Purrfect Sidekick. Purrfect Wedding. Purrfect Deceit. Purrfect Ruse

“Gran!” yelled Dooley. “What is happening!”

But of course she didn’t hear us. And then when a large piece of ceiling dropped down on the kitchen floor, it looked like things were turning ugly, and we beat a strategic retreat.

We regrouped in Odelia’s house, which, much to our delight, wasn’t the scene of men with hard hats using power tools to tear down the walls. Things there were exactly as they’d always been, and we discovered that our food bowls were still there, and filled to the brim, too, and so were our litter boxes—though luckily not filled to the brim.

“What’s going on?” asked Dooley. His question was addressed to Harriet and Brutus who sat on the couch, looking particularly glum.

“Gran has started her kitchen remodel,” said Harriet, “only she forgot to tell Marge.”

“She’ll blow a fuse when she gets home and discovers what Gran has done,” said Brutus.

“That’s not a kitchen remodel,” I said. “They’re tearing down walls!”

“Gran mentioned something about wanting to open the place up,” said Harriet. “She wants to turn the entire downstairs into one big space, and get rid of the sitting room out in front. She said she discussed it with Marge and she agreed—though I doubt it.”

“Is this Fred Kramer’s crew?” I asked.

“No, it’s some contractor Gran found somewhere. I think they’re Polish. First they’ll create some more space downstairs and then when that’s finished Fred Kramer will come in and install the new kitchen they ordered.”

“Gran wants more light,” said Brutus. “She complained the old house was too dark.”

“Well, she is right about that,” I agreed. “The living room was pretty dark.”

“I think when it’s all over, it’s going to look great,” said Harriet. “Airy and bright.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Brutus.

“So what have you been doing?” asked Harriet, addressing her question to me.

“Oh, just this and that,” I said.

“Odelia and Chase interviewed the ex-girlfriend of the man who fell down the shaft,” said Dooley, “and also his best friend. And they seem to think Karl Bunyon had something to do with the whole thing, because the dead man dated Karl’s stepdaughter. Oh, and also they were both out in the woods on the same night at the same time.”

“Yeah, Chase is going to arrest Karl Bunyon and search his house,” I said, repeating what Odelia had told us before she’d dismissed us and told us to go and play.

“So Shaft Man and John Doe were both killed by the catnapper?” asked Harriet.

“It’s a possibility,” I said with a shrug.

“But you don’t think he did it, do you, Max?” said Brutus, eyeing me closely.

“I don’t know, Brutus. Right now I don’t have enough information at my disposal to decide what happened, and as long as that’s the case, I prefer to defer judgment.”

He grinned.“Prefer to defer judgment. Nice one. You’re starting to sound like Perry Mason, Max. Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out sooner or later, buddy. You always do.”

It was nice to get this vote of confidence from one who was notoriously critical of my efforts as a cat sleuth, but frankly they weren’t exactly justified, as I hadn’t lied: I had absolutely no clue what was going on. What I did know was that if Gran was going to turn Marge and Tex’s house into a construction site, things were about to get a little heated around here. And before long this proved to be the case, when Odelia suddenly came storming into the house, and burst out, “Have you guys seen Gran?”

“Last time I saw her she was next door,” I told my human, “supervising the reconstruction efforts.”

“Well, she’s not there, and the house is a complete mess. What is she up to, do you know?”

“I think she wants to put in a new kitchen,” said Dooley.

“That’s not a kitchen remodel!” said Odelia, getting a little too loud if I’m honest.

The four of us decided to take a nap—even though the sound of those jackhammers was very annoying I must confess. Still, we took a valiant stab at a nice little nap on the couch. Unfortunately, our nap was to be cut short, for a mere five minutes later Marge came storming in. “Where is my mother!” she screamed at the top of herlungs.

“She’s out there somewhere,” said Harriet wearily, then yawned, hoping to convey the message that we wanted less talk and more peace and quiet.

“She’s destroying my house! There’s people drilling holes in my walls!”

“Yeah, I saw that,” I said.

“When all is said and done,” said Harriet, “It’s going to look fabulous.”

“Airy and bright,” Brutus added.

“Airy and bright my ass!” Marge screamed, and stormed out again.

Tex was next, stomping in through the sliding glass door and looking around like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, ready to start kicking ass and taking names. He had that wild look in his eyes that foretold of a massacre in the making, and it wasn’t hard to guess who his intended victim was. “Where’s Vesta!” he roared. “I’m going to wring her neck!”

“She’s out there supervising the reconstruction,” said Harriet.

But of course Tex couldn’t understand what Harriet said, which he proved by repeating, “I’m going to wring that damn woman’s neck if it’s the last thing I do!”

And then he stomped out again. And I think at that point we got about an hour’s worth of good solid sleep. Which was very nice indeed.

Chapter 23

Odelia stood overseeing the carnage, along with her mother. The inner wall was gone, and so was the second inner wall, and all in all there wasn’t much left of what had once been a cozy little home.

“What do you have to say for yourself, Ma!” Marge demanded.

“I think it looks pretty great,” said Gran admiringly. She was still wearing her hard hat and looked like an elderly construction worker. “Look, if you wanna make an omelet you gotta break some eggs. That’s just the way it is. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can relax.”

“You should have asked me before you hired these… these… this wrecking crew!”

“They’re not a wrecking crew. They’re builders. And they’re very good builders. The contractor is Scarlett’s cousin’s neighbor’s mother-in-law’s brother’s best friend, and he comes highly recommended. He’s also dirt cheap. Besides, we talked about this, remember? And you said itwas fine.”

“I didn’t say it was fine! I said I was going to discuss it with Tex!”

Dad stood eyeing the destruction with a dazed look on his face.“Where is my television?” he asked in a strangled voice. “What did they do to my television?”

“Is that all you have to say!” Mom demanded.

“Don’t you worry about a thing,” said Gran. “All of our stuff is safely stored.”

“Where? Where is it stored?” Mom demanded.

“I’m not sure, but Piotr assured me it’s all stored away safe and sound. And cheap.”

“Piotr? Is that the name of the contractor?” asked Odelia.

“Yeah, Piotr Krakowska.”

“Oh, dear God,” said Mom, looking as if she was either on the verge of crying or about to strangle Gran. Dad was apoplectic, which showed in a general sense of dazedness.

“How long is this going to take?” asked Odelia.

“Well, that depends,” said Gran.

“Depends!” Mom cried.

“Yeah, best-case scenario? Three weeks. Worst-case scenario, three months.”

“But where are we going to live!”

They all turned to look at Odelia.

“Oh, no,” said Odelia. “I don’t have space for three extra people.”

“Well, your grandmother can sleep on the couch,” said Mom savagely.

“We don’t have to sleep on any couches,” said Gran. “Our bedrooms are perfectly fine to sleep in. This is a kitchen remodel, people, not a home renovation!”

Just then, there was a loud creaking sound, and suddenly before their very eyes the entire upper floor suddenly crashed down on the lower floor in a cloud of dust!

“Oh, my God!” Mom cried.

“Now how did that happen?” asked Gran curiously.

Just then, Odelia’s phone chimed, and automatically she picked it out of her jeans back pocket. “Yeah?” she said without looking to see who it was.

“Babe? We got him!”

“Who got what?”

“The killer! We went through Karl Bunyon’s house with a fine-tooth comb and we found the gun!”

“Gun?”

“Babe, are you all right? You sound a little… off.”

“Mom and Dad’s house just died, Chase,” she intoned. “It’s dead now.”

There was a pause, then Chase said,“I’m coming.”

And he did. Five minutes later he was standing right next to them as they all stared at what was left of the house, which wasn’t a lot.

“What happened?” asked Chase.

“I’m not sure,” said Odelia. “One minute the house was fine, the next it was gone.”

“This is just a minor setback,” said Gran. “I’ll call Piotr and tell him to fix things.”

