57aacbcd9598439b495cce0c68035a7c

“Poor man. First Skad stole his million-dollar idea for a show, and then he went and got his own show canceled. He must have hated him so much.”

“Yeah, he’s the best suspect I’ve talked to so far. Physically he’s also perfect. He could easily have shoved Skad into that oven. And he was in town the night of the murder.”

“Pity he’s got an ironclad alibi.”

“Rock solid,” Chase agreed.

“So where does that leave us?”

“We’re still waiting on the final report from the coroner, but barring any surprises we’re pretty much out of moves here. I honestly don’t know who else could have done it.”

“You talked to the rest of the staff?”

“All of them. They all alibied out.”

“And no witnesses have come forward?”

“None. Which is weird, as someone must have seen something.”

They descended the stairs, and Odelia gave the interview some more thought. Chase was right. Konrad was the perfect suspect. And he was innocent.

“Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you, Detective Kingsley.”

He gave her a grimace.“So now suddenly it’s my investigation again, huh?”

“You are the detective. I’m just a consultant.”

He shook his head.“Round about now we could use some of those magic sleuthing powers your uncle claims you possess. Cause from where I’m standing things are starting to look pretty hopeless.”

She thought of Max and Dooley. If they didn’t come up with something soon, Chase was absolutely right. Things did look hopeless.

Chapter 21

All the way back from the hotel to the house, I thought about what Dooley had said about Brutus. How I’d stirred the beast and he would return to haunt us. And when we were about to turn the corner and enter the street where we lived, I saw Brutus coming toward us, and he looked completely deflated again.

I nudged Dooley.“Look who’s coming.”

“He doesn’t look like he’s going to bully us,” Dooley said.

“Very observant of you, Dooley. So maybe you were wrong, huh?”

“Let’s wait and see.”

“Hey, that’s my line!”

“And now it’s mine.”

We sat down on our haunches, and I started casually licking my tail. I didn’t want to give Brutus the impression we were waiting for him. Dooley, catching on, started licking his private parts.

“Dooley!” I hissed. “Do you have to do that now?”

“Huh? What?” he asked, looking up from his business.

“Just lick your paw or something. This is a public place.”

“I don’t have to lick my paw. I just licked my paw before. Now I want to lick my—”

“It’s not proper!”

He stared at me.“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden? We’re cats, Max. Not humans. We lick whatever we want to lick at any given time.”

“Still.”

“Still nothing. Living with Odelia has turned you into a human. Time to remember that you’re a cat.”

I guess he was right. It’s just that every time in the past I started licking my privates, Odelia started giggling. It’s made me self-conscious.

“I honestly think that if people would walk around in the nude more and lick their private parts in public, the world would be a much better place,” Dooley said.

I watched as Gran and Leo came walking down the street, kissing and hugging and generally all over each other’s business, and I said, “I disagree. There are certain human private parts I really don’t care seeing.”

Brutus had reached us and also plunked down on his haunches.“Hi,” he said in a tired voice. He sounded like the voice from the tomb on a bad day.

“So?” I asked. “How did it go?”

“It didn’t. I waltzed in there, just like you told me to, and told Diego what was what. I said Harriet was my girlfriend and he had no right to come barging into our lives and stealing her away from me.” He paused, and clamped his mouth shut, giving me a haunted look. Then he shivered visibly. “Brrrr.”

“And?” I asked. “Don’t keep us in suspense. What happened?”

“Harriet happened. She told me in no uncertain terms that she was no plaything, to be handed over from cat to cat and to be decided over by anyone but herself. She said she was her own cat and she was perfectly capable of deciding who she was going to date and I was an idiot for trying to controlher.” He shivered, and it was obvious the episode had rankled him.

“She said that, huh?”

“All that and a lot more,” he admitted. “She also said that if she wanted to give her heart to Diego then that was nobody’s business but her own. And if I thought I was going to change her mind by acting like a jealous boyfriend I had another thing coming. And then she kissed Diego. For about a minute or so. It could have been longer. I decided not to stick around.”

I shared a look of commiseration with Dooley. The latter shrugged. He obviously figured that at least Brutus hadn’t turned into the bullying monster we’d all come to know and despise. He was just his old, miserable self again.

I patted the big cat on the shoulder.“Why don’t you join us, Brutus?”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m licking my tail and Dooley is licking his privates.”

“Why not?” he asked, heaving another deep sigh. “It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

So we spent the next ten minutes grooming ourselves. It’s an important part of being a cat, and it helps to take your mind off things.

“So what’s new?” Brutus asked after a while.

“Nothing,” I said.

“You think Odelia cracked the case yet?”

“Nope,” I said.

“So what’s our next move?”

I gave this some thought. What was our next move? The only thing I could come up with was to spend some time at our usual haunts. The barber shop. The police station. The General Store. Maybe someone somewhere had seen something and could get this investigation moving in the right direction again.

So once we were satisfied that our fur was all nice and shiny again and generally flea-free, we ambled off in the direction of Main Street. The police station was a bust. No cats around, and Uncle Alec was holed up in his office playing Solitaire on his computer. The barber shop was a bust, too. None of the cats hanging around there had seen anything.

Our final destination was the General Store, where our buddy Kingman reigns supreme. He’s a large piebald that likes to gossip. And since just about every cat in town passes by the store eventually, he’s usually the best choice to pick up some juicy fresh gossip.

“Max! Dooley! Brutus!” Kingman said from his perch on the counter. He likes to keep his human Wilbur company while the latter rings up the purchases. He gracefully hopped down and trod over to where we were sitting, right next to the discount DVD bin. “So what’s happening, dudes?”

“We were just about to ask you,” I said.

“Quid pro quo, Max,” Kingman said with a sly grin. “Quid pro quo.”

“Grandma Poole is dating a guy called Leo Wetland,” I said.

He made a throwaway gesture with his paw.“That’s old news. You’ll have to do a lot better than that.”

“Niklaus Skad was killed?” Dooley tried.

“Old news!”

I glanced at Brutus. He was sitting on the biggest piece of news. He shook his head. I gave him a penetrating look. He shook his head again. So I decided to blurt it out myself.“Harriet is dating a cat called Diego.”

This time an eager look came into Kingman’s eyes. “Tell me more.”

So we told him more, Brutus meanwhile suffering the death of a thousand cuts. I told myself it was for a good cause. If Kingman wanted juicy gossip, it meant he had a big story to share, or else he wouldn’t bother.

“Diego, huh? I’ve seen that cat around. Strutting his stuff. Bad news, Max. Bad news.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

His eyes flashed.“Did you know that there’s a sweatshop in town?”

“No way!”

“Yes, way. Right here in Hampton Cove. An actual sweatshop!”

“What’s a sweatshop?” Dooley asked.

“It’s a shop where people go to sweat,” Brutus said.

“Like a fitness club?”

“Yeah, exactly like a fitness club,” said Brutus. “Right, Max?”

“No, not like a fitness club,” I said.

“So what is it?” asked Dooley, confused.

I gestured at Kingman.“You tell ‘em.”

“A sweatshop is a place where unscrupulous businessmen keep a bunch of workers—often even kids—and make them work really, really hard for pretty much no pay, for long hours and in horrible conditions.”

“I knew that,” I murmured, even though I didn’t.

“I get it,” Dooley said. “They make them sweat a lot and don’t pay them anything.”

“But isn’t that, like, illegal?” Brutus asked.

“Good point, buddy!” said Kingman. “Of course it’s illegal!”

“Yeah, they probably don’t pay any taxes,” I said.

“And they’re breaking pretty much every labor law,” Kingman added.

“So where is this sweatshop? And how do you even know this?”

“A cat that hangs out there told me. Said they’ve got a bunch of illegal aliens locked up in there.”

“Aren’t all aliens illegal?” asked Dooley. “I mean, I’ve seenIndependence Day. Those horrible creatures definitely weren’t invited.”

“Not aliens from outer space,” I said. “Aliens as in immigrants.”

“Oh. Right,” he said, understanding dawning.

“Norma said they look Chinese,” said Kingman. “One of the workers actually feeds her milk from time to time. Through a crack in the window. She said there are bars on all the windows and they’re not allowed outside.”

“Terrible,” Brutus said, and I could tell he was moved by the story. So was I. In this day and age, in this country, this was a real outrage.

“So where is this sweatshop?” I asked.

Chapter 22

Odelia was hitching a ride in Chase’s car when suddenly she saw three cats tripping along the sidewalk. They were Max, Dooley and Brutus. When Max spotted the car, he motioned for her to pull over.

“Pull over, Chase,” she said. “Pull over right here.”

“What’s going on?” he asked, doing as she asked.

Without responding, she opened the door and allowed the three cats to hop in.

“Oh, God. Not your cats again,” Chase said.

She ignored him. If Max signaled her to stop, he had something important to tell her.

“There’s a sweatshop in town, Odelia,” he said the moment he got into the car. “Kingman talked to Norma who said there are a lot of Chinese illegal aliens being kept on an old farm on the edge of town.”

“They’ve got bars on the windows, Odelia,” said Dooley.

“And they’re not allowed to leave,” said Brutus.

“And they have to work really hard,” Max added.

She glanced over at Chase.“You’re going to have to trust me on this, Chase.”

He looked puzzled.“Trust you on what?”

“Remember when you said I should use my sleuthing magic to solve this case?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Well, this is me pulling the sleuthing magic card and telling you just to drive where I tell you to drive and not ask me any questions.”

“Wait, what?”

She turned around, to the three cats who were now propped up on the backseat.“It’s the old Tucker place, out on Dubarq Road,” Max said.

“Go straight and then take a right at the end of the block,” she told Chase.

It didn’t take them long to arrive at their destination. And even though Chase had thrown her a lot of curious glances, he’d managed to refrain from asking her any questions. Now that they were nearing their destination, he abruptly pulled the car onto the shoulder, cut the engine and turned to her.

“So what’s this all about? What is back there at that old house?”

“It’s an old farm, and… I think there’s a sweatshop out there.”

He stared at her.“A sweatshop. In Hampton Cove. And you know that how?”

Now came the tricky part.“You remember when I told you about the note Gran found in her new Ziv Riding sweater?”

“The cry for help, yes.”

“And when Mom found a similar note in her blouse?”

“You think those notes came from this place?”

“Yes, I do. I think Ziv Riding isn’t having his clothes manufactured in Asia, like he claims. I think he’s having them manufactured right here in Hampton Cove, only in appalling conditions by people who are being held here against their will, and forced to work in terrible circumstances.”

He looked over the dashboard at the old farm. It didn’t look like a sweatshop, but she knew that if Max told her there was a sweatshop out there, he was most likely right. Cats had ways of finding out stuff.

Chase rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then turned back to face her.“So how do you know?”

“I, um…” She glanced back at the cats through the rearview mirror. They were shaking their heads, No! “See, the thing is…”

“I’m listening,” he said.

“I can’t tell you,” she finally said.

He uttered a surprised grunt.“What?”

“I simply can’t tell you.”

“That’s ridiculous. Either you knew already about this sweatshop, and completely forgot about it until you saw your cats parading down the street, or somehow your cats told you about this sweatshop, which is completely ridiculous.” He studied her for a moment. “So which is it, Odelia?”

She threw up her hands.“You’re right. Silly me. I totally forgot about the sweatshop. Seeing Max and Dooley and Brutus brought it all back to me.”

“Because…”

“Because…” She rooted around for a plausible response. “Because the person who called me last night and told me about the sweatshop also has a cat,” she said finally. “And seeing Max and the others reminded me.”

In the backseat, Max slapped his paw to his face.“Oh, God,” he muttered.

“And you can’t tell me who this person is?” Chase asked.

“I promised her I wouldn’t reveal her identity.”

He nodded, tapping his steering wheel.“Of course. And how did this person happen to find out?”

“She just happened to pass here the other day, and heard muffled shouts and cries. So she went to investigate closer and saw a bunch of people in there, locked up and being forced to sew Ziv Riding’s clothes.”

He gave her a comical grimace.“That’s just about the most ridiculous story I’ve ever heard. But I’m willing to give you a pass, Odelia.”

“You are? I mean, it’s the honest-to-God’s truth.”

“Of course it is.” He directed a suspicious look back at the cats. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m going to hazard a guess it’s got something to do with those cats. I don’t know what it is but I’m not going to pressure you into telling me.”

She blinked.“You’re not?”

“No, I’m not. I guess when the time comes and you feel you can trust me, you’ll tell me. For now I think our first priority should be to get those people out of there. But first we need to make sure your… source is telling the truth.”

“My source never lies,” she assured him.

He gave her a lopsided grin.“Honey, I’m a cop. Double-checking hot tips is what I do for a living. So please humor me.”

“Sure,” she said, pleasantly surprised that he’d let her off the hook so easily. “I’ll come with you.”

“No, that’s all right. You better stay here and out of sight. We don’t want to spook them and make them close up shop before we can get the cavalry out here.”

He opened the door and got out. But before he did, she said,“Chase?”

He stuck his head back in.“What?”

She gave him a warm smile.“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. One of these days I’m going to get you to spill all of your secrets, Odelia Poole. Just you wait and see.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Oh, but you will.”

He gave the roof a pat and then he was off, keeping low, moving with surprising agility and grace. She saw him dart through a meadow, then he disappeared from sight.

“That was a close call,” she said, heaving out a long breath.

“Are you going to tell him?” Max asked.

“Maybe one day,” she said musingly. “But not now. Definitely not now.”

“I think you should tell him,” Brutus said surprisingly.

“And why is that?”

“There should be no secrets in a relationship,” he said.

She laughed.“For your information, we’re not in a relationship.”

“You will be,” he said.

“Don’t mind Brutus,” said Max. “He’s feeling a little out of sorts on account of the fact that Diego stole his girlfriend.”

“Diego stole Harriet?” she asked, surprised. “That was quick work.”

“He’s a quick worker,” Max said.

“He’s a snake,” Brutus grunted. “A viper in your bosom, Odelia.”

“Hey, watch what you say about Odelia’s bosom,” Dooley said.

“It’s an expression,” Max said.

“I don’t care! Brutus better show some respect.”

“I have the greatest respect for Odelia,” said Brutus. “You took me in when my need was high.”

“Your need wasn’t high,” said Dooley. “You got fed meat every day by Chase.”

“Chase never feeds me any meat. He barely notices I’m there. Chase is not a cat person. He just took me in because his mother asked him to.”

Max and Dooley goggled at Brutus.“No meat?” asked Max.

“No juicy steak,” Dooley asked.

“Just generic kibble,” Brutus grunted. “The kind on sale in your local supermarket.”

“Oh, Brutus,” said Odelia, touched.

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Brutus. “I love Chase. But… I love Odelia more.”

Silence reigned in the car for a few beats, then both Dooley and Max gave Brutus a hug, and Odelia reached back and tickled him under his chin.“And we love you, Brutus,” Dooley assured him.

“Well, we do now,” Max corrected him.

“Must have been that lack of meat that made him so intolerable,” Dooley added.

“Thanks,” Brutus grunted, clearly undone by these signs of affection. “Thanks, you guys. You’re the best friends a cat can ever hope to get. I won’t forget this.”

“You’re all right, Brutus,” Odelia said. “I’ll buy you all some meat tonight.”

There was a tap on the roof of the car and they all jumped a foot in the air. Then Chase’s head appeared through the open window. He was panting a little, and he was chewing on a piece of straw. “That’s a sweatshop, all right. Let’s call in the state police. This is a lot bigger than Hampton Cove.” He glanced back at the cats. “Well done, you guys.” He then directed a look at Odelia. “And now I’m talking to your cats. I’m going all screwy.”

“Not screwier than Odelia,” said Max.

Chase whipped his head around.“Was it my imagination or did he just talk back to me?”

But Odelia merely smiled.

Chapter 23

We patiently waited in the car until the state police that Chase had called in arrived. They came zooming down the road, blinkers and sirens off. The first car stopped right next to ours, and Chase quickly switched cars, and rode in with the cavalry. They surrounded the farmhouse. We watched from our first-row seat as dozens of cops exited their vehicles and descended upon the old Tucker farm, weapons drawn, approaching slowly and stealthily.

When finally Chase gave the all-clear sign, Odelia let us out of the car and we walked up with her.

We saw dozens of ill-dressed people being led out of the farmhouse. They looked unkempt and scared. Ambulances drove up and teams of EMTs took care of them. I saw that more than half a dozen of them were children, and they looked as dirty and undernourished as the adults. It was a horrible scene.

Odelia joined Chase, who stood discussing things with the same state trooper we’d seen earlier. It was clear this thing was big, as more cops arrived.

“Who can do such a thing?” Dooley asked as we approached the house.

“Humans,” said Brutus.

“Greedy humans,” I corrected him.

“You’re right,” he conceded. “Not all humans are the same.”

“Odelia would never do something like this,” said Dooley.

“No, you’re right about that,” Brutus admitted. “Odelia is a saint.”

And he meant it, too.

We darted inside the house, making sure we didn’t get in the way of the cops who were still coming and going. We passed what looked like barracks for the workers to sleep. Rickety tables and chairs. Bunk beds with ratty blankets and dirty old mattresses where they spent their nights.

Another large, ill-lit and ill-ventilated room held rows and rows of sewing machine stations, large ironing boards and piles and piles of material used to turn into the expensive, exclusive clothes sold under the Ziv Riding label. There was a pile of those labels, and I wondered who’d written the notes that had been smuggled out sewed inside those labels.

“This is way depressing,” Dooley said.

“Yeah, even more depressing than Diego,” Brutus chimed in.

We quickly took a peek in the lavatories—as dirty and unhygienic as any I’d ever seen—and the canteen where the workforce had taken their meals—and then I’d had enough. This much human misery I’d never seen before. Even cats were treated better in Hampton Cove.

“I hope they catch whoever is responsible for this and lock them up for a long stretch,” I said as we stepped out and breathed in fresh air again.

“Or better yet, lock them up and throw away the key,” said Brutus.

“Must be this Ziv Riding guy, right?” Dooley ventured a guess.

We returned to where Odelia and Chase stood discussing things and parked ourselves at their feet. I didn’t want to be trampled on by the dozens of cops and other personnel that had by now descended on the site, and I didn’t feel like walking all the way back to the center of town, so sticking close to Odelia was our best option. Sticking close to Odelia was always our best option, period.

“So what’s going to happen now?” Odelia asked.

“Now we’re going to talk to our NYPD colleagues and ask them to arrest Ziv Riding,” Chase replied.

“Do you think he knew about this?”

“I can’t see how he wouldn’t. This is his collection being created here. How could he not know?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking at the dozens of people still being led to the ambulances. “The people at the top don’t always know what’s going on at the bottom.”

“Riding is a control freak. I’m sure there’s no aspect of his business he’s not fully aware of.”

“Then I hope he goes to jail for this,” she said resolutely.

“Hey, that’s what I just said,” I said.

“And I hope they lock him up and throw away the key,” Chase grunted.

“And that’s what I said!” Brutus cried.

Yep. Cats often turn into their humans. Or the other way around.

“So do you think we’re getting meat tonight?” Dooley asked, already losing interest in the human drama in progress right in front of us.

“I hope so,” said Brutus. “I haven’t had a decent piece of meat in ages.”

“And here we always thought you got raw meat every single day,” I said.

“Yeah, I kinda lied about that,” he admitted.

“But why?” Dooley asked.

He heaved an exasperated groan.“It’s complicated.”

“Explain it to me,” said Dooley. “I’m smart. I’ll understand.”

Brutus gave him a dubious look.

“Explain it me, and I’ll explain it to Dooley in two-syllable words,” I said.

“Hey!” Dooley cried. “I’m right here!”

“When I saw how good you guys had it with the Pooles, I kinda got jealous,” Brutus admitted. “So I decided to…”

“Make it look like you had it better than us?” I suggested.

He nodded, a little embarrassed.“Something like that. I just figured if you thought I ate raw meat every day, you wouldn’t feel sorry for me.”

“Feel sorry for you!” Dooley exclaimed. “Why would we feel sorry for you?!”

“Because you don’t know how good you’ve got it!” he barked. “You just don’t.”

“Yes, we do,” I said softly.

“Yes, we do,” Dooley echoed happily. “And now you do, too, buddy.”

“Thanks,” Brutus said in a choky voice. “Thanks, you guys. And sorry that I was such a pest.”

“That’s all right. We haven’t been very nice to you either,” I said.

“Well, I deserved it.”

