Purrfect Swing. Purrfect Cruise. Purrfect Harmony

“Laura is afraid that if they tell her she’ll never talk to them again.”

“Which is entirely possible. Bertha lost her first husband, and now this. She’ll never forgive them.”

“But they can’t go on like this, Salvatore!” Dooley cried. “They just can’t!”

“And why not? They’ll keep seeing each other in secret, and then one day, hopefully in a distant future, when Bertha is no longer with us, they’ll make it official—after respecting the proper mourning period, of course.”

“But that could be years and years and years!”

“I know. But that’s the way it is.”

“This is almost like General Hospital,” said Dooley as he darted a quick glance at the unhappy couple. “They’re still kissing,” he announced excitedly. Then his eyes went wide. “They’re going to get caught! What if one of the other passengers sees them and tells Bertha?”

“Constantly having to live like this,” said Salvatore, shaking his head. “Can you imagine? Always having to hide and being afraid their secret will be discovered.”

“How horrible,” said Dooley, but his eyes were shining, and I knew that the moment he talked to Gran he would tell her all about it.

16

We’d returned to our cabin and entered to find… Ruby Kettering with her nose stuck in the closet, keenly fingering one of Odelia’s nicer blouses.

“Oh, hi,” said the girl, and color immediately crept up her neck, then her face, then all the way to the roots of her hair.

“In spite of everything she seems to be able to feel regret,” Dooley rightly observed. “Which means she’s not a psychopath, Max. Because psychopaths can’t feel remorse, or empathy for their victims. I saw that on the Discovery Channel once.”

“Good to know,” I said, as I gave the young woman a very hard look. Not that this had the slightest effect on her, as her gaze was fixed on Odelia, and she now swallowed with some difficulty. I saw that on her wrist she had on one of Odelia’s bracelets, and if I wasn’t mistaken I could evensee she’d put one of Odelia’s hairpins in her hair.

“Ruby,” said Odelia finally. “I think you and I need to have a talk.”

“But… I just came in here to tidy up your cabin,” said the girl. “I, um, I figured you were so busy with the investigation you could use a helping hand. And I just happened to see your cleaner leave, and one glance told me she hadn’t done a good job, and since you were both so nice to me before, I just figured—”

But Odelia held up her hand and said, with a rather hard edge to her voice,“Save it.”

“But—”

“Enough, all right? Enough with the lies and the excuses. Come on. Let’s go.”

“Let’s go? Where?” asked the girl, a hunted look having come into her eyes.

“Out,” said Odelia, and grabbed the girl’s wrist and yanked her along in the direction of the balcony.

“You’re not going to throw me overboard, are you?!” said Ruby. “I can’t swim!”

“I saw you in the pool yesterday and you were doing just fine.”

“I’m—I’m allergic to saltwater!”

“I’m not going to throw you overboard, you silly girl.” She opened the balcony door and stepped out, taking Ruby along.

Almost automatically, Dooley and I followed. I guess by now we’re more or less trained to always go where things are happening, to observe and report. It’s like second nature. Then again, maybe spying on humans is second nature to all cats.

“Take a seat,” Odelia snapped as she indicated a chair. Ruby did as she was told, then removed the bracelet and the hairpin and placed them on the table. “I just wanted to see how they would look on me. You have such a great style.”

“Thanks,” said Odelia curtly. “Now tell me, Ruby. Why do you keep putting yourself in this position? In other words, why do you keep stealing stuff? And don’t give me some lame-ass excuse. I want you to tell me the truth, all right?”

“All right,” said the girl, much sobered. “Um, well, I guess it all started when my mom and dad decided to get a divorce.”

“A divorce? What are you talking about?”

“Mom and Dad are divorced,” said Ruby in a small voice as she massaged her wrist. “They got divorced when I was thirteen, but they went through one of those amicable divorces, and they’ve kept going on vacations with me, and they never fight in front of me, which makes it all just a little bit worse, I guess.”

“So your mom and dad are divorced but they still sleep in the same bed?”

“Mom sleeps in the bed and Dad sleeps on the couch. They’ve tried to make things as painless for me as possible, which somehow has made it more painful. The harder they try, the worse I feel. They try so hard to be civil to each other that it’s created this totally weird atmosphere around thehouse.”

“They still live together?” asked Odelia.

“No, Dad moved out and lives in an apartment down the road. But he drops by all the time, and I spend every other weekend with him, and sometimes we all spend the weekend together.” She sagged a little. “I just want to shake them, you know, and tell them to just scream and shout at each other. It’s obvious that they want to, but they keep this strained politeness going, probably because they talked to some psychologist who told them they needed to do things this way for my sake.”

“And when did you start stealing stuff?”

“Three months after the divorce was final. I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t feeling well, and I saw this cool top that I just had to have, and I knew Mom didn’t have the money to buy it, and I didn’t want to ask my dad, since he had enough on his plate already, so I just took it. And of course I was busted by the store detective. And then the strangest thing happened: Mom and Dad both showed up, and for once they were almost like a real couple again, you know. They were shouting. Not at each other, but at me, but still, it felt more real than this crazy kind of half-life we’ve been living. It felt good, and so I guess I did it again. In fact every time things aren’t going so well, and I have a feeling I’m living with two zombies instead of two human beings, I steal stuff and for a moment things are all right again. It just makes me feel… I don’t know. Alive, I guess.”

“I understand,” said Odelia, and I could see that she felt sorry for the girl, in spite of the fact that she’d just tried to steal some of her favorite stuff. “So don’t you think there’s some other way you can make your parents act more like humans and not like zombies?”

“I don’t know. If there is, I haven’t found it yet.”

“Maybe you could try talking to them?”

“Talking to them?” said Ruby, as if the concept of talking to her folks was alien to her.

“Yeah, you know, telling them some of the stuff you just told me?”

“I don’t know…” said the girl dubiously. “It just might make things worse.”

“Or it could make things better.” Odelia placed a hand on the girl’s arm. “I think your parents have no idea what’s going on, or what they’re doing wrong, and as long as you don’t tell them, they will never know. And you can’t really go on like this now can you? One of these days you’ll find yourself in some real trouble—trouble your mom and dad won’t be able to get you out of.”

“You mean like with this rapper?”

I almost gasped at this, and I could see Odelia was taken aback, too.“You mean… you killed him?” she said immediately.

The girl laughed.“Of course I didn’t kill him. I would never do a stupid thing like that. No, I mean, being a suspect, just because I’ve stolen things before.”

“Yeah, you’re getting quite a reputation, Ruby, and if you’re not careful this thing could haunt you for the rest of your life. It could impact your whole future. The colleges that won’t accept you, the job interviews you don’t get invited for—everything.”

“I know,” said Ruby quietly as she chewed a fingernail. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about that, Miss Poole. Or is it Mrs. Kingsley?”

Odelia smiled.“I haven’t decided yet.”

“It’s just that… I don’t know how to stop.”

“Talk to your parents. Can you do that for me? Just give it a try.”

The girl shrugged.“All right. If you think it’ll make a difference.”

“I’m sure it will. Trust me.”

17

The rest of the day passed by more or less uneventfully, insofar as one can pass a day in a cabin next to which a rapper has recently been murdered and divested of a diamond stuck to his forehead. Lucky for me the idea of implanting diamonds or other jewelry had never occurred to Odelia, or any other member of her family. Then again, what is the world coming to, if rappers can’t even have twenty-million-dollar diamonds inserted into their visage without fearing for their physical integrity? A sad state of affairs, I must say.

And so it was that we enjoyed a peaceful slumber while our humans checked out a town called Kingstown in a country named Saint Vincent, or at least I think that’s what it was called. Frankly speaking I had little interest in the places the Queen of the Seas was visiting on this ten-day voyage. After a while the names of all of those places start to blur together. Especially since I had absolutely no intention of visiting even a single one.

You may call me a cultural barbarian, or a lazybones, but cats are generally not keen on daring feats of architecture erected many years before, or even enjoying a leisurely time at some street caf? or dining at a five-star restaurant to sample the local cuisine. The only cuisine I’m fond of sampling is my usual dose of kibble and my favorite pouch of wet food. So maybe I’m a philistine, but these simple joys of life are what drive me.

Dooley felt exactly the same way, for he hadn’t budged from the couch he’d fallen asleep on the moment Odelia and Chase left for their trip into town, and neither had I.

The sun had risen, and was about to set on a new day when finally there was a commotion in the corridor and the door swung open and Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley walked in. They were both laden with shopping bags, presumably filled with gifts and mementos to be doled out once we returned to Hampton Cove, and both looked happy and relaxed.

“Max,” said Odelia the moment she took a seat on the couch and in doing so rudely awakened Dooley, causing the latter to stretch and yawn. “You really missed something. Kingstown is absolutely gorgeous. The beautiful colors of the houses! The lush botanic gardens! Dark View Falls! The kindness of the people! The taste of the seafood!”

“That’s great,” I said without much enthusiasm. Neither the color of the houses, the kindness of the local populace or even the taste of seafood could have impelled me to spend the whole day traipsing about and getting sore paws. “So what did you buy us?”

“Um…” She gave me a look of slight embarrassment.

“I thought as much,” I said, and replaced my head on my paws for more of that pleasing slumber I’d engaged in while she and Chase wore out their shoe leather.

“I bought a hat,” she said, and placed a large straw specimen on top of me. I gave her a look of irritation which totally missed its mark because the hat obscured me from view. She then picked it up again and placed it on her own head. “What do you think?”

“Suits you,” I said, even though I usually refrain from making any fashion advice. In my experience fashion advice has a tendency to come back and haunt you when some other individual begs to differ and the recipient of my advice turns their ire on me.

“Better get ready, babe,” said Chase. “We don’t want to be late for the show tonight.”

“Show? What show?” I asked, wondering what else I’d missed.

“Oh, some local singer is coming on board with her band,” said Odelia. “She’s supposed to be really good.”

“Wasn’t Lil Thug supposed to play tonight?” I asked, a little surprised that one day spent in Kingstown had made my humans forget all about the murder that had taken place next door. It just seemed a little callous, to be honest.

“Yeah, poor Lil Thug. He’ll be sorely missed. But at least we know who killed him.”

“We do?” I asked, greatly surprised.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? Yeah, they caught the killer.”

“They did? Who is it?” I asked, sitting up a little straighter now.

“It was the assistant,” said Odelia as she dove back into her shopping bag and started extricating the different items she’d bought. Mostly clothes, I saw, and not a sign of cat food. “Yeah, she was trying to sell some of Lil Thug’s personal items to different shops. Local police were alerted by a suspicious shopkeeper and they arrested her.”

“But… I didn’t know Lil Thug even had an assistant,” I said, much astonished by this unexpected denouement.

“Well, he had, and turns out she’d paid a visit to her client last night, shortly after dinner. She must have killed him then, and stolen the diamond and some other stuff.”

“But I thought the CCTV camera had picked up that no one had come or gone?”

“It hadn’t. This was before Garth’s initial time frame. It now looks as though the ship’s doctor established the time of death too narrowly. He thought Lil Thug died sometime after midnight, but it must have been much earlier, as the assistant was caught on camera leaving around eight. So she must have killed him then.”

“Midnight or eight is a big difference, Odelia,” I pointed out. “Are you sure the assistant did it?”

“She was caught selling off personal items belonging to her client,” said Odelia with a shrug.

“What personal items?”

“Um… a watch, jewelry, antique snuff boxes. Apparently Lil Thug was a collector.”

“That doesn’t mean she killed him. She could have had them in her cabin for safekeeping. What did she say when they questioned her?”

“I don’t know, Max. We only talked to Garth briefly when we arrived. He’s very happy that it’s over.”

She didn’t seem all that interested in the case. Too busy showcasing her Kingstown shopping haul to Chase, who underwent the procedure with an indulgent smile.

“So did they find the diamond?” I finally asked.

“Not yet, but it’s only a matter of time before they do,” she said, a little distractedly. “She must have sold it before the police caught up with her.”

“Okay,” I said dubiously.

This type of shoddy police work didn’t sit well with me, but obviously Odelia and Chase were happy to finally be rid of the case, so they could return to the enjoyment of their honeymoon. And who could blame them? No newly married couple likes to spend their entire trip on the hunt for a murderer or cooped up in a small office withthe ship’s security guy interviewing witnesses. They get plenty of that kind of stuff at home.

So I decided not to pursue the matter. If Odelia was satisfied that the rapper’s assistant had done the deed, then so was I. Besides, the official investigation had only just gotten started. Once the proper authorities took over, I was sure they’d be dotting those I’s and crossing the t’s like nobody’s business.

Dooley, dozing happily, now opened his eyes.“What’s going on, Max?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing much,” I said. “Just that Lil Thug’s killer was caught today.”

“He was? And who was it?”

“The rapper’s assistant,” I said as we both watched how Odelia changed into a pair of white jeans and a nice pink blouse, while Chase decided to don the cowboy hat he bought yesterday, making him look like a cowboy, complete with cowboy boots and a plaid shirt. They made a very handsome-looking couple, I had to say, and a twinge of pride expanded my bosom as I watched them enjoy themselves like a couple of kids.

“Lil Thug had an assistant?”

“Apparently. And probably more than one, too. And this assistant was caught this afternoon trying to sell off some items of value she’d stolen from her employer.”

“Oh, the bad person,” said Dooley, who has a very strong sense of justice. “That’s not very nice of her, is it, Max?”

“No, it most definitely isn’t,” I agreed.

“At least she got her earring back. She must have been worried when she lost it.”

I glanced at Odelia, wondering whether I should ask her about the earring, but clearly she’d lost interest in the case, so I decided not to bother.

“I’m happy the killer was caught,” said Dooley. “Now Odelia and Chase can enjoy their honeymoon the way they’re supposed to.”

“Exactly.”

“I like a happy ending, Max.”

“Me, too.”

“So now what happens?”

“Now we join Odelia and Chase on deck for dinner. And then we return here for another refreshing nap.”

“And tomorrow?”

