Purrfect Sparkle. Purrfect Cure

“And I say we stay away from the police,” suddenly a voice rang out in the hollow space of the church, echoing off the walls. It was the girl’s mother herself, and she looked absolutely steadfast in her determination not to talk to Uncle Alec.

“Look, this is ridiculous,” said Marcie. “Whatever your beef is with Alec Lip, this is your daughter we’re talking about, Marigold—not some lost pet or something.”

This produced perturbed looks from all pets present, and even Rufus didn’t look as if he agreed with his human in this assessment that the lives of pets aren’t as important as the lives of humans.

“If you knew Alec the way I know him, you wouldn’t be saying this,” said Marigold. She was a formidable woman, with a groove between heavy bristling brows that seemed to have been cut there with a box cutter. She had a square sort of face, and had planted her fists on her hips. Judging both from her stance and her expression, Alec Lip was the devil incarnate in this woman’s view.

“What happened between you and Alec, if I may ask?” said Ted, whose curiosity was obviously piqued, as was the rest of us.

“I’m not going to drag all that up now,” said Marigold. “But if you want to help me, the best thing you can do is to look for my daughter along the route she must have taken home last night.” And she proceeded to describe this route in detail.

“Why don’t you join us?” said Marcie. “We have two dogs and five cats ready to look for your daughter, so our chances are pretty good.”

Marigold darted a quick look at Father Reilly, her employer, and the latter said,“Oh, by all means. You do whatever you need to do to find Angel. I’ll manage here by myself.”

And so our small company had suddenly been expanded with another human, and we set out to the road Marigold said her daughter must have taken. When I glanced back to the church, I saw that Father Reilly was waving us off. And the moment he thought nobody was looking, he took out his phone, and I had an idea that he might be getting in touch with Uncle Alec after all—swearing him to secrecy, not wanting to draw Marigold’s ire.

8

Vesta didn’t much care that her son-in-law tagged along on her lunch hour, though she could guess why he suddenly opted to join her and Scarlett and not spend that hour eating his sandwiches outside on his small patch of city garden as he usually did, accompanied by nothing but a newspaper and his idle thoughts.

“So where is your uncle going to live?” he asked as they walked along.

“He hasn’t decided yet,” said Scarlett. “For now he’s staying in my guest bedroom.”

“I always thought missionaries retired in the monastery they adhered to.”

“That’s certainly an option, though I have a feeling Uncle Malcolm would rather spend his twilight years living by himself instead of in a glorified retirement home.”

They’d arrived at the Star hotel, whose outside dining area was where Vesta and Scarlett liked to spend many an enjoyable hour doing what they did best: people watching. And of course enjoy the superb beverages the Star is rightly famous for.

Scarlett waved to an elderly man Vesta assumed was her uncle, and who was already seated at their usual table, keeping it devoid of other patrons until they arrived.

Malcolm Philan could have easily passed for a sprightly septuagenarian. He had a kindly demeanor, and was dressed in jeans and a colorfulFrom Tahiti With Love sweater.

“Hey, honey,” he said as he gave his niece three smacking kisses on her cheeks, then proceeded to give Vesta’s hand a vigorous shake, and take Tex’s hand in a vicelike grip, making the latter wince. In front of the retired missionary a large glass of beer stood.

“What’s that?” asked Tex as the rest of the company joined Scarlett’s uncle.

“You have got to try this, Dr. Poole,” said Malcolm. “It’s called Trappist, and is brewed by Belgian monks. Very tasty, though not something you want to try on an empty stomach.”

“I’ll have one,” said Tex when the waiter materialized from thin air to take their order.

“So what are your plans?” asked Vesta.

“Well, I thought I’d see the sights first,” said Malcolm amiably. “Scarlett has graciously invited me to visit New York with her next week, and show me the sights, and in the meantime I’ll have to think about this next chapter in my life and how I will fill it.”

“I see you still have all of your hair,” suddenly Tex said, scooting forward in his chair.

“Tex, not now,” said Vesta censoriously.

“No, but it’s remarkable,” said Tex. He looked as if on the verge of reaching out a hand and touching the man’s mane, but managed to restrain himself with a powerful effort.

“Oh, yes,” Malcolm chuckled. “I’m lucky enough to still have all of my hair.”

“Is it… real?” asked Tex in a sort of choky voice that elicited a frown from Scarlett.

“Absolutely. Do you want to touch it?” he asked, correctly interpreting the eager look on the doctor’s face. He bowed his head and allowed Tex to run a hand through the bristle.

“How do you do it?” finally asked the doctor. “What is your secret?”

“Ah, I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you,” the missionary quipped with a grin.

“Okay,” said Tex with a touch of disappointment. He slumped a little in his chair.

“Just kidding, Doc!” said Malcolm, giving Tex a light shoulder punch. “I wash my hair with a special ingredient every morning—something I picked in Tahiti, in fact.”

“What is it?” asked Tex anxiously. The man was practically salivating, Vesta saw.

The aged missionary smiled.“Come here, my boy. And I’ll tell you the big secret.”

And as Vesta watched with amusement, the doctor leaned in and the other man whispered something into his ear. It must have been something pretty surprising, for Tex’s lips formed a perfect O, then he looked at the missionary and said, “No joke?”

“No joke,” said the man with a smile.

All through the rest of the conversation, the doctor was conspicuously silent, presumably thinking about the missionary’s words. And even though Vesta wondered what this secret ingredient might be, she decided not to ask. If Tex wanted to tell her, he would. And if not? Well, what did she care whether the man kept his hair or not? She liked her son-in-law either way, and so, she was sure, did his wife and daughter.

9

We’d left Hampton Cove behind, had passed McDonald’s, and were now walking along a stretch of road where no houses could be seen anywhere in sight, with only trees dominating the landscape. The small procession was still proceeding along, led by not one but two canines, whose noses were doing allthe heavy lifting, so to speak.

“I really hope we’ll find Angel, Max,” said Dooley. “She could have fallen into a ditch somewhere.”

“That’s my guess, too,” I admitted. “That she’s sleeping off her drunken stupor in a ditch.” Though by the same token she could have hurt herself when she stumbled into that ditch, and in that case expediency was of the utmost importance. Which is why I didn’t understand Marigold’s reluctance to involve the police. Fifi and Rufus were doing their best, but they weren’t trained police dogs by any stretch of the imagination.

“So do you think Angel might have spent the night with a boyfriend, maybe?” asked Marcie.

“She would have called me if she had,” said Marigold.

“Not if she fell asleep, or if her phone ran out of battery—or maybe she switched it off before falling asleep.”

“Do you have kids, Marcie?” asked the woman now.

“Two girls.”

“And did anything bad ever happen to them, and you knew—you simply knew, even without anyone telling you?”

“Well, Mia did once have a flat, didn’t she, honey?” said Ted. “And she hadn’t taken her phone so she had to walk home all the way from the station. That was pretty scary, wasn’t it, hon?”

“I did know something was wrong,” said Marcie, nodding.

“Well, then you understand why I know she’s not with a boy, or she would have called or sent a message. Angel isn’t one for passing out drunk in other people’s beds, and she always calls when she can’t make it home on time.”

“I think we’ll find her in a ditch,” said Brutus, reiterating Dooley’s suggestion, “passed out cold and sleeping off her bender.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Harriet.

“So why is it, Max,” said Dooley, “that humans have so much trouble with their brains when they drink alcohol?”

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that,” said Brutus. “Is it a design flaw or what?”

“I’ve heard that alcohol shrinks the brain,” said Dooley. “Not sure if it’s true.”

“Oh, you saw a documentary about that, did you?” said Brutus.

“No, I didn’t,” said Dooley, “but it would be a very interesting topic.”

“So if you’re correct, then a person who drinks too much alcohol will have no brain left after a while?”

“Well, I think something will be left, but not much. Some brain dregs, maybe.”

“I think it has something to do with the water balance in the brain,” said Harriet. “Alcohol dehydrates, so it probably dries out the brain until it turns to powder.”

“Let’s hope we find Angel before her brain has completely shrunk to the size of a peanut,” said Brutus, “or has turned into angel dust.”

Suddenly there seemed to be some development at hand, as both Fifi and Rufus suddenly veered sharply off the road and into the woods.

“It’s a shortcut,” Marigold explained. “Angel always takes it. The dogs are on the right track.”

“Of course they are,” said Ted. “Rufus is a very smart dog.”

“And so is Fifi,” said Marcie.

I could tell that both Ted and Marcie had only one question on their minds: why Marigold wouldn’t call the police. But at this point they were afraid to press the woman. Finally Marcie couldn’t restrain himself. “So about Alec Lip…” she began.

“Okay, fine. I’ll tell you the story, but only if you promise not to tell anyone, okay?”

“Of course,” said Marcie, cutting a quick glance of excitement to her husband. They were finally going to find out the big secret.

“Okay, so twenty years ago I was already working for Francis as his housekeeper, and one day there’s a breakin at the church. Someone has gotten in during the night and has stolen several paintings, candlesticks and has raided the offering box. So Francis calls Alec, who was chief of police, even then, and he comes over to make an inventory of what the thieves took, and so he asks Francis a couple of standard routine questions—you know, like: ‘Where were you when this happened?’ So Francis says, ‘Well, home in bed, of course. Where else do you I think I was?’ And then suddenly Alec gives me this intense look and asks, in a sneering sort of way, ‘Your bed or hers?’” The woman’s face betrayed her extreme anger, even now, twenty years on, at the police chief’s sheer impertinence.

“So which bed was it?” asked Ted, who’d been following the story with rapt attention.

“Ted!” Marcie said sharply, even as Marigold’s mouth snapped shut, making a clicking sound when her teeth set.

“No, but I don’t understand,” Ted confessed. “Which bed was it?” And when both women now gave him angry looks, he added, “Oh, I see. It’s a trick question, isn’t it?”

“Oh, Ted,” said Marcie, as Marigold shook her head at so much dimwittedness.

“I think it was her bed,” said Dooley. “Otherwise she wouldn’t have been so upset.”

“Dooley, it can’t have been her bed,” said Harriet, “since they’re not in a relationship.”

“Aren’t they? But I thought they were a couple.”

“No, they’re not a couple.”

“But they look like a couple.”

“But they’re not.”

“Yes, they are. And I’ve seen enough couples to know the difference.”

Now we all looked at Marigold, and I have to confess Dooley’s words made me wonder. Could it be? And since my brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders just then, it was actually Brutus who came to the next logical conclusion first.

“Okay, so Angel is nineteen?” the black cat asked.

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“Okay, so bear with me here, you guys, but if Marigold and Father Reilly are a couple, and they already were a couple twenty years ago, then Angel…” He dropped a pause pregnant with meaning, and wiggled his brow for good measure, too.

“… is Father Reilly’s daughter!” said Harriet.

“Can you please be quiet back there!” suddenly Fifi called out. “We’re trying to focus here!”

“Sorry, Fifi!” Harriet yelled. But then, quieter: “Oh, my God, you guys!”

“I can still hear you, Harriet!” Fifi snapped, then put her nose to the ground once more.

We were deep in the woods now, walking along a narrow path that the passage of time had made, though it would probably be more accurate to say the passage of people had created it—people like Angel who used it as a shortcut to Bickersfield, the new development that had sprung up on the other side of the Bickersfield woods.

Suddenly, and quite abruptly, both dogs halted in their tracks. And when we looked over, we saw that they were staring at a small pond.

“Here is where the trail stops,” Fifi announced.

“I concur,” said her colleague Rufus.

We glanced at that pond, and I think we all shared the same thought: surely Angel hadn’t decided to go for a swim in the middle of the night? I know the first thing I did was scan that pond for a body floating on the surface. Luckily there was none.

“What’s wrong, buddy?” asked Ted as he crouched down next to Rufus. “Where’s Angel?”

But Rufus sank down on his haunches, gazed into his human’s eyes and produced a soft woofle.

“This is where the trail stops,” Ted correctly interpreted his dog’s message.

Marigold muttered,“Oh, no…”

“I think it’s time we called the police,” Marcie said, and put her phone to her ear.

And it was a testament to Marigold’s distress that she merely offered a token protest this time.

10

Odelia had watched Abe Cornwall carefully inspect the bones they’d found, and now the coroner rose with some effort and a distinct cracking sound of both knees, and said, “I’m not entirely sure, but your theory might bear out, Alec.”

“So you think this might be Blake Carrington’s boy?” asked Uncle Alec.

“Well, like I said, I can’t be sure, but it certainly is a possibility.”

“When will you know for sure?”

“Dental records,” said the large man with the perpetually frizzy hair. “I’ll try to get you an answer as soon as possible.” He peeled off his gloves, and then proceeded to instruct his people to carefully go over the immediate area with a fine-tooth comb, and move the mortal remains to the coroner’s office for closer inspection.

“You have to call Mr. Carrington, Uncle Alec,” said Odelia. “This is his land, and he needs to be informed.”

“Unless he already knows,” said Chase.

“You mean if he reinterred his boy and somehow his remains were dug up?” said the Chief.

Chase nodded.“Could be that Carrington not only decided to use this piece of land as a shrine to his son, but also as his final resting place.”

“Is it possible for a body to turn into a skeleton in ten years?”

“You’ll have to ask the expert,” said her uncle, and called out, “Abe!”

The coroner came walking over and Alec nodded to his niece.

“Is it possible for a body to look like that after only ten years?” she asked.

“Well, it all depends where and how the body was buried,” said Abe. “If the body wasn’t buried in a coffin to protect it from its immediate surroundings, then yes, it certainly is possible. In a coffin the body would obviously be much better preserved, which is why I wonder if this really could be Steven Carrington. I remember the kid’s funeral, and he was buried in a very ornate, very expensive wooden coffin. And in that case it would be quite impossible for a body to decay to this extent.”

“Of course we don’t know whether he really was in that coffin all this time,” said Chase. “Could be that they buried just the coffin, and that the body was buried here.”

“Only Carrington himself could have arranged that,” said Alec.

“Well, I’m off,” said Abe. “For some reason this has been my busiest week this year. Must be the weather or something. Or maybe there’s something in the water.”

And then the big man walked off with unsteady gait.

“Sciatica,” said Uncle Alec before Odelia could voice the question. He smiled at his niece, happy to satisfy her natural curiosity. Then he glanced down. “You know, I had a feeling something was missing. Where are your cats?”

“I have absolutely no idea. Usually they like to stick around for this kind of thing, only now they’ve all decided something else was a better use of their time, apparently.”

No doubt they’d be at the house, having a nap and a bite to eat, and would be back soon, to be brought up to date on the latest news from the frontline, which this time was very close to home indeed.

She shivered slightly, and Chase said,“What’s wrong?”

“No, I was just thinking—the way it now looks Carrington buried his boy out here and he’s been lying here ever since, directly behind our houses, and none of us ever knew.”

“And probably we’d never have known, if somehow the body hadn’t been dug up.”

It was a disconcerting thought for sure, and one she didn’t like to entertain. Death was part of life, but she still didn’t enjoy it when death came this close to her home and family.

“I think I better make that call now,” said Uncle Alec, and took out his phone.

“Carrington?” asked Chase, and her uncle nodded, then placed his phone to his ear.

It took a moment for the call to connect, and then he said,“Blake? Alec Lip. We need to talk.”

Just then, Chase’s phone chirped. “Dolores,” he murmured as he checked the display. “Yeah, Dolores. What’s the emergency?” He listened for a moment, then turned to Odelia with a frown. “Can you arrange for a diver? Thanks. Yeah, we’ll head out there now.” And when he disconnected the call, he said, “I think I know where your cats are, babe.”

Meanwhile Alec had finished his call, and said,“I better handle this personally. Blake is an old friend.” He dragged the back of his hand across his brow. “I hate this. Having to tell a man that he has to bury his kid a second time.” He turned to Chase. “What did Dolores want?”

“She just got a call from Marcie Trapper. She’s with Marigold Church. Her daughter Angel went missing last night and they think she might have drunkenly stumbled into a pond in Bickersfield woods. They’re asking to send a diver to dredge the pond.”

“Marigold Church, huh?” said Uncle Alec. “Did she make the call?”

“No, Marcie did. But Marigold is with her, and so is Ted, along with two dogs and five cats. Apparently she felt it was important to relay this information when she called 911.”

“Two dogs and five cats? That sounds like the setup for a joke.”

“You sounded surprised when Chase mentioned Marigold Church,” said Odelia.

“Oh, Marigold and I go back a long way,” said the Chief. “Only she hasn’t spoken to me for, what, twenty years now? She swore a solemn oath never to contact the police as long as I was in charge. So this thing with Angel must be serious.”

“But why hasn’t she spoken to you?”

“It’s a long story,” said her uncle evasively. He started to walk away. “Keep me informed, will you?”

“Will do, Chief,” said Odelia’s husband. “So let’s see what’s going on with this Angel Church,” said Chase. “And what your cats have been up to!”

11

Vesta had been playing online Scrabble again, which was one of her favorite pastimes when seated at her desk at the doctor’s office, when suddenly a very distressed-looking Francis Reilly walked in, and made a beeline for her. He quickly glanced at the waiting patients, then lowered his voice and said, “Vesta, I need to talk to you.”

“I know. That’s what you said on the phone, remember?”

“Not here,” he practically whispered, and she frowned.

“Look, if you want to confess you need to make an appointment,” she said jokingly.

“Vesta, please!” he implored. For the first time she looked up from her computer and saw that the priest looked extremely perturbed. In fact it wasn’t too much to say that he was suffering from a crisis of conscience.

“All right,” she said, “follow me.” She took the door that led to the kitchen and the aged priest followed, carefully closing the door so those nosy parkers in the waiting room wouldn’t overhear them. Once in the kitchen, Vesta poured herself a cup of coffee and said, “Spill. What’s got you in a tizzy all of a sudden?”

“The thing is… Angel’s missing,” said Francis, who was pacing the floor, hands behind his back. Then abruptly he stopped and looked up with a look of anguish. “And it’s my fault!”

Vesta frowned.“Angel as in the daughter of your Marigold Angel?”

Francis nodded.“She went out last night and never arrived home. Marigold is frantic with worry, and is organizing a search party as we speak.”

“Gee, Francis, that’s terrible.”

“They traced her to a pond in Bickersfield woods, and a diver has come out to dredge the pond.”

“They actually think she might have…”

“Stumbled in and drowned, yes.”

“And you think this was your fault?”

The white-haired priest closed his eyes as if to direct a little prayer to the Lord above and give him strength.“Angel and I got into a terrible fight yesterday afternoon. I won’t bore you with the details, but it was horrible. She actually…” He choked for a moment, then collected himself. “She threatened to run away from home and never come back.”

“So you think she might have run away, huh?”

“That’s actually what I thought had happened when Marigold told me she couldn’t reach her, but now it would appear she took a wrong turn in the woods and accidentally stumbled into that pond and drowned.” He clasped his hands to his face. “Oh, Vesta, if she’s dead I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Now, look, Francis,” said Vesta, placing a comforting hand on the priest’s arm. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, all right? We don’t know for sure that she’s in that pond. It’s entirely possible that she did run away. Where’s Marigold?”

“Out there, leading the search party. And I know I should be there with her, only…”

“Only you’re afraid you’ll show your true feelings and you can’t have that.”

Francis gave her a look of despair.“This is terrible news, Vesta. If she’s dead the last words I spoke to her was that she should wash out her mouth with soap.”

“Well, that’s not so terrible. There are a lot worse things you could have told her.”

“I think it’s bad enough, considering…”

She nodded. She knew exactly what he meant.“Look, I’ve told you this before, Francis, and I’ll say it again: I think it’s time for you to come clean, and do the right thing by Marigold and Angel both.”

“Don’t you think I know?!” he howled, raising his hands heavenward. “But how can I leave my position? How will I face my parishioners?”

“I think you’ll find that your parishioners are a lot more understanding and a lot more forgiving than you think. And besides, maybe it’s time you retired, and left your position to some young whippersnapper fresh out of the seminary.”

