efe24af1849d5822a0fb0e585c983840

“But don’t you see? Bob didn’t want a relationship. He just wanted a payday. Quick and easy. Couple of dates and bingo—seventy-five thousand in his pocket.”

“Can you prove that he was after her money? Or is this just a hunch?”

“A hunch, mainly. But, like I said, I’m the people person in my family. And my hunches are usually correct.”

“Except when you met Bob,” said Chase.

“Yeah, my radar was way off base. Which just goes to show Bob was a real pro. He must have done this kind of thing before.”

“Tell us about the kidnapping. Do you think he sent those messages to Evelina?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Well, I don’t know for sure, but if I were being kidnapped, and my life was in danger, I don’t think I’d be smiling and looking as calm and collected as Bob did in that video.”

“You saw the video.”

“Evelina showed it to me. I told her to go to the police. That the whole thing was a setup. But she refused. She said that if I was wrong and something happened to Bob, she would never forgive herself.”

“She’d really fallen for him, hadn’t she?” said Odelia.

“Yeah, she had,” Emma confirmed. “She was convinced he loved her. The night before he was taken he said he had something important to tell her. More specifically, something important to give her. So she figured it was probably an engagement ring.”

“She thought he was about to propose.”

Emma nodded.“So she refused to go the police, and insisted on paying the ransom money, just like they asked her to.”

“Were you there when she dropped off the money?”

“I was. We drove out there together. The kidnappers—or Bob himself—had told her to put the money in a plastic bag and tape it off with heavy-duty sealing tape. Like plumbers use? To make sure the bag was completely waterproof. And then to drop it in the McMillan Street canal lock. So we did. Bob probably fished out the bag later.”

“You didn’t notice anything?” asked Chase. “Anyone watching? Anything suspicious?”

“Nothing. It was the middle of the night, and there wasn’t anyone around as far as I could tell. But they must have been watching us and come out as soon as we left.”

“You didn’t stick around to see who picked up the money?”

“No, that wasn’t part of the instructions. We were to drop off the money and immediately drive off again. So even if we’d stayed, they wouldn’t have shown their faces.”

“When you heard that Bob had died, what did you think?” asked Odelia.

Emma heaved a deep sigh.“My first thought? I just figured he must have gotten into a fight with the other crooks about how to divide the money and so they shot him.”

Chapter 24

That night the mood at Casa Poole was quite a few degrees below zero. And not just at Odelia’s little home but that of Marge, too. Odelia was still sad that her cats had bluntly refused to come to her wedding, and Marge… Well, Marge apparently was unhappy that Tex had tried to cheat on her!

I must say it came as a big surprise to me when the news broke of Tex’s infidelity, and so when a family meeting was called, by none other than Gran, of all people, we all felt a little shocked, to be honest.

Tex. Cheating on Marge? On the eve of his daughter’s wedding? No way!

“Look, I think we need to make something very clear,” said Gran at the start of the meeting, which was taking place in Odelia’s living room, presumably chosen as the proverbial neutral ground in this case, the entire family seated around the big living room table. “Tex never planned to cheat on you, Marge. And if he’s guilty of anything, it is of being too naive and kindhearted for his own good.”

“Oh, Ma, it’s no use,” said Marge. “I know what happened. He admitted it!”

“Nevertheless, let’s reiterate the facts. Fact one. Evelina’s sister Emma Bezel, n?e Pytel, convinces Tex to take Evelina out on a date, claiming the woman is suicidal after being stood up by Bob Rector. Fact two. Emma neglects to inform Tex that Bob was in fact kidnapped and subsequently killed. I talked to Emma and she admits she withheld this information on purpose, figuring the kidnapping and murder business would scare off the good doctor.” She turned to Tex. “Emma conveys her apologies, by the way, also about the fact that Evelina stood you up.”

“Evelina stood me up?” asked Tex, much surprised.

“You didn’t notice because Scarlett and I broke up your date. But yeah, she stood you up.”

“But… why?”

“When Emma informed her she was about to go on a date with you, Evelina said the last person in the world she intended to date was her own doctor. Her exact words were that she found the whole thing ‘extremely icky.’”

“Icky,” murmured Tex, looking a little stricken.

“It’s obvious youwanted to date Evelina,” said Marge. “Just look at you. You’re disappointed she stood you up!”

“I’m not disappointed—just surprised,” said Tex.

“The point I’m trying to make here,” said Gran, “is that your husband’s intentions were good, Marge. In fact your husband’s intentions were as pure as the driven snow. He thought he was doing a good thing!”

“Are you seriously taking Tex’s side against your own daughter?”

“There are no sides in this case.” She placed a hand on her son-in-law’s arm, and said, “I know I don’t always see eye to eye with you, Tex, but I can honestly say that you’re probably the best son-in-law any woman could ever hope to get. In fact I don’t think any woman could have wished for a better husband for her daughter than you. Consider the proof: Tex hears that one of his patients is suicidal after her boyfriend dumped her—ghosted her, in fact. So out of the goodness of his heart he accepts to take her out a couple of times, so she’ll discover that not all men are scoundrels. That there is still goodness in this world, so that she can begin to feel hope again and forget about her plans to end her own life. Aren’t those the actions of a good and kind man? A man whose humanity is legendary?”

“But—”

Gran held up her hand. She hadn’t finished her opening statement for the defense yet. “That’s the kind of man Tex is. A good man through and through. And did he consider having an affair? Of course not! Never! He wouldn’t dream of having an affair!”

“But I—”

“All he wanted was to be there for his patient in her hour of need. You would have done the same thing if a library client had their library card stolen and you wanted to make them feel good about the world and life in general again, wouldn’t you?”

“But I don’t—”

“Of course you would! This man is a saint. A hero. A white knight—whiter than white! A shining example to us all! And if you really think I’m going to stand idly by while you try to besmirch his reputation (which is absolutely golden—golden!) you’ve got another thing coming, young lady!” And to add emphasis to her words, she pounded the table with a soup spoon—presumably in lieu of a gavel.

“What a speech,” Brutus murmured next to me.

“Yeah, Gran should have been a politician,” I said.

“Or a defense attorney.”

“What’s to besmirch, Max?” asked Dooley.

“To sully,” I said.

“What’s to sully, Max?”

“To tarnish.”

“What’s to tarnish, Max?”

“Oh, Dooley,” I sighed.

“So I besiege you, Marge,” said Gran. “Please give this man another chance.”

“But, Ma!” said Marge.

“Give. This. Man. Another. Chance, I tell you!” She pounded the table with her soup spoon, emphasizing every word.

“Can I say something?”

“No, you can’t.”

“I just don’t think…”

“Objection, your honor! Hearsay!”

“Overruled,” Brutus muttered, clearly enjoying himself.

Marge, who looked a little teary-eyed I thought, turned to the defendant.“Did you really just want to make Evelina Pytel feel good about herself again, Tex?” she asked.

“Yes. Yes, I did,” said Tex. “And I know now that it was a stupid, stupid idea, and I should have told you all about it the moment Emma Bezel suggested her cockamamie plan to me.”

“It sounded like a good idea at the time,” said Gran. “Like a knight of old, Tex flew on winged feet to aid and comfort a damsel in distress. Pretty obvious that he is the Sir Galahad of our time. Or the Jimmy Stewart.”

For a moment, no one spoke, as Marge seemed on the verge of attacking her husband. Instead, though, she sobbed,“Oh, Tex,” and dove into the man’s arms!

“Oh, Marge,” Tex said, his voice tremulous.

“I’m sorry for doubting you,” said Marge.

“And I’m sorry I embarked on this crazy scheme,” he said.

Odelia’s eyes were moist, Gran was beaming, Chase was grinning. Even Uncle Alec was blinking away a tear.

“I think this calls for a celebration,” said Gran. “One marriage saved, and another one about to get going.”

“I don’t know about that, Gran,” said Odelia.

“What don’t you know?” said Gran as she stared at her granddaughter.

Odelia hesitated, then shook her head, and suddenly broke into tears—again! And before anyone could stop her, she shoved back her chair, which clattered to the floor, hurried in the direction of the staircase, and moments later she was stomping up the stairs. We heard a door slam upstairs and Odelia’s dramatic exit was complete.

“She’s sad because we’re not coming to the wedding,” I told Gran and Marge, who both looked stupefied.

“What did he say?” asked Chase.

“That Odelia is sad because the cats are not coming to the wedding,” said Marge. “Is this true? Why aren’t you guys coming to the wedding?”

“It’s going to be complete pandemonium,” said Harriet. “Seven hundred people and counting. Big screens outside the church. Rock concert atmosphere. Cats don’t like rock concerts, Marge. We don’t like the prospect of being trampled underfoot.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but we all think it’s for the best.”

“This is silly,” said Gran. “We can very easily place you guys at the front of the church, right next to the altar. No one will trample you there. And I’m sure Father Reilly won’t mind having some company while he does his thing.”

We all shared a look, and Harriet said,“I hadn’t thought of that. Gran is right. Plenty of space out in front.”

“We’re not coming to the reception, though,” I said.

“Or the wedding dinner,” Harriet added.

“Or the party,” said Dooley.

“Yeah, we’re putting our paw down on that,” Brutus said.

“No, of course,” said Gran. “Absolutely.” She turned to her daughter. “We better go and talk to Odelia, Marge,” she suggested. “The poor thing is all worked up over nothing.”

And both women mounted the stairs, in search of the discombobulated bride.

And thus ended the family meeting-slash-intervention, leaving one marriage happily saved, and a future marriage almost rescued. Not a bad result for an evening’s work!

Chapter 25

Marge and Gran found Odelia in her room, seated on the bed and staring before her with unseeing eyes. She did not look happy.

So her mom took a seat on one side, and Gran on the other, and both started talking simultaneously to get their daughter/granddaughter out of her pre-wedding funk.

“The cats have conceded,” said Gran. “It’s only natural to feel like this,” said Marge.

Marge and her mom shared a look, then started again.

“Your sweethearts are coming to the wedding,” said Gran. “Don’t feel bad,” said Mom.

Another pause.

“Look, if we’re going to do this I think we need to lay down some ground rules,” said Gran. “Either you talk or I talk. So what’s it going to be?”

“You start,” said Mom.

“The cats have decided that they can be at the wedding after all,” said Gran. “They’ll sit in front, right next to the altar, and join Father Reilly while he gives you his blessing. That way they won’t be trampled and you can enjoy your wedding safe in the knowledge that your precious furbabies are right there with you. Now how does that sound, mh?”

“Terrible!” Odelia cried, and buried her face in her hands and started bawling.

“But honey,” said Mom, placing an arm around her. “What’s so terrible about it?”

“Mom, I don’t want to come to my own wedding. How horrible is that? I don’t want to stand there in front of eight hundred people, not able to enjoy the most beautiful day of my life!”

“Eight hundred people?” said Gran. “Surely you’re exaggerating.”

Just then, Odelia’s phone chimed ten times in quick succession.

Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding.

She pointed at the device from hell.“Ten more people who are RSVPing, even though they weren’t even invited. That takes it up to eight hundred and ten—and counting!”

Gran frowned at her daughter.“Did you send out eight hundred invitations?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Mom. “But people keep calling and asking to join the happy occasion, and who am I to disappoint them?”

“But eight hundred people!” said Gran.

“It’s too much!” Odelia wailed. “If this keeps up there will be a thousand, or two thousand, or even three thousand, and it’s going to be complete pandemonium!”

“Honey, honey,” said Mom, “it’s not going to be pandemonium. It’s just going to be…”

“Too damn much,” said Gran.

“Look, can you take me off the list?” said Odelia. “You can go and have the wedding, but I don’t want to come. I’ll just stay in bed and Netflix. Me and Chase together.”

“Chase isn’t happy with this either?” said Gran.

“Not really. He’s just going along with it for my sake. But I can tell he thinks the whole thing’s gotten way out of hand.”

“I just thought you’d be happy celebrating with all of our friends and family present,” said Mom, looking a little flustered.

“I thought I was OK with it,” said Odelia, “but now I’m not so sure.”

Ding ding ding din ding ding ding ding ding

“Can’t you turn that thing off?” asked Gran.

“Not until after the wedding,” said Odelia.

Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding

“I think something is wrong with it,” said Mom.

“Nothing’s wrong. Just people wondering why they weren’t invited. Or why their grandmother wasn’t invited. Or their cousins, or aunts and uncles. Or their friends. And how can I say no when they tell me to put them on the list? I don’t have the heart to say nooo-hooo-hoooooo!” She’d collapsed into sobs again.

“Give me the damn phone,” said Gran, and before Odelia could stop her, she had grabbed the gadget. “Buzz of, buzz off, buzz off, buzz off,” she murmured as she typed. Lucky for her reputation Odelia managed to snatch her phone back from her grandmother’s grasp.

“Hey! I was solving your problem for you!”

“You’re not helping, Gran! I still have to live in this town. I still have to do my job. If I start pissing people off now where does that get me? Nowhere!”

“But we can’t possibly cater to thousands of people, honey. We’re not the Kardashians. We’re not millionaires. Who’s going to pay for all this?”

Both Gran and Odelia’s eyes turned to Marge, who had promised to pay for the wedding. Marge’s eyes went wide when she realized what all thisDing Ding Ding really meant for her bank account.

“Oh, no!” she said, and slapped a hand to her face.

“Oh, yes,” said Gran, grim.

“This is going to ruin us!” said Mom.

“Can’t you tell them to take a hike?” asked Gran. “Limit the number of people?”

“And piss off half of Hampton Cove?” said Odelia. “I don’t think so.”

When Chase softly knocked on the door five minutes later and carefully opened it, he found three generations of Pooles seated on the bed, all crying their eyes out.

“I’ll come back later,” he said quietly, and softly closed the door again.

Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding…

Chapter 26

It had been a trying day, filled with emotion and tragic events, but also with plenty of good stuff, like the reception at Town Hall, which had proved a great triumph for Mayor Butterwick. And to top it all off there was of course Odelia who’d suffered some kind of nervous breakdown, as I think the commonly used term is. Marge and Gran, when they’d returned from their consultation with our human, had both looked seriously teary-eyed, though they’d staunchly refrained from commenting on the patient’s current state.

I felt a little guilty, and so did the others. After all, as far as we could tell it was our refusal to show up for Odelia’s wedding that had triggered this particular episode.

Not exactly our finest hour, I will readily confess.

Gran, who noticed that we were all looking downcast, decided to bring us out of our slump and suggested we ride with her and Scarlett tonight, as part of her usual neighborhood watch routine, and we gratefully accepted her kindhearted proposal.

And so we found ourselves in Marge’s little red Peugeot, which Gran likes to use as her patrol car, cruising along the deserted streets of Hampton Cove, with Gran behind the wheel and Scarlett riding shotgun. Four cats were ensconced in the backseat, and generally I felt that things were gradually returning to a semblance of normalcy.

“Good thing we’re old,” said Gran. “And that we don’t need a lot of sleep. A young person could never do what we do. They’d need their eight hours of uninterrupted beauty sleep.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Scarlett. “I’m not old.”

“We’re exactly the same age, Scarlett,” Gran pointed out.

“Age is in the eye of the beholder,” said her friend.

“I think that’s beauty.”

“That, too.”

Gran turned back to us.“You guys are awfully quiet,” she remarked.

“How would you feel if you suddenly found yourself responsible for your human’s nervous breakdown,” said Scarlett. She turned to face us, which in her case was a lot less fraught with danger because she wasn’t driving the car. “You shouldn’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure it’s justthe usual wedding jitters. Nothing to do with you.”

“I think it has everything to do with us,” said Harriet. “If we hadn’t told Odelia that we weren’t going to be present at the wedding, she wouldn’t have had her nervous breakdown. So excuse us for feeling bad, all right?”

“What did they just say?” asked Scarlett, turning to Gran with a smile. “It sounds so cute when they do all the meowing. Almost as if they’re actually talking to me.”

“They are actually talking to you,” said Gran. “They feel bad for telling Odelia they didn’t want to attend the wedding, and they feel guilty about her nervous breakdown.”

“Oh, the poor dears,” said Scarlett, fussing over us for a bit before turning back to face the front and presumably being on the lookout for prowlers and burglars and drug dealers and murderers and those other strange and terrifying creatures of the night.

“You shouldn’t feel bad,” said Gran. “It wasn’t your fault that Odelia suffered that sudden breakdown. It’s not the fact that you said you weren’t going to be there, though it may have expedited things a little.”

“If it wasn’t us, then what caused her breakdown?” I asked.

“Mainly the fact that it now looks as if hundreds of people will show up for the wedding, turning it into the social event of the season, maybe even the year or the decade, and that’s exactly the kind of thing she was desperate to avoid.”

“How many people are going?” asked Harriet, casting a worried glance in my direction. Privately she’d expressed her doubts about Gran’s guarantees in regards to that spot next to the altar. She had a feeling even that spot would be overrun with people. If the worst came to the worst we could always claw our way out, of course, but I don’t think Odelia would appreciate it when we started mauling her guests and ripping them to pieces.

“Well, the way Odelia’s phone kept ringing off the hook… we’re probably looking at a thousand right now? Maybe a little more?”

“A thousand people!” Harriet cried.

“Is that a lot of people, Max?” asked Dooley.

“Yes, Dooley,” I said. “A thousand people at a wedding is a lot.”

“Too much!” said Harriet.

“I happen to agree with you,” said Gran. “Also, most of these people expect to be invited to the reception and the wedding dinner, which will probably bankrupt us.”

“Not to mention that you will have one angry caterer if you let in more people than originally contracted for,” Scarlett pointed out.

“Just the bottles of champagne we’ll be expected to serve at the wedding reception will probably put a serious dent in our family coffers,” said Gran.

“So what are you going to do?” Scarlett asked. “Call the whole thing off?”

“Well…” said Gran with a shrug.

Scarlett gasped in shock.“You’re not seriously thinking about calling off the wedding, are you? That would send a huge shockwave through the entire community!”

“It’s not exactly up to me, Scarlett. I’m not the one getting married. The final decision lies with Odelia and Chase. But if I were her…”

“You’d call it quits.”

“Things have gotten completely out of hand, that’s pretty obvious. So either we allow things to proceed as planned, and go bust, or we start limiting the number of people we can conceivably cater to, and risk antagonizing the entire population of this town and become personae non grata as a family, or… we simply call off the wedding and save our sanity, our financial situation, and our standing in the community.”

“If you call off the wedding your standing will take a big hit.”

“Not as big a hit as when the wedding turns into a complete disaster.”

“The main thing is that Odelia is happy,” said Dooley. “This is supposed to be the happiest day of her life, and if she’s going to be crying all the time, that’s not good.”

“No, I guess not,” said Harriet. “Instead of the happiest day of her life, it will turn into the worst day of her life.”

“I think Odelia should elope,” said Brutus. “What?” he added when all eyes turned to him—except Gran’s, as she was obligated, at least part of the time, to keep her eyes on the road—and Scarlett’s, since she couldn’t understand what we were saying.

“Elope!” cried Harriet. “What do you mean? You mean like run away from home?”

“No, just go to Vegas or one of those places where you can get an instant wedding and get it over with. She’s been talking about getting married for so long now, frankly I think she should just get it over with already so we can forget about the whole thing.”

“Brutus!” said Harriet looking shocked. “What an idea!”

“It’s a good idea,” he argued. “She’ll finally be married, it won’t cost her a thing—except the trip to Vegas and the hotel and whatever it costs to get the guy to dress up like Elvis and give them their blessing, and no one will be able to blame the family, as they’ll all point to Odelia and Chase and simply call it the folly of youth.”

“Odelia and Chase are not that young,” Harriet argued.

“Young enough to pull it off.”

Gran was smiling, I noticed.“I like your thinking, Brutus,” she said. “In fact I was thinking along the same lines myself, to be honest.”

“You were?” said Brutus.

“Only I don’t think Odelia is quite there yet.”

“Or Chase,” I said. “He probably isn’t quite there yet either.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure Chase is with me,” said Gran.

