efe24af1849d5822a0fb0e585c983840

“Well, she’s singing right now, spilling the beans. She claims that you stole those jerrycans from Joshua Curtis’s garage, after you broke into the guy’s house. She also claims that it was your idea to plant those jerrycans in that tool shed, trying to put the blame for those killings on the Dibbles. What do you have to say to that?”

Suddenly a loud scream came from the next room, and Vesta cried,“Is that what you call singing like a canary? You’re torturing her, you brute! This is an outrage!”

Chase swallowed away a lump, and just then a knock sounded at the door and Alec strode in. He bent over Chase and started whispering something into his ear.

“What are you two whispering about?” Vesta demanded, but received no response. “Hey, I asked you a question, Alec. You can’t do this to me, you know. You can’t do this to your little old mother. There are laws against this kind of thing.” She suddenly grabbed for her heart. “Owowow,” she said. “I just felt a stinging pain in my chest. Ouchie-ouch. Yeah, I think it’s my heart. You better call a doctor. And you better start recording my last words, for this is it. When they find my body, you’ll be the ones being hauled in front of a jury, who’ll wanna know who would treat their feeble old mother like this.”

Unfortunately for her the two men blithely ignored her long lament, and then Alec left and Chase stared at her like a cat who’s about to eat a canary—the one that had just started singing, presumably.

“What?” said Vesta. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’ve done it now, Vesta.”

“What have I done now?”

“The Chief just told me it’s in the bag.”

“What’s in the bag?”

“The deal! Scarlett just signed a document granting her full immunity in exchange for her confession, and she’s put all the blame squarely on you.” And to emphasize his words, he poked a finger in Vesta’s direction.

“She did what?!”

“She talked! Said this was all your idea!”

“No, she didn’t!”

“Oh, yes, she did.”

“Look, it may have been my idea,” she said, “but Scarlett was in on it from the start. She was there when we broke into the Curtis place, and she searched the upstairs while I searched the downstairs. In fact it was her that found that nude painting of the Melanie Myers woman. Okay, so I found the jerrycans, and so it was my idea to get rid of them, making sure a silly little piece of evidence like that didn’t land Odelia’s client in the soup. And sure, it was also my idea to plant them at the Dibbles, but Scarlett was with me every step of the way, so she can’t go crying wolf now. If she didn’t agree, she should have said so!”

“Why did you plant those jerrycans at the Dibbles?”

“Cause they’re guilty, Chase! Isn’t it obvious? They’d been complaining about that crack house for months, and finally they decided enough was enough. If the cops weren’t going to do anything about it, they would take matters into their own hands, and so they torched the place. So what ifa couple of drug dealers ended up dead? Good riddance!”

“When we process those jerrycans, are we going to find your fingerprints? Or Scarlett’s?”

“What do you think I am? A rookie? I wore gloves the entire time, dumbo.”

He ignored this slur as he jotted down a note.“Did you take anything else from the Curtis place apart from those jerrycans?”

“No, nothing. I wanted to take that painting, but it didn’t seem like a good idea.”

“And why is that?”

“Too heavy! Do you think I want a hernia? Those jerrycans were easy. They were empty.”

“Empty, huh?” said Chase as he jotted down another note.

“Sure. Which is why I figured you guys would probably use them as some kind of evidence against Odelia’s client.”

“You keep referring to Joshua Curtis as Odelia’s client. But he isn’t her client, is he? Just a guy who asked her to do him a favor.”

“If you’re gonna get all nitpicky about it, sure,” she allowed. Then she smiled. “So now do I get the deal or what?”

Chase got up and said, stony-faced,“What deal?”

“Hey, you said there was a deal on the table!” she cried as he left the room. “I want my deal!”

It took her another couple of minutes of sitting in silence to realize that A) there was no deal. B) there never was a deal. And C) she’d just been played!

Chapter 23

We were sitting in Odelia’s car, on what is commonly termed a stakeout, watching the house that belongs to Joshua Curtis. There was a lot of police activity going on: cops were walking in and out of the house, carrying boxes and crates and all kinds of stuff.

“What is going on?” Odelia said.

Our human was a little frustrated, I could tell. She’d walked up to the cops and asked them what was happening, and what they were dragging out of the house, but they were all under strict instructions from her uncle not to divulge anything about the case to her.

“Maybe you guys can go in there and take a look?” she finally suggested.