“You think so?” asked Francis. He looked distraught, and it wasn’t hard to see why.

She affectionately patted him on the broad back.“Let’s wait and see what’s going on with Angel first. Maybe she simply decided to stay with a friend—or even a boy. And if it turns out she’s fine, I’ll sit down with the two of you to thresh this thing out.”

“And if she’s in that pond?”

“Then I think you owe it to Marigold to finally make an honest woman of her and get yourself a license to marry, Father Reilly,” she said sternly. “God knows you should have done this twenty years ago, when you first started dating her.”

He gave her a weak smile.“You know that you’re actually the only one who knows about us, Vesta?”

She made a scoffing noise.“That’s what you think.”

His eyebrows rose in surprise.“You mean…”

“I think by now the whole town knows about you and Marigold. The only one who doesn’t have a clue is Angel, so let’s hope she’s all right, and you can finally set the record straight. And now you better get out there, and give Marigold the support she needs.”

“Thanks, Vesta,” said the priest. “Thanks for your wise words.”

And as he hurried out, she was smiling to herself. Wise words, Francis had said. She didn’t know if her words had been particularly wise, but she’d take any compliment she could get. And then she returned to the waiting groom to resume her game of Scrabble, and from time to time pick up the phone and advise her son-in-law’s patients with some more of her particular brand of divine wisdom.

12

“Max?”

“Mh?”

“Why is that man diving into that pond?”

“Because he thinks Angel might be down there, Dooley.”

“But why? Why would she be down there?”

“Because she might have accidentally stumbled in last night when she wasn’t looking, and drowned.”

“Oh,” said my friend, who’s never been one for the unhappy ending. “I hope she’s not in there. That wouldn’t be good.”

“Fifi and Rufus seem to think she is. So it stands to reason that they’re right.”

Fifi and Rufus, who’d done their bit for the good of the expedition, now gratefully accepted cuddles from Ted and Marcie, while Shanille, Harriet and Brutus stood watching the activity of that diver, and discussing his progress.

Marigold, meanwhile, stood talking into her phone, and looking extremely perturbed. Odelia and Chase, who’d arrived very quickly after Marcie had called 911, were searching around for potential clues as to what had happened to the missing girl, and when suddenly another person came crashing through the undergrowth, I wasn’t surprised. The scene was starting to resemble one of those mob scenes, where thousands get together to watch some car crash in progress. I was surprised, though, to find that it was Father Reilly who now stood before us panting a little stertorously after his short ramble through the woods. But I was even more surprised when he walked straight up to Marigold, and they hugged—and not a fatherly hug, either, but more the kind of hug we see Chase and Odelia exchange all the time.

“Um…” said Dooley.

“No, Dooley, I don’t know why Father Reilly is hugging his housekeeper as if they’re a long-married couple,” I said, anticipating his question.

“Maybe he’s very grateful that she keeps his house clean?” Dooley suggested.

But then things got a little weirder still when Marigold now buried her face in Father Reilly’s chest and gave free rein to her emotions by having a good cry, the priest patting her back consolingly and murmuring such evergreens as ‘There, there’ into her ear.

“If I didn’t know any better, Dooley,” I said after observing the twosome for a few more moments, “I’d say those two are definitely a couple.”

“I told you, Max—didn’t I tell you?”

“Yes, you did, Dooley. You called it.”

“Oh, that’s so nice. I like couples. They make the world a little brighter and always put a smile on my face.” He sighed. “Love is grand, isn’t it?”

“Love is grand, Dooley. But priests in Father Reilly’s church unfortunately aren’t allowed to marry, so this display of public affection is very much not done, I’m afraid.”

“So… Father Reilly isn’t allowed to hug his housekeeper?”

“He can hug her as much as he wants, but that’s pretty much as far as he’s allowed to go—his church pretty much has decided to draw the line there.”

“So…”

“So no kissing or … anything else.”

Dooley laughed.“What else is there, Max? Kissing is what people who love each other do!”

“Absolutely,” I said after a moment’s hesitation. “Yes, kissing is exactly what they do. Nothing more.”

“Well, they’re not kissing yet,” said Dooley, referring to the priest and his housekeeper. “So his church will be very happy.”

“Found something!” suddenly a voice rang out nearby. We all hurried to the edge of the pond, as the diver had resurfaced and was holding something in his hand. It was a pink and shiny object, and looked very much like…

“Angel’s phone!” Marigold cried, then burst into tears once more. The diver handed the phone to Angel’s distraught mother, who nodded and said, “It’s my baby’s phone!”

“So she definitely was here,” said Odelia, who’d come hurrying up from her search of the nearby area.

“All is not lost, Marigold,” said Father Reilly. “For all we know she simply dumped her phone in the pond and…”

“And then what?” She suddenly turned on the priest. “You should never have yelled at her, Francis—this is all your fault!”

“I’m sorry,” said the man of the cloth, who looked as upset as his housekeeper, which surprised me a little. I mean, it’s one thing to have a general affection for the members of one’s flock, but Father Reilly seemed to take this thing with Angel very personal. There was even a lone tear trickling down his rosy cheek, which he quickly brushed away with the back of his hand.

Before long the diver surfaced again, and all eyes turned to him once more. But the man shook his head.“Nothing,” he said. “Except for three rusty old bikes.”

“Oh, Francis!” Marigold cried, and this time buried her head in the man’s shoulder.

“I don’t understand,” said Odelia. “So her phone is in there but…”

“Did you search the whole area?” asked Chase.

The diver, who’d hoisted himself up onto the pond’s edge and was removing his diving gear, answered in the affirmative. “Searched every inch, Detective. Nothing.”

“But that’s impossible,” said Marcie. “I mean, surely if the dogs tell us that the trail stops here…”

“Are these trained police dogs, ma’am?” asked the diver as he gave Fifi and Rufus a critical look.

“No, they’re regular dogs,” Ted said.

“Well, there you go, sir. Only a police dog, trained in the search for a missing person will be able to give you the information you need, not your regular mutt—no offense.”

I thought Rufus looked a little rueful, but Fifi looked indignant.

“I can tell you right now that I did not make a mistake, sir!” she yelled, though her barking didn’t seem to affect the diver in the slightest.

“I think the key must be in those three rusty bikes, Max,” said Dooley. “You better tell Odelia to tell that diver to bring up those bikes so we can take a closer look at them.”

“Oh, Dooley,” said Harriet, dismissing my friend’s comment out of paw.

“So you found this pond, Rufus,” said Brutus. “Which we’ll attribute to beginner’s luck. But you better step aside now and let the actual police dogs pick up the trail, okay?”

“I don’t understand,” said Rufus. “I’m sure that the trail stops here. I’ve walked all around the pond and nothing. I can’t pick up the girl’s scent anywhere. Plenty of other scents, mind you, but not Angel’s particular scent.”

“Almost as if she vanished without a trace,” said Fifi, then slowly raised her head to look upward. And since it’s very hard not to look up when one of your small company looks up, we all followed suit, and soon found ourselves staring up at the treetops—pine trees if I wasn’t mistaken—and that small patch of blue sky visible beyond the foliage.

“Aliens,” suddenly said Dooley. “Angel was abducted by aliens. And of course they left her phone, since that’s ancient technology for them.”

“I hate to admit it,” said Harriet, “but I think for once Dooley just might be onto something.”

“Aliens,” Rufus murmured. “What do you know?”

I saw how Shanille had joined her humans and was offering her support by giving them gentle nudges with the top of her head. I walked over and said,“Shanille, can I ask you something?”

“Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something, Max?” she said.

“Your Father Reilly and Marigold,” I said, trudging on regardless. My curiosity had been piqued and it simply had to be satisfied, pronto! “Are they an item?”

Shanille looked up sharply at this.“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she snapped.

“It just seems to me as if they’re very, um, well, tactile. More tactile than I would have expected from a priest.”

She glanced up at her humans, who stood staring at that pond, as if hoping Angel would suddenly pop up like the Lady of the Lake, holding perhaps not Excalibur but at least one of those three rusty bikes.

“Not here,” Shanille barked—if a cat can bark, of course—and walked off into the woods. And since I figured she meant for me to follow her, that’s what I did. Once we’d removed ourselves from the pondside melee, she turned and said, “You can’t tell this to anyone, Max.”

“Okay,” I said, wondering what could possibly be so big that she was swearing me to secrecy.

“But swear to it, Max.”

“I hereby solemnly swear I won’t tell anyone what you’re about to tell me, Shanille,” I said, deciding to go through the rigmarole and satisfy Shanille’s weird demands.

She looked off into the middle distance, as if wondering how to formulate her next statement, then decided to come right out with it.“Yes, Francis and Marigold are a couple.”

“And Angel…”

“Is their daughter.”

“And does she know…”

“No, she doesn’t—and that’s the thing. Marigold has been wanting to tell her ever since she was old enough to understand, but Father Reilly made her swear not to.”

“But why?”

“Isn’t it obvious, Max? The Catholic Church doesn’t allow its priests to have affairs with their housekeepers, and much less have kids with them. And so if this became known, and how could it not become known if Marigold told Angel, who would immediately post a heartfelt and extremely poignant update on Facebook, Snapchat, Tik Tok, Instagram, Whatsapp and Telegram, then that would be the end of Father Reilly as parish priest. He’d be suspended and would have to find another job.”

“But wouldn’t he be much happier being married to Marigold and officially recognize Angel as his daughter?”

“You don’t get it, do you? Father Reilly has given his life to the church. It means everything to him. His whole identity revolves around his position at St. John’s. Having to give that up would be like giving up a part of himself—the part that makes him who he is.”

“I think he would be fine.”

“He could always join another church,” suddenly a voice piped up behind us.

“Dooley!” Shanille cried, horrified that our friend had followed us out there.

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? He could join a church where priests are allowed to marry. There must be plenty of those around.”

“Yeah, the Protestants, for instance,” I said. “They’re allowed to marry, aren’t they?”

“It’s not that simple!” said Shanille, spacing out the words and giving them some bite.

“It is simple if you make it simple,” said Dooley. “Do you want us to tell Gran about Father Reilly and Marigold? And then she can tell Father Reilly to join some other church.”

“No, Dooley, I donot want you to tell Vesta—in fact I don’t want you to tell anyone!”

“What can’t you tell us?” asked Harriet, who also came wandering up now, followed by Brutus.

“Oh, my God!” Shanille cried. “Isn’t anything sacred!”

“What secret?” asked Brutus.

“I think she said sacred, not secret,” said Harriet.

“Father Reilly wants to marry Marigold, the mother of his daughter Angel, only he’s afraid to change churches,” said Dooley, filling in the newcomers.

“Dooley!” Shanille cried. “What did I just tell you about not telling anyone!”

“Oh, but Harriet and Brutus aren’t just anyone,” said Dooley with perfect logic. “They’re friends.”

“See!” said Harriet. “I told you that Angel is Father Reilly’s daughter!”

“You absolutely did,” Brutus confirmed.

“So why don’t they get married?”

“Because he’s a priest!” said Shanille, who seemed to get a little overwrought now. “And priests aren’t supposed to get married!”

“That’s nonsense,” said Brutus. “Plenty of priests are married with kids. Chase’s aunt’s cousin’s uncle is a priest and he’s been married for over forty years. Though listening to him he’d prefer not to be married, but that’s a different story.”

“It’s the Catholic priests that can’t marry,” I explained. “Their church doesn’t allow it.”

“Well, that’s just plain weird, isn’t it?” said Harriet.

“What is?”

“Well, they marry people every day but can’t get married themselves? That doesn’t seem fair.”

“That’s just the way it is.”

We all watched Father Reilly and his ladylove, and I have to say the sight warmed the cockles of my heart.

But then Dooley’s words brought us all back to reality with a bang: “So what are the aliens going to do with Angel, Max?”

13

“Max, you’ve got to help us,” said Fifi.

We were on our way back to the main road, since there didn’t seem to be anything else we could do out there.

“Help you with what?” I asked.

I noticed how both Rufus and Fifi had flanked me, and were talking in low, urgent tones, clearly not wanting the others to know what we were discussing.

“You have to help us figure out what happened to that missing girl,” said Rufus.

“We all want to know what happened to Angel,” I pointed out.

“No, but we’re in a real pickle here, Max,” Fifi confessed.

“Our reputation hangs in the balance, Max,” her friend chimed in.

“What reputation? What are you talking about?”

“When we accepted this assignment to find Angel, we were sure we couldn’t miss,” Fifi explained.

“Yeah,” said Rufus. “Sniffing for a missing person is a no-brainer, whatever that idiot diver says.”

“But then the trail suddenly went cold on us.”

“Angel vanished—poof! Into thin air!”

“So now this whole thing is making us look bad, Max.”

“Real bad,” Rufus specified.

“What if the others find out?”

“And they will find out,” said Rufus.

“What others?” I asked, mystified by this entire conversation.

“Other dogs, Max!” Fifi cried.

“Our names will be mud,” Rufus said. “Dogs will say we’re a disgrace to the good name of dogs everywhere.”

“Can’t even sniff out a simple missing girl, they’ll say.”

“So you have to help us, Max,” Rufus said in conclusion.

“Find Angel before the news breaks that we weren’t able to find her,” Fifi explained.

“And then when you do find her, you need to give us the credit, Max.”

“Yeah, give us the credit…”

“… and spread the word far and wide, Max.”

“As far as the word will go!”

“To the four corners of the globe!”

“Can I say something now?” I asked when finally the crosstalk seemed to be at an end.

“Only if you say yes,” said Fifi, then quietly added, “Just kidding.”

“Okay, so first off, we all want to find Angel, not just you guys. In fact it’s imperative that we find her as soon as possible.”

“I know—for our reputations!”

“Nobody cares about your reputation, Fifi,” I said, perhaps a touch too heatedly, but I don’t enjoy being cornered like this. I mean, cats have their pride, and don’t like to be engaged by a couple of dogs to do their work for them.

“See?” said Rufus sadly. “What did I tell you, Fifi?”

“I know, Rufus. I thought Max was a pal, but obviously he’s not.”

“I am your pal,” I said, “and as your pal I can tell you in all honesty that nobody is going to think any less of you simply because you couldn’t find Angel.”

“That’s what you think,” Fifi scoffed.

“No, but look here—you found the place where she disappeared—you found the place where she dumped her phone—or it was dumped for her—and the fact that the trail runs cold tells us that something happened out there, and so now we need to find out what. I think everyone will agree you did agreat job, you guys. An absolutely stellar job.”

“You think so?” asked Fifi dubiously.

“Absolutely. Without you, we wouldn’t know what we know now.”

“Which is?”

“Well, um…” Frankly I had no idea what we knew, except that Angel was still missing.

“We found out that Angel is Father Reilly’s daughter,” said Dooley, who’d joined us at the head of the small procession.

“Dooley, you promised!” Shanille cried from a few paces behind us.

“But Fifi and Rufus are friends, Shanille! And you don’t keep secrets from your friends!”

“Do you think Angel being Father Reilly’s daughter is related to what happened to her?” asked Fifi.

“I have no idea,” I confessed. “But it’s definitely something we need to look into.”

“Could be that Angel found out that Father Reilly is her dad and decided to run away,” Rufus offered. “Without leaving a trace, which is why she jumped into that pond, dumped her phone, and this way managed to wipe every trace of herself.”

“But why would she do that?” asked Dooley. “If Father Reilly were my dad, I’d be very happy. He’s such a nice man.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple, Dooley,” I said. “If she found out—and that’s still a big if—we have no idea how she felt about it.”

“Okay, so if she did run away,” said Fifi, “why would she go out with her friends first? That doesn’t sound like a person in distress. No,” she said, shaking her head. “I smell a rat.”

Dooley looked up at this.“A rat? Where!”

“Not an actual rat, Dooley. I smell foul play.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said.

“Definitely foul play,” Rufus agreed.

“Rats always smell foul,” Dooley offered. “So I find it very weird that you guys can all smell that rat and I can’t.”

Before long we’d reached the road, and Odelia and Chase proceeded to hop into Chase’s pickup, followed by five cats and two dogs. But then Ted and Marcie brought up the rear, and they needed transport, too. Lucky for them Father Reilly had arrived in his own car, and after some negotiations the final tally was as follows: me, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus rode with Chase and Odelia, while Ted and Marcie, Fifi, Rufus and Shanille, and of course Marigold, squeezed into Father Reilly’s modest little Peugeot. And so the entire group who’d joined the expedition returned home, and still we weren’t any thewiser as to what had happened to Angel Church. But at least now we knew why she hadn’t answered her phone: it had been lying at the bottom of that pond all this time.

14

While Chase drove his pickup with a steady hand, Odelia engaged us in conversation so she could pick our brains.

“So what do you think, Max?” she asked.

“Max, Max, Max,” Harriet grumbled. “Always Max. What are we, Odelia? Chumps?”

“Okay, so what do you think, Harriet? What are your conclusions?”

“I actually think that Angel ran away from home because she was upset when she discovered that Father Reilly is her dad,” said Harriet.

Odelia blinked at this.“Wait, what?”

“Oh, you didn’t know? Yes, Father Reilly and Marigold have been a couple for the past twenty years or so, and Angel is their daughter.”

“I don’t think Angel knows, though,” said Brutus.

“No, she doesn’t,” I said. “Shanille specifically told us that they never told her, even though Marigold has often asked Father Reilly to sit down with her and tell her, but he feels that she wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret.”

“So… Angel is Father Reilly’s daughter?” asked Odelia.

Chase looked up at this.“Angel is Reilly’s daughter?”

“Yeah, that’s what the cats just told me.”

“Do you think this is connected with her disappearance?”

“I don’t know. The cats seem to think she ran away after she found out who her father is.”

“It’s a possibility,” Chase allowed. “Kids have run away from home for less.”

“I think she was abducted by aliens,” said Dooley. “And now they’re doing all kinds of experiments on her, and when they’re done, they’ll give her back to her mom and dad, but not before they wipe her memory, so so she’ll never know what happened, and she won’t be able to tell us, which is a good thing,” he added with a knowing nod, “since this means she won’t be traumatized.”

“Did you get all that from the Discovery Channel?” asked Brutus with a slight grin.

“Oh, absolutely. They have all kinds of interesting stuff on the Discovery Channel, and I discover new things every day.”

“So now what?” Odelia asked.

“Now we send a team of skilled investigators out there,” said Chase, “Who are going to comb through every square inch of those woods, and hopefully they’ll come up with something—anything—that will lead us to Angel.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]

Angel Church woke up suffering from a splitting headache.

“Ouchie,” she muttered as she brought a distraught hand to her aching head. That’s what you get from partying all night with the girls, she thought. Every time she woke up with a hangover like this she swore it would never happen again, but after a couple of days the memory of that hangover dissipated, and she was ready to do it all over again.

When she opened her eyes she was surprised to find she wasn’t lying in her own bed, but in an unfamiliar room. The curtains were drawn, and she immediately knew this wasn’t her cozy room in the apartment in Bickersfield she shared with her mom. So where was she? Had one of her friends collected her at the side of the road where she’d collapsed and taken her to their place? But she’d been in all of her friends’ houses and none of them had looked like this. At least not that she remembered.

She looked around and found nothing special about the room she was in. A single bed, a table, a chair, and a stack of old newspapers and magazines piled high in a corner. It all looked a little shabby. There was dust on the hardwood floor, and the curtains were a drab olive green. Yuck. Whoever the interior decorator had been clearly had no taste.

She got up from the bed, then plunked down again, as a wave of nausea immediately washed over her.“Darn hangover,” she said. After her head had settled a little, she gave sitting up another shot. She finally managed to get up without falling over, and went to the window to look out. Someone had boarded the window shut, but she could still look through a crack. It looked pretty green out there. So where the heck was she?