“Yes, you did,” Dooley said.

We all laughed, and for the first time I was starting to think that we might actually be friends one day. I wasn’t saying we would, but there was definitely a chance.

Chapter 24

Uncle Alec had called to say he had big news. A breakthrough in the Niklaus Skad murder case. So Odelia and Chase had hurried over to the police station for an update. The state police were handling the sweatshop business, and would liaise with the NYPD to establish Ziv Riding’s involvement—if any.

They arrived at the station house and walked right on through to Chief Alec’s office. The big man was lounged in his chair, checking his computer screen. A first for the chief. He usually left all the computer business to younger, savvier officers or Chase.

He looked up when they entered, sporting the typical slightly confused and frustrated expression of a man not used to working on a PC.

“Hey, Uncle,” Odelia said. “So what’s this breakthrough you were talking about?”

“Well, looks like we finally cracked the case,” he said, then pounded a few keys on his keyboard angrily and finally threw up his hands with an exasperated groan. “How you youngsters can figure out this crap is beyond me. How do I open Niklaus Skad’s emails again? I know you showed me just yesterday, Chase, but I’ve gone and forgotten all about it.”

Chase walked around the desk and took over the mouse and keyboard.“You just click here and type in your password and you’re in,” he explained.

Chief Alec gave Odelia a grimace.“It’s all Chinese to me. I’m happy I can check my own emails. I don’t need to check anyone else’s.”

“What did you want to check?” Chase asked, stepping back.

“Well, the coroner called about an hour ago. He said he’s been all wrong about the time of death. Apparently it was a little tough to establish an exact time with the body being all burned up. But he did some more tests, and said time of death was an hour, hour-and-a-half earlier than he initially thought. Which means…” he said meaningfully, his eyes glittering.

“That we have to recheck all of the suspects’ alibis,” Odelia completed the sentence.

“Already done that,” said the Chief, picking up a yellow legal pad. He held it up. “This beats any computer any day in my book.”

“That’s because you’re old, Chief,” Chase teased.

“Yeah, I’m old, and I’m not too proud to admit it!”

“So where does this leave us?” Odelia asked, already going over each suspect in her mind.

“Well, let’s see what we’ve got,” said the Chief, frowning at his notes, which looked pretty illegible to Odelia. “According to Abe, time of death was around eleven, and not after midnight. Brainard and Isabella were engaged with their Echo from nine until three o’clock at night.”

“That was a marathon session,” said Chase with a glint of amusement.

“You can say that again. Guess I’ll have to read up on my Kama Sutra one of these days.”

“Or get yourself an Echo,” Odelia suggested.

“Never in my life,” said the Chief adamantly. “So who else is on this list? Hendrik Serarols. He’s in the clear, too. His interview at the other restaurant, which took place over a late dinner with the proprietor, lasted from eleven until well after midnight. And since he also had to get there and back, he’s in the clear.”

“Too bad,” said Chase. “I liked him as a suspect.”

“That leaves us with Cybil Truscott,” the Chief continued. “Whose toy boy exploits started around ten, as evidenced by multiple witnesses.”

“And Facebook videos,” Odelia added.

“So that leaves her out as well.”

“What about Stacie Roebuck?” Chase asked. “The bullied assistant?”

“Well, I talked to the guy in charge of security at the Hampton Springs Hotel. They have some complicated system installed, where they can check time stamps on the key cards. They were so kind to check the log for Room 327 and found that Miss Roebuck was in from nine until six o’clock in the morning, when she apparently went for a morning jog.”

“She could have snuck out through the window and jumped to the balcony of the next room,” Odelia said, remembering how Max, Dooley and Brutus said they’d gained access to Stacie’s room.

Her uncle pointed a finger at her.“And that’s why I had the neighbors checked. The family staying in 325 were in all night. Only left the room for dinner, and then retired for the night. Same story with the septuagenarian in 326. He went to bed at nine and got up at five to go for a walk.”

“Very boring people,” Chase muttered. “Who stays in all night?”

“Families and old folks,” said Uncle Alec with a stern look at him. “They can’t all be Cybil Truscotts or partying teenagers, Chase.”

“Fair enough,” he said, holding up his hands.

“Besides, I thought we already established that Stacie Roebuck doesn’t have the kind of physical strength needed to carry out this murder?” Alec added.

“Just making sure we’ve covered all the bases,” Chase said.

“Next—and now it gets interesting,” said the Chief, “is Konrad Daines.” He settled back, a smug expression on his face. “Mr. Daines was arrested for disorderly conduct and public intoxication when he crashed the Clintons’ party.”

“So? That gives him a rock-solid alibi,” said Chase.

“Officers were called to the scene at two o’clock in the morning,” the Chief added triumphantly. “We talked to the people he was partying with, and that particular party only started after midnight. So we have no idea what Mr. Daines was up to before that time. That wasn’t a problem when we thought Niklaus had been killed after midnight, but now…”

“He just might have done it,” Chase said.

“Exactly.”

Odelia stared at her uncle.“So you think Konrad Daines is our guy?”

“I think Konrad Daines is our guy,” the Chief confirmed. “And to that effect I’ve sent a couple of officers around to the hotel to pick him up.” He checked his watch. “They should be back any minute now.”

“We talked to Konrad,” Chase reminded Alec. “I liked him as a suspect.”

“Oh, and one other thing,” said the Chief. “I remembered seeing an email Niklaus wrote to Konrad. That’s why I was trying to access the emails.” He turned the screen so Odelia could follow along. Her uncle quickly scrolled through the emails, then tapped the screen with his pudgy finger. “Here it is. I knew I’d seen it flash by.”

“You have to click the mouse to open the email, Uncle,” Odelia said. “Tapping it with your finger won’t work.”

“Unless he’s got a touchscreen,” Chase added.

“I know that!” the Chief cried. “I may not know a lot about computers, but I know how to use a mouse!” He clicked to open the email. “Listen to this,” he said. “This is from the day before Niklaus died. ‘I heard aboutChopped Liver being, well, chopped. I’m so sorry about your loss, Konrad. Not! I told youKitchen Disasters was the superior show and I was the superior chef and now I’ve gone and proved it. I hope this will show you that I’m the greatest celebrity chef in the world, and you’ll always be a second-rate amateur. Take that, you whiny loser!’”

“That wasn’t very nice,” Chase said.

“No, that was outright mean,” Odelia said, shocked.

“And I think it’s motive,” said the Chief. “Konrad got this email, spent the day chewing on it, and by the time evening rolled around, he’d gone and whipped himself up into a frenzy of rage and revenge. He knew Niklaus was in town, and most likely to be found atFry Me for an Oyster, so he went there on the off chance he’d find him. They met—they fought—he killed him and then shoved him into the oven to get rid of the evidence. Andthen he went on his bender.”

“Stacie said Niklaus never visited the restaurants he did,” Odelia said. “Konrad would never have found him there.”

“So he bumped into him somewhere else, and they went to the restaurant together. Or maybe he called him and they met out there.”

It all sounded a little fuzzy to her.“Has Abe discovered the cause of death yet?”

“No, he hasn’t. Most likely scenario is that Skad was strangled. But since the soft tissue around the neck is gone, he won’t be able to prove it.”

“So now all you have to do is get a confession and it’s case closed,” said Chase.

“You also think Konrad is our guy?” Odelia asked.

“Why? Don’t you?”

She shook her head slowly.“Something doesn’t sit right with me.”

“He’s got motive!” cried her uncle. “He had opportunity. He’s our guy!”

“Remember when we went to visit him, Chase?” she asked. “How he was certain we were there to talk about the drunk and disorderly thing?”

“So? He lied. He’s a TV personality. I’m sure he knows a thing or two about acting.”

“He didn’t strike me as dishonest,” she insisted. “He genuinely thought we were there to talk about Bill Clinton’s party. He had no clue we were there to talk about the murder.”

The two men shrugged.“I say we’ve got our guy,” the Chief repeated.

It was definitely possible, of course. After all, being taunted in such a mean way could have made Konrad Daines snap, especially on the day his own show had been canceled and he was already feeling very low. Still, the impression she got from him wasn’t that he was a killer.

Ten minutes later, the officers who’d gone to fetch Konrad finally arrived, the fallen celebrity chef in tow, and put him into the interrogation room. Chase and Odelia followed her uncle and watched through the one-way mirror as the latter entered the room and took a seat across from Konrad. The man looked much the worse for wear,as if being arrested was the final straw to his collapse.

“Mr. Daines,” her uncle began. “It’s come to my attention that Niklaus Skad wrote you an email the day before he died.”

Konrad stared at him. His bristly hair stood in all directions, and his skin had gone pale and blotchy.“An email?”

“Yes. Shall I read it to you? Jog your memory?” And as he did, Konrad’s face grew paler still. He looked nothing like the famous TV chef he was.

“I remember,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Niklaus was an animal. I hated him so much—so very, very much.”

“Is that why you killed him?”

Konrad stared at Chief Alec, his lips moving wordlessly.

The Chief slammed the table.“You hated him so much you killed him, isn’t that right, Konrad?”

The chef started shaking. It was clear he was in the throes of a breakdown.“Yes,” he finally whispered.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I wanted him dead. I wanted him dead so, so much. I wanted to kill him—cut him—skewer him—chop off his head—rip him to pieces!”

Spittle was flying from his lips now, his eyes wild and crazy.

“So you admit you killed him,” her uncle said calmly.

“Yes! Yes, I killed Niklaus Skad!” Konrad suddenly cried, getting up from his chair. “I killed the greatest chef alive! Me, Konrad Daines! I destroyed the monster! I finished him off like the worm he was! I did it!”

“Settle down, Mr. Daines,” said the Chief, looking a little worried.

“I think he’s lost it,” Odelia said.

“I think you’re right,” Chase agreed. “But he still confessed.”

“I killed him! The monster is dead! The monster is dead!” Konrad screamed, pounding the walls of the room.

Uncle Alec darted a glimpse at the one-way mirror. He didn’t look at ease.

“I think we better get a couple of officers in there,” said Chase. “Before he attacks your uncle.”

“The monster is dead! The monster is finally dead!”

The Chief hurried out of the room while three officers moved in to restrain Konrad. When he joined them, he was wiping perspiration from his brow.“Phew. The guy just went nuts on me.”

“At least you got your confession,” Odelia said.

They both watched Konrad pick up a chair and smash it on the table.“Yeah, at least we got his confession,” Uncle Alec said, scratching his head.

“The monster is dead! I killed him! I killed him dead! Me! I won!”

Somehow, there was something wrong with this picture, Odelia thought. Whatever Konrad said, she couldn’t help feeling the real killer was still out there.

Chapter 25

Odelia had dropped the three of us off at the police station, where she had some urgent business to take care of. She said there had been some kind of breakthrough in the case of the celebrity chef, so that was great. Most likely Chief Alec had caught the killer and now Hampton Cove would return to its usual peaceful state. It let us off the hook, as we no longer had to root around to catch the killer. Not that I minded. For some reason sleuthing came naturally to me. Probably because I’m a naturally curious cat. It’s just the way I’m wired, I guess.

We were traipsing along Main Street when we saw Gran ducking into some alley with that ancient boyfriend of hers. Oh, God. Not again.

“Wasn’t that your human?” Brutus asked.

Dooley looked up, completely oblivious as usual.“Huh?”

“Gran just went into that alley with Leo,” I said.

“She did? Maybe we should see what she’s up to?” Dooley suggested.

“Why would we want to see what she’s up to?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s really none of our business,” Brutus said, not sounding too keen.

“She’s my human, you guys!” Dooley cried. “I have a responsibility!”

“I think it’s the other way around, Dooley,” I said. “She has a responsibility towards you, not you towards her.”

“It goes both ways,” he said stubbornly. “She looks after me, so I need to look after her. What if this guy Leo is up to no good? What then? And I just sat here while she was being assaulted or something!”

“She’s not being assaulted,” I said. “It’s just that she can’t take Leo home because nobody approves of him, so they’ve gone and taken their affair to the streets.”

“Weird,” said Brutus.

“What’s weird?” I asked.

“I always thought human adults could do whatever they wanted. That it was just teenagers and kids that had to sneak around their parents’ backs.”

“Once you reach a certain age you revert back to the same state of having to sneak around,” I said. “Only now you sneak around your kids’ backs.”

“I still think it’s weird,” Brutus said with a shrug.

Well, it was kinda weird, of course. Once upon a time Marge had probably snuck around with Tex, canoodling in backseats of cars or bushes near the beach, and now it was Gran’s turn to do the same to her daughter. It was probably the circle of life or something. LikeThe Lion King.

“The more I learn about humans the more I think they’re way weird,” Brutus insisted.

“Better not to think about it too much,” Dooley said.

Of course, Dooley never thought about anything too much, so for him that came naturally.

We’d reached the alley, and darted a peek around the corner, fully expecting to see stuff that would hurt our eyes. Instead, I saw something that horrified me to my core. There was Diego, and there was a cat, but that cat wasn’t Harriet!

“Um, am I seeing this right?” asked Brutus. “Is Diego putting the moves on that feline over there?”

“You are seeing this right!” I said.

We all stared. Diego was doing stuff to that feline I’d never seen before, unless in those nature documentaries on theDiscovery Channel. I mean, I have been with a female before, of course, but I’d never done… that!

“What are they doing?” Dooley asked.

“Something that’s not suitable for young viewers,” Brutus growled.

“I’m not a young viewer,” said Dooley.

“Well, you’re not an old viewer either,” Brutus said. He let out a long sigh of relief. “You know what this means, right?”

“That Diego is the hottest stud ever to walk these streets?” I asked.

“No! That Diego is cheating on Harriet.”

“Oh. Right,” I said. I was so fascinated by the moves Diego was demonstrating that the thought of Harriet hadn’t even occurred to me.

Dooley twisted his head to try and get the upside-down view.“No, but whatare they doing?” he asked.

“If I tell Harriet about this, she’ll break up with Diego in a heartbeat!” Brutus said.

“She won’t believe you,” I said automatically. I was also twisting my head one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. This stuff was fascinating. I was learning things I’d never seen before, not even on theDiscovery Channel.

“She’ll have to believe me!” Brutus exclaimed. “You guys are going to back me up on this, right? You’re my witnesses.”

“Sure. But she won’t believe us either,” I said.

“But why? You’re her friends!”

“Trust me, Brutus. When it comes to matters of the heart, a female feline only believes what she wants to believe. And if she wants to believe Diego is God’s gift to cats, nothing we say will convince her otherwise.”

“We need proof!” Brutus said, searching around. “We need Odelia with her phone. She needs to film this! She needs to get this on video and show Harriet!”

“Even so. Harriet is not going to believe it unless she sees it with her own eyes,” I said. “Trust me on this, Brutus. That’s just the way it is.”

“Oh, God!” he cried. “This is just one big nightmare, isn’t it?”

“Do you think it hurts?” Dooley asked, now lying on his back.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“But they’re panting. And look at her. She looks like she’s in pain!”

“That’s not an expression of pain, Dooley,” I said. “That’s… rapture.”

“Rapture? What’s rapture?”

“Nothing you’ll ever experience,” I promised him.

“But why?!”

“Just think about the juiciest chicken wing God ever created.”

He frowned, thinking hard.“Uh-huh.”

“Now multiply that sensation by about a million.”

“Oh, my,” he said, eyes widening.

“Exactly.”

“Look, I’m going to get Odelia. She needs to see this,” Brutus said, sounding very agitated. “She’ll back me up. If she says Diego was doing the horizontal mambo with some other chick, Harriet has got to believe her.”

“What’s the horizontal mambo?” Dooley asked.

“Oh, Dooley,” I said with a sigh.

Brutus went off on his fool’s errand, and I stared after him for a moment. And that’s when I saw it. A Tesla, driving along Main Street. A very black Tesla.

“Dooley!” I said.

“Huh?”

“It’s the Tesla!”

He glanced the way I was looking.“Nice wheels.”

“It’s the car that was parked behind the restaurant that night! It’s got to be!”

And before he could respond, I broke into a run, in hot pursuit of the Tesla. I needed to get a glimpse at the license plate. I needed to figure out who that car belonged to. And as I came racing out of the alley, I saw that the car stopped right in front of a boutique store, halfway down the street. Panting, I came running up, and I watched as a tall Asian man stepped from the car and disappeared into the store. He was elegantly dressed in a kind of cape draped across his shoulders, shiny slicked-back black hair and snazzy sunglasses. I glanced at the license plate. It said Z1VR1D1N. I stared. Huh? Then I got it. ZIV RIDING!

Chapter 26

Konrad Daines had been charged with the murder of his celebrity chef rival and arrested. A lawyer was on his way over, though it was obvious there wasn’t a lot he’d be able to do for his client. Konrad had confessed. Case closed.

And Odelia was just about to go to the Gazette to write up the shocking story of the two rival TV stars, when Brutus came barging into the police station, meowing up a storm.

“You have to come with me, Odelia,” he pleaded.

She quickly glanced around, but Dolores had gone on a bathroom break, and Chase was still in the Chief’s office, discussing the denouement of the case. She crouched down. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

“Nobody’s hurt! It’s Diego!” Brutus said between two pants. He looked as if he’d been running, his heart beating a mile a minute.

“Diego? What about Diego?”

“He’s with another cat! You have to come along as my witness.”

“He’s with a cat? You mean, in the biblical sense?”

He stared at her blankly.“I don’t know what that means.”

“I mean, are they… smooching?”

He gave a disgusted snort.“Not just smooching. They’re having sex!”

She laughed, tickling Brutus behind his ears.“Oh, my. And we can’t have that, right?”

“No, we can’t! I mean, of course wecan, but Harriet… I mean…”

“I think I understand. You want me to tell Harriet that Diego is with some other cat, being unfaithful to her, so you and Harriet can get back together.”

“That’s it! You’re so smart!”

She sighed, getting up.“I can’t do that, Brutus. I can’t be a snitch on my own cats. If you feel Diego isn’t doing right by Harriet, you have to tell her, but I’m not going to sneak around and spy on him so I can tell on him to Harriet.”

“But why?! He shouldn’t be doing that!”

“That’s not for me to judge, Brutus. And, honestly, I think you should just let it go. I’m sure Harriet will find out soon enough what kind of cat Diego is. And she doesn’t need you to tell her.”

“But I… love her!”

“Then you’ll just have to trust her to do the right thing.”

“But how is she going to know about Diego if I don’t tell her?”

“She’ll know,” she said with a smile. “But if you go and snitch on Diego, she’ll lose all respect for Diego, and she’ll lose all respect for you, too.”

Brutus groaned in agony.“Why is everything always so complicated?!”

“I’m glad it’s not just us humans that make things complicated,” she said.

Just then, Max came slamming into the police station.“Odelia! You have to see this!”

She held up her hand.“Brutus already told me all about Diego, Max. And I told him I wouldn’t turn snitch on my own cats.”

“Who cares about Diego?!” Max cried. “It’s the Tesla! I saw the Tesla!”

Her curiosity piqued, she bent down again.“The black Tesla?”

He nodded furiously.“It belongs to Ziv Riding. He’s got one of those vanity plates, that’s how I found out. He went into one of the boutiques on Main Street.”

Now this was definitely interesting.“I think I better go and get Chase,” she said, and gave Max a pat on the head. “Well done, buddy. Great sleuthing.”

“Thanks,” he said, then caught Brutus’s scowl. “What?”

“Nothing,” said Brutus. “Just that I thought you’d back me up on the Diego thing.”

Max rolled his eyes.“Oh, God. Enough with the Diego thing already.”

She left the two cats and went in search of Chase. They needed to check up on this Tesla sighting. She hadn’t told Chase cats had seen the black Tesla parked behindFry Me for an Oyster, and neither would she tell Riding. It was enough that an anonymous witness had seen the car. She needn’t involve Max.

She stuck her head into her uncle’s office. “The black Tesla has been sighted. And guess what? It belongs to Ziv Riding.”

“Sweatshop Ziv Riding?” Chase asked.

“Yep. One and the same.”

“Well, go on, then,” said the Chief. “Go ask him what he was doing here the night of the murder.”

They didn’t need her uncle’s encouragement. She and Chase were hotfooting it out of the police station and hurrying along the street before Chief Alec had managed to get up from his seat.

“So who saw the car?” Chase asked.

“I did, actually,” she said after a moment’s pause.

“I thought you said the Tesla had been sighted?”

“Yeah, by me. It was sighted by me.”