“Fix things!” Dad suddenly screamed. “Vesta, the whole house is gone!”

“No need to shout, Tex,” said Gran, rubbing her ear. “I’m sure it’s an easy fix.”

It rarely happens that you’re treated to the sight of two grownups crying, but that’s what happened just then: both Odelia’s parents suddenly burst into tears.

“Well,” said Chase. “I guess I better start getting that guest room ready, huh?”

And as Odelia and Chase removed themselves from the scene, leaving Gran to call her contractor, and Mom and Dad to gently weep, Odelia said,“What was that you said about a gun?”

“Oh, right. Guess what? We found a gun safe in Karl Bunyon’s office. And inside we found… the murder weapon!”

“The gun that killed our John Doe?”

“Exactly! So it’s case closed. Karl Bunyon killed John Doe, and buried him in the woods.”

“But why? And who is John Doe?”

“No idea,” said Chase, as he started moving his workout equipment to a corner of the guest bedroom. “He’s not talking. I placed him under arrest, advised him of his rights, and he’s taking the right to remain silent pretty seriously. All he wanted to impress upon me is that he’s innocent, and that there must be some kind of terrible mistake.”

“What mistake?”

Chase shrugged.“Beats me.”

“You’re sure this is the same weapon?”

“One hundred percent. The bullet that killed John Doe was fired from Karl Bunyon’s gun. No doubt about it.”

“And the gun was in his gun safe.”

“Karl’s fingerprints are on the gun, the gun was in his gun safe, and the gun safe was locked with a combination lock.”

“What’s the combination?”

“The guy’s birthday.”

“Anyone else have access to the safe? The wife… or the daughter?”

“I suppose. Now where am I going to put this thing?”

He was referring to the weightlifting machine he used to train his chest and back muscles. It weighed a ton, and even though it was placed in a corner of the room, and rarely used these days since Chase preferred to do his workouts at the gym, it took up a lot of space.

“You know what? When those builders come in tomorrow, I’ll ask them to take this thing out.” He gave his wife a cheerful grin. “For some reason I have a feeling we’re going to need this room to double as a guest bedroom a lot more than as a home gym.”

Chapter 24

The next morning we were all lounging lazily in Odelia’s office. At home things were a little hectic, with Gran and Marge and Tex suddenly moving in, and the house next door having been reduced to rubble, and so the only little bit of peace and quiet we could find was in our human’s office.

The contractor, when he finally turned up early that morning, had uttered the key word to explain why the house had suddenly decided to collapse. This word was‘load-bearing wall.’ Okay, so that’s three words, but bear with me. He also uttered a second key word and this was ‘support beam.’ Okay, fine, that’s two words. “Darn it,” the man had said in a strong Polish accent, or at least I assumed it was Polish, “I knew I should have put inthose support beams before I took out those two load-bearing walls.”

And that’s how you learn new words from time to time. Pity it was at the expense of Marge and Tex’s nice house, and incidentally Dooley’s, and also Brutus’s and Harriet’s.

Well, at least there was still Odelia’s home, and since Odelia had already ruled out any kitchen remodels taking place in her home, I think for now we were safe.

Suddenly a woman walked into Odelia’s office. I recognized her as Kathleen Bunyon, and I had a feeling I knew just what she was going to say even before she said it.

“Miss Poole!” she said, sounding a little breathless as she took a seat. “My husband has been arrested by your husband!”

It’s one of those things you don’t hear very often, just like the words ‘supporting beam’ and ‘load-bearing wall.’

“Yeah, I know,” said Odelia. “And I’m very sorry, Mrs. Bunyon. Looks like the gun that killed the person we found in the woods belonged to your husband.”

“But that’s impossible!” said Kathleen Bunyon as she tightly gripped her purse in her lap. “My husband is not a killer, Miss Poole—he simply isn’t! Can’t you do something?”

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

“But he didn’t do it—I swear. And now he’ll definitely lose his kids. His ex-wife will use this to yank his visitation rights so fast…” She shook her head in utter dismay.

“Is there anyone else who had access to that gun?” asked Odelia. “Your daughter, maybe?”

“No. Karl always keeps that safe locked up tight.”

“Did you know that your daughter was the girlfriend of Darryl Farmer?”

“Who?”

“Darryl Farmer, the DJ who was found dead in an elevator shaft two nights ago.”

Kathleen frowned as she digested this piece of information, which clearly was news to her.“My daughter is seventeen, Miss Poole. She doesn’t date.”

“Well, I have it on good authority that she does—or did.”

“Darryl Farmer,” Kathleen repeated slowly. “Is this a boy in her class? Cause I think I once caught her texting some kid in her class—using very inappropriate language.”

“Darryl Farmer was thirty-five, Mrs. Bunyon. He was a DJ who played a lot of rave parties.”

“Oh, God,” said Kathleen, her hand flying to her face in a gesture of utter consternation. “Thirty-five!”

“Yeah, and as it happens he was also in those same woods the night our Mr. John Doe died. So now we’re thinking that maybe there’s some kind of a connection.”

“What connection?”

“I’m not sure,” Odelia confessed.

“Look, my husband wouldn’t hurt a fly,” said Kathleen. “He’s the most peace-loving individual on the planet. Which is one of the reasons I married him in the first place. My first husband, Suzy’s dad, was a real brute, and I swore that I’d never date a man who treated me badly ever again. And Karl has been a dream—well, except maybe for the fact that apparently he lied to me about being allergic to cats.”

“Look, there’s a lot of things we don’t know yet,” said Odelia. “We don’t know who this John Doe is, and we don’t know why he was killed, but what we do know is that your husband’s gun was used to kill him. The bullet that was found in John Doe matches Karl’s gun. There’s no doubt about it.”

“Then Grace must have done it,” said Kathleen promptly.

“Grace Kramer?”

Kathleen nodded primly.“She must have taken Karl’s gun and killed that man. Just so she could take away Karl’s kids. It’s the kind of thing she would do.” She leaned in and spat, “The woman isvicious. And she would stop at nothing to get back at Karl. She hates him for some reason, and she hates the fact that he’s the father of her kids.” She pointed a finger at Odelia. “You look into Grace, and you’ll see that I’m onto something here.”

“But… how would Grace have had access to your husband’s gun safe?”

Kathleen thought for a moment, then said,“Grace drops off the kids every other weekend. She could have taken the gun then.”

Odelia shook her head.“Mrs. Bunyon…”

“Kathleen, please. And can’t you look into this, Miss Poole? Can’t you please try to get Karl out of this mess? I’ve heard so many good things about you. How you’re an ace sleuth. There must be something you can do. I swear to God, Karl didn’t do it, whatever the evidence says. He simply didn’t.” She then took her wallet from her purse.

“No, Mrs. Bunyon,” said Odelia, anticipating what the woman was about to say.

“Kathleen, please. I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you whatever you want, if you can just get my Karl released from prison.”

“I can’t accept your money, Kathleen. I just can’t.”

“But you don’t understand,” said the woman as she placed a hundred-dollar bill on the desk, then another hundred-dollar bill. “If Karl is convicted the judge will definitely take away his kids. Please.” A third hundred-dollar bill fluttered from her fingers.

But Odelia picked up all three bills, took Kathleen’s wallet and put them back.

“Now that’s just silly,” Harriet muttered. She was probably thinking how much Cat Snax Odelia could buy from that money.

“Look, I’ll look into your husband’s case, all right?”

“Oh, thank you!”

“I’m not making any promises, mind you, but I will take a closer look.”

“Thank you so much, Odelia,” said Kathleen, getting up. “And I’m sure that if you do look into this, you’ll find that it’s that woman who stole Karl’s gun. Grace is the killer.”

After Kathleen had left, Harriet said,“You should have accepted that money, Odelia. Do you realize how much cat food three hundred dollars will buy you?”

“Or you could have used the money to buy your parents a new house,” said Dooley, taking a more practical, or should I say altruistic view.