She proceeded to the door, but when she tried to open it, found that it was locked. She frowned to herself, and suddenly bits and pieces of last night’s revels drifted back into her memory. Partying hard with the girls, then she’d set off along the road home, and then what? Try as she might, she simply couldn’t recall. But clearly she must have arrived here at some point. But how? And why? Suddenly a key turned in the lock, and the door swung open. Much to her surprise, a very large man stood before her, clad in black jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. His face was obscured by a mask, and he carried a tray, which he proceeded to plunk down on the table, then grunted, “Eat up before it gets cold, princess.”

And before she had a chance to respond, he was already returning to the door.

“Hey, wait,” she said as he made to close the door. “What’s going on? Where am I?”

He chuckled lightly.“Don’t worry your pretty little head about that. Just sit tight, and eat your food.” He slammed the door shut again, and turned the key in the lock.

She sank back down on the bed, and realized how this looked.

Had she been… abducted?

15

When Tex arrived at the senior center, he fully expected to find a bunch of tables set up where old folks were playing cards, but instead he found the main room devoid of local inhabitants. With a frown, he walked on through, in search of the two men he wanted to have speech with. And he finally found them in a backroom of the center, where they were teaching a class of tango to a dozen or so eager learners—all of them women!

Dick Bernstein and Rock Horowitz could have been brothers: both were handsome men in their seventies. But what set them apart from the other members of their age group were their perfectly preserved full heads of hair. Granted, those hairs had turned a vivid white, as Tex’s own hair had done, but at least they still had all of it.

Tex took a seat at the edge of the dance floor, and watched how first Rock, then Dick glided across that floor, a lucky dame in their arms, and tangoed as if they were born Argentinians. Amazing was one of the words that came to mind as he watched the spectacle. The other word was one he wouldn’t have said out loud, and probably stemmed from a deep-seated jealousy that suddenly manifested itself. Why was it that some men seemed to have it all? As far as he knew, neither Dick nor Rock had lived a healthy lifestyle. Instead they’d drunk, gambled, taken illegal substances, and had flitted from girlfriend to girlfriend like butterflies from flower to flower, sampling all the nectar they could find.

Finally Dick noticed the doctor’s addition to the audience, and graciously thanked his dance partner for the dance, then came over to take a seat next to Tex. The man wasn’t sweating, Tex saw to his consternation—he wasn’t even panting from the exertion!

“Hey, Doc,” said Dick as he reached for his back pocket and took out the pack of cigarettes he kept there, then placed it on the next chair for later consumption. He settled himself in for the long haul, immediately assuming that manspreading posture your regular subway traveler abhors so much.“So you’re interested to learn to tango, huh?”

“No, thanks,” said Tex. “I am actually here to ask you something, Dick.”

“Sure—shoot.”

“This may sound a little weird, but…”

The other man cocked a quizzical eyebrow.“Yes?”

“Well… I was just wondering how, in spite of your age, you manage to—”

“Viagra,” said Dick immediately. “Though I should probably take it easy on the little blue pills. Not good for the old blood pressure. But then I don’t have to tell you, Doc.”

“I wasn’t referring to Viagra, Dick,” said Tex, with perhaps less warmth than a doctor is supposed to award a loyal patient. “I was actually referring to your hair.”

“My hair?”

“The thing is that I think I’m going bald, and so I was wondering if perhaps you’d like to share the secret of that amazing crop of hair of yours.”

Dick burst into loud laughter at this, causing the unreasonable resentment Tex experienced toward the other man to spike.

“Oh, for crying out loud, just tell me how you do it, Dick. You and Rock, both.”

He’d already learned Malcolm’s secret, but frankly he didn’t feel like practicing that man’s remedy if given a choice. Not that he was squeamish, but still. There were limits to what a man was willing to do—even a man as desperate as he was.

Dick was still grinning, took a cigarette from the pack, stuck it between his lips, then removed it again and returned it to the pack.“Look, Doc, I like you. In fact I like you a lot, so I’m going to tell you my secret, but before I do, I want you to know that this is not for the faint of heart, all right? So you do with it what you will, but I won’t be held responsible for the consequences.”

“Oh, absolutely, Dick,” said Tex, now really curious for what was about to follow. “So what’s the big secret?”

And so Dick leaned into him, and whispered his big secret into his ear. Tex’s eyes went wide, and when Dick leaned back, the man gave him such a shit-eating grin that frankly Tex couldn’t help but wonder if the man wasn’t perhaps having a laugh at his expense. Dick must have sensed his skepticism, for he now nodded and said, “Honest to God, Doc. And if you don’tbelieve me, you can ask Rock. He’ll tell you the exact same thing.”

“So Rock…”

“Applies the same technique.”

Tex thought for a moment, then nodded. “Thanks, Dick. I owe you.”

“Sure. Oh, and you’ll tell me if it works out for you, okay?”

“I will,” said Tex as he got up. He was feeling slightly dazed as he walked out, and when he glanced back, saw that Dick had snatched another willing lady from the flock, and was moving across that dance floor again with an energy Tex knew he’d never be able to conjure up if he lived to be a hundred. Which is why he decided to try Dick’s remedy. Only he had to make sure no one found out, or he’d be the laughingstock of the whole town!

16

When I walked out of the pet flap, after having eaten my fill, and ready to take a nap on the lawn, I found Dooley sniffing that same lawn with a determination I found particularly amusing.“What are you doing?” I asked, even though it was obvious he was sniffing grass!

“I’m conducting an experiment, Max,” said my friend as he lifted his nose from the lawn long enough to answer my question.

“What experiment?”

“Okay, so Fifi and Rufus managed to track Angel all the way to that pond, all right?”

“Uh-huh,” I said, placing myself down on the lawn, and emitting a contented little sigh as I rolled over on my back, my paws dangling in the air. Sheer heaven!

“So why can’t we do the same thing?”

“Because we’re cats, Dooley, not dogs,” I said.

“I know, but our sense of smell is pretty developed, too, right?”

“Of course it is, but not as developed as a dog’s. And also, dogs seem to have cornered the market on that kind of stuff, so why not let them? It’s my belief, Dooley, that we’re all put here on this earth with a specific purpose, and a dog’s purpose seems to be to sniff out stuff and follow their nose wherever it may lead.”

“And our purpose?” asked Dooley, closely following my reasoning.

“Our purpose is to use our brains and our cunning, and the agility of our feline bodies,” I said as my eyes started to drift closed. The sun was really giving of its best, and within a few minutes I’d be compelled to retreat to the shade. But for now I enjoyed that tickle on my belly—those warm rays massaging my abdomen—and decided to stay put and relax.

“I’ll bet you’ve figured out what happened to Angel already, haven’t you, Max?”

“No, Dooley, I haven’t,” I murmured sleepily.

“No, but I bet you have, with that big brain of yours. So where is she, Max? Did she really run away from home, or was she beamed up by aliens?”

“I have no idea, Dooley. Absolutely no clue.” And then I really did drift off into a peaceful slumber.

I have no idea how long I’d been lying there, but it must have been longer than I’d anticipated, for the sun had already shifted further west at this point, and it took me a little while to realize that the sound of shouting voices had woken me up. And as I pricked up my ears and turned them in the direction of the sound, I discovered that the voices were coming from Blake Carrington’s field. And so I reluctantly picked myself up from the lawn, and started off in that direction, to find out what was going on. Dooley, who’d been sleeping in the shade of the rosebush, woke up when I trudged past, and sleepily said, “Have the aliens returned Angel yet?”

“No, I don’t think so, Dooley. But they have brought us something else to investigate.”

And so Dooley, who’s just about as inquisitive a cat as I am, got up and together we snuck through the hedge, and then through the high grass that covers the field, except the part where that car wreck lies, and of course—and how could I forget—that skeleton!

Two men stood near the wreck, and one of them was actually shaking his fist at the other man. The fist-shaker was tall, with one of those craggy faces and impeccably groomed gray hair and looked to be about sixty years of age. The other man was younger, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties.

“You did this!” the older man was snarling. “If you hadn’t been there that day, this would never have happen!”

“How many times do I have to tell you—I wasn’t there!”

“My private detectives don’t lie, Jessie. Not only were you there, you were in the car that raced my son and caused him to have that terrible accident. You killed my boy!”

But Jessie, whoever he was, made a circular motion with his index finger next to his temple and then made to leave.“When you asked me to come out here I actually thought you had something interesting to tell me. I should have known it was the same garbage!”

“Where are you going?”

“Home. If you think I’m going to stand here and listen to this nonsense you’re crazy.”

“You stay here—I’m not done with you, Jessie. Come back here!”

Jessie turned.“You know what you should do—what you should have done a long time ago? Get rid of that wreck, sell the land and move on. Because this?” He gestured to the car wreck. “This is crazy. As crazy as you are!”

“I’m going to sue you, Jessie! How dare you dig up my boy and dump him here!”

But Jessie had already moved out of earshot, and now it was just us and Blake Carrington, for I had a strong suspicion that the man now leaning against the car was the late Steven Carrington’s dad. The recent screaming match had clearly taken a lot of energy, for Mr. Carrington didn’t look well. He was clutching at his chest, and his face had gone a pasty sort of pale.

“I think he just might drop dead right there,” I said.

“We better get a doctor,” Dooley said.

And so we hurried back to the house, in search of Odelia, or Marge or anyone who could get Mr. Carrington some much-needed medical attention. Fortunately for him, we soon managed to collar Marge, and she came hurrying with us to where we’d last left the older man. He was sitting on the ground now, sort of slumped to his side, his back leaning against the wreck of his boy’s car, and looking like death warmed over.

“Mr. Carrington?” asked Marge, leaning over him. “Are you all right, sir?”

“Pain… chest…” the man croaked quietly.

Marge grabbed for the man’s pulse, but clearly it wasn’t what it should be, for she shook her head, then took out her phone to call an ambulance. Ten minutes later the ambulance arrived, and two paramedics were soon taking care of the unfortunate man, loading him up onto a stretcher, and then carting him off to the hospital.

“Good thing you called us, ma’am,” said one of the paramedics before hopping into the ambulance. “He’s not in great shape.”

And then they were off, sirens screaming, as is their wont.

“It’s actually you Mr. Carrington needs to thank,” said Marge, referring to Dooley and myself. “If you hadn’t called me out here…” She glanced around. “What was he doing here anyway?”

“He was arguing with a man named Jessie,” I said. “Accusing him of organizing the street race that killed his son. And also accusing him of digging up his son’s body.”

“There was a lot of shouting, Marge,” Dooley said. “Mr. Carrington doesn’t like Jessie.”

“Yeah, and then Jessie walked away, and Mr. Carrington slumped against the car.”

“His heart, I think,” said Marge. “I’m not a nurse, but his pulse was very weak.” She shook her head. “Poor man. I don’t think he ever got over the death of his son.”

“What about his wife? Is she still alive?” I asked.

“No, Alexis died when Steven was an infant,” said Marge. “Blake raised Steven and his sister Fallon and older brother Adam all by himself, and from all accounts father and son were very close—so close they were more like friends than father and son. But then Blake married his secretary Krystle, and that caused the boy to rebel. The car crash obviously came as a big shock to Blake, and I think he never fully recovered. He started to drink heavily, and then when Krystle left him things really went downhill for the poor man.”

“Is it true that the crash happened here?” I asked, nodding in the direction of the car wreck.

“Yeah, they’d been organizing street races for a couple of weeks, and the police were onto them, so that night they decided to take their race to this field—at the time the grass wasn’t as high as this. The farmer who owned it at the time had just harvested his crop of potatoes and the field was pretty rough. Steven’s car must have hit a rut or a hole and was catapulted into the air, turning over several times before crashing down and catching fire. And then before anyone could get the boy out, the fuel tank exploded and it was all over. Blake bought the field, wanting it to stay exactly like it was on the night Steven died. But of course nature takes its course, and now it looks like this—a jungle.”

“That’s really creepy, Marge,” said Dooley.

Marge smiled.“Yes, I guess it is a little creepy. But of course Steven’s body was removed after the crash, and in fact the only thing that still remains of what happened that night is this car wreck.”

“And now the bones,” I said.

“So were those Steven’s bones?” asked Dooley.

“I probably should ask you guys—you’re usually better informed than me when it comes to that sort of thing.”

“Not this time,” I said.

“No, we were busy looking for Angel—the girl who was abducted by aliens,” Dooley explained.

Marge’s smile dimmed. “Yes, terrible business, that. I can’t even begin to think what her poor mother must be going through. I should probably give her a call.”

“And Father Reilly, her poor father,” said Dooley before I could stop him.

Marge frowned.“Francis is Angel’s father? Are you sure?”

“Oh, yes. Shanille told us all about it. Father Reilly is Angel’s dad, only he can’t come out and say so because his church won’t allow it, and when they find out they’ll kick him out.”

Marge had brought a distraught hand to her face.“Oh, dear,” were her only words, but that was plenty to show us how greatly the news had affected her.

17

Alec Lip hurried into the hospital. His sister had called him with the news that Blake Carrington had suffered some kind of episode, and as the Chief was cursing under his breath, he hastened past the reception desk, then accosted the first person who looked like they worked at the hospital and demanded,“Blake Carrington. What room is he in?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said the woman. “But you’ll have to ask at reception.”

Alec wildly wheeled around, then finally clapped eyes on the desk and saw that a line of five people had formed. Instead of practicing restraint, he elbowed his way to the front of the line and flashed his badge.“What room is Blake Carrington in?”

“Sir, you’re being very rude,” said the receptionist.

“Police emergency,” he practically barked, before realizing that he was behaving much like a bull in a China shop. So he repeated in more dulcet tones, “I really need to see Blake Carrington. Can you please tell me what room he’s in?”

The receptionist still didn’t seem all that eager to accommodate him, but finally consulted her computer and said, “Seven-thirteen. Walk down this corridor, then take the elevator to the seventh floor and—”

But he was already hurrying away, muttering an apology to the lady first in line, who was eyeing him as if he had personally assaulted her.

He was sweating profusely at this juncture, and cursed the fact that he hadn’t interviewed Blake sooner. Now he might die and he’d never be any the wiser!

He stabbed the elevator button several times until the doors finally closed with agonizing sluggishness, but not before a wizened smallish man with a wide smile on his face pushed them open again and inexorably wormed his way in.“Nice day, isn’t it, sir?” wheezed the man, who must have been at least a hundred if a day.

“What floor?” asked Alec.

“What did you say?” asked the man.

“What floor?” asked Alec, a little louder this time.

“I didn’t get that,” said the man. “Speak up, son.”

“What floor!” Alec practically bellowed this time.

The man’s smile vanished. “No need to shout, sir. I’m not deaf, you know.” And as he regarded Alec balefully, he pressed the button for the first floor, then changed his mind and pressed the button for the second floor, then, since you can never get enough of a good thing, proceeded to press the button for floors three, four, five and six. He gave a grunt of satisfaction for a job well done and declared, rather mystifyingly, “I’ll know it when I see it,” and rocked back on his heels, nearly keeling over as the elevator took off.

And so it was with a delay of perhaps fifteen minutes that Alec finally arrived at room seven-thirteen, and entered. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but the sight of Blake Carrington, hooked up to all kinds of tubes and wires, managed to give him a minor shock. A nurse was checking something, and looked up when he entered. “Is he conscious?” asked Alec, panting from the exertion of getting from point A to point B.

“He is,” said the nurse. “Are you family?”

“No, police,” he said, and flashed his badge for good measure, earning himself a scowl.

“He’s very weak,” the nurse said censoriously. “So whatever you say, keep it brief and don’t upset him.”

“Fine,” he said, holding up his hand in a sign of acknowledgment. Then he pulled up a chair, turned it around and plunked himself down, his meaty arms on the backrest.

Carrington had opened his eyes at this point, and was regarding him curiously.“Alec Lip,” he said in feeble tones. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Chief?”

“I have to talk to you, Blake,” said Alec.

“Well, speak up, man. I don’t have all day,” said Blake, then laughed at his joke, only to end up coughing a great deal.

“I just got word from the county coroner. He investigated the skeleton they found on that piece of land you own—the one behind—”

“I know the land you’re referring to. So what’s the verdict? Who is the scoundrel who dug up my boy and decided to play this mean-spirited prank on me?”

“That’s just the thing, Blake. It’s not your boy.”

Blake gave him a frown.“What do you mean?”

“The remains we found? It’s not Steven.”

“Well, then who is it?”

“We don’t know. So far all they can tell us is that it’s a woman, and that she probably died five or six years ago.”

“But… what was she doing on my land? I don’t understand.”

“That makes two of us.”

“But what about the jersey? Surely that’s the jersey Steven was buried in?”

“I don’t think so, Blake. Just one of those coincidences.”

“But it had his name on it. The S and the E…”

“Coincidence. It’s not his jersey. Besides, Steven was buried in a coffin, and there’s no way his body and his jersey could have decayed…” He paused when Blake winced. “Take it from me, Blake—it’s not your son.” He placed a hand on the man’s arm. “Just thought you’d want to know.” Give the man some peace of mind before he died, he thought.

“What a terrible business,” said Blake, and closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. In spite of his lousy health, his gaze as it raked Alec’s face was as unrelenting as ever. Icy blue eyes bored into Alec’s mellow brown peepers. “I still want you to investigate this business, Chief. I think whoever put that body on my land did it to play a dirty trick on me. Make me believe they’d dug up my boy and try to drive me into an early grave.” He chuckled tiredly. “And it looks as if they’re succeeding.” He tapped the cop’s chest. “It’s Jessie Largess you want.He’s behind this. He always said he was out of town the night Steven died, but I know for a fact that he was in the other car. He’s the one who picked that field—that death trap. If it wasn’t for Jessie, Steven would still be alive today.”

“And how do you know this?”

“I have my sources.”

Alec knew that even now, ten years after the fact, Blake still kept a private detective on retainer, to find out what he could about the tragic night Steven had met his maker. Blake was determined to find the person he could blame and bring them to justice, as he saw it.

“Talk to Jessie. He’s the one who’s behind this whole business. He put the body of that girl there, just so he can get me off his back. But I won’t give up—I’ll never give up!”

“All right, Blake. Take it easy,” said Alec, seeing that Blake was getting worked up.

Blake had clasped his arm.“If you catch this guy, I’ll reward you handsomely, Alec.”

“I’m a public servant, Blake. I don’t need you to reward me.”

“Talk to Jessie. He’ll feed you a bunch of lies, so you lean on him. You twist his arm until he tells you the truth. Here—take my phone. Everything is there. My private detective has been following Jessie. I’m sure he went to the cemetery and dug up that girl.” He tried to grab his phone,which was located next to a big vase full of flowers.

“Looks like you’ve got an admirer,” said Alec.

“One of the nurses used to date Steven. She still carries a torch for him, even though she’s married with three kids now. Take my phone, Alec—take the damn phone!”

“Take it easy, Blake. You’re not exactly in the best shape of your life here.”

Blake hacked out a weary laugh.“The only thing that’s keeping me alive is my determination to catch the man that killed my boy.” He closed his fingers around Alec’s arm like a vice and spat, “And you’re going to help me, Chief. You do this for me, you hear!”

“All right. I’ll see what I can do.”

Blake collapsed, his head digging a hole in the pillow. He smiled up at Alec.“They’re all out to get me, Alec—but I won’t give them the satisfaction. I intend to live forever.”

“You do that, Blake,” said Alec, but then that same nurse entered the room again, and when she caught sight of Blake’s deathly pale face and sweat-covered brow, she gave Alec a vicious glare and pointed to the door.

And since Alec knew what was good for him, he quietly skedaddled.

18

I’d had my nap, I had my stomach full of kibble, and I’d had some excitement in the form of Blake Carrington being carted off to the hospital, and now it was time to help our human crack this mystery of the missing girl. So Dooley and I decided to head into town to do some poking around, and were soon walking along the sidewalk.

“Where are Harriet and Brutus?” asked Dooley.

“Why, do you miss them?” I asked.

“A little bit.”

“They’re probably taking a nap.”

“How does it work exactly, Max?”

“How does what work?”

