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But Chase wasn’t deterred: he kept reciting the Kitchen King’s Miranda rights, and soon the man had been placed under arrest and was being led back to the clearing where he’d parked his car, and as Chase removed the branches from the hood of his own car, which he and Odelia had used to conceal the vehicle just in case my hunch was right, he led the fallen king into the squad car and took off with his arrestee, while Odelia and Dooley and I walked the couple of hundred yards to her car, also neatly concealed.

Everything so we could nab a killer— and it had been worth it, if only for the stupefied expression on the man’s face.

“Looks like Gran will have to choose a different kitchen supplier,” said Dooley.

“Yeah, looks like,” Odelia agreed. “And now,” she added, as she put the car in gear, “you’re going to tell me exactly how you figured it out, Max.”

“Yeah, I think I’d like to know, too,” said Dooley.

I settled in comfortably on the backseat.“The trouble for our Kitchen King started back when he wasn’t a king yet, but merely a prince. You see, Fred Kramer didn’t start out a kitchen mogul. Fifteen years ago he worked for one, as sales manager for a kitchen supplies company in Colorado. And guess who also worked for the same company?”

“Our John Doe—or Pete Jessup as his real name turns out to be,” said Odelia as she expertly steered the car back onto the dirt track leading out of the woods. “When you asked me to dig a little deeper into Fred Kramer’s background, and especially his work history, it didn’t take me longto get a positive ID from the CEO of the company he used to work for,” she explained. “He told me that before he’d terminated both their employments, Fred Kramer and Pete Jessup had worked for him, respectively as head of sales and chief accountant, both accused of embezzlement and both askedto leave.”

“Fred landed on his feet, and left the past behind, but Pete didn’t. He hit rock bottom and lost not only his job and his marriage, but also his self-respect, all of his friends and his house. So he ended up living on the streets—no money, no future, no prospects.”

“That must have been tough,” said Dooley feelingly.

“Well, he only had himself to blame,” I said. “If you steal from your boss, you probably shouldn’t expect any favors.”

“So how do you think Pete happened to end up in Hampton Cove?” asked Odelia.

“Coincidence,” I said. “I’m sure he had no idea that his former partner in crime had built up a new successful kitchen business out here, and it must have been a big shock for Fred to bump into his former associate.”

“Who immediately put the squeeze on him,” Odelia said, nodding. “Probably wanting money in exchange for his silence.”

“So Fred decided that the only option that would give him peace of mind was to get rid of Pete once and for all. So he told him to meet him out here in the woods, and he shot and buried him, knowing no one would come and look for the guy. But then of course Karl Bunyon’s catnapping shenanigans rode roughshod over Fred’s plans.”

“So… how did Fred Kramer get a hold of Karl’s gun?” asked Dooley.

“Well, from time to time it was Fred who’d drop the kids off at the Bunyons, not Grace,” Odelia explained. “And he must have gotten wise to his former employee’s gun safe—maybe Karl even showed it to him, and opened it in his presence—and that’s when the idea must have hit him.”

“To steal Karl’s gun?”

“Not steal it,” I said. “To switch it with his own gun, the one he picked out of that tree just now. The plan was to switch guns with Karl, kill Pete, then return the gun to Karl’s safe, something he could easily do when he picked up Grace’s kids or dropped them off. So just in case Pete’s body was discovered, which was a remote contingency, but still a contingency he needed to consider, the bullet would lead the cops to Karl, not Fred.”

Odelia nodded.“And so when you told me to let it be known that the bullet we found in Pete wasn’t a match for Karl’s gun, you secretly hoped…”

“That Fred would figure he’d made a mistake, and had accidentally put Karl’s gun in that tree, and had placed his own gun in Karl’s gun safe,” I confirmed. “And so just to make sure, he came out here to look for the gun, and—”

“Walked straight into our trap,” said Odelia.

“So how about this other man?” asked Dooley. “The DJ? Was that an accident?”

“No, it wasn’t,” I said. “It was a case of Darryl Farmer being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d gone to the rave that night, playing his set, and was returning home on his bicycle around the time Fred Kramer was also returning from his grizzly business in the woods. Kramer hit him with his car, knocking Darryl off his bike and into a ditch, and since he didn’t want the police to know, gave him a large amount of cash in hand to buy himself a new bike, and keep his mouth shut about the accident.”