“I can’t take Kathleen’s money, you guys,” said Odelia, “cause I’m not so sure her husband isn’t guilty of murder.”

“Well, like you said, you’re going to find out, right?” said Dooley.

Odelia shook her head.“I’m afraid there’s not much I can do. This is as clear-cut a case as I’ve ever seen.”

“Poor Kathleen,” said Dooley. “She really believes her husband is innocent, doesn’t she?”

“She does,” I confirmed. “But Odelia is right: the case is pretty clear-cut.” Unless… “What if the daughter took the gun?” I suggested.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Odelia intimated. “But why? Why would a teenager kill a homeless man?”

“For kicks?” I suggested.

“Max!” Dooley cried, horrified.

“No, but it happens,” I said. “Some teenagers simply like to kill people for kicks. And maybe this Suzy Bunyon is just such a person. Or maybe her friends are—like Todd Park. Or the late Darryl Farmer.”

“You might be onto something, Max,” Odelia said. “I’ll definitely look into that.”

Chapter 25

Once again Odelia was sitting across from her husband at the precinct.

“So you’re actually suggesting the ex-wife did it,” he said musingly.

“It’s just a thought,” she said.

“A thought Kathleen Bunyon came up with, and for good reason, too, for she’ll soon find her husband in jail for a very long time, convicted of first-degree murder.”

“Look, I’m not saying she’s right. I’m just asking you to take the broad view, and consider all the possibilities. Not just focus on Karl now that you’ve got him and the gun tied to the murder.”

“Okay, so let’s assume for a moment that Kathleen is right. And that Grace Kramer stole her ex-husband’s gun from his safe and shot a homeless person just so she could frame Karl and take his kids away from him.”

“That’s all I’m asking: to consider the possibility.”

“Well, if that were the case, why would she bury our John Doe deep in the woods where no one was supposed to find him except for the fluke appearance on the scene of your cats? Look, the body wasn’t buried in some shallow grave where it would easily be found. It was buried deep, and far from anywhere. It’s obvious that Karl—”

“Or the killer.”

“Fine, or the killer, didn’t want that body to be found. The fact that we did was just a fluke. And don’t you think that if Grace Kramer wanted to frame her ex-husband she would have buried that body where it would be found immediately? Or maybe even leave it out in the open. If she shot him with Karl’s gun, why not dump that body in the park? Or even prop it up on a bench in front of Town Hall? Why bury it where no one was supposed to find it? And before you tell me people would have looked for John Doe, no they wouldn’t. It’s obvious this is a man who’s not missed. No missing person report, and no one has come forward, even after we put a sketch on the local TV station.”

“So maybe he’s not local.”

“No, I’ll bet you he isn’t local. But you see how ridiculous that Grace Kramer theory is if you get right down to it?”

“Okay, I’ll grant you that. So how about Max’s theory?”

“And what is Max’s theory, pray tell?” he asked with a magnanimous smile.

“That Suzy Bunyon took that gun from her stepdad’s safe, and gave it to her raver friends to have some fun with. And so they went out and shot a homeless man for kicks.”

Chase sat back and thought about this for a moment.“Huh,” he said finally.

“Right?”

“I like this theory a lot better than the Grace Kramer one, I’ll tell you that.”

“Why don’t I go over to talk to Suzy Bunyon and find out what she says?”

“You do that,” Chase agreed. “She’ll probably talk to you a lot faster than she would me.”

“Deal,” said Odelia, and got up.

“So what’s happening with your folks’ house? Think they’ll be able to rebuild it?”

“Talk about a mess,” said Odelia. “Now the contractor is blaming the builders, and the builders are blaming the contractor, and when all is said and done it’s going to take a while before my parents will have their house back.”

“And a lot of money.”

“Unless the insurance kicks in.”

“Will it? Kick in?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether the contractor has insurance.”

Chase grinned.“Good luck with that.”

“Usually newlyweds move in with their folks until they’ve saved up for a place of their own,” said Odelia, “but this time it’s the other way around.”

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We found Suzy Bunyon at home studying in her room. If Kathleen thought it was odd for us to pay her daughter a visit, she didn’t mention it. She’d asked Odelia to do anything in her power to get her husband out from under this murder charge, and Odelia had given her word that she would, so this was all part of the process of eliminating suspects and trying to find out what exactly had happened that fateful night.

“Hi, Suzy,” said Odelia as she approached the pink-haired teenager. Suzy glanced down at Dooley and me, and frowned. “Do you always bring your cats with you?”

“Yeah, I guess so. They like to follow me around, and I find it’s easier to let them.”

“Uh-huh, okay,” said Suzy dubiously. She was seated at her desk, a book on geometry open under a reading lamp, but the presence of a large box of Kleenex told me that she still wasn’t over the tragic death of her boyfriend.

“So your dad is in jail on suspicion of murdering a homeless person,” said Odelia, opening the interview with a shot across the bow, so to speak.

“My stepdad,” Suzy immediately corrected her. “Karl isn’t my real dad.”

“Okay, your stepdad. So your mother has asked me to find out what happened, because she just can’t imagine that your stepdad would be involved in a thing like this.”

“So?”

“So you know that the gun he kept in his gun safe was used to murder this person?”

“Yeah, Mom told me.”

“So I want to ask you this straight out, Suzy, and I hope you’ll give me a straight answer: did you ever take that gun out of your stepdad’s gun safe?”

“What? No, of course not.”

“But you did know the combination of the lock?”

“Duh. The guy used his own birthday. How dumb do you have to be?”

“So you admit that you opened the safe?”

“I did open it. Once. Just to see what was inside. I figured Karl kept his stash of dirty magazines in there, but instead I found that he kept a gun.” She smiled. “I never knew that dopey Karl was a gun nut. Turns out that he is.”

“Karl swears up and down that he only kept the gun in case of an emergency.”

“What kind of an emergency could an accountant possibly have? A paper cut?”

“She doesn’t seem to think very highly of her stepdad, Max,” said Dooley.

“No, clearly she doesn’t,” I agreed.

“Look, I opened that safe only once, all right? And I never opened it again. I mean, what am I going to do with a gun? I can’t even shoot. Besides, guns kill people.”

“I thought that maybe you took it for your boyfriend?”

“What boyfriend?” asked Suzy, suddenly suspicious.

“Darryl?”

“Who?”

“Darryl Farmer. I know he was your boyfriend, Suzy. I talked to Todd Park this morning, and he told me all about it. And so did Lucy Hale, Darryl’s girlfriend before you entered the scene.”

“Okay, so fine. Darryl was my boyfriend.” She grabbed the box of Kleenex and moved it closer to where she was sitting. “But he never asked me to take that gun, okay? Darryl wasn’t into guns. Like, at all. In fact he was as anti-gun as a person can possibly be.”

“Some kids like to play a game,” said Odelia, cutting a quick glance in my direction.

The girl gave Odelia a suspicious frown.“What game? What are you talking about?”

“The game is called shoot a homeless person. So I thought—”

“You thought I would be involved in something like that? You are crazy, lady.”

“Not you, necessarily. But maybe some of the people you know—the people in the rave scene.”

“No way,” said Suzy, shaking her head adamantly. “They like to party and have fun, but not at the expense of others. And they would never use violence against anyone, most definitely not people who are less fortunate. No, you’re way off base now, lady.”

“Okay, all right. It was just an idea. So if your stepdad didn’t kill that man, and your friends didn’t, then who?”

Suzy shrugged.“I have absolutely no idea.”

“Who had access to that gun safe, apart from you and Karl and your mom?”

Suzy thought for a moment.“Honestly? If you put it like that, then it’s almost obvious that Karl killed that guy, isn’t it?”

“Do you believe that he killed him?”

Another shrug.“I don’t know. Maybe he did.”

“But why? Why would your stepdad suddenly go and shoot a person?”

