Purrfect Alibi (3)

Chapter 26

I woke up from some type of hubbub or ruckus and opened one eye to take a peek at its source. Across the street, in the library’s courtyard, some kind of scuffle had broken out between a bunch of people carrying microphones and cameras. At the heart of the scuffle I recognized Gran and Odelia, womanfully trying to force their way through the throng to a guy who looked like he could feature as the lead in a Disney Channel Original Movie.

“What’s going on?” asked Dooley, rising up next to me.

“I’m not sure. Looks like Gran and Odelia are trying to pick a fight with Zac Efron and a bunch of reporters are attempting to stop them.”

Dooley yawned and stretched. “Oh, look. It’s Big Mac.”

He was right. Waddling across the street was the fast-food-loving cat.

“Hey, Big Mac!” I shouted. “Over here.”

When he saw us, he gave us a kindly nod of the head, and toddled over.

Odelia had cranked the window down and Dooley and I leaned out like seasoned window-leaners, elbows propped up on the doorframe.

“Hey, buds,” said Big Mac, greeting us like old pals.

“Hey, buddy. We keep bumping into each other.”

“Big Mac loves to go to the library,” said Dooley.

“Big Mac loves to check out the dumpster behind the library,” Big Mac corrected him. “Because that dumpster is equidistant from the two best pizza parlors in Hampton Cove, which, according to my calculations, borne out by the facts, means this dumpster is a great place to dig up some grade-A pizza leftovers.”

“Max taught us that pizza boxes are a very important clue,” said Dooley, apropos of nothing. “Pizza boxes lead Aurora Teagarden to solve her mysteries. She sees a pizza box and she knows. It’s a great trick.” He was nodding intelligently. “Isn’t that right, Max?”

I was going to explain to Dooley, not for the first time, that pizza boxes were only a clue in those particular circumstances in that particular mystery on that particular TV show but sometimes one gets tired of repeating oneself so instead I said, “We found almost all of the people you identified, Big Mac. Only one is still missing from the list.”

“He’s over there,” said Big Mac, gesturing to the library. “That spiffy-looking dude on the steps? He was here last night. I would recognize him anywhere. He looks like Brad Pitt before he was Brad Pitt.”

“How do you know what Brad Pitt looked like before he was Brad Pitt?” I asked.

“My human is a big fan of supermarket tabloids. He can’t go through a checkout line without buying a stack of them. And they always have those unflattering ‘before they were famous’ photomontages. I love them. You should see what George Clooney looked like.”

Dooley had been thinking hard. I could tell, for his tongue was sticking out of his mouth. Finally he voiced the question that was bugging him. “Wasn’t Brad Pitt always Brad Pitt? Or did he change his name?”

Big Mac decided to ignore this outburst. Instead, he raised a point of interest. “Have you found the pizza guy?”

“I don’t think the pizza guy is a high priority.” I explained how two people on Big Mac’s list were now languishing in the Hampton Cove lockup, both competing for the dubious honor of being Chris Ackerman’s killer, so his pizza delivery guy wasn’t exactly on anyone’s radar right now. I further argued that pizza guys don’t go around killing their customers with expensive fountain pens. He agreed that there was something in that.

“Still,” he said. “He didn’t smell right.”

“He was a pizza guy. He probably smelled like a pizza guy.”

“That’s the thing, see,” said Big Mac. “He didn’t.”

“So what did he smell like?” I asked.

“Soap.”

“Soap.”

“Yeah, soap. Freshly washed and bathed.”

“So he was a fastidious pizza guy. So what?”

“Pizza guys have to smell like pizza,” he insisted.

He was obviously old-fashioned that way, so I decided not to argue the point. As I saw it a pizza guy could smell like soap if he wanted to. In fact it was preferable. Nobody likes his pizza delivery person to smell like old socks or stinky pits. Bad for business, if you see what I mean. You want the pizza person to project that wholesome, clean image.

The pizza discussion had gone right over Dooley’s head, as his next words indicated. “If Brad Pitt wasn’t Brad Pitt before he was Brad Pitt, then who was he?”

“Oh, Dooley,” I said with a sigh.

Big Mac tapped the car door with his paw. “Gotta go, fellas. People to see, pizza leftovers to gobble up. Catch you later, all right?”

“See ya, Big Mac,” I said, and watched the big cat wobble across the road. Then I thought of something. “Hey, Big Mac?”

“Yo,” said the big cat, turning.

“Wanna join cat choir? Tonight at the park. Practically all the cats of Hampton Cove will be there. We hang out, sing some tunes, shoot the breeze. What do you say?”

“I can’t sing, dude.”

“None of us can.”

He shrugged. “I’ll think about it.” He held up a paw and I returned the gesture. As he walked away, he softly sang, “I’m lovin’ it.” Yep, he really did love it.

There was a momentary silence after Big Mac had left, then Dooley said, “So about Brad Pitt…”