He gave her a curious look.“Why didn’t you just say that?”

She flapped her hands a bit.“I was so excited I couldn’t think straight!”

“Right,” he said, and she had the impression he didn’t believe one word she said. But she couldn’t worry about that now. They needed to figure out what the fashion designer had been doing that night at the restaurant.

“Are you sure it’s the same car that was parked in the alley that night?”

“Not a hundred percent sure, no,” she admitted.

“I mean, there must be hundreds of Teslas, thousands, even. And a lot of them are black.”

“I guess so,” she said.

“So what makes you think it was Riding’s car?”

She paused for a moment.“Actually…”

He gave her a wry look and halted, right in front of the General Store.“What’s going on, Odelia? Why are you going about half-cocked?”

She flapped her arms again, looking more like a chicken than a reporter.“I have a hunch, all right?”

“A hunch,” he said skeptically. He’d crossed his arms over his chest and stood regarding her with his head to one side, as if wondering what to do with her.

“A hunch! I have a hunch that this Tesla is that Tesla!”

“You never told me who the witness was that saw the Tesla that night.”

“I—I can’t. I—I promised I wouldn’t reveal her name.”

“If you’ll just let me talk to her I might get a confirmation on the license plate.”

She shook her head decidedly.“She didn’t see the license plate.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.” She wondered what would happen if she told Chase Max had heard it from Montserrat, the stray Erin Coka had taken under her wing, who’d heard it from some other stray. He’d probably have her 5150ed.

“So let me get this straight,” he said. “Someone—who doesn’t want to be named—told you she saw a black Tesla parked outside the restaurant the night Niklaus Skad was killed. No license plate. Now you see another black Tesla, driven by Ziv Riding, parked along the street, and you want totalk to the man, why, exactly?”

“Don’t you think it’s too much of a coincidence? Ziv Riding has this sweatshop in town, and his car was seen at a murder scene?”

“We don’t even know if Riding and Skad knew each other. And may I remind you that we caught Skad’s killer? He’s in custody right now. The case is closed, Odelia.”

“But what about the sweatshop thing?”

“Not our concern! We’re not handling that investigation and we’re not going to get involved, either.”

She shook her head, stubbornly.“I still feel—”

“It’s not about what you ‘feel,’” he said. “It’s about the facts.” He raked his fingers through his mane. “Oh, God. And I almost went along with this nonsense. Me and your uncle.” He held up his hands. “Look, you’re on your own with this. Please don’t involve me. And may Iadd that I have a strong suspicion you’re not telling me everything you know?”

They stared at each other, and then she said.“I know Riding’s Tesla was parked at the restaurant. And I’m going to find out what’s going on. With or without you.”

“Well, it’s going to be without me, honey,” he said, stepping back. “Like I said, you’re on your own from here on out.”

And without another word, he turned around and started walking back to the police station.

Nice, she thought. Nicely played, Odelia. So now what?

Chapter 27

Brutus and I walked out of the police station and back to the alley, where presumably Dooley still sat watching—and having his youthful innocence thoroughly screwed up.

“Odelia should have backed us up,” Brutus said. “She should have had our backs.”

“Odelia has our backs,” I said. “All of our backs, Diego included.”

“But how is that even possible?! Diego isn’t even part of our family.”

“He is to her. The moment that cat set foot inside her home, he became family.”

“It’s just not fair.”

“You don’t get it, do you? Odelia doesn’t play favorites. She doesn’t love one of us more than the others. And she’s right about Harriet. She’s smarter than you give her credit for. Have you ever considered Harriet has Diego’s number?”

“She can’t have his number. She doesn’t even know he’s out here.”

“Let’s just wait and see,” I said. “First things first, though. We have to get Dooley out of there. Diego is a bad influence on him.”

We arrived at the alley. To my surprise there was no trace of Dooley.

“Where did he go?” I muttered, looking around.

“And where did Diego go?” asked Brutus. There were dumpsters parked along the alley, butting up to the bricked-up back walls of the stores that lined the parallel street. We headed deeper into the alley, half expecting to find Gran and Leo cavorting around somewhere. What we found were Dooley and Diego, however, seated behind a dumpster and deep in conversation.

“So that’s the secret, dude,” Diego was saying. “You just snag ‘em, bag ‘em and then throw ‘em back.”

“But won’t they resent you for it?” Dooley asked.

“What do you care? There’s plenty of cats in the sea. When you’re finished with one, you just start tagging another one.”

Dooley laughed.“Tag ‘em, snag ‘em and bag ‘em. That rhymes!”

“It sure does,” said Diego with a smirk. “I’m glad you’re catching on, dude.”

“Let me just stop you right there,” I said, stepping from behind the dumpster.

“Max!” Dooley cried. “Diego’s been teaching me all about his technique for bagging queens! Isn’t that great?!”

I winced.“Not so great. Queens aren’t a commodity to be tagged, snagged and bagged, Dooley. They’re our fellow creatures and they deserve our respect.”

“What a load of nonsense,” said Diego. “Don’t listen to him, Dooley. You just do what I taught you, and you’ll have the females eating out of the palm of your paw for the rest of your life. Just like they do with me. They’ll just swoon!”

“Well, I certainly would like females to swoon,” Dooley said.

“Just think about Harriet,” I said. “And how Diego has been treating her.”

“Hey, I treated Harriet just fine,” said Diego. He grinned. “Just ask her. She said she’s never been with a cat that made her feel the way I did.”

“That’s a lie!” Brutus yelled.

Diego held up his paw.“Straight from the cat’s mouth, brother.”

“Females are not chattel, Dooley,” I said sternly. “You need to treat them with respect, just like you do with everyone.”

“Don’t listen to that wuss,” said Diego. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Hey, who are you calling a wuss?” Brutus snarled, stepping to my defense.

“You! All of you! You’re just a bunch of pussies.”

Well, he was right about that, of course. We were pussies.

“You take that back!” Brutus yelled.

Diego displayed a wide grin and lifted his paw, displaying sharp claws.“And what if I don’t?”

“Don’t be like that, you guys,” said Dooley. “Diego is our friend. He can teach us stuff. Lots of interesting stuff.”

“Whatever Diego told you, you better forget, Dooley,” I said. “All of it.”

Diego apparently had had enough. He suddenly stepped up and hit me, hard, across the nose.“Ouch!” I cried as blood trickled down my snout.

“See?!” Diego cried. “Your friend is just a dumb scaredy-cat, Dooley. Can’t even defend himself!”

Dooley sat staring at me.“Max? Is he right? Are you a scaredy-cat?”

I would have told him I was a lover, not a fighter, but that just didn’t seem right under the circumstances. Instead, I glowered at Diego. Truth was, I’m not much of a brawler. I like to think I’m above physical violence. And then there was the fact that Diego looked a lot fitter and stronger than me, and I had the sneaking suspicion he was going to beat me in a fair fight.

“Don’t you go hitting my friend, you sneaky snake in the grass,” Brutus growled.

Diego had gone through quite the transformation. His tail was fluffed up and he was making low growling sounds at the back of his throat. His claws were out and his head was down, snarling and hissing at Brutus. Yep. He was ready to fight.

Brutus, seeing this, seemed taken aback.“Go on,” I said. “You can beat him!”

But Brutus didn’t seem entirely sure. “I don’t know, Max,” he said. “He looks really mean.”

And then suddenly, out of nowhere, Diego lashed out, slashing Brutus across the face with his claws. Brutus said,“Eek!” and jumped back just in time to avoid the razor-sharp claws of his opponent, then sat there, his tail between his legs.

Diego huffed out a booming laugh.“See, Dooley? Your friends are just a couple of pussies!” He draped a paw around Dooley’s shoulder. “You stick with me from now on, buddy. I’ll teach you everything I know.”

“Dooley!” I cried. “Don’t go with him!”

Dooley glanced back. He seemed confused and conflicted.

All of a sudden there was a loud CLUNK right next to us. I jerked my head up, and saw that a cat had landed on the dumpster. She was a feral cat, her fur all mangled and matted and missing in parts. She looked like she’d been in more fights than the members ofFight Club, and had a scar that ran through one of her eyes. She looked like a monster. I recognized her instantly.

“Clarice!” I cried.

“Oh, no, not Clarice,” Brutus said with a whimper, and Dooley, too, didn’t look happy to see her. He clasped a hand to his nose, which tended to get slashed every time we got involved with the wild cat.

“Who the hell are you?” Diego asked, giving her the evil eye.

“I am your worst nightmare,” she hissed, slowly moving along the top of the dumpster, her claws scratching the metal. “I am the one female that will never be seduced by your clever lines, your smooth tongue or your treacherous lies.”

“You’re not a female,” Diego said with a careless laugh. “I don’t know what you are, but you’re definitely not on my list. Just look at her, Dooley. Ha ha! Look at that mongrel, dude!”

But Dooley wasn’t laughing, and neither was the rest of us.

“Better hold your tongue, Diego,” she hissed, running a claw along the edge of the dumpster. “Or I just might cut it out!”

“What an idiot!” Diego laughed. “And ugly as the night, too!”

“Max, Brutus and Dooley are my friends,” Clarice declared, quite surprisingly. “You mess with my friends, you mess with me!”

“Well, come on then,” said Diego. “If you want to rumble, let’s rumble!”

Clarice displayed a sly smile.“Oh, you’re asking for it? Well, fine.”

And with these words, she jumped from the dumpster, right on top of Diego’s head. For the next few seconds, there was a blur of activity as the two cats fought. There was a lot of hissing, a lot of snarling, and even more vicious clawing going on. Fur was flying as claws were scratching and hitting their mark.

Then, as suddenly as it had all started, it was over. There was a loud squeak of pain, and a whirr of orange as Diego raced off, his tail between his legs, missing a good chunk of fur and leaving a trail of blood as he streaked off, caterwauling all the while.

Clarice, who seemed unharmed, sat casually licking the blood from her claws.“That should teach that misguided Romeo a lesson he’ll never forget.”

“Clarice, you’re my hero!” suddenly a voice rang out behind us.

We all looked around, and saw that we’d been joined by Harriet.

She sat looking at the spot of orange in the distance that was Diego.

“How long have you been sitting there?” I asked.

“Long enough to hear Diego’s mean-spirited and outright horrible advice,” she said softly. “And even long enough to see him with that other cat.” She gestured up. “I was actually on the roof. I’d followed him here when he went out. Said he was going to get a breath of fresh air.” She shook her head. “I knew he was up to no good. A player like him?”

Clarice stared at the spot of orange that grew smaller and smaller.“I don’t think he’ll be back, honey. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, I don’t,” she said. “In fact I should have been the one to teach him a lesson.” She nodded at the feral cat. “Thank you, Clarice.”

Clarice shrugged.“Eh. Just a little community service. I had my eye on that player for a while. Nasty little devil. I enjoyed it, actually. It’s not every day that I can take out the good old claws and get a little practice in.”

“I’m so sorry, Brutus,” Harriet said. “I know I hurt you terribly.”

“Oh, sweetie pie,” Brutus muttered brokenly. “Sugar plum.”

“Oh, hugsy wugsy,” Harriet sighed. “My huggy boo. Forgive me?”

“Of course, sweet cheeks. In a heartbeat.”

“Oh, cuddle cakes.”

The big reunion scene was both endearing and massively annoying, and I had to turn away when Harriet and Brutus started sniffing each other’s butts, just like old times.

“Ugh,” Clarice said. “I’m out of here. This is too much for me.”

This from the cat that took on bullies twice her size and fed on rats that would have scared the average human.

“Bye, Clarice,” Dooley said.

“See ya next time,” Clarice said, padding off. “Stay out of trouble, you two.”

We looked on as she gracefully jumped up on a dumpster, then onto a ledge, and then made her way to the roof of the nearest store.

Dooley let out a long sigh of admiration.“What a cat,” he said.

“Yeah, what a cat,” I agreed heartily.

Dooley turned to me.“I’m sorry I doubted you, Max.”

“That’s all right.”

“No, you were right. Diego was a bad influence. It’s just that… he sounded so convincing.”

“That’s the power of the dark side for you, Dooley,” I said.

“Oh, is that what that was?” he asked, eyes wide. “It’s so powerful!”

“Yeah, good thing Clarice showed up and brought you back to the light.”

“Right,” he said. “So Clarice is like Princess Leia, huh?”

“Um… something like that, I guess.”

We looked at Harriet and Brutus, in the midst of their make-up scene, and both turned away and started making our way out of the alley.

“I think I’m way too young for all that dating stuff, Max.”

“I think you’re right, Dooley.”

“It just looks very complicated.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t like complicated, Max.”

“Me neither, Dooley. Me neither.”

Chapter 28

Odelia stubbornly walked on. If Chase didn’t want to confront Ziv Riding about his nocturnal visit to Hampton Cove, she was. She stalked over in the direction of the boutique where Max said he’d seen the Tesla parked, and saw Riding leaving the store and returning to his vehicle.

She hurried over, wanting to catch him before he skedaddled. The store was Riding’s, and exclusively carried the Ziv Riding brand.

“Mr. Riding!” she yelled. “Mr. Riding! A word, sir!”

Riding turned around, his hand on the door of his car. He was a handsome man with smooth, even features and remarkable black eyes. A smile spread on his face when he saw her coming.“Of course I’ll do a selfie, darling. But only one. And only from the right. That’s my best side.”

“My name is Odelia Poole, and I’m a reporter for the Hampton Cove Gazette and a civilian consultant with the Hampton Cove Police Department.”

His smile faltered.“No selfie?”

“No,” she said decidedly. “No selfie. Someone saw your car parked behindFry Me for an Oyster a couple of nights ago.”

Now his smile was completely wiped away.“No comment, Miss…”

“Poole. Odelia Poole.”

He opened his car door and made to get in.“Bye, Miss Poole.”

“It was the same night Niklaus Skad was murdered, Mr. Riding. Would you care to comment?”

“No, I would rather not,” he said as he slid into his seat. He tried to close the door, but Odelia held onto it. “What was your involvement with Niklaus Skad, Mr. Riding?”

“No involvement. I liked his cooking show, though. Now could you please let go of my door, Miss Poole? It’s my door and I need it.”

“What about the sweatshop you built in town? What was your involvement with that?”

“I don’t know about any sweatshop. My clothes are all made in Asia. Now please if you could just…”

“Your clothes were made by Asian workers you illegally brought into this country and then set to work in appalling conditions.”

“Thank you for your interest,” he said. “Please schedule an interview with my publicist. I’m always happy to talk to the members of the press.”

With a press of his finger, he started the car and drove off, closing the door as he moved away. It was amazing, Odelia thought. The car hardly made any noise. It just… glided away ever so gracefully. Then she groaned in dismay. The guy was as slippery as they came. And she had nothing on him. Nothing at all.

She mounted the sidewalk and staggered off, feeling utterly dejected. Chase thought she was a flake and that she was hiding something. She’d just angered a fashion designer who probably had nothing to do with this whole Niklaus Skad thing. And she had to sort out the mess her cats had made. This whole Diego versus Brutus thing was getting out of hand.

She set foot for the alley Brutus had been talking about. Maybe she should sort this out once and for all. It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do. Like her uncle said, they caught the killer. He confessed. The rest was conjecture.

The first thing she saw when she entered the alley was Max and Dooley sauntering towards her.“Hey, Odelia,” said Max. “How did it go with Ziv Riding?”

“It didn’t. Though he drives a really cool car. How did things go with Diego?” Dooley jerked his thumb in the direction of the alley, and she saw Brutus and Harriet, smooching up a storm. “I take it things worked themselves out?”

“They certainly did,” Max said. “With a little help from Clarice.”

“Right,” she said.

“Hey. Isn’t that Grandma?” asked Max.

She looked in the direction indicated, and saw that it was indeed her grandmother, and she was looking just as dejected as she was feeling. She was shuffling along on the other side of the street. So she quickly crossed and joined her.“Gran? What’s wrong?”

Gran looked up, her wrinkly face drawn.“Oh, I won’t tell you.”

“You won’t tell me what?”

“You’ll just laugh at me.”

“I promise I won’t laugh at you.”

“It’s Leo. He left me.”

“He left you?”

“Yeah, for a younger woman. Can you believe it? We were making out in the park when some hot young dame sat down next to us. Leo’s eyes wandered, the hot chick giggled, and then his hands wandered and next thing I knew he was making out with her instead of me! I just left.”

“Some hot young chick made out with Leo? How old was this chick?”

“You know her. Frankie Canolli’s grandmother Jackie.”

“Jackie Canolli? But she’s like a hundred!”

Gran gave her a hard stare.“She’s younger than me!”

“Not by much.” Odelia had been in school with Frankie. They were the same age.

“Didn’t you tell her off? Or Leo?”

Gran shrugged her bony shoulders.“Ah. No use talking to Leo. We were never much for talking anyway. Ours was more a physical bond.”

“I’ll say,” she muttered.

“And I’m not speaking to Jackie. Haven’t said a word to her since she took my roast beef recipe and passed it off at the pinochle club as her own.”

She placed an arm around her grandmother’s shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t like Leo, but that’s just because I didn’t think he deserved you.”

“I know he didn’t deserve me, but at my age you can’t afford to be choosy, honey.”

They walked in silence for a while.“Chase is mad with me,” she finally said.

“Oh? And why is that?”

“He thinks I’m hiding something from him.”

“About the cats, huh?”

“Yeah. He knows something is going on but he can’t figure out what it is and now he’s mad I’m not telling him.”

“So tell him.”

She looked at her grandmother.“What?”

“Just tell him. See how he reacts. If he’s fine with it, he’s a keeper. If not…” She held up her hand. “Well, then at least you know he doesn’t deserve you.”

She gave her grandmother a hug.“Thanks, Gran. I won’t tell him but still, thanks.”

“If you’re not going to tell him, and he’s going to stay mad at you, can I have a shot at him?”

“Gran!”

“Just asking.”

Chapter 29

Chase had placed his long legs on Chief Alec’s desk, while the chief had done the same on his side. They sat staring out the window. Chase still couldn’t get over the fact that Odelia would stubbornly insist they needed to go after this Ziv Riding character. The only thing the guy had done wrong—apart from running a sweatshop in this town—was drive the wrong car.

“I mean, you see that, right?” he asked for the umpteenth time. “It’s a Tesla! Everybody drives a Tesla these days. A buddy of mine is visiting Belgium and he said it’s full of Teslas over there. Frickin’ Belgium, for crying out loud!”

“Is Belgium even a country? I thought it was a city.”

“Pretty sure it’s a country, Chief. Beer, chocolate and waffles?”

“Oh, right.”

He lapsed into silence again.“And what about this cat business? There’s something going on with those cats of hers. Like she’s got some kind of intuition when it comes to Max. Is that even possible? Or normal?”

“Why not? It’s called women’s intuition, Chase. And Odelia loves her cats.”

“But cats are just a bunch of dumb animals. They can’t figure out that there’s a sweatshop in town. Or that there’s a black Tesla parked outside a restaurant. She’s hiding something, Chief. She’s got some secret informant and she won’t reveal her name. Yeah, it’s a she. She admittedthat much.”

“Odelia is a reporter, Chase. Working with informants is what she does. And you know how a reporter feels about protecting a source. It’s important.”

“I know that. I just…” He gave an annoyed grunt.

“You just hoped she would tell you all her secrets,” the Chief said with a grin.

“Well, yeah. I mean, why wouldn’t she? We work well together. She knows she can trust me. I won’t reveal her sources to anyone.”

“Just give her time, Chase. And don’t push her. The more you push her to give up her secrets the more she’s going to clamp up.”

“So what you’re saying is I should just let her harass this guy Ziv Riding?”

“He’s no boy scout. He did organize a sweatshop.”

“That doesn’t make him a killer.”

“No, it does not. It does make him a very bad man. Though it looks like he’ll walk away from this mess. Guy lawyered up big time.”

“Sure he did. He’ll pay a big-ass fine and he’ll go on making millions.”

“Oh, before I forget, the NYPD guy I talked to said they found a link between Niklaus Skad and Riding. Wanna hear about it?”

He jerked up, almost dropping out of his chair.“What?”

“Yeah. Funny thing is, I found the same email in Skad’s account.”

“And you’re only telling me this now?! Show me!”

“Hold your horses, cowboy. Now where is this darn thing…” He messed around on his computer, cursed a lot, and finally found it. “Here you go,” he said, swiveling the screen and stabbing at it with his finger. “Read it and weep.”