“For kicks? Just like you thought me and my friends would? I mean, Karl has issues, Miss Poole. Here’s a man who lived with a cat in the house for years, even though he hates cats and he’s allergic to them. So maybe he hates homeless people, too, and decided to start killing them, one person at a time? Who knows what’s going on in that goofy head of his. But one thing I can tell you: I didn’t kill that man, and my mother didn’t, so by the process of elimination it stands to reason that Karl did, right?”

“Do you think that maybe Karl was so scared to lose his kids that he’d kill to protect his visitation rights?”

“How should I know?” She glanced out the window for a moment, then added, “But it’s definitely a possibility. Karl is crazy about those stupid brats. And I think he’d do just about anything for them.”

“Even murder?”

Suzy gave Odelia a pointed look.“Absolutely.”

Chapter 26

Odelia was back at the precinct. Kathleen Bunyon’s desperate plea had touched a chord but before she took on her case she wanted to look into Karl Bunyon’s eyes and hear it from the man’s own lips that he was innocent.

So she now sat in the interview room with the suspected killer accountant and it soon became clear that the man had no idea what was happening to him, and he was completely and utterly stunned to find himself in this predicament.

“I didn’t do it, Miss Poole, you have to believe me,” he said, wringing his hands. His left eye was twitching and he looked as close to a nervous breakdown as anyone could possibly get after spending a night in the precinct lockup.

“So what do you think happened?”

“I have no idea!” He scooted forward in his chair. “Look, I know I did a terrible thing, abducting those cats, but this murder business? I had absolutely nothing to do with that.”

“Your wife seems to think that Grace might be involved. That she took your gun from the safe and used it to murder an innocent man and put the blame on you.”

“Grace? Murdering a homeless man?” He frowned at this. “I don’t think she’d be capable of such a thing, Miss Poole. Grace has a mean streak—it took going through that awful divorce for me to discover that about her, but murder? I very much doubt she’d be capable of such a thing.”

“So what about Suzy? Is it possible she took your gun and gave it to some of those raver friends of hers?”

He shrugged.“Suzy and I get along, but that’s as far as it goes. She’s never really taken a great liking to me. I suspect she thinks I’m not the right man for her mother. Then again, Suzy was crazy about her dad, and she probably feels I pushed him out of the picture, which she resents me for.”

“She admitted that she knew the combination of your safe, and that she took a peek inside. So it’s not a big stretch to imagine that she would have taken your gun.”

“But if she did, wouldn’t her fingerprints be on the gun? Did the police say anything about that?”

Odelia sagged in her chair.“The only fingerprints found on that gun are yours, I’m afraid, Karl. But that doesn’t mean anything. It’s possible Suzy used gloves, and so did the person who shot that homeless person—our John Doe.”

“Would she be smart enough to think about such a thing?”

“Nowadays? With all the cop shows on television? Sure.”

Karl looked down at the table, a forlorn look in his eyes.“I’m really in a big mess now, aren’t I? I already heard from my ex-wife’s lawyers. They’re going to launch some kind of emergency procedure to have my visitation rights revoked once and for all.”

“Grace isn’t wasting any time, is she?”

“No, she’s got a perfect opportunity now, and she’s not going to waste it.” He tapped the table for a moment. “So do the police know who this man is? This John Doe that I’m supposed to have shot and killed?”

“Not yet. They’ve distributed his description to other precincts, and asked local TV stations to launch an appeal. So let’s hope someone recognizes him and comes forward.”

He gave her a wan smile.“Thank you, Miss Poole. Thank you for being in my corner. You’re just about the only one, I’m afraid. My former colleagues have all dropped me.”

“Your former colleagues?”

“Didn’t Kath tell you? I lost my job. Yeah, they’re not wasting any time either. Didn’t even wait to find out if I’m innocent or guilty.”

When Karl had been returned to his cell, Odelia decided to drop in on her husband, to see if there was anything new to report.

“As a matter of fact I do have a bit of news,” said Chase as he rubbed his eyes. “We finally have a positive ID on our John Doe.”

“You do? That’s great news! So who is he?”

“Well, a guy came forward who calls himself Charlie, though I doubt whether that’s his real name. He’s also a homeless person, and says that our guy called himself Pete.”

“Pete.”

“Yeah, Pete. And listen to this. According to Charlie, Pete owed him money. In fact Pete owed a lot of people a lot of money. Turns out Pete wasn’t just broke, he was also heavily in debt.”

“That’s interesting. So do you think it’s possible one of the people Pete owed money to might have killed him? Maybe this Charlie person, even?”

“Well, Charlie was seen wandering around the neighborhood where the Bunyons live, and it is conceivable, though highly unlikely, that he might have broken into the house, and it’s even conceivable, but even more unlikely, that he could have taken Karl Bunyon’s gun. But still, we’re really clutching at straws here wouldn’t you agree, babe?”

“But it is still a possibility, right?”

“A very, very, very remote one. Besides, like I told you before, the only prints we found on that gun are Karl’s, and from talking to my new friend Charlie I have to say he’s not the kind of guy who’d think about wearing plastic gloves when handling a gun. In fact I don’t think he’d know what to do with a gun if you handed him one. He’s more the type of person who’d settle a disagreement with his fists, if you catch my drift.”

Oh, she caught his drift, all right. And even though she didn’t like what Chase said, it all sounded very plausible to her. “So you still aren’t ready to release Karl?”

“Not a chance.”

Chapter 27

The four of us sat in the backyard of Marge and Tex’s place, taking in the devastation and the remnants of what once had been a fine family home—our family home. Workers were busy clearing the debris, loading it into a series of containers positioned on the street in front, and neighbors had come out in droves to gawk at the sad spectacle.

Gran, who seemed repentant but also reluctant to accept responsibility for what had happened, stood discussing things with the new contractor, both of them wearing their yellow hard hats, while Tex and Marge stood discussing things with their insurance guy, hoping to salvage what they could from their savings.

“It doesn’t look good, Max,” said Dooley, stating the obvious.

“No, it doesn’t look good indeed,” I agreed.

“At least we still have one home left, you guys,” said Harriet, striking the positive note.

We all darted a quick and frankly anxious look at Odelia and Chase’s house, just in case that had suddenly also collapsed under the strain. But luckily it still stood proud and erect, reluctant to follow its sister home into the abyss of contractor incompetence.

Marge had kicked Gran’s contractor to the curb, and had taken matters into her own hands by hiring one with an excellent reputation and track record, and an equally reputable architect. It would probably cost them a pretty penny, but at least they’d do a better job than the previous guy, who’d botched things to a great extent.

One of the workers now emerged from the rubble carrying a litter box and, after a moment’s hesitation, placed it in front of us, then gave us a kindly nod in greeting, and walked off again.

“Hey, what do you know? It’s your litter box, Brutus,” I said.

“Yeah, what do you know,” said Brutus somberly. “Even though I’m homeless, at least I can still do my doo-doo,” he added, though he didn’t sound particularly happy about it.

“Look, you guys,” said Harriet. “It’s all going to be fine, just you wait and see. In fact if anything, the new house they’re building will be better and bigger and nicer and more modern than before.”

“Yeah, it was a pretty old house,” I said, feeling we’d had enough of this doom and gloom for one morning. “The new house will be better built, better quality building materials, state-of-the-art insulation, roomier, lighter and brighter… All in all, I think we’ll look back on this day as the beginning of something new and pretty darn exciting.”

“They say that building from scratch is always cheaper and better than renovating,” Harriet said, giving me a grateful look.

“I guess if you look at it like that, you just might be right,” said Brutus after a pause.

“I like roomier and brighter,” said Dooley, nodding.

And so we quickly turned what could have been a tragedy into a good thing. It’s the power of resilience, you guys, something us cats have got in spades. And while we were talking about turning a bad thing into a good thing, just then Odelia came walking up to us, a frown furrowing her brow, and obviously needing our urgent assistance.