“With you on what?” asked Scarlett. “What are you talking about?”

“Brutus suggests that the best course of action would be for Odelia and Chase to have a quickie wedding in Vegas. No muss, no fuss.”

Scarlett laughed.“You gotta be kidding!”

“Nope. I’m even willing to spring for the whole thing, if she decides to pull the trigger.”

“You know what? If you can convince her to go through with this, I’ll chip in.”

“Deal,” said Gran, and held up her hand for a high five, which Scarlett promptly delivered.

And since the cat contingency in the backseat didn’t want to be left out, we all put our paws together too. We wouldn’t exactly be able to chip in. Financially, I mean. Since cats aren’t big fans of opening a bank account—or carrying wallets, for that matter. But the prospect of a wedding without the distinct possibility of being trampled by a raucous crowd of hundreds sounded very appealing to me. Though I wasn’t altogether sure about the Elvis costume. I might have to put my paw down on that part of the plan.

Chapter 27

“What did you think? Of the speech?” asked Charlene. She’d been reading in bed and now put her book down and took off her reading glasses.

Next to her, Alec also took off his glasses. He’d been reading about what constitutes the best type of fishing tackle.

“I thought your speech was wonderful, honey,” he said. “You held them all spellbound, like you usually do.”

“I thought Lord Hilbourne was pretty good, too. Well received, I thought.”

“Uh-huh,” said Alec with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

“What? You didn’t like his speech?”

“It was okay, I guess,” he said with a shrug.

“Okay? He had them all eating out of the palm of his hand. He wowed the crowd and gave them everything they came for and more.”

“Like I said, he was okay. I’ve heard better speeches,” said Alec, continuing to be noncommittal.

Charlene, fair-haired and a couple of years Alec’s junior, looked over to her partner, a half-smile playing on her lips. “You don’t like him, do you? You really don’t like the guy.”

“I don’t dislike him,” said Alec with a shrug.

“What don’t you like about him?” asked Charlene, who wasn’t fooled by this evasiveness. In the few months they’d been dating, and now that they’d practically moved in together, even though they still kept their own places for now, she’d gotten to know her man pretty well. She could tell he was holding something back, and was a little embarrassed about it, too.

“Look, he’s fine,” said Alec. “Like I said, I don’t like him, I don’t dislike him. I’m neutral, all right? I’m Switzerland.”

“Yeah, right, “said Charlene with a low chuckle. She took Alec’s arm and rubbed it affectionately. “Is my favorite chief of police a little jealous, perhaps?”

“I’m not jealous,” Alec grunted immediately, but he said it with such vehemence Charlene knew she’d hit pay dirt.

“You are jealous!”

“I just don’t understand why the guy had to hang around you so much. Laughing, touching your arm all the time, rubbing your back, whispering in your ear…”

“Alec Lip!”

“Flirting, okay! He was flirting with you!”

“Well, I guess maybe he was. He does that with all the girls. Just the way he is.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” Alec grumbled.

Charlene smiled and placed a tender kiss on his cheek.“Oh, you big grumpy bear.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t help it. When I see a guy like that—all floppy-haired and handsome and clever and… and fit!”

“He is fit,” Charlene agreed. “And he does have nice hair.”

“It just annoys the hell out of me, all right? I just wanted to…” He balled his hands into fists.

“You wanted to punch his lights out?”

Alec displayed the first hint of a smile in an evening in which he’d said precious little. Charlene now understood why. She’d thought he was too preoccupied with the murder case he was handling, but apparently it was Lord Hilbourne who’d gotten under his skin and not Bob Rector.

“Yes, I wanted to punch his lights out,” he confirmed. “And muss up his perfect hair.”

“You know?” said Charlene as she pecked a sweet kiss on her boyfriend’s cheek. “I think that’s kinda sexy.”

He gave her a quick sideways glance.“You do, do you?”

“Yeah, that my man would fight for me like that.”

“I can still knock his block off,” Alec suggested. “I happen to know where he lives.”

“I’ll bet you do,” said Charlene with a laugh. “You and half this town know where he lives. But I think you’d better not do any knocking of any blocks. At least not tonight. Can you promise me that?”

“Yeah, I guess I can,” said Alec a little reluctantly.

“And I can promise you that I have absolutely no feelings for the man apart from a general sense of gratitude that he made me look good in front of my entire constituency.”

“All right,” said Alec. “I can accept that.”

“I knew you would.”

And so Alec resumed his study of fishing tackle and Charlene, still smiling, picked up her own reading material again and proceeded to educate herself on the ins and outs of the new sewage system being proposed for the Northern section of Stanwyck Street.

And the newly united couple would have spent another comfortable half hour before going to sleep, if not suddenly the Chief’s and the Mayor’s phones both had started to chime, and both partners shared a look of alarm.

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Our patrol had been a very relaxed affair. So far no suspicious activity or suspicious persons had been detected, and it looked as if soon another vigil would come to a successful conclusion. I was frankly eager to head down to the park and join cat choir, and I think I can speak for all of us when I say that the others, too, felt like enjoying a few hours of harmless musical fun in the company of our many feline friends—and maybe even a few canine ones, too.

Unfortunately the night suddenly took a different turn. I guess that’s what happens when you ride with the watch: things have a tendency to go bump in the night when you least expect them to.

We were driving past Main Street at the time—Gran employs a very loose definition of the term neighborhood when determining her nighttime patrols. Secretly I think she sees it as encompassing the entire territory of Hampton Cove, which would probably make it a town watch instead of a neighborhood watch in my opinion.

And just as we slowly drove past the General Store, operated by that ex-member of the watch Wilbur Vickery, suddenly a police siren could be heard, and the blue flashing light of a police car loomed up behind us, illuminating our faces and the inside of the car.

“Damn, something’s happened,” said Gran, “and they didn’t tell us about it!”

“I told you we should invest in a police scanner,” said Scarlett.

“You don’t ‘invest’ in a police scanner, Scarlett. Only the police are allowed to have their cars equipped with a police radio—not us mere civilians.”

“So can’t you hack into one? I’ve seen plenty of crime shows where the bad guys listen in on the police radio.”

“Pretty sure that’s illegal.”

“When has that stopped you before?”

“We’re the neighborhood watch. We’re supposed to stop crime, not commit it!”

“Oh, tosh. We’d only use it to stop crime so that’s a good thing, right?”

Gran wisely decided to leave this discussion on the table for now, for the police car had pulled over in front of the Hampton Cove Star hotel, and so Gran immediately pulled up behind it.

“Something’s going on at the hotel!” Scarlett said, seemingly forgetting we were all right there with her, and could determine what was going on for ourselves.

“Let’s go,” said Gran, and promptly exited the vehicle.

We all followed her example and got out of the car.

“Did I tell you that I saw Johnny Carew today?” asked Scarlett as we crossed the street and hurried in the direction of the hotel.

“You saw Johnny Carew? Where?”

“He was looking at me from one of those windows up there.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?!”

“I didn’t think it was important.”

“Wherever Johnny is, Jerry usually isn’t far behind. And wherever he is, a crime is usually in progress!”

“I thought they’d reformed?”

“Do pigs fly?”

“Ha!”

“Do pigs fly, Max?” asked Dooley, highly intrigued by this peculiar question.

“It’s an expression, Dooley,” I explained. “Pigs don’t fly, and Johnny and Jerry will probably never reform.”

“But what do flying pigs have to do with Johnny and Jerry reforming?” Dooley wanted to know.

But luckily we’d arrived at the hotel, and made our way inside, following in Gran and Scarlett’s footsteps. Soon we found ourselves in the lobby, and saw two cops enter the elevator and get whisked away before we could stop them and ask if we could join.

Gran hurried over to the reception desk and proceeded to take out a self-made laminated badge. She flashed it in front of the receptionist’s face. “Hampton Cove Neighborhood Watch,” she said curtly. “I understand you reported a crime?”

“Um…” said the receptionist, who was a young man liberally endowed with a smattering of pimples on his youthful face. “Oh,” he said, as that face suddenly cleared. “I know you. You’re the hot chocolate with extra cream and plenty of marshmallows. And you—the espresso, extra strong with a side order of petits fours and miniature pastry.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Gran. “Cut the crap and tell us what’s going on, sonny boy.”

“Oh, Lord Hilbourne has been abducted,” said the kid. “And judging from the pool of blood we found in his room, there’s a good chance that he was brutally murdered.”

Chapter 28

Odelia had been sleeping restlessly, dreaming of being suffocated by a braying crowd, when all of a sudden her phone started to belt out a loud tune and she groaned as she grabbed it from the nightstand. Immediately, as if in symphony with hers, Chase’s phone started singing its own song, waking up the burly cop and sending him groping for the device. Simultaneously they both spoke,“Yes?”

The voice that sounded in Odelia’s ear was her grandmother’s, who announced, “Better get over here, honey. Lord Hilbourne has gone missing—probably kidnapped.”

And as Odelia glanced over to Chase, it was obvious that he’d just received the same message, for he asked, “Where is here?”

“The Star hotel,” answered her grandmother, as if she’d heard Chase’s question, which probably she had.

Both future husband and wife hung up and then, as if they’d rehearsed the scene, swung their feet from the bed and started to get dressed. Moments later they were out the door, and, like a well-oiled team, were in Chase’s squad car and hurtling along the road in the direction of the downtown area.

“We have to talk about the wedding, babe,” said Chase as he steered the car along.

“I know,” she said.

“This can’t go on like this.”

“I know.”

“Look, you know how much I love you, and how much I’ve been looking forward to getting married to you.”

She nodded wordlessly.

“But if there’s something you wanna tell me, you better do it now.”

She looked over.“I want to get married to you, Chase. I really do.”

“So what’s the problem? Your mom told me you had suffered some kind of nervous breakdown this evening?”

She shook her head.“I just don’t see how I can go through with it,” she said, starting to tear up all over again, just as she had before. “The whole thing is just so…” She put a hand to her throat and mimicked being suffocated.

Chase’s jaw tightened. “I see,” he said.

“I’m not saying it’s you—or even the wedding. It’s just…”

“What?”

“It’s just too much. The whole thing’s gotten way out of hand.”

“You mean—even more than before?”

“As of a couple of hours ago, we’re officially at nine hundred.”

He blinked.“Nine hu—you mean the wedding, not the reception, right?”

“The wedding and the reception and the wedding dinner… and the party.”

His jaw dropped.“Odelia!”

“I know, I know,” she said. “Mom talked to the caterer, and they’re very upset. They’re not equipped to handle such a large crowd, and already have been making alternative suggestions, like cutting down on the menu so they can seat and feed more people, or even splitting people into groups, sitting them down for dinner at different times. Also, there’s a problem with the reception. They didn’t order nearly enough champagne for such a large crowd, so…” She sighed and buried her head in her hands. Once again she started hyperventilating a little at the thought of such an enormous undertaking.

“Let’s call the whole thing off,” said Chase curtly.

“No, wait, what?” said Odelia. “Chase, we can’t—”

“It’s obvious this is going to turn into a complete disaster. Nine hundred people, and who knows who else will show up. We’re looking at a thousand or more. If this keeps up we’ll have to talk to your uncle about organizing crowd control. Bring in barriers. Except your uncle is also one of the people on the guest list, and so are all of my colleagues.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “I guess we all got a little carried away.”

“It’s all right, babe,” said the cop as he placed a hand on Odelia’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I know you wanted the wedding to be perfect, and you wanted to share it with as many people as possible. But clearly we’re at a critical juncture here.”

“It’s too much,” she agreed. “Mom talked to Father Reilly, and he’s also overwhelmed with all the interest. He says never in his career has he been accosted by so many people asking when the wedding is going to be, and expressing an interest in showing up on the day. He’s going to put up big screens outside so people can follow along.”

“Big screens, huh?” said Chase with a smile. “Like a Justin Bieber concert. Which would make you Hailey Baldwin.”

Odelia grinned.“Or maybe I’m Amal Clooney and you’re George.”

“I don’t think George and Amal had this many people at their wedding.”

“No, they were smart about it,” said Odelia ruefully.

“Look, I don’t want to disappoint anyone either,” said Chase, “so I suggest we call off the wedding and…”

“And what?” she asked, giving him a look of trepidation.

He shrugged.“We’ll find a solution.” He glanced over. “We have to.”

They’d arrived at the hotel, and Chase parked the car across the street. Two police cars had already arrived, and Odelia saw that her uncle’s squad car had jumped the curb.

“All right,” said Chase. “Are you ready to do this?”

She nodded.

“Then let’s go.”

Chapter 29

The room where Lord Hilbourne had been staying was very nice indeed. It was the hotel’s Presidential Suite, and wasn’t merely extremely spacious, but also very cozily appointed. In fact I wouldn’t have minded staying there myself. When we entered, in the wake of Gran and Scarlett, who’d managed to overrule the objections of the receptionist, and also of the cop standing sentry outside the suite, it was obvious some kind of skirmish or scuffle had taken place there: furniture had been overturned and a glass had been dropped to the floor, a liquid soaked into the thick carpet, which felt like a pity, as it was nice and white and now had a dark spot, which I reckoned would be hard to remove.

Then again, stain removal probably wasn’t high on the hotel’s list of priorities right now. Finding the missing Lord Hilbourne was.

“So what happened here?” asked Gran as she bustled into the suite.

A cop whom I recognized as Sarah Flunk, one of Chase’s colleagues, looked up in surprise. “Are you supposed to be in here?” she asked.

A rhetorical question, as Gran is always supposed to be wherever she happens to be.

“The guy at the front desk mentioned blood?” Gran asked, blatantly ignoring the officer’s outburst.

Sarah Flunk, a copper-haired, fine-boned officer, hesitantly said, “Yeah, we found traces of blood over there on the carpet.”

“A lot of blood?” asked Scarlett, clearly fascinated by this glimpse into a different world: the world of crime and detective work, of which until now and in spite of the fact that she’d been part of the watch for a while now, she didn’t have much inkling.

“Smells like blood,” said Harriet as she took a tentative sniff from the spots of crimson on the floor.

“Looks like blood,” Brutus added.

“So very likely it is blood,” Gran murmured as she studied the spots.

There was indeed quite a lot of the stuff, though probably not enough to warrant the receptionist’s suspicion that Lord Hilbourne was bleeding to death as we spoke.

“Any sign of the culprits?” asked Gran.

Officer Flunk still seemed reluctant to humor her boss’s mother, but since Gran was, indeed, her boss’s mother, she couldn’t very well stonewall her either, so she said, “It looks like the kidnappers came in from the next room.”

Just then Uncle Alec came bursting in, followed by more officers, and as he took in the scene, he frowned and said,“What are you doing here?”

He was addressing Gran, of course, who took the comment in stride and said,“Scarlett happened to notice that Johnny Carew is staying here. Isn’t that right, Scarlett?”

“Yeah, I saw him glancing out of one of the windows on the third floor earlier today.”

Uncle Alec’s frown deepened. “Johnny Carew? Here?”

“Yup,” said Scarlett, inordinately pleased that she was able to supply such an important clue.

Things were getting a little crowded, for close on the heels of Uncle Alec, Odelia and Chase came walking in.

“Only the people who are supposed to be here, can stay,” said the Chief, who was getting seriously annoyed. “That means Chase and Odelia. You, you and you—out!”

The first you referred to Gran, and she didn’t look happy about being excluded like this. The second you, Scarlett, looked equally unhappy, and the third you, which was a collective you indicating the entire contingency of cats, showed their unhappiness with this state of affairs by breaking into loud and plaintive mewling.

“Is this a crime scene or auditions for The Voice!” Uncle Alec bellowed as he pressed his hands to his ears. “Okay, the cats can stay, but only if they don’t contaminate the scene. Odelia—I’m holding you personally responsible!”

And so it was decided: we all got to stay and sniff around for clues, while Odelia and Chase handled the investigation. Gran’s neighborhood watch, meanwhile, was relegated to the sidelines—i.e. the corridor, where they could lament to their heart’s content.

And as Brutus and Harriet took up the inspection of the suite, Dooley and I moved through the connecting door into the next room, where we found, much to our surprise, that two people had decided that the best way to spend an evening was to go and hide in the bedroom closet. Our well-developed sense of smell had immediately taken us there, and as we sat and meowed, Odelia and Chase quickly came over and opened the closet, revealing two men, trussed up and with rags shoved into their mouths. They were giving us piteous looks.

I recognized them. They’d been part of the waitstaff at Charlene’s big ‘keys to the city’ shindig, where they’d provided the guests with canap?s and other amuse-gueules.

It was but the work of a moment to free them of their restraints, and then they both started talking simultaneously. Only after being advised that it was always better for one person to be the spokesperson of the team, did a thickset man with bristly white hair start relating the story of his ordeal. More specifically how they’d ended up in the closet.

“Two guys came bursting in here and locked us up!” the white-haired man complained.

His friend, who was thin and who had a full black beard, confirmed his fellow closet inhabitant’s words and said, “They knocked us out, too,” and pointed to a spot on his head where presumably he’d sustained a knock on his noggin. I could see that he had a bump, which looked very painful.

“What did they look like, these men?” asked Chase, though I had an idea that I already knew what was coming.

“One was big and strong, the other short and skinny,” said the spokesperson.

“Did the short skinny one have a face like a ferret?” asked Odelia.

The spokesperson leveled a look of surprise at our human, and I could tell that for a brief moment he wondered if she was psychic.“How did you know?”

“Johnny Carew and Jerry Vale,” said Odelia, grim-faced.

“I should have known,” said Chase.

From yet another connecting door, this one leading to one room over, Dooley said,“Better come and have a look at this, Max!”

So I moved over there, followed by Odelia and Chase, and when we passed through we found ourselves in a room probably as messy as any I’d ever seen. There were food wrappers all over, and clothes strewn about, and wet towels on every available surface.

“It smells a lot like Johnny and Jerry,” said Dooley.

“So…” said Odelia, processing this information. “Johnny and Jerry were probably holed up in here for the last couple of days, judging from the detritus, until they decided to knock out their two neighbors, so they could get into Lord Hilbourne’s suite through the connecting door. There was a fight, they grabbed Hilbourne, and took off with him.”

“Question is: where did they take him?” said Chase, then glanced down at us. “Can’t your cats sniff out their escape route?”

“Max? Dooley?” said Odelia. And for a moment I thought she was going to say, “Fetch!” But luckily she remembered just in time that we were cats, not dogs. Without further ado or instructions we moved back into the next room, where Johnny and Jerry’s first burst of violence had expended itself, then into Lord Hilbourne’s suite, where we found Harriet and Brutus. And as we transferred the mission we’d just accepted, we all started sniffing around, until we met up near the window, which led to a balcony, which led to… a fire escape. Odelia, and Chase, who’d followed our progress with keen interest, now stood gazing down the fire escape.

“Thanks, you guys,” said Odelia. “I think we’ll take it from here.”

Chapter 30

“What are they going to take from here and where are they taking it, Max?” asked Dooley.

“It’s just an expression, Dooley,” I said, though I was equally curious where our humans were going to take the investigation. Then again, obviously it was no longer our concern. They would, I assumed, now organize what is commonly termed a dragnet, at which point the crooks would be caught, and hopefully Lord Hilbourne would still be in one piece.

“They could be anywhere,” said Brutus. “Probably halfway down to Florida by now, or maybe New York. They could be in the Adirondacks, holed up in a cabin in the woods or high up in the mountains. They could be there for months, undetected, until Lord Hilbourne’s family decide to pay them the millions they want for his safe return.”

“This is all very stressful,” said Harriet. “People keep getting kidnapped and ending up dead…”

We all shared a worried glance.“You don’t think Johnny and Jerry are the same ones who kidnapped and killed Bob Rector, do you?” I said.

“Could be,” Harriet allowed.

“I bet it was them,” said Brutus. “What are the odds of two kidnappings taking place within a couple of days? I’ll bet those two felt that seventy-five thousand wasn’t enough to retire on and they found themselves an even bigger target in Lord Hilbourne. A target they couldn’t pass up without taking a crack at him.”

