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“Exactly! You’re not thinking straight, and I don’t blame you. If my husband got caught with a dead body in his car I’d jump to conclusions as well. Although, in Jack’s case I might have turned him in myself, but that’s not important right now. What’s important is that we need to movefast. Marcie told me the body was still warm, so the murder must have happened just before you found the dead shmuck, correct?”

“I guess so,” said Odelia, dragging her mind back to the moment she’d discovered Jaqlyn’s body. The memory wasn’t a pleasant one, as she kept seeing the man’s dead eyes staring up at her.

“Which means the killer is still here,” said Gran, glancing around. “So let’s get cracking.”

“What do you mean?” asked Odelia, confused.

“This is not our first rodeo, hun. You and I have caught killers before. Well, let’s catch this one while he still thinks he’s gotten away with it. Let’s move quick!”

Odelia got up from the garden bench she and her mother had sunk onto after the devastating news had unfolded before their very eyes.“Are you sure?” she asked now, a tiny flicker of hope suddenly surging in her bosom.

“Of course I’m sure! Tex and I may not always see eye to eye, but that doesn’t mean I’m not fond of the poor fish. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him rot in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Come on, missy. We’ve got a killer to catch and a reputation to save.”

And with these words, she was off in the direction of the Jones residence.

Chapter 28

We’d all overheard Gran talk to her granddaughter like a Dutch uncle, and her words had inspired me.

“Gran is right,” I said. “Tex would never do such a thing. The man is inherently good and incapable of an act of pure evil.”

“Maybe he didn’t mean to kill Jaqlyn,” Harriet suggested. “Maybe it was an accident.”

“I think I know what happened,” said Brutus. “Tex is just like me: he doesn’t know his own strength. He probably just wanted to teach the guy a lesson and gave him a light tap on the head. Only he overdid it and found himself with a dead body on his hands.”

“So he panicked and stuffed him in the trunk of his car,” Harriet finished the story.

“Doubtful,” said Kingman. “Tex doesn’t exactly look like the strongman type to me.”

“He’s a doctor, and doctors are surprisingly muscular,” said Brutus, reluctant to abandon his neat little theory without a fight.

“Brutus is right,” said Harriet, coming to her mate’s support. “Doctors need to be able to lift patients with a finger so they can twirl them around and change their bedding and such. Or lift them up when they’ve managed to land themselves on the bedroom floor.”

“You’re thinking of nurses,” I said. “That’s exactly the kind of strenuous activity nurses engage in.”

“No, I’m thinking of doctors,” Harriet insisted. “Just look at Vena,” she added as a possibly decisive argument. “She’s as strong as an ox. Maybe even two or three oxen.”

“Vena is a vet,” I pointed out. “And vets need to be able to pull a calf from a cow, which is why they’re so strong. I’ve never seen Tex pull a calf from a cow.”

“Maybe he pulls calves from cows when no one is watching?” Dooley suggested.

“I still think he did it,” said Brutus. “Why else would the body be in his car?”

It was one of those aspects which are a little hard to move past, and any jury of Tex’s peers would probably think along the same lines.

“Look, it doesn’t matter what we think,” I argued. “If Gran says he didn’t do it, at the very least we should join the investigation and try to clear the man’s name. We owe him that much, wouldn’t you agree?”

“We could always talk to witnesses,” Harriet allowed. “Ask around and gather the facts.”

“I’ll help you guys,” said Kingman. “I don’t have much else to do right now, and I kinda like Tex. He once removed a splinter from my paw and I feel like I owe him for that.”

“Let’s split up,” I suggested. “Dooley and I will look for witnesses out on the street, while you guys talk to pets who were at the party.”

“Deal,” said Kingman, who looked excited to be joining us on his first-ever investigation. And as Brutus and Harriet pottered off in the direction of the garden, Kingman asked, “So how do I do this, Max? Do I look for specific clues? Fingerprints and footprints and cigar stubs and all that sort of thing? Or do I ask a bunch of seemingly innocuous questions, then walk away only to turn back and say, ‘Just one more thing?’”

“No, you just talk to any pet you find, and ask them if they saw something that might shed some light on what happened here this afternoon. We’re trying to build a timeline of events. To know who was where, when, with who, and did what to whom, how and why.”

He nodded along as I spoke.“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Could you repeat that one more time?”

“You ask who did what to whom when, where, how and why,” Dooley explained.

“Oh-kay,” said Kingman, his eyes glazing over somewhat. “Gotcha. So I figure out who was where when they did what to whom… why?”