“More of the same. Odelia and Chase will visit some town, and we’ll stay here. Then the next day the same thing happens, and the next, and the next, until the trip is over.”

Dooley studied me carefully.“Do you also feel like this cruise is a little monotonous?”

“Yes, I do, Dooley. That’s what cruises are all about: the monotony lulls you into a sense of peace and calm. It soothes and relaxes, and by the time you’re ready to go back to your regular life, you’re feeling completely refreshed and relaxed. It’s called a holiday.”

“Boredom makes me feel stressed, though, Max. It doesn’t make me feel refreshed.”

I sighed deeply.“You know what, Dooley? I feel exactly the same way.” Then again, cruises probably weren’t designed for pets. If they were, they’d have special playrooms for pets, and hair salons for pets, and places where pets can gather and shoot the breeze. As it was, this ship had none of that. It had plenty of swimming pools, and restaurants, and shops and spas, a movie theater, shuffleboard and even a surf simulator, but no pet paraphernalia.

And now even this murder business had been resolved without us having had even the slightest bit of input.

Very disconcerting, I must admit.

But then it was time to head on out and enjoy a nice dinner.

I just hoped we wouldn’t run into Jack and Frank again.

18

Breakfast was a laid-back affair. Everyone was happy that Lil Thug’s killer had been caught, and everyone expressed surprise over how easy the assistant had allowed herself to be nabbed by the local police.

“She wasn’t a very clever killer, was she, Max?” said Salvatore, who’d once again joined us for breakfast.

“No, apparently she wasn’t,” I said. I still had my reservations about the outcome of the investigation, but had decided to keep them to myself. No need to trouble other people with that kind of stuff—or other pets.

“I think it’s a good thing,” said Salvatore as he intently studied a piece of broccoli that had rolled between his paws. “This murder business was hanging like a pall over this trip. I can tell you right now that David suffered a nightmare last night. He woke up screaming, which just goes to show that all of us being under investigation was a terrible burden to bear.”

Salvatore had finally decided that the broccoli wasn’t worth his attention and had cast it aside with a flick of his paw. “Did you have a list of suspects, Max?” he said. “Pray tell, who was on that list?”

“The assistant, for one,” said Dooley. “Wasn’t she number one on your list, Max?” He turned to Salvatore. “Max is Hampton Cove’s number-one sleuth. He’s solved so many crimes he’s lost count.”

“Thanks, Dooley,” I said. “I merely try to help out my human,” I added modestly when the small Maltese gave me a look of interest. “She’s the real sleuth in this family. I’m just her humble assistant.”

“So the assistant?” Salvatore insisted. “Was she number one on your list, Max?”

“No, in fact she wasn’t on my list at all. I didn’t even know Mr. Thug had an assistant until she was caught trying to sell her employer’s collection of expensive snuff boxes.”

“So who was on your list?”

“Well, the influencers, of course,” I said. “Both in urgent need of an influx of cash, and desperate not to have to return to their day jobs and leave this nomadic life of luxury and five-star hotels behind. And then there was Ruby Kettering, though I’ve since taken her off my list. I very much doubt a girl of her young age would go so far as to murder one of the victims of her kleptomaniac attacks in cold blood. Besides, kleptomaniacs always go for the easy mark, and cutting a diamond from a man’s face doesn’t seem to fit the bill.”

“So yes to the influencers and no to Ruby Kettering,” said Salvatore, who was keeping score. “Who else?”

“Well…” I cut a quick glance to the humans gathered around the breakfast table along with Odelia and Chase, who were now swapping stories and pictures of the trip to Kingstown yesterday.

“You didn’t thinkmy humans had anything to do with this crime, did you?” said Salvatore, sounding a little indignant.

“I did for a brief moment, yes,” I admitted. “Bertha loves to go on cruises, but her financial situation wouldn’t allow her, so conceivably David could have decided to find a permanent solution. Twenty million buys you a lot of cruises, Salvatore.”

“David would never do that. He’s a good person, Max.”

“Even good people have been known to commit crimes, Salvatore.”

“But I can vouch for him.”

“You told us you could only vouch for Laura.”

“What I mean is, I can vouch for his character. The man is beyond reproach.”

“If it turned out David was the killer, Salvatore could have acted as a character witness,” Dooley suggested. “To get a lesser sentence,” he explained for Salvatore’s sake.

“Well, that’s all moot now,” I said, not wanting to point out the obvious: that there are probably very few judges who’d allow a dog to act as a character witness in their courtroom. “The killer was caught. Case closed.”

“So what are your plans for today, Salvatore?” asked Dooley.

“Just toddle along, I guess,” said the tiny ball of fluff as he studied a piece of bread that had dropped down from the heavens. Once again he decided it wasn’t worth his attention, and discarded it with a deft flick of the wrist.

“You join your humans everywhere they go?” I asked.

“Sure. That’s what I’m here for: provide comfort and company to my precious humans. Sacred task of every dog. I took an oath the day I was adopted to that effect.”

I studied the tiny doggie.“Your humans are lucky to have you, Salvatore,” I said.

“You’re a very faithful companion,” said Dooley. “Max and I never go anywhere with Odelia. We hate walking around all day,” he explained when Salvatore raised a questioning eyebrow. “Our paws get worn out, and besides, we get really tired.”

“I like to walk,” Salvatore announced.

“I guess that’s the difference between cats and dogs,” I said. “Dogs love nothing better than to join their humans everywhere, whereas cats like to be left alone to do their thing.”

“And what is this thing that you do when you’re left alone?” asked Salvatore curiously.

“Sleep,” said Dooley.

“Sleep?” asked Salvatore.

“Yeah, doze, nap, snooze. It’s what we do best. Isn’t that right, Max?”

“Yeah. We’re experts at sleeping,” I admitted, a little sheepishly, for Salvatore was staring at us as if we’d both lost our minds.

“I’d be bored stiff if I slept all day,” he confessed. “Don’t you ever get bored?”

“Walking is boring,” said Dooley. “Sleeping is fun.”

Salvatore shook his head.“Cats,” he said, then seemed to remember we were right there, and quickly added, “are fascinating creatures.”

Which of course is just another way of saying cats are weird.

A piece of chicken filet dropped down between Salvatore’s paws now, and this time he gobbled it up without delay. And when both Dooley and I uttered soft mewling sounds, to let our humans know that we were still there, and getting peckish, pieces of chicken rolled down between our paws, too, and we munched them down with relish.

So cats and dogs may differ in many respects, but at least we have one thing in common: we like to eat—and we’re very particular about what we eat, too.

Breakfast over, the entire company went for a walk on the upper deck, which was more peaceful and less congested than the others, on account of the fact that it was a little windier up there.

Odelia and Laura had struck up a firm friendship, and were walking side by side, chatting animatedly, and Chase had found a friend in David, and was explaining some of the ins and outs of what it took to be a cop in a small town. Bertha was hugging Salvatore close, while being pushed by Adele, and Dooley and I hung back and enjoyed the breeze ruffling our fur. The sun was slowly hoisting itself into position, and it promised to be another scorcher of a day, which made me thankful once again that our cabin had a well-functioning air-conditioning unit.

We moved over to the railing and glanced out across the ocean, which was vast and blue with tiny ripples of white foam as the waves crested and rolled. In the distance we could see the next island where we were destined, and where our humans would disembark for another day filled with fun and shopping.

“You know? I could actually get used to this life, Max,” said Dooley.

“What life, Dooley?” I asked, as I squinted against the sun which was already aiming for its zenith.

“Well, relaxing, lazing about, enjoying this time spent with our friends and family. All that’s missing is Gran and Marge and Tex and Uncle Alec, and of course Harriet and Brutus. Maybe we could convince them to go cruising with us, and we could do this year round, like Bertha used to do.”

“To go cruising year round someone has to pay year round for all that cruising,” I pointed out.

“But maybe we could all become influencers, and people would actually pay us for our social media posts.”

“I doubt it, Dooley,” I said. “I doubt whether anyone would be interested enough to pay for that kind of thing. We’re suffering influencer inflation right now, you see. Where there were few, now there are many, and all of them want other people to pay so they can keep spending time in Dubai, or on cruise ships, or tropical destinations.”

“But we have something that none of them have.”

“And what’s that?”

“Us! You and me and Harriet and Brutus. Don’t you think people would pay good money to see Odelia talk to us and have fun with us?”

“I think people would probably put her in a hospital under observation if the truth got out,” I said. “Besides, how would that work, exactly?”

“Subtitles!” said Dooley triumphantly. “Odelia or Marge or Gran could shoot their videos with us, talking about this or that, you know, and they could add subtitles!”

“Oh, Dooley,” I said with a smile. I turned my back on him to take a look at a seagull that was scooping down to catch a fish. “Look, people might pay good money for that kind of thing, but it would make Odelia’s life very difficult. Besides, I don’t think she wants to live her life aboard a cruise ship. She likes her life just the way it is.” I turned, and when I discovered that Dooley wasn’t there, I frowned.

“Max!” suddenly my friend yelled. “Help!”

I looked up, and there he was: being carried away by one of those seagulls! It was Frank, and he’d snapped Dooley up in his claws and was soaring, his wings beating hard.

“Help me!” Dooley screamed.

“Scratch him, Dooley!” I yelled back. “Use your claws!”

Just then, Jack swept down on me, and dug his claws into my neck and tried to pick me up, same way his friend had picked up Dooley. Only I must have weighed too much, for he couldn’t lift me from the deck.

“Damn, you’re heavier than I thought, you big orange fatty!” said Jack.

“I’m blorange, you stupid bird!” I cried, and gave him a terrific swipe across the beak. “And I’m not fat—I’m big-boned!”

Immediately the vicious seagull backed off, and took flight again.

Meanwhile, Dooley had taken my advice, and was clawing for all he was worth. Frank cried out in pain when one of Dooley’s attempts hit a tender spot on his belly, and he promptly dropped my friend… straight into the ocean!

“Odelia, help!” I screamed, as I watched Dooley being dunked into the drink. Unlike me, he never learned how to swim, and I could see he was sinking like the proverbial stone the moment he hit the water. “Odelia!”

Odelia came running.“Where is he?” she asked. She must have seen what happened.

“Down there,” I said, pointing to where Dooley had gone in.

“I’ll get one of the crew members,” she said, and hurried off again.

This was going to take too long, I just knew it.

And so I did the only thing possible: I jumped in after my friend.

19

The water was surprisingly chilly. Still, I didn’t have a lot of time to think about this, for I had but one purpose in mind: to save my friend from drowning!

So I thrashed around a bit to get my bearings, then decided to take a dive and disappeared into the waves, for that’s where Dooley was presumably hanging out at this moment.

I remember he’d expounded on the fact that most animals naturally possess the capacity to stay afloat when thrown into a body of water, with as one exception the human being. Cats, however, should be able to swim when left to their own devices, and soon this theory proved correct, for the moment I resurfaced,I detected the bobbing head of my friend, only a few feet from where I myself was bobbing up and down, making heroic efforts to remember the lessons Fifi, our neighboring Yorkie, had taught me once upon a not so long ago.

“Dooley!” I bellowed.

“Max!” Dooley returned. “Look! I can swim!”

“Yes, you can!”

I made a concerted effort to join him posthaste, and soon we were bobbing up and down together, and glancing up at the Queen of the Seas, steaming ever onward without a care in the world, oblivious to the fact that two of its passengers had gone overboard.

“Man overboard!” suddenly a voice rang out some fifteen stories higher, and next thing we knew, a loud alarm blared.

“I think that’s us,” I told Dooley.

“Shouldn’t it be ‘cat overboard?’”

“Let’s not get too nitpicky. We should be glad they’re coming to pick us up at all.”

“Sure,” he said, then cast a grateful look in my direction. “Thanks for jumping in, Max. It’s much nicer to be in trouble together.”

“Oh, well,” I said. “You would have done the same.”

“Yes, I would” he agreed. “But still. It’s very noble of you.”

“You’re my best friend, Dooley. What else am I going to do when some horrible bird grabs you by the neck and throws you in the ocean?”

“Those birds are really horrible, aren’t they?”

“Extremely horrible,” I agreed. “Did you know the other one tried to pick me up, too?”

“And what did you do? Fight him off?”

“He couldn’t lift me. Said I was too heavy.”

“Maybe I should get as big as you, Max. That way no bird would be able to grab me.”

“That’s all right, Dooley. From now on we just need to be more vigilant, and make sure those seagulls don’t come anywhere near us again.”

“I clawed him right across the stomach. He squawked and then dropped me.”

“Good. He got exactly what he deserved.”

A small boat had been lowered into the water, and the big boat—the mother ship as it were—had stopped sailing onward. In fact it was turning back around. Big boats like the Queen of the Seas presumably can’t back up like a car can. The small boat was heading in our direction, and I saw that two men were occupying the little thing, as it sped ever closer, powered by a powerful engine, and causing the water to spray around in its wake.

“Here they come, Dooley,” I said. “Get ready to be saved.”

“It’s so nice that someone actually cares, Max,” said Dooley, who was getting a little emotional. “They could have simply decided not to bother and sailed on and left us here to—”

“Don’t you say it, Dooley,” I warned him.

“—swim on indefinitely.”

“Odelia would never allow that to happen. And neither would Chase. Those two love us very much, and they wouldn’t be able to live with themselves if they’d allowed us to… swim on indefinitely.”

The boat had finally reached us, and the two men looked a little surprised.

“Cats?” asked one of the men, who was wearing a bright orange life jacket. “They stopped the boat to save a couple of cats?”

“Looks like it,” the other man grunted, then effortlessly scooped both myself and Dooley from the not-so-raging waters of the Atlantic and placed us on the floor of the boat. Then he proceeded to place a towel over us and started rubbing us dry. Probably standard procedure.