We glanced down at the blood on the carpet.“You can take that literally,” I said. But then I shook my head. “This doesn’t sound like the Johnny and Jerry I know. They’re crooks, sure, but they’re not killers. I can see them kidnapping a person, but killing him in cold blood? I don’t think so.”

“It’s the theory of escalation in crime,” said Brutus, who seemed to have read up on the subject while I wasn’t looking. “Most crooks start off with petty theft and other small stuff, then gradually get in deeper and deeper and finally get into the heavy stuff, like extortion and even murder. I guess Johnny and Jerry have succumbed to their worst instincts and have become a menace to society. Hampton Cove’s most wanted.”

“Poor Johnny and Jerry,” said Dooley, earning him a look of rebuke from both Harriet and Brutus.

“Why do you say that?” asked Harriet. “They’re gangsters and they probably killed Bob Rector, and Lord Hilbourne, too. They killed him and now they’ll try to make us believe he’s still alive so they can collect the ransom. Same way they did with Bob.”

“I like Johnny and Jerry,” Dooley confessed. “I know I shouldn’t, but they’re goofy.”

“Goofy!” said Harriet. “Didn’t you hear what Brutus just said? They’re Hampton Cove’s most wanted criminals.”

Obviously Odelia and Chase wanted them bad, for they’d disappeared down that fire escape, presumably in hot pursuit. And since Uncle Alec had disappeared as well, that dragnet I just mentioned was probably being put in place as we speak.

“Mark my words. They’re in the Adirondacks,” said Brutus. “Hiding in one of those mountain cabins.”

“And burying Lord Hilbourne in a shallow grave,” Harriet added with a touch of morbidity.

Since there wasn’t all that much we could do there, we kinda drifted off. The two men staying in the room next door were being questioned. One was called Wim Bojanowsky and the other Suppo Bonikowski, and it turned out that they were cousins, vacationing in Hampton Cove. At least that’s what I learned from listening in on their conversation with Officer Sarah Flunk, who’d been left to do the honors.

“They stole my laptop,” said Suppo, the thin one with the face fuzz.

“And my watch,” said his cousin somberly. “It was a family heirloom. If you could please do what you can to get it back for us?” he added.

“Of course, sir,” said Officer Flunk. “What else did they take?”

“Just the watch and the laptop,” said the one named Wim.

“And our dignity,” Suppo added, as he carefully fingered the bump on his head.

“What are you doing in town if I may ask?”

“Oh, just visiting,” said Wim. “We like the Hamptons. It’s always a nice experience.”

“The hotel receptionist said there were three of you staying in this room?”

“That’s right. We arrived here with our cousin.”

“Bob Rector,” said Suppo.

Officer Flunk stopped writing in her notebook and looked up in surprise.“Bob Rector?”

“Yeah, the three of us decided to come down here together,” Wim explained.

“But…”

“Oh, the name,” said Wim. “Okay, so Bob’s mom’s sister is my mother.”

“And my dad is Wim’s mother’s brother,” said Suppo.

Officer Flunk was blinking, and so was I.“So… the three of you…”

“Decided to spend some time in your lovely little town, yeah,” said Wim.

“Always fun to spend some time together,” said Suppo. “And the beaches are amazing, of course, even this late in the season.”

“You do know what happened to your cousin, right?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah—yeah, we know,” said Wim, making a face.

“So do you think Bob was abducted by the same people who knocked us out and abducted Lord Hilbourne?” asked Suppo, as he cut a quick glance to his cousin.

“It’s entirely possible,” Sarah conceded. “You’d never seen these two men before? Johnny Carew and Jerry Vale?”

“No. No, I’d never seen them before in my life,” said Suppo. “You, Wim?”

“No, I’d never seen them before either. They asked us to change rooms yesterday, and weren’t very nice about it, I thought.”

“Wait, they asked you to change rooms?”

“Yeah, they were in here yesterday. The big one claimed he suffered from vertigo, and wanted to change rooms as this one doesn’t have a balcony and theirs does. We said no, of course.”

“We told them to ask the receptionist for a different room if they weren’t happy with theirs,” said Suppo.

“And then what did they say?” said Sarah, scribbling furiously in her little notebook.

“Nothing. They left and we didn’t see them again. Until they broke the door down and locked us in the closet,” said Wim ruefully.

“Maybe we should have changed rooms after all,” his cousin added.

“In hindsight they probably just wanted to be closer to Lord Hilbourne’s room,” said Wim, “so they didn’t have to go to the trouble of dealing with the two of us.”

“That still doesn’t explain why they took my laptop,” said Suppo, apparently more annoyed at the loss of his laptop than the abduction of Lord Hilbourne.

“Thank you,” said Sarah. “If you could come down to the station tomorrow morning, you can make a formal statement if that’s all right.”

“Of course,” said Suppo, nodding.

“Happy to help you catch these guys,” his cousin said, then added, “Though if they’re the same ones that killed Bob, like I overheard one of your colleagues say just now, I’m afraid Lord Hilbourne doesn’t stand a chance.”

Chapter 31

Johnny dangled the watch in front of his face. It was a nice watch, and he was sure it would fetch them a nice sum when sold to the right fence.

“What do you reckon this is worth, Jer?” he asked.

“I have no idea, and I wish you hadn’t taken it,” said Jerry, a little peevishly.

“Yeah, but it looks so nice, and I’ve always wanted a watch like this,” said the big guy.

Jerry eyed his partner in crime with a touch of pique.“And why did you have to take that laptop? Don’t you know that laptops can be traced? In fact now that I think about it, we better dump the thing.”

“No!” said Johnny. “It’s a very special laptop, Jer.” And it was. In fact he’d never seen one like it. It was ultra-thin and sleek and looked like it was worth a big chunk of dough.

“Well, you won’t be able to use it. The moment you turn that thing on the owners will know where it is and they’ll send in the cavalry.”

They were in their rented little Fiat, on their way to the safe house they’d chosen for the occasion, even though Jerry wasn’t entirely sure how safe this house really was. Still, it was better than having to move around and risk being detected by one of the cops’ flying squads, which presumably by now would have set up roadblocks all around town and be on the lookout for them and the precious cargo they were carrying.

“If you want you can have the watch, Jer,” said Johnny magnanimously.

“I don’t want it! It probably belongs to Little Lord Fauntleroy over there.” He jerked his thumb to the backseat, where an unconscious ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy’ quietly lay slumped.

“I didn’t know his name was Fauntleroy,” said Johnny, surprised. “I thought his name was Hilbourne.”

“Just kidding,” said Jerry with a grimace. Since he rarely kidded, it was usually a little hard for people to figure out that that was, in fact, what he was doing. “We gotta take stock and regroup,” he announced. “And to do that we need to lay low for a while. Are you sure she’ll be as happy to see us as you think?”

“Oh, sure, Jer. You know that woman cares about us. I could see it in her eyes the first time we met, way back when.”

“Way back when is right,” Jerry grunted, and steered their little vehicle into the night, eager to get where they were going… fast.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_3]

Marge had been lying awake. She’d tossed and turned but frustratingly sleep wouldn’t come. With a tired groan she shifted from her belly to her side and in the process poked her better half in the stomach with her elbow. Tex made anoophing sound and jerked upright.“You have perfectly nice legs, Mrs. Baumgartner!” he blurted out, then, dazed, glanced around, trying to get his bearings. “Oh, hey, honey,” he said.

“What’s all this about Ida Baumgartner’s legs?” Marge asked suspiciously.

“I was dreaming of Ida,” he said, idly groping for the wispy remnants of his recent dream—or nightmare—even as they evaporated like breath on a razor blade. “She asked me if her legs weren’t too thick and wanted me to prescribe her something to make them thinner.” He shivered. “As if it isn’t enough to have to deal with that woman on a daily basis now she’s haunting my nights as well.”

“We have to talk, Tex,” Marge announced.

Tex immediately looked stricken.“I told you, honey, I don’t have feelings for Evelina. I only did it as a kindness to a dying woman.”

“She isn’t dying, Tex.”

“Almost dying,” he muttered.

“Let’s not get into all that again,” said Marge. “We need to talk about Odelia.”

“Odelia?”

“Your daughter has got herself in quite a fix,” said Marge. “Well, to be entirely honest, I helped her get into that fix, and so did my mother.”

“Of course she did,” said Tex, who’d never been a big fan of his mother-in-law. Though after successfully pleading his case his view of the woman had considerably softened.

“A hundred more people RSVPed, most of whom were never invited in the first place, and if Odelia and my mom got the same number, and I’m sure they have, we’re looking at over a thousand guests for the wedding.”

“A thousand!”

“And if this keeps up—and I think it will—we’ll be looking at two or three thousand by Saturday. We can’t afford to throw a wedding for two or three thousand people. It’s going to empty our savings account and my mom’s and Odelia’s, too. We’ll all be ruined.”

“Can’t you do something? Maybe limit the number of guests?”

“And tell all those people they’re suddenly uninvited?”

“You could stop accepting new people.”

“A thousand is still too much, Tex. Way too much.”

“I know,” he said musingly. “So what do you suggest?”

“I suggest we hold a family meeting and thresh this thing out once and for all.”

“Right,” said Tex as he fluffed up his pillow and prepared to go back to sleep. Though presumably this time without Ida Baumgartner’s legs haunting his dreams.

But unfortunately for Tex sleep would have to be postponed, for just at that moment the front doorbell rang out and he groaned.

“You’ve got to be kidding! I’ll bet it’s Ida—my dream must have been a premonition!”

“If she complains about her legs tell her to take a hike. Hiking is a great exercise for the legs, and very slimming, too.”

So Tex extricated himself from his comfortable position in the warm bed and reluctantly slipped his feet into his slippers and put on his robe. By the time he was stomping down the stairs he was muttering unpleasant oaths under his breath.

That was the disadvantage of being married to a doctor, Marge thought: patients sometimes thought doctors didn’t need sleep and should be on call at all hours.

She waited a moment, a smile on her lips, as she fully expected Tex to return and tell her that it had indeed been Ida Baumgartner and that she did have some urgent concerns about the size of her legs that couldn’t wait until the morning. Instead, suddenly her husband’s voice called out. “Honey? Can you come here a moment?”

So now it was Marge’s turn to put on her slippers and her night robe and stomp down the stairs. Fully expecting to see the apple-cheeked apparition that was Ida, she was more than a little surprised when she saw Johnny Carew and Jerry Vale instead.

“Hi, Marge,” said Johnny cheerfully. “We thought we’d pay you a little visit.”

“Yeah, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?” said Jerry, also smiling, though it didn’t really become him. Jerry’s ferrety face wasn’t designed for smiling, and his smile came across as a sickly grimace instead.

“We brought a guest,” said Johnny. “I think you probably know him.”

And both men stepped aside to reveal a man’s prostrate body lying on the porch.

“Lord Hilbourne!” Marge cried.

“Bingo!” said Johnny. “See, Jer? I told you she’d get it right the first time.”

Chapter 32

After all the commotion at the hotel, none of us felt particularly in the mood for cat choir. So instead of dropping by the park, we decided to go home instead. Gran and Scarlett were too busy talking to the guests occupying the rooms to the left and right of Lord Hilbourne’s suite, and so we could forget about hitching a ride with them. Odelia and Chase had vanished, presumably on the trail of Johnny and Jerry and halfway to the Adirondacks by now, and Uncle Alec was downstairs, talking to the hotel’s receptionist.

So it was a long hike home for us, which wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Us cats do like a nice long stroll in the moonlight. That’s what being a cat sleuth is all about: you just go with the flow, even if that flow involves a midnight trek through a deserted town.

“I still can’t believe Johnny and Jerry would do such a thing,” said Dooley. “I really thought they’d changed their ways.”

“Not likely,” said Brutus, who’d suddenly revealed himself as something of an amateur criminologist. “The recidivism rate amongst former jailbirds is high. Very high, in fact. So the likelihood of those two walking the straight and narrow after the kind of life they’ve lived is negligible.”

“I think it’s got something to do with the adrenaline rush criminals feel when they commit a crime,” said Harriet, joining her boyfriend in the ranks of feline criminologists. “You simply don’t get that same kind of experience in civilian life, sitting behind a desk and entering numbers into a computer.”

“No, but they could pick a job that provides more of a challenge,” I said.

“Like what? Nothing compares to the rush you feel holding a person at gunpoint,” said Brutus, as if all he did all day was hold people at gunpoint.

“They could always try for police academy,” Dooley suggested.

“Police academy! Those two? You must be crazy!”

“No, but I mean… they would make great cops,” said Dooley. “The fox that becomes the rabbit. Or is it the rabbit that becomes the fox? It’s a thing. I saw a documentary on the Discovery Channel once about a reformed crook who now spends his time putting his former colleagues behind bars.”

“You mean like that Leonardo DiCaprio movie?” I said.

“Catch me if you can!” Harriet suddenly blurted out.

Dooley stared at her with interest.“If you want to play that game you have to make a run for it first, Harriet.”

“No, it’s a movie, silly. Catch Me If You Can. About a guy who used to do all kinds of bad stuff and now he helps the FBI catch the people who used to be in his line of work. It’s based on a real story of a person who really did all of that stuff.”

“I didn’t know Leonardo DiCaprio used to be crook,” said Dooley, interested in this peculiar piece of news.

“Leonardo DiCaprio was just playing the criminal. As an actor?”

“Oh, right,” said Dooley, understanding dawning.

“And the cop who was chasing him was played by Tom Hanks,” said Brutus. “We saw that movie together, didn’t we, sugar lips?”

“Yeah, Marge was saying when we watched it how funny it would be if Johnny and Jerry would become cops one day, and work for her brother.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” said Brutus. “Like I said, recidivism is a tough proposition. Very hard for these people to leave behind that life of crime.”

We’d finally arrived home, and as we walked past a Fiat that stood parked in front of Marge and Tex’s house, I happened to pick up a familiar scent. “Hey, you guys,” I said. “Come over here a minute. Do you smell that?”

My friends all joined me, and took a good sniff around the little car.“It smells like… Johnny and Jerry,” said Brutus.

“Yes, it does,” said Harriet. “What are the odds they’d be hiding out here someplace?”

And as I sniffed a little more, and followed the trail, not unlike a police dog would, I found myself moving up the path to the front door of Odelia’s parents’ house, with the scent growing stronger by the second.

I turned to my friends.“You know what? I think they’re here.”

“Impossible,” said Brutus. “Those crooks would never come here.”

“Why not?” I said. “They like and respect Marge. They used to work for her at the library, remember? And they got along terrifically.”

“But don’t they know that she’s the sister of the Chief of Police? The man who’s searching high and low for their whereabouts?”

“You’ve got to admit,” said Harriet, “that thinking has never been their strong suit. In fact their lack of brains is what keeps leading them into trouble over and over again.”

We all sat there, staring at the closed door, then decided to move around the back and take a look for ourselves, to ascertain whether this wild and crazy theory could possibly have a basis in fact.

So we rounded the house, then snuck in through the pet flap, and soon found ourselves in the kitchen.

“Nothing,” said Brutus. “What did I tell you? They would never dare to show their faces here.”

But then we heard noises upstairs, and the shuffling of feet.

“I think we better go and have a look,” I said. “Marge and Tex are supposed to be asleep, not dancing the Viennese waltz.”

So we moved up the stairs, single file, and as we crept into the bedroom were surprised to find the lights ablaze, but of Tex and Marge there was no sign.

“Johnny and Jerry took them hostage, too!” said Harriet.

“I think this is a bad idea,” suddenly we heard Tex exclaim.

We proceeded in the direction of the sound, and, arriving in the guest bedroom, found ourselves witnessing an unusual sight: Marge and Tex were there, which was to be expected as this was their home, but also Johnny and Jerry, standing next to the guest bed. On that bed, looking pale and motionless, lay Lord Hilbourne—currently the most famous man in Hampton Cove—and also the most sought-after.

Chapter 33

“See?” said Brutus, a note of triumph in his voice. “I told you that these bozos would never be able to get rehabilitated. Once a crook, always a crook.”

“You really shouldn’t have come here,” said Tex, addressing Jerry, whom he seemed to have singled out as the intelligent one.

“I know, I know,” said Jerry. “But Johnny figured you were our best option. Better tell them the story, Johnny. And leave no detail out, no matter how insignificant.”

“Well, it all started with me being afraid of heights, see,” said the big lug.

“I didn’t know you were afraid of heights, Johnny,” said Marge, a note of affection in her voice that Brutus probably didn’t like to see there.

“Yeah, it’s very annoying, especially in my line of work.”

“You mean because you frequently have to break into places?” asked Tex.

“No, because I’m so tall I always find myself looking down on people.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s not important,” said Jerry. “Get to the part where we met those two idiots next door.”

“So the only room available at the hotel was on the third floor,” said Johnny. “And that wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t come with a balcony. I hate balconies, Mrs. Poole—Marge. I hate them cause they make me feel dizzy when I stand on them.”

“So don’t stand on them,” Tex suggested.

“Exactly what I keep telling him,” Jerry grumbled.

“But I like to look at the birds. I love birds. They relax me. And I like the colors.”

“Will you just get to the good part already?!” Jerry cried.

“So we tried to change rooms, only the two guys next door said no.”

“Yeah, real sweethearts, those two.”

“But what can you do, right?” said Johnny. “So we figured if they say no, that’s it. I better don’t go near the window—and that balcony.”

“So suddenly last night,” said Jerry, taking over the narrative thrust of the conversation, “I hear this strange noise coming from next door, and so I put my ear to the door, as one does.”

“One of those connecting doors,” Johnny explained. “Very thin. Isn’t that right, Jer?”

“Yeah, real thin. You can hear pretty much everything that goes on in the next room. So there’s a lot of shouting and stumbling around, so I figure those two idiots have gotten into a fight.”

“Probably one of them felt sorry he didn’t give us their room, and the other didn’t agree,” said Johnny.

“So we decide to bust into the room, wanting to break up the fight.”

“And maybe muscle those guys out and into our room so we can take theirs.”

“But instead of those guys duking it out they’ve got Little Lord Fauntleroy over here and his face and shirt are full of blood and he looks half dead. They were trying to kill him!”

“So I just followed my instincts,” said Johnny, “and knocked both those guys’ blocks off and dumped them into the closet for safekeeping.”

“You mean…” said Marge.

“Yeah, we saved this weird little dude’s life,” said Johnny proudly.

Marge and Tex were momentarily speechless, then turned to their celebrity guest, who looked pretty dead to me, actually.

“He stopped moving twenty minutes ago,” Jerry announced. “So we figured you could maybe take a look at him or something? You are still a doctor, aren’t you, Mr. Marge?”

Tex, if he took umbrage at being addressed as Mr. Marge, didn’t show it. Instead, he moved over to the bed and started examining the deathly pale British blue blood.

“Why didn’t you take him to a hospital?” Marge wanted to know. A very apt question, I thought.

“Because we figured if we did that they’d end up blaming us for what happened to the dude,” said Jerry.

“Yeah, people tend to think: once a criminal, always a criminal,” Johnny said. “It’s sad but that’s the way it is.”

Brutus had the decency to look a little uncomfortable at this.

“Something really weird is going on with this guy,” said Tex after his first cursory examination. “What were these people doing to him? Did you see?”

“Well, when we burst into that room they were holding him up, and he was jerking around pretty violently,” said Johnny. “Almost like he was having a seizure or something. I figured they’d just finished beating him up something real bad.” He smiled at Marge. “When I used to beat up people they reacted exactly the same way. Jerking and shaking. Though sometimes they’d just lie real still—trying to make me think they were dead.”

“He doesn’t have any abrasions or contusions,” said Tex musingly, “and it does look as if he’s been the victim of a seizure, just as you say.”

“Is he dead?” asked Johnny.

“No, he’s still breathing, but we do need to get him to a hospital immediately. I can’t do a lot for him here, I’m afraid.”

“Can you take him to a hospital?” asked Jerry.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” said Marge, and immediately disappeared from the room.