“So I need your advice,” she said as she pulled up a lawn chair and sat down next to us. “Karl Bunyon is in jail, right?”

“Oh, is this about the murder case?” asked Dooley. “Cause I thought we were discussing the new house they’re building.”

Odelia darted a quick glance at what had once been her parental home, then dismissed it with a gesture.“No, this is about the murder,” she confirmed. “I want to run something by you and see what you think. I’ve got a couple of suspects for Pete’s murder.”

“Pete?” I asked.

“The homeless person’s name was Pete, according to another homeless person named Charlie, who knew him and to whom he owed money, by the way.”

“Okay,” I said. I confess the whole murder business had momentarily been relegated to the back of my mind, and the collapse of Marge and Tex’s home had everything to do with that, of course. But if Odelia needed our sleuthing prowess, she got it, of course. “So Pete was killed,” I reiterated, “and Karl Bunyon is one of the suspects.”

“He is. Likely motive would be that he didn’t want people to know that he enjoyed dumping cats in the woods, because if that became known it could cause him to lose his kids. So he panicked and killed the witness and tried to hide the body.”

“Okay, so the problem with that,” I said, “is that a clever killer would also get rid of the murder weapon, and definitely not put it back in his own gun safe.”

“I like that, Max,” said Odelia, pointing at me. “That’s why I want to run the other suspects by you one by one and see what you guys think. The first one is Charlie himself, who was seen hanging around the Bunyon residence, and could easily have gained access to the house and grabbed the gun from the safe.”

“Possibly,” I agreed, “though highly unlikely.”

“Charlie’s motive would have been to get the money Pete owed him, and they could have gotten into some kind of tussle and the gun could have discharged by accident.”

“Who is Charlie?” asked Dooley, who had trouble following the barrage of different names pertaining to the case.

“He’s the bum who might have killed the other bum,” said Brutus, who was able to keep up.

“Oh,” said Dooley. “Okay.”

“And then there’s the stepdaughter,” Odelia continued. “Suzy could have taken her stepdad’s gun and given it to her raver boyfriend Darryl, or any of his friends, who could have used it to kill Pete. So let’s suppose that Todd Park, for instance, shot and killed Pete. Then Darryl, who was hard up and needed the money, could have blackmailed his friend, at which point Todd pushed Darryl down that shaft to get rid of him.”

“I like this theory,” I confessed. “Though it doesn’t necessarily have to be Todd Park. It could be any one of Daryl’s raver friends.”

“We probably should talk to some of these raving friends,” Harriet said.

“Raver friends,” Brutus corrected her gently. “Though they might be raving, too, of course,” he quickly added when she shot him an angry look.

“And that brings us to my final theory,” said Odelia, “and this is the one Kathleen Bunyon suggested: Grace Kramer could have taken the gun and killed Pete so she could put the blame on her ex-husband and take the kids from him once and for all.”

“Unlikely,” was my verdict. “Grace wouldn’t have had easy access to the house, like the stepdaughter would, and besides, she would have had to sneak in twice: once to take the gun and once to put it back. And both times she needed to do it unseen by anyone, which would be a big risk for her.”

“Yeah, I agree with you, Max,” said Odelia. “And Karl does, too. He told me he doesn’t think Grace is capable of murder.”

“Though clearly Grace seems to think Karl is,” Harriet pointed out. “No, I like the ex-wife for this. She had a clear motive, and she seems vindictive and clever enough to get her hands on that gun. Maybe she even hired a professional to do it for her.”

“A hitman?” I asked, and couldn’t keep the skepticism out of my voice, unfortunately.

“And why not? People hire hitmen all the time.”

“I don’t think people hire hitmen all the time, Harriet,” I said, “or the streets would be littered with dead people.”

“Nitpicky,” Harriet snapped. “You are so nitpicky, Max.”

“So what do you think?” asked Odelia. “Chase is convinced Karl is guilty, and so is my uncle. But I’m not so sure. I talked to him and he doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d do this kind of thing.”

“I think we need to talk to those ravers again,” I said. “Todd Park, for one, but also some of the others that knew Darryl. See what they have to say.”

“Okay,” said Odelia, nodding. “I’ll try to convince Chase and we’ll set up some more interviews.” She got up, then glanced at the house. “You know? It looks pretty terrible now, but maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing. After all, the house was old when Mom and Dad bought it, and at the time they didn’t have the money to do the kind of remodeling they had in mind. So maybe now they’ll finally be able to build it just the way they like.”

“See?” said Harriet after Odelia had left. “Even Odelia thinks this was a good thing.”

And she was right. Like they say: every cloud has a silver lining. And this disaster might have one, too. Though looking at Tex’s murderous frown each time he darted a look at his mother-in-law, I had the impression he didn’t see that silver lining yet. In fact he looked more like a man who had silver daggers on his mind. Or even silver bullets.

Chapter 28

That night cat choir had a different quality than usual. Mainly because practically all of the cats had followed our example and were wearing… collars with inbuilt trackers! And I must say they were wearing them proudly.

Shanille had one of the nicest collars: hers was inlaid with what looked like gold thread! She was parading the gizmo for everyone to see, and for a moment I thought she must have raided the church coffers to get her paws on all of that gold, but then she explained how Father Reilly had talked to Gran, who’d told him the whole story of the catnapping, and how our collars had saved our lives, causing Odelia and Chase to quickly and efficiently find us in the middle of nowhere, and since Gran said she could make him a good deal, the good priest hadn’t hesitated and had procured a collar from her.

And so there Shanille was, safe from any attempts at catnapping, and with Father Reilly knowing at every moment of the day or night exactly where she was, and ready to come to her rescue in case anyone tried any funny business.

Kingman, too, was wearing what looked like a pricy gadget, with what looked like diamonds, but which could also have been glass, and he told us pretty much the same story: Gran had gone round to talk to all the cat owners she knew, and regale the story of the latest catnappings, and the power of the tracker, and had sold Wilbur one.

“You guys really did us a great service,” Kingman said, and Shanille chimed in, along with Buster, and some of the other cats, who all stood around in a circle, discussing the benefits of their new and wonderful devices. “If it hadn’t been for you to allow yourselves to be taken,” Kingmancontinued, “we’d all be at risk of abduction and wouldn’t even have known it!”

“You’re heroes,” Buster exclaimed. “Actual heroes and role models for the rest of us.”

And much to my surprise, suddenly a round of applause broke out, muted of course, as it’s hard to really make noise when your paws are equipped with soft pink pads.

“You guys,” said Harriet with mock modesty. “It was a big sacrifice we made, that’s true, but we did it for the good of the whole community. And frankly if I had to do it all over again I would—of course I would!”

“Oh, Harriet, you’re such a blessing to this community,” Shanille gushed.

And since it looked like this sudden outpouring of affection could go on for a little while longer, I decided to remove myself from the scene.

“They really seem to be happy with their trackers, aren’t they, Max?” said Dooley.

“A little too happy if you ask me,” I grunted.

“Why do you think that?”

“Who wants their humans to know where they are twenty-four seven, Dooley? I certainly don’t. We probably have the best human in the world, but even she doesn’t need to know where we go or what we are up to all the time.” I gestured to Kingman and Shanille and the others. “Can you imagine what Father Reilly and Wilbur Vickery and Fido Siniawski and the other cat owners are going to say when they discover that their precious darlings are out all night, roaming the streets and generally having a great time? I’m pretty sure…”

But before I could finish my sentence, suddenly we heard a car pull up to a nearby curb, and a car door slam, then hurried footsteps proceeding in our direction. Moments later Father Reilly appeared, looking stricken and annoyed, his phone in his hand as he darted intermittent glances at his phone and then at his surroundings. When finally his eyes landed on Shanille, he cried,“Shanille! There you are! Oh, darling, I was worried sick about you! What has gotten into you to stray so far from the parish! Let’s go!”