Chase scanned the email, then his eyes landed on the crucial paragraph.“I know about your dirty little secret and I’m not going to keep quiet unless you double your investment,” he read with rising surprise. “This is non-negotiable, Riding. You better do as I say or else.” Say what?

“Huh? Pretty explosive stuff.”

“Jeez…” he said, absolutely dumbfounded. “Oh, my God…”

“What?” Chief Alec asked with a chuckle. “Just proves these celebrities are all in bed together. All one big happy family, huh?”

His brain worked feverishly.“So Riding was an investor in Skad’s business. And somehow Skad had found out about the sweatshop and was threatening to expose it unless Riding doubled his investment.”

“Do you think that’s what he meant with ‘dirty little secret?’”

“What else could it be?”

They stared at one another.“We have our killer, Chase. He confessed.”

“What if Konrad isn’t the killer? What if Riding’s car really was parked outside the restaurant that night and he’s the killer? Wanting to shut Skad up before he blew the lid on this whole sweatshop affair?”

Chief Alec shook his head.“I’ve got a confession.”

“That wasn’t a confession, Alec. That was a nervous breakdown. The guy didn’t know what he was saying. He would have confessed to killing Kennedy or being Jack the Ripper.”

The Chief thought about this as he picked up something from his desk. It was a fortune cookie. He absentmindedly toyed with it, then crumbled it under his fingers, took out the little piece of paper and popped the cookie into his mouth, munching down.

Chase stared at him.“What’s that?”

“Huh? Oh, something the guys picked up at the sweatshop. They had bags and bags of the stuff.” He lobbed one at Chase and he deftly caught it. He studied the fortune cookie and something clicked inside his mind. There was a nicely designed logo printed on the cookie. A Z and an R. Ziv Riding. Probably PR swag. “Alec?”

“Mh?”

“Remember how the coroner found a fortune cookie in Niklaus Skad’s stomach?”

The Chief stopped munching, and then his eyes went wide.“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

Odelia’s uncle drew his hands through his few remaining wisps of hair. “Oh, Jesus. I locked up the wrong guy, didn’t I?”

“And Odelia was right about Riding,” said Chase, nodding.

“I should have known,” said the Chief with a groan. “That damn niece of mine is always right!”

Chapter 30

We were finally on our way home. This whole business with Diego had brought home to me the fact that I needed a break. I’d been up all day, and I needed to lie down and get some shut-eye. And we were just passing by the General Store when Kingman called out, “Max! Hey, Max!”

“Ignore him,” I told Dooley. “I just want to go home and sleep.”

“Max! Dooley!”

“I can’t ignore him, Max,” Dooley said. “He might have something important to say.”

“He always has something important to say, but I need to get some sleep.”

“Max! Dooley! Yoo-hoo! Over here!”

“Just ignore him,” I said through gritted teeth.

But Dooley had already veered off course. I followed him with a tired moan.

“Max!” Kingman said. “Meet Norma.”

I stared at the small white cat splayed out next to Kingman. The name didn’t ring a bell. “Hi, Norma,” I said out of sheer politeness.

“She’s the cat I told you about,” Kingman continued cheerfully. “About the sweatshop? I heard they closed down that operation. Can you believe it? A sweatshop? In our town? What is this, the nineteenth century or something?”

I studied Norma with more interest this time.“So you were out at the sweatshop, huh?”

“I was,” said the cat in a melodious voice.

“That was really brave of you,” said Dooley.

“Hardly,” said Norma. “Humans never take any notice of cats. I could come and go as I pleased, even slip past the guards and walk right into that place.”

“So do you think this guy Ziv Riding was involved?” I asked.

“Oh, definitely,” said Norma. “He came out there at least once a month, to check up on production, and do some spot checks for quality control. I’d say he knew exactly what was going on out there.”

Now this was news. Kingman grinned excitedly.“I told you she’s the real deal, didn’t I, Max? Huh? You owe me, right? Big time. Am I right or am I right?”

“You’re right,” I said reluctantly. Owing Kingman wasn’t much fun. I needed to bring him a piece of gossip at least equal in size to the Ziv Riding sweatshop story, which was going to prove hard. Then suddenly I got an idea.

“Was Riding out there the night Niklaus Skad was killed?”

Norma displayed a hint of a smile.“If I tell you, what’s in it for me?”

Let me tell you, all cats are hustlers. There are no exceptions.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I heard you can talk to your human, is that true?”

“Yeah, it’s true,” I said with a dark look at Kingman, who shrugged.

“So tell her to bring me chocolate. And not the cheap kind Kingman’s human carries. I want Swiss chocolate. The really expensive stuff.”

“I’ll get you your chocolate,” I told her. “But chocolate isn’t good for you.”

“Let me worry about that.”

“So? About Riding?”

“He was in town. He drove up to the farm in his black Tesla around ten o’clock. Wanted to make sure everything was running smoothly. I heard him talking to the guards. He said he had an appointment in town. Said he needed to get rid of a pesky problem and that he’d never been there.”

“Get rid of a pesky problem. Were those his actual words?” I asked.

She gave me a cool, lingering look from beneath her long lashes.“I never lie, Max. If you’d bother to get to know me you’d realize that.”

I gulped a little, and backed away slowly. The recent episode with Harriet and Diego was still fresh in my mind. I did not need female felines in my life right now.“Thanks, Norma,” I said. “Much appreciated.”

“Thanks, Norma!” said Dooley. “And we’d love to get to know you, wouldn’t we, Max?”

She gave Dooley an appraising look, then said,“No, thank you. I don’t date babies.”

“Oh, burn!” Kingman shouted as Dooley and I walked away. “You owe me, Max!”

“And don’t forget about the chocolate!” Norma added. “Swiss chocolate, Max! No cheap junk, you hear?!”

I held up my paw to show her I’d heard her loud and clear.

“What did she mean when she said she doesn’t date babies?” Dooley asked. “I’m not a baby. I’m just as old as you, Max. Should I have told her?”

“I thought you said you didn’t need the complications of a relationship?”

Dooley glanced over his shoulder.“Yeah, but she looks really nice. I guess I could make an exception for her.”

“Oh, Dooley,” I said.

Chapter 31

Odelia was on her way to the Gazette when a squad car waylaid her. The car jumped the curb and she bumped into the hood. What the… She was even more surprised when Chase called out from inside the car, “Get in! You were right!”

“Of course I was right,” she said as she got in. She slammed the door shut. “What was I right about, exactly?”

He gave her his best grin.“I owe you an apology, Odelia. First of all, you don’t have to feel obligated to reveal your sources to me. You’re a reporter. Your sources are sacred. I get that. Secondly, you were right about Riding. He and Skad were connected. Riding invested in Skad’s business, and threatened to revealthe sweatshop business if Riding didn’t increase his investment.”

“I knew it!” she said, pounding the dashboard with her fist. “So what now?”

“Now we’re going to talk to Riding. He’s staying at the Hampton Springs Hotel.”

He put the car in gear and it bounced off the curb.“Oh, wait!” she said.

He halted the car with a jerk and she opened the door to let Max and Dooley inside.

“God, not those cats again!” Chase said.

“They look tired,” she said. “They need a ride.”

Actually they didn’t look tired. They looked excited.

“Odelia! You were right!” Max cried. “Riding was in town the night Niklaus was killed. He even told one of the guards at the sweatshop that he needed to get rid of a pesky problem, and then he drove off. That was around ten o’clock.”

“Did he do it, Odelia?” asked Dooley. “Did he kill Skad?”

She couldn’t very well answer that with Chase in the car. One day she might tell him about the cats, but not now. Not when he was convinced she was working with some secret informant.

“She can’t talk with us in front of Chase, Dooley,” Max said.

“Why not? Chase is a nice guy. He’ll understand.”

“No, he won’t. He might be nice, but he’s also just a guy.”

“He’s not just a guy. He’s Odelia’s guy,” Dooley insisted stubbornly.

She smiled.“While you were finally realizing I’m always right, I had a word with my informant,” she said.

“Oh? And what did they say?”

“Riding was definitely involved with the sweatshop.”

“Yeah, he came out here all the time,” Max chimed in.

Chase grinned.“Your cats are talking again, Odelia. It’s so funny.”

“Don’t mind them,” she said. “The night Skad was killed, he was in town. And I’m sure the sweatshop workers and the guards will be able to confirm that.”

“I’ll talk to the NYPD officer in charge. He’ll be happy to hear it.”

Chase had switched on the police siren and the blinkers and they were roaring through town, moving at a healthy clip. It only took them ten minutes to arrive at the hotel and Chase swung his car into a parking spot reserved for VIPs, right next to a black Tesla.

“There’s something I haven’t told you yet,” Chase said as he cut the engine. “You know the best part?”

“No, what?”

He smiled.“Remember Abe found a fortune cookie in Skad’s stomach? Well, the sweatshop was full of the stuff. Bags and bags of them.” He popped a fortune cookie out of his pocket and handed it to her. “See how it says ZR?”

“Ziv Riding,” she said slowly, turning the cookie over in her hands. “But how did it get into the victim’s stomach?”

Chase shrugged.“Only thing I can think of is that Riding gave Niklaus the cookie and he ate it. And then Riding killed him.”

“But wouldn’t the cookie have been chewed to pieces? I thought Abe said the cookie was still intact?”

Chase frowned.“So?”

“So I think Riding shoved that cookie down Skad’s throat and choked him with it.”

Chase stared at her.“You have a devious mind, Odelia Poole. And you may just have solved our murder!”

“Odelia is brilliant,” Dooley said.

“Yeah, she is,” Max agreed.

They got out and walked to the hotel. Now the only thing they needed to do was make Ziv Riding confess. How difficult could that be?

They walked up to the lobby and Chase showed the clerk his badge and asked which room Ziv Riding was staying in. The hotel tapped a few keys.“Room five twenty-five. The Royal Suite. Mr. Riding always uses that suite when he’s in town.”

Odelia and Chase shared a look.“Can you check a date for me?” Chase asked, and gave him the date Niklaus Skad was murdered.

“No, he didn’t stay with us that night,” said the clerk.

“Thanks,” said Odelia. That would have been too easy.

“Do you know if Mr. Riding is in right now?” Chase asked.

“You’ll find Mr. Riding by the pool,” said the clerk.

They thanked him and walked through the lobby, through the restaurant and out to the pool, which was the heart of the hotel.

“We keep ending up here,” said Chase as they stepped onto the flagged patch that lined the pool.

“That’s him,” said Odelia, pointing. “Right there.”

Riding had just hoisted himself up out of the pool, water streaming from his sculpted body in rivulets, and was stroking the water from his hair. He walked over to a chaise lounge and stood basking in the sun. He looked like a man who hadn’t a care in the world. Or a man with great lawyers.

“Well?” asked Chase. “Let’s have a word with Mr. Riding, shall we?”

The fashion designer looked up when a shadow fell across his face.“You’re blocking my sun,” he said kindly. “Please remove yourselves.” Then he recognized Odelia. “Oh, it’s you again. I already told you to make an appointment with the PR department. I’ll gladly talk to the media but not without an appointment. I think I made that abundantly clear.”

Chase flashed him his badge.“Odelia may be a reporter, but she’s also a civilian consultant helping me work a case.”

The man stared at the badge.“And who are you?”

“My name is Kingsley. Chase Kingsley. Detective for the Hampton Cove Police Department.”

The designer rolled his eyes.“Oh, dear. Look, I told you people I had nothing to do with this abominable sweatshop business. And you can rest assured that heads will roll once I find out who did. I don’t condone this kind of thing.”

“We’re not here to talk about your sweatshop, Mr. Riding,” said Odelia.

“We’re here to talk about Niklaus Skad,” said Chase.

“Oh, for goodness’ sakes. I didn’t even know the man. I watched his crass show from time to time, but that’s as far as our association went.”

“So he didn’t send you an email threatening to reveal your ‘dirty little secret?’” Chase asked.

The designer pursed his lips.“You know what? I don’t think I’m going to talk to you at this moment, Detective. I seem to remember that everything I say can and will be used against me, so I’ll leave the pleasure of talking to you people to my lawyer, who’s more used to this sort of thing.”

“You have a right to an attorney,” Chase agreed.

“You sure do,” Odelia said. “And the first thing your attorney will tell you is that it wasn’t smart to drive that nice black Tesla of yours all the way up to Tucker’s Farm.”

“Or to park it right behindFry Me for an Oyster,” Chase added.

“Oh, yes. Your car was seen that night, Mr. Riding.”

“We even have a witness who overheard you telling one of your bodyguards you needed to get rid of a pesky problem in town.”

“And then there’s that fortune cookie, of course,” said Odelia.

“Did you know our coroner found that fortune cookie pretty much intact inside the victim’s stomach, Mr. Riding?” Chase asked.

“That’s impossible,” Riding snapped. “A stomach doesn’t stop working when a person dies. It keeps digesting.”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Odelia with a laugh. The guy might be a great designer, but he didn’t know much about death. Simply about causing it.

The man gulped.“You found one of my fortune cookies in Niklaus Skad’s stomach?”

“Yes, we did.”

“Now I wonder how that got there?” Odelia asked.

“Unless you shoved it down his throat until he choked, of course,” said Chase.

The man just sat there for a moment, looking out across the pool, his face devoid of expression. The sun hung low in the sky. The day was drawing to a close and the rays slanting across the pool surface shimmered and glittered brightly. Suddenly, Ziv Riding reared up from his chaise lounge and dashed away along the pool, his bare feet slapping on the paved floor. He was a quick bugger.

“Dammit,” Chase grumbled, before setting out in pursuit.

Odelia watched as the cop raced after their suspect. And just when the designer had cleared the pool area, suddenly something blocked his path.

“Hey!” he cried when his feet got entangled in two small, furry objects.

Max and Dooley, for it was them, risked life and limb, but the intervention served its purpose, for the designer was forced to change course. Chase made a grab at him, but missed and almost toppled into the pool. And then, out of nowhere, a large black Portuguese Water Dog leaped at Riding and they both smashed into the pool.

The dog came back up first, and easily paddled to the edge of the pool. Stacie Roebuck, who’d been reading a book by the pool, looked horrified.

“Puck! Come back here! Bad boy!”

But Odelia joined her and said,“No, he’s a good boy. A very brave, very good boy.” She winked at Stacie. “He just nailed his owner’s killer.”

Stacie stared at Ziv Riding, who came up, spluttering and splashing. When he saw that Chase was waiting for him, he kept paddling for a while.

“You can’t keep doing that forever, Mr. Riding!” Chase called out.

“Yes, I can!” the designer insisted. “And I want my lawyer! Get him out here! Right now! I’m not coming out without my lawyer!”

Chase sighed.“Suit yourself.” He then dove into the pool. There was some more splashing, but finally Chase managed to collar his suspect and tow him in. He dragged him out of the pool bellowing, “Ziv Riding, you’re under arrest for the murder of Niklaus Skad. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

Odelia picked up Max and Dooley.“My heroes,” she said softly.

“All we did was get in the way of a known killer,” said Max.

“Yeah, no big deal,” said Dooley.

“Puck is the real hero,” Max added.

“And so he is,” said Odelia.

They watched as a soaking wet Chase led an equally wet Ziv Riding to the hotel.

“So Mr. Riding killed Mr. Skad?” Stacie asked, just to be sure.

“Yes, he did. Your boss was threatening to expose Riding’s sweatshop operation, which would have ruined his reputation with his investors and his clients.”

“That little twerp killed my husband?” an irate voice interrupted Odelia. She saw that Cybil Truscott had gotten up from her chaise lounge. She hadn’t even noticed she was there.

“Yes, he did,” she acknowledged.

“Gah, and we just made dinner reservations,” said Cybil. “I guess I better cancel our date.”

“Unless you want to have dinner in prison, I suggest you do,” Odelia said.

She shook her head disgustedly.“Men. Either they die on you, or they go around killing other men. I think I’m going to become a lesbian. Less trouble.” She gave Stacie a lascivious glance. “Hey, gorgeous. Have we met?”

“I was your husband’s assistant,” said Stacie. “We’ve met several times. Not that you ever noticed me. And for your information, I’m not a lesbian.”

“Too bad. You’re pretty. Oh, well. I guess I’ll just stick to men. There must be someone out there who’s not a killer or about to die on me.” And she stalked off, the death of her husband clearly not affecting her very powerfully.

“I never liked that woman,” said Stacie.

“Me neither,” Odelia confessed.

“I guess she’ll inherit all of Niklaus’s fortune.”

Odelia smiled.“Didn’t anybody tell you? Shortly before he died, Niklaus changed his will. Apparently he hated Cybil so much he didn’t want to take any chances. So he left everything to Puck.”

Stacie goggled at her.“Puck? But he didn’t even like him.”

“I’m sure he didn’t. And I’m sure he was going to change his will again as soon as the divorce came through. But since he was killed before that happened…” She shrugged. “Puck is a very rich dog now.” She eyed Stacie seriously. “You did take the necessary steps to transfer ownership of Puck to you, right?”

“Yes, I did. Everything was arranged through the notary yesterday.”

“Good. Because I think Cybil might contest the will—and your claim.”

Niklaus Skad’s lawyer had revealed as much to Chief Alec when her uncle had interviewed him. Cybil still had no idea, and Odelia thought it was better it stayed that way until the will was officially read.

She watched as Stacie settled down at the edge of the pool and hugged a very wet Puck. At least something good had come out of this, she thought.

Then Puck shook himself, spraying water all over the place. Stacie laughed, and so did Odelia and most of the other guests. Except…

“Hey! Watch that stupid mutt!” Cybil screamed. “He’ll ruin my tan!”

Yep. Sometimes people got exactly what they deserved.

Epilogue

We were all enjoying a leisurely time in Marge and Tex’s backyard. There was good food on the menu, apparently, at least if I went by the cries of delight from Odelia and the grunts of appreciation from Uncle Alec and Chase. Us cats had gotten actual meat for a change, and Dooley had even gotten the chicken wings he’d been craving for. The murder case had been solved, Ziv Riding would spend a nice long stretch in prison, Odelia had postponed our yearly visit to the vet, and everybody was happy.

Well, almost everybody. Diego probably wasn’t happy. There was no way of knowing for sure, of course, as he hadn’t shown his face around these parts since his unfortunate run-in with Clarice. And Gran wasn’t too happy, either, as her beau Leo was still strutting his stuff with Jackie Canolli. But I wasn’t going to let her spoil the fun.

“So what about that Leo, huh?” Dooley asked, tucking into another bit of chicken. “Left my human broken-hearted. Maybe we should do something about him?”

“Like what? Put a horse’s head in his bed? Break his legs? Rough him up? We’re cats, Dooley. We don’t mess with humans.”

“Unless they mess with our humans,” said Dooley. “Like this guy Leo.”

We were out on the porch, tucking into our bowls. I darted a quick look at Harriet and Brutus, who were out near the tree next to the hedge, smooching.

“When are they ever going to get enough of each other?” I asked.

Dooley followed my gaze and shrugged.“It’s love, Max. It’s beautiful.”

I slowly turned to him.“It’s love, it’s beautiful? What happened to ‘Brutus is a monster for stealing Harriet away from me?’ I thought you loved Harriet.”

“I do love Harriet, but I’ve come to realize that if you truly love a cat, you need to be happy when they’re happy. You have to set them free to follow their hearts. And if Harriet’s heart leads her to Brutus, well, then that’s fine by me.”

I stared at him.“Who are you and what have you done to my friend?”

Dooley grinned.“I’m growing up, Max, what about that? Maybe one of these days I might even have a shot with Norma.”

“Oh, so that’s the deal. You like Norma now.”

“Well, she is pretty.”

“She sure is. She’s also high-maintenance.”

He frowned.“What’s high-maintenance, Max?”

“When a cat wants you to fetch her Swiss chocolates or else.”

“I’ll fetch her Swiss chocolates. I’ll fetch her all the Swiss chocolates she needs,” he said.

He had that dumb look in his eyes that goes along with being in love. Yeah, Dooley had it bad, I saw. So that’s why he was cool with Harriet and Brutus. He’d transferred his affections to another queen. Well, maybe it was for the best. At least he wouldn’t bother me with his endless moaning about Harriet.

“Don’t you think she has the most beautiful eyes, Max? Like rays of sunshine? Or, better yet, golden orbs that reflect the world’s early dawn?”

Oh, crap. This was even worse.