“They’ll want to know how he got here,” said Johnny.

“Maybe you can say you found him lying by the side of the road?” Jerry suggested.

But Tex shook his head.“I can’t do that. I’m sorry, fellas.”

Jerry and Johnny sighed deeply.“Better tell them the truth?” Johnny suggested.

“Yeah, I guess there’s nothing else for it,” his colleague agreed.

“They’ll throw us in jail again,” Johnny warned.

“Then so be it,” said Jerry. “At least we will have saved a life tonight.” He then cast a reproachful look at his friend. “But why did you have to take that watch and that laptop…”

“For safekeeping, Jer!”

“Just keep telling yourself that.”

“No, I’ll keep telling the cops,” Johnny corrected him.

Marge re-entered the room.“The ambulance is on its way.” She directed an apologetic look at her two guests. “And my brother, too, I’m afraid.”

“You’ll put in a good word for us, won’t you, Marge?” said Johnny. “You can be our character assassination.”

“Character witness,” Jerry corrected him.

“I’ll tell him what you told me,” said Marge. “The rest is up to you, I’m afraid. And I really hope you’ve told me the truth and have left nothing out.”

With a sheepish look on his face, Johnny reached into his pocket and brought out a very nice-looking large watch. It was a gold watch and looked very expensive. It also looked a lot like the watch Charlene Butterwick had given Lord Hilbourne that afternoon, along with the key to the city. Then he reached into his backpack and took out a laptop.“Here,” he said and handed both to Marge. “I just thought I’d hold onto them for Mr. Fauntleroy. Just for safekeeping, see.”

Jerry turned to Tex, and held out his hand.“Thanks, Mr. Marge. Thanks for everything.”

“Yeah, thanks, Mr. Marge,” Johnny added, and both men shook Tex’s hand.

Then they turned and walked down the stairs, looking very much like two men walking toward a firing squad.

Chapter 34

It was a most baffling mystery, Odelia had to admit. Not one she’d ever been faced with before. On the face of it things appeared open and shut, but when you dug a little deeper it was anything but.

She was ensconced in her uncle’s office, along with the big man himself, and Chase. Johnny and Jerry had been locked up in the pokey, which probably was like their home away from home now, and Lord Hilbourne was still in the hospital, after being taken there by an ambulance from Odelia’s parents’ home of all places. The story didn’t add up, though. If Wim Bojanowsky and Suppo Bonikowski were to be believed they were nothing but innocent bystanders to this whole thing, the victims of a brutal attack by ex-cons Johnny Carew and Jerry Vale, who’d targeted Lord Hilbourne, presumably in an attempt to kidnap the man and extract a handsome ransom from his relatives.

But the way Johnny and Jerry told the story, an entirely different picture emerged. One where Bojanowsky and Bonikowski were the bad guys, who’d attacked Hilbourne.

But why? And how had the man been rendered unconscious, a state he still at present hadn’t woken up from.

“I don’t get it,” said Chase, summing up the state of affairs to a T. “Either we believe the story Carew and Vale are telling us, and we arrest those two cousins, or we believe the cousins and we charge Carew and Vale.”

“Frankly I’m inclined to believe the cousins,” said Uncle Alec as he leaned back in his chair, which creaked dangerously as he shifted his large bulk around.

One of these days that chair was finally going to give up the ghost and collapse.

“I’m not so sure,” said Odelia. “Mom seems to believe Johnny and Jerry. She feels they may have finally got their life on the rails again and have turned over a new leaf.”

“So why did they try to steal the man’s laptop and watch?” asked Uncle Alec.

“There’s some confusion there,” said Chase. “The watch seems to have belonged to Lord Hilbourne, while the laptop was actually the possession of Suppo Bonikowski.”

“But I thought Bonikowski said that the watch was his?” said Odelia.

“Actually this is the watch Charlene gave Lord Hilbourne yesterday. Part of the keys to the city thing,” said Uncle Alec. “So it can’t possibly have belonged to Bonikowski.”

“This is all very strange,” said Odelia. “Plenty of little things that don’t seem to add up. For instance, if it’s true that Vale and Carew attacked Hilbourne then why didn’t the doctors find any external signs of physical trauma? And how did he suffer that aneurysm?”

“Yeah, I called his sister over in England,” said Chase, “and she confirms that her brother has never been the victim of a seizure or anything of that kind before.”

“No hereditary diseases?” asked Odelia. “He could have suffered a stroke and Johnny and Jerry could have tried to revive him.”

“Which doesn’t explain all that blood in Hilbourne’s hotel room,” said Uncle Alec. “And yes, the blood was his. We checked.”

There was a moment’s silence as they reflected on this.

“Frankly I’m stumped,” Chase said, and he spoke for everyone.

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“Did you get all that, Max?” said Dooley.

“Yeah, I got it,” I confirmed.

The two of us were conveniently perched on the windowsill outside Uncle Alec’s office, where we had a good overview of the goings-on inside, and could listen in on the conversation.

“Chase says he’s stumped,” said Dooley. “And the others look stumped, too.”

“I know, Dooley.”

“So the English lord is still in the hospital?”

“Looks like it.”

“In a coma.”

“I know, Dooley. I’m right here. I heard the same conversation you just heard.”

“Do you think the English lord will die, Max?”

“I don’t know, Dooley. Let’s hope not.”

“I think this whole thing has got something to do with the keys to the city, Max.”

“How so?”

“It can’t be a coincidence that this man received the keys to the city and the same night he collapses and is now in a coma and about to die.”

“Mh,” I said, a little dubiously.

“There must be something in this key, Max. Some substance that is very dangerous to people. Something that can kill.”

“Dooley, like I told you before, the key to the city is not a real key. It’s all symbolic. Hampton Cove doesn’t even have a gate. So why would anyone need a key to get in?”

“Oh, right,” he said, giving this some thought. “Well, something must have happened, and I’ll bet it’s got something to do with this key ceremony.”

“Sure, Dooley,” I said with an indulgent smile at my friend. He might not be the world’s greatest private eye, but you couldn’t say he didn’t have a lot of imagination.

The conversation inside Uncle Alec’s office seemed to have wound down, and so we jumped down from the windowsill, and decided to head into town, to dig a little deeper into this most baffling business. Someone somewhere must have seen something, and if they had, we’d figure out what it was before the sun went down on another day.

Chapter 35

This thing needed threshing out, but as everyone knows it’s very hard to thresh out anything on an empty stomach, so it was my intention to return home and tuck into a good helping of kibble before I tried to put my brain to work tackling this problem.

And as we passed by the General Store, I caught sight of Kingman, who was beckoning us over.

It was with some reluctance that I heeded his call. As you may remember, last time we’d come face to face with Kingman we hadn’t parted amicably. Kingman had made some disparaging remarks about your new friend Mr. Ed and I’d made it clear to him that I didn’t agree with his limited worldview. And since we’d skipped cat choir last night, because of circumstances beyond ourcontrol, we hadn’t had a chance to patch things up yet. So maybe now presented such an opportunity?

Kingman wasn’t alone: he was accompanied by Shanille, a frequent visitor to the spreading piebald. Shanille is Father Reilly’s cat, and also cat choir’s conductor.

“Well,” said the gray tabby the moment we joined the twosome. “What have you two got to say for yourselves?”

“I beg your pardon?” I said.

“You knew how important last night’s rehearsal was, and yet you decided not to show up. So you better have a damn good reason—”

“Or a doctor’s note,” Kingman added helpfully.

“We were otherwise detained,” I said a little stiffly. The day Shanille and Kingman were going to start dictating how I spent my evenings was the day hell froze over.

“Even Harriet didn’t show up, and you know how important it is that she nail that solo.”

“Harriet was detained as well,” I said, still proceeding frostily.

“We were called to a murder scene,” Dooley explained. “Only the murder hadn’t been committed yet. In fact it’s still in the process of being committed.”

Shanille frowned.“I don’t understand. If a murder is in progress, why are you wandering around here and why aren’t you out there, trying to stop it?”

“We can’t stop it,” said Dooley. “Everything is being done to stop it but so far they’re not succeeding.”

“You talk in riddles, Dooley,” said Shanille. “Please explain yourself.”

I didn’t feel like explaining myself, and I was about to advise Dooley not to explain himself either, but of course my friend is much too soft-hearted and was already blabbing away to his heart’s content.

“Lord Hilbourne was attacked last night and then kidnapped. And by the time he got to the hospital he was in a coma. So he may die or he may live. Right now things are touch and go. But if he does die, Uncle Alec already has the likely murderers locked up, even though they say they didn’t do it. Or they won’t do it when or if it ever happens.”

“Huh,” said Kingman, as he turned to me, looking for confirmation that Dooley’s tall tale actually held any veracity.

I nodded, and said in a grave tone,“Unfortunately Dooley is telling the truth.”

“So… Lord Hilbourne is in mortal danger?” asked Shanille.

“I blame the key to the city,” said Dooley, nodding seriously. “I’ll bet there’s something in that key that’s toxic, and touching the thing—probably when the key came into contact with Lord Hilbourne’s skin—some toxin or little-known poisonous alloy was introduced into his bloodstream, and now he may not live to enjoy his key.”

“The key to the city is not a real key, Dooley,” said Shanille.

“That’s what I keep telling him!” I cried.

“Well, it is a real key,” said Kingman. “An ornamental one. It doesn’t open any doors or anything. But the key he got is real. And a very nice one, too, or so I’ve been told.”

“Who told you this?” I asked, not really trusting Kingman’s judgment after the whole ‘Mr. Ed is an inferior being’ discussion.

“I heard it from Wilbur, who kept grumbling all day yesterday to anyone who would listen that he’s never received a key, even though he’s lived here all his life and he’s done a lot more for this town than any stupid blue blood import from England.”

“So it’s a real key,” I said, “but Lord Hilbourne didn’t actually touch it, did he? I mean, it’s probably like when you win a medal? It’s safely locked inside a box or frame?”

“No, it’s an actual key that’s presented on a little velvet cushion,” said Kingman. “You can hang it around your neck or hang it on your wall or whatever you want to do with it.”

“See?” said Dooley. “He must have hung it around his neck and its deleterious effect is slowly killing him.”

I smiled, and so did Kingman and Shanille. None of us had been aware that Dooley knew a big word like deleterious.

“Look, Max,” said Kingman now, “I feel like I owe you an apology. I said some things about your friend the snail that I probably shouldn’t have. I don’t know why I said it, but if I could, I’d take it back in a heartbeat. All creatures are valuable on God’s green earth.”

“You certainly had a change of heart,” I said, surprised by this sudden about-face from one whom I thought was particularly entrenched in his views.

“I had a long talk with Shanille last night,” said Kingman. “When you guys didn’t show up I guess I figured you were boycotting cat choir on purpose, because you were upset with me. And I don’t blame you if you did. Shanille made me see the light.”

“All creatures are God’s creatures,” Shanille intoned. “From the lowly worm to the mighty lion, we’re all equally important in God’s great plan.”

“Amen,” Kingman murmured.

“Thank you, Shanille,” I said, gratified at Kingman’s sudden reversal. “You know, I was a little upset yesterday, but that wasn’t why we skipped cat choir. Like Dooley explained, we happened upon the scene of the attack on lord Hilbourne—or at least the immediate aftermath. And after that we witnessed the surrender of Johnny and Jerry, though now they claim they’re innocent, and were actually merely trying to save Mr. Hilbourne’s life.”

“A likely story!” said Kingman. “Those two are as crooked as Wilbur’s right big toe, and that’s the way they’ll always be.”

“Not true, Kingman,” said Shanille. “Criminals are creatures of God, too, and so—”

“Now you’re taking things a little too far, Shanille!” Kingman cried. “I accept that a worm is a creature of God, and a slimy snail, too, but criminals like those two? Never!”

“And yet they are, Kingman.”

“You’re wrong!”

“Kingman, you are a stubborn old ass!”

“I’m not an ass. I’m a cat!”

“You’re a catand an ass!”

It was at this moment that Dooley and I decided to be on our way. Somehow I had a feeling this discussion could last quite a long time, and frankly I had some thinking to do.

Chapter 36

We arrived home to find that our bowls, which I was looking forward to emptying out… were empty! Devoid of food. Filled with nothingness.

“Max?” said Dooley as he surveyed this rare and disturbing phenomenon. “Our bowls are empty.”

“I know, Dooley. I have eyes. I can see.”

“But… why are they empty? They weren’t empty this morning when we set out on our fact-fighting mission.”

I didn’t even bother correcting him, as the sight of a complete dearth of food had affected me greatly. You see, I am what you might call a solid cat, in that I have a lot of solid mass to carry around with me. But to accomplish this feat I need to feed that mass at regular intervals, otherwise I startshedding those pounds, and I start to feel weak and miserable. I know, it’s an affliction, and one I try to bear with all the fortitude I can muster. My very own cross to bear, if you will.

“I don’t get it,” I murmured. “Unless…” I glanced around, and suddenly became aware of soft snickering sounds coming from nearby. They were originating from Odelia’s pantry, and as I walked over and carefully pushed open the door, I found myself gazing into the cheerful faces of… Harriet and Brutus!

“Gotcha!” said Brutus.

“Oh, Max, you should have seen your face!” said Harriet, almost collapsing with mirth.

“You stole our food?” I said, shocked that they’d do this to me—to us.

“We didn’t steal it,” said Brutus. “We just hid it.” And he gestured behind him, where two perfect piles of kibble lay.

I stared at the piles, and understanding dawned.

“Oh, you guys,” I said, trying to be a good sport about this latest stunt the twosome had pulled. I wasn’t laughing inside, though. In fact it was probably nearer to the truth to say that I was crying. Well, maybe not crying. More like a soft whimper, if you will.

What can I say? I like food, and when people mess with it, I get upset. Very upset.

“You guys are so funny!” said Dooley, who clearly doesn’t suffer from the same affliction. “Hilarious! Aren’t they hilarious, Max?”

“They are,” I said dryly, then studied the pile of kibble, and discovered that it was wet. As if someone had chewed it.

“Someone has chewed on my kibble,” I announced with distinct distaste.

“Of course. We had to move it,” said Brutus.

“So why is it wet?” I insisted.

“Max,” said Harriet with an indulgent grin. “How do you think we moved it? With our paws?”

She and Brutus waited a moment until the penny dropped, and when finally it did, I made a face.“Yuck,” I said.

“We took it into our mouths,” Harriet explained for Dooley’s sake, for he was still clueless. “That’s how we carried it over there. Just a few kernels at a time.”

“It took us at least half an hour,” said Brutus.

“You guys!” said Dooley. “Funny!”

I didn’t think it was all that funny. In fact I thought it was disgusting. I don’t like it when people touch my food, you see. I like it fresh and crisp and straight out of the bag, not chewed up by other cats. I mean, how would you feel if McDonald’s served you a Big Mac but the guy behind the counter put it into his mouth first and gave it a good nibble?

Shaking my head, I walked off.

“Max?” Brutus called after me. “Aren’t you going to eat that?”

“I just lost my appetite!” I called back.

“But I thought you said you were hungry?” Dooley said.

“Not anymore!”

“Great,” said Brutus. “So we did all of that moving his kibble around for nothing.”

“Might as well eat it,” said Harriet, and soon I heard the telltale sounds of cats chewing on kibble. My kibble!

Ugh.

I decided to remove myself from the source of this awful sound and walked out of the house and into the backyard. I even walked all the way to the back, so I wouldn’t have to hear Dooley, Brutus and Harriet eating, and as I lay down in the shade of the rose bush, a voice tootled into my ear, “Max! Have you caught Bob’s killer yet!”

I jumped in surprise, and when I glanced down at the mulch that Odelia likes to spread on top of the rose bush’s roots, I saw that once more I was in the presence of Mr. Ed.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Ed,” I said. “But the men who were caught and have been accused of the abduction and murder of Bob Rector have denied their involvement.” And in a few short words I explained to the snail what had happened last night at the Star hotel.

“I didn’t even know Bob had two cousins,” said Mr. Ed when at length I’d finished recounting my tale. “What did you say their names were?”

“Wim Bojanowsky and Suppo Bonikowski. They were staying at the Hampton Cove Star, in the room adjacent to Lord Hilbourne’s suite.”

“Oh, yeah. The keys to the city guy. He’s some kind of prince or king, right?”

“He’s a British blue blood, though I don’t think he’s a prince exactly, or a king. Merely a lord. Apparently they’ve got a lot of those over in England.”

“They probably create them in a factory outside London,” said Mr. Ed. For a moment he didn’t speak, and judging from the thought wrinkles that appeared on his sticky green brow, he was thinking hard. “What if Bojanowksy and Bonikowski were in on the whole thing?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if they set this whole thing up, along with Bob? I mean, what are the chances of Bob’s cousins being in town the same time he is? Or do they always travel in packs?”

“They mentioned they were here on holiday, along with their cousin. Though I also saw them at Town Hall, where they were working as waiters handing out finger food.”

“So they claim to be tourists, and yet they’re waitering. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

I shrugged.“Maybe they needed to make some extra money. Vacationing in the Hamptons can be expensive.”

“Mh,” said Mr. Ed. “Don’t they have jobs at home? What do they do?”

“Bojanowsky is a customer success manager at a furniture store. And his cousin is between jobs at the moment and has been paying the bills by temping as a manny.”

“Not exactly high-powered careers,” Mr. Ed mused. “Or high-paying ones.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re criminals,” I pointed out.

“It doesn’t,” he conceded. “So… tell me again what they said happened?”

“The cousins say they’re the victims of an attack carried out by Johnny and Jerry, while the latter claim the cousins were attacking Hilbourne and they saved his life.”

“I’m inclined to believe your Johnny and Jerry, Max. Call me prejudiced but any cousin of Bob Rector is a bad egg in my view. So there was blood on the carpet, and the cousins were caught… doing what exactly to this Lord Hilbourne?”

“Holding him upright, as he appeared to be on the verge of collapse. Which caused our two homegrown crooks to conclude the cousins had been beating the guy to a pulp. Which they hadn’t, as there wasn’t a mark on him. Not a scratch or a dent or even a single tiny bruise. But he did suffer an aneurysm. And he did lose a lot of blood and is now in a coma.”

“Mh…”

Mr. Ed’s tentacles were gently waving. Did you know that snails possess no less than four tentacles? Two on top of their head that contain their eyes, and two smaller ones they use to smell stuff on the ground. Mr. Ed’s big tentacles were now pointing at the sky, as he was momentarily locked in silent contemplation, while the smaller ones were idly sniffing at the mulch under our feet. I could tell he was thinking hard. I was thinking hard, too. So there you have it—cat and snail, both thinking hard, pooling resources.

“So what do you think?” I said finally.

“I’m suddenly reminded of the fact that Bob was an engineer.”

“He was?”

“Mh. He once told Evelina he used to work for some big tech startup.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“I didn’t think it was relevant.”

“Do you think it’s relevant now?”

He gave me a keen look.“Don’t you?”

I nodded slowly, putting together all the pieces of the puzzle.

We shared a long look.“I wonder,” he said, “what happened to the other watch.”

Chapter 37

We’d all gathered in Odelia’s cozy little home, which incidentally is also my home. I could have gone down to the police station to file a report, or even down to the Gazette to explain things to Odelia, but I felt it more prudent to save my strength. After all, I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and I’d willingly surrendered my kibble to my housemates.

And so instead I opted to patiently await the return of my human from work, and when I told her I thought I’d solved both the crime of Bob Rector’s death, and of Lord Hilbourne’s mysterious illness, she immediately called her uncle, and the rest of the family, for a family meeting, something she said she’d been intending to do anyway, though she wouldn’t say why—probably wanting to surprise me with some great news about the wedding, I suspected. Like the fact that she’d found a different venue, which could host two or three thousand people, and a DJ who was used to playing big places like that, and a caterer who was ready to cater to thousands. And worked on credit.

And so it was that Dooley, Brutus and Harriet and myself were seated in front of the TV, and our humans were seated on the couch, wondering what all the fuss was about.