The treatment was very pleasant. Under normal circumstances I hate being toweled off, but this was different. This signaled the end of our ordeal, and so when the man finally finished the procedure, and wrapped me in a second towel, I gave his hand a grateful lick. Dooley, who’d undergone the same treatment from our other savior, showed his gratitude by giving the man’s hand a gentle nudge. Both men smiled and shared a look of satisfaction. They might not have saved a fellow human’s life, but they’d saved two pets, which was something, after all.

“You know, we probably would have been fine,” said Dooley, his teeth clattering a little. “We would have drifted in the direction of the nearest island and would simply have waited on the beach for Odelia to show up.”

“Or we would have drifted off in the direction of one of the poles—either to the north or south,” I said, my teeth also clattering. “Never to be seen or heard from again.”

“I’ll bet the South Pole is nice and warm, though. So I’d have preferred to drift there.”

“Don’t let the ‘south’ part in South Pole fool you, Dooley. It’s a pretty frosty place.”

The boat quickly joined the mother ship and soon we were being hoisted aboard. And who would be waiting for us there with bated breath but Odelia and Chase, both looking extremely worried.

“Max! Dooley!” said Odelia the moment we were placed on deck by our two able-bodied saviors. “I was so worried!”

“We’re fine,” I told her as she pressed me to her chest so hard my breath was expelled from my lungs with a whoosh.

“We would have drifted off to the South Pole,” said Dooley. “Max says it’s cold but I bet it’s nice and warm. And we probably would have caught some fishes on the way.”

“Oh, you guys,” said Odelia, and suddenly started crying. Actual big tears leaked from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, and now Chase had to come in and hug her close, while Dooley and I were more or less being squished between them.

“Why is she crying, Max?” asked Dooley. “We’re safe now, aren’t we? Or did we die and go to heaven?”

“No, we didn’t die and go to heaven. She’s crying because she was very worried about us and now she’s feeling very relieved and all that pent-up emotion is spilling over.”

“Humans are weird.”

“Tell me about it.”

Weird but also wonderful. Odelia had singlehandedly managed to stop that big boat and dispatch two guys to save us. It was almost like a miracle. Or the scenario of a Lifetime movie.

All around us, and also on the decks above, people were standing and watching the scene unfold, and the moment they saw that we were safe and sound, they all started cheering and clapping. It was an impressive scene, and judging from the hundreds of phones being held out, I had a feeling that we’d both become instantly famous.

Dooley had noticed the same phenomenon, and said in hushed tones,“We’re famous now, Max. We’re influencers! Next thing they’ll name a brand of kibble after us!”

Odelia carried us up the stairs, where we were met by all of our neighbors—our corridor-mates, so to speak. The influencers, Oren and Chiquita, were holding up their selfie sticks, grinning broadly. Laura and David came to tickle us under our chins, and even Ruby Kettering was smiling for a change, as were her parents. And finally when Odelia managed to let go of us and set us down on the deck, Salvatore came tripping up to us and said, “I saw the whole thing! Those mean birds!”

“You should watch out, Salvatore,” I told the tiny dog. “If they get the chance they’ll fly off with you, too.”

“And don’t I know it!” said Salvatore, and gestured to the leash Bertha’s carer had him on. “One sign of those birds and Adele will yank me back so fast those birds won’t know what hit them—and I won’t either.” He frowned. “Last time she gave me a yank like that I got rug burn on my tush.”

“Ouch.”

And as we started back toward our cabin, Salvatore said,“I didn’t know cats could swim. Well done, you guys. And so brave of you to jump after your friend, Max. I’ve never seen anything like it. When I saw you go in, I think my heart skipped three beats.”

“Max is very brave,” said Dooley, giving me a grateful smile. “He’s the bravest cat I know.”

“You would have done the same thing, Dooley,” I repeated my earlier statement.

“I would,” he said, nodding.

And thus ended our harrowing adventure. Odelia couldn’t wait to get us both inside and back to safety, and frankly the moment the door to the cabin swung closed behind us, I actually let out a sigh of relief.

Cruising is dangerous—especially for cats!

20

Odelia wanted to stay with us, but we urged her not to change her itinerary on our account. After all, we were safe now, and no harm was done to speak of, so there was absolutely no reason for her to interrupt her honeymoon for this minor incident.

And so she and Chase finally set out to go ashore and enjoy the sights and sounds of St. George’s, which is a town in Grenada, where apparently we’d dropped anchor.

Before she left, though, she placed her tablet computer on the sofa. She’d set it up so it connected with the ship’s Wi-Fi, and urged us to talk to our friends back home and tell them all of our news.

My teeth had finally stopped chattering, and my coat was dry once more, the salty water having been washed out by a patient Odelia in the bathroom. She’d applied the same treatment to Dooley, removing every last trace of brine, and to speed up the process had even aimed a blow-dryer at our precious bodies. Under normal circumstances I would never have stood for this, for I hate blow-dryers with a vengeance. But since the upshot was that we’d soon be warm and dry again, I reluctantly gave her a license to blow-dry just this once. It was actually nicer than I’d imagined and it was a contented Max and Dooley that now faced the camera to engage in a little post-disaster chat with Harriet and Brutus, located on the other end of the connection.

“You did what?!” asked Harriet when we told her what we’d just gone through. “You jumped in to save Dooley? Did you fall off the ship, Dooley? Did you lose your balance?”

“No, I was grabbed by a bird,” said Dooley.

“Grabbed by a bird?” asked Brutus. “But why? What did he want?”

“I guess he wanted to eat me?”

“I didn’t even know that birds ate cats. I always thought it was the other way around.”

“I didn’t know either,” I confessed.

“Some of the big birds do indeed prey on cats and other small mammals,” said Harriet. “They will grab mice and rats and rabbits… and even cats.”

“They tried to grab Max, too, but couldn’t lift him,” Dooley said.

“Dooley,” I said warningly. It hadn’t exactly been my finest hour.

“What? It’s a good thing they couldn’t lift you, Max. Very strategic of you.”

Strategy hadn’t featured into the thing, but I wasn’t prepared to elucidate.

“This would never have happened if you’d just stayed home, instead of going on this silly cruise,” said Harriet, who still hadn’t gotten over her initial annoyance that Odelia and Chase had picked us to go along with them and had left them at home.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “Turns out cruises can be very dangerous for cats.”

“Not just for cats,” said Brutus. “Plenty of people end up falling overboard every year. Dozens and dozens, in fact.”

“But why?” asked Dooley.

“Oh, because they’re drunk, or not careful enough, and then there are the people who jump overboard on purpose.”

“And why would they do that?” asked Dooley, interested.

“Probably because they want to go for a swim,” said Harriet. “You know what humans are like. They like to court danger.”

“So what happened?” asked Brutus. “How did you get saved?”

“Well, Odelia told one of the crew members, who raised the alarm, and so the captain immediately stopped the boat, and dispatched a rescue boat,” I said.

“Only they thought they were saving two humans, and not two cats,” said Dooley with a laugh.

“Yeah, you should have seen the look on their faces when they discovered we were the ones they were coming to save.”

“And why not?” said Harriet. “Cats have just as much right to be saved as humans.”

“They were very nice about it in the end,” I said. “They wrapped us both in towels and rubbed us dry. All in all it was a very interesting experience.”

“For one thing I discovered that I can swim,” said Dooley. “Imagine that. I always thought I couldn’t, but turns out I can.”

“How did you manage that, Dooley?” asked Brutus, who’d once fallen into a duck pond and had to be saved by Chase.

“I don’t know. I guess I just… floated. And then I moved my paws around a bit and that made me move in the direction I wanted to go.”

“Same here,” I said. “I think cats naturally float. So we shouldn’t have been so worried about not being able to swim. Turns out that we can.”

“Huh,” said Brutus, “Who knew?”

“Not me,” said Harriet. “I can’t swim. My coat is too nice and big and it soaks up water like a sponge. I’ll bet that when I end up in the water I’ll simply sink straight to the bottom like a stone.”

“No way,” said Brutus. “You can swim just as well as the rest of us, sugar plum.”

“No, I’m sure I can’t,” said Harriet stubbornly.

“Maybe you can give it a try,” I suggested. “In the park pond.”

“In the duck pond? No way, Max!” said Harriet. “You really want me to swim in all that horrible duck muck? My coat will be so dirty Marge won’t even let me into the house. I’ll never get it clean again—never!”

“I told Max we can use our adventure to become influencers,” said Dooley “and travel the world as a family from now on. You know, all of us living on a cruise ship?”

“No, thank you very much,” said Harriet. “I don’t want to be abducted by those same birds that almost killed you guys.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” said Dooley thoughtfully. Then his face cleared. “So maybe Odelia could put us all on leashes. Just like Salvatore.”

“Who’s Salvatore?” asked Brutus with a frown.

“You remember,” I said. “The teacup Maltese we met.”

“Oh, right,” said Brutus, already losing interest. Even though in a recent episode he’d fashioned himself to be a newly-born dog, he put that experience behind him, and had fully embraced his inner cat once more—those dog days nothing but a distant memory.

“Look, we have to go, you guys,” said Harriet. “Gran is shooting a video, and she told us she needs us.”

“Video?” I asked. “What video?”

“One of her new influencer videos.” She smiled. “You’re not the only ones who have started a career as influencers,” she said. “Looks like Brutus and I are going to be famous, too.”

And before we could ask her more about this influencer business, she signed off.

21

It took me a while to gather the courage to step out onto that balcony again. I kept seeing Frank and Jack swooping in and grabbing first Dooley, then me. But I figured one cannot live one’s life in fear, and so finally I screwed my courage to the sticking point—after first having taken on board a few extra ounces of kibble just to make sure—and put one dainty paw onto that balcony. I ducked my head out, then just as quickly retracted it.

So far so good: no seagulls in sight!

Then I placed my second paw out, and finally the rest of my blorange corpus followed suit. Just to be on the safe side, though, I hurried over to one of the two deck chairs, and disappeared underneath. Better safe than sorry!

And as I did, I caught a glimpse of our neighbor’s balcony, and for a brief moment I thought I saw movement.

I glanced over, wondering if Bertha had left Salvatore at home on this fine day, but saw no sign of the minuscule Maltese. All I saw were footprints—not paw prints. Probably someone had recently taken a shower.

And as I lay there, enjoying the day’s warmth, Dooley soon joined me. He, too, first ducked his head out, taking a quick glance at the azure skies above, before venturing further into the unknown.

“It’s all right, Dooley,” I said. “They’re not here.”

“I know, but birds can fly, Max, and they can fly fast. One moment they’re not there, the next they are!”

“Just lie underneath that deck chair. That way they can’t get at you.”

My friend did as I suggested, and soon we were both enjoying the leisurely calm.

“I wanted to thank you again, Max,” he said. “You really did a most heroic thing.”

“All I did was jump in the water, Dooley,” I said. “Nothing heroic about that.”

“It was very high.”

“It was,” I admitted.

“People have been known to break their bones when jumping from that altitude.”

I gulped a little at this.“You don’t say.” And me with my heavy bones.

“But since cats are much lighter than humans, we don’t fall down with the same velocity they do, so when we hit the water, it doesn’t feel like we’re hitting concrete.”

“Concrete,” I muttered, and gulped again. Dooley’s imagery was really doing a number on me.

“I wonder where those birds were taking us,” he continued ruminating on our recent ordeal. “Probably to their nest. Did you know that birds sometimes let their prey fall from a great height? It completely breaks up—”

“Dooley, please,” I said, starting to feel a little nauseous. “I just ate.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Max. It’s just that I wanted to point out how lucky we were.”

“I know.”

He was silent for a few beats, then said,“You’re my best friend, Max.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, still trying to keep down my lunch. “Oh,” I said, his words finally registering. “You’re my best friend, too, Dooley.”

“It’s good to have friends,” he said, then abruptly segued into a completely different topic: “Poor Salvatore.”

“Poor Salvatore? Why?”

“Well, he’s all alone, Max. He doesn’t have friends like we do.”

“He has his humans.”

“That’s not the same. Besides, he can’t talk to his humans like we can.”

“I think Salvatore is fine, Dooley. Dogs are different. They are happy to be with their humans.”

“Everybody needs a friend, Max,” said my friend sternly. “And so I’m going to ask Odelia to tell Bertha to get a second dog to keep Salvatore company.”

“Did you ask Salvatore if that’s what he wants?”

“No, I didn’t. This is going to be a surprise for him.”

“And what if he doesn’t want to have a friend? Maybe he’s happy the way things are.”

“You think so?”

“Absolutely.”

Once more he was quiet, presumably thinking about Salvatore and his lack of friends.“We could tell Bertha to take a parakeet,” he said.

“What?” I said, for I’d just fallen into a very pleasant light slumber.

“A parakeet.”

“Why would Salvatore want a parakeet for a friend?”

“I don’t know. But a feathered friend is always nice, don’t you think?”

I reminisced on our recent encounter with two feathered friends who hadn’t been very nice at all, and shivered. “Please don’t mention birds to me, Dooley. At least not for a little while.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Max. I just didn’t think—parakeets are nice birds, though. Not like—”

I arched a warning whisker in his direction.

“Okay, Max. I won’t mention birds again.”

I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep once more.

“Max?”

“Mh.”

“How about a gerbil? Gerbils are nice.”

“Please let me sleep, Dooley,” I muttered.

“Oh, of course, Max. Absolutely.”

Just then, there was a loud knock at the door.

“There’s a knock at the door, Max,” said Dooley.

“I know, Dooley,” I said. “I heard.”

The knock was repeated, louder this time, and a voice was added to the mix. It was Garth.“Odelia? Chase?”

A third and final knock, when it didn’t bring the desired result, concluded the incident. Footsteps receded and finally faded away, and we were left with the burning desire to know why Garth had wanted speech with our humans.

It’s just one of those moments when one regrets the fact that an obviously benevolent and intelligent God didn’t outfit the feline species with opposable thumbs, enabling us to open doors and greet unexpected visitors.

22

The sound of laughter announced the return of the vacationers from their day spent ashore.

“I think they’re back,” I told Dooley, and stretched and yawned.

“I hope they had a good time,” said my friend, and followed my example.