Harriet and Brutus walked up. Apparently you can’t live on love alone, for Brutus barked, “Where’s my meat? I thought we were getting meat? You two morons didn’t eat my meat, did you? Cause if you did, there’ll be hell to pay!”

“Here’s your meat,” I said, indicating Brutus’s bowl.

“Good,” he muttered. “I need meat. I’m a meat-eating cat.”

“I think we’ve established that,” I said.

He glanced up, a piece of raw liver between his teeth.“Giving me lip, Maxie? Better don’t give me any lip. I’m the one that got us this meat. Without me, there would be kibble on the menu. So better pay me some respect.”

I blinked.“Um, are you feeling all right, Brutus?”

“Course I’m feeling all right.” He grinned at Harriet, his bloodied teeth an awful sight. “I’m feeling on top of the world, ain’t that right, snuggle puss?”

“That’s right, my cuddle man.”

Then he dug in again.

I directed a worried look at Dooley, but he was still dreaming about Norma, his face displaying a moronic look. Well, even more moronic than usual.

I sidled up to Harriet.“Is Brutus all right? He seems… aggressive.”

“He’s just fine,” said Harriet, darting loved-up looks at her cat. “I told him that the reason I was so attracted to Diego was because he acted like a real cat. A butch cat, if you know what I mean. Not like you and Dooley, who are just a tad too sweet for my taste.” She sighed. “I lovea cat who’s tough and strong. A catly cat. And I think Brutus got the message loud and clear.”

I groaned.“You turned him back into a bully?”

“Not a bully,” she said with a look of reproach. “A catly cat.”

“What does that even mean?!”

Brutus looked up.“Hey! Don’t talk to my lady like that, Max. Show some respect.”

“Brutus, my friend,” I began.

He gave me the evil eye.“Don’t go getting all soft on me again, Max. We’re all catly cats together. There’s no reason to get mushy.” He directed a grin at Harriet. “Isn’t that right, sugar lips?”

“That’s absolutely right, my stud muffin,” she cooed.

Brutus took me aside, and whispered,“Just play along, Max! She likes me all butch and macho so butch and macho is what she gets. Capisce?”

“But I liked you better when you were, you know, normal!”

Brutus rolled his eyes.“Haven’t you ever been in love, Max?”

“Um, no?”

He punched my chest.“Fall in love, and then we’ll talk again. And now don’t cramp my style, buddy. I’m warning you. Don’t ruin this for me.”

“What are you two whispering about, Brutus?” Harriet asked.

“Just telling this chump what’s what, my queen.” Quieter, he hissed, “I like you, Max. I like you a lot, and I wanna thank you for what you did for me. But this is how it’s gonna be from now on, got me?” Then, louder again, “You little weasel! If you talk to me like that again, I’m kicking your big, hairy, orange butt!”

And then he stalked off, leaving me staring after him, floored.

Oh, great. Instead of a real bully, now I got the Actors Studio version.

Dooley wandered over.“Don’t you think Norma’s fur is the color of—”

“No, I don’t!” I interrupted him brutally. “And please don’t talk to me about that cat again. Ever!”

Dooley stared at me, rudely awakened from his roseate dream. And as I sat there, moping, suddenly Harriet stole over to me. She gave me a gentle shove.“Maxie,” she said in a sultry voice. “I never saw this side of you before. When did you become all dominant and butch?”

I stared at her.“Huh?”

She giggled, a low and seductive sound.“I like this new Max a lot better than the old one. How about we share a piece of chicken?”

This was just too much. After all this nonsense with Diego, and now Brutus, she wanted to steal my chicken? No way!“You’ve got your own damn piece of chicken,” I snapped. “I’m not sharing mine.”

“Ooh, Maxie,” she cooed. “My butchy Maxie!”

And then she threw herself into my paws and kissed me!

5. PURRFECT CRIME

Prologue

Donna Bruce was a woman profoundly in love with herself. From personal experience she knew there was no other person as amazing as she was. She was smart, successful, beautiful, and, above all, she was kind to humans, children and dogs, which cannot be said about everyone. She was a giver, not a taker. In fact she gave so much she often wondered if people appreciated her enough.

Her kids, for instance, could probably love her more for all the sacrifices she had made. For one thing, they’d pretty much ruined her figure. After the twins were born, something strange but not very wonderful had happened to her hips. They’d never looked the same again. And when she saw what breastfeeding did to her boobs, she’d vowed never to fall into that horrible trap again.

She now carefully tucked her golden tresses beneath the pink shower cap, wrapped the white towel embroidered with her company’s crest—a nicely rendered tiara—around her perfectly toned and tanned body, and stepped into the sauna cabin. She had the cabin installed only six months ago as a special treat to herself when donna.vip, the lifestyle website she’d launched a decade ago, had topped 200 million in revenue.

She languidly stretched out on the authentic Finnish wood bench, took a sip from her flute of Mo?t& Chandon Dom Perignon, and closed her eyes. She’d just done a conference call with her CEO and now it was time to relax. Later today she had a session with her private fitness coach scheduled, and to top it all off she was going to treat herself to a healing massage as well. Time to get pampered!

And she’d just reached that slightly drowsy state she enjoyed so much when a soft clanking sound attracted her attention. She opened her eyes and saw through the slight haze that filled the cabin that there was someone moving about outside.

She frowned, wondering who it could be. Her housekeeper Jackie wasn’t coming in until ten, and the rest of the staff knew better than to intrude on her alone time. It was hard to make out the person’s face, as the one small window was all steamed up. With a grunt of annoyance she got up and wiped her hand across the glass to look out. And that’s when she noticed something very disturbing: the person was wearing a mask of some kind. One of those silly Halloween masks.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she called out.

But the intruder just stood there, unmoving, staring at her through the black mask that covered his or her entire face.

“Who are you?” she asked. “Answer me at once!”

When the person didn’t respond, she shook her head and took a firm grip on the wood door handle, giving it a good yank. The door didn’t budge. She tried again, knowing that these sauna doors could be sticky, but to no avail. And that’s when she saw that someone—presumably the masked person outside—had stuck a long object through the door’s handle, blocking it. It was her long handle loofah, the one she’d intended to take into the sauna with her.

“Hey! This isn’t funny!” she cried, tapping the pane furiously. “Open this door right now!”

And that’s when the masked figure reacted for the first time by raising a hand and pointing a finger at her, cocking their thumb and making a shooting gesture. And in that exact moment, she became aware of an odd sound that seemed to come from somewhere above her head. A buzzing sound. She looked up in alarm, and when she saw the first dozen bees streaming into the sauna cabin, she uttered a cry of shock and fear.

She rapped the window again, more frantic this time.“Let me out! Why are you doing this to me?! Just let me out of here!”

More bees fluttered into the cramped space and soon started filling it. There must have been hundreds, or maybe even thousands! And as they descended upon her, she felt the first stings. She started swatting them away with her towel, but there were too many of them, and for some reason they seemed drawn to her, whipped into a frenzy by some unknown cause. And as she stumbled and fell, desperately flapping her hands in a bid to get rid of the pesky insects, she soon succumbed. Her final thought, before she lost consciousness was,“Why me?!”

Chapter 1

Having spent most of the night outside, looking up at the stars and commenting to Dooley on their curious shape, attending a meeting of cat choir in the nearby Hampton Cove Park, and generally contemplating the state of the world and my place in it, I was ready to perform my daily duty and make sure my human Odelia Poole got a bright and early start on her day. I do this by jumping up onto her bed, plodding across Odelia’s sleeping form, and finally kneading her arm until she wakes up and gives me a cuddle. This has been our morning ritual since just about forever.

When I finally reached the top of the stairs, slightly winded, a pleasant sound emanating from the bedroom filled me with a warm and fuzzy feeling of benevolence: Odelia was softly snoring, indicating she was in urgent need of a wake-up catcall. So I padded over, and jumped up onto the foot of the bed. At least, that was my intention, only for some reason I must have misjudged the distance, for instead of landing on all fours on the bed, I landed on my butt on the bedside rug.

I shook my head, happy that no one saw me in this awkward position. With a slight shrug of the shoulders, I decided to try again. This time the result was even worse. I never even cleared the bed frame, let alone the mattress or the comforter. Like an Olympic pole vaulter who discovers he’s lost the ability, I suddenly found myself facing a new and horrifying reality: I couldn’t jump anymore!

“Hey, Max,” a familiar voice sounded behind me. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing, Dooley?” I grumbled. “I’m trying to jump into bed!”

He paused, then asked,“So why are you still on the floor?”

“Because…” I stared up at the bed, which all of a sudden had turned into an insurmountable obstacle for some reason. “Actually I don’t know what’s going on. The bed just seems higher now.”

“A sudden weakness,” Dooley decided knowingly. “It happens to me all the time.”

“Well, it doesn’t happen to me,” I said, scratching my head. Yes, cats scratch their heads. We just make sure we retract our claws, otherwise it would be a fine mess.

“You probably need food. Did you have breakfast? When I don’t have my breakfast I feel weak. Do you feel weak?”

I gave him my best scowl.“I feel fine. And for your information, yes, I did have my breakfast. The best kibble money can buy and a nice chunk of chicken and liver pat?.”

“Wow, what happened?”

“What do you mean, what happened?”

“I thought Odelia only got you the cheap stuff? Why did she go out and splurge all of a sudden?”

“I guess she felt I deserved it. I have been helping her solve murder case after murder case lately.”

“Me too, but I didn’t get any special treats.”

“You have to file your complaint with Gran, Dooley. She is your human, after all.”

Dooley’s Ragamuffin face sagged. “Gran has been too busy to notice me lately.”

“Too busy? Why, what’s she been up to?”

“Beats me. She’s been receiving packages in the mail. A lot of them. In fact Marge and Tex are pretty much fed up with her. Seems like they’re the ones who have to pay for all those packages.”

Perhaps now would be a good time to make some introductions, especially for the people who haven’t been following my adventures closely. My name is Max, as you have probably deduced, and I’m something of a private cat sleuth. Since Odelia is a reporter and always in need of fresh and juicy stories, I’m only too happy to supply them. My frequent collaborator on these outings is Dooley, my best friend and neighbor. Dooley’s human is Vesta Muffin, Odelia’s grandmother who lives next door. Dooley is my wingcat. My partner in crime. Between you and me, Dooley is not exactly the brightest bulb in the bulb shop, so it’s a good thing he’s got me. I’m smart enough for the both ofus.

“Why don’t I give you a paw up?” Dooley asked now.

“I don’t know…” I muttered. I glanced behind Dooley, making sure he was alone. If we were going to do this, I didn’t want there to be any witnesses.

Dooley followed my gaze.“What are you looking at?” Then he got it. “Oh, if you’re looking for Harriet, she was fast asleep in Brutus’s paws. Those two must have had a rough night.”

My face clouded. Being reminded of Brutus usually has a souring effect on my mood. You see, Brutus is what us cats call an intruder. He came waltzing into our lives a couple of weeks ago and has refused to leave ever since. He belongs to Chase Kingsley, a cop Odelia has taken a liking to, but seems to spend an awful lot of time next door, cozying up to Harriet, Odelia’s mom’s white Persian.

I made up my mind.“Let’s do this,” I grunted. If we didn’t, Odelia might wake up of her own accord, and I’d miss my window of opportunity to put in some much-needed snuggle time.

Dooley padded up to me and plunked down on his haunches.“How do you want to do this?”

“Simple. I jump and you give me a boost.”

“You mean, like, on the count of three or something?”

“Or something.” I got ready, poised at the foot of the bed and said, “One—two—”

“Wait,” Dooley said. “Are we doing this on three or after three?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do I boost you on three, or right after?”

“Why would you boost me right after? The count of three usually means the count of three, Dooley.”

“So, one, two, three and boost? Or one, two, three, pause, and then boost?”

“One, two, three, boost,” I said, starting to lose my patience. “Now, are we doing this or not?”

He thought about this for a moment, a puzzled look on his face.“Do you want to do this?”

“Of course I want to do this! Preferably before we die of old age.”

Dooley’s eyes went wide. “Die of old age? Do you think we’re dying, Max?!”

“No, we’re not dying! I just want to put in some snuggle time, is that so hard to understand?”

“Oh, right,” he said, understanding dawning. “I thought you said we were dying.”

For some reason Dooley has been obsessing about dying lately. Usually I can talk him out of it, but then he sees something on TV and the whole thing starts all over again.

“Are you ready?”

Dooley nodded.“I’m ready, Max.”

“One—two—”

“Wait!”

I groaned.“What is it now?”

“Where do I boost you?”

“Up the bed! Where else?”

“No, I mean, do I boost your butt or your hind paws or what? I’m new to this boosting business,” he explained apologetically.

“It’s not exactly an Olympic discipline, Dooley. There are no rules. You can boost me wherever you want.” On second thought… “Though stay away from my butt.”

“Right. Stay away from your butt. So where…”

“Anywhere but my butt! Now one—two—”

“Max!”

“What?!”

“What if I boost you too hard and you end up flying across the bed and down the other side?”

I fixed him with a hard look.“Trust me, Dooley, the chances of that happening are slim to none. I mean, look at us. I’m like the Dwayne Johnson of cats and you’re more like Andrew Garfield inHacksaw Ridge, all scrawny and mangy. You’ll be lucky if you can boost me a couple inches, which is all I need,” I hastened to add.

“Do you think I’m too mangy?” asked Dooley with a frown.

“Not too mangy. You’re just thin is all. A very healthy thin.”

“Not a sickly thin? Like an I’m-about-to-die thin?”

Oh, God. I did not need this aggravation.“Absolutely not. More like a my-name-is-Gwyneth-Paltrow-and-I’m-willowy-and-gorgeous kind of thin.”

“I thought you said I looked like Andrew Garfield?”

“In a very Gwyneth Paltrow-y way.”

This seemed to please him, as he gave me a grateful smile.“Why, thanks, Max. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Great. Now about that boost?”

“Oh! Right! I forgot all about that.”

“Focus, Dooley. Now, are you ready?”

“Ready,” he said, his face a study in concentration.

“One—two—three—”

“Boost!” he cried and placed both paws on my butt, giving me a mighty shove.

And… we had liftoff! Only it didn’t last very long, nor did it carry me where I was aiming to go. Instead, I plunked right back down again, landing on top of Dooley, who ended up squeezed beneath my sizable buns.

There was a momentary pause, while we both figured out what went wrong, then Dooley croaked,“Can you please lift your butt, Max? You’re choking me!”

Applause broke out behind us, and a loud cackling sound, and when I looked up, I saw we’d been joined by Harriet and Brutus. The latter was applauding, a Draco Malfoy-type sneer on his mug, and Harriet was doing the cackling, apparently finding the whole scene hilarious.

“What’s so funny?” I asked with an angry look at the newly arrived.

“You!” Brutus cried. “You’re so fat you can’t even jump on the bed!”

“I’m not fat! I’m just… experiencing some issues with my takeoff.”

“Issues with your takeoff! You’re not an airplane, Max. You’re a cat. A cat too fat to fly!” Harriet dissolved into giggles while Brutus was laughing so hard his belly shook.

“Max!” Dooley breathed. “You’re… choking… me…”

I released Dooley by lifting my butt, then resumed my scowling.“I’m not fat—I’m big-boned. There’s a difference. And Odelia probably bought a new bed, that’s all. I never had any trouble jumping into the old bed, which was still here yesterday morning. Isn’t that right Dooley?”

But Dooley was still catching his breath, taking big gulps of it.

“That’s the exact same bed as always,” said Brutus. He narrowed his eyes at me. “Girlfriend stealer.”

I rolled my eyes.“Here we go again.”

Brutus had walked up to me and poked my chest with his paw.“You kissed my girlfriend, Max. I saw you so don’t try to deny it.”

“I didn’t kiss anyone! She kissed me!”

“That’s what you say.”

“Because that’s what happened!”

He leaned in and dropped his voice to a whisper.“I thought we had an understanding, Max. I thought you and I were friends. And then you went and did a thing like that.” He pursed his lips. “You’re despicable. There’s no other word for it.”

“I didn’t kiss her,” I hissed. “She kissed me. I’m not even interested in Harriet!”

“What are you two whispering about?” Harriet asked with a laugh.

“Nothing, honey bunch,” said Brutus in his sweetest voice. “Just clearing up some stuff.”

“Max is right, Brutus,” Dooley loud-whispered. “Harriet kissed him, not the other way around. And he didn’t even like it, did you, Max?” These last words were spoken with a look of reproach in my direction. Dooley has always fancied Harriet, and he cannot grasp being kissed by that divinefeline and not enjoying the experience.

“I heard you,” said Harriet, tripping up deftly. “And for your information, I didn’t kiss Max.”

“See?!” Brutus exclaimed triumphantly.

“My Inner Goddess did.”

“What?!”

Harriet raised her chin defiantly.“I can’t be held responsible for every little thing my Inner Goddess does, Brutus. Sometimes she wears a blindfold. I thought I was kissing you, actually. I only realized my mistake when I reached out and the only thing my paw met was a yielding fluffiness where rock-hard muscles should have been.”

Brutus stared at her.“Go on.”

She placed a paw on his chest and closed her eyes.“See, now that I’m feeling your steely pecs I know it’s you. That was my mistake. I kissed first and touched later.”

I groaned loudly.“Yielding fluffiness?!”

“Shut up, Max,” said Brutus. “Watch and learn.”

And then the two of them locked lips. Instinctively I held up a paw to cover Dooley’s eyes. He did not have to see this. He seemed to appreciate the gesture, for he didn’t slap my paw away. He only asked, when the smooching sounds finally abated, “Is it over yet?”

“Yes, it is,” I said, lowering my paw. Harriet had kissed me, no doubt about it, but if it made her feel better to lie to both herself and to Brutus, it was fine by me. I didn’t need Brutus going back to his old bullying ways. This d?tente we had going for us suited me fine, so I was happy when finally the kissing stopped and Brutus slapped me on the back.

“And that’s how you do it, buddy!”

“Great,” I muttered. “Now, can you give me a boost? I need to wake up Odelia.”

“Sure thing,” said Brutus, suddenly in an expansive mood. And as I got ready to take the leap again, he got into position directly behind me, not unlike a running back. And before I could initiate the launch sequence, Brutus was shouting, “Hut one—hut two—hut three—go!”

I made the mighty jump and… “Owowowow!” Brutus, instead of giving me a regular boost, had dug his nails into my behind! The result was that I flew up onto the bed and landed right on top of Odelia’s sleeping form, and it wasn’t a soft landing either.

“Ooph!” Odelia grunted, when a flying blorange obstacle landed squarely on her stomach. She stared down at me. “Max! Where’s the fire?!”

I gave her a sheepish look.“Wakey-wakey.”

I directed a scathing look at Brutus, who gave me a grin.“See, Max? I knew you could do it!”

Chapter 2

“So then Brutus gave me a boost and that’s how I ended up on your stomach,” I finished my account of the recent events.

Odelia, who’s blond and petite with the most strikingly green eyes, tied the sash of her bathrobe and gave me a worried look. “I better make that appointment with Vena. I knew I should never have put it off.”

My eyes widened to the size of saucers, which for us cats is considerable, since our eyes are a lot smaller than a human’s eyes to begin with. “Not Vena!”

“Yes, Vena. With everything that’s been going on I totally forgot to make a new appointment but it’s obvious now that she was right all along.” She placed a comforting hand on my head. “You’re overweight, Max. Totally overweight, and I’ve got no one else to blame but myself.”

“I’m not overweight. I’m just… big-boned. It runs in the family.”

“It’s for your own good,” she said. “If you don’t start dieting again, you’ll just get in trouble.”

“I won’t get in trouble, I promise!” I cried. Anything not to have to go to Vena, who is just about the vet from hell. For some reason she loves sticking me with needles and suggesting to Odelia that she feed me kibble that tastes like cardboard. The woman is my own personal tormentor.

“It’s not your fault,” Odelia said as she started down the stairs. “I indulge you. I keep buying those snacks that you like so much and I probably overfeed you, too.”

“No, you don’t,” I said, desperate now. I trotted after her, my paws sounding heavy on the stairs. “I only eat the bare minimum as it is. In fact I’m always hungry.”

She paused and listened to the pounding my paws made on the stairs.“You hear that? That’s not normal, Max. You’re not supposed to walk like that.”

“Like what?” I asked, pausing midstep.

“Like an elephant trampling in the brush.”