“But…” said Shanille, looking up at her human with wide-eyed consternation. “But…”

“Let’s go, I said!” the priest exclaimed, and gave the rest of us cats a nasty look before scooping our choir director up in his arms and carrying her off with him!

“Carry on without me, you guys!” Shanille managed to shout, but then we heard that car door slam again, the car take off in a hurry, and our choir conductor was gone.

“What just happened?” asked Harriet.

“I think Father Reilly never fully realized what Shanille was up to at night,” I explained, “and now that he has, thanks to her tracking device, it’s obvious he doesn’t fully agree with her nocturnal escapades.”

More cars were pulling up nearby, and more car doors slammed, and the sound of humans talking amongst themselves could be heard, their voices carrying far in the night’s silence. They were approaching, and before long they were upon us, all looking startled and surprised that so many cats would have gathered at the park’s playground.

Buster’s human was there: Fido Siniawski, the hairdresser, and Kingman’s human, Wilbur Vickery, and Norberto Beachhead, the electrician, who’s Misty’s human, and Franklin Beaver, the hardware store owner and Shadow’s human. Garvin Chanting appeared—he’s a landscaper and Missy’s human—and I could probably go on for a little while. Suffice it to say that all of Hampton Cove suddenly appeared to have discovered our hiding place, and before long they’d all swooped down and took off with their cats.

All of them had their phones glued to their hands, and their eyes glued to their tracking apps, brought to the park by the beep-beeping insistence of the software. And so the playground quickly emptied out, and soon only myself, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus were left! The others had all been collected by their respective human owners, and taken away in their cars to safe havens scattered all across town.

“Looks like cat choir has been canceled,” said Brutus finally, stating the obvious.

“I hate this tracker!” said Harriet. “I wish it had never been invented!”

“It’s a fine device,” I said, “but maybe someone should have warned our friends that there are two sides to wearing a tracking device: it provides safety in case of a catnapping, but it also takes away every notion of privacy, unfortunately.”

“Get it off me, Max!” Harriet cried. “I don’t want it anymore! I don’t want our humans to follow us around all the time!”

“I’m afraid it takes a human to remove it,” I said.

“I could gnaw it off,” Brutus suggested.

“Oh, please do, smoochie poo,” said Harriet.

“I wouldn’t do that that if I were—”

There was a sudden spark and a soft pop and a loud yelp from Brutus, and then he was sitting back on his haunches and smoke was billowing from his mouth and ears.

“It’s an electronic device with a built-in battery,” I explained. “Best not to chew on it.”

“And now you tell me!” he cried indignantly.

Chapter 29

The next morning, bright and early, saw me and Dooley heading into town. The night had been relatively uneventful, apart from the tracking device business: Gran had shared the guestroom with her daughter, while Tex slept on the couch. It wasn’t an ideal situation, to be sure, but it was better than the alternative Tex had suggested, with Gran sleeping on the couch. Odelia and Marge had argued that they couldn’t very well let an old woman sleep on the couch, and Tex had finally seen reason and had decided to comply.

“I think it’s nice that Harriet and Brutus are staying over,” said Dooley, who’s a real family cat, and likes nothing more than to have our entire family under one roof. “I hope it takes a really long time before the house is ready, so we all can live happily together.”

“You like it now,” I told him, “but I wonder if you’ll still like it a couple of weeks from now.”

“Oh, I’m sure I will,” he said. “It’s so nice to have everyone under the same roof. You know, Max, maybe we could suggest that Marge and Tex build one big house.”

“They are building one big house, Dooley.”

“No, but I mean tear down Odelia’s house, too, and build one big house instead of two. That way we can all live together all the time. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

I made a face, but I doubt whether he saw it. I didn’t want to crush his illusions, though, so I said nothing.

“Oh, look, it’s Gran,” he said when we’d arrived in town. “What is she doing, Max?”

“I have no idea, Dooley,” I admitted. Gran and Scarlett had apparently set up some kind of stand in Town Square, and judging from the long line of cats, she seemed to be selling them something or other.

“Let’s go and take a closer look,” I suggested.

We arrived just in time to see Shanille join Gran and Scarlett, and hop onto a table placed there for some unknown purpose.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Oh, your gran is such a lifesaver!” Shanille exclaimed. “After Father Reilly practically kidnapped me last night I realized I needed to do something, so when I heard about this new initiative, I was among the first ones to sign up.” She then directed a hopeful look at Gran, and said, an emotional tremor in her voice, “Free me from this bond, Mrs. Muffin.”

“I will, Shanille,” said Gran warmly, and proceeded to cut the collar that had been placed around our friend’s neck, and with a flourish exclaim, “Free again, sweetie!”

“Oh, thank you, Vesta. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!”

“I’ll send the bill to Father Reilly,” Gran said as she dumped the discarded collar in a plastic container where at least a dozen others already resided.

“Please do,” said Shanille happily as she pranced off. “Never again!” she told me as she walked out. “Say no to trackers and yes to freedom!”

“Gran, are you sure this is such a good idea?” I said.

“Of course it’s a good idea! Didn’t you see how happy Shanille is? We’re doing your friends a favor, you guys. And they couldn’t be happier.”

“And how much are you charging for this favor?”

“A hundred bucks. Peanuts when compared to the joy we’re bringing into these precious creatures’ lives.”

“A hundred bucks!”

“I wanted to ask two hundred, but Scarlett shut me down.”

“Of course I did. I think even a hundred is too much, but what do I know,” Scarlett grumbled.

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “First you sold the entire cat community of Hampton Cove collars with tracking devices, and now you’re getting rid of them?”

“It’s called business, Max, now shut up and get lost. Can’t you see you’re holding up the line? Next!” she bellowed.

Just then, Uncle Alec suddenly came waddling up, pulling up his pants as he did. He frowned when he saw the collective of cats lining up, and his mom and her friend in their stand.“What’s going on here?” he asked, as if it wasn’t perfectly obvious.

“We’re providing an essential service to the cats of Hampton Cove,” said Gran.

“Yeah, we’re giving them back their freedom,” Scarlett chimed in.

“I’ve received a number of complaints about thieves or vandals,” said Uncle Alec. “Someone is stealing cat collars. I should have known you had something to do with it.”

“We’re notstealing the collars,” said Gran indignantly. “We’re simply removing them.”

“You can’t go around removing these collars,” said Uncle Alec. “Those are private property, and if you keep this up I will have no choice but to arrest you for theft.”

“Theft! We’re helping these poor creatures!”

“Well, you can stop helping them, or I’ll be helping you to a one-way trip to the lockup. Is that understood?” He gestured to the stand. “Where did you get this thing?”

“Oh, the builders helped us set it up. They have it at their construction sites. They use it for catering and whatever. But when I told them I needed it for an urgent matter, they were only happy to oblige.”

“Get rid of it. You need permission to set up a stand in a public area. So I could probably arrest you for that, too.”

“Oh, you really are impossible, Alec!” Gran cried.

“We better do as he says, Vesta,” said Scarlett, who didn’t seem eager to get herself arrested.

“But what about these poor creatures?” asked Gran. “They can’t even go to cat choir. They can’t go anywhere! When Shanille came to me this morning, and explained to me about her predicament, and the predicament of the entire contingent of cats of Hampton Cove, I knew I had to do something.”

“Look, I don’t care about cat choir, all right?” said Uncle Alec. “Just get rid of this stuff. And make it snappy.”

The look Gran gave her son wasn’t that of a loving mother, I have to say, but the Chief didn’t let it bother him too much. Instead, he started back to the precinct, leaving Gran and Scarlett to clean up their pop-up store posthaste.

So when Odelia dropped by moments later, Gran was already on the phone with the builders who’d been so gracious—or so gullible—to lend her the stand, and when she asked what was going on, and Scarlett explained to her about the collars and the trackers, she smiled and said, “You know what? Why don’t I go and have a chat with these people? Tell them to leave their cats to enjoy cat choir? Most of them probably didn’t even know that their cats liked to attend cat choir at night, and so when they saw them roaming all over the place on their tracking gizmos, they probably freaked out.”