“So Bob Rector,” I said, “was the cousin of Wim Bojanowsky and Suppo Bonikowski, and I think in the end that’s what this whole case revolves around.”

Odelia dutifully translated my words for the convenience of Tex, Uncle Alec and Chase, a service Marge and Gran obviously didn’t need.

“I’ll tell you what I think happened,” I said, “and then you can decide if I’m right.”

“Sounds good,” Uncle Alec grunted. “This case is making me lose sleep—and what little hair I’ve got left on my head,” he added, patting his balding scalp.

“So the cousins must have heard that Hampton Cove had decided to award Lord Hilbourne the keys to the city, and also that the guy was loaded. And since Bob had been working on a very interesting new invention, they decided to put it to good use and test it out on Hilbourne.”

“What invention?” asked Marge.

“Well, this is just speculation on my part, but I suspect it’s some kind of device that impacts a person’s nervous system. Wear it, and the person on the other end has access to whatever your eyes can see and whatever your ears can hear. Amongst other things.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Brutus.

“No, I’m afraid I’m not. It is, in fact, the only explanation for what happened. Or at least the most plausible one.”

“Only problem was that due to his busy schedule Hilbourne was a couple of days late in arriving, and so Bob and his cousins were left languishing in town, with too much time on their hands. Which is when Bob happened to meet Emma Bezel, who was on the lookout for a decent guy her sister could date. Bob very quickly discovered that Evelina was a millionairess in her own right, and so he and his two cousins decided to try their nifty little device on her, as a test run before they tackled Lord Hilbourne, the big fish.”

“So Evelina was the appetizer and Hilbourne the main menu,” said Gran.

“Exactly. Only Bob had taken a liking to Evelina, and didn’t want to subject her to a device of which he wasn’t sure if it worked exactly as intended. I think he must have felt that maybe, just maybe, there were still a few kinks to be worked out. And in the end he didn’t want Evelina to act as a guinea pig. Only his cousins didn’t agree with this assessment and decided to go through with the plan, overruling Bob’s reservations.”

“So why this whole kidnapping spiel?” asked Chase after Odelia had translated my musings.

“I think Bob put his foot down, at which point they decided to change tack and pretend that Bob had been kidnapped. A good old-fashioned kidnapping, after all, has never failed to bring home the bacon, and it didn’t fail this time either.”

“No, seventy-five thousand is a tidy sum,” Uncle Alec agreed. “So why kill Bob?”

“I think there must have been some kind of fight that broke out between the cousins, over who got what share of the money, and one of them must have pulled his gun and accidentally shot Bob. I don’t think it was their intention to kill him. But once they had, they had to get rid of the body, and make sure they weren’t implicated in any way.”

“What a story,” said Dooley, who was enjoying this tremendously, I could tell.

“Which brings us to the Lord Hilbourne fiasco.”

“You’re saying fiasco,” said Marge. “You mean not everything went according to plan?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “When we were at the hotel last night I remembered the two cousins from the Town Hall ceremony in honor of Lord Hilbourne. They were doling out finger food to the esteemed guests. I think what they were really up to was planting the device Bob made, knowing that Hilbourne would wear it, at which point they had him.”

“What device?” asked Gran.

“I know!” said Dooley. “The key, right!”

“Not the key,” I said with a smile. “The watch. You’ll remember that Charlene handed Hilbourne a nice watch along with the key. The key was to be worn around the neck, and the watch around his wrist. I think that watch was the prototype smartwatch Bob Rector designed, its function being notjust to monitor heart rate and blood pressure, like many of these gadgets, but also to hook up to the wearer’s nervous system, and offer the person on the other end, who’s monitoring the feed, a look into the person’s head.”

“The laptop!” said Gran. “Of course!”

“Exactly. Somehow they managed to swap out the watches before the ceremony. So the watch Charlene handed Hilbourne was in fact Bob’s smartwatch prototype. The idea was that Bob’s cousins would monitor what happened inside Hilbourne’s head, and that way they could hopefully glean important information like bank accounts, passwords, his passcodes and such, and somehow empty the accounts and transfer the money to their own bank accounts—presumably located in some non-extradition tax paradise.”

“And so when Johnny and Jerry asked to change rooms…” said Odelia.

“They refused, as they didn’t know how far the range of that smartwatch extended—presumably not very far—and they needed to stay as close as possible to pull this off.”

“So what went wrong?” asked Tex.

“I think the watch, being the first of its kind, didn’t work as planned. I think it gave Hilbourne some kind of shock to the brain—an aneurysm.”

“A brain bleed,” said Tex, nodding.

“But if his brain was bleeding, why was there blood on the carpet?” asked Marge.

“His brain was leaking!” Dooley cried.

“It’s possible,” Tex conceded. “It depends where in the brain the hematoma occurred. The fact that he bled through the nose probably saved his life, as pooling of blood inside the cranium puts pressure on the brain and could have killed him before he got to the hospital.”

“So instead of looking into his brain and stealing his passwords,” said Gran, “they almost killed him.”

“They must have panicked,” said Marge.

“And Johnny and Jerry chose that exact moment to force their way into the room,” said Gran, “and thought the cousins were roughing up Hilbourne and decided to intervene.”

“The cousins must have realized something was terribly wrong when they heard Lord Hilbourne cry out in pain,” I said, “or maybe they saw what was happening on their laptop, so they hurried into Hilbourne’s suite, wanting to help Hilbourne, and help themselves by swapping the watches again—making the evidence disappear. But Johnny and Jerry dropping by ruined their plan.” I shrugged. “And the rest I think you know.”

“When Mr. Ed first approached you,” said Harriet, “he said he heard Bob say ‘If I can just convince her I’m home free.’ It made Mr. Ed suspicious. What was that all about?”

“I think at first Bob was planning to outfit Evelina with the smartwatch, as planned. But he had to convince her to wear the watch all the time, so they could gather enough data. Later on he changed his mind and told his cousins he couldn’t go through with it.”

“I have a question, too,” said Tex. “When Emma Bezel asked me to date her sister, she didn’t tell me that Bob was dead. She told me he’d broken Evelina’s heart by not showing up for a date. Was she lying to me or didn’t she know that Bob was dead at that point?”

“Of course she was lying,” said Gran with a shake of the head. “Much easier to convince you that way. Imagine if she told you that her sister’s boyfriend had been found dead in the back of a potato truck. Would you have been as eager to have lunch with her?”

“Um…” said Tex, giving this a think.

“On second thought, better don’t answer that,” said Gran.

Odelia got up and pressed a kiss to my furry brow.“You did well, Max. I’m proud of you.”

“We’ll have to confirm Max’s theory,” said Uncle Alec, “but it all sounds very plausible to me. So plausible in fact that I think I might recruit him as my newest detective, Odelia.”

Odelia smiled and said,“No way. He’s my assistant.”

“Fair enough,” said the Chief with a grin. He got up to leave, but Odelia said, “Not so fast, Uncle Alec. I also have an announcement to make.”

“We have an announcement to make,” said Chase.

“Chase and I have given this a lot of thought,” said Odelia.

“And we’ve decided…” Chase continued.

“… that the wedding is off,” Odelia finished.

“What?!” Gran cried.

“But honey!” said Marge.

“I knew it,” Tex said, shaking his head. “I just knew it.”

“Well, that saves me the cost of having to rent a tux,” Uncle Alec muttered.

“What we mean to say is,” said Chase, “that the wedding as we originally envisioned it is off.”

“It’s become too unwieldy and too big for us,” Odelia explained.

“Instead I’ve got six plane tickets here,” said Chase. “One for each of you and also for Charlene and Scarlett.”

“Tickets? Tickets to where?” asked Gran.

“Vegas. If you agree, we would like to fly you out there next Saturday.”

“And you,” said Odelia, gesturing to myself and my three friends and housemates.

“We’re going for a Vegas wedding,” said Odelia finally, a big smile on her face.

“Just you guys,” said Chase, “and no one else.”

“How about it?” asked Odelia, and both she and Chase looked a little trepidatious all of a sudden, unsure of how their family would react.

“I love it,” said Uncle Alec.

“Absolutely!” said Marge, and streaked forward to hug her daughter.

“Does that mean we have to write to all those people to disinvite them?” asked Gran.

“I think a message in the Gazette will suffice,” said Odelia.

“Then count me in,” said Gran.

“And me!” said Tex.

“Chase’s granddad is also coming,” Odelia said, “and his mom and aunt. And that’s it. We’re going for the ultra-limited approach.”

“Sometimes that’s the best one,” Marge agreed.

And frankly I couldn’t have agreed more.

“Vegas,” said Dooley, wide-eyed. “Do they have cats there, Max?”

“Sure,” I said. “It’s just a town like any other, Dooley.”

“Well, maybe not likeany other,” said Brutus with a grin.

“But they’ve got kibble, right?”

“Of course they have kibble,” I said.

And hopefully it was the non-pre-chewed kind.

Chapter 38

The wedding had gone off without a hitch. The same couldn’t be said for the post-wedding dinner, which Tex had taken upon himself to preside over. Unfortunately he’d opted for one of those sushi places where the customer is supposed to do everything themselves. But even as Tex grabbed the knife and tongs handed to him by an overoptimistic server, andstarted slicing and dicing morsels of food then aiming them at his clients’ plates, those clients—or victims—were still basking in that post-wedding bliss too much to bother about what landed on—or in the vicinity of—their plates.

Chase’s grandfather, mom and aunt had left by then to get an early night—they must have had a premonition, for at some point I heard Gran loud-whisper into Scarlett’s ear that they could always move to a different restaurant when this ordeal was over.

“It’s nice of them, don’t you think, Max?” said Dooley. “That they don’t want to hurt Tex’s feelings?”

“I think ultimately they’re doing him a disfavor, though,” I said. “After all, if only someone stood up and told him he’s probably the worst chef in the history of chefhood, maybe he’d take steps to remedy the situation, instead of making it worse.”

We watched as Tex intensely studied a piece of fish, frowning as if willing it to reveal its culinary secrets.

“How can you ruin sushi?” I heard Scarlett whisper back. “It’s raw fish!”

But when we glanced over to Odelia and Chase, they both looked so obviously happy Tex could have served them roadkill and they’d have savored it with relish, thinking it was the finest gourmet dish.

“Why was that priest dressed so funny, Max?” asked Dooley. “And why did he break into song in the middle of the service?”

“He was dressed as Elvis, Dooley,” explained Harriet. “It’s a local custom here in Vegas.”

“Yeah, plenty of Elvis impersonators here,” Brutus confirmed.

“Are you sure they’re really married, though?” asked Dooley. “That guy didn’t look like a priest to me.”

“He wasn’t a priest, but yes, they’re officially married,” I confirmed. “You don’t need a priest to be married in the eyes of the law. All you need is an officiant who’s certified.”

“Well, he certainly looked certifiable to me,” Dooley said, nodding.

We all laughed, except for Dooley, who didn’t realize he’d said something funny.

“So you caught the real killers, did you?” asked Charlene.

“Yeah, we did,” Uncle Alec confirmed. “Bojanowsky and Bonikowski will do time.”

“But how did you find out that they were the ones behind all this?”

“Um…” Uncle Alec paused and glanced in my direction. “Well, part of it is good old-fashioned police work, of course. The other part…” He shrugged. “If I tell you that Max solved the case, along with some friendly assistance from Evelina Pytel’s pet snail, you’re not going to thinkI’m funny in the head, are you?”

Charlene laughed, then stared at her boyfriend with a touch of incredulity.“No,” she finally said, when she realized he wasn’t pulling her leg. “No, of course not. A cat and a snail, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what do you know?”

“And what about Johnny and Jerry?” asked Marge, who seemed to have a soft spot for the two crooks who had such a hard time getting and staying on the straight and narrow.

“Johnny and Jerry are fine,” Chase assured his mother-in-law. “They’ve been released and they’ve promised to stay out of trouble from now on.”

“Did I tell you they were in my office the other day?” said Uncle Alec.

“What did they want?” asked Odelia.

“To ask what the procedure was to become a cop.”

Chase uttered a bark of incredulity.“No way.”

“Yeah, way,” said Uncle Alec with a touch of somberness. “Johnny wanted to know all about job openings at the station, and Jerry was particularly interested in pay scales. I told them they didn’t stand a chance of becoming cops, as you need a clean record and their record is probably about as long as my arm. But that didn’t seem to deter them.”

“So we might see them patrolling our streets soon?” asked Tex as he flipped a piece of pale pink fish onto the Chief’s plate. At least I think he was aiming for the Chief’s plate. Instead it landed on the Chief’s head with a squishy sound and then just lay there, looking inedible and kinda sad before the Chief plucked it from his brow and… ate it.

Charlene patted her boyfriend on the back.“The hotel has a twenty-four-hour restaurant,” she whispered.

“Yeah, well, I doubt whether they’ll be patrolling our streets any time soon,” the Chief grunted, giving his girlfriend a grateful look.

“They could always become parking enforcement officers,” Marge suggested. “You don’t need to have a clean record to do that, or do you?”

“Please, Marge, don’t encourage them,” the Chief pleaded with his sister. “It’s bad enough that they’ve been regular visitors at the station holding cell. I don’t want them to start infesting the rest of my precinct as well.”

“Well, I firmly believe in the power of rehabilitation,” said Marge stubbornly.

“Good for you, Marge,” said Scarlett, who was intently studying a piece of fish, probably wondering what it was. She then glanced surreptitiously in my direction. I got the message. She wasn’t my first customer of the evening. So I quickly padded over and accepted the piece of fish from her hand, which she proceeded to use to give me a grateful pat on the head. I gave her hand an equally grateful lick.

“I wanna make a toast,” said Gran now as she got to her feet a little unsteadily. She’d discovered sak? at the beginning of the evening and had taken a distinct liking to the brew. “To the gride and broom,” she said, raising her glass high and spilling some of the clear liquid. “May they live happily ever after and, and, and… and all of that good stuff!”

“Hear, hear!” said Marge.

“And to our cats,” Gran added as she turned to us. “May they keep being the best helpers that ever solved a crime in our fair town. To Max, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus!”

Loud cheers rang out, and more fish was aimed at our humans’ plates by an enthusiastic father of the bride—soon to be redistributed to us, conveniently located nearby!

“Why am I always the last one to be mentioned?” Brutus lamented.

I gave him a gentle nudge and said,“Have you never heard the expression ‘The last will be first?’”

“No, I haven’t. You just made that up, didn’t you?”

“No, it’s a thing,” I assured him. “And I’m sure that next time you’ll be the one to crack the case. You’ve got the brains, you’ve got the skills, and you certainly got the brawn.”

“Very kind of you to say so, Max. You’re absolutely right. I’ve got both the brains and the brawn. So I’m ready to start cracking some tough cases. And who knows? Maybe I’ll even let you be my loyal but slightly goofy sidekick from now on. How about that?”

“Very generous of you, Brutus.”

“Think nothing of it, Max.”

And so the long night wore on. One by one people started disappearing: first Uncle Alec and Charlene, who said they wanted to get an early night, then Gran and Scarlett, who said they wanted to take a stroll along the Strip, and of course Odelia and Chase were also eager to return to their room, as they had something to celebrate in the privacy of their bedroom: their wedding night. Though it’s entirely possible that after the week they’d had, they’d both fall asleep the moment their heads hit the pillow.

So finally it was just Tex and Marge and us cats. When Tex looked up and saw that his entire roster of customers had vanished into thin air, he looked a little sheepish at first, but Marge was quick to console him.“You did a wonderful job, honey,” she said. “And do you realize that our daughter just got married? And to a wonderful husband to boot?”

That quickly put a smile on the good doctor’s face again, even as he was dissecting a piece of fish filet, probably trying to ascertain what kind of diseases it might be suffering. “We did a good job raising Odelia, didn’t we?” he said as he took a seat at the table.

“We sure did,” said Marge, then gave her husband’s arm a squeeze. “What do you say we go up to our room, too?”

Now he was positively beaming.“Best idea ever,” he said, and then they, too, left the building.

For a moment, silence reigned, and then Harriet said,“I can’t believe they forgot about us!”

“Well, at least they didn’t leave us without something to eat,” Brutus pointed out.

Silver linings, people. Life is all about recognizing the silver linings. And sometimes, just sometimes, those silver linings consist of raw fish—lots and lots of raw fish!

31.5. PURRFECT WEDDING

1

Weddings, as a rule, are not really my cup of tea. I mean, have you ever seen a cat going through the ordeal of standing in front of a bunch of other cats dressed like a clown and speaking words that are designed to attract ridicule and suppressed snickers? No. And for a good reason, too. Cats, as we all know, are a lot smarter than humans. Which is why I’ll never marry. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t begrudge humans the capacity or the inclination to go through this strange torment. In fact I admire them. Much like one admires a lion tamer sticking their head into a lion’s maw. One thinks the whole thing is absolute folly and obviously ill-advised, but there’s admiration, too. And so I didn’t begrudge Odelia going through the ordeal now, as she stood in front of a man dressed like Elvis Presley, complete with greasy coif, sequined shirt and pants, and sunglasses that obscured the upper half of his face and part of the lower half as well.

I know this is all part of the deal when you go to Las Vegas to get married. And I also know that this solution was one born not from a passion for the music of The King, but out of sheer necessity. But still it was cause for a few gulps of surprise to say the least. And I think I can speak for the entire Poole family when I say that this was the last thing they had expected when Odelia and Chase announced their intention to tie the knot.

Just look at Gran. Usually when a beloved granddaughter is getting married a grandmother’s face lights up with sheer delight. This particular grandmother wasn’t smiling, though. She was frowning darkly. Now it may well be that Gran’s face has naturally set itself into this expression through sheer overuse, but still. It’s one thing to be able to snap a lot of shots and maybe even a video of your granddaughter and her future beau walking down an aisle that looks a little like the one Prince Harry and Meghan Markle passed down when they got married. But quite another when your darling granddaughter is standing before an Elvis impersonator. No bragging rights, if you see what I mean, which probably explained why neither Gran nor Odelia’s mom Marge were holding up their phones and covering the ceremony from every angle and posting the resultant audio-visual material on their Facebook or Instagram pages.

Lucky for Odelia there was still Scarlett, who was doing exactly that, though whether she was doing this as a favor to her best friend’s grandkid or so she could make fun of the whole thing later on is hard to say with certainty, though I suspected the latter.

“Max?”

“Mh?”

“Why is Odelia dressed in white and Chase in black? Is he in mourning?”

“No, Dooley,” I said. “White is traditionally the color of a bride’s wedding dress, and black the color of the groom’s tuxedo.”

It had cost Chase some effort to find a tux at such short notice. He had, of course, anticipated getting married in Hampton Cove, and the whole thing had been thusly arranged, but when the bride and groom had announced, at the last minute, through an article in the Hampton Cove Gazette, that the wedding was off, the tux rental company contracted to supply Chase with the necessary vestimentary accouterments had naturally assumed that since the wedding was off, so were the tuxedo arrangements, and had consequently promised Chase’s nice penguin suit to some other lucky future groom.

The problem was that Chase had found out about this perfect example of crossed wires the night before the wedding party was scheduled to fly to Vegas. Fortunately Uncle Alec still had an old tux hanging in his closet. It was a couple of sizes too large for Odelia’s burly cop, but at least it was better than having to wear jeans and a check shirt.

Likewise, Odelia had had to scramble to find something to wear, as the dressmaker who’d been hired to whip up her precious matrimonial threads was so upset that her wedding invitation had been suddenly revoked that she’d refused to make good on her promise to have the dress ready in time and had declared that she was now on strike.

As a consequence Odelia was forced to dress in her mom’s old wedding dress, which in her case was not such a bad thing, as she and Marge were pretty much the same size.

“I think Odelia looks lovely,” said Brutus, gazing in the direction of the small stage.

“Yeah, I think I understand now why they call it the most beautiful day in a girl’s life,” said Harriet with a coy glance at Brutus. “It really is a beautiful day, isn’t it, snuggle bug?”

