The Mysteries of Max: Books 25-27

Chapter 11

We’d only just emerged from the relative safety of the bedroom and trepidatiously set paw into the living room—practicing extreme caution lest that terrible vacuum cleaner was waiting for us around the corner to jump us and tear us into little dust-sized pieces—when both the front door slammed open and so did the kitchen door. Odelia came homing in on us from the front, while Gran performed the same maneuver from the back. We were cornered, and awaited further developments with bated breath.

Odelia was the first to speak. “Are you guys up for a new adventure? I’m heading out to talk to Ida Baumgartner, who’s been the victim of a burglary.”

“They can’t come with you, Odelia,” said Gran. “I need them to come with me. I’ve set up an interview with Mort and Megan Hodge, whose house has just been burgled.”

For a moment, both amateur detectives faced off, the four of us stuck in the middle, our fate being sealed without our say-so. Now I know how the lesser countries in the UN must feel, when the Permanent Members decide the fate of the world over their heads.

“Fine,” finally said Odelia. “Why don’t I take Max and Dooley, and you take Harriet and Brutus? That way we both get what we want.”

“Fine,” said Gran, in the same measured tones as her granddaughter. “Harriet. Brutus. You’re with me. On the double!”

Harriet and Brutus trotted off in the direction of the kitchen door, and soon it slammed shut and the threesome was gone.

“Thanks for picking us,” I told my human. “It’s not that I don’t like Gran, but she looked a little… worked up.”

“She’s got a lot on her plate right now,” said Odelia, crouching down to give me a scratch behind the ears. “What with this neighborhood watch thing she started. People are relying on her, and it’s making her a little antsy.”

“Berserk is the word I’d go for,” I intimated, earning myself a smile from my human, and a cuddle. Dooley emitted a plaintive meow, and Odelia laughed and included him in the cuddle.

Group cuddle over, we set out for Odelia’s car, an aged pickup that nevertheless refuses to break down, and soon we were hurtling away from the curb, leaving the house on Harrington Street behind. And as we rounded the corner, and our home disappeared from view, I wondered briefly if it was safe to head out like this. “Don’t you think you should install an alarm?” I asked. “I mean, with this plague of burglaries maybe you should take some extra precautions, and so should Marge and Tex.”

“There’s nothing worth stealing, Max,” said Odelia, hunched over the wheel and steering the car through mild mid-morning traffic. “Apart from the television, which is old, and the stereo, which is even older, I don’t see why burglars would even bother.”

“They might take Chase’s fitness equipment,” Dooley said.

Odelia laughed. “I’d like to see them try. They’ll be in the hospital with a hernia before they manage to get it down the stairs. That stuff weighs a ton—literally.”

“Why does Chase spend so much time pulling all of those weights, Odelia?” asked Dooley, deciding now was the time to voice a question he’d been asking himself for ages. “And why does he make all those weird noises when he does?”

Odelia grinned. “I’ll be sure to ask him, Dooley. I’m not really sure myself.”

“It just seems as if he likes to torture himself,” Dooley continued, not afraid to offer the theory he himself had conjured up. “There was a documentary on the Discovery Channel the other night, about people who call themselves mosaicists.”

“Masochists,” I corrected him.

“These people like to suffer,” Dooley said. “In fact the more pain they suffer the more they like it. Do you think Chase is a masochist?”

This time Odelia laughed so hard the car swerved across the white line in the center of the road, earning herself loud honks from a panel van heading in our direction in the other lane. “Chase a masochist,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye. “You know what, Dooley? I think you might be onto something there.”

“See, Max?” said Dooley. “And you told me my theory couldn’t possibly be right.”

“All I said was that Chase wants to have bigger muscles, and the only way to have bigger muscles is to subject those muscles to a lot of strenuous activity, like lifting weights. The heavier the weights, the more the muscles are taxed, and the bigger they grow in response. It’s simply biology.”

Dooley frowned and directed a curious look at my belly, which was neatly placed between my paws, and spread out a little beyond the boundaries of what is usually termed fashionable or beautiful.

“Is that why you have so many muscles on your belly, Max?” he asked. “Because you make it work so hard lifting all of that kibble?”

“Yes, Dooley,” I said dryly. “That’s exactly why.”

Of course Odelia had another laughing fit, which caused the car to swerve once more into the wrong lane. Lucky for us she’s an excellent driver, and managed to get back where the car belonged before colliding with other occupants of the road.

Before long, we arrived at the home of Ida Baumgartner, one of Odelia’s dad’s most fervent patients. In fact it isn’t too much to say she’s probably Tex’s biggest fan, seeing as how she’s in his office all the time, always discovering some new disease to suffer from.

“Best to be on your best behavior, Dooley,” I said. “Ida Baumgartner is a very sick woman. And we don’t want to send her to the hospital just by our mere presence in her home.” I directed a worried look at Odelia. “Are you sure she’s not allergic to cats?”

“I’m sure Ida is allergic to everything,” said Odelia, “but don’t let that stop you from poking around her place and gathering clues.”

And with these words, she got out of the car and Dooley and I followed suit.

I won’t conceal I was feeling a little jolt of excitement. It had been a while since we’d tackled a case together, and even though burglary isn’t exactly high on the list of high crimes, it was still a case, and therefore something to dig our teeth into.

Whoever had burgled Ida was now in our crosshairs. The game was officially afoot!