The door opened and Odelia and Chase entered. When they didn’t immediately find us, Odelia cried, “Max! Dooley! Omigod, Chase, they’re gone!”

“Out here!” I yelled, hoping to nip this sudden panic attack in the bud. “We’re on the balcony!”

Odelia came hurrying out, and when she saw us lying under our respective chairs, placed a hand to her chest and expelled a shuddering breath.“Thank God you’re safe. I thought those birds had taken you again!”

“No birds are ever going to take us again,” I assured her. “Isn’t that right, Dooley?”

“I’m going to eat so much I’ll be as heavy as Max and then when they try to lift me up they won’t be able to do it,” Dooley announced happily.

I gave him a dark look, which entirely missed its mark, but at least Odelia didn’t look as if she was about to have heart failure. Chase also joined us outside, and both of our humans collapsed onto the deck chairs.

“And how was it?” I asked, quite unnecessarily, of course, for they both looked tanned and relaxed—even more tanned and relaxed than the previous day. If this kept up they’d both look like George Hamilton by the time we returned to Hampton Cove.

“We had such a great time,” said Odelia. “We spent the entire day in the company of Laura, David and Adele.”

I cut a quick look to Dooley.“Did Laura tell you about her forbidden romance?” I asked, remembering I hadn’t yet shared that particular secret with our human yet.

“Her what?” asked Odelia, gratefully closing her eyes.

“Her illegitimate romance,” I clarified. And I proceeded to give her a verbatim account of the conversation we’d overheard between the two lovers—separated by cruel fate—and Salvatore’s apt comments.

Odelia, who wasn’t aware of this romantic entanglement, quickly filled Chase in, who was equally surprised.

“They seemed very friendly with each other,” said Odelia, “but I didn’t see anything strange in that.”

“They are the same age,” Chase pointed out.

“Poor Laura,” said Odelia. “To love that man and not being able to be with him.”

“She could be with him, if only he’d get a divorce and marry her,” I said.

“Yeah, but that would create such a rift between Laura and her mom.”

“Do you think parakeets make good friends, Odelia?” asked Dooley now.

“I don’t know, Dooley. Why?”

“Oh, just thinking that maybe Salvatore could use a friend.”

“Salvatore has plenty of friends,” I said. “He’s got Bertha, and Laura, and David, and Adele.”

“Adele is so funny,” said Odelia. “She kept cracking jokes all afternoon. I had no idea she was so funny.”

“How about a gerbil?” Dooley said. “They’re the same size. I’ll bet Salvatore would love a gerbil.”

“Adele told me a very funny anecdote about Bertha,” said Chase. “How she once drove her wheelchair on her toes and how it hurt like hell because of her ingrowing toenail.”

“That doesn’t sound very funny,” said Odelia.

“You probably had to be there.”

“Oh, before I forget,” I said. “Garth was here earlier, knocking on the door and wanting to talk to you.”

“Oh? And what did you tell him?”

I smiled.“Nothing?”

Odelia laughed.“Oh my God. I keep forgetting I’m the only one who can talk to you guys.” She turned to her husband. “Garth dropped by. We probably should give him a ring.”

“Do you have his number?”

Odelia nodded and took out her phone.“Oh, dear. He sent a message.” She frowned, then pressed her phone to her ear. “Garth, hi. Odelia,” she said warmly. “You wanted to talk to us? No, we went to St. George’s.” She listened for a moment, then suddenly sucked in her breath. “No way! When was this?” She pressed a hand to her phone and said, “Someone broke into Garth’s office this afternoon.”

“What did they take?” asked Chase, frowning.

“What did they… They did? No, of course. We’ll be there right away.” She hung up and stared before her for a moment, apparently assuming we could all read minds.

“What did they take?!” Chase practically yelled.

She jerked her head up.“Oh, um, the earring. Remember that earring he found in Lil Thug’s cabin? Someone took it.”

“Was it very valuable?” asked Dooley.

“I don’t think so,” said Odelia, then studied Chase’s face for a moment. “You don’t think…”

“Ruby?” said Chase, showing us they were on the same page. In fact all of us were. Ruby seemed to have earned herself quite the reputation by now, as the ship’s number-one thief.

“I really thought I’d gotten through to her,” said Odelia. “She promised me she’d never do it again.”

“I think you’ll find that she’s made that same promise many times before,” said Chase, and got up.

Odelia, too, rose from her chair, and I had a feeling our lazy afternoon was at an end. And not a moment too soon. Lazing about is all fine and dandy, but sometimes a cat likes to get some action, too. Even when on holiday!

23

When we arrived in Garth’s office Ruby was already there, and so were her parents.

“I swear I had nothing to do with it,” the girl was saying.

“But you were on the ship,” said Garth.

She nodded.“I didn’t feel like joining my mom and dad today. After all that’s happened I just wanted to stay here and spend some time by the pool.”

“And can anyone vouch for you—for the entire afternoon?”

“Yes—well, maybe not the entire afternoon. I was with Jacob most of the time.”

Both her mom and dad looked up as if stung.“Jacob? Who’s Jacob?” asked her dad.

“Oh, just a boy I met yesterday,” said Ruby.

“A boy? What boy? How old is this boy?”

“Let’s not get sidetracked here,” said Garth. “Were you with this kid all afternoon?”

“For the most part. He had to get back to work at three.”

“Work? What work? What does he do?” asked her mom.

He works in the casino,” said Ruby. “He’s training to be a croupier. He doesn’t get a lot of time off and he wanted to spend it with me, which I thought was very nice of him, as I don’t know anyone else here.”

“How old is this kid?” her father demanded.

“I don’t know, Dad. Nineteen, maybe? Twenty?”

“Twenty!”

“Look, he’s just a friend, all right? And he’s really sweet.”

“So you were with Jacob until three,” said Garth musingly.

“When was your office broke into?” asked Chase.

“I was here until four, then I was called away on some emergency in one of our restaurants. Two guys got into a fight and were smashing up the furniture.” He gave Ruby a not-too-friendly look. “Please tell me the truth, Ruby. Did you break into my office and take that earring?”

“No, of course not! Why would I break into your office?”

“Because you saw me put that earring into my desk drawer when you were in here yesterday and you wanted to have it?”

“Oh, my God! Who do you think I am? Danny Ocean’s grandkid?”

“Who’s Danny Ocean?” asked her dad.

“I don’t know the first thing about breaking into an office, all right?”

“You broke into our cabin,” Odelia reminded her.

“No, I didn’t. The door was open. The cleaner had just left and the door was open.”

Garth didn’t look entirely convinced, which just goes to show the girl’s dilemma: once a thief, always a thief.

“I would like your permission to search your daughter’s room,” said Garth, suddenly adopting a formal tone.

“Yes. Yes, of course,” said the girl’s mom, looking visibly shaken.

“You won’t find anything,” said Ruby. “I didn’t take your stupid earring. It’s ugly anyway.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Garth, and nodded to Chase. “Can you keep an eye on her?”

“Of course,” said Chase, and so now suddenly he and Odelia had been relegated to babysitting a potential criminal and her distraught parents.

And as Garth walked out, Ruby’s mom said, “Where is Jacob from?”

“Oh, God, Mom, seriously?”

“You remember what we discussed yesterday, Ruby?” asked Odelia.

The girl nodded.

“What did you discuss?” asked her mother.

“Nothing,” said Ruby, refusing to look at her folks.

“Did you do what we talked about?” asked Odelia.

“I haven’t had time yet. Mom and Dad were out all day.”

“What…” Ruby’s mom laughed nervously. “What’s going on here?”

“Ruby has something she wants to talk to you and Charles about,” said Odelia.

Ruby rolled her eyes.“Can we do this some other time? Like when I’m not being accused of stealing?”

“Do what?” asked her mother.

“Please, Mom, not now.”

“Is this about that boy? Did you ask Odelia about anti-conception? Because if you did, you know you can always talk to me, honey.”

“Mo-om!”

“I just want you to know that you can ask me anything. Anything at all.”

“I know that,” said Ruby, blowing a strand of hair from her face.

Moments later, Garth burst into the office. He was holding up a small earring and had a triumphant look on his face.“Look what I found.”

Ruby’s jaw dropped. “Where did you find that?”

“Under your mattress, where you hid it after you took it from my office.”

“But that’s impossible!”

“Oh, Ruby, not again!” said her mother.

“But Mom, I swear I didn’t take it!”

“Then what was it doing under your mattress?” asked Garth.

“I don’t know! Maybe someone put it there?” She darted a glance at her mom and dad, who looked as flabbergasted as she did. Tears had formed in the girl’s eyes, and she was shaking her head. “This can’t be happening.”

“It is happening,” said Garth. “I’m afraid I have no alternative but to place you in custody. I’ll notify the police, who’ll come on board to take charge.”

“What police?” her dad demanded. “From where?”

“Grenadian police. They’ll decide what to do.”

“But I’m telling you I didn’t do this!” said Ruby piteously.

“Then who did?”

“How should I know? Someone who planted that thing in my room, obviously.”

A look of annoyance flashed across the security man’s face. “Look, I’m done wasting time, Miss Kettering. This is not the first time you’ve been accused of something like this. I think we’ve all been very patient with you but at some point you will understand there have to be consequences to your actions. So please remain seated. As for you, Mr. and Mrs. Kettering, you better go and pack your bags. You’ll be accompanying your daughter to the mainland. Odelia, Chase—there’s no need for you to stick around. Thanks for your help.”

When we walked out of that cabin, we were all deeply impressed with recent events. In spite of her kleptomaniac tendencies, I’d taken a liking to Ruby, and I knew Odelia had too. And now she’d have to spend the rest of her vacation in a Grenadian prison cell. It probably wasn’t how the Ketterings imagined their vacation to end.

“Poor Ruby,” said Dooley, who clearly felt the same way. “Will she have to spend the rest of her life in jail, Max?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “Not for this. Probably she’ll get a slap on the wrist and put on the next flight home.”

“And just when she met that nice boy Jacob,” said Dooley, shaking his head. “Now she’ll never see him again.”

Suddenly a voice sounded behind us, and when we looked up, we saw that Cynthia Kettering came hurrying in our direction.“Wait!” she cried. “Please wait!

So we patiently waited until she’d caught up with us. Her face was flushed and she looked close to tears. “You’re a cop, aren’t you?” she asked Odelia.

“I’m the cop,” said Chase.

“I’m a reporter, actually,” said Odelia.

“Can you please help us? I’m sure my daughter didn’t do this. She may be a thief, but she’s never lied to us before. If she’s accused of something, she always confesses. But not this time, which tells me she must be innocent.”

“Or maybe she understands the implications and she’s determined to lie,” Chase pointed out.

“You don’t know my daughter, Mr. Kingsley,” said the woman. “She’s not one for lying. On the contrary. She likes to throw this kind of stuff in our faces, sit back and watch us stew. She seems to enjoy it. Sometimes I even think the only reason she steals is so she can shock us with her behavior. Get some kind of rise out of us, you know.”

Remembering Odelia’s conversation with the girl, I’d say Mrs. Kettering was absolutely right.

“So I’m sure that this time she’s innocent for a change. Besides, how can a girl of sixteen be expected to break into an office?”

“YouTube?” Chase suggested. “You’d be surprised what you can find online.”

“Look, I don’t care if you believe me or not, but you need to help us. She can’t go to prison in Grenada. I won’t let that happen to her, and neither should you.” She was looking at Odelia intently. The latter finally nodded.

“Frankly I don’t buy this story either,” she said. “Ruby and I had a long talk yesterday, and I think I got through to her. She promised me she wouldn’t do this again, and I don’t think she was lying when she made me that promise.”

“Exactly!” Then Cynthia Kettering frowned. “You still haven’t told me what you and my daughter talked about.”

Odelia smiled.“When she’s ready I’m sure she’ll tell you.”

Mrs. Kettering shook her head.“That’s not important right now. What is important is that we find the person who broke into Mr. Dagit’s office and planted that earring in my daughter’s room.”

Odelia relented.“All right.”

“Babe!” said Chase.

She placed a hand on his arm.“Even if Ruby is lying, there’s something funny about this story, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think it’s very funny,” said Dooley.

“Oh, thank you!” said Mrs. Kettering, and suddenly enveloped Odelia in a grateful hug.

“We better work fast,” Odelia told Chase once Ruby’s mom had hurried back to start gathering their belongings before the Grenadian police arrived.

“If you say so,” said Chase, who still didn’t look entirely convinced.

“Trust me, babe,” said Odelia with a smile. “We’d never forgive ourselves if Ruby proves to be innocent, and we allowed her to be dragged off to prison.”

“She won’t be dragged off to prison. She’s a minor.”

“Still.”

“Oh, all right,” he grumbled, earning himself a peck on the lips for his trouble.

“Odelia is right, Max,” said Dooley. “Ruby just found love in the arms of a croupier, and now this? We can’t let that happen.”

24

“So if it wasn’t the assistant, then who was it, Max?” asked Dooley.

“I have absolutely no idea,” I said. “All I know is that it wasn’t Ruby, because if it wasn’t she who stole that earring but the killer, in order to implicate Ruby, then the murderer is still among us, and he or she’s the one who broke into Garth’s office this afternoon.”

“But they were all ashore this afternoon,” said Dooley. “Everyone was.”

“Clearly someone wasn’t,” I said. “And now all we need to do is find out who.”

“It must be a woman. Only women wear earrings.”

“Some men do, too, Dooley.”

We were back in the cabin, where Odelia and Chase were getting ready for dinner. There was another concert on the boat that night, and in spite of the circumstances they were eager to go. They’d agreed not to let this murder business ruin their vacation, and so it was up to me and Dooley to crack this case. And Garth, of course, since it was his job. Though when Odelia had offered him my theory, he wasn’t impressed. And it wasn’t hard to see why: he had a killer in jail, and didn’t need the aggravation of having to track down another one.

I had asked Odelia to check who’d gone ashore that afternoon and who hadn’t, and she promised she’d look into it.