Brutus gave his mate for life a startled stare, then cut a look of sheer panic in my direction. I motioned for him to stay calm. Unfortunately the wedding had a powerful effect on the prissy white Persian, and even as we were being flown out to Vegas she hadn’t stopped dropping obvious hints about organizing a similar wedding for herself.

“Don’t you think it’s a beautiful day, smoochie poo?” she now asked.

“Oh, sure,” said Brutus, a haunted look having appeared in his eyes.

“Wouldn’t you like to experience a beautiful day like this for yourself?”

Subtlety has never been Harriet’s strong suit, I’m afraid.

“Um…” said Brutus, extremely ill at ease and watching his every step.

“We could invite cat choir to provide the musical background at the ceremony, and I’m sure Shanille could wrangle Father Reilly into providing the venue.”

“Father Reilly will never agree to organize a cat wedding at his church,” I said, feeling that I probably should come to Brutus’s aid before he collapsed into a welter of emotion.

“And why not, may I ask?” Harriet snapped, visibly peeved at my lack of endorsement. “For your information, Father Reilly adores Shanille. She told me so herself. ‘There’s nothing Father Reilly wouldn’t do for me,’ she told me just the other day. Nothing.”

“She probably meant there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for her in the food department,” I said. “But he’d probably stop short of lending his church to a bunch of cats deciding they want to organize a wedding.”

“And why is that? Don’t you think we have as much right to get married as the next human?”

“That’s just it, Harriet,” I said. “We’re not humans, are we? And Father Reilly is.”

“I’m sure Father Reilly would love to organize a cat wedding,” said Dooley, intervening on Harriet’s behalf. “Father Reilly is all about trying new things. To bring some life back into his congregation. And a cat wedding is just the ticket,” he added.

“See?” said Harriet with a note of triumph in her voice. “Even Dooley thinks we should get married. Thank you, Dooley,” she said emphatically, giving me a nasty look as she spoke these words. “I always thought you were a lot smarter than you look.”

“Why, thanks, Harriet,” said Dooley, well pleased with this dubious compliment.

“You’re welcome. So let’s get this wedding on the road, yummy bear,” she said, giving her mate a nudge in the midsection, causing the latter to wince as if in great pain.

When I gave Dooley a slightly hurt look, he blinked and said,“What?”

“You shouldn’t encourage Harriet, Dooley,” I whispered into his ear.

“Why not?” he whispered back. “She wants to have her most beautiful day, just like Odelia. And I think there’s nothing more important than making people happy, Max.”

“Oh, Dooley,” I said. “Not again with this ‘Good deed of the day’ nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense, Max,” he said. “Millions of cub scouts are making people happy every day. Is it so wrong of me to join them? Spread a little sweetness and light?”

“No, Dooley,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with spreading sweetness and light. But sometimes what’s beautiful for one cat is a disaster waiting to happen for another.”

I would have explained to him a thing or two about the concept of the bridezilla, and how I had the distinct impression that Harriet had all the makings of the worst bridezilla that had ever lived, but just then Odelia and Chase were starting to intone their vows, and so I wisely shut up and listened.

After all, maybe there was a section in there devoted to us cats, and I wouldn’t want to miss my cue for when to break into raucous applause now would I?

2

O delia’s eyes were sparkling as she gazed softly into those of her future husband—a future that could be counted in minutes now, not hours, as those fateful two words were about to be spoken, perhaps the most beautiful words in the English language: ‘I do.’

She’d prepared her vows ages ago, as any person working as a professional word slinger would, and she now took out the little piece of paper she’d tucked safely away in a hidden corner of her wedding dress—actually her mother’s wedding dress. And even though it was one gorgeous gown, it still felt a little like a letdown. Especially the strange smell was hard to ignore. It was a combination of mothballs and that stale stench that hits you when you open an old closet you haven’t seen the inside of in years.

There hadn’t been time to get the dress dry-cleaned or washed so Mom had sprayed the thing with plenty of Febreze and even a whiff of some very expensive perfume, but even now the smell assaulted Odelia’s nostrils and made her feel a little nauseous.

It had been a wedding fraught with obstacles, though when in later years she looked back upon this day she’d probably laugh and laugh and laugh. At least she hoped she would.

There had been some issues with the wedding rings, unfortunately, as the jeweler they’d selected to provide them with the gorgeous gems for this very special occasion had read an article in the Gazette announcing that the wedding was off, and had decided to sell their wedding rings to another, more deserving, couple. At least he felt they were more deserving, as he’d gone to great pains to explain, since they were actually getting married and Odelia and Chase obviously were not—at least according to the Gazette.

Gran said she should have framed her article differently. She shouldn’t have bluntly stated that the wedding was off but that it had merely been indefinitely postponed. Then they wouldn’t have had all this trouble with dresses and tuxedos and rings suddenly becoming unavailable. Odelia had argued that she’d framed it like this not to make people feel upset. Ifthey thought the wedding was off, they wouldn’t feel cheated out of a great party. Instead they’d feel sorry for the bride and groom, and Odelia and her family would still be able to show their faces around town without attracting criticism.

Gran had pointed out with irrefutable logic that sooner or later they’d find out that Chase and Odelia were married anyway, and they’d probably feel even more cheated.

“Dearest Chase,” she now announced with a smile. “When I met you…” She glanced down at the little piece of paper in her hand, and saw to her surprise that it wasn’t the little paper she’d printed out the day before at the office but the article she’d recently written about a hog wrestling match. The first line read ‘Bucky is a roly-poly big pink pig and never happier than when rolling in the mud at Norberry farm, his bucolic home.’

“Um…” she said, frantically trying to remember those vows she’d worked so hard to type up. Snippets surfaced in her memory but then submerged again into a thick brain fog as panic held her in its grip and cold sweat broke out across her back and neck.

Chase, whose eyes were flickering with mirth, prompted,“When you met me…”

“Um… when I met you, I was, um…” She crumpled up the adventures of Bucky the roly-poly pig, and felt a hot flush creep up her cheeks. “When we met, I was, um…”

“Happy, sad? Indifferent?” he said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Well, happy, of course.” Then she frowned. “Though in actual fact, no, I wasn’t happy,” she added, thinking back a little to the actual moment they met. “In fact I was very unhappy, since you told me to butt out of your investigation, which I thought was very rude of you, and inconsiderate. So I thought you were something of a jerk at first.”

“A jerk, huh?” said Chase, grinning now.

“Well, you have to admit that you were a jerk, Chase.”

“Okay.”

“And then there was that cat of yours. Brutus. He was… well, Brutus wasn’t very nice to my cats, especially Max—at least in the beginning. So of course I didn’t think—I mean I thought…” Oh, dear. This was turning into a complete and utter disaster, wasn’t it?

“In my defense, you were acting like a grade-A nosy parker,” said Chase, that smile still splitting his face in two. He seemed to think the whole thing was simply hilarious.

The officiant, meanwhile, or Elvis, as he said to call him, was eyeing the happy couple a little curiously. He probably got all sorts of people tying the knot in his presence, a good chunk of them so drunk they didn’t even remember later on that they’d actually gotten married. And here stood two stone-cold sober people, and the bride was determined to make the case why she shouldn’t get married, which was probably the opposite thing of what vows were intended to accomplish in the first place!

“If you want I can sing a song,” Elvis now suggested, to break the awful silence that had descended on the small crowd congregated for this joyous occasion.

“Just give him a kiss!” Gran shouted from the front row. “And tell him all is forgiven and forgotten!”

“Um…” she said. She wasn’t one of those people who are good at improvising, unfortunately. Nor was she the kind of person who is aces at public speaking, and without her notes she felt pretty much lost!

“I think it was obvious from the first,” said Max as he now came walking up to them and settled at Odelia’s feet, “that Chase was going to prove the most obnoxious, most annoying, most impossible person you’d ever met in your entire life. But very soon, and much to your surprise, you discovered that he was also the most wonderful, most kindhearted, most loving man you’d ever met. And it wasn’t long before you fell head over heels in love with the guy.” He smiled up at Odelia. “And so did we, as a matter of fact.”

Odelia gave her large blorange cat a grateful smile, and repeated, verbatim, the words he now spoke, acting as her impromptu prompter.

“I was worried you wouldn’t like my cats,” she said, “but it turns out you didn’t just tolerate them, but you took them into your heart faster than I thought possible. And much to my surprise we made not only the perfect professional team, but the best couple, too.”

Chase, who’d cut a quick glance to Max, and immediately figured out what was going on with all the meowing and the mewling, was positively beaming now.

“Chase,” she said, “you may be a dog person, or a cat person, but above all, you’re my person, and I can’t imagine life without you. It’s been a bumpy ride to get here, and there may be more bumps in the road ahead—in fact I’m sure there will be—but of one thing I’m absolutely sure: that I love you with all my heart, and that I want nothing more than to share my life with you, bumps and all.”

“Well said,” Max said with a grin, and resumed his place in the front row, next to Odelia’s relatives, who were all wiping away a little tear—or a lot of tears.

“I couldn’t have said it better,” Gran muttered, and gave Max a pat on the head.

Chase didn’t take out a piece of paper, but without further ado he said, “Odelia, the day we met was the beginning of a new chapter for me. I never thought I’d ever meet someone I’d want to spend my life with. And even though I might have said something along the lines of you being a busybody and nosy know-it-all, I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you in your uncle’s office that you were the one. I would have asked you to marry me the day you butted into my investigation and bested me at every turn, but that seemed a little forward. So I patiently waited until you were ready, and I may bewrong,” he added, gesturing to her wedding dress, “but I think you just might be ready now.”

“Yes, I am!” she said, sniffling.

Uncle Alec handed Chase a wedding ring, and he took it carefully, then slipped it ever so gently on Odelia’s finger.

She gratefully accepted a ring from her mom and slid it on Chase’s finger. They weren’t the rings they’d originally selected, but cheapos they’d picked up at the airport, but they’d have to do for now.

“Odelia Poole,” said Elvis, happy that this show was almost ready to go on the road and he could start belting out tunes again to his heart’s content, “do you take this man as your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”

“Yes, I do,” said Odelia gratefully, gazing into her insufferable, wonderful man’s eyes.

“I do,” said Chase his eyes lighting up.

“Well, then kiss your bride, son!” Elvis said, throwing up his hands.

And so that’s what he did!

3

V esta, who usually wasn’t susceptible to sentiment of any kind, had to wipe away a tear as she watched her granddaughter and future grandson-in-law share a sweet kiss. Everyone who was present couldn’t help but feel touched by the scene, and even Scarlett, who wasn’t family in the strictest sense but then again almost was, was sniffling like a cat with the flu, going through her pack of tissues like the entire audience at a Titanic cinema re-release. Instead of shouting, ‘Jack, get your ass back on that raft!’ though, she gave two hearty cheers and clapped along with the rest of the company.

“I still think it would have been much better in church,” said an equally weepy Marge.

“Just think about this, Marge,” said Vesta. “If that wedding as originally planned had gone through we’d be all living on the street picking food out of a dumpster right now.”

“It would have been worth it!” Marge cried, causing Vesta to shake her head.

“And they call me sentimental,” she growled to her friend, seated on her other side.

“That’s probably because you love those soap operas of yours so much,” said Scarlett.

“So? It’s not because I like watching Days of Our Lives that I’m a sentimental old woman. I just think there’s so much you can learn from those kinds of shows.”

“Oh, please.”

“They show you what it’s all about! A regular slice of life!”

“How can you say that? Those shows are so over the top!”

“Not true. If you read between the lines they tell you everything you need to know about the human condition. About what makes a person tick.”

“What makes a person sick, you mean.”

“Will you two shut up already?” said Alec. “I’m trying to enjoy a wedding here.”

“We’re all trying to enjoy a wedding,” said Vesta. “And if you’d chipped in for the wedding instead of playing Ebenezer Scrooge we would all be listening to Father Reilly and enjoying a nice traditional wedding, instead of this clown dressed like Elvis.”

Uncle Alec, seated one row back, leaned forward.“I wanted to chip in, remember? You said it wasn’t necessary. You said that you and Marge could handle it just fine.”

“Oh, tosh. I never said any such nonsense.”

“You did!”

“I did not!”

“Please, no fighting on Odelia’s most beautiful day,” Tex intervened. The good doctor’s cheeks were wet with honest tears, too, and the sight softened Vesta to such an extent that she decided to let bygones be bygones. If you can’t forgive and forget on the day that your granddaughter ties the knot with a most deserving husband, when can you?

“I still think Alec should have chipped in,” she muttered to Scarlett.

“I heard that!” said Alec, before Charlene, his girlfriend, and also Hampton Cove’s proud burgomaster, put her hand on his arm and pulled him back from the brink.

“Max did a great job with the vows, didn’t he?” said Marge, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

“Yeah, he sure did.”

“What did Max do?” asked Scarlett. “I heard a lot of meowing and figured he was either objecting to the wedding, or suffering some kind of medical emergency.”

“Odelia forgot to bring her vows, so Max played prompter,” Vesta explained.

“That’s amazing,” said Scarlett. “I wish I had a cat like him to whisper to me at those crucial moments when it really counts.”

“What moments? You were never married.”

“Other moments. Important moments.”

“Like what?”

“Like when you’re at the grocery store and you forgot to bring your grocery list.”

“I’d consider that a gross misuse of Max’s talents,” Vesta grunted. “Those cats are far too valuable to use as a mnemonic device at your grocery run. In fact I was thinking that maybe we should get them all insured.”

“Insured?”

“Yeah, like those actresses that get their legs insured, or their lips or their boobs. I think we should get our cats insured. They’re so much more to us than just pets. In fact I don’t think Odelia would be the reporter she is today without the help of those cats.”

“I don’t think anyone in their right mind would insure your cats,” said Scarlett.

“And why not? If Miley Cyrus can get her tongue insured for a million dollars, why can’t Odelia have her cats insured?”

“Can you two just shut up for five seconds?” asked Alec, leaning forward again.

Vesta turned, a fiery rebuke on the tip of her tongue, but then she caught sight of Odelia’s happy face as she did the rounds and hugged each and every member of her family, and her heart warmed and she told her son, “You’re absolutely right, Alec. I’ll shut up from now on.”

The look of surprise on Alec’s face spoke of his utter astonishment.

“I never thought I’d see the day,” she heard him mutter to Charlene.

And it was with a smile of satisfaction that she’d still been able to flummox her offspring that she got up and joined the others in congratulating her granddaughter.

There had been a few hitches along the way, but in the end everything turned out okay.

There was a rush to congratulate the bride and groom, and as Vesta joined the crush, she saw that the cats had all decided to take a few steps back, lest they be overrun or trampled underfoot. So she placed a couple of chairs together, and then beckoned to Max and the others. Gratefully they all hopped onto the makeshift safe place, and as she patted their furry little heads, she said,“You did so well, you guys. I’m proud of you.”

“So can we organize Harriet and Brutus’s wedding now?” asked Dooley.

She laughed, until she realized Dooley was actually serious.“Um, well, let’s see about that later, shall we?” she suggested. “Today is Odelia’s day. Let’s not forget that.”

“Okay, Gran,” said Dooley. And as she turned to join the small throng surrounding the happy couple, she heard him say, “I don’t think you’ll be able to get married today, Harriet.”

“Of course we’re not getting married today, Dooley,” said Harriet, sounding a little peeved. “Do you really think I’d want to be married by some bozo in an Elvis costume?”

Vesta smiled. The bozo in the Elvis costume had done a great job, she thought. After all, it wasn’t the clothes that were important, or the venue, or even the fact that you’d forgotten your little note with your vows scribbled on them. The important thing were the people present: your family and friends. And it was with her crusty old heart overflowing with joy that she pressed a kiss on her granddaughter’s cheek and followed suit with an equally heartfelt smooch on her newly acquired grandson’s cheek.

“Congratulations, sweeties,” she said as she pressed Odelia’s hand and Chase’s both. “You made an old woman very, very happy today.”

“Happy that you’re happy, Vesta,” said Chase.

“Thanks, Gran,” said Odelia, and gave her a bone-crushing hug, then whispered, “I’m glad it’s all over!”

“Oh, honey,” she said, patting her granddaughter on the back. “You can relax now, and start enjoying the moment.”

“I will—I do!”

“And now,” she said, “for the best part: let’s eat!”

4

“Why is everybody crying, Max?” asked Dooley. “I thought this was supposed to be the happiest day in Odelia’s life and she’s crying all the time, and so are all the others.”

It was true. I’d never seen so many humans cry so much before, except in movies where everybody dies at the end.

There was a note of concern in Dooley’s voice. “They’re not going to die, are they, Max? Maybe Odelia has cancer and she just found out and she wanted to get married just before she died! Just like in that episode of General Hospital where Mrs. Harper gets married to Doctor Parker on her deathbed, only to discover he mistook herbunion for a tumor, and in the next episode she decides to divorce him and sue him for malpractice.”

“Nobody is sick and nobody is dying, Dooley,” I assured my friend as we watched people go from laughing to crying and back again in a weird display of emotion.

“Humans are like that,” said Harriet. “Sometimes when they’re very happy they cry, and sometimes when they’re very sad they laugh. To be honest it’s very hard to determine what they’re really feeling just based on their facial expressions.”

“At least cats don’t have facial expressions,” Brutus grumbled. “Makes things a hell of a lot easier if you ask me.”

“Nobody is asking you, Brutus,” said Harriet, a little snappishly I thought. Obviously he hadn’t agreed to marry her fast enough to her liking. It seemed to me that the wedding was off before it even got started.

“I’m just saying—”

“I know what you’re saying and I’m not even remotely interested.”

“Cats do have facial expressions, though,” said Dooley. He then did something to his face. I think.

“I don’t see any difference,” said Brutus. “You just pulled the same face twice, Dooley.”

“No, I didn’t,” Dooley insisted. “Look, this is me happy. And this is me sad. See?”

“No, frankly I don’t,” Brutus said. “It’s the same face.”

“I have to agree with Brutus, Dooley,” I said. “It is the same face.”

“No, it isn’t. Look, this is me angry—and this is me relieved.”

“Still the same face,” Brutus said.

“But how is that possible? I felt my facial muscles work hard to show you that face.”

“You may think your facial muscles are working hard,” I explained, “but in actual fact they’re not doing a single thing. And that’s because we don’t have those same kinds of facial muscles humans have. They can display an entire range of emotions. We can’t.”

“I don’t get it,” said Dooley, and a hint of sadness now did reflect on his face. But that was just because I know him so well, and I can tell immediately if he’s happy or sad.

“So when are we finally going to eat?” asked Brutus.

“We’re going to a sushi place,” Harriet announced. “So yay, fish for us.”

“Sushi at a wedding? That’s unusual,” I said.

“No, it’s not. Humans love sushi,” said Harriet. “In fact if they could they’d eat sushi all day, every day.”

“No, they wouldn’t. Not all humans like sushi. It’s an acquired taste.”

“Well, it’s a taste I certainly have no trouble acquiring,” she said, effectively closing down the argument. “In fact I can’t wait to get out of here.”

Just then, the wedding officiator suddenly and without warning broke into song.

“Love me tender, love me sweet,” he crooned, a captive audience all joining in on cue.

“Humans,” said Harriet with an eyeroll. “They’re all nuts.”

The ceremony ended and our humans started filing out of the small room, music now blasting from the speakers.

“So are you sure that Odelia isn’t dying?” asked Dooley, shouting to make himself heard over the noise. He still wasn’t fully satisfied that those tears on our human’s face weren’t tears of sadness but tears of joy.

“I’m absolutely sure, Dooley,” I said as we hopped down from our makeshift perch on those chairs Gran had supplied us with, and started to follow in our humans’ wake.

Once outside, they set foot for the nearby restaurant, and so we followed right on their heels. Traffic was heavy, and the noise from the street was deafening. People were everywhere, and so were cars and neon lights. It certainly was very different from the kinds of wedding scenes I’d seen multiple times in the kinds of romantic movies Odelia and Chase like to watch of an evening. But then where else than in Vegas can you have a wedding where the bride’s prompter is a cat, right? I don’t think I’d have been able to pull off that little stunt in front of Father Reilly’s congregation.

