensed how nervous she was. “If things turn ugly, I’ll fix him.”

  “Fix him? What do you mean, fix him?”

  “I’ll simply tell him I withdraw my consent to that marriage of his to Charlene.”

  “Uncle Alec is a grown man, Gran. He doesn’t need your consent.”

  “Times sure are a-changing,” Gran grumbled.

  They had arrived at her uncle’s office, and she would have politely knocked and awaited his response, but her grandmother had different ideas and barged into the office without knocking. “What’s all this about you wanting to see us?!” she demanded heatedly, planting her fists on her hips and positioning herself in front of her son’s desk. “Don’t you think we’ve got better things to do than to spend our precious time in this skanky office of yours?”

  “Sit down,” said Uncle Alec.

  “I won’t be spoken to like that!”

  “Sit. Down!”

  And Gran sat down, and so did Scarlett and Odelia. Even the cats sat down on the floor and awaited further developments with bated breath.

  Uncle Alec raked their visages with a kindling eye, then spoke. “You have all broken the law by breaking into the hotel room of a well-respected member of the public.”

  “He’s a known child molester!” Gran cried.

  “He is not. The whole thing rests on a misunderstanding, and if you had simply—”

  “What misunderstanding? We all saw the pictures!”

  “Pictures of Eric Ross’s daughters on the beach. Dressed in bathing suits. There’s nothing illegal about it.”

  “But—”

  “Nothing illegal whatsoever! The only thing that was illegal was the three of you breaking into the man’s hotel room, going through his personal belongings, even going so far as to read his emails! Do you realize the trouble you’re in?”

  “But—”

  “The man is a prominent lawyer! With a very litigious law firm. They will have a field day with this whole business. Not to mention the fact that we still haven’t been able to catch whoever killed the man’s brother, making us look like a bunch of incompetent bumbling bungling idiots!”

  “The Keystone Kops,” Dooley said happily, a statement Odelia decided not to translate.

  “I’m pretty sure there were more pictures,” Gran said stubbornly. “Only the guy came busting in so we couldn’t take a better look.”

  “I can assure you that his computer was thoroughly searched, and no incriminating pictures were found,” said Uncle Alec. “So not only have you managed to antagonize the victim’s brother, but you have put this department in the crosshairs of a bunch of ravenous lawyers. These people are like piranhas, they can smell blood in the water and then they move in for the kill.”

  “The Keystone Kops versus the Piranha Lawyers,” said Dooley happily. “That’s a movie I want to see, Max.”

  “Not me,” Max murmured.

  “Look, I can understand you acted from the noblest of intentions,” said Odelia’s uncle, folding his hands on his desk blotter, “but I still have to ask: what the hell were you thinking!”

  “I was thinking that we had ourselves a killer to catch,” said Gran. “And to my mind, the ends justify the means, Alec. That man!” she cried, pointing in the general direction of the door. “Killed his own brother! And you’re letting him get away with it!”

  “What makes you think he killed Robert? What evidence do you have?”

  “It stands to reason, doesn’t it?” She held up her index finger. “Motive! Robert was a major movie star. So obviously, the guy was jealous of his brother. Opportunity! It’s not difficult to sneak aboard a ship. Either you swim or you row a boat out. Means! He had access to the cyanide.”

  “How? The guy is a lawyer, Ma, not a pharmacist.”

  “Oh, you can buy that stuff online nowadays. Heck, I could order a vial of cyanide on the dark web if I wanted to.”

  A slight smile momentarily flickered up Uncle Alec’s lips. “What do you know about the dark web, Ma?”

  “Plenty! I know it’s the web, and I know it’s dark.”

  “Oh, God,” said the Chief and rubbed his face with his hands. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “Are we in trouble, Uncle Alec?” asked Odelia. “I mean, in legal trouble?”

  “Oh, he’ll sue, that’s for sure,” said her uncle. “He’ll sue the department, he’ll sue the town, he’ll sue you three. Heck, he’ll probably sue us all!” He looked up. “Unless...”

  Hope surged in Odelia’s bosom. “Unless what?”

  “Unless you catch his brother’s killer. I can’t imagine he’d sue the officers who were instrumental in capturing his brother’s murderer. Catch me a killer, and this will all go away. He’ll drop his complaint, drop the lawsuit, and probably be happy as a clam that we’ve managed to bring Robert’s killer to justice. Because make no mistake—the guy adored his big brother.”

  “A likely story,” said Gran.

  “Well, he did. Robert was like a hero to him. The guy who made it big.”