We left the cabin and headed out for dinner. Dooley and I would return afterward—neither of us had any interest in this concert, and after the harrowing events of today we had decided to stay in that evening.

At any rate, there was no cat choir to attend, so we might as well catch up on our much-needed sleep.

Dinner was a languid affair. Ruby and her parents still looked a little shell-shocked after their near brush with the law, and they didn’t talk much amongst themselves. The influencers must have had another falling-out, for they weren’t speaking. Not to each other, and not to anyone else either. And the Biles family were also very quiet.

“So who was aboard and who was ashore?” I asked Odelia.

“Oren went ashore but Chiquita stayed on the boat,” said Odelia as she tried not to move her lips too much as she talked me through the roster of suspects. “She suffered a migraine attack again and took a pill and slept in her cabin.”

“Okay,” I said, glancing over to the influencers, who were swallowing down their food with little relish.

“The Ketterings went ashore, except for Ruby, but then we already knew that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And the Biles family…” She had to shut up, then, for a waiter approached, offering to pour them some more wine.

There were many different restaurants on the ship, one for breakfast, one for lunch and several for dinner, and the atmosphere was pleasant and relaxed but also slightly more formal than for lunch or breakfast. There was even a dress code: no swimwear and no flip-flops. Which was a good thing, I felt, for if I saw one more hairy back or a pair of hairy legs I’d lose my appetite, and I imagined many people felt the same way.

The waiter passed on, and Odelia bent over to me again.“David and Laura went ashore as near as I can tell, but Bertha wasn’t feeling well and stayed in her cabin all afternoon.”

“Poor woman,” said Dooley. “It must be hard for her with that wheelchair.”

“Yeah, not all the shops and restaurants in these port towns are wheelchair accessible,” said Odelia.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that,” said Dooley. “I mean it must be hard to sleep in a wheelchair. Sitting up.”

“I’m sure Bertha sleeps in a bed just like the rest of us,” I said.

Dooley frowned.“She takes her wheelchair to bed? But how?”

“Dooley, the woman isn’t glued to that chair, you know. She can get in and out of that thing whenever she wants to—with a little help from Adele or her husband or daughter, of course.”

“Oh, right,” he said, and stared intently at Mrs. Biles, presumably trying to picture the scene.

Salvatore waved at us from underneath his table. Mrs. Biles or Adele had tied his leash to the table so he wouldn’t wander off, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Dinner came to an end, and Odelia and Chase escorted us back to the cabin, then went out again to enjoy the concert.

Dooley and I settled in with the tablet computer, which Odelia had set up so we could skype with our friends if we felt like it. Harriet and Brutus must have stepped out, though, for they were offline.

So I started surfing a little on the tablet, googling the different members of our company who could possibly have taken that earring and planted it in Ruby’s bedroom.

I found several videos the influencer couple had posted, and all of them were lively and colorful and fun. They also had plenty of likes and shares. Their career had begun three years before, and their early videos showed how devoted they were to try and save the planet, and further their environmental endeavors. The more I progressed through the chronology, though, the more commercially motivated the videos became, which told of the rift between Chiquita and Oren.

Next up was Ruby and her folks. Ruby herself had a nice Facebook, filled with the pursuits a teenage girl of her age would go for: she seemed to be into sports big time, as there were plenty of pictures of her in a soccer outfit, kicking the ball around. Her parents, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have any discernible social media presence.

And finally I googled the Biles family: Bertha, of course, but also David and Laura.

“Who’s that?” asked Dooley, who lay next to me and followed my search with interest.

“Bertha Biles,” I said. “With her first husband.”

“The one who died?”

I nodded, and studied the picture. It had been taken at some kind of society event.

“She used to be a real socialite,” I said. “And a benefactor to several charities. Her husband, too.”

Tony Matz, Laura’s dad, was a heavyset man with a receding hairline and a pasty, pockmarked face. He was holding aloft a glass of champagne, but looked a little bored in the picture, and clearly not all that interested in the opening of the new opera season. His wife, though, looked very much alive, and appearedto be having a ball.

David Biles was easy to find, and most of the pictures featured him in a physical therapy setting. He owned his own business, and was clearly a well-respected and talented professional.

Laura Matz was well represented on the World Wide Web, with plenty of pictures and websites referencing her. The company she worked for designed self-driving bicycles, and she was an important member of the design team.

Dooley suddenly reached out and tapped the screen with his paw pads, typing‘Liltack.’

“Who’s Liltack?” I asked.

“The murder victim.”

I smiled and typed‘Lil Thug,’ and a picture of the rapper popped up.

And as I studied the man’s face, suddenly the smile was wiped from my own face as if with a squeegee. “Well, I’ll be damned,” I said.

“Please don’t curse, Max,” said Dooley.

“I’m sorry,” I said absentmindedly, as I backtracked through the browser history until I reached a picture I’d seen earlier. I hadn’t been mistaken. “Oh, dear,” I said, as a shiver ran down my spine.

“What is it?”

“I think I’ve just figured out who killed Liltack.”

25

This whole thing needed careful thinking through, and so I walked out onto the balcony, took up my now customary position underneath one of the deck chairs, and gave myself up to thought. Dooley soon followed me out, and lay down underneath the other chair, and studied me carefully.

“I still think we need to do something for Salvatore,” he said finally.

“Mh?”

“Okay, so parakeets are out of the question, and so are cats and dogs, but what about gerbils? Gerbils are nice pets. Or even a pet pig. One of Gran’s friends has a pet pig, and she’s crazy about it. Though it’s becoming really big.”

“I don’t think Salvatore would like a pet pig for a friend.”

“Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong, Max. Maybe Salvatore likes small things, since he’s very small himself.”

“Hey, I heard that,” suddenly a voice sounded through the night.

We both looked up, and saw that our friend had walked out onto his own balcony, and was grinning at us.

“Salvatore! What is your position on pet pigs?!” Dooley yelled, as if to cover the distance from balcony to balcony, which wasn’t much of a distance at all.

“My position on pet pigs is that I don’t have a position. Why?”

“Dooley is still trying to come up with a friend to keep you company,” I said.

“I already told you not to bother, Dooley. I’m fine all by myself.”

“But it makes me so sad!” said Dooley.

“Then you get another friend,” said Salvatore with a chuckle.

“Aren’t you going to the concert?” I asked.

“Not a chance. All that noise and all those people? I’m basically a homebody, never happier than when curled up on my human’s lap. Which is exactly what I’m going to do right now. Goodnight, you guys.”

“Goodnight,” I told Salvatore.

“How about a turtle?!” Dooley yelled.

“No, thank you!” was the swift response.

“Turtles are nice,” said Dooley.

“I know. We’re friends with one, remember?”

“That’s why I thought of a turtle for Salvatore.”

He placed his chin on his paws and I could tell this notion of setting Salvatore up with a pet friend wasn’t going to leave him just yet. Probably not until this trip was at an end, in fact. And it touched my heart. Dooley is probably the nicest cat I know. He likes everybody and everybody likes him, and that’s because he wants nothing but the best for his friends. And as I smiled in the darkness, my mind soon returned to the question vexing it mightily: how to catch a killer who thought they could kill with impunity, and try to destroy a young girl’s life in the process?

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Out on one of the ship’s many decks, the concert was in full swing, a reggae band giving of its best. Odelia found that she couldn’t throw herself wholeheartedly into the revelries, though. Her mind kept returning to the problem Max had suggested: that a woman had been wrongfully accused of the death of her employer, and that the real killer was still out there—and was in fact among them right now. On this boat, thinking they got away with murder.

Chase didn’t seem convinced that this was the case, and he was enjoying the concert while sipping a beer.

The singer performed all kinds of vocal acrobatics while the band poured an electrifying blend of pop and reggae over the crowd. Hundreds of happy vacationers swung to the rhythm and had the time of their lives.

Chase said,“Pretty great, huh?”

“Yeah, she is,” said Odelia without much excitement.

Chase studied her for a moment.“That murder business still bothering you?”

“Yeah, it is,” she confessed. “I can’t shake the feeling that it’s not over yet, Chase.”

“It’s over if you decide it’s over. And besides, it’s none of our business, babe. We’re here to enjoy our vacation—our honeymoon, in fact. Let other people deal with this stuff for once. Garth is a capable guy. He’ll figure it out.”

“But he won’t, will he? He thinks the case is closed, and he’s not bothered with such details as who stole that earring or why.”

“And you know who stole it? And why?”

“No, I don’t, but I know it’s probably got something to do with Lil Thug’s murder.”

“Look, we’re far from home, babe. This isn’t Hampton Cove, where I have jurisdiction, and you have a responsibility toward the people of your community. So just let it be already. Just try to have some fun.”

“I’m trying.” But she wasn’t exactly succeeding, was she? Not until she knew who killed Lil Thug, and she’d been able to secure the killer’s capture. “I’m sorry, Chase,” she said. “I’m ruining things for you, aren’t I?”

“Don’t be silly,” said her husband as he placed an arm across her shoulders and pulled her close. “You couldn’t ruin it for me if you tried. Look, how about we sit down with Garth tomorrow, and thresh this thing out once and for all?”

Her face lit up with a smile.“You’d do that for me?”

“No, I’d do that for Lil Thug.” He grinned. “Of course I’d do that for you. So you can stop worrying!” He tousled her hair and she laughed.

“Thanks, babe,” she said, hugging him close.

“And now let’s enjoy the concert, okay? I have no idea what kind of music this is, but it’s pretty great.”

“It’s reggae,” she said.

“Who’s gay?”

“Reggae!”

“If you say so!”

And so for the rest of the night, she tried to forget about rappers and twenty-million-dollar diamonds and earrings and have a good time. As Chase had pointed out this was, after all, her honeymoon!

26

The next morning we were all sitting together for breakfast: Odelia and Chase, the Bileses, the Ketterings and even the influencers, who seemed to have made up and were as lovey-dovey as I’d ever seen them.

“So is it true?” asked Bertha. “Did someone break into the captain’s cabin yesterday?”

“It wasn’t the captain’s cabin but the guy in charge of security,” said Chase. “But yeah, someone broke in and stole an earring.”

“What’s going on?” Chiquita cried. “First Lil Thug and now this? Security on this cruise is seriously lacking if they’re allowing this kind of thing to happen.” She directed a stern look at her boyfriend. “Maybe we should shoot a video about that: the lack of security aboard these luxury vessels. I’ll bet we’d get plenty of views.”

“It’s not exactly on-brand, though, is it, sweetie?” said her co-vlogger. “I think we need to stay on-brand and try to remain upbeat and, you know, do more of the happy peppy stuff.”

“I guess you’re right,” said Chiquita. “Thieves and killers are so depressing. Who needs that kind of energy?”

“She has a point, Max,” said Dooley. “Thieves and killers are depressing.”

“Especially if you’re the person being killed,” I said.

“Not really. If you’re dead you can’t be depressed, because you’re dead. And dead people don’t get depressed.”

It was a kind of infallible logic I couldn’t find fault with, so I merely smiled.

“You know what I heard?” said Odelia, as she speared a piece of watermelon and brought it to her lips.

“No, what?” said Laura. At this point everyone knew how involved Odelia and Chase were with the murder inquiry, and any news they had to impart was usually greeted with interest.

“The captain told me they finally discovered who killed Lil Thug.”

“But… I thought they already caught the killer?” said the girl, darting a look of confusion in the direction of her stepdad-slash-illicit-boyfriend.

“They got the wrong person. The assistant had nothing to do with the murder after all. She just saw a chance to sell some of the stuff she stole from her employer, but she wasn’t anywhere near the cabin when the fatal event took place.”

“So… who is it?” asked Ruby, scooting her chair a little closer. “Who’s the killer?”

“I’m not sure,” said Odelia. “The captain didn’t want to tell me. He did say he was about to apprehend the person today—during breakfast, in fact.”

This had the whole group break out into excited murmuring.

“But… you mean now? Right now?” asked Ruby.

“That’s what he said,” said Odelia with a shrug. “He wants to get it over with before the ship sails.”

All eyes turned to the shoreline, where the tops of the roofs of houses were clearly visible. The ship had docked early that morning in Willemstad, Curacao, but instead of allowing its passengers to disembark, it looked as if the Queen of the Seas was about to leave any minute now for the next stop on its ten-day itinerary—a highly unusual occurrence. Surprised murmurs rose up all around us, as other passengers had noticed the same thing.

“Is Curacao closed for business today?” a portly little gentleman called out with distinct surprise.

“The captain doesn’t want the killer to jump ship,” Chase explained. “Cause he knows that Curacao has a no-extradition policy, and if the killer goes ashore, he or she will never be brought to justice. They’ll be able to live out their lives on this island paradise, which of course wouldn’t be fair.”

“But… but that’s horrible,” said Laura.

“Yeah, so if one of you killed Lil Thug, you better run fast,” Odelia quipped with a grin. “Cause in five minutes the ship will leave port and then it’s open season on the killer.”

More excited murmurings rippled through her small audience, and even I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as anticipation put me on edge.

“Oh, there they are now,” said Chase, and gestured with his fork to the two men now making their way toward us: the captain and Garth. They were striding along with purposeful steps, their faces decorated with no-nonsense expressions, and clearly on a mission to nab whoever they thought was responsible for one of their passengers’ premature demise.

“They’re coming this way,” said Laura. “They… they’re looking at us!”

And indeed they were. Garth and the captain both had their eye on a certain person in our current entourage, and Chiquita let out a slight scream.“Oren, take out your phone and start filming. This is happening—it’s really happening!”

“It’s not on-brand, honey,” said Oren, but still did as he was told. On-brand or not, or happy or even peppy, this was news in the making, and so he started filming the events as they unfolded in real time.

“Who—who are they arresting?” asked David nervously.

“Can they even make an arrest?” Charles Kettering speculated. “Is that legal? Do they have the authority?”

“The captain can detain a person,” Chase confirmed, “and then transfer them to the proper authorities.”

