The Mysteries of Max: Books 25-27

Epilogue

“So the cats saved the day,” said Marge as she put a big bowl of potato salad on the table.

“No, the watch saved the day,” said her mother.

“But the cats found the solution.”

“No, the watch found the solution. The watch caught the killer.”

“More like the killer caught you,” said Uncle Alec with a twinkle in his eye.

“Oh, when are you going to admit that the watch beat you fair and square? We won, Alec, and the police lost!”

“I seem to remember it was us who came barging in to save your ass,” growled the Chief.

“My ass didn’t need saving! I’d already saved my own ass, thank you very much!”

“Are they going to argue like that all day, Max?” asked Dooley.

“All week, I imagine,” I said.

We were in the backyard of Tex and Marge’s house, where Tex was manning the grill, whipping up some prime beef, sausages, steaks and ribs for anyone with an appetite, which apparently was everyone present: Odelia and Chase, of course, Marge, Gran and Scarlett, Tex the grillmeister himself, and Uncle Alec and Charlene.

We cats, meanwhile, patiently waited for those tasty slivers of meat that Odelia usually likes to dole out on these occasions.

The only one who wasn’t present and accounted for was Vicky Gardner, but I had a feeling that very soon now we’d be making her acquaintance. Though these days she wasn’t called Vicky Gardner but Erna Potch, having married a man named Walter Potch.

“I still can’t believe Vicky is alive,” said Brutus. “I thought for sure she’d be dead by now.”

“I thought so, too,” said Harriet.

Marcia Gardner might be an abductor of women, but apparently she was no murderer. One day, while trying to escape, Vicky had tumbled down the stairs and hit her noggin against that cement floor. It had not only created a dilemma for Marcia, who couldn’t just call an ambulance, it had also caused Vicky to develop a serious case of amnesia. It had given Marcia a great idea, though, and she’d decided to get rid of her brother’s wife once and for all, by shipping her to a friend in Belize, where Vicky was still living to this day, being under the impression that her name was Erna, and that she was born and raised in Illinois and happily married to a local expat, who hadn’t even been aware that she’d been abducted—Marcia had said Vicky had fled an abusive husband, something Walter Potch had happily accepted as the truth. When Vicky had recovered from her fall, love had blossomed, and Vicky, unbeknownst to herself, had soon become a bigamist. She’d had her baby over there, and the couple had lived a happy life.

“So what about this fitness instructor?” asked Brutus. “How does she fit into the story?”

“Well, Marcia had hoped that the loss of his wife would make her brother hand over the company to Bobby, who was fresh out of college twenty years ago. But Quintin refused to accept that Vicky was dead, and kept looking for her all these years. So when Marcia met Joanne Whittler, and saw the striking resemblance to her sister-in-law, she figured she might use her to drive her brother over the edge.”

“By killing her and making her brother think it was Vicky?” asked Harriet.

“Again, no,” I said. “Marcia hired Joanne as a private fitness instructor, and was wondering how she could use the young woman’s resemblance to Vicky to her advantage somehow. And then one day last week Joanne was showing Marcia a particular routine when she tripped and fell… and broke her neck in a freak accident. So Marcia found herself staring down at the dead body, and suddenly got a great idea.”

“How to drive her brother crazy,” said Harriet, nodding.

“And it worked—more or less. Quintin really did think the dead woman was his wife—after Marcia had judiciously applied a beauty spot on the girl’s face with permanent marker—and it really did put him in a serious funk. And when Marcia pushed him to finally hand over control of the business to her son, Quintin relented. That was the midnight meeting Gran and Scarlett interrupted.”

“And Bobby himself? How was he involved?” asked Brutus.

“He wasn’t. His mother never told him any of this. Not about Vicky’s disappearance, not about the half a million dollars she took from her brother’s account to make it look as if Vicky had run away, and certainly not about Joanne Whittler’s death. She did it all for him, but carefully kept him out of it, just in case the truth was ever revealed.”

“That smells delicious, Tex,” said Charlene. “Your skills as a grill master are improving with leaps and bounds.”

“I’ve been taking this online course,” said Tex, well pleased with this rare compliment. “And I think it’s taught me a couple of really good pointers. Like did you know you have to baste your meat before you grill it? Go figure!”

“Yeah, go figure,” murmured Uncle Alec as he stared at the piece of leathery meat his brother-in-law had just dumped on his plate. It resembled a well-baked shoe sole.