  “If that guy was a hero, I’m Peppa Pig,” Gran grunted unhappily.

  “And if we don’t catch Robert’s killer?” asked Scarlett now. Unlike Gran, she didn’t look happy with the way things had gone. She even looked scared.

  The Chief’s face sagged. “Then God help us all.”

  CHAPTER 26

  “Why does Gran want to be Peppa the Pig, Max?” asked Dooley. “And who is Peppa the Pig?”

  “Peppa Pig is a cartoon for kids,” I explained. “About a pig named Peppa.”

  “I don’t think Gran wants to be Peppa Pig,” said Brutus. “And besides, she’s a human, not a pig.”

  “She could change her name to Peppa,” Harriet pointed out.

  “Trademarked,” Brutus grunted. “So she couldn’t even if she wanted to.”

  “I think you can call yourself Peppa if you wanted to,” I said. “The same way you could call yourself Mickey or Donald or Goofy or any cartoon character’s name.”

  “I want to be called Garfield from now on,” said Dooley. “I like Garfield. Though I don’t understand why he likes lasagna so much.”

  “It’s meat and cheese,” said Brutus. “What’s not to like?”

  “If I could pick a name for myself, it would be Céline,” said Harriet.

  “Céline is not a cartoon character!” said Dooley with a laugh.

  “Who cares? I want to be Céline because I like Céline.”

  “Maybe you should just be Harriet,” I said. “After all, there can only be one Harriet, just like there can only be one Céline. You don’t want to be a clone of another person, Harriet. You want to be yourself, right?”

  Harriet gave me a smile. “Well put, Max. I like that. Okay, so maybe I’ll be Harriet. It’s not a bad name, as names go.”

  We had left the police station, where Odelia decided to join her husband in his office to discuss the case and the fallout from the illegal search of the victim’s brother’s hotel room. Gran and Scarlett had decided to retire to their usual spot at the Star Hotel for a cappuccino and a hot chocolate with extra whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles, and the four of us were happy to be out of Uncle Alec’s office, where the atmosphere had been a little too tense for our liking. We’d never seen the Chief so upset, though I guess he had every right to be. It’s not every day that your entire department is being sued by a prominent law firm, as well as the Chief’s niece, his mother, and his mother’s friend. I had the impression that Eric Ross was even going to sue us, though I very much doubted he could make that stick.

  “Okay, so where does this all leave us?” asked Harriet. “Who killed Robert Ross and why? We have a case to solve, you guys, or next time we see Odelia, Gran, and Scarlett, it will be in the prison visiting room.”

  We had been traipsing along and now found ourselves in nearby Hampton Cove Park, where we paused next to a bench. On top of the bench, a homeless person lay, looking very much in need of a shave and a bath. So we decided to position ourselves upwind from the man and hold an impromptu action meeting. Though it could have been a strategy meeting, of course. I’m not management material, so I’m not up to date on their funny lingo.

  “Okay, so let’s look at the facts,” I told my friends. “Early this morning, Robert asks Captain Gerard to tell the crew to leave the Aurora. They assume he’s expecting a special guest and wants to be alone with them. The night before, he had a visit from Sebastian Poe, the man he assumed he accidentally killed a couple of weeks ago. Poe and Robert decide to let bygones be bygones, especially since Poe is about to get married to the daughter of the tribal chief who saved his life. Robert gives him all the money that’s in his safe as well as some of his so-called candy, and Poe goes on his way, possibly carjacking Chantal Jones’s car in the process.”

  “But why?” asked Harriet.

  “We’ll have to ask Poe when we find him.”

  “He shouldn’t have done it,” said Dooley. “Now that he’s getting married to the love of his life, it’s going to mean bad karma for the poor man.”

  I wasn’t all that sanguine that this daughter of the tribal chief was the love of Poe’s life but decided not to dwell on the topic. “So at ten o’clock, someone sneaks aboard the Aurora, either by swimming over or by using a dinghy or rowing boat. The killer and Robert must have known each other, and possibly this is the person he had planned to meet, for the killer manages to put cyanide in Robert’s soda, and the actor ends up drinking the whole can.”

  “He could have been forced to drink it,” Brutus pointed out.

  “It’s possible,” I agreed, “that he drank that soda at gunpoint. Death must have happened within minutes, at which point the killer shoved Robert’s body into the pool and left. The next person on the scene, as far as we know, was Odelia.”

  “So who did it, Max?” asked Brutus. “Suzanne Palmer, like Flame seems to think? Or another member of the crew? Have their whereabouts been confirmed?”