“The alien abduction thing. Do they beam the person up into their spaceship, or do they land first and then carry them in?” But before I could respond he added with a knowing nod, “If they’d landed we would have seen the signs: the indentation of the spaceship—the circle where all the vegetation was burned away. No, they must have beamed her up and then flown off. Too bad they picked such a remote spot, though, right, Max? Otherwise some witness could have seen them, and maybe even taken a picture.”

“Dooley, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but whatever happened to Angel, aliens were definitely not involved.”

“Are you sure, Max? Because all the signs are pointing to an alien abduction.”

“I’m fairly sure, yes,” I said with a smile.

We’d arrived in town, and made straight for the General Store, where our friend Kingman likes to hold forth. He’s like the elder statesman of Hampton Cove, and has the size to back up that claim. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Star Wars? There’s a character named Jabba the Hutt. Well, Kingman could have been his little brother. Smaller in size, of course, but definitely cut from the same mold. He was occupying a chair today, basking in the sun.

“Hey, Kingman,” I said, and found that I had to crane my neck to look up at the voluminous cat, which probably was the whole idea. Kingman likes it when his loyal subjects look up to him—like Jabba, who was king of the underworld.

“Hey, fellas,” said Kingman lazily, not bothering to look up. “What’s happening?”

“Well, a lot, as it turns out,” I said. “First off, Angel Church has gone missing. She went out last night to party with her girlfriends, and never arrived home.”

“I heard about that,” said Kingman, which didn’t surprise me, since Kingman has always heard about everything that goes on in our town—in spite of the fact that he doesn’t seem to move around much.

“I was just telling Max that I think Angel was abducted by aliens, Kingman,” said Dooley, reiterating his theory to a hopefully more appreciative audience.

But Kingman quickly quashed that hope when he said,“Nonsense. That girl was abducted, all right, but not by aliens. You mark my words. Pretty girl like that? Probably abducted by human traffickers.”

“But why?” asked Dooley. “Why would humans traffic other humans?”

“For all kinds of reasons,” I said.

“One reason only, Max,” Kingman proceeded to develop his theory. “Money. They can sell them, or they can turn them into prostitutes.”

“What’s a prostitute, Max?” asked Dooley.

“Well…” I hesitated, and shared a look of contemplation with Kingman. And since it was the latter who’d put us in the soup by mentioning the P-word, it was an unwritten rule that he was also the one who had to get us out of it.

“Look here, Dooley,” said Kingman now, actually tilting his head to look in Dooley’s direction. “I don’t know if you know this, but once upon a time older rich ladies used to hire younger women to keep them company. Read to them, talk with them, discuss all manner of fascinating topic. They were called a lady’s companion because—”

“They kept the lady company.”

“Exactly! They would travel together to such places as Cannes and Italy, and almost be like part of the family. Now at a certain point men became jealous, and decided that they, too, wanted the benefit of a companion lady, see?”

“Sure. To read to them, and to talk with them, and all that kind of stuff.”

“So a prostitute is like a lady’s companion… for men.”

“Oh, okay. So you think Angel is a lady’s companion now, for a rich person?”

“That’s exactly what I think.”

“Well, that’s not so bad, is it?”

“It wouldn’t be bad if she had chosen to do this. Only it is my belief that the men who took her didn’t bother to ask her opinion. They just grabbed her for some rich guy.”

“Oh, I understand. They took her but never asked her if she agreed. That’s not very nice.”

“Exactly, Dooley. That’s not nice at all.”

“It’s probably even worse than that,” I said.

“How can it be worse, Max?” asked Kingman.

“Angel probably is forced to work for free.”

“I think these men are very bad, Max,” said Dooley decidedly. “And I think we have to stop them, and get Angel out of their clutches.”

“Yeah, only problem is: we have no idea who these people are. Or where they’re keeping her—if indeed she was taken.” Though the more I thought about it, the more I was inclined to think that Kingman was right. It was the phone that had decided me. No girl Angel’s age would willingly part with her phone. Those phones are glued to her generation’s hands, and taking it away is the worst thing that can happen—well, apart from being abducted and forced into prostitution, maybe.

“Unless of course we’re dealing with some kind of murdering maniac,” said Kingman, placing his head down again. “In that case we’ll never see Angel again.”

“Oh, but Kingman, that mustn’t happen!” said Dooley, who clearly had become invested in a happy ending to be had by Angel and her family.

“Say, Kingman,” I said. “Do you happen to know who Angel’s dad is?”

Kingman gave me a thoughtful look.“Somehow I have the impression you already know the answer, Max.”

“Is it… a certain friend of your human?”

Kingman grinned.“Indeed it is.”

“And how do you know?” I asked.

“Because Father Reilly and Wilbur are exactly that: good friends. And good friends talk, Max.”

“And you listen.”

“All the time.”

“So do you think there is a connection with her disappearance?”

Kingman thought for a moment, then shrugged.“If there is a connection, I don’t see it.”

“Thanks, Kingman.” That was all I needed to know. If Kingman didn’t see a connection, chances were that there wasn’t one. He wasn’t called the oracle of Hampton Cove for no reason. Just then, a slightly wide-eyed Tex walked into the store, and moments later walked out again, carrying a box filled with bottles of some kind—I could hear the merry clinking of glass against glass. He placed the box on the backseat of his car, then drove off.

Dooley let out a tiny yip.“Looks like Tex just bought a box full of goodies for us, Max!”

Somehow I doubted that very much. Tex is a lot of things, but Santa Claus for cats he is not. He tolerates us, and accepts our presence in his home, but he’s not the one who takes care of us, feeds us or enjoys our company. No, judging from the shifty-eyed look Tex had shot up and down the street just now, whatever he was carrying was for his own personal consumption only—and clearly something prying eyes were not allowed to see!

19

Though at first reluctant to touch the food, Angel’s stomach decided otherwise, and even though she’d half expected to pass out on the bed after ingesting the admittedly copious meal, half an hour after finishing her plate she was still conscious and frankly feeling a lot better already. Her headache was slowly dissipating, and now that she’d eaten, she found herself wondering with even more fervor what was going on. So she pounded the door in the hope the masked man would return and shed some light on the strange circumstances in which she suddenly found herself.

Moments later she heard the unmistakable sound of a key turning in the lock and the door opened.“Good girl,” the man said as he saw the empty plate.

“What’s going on?” she asked, planting her hands on her hips. “I’ve been abducted, haven’t I? Or is this some kind of joke you’re playing on me?”

“No joke,” the man growled as he collected the tray and placed a carafe of water in its stead, along with a glass.

“So what is it then? Why am I here?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” the man said as he kept a safe distance, then quickly made for the door again. And when she turned to follow him, suddenly she found her passage blocked by a second man, also masked, and even bigger than the first one.

“Nice try, honey,” said this second man, and then the door was slammed in her face.

She gave it a good pounding.“Let me out!” she cried. “Let me out of here right now!” When no response came, she yelled, “If it’s money you want, you won’t get any—my mom is as poor as a church mouse!”

But clearly her words fell on deaf ears. So she sank down on the bed again, and buried her head in her hands. Why was this happening? She didn’t understand. Her mom worked as a housekeeper for Father Reilly, and neither of them had any money to spare.

She now thought back to the big fight she and the priest had the previous day. She’d complained to him that he made her mom work all hours of the day and night, and he responded that this was her own choice. She’d even accused him of slave labor, after she discovered that her mom had been at the rectory on a Sunday night. What could possibly be so important that he needed her services in the middle of the night? And when she’d told her mom she thought she should quit her job and find another one with more regular hours, her mom had said that she liked her job just fine. It was maddening!

But now that she thought more about the whole situation, suddenly she found herself wondering if perhaps Father Reilly could somehow be involved.

Of course he didn’t want to lose such an obedient little slave like her mom—who worked for practically no pay and hopped it down to the rectory whenever he snapped his fingers. So maybe her words had made him anxious that she’d manage to convince her mom to quit her job, and he probably knew he would never find a replacement.

So could he have arranged to have her abducted? But if so, what was his end game? Would he simply keep her locked up forever? Father Reilly might be a slave driver but he was no monster. Or was he? Frankly she’d long had the feeling there were things about him she wasn’t aware of. Secrets the man kept. Once she’d heard her mom and the priest fight, and when she’d put her ear against the door he’d said, ‘I don’t think you understand my position, Marigold.’ To which her mom had replied, ‘Oh, I know your position all too well, Francis. You’re a selfish, selfish man, and all you can think of is what is good for you!’

She closed her eyes, and soon she was sleeping soundly. Being up all night, and then being knocked over the head with a sizable club has a certain soporific effect on a person.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]

We’d just decided that our next port of call should be the Gazette, when our human came walking out of her office, closing the door behind her.

“Oh, there you are,” she said. “I was just going over to the police station. Care to join me?”

We didn’t need to be asked twice. If there’s new information to be gleaned, we’re always ready to glean it.

“Have you discovered anything new?” I asked as we fell into step beside our human.

“Nothing much. Except that Blake Carrington is in the hospital after suffering a heart attack. He’ll live,” she assured us before we could express our concern. “Oh, and also that the skeleton that was found behind the house didn’t belong to his son Steven after all.”

“Then who did it belong to?” I asked.

“Well, that’s what I’m hoping to find out. Uncle Alec was acting a little secretive when I called him just now.”

“It’s because he’s a cop,” I said. “Being secretive is in the job description.”

Odelia had to smile at this, and she was still smiling when we entered the police station, which is only a short walk away from the Gazette offices, and moments later we were in Uncle Alec’s office, the Chief behind his desk, and Odelia and Chase in front of it. Dooley and myself had been relegated to the floor, since Uncle Alec doesn’t believe in offering his feline visitors a seat. I guess we should feel grateful he allows us to be present at all.

“So what’s the big news?” asked Odelia.

“Okay, so Abe managed to identify the skeleton that you found.”

“That Fifi and the cats found,” Odelia corrected her uncle.

“Fine—the skeleton that the pets found.” He cocked an eyebrow for added suspense.

“Okay, so who is it?” asked Chase.

“Serena Kahl. A college student who disappeared five years ago.”

“The name doesn’t seem to ring a bell,” said Odelia with a frown.

“The Kahls are originally from Great Neck, on the North Shore, but moved here around ten years ago. Serena went to college in New York.”

“Huh,” said Odelia, as she processed this information.

“So she was abducted, ran away from home—what?” asked Chase.

“Your guess is as good as mine, buddy,” said Uncle Alec as he patted his man boobs with both hands—clearly a sign he was baffled. “She simply disappeared one day, after having gone to a party with some friends.”

“Sounds familiar,” said Chase.

“And this was five years ago?” asked Odelia.

“Yeah, she disappeared on a Friday. The party she went to was in New York, but she commuted every weekend, and as far as I can tell from the police report she was supposed to take the Jitney on Saturday morning but never made it.”

“Did they talk to the people at the party?”

“They did. The last person to see her was her roommate, who saw her get into a cab and drive off. The roommate stayed with her boyfriend, so she had no idea if Serena made it home that night or not. The first sign of trouble was when Serena’s mom called the roommate to ask if Serena had missed the bus. That’s when she went to the cops.”

“And the cab driver…”

“Says he dropped her off in Morningside Heights, where she lived. No one saw her after that—until now.”

“What a strange story,” said Chase.

“Okay, so was there any sign of violence that Abe could find?” asked Odelia.

“It’s very hard to know what happened to a person when all you have to work with are bones,” said Uncle Alec. “So frankly he has no idea.”

“So it’s possible that she made it to Hampton Cove somehow,” said Chase, “was murdered and buried in that field. But how did her remains suddenly surface?” He turned to Odelia. “You’re sure the dogs had nothing to do with that?”

“Fifi claims she found the remains the way we saw them.”

“And they hadn’t been there before?”

Odelia shook her head.“No, this morning was when she saw them for the first time.”

“Could be other dogs,” Uncle Alec suggested. “That neighborhood is infested with dogs.”

“So it could be that she was buried elsewhere, and either the killer or someone else dug her back up and placed her remains in Blake Carrington’s field.”

“To play a prank on Carrington?” asked Chase.

“Could be—though if it’s a prank it’s in very bad taste.”

“Mocking a man who lost his son is not a prank,” Uncle Alec grumbled. “That’s criminal—especially if the person who pulled that prank was Serena Kahl’s killer.” He lifted his hands and dropped them on his desk again. “And then there’s Angel Church. Officers have checked the woods where Angel disappeared and have found exactly nothing—zilch.”

“That’s not encouraging,” said Chase.

“It’s discouraging,” the Chief said, looking annoyed that his investigations—both of them—were going exactly nowhere at the moment.

“Okay, so I talked to Gran,” said Odelia, “and she told me something I think we should take into consideration.”

“What is it?” asked Uncle Alec, looking up with interest.

“Well, Father Reilly came to see her this morning, and he was in a real state. He told her that he and Angel had a big argument yesterday. He didn’t want to say what it was about, but he thought that maybe she’d run away from home, and felt pretty bad about the whole thing.”

Uncle Alec nodded.“You want to talk to Francis, and find out what they argued about.”

“Do you think we should treat him as a suspect?” asked Chase.

“I don’t think so,” said Odelia. “But since we don’t have anything else to go on at this moment, I think we need to pursue any lead we have.”

“I agree. Let’s go and have a chat with Francis. See what he has to say.”

“Only we can’t say that we got it from Gran,” Odelia hastened to add. “He told her all this in confidence.”

“So we simply tell him we heard it from one of his parishioners. People are always looking and listening at keyholes, so let him think we found out that way.”

“Good enough for me,” said Uncle Alec.

“Oh, one more thing,” said Odelia. “And it’s a little delicate. Shanille told Max and the others that Father Reilly is actually Angel’s dad, and that he and Marigold have been a couple for the past twenty years.”

The Chief shrugged.“Tell me something I don’t know, honey.”

Odelia’s eyes went wide. “You knew?”

“Of course! This is a small town, and I’ve been chief of police longer than you’ve been alive.” He gestured to the door. “Now get out of here, you two. Find me this missing girl!”

20

When Marge got home from the library, she discovered that her husband had already arrived. She heard him pottering about upstairs and called out,“You’re home early!” No response came, so she proceeded into the kitchen and started transferring the groceries to their respective cupboards and fridge compartments. “I’ve picked up a few things!” she said, and when still no reply came from Tex, she figured he hadn’t heard, and decided to surprise him.

So she tiptoed up the stairs, and listened for a moment as she arrived on the landing. The sounds seemed to come from the bathroom, and she smiled to herself. He was probably taking a hot bath—he did that often when he wanted to relax after a long day.

So she carefully nudged open the door, and when she entered the bathroom was much surprised to find her husband in the bath, scooping a big helping of mayonnaise from a large jar and rubbing it on his head. Next to the bath, a box full of similar jars stood.

Mayonnaise was dripping down his face, and the doctor was simply covered in the stuff.

At the foot of the bath, Brutus and Harriet were sitting, staring at Tex with wide-eyed concentration.

“What are you doing?” Marge asked.

“Oh, hey, honey,” said her husband of twenty-five years. “I’m rubbing mayonnaise on my head,” he said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world!

“He’s been at it for an hour,” Harriet said, not taking her eye off Tex for even a second.

“So far he’s used up two pots of mayonnaise,” said Brutus. “And I think he’s ready for a third.”

“But… why?” asked Marge, and for a moment that ancient fear crossed her mind: that her husband had gone stark-raving mad!

“Well, you’ll remember I asked you about my hair loss this morning?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And your mom was so kind to offer me some advice?”

“Oh, no.”

“She told me how Dick Bernstein and Rock Horowitz, her good friends from the senior center, both still have full heads of hair, in spite of the fact that they’re both a good deal older than she is. So I went over there this afternoon, to ask them what their secret is.”

“And what did they say?”

“Well, I only talked to Dick, but he assured me that this is the big secret.” He held up the empty jar of mayonnaise. “Mayonnaise contains all the nutrients your healthy scalp needs. And you don’t even have to go to the pharmacy to pick it up—you can find it in any supermarket! Both Dick and Rock have been applying this remarkable miracle cure for years. Oh, and Dick says mayonnaise has plenty of other advantages, too. When ingested, it invigorates. Mayonnaise has it all—the original wonder potion.” He licked his lips. “It even tastes good.” He gave his wife a cheerful smile, somewhat hampered by the fact that his face was covered in the sticky dressing. “You should have seen Dick’s hair, Marge. Thick and shiny and luxuriant. Not a bald spot in sight! I think it’s the eggs,” he now said as he scooped another large helping from the jar and splotched it on his head.

“Okay,” said Marge. She felt compelled to sit—her legs had gone a little wobbly—as if the world had suddenly turned into a carnival ride that shifts and shimmies underfoot and is designed to make you lose your balance.

“Dick literally said to me: have you ever seen a bald chicken? And you know, I’ve thought about this, and I can’t say that I have. Have you ever seen a bald chicken, Marge?”

“No, honey,” she said. “I’ve never seen a bald chicken.”

“Well, then. That proves it.” And he started massaging the mayonnaise into his scalp with vigorous movements.

“Has he finally gone mad, Marge?” asked Harriet.

“I’m not sure,” said Marge.

“He actually makes a valid point,” said Brutus. “I’ve never seen a bald chicken either.”

“No, me neither,” Harriet admitted.

“So maybe he’s onto something here, sugar buns.”

“Oh, and Marge?” said her husband as she made to leave.

“Yes, Tex?” she said.

“Could you ask the cats what their secret is?”

“Their secret?”

“For not losing their hair. I’d be very interested to find out.”

“Yes, dear,” she said, then tottered out of the bathroom, followed by Harriet and Brutus.

“The secret is that we don’t worry,” said Harriet.

“Yeah, we don’t worry,” said Brutus, “and humans do, that’s why they lose their hair and we don’t, see?”

“Tell me honestly, Harriet,” said Marge now, “did you think that was weird?”

Harriet thought for a moment, then shrugged.“Not weirder than other stuff humans do. You have to admit that you’re a very peculiar species, Marge.”

“Yeah, you guys are pretty weird,” Brutus chimed in.

“Oh, dear,” said Marge as she returned to the kitchen. But when she opened the fridge and didn’t find the mayonnaise, she closed her eyes for a moment, then said to herself, “Breathe, Marge. Just breathe.”

“Yeah, and don’t worry too much,” said Brutus, “or you will lose your hair, too.”

21

I have to say that this business with the missing Angel had piqued my curiosity to such an extent that I wanted to know what was going on, so it was with a certain measure of anticipatory excitement that I looked forward to the interview with Father Reilly. Chase, if you didn’t know, is a formidable interviewer, always able to extract the necessary information from his interviewees, and he doesn’t even need thumbscrews or a rack or an iron maiden. I think it’s all those years working for the NYPD that made him the formidable detective that he is today. He probably learned some highly advanced investigative techniques looking over the shoulder of the top cops in that particular police force. And Odelia, of course, has a lot of investigative experience she can bring to bear on a case, having been a reporter for a number of years now.

So when Father Reilly let us into his modest little home—also a called the rectory—nestled in the shadows of St. John’s Church, I knew this was going to be good. My humans were going to ask a lot of tough questions, and Francis Reilly would try to dodge all of them, but finally he’d have to give up. He’d break down and would submit a tearful apology and then do a full confession—not unlike the celebrities who appear on Oprah. Yes, I must admit I did think that the aged priest had something to do with his daughter’s disappearance. A fight, followed by some kind of physical altercation was my best guest. A shove and a bad fall and there you have it: all the elements for involuntary manslaughter.

“I still think it’s aliens,” said Dooley now, striking the discordant note as usual.

“And I think it’s Father Reilly,” I said.

He gave me a thoughtful look.“Father Reilly is an alien? I didn’t know that.”

“No, Father Reilly is not an alien, Dooley. He accidentally killed his daughter, that’s what I think. And I’m sure that Odelia and Chase are going to elicit a confession from the man right now—just you wait and see.”