“We can all go and talk to them,” Scarlett suggested. “Give them an education on cats’ perfectly normal roaming behavior.”

Most people probably think that their cats stick around all night, and never leave the confines of their backyards or their balconies. But cats like to travel much farther than most people anticipate, and often in fixed patterns, too, roaming to their heart’s content.

Gran had gotten off the phone, and soon arranged with her granddaughter and Scarlett to visit the cat owners whose collars she’d sold them then vandalized, to return them and educate them about cat behavior and the existence and necessity of cat choir.

“And please don’t send them the bill for the removal of their collars, Gran,” Odelia added with a grin. “I think they just might get very upset with you if you do.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Gran said reluctantly. She sighed. “I should have known it was too good to be true.”

And as Odelia assisted in the taking down of the temporary stand, I glanced in the direction of the street, and just caught how a bike messenger was hit by a speeding car.

The bike messenger flew across the hood of the car, then tumbled to the ground, his bike tossed into the air and landing on the sidewalk. The car pulled to a stop a couple of meters further, and immediately the driver got out and hurried over to lend assistance.

Gran, Scarlett and Odelia, alerted by the sound of the impact, all raced to the scene, but by some miracle the bike messenger simply got up, looking slightly dazed, took stock of his possible injuries, and then declared, surprise clear in his voice,“I think I’m fine.”

What wasn’t fine was his bike, though, which was pretty much banged up, and wouldn’t work anymore. Across the hood of the car that had hit him, a big dent had appeared, along with a nice set of scratches where the handlebars had impacted.

And as driver and messenger arranged things amongst themselves, exchanging phone numbers and personal information, and soon a police officer emerged from the precinct to see what was going on, I took a good long look at that bike, and then it hit me.

Now I know that it’s one of those clich?s in mystery stories to say that the lead detective suddenly ‘sees all’ in a flash but I can promise you that at that moment I really did ‘see all.’ I saw who’d killed Pete the homeless person, and I also saw who killed Darryl Farmer. Or I should probably say I had a hunch I just might know who had.

So I turned to Odelia and said,“Have you talked to those ravers yet?”

“Not yet,” she admitted.

“I’d like you to check something for me first,” I told her. “Something important.”

She gave me a look of significance.“What did you have in mind?”

Chapter 30

Except for the intermittent hooting of an owl, all was quiet in the woods that night. Dooley and myself were there, of course, and so were Odelia and Chase, but apart from the four of us, no creature stirred or made itself heard. Except, that is, for the person who was busily trying to remove an object from a hollowed-out tree nearby.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Chase muttered.

“Shh!” Odelia whispered back.

The man, for it was a man, had stuck his arm into the tree all the way up to his armpit, and was rooting around, his face illuminated by the flashlight he was carrying. It was a familiar face, and even Dooley seemed surprised when he recognized it.

“Let’s move in,” said Chase now.

“No, we have to wait,” said Odelia. “Are you filming this?”

“Absolutely,” said her partner.

And then the moment was finally upon us: the man had found what he was looking for, as his face lit up with a smile, and he retracted his hand, removing a gun from the recesses of that tree trunk.“Gotcha!” he said as he studied the lethal little gizmo.

“You called it,” said Chase, stepping to the fore and holding up his own gun and pointing it at the man. “Gotcha. Drop the gun, Mr. Kramer. Now!”

And so Fred Kramer, for it was he, immediately dropped the gun, and simultaneously his jaw dropped a few inches, too.

“How–how did you know?” he blurted out.

“Don’t mind about that. Turn around, hands behind your back. Fred Kramer, you’re under arrest for the murder of Pete Jessup and Darryl Farmer.”

“No, but seriously,” said Mr. Kramer. “How did you know?”

But Chase wasn’t deterred: he kept reciting the Kitchen King’s Miranda rights, and soon the man had been placed under arrest and was being led back to the clearing where he’d parked his car, and as Chase removed the branches from the hood of his own car, which he and Odelia had used to conceal the vehicle just in case my hunch was right, he led the fallen king into the squad car and took off with his arrestee, while Odelia and Dooley and I walked the couple of hundred yards to her car, also neatly concealed.

Everything so we could nab a killer— and it had been worth it, if only for the stupefied expression on the man’s face.

“Looks like Gran will have to choose a different kitchen supplier,” said Dooley.

“Yeah, looks like,” Odelia agreed. “And now,” she added, as she put the car in gear, “you’re going to tell me exactly how you figured it out, Max.”

“Yeah, I think I’d like to know, too,” said Dooley.

I settled in comfortably on the backseat.“The trouble for our Kitchen King started back when he wasn’t a king yet, but merely a prince. You see, Fred Kramer didn’t start out a kitchen mogul. Fifteen years ago he worked for one, as sales manager for a kitchen supplies company in Colorado. And guess who also worked for the same company?”

“Our John Doe—or Pete Jessup as his real name turns out to be,” said Odelia as she expertly steered the car back onto the dirt track leading out of the woods. “When you asked me to dig a little deeper into Fred Kramer’s background, and especially his work history, it didn’t take me longto get a positive ID from the CEO of the company he used to work for,” she explained. “He told me that before he’d terminated both their employments, Fred Kramer and Pete Jessup had worked for him, respectively as head of sales and chief accountant, both accused of embezzlement and both askedto leave.”

“Fred landed on his feet, and left the past behind, but Pete didn’t. He hit rock bottom and lost not only his job and his marriage, but also his self-respect, all of his friends and his house. So he ended up living on the streets—no money, no future, no prospects.”

“That must have been tough,” said Dooley feelingly.

“Well, he only had himself to blame,” I said. “If you steal from your boss, you probably shouldn’t expect any favors.”

“So how do you think Pete happened to end up in Hampton Cove?” asked Odelia.

“Coincidence,” I said. “I’m sure he had no idea that his former partner in crime had built up a new successful kitchen business out here, and it must have been a big shock for Fred to bump into his former associate.”

“Who immediately put the squeeze on him,” Odelia said, nodding. “Probably wanting money in exchange for his silence.”

“So Fred decided that the only option that would give him peace of mind was to get rid of Pete once and for all. So he told him to meet him out here in the woods, and he shot and buried him, knowing no one would come and look for the guy. But then of course Karl Bunyon’s catnapping shenanigans rode roughshod over Fred’s plans.”

“So… how did Fred Kramer get a hold of Karl’s gun?” asked Dooley.

“Well, from time to time it was Fred who’d drop the kids off at the Bunyons, not Grace,” Odelia explained. “And he must have gotten wise to his former employee’s gun safe—maybe Karl even showed it to him, and opened it in his presence—and that’s when the idea must have hit him.”

“To steal Karl’s gun?”

“Not steal it,” I said. “To switch it with his own gun, the one he picked out of that tree just now. The plan was to switch guns with Karl, kill Pete, then return the gun to Karl’s safe, something he could easily do when he picked up Grace’s kids or dropped them off. So just in case Pete’s body was discovered, which was a remote contingency, but still a contingency he needed to consider, the bullet would lead the cops to Karl, not Fred.”

Odelia nodded.“And so when you told me to let it be known that the bullet we found in Pete wasn’t a match for Karl’s gun, you secretly hoped…”

“That Fred would figure he’d made a mistake, and had accidentally put Karl’s gun in that tree, and had placed his own gun in Karl’s gun safe,” I confirmed. “And so just to make sure, he came out here to look for the gun, and—”

“Walked straight into our trap,” said Odelia.

“So how about this other man?” asked Dooley. “The DJ? Was that an accident?”

“No, it wasn’t,” I said. “It was a case of Darryl Farmer being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d gone to the rave that night, playing his set, and was returning home on his bicycle around the time Fred Kramer was also returning from his grizzly business in the woods. Kramer hit him with his car, knocking Darryl off his bike and into a ditch, and since he didn’t want the police to know, gave him a large amount of cash in hand to buy himself a new bike, and keep his mouth shut about the accident.”

