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Odelia nodded.“I wonder why he chose her. After all, he’d never even met her.”

“But he had been following her work very closely. Has to be that he saw something in her that gave him the confidence that she could take over Tollie the Turtle one day.”

“I still find it odd. Why leave his entire fortune to a girl he’s never met before?”

“Could be because of Hester,” Chase suggested.

“Because he felt guilty for leaving her? But that was fifty years ago, Chase.”

“Never underestimate the sentimentality of a man well into his seventh decade, babe. I think Dave was starting to ruminate on his life and thinking about the things he’d done and the things he hadn’t. Stuff he wished he’d done differently. And it seems as if Hester featured in his thoughts a lot. And let’s not forget that he didn’t get along with his wife and her son, and was seriously considering getting a divorce.”

“What do you think about this story that he was having an affair with the girl?”

“Nonsense,” said Chase. “Utter and complete nonsense.”

“Yeah, I’m inclined to think so, too. But we still have to investigate the connection.”

We’d arrived at a low squat building, and Chase parked in one of several parking spots, neatly lined by boxwood hedges. In front of the studio a small bronze statue had been erected of Tollie the Turtle, and next to the entrance a sign announced we were about to enter the realm of Dave James Productions.

The moment we walked in, we found ourselves in a spacious and neatly appointed vestibule which boasted plenty of large glass display cabinets, filled top to bottom with merchandise featuring Tollie the Turtle. There were mugs, pens, pencil cases, stickers, lunch boxes—you name it and it was there, all bearing the likeness of the famous turtle. A bespectacled young woman came hurrying up from the back, pressed her glasses further up her nose and said, a little breathlessly, “Yes? How can I help you?”

In response, Chase showed her his badge, and so did Odelia, and the woman blinked rapidly.

“Oh, it’s been pandemonium here. We’re all terribly shook up about what happened with Dave, and I’ve been fielding calls all morning.” Her glasses had slipped down the bridge of her nose again, and she pushed them into place once more.

“Could we perhaps speak to the person in charge of the studio?” asked Chase.

“That would be Flint,” she said. She picked up the phone and meanwhile we looked around, and I saw several people hard at work.

“Even though Dave is gone, the work goes on,” said Dooley.

“Yes, it certainly seems so,” I said, though now I noticed how several of those people looked suspiciously bleary-eyed, and boxes of tissues had been freely distributed throughout the studio, indicating that not all was well with these hard workers.

The receptionist hung up the phone and now said,“Please take a seat. Flint will be with you soon.”

Odelia, who’d been glancing into the main room, said, “I thought you’d have taken the day off.”

“Flint suggested it, but we all thought Dave would have wanted us to keep going.” The girl’s eyes were also red-rimmed, I now saw, and on her desk a big box of tissues stood. “We can’t let him down. He’d have wanted Tollie the Turtle to go on. It’s his life’s work, you see, and the best way for us to honor his memory and his legacy is to make sure that tomorrow another Tollie the Turtle will be in all the newspapers.” She stifled a sob. “Though tomorrow’s Tollie will be a special one. Flint will make sure of that. A Tollie that will say farewell to his…” She gulped. “To his wonderful…” Her voice now faltered, and she burst into sobs, grabbed her box of tissues, and ran off in the direction of the bathroom.

“Poor thing,” said Odelia. “She looks pretty devastated.”

“Understandably so,” Chase grunted. “It’s a sad day for Tollie fans.” And to show us he considered himself a part of the Tollie tribe, he adopted an appropriately mournful look.

Odelia and Chase had just taken a seat next to that glass cabinet full of Tollie paraphernalia when a tall individual dressed in ripped jeans, a pink shirt and lime-green sneakers came walking up to us. His hair was gelled to perfection and even though he was dressed like a teenager, judging from the wrinkles around his eyes I estimated him to be in his late forties.

“Detectives?” he said. “Hi, I’m Flint Kutysiak, head of the studio. I’m sorry, but is it all right if I fob you off onto one of my artists? I’m up to my neck right now—I have a Tollie comic to finish and I absolutely cannot miss this particular deadline.”

“No, that’s fine,” said Chase as we all got up to follow the artist.

He led us into a conference room.“Heiko will be with you in just a moment,” he said.

“So when can we speak with you?” asked Chase.