Cat In A Leopard Spot

Chapter 45

The Most Dangerous Dame

I sit down in the dust.

“Now I wish I had those two little beetle-noses.”

“Beetle-noses?” Midnight Louise inquires.

“They are shiny and black, are they not? The Yorkies’ noses.”

“Ours are shiny and black as well,” she says.

“Ours are matte and black. Much more elegant. But ours do not smell as well.”

“What kind of smelling do you require?”

“The Gees and I trailed our way all night, for miles and miles, all the way to the Animal Oasis, where I then interviewed the suspect in the Van Burkleo murder, Osiris the leopard.”

“And while you were off doing that, someone absconded with your secret witness. Now that the witness is missing, perhaps you will tell me what or who it is.”

I paw disconsolately at a cage bar. “It is Butch.”

“Butch? I am glad you are on a first-name basis with one and all, and thankful that you are not so with me. But who the Devon Rex is Butch?”

“Your lunch pal.”

This gives the kit pause. She frowns prettily, but I dare not tell her so.

“My lunch pal…oh, you mean the panther from between whose paws I nipped the treat for Osiris.”

I nod, not enthusiastically. I am not about to tell her of the high regard in which she is held by both victim and beneficiary of her meal-exchange scheme. Nor am I about to tell her about a new worry of mine: I have spotted my Miss Temple’s small aqua car in the driveway as we were working our way to the compound. Apparently she arrived here after us. Why, I cannot imagine.

“Well, if we cannot track him like the Yorkies,” she says briskly, “we will have to use our superior feline brains and deduce where he has gone. Do you notice a significant absence around this cage area, Pops?”

“Besides the Yorkie noses?” I snap.

She dodges my flashing teeth, and my sarcasm. “People. I do not see one keeper or guard. Which tells me they are off doing something else. Something more important than watching the stock.”

“And I know better than you on how many thousand acres they might be off doing that more important something.”

She has already turned and started trotting around the sprawling ranch house. “We will start with the nearest acres, then.”

I do not like following Miss Midnight Louise, so I manage to catch up and sprint past her by the time she reaches the front of the house.

But I stop cold, frozen by another inexplicable absence.

“My Miss Temple’s Storm,” I squall, dismayed. “It is gone! This was supposed to be a simple deposition mission. Now I have her to look after too.”

Miss Louise’s eyes narrow to mean-business dimensions. “I presume that ‘too’ means that you feel obligated to ‘look after’ me as well.”

“Not at all. I would not look after you if you came by carrying the queen of England’s train in your teeth.”

“Good,” she says. “What is that vehicle still squatting on the driveway?”

“Big?” I suggest.

A withering glance. Dames have no sense of humor.

“It is an in-town off-road model of SUV, which I suppose means Suburban Uppity Vehicle.”

“Hmmm.” Miss Louise goes to sniff the giant tires, doing a pretty good imitation of a scent hound. Her matte-black beetle-nose wrinkles. “Creosote bushes, sagebrush, and prickly pear. I suspect that there is where we will have to head.”

“The bush, you mean.” I am ahead of her. I am already heading that way.

She scampers to catch up.

“It is a hunt,” she suggests a bit breathlessly.

I enjoy making the kit hustle to keep up with the mature operative, and pedal faster.

“Yes, it is a hunt. But I suspect that there is more dangerous game and more hunters out there than the driver of that Suburban Uppity Vehicle has dreamed of.” Why else were Mr. Max Kinsella and my Miss Temple conspiring at the Crystal Phoenix not four hours ago?

Now I know what must be done, and I am just the dude for the job…once I have managed to stow Miss Temple Barr and Miss Midnight Louise out of harm’s way.

That is the real most dangerous game.