“Only Darryl got greedy,” Odelia explained. “He must have read about the dead body being found, and thought that Mr. Kramer just might be involved, explaining his reluctance to involve the authorities, so he decided to milk him for some more cash.”

“Kramer agreed, and told Darryl to meet him at the construction site.”

“And shoved him down that elevator shaft, getting rid of another drain on his cash flow,” Odelia finished the sordid tale.

“He’s not a very nice man, is he, this Fred Kramer,” Dooley determined.

“No, he is not,” I agreed.

“So how did you figure it all out, Max?”

“Well, you’ll remember that Kramer’s Tesla had a big dent and some scratches across the hood—we saw it that day Gran hit him with her car. And today, when that bike messenger got hit, I saw the exact same damage done to the car of the man who drove into him: a dent and then some scratchingsfrom the bike’s handlebars.”

“He could have gotten that dent and those scratches anywhere,” said Odelia. “How did you connect that to Darryl Farmer?”

“It was the brand-new bike we saw in Darryl’s ex-girlfriend’s place, Lucy Vale. It was a very expensive-looking bike. But then she said something that should have made me think: she said that Darryl was as poor as a church mouse. So if he really was as poor as all that, where did he get such a nice new bike? With the money Fred Kramer gave him.”

“You did a great job, Max,” said Odelia, well pleased. “You saved an innocent man from going to prison.”

“And from losing his kids,” I added.

“Yeah, Karl’s ex-wife has no excuse to yank his visitation rights now.”

“Except for the business with the cats,” I said. “Which lucky for him nobody knows about.”

“You know what I don’t understand, Max?” said Dooley.

“No, what?”

“Why would Karl allow his ex-boss into his home? Mr. Kramer fired him, and he also stole his wife.”

“Karl had to allow Fred into his home, Dooley, and his ex-wife, too, if he wanted to see his kids. And also, I think Karl is one of those people who tries to let bygones be bygones.”

“Also,” said Odelia, “Karl didn’t know that those embezzlement charges were bogus. All he knew was that Fred fired him. Karl believed that someone embezzled that money. He knew it wasn’t him, but he also accepted that Fred couldn’t be sure about that.”

“He should have blamed him for stealing his wife,” I said.

“Karl didn’t see it that way. He thought Grace had left him, not that Fred had framed him so he could steal Grace away from him.”

“Karl is really one of those people who are too good for this world,” I said with a shake of the head.

“Yeah, he sure is,” Odelia said. “And if we hadn’t intervened, Fred wouldn’t have just framed him for embezzlement, stolen the man’s wife, but also set him up for murder!”

“Talk about a lousy boss,” said Dooley with a sigh.

Epilogue

It was that time of the week again, when the Poole clan all comes together and enjoys a family moment: when they sit down for dinner and the paterfamilias prepares food for the entire clan. In the olden days that paterfamilias probably first killed a bison or two and caught a shoal of fish to serve his famished relatives, but in these modern times Tex had simply gone down to the supermarket to get his offerings wholesale. It was necessary for him to buy his meats wholesale as he wasn’t exactly the best chef in the world, and things often tended to go wrong at the food prep stage of the proceedings.

Tex was slowly improving, though, and every week his barbecue moment was a little less disastrous than the week before. At this rate I figured it wouldn’t take more than another couple of years before he managed to serve us all an edible and enjoyable meal.

The meal itself was being served in Odelia and Chase’s backyard for a change, as the backyard of the chef himself was the scene of an extensive home renovation project—or you might call it what it was: erecting an entirely new home practically from scratch.

“So you did it again, Max,” said Harriet as the four of us were all lying next to one another on the porch swing. “You caught yourself another killer.”

“I guess I got lucky again,” I said modestly.

“Or smart,” said Dooley.

“So the Kitchen King is actually a killer king, huh?” said Brutus. “I should have known. He looked like a crook to me.”

“No, he didn’t,” said Harriet. “In fact when you first saw him you said he looked like a great guy—the kind of guy you could imagine yourself being adopted by.”

We all stared at Brutus.“You’re looking for another home, Brutus?” I asked.

“Well, no—or yeah, maybe. Look, this family is lovely and all, but it’s always something, you know. Like with this house falling apart. I mean, it’s all very stressful, you guys. And yesterday I spotted my first gray hair. Can you imagine? Me! A gray hair!”

“It’s only the one gray hair, Brutus,” said Harriet.

“Where is it?” asked Dooley solicitously.

“Here, on my ear,” said Brutus, bending his head to show us.

“Yeah, that’s a gray hair all right,” I confirmed.

“It’s very small,” Dooley said as he studied the hair.

“It’s the beginning of the end, Dooley. Things can only get worse. And I know why this is happening to me. It’s the stress. Murderers and thieves and criminals galore, and now my own home collapsing, practically falling down around me. Imagine if we’d been inside when that thing fell down. We could all have been dead now!”

“Every home has its advantages and disadvantages, Brutus,” I said. “I think all in all we can count ourselves lucky with humans like the Pooles.”

“Yeah, I know, but why do they have to skirt danger all the time? Between Odelia who’s always getting involved with murderers and crooks, and Chase who’s a cop, and then of course Gran with her neighborhood watch?” He shook his head. “It’s all too much for me, and if you’re smart you’ll all join me in looking for another family to live with—a nice and peaceful family. A family like the Trappers, for instance.”

He was referring to Marge and Tex’s neighbors Ted and Marcie Trapper.

“The Trappers have a dog, Brutus,” Harriet pointed out. “I don’t think they’re going to take a bunch of cats.”

“And why not?!” Brutus cried, getting a little worked up. “Rufus is a nice dog. He’s a cat-loving dog. I think I could live very happily side by side with a dog like Rufus.”

“Well, if you want to get yourself adopted by the Trappers, go right ahead,” said Harriet. “But I’m staying right here.”

Brutus frowned, grumbled something, then shut up. He might be willing to get rid of the Pooles, but he wasn’t ready to get rid of his lady love, that much was obvious.

“Max is right,” said Harriet. “Every family has its advantages and disadvantages. I’m sure that the Trappers will have something that’s not so great, too. And it only takes one conversation with Rufus to find out.”

But before we could have that conversation, suddenly there was the loud sound of an explosion, and when we looked up we saw that Tex had managed, through some inexplicable procedure, to blow up the entire grill!

Pieces of fish and meat and veggies had been catapulted in all directions, and the grill itself was now a charred piece of twisted metal!

“That does it!” Brutus declared as he jumped down from the porch swing. “I’m going over to the Trappers and ask if they’re willing to adopt a gorgeous black cat!”

And with these surprising words, he was off at a trot, in the direction of the next-door backyard. Well, the next-door, next-door backyard if we’re being nitpicky, and I am—at least according to Harriet.

“Brutus! Wait!” Harriet yelled, and before we could stop her, she was tripping after her mate.

And then it was just me and Dooley.

After a pause, in which we both tried to imagine life without Harriet and Brutus, Dooley said,“They’ll be back.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I mean, I can’t imagine they’d really move out. You, Max?”

“No, I don’t.”

“So they’ll be back. Right?”

“Well, I certainly hope so.”

But five minutes passed, and then ten, and Brutus and Harriet still hadn’t returned.

The Pooles were picking up pieces of the grill, and collecting the scattered foodstuffs, and so they weren’t paying any attention to us cats. Odelia probably hadn’t even noticed Harriet and Brutus had left, and neither had Gran or Marge, who’d been hit by a sausage, or Uncle Alec, whose practically bald pate had been scalded by a flying piece of steak.

But when another half hour had passed, I had to admit the impossible had happened.

Harriet and Brutus had gone over to the dark side: they’d gone to the dogs!