“At least now the meat is finally cooked to perfection,” said Tex proudly.

Marge, as she tried to saw through her steak, said, “I think you may have overdone it just a little bit, sweetie.” The tip of the knife suddenly broke off, and she blinked.

Odelia, as she tried to chew through a piece of sausage, said, “Are you sure this course you took is kosher, Dad?”

“Of course it’s kosher. It’s got five thousand views.” He sat down at the table with his family, picked up his steak knife and his fork and beamed at those around him. “This is my favorite time of the week. Sitting down with you guys—enjoying a nice meal.”

They all watched as he stuck his fork into his piece of steak, then started to saw—and saw—and saw…

Odelia hadn’t brought us a piece of meat yet, as she usually did, and I was starting to see why.

“I think Tex cooked up a stinker again,” said Brutus.

“Yeah, I guess he took the wrong course,” I said.

“How to turn your meat into charcoal,” said Harriet, much to our amusement.

“I don’t understand,” said Tex, perspiration appearing on his brow as he tried to cut his meat. “I followed the instructions in that video to the letter. It had so many likes.”

Marge spirited a smile of faux cheer onto her face and got up. “Anyone want spaghetti? I have some in the freezer. I’ll have it heated up in no time.” And with these words, she disappeared into the house, shaking her head at her husband’s lack of cooking skills.

“It looked so good in the video,” murmured Tex as the knife went TWOOOING! and suddenly soared through the air, and barely missed Uncle Alec’s head. “Sorry about that.”

“Welcome to the family, Charlene,” said Vesta sweetly. “Where the men can’t cook, the cops need the assistance of cats and senior citizens to catch the bad guys, and the women are in charge.”

Charlene laughed. “Thanks, Vesta. Exactly my kind of family.”

“So no food?” asked Brutus.

“No food,” I said.

“I think it’s all for the best,” said Dooley. “Max still isn’t completely recovered, and sometimes fasting is a recommended cure in such cases.”

“I’m fine, Dooley!” I said. “I’m absolutely fine!”

But he placed his paw against my brow again and tsk-tsked lightly. “Mh,” he said.

Suddenly Harriet spotted the now distinctly lopsided goatherd figurine on the garden table. Marge had put it there to show to Charlene. Tex had glued it back together again—more or less. “So how does that figurine figure into the story?” Harriet asked.

“Well, Marcia figured Vicky needed a hobby. Something to occupy her time while she languished in that basement.”

“Was Marcia going to keep her there forever?” asked Brutus.

“Well, no. But she hadn’t figured out what to do with her. She’d dumped those sleeping pills into Vicky’s tea on a whim, after Vicky told her about the pregnancy, and now she was stuck. She couldn’t let her go, and she couldn’t keep her forever either.”

“That wasn’t very clever of her.”

“So she let Vicky work on those figurines. Marcia was a big fan of Otto Spiel, and had always made her own versions, trying to make them look like the original. But when Marcia wasn’t looking, Vicky wrote a distress call inside, hoping that someone would break one of those things and find the message.”

“She also put her ring inside,” said Harriet, staring at the now deformed figurine.

“Yeah, that was an accident,” I said. “It must have slipped off her finger when she was working on one. And since she couldn’t very well tell Marcia, she kept her tongue.”

“And how about the security guard?” asked Brutus. “Why the mysterious letters?”

“Marcia liked to give those figurines away as presents. And since her son had plenty, amassed over the years, he, in turn, had gotten into the habit of handing them out to his factory workers—people he felt deserved a little token of his appreciation. Like Bruno the security guard. And when Bruno accidentally broke it, he discovered the message inside. He wasn’t sure what to do, and when we came snooping around, he figured he might as well give us a nudge in the right direction, thinking there was something fishy about his employers—and the mystery surrounding Vicky’s disappearance.”

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” said Harriet. “Why did Quintin wait a whole month before going to the police when his wife disappeared?”

“Quintin and Vicky made an arrangement when they married. He knew she’d mostly married him for his money, and not his good looks, so they agreed she could keep her freedom and fool around if she wanted to, on one condition: that she’d never tell anyone, or publicly cause him any embarrassment. And so she’d gone missing before. The first time she spent two weeks in Vegas with her friends, and the second time she was gone for three whole weeks—a trip to the Bahamas with the same ‘girl crew’ she liked to hang out with. So when she disappeared again, he wasn’t happy about it, but he wasn’t worried either. It was only when he bumped into one of her friends and asked when she’d be back, that he discovered that this time she’d actually gone missing for real.”