The captain and Garth were now only thirty feet away from us, and it suddenly dawned on the small gathering that they had one very specific person in mind. That person had sat completely motionless, but now started twitching slightly, as realization dawned that her time was up and that she was for it.

“Mama?” said Laura, her voice betraying her extreme bewilderment. “I think they want… you!”

And suddenly, and much to everyone’s surprise, Bertha Biles bolted from her wheelchair and was racing—flying along the deck in the direction of the staircase that would bring her to Curacao’s shores. In fact I don’t think I’d ever seen a person run as fast and with such nervous fervor as I now saw Bertha run.

“Mama!” Laura cried. “What are you doing?!”

“Damn,” said Oren. “Look at her fly.”

And fly she most certainly did. Unfortunately for her, two security officers suddenly materialized out of nowhere, and abruptly halted her progress by taking position in front of that oh-so-important staircase and Bertha’s last hope for freedom.

So she changed course, and for a moment it looked as if she was going to dive straight into the water! But luckily more security showed up, and before she could leap overboard, they cornered her, then apprehended her, and now were leading her back to us—and certain doom.

“Mama!” Laura was saying, still as flabbergasted as the rest of the onlookers, which comprised the entire breakfast contingent. Bertha’s daughter had risen from her chair, and was staring at her mother, hands cupping her face in consternation.

Necks were craning, and tongues were wagging, since everyone had seen the miracle happen: Bertha had thrown off her shackles and had walked! Well, not walked but run the 100-yard dash. Quite a feat!

“I–I didn’t know she could walk,” said David. “I mean, I knew she could walk a little, but not without assistance.”

“Nobody knew,” said Odelia, then cast a quick glance at me, and gave me a wink.

“You knew?” asked Dooley.

“I assumed,” I said.

Dooley then turned to Salvatore.“You knew?”

“Of course I knew,” said Salvatore. “After the accident Bertha couldn’t walk, but over time she slowly regained the use of her legs, though she has her good days and her bad days.” He shrugged. “I guess today is a good day.”

“I don’t think Bertha would agree with that qualification,” I said.

Dooley gave Salvatore a hurt look.“You knew all this time and you didn’t think to tell us?”

“I didn’t think it was important. She shuffles around the house sometimes when no one is home. She doesn’t like people to see her like that.” He glanced in the direction of his human. “Guess the cat’s out of the bag now.”

Dooley turned back to me.“But how - and why - and when? And why didn’t you tell me!”

“I wasn’t one hundred percent sure,” I told him, “which is why I suggested this little performance this morning.”

“We’re sure now.”

“Yes, now we are,” I agreed, and we watched as members of Garth’s team led Bertha away. She didn’t even ask for her wheelchair, and left us all looking stunned at this surprise denouement—most of all her own daughter and husband. Laura was crying, and David looked white as a sheet. They’d both sunk down onto their chairs again, and under the table they were clasping each other’s hands for support. Support they would surely need from now on.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Adele, cutting a quick glance in Odelia’s direction.

Suddenly Garth appeared before her, and said,“Adele Brzeczek, please follow me.”

“What?!”

But she took one look at the security man’s face, arranged in a hard expression of determination, and her resolve quickly dissolved. She hung her head, and then got up to follow Garth.

And so, in one fell swoop, Lil Thug’s murderers were apprehended.

27

We were on a beach in Willemstad enjoying some leisurely time. Well, if I say‘we’ were on the beach I’d like to emphasize that Dooley and I were in the shade of a nearby palm tree while Odelia and Chase were camped out on a pair of chaises longues closer to the ocean, sipping from their umbrella drinks. And why wouldn’t they? The sand was the color of cane sugar, the water was a clear turquoise, the sun was high in the sky and there was not a single cloud to be discerned. In other words: paradise.

Still, I like to stay in the shade as much as I can. Cats don’t take well to sunscreen, you see. It plays havoc with our fur, and doesn’t easily come out, especially since we like to wash ourselves with the assistance of our tongues. Can you imagine licking up half a tube of sunscreen? Well, I certainly can, and the prospect doesn’t excite me.

“So how did you find out, Max?” asked Dooley now.

“Yeah, how did you find out?” Harriet chimed in.

In spite of the fact that we were two thousand miles from home, we were still connected with the home front, thanks to the miracle of modern technology. Or more specifically Odelia’s tablet.

“Well, I think the first inkling I got were those wet footsteps on the balcony next to ours,” I said, launching into my spiel.

“What wet footsteps? What balcony?” Brutus grunted.

“Bertha and David Biles were staying next to us during the trip,” I said, “so their balcony was located right next to ours. And yesterday, when the entire company had gone ashore to visit St. George’s, I happened to see wet footsteps on the balcony, as if after a shower. It didn’t really register until much later, but it showed that one member of that party hadn’t gone ashore, and as it later turned out, that member was Bertha, who’d stayed in her cabin since she wasn’t feeling well.”

“But Bertha was in a wheelchair, right?” said Harriet. “So how could her footsteps be on the balcony?”

“Exactly what I wondered myself. And the only possible explanation was that she wasn’t as wheelchair-bound as she made out to be.”

“So she faked it?” asked Dooley.

“Yeah, she did. To an extent.”

“But why?”

“Because she didn’t want to lose the love of a good man, and she figured that if it turned out she wasn’t as disabled as she made out to be, David would leave her for her daughter.”

“She knew they were having an affair?” asked Harriet.

“Of course she did. She knew from the start, but as long as she was in that wheelchair, David would never dream of leaving her. And Laura would never have allowed him to leave her mother either. So she kept on pretending she was unable to use her legs—until this morning, when she was pressured into making a run for freedom, knowing that the jig was up.”

“You couldn’t prove anything,” said Harriet, nodding, “until she actually did make a run for it. Which proved she was guilty.”

“Exactly,” I said as I rearranged my tail to keep it out of the sun. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed but the sun has this annoying habit of sneaking across the sky, and every time you think you’ve found the perfect spot of shade, it proves you wrong.

“So now we come to the most important question of all,” said Harriet. “Why? Why would Bertha Biles murder a rapper she had never even heard of before?”

“Because she had heard of him. In fact she used to be married to the man, and she still harbored a very powerful grudge against him.”

“Married?” asked Dooley. “But I thought Bertha used to be married to Laura’s dad. The man who fell overboard and died?”

“He fell overboard, but he didn’t die. At least not in the literal sense. He did change his identity and adopted the stage name of Lil Thug, made some radical changes in appearance, and started a new life as a rap artist, eventually rising to great fame.”

“But why?”

“Because he knocked his head and lost his marbles? Or because he felt he needed to make a change?”

“But… did Bertha know that Lil Thug was her husband?” asked Brutus.

“No, she didn’t. She wasn’t really into rap, and it only dawned on her that this man was her husband when she met him face to face on the day we sailed.” I turned to Dooley. “Remember how we all met in the corridor, Dooley? And how Bertha let out a scream? She blamed it on a muscle spasm while in fact what happened was that she suddenly saw Lil Thug’s profile and recognized her husband Tony Matz. And when he spoke, that’s what clinched it for her. A person can change a lot about themselves with the assistance of a skilled plastic surgeon, but it’s not that easy to change your voice, or your cadence or speech patterns. So she knew—and he knew that she knew.”

“And so she killed him out of revenge?” asked Harriet, who was listening intently.

“Well, no. She didn’t want to kill him. But she did want him to pay. So she planned to steal that diamond, and get some of her own back—she’d fallen on hard times since he left all those years ago, and she figured he owed her.”

“So if she only wanted to steal the diamond, then how did the man end up dead?” asked Brutus—a most appropriate question.

“That was an accident, actually,” I said. “She broke into his cabin, along with Adele.”

“Adele knew?” asked Dooley.

I nodded.“Adele had always known. She was Bertha’s carer, but also her best friend and confidante. They actually planned this together, and were in it from start to finish. They broke into his cabin, and Adele injected the sleeping rapper with a strong sedative, which was part of her toolkit. Bertha mayhave faked not being able to walk, but it’s true that she is a sick woman, and suffered a lot of pain. The moment her ex-husband was out for the count, they set out to remove the diamond. Only Adele must have miscalculated the dosage, for suddenly Lil Thug jerked up, and impaled himself on Adele’s knife.”

“So it was actually Adele who killed him?”

“Yes, it was—though both women share equal blame, of course.”

“So what about the earring they found?” asked Harriet.

“That belonged to Adele. She lost it in their haste to leave. After ascertaining that Bertha’s ex-husband was dead, and realizing they were in a big heap of trouble.”

“They would have been in a big heap of trouble if Lil Thug had woken up with his diamond missing.”

“Yes, but they were counting on the fact that he wouldn’t go to the police, since he wanted to keep his real identity a secret.”

“Quite the gamble. For twenty million I’m willing to bet Lil Thug wouldn’t have cared about keeping his identity a secret.”

“So who planted that earring in Ruby’s room?” asked Brutus.

“That was Bertha. She took a big risk that day, but lucky for her no one saw her. She broke into Garth’s office, took the earring, then broke into the Ketterings’ cabin and placed the earring in Ruby’s bed, knowing she’d be the first one to come under suspicion, and maybe even act as the fall girl for the murder. They didn’t know at this point that Lil Thug’s assistant had been arrested. Otherwise she’d never have taken the chance of being caught. She wore a disguise, of course,” I added when three pairs of eyes stared at me intently. “Scarf and sunglasses—and of course no one would expect Bertha, who was never seen out of her wheelchair, to be traipsing about. It helped that most of the passengers were ashore that day as well.”

“But how did she manage to break into Garth’s office and into the Ketterings’ cabin,” asked Brutus. “What is she? Some kind of master burglar?”

“She didn’t have to be. Adele had stolen a master key card from one of the cleaners the first day, and they discovered it worked like a charm. I think Garth will want to revise his security procedures after this incident.”

“So have they found the diamond?” asked Harriet.

“Yes, they have. It was concealed inside Bertha’s wheelchair—a place no one had thought to look.”

“I don’t believe this,” said Brutus. “You’re supposed to be on vacation, Max! Not catch killers!”

“I know,” I said. “But can I help it that people keep murdering other people, even on holiday?”

“So how did you find out that Lil Thug was Bertha’s ex-husband?” asked Dooley.

“The pictures,” I said. “Remember how we were scrolling through some of Bertha’s old pictures? Well, one of them featured Bertha and her ex-husband. And when put next to a picture of Lil Thug, I was struck by the resemblance. So I dug a little deeper, and soon became convinced they were oneand the same person.”

“If you know what to look for, it jumps out at you,” said Harriet, nodding.

“Yes, it does,” I agreed.

A wet spray suddenly made me look up, and I saw that Odelia had joined us. She was wet from a dip in the ocean, and was wringing the brine out of her long hair.“So how are things in Hampton Cove?” she asked as she crouched down. “Gran behaving herself?”

“Not more than usual,” said Harriet with a sigh. “Now she wants to build a greenhouse where she can grow flowers. Marge says no way, and Tex is ready to strangle her.”

“Sounds familiar,” said Odelia with a grin. “And how are you guys holding up? Probably can’t wait till the house is ready?”

“We’re okay,” said Brutus. “Now that Marge and Tex are sleeping in your room, and Gran has the guest room to herself, things have calmed down. And no more shouting in the morning since Gran shortened her bathroom time.”

“Well, I’m glad,” said Odelia.

“When are you back?” asked Harriet.

“One more week,” said Odelia, “and our dream vacation is over.”

“You enjoy yourself, Odelia, and have the time of your life.”

“Oh, I certainly intend to,” said Odelia with a smile. “And now that Max has solved another murder case, things are bound to become a lot quieter.” She gave me a grateful pat on the head.

Harriet and Brutus signed off, and Odelia returned to join her husband, who was now standing near the water, getting his feet wet.

“Maybe we should take a dip in the water?” Dooley suggested.

“I don’t think so, Dooley,” I said. “I’ve had plenty of ocean for one trip, thank you very much.”

“Not swimming, but just to get our paws wet,” my friend suggested. “It will cool us off.”

The notion of cooling off sounded very appealing, I must confess, and so when he got up and tripped off in the direction of the waterfront, I quickly followed. The disadvantage of having a lot of fur is that when it gets hot out, it also gets hot inside! Like a sweater you can’t take off. And so when we finally reached the water and dipped our paws in, I had to admit it felt really nice—very cooling!

And I would have ventured in a little further if not suddenly two familiar large and winged creatures swept down on us with loud screeches of terror: Frank and Jack were back!

“Gotcha, suckers!” Jack screamed as he homed in on me, claws outstretched, while his friend adhered to the same flight path, but with Dooley as his designated target.

“Max!” cried Dooley helplessly as he tried to trudge out of the water. But since he was a little waterlogged, and the water hampered his movements, he was never going to be able to outrun that foul bird, and neither was I.

“Jump in, Dooley!” I yelled.

It was the only thing I could think of, and probably not the smartest avenue of escape, as seagulls can grab a fish from underneath the water’s surface just as easily as I can pick a piece of kibble from my bowl.

And as both Dooley and I submerged ourselves as best we could—a tough proposition in half a foot of water, I can tell you—I knew that this was it. We were goners.

But then, suddenly, a man came running over, waving his arms, and screaming at the top of this voice, kicking up sand and water like a madman.

Jack and Frank, who hadn’t counted on this, were visibly and audibly displeased, but immediately gave up the hunt, as this madman looked as if he was going to physically attack them and turn them into minced meat.

And when I looked up, at first I couldn’t make out who our savior was, for the sun was in my eyes, and all I could see was this brave hero’s outline—a very buff and beefy outline!

But then he swooped down and lifted me up with what can only be described as superhuman strength, and with one fluid motion did the same with Dooley, and then he was carrying us out of the surf and back to safety.

It felt good to be in his strong arms, and as he joined Odelia, and handed Dooley to her while he ever so gently held me, I purred up a storm. For this superman was Chase—the best husband a cat lady could ever have chosen!

“Chase, I love you,” I purred.

“Chase, you’re amazing,” purred Dooley.