“I don’t sound like an elephant trampling in the brush,” I said indignantly, but made an effort to tread a little lighter. Only problem was, it’s hard to tread lightly when you’re going downhill. Gravity, you know.

“And Vena said that when you get too big it’s bad for your heart. Fat tissue builds up around the organ and that’s not a good thing.”

“My heart is just fine,” I promised, tapping my chest. “Healthy as an ox!”

“And you look like one, too,” said Brutus. The black cat was right behind me, and obviously enjoying the conversation tremendously.

“I’ve booked you an appointment, too, by the way, Brutus,” said Odelia now.

We’d reached the bottom of the stairs and she walked into the kitchen to start up the coffeemaker. How people can drink that black sludge is beyond me, but then a lot of stuff humans do makes no sense at all. Like putting a perfectly healthy cat on a diet!

“Me!” cried Brutus. “Why me?!”

“Because Chase told me he doesn’t remember the last time you went. So it might as well have been never.” She frowned. “Though you are neutered, so you must have gone at least once.”

A deep blush crept up Brutus’s features. At least I think it did. It was hard to be sure with all that dark hair covering his visage. He cut a quick look at Harriet, who pretended she hadn’t heard. “I, um—I’m sure that’s not possible,” he said now.

“That you’re neutered or that you didn’t go to the vet in years?” Odelia asked deftly, taking a cup and saucer from the cupboard over the sink.

Brutus appeared to be shrinking before my very eyes, a sight I enjoyed a lot, I have to say.“Both,” he said curtly, now actively avoiding Harriet’s cool gaze.

“Don’t worry, Brutus,” said Dooley. “We’re all neutered. Max is neutered. I am neutered. Even Harriet is neutered. Isn’t that right, Harriet?”

“None of your beeswax,” Harriet snapped.

“Beeswaxed?” asked Dooley. “I’m pretty sure the right word is neutered.”

“Dooley!” Harriet said with a warning glare.

“What? What did I say?”

“Oh, come off it, you guys,” said Odelia, crouching down. “It’s nothing to be ashamed about. If you weren’t neutered I’m sure we’d have a fresh litter every couple of months, and we can’t have that now, can we?”

“I don’t see why not,” Harriet muttered. It was obviously still a sore point.

“Because I can’t take care of so many cats,” Odelia said softly. “You see that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, just do the math,” said Dooley. “Three litters a year times eight kittens a litter that’s…” He frowned, looking goofy for a moment, then said, “… a heck of a lot of cats!”

“It is,” said Odelia. “And I’d just end up having to bring them to the shelter. And I don’t need to tell you what happens to cats that end up at the animal shelter, do I?”

“They are adopted by loving humans?” Dooley ventured.

“They die, Dooley,” Brutus growled. “They all die.”

Dooley uttered a cry of horror and staggered back a few paces.“No, they don’t!”

“Oh, yes, they do. And then they’re turned into sausages and people eat them!”

“Brutus!” Odelia said. “Don’t scare Dooley.” She gave Dooley a comforting pat on the back. “They’re not turned into sausages. But they’re not adopted, either, I’m afraid. At least not all of them. Though I’m sure a lot of them find warm and loving families.”

“See!” Dooley cried triumphantly. “They’re all placed with their very own Odelias!”

“Thanks,” said Odelia, rising to her feet. “Now about Vena…”

Lucky for us the bell rang at that exact moment, and Gran came rushing in through the glass sliding door, looking like she was about to lay an egg.

“Is he here?!” Gran croaked anxiously. “Is he here?!”

“Is who here?” asked Odelia, moving to the front door.

“The UPS guy, of course!”

Gran is a white-haired little old lady, but even though she looks like sweetness incarnate, she’s quite a pistol.

“See?” asked Dooley, turning to me. “This is what I told you.”

“What did you tell me?” I asked. The morning had already been so traumatizing my mind had actively started to repress the memories.

“About Gran ordering a bunch of stuff online and Marge and Tex having to pay for it.”

Odelia had opened the door and Dooley was right: a pimply teenager in a brown uniform with‘UPS’ on his chest stood before her, a big, bulky package in his hands. “Vesta Muffin?” he asked.

“That’s me!” Gran squealed and darted forward, grabbed the package from the teenager’s hands and ran to the living room with it.

Odelia signed for the package and sent the kid on his way.“What’s going on, Gran?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing,” said Gran, eagerly tearing open the package.

We all gathered around, and since it’s hard to see anything from the floor, we all hopped up onto the chairs to have a good look at this mysterious package.

Gran, licking her lips, finally succeeded in ripping away the packaging, and before us lay three shiny green eggs. Huh.

“Gran,” said Odelia in her warning voice. It’s the voice she likes to use when me or Dooley have been up to no good, which, obviously, practically never happens.

“What?” asked Gran innocently. “I need them. I’m dating again.”

What a bunch of green eggs had to do with dating was beyond me, but, like I said, humans are weird. And in my personal experience no human is weirder than Gran.

“You’re dating again?” asked Odelia. “I thought that after Leo you were done with all of that.”

Leo was a horny old man that Gran used to run around with. We kept bumping into them in the weirdest places, practicing the weirdest positions. All very disturbing.

“Done with dating?” asked Gran indignantly. “Oh, the horror! How can anyone be done with dating? Didn’t anyone ever tell you that sex only gets better with age?”

“Like a fine wine,” said Dooley, though I doubted he knew what he was talking about.

“The only thing that doesn’t improve is my hoo-hee. Which is why I need these.”

“What is a hoo-hee?” asked Dooley innocently.

Odelia blushed slightly.“Nothing you should concern yourself with, Dooley.”

“You don’t know what a hoo-hee is?” asked Gran, raising an eyebrow. “What about hoo-ha? Lady bits? Fine China? Lady garden? Vajayjay?”

Dooley shook his head.“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Gran laughed.“You’re funny, Dooley. Doesn’t ring a bell. I’ll bet it doesn’t ring your bell, but it sure as heck rung Leo’s bell, and there’s plenty of Leos out there.”

“I’ll just bet there are,” Odelia muttered, picking up one of the green eggs. “So how do you use these?” Then she noticed four pairs of cat eyes following her every movement and she put the egg down again. “Never mind. I’m sure I don’t want to know.”

“And I’m sure you do,” said Gran. “If you want to entertain your fellow you need to practice the fine art of the jade egg, honey.”

“Something to do with energy and healing, right?” asked Odelia with a frown.

Gran threw her head back and laughed.“Of course not! It’s all about training those pelvic muscles. You want to get a good grip on your fella’s…” She cast a quick look at Dooley. “… fella. Increase the pleasure—his and yours. Trust me,” she said as she placed one of the green eggs in the palm of Odelia’s hand, “you’ll make your man very, very happy.”

“That happy, huh?” asked Odelia as she rolled the smooth green egg in her hand.

“Happier,” said Gran as she let the other two eggs disappear into the pockets of her dress. She gestured at the box. “Can you let this disappear, honey? Your mom and dad don’t need to know.”

“Wait a minute,” said Odelia. “You’re not going to have this… stuff arrive here from now on, are you?”

“Of course I am. I hate to break it to you, Odelia, but your parents are ageists. They think just because I’m old I’m all shriveled up down there.” She patted her granddaughter on the cheek. “Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact I’m pretty sure I get more nookie than those dried-up old prunes.”

“Hey, that’s my parents you’re talking about.”

“I know, which is why I’m so glad you’re nothing like them. You wouldn’t stand in the way of your grandmother enjoying her golden years, would you?”

“No, but…”

“Of course you wouldn’t.” She gave Odelia a fat wink. “Stick around, kid. You may learn a trick or two from this old dame.”

And with these words, she practically galloped through the sliding door and disappeared into the garden, no doubt eager to start practicing those eggs on her hoo-hee, whatever a hoo-hee was.

For a long moment, silence reigned, then Odelia said,“Right. I think I’ll just put that egg away, shall I?”

“So what is it for, exactly?” asked Harriet.

Odelia produced an awkward smile.“Decorative purposes?”

Harriet narrowed her eyes at her.“A decorative egg is going to make Chase very, very happy?”

“Yes, it will,” Odelia trudged on bravely. “Chase likes a nicely decorated… room.”

She was backtracking towards the staircase, and we all watched her go. Then, suddenly, she turned around and popped up the stairs. We heard her rummage around in her bedroom, a drawer opening and closing. Those drawers contained a lot of funny-looking stuff. Amongst other things, they also contained a small battery-powered rocket, though I had no idea why Odelia would need a pocket rocket in her bedroom.

Moments later, she returned, still that sheepish look on her face.

Humans. They’re just too weird.

Just then, the doorbell rang again.

“More eggs?” asked Harriet acerbically.

But when Odelia went to open the door, it was her uncle. Chief of Police Alec Lip. Like me, Chief Alec is big-boned. And, also like me, he’s a great guy. Always ready with a smile or a kind remark, which makes him real popular with the locals. He wasn’t smiling now, though, and when he opened his mouth to speak, it soon became clear why. “There’s been a murder. A really nasty one.”

Chapter 3

Odelia put the four cats in her old Ford pickup and followed Uncle Alec as he set the course in his police cruiser.

“So who died?” asked Max, who’d crawled up on the passenger seat, as was his habit when there was no one else in the car. No other humans, at least.

“A woman named Donna Bruce,” said Odelia, anxiously peering through the windshield. “She’s the one who sold Gran those green eggs.”

“She’s a farmer?” asked Max.

“No, she’s not a farmer. She’s a former actress who now runs a lifestyle website. A very popular one.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what’s happening in this town. It’s just one murder after another. If this keeps up, no tourists are going to want to come here anymore.”

“Why did Uncle Alec say it was a nasty murder?” asked Dooley from the backseat.

“Because the woman was murdered in a gruesome way.”

She could hear Dooley gulp. Gran’s cat was a sensitive plant when it came to things like murder, and she was starting to wonder if it was such a good idea to bring him along. Max, she knew, could handle himself, and so could Brutus and Harriet. But Dooley was the baby of the cat menagerie, and sometimes got spooked by his own shadow. “Maybe you better wait in the car, Dooley,” she suggested. “While the others snoop around.”

“But I want to snoop around, too,” said Dooley. “I love snooping around.”

She smiled. That was obvious. All her cats loved snooping around, which was why she took them along in the first place. They often talked to other pets, or even pets that belonged to the victims, and had proved invaluable when ferreting out clues.

Her uncle Alec was aware of this unique talent. Chase? Not so much, though by now he was used to this quirky side of her personality. He even thought it was cute. She’d never told him she could communicate with her cats, though, and probably never would. He might not take it too well.

She thought about Chase and a warm and fuzzy feeling spread through her chest. She’d never thought she would fall for the rugged cop but she had. And by the looks of things, he liked her, too, which was a real boon. They even shared a comfortable working relationship now, which was very different from the way things were when they first met. The burly cop, a recent transplant from the NYPD, wasn’t used to nosy reporters investigating a bunch of crimes alongside him. Fortunately she’d quickly proven her worth, and now he was more than happy to allow her to tag along.

As if he’d read her mind, Max asked, “So how are things between you and Chase?”

“Yeah,” Harriet chimed in. “When are you going to get married?”

She saw how Max and Dooley shared a quick look of panic and laughed.“Hold your horses, young lady. Who said anything about me and Chase getting married?”

“It’s all over town,” said Harriet with a shrug. “All the cats are talking about it.”

“Which means all the Hampton Covians are talking about it,” Max said.

That was true enough. The Hampton Cove cat community was like a barometer of the human community. She blushed slightly.“So what are they saying, exactly?”

“Well, that the wedding will take place later this year, though it might be sooner rather than later because the first baby is already underway.” The gorgeous Persian screwed up her face. “What is a shotgun wedding, Odelia?”

Odelia’s blush deepened. “A shotgun wedding? Is that what they’re saying?”

All four cats nodded.“I think it means that everybody brings a shotgun to the wedding,” said Brutus knowingly.

“Don’t be an idiot,” said Max. “Why would anyone bring a shotgun to a wedding? That’s just dumb.”

“Who are you calling dumb, fatso? They’re obviously bringing shotguns to make sure nobody crashes the wedding. Duh.”

“Crashes the wedding?” asked Dooley. “Is that even a thing?”

“Didn’t you see that movie last week?Wedding crashers? Two guys go around crashing weddings and having a blast,” said Brutus.

“Until they fall in love and get married themselves,” said Harriet. “I thought it was the most romantic thing ever. Though I didn’t like that they portrayed Bradley Cooper as such a nasty person. I like Bradley Cooper. He’s so handsome and cute.”

“He’s not that handsome,” said Brutus. “His mouth is too big for his face.”

“It is not. His mouth is just the right size.”

“The right size for what?” scoffed Brutus. “To load a Big Mac in one bite?”

“Listen, you guys,” said Odelia, interrupting this fascinating discussion of Bradley Cooper’s face. “For one thing, Chase and I are not getting married. And for another, I’m not pregnant so there won’t be a shotgun wedding.”

“That’s too bad,” said Harriet, her face falling. “I was looking forward to being a bridesmaid.”

“That’s impossible,” said Max. “Cats can’t be bridesmaids. That’s just preposterous.”

Harriet narrowed her eyes.“What are you saying, Max? That I wouldn’t make a wonderful bridesmaid? For your information, I would be the perfect bridesmaid. I don’t even have to wear a dress. I’m beautiful just the way I am.”

Odelia smiled.“That’s true. And if I ever get married, you guys will all get to come.”

Max groaned.“Do I have to? I hate weddings. Everybody is always crying. Those things are even worse than funerals.”

“People are crying because they’re happy, Max,” said Odelia. “Those are happy tears.”

“I don’t get it,” said the blorange cat. “Why cry when you’re happy? That doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes, it does,” said Harriet. “You wouldn’t understand, though, Max. And that’s because you’re a Neanderthal.”

“No, I’m not,” said Max. “I’m a cat, not a Neanderthal.”

“What’s a Neanderthal?” asked Dooley.

“It’s a kind of old human,” said Max. “With a lot of hair and a big mouth.”

“Like Bradley Cooper,” said Brutus.

“Bradley Cooper is not a Neanderthal!” Harriet snapped. “Bradley Cooper is gorgeous.”

“More gorgeous than me?” asked Brutus, stung.

Harriet’s face softened. “Of course not, cutie pie. Nobody can be more gorgeous than you.”

“Maybeyou should have one of those shotgun weddings,” Max grumbled. “So I can bring a shotgun and shoot myself.”

“We’re here,” said Odelia cheerfully, cutting off all this nonsense about a shotgun wedding. She just hoped those rumors hadn’t reached her mother’s ears. Nobody likes to hear about their daughter’s supposed pregnancy and forced wedding because of gossip. Then again, maybe it was a goodthing. If people thought she and Chase were about to get married, she should probably take it as a compliment. Though the town’s gossip mill was obviously getting a little ahead of itself this time around.

True, there had been a lot of kissing lately, but things hadn’t progressed beyond that. Yet. Did she want them to go beyond that stage? Maybe. Did Chase want to? She had absolutely no idea. Chase was one of those strong, silent types. The ones that don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves. Beyond those kisses they had yet to address whatever it was that was going on between them. Heck, he hadn’t even asked her out. Maybe he never would? Maybe those kisses were just a way of showing his appreciation for all she’d done for the community? Maybe it was an NYPD thing: instead of shaking hands, NYPD cops simply kissed their colleagues. It was definitely not something she’d ever seen onNYPD Blue. Then again, they never showed everything on those shows.

She parked right behind her uncle’s squad car and got out, allowing the four cats to jump from their respective seats.

“Let’s go, guys,” she said. “You know the drill. Talk to witnesses. Try to find out what happened here.”

She watched the cats traipse up to the house and smiled. Her own personal feline detective squad. She wouldn’t know what to do without them.

She watched her uncle take off his sunglasses and take in their surroundings. Donna Bruce had done well for herself, that much was obvious. The house was built in hacienda style, with a low red-tile roof and stuccoed orange outer walls.

“Nice place,” said Uncle Alec admiringly. “Though more like something one would expect in the Hollywood Hills than out here in Hampton Cove.”

“Isn’t Donna originally from Los Angeles?”

“She is. She only moved out here to put some distance between herself and her ex-husband. And because her company is headquartered in New York.”

“This is such a coincidence,” Odelia said as she watched the police activity around the house. Half a dozen squad cars were haphazardly parked on the circular driveway, and an ambulance stood, lights flashing, indicating the coroner was already there.

“What is?” asked her uncle, hoisting his pants over his bulk and patting down his few strands of hair.

“Just this morning a package arrived from donna.vip for your mother.”

Chief Alec closed his eyes.“God, not again. I thought Marge put a stop to that nonsense.”

“What nonsense?”

“Didn’t she tell you? Your grandmother has been ordering those packages for weeks now. She’s addicted to that Donna crap. And the worst part? Your mom has been footing the bill as Vesta doesn’t have a credit card. Marge told me she’s up to five grand now.”

Odelia’s jaw dropped. “Five grand!”

“Yeah, for a bunch of useless stuff. According to Marge she even bought one of those steamers for her, um, well, you know what.”

Odelia frowned.“A vegetable steamer?”

Uncle Alec suddenly looked uncomfortable.“Not exactly. She uses it on her… business.”

“Her business?”

He heaved an exasperated groan.“Her lady parts, all right?”

Odelia smiled.“She bought a vaginal steamer?” Uncle Alec grumbled something under his breath as he stalked off. She hurried to keep up with him. “No wonder Mom is mad. That stuff must cost a fortune.”

“And it’s not as if she needs it,” said her uncle. “I mean, she’s seventy-five, for crying out loud. What does she need a vaginal steamer for?”

“Well, she does have a very active sex life.”

Uncle Alec winced. He directed a pleading look at his niece.“Please, Odelia. I don’t need to hear all that.”

Which was probably why Mom had allowed this buying frenzy to go on as long as it had. Nobody wanted to sit down with Gran and have a serious conversation about her sex life. It wasn’t a topic one simply launched into.

“I’ll talk to Gran,” she promised. “Tell her to ease up on the spending.”

“You do that,” her uncle grumbled.

They walked into the house and Odelia admired her surroundings. Donna Bruce had taste, that much was obvious. The foyer had a homey feel, with its hardwood floors, soft pink wallpaper and white lacquered furniture. And as they progressed into the living room and then the kitchen, she had to admit she wouldn’t mind living in a place like this. Selling jade eggs and vaginal steamers had obviously been very lucrative for the founder of donna.vip.

They reached the spa area, where a small indoor pool awaited them, along with the sauna cabin where Donna’s housekeeper had found the body of her employer that morning.

“You better prepare yourself for a shock,” said Uncle Alec. “It’s not a pretty sight.”

She braced herself and stepped into the sauna. Donna Bruce was lying on the floor, partly covered by a towel, her face swollen beyond recognition. Every part of her body that was visible had suffered the same fate. The woman had literally been stung to death.

She swallowed.“How—how did they get the bees in here?”

Uncle Alec gestured at the fan that was placed in the ceiling.“They reversed the airflow and placed an entire batch of bees on top of it. The little beasties must have been pretty pissed off when they were propelled past the fan’s blades and into this extremely hot environment. They simply attacked the first thing they came into contact with. Which was Donna Bruce.”

“I’m guessing she died from anaphylactic shock,” said the coroner, who was standing in a corner, picking up the body of a dead bee and dumping it into a plastic baggie. Abe Cornwall was a shabbily-dressed man with frizzy gray hair but he was an ace medical examiner. “Though judging from thestate of the body, she might have died from the venom itself. She must have sustained thousands of stings in a matter of minutes.”

“This entire cabin was full of bees when the housekeeper arrived,” Uncle Alec explained. “Thousands and thousands of them.”

“And there’s no question whether this was an accident or not?” asked Odelia.

“No way,” another male voice spoke.

She turned around with a smile, and got a small shock of pleasure when she found herself gazing into the gold-flecked chocolate eyes of Chase Kingsley. He filled the entire doorframe with his muscular physique, and the cabin with his powerful presence.“So it was definitely murder, huh?”

“Definitely,” said Chase with a smile of greeting.

“I’ll let you two kids come up with a theory as to who’s responsible,” said Uncle Alec. “I have to talk to the ex-husband about what to do with the kids.”

“The kids?” asked Odelia.

“Yeah.” Uncle Alec frowned at his notebook. “Sweetums and Honeychild. Good thing they weren’t here when it happened.”