We’d entered what looked like a cozy study, with an ornate mahogany desk standing in front of the window, a computer placed on that desk, showing us that Father Reilly might be old, but he wasn’t that old. There were plenty of bookcases lining the walls, and all of them were chockablock with books. A nice rug on the carpeted floor provided that warm softness your average feline is so fond of, and there was even a small fireplace, to offer that comfortable heat on those cold winter nights.

I just imagined the priest sitting at his desk, poring over the Gospel according to John, Paul, George, Ringo or what have you, and sweating over a sermon on brotherly love, while the fire crackled in the hearth, his housekeeper cable knitting a Christmas sweater with reindeer motif for her one true love, seated in one of the two armchairs in front of the fire, while Angel played with a Ken doll on the floor. Okay, so this scene probably hadn’t played out for at least a dozen years, since Angel was of an age now where girls no longer play with Ken dolls but with actual real-life Kens—or Barbies if so compelled.

“Just you wait and see, Dooley,” I said. “Father Reilly is going to confess any moment now.”

What I hadn’t expected, though, was the presence of another person in the room. This person was working feverishly on the computer, glasses perched on the tip of his nose.

“Joaquin, could you please give us the room for a moment?” asked Father Reilly.

Joaquin looked up from his work and regarded the newcomers with mild interest. He was a handsome man in his early thirties, with wavy dark hair, eyes like molten chocolate and a muscular physique, as evidenced by the brawny arms and chest filling out a simple white T-shirt.

“Joaquin is my sexton,” Father Reilly explained. “Joaquin, I don’t know if you’ve met Odelia Kingsley? She’s a reporter for the Gazette. And her husband Chase, detective with our local police department.”

“Hi there,” said Joaquin, as he took off his glasses and rose to greet the new arrivals. “Joaquin Fatal,” he said as he stepped from behind the desk, hand outstretched. “I was just working on a speech for the Ladies’ Garden Club on the Garden of Eden.”

“Joaquin is an excellent speechwriter,” said Father Reilly. “I’ve been begging him to write my sermons for me, but he stops short of doing that.”

“I may be old-fashioned,” said Joaquin, “but I still feel that a clergyman has to write his own speeches—though I write all the rest: speeches for the Hampton Cove Historical Society, Camp Delion Retreat Center and Summer Camp, the Hampton Cove Science Center, the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, the SeniorNet Computer Learning Center, the—”

“Yes, yes,” said Father Reilly mildly, stemming the flow. “I think we get the picture.”

Joaquin gave his boss a warm smile.“We need to go over the numbers for the church foundation, Francis.”

“I know, I know.” He clapped the other man on the back. “If it weren’t for Joaquin, I would have gone mad a long time ago. He keeps me sane.”

“All right—I’ll leave you to it. But don’t forget about our meeting, Francis.”

“I won’t,” said the priest, and we watched as the energetic sexton left the room.

“You haven’t told him about Angel?” asked Odelia.

“Oh, he knows,” said Father Reilly. “Joaquin thinks that Angel simply needed some space, and that she’s staying with a friend.”

“You didn’t tell him that we found her phone?”

Father Reilly shook his head.“Alec told me not to. Said the fewer people know about the state of the investigation, the better.” He gestured to a cozy little nook near the window, where two sofas formed an L-shape, cornering a salon table. Odelia and Chase took a seat, and so did the priest. “So what have you discovered so far?”

“Nothing, I’m afraid, Francis,” said Chase. “Though we have heard some troubling news that we thought we’d ask you about.”

“Oh?”

“Now it’s going to happen, Dooley,” I said. “Chase is going to play bad cop and Odelia good cop, and together, and with perfect skill, they’re going to browbeat this man into a confession.”

“He doesn’t look like an alien, Max,” said Dooley, studying the priest closely. “He looks human to me.”

“He’s not an alien, Dooley. But he is a killer, just you wait and see.”

“I’ll wait,” said Dooley, taking a lie-down on the rug, “and see.”

“Okay, so I know this might be uncomfortable for you, Francis,” said Odelia, proceeding along tried and true good-cop-bad-cop lines, “but I’m afraid I have to ask you.”

“Ask me anything,” said the priest, spreading his arms as if to encompass his entire congregation.

“It has come to our attention that you and Angel had a big fight the day she disappeared,” said Chase gravely. “Now you may not want to talk about this…”

“It must be painful,” Odelia interjected. “And I want you to know we understand.”

“But it’s important to know what exactly caused this fight.”

“Did Vesta tell you about this?” asked Father Reilly, suddenly looking troubled.

“You know I can’t tell you that,” said Chase. “But suffice it to say that we know about the… special relationship you and Marigold share—and you and Angel.”

“And we also know that Angel isn’t aware that you’re in fact her… well, her father.”

The padre took it well. He slightly reeled, but then immediately rallied.“I guess it had to come out sooner or later,” he said thoughtfully. “The circumstances are less than ideal, but that can’t be helped.”

“So what did you and Angel fight about?”

“Oh, you know, nothing major. A misunderstanding, let’s just call it that. As you yourself have already surmised, Angel doesn’t know that her mother and I are more than mere employer and employee. And so she objects to what she considers Marigold’s extreme work ethic. She think the reason her mother spends most of her time here with me is because I make her work so hard. When the simple fact of the matter is that Marigold likes to be here… with me… and I like it too. Naturally Angel finds it outrageous that her mom would spend so much time at work, as she sees it.” He smiled at the recollection of the fight. “She called me a slave driver. Said she’d tell Marigold to look for another job, where she doesn’t have to put in so much unpaid overtime.” He glanced at a portrait of the girl, which had pride of place on one of the bookshelves. “I considered telling her thetruth, but it didn’t seem like the right time. It would only have served to infuriate her even more. Of course I didn’t know it would be the last time we talked.”

A silence fell, and I murmured,“Now, Dooley. Now they’re going to pounce!”

“I always thought aliens had those long faces, and those big eyes, and that gray skin,” said my friend. “Father Reilly’s skin is pink… ish, and his eyes are the normal size for a human.”

“He’s not an alien, Dooley!”

“That’s what I keep telling you, Max. I’m glad you agree.”

“Okay, so do you think that perhaps Angel could have run away from home to spite you and her mother?” asked Odelia. “After that fight, I mean?”

“I’ve thought about that myself,” said Father Reilly, nodding. “It wouldn’t be inconceivable for her to pull a stunt like that. She’s still at an age where rebellion is the answer for everything. So maybe Joaquin is right and she arranged to stay with one of her friends, hoping to teachher mother and me a lesson.”

“But that still doesn’t account for her phone,” said Chase.

“No, that’s the snag I keep hitting, too. I don’t think Angel would ever willingly part with her phone—it’s her lifeline to her friends, to school, to everything. Her life revolves around it. And I must confess I find the fact that her phone was found very troubling.”

“Yes, it’s definitely not a good sign,” Odelia agreed.

“So Francis—I’m sorry to have to pry,” said Chase, surprising me with the gentleness of his demeanor. For a bad cop he was surprisingly kind, I thought. “But you probably realize that there’s a solid chance that your relationship with Angel’s mother is going to become public knowledgeat some point. Have you considered the consequences?”

“I have,” said Father Reilly with a sigh as he intertwined his fingers as if in prayer. “And thank you for your consideration, Chase.” He leaned back and said, “Frankly there’s only one solution: leave my position here at St. John’s and make an honest woman of Angel’s mother—and recognize Angel as my daughter. I thought I still had time, but clearly I’ve put this off far too long.” He gave his guests a sad smile. “Subconsciously I must have figured I could put it off forever, but circumstances are compelling me to make a decision.”

“And have you made your decision?” asked Odelia, also speaking in that gentle tone I really didn’t like to see there at this moment. Not when she had to pounce!

“I have.” He gestured to his desk. “I’ve been writing a letter to the bishop, announcing my resignation and explaining the circumstances compelling me to take a step back from my role as parish priest. I’m also working on a sermon announcing my retirement, which I plan to deliver during Sunday mass.”

“So… you’re stepping down?” asked Odelia, who looked shocked by this piece of news.

“I’m afraid so. Marigold said something to me the other night that gave me food for thought. She said I’ve devoted my whole life to the Catholic Church, and all she and Angel were left with were the crumbs. It’s time to do right by them both, and devote the rest of my life to being a husband and a father. And God willing, Angel will return to us soon, and I’ll be able to tell her that I’m not a slave driver, but that I am, in fact, her father.” A lone tear had stolen from his eye, and was trickling down his cheek, and before my surprised eyes, suddenly Odelia got up from her armchair, and was giving the aged priest a warm hug. And then tough cop Chase was doing exactly the same thing!

“This is so disappointing on so many levels,” I grumbled.

“I think I finally figured it out,” said Dooley. “He’s an alien wearing a human suit. That would explain everything.”

“Oh, Dooley,” I said with a sigh.

22

“Honey, what’s going on?” asked Vesta as she walked into the kitchen. “Why is the bath full of mayonnaise?”

“Oh, Ma,” said Marge.

“I wanted to take a shower and now I have to clean up what looks like ten gallons of yucky sludge. What gives?”

“It’s that friend of yours. Dick Bernstein. He put this idea into Tex’s head that he needs to rub his scalp with mayonnaise and then he won’t go bald.”

Vesta frowned at this.“Dick Bernstein said that?”

“He did. And I’m blaming you, by the way.”

“Me! What did I do!”

“You sent Tex to talk to Dick, and now he’s bought himself a year’s supply of mayonnaise, and has been soaking his head in the stuff ever since he got home from work.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Vesta with a tiny grin. She made sure not to show her daughter, though, for Marge looked upset enough as it was. And she didn’t blame her. If her husband started marinating his head in mayonnaise she wouldn’t like it much either. Of course her husband had soaked his liver in alcohol, which was probably worse.

“Do you think Dick is playing Tex for a fool? Or does he actually believe this stuff himself?”

Vesta held up her hands.“All I know is that Dick once told me he’d figured out the secret for keeping his hair. Though at the time he mentioned ketchup, not mayonnaise, so maybe he got things mixed up—I don’t know.”

“Ketchup!”

“Yeah, I thought it sounded like baloney, but you gotta admit: that man has great hair. And so does Rock.”

“They do have great hair,” Marge murmured.

When she continued looking distraught, Vesta patted her daughter’s shoulder. “Look at the bright side, honey. Mayonnaise is cheap. Cheaper than some of those hair products to treat premature baldness.”

“But Tex isn’t losing his hair.”

“He is getting thinner on top.”

“No, he’s not. That’s all in his head.”

“What’s in my head?” asked Tex as he strode into the kitchen with a spring in his step. He looked more chipper and bright than he had in a long time.

“You’re in a good mood,” said Vesta as she studied her son-in-law, and more specifically his hair. She didn’t notice anything different, but then the effect of that mayonnaise probably took a while to manifest.

“I wanted to thank you for that great tip, Vesta,” said the doctor as he grabbed a piece of cheese from the fridge and took a nibble.

Marge immediately snatched it away from him and put it back.“Save your appetite, honey,” she said. “Dinner is on the stove.”

“So Dick really came through, huh?” asked Vesta.

“I’ll say he did.” He touched the top of his head. “I can almost feel the follicles producing new hairs as we speak. Who knew mayonnaise could do all that? It’s amazing.”

“Oh, Tex, you’re a doctor,” said his wife, who clearly felt she could no longer keep her tongue. “I can’t believe you would fall for such, such—such awful quackery!”

“It’s not quackery if it works,” Tex pointed out.

“You keep rubbing that mayo if it makes you feel good, Tex,” said Vesta. “No harm, no foul. Now in other news, I heard through the grapevine that Francis Reilly is thinking about retiring. Is it true?”

“I haven’t heard anything,” said Tex with a shrug, but then of course Tex never did hear anything. The man lived in his own world most of the time—a world of medicine, garden gnomes and, since today, mayonnaise.

“Marge?”

“All I know is that Marigold came into the library a couple of days ago, wanting to have a chat.”

“A chat? What about?”

“Well, turns out she’s sick and tired of Francis neglecting to take his responsibility, as she called it. So she gave him an ultimatum: either he retires and marries her and officially recognizes Angel as his daughter, or she’s leaving him.”

“Oh, my,” said Vesta. She took a seat at the kitchen table and smoothed the floral-pattern chintz covering, removing a few crumbs as she did.

“Yeah, so I asked if she thought she was getting through to him, and she said she didn’t know. That Francis had made her plenty of promises over the years, but this time she was prepared to go to the limit.”

“So she was actually thinking of leaving him?”

“That’s what she said. And she looked like she meant it.”

“Who’s leaving whom?” asked Tex, who’d surreptitiously opened the fridge again and was now sneaking out the same piece of Gouda, which was a particular favorite of his.

“Marigold is leaving Francis,” said Marge. “If he doesn’t retire and marry her.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I like Francis. He’s the best priest we’ve had in years.”

“He’s the only priest we’ve had in years,” Vesta pointed out. “And the only priest you’ve ever known, Tex.”

“I’ll certainly miss him,” said Marge.

“Me, too,” said Tex.

“Oh, nonsense,” said Vesta. “When do you ever go to church?”

“Well, on Christmas,” said Tex, “and, um…”

“Exactly. So don’t give me that crap that you’ll miss him. Besides, change is good. Lately Francis’s sermons have been very dreary. A young priest might bring zip into this parish, and make people start going to church again.”

“Well, let’s certainly hope so,” said Marge. “And let’s hope that people won’t be too upset when Francis reveals he’s going to marry his longtime housekeeper, and recognize her daughter as his.”

“Nobody will be shocked, because everybody already knows. And now I have about a hundred gallons of mayonnaise to clean up, cause I want to take that shower.” She pointed to her son-in-law. “And you better help me clean them up, buddy boy. Or else I’ll sneak into your room tonight and personally yank those precious new hairs out of your skull.”

Marge had to suppress a smile at this, but Tex did as he was told, and moments later they were cleaning the bathtub together.

“Do you really think this cure will make a difference, Vesta?” asked Tex as he washed the last remnants of mayonnaise down the drain.

“Oh, absolutely. You just keep rubbing that mayo, and a couple of days from now you’ll wake up with hair like Jason Momoa. Big bushy curly head of beautiful hair.”

The smile he gave her was a sight to behold. Like a kid on Christmas morning!

23

“Why didn’t you make him confess?!” I asked once we were out of the rectory and on our way back to the car. “You just had to play good cop, bad cop and you would have had him!”

“Confess what, Max?” asked Odelia.

“That he accidentally killed Angel, of course.” When she gave me an odd look, I continued, “Don’t you see? They had an argument—he told you so himself. Only things got out of hand and there was some pushing and shoving, and she accidentally hit her head and died, and now she’s probably buried in those woods somewhere.”

“What is he saying?” asked Chase as we all piled into the car.

“He believes that Father Reilly accidentally killed Angel. That when they had that fight yesterday he gave her a push and she hit her head and died.”

“Yeah, but she went out with her friends last night, so that scenario can’t have played out the way Max thinks,” Chase pointed out.

“Okay,” I said after a moment’s thought, “so after the party she decided she had more things to say. So she dropped by the rectory again and got Francis out of bed. She was drunk and belligerent and looking to lay into him some more. Only this time the fight was even worse, since she was inebriated and unrestrained, and she probably called him all kinds of names, and so Francis finally lost his temper and that’s when it happened.”

Odelia dutifully translated my words, but Chase still looked dubious.“I don’t know,” he said. “Francis doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who would get violent, even if he was chewed out. In fact the man is so laidback I think he probably mainlines valium.”

“I’m sorry, Max, but I agree with Chase,” said Odelia. “I don’t think Francis is the person we’re looking for.”

Just then, there was a soft tap at the car window, and Chase rolled it down. It was Joaquin, Father Reilly’s loyal sexton. “You left his in the rectory,” he said, and produced the small notebook Chase always carries with him.

“Oh, jeez,” said Chase. “Thank, Joaquin. You’re a lifesaver.”

“I thought you might need that.” He glanced back. “I didn’t want to ask in there, but have you found out more about what happened to Angel?”

“No, I’m afraid we haven’t,” said the cop as he tucked away his trusty notebook.

“I heard you found her phone in a pond in Bickersfield woods?”

So much for keeping certain elements of the investigation confidential.

“Yeah, well, we’re not sure how it got there,” said Chase reluctantly. He’s one of those cops who like to play their cards close to their vest, and not share too much information with the general public.

“If it helps,” Joaquin continued, “when Angel was at the rectory yesterday, she told me that even though she might have used some harsh words with Francis, she only meant half of them.”

“You talked to Angel? asked Chase, interested.

“Well, when she left she confessed that she only said what she said because she feels that Francis is cutting her mother a raw deal, and she wants him to treat her more fairly. She also doesn’t think her mom would quit her job with Francis. ‘Mom is so attached to that stupid job that it makesme want to scream.’ Those were her exact words.”

“What was her frame of mind?” asked Odelia, leaning over Chase to address the handsome sexton.

“She looked a little frustrated. As if she knew her arguments wouldn’t make much of a difference.”

“Francis thinks she might have run away from home,” said Chase. “Do you think that’s feasible?”

“It certainly wouldn’t be out of character for Angel to pull a stunt like that,” said Joaquin, nodding. “She loves her mom, and she told me she’s fed up that she’s always working, and never home when Angel needs her.”

“Would you happen to know which friend she might be staying with?” asked Odelia.

“Well…” Joaquin thought for a moment. “You might want to try Mariko Jarmusch. She and Angel used to be best friends when they were little. Marigold once told me Mariko and Angel used to spend hours at the rectory, playing hide and seek. It used to drive Marigold crazy. I don’t know if they’re still friends, but maybe it’s worth a shot?”

“Where can we find this Mariko?”

“She works at Dough Knot Bakery on Norfolk Street. That’s how I know—I’m a regular customer there,” he explained with a smile. “Big fan of their chocolate croissants—one of my many vices.”

“Thanks, Joaquin,” said Chase. “You’ve been a big help.”

“We all love that girl, Detective. I’d do anything to see her home safe and sound.” He gave the car door a quick rap with his knuckles, then returned to the rectory with athletic step.

Chase and Odelia shared a look.“I could do with a nice ?clair for dessert,” said Chase, patting his stomach. “You?”

“I’ll see if they’ve got French bread,” said Odelia. “Dad loves some French bread with his soup.”

And so off to the bakery we went.

24

Dough Knot Bakery is one of those places where not only can you buy bread and pastry galore, but you can also consume it on the spot, as they have a tearoom attached to the main shoppe. But since it was almost time to go home and have dinner, Odelia and Chase decided to forgo this opportunity to top up their blood sugar, and instead got straight to the point. This they did by asking the girl at the counter if she was Mariko Jarmusch, Angel’s childhood friend. The girl answered in the affirmative, and stood looking at the cop and his civilian consultant with wide-eyed anticipation. A lot of people, when they have their first brush with the law, display this same response: immediately images of being arrested flash before their mind’s eye, even though they’re absolutely sure they haven’t done anything wrong.

“We just want to ask you a couple of questions,” Chase proceeded to put the girl at ease.

So she bellowed,“Frank! Can you take over for a minute!”

And when Frank, who turned out to be a pimple-faced youth of about twelve years old, arrived to take over Mariko’s duties as salesperson, she took us to a table located near the window, and Chase and Odelia launched into the interview.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Angel Church is missing since last night,” Odelia introduced the theme, “and now we’re talking to all of her friends, hoping they can shed some light on where she might be.”

“I’m not a friend of Angel,” Mariko said curtly.

“Oh, but I thought…”

“We used to be friends, until she pulled a dirty trick on me.”

“Dirty trick?”

Mariko, who was a round-faced young woman with bright red hair, was chewing a piece of gum so vigorously I thought it must have personally insulted her.“She stole my boyfriend. Me and Cody Szulc had been going steady for six weeks—coincidentally the longest relationship of my life—and Angel knew I was crazy about that boy, but still she decided to hook up with him after cheerleader practice. And then she had the gall to pretend nothing happened, when it was Cody himself who told me she’d allowed him to go to second base behind the bleachers. So no, Detective. Angel Church is not my friend, and frankly I don’t care what happens to her.”