“So where are we going?” asked Dooley.

“To the restaurant, I hope.”

“Weddings do make you hungry, don’t they, Max?”

“And thirsty.”

“And thirsty.”

We had to hurry to keep up with our humans, and before long we arrived at the restaurant where the big post-wedding feast was scheduled to take place.

Chase’s granddad was also present, and his mom and aunt. Chase’s granddad looks exactly like Santa Claus, with a full white beard and jolly apple-cheeked face. He even has the booming laughter part down pat, and he was laughing loudly now, presumably also happy that we were about to put our paws under the table for the happy meal.

The ma?tre d’, if he was surprised to see four cats form an integral part of the company of diners, held his poker face perfectly in place. But then of course he probably had ample opportunity to practice, Vegas being the kind of town where a poker face comes in handy.

When we first arrived in town, Odelia had taken us to the casino at the hotel where we all stayed, and I’d frankly been impressed with the sheer magnitude of the operation. She’d also taken us for a limo ride along the Strip, joined by the entire wedding party, and I must say the sights and sounds of Vegas had greatly impressed me. Though to be absolutely honest I could readily understand why I didn’t see any cats or pets around: cats are not that crazy about bright lights and lots of noise. In fact we were all happy when we finally arrived in our room at the hotel and could take a load off our paws.

At the restaurant Tex had a little surprise for his newlywed daughter:“I’ve arranged with the chef that I’m going to cook the food, honey. Isn’t that great?”

Judging from the expression of horror on Odelia’s face the news wasn’t all that great.

“Sushi doesn’t have to be cooked, Tex,” said Gran. “It’s raw fish.”

“Well, whatever you do with sushi, I’m going to do it,” said Tex. “How hard can it be?!”

Famous last words.

But as Tex tied his chef’s apron in front of him, looking mighty proud, too, and the rest of the company took their seats at the table, Odelia crouched down next to us.

“I haven’t thanked you guys yet,” she said. “And so I wanted to do that now.” She then spirited four pouches of Cat Snax from behind her back, and started distributing their contents along the floor. “Just think of this as an appetizer,” she said as she gave my head a well-meant pat.

“Odelia?” said Dooley, his face screwed up in an expression of earnest concern—though, as indicated, only I could translate those very faint and understated signs that told me what he was thinking and feeling. “You’re not… sick, are you?”

“Sick? What do you mean?” she asked with a glance in her dad’s direction. And since I’ve been her loyal pet for so long I could immediately tell what she was thinking, too: she was clearly concerned her dad was about to poison them all with his (lack of) skills.

“Well, you were crying so much, and Gran was crying so much, too, and Marge was crying all the time. So I thought…”

Odelia laughed.“Oh, Dooley,” she said, looking much relieved. “Of course I’m not dying, sweetheart. Sometimes when humans are very happy, they cry. It’s a happy cry.”

“Oh, okay,” he said. “So you didn’t get married because you were about to die?”

“Absolutely not,” she said. Then she gave us all a sweet smile. “In fact I intend to live a full and happy long life.”

“And… now that you’re married… you’re not going to move to Germany, are you?” asked Dooley, “And take us with you?”

“There was a recent episode of General Hospital,” I explained quickly, “where one of the main characters gets married to a German woman and moves away to Germany.”

“That’s because that actor was kicked off the show,” said Harriet. “The writers had to think up something to get rid of him so they shipped him off to Germany.”

“No, I’m not moving to Germany, Dooley,” said Odelia as she gave my friend a tight squeeze, causing him to giggle with delight. “And neither is Mom or Gran. Nobody is getting kicked off this show. We’re all here to stay for a very, very long time to come.”

“Good,” said Dooley. “Cause I don’t think I’d like Germany. I hear they sell hot dogs there and they actually eat them!”

Odelia assumed her position at the head of the table, and soon all the humans were seated and the happy feast could finally begin. I think I’ve talked about some of the events that took place in another one of my chronicles so I’m not going to repeat myself here. Suffice it to say that Tex lived up to his reputation, but that nevertheless a satisfying evening was enjoyed by all.

Just like a wedding isn’t about the venue, or the number of people present, or even the amount of rice thrown at the bride and groom, a wedding feast isn’t about the quality of the food. It’s about being in the presence of the people that you love—or the cats that you love, in our case. And I have to say that pretty much all of my favorite people in the world were present, which made it a great night for me.

“I think I speak for all of us when I say that we were all very happy when Odelia told us that she and Chase had started dating,” Marge said as she got to her feet, a glass of champagne in her hand, to perform what I think is commonly termed a wedding toast. “And from the moment we met him, I’ve loved him like a son. Yes, I have, Chase,” she added, nodding furiously.

“Thanks, Mom,” said Chase as he heaved high his own glass.

“Hey, that’s a coincidence,” said Chase’s mom Martha, a petite woman with large eyes. She sometimes suffers some little trouble remembering stuff. “I’ve loved Chase like a son, too!”

“That’s because he is your son, Martha,” said her sister, Chase’s auntie Ariadne.

“He is?” asked Martha, a look of confusion stealing over her features. “I thought I recognized him from somewhere.”

“So it is with great pleasure, with great affection,” Marge continued, “with great…” And then she started crying again and I didn’t really understand what she said next, but I think we all got the gist.

“I feel the same way, Marge,” said Chase warmly as he got up and placed a loving arm around his mom-in-law. “I feel exactly the same way.”

“Oh, Chase,” said Marge, and then there was more hugging, and more crying.

“No, Dooley,” I was quick to say when my friend started to voice the question. “Nobody is sick, and nobody is dying.”

“They’re all happy?”

“Yes. They’re all very, very happy.”

“But I don’t get it!”

“They’re humans, Dooley. Enough said.”

“I guess so,” he said, still dubious.

But soon the speeches were over, and champagne flowed with some abundance, and much laughter soon filled the air, which made Dooley visibly relax.

Chase’s granddad then came to sit on the floor right next to us, and Dooley recognized him from an encounter we’d once had with the man, in which we’d rightly or wrongly assumed that he was, in fact, Santa Claus.

“I hear you guys saved the day again?” he said as he gave me a neck massage I very much needed at that point. “So I just want to say, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.” Then he leaned in, his white beard bristling quietly. “And if you can do me this one big favor? Please keep an eyeon my grandson for me. I know he’s a big boy now, and I know he thinks he can take care of himself, but you never know.”

I looked the white-bearded man in the eye and said,“We will keep your son safe, Mr. Kingsley. You can count on us.”

He smiled.“I didn’t understand what you just said, Max, but I think you made this grandfather’s heart a little lighter.”

“Why don’t you come and live with us?” Dooley suggested. “Odelia has a spare bedroom, and so has Marge.”

But of course Chase’s granddad is one of those rare people who can’t talk to cats, or understand them. Still, I think he managed to grasp Dooley’s meaning, for suddenly he said, “You know? One of these days I just might pay you all a visit. And who knows? I might even find myself looking for a place of my ownin your peaceful Hampton Cove. The big city is all fine and dandy for young people, but at my age she sometimes gets to be a little too hectic for my taste, and I’m thinking I just might enjoy the quiet life.”

And as he returned to his seat, Brutus grunted,“If he really thinks life in Hampton Cove is peaceful and quiet, he’s got another thing coming.”

“Max!” suddenly Dooley tooted in my ear.

“Mh?” I said as I eyed the piece of fish Tex had just thrown in my direction and tried to decide whether to approve it for feline consumption or not.

“I just had a great idea!”

“Uh-oh,” said Harriet.

“Chase’s granddad can come and stay with us, and then he and Gran can get to know each other a little better and then they can start dating and then they can get…married!”

I think he spoke for all of us when Brutus sighed and said,“Oh, Dooley…”

32. PURRFECT DECEIT

Chapter 1

We were in Odelia’s office doing what we do best: having a refreshing nap. Not that napping is all we do, mind you. Sometimes we doze, and sometimes we even sleep. Dooley and I occupied one corner of the office, Harriet and Brutus another. Recently a sort of disagreement had broken out between the two factions that make up Odelia’s cat contingent and I can only blame The Wedding for this frankly embarrassing fracas.

A wedding had taken place in Las Vegas, and Odelia and Chase Kingsley had officially been declared husband and wife. It had been one of those shotgun weddings, though fortunately no shotguns had featured into the thing, and a good thing, too, I should say.

The moment we returned from Vegas however, two things happened that caused a kind of rift: first off, a great number of people who’d heard through the grapevine about the wedding were vocally displeased, and didn’t mind expressing this displeasure to one and all. As Odelia’s cats we more or less bore the brunt of this displeasure, as our fellow felines in the local community turned to us to tell of their annoyance with the way the whole thing had gone down, and this naturally weighed on all of our minds.

Harriet, fed up with all this criticism, which she felt she didn’t deserve, figured Dooley and I were mostly to blame, as we should have used our influence to discourage Odelia from going through with her plan, even though at the time Harriet had thought it was a great idea—something she’d since conveniently forgotten, I might add.

And then there was the second dispute that soured things to some extent.

“The stork, Max!” said Dooley. “It’s the stork! I can see him! Quick, let’s catch him before he takes off again!”

I looked in the direction indicated but unfortunately didn’t see any sign of said stork.

“Um… I’m afraid I don’t see any stork, Dooley,” I said therefore.

He stared at the window, through which a sliver of blue sky was visible.“Oh,” he said finally. “I thought I saw it. Must have been some other bird.”

“Will you please shut up about your stork,” Harriet yelled from her side of the room.

“Yeah, some of us are trying to take a quiet nap,” Brutus chimed in.

“I’m sorry,” said Dooley. “It’s just that… you know how important it is, you guys. And I think we should all be on the lookout for that stork twenty-four seven.”

“You be on the lookout,” said Harriet. “Brutus and I have better things to do.”

“We could take shifts,” Dooley suggested, turning a hopeful face to me. “I could watch out while you take a nap, and you could watch out while I take a nap. And vice versa?”

“Sure, Dooley,” I said reassuringly. “Don’t you worry about a thing. You take your nap and I’ll make sure that stork doesn’t pass by this office without me attracting its attention and making sure it does what it’s supposed to do.”

“And what’s that?” asked Brutus. “Take a dump and fly off again?” He seemed to think his joke was very funny, for he suddenly broke into uproarious laughter.

“You know how important this is, Brutus,” said Dooley, sounding a little hurt. “If we don’t catch that stork, Odelia will never have her baby, and then she’ll be very sad.”

“Oh, Dooley,” said Harriet with a sigh, even as Brutus shook his head.

“What?” said Dooley. “It’s true, though, isn’t it? This is very, very important.”

“Absolutely, Dooley,” I said with a smile. As long as Dooley was on the lookout for the stork delivering Odelia’s baby there was no need for me to go into all that birds and bees stuff again, something I thoroughly dislike, I don’t mind telling you.

“What are you guys talking about?” asked Odelia, busily typing at her computer.

“Oh, nothing special,” I said, and Dooley gave me a fat wink.

So you can probably see what the issue was, can’t you: ever since we got back from Vegas, Dooley has been very anxious about the baby he was sure was about to land any moment now, courtesy of that mysterious stork. He’d pretty much equated marriage with the arrival of a bundle of joy from the heavens, and since Odelia was so incredibly busyall the time, he was afraid she’d miss the stork’s arrival and her chance at having a baby—or two.

Harriet and Brutus, on the other hand, weren’t all that excited at the prospect of an addition to the family, though in all honesty it was mostly Harriet who was very vocal in expressing her views on the subject. Not when Odelia could hear her, mind you. The last thing she wanted was to antagonize our human and cause that incessant flow ofkibble to suddenly dry up, something that was entirely Odelia’s prerogative, of course.

A knock at the door sounded, and when we looked up we saw that a man had arrived sporting an anxious look on his face.

“Miss Poole?” he said hesitantly. “Miss Odelia Poole?”

“Yep, that’s me,” said Odelia, looking up from her computer. “What can I do for you?”

The man hesitantly entered the office and took a seat across from the intrepid reporter. He was a man in his early thirties I would have guessed, a little thin on top, who wore thick-framed glasses and had a mephistophelian beard going on. The kind of beard Robert Downey Jr. rocks when he’s flying around dressed as a man of iron. Unfortunately while such a beard becomes Mr. Downey well, it didn’t do much for this man’s doughy face and pasty pallor. Then again, we can’t all be Hollywood stars, now can we?

“A friend of mine said you’re the person to talk to when some delicate issue crops up,” the man said, after shuffling back and forth on his chair for a few beats, while Odelia patiently waited for him to launch into an explanation for why he’d decided to intrude upon her precious time.

“A delicate issue?” asked Odelia, frowning slightly. “What delicate issue, Mr…”

“Curtis,” said the man. “Joshua Curtis. Um…” He glanced around, as if to make sure they wouldn’t be disturbed, and conveniently ignored all four of us, dismissing us as not relevant, as most humans do. He scooted a little forward on his chair, then said, “Can I rely on your absolute discretion, Miss Poole? This is, as I said, a matter of the utmost delicacy.”

“Yes, of course,” said Odelia. She gave the man a smile intended to put him at ease. “While I’m not an attorney, and I can’t fall back on the old client confidentiality thing…”

“Or a priest,” I muttered.

“I will of course treat whatever you want to tell me with the necessary discretion.”

Mr. Curtis nodded, then seemed to screw up his courage and said,“A friend of mine is in trouble, Miss Poole.”

“Just call me Odelia,” said our fair-haired human who, last I checked, was as svelte as she’s always been, which meant that in spite of Dooley’s ministrations no baby bump was growing. She flashed more of that encouraging smile of hers at the man, the smile that makes people in all walks oflife entrust her with their deepest confidences.

“The thing is, Jason and I have been best friends since college, see. And since he got married I like to think that his wife Melanie and I have also become very close friends.”

“Are you yourself married, Joshua?” asked Odelia, as a way to break the ice.

“Um, no, as a matter of fact I’m not,” said the man, nervously rubbing his hands on his trousers. “I came close,” he quickly added with a weak smile, “but no luck so far.”

“So your friend Jason is in some kind of trouble?”

“Yes, well, actually his wife Melanie is. She…” Mr. Curtis took another deep breath. “The thing is, Melanie’s been seeing someone.”

“You mean, someone other than her husband?”

Joshua nodded.“I’m afraid so.”

“Does your friend know about this?”

“Pretty sure that he doesn’t. And frankly I’d like to keep it that way. See the thing is… Jason and Melanie mean a lot to me, Miss Poo—Odelia. I consider them more than friends. They’re like family, and their happiness is very important to me.”

“Have you talked to Melanie about this?”

“No. No, I haven’t. I’m afraid that if I do… See, the thing is that I’m not a hundred percent sure.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’m seeing things. But I don’t think so.”

“Why do you think she’s having an affair?”

“It all started two weeks ago. Jason told me that Melanie had started working late, and that he was worried about her. He felt she was taking on too much. And so he asked me to talk to her. Maybe convince her to talk to her boss about rearranging her workload some.”

“And what did she say?”

“The thing is,” said Joshua, looking a little embarrassed, “that I thought the best thing would be for me to have a talk with Melanie’s boss myself. You see, Melanie and I used to be colleagues once upon a time, and her boss used to be my boss, too. So I just figured I’d have a friendly little chat with him at his local hangout, which happens to be my local hangout, too. Only when I told him to cut Melanie some slack, he was surprised. Said Melanie’s workload hasn’t changed. No overtime, no nothing. She clocks in and out like she’s always done. Actually he’d noticed the opposite: she’s been clocking out early the last couple of weeks, and taking longer lunch breaks.”

“Which of course made you wonder where she’d been spending those hours she claimed she was working late,” Odelia said, nodding.

Joshua cleared his throat.“I would have asked Melanie about it, but I really don’t want to ruin a beautiful friendship, and I don’t want her to think I’m spying on her. So…” He gave Odelia a hopeful look.

Odelia smiled.“You want me to find out what your friend’s wife’s been up to.”

“I’ll pay you, of course,” said Joshua quickly, taking out his wallet.

Odelia held up her hand.“I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’m not a private detective, Joshua. I’m a reporter.”

“Oh, I know you’re a reporter. But my friend told me you’re also an ace detective—probably the only detective in town. So…”

Odelia settled back for a moment, and cast a glance in my direction. I gave her a thoughtful nod. She was, indeed, a grade-A sleuth, and why shouldn’t she earn an extra buck if people wanted to avail themselves of her obvious talents? Besides, now that she was married she probably could use the extra money. Contrary to what you might think reporters don’t exactly make the big bucks, and neither do small-town cops. And even if no stork flewin through the window and deposited a newborn on her couch, she still had four extra mouths to feed, so basically I was just looking out for yours truly!

“All right,” she said at length. “Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll talk it over with my boss. See if he thinks it’s a good idea. And I’ll let you know as soon as I decide. How does that sound?”

“That sounds excellent,” said Joshua, looking much relieved. “Though I have to tell you that this is a matter of some urgency, as my friend told me just this morning that Melanie told him she’s got another late night scheduled for tonight.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Odelia, continuing to be noncommittal, even though I could tell that she was intrigued, and eager to take the case and look into this matter.

Chapter 2

“Dan, I need to ask you something.”

Odelia’s boss Dan Goory, senior—and only—editor of the Hampton Cove Gazette, looked up from the perusal of his own newspaper, and gave his senior—and only—reporter a quick glance. “Don’t tell me you finally wrote that tell-all article about your Vegas wedding?”

Odelia grimaced.“I’ll never write that article, Dan. I told you that.”

“But people are waiting to read all about it, honey. Warts and all.” He grinned, his white beard waggling invitingly. “In fact the more warts the better, you know that.”

“There was nothing especially exciting about my wedding, Dan. We flew down there, got married, had dinner, and that’s it. Shortest and least glamorous wedding in history.”

“Come on,” he goaded her. “There must be something. Pictures of your grandmother completely drunk and dancing on top of the table? Or your dad hitting the slot machines and making a killing—or the slot machines killing him?”

“Nothing happened, Dan. Nothing worth reading about.”

Her editor shrugged his shoulders, and a frown slid across his aged features.“Look, if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. What did you want to see me about?”

His tone had taken on a more official note, a note she didn’t like. She heaved a silent sigh. Ever since she’d returned from Vegas people had been acting a little weird, and she knew exactly why that was. The list of wedding guests had been extremely short: only Odelia’s and Chase’s immediate family and friends, and no one else. And quite a few people in her circle were still upset that they hadn’t been included in the festivities.

“I just had a guy come in who wants me to look into the alleged affair of his best friend’s wife,” she said, taking a seat in front of her boss’s desk. “Only problem is…”

“You’re not a private investigator,” he said tersely. “You’re a reporter and so you have no business taking on clients and investigating their cases.”

“Yeah, that’s about the gist of it,” she admitted. She’d hoped Dan would be encouraging. That he would say, ‘Of course, Odelia—go for it! Investigate away!’ Instead he regarded her a little coldly. “So look, I didn’t want to take the case without discussing it with you first. So this is me, discussing it with you.”

“Well, we’ve discussed it,” said Dan, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers. “And I have to tell you I don’t think this is a good idea, Odelia. You’re not a licensed investigator… What happens if you get hurt in the course of this investigation? You’re not insured. You’re not protected. There are reasons why private detectives have to get a license and have to take out insurance. You can’t just go around pretending to be a detective like some overage Nancy Drew.” He must have seen the dismay she clearly felt for being called an overage Nancy Drew, for he suddenly softened, those harsh lines in his face smoothing out. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I know that you’re an ace sleuth, licensed or not licensed, and I also know that your reputation is spreading through this community like wildfire, so more and more people will find their way to yourdoorstep—or your office door…” He paused, then seemed to relent. “Why is this guy—”

“Joshua Curtis,” she quickly supplied.