Yep, I guess we love us some Chase!

“Oh, you guys,” said Odelia. “You really should be more careful.”

“It’s not their fault, babe,” said our knight in shining armor. “They just wanted to cool off when those horrible birds swept in.”

“I know, but still.”

Chase knelt down, scooped up some of that cooling liquid that was sloshing along the sandy beach, and started sprinkling it ever so carefully on top of my head, then repeated the procedure with Dooley.

Okay, so I think I told you that cats don’t care about cruises, right? Or beach vacations. Or sand and surf. Well, I can now officially announce that cruises are great, and so are beach vacations and even sand and surf, but only on one condition: that they come with a supplementary dose of Chase Kingsley as a package deal.

And you know what? I think Odelia feels exactly the same way. In fact I know she does.

And thus ended another adventure. Not the cruise, though, or the honeymoon. We had another week to go, and we all know that a week can seem like an eternity when you’re having fun. Or is that when you’re not having fun?

Just to be on the safe side, we returned to our little patch underneath those palm trees to recover from our ordeal. And as we watched our humans take another dip in the ocean, my eyes slowly drifted closed once more.

“So how about a parrot, Max?”

“A parrot?”

“As a friend for Salvatore. Parrots are nice.”

“Salvatore said he doesn’t want a friend, Dooley.”

“But that was before his human was sent to prison. I’ll bet he needs a friend now.”

“He has Laura. And David.”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

For a moment all was quiet. I rolled over on my back and lazily gazed up at those gently swaying palm fronds. In the distance children were playing, people were laughing, and Odelia and Chase were happily cavorting in the surf.

Aaah.

Blissss.

“Or how about a hamster?”

“Dooley!”

36. PURRFECT HARMONY

Prologue

Neda Hoeppner had a habit of directing St. Theresa Choir with bold, vigorous movements of her arms. She was a formidable woman, with an abundance of dark curly hair that vibrated in tune with the music. She hadn’t been choirmaster long but had already adjusted surprisingly well to her new role as musical director.

“No, no, no, no, no!” she shouted in short staccato bursts of her stentorian voice. “Janette, I can hear that shrill squeak of yours over all the rest—harmony, ladies, harmony!”

Janette Bittiner, first soprano and a woman of about Neda’s own age, gave the choir conductor a look that would have killed a lesser woman stone-cold dead on the spot. Fortunately for Neda, she wasn’t a lesser woman, and frankly she was used to being the target of these unfavorable looks from certain members of the choir.

She had, after all, been one of them until very recently, and had only risen to the treasured role of director when its previous musical leader, Samuel Smalls, had been called to that great big choir in the sky, where presumably he was now giving the angels the benefit of his reedy tenor voice and tendency to shout at the top of his lungs when the altos failed to pick up the pace again.

“From the top!” Neda yelled, and raised her arms, expectantly tilting her chin. Suddenly a hand went up and she gave its owner a look of annoyance. “Yes, Yoko,” she said, suppressing a groan. She thoroughly disliked being held up by these stragglers.

“Wouldn’t it be better if the tenors joined us one bar in?” the young woman suggested. Yoko was the youngest member of the choir and prone to these sudden flashes of ill-advised and frankly unwelcome ‘inspiration.’

“No, the tenors will not be joining us one bar in,” Neda snapped decidedly.

“But…”

“From the top!” Neda shouted over the young woman’s protestations.

Once more the choir launched into its rendition of an uptempo little ditty from Johannes Brahms. In the first pew, Father Reilly was watching on. He didn’t seem one hundred percent relaxed that his choice of choir director had been a good one, as he kept tugging at his nose and upsetting his coiffure, a clear sign he was ill at ease.

“Oh, for Christ’s sakes, Janette!” Neda suddenly yelled, and the choir’s rendition of the concerto once more ended in a jumble of discordant notes. “Can you keep it down, please? This is a choir, not your one-woman show! Destiny’s Child, not Beyonc?!”

“You know what, Neda?” said Janette, raising a quaking voice as she threw down her songbook. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense. If you really think you know so much better, you take my place and sing my part. Cause I’m officially done!” And with these surprising words, she strode off stage, her face set in a look of intense constipation.

“Janette, you get back here!” Neda shouted to the woman’s retreating back. “Janette!”

But Janette did a most unladylike thing and raised her hand in a gesture of defiance, which caused her fellow choir members and her director to draw in a shocked gasp.

“Janette,” said Father Reilly, on his feet and hurrying after the deserter. “Janette, please wait.” His polished shoes clacking on the stone floor, he almost ran, not walked.

Janette turned with as much dignity as she could muster.“Francis, I can’t do this anymore,” she declared, her voice echoing through St. John’s Church’s nave, and mingling with the soft chatterings of the choir, even as Neda stood tapping her baton against the conductor stand and heatedly demanding that choir practice was resumed at once.

“But Janette, you have to understand that Neda is simply nervous. She’s new at this.”

“I told you from the start that this wasn’t going to work,” said the offended soprano.

“The least you could do is give Neda a chance. I’m sure she’ll grow in her role and—”

“Grow in her role!” Janette scoffed. “Oh, please. The only thing that will grow is that insufferable woman’s ego. No, I’m sorry,” she said, holding up her hand when the priest made to speak. “I gave it my best shot, but this isn’t working for me. Adieu, Francis.”

And with these words, she walked off in high dudgeon, stared after by the priest.

“Oh, dear,” Father Reilly murmured, wringing his hands as he returned to the altar.

As Neda got into her car, a brand-new Mini Cooper, she was carrying her songbook with the sheet music under her arm, and also the powerful grudge that she held against that terrible woman Janette Bittiner.“Stupid woman,” she muttered as she dropped down into the driver’s seat, adjusted her glasses, snapped the seatbelt into place and slammed the door shut. She just had to go and ruin things for her by playing the grande dame, didn’t she? Well, good riddance. There were plenty of sopranos in the world apart from Janette Bittiner. And with less corrosive personalities, too.

She started the car and could soon be seen tootling along the road that led from St. John’s Church to her beloved home, which she’d christened Bootles, after her dearly departed German shepherd of the same name. And as she drove along, her eye happened to catch a flyer depicting her likeness having been tacked to a lamppost. Abruptly she stomped on the brakes, almost causing the car behind her to slam into her, and frowned as she took in the flyer in question. It was a very simple flyer, consisting of a picture of Neda’s face, above which the message ‘Neda Hoeppner is a Jezebel’ had been printed.

“Well, really!” Neda snapped as she got out of the car, her door almost knocking a cyclist from his bike, she stalked over to the lamppost, and ripped down the flyer, then crumpled it up and threw it into the gutter, littering laws be damned. But when she glanced up along Main Street, she saw that every single lamppost, as far as the eye could see, had been decorated in the same way, and carried the same message, depicting her as some kind of latter-day slut or harlot. But instead of demeaning herself by going from lamppost to lamppost and removing every last remnant of this outrageous and public insult, she decided to do the dignified thing and ignore the slur. So she got back into her car, and soon was racing along, her face set in an expression of utter determination.

The moment she arrived home, she took out her phone and got in touch with her secretary.“Cher, drop everything and go down to Main Street at once.”

“Main Street?” asked her loyal secretary. “What for?”

“Some absolute idiot has plastered the entire street with extremely derogatory and inflammatory flyers. I want you to collect every single one of them and then go down to the police station and file a complaint for defamation of character and slander.”

“Do you know who’s behind this campaign?” asked Cher promptly.

“Janette Bittiner,” she snapped.

“Janette? Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent. This is just the kind of horrible thing that woman would do.”

She disconnected and tapped her formidable chin with the phone as she wondered to what lengths the Bittiner woman would take this feud that had existed between them ever since Neda had been selected as St. Theresa Choir’s new conductor. Better to nip this thing in the bud before it got completely out of hand. “Jezebel,” she scoffed bitterly as she placed down her phone. “I’ll show her who the real Jezebel is!”

Just then, the doorbell chimed its melodious three-tone sound, indicating someone wanted to have speech with her. She frowned and collected herself. She would never have admitted it to anyone, but this most recent altercation with Janette had rattled her. And it was imperative that she be cool and collected for her upcoming interview. There was nothing she hated more than to lose control. So she sucked in a steadying breath, tilted up her chin, and proceeded in the direction of the door, like a galleon under sail.

“Please come in,” she said as she threw the door wide to greet her visitor.

1

We were all gathered in Marge and Tex’s newly rebuilt home, and judging from the oohs and aahs being uttered, the collective sentiment was favorable, the builders and the contractor and the architect in line for high praise. And I must admit the house did look nice, though a little empty. No furnishings, no lights, no carpets, no nothing, which made me realize that a house isn’t the same thing as a home, and that as long as its owners haven’t added their personal touch, it’s just a blank canvas, eagerly waiting to be filled.

“I think they did a great job,” said Uncle Alec appreciatively.

“It’s so spacious!” said Odelia as she marveled at the living room, which now formed one large space with the kitchen and former sitting room, and ran across the entire floor.

“And so light!” Marge enthused.

We were in luck that it was a sunny day, and the sun had free rein to cover the entire acreage of the newly formed ground floor of Odelia’s parents’ home.

“We’ll have sun all day,” said Tex, who looked every bit the proud homeowner as he explained what everyone already knew. “In the morning we’ll have the sun in the kitchen, and in the evening we’ll have the sun in the front—nice and sunny all day!”

“Are you sure, Dad?” asked Chase. “I always thought the sun went counterclockwise.”

Tex looked confused for a moment, until he saw the smile flickering on his son-in-law’s lips, and he laughed good-naturedly. “Good one, Chase. Ha ha ha. Very funny.”

“Now all we need is a good decorator,” said Gran. “And we’re in luck, cause I’ve got just the right guy for the job. Highly in demand, and he’s between gigs right now.”

Alarmed, Marge looked over to her mother.“A decorator? What are you talking about?”

“This is just the first step, Marge,” said her aged mother as she gestured around. “Four walls and a roof, that’s all this is right now. What makes a regular home into a show home is a great interior designer—or decorator—I always forget which is which.”

“Show home?” asked Tex, his proud smile morphing into a frown. It was the frown he usually reserved for his mother-in-law, and which crept up his face with practiced ease.

“Sure! Didn’t I tell you? I agreed with the contractor to make this place a show home for the next foreseeable future. That way he can show potential clients what he’s got in store for them, and he’s agreed to give us a ten percent discount on his original quote.”

“Ma, you didn’t,” said Marge.

“Don’t thank me yet, honey. First we need to dress this place up. Turn it into something fit to be printed on the pages of Architectural Digest. And that’s where Jason comes in.”

“Jason?” asked Marge, a deep wrinkle having appeared on her brow. “Who’s Jason?”

“Why, the interior decorator, of course. Jason Knauff. He’s only the most famous interior decorator in the country. He did Diane Keaton’s place, and Meryl’s new home.”

“Oh, dear,” said Odelia, as she cast a worried glance in the direction of her mother.

“Look, we don’t need a decorator, Vesta,” said Tex. “Isn’t that right, honey?”

“Absolutely,” said Marge with conviction, as she gave her mom a censorious look, which slid off the latter’s back like water from a duck.

“So I was thinking we give Jason a free hand,” said Gran. “The man is a genius, after all, and frankly I can’t wait to see what he’s going to do.”

“How much does he cost, this genius of yours?” asked Uncle Alec.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” said Gran, waving an airy hand. And before her family members had recovered from the shock her words had caused, her phone sang out a ringtone in Barry White’s sultry voice and she removed herself from the scene.

The Poole clan stood there, exchanging glances, then collectively heaved a deep sigh.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” said Odelia. “I’ll talk her out of it.”

“And if that doesn’t work, we can always murder this Jason Knauff and bury his body in the woods,” Uncle Alec grunted, and frankly I wasn’t entirely sure he didn’t mean it.

“I think it’s a lovely space, Max, don’t you?” said Dooley, who’d returned from a quick ramble around the newly finished house.

“Absolutely,” I said.

“Though it does have a weird smell to it,” said Harriet, our white Persian friend. And she proceeded to stick her nose in the air and take a sniff, then wrinkled up her nose.

“It smells to new, smoochie poo,” said her boyfriend Brutus. The butch black cat didn’t seem entirely impressed with the minor miracle the builders had pulled off. Then again, like I said, there wasn’t a lot to see yet. One big plus in my book was that this new house had floor heating. I love floor heating, don’t you? So nice and warm to the paws.

“Do you really think Gran is going to hire a decorator?” asked Dooley.

“It certainly looks that way,” I said.

“She’s right,” said Harriet. “Remember what this place looked like before it collapsed? Marge and Tex are lovely people, don’t get me wrong, but they have no sense of style.”

“I thought the house was very cozy,” said Dooley.

“I liked it,” I chimed in.

“Oh, please,” said Harriet. “It was a dump, you guys, and I think being razed to the ground and rebuilt from scratch was the best thing that could have happened to it.” She cut a quick glance to Odelia. “In fact I can think of another house that could benefit from the same treatment.”

Alarmed, I followed her gaze.“There’s nothing wrong with Odelia’s house,” I said quickly, to head off my friend’s train of thought. “Her house is just fine the way it is.”

“Oh, Maxie,” said Harriet with a shake of her head. “It needs a complete makeover. New kitchen, new bathroom—and have you seen that bedroom?”

I had seen that bedroom. In fact I’d slept in that bedroom only last night, as I had for all the other nights of my entire existence.

“What’s wrong with Odelia’s bedroom?” I asked.

“It’s old! And smelly!”

“It’s not smelly,” I said.

“That’s because you live there,” she pointed out. “If you’ve lived somewhere for as long as you have, you don’t smell the bad smells anymore. And that’s because you’ve gotten used to them. But to a set of fresh noses like mine and Brutus, it smells old and musty. Isn’t that right,sweetums? Doesn’t Odelia’s bedroom smell old and musty?”

“Oh, sure,” said Brutus, though he didn’t look entirely convinced.