“What’s going to happen to Marcia?” asked Brutus.

I slapped Dooley’s paw away, as he was trying to measure my temperature yet again. “She’s going to prison for the abduction of her sister-in-law. Her son will take over from Quintin. And Vicky… is probably going to stay in Belize, where she’s built up a pretty good life over the past twenty years. But not before paying a visit to her old husband. And maybe coming back here will jog her memory to some extent.”

“Or maybe not,” said Dooley. “Just like you shouldn’t be too sure you’re fine, Max. You’re not fine, and I think you should lie down now.”

“Dooley, quit fussing!”

“Oh, he’s only watching out for you, Max,” said Harriet. “So if I were you I’d let him.”

She was right. Dooley was only showing me how much he cared. But it was annoying to a degree!

Suddenly the doorbell rang, and we all looked up.

“Visitors?” asked Harriet, surprised.

“It’s Vena,” Dooley announced.

“Vena!” I said, staring at my friend.

He nodded sagely. “I asked Odelia to give her a call. Now I know you think you’re fine, Max, but I’m worried about you, and so is Odelia. So just let Vena take a look at you, and then we can all relax, all right?”

I gritted my teeth a little, but finally relented. “Fine,” I said. “I don’t need to see a doctor, but fine.”

“Good,” said Dooley. “I knew you’d see the light, Max.” He’d placed his paw against my forehead again and was shaking his head. “Still running a temperature,” he murmured.

Vena walked out through the sliding glass door and greeted us all heartily, as is her way. Hampton Cove’s premier veterinarian looks like a powerlifter, which is not a bad look for a vet, as dragging foals from horses probably requires a lot of physical strength.

“So where is the patient?!” she boomed now, and then her eyes swiveled in my direction and she smiled her broad and infectious smile. “There he is!”

“I’m fine,” I repeated for all who would listen. “Absolutely fine.”

“Let’s take his temperature,” said Vesta as she took a seat on the porch swing next to me, and got out her signature bag of goodies. “Now relax those rectal muscles, Max!”

Rectal mu… “No way!” I cried.

And before she could stop me, I jumped down from the swing and was making for the hedge.

“Max! Come back here!” Odelia cried.

“Yes, you’re a sick cat, Max!” Dooley added.

“Never!” I yelled, and was waddling off at a respectable rate of speed. And I think I would have made it, if I hadn’t stumbled upon the new inflatable pool that Chase had purchased, and set up in Odelia’s backyard.

I hit that pool head-on, bopped over the edge, and landed right in the middle. And I would have gone under, if Chase hadn’t fished me out by my neck, and held me up.

“I keep having to save you, don’t I?” said the burly copper.

I gave him my best smile. “I think I love you, Chase,” I said. And then spat out a modest stream of water, hitting him right in the face.

“Cats,” he muttered as he carried me back into the next backyard. “You gotta love ‘em.”

At least I hadn’t destroyed his pool again. And doesn’t it say a lot about a man’s character when he keeps repairing and replacing his inflatable pool, even though his girlfriend’s cats keep destroying it? I think it says that man is a cat friend through and through.

And I love a man who loves a cat.

So I underwent Vena’s probings with a certain measure of equanimity, and when finally she’d given me a clean bill of health, Marge had finished warming up her spaghetti, and soon the only sounds that could be heard were nine humans—Vena had kindly accepted Marge’s invitation to stay for dinner—and four cats munching away to their heart’s content.

I hadn’t escaped this latest adventure of mine fully unscathed, but fur has a habit of growing back, and so does wounded pride. So I think in all fairness I really was fine.

And so when Dooley’s paw surreptitiously stole out and touched my forehead again, I resisted the urge to slap it away. Harriet was right. My friend was only looking out for me, annoying as his ministrations were, and so I endured his attentions with fortitude.

A certain kind of peace descended upon the backyard, and for a while everything was nice and quiet. Then, suddenly, there was the loud screeching sound of a bird swooping down, and as everyone looked up, fully expecting things to turn into a scene from Hitchcock’s The Birds, Moses’s loud voice could be heard screaming, “Take that, Frank—and that and that and that!” followed by the loud lamenting voice of what I imagined was a large orange cat named Frank, bellowing, “Hey, whaddya think you’re doing, bird!”