“Why is Joshua Curtis so eager to ascertain whether his friend’s wife is having an affair? What business is it to him? She’s not his wife.”

“He feels protective of his friend, I guess. He happened to find out that the guy’s wife is lying and now he wants to figure out what’s going on.”

“Why doesn’t he simply talk to her about it?”

“He’s afraid to. Afraid she’ll get upset. Also, he’s not sure.”

“I see.”

“So he figures if I dig around a little, and maybe snap a couple of shots, he’s got proof. And she won’t be able to dismiss him when he does finally confront her.”

“Okay, so suppose she is having an affair, and that you do get this… photographic evidence of these illicit fumblings behind her husband’s back. Then what?”

“Like I said, he’ll confront her with the evidence, and tell her that if she doesn’t stop the affair he’ll tell her husband.”

Dan thought about this for a moment.“Look, I know Joshua. And I know how close he and Jason Myers are.”

“You know these guys?” She shouldn’t have been surprised. Dan probably knew everyone in Hampton Cove. That’s what happened when you published a weekly paper for over forty years.

“Oh, sure. I remember when they were little, Jason used to get into all kinds of trouble, and Joshua would then try to get him out of it. They were like brothers, those two.”

“Still are, from what I understand.”

Dan leaned forward.“What surprises me is Melanie having an affair. She doesn’t seem like the type.”

“Do you have to be a certain type to have an affair?” asked Odelia a little ironically.

“Well, yeah, I think so. Take you, for instance. I can tell you for a fact that you will never cheat on your husband, and neither will your husband ever cheat on you.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” she quipped.

He quirked a bushy white eyebrow.“I’m being serious here, Odelia. It’s human psychology. You and Chase simply aren’t wired that way.”

“And Melanie Myers isn’t either?”

“I didn’t think so. Though if what you’re saying is true, then obviously I was wrong. Maybe my mischief radar isn’t as tuned as well as I thought.”

“So what do you think, boss? Do I take the case or not?” She eagerly awaited his response. She enjoyed these infrequent forays into the world of sleuthing, though if Dan told her to say no, she would. He was, after all, the boss. The guy paying the bills.

“Do you see a story in there?” he asked.

“Um…”

He shrugged.“Just say yes. If Melanie really is having an affair behind her husband’s back, maybe it’s a good thing that Joshua is watching out for his friend. If nothing else we can always use it for our Dear Gabi column.”

A wide smile spread across Odelia’s face. “Thanks, Dan,” she said, getting up. “You won’t regret it.”

“And get busy on that article about your wedding!” he called after her. “I want to see pictures of your grandma completely plastered and so does everyone else in Hampton Cove!”

Chapter 3

I don’t know if you’ve ever been an assistant private sleuth? You haven’t? I can tell you right now that you haven’t missed much. Basically what sleuths do is sit in their cars and spy on people. Mostly people being unfaithful to their spouse. And then they try to take pictures of this act of adultery, as I think the technical term is, and show it to the husband or wife. Though in this case, I guess, we were doing things a little differently, as the photographic proof of Mrs. Myers’s infidelity would not go to her husband but to her husband’s childhood friend.

And so it was that we were following Mrs. Myers around for the better portion of the day, and making sure we were in a position to catch her in the act. Odelia had picked her up as she left the house—and a very nice house it was, too, and one she would probably stand to lose if she kept up this infidelity thing—and then we trailed her all through town. Which basically meant we tailed her to the real estate agency where she worked as a broker, and sat there twiddling our thumbs for the better part of the morning.

At one point Odelia had ventured inside, just to make sure our quarry was still present and accounted for, and hadn’t fled through the backdoor for some secret canoodling. But Melanie Myers had still been at her desk. In fact she’d been the one to join Odelia at the reception desk and ask her if she was in the market for a house. She’d of course immediately recognized Odelia as a new bride, and chatting had ensued.

“Oh, God,” said Odelia the moment she let herself tumble down into her car seat, “I’m probably the worst private detective in the world. What was I thinking, going in there? Now she’s seen my face and when she sees me next she’ll know I’m following her around!”

“What did she say?” I asked. “Does she know you’re tailing her?”

“I don’t think so,” said Odelia with a shake of the head. “She asked me a lot of questions about the wedding, and wanted to know what dress I wore and all that guff.”

“She’s not one of those people who are mad with you for not inviting them to the wedding, is she?” asked Harriet.

“No, I don’t think she was invited. Though maybe she was. In the end there were so many people inviting themselves I have no idea who was and who wasn’t!” She rubbed her face. “Maybe I should do a course. Sleuthing for dummies or something. I’m sure there are tricks of the trade I should master before I put myself out there like this.”

“You’re doing great,” said Dooley, who always likes to take a positive view of things.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dooley,” said Odelia as she glanced through the windshield at the real estate agency across the street. It was called ‘wefindyourdreamhomeforyou.com’ and was a popular place, with plenty of customers walking in and out, and others stopping to do some window shopping. “At least now I know she’s still in there and not in some hotel or motel with her suspected lover boy.”

“Who is this lover boy?” asked Harriet, who was very interested in this case, I felt. But then Harriet is really into things like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, and I guess infidelity and relationship issues are part and parcel of those types of dating shows.

“I have absolutely no idea,” said Odelia. “And as far as I could tell Joshua doesn’t have any idea either. Which is probably why he hired me: to find out who this guy is.”

“If he even exists,” I said.

“Oh, he exists, all right,” said Harriet. “Did you see the woman’s face? She looks much too happy. I’d say she’s been having a torrid affair for quite some time. No married person ever looks this happy.”

Odelia slowly turned to face the prissy Persian.“I’m a married person. Are you saying I don’t look happy?”

“Oh, but you just got married,” said Harriet quickly. “Newlyweds always look happy. It’s when they’ve been married for a while that the problems begin.”

Odelia was frowning. A new bride doesn’t like to be reminded that marriage problems exist, let alone are a contingency to watch out for. “Pray tell, Harriet.”

“Well, obviously I can’t speak from experience,” Harriet began.

“Obviously.”

“But from what I’ve seen, the problems usually begin when babies enter the picture. I think you’d do well to consider putting off any ideas of a family expansion in the immediate future. In fact I think having babies is the best way to guarantee the end of that blissful honeymoon stage you’re enjoying so much right now.”

“And how do you figure that?” asked Odelia, who didn’t look entirely convinced by Harriet’s unbidden marriage advice.

“Well, babies drive a wedge between husband and wife, see. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but babies cry. In fact crying is pretty much all they do. They cry at night, they cry during the day, and all this crying makes it so that mom and dad never get a minute of sleep. So this makes them cranky, as most humans need a lot of sleep. And that’s when the shouting begins, and the recriminations, and before long the D word is dropped.”

“The D word?” asked Dooley. “You don’t mean… Drugs!”

“I was actually thinking about Divorce, but drugs might be a factor,” Harriet said, nodding. “So you see? Better don’t start a family, Odelia. Besides, babies are overrated, and with overpopulation and stuff I think it’s wise to simply drop the whole idea.”

“Oh, Harriet,” said Odelia with a laugh. “You’re like a walking, talking contraception ad.”

Harriet, who clearly felt this was praise of the highest order, beamed.“Thank you!”

“I think you should start with babies very soon,” said Dooley, countering Harriet’s gloomy view. “In fact I’m keeping an eye out for that stork for you, Odelia, and the moment I see him I’m flagging him down, don’t you worry.”

“I’m not worried, Dooley,” said Odelia with a half-smile as she gave my friend a pat on the head. “But between you and me,” she added, leaning in and dropping her voice to a whisper, “babies are the furthest thing from my mind right now.”

“Good!” Harriet cried. “Excellent! I suggest you keep it that way!”

“But Odelia!” said Dooley. “What if the stork comes? What do I tell him?”

“You tell him—” Odelia started to say, but whatever Dooley was supposed to tell the stork would have to wait, as just at that moment Melanie Myers came walking out of the agency, swinging a mean purse, sashaying in the direction of Main Street.

“Max, Dooley, Harriet, Brutus!” Odelia snapped. “Follow that woman!”

Chapter 4

Odelia had opened the door and so we jumped out of the car and hurried to follow that woman, and not let her out of our sight even for one second!

“I don’t understand, Max,” said Dooley as he panted a little from the exertion. “Why doesn’t Odelia follow her? Doesn’t she want to take pictures when she meets the boyfriend?”

“Oh, Odelia is following her,” I assured my friend. And when we both glanced back we saw that indeed our human was following at some distance, making sure she wasn’t getting too close. On the other side of the street, meanwhile, Harriet and Brutus had also taken up the pursuit. So now no lessthan five operatives were on the case! Good thing four of those operatives were paid in kibble, or else this operation would get costly!

“It would probably be a good thing if in the future Odelia outfitted us with some kind of tracking device,” I said, “or a hot mic through which we could all communicate. I think that’s how the professionals do things when they’re in surveillance mode.”

“I don’t think I’d like it if Odelia gave me a hot mic,” said Dooley. “I think it would get very hot against my skin, and I don’t like hot things pressing against my skin.”

“A hot mic isn’t actually hot, Dooley,” I explained. “They just call it a hot mic because it’s recording all the time.”

“Oh. Then I guess it’s fine. She can give me a hot mic, so I can tell her when I see the stork.” He raised his eyes to the heavens to show me what he meant. Though apparently no storks were in evidence just then, for he kept his tongue, hot mic or not.

As luck would have it, Melanie Myers walked into the hair salon, and since the hairdresser’s cat Buster is a close friend, our operative force had just expanded to six!

Dooley and I immediately set paw inside, and slunk into a corner where we took up our vigil, remaining as inconspicuous as a blorange cat of sizable proportions and his gray ragamuffin friend can be. We shouldn’t have worried, though, for Melanie wasn’t the least bit interested in us—or the rest of her surroundings. In fact the moment she took a seat in the waiting area, and picked up a copy of Cosmo, her phone jangled and she expertly fished it out of her purse with long fingernails and clicked itto life.

“She’s very pretty,” said Dooley as he stared at our target admiringly. And indeed Mrs. Myers was very pretty. She had that statuesque thing down pat, and her sense of dress was very elegant and chic. If a woman like Melanie showed me a house, I’m pretty sure I’d immediately say yes and snap it up at any price she wanted for it. Though of course as a cat it’s hard to buy a house since we rarely carry any money on our person or even have a bank account, for that matter. Plus, banks are hesitant to give us a mortgage.

“Hello, darling,” Melanie purred into her phone as she turned her face to the window and stared out. She’d lowered her voice, and had added that sexy tone that some men like so much. “Are you ready for tonight?” she asked. She listened for a moment, and I could see her face fall. Evidently the person on the other end wasn’t ready for tonight, for she said sharply, “You have got to be kidding me.” There was more talking on the other end, though obviously I couldn’t hear what was being said, but Melanie’s face had taken on a look of consternation, so clearly things weren’tgoing according to plan. “Are you breaking up with me?” she asked, a sudden quiver in her voice. “Is that what this is?” And I guess that was exactly what this was, for a few moments later she said, very quietly, “Bye,” and lowered her phone, then just sat there for a moment, still gazing out of that window, but this time with what are usually termed unseeing eyes.

I even thought I detected a tear that had formed in the eye that was visible from where I sat, and Dooley said,“What is happening, Max?”

“I think her boyfriend just dumped her, Dooley,” I said.

“Oh, so that’s a good thing, right?”

“Melanie doesn’t seem to think so.”

But then Fido Siniawski summoned her to take place in one of his chairs, and Melanie pulled herself together with an extreme effort and stalked over, head held high.

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Returning to the office, Odelia felt a sense of disappointment. When you’re all geared up to tackle a problem, and the problem simply yields all by itself, the end result can be disconcerting. Not unlike putting your foot down expecting that one final step and discovering you’ve already reached the ground floor. It’s jarring, to say the least.

But since she’d been asked to do a job, she decided not to overthink things. Joshua Curtis had asked her for results, and clearly she’d been able to get the results desired. So she picked up her phone and put in the call.

Joshua picked up on the first ring.“Yes, Miss Poole? What have you discovered?”

“Well, it would appear that your friend was dumped by her boyfriend,” said Odelia.

“Dumped? What do you mean?”

“He called her while she was at the hair salon,” she explained. “And dumped her over the phone. Apparently they were supposed to meet up but instead he said it was over.”

“Huh,” said Joshua, clearly as taken aback by this denouement as Odelia herself was. “He dumped her over the phone? The bastard,” he said with some heat.

“Yeah, she looked devastated,” said Odelia, transferring the information Max and Dooley had gleaned from their surveillance. “I don’t think she was expecting it.”

“Poor Melanie,” said Joshua. “So do you know who the guy is yet?”

“No, I don’t. Do you still want me to keep going? I mean, the affair, if there ever was one, seems to be over. So there really is no point in bringing it up with her, I guess.”

“No, I guess not,” Joshua agreed. “Just… just to satisfy my curiosity, though, Miss Poole, could you maybe find out who the guy is? Just in case she resumes the affair. And take plenty of pictures, if you can. I want some good shots of the evil bastard.”

It sounded like a fair enough request, Odelia thought, so she said,“Sure thing, Joshua. I’ll try to find out. Though now that the affair is over, that might prove a lot harder.”

“See what you can do,” he said, and disconnected.

Odelia swiveled in her chair for a moment, thinking up ways and means of figuring out who this mystery man could possibly be.

Chapter 5

‘This was probably the shortest case in the history of cases,” said Dooley.

“Yeah, it sure was,” I agreed.

“And we solved it, Max!”

“We didn’t solve anything, Dooley,” I said. “The case more or less solved itself.”

“I don’t get it,” said Harriet. “This is an attractive woman, and this guy simply dumps her? And over the phone, no less? If I were her I’d press charges.”

“You can’t press charges against a man you’re having an affair with, Harriet,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, if she presses charges her husband will find out,” Brutus said. “And I don’t think that’s what she wants.”

“But he can’t just treat her like that!” said Harriet, all the female in her annoyed.

“Poor Melanie,” said Dooley. “She looked very sad, didn’t she?”

“She sure did,” I said.

After having been dismissed by Odelia, we operatives found nothing better to do than to wander around a little aimlessly in downtown Hampton Cove. That’s what operatives do, you know: they live for the chase, but when the chase is over, all that adrenaline that’s been coursing through their system needs to settle down, and it makes you feel a little bit on edge. Just like soldiers who’ve been fighting several tours of duty and then arrive home to a sedentary life. Though probably I’m stretching the comparison a little.

We’d arrived at the General Store, where I saw that our friend Kingman was holding court on the sidewalk as usual.

“Hey, you guys!” he shouted by way of greeting. “Wilbur is still pretty upset with you. So if I were you I wouldn’t let him see you.”

“Indeed? Why is he upset with us?” asked Harriet.

“Because he wasn’t invited to the wedding, of course!” said Kingman. “In fact there’s a whole lot of very angry people in Hampton Cove right now!”

“But we can’t help it if Odelia decided to cancel the wedding,” I said. “It was her decision, not ours. So why do we have to suffer?”

“Wilbur wouldn’t chase us away,” said Brutus. “He knows it’s not our fault.”

But we still made sure to glance in Wilbur’s direction, and make sure that if he did come after us, our exit strategy was in place.

“So how did it go?” asked Kingman eagerly.

“We solved the case in less than ten minutes!” said Dooley proudly.

“What case? I was talking about the wedding.”

“Oh, the wedding” said Dooley, as if Kingman was referring to some old news.

“Yeah, the wedding!” said Kingman, sounding a little peeved himself, to be honest. “The wedding we were all invited to, and were all looking forward to, and then all of a sudden it was canceled and now we don’t even get to see pictures! Or silly videos!”

“Oh, there are pictures,” said Harriet.

“And silly videos,” Brutus added.

“But Odelia is not going to put them on the Gazette website.”

“Or her social media.”

“She’s not?” asked Kingman, looking surprised. “But… isn’t she obliged to publish that stuff? She is a reporter, isn’t she? Isn’t there a law about that kind of thing?”

“A reporter isn’t required by law to publish an article about their own wedding, Kingman,” I pointed out. “Or release the pictures and video she shot.”

“Well, I think there should be a law!” an irate voice sounded at our immediate rear.

We all whirled around, and found ourselves looking into the furious furry face of Shanille. Shanille is cat choir’s conductor, but she’s also Father Reilly’s cat, and Father Reilly is the person who was supposed to marry Odelia, until she decided to cancel.

“Uh-oh,” Harriet muttered next to me.

“Can you please explain to me why you decided to cancel that wedding?!” Shanille practically screamed.

“We didn’t cancel anything, Shanille,” I was quick to point out. “Odelia did all the canceling, and we were just along for the ride.”

“But you were there! You should have said something! You can’t just cancel a wedding! Father Reilly is so upset he’s started drinking again!”

“Father Reilly has become an alcoholic?” I asked.

“Coffee, not alcohol. And he knows it’s not good for him.”

“I’m sure Odelia’s wedding had nothing to do with that.”

“It had everything to do with it! Father Reilly had the most beautiful wedding planned. It was going to be the highlight of his career. Never would there have been a more beautiful wedding. It was going to be a day people talked about for generations to come. And then—nothing! Not a word! Not asingle peep from the Pooles!”

“Oh, poor man,” said Dooley. “Maybe he should get married himself. That way he can enjoy the wedding of his dreams, and since he’s the one getting married it won’t get canceled.”

“Unless the bride cancels,” said Harriet.

“He first has to find a woman who wants to marry him,” said Brutus.

“Catholic priests don’t marry, you dimwits!” Shanille practically shouted.

“But why?” asked Dooley. “Don’t they like getting married?”

“Don’t try to cloud the issue,” said Shanille, pointing a threatening paw in my friend’s direction. “You should have convinced your human to let that wedding go through.”

“You overestimate the influence we have on our human, Shanille,” I said.

“Yeah, Odelia is a grown person who doesn’t listen to us,” Harriet argued.

I smiled at this, for I’d had this argument with Harriet before, and she’d taken the view that I should have stopped Odelia from flying to Vegas and antagonizing the whole town. Looked like now that Shanille argued the same thing Harriet had switched sides.

“You did it on purpose, didn’t you?” said Shanille, wagging that threatening finger in Harriet’s face now. “You know how excited I was about staging the cat choir performance to end all cat choir performances, and you willfully and purposely set out to sabotage my moment of glory. Admit it!”

“I admit no such thing!”

“You know what? I don’t think I can tolerate this kind of behavior any longer, and so I don’t think I will.” She raised her head high and gave us that supercilious look she does so well, and regarded us from between narrowed eyes. “Consider yourselves expelled!”

“Expelled?” I asked. “Expelled from what?”

“Expelled from cat choir!” she said, then started to walk away, even before we had recovered from the shock, adding, “You’re not welcome anymore, same way I wasn’t welcome at your wedding!”

“But… it wasn’t our wedding!” Harriet cried.

But her pleas fell on deaf ears, for Shanille had left the gathering.

Chapter 6

“Where do you think you’re going?” asked Vesta when her friend opened the car door.

“I have to pee,” said Scarlett. “Why? Do I need to ask permission?”

“Where are you going to pee? There’s no bathrooms that I can see.”

“There’s a vacant lot over there behind that fence. That all right with you?”

Ever since they’d launched the neighborhood watch, Vesta had been thinking of a simple solution to a problem that had vexed them from the start: both she and Scarlett were ladies of a certain age, and their bladders weren’t what they used to be, meaning that if they sat in a car all night, following doctor’s orders in regard to the regular intake of fluids, there came a moment they needed a bathroom break. Unfortunately, Hampton Cove wasn’t exactly littered with public restrooms, and since bars and restaurants were mostly closed by the time they started patrolling those mean streets of their small town… It was one of those vexing problems, and thus far they hadn’t been able to solve it—apart from peeing in the bushes, of course.

“Or maybe I’ll go to that house over there,” said Scarlett now, as she pointed to a derelict structure right next to the empty lot. The house looked ripe for demolition.