“When did this thing with Angel and Cody happen?” asked Odelia, suppressing a smile.

“Two years ago.”

“So you would have been, what, sixteen?”

“Seventeen!” said Mariko, her eyes blazing. Clearly the trauma hadn’t yet healed.

“And you haven’t talked to her since?”

“I told her exactly what I thought of her, and that’s the last time we talked.”

“So you don’t know where Angel could be?”

“No, I don’t. Though actually, yeah. She’s probably with that sleazy boyfriend of hers. Matteo Drews.”

“Matteo Drews?” asked Chase, immediately jotting down the name.

“Yeah, total sleazeball.”

“You know this Matteo, do you?”

“Oh, sure. He used to have the hots for me, but I wouldn’t let a guy like that anywhere near me. Of course Angel isn’t so picky. That slut would let any idiot feel her up.”

“Is that how you would characterize Angel?” asked Odelia. “As a slut?”

“Absolutely. That sneaky slut stole my boyfriend, and she didn’t even have the decency to own up to it, or apologize.”

“And did she steal Matteo from someone, too?” asked Chase, trying to keep track.

Mariko shrugged.“I heard that Carmel had the hots for the guy. Don’t ask me why.”

“That would be Carmel…”

“Carmel Kraft. Angel’s new bestie. The weird thing is that Matteo doesn’t even like girls. Everybody knows he’s into boys. So when Angel and him hooked up it took us all by surprise.”

“Oh, so you all still meet, socially I mean?”

She gave Chase a look as if figuring he wasn’t too smart for a cop. “Hampton Cove is a small town, Detective. So it’s hard not to meet people, even a slut like Angel Church.”

“Were you one of the girls she hung out with last night?”

“Nope. No way. Though I did see them as I left the Cocky Cauldron. I ignored her, of course, and she ignored me. We’re not on speaking terms.”

“Could you give us the names of some of her friends?”

Mariko glanced up at the ceiling.“Carmel Kraft, Amy Ollermann, Beatrice Felag, Jody Huix. Oh, and Bridget Elfman.” She frowned. “Yeah, I think that’s it. Except Carmel’s boyfriend Wesley Trygar was also with them. Total creep, Wesley.”

“She seems to have a strong opinion on things, Max,” Dooley commented.

“Yeah, she’s very outspoken,” I agreed.

“So where can we find some of these people?” asked Odelia.

“Try McDonald’s. Carmel works the evening shift, and so does her boyfriend.”

And so we went from one food emporium to another. And since Odelia and Chase were famished at this point, but wanted to see their investigation through, they decided to skip dinner, and grab a burger instead. It’s those kinds of sacrifices your true detective needs to make.

Frankly Dooley and I were also a little peckish, and a nice burger patty or chicken wing sounded just fine to me.

25

The McDonald’s in Hampton Cove is where our friend Big Mac likes to hang out. His human runs that particular restaurant, and Big Mac enjoys all the perks—and he has the size to prove it.

I was really hoping to run into him, as it had been a while since we met the guy. Also, he might be able to shed some light on this missing person case.

“Do you think Big Mac will be there, Max?” asked Dooley now, clearly thinking along the same lines.

“I hope so,” I said. Talking to witnesses and such is all fine and dandy, but it doesn’t beat the kind of information you can pick up when talking to a fellow feline.

Chase parked his pickup in the McDonald’s parking lot, which is located just beyond the town limits, and he and Odelia got out. On the drive over, Odelia had called her mom to tell her she and Chase wouldn’t be able to make it home for dinner, and asked her if she needed to get her something from McDonald’s. Marge had ordered fries, but when Odelia asked her if she wanted mayonnaise with that, Marge had choked up. Odd.

“What was that about?” asked Chase as they walked up to the entrance, Dooley and me hot on their trail.

“I’m not sure,” Odelia confessed.

The place was pretty busy. It was the dinner hour, after all. And while Odelia went in search of Angel’s friend, and Chase scanned the menu, Dooley and I slipped out the back to look for Big Mac, who likes to hang out near the dumpsters.

As luck would have it, we immediately laid eyes on the voluminous orange cat.

“Hey, buddy,” I said as we snuck up on him from behind.

It was with a grin that we watched him jump about a foot in the air, then turn on us with a baleful look on his cherubic face. But when he saw it was us, his anger quickly dissipated, and he caroled,“Max! Dooley! Long time no see!”

“Hey, Big Mac,” I said.

“Have you eaten a lot of Big Macs lately, Big Mac?” Dooley quipped.

“You better believe it,” said the large cat. He took a seat next to the dumpster. “Though they seem to have changed the recipe. Something tastes off lately—maybe it’s the topping.” He pointed to a half-eaten hamburger lying next to him, which he’d clearly been sampling when we caught up with him.

“Maybe you should eat them fresh,” I told the cat. “Not drag them out of a dumpster.”

“What can I tell you? I like to live dangerously,” said Big Mac with a Cheshire grin.

“That, you do.”

“Anyway, I’m thinking about changing my name. Lately I’m more partial to the Quarter Pounder with Cheese Bacon, so maybe you should call me that from now on.”

“That’s a mouthful,” I said.

“You bet it is. Takes more than one mouthful to chow down one of those bad boys.” He gestured to the remnants of just such a specimen. It looked a little yucky, smeared as it was with ketchup and other condiments. In fact it looked as if a child had used it for fingerpainting practice rather than as part of its Happy Meal. “Wanna have a bite?”

“Thanks, but I’ve just eaten,” I said. At the sight of that burger, my stomach had miraculously stopped rumbling, deciding to skip a meal if it looked like that. “So is your human still running the restaurant?” I asked as we watched one of the servers step out for a smoke.

“Absolutely. Place is still as busy as ever. So what brings you guys out here?”

“An investigation.”

“Not another murder investigation.” Last time we met, we’d investigated the murder of a bestselling writer, and Big Mac had been of great assistance describing the killer.

“No, a missing girl this time,” I said. “She went out with some friends last night, and now she’s missing.”

“And one of her friends works here,” Dooley explained.

“Carmel Kraft.”

“Oh, yeah, I know Carmel. She’s so sweet. Always gives me the best stuff.”

“So let me get this straight,” I said, deciding to clear up a point. “Your human feeds you, then you dig through these dumpsters every night, and the people who work for your human also feed you?”

The big cat gave us a big smile.“I know, right? I’m one lucky cat. Now talk to me about this investigation. Color me interested.”

“Okay, so the name of the missing girl is Angel Church. She was last seen leaving a club in downtown Hampton Cove. And one of the girls who was with her was Carmel.”

Big Mac was nodding.“I think I know the girl you’re referring to. Pretty little blond thing? She was in here last night.”

“Angel was in here last night?”

“Oh, sure. She’s in here all the time, her and her friends. Since Carmel works here, they’ve been coming here a lot.”

“But Carmel wasn’t even working last night.”

“No, see, this is how it goes: they all meet up here, have dinner, then go out. Then they drop by again around three or four o’clock in the morning, when they have another late-night snack.” He shook his head. “How these girls manage to stay so thin is beyond me.”

“So did they adhere to the same schedule last night?” I asked.

“Oh, absolutely. Though I have to admit I didn’t see Angel.”

“You didn’t?”

“I saw her friends, but not her. Which is weird, because she’s the biggest trencherwoman of them all. That girl loves to eat, Max. A pleasure to watch.”

“Huh. Interesting.”

“Do you believe in aliens, Big Mac?” asked Dooley now.

“Oh, absolutely,” said the big cat. “Why?”

“Well, I happen to think Angel was abducted by aliens, see, because two friends of ours followed her trail from Hampton Cove to the woods, and the trail stopped dead in the middle of the woods, right next to a pond. And a diver who dredged the pond only found her phone.”

“Oh,” said Big Mac, eyes wide. “And so you think…”

“I’m almost one hundred percent sure that she was…”

“… beamed up!”

“Exactly!” said Dooley, glad that he’d finally found a friend who subscribed to his outlandish theory.

“I think you might be onto something, Dooley. Those aliens beam innocent people up all the time.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why only humans? Why don’t they beam up cats and dogs? Or livestock?”

“Max is right,” said Dooley, nodding. “Why the discrimination? We have just as much right to be beamed up as the next human.”

“Oh, but they do beam up pets and livestock,” said Big Mac, who seemed to know a lot about this stuff. “In fact they beam us up all the time. Lampposts all across town are plastered with flyers of missing cats and dogs—and if you gave me a cheeseburger every time a complaint is filed about a missing cow or sheep…”

“I don’t believe this,” I muttered. Now I had two delusional felines to contend with.

“I just hope they won’t beam me up,” said Dooley, directing a worried glance at the sky. “I don’t think I’d enjoy being probed. I’m very ticklish, you see.”

“You know what you should do?” said Big Mac. “You need to make sure you gain weight, Dooley. A lot of weight.”

“And why is that, Big Mac?”

“Because those aliens, they only beam up the young and healthy. A fat cat like me doesn’t stand a chance. They’re not interested!”

“But why?”

“Because those aliens are trying to build a master race, see, and they can only build their master race by abducting the best and the brightest. So your sports jocks, your fitness freaks and your mathletes. Those are the ones they’re interested in. So the unhealthier you are…”

“Big Mac, you’re a genius!”

“So get yourself fat and unhealthy, and you’re safe.”

“Are you sure?”

“Hey,” said Big Mac, slapping his big belly. “It’s worked for me so far. Haven’t been abducted yet.”

“If you were abducted,” I said, deciding to strike the discordant note before these two got carried away, “you wouldn’t remember. Because they wipe your memory when they’re done with their ‘alien probe.’”

Both cats stared at me.“You mean we could have been abducted already, and we wouldn’t know!” Dooley cried.

“There’s one way to know,” said Big Mac, who was fast outing himself as an alien believer. “They leave a small mark.”

“A mark?” asked Dooley, wide-eyed.

“Right behind your ear. If there’s the single mark, you’ve been abducted once. Two marks, and you’ve had the dubious pleasure of their company twice, and so on and so forth.”

“Can you check my ear, Max?”

“Oh, Dooley,” I said with an eyeroll.

“Here, I’ll do it,” said Big Mac. “Not all cats are believers, and I have the distinct impression that our friend Max here is not one of us.” He quickly checked Dooley’s left ear, then his right ear, but shook his head. “Nothing. You’re clear.”

“How about you, Big Mac? Do you want me to check?”

“Go ahead. But I know I’ve never been beamed up. They can fool other cats, but not me.”

“Sure, Big Mac,” I said resignedly. “Whatever you say.”

Dooley was busy inspecting our friend’s ears, and suddenly froze.

“What is it?” asked Big Mac, a note of concern in his voice. “What do you see?”

“Big Mac!” said Dooley in hushed tones.

“What? What?!”

“Max, come and take a look,” said my friend, and reluctantly I did as instructed.

“That’s not a mark, Dooley,” I said. “That’s a birthmark.”

“It’s round.”

“So it’s a freckle.”

“A freckle? Oh, boy,” said Big Mac.

“What does it mean, Big Mac?” asked Dooley in hushed tones.

“I’m afraid to tell you, Dooley.”

“Oh, no. You’re scaring me!”

He placed a paw on Dooley’s shoulder. “Sit down a minute, will you? The shock might be too great.”

“Big Mac!”

“Dooley, there is a type of alien we alienologists like to call the CEAs—Chief Executive Aliens. They’re like in charge of all the regular aliens. Now these CEAs seldom show up on planets as ordinary and bland as ours. They like to leave the work to their underlings—the workers. But from time to time they do show up, usually to make sure that the regular aliens are doing what they’re supposed to do. They’re very big on hierarchy, aliens are.”

“Can you speed it up, Big Mac,” I said, as I glanced to the kitchen door, hoping Odelia and Chase were still in there, and hopefully hadn’t forgotten about our patties and wings.

“Okay, so when a worker drone beams you up, he just does his job, leaves his mark and that’s it. Just another day on the job. But when those CEAs are on the floor, they like to get involved—set an example and show off, if you know what I mean. So when they beam you up, you really get the fulltreatment. And they leave a mark that looks like a freckle.” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully. “It’s considered a great honor to be handled by a CEA and not a regular worker. They don’t just pick anyone, see. They only pick the best.”

“It’s just a freckle, Big Mac,” I said.

“It’s the mark of a Chief Executive Alien!”

“Oh, my God, Big Mac!” said Dooley.

“I’ve been chosen,” said the voluminous cat, a reverent quiver in his voice.

“Chosen for what, exactly?” I asked, not hiding my skepticism.

“For my genes, of course! They’re probably planning to create a planet populated only by felines. And I’ll be the main progenitor. Me! Little Big Mac! Oh, happy day!”

“Oh, Big Mac,” said Dooley, tears of joy springing to his eyes. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Don’t worry, Dooley,” said the large cat, clapping an earnest paw on my friend’s back. “One day they’ll pick you. And then you will have a planet filled with your offspring.”

“I can’t wait,” said Dooley.

Oh, brother. I don’t think Sherlock Holmes ever had to contend with this kind of nonsense. Doctor Watson may not have been the brightest bulb in the bulb shop, but at least he wasn’t crowing about being the progenitor of his own planet!

And so when I returned indoors, thinking dark thoughts about Big Mac and his alien race, I just hoped Chase and Odelia had had better luck. At least now we knew that when the entire group of friends gathered here last night, Angel had already disappeared. But why? Why had she decided to forego her favorite part of a night out with her friends?

26

We arrived just in time to sit in on the interview Odelia and Chase were conducting with Carmel Kraft, Angel’s best friend.

“Where were you?” asked Odelia when we jumped up onto the bench. When I told her we met Big Mac and gave her a brief report of what we’d learned—minus the alien stuff—she frowned, and I could see that the wheels in her mind were turning already as she tried to reconcile this new information with what we already knew.

Carmel, who’d joined us at our table and was still wearing her McDonald’s outfit, looked nervous. She was a petite young lady, with a lot of frizzy dark hair and fine-boned features.

“This stuff is great,” said Chase as he worked through a bag of French fries, freely dipping them into the small container of mayonnaise that came with them.

Meanwhile Odelia had distributed a few tasty morsels of food for Dooley and myself, and we both eagerly dug in.

“So you have absolutely no idea where Angel could be?” asked Odelia, continuing a conversation that had clearly already begun.

“No idea,” she confirmed.

“But you did see her last night?” Odelia asked, taking a sip from her soda.

“Oh, yes,” said Carmel. “There were six of us. Angel, me, Amy, Beatrice, Jody and Bridget. We’ve been besties since middle school, and we keep in touch, even though Bea and Jody are in college now, and Angel is considering going next year.”

“So we talked to Mariko Jarmusch,” said Chase, “and she told us that Angel is dating a boy named…” He consulted his notebook, which was lying open on the table. “Um, Matteo…”

“Drews. Matteo Drews. Yes, that’s right. Angel and Matteo started dating a couple of weeks ago, which we all thought was weird, since we figured Matteo wasn’t into girls. But apparently he is.” She made a face.

“Is it possible that Angel is with Matteo?”

“No, he’s in Milan right now—that’s in Italy.”

“Okay, so take me through the events of last night, Carmel,” said Odelia.

“Well, we all met up at Amy’s house, like we always do, and got ready to go out. Amy has the most amazing collection of clothes and accessories—her mom owns her own boutique and she has great taste and so does Amy. So it’s become a tradition that we go over to her place and have fun gettingdressed and put on makeup. And so then we came here to have a little supper and we started off by going to Club Couture, then to Eclectic—that’s a new place we wanted to check out—it sucked, by the way. And from there we pretty much went from club to club, like we always do, and then we usually finish back here, for a bite to eat.”

“But last night Angel left early, is that correct?”

“Yeah, she did. She wasn’t feeling good, so she decided to skip the last part and go home, take an ibuprofen and crash.”

“What time was this?”

“Oh, around… two-ish, I guess?”

“And the rest of you took a cab and came here?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“And Angel walked home.”

“Yeah, she said she thought some fresh air would do her good. It would sober her up.” She bit her lower lip. “We shouldn’t have let her take off like that, should we? She was probably snatched by some maniac in the woods.”

“We don’t know that, Carmel,” said Odelia reassuringly. “All we know right now is that she made it to the woods near where she lives, and that’s when the trail runs cold.”

“So she never made it home?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“I tried calling her this morning, and when she didn’t pick up, and didn’t answer any of my messages, I knew something was wrong.” Suddenly she burst into tears. “This is all my fault. I should never have allowed her to walk home all by herself!”

“It’s not your fault, Carmel,” said Odelia, and gave the girl’s arm a comforting squeeze.

Carmel glanced up when a man dressed in a manager’s outfit called out her name, looking none too friendly.

“I have to get back,” she said, then looked at Odelia imploringly. “Please find her, will you? She’s my best friend. I don’t know what I’d do if…” She swallowed, and tears sprung to her eyes anew. She wiped them away.

“Can I ask you one more thing? Is it true that you fancied Matteo at some point?”

An amused smile flitted across the girl’s face. “Who told you that? Yeah, I did fancy him for a little while—all the girls did. But that was before someone told me he was into boys.”

“So what did you think when Angel started dating him?”

“I was surprised,” said the girl. “Angel said it wasn’t serious, though. Said they were just fooling around. So I just figured Matteo wanted to experiment. See what it’s like to be with a girl, you know.” She shrugged. “At least he didn’t experiment with me. I wouldn’t want to be that girl.”

“What girl?”

“The girl a guy like Matteo fools around with. When I date a boy I want him to be with me because he’s into me. Not just for fun, if that makes sense.”

“It does,” said Odelia, and shared a quick smile with Chase.

Carmel looked from Odelia to Chase, and said, a little breathlessly.“You’re a couple?”

“Yeah, Chase is my husband,” said Odelia, and showed the girl her wedding ring.

“Oh, my God, that’s so cute,” said Carmel, and proceeded to give Odelia a quick hug before hurrying off to her boss, who looked on the verge of an aneurysm.

“So what do you think?” asked Chase as he popped the last French fry into his mouth.

“I don’t know what to make of it,” said Odelia, and proceeded to tell Chase about what Big Mac had revealed: that Angel’s favorite part of the evening was a visit to McDonald’s.

“The girl was drunk, babe. Probably felt sick. So she decided to do the sensible thing and go home. I know I can’t bear the sight of food when I’m sick to the stomach.”

“And what about that Matteo business?”

“Kids that age experiment,” said Chase as he threw down his napkin. “Nothing out of the ordinary about that.” He glanced over to Carmel, who had resumed her duties behind the counter. “Do you think Angel could be staying with her?”

“She struck me as pretty sincere. So if she is hiding Angel, she should get an Oscar.”

“I’m leaning more and more to the possibility that the girl was snatched.”

“Like Serena Kahl, you mean?”

Chase nodded.“In which case we might be dealing with a serial killer, babe.”

I would have reiterated my theory that Father Reilly was the one they needed to take a closer look at, but clearly they’d already rejected my involuntary manslaughter theory, and I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself by trying to push it on them again and again.

And that’s when a brilliant flash of inspiration suddenly struck me.

“Dooley,” I said, “let’s get out of here.”

“Where are we going?”

“I think I know where Angel is.”

27

The moment we walked out of the restaurant, Dooley said,“I forgot something, Max,” and ran back in. And when I glanced through the window, I saw that he’d rejoined Odelia, and was telling her something. Moments later he returned, this time wearing… a tinfoil hat.

“What’s that?” I asked, staring at the abomination.

“It will protect me from the aliens,” he proudly declared.

“Don’t tell me, you saw that on the Discovery Channel?”

“No, on the news,” he said. “With this, aliens can’t pick up your brainwaves, and so they don’t even know you’re there, and so they can’t abduct you.” He gave me a worried look. “We should probably get you one, too, Max. You’re not very healthy, but you’re very smart, so theCEAs might choose you as their next target to experiment on.”

