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“Penney and Natalie don’t have an alibi,” Chase reminded her, “and they might not have wanted Astra to get back on the show either.”

“And then there’s Oscar, who claims he’s never even heard of that knife, which strikes me as odd, since it was a present to his wife.”

“I’m sure lots of presents are exchanged at these shoots, particularly on a show that’s been going for so long.”

Odelia leaned back and studied the menu card for a moment, but clearly it failed to grip, and she put it down again.“At least I got Agatha to take her defense more seriously. Can you believe she wasn’t going to defend herself against these accusations because she was afraid her son might be involved?”

“She thought Tucker was the killer?”

Odelia nodded.“She thought he might have wanted to murder the woman who was coming between his parents. Which, as motives go, is a pretty strong one, actually.”

“But he’s got a solid alibi.”

“Yeah, pretty solid. I spoke with some of Tucker’s friends on the phone, and they confirmed he was out all night. So no dice. Which of course is a good thing.”

They discussed the other suspects: Joonas Harri, who wanted money from his mom, along with his girlfriend Olga. And Maximino and Ippo Murr, who might have had a grudge against his biological mother for abandoning him all those years ago. They had no alibis either. Or at least not a decent one.

And then there was Oscar Kinetic, who may or may not have had an affair with Astra. If the latter was the one who had revealed the affair to Agatha, to put pressure on Oscar, he might have snapped, wanting to avoid a costly divorce and subsequent scandal. Especially now that his hit show was scheduled for a comeback.

“And let’s not forget our Serbian prince,” said Chase.

The food had arrived but the couple were only picking at it, not really all that hungry. Which was good for Dooley and me, because we got plenty of delicious treats from their table, much to the annoyance of our waiter, who didn’t seem to condone this behavior.

“Serbian prince?” said Odelia. “You think he might be our cat burglar after all?”

“Why not? Barney might think being a royal automatically excludes a person from also being a criminal, but I don’t.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“I suggest we go out there again tonight, and this time catch the guy in the act.”

“You want to stake out Prince Durkavic’s suite?”

“Absolutely. I’m convinced he could be our guy, and I intend to prove it.”

“If he is our guy, he’s not going to risk going on another run tonight. After what happened last night, he’ll lay low for a while.”

“Did you see how he waved at me? Pretty sure the guy is as cocky as it gets. And guys like that want to prove they’re invincible. So I’m willing to bet he’ll be out there again tonight, tempting fate and thumbing his nose at us in the process.”

“It’s your call, babe,” said Odelia, who didn’t seem entirely convinced. “But I can tell you right now Barney is not going to like it.”

“He’ll like it a lot less if yet another one of his guests is robbed. So it’s either that or watching me take down his precious prince.” He turned to us. “Are you guys ready for some action?”

I nodded excitedly.“Yes, sir!” The fact that he’d just fed me a fine piece of filet mignon might have contributed to my enthusiasm.

“Oh, and one other thing,” said Chase. “I finally heard back from my guy about those forensic details.”

Odelia sat up a little straighter.“What did he say?”

“Well, the knife was clean. No fingerprints. No DNA. So the person who handled it presumably wore gloves.”

“So Agatha’s prints weren’t on the knife?”

“Nope. Knife was cleaned before being used to kill Astra.”

“Which is a strike against Giblet’s case, for sure?”

“Not necessarily. He’ll argue that she’s as cunning as she is deadly. That this proves she planned the murder, and carefully prepared the murder weapon.”

“She would have to be pretty stupid to use her own knife, though.”

“Maybe she thought nobody would remember. Giblet will argue that she used the knife because it was available. That she didn’t realize how distinctive it was.”

“But wouldn’t the knife have been picked up at the airport when she entered the country?”

“I asked, and it’s perfectly fine to bring knives into the country, provided they’re not in your hand luggage but in your regular checked luggage.”

“But there won’t be any record of her bringing it into the country, will there?”

“Unlikely. Unless her luggage was flagged somehow, and thoroughly checked, but that doesn’t seem to be the case or else my source would have heard about it.”

“I asked Agatha to get a hold of the knife and have it sent here as evidence.”

“What will that prove, though? That knife could be any old knife.”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Odelia.

“Knives don’t have a registration number. There’re not registered anywhere.”

Our human sighed deeply.“So I guess we’ve got our hopes set on your Serbian prince?”