Dooley giggled, and so did Harriet, Brutus and myself. Even Odelia was smiling.

It’s not often that bird poo brings about what can only be termed poetic justice, but when it does, I can tell you that it is extremely satisfying for all concerned.

Then again, Hampton Cove is perhaps not a town like most others. I mean, where else can you find four cats quietly applauding a bird’s defecatory act of vengeance against one of their own?

Moments later, Moses swept down upon our backyard, and gave us a flyby salute.

“I got him, you guys,” he said with marked satisfaction. “I got him good.”

“Great job, Moses,” I said.

“Yeah, great job, buddy,” said Dooley.

“He won’t do that again,” Brutus grunted.

“No, he’ll think twice next time,” Harriet added.

And with a cheerful, “Adios,” the large pigeon flew off.

Charlene, who’d watched the back-and-forth with open-mouthed surprise, turned to her boyfriend, and said, “There’s something going on with your family’s cats, Alec. I almost can’t believe I’m saying this, but it seems to me as if… they can talk to birds.”

Uncle Alec swallowed uncomfortably. “I’m sure you’re just imagining things, honey.”

“No, I’m serious. They were talking to that pigeon just now—and you know what’s even stranger? The pigeon was talking back to them! Isn’t that just the weirdest thing?”

“Oh, Charlene, Charlene,” said Harriet with a purr. “You don’t even know the half of it.”

Uncle Alec, looking for a way to distract his girlfriend, suddenly pointed to the haphazardly glued-together goatherd. “Hey, what did you do with my present?”

All those around the table looked at him. “Your present?” asked Marge.

“Sure. I got you that thing for your tenth wedding anniversary, remember? Cost me a pretty penny, too.” He frowned. “Don’t tell me you broke it. You told me when I gave that to you that you’d put it somewhere you could look at it every day—to remind you of your favorite big brother.”

Marge looked a little shamefaced. “Well, I did give it a great spot in the kitchen.”

“Yeah, a real top spot,” said Gran with a little grin.

“Good,” said Uncle Alec, leaning back. “The guy who sold it to me said it was a real Otto Spiel. Pretty valuable, too.”

“But, honey,” said Charlene, “that’s one of the figurines Vicky Gardner was forced to make when she was being kept a prisoner by her sister-in-law, remember?”

Uncle Alec stared at her. “Oh, right.” He thunked his head. “How could I forget?”

The meal continued, and Charlene seemed to have forgotten all about the Poole cats’ strange behavior. Soon I noticed how Dooley was eyeing Uncle Alec with concern.

“What is it, Dooley?” I asked.

“Do you think Uncle Alec is losing his mind, Max?” he asked. “He completely forgot about that figurine.”

“I’m sure he was just trying to distract Charlene,” I said. “I think she’s starting to suspect there’s something strange going on with us.”

“Oh?”

“I think she’s starting to suspect that we can talk to our humans.”

“Which is a good thing, right?”

“Not exactly. You never know how she’ll react. She might completely freak out.”

So now Dooley switched his attention from Uncle Alec to Charlene, and eyed her very closely indeed—to such an extent that Charlene started to become a little uncomfortable.

“Alec?” she whispered.

“Mh?”

“That cat is staring at me.”

“What cat?”

“The small gray one.”

“Oh, that’s Dooley. Don’t mind him. He’s a sweet little fella.”

“Dooley?” I said. “Can you please stop staring at Charlene?”

“I think you were right, Max,” he said, intensifying his gimlet stare. “I think she knows. And if she knows, she might file a complaint and put us in her new pound.”

“If you don’t stop staring at her like that she certainly will—you’re right about that.”

“Dooley, can you please stop staring at Charlene,” suddenly said Odelia, who’d become aware of this new development.

“Oh, all right,” said Dooley.

“Thank you,” said Odelia, then looked up when everyone was staring… at her. “What?” she said.

“Odelia!” said Charlene, slowly rising from her chair. “You-you-you talk to your cats!”

“No, I don’t,” said Odelia.

“I just saw you—you talked to that Dooley!”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did! You talked to him and he talked back to you and you said ‘Thank you!’”

“Nope.”

Charlene suddenly put her hands to her face. “What’s going on? Am I going crazy?”

“No, you’re not.”

But then Charlene uttered a blood-curdling scream that chilled us all to the bone.

“Oh, boy,” muttered Vesta, and threw down her napkin. “And here we go again.”