“For your information, I’m perfectly healthy, Dooley.”

“Of course you are, Max,” he said indulgently. “Do you want me to get you a hat now?”

“Absolutely not. I’m not wearing a tinfoil hat!” I said with a touch of heat.

“Here, you can have mine,” he said, and proceeded to shake off his hat and nudge it in my direction.

I was touched by this gesture.“Thanks, Dooley,” I said. “But you keep it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. Here, I’ll help you get it in position.” I don’t believe in aliens, but Dooley does, and that was enough for me. And so I helped my friend don his silly little hat. It still smelled like chicken wings, which was a nice bonus.

“You know, Max, if this wave of environmentalism continues, soon there won’t be any more tinfoil.”

“So? Isn’t that a good thing? For the environment, I mean?”

“Oh, sure. But it also means we won’t be able to protect ourselves from the aliens anymore.”

“Of course, Dooley,” I said resignedly.

“So where are we going?”

I perked up.“To the graveyard.”

And so we started on our trek into town. Destination: the graveyard.

“See, if you’re going to solve a crime, you have to put yourself in the mind of the criminal, Dooley,” I said as we trudged along. “Now in my view the person with the best motive to do away with Angel is her father: Father Reilly.”

“Why do they call Father Reilly Father Reilly, Max?” asked my friend. “Because as far as I can tell he’s Angel’s father, but not everybody else’s father.” Then his eyes went wide. “Or do you think heis everybody else’s father? Maybe he’s one of those sperm donors with hundreds and hundreds of children!”

“No, Dooley, it’s just a term used to refer to a priest. As in: he’s the father of his flock, not their actual biological father.”

“Oh, phew,” said Dooley. “Imagine the whole town being Father Reilly’s kids. That would be something, wouldn’t it?”

“Okay, so hear me out, will you?” I said, resuming my little speech where I’d left off. “So where would a priest like Father Reilly bury the body of his victim?”

“Um… roll it in a carpet and put it in his car?”

“He’s a priest, Dooley, so his place of business is St. John’s Church. And what is right next to the church?”

“Um… the pizzeria? Oh, Max! You don’t think he turned Angel into a pizza, do you?”

“No, Dooley, I don’t think he turned his daughter into a pizza. Now what else is located next to the church, apart from the pizzeria? I’ll give you a hint. It’s a place where people have been burying their dead for generations.”

“Oh, I know—the graveyard!”

“Exactly! So now you have to put yourself in Father Reilly’s shoes. He’s just accidentally killed his daughter, and now he wants to get rid of her body—ASAP!”

“Okay, so he rolls her in a carpet…”

“What’s with the carpet! No, Dooley, no carpets are involved here.”

“Okay, so he doesn’t roll her in a carpet, but…” He gave me helpless look. “I really don’t know how to put myself in the shoes of a killer, Max. And I think it’s probably because I’ve never killed anyone before. Have you?”

“No, I haven’t killed anyone either, Dooley,” I admitted.

“So how can you put yourself in the shoes of a killer?”

“Just use your imagination, Dooley. Just like a writer, see? As far as I know James Patterson has never killed anyone either, and yet his books are full of killers.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, adjusting his tinfoil hat. “Okay, so I’ve just killed my daughter…” He frowned. “I don’t have a daughter, Max. Does that make a difference?”

“No, it doesn’t, Dooley. Just imagine you’re Father Reilly for a moment, will you?”

He closed his eyes.“Okay, so I’m Father Reilly. I have white hair and I’m very, very old.”

“Father Reilly isn’t that old, Dooley. He’s probably younger than Gran.”

“He is? He looks old.”

“That’s because he has white hair. White hair makes people look old.”

“But Harriet has white hair, and she doesn’t look old.”

“Focus for a moment, Dooley. Don’t get sidetracked. You’ve just killed your daughter and then what?”

“Okay… so I want to roll her in a carpet.”

“No carpets, Dooley! Forget about the carpet!”

He was frowning intensely as he thought hard.“Is she heavy?”

“Who?”

“Well, my daughter. Is she very heavy? Cause I’m old and I’m not very strong, and now I have to carry… how much does a human weigh, Max? Just a ballpark figure.”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” I muttered. “Let’s just skip a couple of steps. Somehow Father Reilly managed to carry his dead daughter to the graveyard, where he proceeds to bury her in an unmarked grave. And it’s that grave we need to find, Dooley, you and me.”

“We do? But how?”

“We simply look around for freshly dug graves, and…”

“And?” he prompted.

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” I admitted. “But at least it’s a first step in proving that Father Reilly killed Angel.”

“If you say so, Max,” said Dooley, though he didn’t sound convinced.

It took us a little while, but finally we arrived back in town, and headed for the graveyard. I have to confess I’d never set foot in that graveyard before in my life—ever. Since it’s not a very happy place, see? Cats as a rule aren’t crazy about spending time surrounded by thousands of dead folks. Not that I believe in old wives’ tales about zombies or the walking dead or anything like that, but still—it’s not very pleasant to imagine being surrounded by the remnants of all of those people. And if you think I’ll ever set paw inside a pet cemetery, you’re very much mistaken, for the same principle applies.

“Okay, so now we spread out and start looking, Dooley,” I said.

“But I don’t want to spread out, Max,” said my friend. “I’m scared.”

“No need to be scared. It’s just a graveyard. No one here can harm you.”

“They might crawl out of their graves and try to bite me.”

“Oh, Dooley,” I said. “All right, so we’ll go look together.”

“We should have asked Harriet and Brutus to join us,” he said after we’d poked around a nice chunk of graveyard and had discovered exactly nothing. “We could have covered a lot more ground. Or Fifi and Rufus. They have great noses. They could have sniffed out Angel, even if she’s dead andburied.”

I blinked and stared at my friend.“You know what, Dooley? That’s a great idea.”

“You think?” he said proudly.

“It’s brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that? They probably still have Angel’s scent in their noses, and so all they would need to do is sniff around and lead us straight to her grave!”

“So can we go now, Max? This place gives me the creeps.”

It was a bit creepy, I had to admit. The moon had risen, and was casting a pale light on the old tombstones that stood scattered around us like broken teeth, and the gravel under our paws was making a crunching sound I didn’t enjoy. All in all not a fun place to hang out of an evening. Then again, your intrepid detective goes where he must, and this is where my intuition had led me, so I was bound to find something important—like Angel Church’s mortal remains!

But Dooley was right—we could spend all night wandering around and accomplish nothing.

So we set paw for the cemetery entrance when suddenly I became aware of voices where no voices should have been.

“It’s them, Max!” Dooley whispered as we both hid behind a tombstone in a reflex action.

“Aliens?” I guessed.

“No, zombies. Or yeah, maybe aliens.”

“Make up your mind, Dooley. Is it aliens or zombies?”

“Maybe it’s alien zombies?”

“It’s kids,” I said after a moment’s pause.

And indeed it was. We approached stealthily, and saw how a couple of kids were standing around what looked like an open grave, and one of them had jumped down into the grave and now said,“Looks like a fresh one, boys. Har har har.”

“Let’s dig her up,” said one of his buddies with marked glee.

All in all I counted no less than six of them. They were drinking from open containers of beer, sipping from liquor bottles, and looked drunk and getting drunker by the second.

“You see, Dooley?” I said. “No zombies and no aliens. Just stupid kids.”

A wheelbarrow stood nearby, and the kids now dragged something up out of the grave, and placed it on the wheelbarrow.

“Giddy-up!” said the kid who’d dug the grave. He crawled out and dumped the shovel.

And then they were off, maneuvering the wheelbarrow with its precious load, singing a merry tune all the while. They were zigzagging, but that was probably the alcohol.

“Grave robbers,” I said.

I found myself wondering if these were the same kids who were responsible for the skeleton in Blake Carrington’s field, especially since I now remembered the empty cans of beer lying around that area, and the remnants of a fire.

“Let’s follow them,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I want to know what they’re up to.”

And so we followed them at a safe distance, and soon we’d left the graveyard, and watched as they placed the remains of what must have been a human in the back of a car, then slammed the trunk shut and were off, the car swerving violently before it raced away at a very respectable rate of speed, the kids howling like timberwolves. A beer can came whizzing from the car window, hit Dooley’s tinfoil hat off his head, and rolled to a stop.

“Hooligans, Max!” said Dooley as he retrieved his little hat.

I gave the beer can a good sniff, and memorized the scent for later use.

What? If dogs can do it, so can we!

“And now let’s go and get Fifi and Rufus out here,” I said. “We have a murder to solve, Dooley, and the sooner we do it, the better!”

“All right, Max,” said my friend. So he straightened his hat, and then we were off.

28

“Chase?”

“Yeah, babe?”

They were in bed, and instead of reading a book, Odelia was studying some of the information her uncle had sent over about the girl whose skeleton had been found nearby.

“That girl—Serena Kahl?”

“Mh-mh?”

“She was exactly the same age as Angel.”

“Is that so?”

Chase looked up from the hard-boiled crime novel he’d been reading.

“Yeah, and there are other similarities. Listen to this. Serena Kahl was nineteen, same as Angel, she went to a Catholic school, her father was a pastor and her mother the school principal. She disappeared after a night out with her friends and she was never found. And also, when she disappeared there was a full moon.”

“There was a full moon last night?”

“Yep, there was.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Chase. “So you think…”

“Like you said, we could be dealing with a serial killer, Chase.”

Chase frowned thoughtfully.“We better dig a little deeper, and see if there haven’t been more of these mysterious disappearances.”

“You know what this means, though, right?”

“That Angel might be dead already.”

It was a sobering thought, and one Odelia didn’t like to dwell on, but it certainly was a thought that seemed all too plausible.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]

So we finally arrived home, and when we did, and proceeded straight into Marge and Tex’s backyard, hoping to find Rufus out and about, we came upon Gran instead, who was seated on the porch swing reading a book. The sight was so incongruous that we both sat and stared for a moment, before making our presence known.

“Gran, you’re reading a book,” said Dooley.

“Oh, hey, you guys,” said Gran. “And full marks for being so observant, Dooley. You’re right. I am reading a book. And not just any book—a great little tome.”

“But… you never read.”

It was true. I’d never seen Gran read a book before. Usually all she did was watch television: Jeopardy, reality shows, soap operas, movies—she was up for almost anything.

“Like I said, this is a great book.” She held it up so we could see the cover.

“My life in Tahiti,” I read. “By Malcolm Philan.”

“Who’s Malcolm Philan, Gran?” asked Dooley.

“Scarlett’s uncle. He lived in Tahiti for over seventy years and he’s written a book about his life. Very entertaining, I must say.” She adjusted her glasses and frowned. “Why are you wearing a tinfoil hat?”

“Dooley is afraid he’s going to be abducted by aliens,” I explained.

“They abducted Angel Church,” said Dooley. “And Big Mac says they’re also abducting pets now, especially pets that are either healthy or smart or both, and since I’m healthy I have to make sure they won’t catch me.”

“Okay, I see,” said Gran with a grin of amusement. “I actually wanted to ask you something.”

“Sure, shoot,” I said.

“Well, you know how Tex is worried about losing his hair, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So he asked me to ask you what your secret is—why cats don’t lose their hair, like humans do.”

“Oh, gee, Gran,” said Dooley, “that’s easy. Because we’re much smaller than humans, see?”

“And how do you explain that?”

“Well, gravity pulls at you, and when you’re big, it pulls at you hard, but when you’re small, like us, it pulls at you much less.”

“So?”

“So gravity pulls at humans very hard, and especially at the tops of their heads, where their hair grows? And when it has a hard time getting a good grip, the hair tends to come loose, and that’s when humans lose their hair—especially the ones with big heads.”

Gran had to laugh at this.“Dooley, gravity pulls you down, not up!”

“Oh,” said Dooley, seeing the flaw in his reasoning.

“But it’s a nice theory, and I’ll definitely tell Tex to watch out for that nasty gravity pulling his hair!”

“Okay, so maybe it’s the sun?” Dooley tried again. “Because humans are so tall, they’re much closer to the sun than we are, so when it burns the tops of their heads, it makes their hair fall out. It’s also why you have to make sure to water your lawn in the summer.”

“So what do you suggest? That Tex waters his hair?”

“Um…” But then Dooley’s eyes lit up. “I got it! He should always wear a hat!”

“Boom! Problem solved,” said Gran. “Thank you, Dooley.”

“All joking aside, I think the actual secret is in our saliva,” I told Gran. “Us cats are big at grooming ourselves. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we don’t take baths—we lick ourselves. So the big secret must be in our saliva. That’s why we have such amazing fur.”

Gran frowned.“I’d tell Tex to lick his head, but I don’t think he’d go for it. After all, his tongue is only so long.”

“We can’t lick the tops of our heads either, but we lick our paws, then rub our heads.”

Gran smiled.“I would love to see Tex lick his hands then rub them over his head.”

“That wouldn’t work,” I explained patiently. “Like I said, the secret is in our saliva.”

I could see a light had come into her eyes. Clearly inspiration had struck. Now whether that was a good thing or a bad thing remained to be seen. But since we had more important things to deal with, I said,“And now if you’ll excuse us, we have a body to find.”

“Of course you do,” said Gran with a chuckle, as she returned to Malcolm Philan’s Tahitian adventures. Judging from the picture on the cover he’d spent most of his seventy years entertaining Tahitian belly dancers.

And so we proceeded into Ted and Marcie’s backyard, and called out quietly for Rufus.

“Hey, fellas,” the sheepdog immediately replied, and moved out of the darkness and into the light from the moon. “You’re up late.”

“We want to ask you a favor,” said Dooley.

“Don’t tell me. You want me to sniff out more dead people?”

Dooley stared at the dog.“How did you know!”

“I was kidding, you guys. You’re not serious, are you?”

But when he saw the serious expressions on our faces, he knew exactly how serious we were: dead serious!

“I think Father Reilly accidentally killed his own daughter,” I explained, “and buried her in an unmarked grave at the cemetery. And now we want you to sniff out where she’s buried. Do you think you can do that?”

“Oh, sure,” said Rufus. “At least if she’s there.”

“She’s there, all right,” I said. “It’s the most plausible solution to this mystery.”

“Can Fifi come, too? It’s always more fun when we can work together. And besides, her nose is more developed than mine.”

“Odd, isn’t it?” said Dooley.

“What is?” asked the large sheepdog, as he followed us into the next backyard.

“Well, your nose is bigger than Fifi’s so you should be able to smell better than she does.”

“Yeah, Dooley, that is odd,” said Rufus with a smile.

We wandered into the other backyard, and softly called out Fifi’s name. Moments later, the Yorkie came tripping over, quickly squeezed herself through the hole she had dug under the fence, and Rufus proceeded to explain to her the mission we’d laid out for her, should she choose to accept it. And we were just about to leave when suddenly Harriet and Brutuscame hurrying in from the field behind the house.

“You guys!” said Harriet excitedly. “Something is going down back there—come quick!”

And so we followed her and Brutus, and they led us straight to where Fifi had discovered that skeleton earlier that day.

“Hey, I recognize this place,” said Fifi.

“Of course you do,” I said. “This is where you found that skeleton, remember?”

And then we saw, much to our surprise, that the same kids who’d been digging up that body in the graveyard, had built a fire, and were now busy dancing around that fire, still consuming copious amounts of alcohol, and howling like wolves.

Nearby, the dead body lay, and Harriet said excitedly,“I think that’s a dead body. And I think these could be the same kids who put that skeleton here!”

“We saw them dig up the body at the graveyard,” I said.

“You were at the graveyard?” asked Brutus.

“Yeah, Max has this theory,” Dooley announced. “He thinks that Father Reilly killed his daughter and buried her, and now he wants Fifi and Rufus to help find her.”

“Don’t be silly, Max,” said Harriet. “Father Reilly wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less his own daughter. For once I think you’re way off base.”

“Yeah, Maxie baby,” said Brutus. “You’ve struck out this time, buddy boy.”

But of course I stuck to my guns.“It’s the only theory that fits with all the facts,” I insisted.

“Look, they’re up to something!” said Harriet.

“Oh, boy,” said Rufus. “What a bunch of clowns.”

And indeed they were a bunch of clowns, as they now had shoved one of the kids into the fire, and he’d only barely been able to jump over it without getting badly burned. Unfortunately for him, his pants leg had caught fire, and he had to pour his beer on the flames to douse them. He didn’t look happy that he had to waste precious alcohol on such an ignoble cause and was cursing freely, then throwing the empty beer can at his buds.

Two of the kids now busied themselves by taking selfies with the dead person.

“I can’t watch this, Max,” said Dooley.

“Yeah, this is just super gross,” said Harriet, but she still watched with glittering eyes.

“I think I’m going to get Gran to call the cops,” I announced, as it was obvious now that these kids were engaging in plenty of illegal activities and that this had to stop.

And so I volunteered to hurry back to the house, and apprise Gran of the facts. The old lady was still engrossed in her book, but when I told her about the kids and the dead person, she immediately agreed to call it in, and moments later the police had been notified. By the time I rejoined my friends, the first police car already came driving up, its lights out, and when a second car rolled to a stop, the first officers had already intervened, and were asking the kids for their ID, and making the first arrests.

Half an hour later the entire group of youthful vandals had been collared and tucked into squad cars and driven off to the station. The dead person, unfortunately, was another matter, since even the officers apparently didn’t know what the correct procedure was in a case like this. But since a good cop is never stumped for long, soon an ambulance came driving up, loaded up the remains and soon peace returned.

And so the six of us decided we hadn’t seen enough dead people for one night, and headed down to the graveyard for a nightcap.

29

I don’t know if you’ve ever had to find a freshly dug grave in the middle of a very large graveyard? I can assure you it’s not an easy task—tedious, too. Unfortunately for us, Rufus and Fifi’s noses, formidable though they may be, disappointed us in the sense that they had no trouble finding plenty of freshly dug graves—looked like a lot of people had recently met their maker—but none of them contained the person we were looking for. And so after three hours of traversing the graveyard from north to south and east to west and back, we all gathered at the entrance, weary and more thana little disappointed.

“Nothing,” said Fifi, summing up the situation with admirable succinctness.

“Wherever Angel Church is, it certainly isn’t here,” Rufus agreed.

“But she has to be here,” I said. “My theory is perfect!”

“Well, your theory may be perfect, Max,” said Harriet, “but clearly it’s just that: a theory.”

“Did we really miss cat choir for this nonsense?” Brutus grumbled, massaging his weary paws.

“What are you guys doing here?” suddenly a voice rang out from the darkness. But then I saw that it was Shanille, and I decided she’d been sent by heaven.

“Shanille, you have to help us,” I said. “I happen to know for a fact that Father Reilly killed Angel, and that he buried her out here, but the question is: where?”

“Max, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I’ve solved Angel’s murder, but all that’s missing is the proof!”

Shanille stared at me, then, with dignity and poise, said,“Max, you’re an idiot.”

“See, Max?” said Brutus. “Even Shanille thinks you’re way off base this time.”

“But…”

“No, Max,” said Shanille. “Not another word. Father Reilly is a saint, and he would never harm another living soul—let alone his daughter.”

“But he—”

“No means no, Max! Forget about it. It didn’t happen.”

I must confess I deflated to some extent, like a balloon at the end of a kids birthday party. Shanille, of course, is Father Reilly’s cat, so it’s safe to say she’s highly prejudiced in her human’s favor. But that’s just the thing: she is Father Reilly’s cat, and so if something untoward had happened, surely she would have noticed? Unless of course the priest had managed to hide the truth even from his own exquisitely inquisitive feline?

My mind was spinning. Could I have been so wrong?

“Oh, by the way, congratulations on the upcoming wedding,” said Dooley.

“What wedding?” asked Shanille, still regarding me unhappily.

“Why, Father Reilly and Marigold, of course. He told us all about it this afternoon, when we interviewed him.”

“Father Reilly said that he’ll marry Marigold?”