“Oh, those poor babies,” said Odelia.

“Big babies,” said Uncle Alec. “Sweetums and Honeychild are six.” He shook his head. “Who gives their kid a name like that?”

“Donna Bruce,” said Chase, staring down at the victim. He glanced up at the chief. “So am I in charge of this thing, Chief?”

“Yes, you are,” said Chief Alec. “Along with Odelia—in an entirely unofficial capacity, of course.”

Chase gave her a grin.“Looks like the gang is back together, babe.”

She returned his smile.“Yay.”

Chapter 4

“Do you really think Odelia is getting married?” asked Dooley.

I shook my head.“No way. Odelia doesn’t lie. If she was getting married she would have told us. In fact I’m pretty sure we’d be the first to know.”

“But why is everybody saying she’s having this shotgun wedding?”

“People talk, Dooley. You know that and I know that. That’s what they do.”

He thought about this for a moment.“You know, you might be right, Max.”

“Of course I’m right. I’m always right. You should know that by now.”

We were walking around the back of the house. I don’t know what we were hoping to find, but at least something that would shed some light on what had happened here. And if we were really lucky, maybe even an eyewitness account of the murder with a nice description of the murderer. Humans might think they’re pretty smart by avoiding the attention of other humans when they’re out murdering each other, but they never give a second thought to the pets they encounter along the way.

Behind us, Harriet and Brutus were still engaged in their lover’s quarrel.

“I don’t see why you have to go and fall for this Bradley Cooper guy,” Brutus was saying. “Not only does he have the face of a Neanderthal but he’s human! Cats don’t fall for humans. That’s not natural, Harriet. And it’s humiliating for me as your boyfriend.”

“I just like his face,” said Harriet. “Is that so bad? He has a fascinating face.”

“A human face,” Brutus pointed out. “You can’t like a human face, sweet pea.”

“I can, too. You can’t tell me what I can and can’t like, Brutus. I’m a free cat.”

“Oh, is that why you were kissing Max the other day? Huh?”

She rolled her eyes.“Oh, God. Not again! I wasn’t kissing Max. I already told you what happened.”

“Yeah, you stubbed your toe and you tripped and fell and ended up hitting Max’s lips with yours. I know what you told me. I’m just telling you I’m not buying it. Who trips and hits another cat’s lips? That’s just crazy! Besides, why did you keep on kissing him for a full minute after that?”

She heaved an exasperated groan.“Like I said this morning, I thought he was you, sugar lump. Until I discovered he wasn’t and then I stopped.”

Brutus shook his head.“I don’t know, bunny duck. I just don’t know.”

“Oh, buttercup,” she said, taking his head in her paws. “You know I only love you. My very own cuddly daddy.”

At this, Brutus seemed to relent, his scowl melting away like butter on the griddle.“Oh, my snookums,” he purred. “Sweetie cakes.”

“Chocolate bunny.”

“Smoochie poo.”

And then, inevitably, there was smooching. A lot of smooching.

Dooley moaned.“Why do they have to do that right under our noses?!”

“Because they only have eyes for each other, Dooley,” I said. “Wait until you’re in love.”

“I’m never falling in love again,” said Dooley bitterly. “Love is a curse.”

We managed to put some distance between ourselves and the loved-up couple, and a good thing, too. Brutus has this competitive streak. Whenever there is a murder to solve, he wants to solve it first, and he doesn’t care what he has to do to ‘win.’

We’d arrived in the backyard and I raised an eyebrow in admiration. The yard was perfectly maintained, the grass as smooth as a pool table. An actual pool had been installed, with an actual pool house and a nice row of chaise lounges placed right next to it. It all looked very inviting, or it wouldhave if Dooley and I were human. As it was I didn’t care about pools. Not that I’m scared of pools. I just don’t like that they’re full of water. Water is wet.

And that’s when I saw them: two poodles, one brown, one beige, were lying on top of the chaise lounges, their eyes closed, enjoying some R&R.

“I think we might have our first witnesses,” I told Dooley, gesturing with my head to the two mutts.

“Dogs?” asked Dooley. “Why does it always have to be dogs? Why can’t rich people keep cats instead?”

“Because they think dogs are great for keeping the burglars away.”

“Cats keep burglars away,” Dooley argued. “In fact we’re better equipped for the task. We can see in the dark. Dogs can’t. And we have sharp claws. Dogs have those silly excuses for claws.”

“Dogs can bite,” I reminded him. “And they bark.”

“I meow! Have you heard my meow? I meow up a storm.”

“Not exactly the same, Dooley.”

The dogs had spotted us and had curled their upper lips up in a snarl, making that annoying threatening noise at the back of their throats. As if that was supposed to impress us. Puh-lease.

“Hey there, guys,” I said, walking up to the duo. “How’s it hanging?”

“And who are you?” asked the brown poodle, none too friendly.

“My name is Max,” I said by way of introduction. “You may have heard of me. I’m an ace feline detective. And I’m here to solve the murder.”

“Murder? What murder?” asked the beige one.

“The murder of your human? Don’t tell me no one told you.”

“Our human wasn’t murdered,” said the brown one. “She’s just sleeping. In the sauna. Isn’t that right, Rex?”

“That’s right, Rollo. She’s just taking a little nap in the sauna. I just saw her.”

“And I saw her, too.”

“She’s not sleeping,” said Dooley, venturing up with some trepidation. “She’s dead.”

Rex and Rollo shared a look of amusement, then burst out laughing.“No, she’s not,” said Rex. “You silly cat. You’re funny. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that humans have to sleep just like we do?”

“Yeah, and when they sleep they look dead but they aren’t,” Rollo added.

“Look, I’ve had a human since forever,” I said. “So you don’t have to teach me the difference between a dead human and a sleeping human. I know the difference. One is breathing and the other ain’t. And for your information, your human isn’t sleeping—she’s dead.”

“Cats,” said Rex, shaking his head. “They’re a real hoot.”

“Yeah. Think they know it all.”

They placed their chins on their front paws again and stared at us, quickly losing interest.

“So tell me why there are so many cops around?” I said, not giving up.

Rex shrugged.“Donna likes to invite people.”

“Yeah, Donna’s a real people person. Always hosting parties.”

“For the police?” I asked.

“Sure,” said Rollo. “Why not? Police are human, too. They like to party.”

“Only they’re not partying now, are they?” I asked, exasperated. “They’re examining the dead body of your human, trying to figure out who made her that way.”

Rex and Rollo shared another knowing look, then shook their heads with a smirk.“Cats,” Rollo repeated. “You gotta love them.”

“What about the ambulance parked out in front of the house?” Dooley asked.

“Oh, please,” said Rollo, rolling his eyes. “When you have a party, you have to have an ambulance. In case one of the guests suddenly gets sick.”

“Remember that party where all the guests got sick, Rollo?” asked Rex. “Remember that? That was some party.”

“We don’t mention that,” said Rollo sternly. “We never mention that party, Rex. That party never happened.”

“Oh. Right. Totally forgot about that.”

Rollo eyed us critically.“There was never any party where everybody got sick after eating the shrimp. And Donna never sued the caterer. Is that understood, cats?”

“My name is Max,” I reminded him.

“Whatever, cat,” said Rollo. “Now I think you better scram. I don’t remember seeing your name on the guest list. And if Donna finds out you’re trespassing and we’re allowing you, she’ll have something to say about it.”

“Oh, you think we should chase them off the premises, Rollo?” asked Rex.

Rollo thought about this for a moment.“Maybe we’ll just let them off with a warning this time.”

“Great,” said Rex with a smile. “I’m not in the mood for running around anyway.”

“Come on, you guys!” I said. “Your human is dead! You have to snap out of it and help us catch the killer!”

Rollo’s face clouded. “On second thought…”

“Uh-oh,” Dooley muttered.

Rollo turned to Rex.“Rex. You get the fat one. I’ll get the skinny one. Go!”

Good thing for us the dogs had more bark than bite. And more talk than dash. By the time Dooley and I had cleared the pool area, they were still nowhere near catching up with us.

“See?” asked Dooley, slightly out of breath as we hid under Odelia’s pickup. “That’s another advantage us cats have over dogs: we’re a lot faster!”

Or these two idiots were exceptionally slow, I thought as I saw Rex and Rollo appear around the corner and search around stupidly. Then, in perfect unison, they both plunked down on their haunches and started licking their private parts.

“Yuck,” Dooley muttered. “Imagine being the tongue of a dog. Just… yuck.”

“You lick your private parts,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, but I’m a cat. I’m naturally clean. Dogs are just filthy.”

He had a point, of course. Dogsare filthy, and catsare naturally clean.

“So now what?” I asked. “Our only potential witnesses are two dumb-ass dogs.”

“With the emphasis on ass,” said Dooley as he watched Rex and Rollo turn their attention from their private parts to a different, even filthier part of their canine anatomy.

“Let’s just hope Brutus and Harriet have better luck,” I said.

Just then, Brutus and Harriet emerged from inside the house. They were still gabbing away, probably discussing Bradley Cooper’s face and why it was off limits to cats. Rex and Rollo paused from their hygienic pursuit to gawk at the two newcomers.

“Uh-oh,” said Dooley. “Here we go.”

Within seconds, Brutus and Harriet had joined us underneath the car, scared off by those two idiot poodles, who were now sniffing around in the vicinity of the boxwood hedge.

“So? What did you find out?” I asked.

“That Bradley Cooper is the only human who looks good with a beard,” Brutus said morosely.

“Well, he does!” Harriet cried. “That man makes a beard look totally sexy.”

“Because it hides his big mouth!”

“It does not!”

Brutus, Dooley and I shared an agonized groan.“What about the murder?” I asked.

“What about it?” asked Harriet.

“Did you talk to anyone inside? Did Donna Bruce have other pets besides Beavis and Butt-head over there?”

Dooley snickered.“You said butt.”

“For your information, that place is filled with cops,” said Harriet. “So even if there were any pets around, the cops probably scared them off.”

Now it was my turn to place my chin on my front paws. This investigation was not exactly going the way I’d hoped. “So nothing?” I asked.

Harriet remained conspicuously silent.

“At least now we know that Bradley Cooper looks great with a beard,” Dooley offered. “That’s something, right? Right, Max?”

“Oh, Dooley,” I muttered.

Chapter 5

Inside the house, Odelia and Chase sat down with Hillary Davies, who was the CEO of donna.vip. Hillary, a fortysomething woman with short blond hair streaked with gray and a square face, knitted her brows.“I still can’t believe Donna’s dead. That’s just not like her.”

Odelia would have said it wasn’t like anyone to be dead, but she thought she understood. Donna Bruce had apparently been one of those extremely dynamic women, possessing a very strong personality and an iron will to succeed. People like that often seemed indestructible.

She handed the CEO a cup of chamomile tea. Hillary took it gratefully, the cup shaking between her fingers as she put it to her lips.

“How long have you known Donna Bruce?” Odelia asked.

“I started to work for her five years ago, so that’s when our relationship began, though I was a customer way before that. Donna.vip was already an established brand by that time, and Donna felt that in order to expand, she needed to professionalize and hire a CEO. And that’s where I came in.”

“Was she tough to work for?” asked Odelia.

Hillary smiled.“She wasn’t easy to work for, that’s for sure. She was demanding and outspoken. And she definitely didn’t keep her opinions to herself. But she was also generous and eager to give credit where credit was due. She lived for the brand, so if you improved the brand, she considered you a friend.”

“And did you? Improve the brand?” asked Chase.

“Yes, I think I did,” said the woman, tilting her chin. “I took it from twenty million annual gross to two hundred, and I like to believe I played a big part in that expansion. And judging from the bonus Donna paid me last Christmas, I think she knew it too.”

“Did she have any enemies?” Odelia asked.

“Oh, more than I can count on the fingers of my two hands,” said Hillary. “A strong and visible woman like Donna Bruce will always rub a lot of people the wrong way and she was no exception.”

“Can you think of anyone who could have killed her?” asked Chase.

Hillary thought for a moment, touching her lips with her fingers.“Well, there was her ex-husband, of course.”

“Tad Rip,” Chase read from his notes.

“That’s right. He didn’t like it when Donna got sole custody of Sweetums and Honeychild. And he certainly didn’t like it when she called him a drug addict, a drunk and a serial philanderer. Claimed it ruined his reputation.”

“What does he do, this ex-husband?” asked Odelia.

“He’s one of those Silicon Valley tycoons,” said Hillary. “You know the type. Multi-millionaire before the age of twelve and an ego bigger than the state of Alaska. The man was a buffoon, plain and simple, and spent more time bedding his secretaries than trying to make his marriage work.”She leaned forward. “In my opinion the only reason he married Donna was so he could leverage her success to his advantage. A trophy wife on steroids. But Donna wasn’t having it and he paid the price.”

“So you think he might have murdered the mother of his own children?” asked Odelia, surprised.

Hillary pressed her lips together.“You didn’t hear it from me, but the man is a sociopath. Which I guess is a quality that comes in handy when you’re trying to make it to the top of the heap in Silicon Valley.”

Chase smiled.“Sounds to me like you’re not a big fan of Mr. Rip.”

“No, I’m not. The man tried to damage our business, claiming donna.vip was just a silly little whim. Around the time of the divorce there was a hostile takeover attempt I’m sure was instigated by Mr. Rip. Luckily with the help of a few private backers we managed to get it overturned. It’s clear to me Donna’s ex tried to destroy her company out of sheer spite.”

“And now he’s destroyed its owner and founder,” Odelia said softly.

“As I said, you didn’t hear it from me. I’m still the CEO, and it’s a tough world out there. I don’t need this to come back to me.”

“What do you think will happen to the company now that Donna is gone?” Chase asked.

“I have no idea. I just hope she made the necessary arrangements. Many of these business tycoons don’t, thinking they’re immortal. And then when they die the whole thing is taken over by a bunch of bumbling relatives and run into the ground within a year. I hope she didn’t make that mistake.”

They left Hillary to take an urgent business call, and ambled into the kitchen, where the housekeeper, Jackie Laboeuf, was busy preparing breakfast. The sturdily-built woman with the raven-black hair looked up when they entered.

“Hi, Mrs. Laboeuf,” said Chase, producing his badge. “My name is Chase Kingsley and I’m the detective in charge of this case. This is Odelia Poole, civilian consultant to the Hampton Cove Police Department. Can we ask you a few questions?”

The woman sniffed, dabbing a handkerchief the size of a dish towel to her eyes.“Ask away, Detective. The sooner you catch the monster that did this the better. How anyone could hurt Mrs. B is beyond me. The woman was a saint.”

“You were the one who found her?”

“Yes, I’m sorry to say that I was. I come in every morning around eight, to take care of breakfast and organize the household, and usually when I arrive Mrs. B is waiting for me and we sit down to discuss any ongoing things and plan out the rest of the day. But this morning as I let myself in with my key there was no one here. And when I went looking for her, I…” Her voice faltered and she brought the dish towel to her eyes again, then proceeded to loudly blow her nose in it. “I’m sorry. This has all come as a big shock to me.”

“Wasn’t there any security?” asked Odelia.

Jackie shook her head.“Mrs. B fired See-Cure last week. They weren’t up to her usual standards. There had been reporters that had managed to get close to the house, with one even snapping a picture of Mrs. B while she was taking a bath. You may have seen the picture. It was all over the Internet.”

“So she fired the security company but didn’t replace them?”

“She was in talks with one other company operating out of Amagansett, but the contracts hadn’t been signed yet, so the cameras were all switched off and the fence wasn’t hooked up to anything. But we did have the dogs, so Mrs. B wasn’t worried.”

“Right,” said Chase dubiously. “Rex and Rollo. Not exactly guard dogs, are they?”

“They’re pretty good barkers. And they’ll bite anyone they don’t like, especially reporters.”

It was obvious the housekeeper wasn’t fond of reporters, which wasn’t surprising as they hadn’t been kind to Donna Bruce and her website, heaping more scorn on her and her project than praise over the years.

“Do you have any idea who might have done this to her?” asked Odelia.

Jackie Laboeuf shook her head, tears springing to her eyes again.“It might be those reporters,” she said, harping on the same theme.

“But why would a reporter murder Donna Bruce?” asked Chase.

“They hated her,” the housekeeper burst out. “For some reason they just hated her. And is it so hard to believe that one of them just went nuts and killed her? That lot is obviously capable of anything.”

“What about Mrs. Bruce’s ex-husband?” asked Odelia. “Tad Rip?”

Jackie shrugged.“It might have been him. Though why he would kill the mother of his children is beyond me. He might be a douche but he’s not a murdering douche.”

“So you knew Mr. Rip?”

“Of course I knew Mr. Rip. I’ve been working for Mrs. B for coming up on fifteen years now,” she said proudly. “I was here when they brought Sweetums and Honeychild home. Such a happy couple they were back then. You should have seen how proud Mr. Rip was. But that was before he and Mrs. B had a falling-out, of course.”

“Why did they divorce?” asked Odelia.

“Couldn’t keep his hands off his secretaries,” said Jackie with a snort. “She forgave him more than once, but after the fifth or the sixth—I lost count—she kicked him out. Even made sure he never got to see his kids again.” She shook her head. “That was one mean divorce. All fought out in the press, of course.”

“Of course,” said Odelia softly. “What’s going to happen to the kids now?”

“They’ll go and live with their father I suppose,” said Jackie. Then, as the uncertainty of her own fate came home to her, she dissolved into tears again.

When they left the unfortunate housekeeper, she’d just taken out a clean dish towel and was burying her face in it.

“So sad,” Odelia murmured as they stepped into the foyer.

“Yeah, the poor woman was obviously very attached to her employer,” Chase agreed. “Which doesn’t mean we should rule her out as a suspect, of course.”

“A suspect? But why? Why would she kill Donna? She’s not only losing her position but obviously one she was extremely fond of.”

“I don’t know,” said Chase, fiddling with his notebook. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”

There was a commotion outside, and Odelia looked up. The ruckus seemed to come from the front gate, and when they stepped outside, she saw that a group of protesters were marching down the drive in the direction of the house. A few of the police officers tried to head them off, and the end result was a very voluble confrontation.

“Who are those people?” she asked as she watched the scene.

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Chase suggested, and set foot for the altercation.

She followed him reluctantly. She hadn’t come here to get into a brawl with a bunch of protestors. When they came closer, she saw that they were brandishing placards that read, ‘Down With The Wall!’ ‘No To The Wall!’ ‘Don’t Take Away Our Sun!’

“What’s all this?” asked Chase as he addressed what appeared to be the most vocal protestor of the bunch. He was a red-haired red-faced man shouting, ‘Down With The Wall!’ at the top of his lungs, while engaged in a shoving match with two officers.

“They want to have a word with Donna Bruce, sir,” said one of the officers.

“You damn right we want to have a word with Donna Bruce!” the protestor yelled. “She will build her wall over our dead bodies! Do you hear me, cop! Over my dead body!”

He’d gotten right in Chase’s face. Spittle was flying and testosterone was pumping.

“I need you to back off, sir,” said Chase. “This is private property.”

“I don’t care!” yelled the guy. “I want to see Donna and I’m not leaving until I do!”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said Chase, his face reddening.

“And who’s going to stop me, huh? You? You’re all protecting her, aren’t you? The whole lot of you! Well, I’m not taking any more of this crap!”

And with these words, he charged forward, embarking on a mad dash toward the house. But he hadn’t counted on Chase, who uttered a few choice curse words and then chased after the man, tackling him before he’d gone twenty yards.

The protestor, obviously not too well pleased, screamed,“Get off me, you Nazi pig!” and proceeded to hit Chase over the head with his placard. At this, Chase hauled off and hit the man in the eye. “Hey! What did you have to go and do that for?!” said the protestor dumbly, and then promptly collapsed on the ground, out for the count.

Chapter 6

The reenactment ofFight Club had taken us by surprise. Hidden beneath Odelia’s pickup, we’d had a first-row seat to the entire show, from the arrival of the dozen or so protestors to the takedown of the most fiery one of the lot by Chase. The man soon came to, and was tucked into a squad car and shipped off to the police station.

“Wow, did you see that?” asked Brutus. “That was one great punch!”

“Such a violent man,” tsk-tsked Harriet.

“Yeah, good thing Chase was here to take him out,” I said.

“I mean Chase. Who goes and punches an innocent man like that?”

We all stared at the Persian.“Wait, what?” I cried. “Chase is the hero here. Who knows what that dude was up to.”

