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“Look, how many times do I have to tell you: I never saw the woman before. She called me out of the blue, and told me she wanted to meet. So I said sure, drop by any time. So she said she’d come in at eight thirty, and later sent me a one-word text.”

“Gnomeo.”

“Exactly. Which is how I knew it had something to do with the club.”

“The Gnomeos.”

“Right. Happens all the time that complete strangers come up to me with information they think might be relevant for the Gnomeos, or the magazine.”

“So if you arranged to meet at eight thirty, why was she dead when Odelia walked in at eight ten?”

“I told you—I stepped out for just a minute.”

“Your windshield wipers.”

“Exactly!”

“You actually told her to meet you at eight, didn’t you? So you could avoid her meeting Odelia? You didn’t want nosy parkers around when you two hooked up?”

“It wasn’t like that!”

“Only Odelia was early, wasn’t she? Arrived before you could get rid of the body. Is that why you ran out of your office, to bring your car around so you could get rid of the body?”

“In full view of the whole street? You’re crazy, Alec.”

Alec wagged a finger in the man’s face. “Watch what you say, Dan. I’m still chief of police.”

“You’re also a fool if you think I’d murder a woman I’ve never even seen before and try to get rid of the body by shoving her body into the trunk of my car.”

“Ha!” said Alec with a note of triumph in his voice. “I never said trunk.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake…”

“I don’t know, Dan,” said the Chief, shaking his head. “I’m disappointed in you, that’s all I can say.”

“Well, at least that’s something we have in common,” Dan snapped. “Cause I’m disappointed in you. I thought you were smarter than this.”

“What did I tell you about watching your tone?”

“You’re wasting time. While you’re harassing me the real killer is getting away.”

“Oh? And who do you think the real killer is?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Jack Warner, of course.”

“The chairman of the Maria Power Society?”

“Of course! He must have found out this woman was going to hand me something of value and wanted to stop her. So he killed her and took whatever it was she was going to give me and is now laughing his ass off at the incompetence of our local police force.”

“And what could possibly be so valuable that it would be worth killing for?” asked the Chief, not hiding the skepticism in his voice.

“The only remaining copy of Rupert Finkelstein’s Romeo and Juliet,” said Dan.

The Chief stared at the man.“That’s just an urban legend.”

“An urban legend that just might be real.”

As a big fan of Maria Power himself, and a member of the Gnomeos, it struck Alec that Dan was probably playing him.“Finkelstein destroyed every single copy of that movie. It’s the story we all know and regret.”

“Well, I heard differently, and trust me when I say that Jack Warner believes it is true, too. There must have been a copy left, and somehow Heather Gallop managed to get her hands on it and was about to offer it to me.” He slumped. “And so Jack killed her for it.”

Chapter 11

Once again Dooley and I were invited to sit in on an interview with a suspect. This particular suspect was a man named Jack Warner. When Chase got the call from his superior officer—Odelia’s uncle—to have a quiet word with Mr. Warner, Odelia had pleaded successfully with her future husband to be included in the t?te-?-t?te, and of course she’d negotiated for Dooley and me to be included, hoping we could chat with the man’s pets, if he had any.

Much to my dismay, though, Jack Warner was a man utterly devoid of pets of any persuasion, though by his own admission he’d once owned a Chihuahua, whose urn now took pride of place on his mantel. A notion I found a little creepy, to be honest with you.

Mr. Warner lived in an apartment on the second floor of a new building, and was scrupulously clean for a man who lived alone. On the wall over that same mantel a huge portrait of Maria Power hung, smiling at all and sundry from her vantage point, and there were several glass display cases, much of the same design as the ones in Dan’s office, and they even contained much of the same type of paraphernalia: film posters, pictures of the same Maria Power in what I assumed was her Hollywood heyday, a bust of the actress, and another one of her dresses hung on a mannequin.

It almost seemed to me as if the woman had decided to give away all of her dresses and now had nothing left to wear.

“So tell me, Mr. Warner,” said Chase, launching into the interview with his usual aplomb. “You’ve been accused by Dan Goory of having snuck into his office this morning and murdering his visitor, a woman who had something valuable to share with Dan, something associated with Maria Power. What do you have to say to that?”

Jack Warner laughed heartily. He was a man in his late sixties dressed in a nice pink polo shirt, gray slacks, his hair neatly coiffed, his mustache nicely clipped. All in all he looked just like his apartment: perfectly appointed and squeakily clean.

“Dan said that? You have got to be kidding.”