“Oh, absolutely. He said he’s given his life to his church, and now it’s time to give the rest of it to the woman he loves. He’s going to announce it next Sunday during mass—he’s writing a whole sermon and everything.”

“Oh, Dooley,” said Shanille, and even though it was hard to know for sure, I think that her eyes were actually glittering with unshed tears!

“Don’t cry, Shanille,” said Dooley. “It’s good news, isn’t it?”

“It is, Dooley, it absolutely is,” said our choir director, and then burst into tears in earnest. We all rallied round to pat her the back and such, and it was obvious that the news had struck a chord with the feisty choral leader.

Brutus and I stood back to give Shanille some much-needed space, and my butch black friend said,“Don’t feel bad, Max.”

“Bad about what?”

“About getting it wrong. You got a great track record, buddy. And even the best of us have an off day, you know.”

“But it all fits,” I said.

“I know it does, buddy. I know it does.”

“He’s her father, Brutus—her father.”

“Of course. I hear you.”

“So he must be the one who…”

“Oh, for sure—only he isn’t. So it’s back to the drawing board for you.” And he gave me a vigorous pat on the back. A little too vigorous, I thought, but then I hardly noticed, as I was thinking hard about where I’d gone wrong. And so while Shanille was still shedding hot tears of joyfor her human’s future bliss, I went over the entire case again, as far as I could see it, and tried to make the pieces of the puzzle fit. Brutus was right. I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. We all make mistakes, and clearly I had made one now.

And soon, as I collected my thoughts, and tried to think this through in a calm and methodical manner, I saw a different angle to the case I hadn’t considered before. And the more I thought along the lines of this new theory, the more the pieces fell into place. And before long, I experienced that familiar tingle I get when I’m on the right track. Though if my instincts were correct this time, we had to hurry—if we weren’t too late already!

[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]

Angel had a hard time falling asleep. Even though by her calculations it was the middle of the night, she was still wide awake. If at first she’d figured people were pulling a prank on her, she’d grown increasingly anxious as the day wore on, then turned into night. And as she stared up at the ceiling, she wondered how much longer this ordeal would last. Or if at dawn, like a movie she recently saw, her final hour would strike, and they’d come for her—whoever ‘they’ were.

30

Vesta was up early as usual, and pottering about in the kitchen, when she happened upon a suspicious plastic bottle in the fridge. The bottle contained a yellowish-greenish liquid that looked a lot like apple juice, only when she took a sniff it didn’t smell like apple juice at all. And she was just about to have a taste to determine what it could possibly be, when suddenly Tex stormed into the kitchen and grabbed the bottle from her hands.

“That’s mine,” he said, and stomped off again, as if she’d done him a personal disservice by taking a sniff at his precious bottle.

“You can have your stupid bottle!” she called after the man. But when she opened the cupboard, she noticed that it was filled with jars of mayonnaise, and when she stepped into the pantry, she found cartons of mayonnaise stacked high wherever she looked. It gave her the impression that her son-in-law’s hair loss issue was becoming everyone else’s issue, too, which wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she decided to give him some advice.

Marge, who came wandering into the kitchen looking sleepy, asked,“What’s with all the shouting?”

“Your husband keeps weird bottles in the fridge and when I wanted to take a sip he blew his top. And look at this.” She gestured to the pots of mayonnaise taking up precious space. “How much longer is he going to carry on like this?”

“You’re the one who told him to rub mayonnaise on his scalp, Ma,” Marge reminded her. “So if you want him to stop, you need to think of something.”

“Oh, I’ll think of something, all right,” Vesta grumbled, and stormed out of the kitchen then stomped up the stairs. And she’d just shoved open the bathroom door when she happened upon a strange scene: Tex was in the bath, holding his bottle over his head.

“What are you doing? What is in that bottle?” she demanded.

Tex looked up as if caught doing something he shouldn’t. “None of your business,” he said, and quickly screwed the cap back on the bottle and held it to his chest protectively.

Vesta now became aware of a strange odor in the bathroom. As if one of the cats had peed in there. She dove for that bottle, trying to prise it from her son-in-law’s fingers. Only Tex was faster than she was, and successfully managed to hold it out of reach.

“What is that smell?” asked Marge, who’d also come in. Then she caught sight of her husband in the bath, guilt written all over his face. “Tex—what the hell is going on?”

“He won’t let me touch his bottle,” Vesta lamented.

“This is my house,” Tex declared. “Can’t a man expect a minimum of privacy in his own home?”

“Privacy is overrated,” said Vesta, and eyed her son-in-law keenly. “If you won’t tell me what’s in that bottle, I won’t tell you the secret the cats shared with me last night about how not to lose your hair.”

Tex looked wounded.“That’s blackmail!”

“Call it what you will. That’s the deal I’m offering you, and it’s one of those limited-time deals. In fact it’s going to expire in exactly ten-nine-eight-seven…”

“All right, all right! It’s my urine,” said Tex.

Both his wife and his mother-in-law stared at him in utter consternation.

“Your what?” asked Marge, suddenly wide awake.

“I collected it last night and this morning. I’m supposed to rub it into my scalp, but it’s foul.” He wrinkled up his nose. “Also I’m not sure it’s entirely hygienic, but Malcolm swears by it.”

“Malcolm? Who’s Malcolm?” asked Marge.

“Scarlett’s uncle,” said Vesta, who was still staring at the man, her mouth agape.

Tex nodded.“He told me that the men in Tahiti all have full heads of hair deep into their eighties and nineties, and they all contribute it to their custom of bathing themselves in their own urine. Oh, and they also drink a small sip of their morning pee, but I can’t bring myself to do that.” When his wife and her mom both started talking at the same time, he quickly added, “It’s supposed to have plenty of health benefits!”

“Tex, you’re insane!” Marge said.

“Yeah, you’re a doctor, Tex,” said Vesta. “Would you advise your patients to drink their own pee and take a shower in the stuff? Huh? Seriously, dude!”

“I looked it up on the internet, and it’s a thing. People even claim it cures cancer. Oh, and there was an Indian prime minister who drank his own urine every day his whole life and he lived to be a hundred and accredited his great health to his urine-drinking habit!”

“Tex, honey,” said Marge, adopting a more soothing tone and placing a hand on her husband’s heated brow. “I think you’re overwrought. You’ve been working too hard and now you’re feeling the strain. Give me that bottle, will you?”

But Tex was refusing to hand over his treasured bottle.

“I watched a video last night,” he said in a dreamy voice, “of an Indian farmer who takes a shower in his cow’s urine every morning. Says it’s very refreshing.”

“Tex!” said Vesta. “You’re not actually thinking of—”

“No, of course not,” said Tex. “Besides, it’s very hard to find a cow in the Hamptons. Though we do have plenty of ducks,” he added musingly.

“Marge, your husband is out of control!”

“Just kidding!” said Tex, and gave them a toothpaste smile that looked slightly deranged. Vesta now took advantage of a lull in the conversation to snatch that bottle away from him and took a sniff. It was pee all right. Yuck!

“He wasn’t kidding,” she told her daughter.

“Give me that,” said Marge, and proceeded to pour the amber liquid into the sink.

“Hey, it took me all night to collect that!” said Tex.

“Tex, listen to me, honey,” said Marge, adopting the gentle tone of a nurse dealing with a difficult patient. “Your hair is fine. Your health is fine. You don’t have to rub mayonnaise on your scalp. You don’t have to drink your own urine. And you most certainly don’t have to take a shower in cow pee!”

“Yeah, Tex,” said Vesta with a shrug, “I don’t know why you get all hot and bothered about your hair—it looks perfectly fine to me.”

“But you told me that I’d go bald as a billiard ball any day now!”

“I was just kidding! Jeez, can’t you take a joke?”

Tex gave her a dark look.“You told me to go and see Dick.”

“I thought I was doing you a favor.”

“And you still haven’t told me the cats’ secret,” said the doctor now. “A deal is a deal.”

“There is no secret. Cats simply don’t lose their hair the way humans do—end of story. Now better get ready. You’ve got patients waiting. Unless you want to give them a sip of your urine?”

“No!” said Tex, horrified. He might be susceptible to quackery, but luckily in his own practice he was scrupulously academic and adhered to recognized medical procedure.

“So what was all that noise last night?” asked Marge. “I woke up in the middle of the night and saw there were police lights flashing and people traipsing all over that field.”

“Oh, that,” said Vesta with a throwaway gesture. “Some kids had dug up another body and decided it would be fun to put it in Blake Carrington’s field.”

“What do you mean—dug up another body?” asked Tex, who’d stepped out of the bath and was now busily brushing his teeth, presumably since he had taken a small sip of Malcolm’s miracle cure, and the taste lingered.

“Yeah, turns out the same kids that dug up this body also dug up the skeleton they found yesterday. Something about an internet challenge—don’t ask. Kids these days.”

“So that skeleton wasn’t Blake’s son?”

“No, it wasn’t. Just some poor schmuck’s grave they decided to rob.”

“God, I hope they’ll get punished good and proper.”

“Oh, they will. Alec was out here last night, and he was furious. Especially since Blake is a friend of his, and the man is now in hospital because of this nonsense.”

“Will he be all right?”

“Let’s hope so. He took it pretty hard, as you can imagine. Thought it was his boy they’d dug up. But turns out it was just a stupid prank. They didn’t even know the history of the field, and Steven Carrington’s unfortunate accident.”

“What were they hoping to accomplish by digging up a corpse?” asked Tex as he dabbed at his mouth with a towel, then smacked his tongue and went right back to brushing his teeth once more for good measure. Urine—the taste that lingers.

“Well, like I said, they were doing one of those online challenges. You know, if they’re not throwing buckets of ice water on their heads or eating Tide Pods or sniffing glue they’re digging up corpses and taking selfies with them. Pretty gross if you ask me.”

“And criminal,” said Marge, shaking her head. She now studied her roots in the mirror over the sink. “So mayonnaise, huh?”

“Dick Bernstein swears by it,” said Tex as he was now busy brushing his tongue.

“Oh, will you give it a rest,” said Gran. “Dick Bernstein is a fool. I’ll bet the man never rubbed mayonnaise on his scalp. He simply told you what he thought you wanted to hear.”

“So Dick pulled my leg?” asked Tex, staring at his mother-in-law in the mirror.

“Sure! He’s just one of those guys lucky enough to still have all his hair. He doesn’t know why—nobody knows why. Good genes, probably. And definitely not mayonnaise.”

“And now you’ve gone and bought a truckload of the stuff, honey,” said Marge.

Tex gave two of the three women in his life a rueful look.“I really made a fool of myself this time, didn’t I?”

“You did, honey,” said Marge, and gave him a kiss, then made a face. “I think you better brush your teeth a third time. I can still smell it on you.”

Tex licked his lips, then winced.“Strong stuff. I wonder how Malcolm does it.”

“He was probably pulling your leg, too,” said Vesta. She patted the doctor’s back. “You’re all right, Tex. Your hair is fine, and so are you. And now let’s get this day started, folks. Time’s a-wasting!”

And leaving her daughter and son-in-law to get ready for their day, she practically skipped down the stairs. And if anyone would have asked for her secret on how she was still so healthy and vivacious at seventy-five years of age, she would have told them it was all down to the entertainment level she derived from watching her nearest and dearest make absolute fools of themselves. Soap operas and reality shows were all fine and dandy, but nothing beat the real thing—free of charge and available twenty-four-seven!

31

Angel Church was fed up with this nonsense. She’d been in that cramped little room for twenty-four hours now, or even more, and enough was enough. The food wasn’t bad, though a little on the greasy side for her taste, but she missed home, and she missed being able to move about freely and do the things she loved. But most of all she missed being able to take a long hot shower!

So when the man with the mask entered the room and placed another tray on the table, this time containing breakfast, she demanded,“When are you going to let me go?”

But the man didn’t speak.

“I asked you a question!” she said. “How long do you plan to keep me here!”

The man turned to walk out again, but this time she was so fed up with this whole situation, that she felt a wave of white-hot anger take control, and as she uttered a low growl, she picked up the tray, dumped its contents on the floor, and accosted the man with it, hitting him over the head as hard as she could. Her warden uttered a sort of startled squeak, then went down and didn’t get up!

She stared down at the victim of her sudden outburst, a hand to her mouth in surprise and shocked at her own strength, then glanced over to the door. And she was about to take that leap to freedom, when the second man suddenly materialized, saw what had happened and said,“What did you do!”

But she was so overwrought, and determined to end this ridiculous situation once and for all, that she found herself streaking forward, and attacking this man, too!

Unfortunately for her, this opponent had anticipated her maneuver, and was ready. He quickly turned her around, then marched her back to the bed in the corner and forced her to lie down, then found nothing better to do than to sit on top of her, pinning her down.

“Now you listen to me, and you listen carefully!” she said, as she tried in vain to wriggle out from under this man. “You let me go right now! Or there will be hell to pay, mister!”

“You’re not going anywhere, princess,” said the man as he lit up a cigarette, then took out his phone.

“Let. Me. Go!”

“Yeah, it’s me,” the guy now spoke into his phone. “We’ve got a situation. Yeah, you better come down. She knocked out… our mutual friend. What? No, he’s on the floor, unconscious.” He disconnected and glanced down at his prisoner, who was still wriggling frantically. “Stop squirming, princess.”

“You can’t keep me here forever!” she said.

“And we won’t.”

“So when are you going to let me go?”

“Soon,” he promised. “Very soon now.” He glanced down at the remnants of breakfast, now splattered all across the floor. “Now look what you did,” he lamented. “That took me a long time to prepare, princess.”

“Well, boohoo,” she said viciously.

The man got up, but wagged a finger in her face.“Are you going to behave? Cause if you won’t…”

“Then what?” she said defiantly, sitting upright again and massaging her painful arms.

“No more food for you,” said the guy after a moment’s hesitation.

For some reason she had the impression these were not professional kidnappers. In fact they both reeked of rank amateurism. The way they’d allowed themselves to be surprised by a mere slip of a girl told her everything about their preparedness. “I’ll behave,” she promised. “And I’m sorry about your friend. Will he be all right?”

The other man now stood bent over his friend, and said,“What did you do to him?”

“This,” she said, as she lifted the same tray and this time let it come down heavy on the second guy’s head. He immediately crumpled into a heap, on top of his larger and burlier buddy, and she watched with satisfaction how she’d managed to eliminate not one but two of her guards. The door to freedom once again beckoned, and she hurried out of the room, then slammed the door shut and turned the key in the lock. And she probably would have managed to escape this time, if not a third man had suddenly materialized, and leveled a very dangerous-looking gun in her direction.

“Not so fast,” said this person. And suddenly she thought she recognized the voice. She couldn’t immediately place it, but there was something very familiar about this person.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she demanded. “I don’t understand.”

“Get back in there,” the man growled, and reluctantly Angel did as she was told, and opened the door of her prison cell again. She’d had a chance to look around, and saw that she was in some kind of cabin—and she even thought she recognized it. She’d been there before!

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but you’re not getting away with this,” she said as she entered the room, and stepped over the prostrate figures of the two men.

“What did you do?” asked the third guard. A note of admiration had inadvertently crept into his voice.

“I knocked them out,” said Angel simply. “And if you don’t stop this nonsense right now, I’ll do the same to you.”

But the man was holding onto that gun, and Angel had the impression he wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

“Back—step back,” said the guy, and gestured to the bed. Another black-clad and masked person had walked in at this point, and Angel had the impression this was a woman. “Help me carry them out,” the guy ordered. And together they carried first the smallest man, then the biggest one out of the room.

And since they were busy, Angel saw an opportunity and decided to grab it with both hands. So she accosted the woman, giving her a hard shove that sent her flying to the side, and then she was on her feet, racing for the door of the cabin. She had been here before, and she knew exactly where she was now, and who was holding her. The only thing she didn’t know was why. And she’d just made it to the door when another person materialized in front of her, held up a hefty club, and knocked her over the head with it.

And before she passed out, the last thought that passed through her mind was that she wasn’t going to make it out alive—these people meant business: deadly business!

32

“Are you sure about this, Max?”

“Well…” I said, hedging my bets. I have to confess that I’d lost some of my self-confidence since my last theory had proven a bust. I actually felt sorry now for suspecting Father Reilly. The man sat in the car with us, and so did Marigold. Chase was behind the wheel, and Odelia rode shotgun as we raced along the road out of town, once more to that wooded area where Angel had gone missing more than twenty-four hours ago.

“It’s funny,” said Marigold, “that you’re actually talking to your cat.”

“Oh, just an old habit,” said Odelia, feeling caught. “When I’m feeling nervous about a case, or just spitballing some theory, I like to ask Max, and pretend he gives me advice.”

“Just like Francis likes to talk to Jesus,” Marigold commented with a smile at her boyfriend.

“Marigold thinks you’re Jesus, Max,” said Dooley.

“I very much doubt that, Dooley,” I said.

“No, but she does.” He regarded me thoughtfully. “You don’t look like Jesus, though.”

“I know I don’t look like Jesus, Dooley.”

“No, but really you look nothing like him.”

“I know!” I turned to Odelia. “We have to hurry, Odelia. If we’re too late…”

“You better step on it,” said my human.

“You think she’s in danger?”

“I know she is,” said Odelia, giving me a glance of concern.

Apart from Dooley, Harriet and Brutus were also riding with us, and so was Shanille.

“How did you know, Max?” asked the latter now.

“Just a hunch,” I said, still not a hundred percent sure my hunch would play out this time. It was very much possible that I was completely off base again. Which meant I wasn’t just about to make a total fool of myself, but also of Odelia and Chase.

“But you must have had some clue,” Shanille insisted.

“Let’s just wait and see if Max’s theory pans out this time,” Brutus suggested. “Cause his previous attempt to solve this case was a total flop.”

“Poor Father Reilly,” said Harriet. “To think that you thought he would murder and bury his own daughter in an unmarked grave. Just look at the man. It’s obvious that he’s devastated.”

We all looked at the man, and he did look distinctly ill at ease. Though it was entirely possible that the prospect of being reunited with his daughter put him on edge, in light of their recent argument.

“When we find Angel I’m going to tell her, Francis,” said Marigold, patting the priest’s hand affectionately. “Or better yet: you tell her.”

“I will, Marigold,” Father Reilly assured his housekeeper, then gulped nervously, like a bullfrog who’s just swallowed a mosquito.

“It’s time, Francis.”

“I know.”

“In a sense this might be the best thing that happened to us. Angel will finally know the truth, and we’ll have a nice fall wedding, and Angel can be our bridesmaid.”

“Uh-huh,” said Francis, giving the impression of a man facing the firing squad now.

“Why is it, Max,” asked Dooley, who must have noticed the same thing, “that some men think of marriage as a terrible thing?”

“What are you talking about?” asked Shanille.

“Well, just look at Father Reilly. It’s clear that the prospect of getting married scares him to death.”

“Nonsense. He’s just worried about what we will find when we arrive there.”

“I think he’s more nervous about what will happen once he and his daughter are reunited.”

“Oh, Dooley, you’re way off base. Obviously he’ll be over the moon when he sees Angel and he can’t wait to tell her what he should have told her years and years ago.”

I wasn’t so sure, and frankly I thought that Dooley was onto something here.

But for now I was too nervous myself to bother inserting my own views into the conversation. I just hoped this time I was right and that my instincts hadn’t deserted me!

Soon we were veering off the main road and rocking down a meandering dirt road that led straight into the woods. It had only taken Chase a couple of phone calls to locate the place, and it seemed plausible enough. Moments later the car was bumping and grinding across the rutted road, the cop’s sturdy pickup handling the tree roots and potholes exceptionally well. We were deep in the woods now, and when I glanced back I saw that the three police cars following in our wake had trouble navigating this challenging track. Moments later the path finally cleared and before us a small cabinmaterialized, built probably forty or fifty years ago. It was a modest cabin, but looked spacious enough. A big pile of firewood sat stacked to one side, and three cars stood parked outside, a sign the place was inhabited.