“All he was doing was exercising his right to protest as stated in the Constitution.”

“Right to protest? He was charging the house!”

“With a placard as a weapon,” said Harriet. “Big threat.”

“Well, he still had no right to be here. This is private property and he was trespassing.”

“We are trespassing on private property,” Harriet argued. “Nobody ever gave us permission to be here, so technically we’re in violation too. But you don’t see Chase punching our lights out, do you?”

“That’s because we’re here with Odelia,” I pointed out. “So we’re not trespassing at all. We’re part of the police effort to find the killer of the owner of this private property.”

Harriet studied her nails.“You can argue all you want, Max, but the fact remains that Chase just punched a man and now I’m seeing him in an entirely different light.”

“In a great, wonderful light,” I said. “In the light of heroism! He saved us from crazy protestor guy.”

“The man has a violent streak and I for one think Odelia should be warned.”

“He doesnot have a violent streak! He was protecting us!”

“From a placard,” said Harriet skeptically.

“I think Harriet is right,” said Dooley.

I wheeled around.“What?!”

“Chase had no reason to punch that man. He could have simply pointed out to him in a firm voice that he was trespassing and kindly have requested him to leave.”

“He did! And the guy called him a Nazi pig!”

“Well, I’m sure it’s all one big misunderstanding,” said Dooley vaguely, directing a keen look at Harriet. Then it dawned on me. He was simply trying to get in good with the feisty white cat. Nice! My best friend was openly disagreeing with me so he could score points with Harriet. Great going, Dooley.

Just then, Odelia approached, glanced around, and then whispered,“Max! Dooley! Where are you guys?”

It was our cue and we emerged from beneath the vehicle, but not before taking a look around to ascertain whether Rex and Rollo were gone. They were.

“What were you all doing underneath the car?” asked Odelia with an expression of surprise on her face.

“Oh, just holding an emergency meeting,” I said. “Us cats like to hold our meetings under cars. It seems to stimulate our creativity for some reason.”

“Yeah, must be the presence of all that oil and grease,” said Brutus a little pompously. “Oils the creative processes, it does.”

Dooley was rubbing his shoulder where Brutus had just punched him. The big cat had taken a dim view of Dooley’s efforts to get in good with his girlfriend and had shown him what he felt about that. As a consequence, Harriet was seeing her beau in an entirely new light as well, for she said, “Why did you punch Dooley, Brutus? That was uncalled for and absolutely unnecessary.”

“I, um…” the black cat began.

“You’re just as bad as Chase Kingsley,” Harriet said with a shake of the head, and then hopped into the pickup, following Odelia’s example.

We all filed in after her.“Who was that man Chase knocked out?” asked Harriet.

“Oh, just some protestor,” said Odelia, buckling up. She turned to us. “So? What did you guys find out?”

“That Donna Bruce had a very bad taste in pets,” I said, and told her about our unproductive encounter with Rex and Rollo.

“And that Chase Kingsley is a very violent man,” said Harriet primly.

“And that Bradley Cooper looks great with a beard,” Dooley added, earning himself a smile from Harriet and a scowl from Brutus.

Ignoring the remark about Bradley Cooper, Odelia asked,“Why do you think Chase is a violent man, Harriet?”

“Did you not see how he simply knocked out an innocent bystander, absolutely unprovoked? I think it raises all kinds of issues, Odelia. One of which is that the man is obviously completely out of control.”

“I think you’ve got that wrong, Harriet,” said Odelia to my surprise. “Chase was hit over the head by the man. All he did was retaliate.”

“See?” I asked triumphantly. “Chase had every right to knock that guy’s block off.”

“I still think it was uncalled for and very, very rude,” Harriet insisted. “And it shows a side of the man’s character that I’d never seen before.”

“I think it was heroic,” I said. “He obviously was trying to protect Odelia.”

“Who was in no danger whatsoever,” Harriet countered.

“She was. The man is a menace. Someone had to take him down and Chase did.”

“I think Harriet is right,” Dooley piped up, gulping slightly when Brutus gave him one of his trademark scowls again. “And it’s all in the Constitution and all that…” His voice died away.

Odelia, clearly not in the mood for this conversation, said,“Look, I need you to focus on finding Donna Bruce’s killer, not comment on Chase’s alleged violent tendencies. Are you going to help me or not? If not, that’s fine with me. I’ll just drop you off at the house and you can continue this pointless discussion indefinitely.”

“Oh, no, we are going to help you,” I said quickly. “I mean, I am going to help you.”

“Me, too,” said Brutus. “In fact I’m pretty sure I already know who the killer is. I just need some time to come up with the evidence that will tie this case together.”

I eyed him dubiously. I was pretty sure he had no clue who the killer was.

“And I also have a pretty good idea who did it,” said Harriet primly.

“Me too,” Dooley said weakly. “I’m sure I have a great idea who killed…”

“Donna Bruce,” I said helpfully.

“Exactly,” Dooley said.

Odelia eyed us with a glint of humor in her eye.“So you all know who the killer is, huh? So when are you going to tell me?” We all started talking simultaneously, and she held up her hands in a bid to silence us. “You need to work together on this, you guys.”

“I cannot in all good conscience collaborate with anyone who condones violence,” said Harriet, directing a critical eye at me and Brutus. “That is simply out of the question.”

“Me either,” said Dooley. “I don’t violently condone a conscience. Absolutely not.”

“Right,” said Odelia with a slight grin. “Looks like the allegiances have shifted again. So what I’ll do is appoint a lead investigator in this case. He or she will be the one who takes the lead and who will bring this case to a close.”

I frowned. What was she talking about? I was her main cat. Always had been. She was my human, after all. Harriet belonged to Marge. Dooley belonged to Vesta. Brutus belonged to Chase. I was the only one who belonged to her. So technically I was the only lead investigator in any case she was involved in. But she ignored my studious frown.

“And I’m picking Harriet,” she finally said after a moment’s deliberation.

Dooley, Brutus and I all exclaimed“What?!!!”

“Yes, I think Harriet is going to be great,” said Odelia with a smile.

Harriet was beaming.“Oh, Odelia, you won’t regret this!” she exclaimed. “I’m going to catch this killer for you!”

“I know you will, honey,” said Odelia. “The rest of you guys can just sit this one out, all right? Harriet is going to catch this killer all by herself.” And with these words, she turned to the front again and started up the car. It rumbled to life with a throaty purr.

Harriet’s smile waned a little. “Wait, what?”

“You’re on your own, honey,” said Odelia. “Max, Dooley and Brutus are out.”

“But…” Harriet frowned, thinking this through. “You mean I have to do this all by myself?”

Odelia glanced over her shoulder.“Is that a problem?”

“No!” Harriet was quick to say. “No, I—I can do this. Of course I can.”

“That’s what I thought. In fact, now that I come to think of it, Chase and I will sit this one out as well. Chase is entirely too violent—you got that right. And I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, as usual.” She sighed. “So I guess it’s all up to you, honey.”

Harriet’s lips moved wordlessly, as panic was clear in her eyes. “All up to me,” she echoed.

“Yep. Good thing you’re up to the task, or else I’d be worried if I was one of Donna Bruce’s relatives. Or, God forbid, Sweetums or Honeychild. I’m sure they want to know what happened to their mother, poor kids.”

The distinct look of panic in Harriet’s eyes had increased. Then, suddenly, she cried out, “Don’t do it!”

Odelia frowned.“Don’t do what, honey?”

“Don’t let me do this by myself! I’m—I’m not up to the task! I—I wouldn’t know where to begin. Let’s…” She directed a pleading glance in my direction. “Let’s all do this together. As a team. Just the way we always do. Please, Odelia?”

Odelia thought about this for a moment.“But I thought you said Brutus was entirely too violent? And so was Max? And, for that matter, Chase? I got the distinct impression you thought you could handle this all on your own, without any help from anyone?”

“No, I can’t! I’m sorry! I was just—I was just—I don’t know what I was thinking! All I know is that I can’t do this without you guys. Brutus—Dooley—Max. We’re a team, right? We make a great team.”

Odelia smiled.“I’m glad you think so, Harriet. So… are you sure you don’t want to do this all by yourself?”

“No, I don’t!”

Odelia shrugged.“Okay, then. I guess we’re all on board again.”

“Yay!” Harriet squealed, doing a happy dance on the backseat.

Odelia locked eyes with me and gave me a wink. I returned it with relish.

My human, people. She’s the greatest.

“So from now on Harriet is in charge. You will all follow her lead,” Odelia said, and drove off.

My human. She’s completely nuts!

Chapter 7

After dropping off the cats at the house, Odelia headed for the police station, to assist Chase while he interviewed the man they’d arrested outside the Donna Bruce residence. Judging from his behavior he was now the prime suspect in the murder of the celebrity lifestyle guru.

She parked in front of the station house and got out. There were a bunch of reporters camped out in front of the squat building, and she wondered if this was going to pose a problem for the investigation. When celebrities were murdered, the accompanying attention sometimes worked disruptive, pushing the people in charge of the investigation to make rash decisions they wouldn’t otherwise make. Then again, this was Chase Kingsley. He wasn’t the kind of guy to allow emotion to trump reason.

She hiked her purse up her shoulder and headed inside, keeping her head down as the reporters studied her curiously, probably wondering if and how she was connected to the case. Fortunately for her, she had one of those unremarkable faces that easily get lost in the crowd, so they quickly dismissed her and went about their business of interviewing each other on camera.

She waved a greeting at Dolores, the big-haired receptionist manning the front desk, and made her way to her uncle’s office at the end of the hallway. When she swept inside, Chase was pacing the room, looking slightly agitated, while her uncle was seated at his desk, his feet up, hands behind his head, the picture of calm and poise.

“I’m telling you, Chief, this is our guy. He’s obviously bearing a grudge, he was at the scene, and he is as hostile and aggressive as they come. Now all we have to do is establish means and opportunity and we’re home free. Oh, hey, Odelia. We were just discussing the arrest of Alpin Carr?.”

“The guy who hit you over the head with his placard.”

Chase’s jaw worked. “That’s the one.”

She took a seat in front of her uncle.“So you think he might be our guy?”

“I’m ninety-five percent positive.”

“And I’m not,” said Uncle Alec. “I know Alpin, Chase. He might be a hothead but he’s not a killer. Heck, the guy is a publisher. And a very successful one at that. Publishes these books about angels and the healing power of crystals and stuff like that.”

“Healing power of crystals? “

“Yeah, he had a real bestseller last year withThe Shed. I don’t know if you’ve heard about it. Everybody was reading it.”

“The book about the guy who finds God while sitting alone in his shed?”

Uncle Alec nodded.“They’re turning it into a movie starring Chris Pratt. I think they tapped George Clooney to play the voice of God.”

“Great choice,” said Odelia. If God had a voice it would be Clooney’s. Though in this day and age of gender equality and feminism, maybe Meryl Streep was the more politically correct option.

Chase made a slashing motion with his hand.“Look, I don’t care if the guy can walk on water. He’s clearly unhinged, so in my book he’s our prime suspect.”

“What about the ex-husband?” asked Odelia. “Hillary Davies seemed pretty sure he was the one.” She turned to her uncle. “Is he in town?”

Uncle Alec nodded.“Yes, he is. He recently moved to the Hamptons in an effort to see more of his kids. Though I’m not sure if his ex-wife was all that happy about it.”

“Why don’t we interview the placard swinger first and then look into the ex-husband?”

“I already set up an appointment,” said her uncle. “You’ll see him this afternoon. And now you better interview Alpin before he talks God into rescuing him from his cell.” He gave Odelia a wink. “Or talks to his lawyer, which is more likely.”

They both sat down in front of the irate publisher, who sat shackled to the table in the interview room. His hair was mussed and he was sporting a bloody nose and a black eye but otherwise appeared to have calmed down considerably since his run-in with Chase’s fist.

“Look, I can’t be in here,” he said the moment Odelia and Chase walked in. “I have meetings to attend—plus, I have to take my daughter to her ballet lesson and my son to his little league game—I’m also the trainer, you see, so I can’t afford to be late. A dozen kids are counting on me.”

“You should have thought of that before you assaulted a police officer,” said Chase gravely.

“I—I wasn’t thinking, okay?” asked the guy, running a hand through his red mane. “I just wanted to talk to Donna. She’s been fighting us on this wall issue for months and frankly I’m fed up.”

“What’s the story behind this wall?” asked Odelia.

Alpin sighed.“About a year ago Donna filed the necessary paperwork to build an extension on the west side of her current property, adjacent to mine. At first all she wanted was to build a gazebo, which was fine by me, even though it would have been right next to my pool. So I called her and asked her if she was going to throw parties at this gazebo or what? She said she was building it as a temple of solitude—a place for her to meditate in peace and quiet. So I gave her my blessing and said to knock herself out. Only she must have realized she wasn’t going to get a lot of peace and quiet if she was building this temple of solitude twenty yards from my pool, so she filed new plans, which included a twenty-foot wall!”

“That’s… high,” said Odelia.

The man scoffed,“You don’t say! That monstrosity was going to block out my sun. Right next to my pool! And then she came up with a plan to extend this wall all around her property, which would affect not just me but two of her other neighbors as well. And to make matters worse she was also going to cut an access road that is used by pretty much the entire neighborhood. So as you can imagine, the neighborhood association wasn’t too happy about this.”

“Did you try and talk her out of it?”

“Yes, I did. We all did. We organized a meet, but she never showed up. Instead, she sent her lawyer, who said we didn’t have a leg to stand on and that her client was adamant to go through with her plans regardless our protestations.”

“What did the council say?”

“Apparently they were all big fans of Donna’s cause they told us she had every right to put in place measures that would increase her sense of safety and security. There had been several threats made against the lady’s life and she was forced to tighten security measures.” He held up his hand. “Which I totally understand. But not at the expense of the entire neighborhood. I’m sure that if we could have sat down with Donna and talked things through, we could have made her see reason. Instead she chose to bulldoze her plans through and shove them down our throats!”

“And you weren’t having it.”

“Damn straight we weren’t having it!”

“So you killed her,” said Chase.

The man’s face morphed into an expression of shock. “Killed her?!”

“At seven o’clock this morning you attacked Donna Bruce and murdered her.”

“Murdered her! Donna was… murdered?!”

“Oh, come off it, Mr. Carr?. You know very well what happened. You were there.”

“No, I wasn’t! I—I didn’t even know she was dead.”

“Why did you think the police were at the scene?”

The man’s jaw had dropped and he hitched it up with some effort. “I just figured you were there to protect her from… us.”

“Where were you this morning at seven, Mr. Carr??”

“I was home, preparing for the demonstration. Just ask my neighbors. We were putting together…” He cut a quick look to Chase. “… placards.”

Chase rubbed his head where the placard had struck and gave the other man a dirty look.“Are you sure you didn’t sneak out at some point to lock Mrs. Bruce up inside her sauna cabin and unleash a bunch of bees on her?”

“Bees? Of course not. Where would I get a bunch of bees?”

“At the bee farm.”

“Look,” he said, licking his lips nervously. “Talk to my neighbors. Or my wife, for that matter. I was right there—up at the crack of dawn, on the phone with the other guys, and we all met at six to start preparations for the demonstration. We weren’t going to let Donna pull a fast one onus. We were going to take this thing to court if we had to. I still hoped she would listen to reason once she realized she was antagonizing the entire neighborhood. But I swear to God, I would never kill her!”

“Do you have any idea who would have?” asked Odelia.

He thought for a moment.“Well, like I said, death threats had been made against her.”

“Any idea who made them?”

“There was this producer whose career she ruined. Um, what’s his name…” He snapped his fingers, then his face cleared. “Ransom Montll?. I remember because his name came up when we were in talks to turnThe Shed into a motion picture. The guy’s a washout, though. Nobody will work with him. And he’s got Donna Bruce to thank for that.”

“So it’s true thatThe Shed is going to be a movie?”

The man smiled for the first time.“I’m afraid I can’t discuss the particulars but so far it’s looking pretty good.”

“And George Clooney is attached to play God?”

His smile widened.“I cannot confirm or deny anything.”

Chase made a sound of disgust and got up.“Please don’t leave town, Mr. Carr?. We’re not through with you yet.”

“Look, I’m sorry, all right?” the publisher said, holding up a hand in a gesture of appeasement. “I’m not normally a violent man, but Donna had us with our backs against the wall—no pun intended. We were just trying to protect the neighborhood. I’m sorry about your head, dude.”

“That’s all right,” Odelia said. “Chase has a thick skull. I’m sure you didn’t even make a dent.”

Chase made a growling sound at the back of his throat, and Odelia decided that perhaps it would be best not to poke the bear. So she also got up and thanked Alpin Carr? for his time. The man frowned. “So… am I under arrest here or what?”

“Yes,” said Chase.

“No,” said Odelia.

The publisher looked from one to the other.“Um, so what is it?”

Chase threw up his hands and walked out. Odelia gave Alpin her best smile.“You’re free to go, Mr. Carr?. But if I could make a suggestion, maybe next time try not to hit a cop. They don’t like it.”

He returned her smile.“You are by far the nicest cop I’ve ever met.”

“Oh, but I’m not a cop. I’m just a consultant.”

“That explains everything,” he said, and shook her hand warmly. “Seriously, though. Look into Ransom Montll?. The guy had a serious grudge against Donna.”

“Even more than you?”

“I might hold a grudge but I would never kill a person.”

“And Ransom Montll? would?”

“Well, the guy was a green beret. He’s got the skills.”

“How come you know so much about him?”

“He used to live two doors down from me. But that was before Donna came into his life.”

Chapter 8

We were finally on our way to Vena Aleman. Me and Dooley had fought Odelia tooth and claw, but there was no use. We were going to the vet no matter what. At least Brutus and Harriet had been saved—for now. They were going next week, as Vena was too busy to see four cats at once. But for Dooley and I there was no reprieve.

On the drive over, we discussed the case. When Odelia mentioned the producer and the publisher and the ex-husband who had it in for Donna, I thought it was starting to look like Donna Bruce was one of those people who had rubbed everyone the wrong way and had made a lot of enemies on her way to the top.

“So either one of them could have done it?” I asked.

“Well, except for the publisher. Chase talked to some of the neighbors and they all swear up and down that Alpin couldn’t have done it.”

“What about the bees?” I asked. “How did they get the bees?”

“Good question,” said Odelia, unhurriedly steering the pickup out of town. “The beekeeper the bees were stolen from had equipped his hives with a GPS tracker. So when he got the message one of his hives was on the move, he immediately contacted the police. This happened around six this morning. He found his pallet discarded behind Donna’s house, the bees in the sauna cabin—at least the ones that survived.”

“Did he get his bees back?” asked Dooley, sounding worried.

“Yes, he did. Though a lot of them died. When a bee stings they usually don’t survive the sting. And the heat of the sauna didn’t do much for their wellbeing either.”

“But who would do such a thing?” asked Dooley, aghast. “To harm those innocent creatures like that?”

Odelia shook her head.“No idea, Dooley. But whoever it was, they must have had some knowledge about handling bees. At least that’s what the beekeeper told Chase.”

I thought about this for a moment.“Do you think there’s a significance to this? I mean, why not simply shoot the woman, or hit her over the head with a mallet? Why go to all the trouble of stealing a bunch of bees—”

“More like thousands of bees,” Odelia interjected.

“—and running the risk of being found before you can carry out your plan?”

She smiled.“And that’s why I want the four of you to work together. You all bring something unique and special to this investigation.”

“So you agree Harriet wouldn’t be able to handle this on her own?”

“None of us can handle this on our own, Max. Though I would like you to give Harriet a chance. Let her run with this for a while. See where it takes you guys.”

I frowned. This wasn’t what I’d wanted to hear. “But I’m in charge, right? I’m the one who takes the lead.”

“Not this time. Harriet is going to be running point,” Odelia said. “And you follow her lead. I want to see where she will take the investigation.”

“But I thought you said she couldn’t do this on her own.”

“She can’t. She needs you, Max—and Dooley, of course. I want you to work as a team. Can you do that for me?”

“I suppose,” I said reluctantly. “But I still don’t see—”

“Harriet needs you, Max. She needs your intelligence and your skill. The thing is, I want to see her blossom. Reach her full potential. Harriet has a lot to offer. But, like I said, she can’t do this all by herself. And that’s where you come in. You and Dooley.”

“Me, too?” asked Dooley, delighted.

“Of course! You guys are my A team. My main sleuths.”