“I think we should ask Gran to rehire that Polish builder who destroyed Marge and Tex’s house, and apply the same technique to Odelia and Chase’s place,” Harriet declared. “That way she, too, can have an entirely new house built, and then we both have bright new places to grace with our presence,” she concluded with a smile.

“I think that Polish builder is in prison right now,” I pointed out.

“So we get another one. I’m sure there are plenty of cowboy builders out there.”

“But I don’t want Odelia’s house torn down,” said Dooley. “I like the house just the way it is!”

“That’s because you’re stuck in a rut, Dooley,” Harriet said sternly. “You and Max both. And if you ask me, it’s time you got unstuck.”

“But…”

“No buts. At the very least Gran should ask this Jason to take a look at your house, too. I’m sure he’ll tell you the same thing: tear the place down and start from scratch. Out with the old and in with the new!”

“But I like the old!” I said.

She gave me a wink.“That’s becauseyou are old, Max.”

I was saved the trouble of having to think up a comeback to that, when Uncle Alec’s phone caroled out a Garth Brooks tune, and he picked up with a grunt. “Dolores?”

Immediately his expression morphed from a brother admiring his sister’s new house to that of a police chief getting down to business. “I’ll be there in five,” he said. He glanced over to Chase, his second-in-command, and growled, “There’s been a murder.”

2

We were on our way to the scene of the crime, as the vernacular goes, when we happened to come across a traffic accident. Two cars had collided, one a nice shiny Jaguar, the other a not-so-shiny old Toyota. Both drivers had apparently decided that a head-on collision was a good way to start the day, and since steam was still rising from the wrangled wreckage of the Jaguar, the accident hadn’t taken place all that long ago.

“Shouldn’t we…” Odelia began.

But Chase immediately demurred.“The others will deal with this, babe,” he said, gesturing to a bored-looking officer listening to the drivers now going head-to-head.

There is a sort of division of labor at play in police stations, you see. You have cops who handle traffic accidents, and then there are cops who handle murder investigations. And Chase Kingsley, my human’s husband, just happens to belong to that last category, aided and abetted by Odelia, local reporter for the Hampton Cove Gazette but also officiating as police consultant.

So what is my role, you ask? Well, I guess I’m the consultant’s consultant. So Chase consults with Odelia, who consults with me. I know it’s not your typical law enforcement setup, but then Hampton Cove is a small town, and small towns oftentimes have their own way of doing things, and so do we.

“So if you’re the consultant’s consultant,” said Dooley, to whom I’d been explaining all this, “what does that make me?”

“You’re the consultant’s consultant’s consultant,” said Harriet.

This had Dooley stumped for a moment, and frankly it took me a while to untangle this particular knot, too. Look, I may be a consultant’s consultant, but that doesn’t mean I’m some kind of brainiac. I’m just an ordinary cat. So what if I happen to notice stuff that my humans don’t always pay attention to? That’s just par for the course with being a feline and having a feline’s superior ears, sense of smell and twenty-twenty vision.

“So if I’m a consultant’s consultant’s consultant,” said Dooley finally, “what does that make you and Brutus, Harriet?”

Harriet smiled a fine smile.“It makes me a consultant’s consultant’s consultant’s consultant, and Brutus a consultant’s consultant’s consultant’s consultant’s consultant.”

“Oh, God,” said Brutus, shaking his head. “I think this consultant is going to be sick.”

We’d arrived at the house under investigation, and Chase parked his squad car out in front, where several more cars had already found a parking space, from the looks of things all belonging to members of Uncle Alec’s police force.

That’s also part of being a detective: other officers usually arrive there first, and pave the way for the detective to waltz in and take over the scene. So Chase now did waltz in, followed by his small troupe of consultants, and consultant’s consultants and whatnot, and immediately we noticed thatUncle Alec hadn’t lied: a murder had indeed been committed, and the evidence, in the form of a dead body, was lying near the fireplace.

“What are those cats doing here?” a large man with an abundance of frizzy hair growled. This was Abe Cornwall, the county coroner. “They’re going to contaminate my scene.”

In normal human language this means that Abe was accusing us of dragging in foreign particles and trace evidence from the street, and causing confusion for the people in the white coveralls whose job it is to process the crime scene and the person who’s been murdered, and ascertain whether the killer has left any fingerprints, footprints or traces of his or her DNA when prematurely, and not to mention illegally, snuffing out their unfortunate victim’s life.

“Don’t worry about my cats, Abe,” said Odelia. “They’re very disciplined. They know not to come near the victim.”

“Who is the victim?” asked Chase.

“Neda Hoeppner,” said one of the officers, presumably the one who’d first arrived, and notified Dolores, the station dispatcher, who’d notified Uncle Alec and the rest of us.

Uncle Alec, who now joined us, shook his head sadly.“Terrible business. Just terrible.”

“Did you know her?” asked Chase.

“Oh, sure. Neda was on every committee, a member of every society, active in every foundation. She had her fingers in a lot of pies.”

“That’s not very hygienic,” said Dooley. “At least I hope she washed her hands before she stuck her fingers in all of those pies.”

“What did she do for a living?” asked Chase.

“I’m not sure,” said the Chief, rubbing his chin.

“So in spite of the fact that she was on every committee, in every society and every foundation, you have no idea what it was that she actually did?”

“Uh-huh. I think she was simply rich, so she didn’t need to hold down a job.”

We all glanced around, and took in the understated opulence of the room we now found ourselves in. It was obvious that Neda Hoeppner had indeed been a wealthy woman, but also that she had excellent taste. The colorful sofas, the exquisite artwork adorning the walls, the coffee-table books placed on the coffee table and the perfectly maintained backyard we could see through the floor-to-ceiling windows attested to that.

As did the very large bookcase that covered part of one wall. Against the opposite wall a fireplace had been put in, though I had the impression it had been put there more for decorative reasons than functional ones. I could tell from the warmth my paws were experiencing that the room was heated by floor heating, which was very nice indeed.

Against that fireplace now lay a woman, face down, and judging from the blood on both the marble corner of the fireplace and the head of said woman, it wasn’t a stretch to conclude that she had fallen and knocked her head.

“How did she die?” asked Uncle Alec. His question was directed at Abe Cornwall, the one with the exploded hairdo. The coroner got up from his examination of the body, his knees making creaking sounds as he did. “As far as I can tell she hit her head against the corner of this fireplace and the impact killed her. Though to be absolutely sure I’ll need to take her in for a postmortem.”

“Time of death?”

Abe scratched his head.“No lividity, no rigor mortis. Judging by body temperature I’d say she died between eleven-thirty and twelve.”

Uncle Alec nodded as he thoughtfully rubbed his chin.“So if she fell and hit her head, why was this reported as a murder?” he asked, this time addressing his officer.

“There seems to have been a breakin, sir,” said the young man. He gestured to the safe, located behind a painting, which hung askance. The safe was open, clearly empty.

“Who called it in?”

“Mrs. Hoeppner’s secretary,” said the officer, and pointed to a distraught-looking woman who was being consoled by a second female officer, both seated on the couch.

“Chase, Odelia, I’ll let you handle the investigation,” said Uncle Alec, bowing out.

“Of course, sir,” said Chase, adopting a formal tone since we were in an official setting.

Chase and Odelia now joined the secretary, and while Harriet and Brutus wandered in the direction of the kitchen, presumably in search of something to eat, Dooley and I joined our humans. The investigation had begun.

3

Cher Shorn was clearly deeply impressed by what she’d encountered when she arrived in her employer’s home. She was clutching a Kleenex and dabbing it at her eyes. She was a horse-faced woman with long brown hair that fell like a curtain across her face, until she was joined by Odelia and Chase, at which point she made the effort to sit up a little straighter and tuck her long tresses behind her ears. She pushed her overly large glasses higher up her nose and took a deep breath.

“Yes, I found her like that, and no, I didn’t touch anything,” she said in answer to Chase’s unspoken question. She looked up and her eyes filled with tears again, causing her to remove her glasses and drag another Kleenex from a large box.

“You were Mrs. Hoeppner’s secretary?” asked Odelia, taking things from the top, and employing her most kind and soft-spoken tone.

Cher nodded.“I just celebrated fifteen years in her employ. We went out to dinner and had such a good time. Neda was demanding, but after fifteen years I considered her a friend.”

“Do you think this could have been an accident?” asked Odelia.

“Absolutely not,” said Cher with a vigorous shake of her head.

“What makes you say that?”

“Because when I arrived the safe was open,” said Cher. “And empty.” Indignation made her voice rise both in volume and pitch. “They must have forced her to open it and then they cleaned it out and killed her.”

“Isn’t it possible that she opened the safe herself and simply made a bad fall?” Chase suggested.

“Absolutely not,” said Cher. “That safe was full of Neda’s valuables, and now it’s empty. Whoever did this robbed and killed her, and I know exactly who did it.”

This statement was greeted with a look of surprise from both Odelia and Chase.“You know who killed your employer?” asked Chase.

“Absolutely. His name is Raban Pacoccha and he’s Neda’s gardener. And I have a strong suspicion he’s also a drug addict, and that he robbed Neda to fund his addiction.”

“Did you find him on the premises when you arrived?” asked Odelia.

“No, he was gone by the time I got here.” She shook her head. “Imagine if I hadn’t arrived when I did. Neda could very well have spent the night lying there—dead.” She broke into tears again.

“Why did you arrive when you did?” asked Chase, deciding to clear up another mystery that had clearly puzzled him.

“Today is Monday,” said Cher, as if that explained everything. When she found herself gazing into two questioning faces, she continued, “On Monday we always get together here to go over the week’s program. Neda was a wealthy woman. Her father, Ralph Hoeppner, made his fortune selling linoleum—they called him the linoleum king. After he died Neda decided to devote her life supporting the many cultural organizations and charities she favored. It kept us busy, handling an extensive social calendar and a lot of organizations Neda had decided to grace with her patronage. We also keep an office in town, where I work and where she has a desk, but she rarely went there. She preferred if I came here to go over the week’s schedule. Our meeting was scheduled at one o’clock.”

“We heard from Chief Lip that she was on a lot of committees,” said Chase.

Cher gave a curt nod of the head and then started rattling off the list.“The Hampton Cove Arts Center, the Hampton Cove Cultural Center, the Seabreeze Music Center, the Charlie Dieber Art Museum and Study Center, the Waterhill Center. And of course she is—or was—also the first female conductor of the St. Theresa Choir, which had its weekly rehearsal just this morning. Which is why we never met before lunch.”

“She was a very busy woman, this Neda Hoeppner,” said Dooley.

“Yeah, extremely busy,” I said as we wandered in the direction of the dearly departed once more, the men in white coveralls dusting the area for prints and collecting samples of whatever they could find in the vicinity of Neda’s body. They certainly made every effort not to miss a thing, and when Dooley and I came a little too close in their opinion, they gave us nasty glances and so we quickly removed ourselves from the scene. Cats have a tendency to shed, you see, and if there’s anything these CSI types hate more than a dust bunny they can’t identify, it’s cat hair landing whereno cat hair is supposed to be.

“She has a very nice house,” said Dooley as we inspected the rest of the living space. “Maybe Gran should ask who her interior decorator was.”

“You really would like to live in a house like this?” I asked as I inspected a violin that Neda had placed on a stand.

“Oh, absolutely. I think Neda Hoeppner had great taste.”

“She certainly had,” I agreed.

“So it was murder, was it?” asked Dooley, abruptly changing the topic.

“Looks like it,” I confirmed.

He heaved a deep sigh.“Stealing is bad enough, but why murder, Max?”

“I’m not sure, Dooley. But in this case Neda Hoeppner didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who would happily hand over her treasured possessions, so the robber must have been compelled to use lethal force to accomplish what they set out to do.”

We’d wandered back to where the interview with Mrs. Hoeppner’s secretary was taking place. The secretary was showing a diary to Chase, and had flipped to where some of the pages had been torn out. “Today’s date,” she said meaningfully. “Neda wrote down all her appointments in this book. Raban must have torn these pages out before he left.”

“Do you know what was taken from the safe, Miss Shorn?” asked Chase as he held his pencil poised over his little notebook.

“Neda kept her jewels in that safe,” said Cher, “as well as some cash and of course her collection of gold coins.”

“Gold coins?”

Cher nodded.“Neda was a gold bug. She loved her coins.”

“How much would you say her collection was worth—approximately?”

Cher frowned.“I’d have to check, but at last count she had over a hundred thousand dollars in gold in that safe. And if you count the jewelry and the cash she kept… I think Raban must have gotten away with at least two hundred thousand worth.” She arched an eyebrow when both Odelia and Chase sucked in their breath in astonishment. “You can buy a lot of dope with that kind of money, wouldn’t you say?”

4

We found ourselves in our second nice home of the day, or actually our third, if Marge and Tex’s newly finished house was added to the tally. Though to say we were at the house was actually a misnomer, as we were outside, with no means of entering the house, since its owner wasn’t home. But then we weren’t there to talk to Janette Bittiner but to her gardener Raban Pacoccha, who also happened to be Neda’s gardener.

So we’d simply walked around back and soon came upon Raban, raking a few stray leaves and looking distraught.

“He looks like a killer, Max,” Dooley commented when we caught the gardener in our sights and so did Chase and Odelia.

Brutus and Harriet had decided to sit this one out and instead had headed into town, where Harriet said she had some important business to take care of. What this important business could possibly be, I had no idea, but I knew better than to ask.

“Killers don’t have a specific look,” I told my friend. “Anyone can be a killer, and they won’t have anything in common with other killers as far as outer appearance goes.”

Raban Pacoccha was a tall and athletic man, with a nice crop of thick curly dark hair, and a handsome face. He was in his early thirties, and to me he didn’t look like a killer at all. In fact he looked more like a male model than a vicious killer and drug addict.

“Raban Pacoccha?” asked Chase, and held up his police badge as a way of introduction.

The man looked startled as his eyes zoomed in on that shiny badge, and immediately he dropped the rake and came walking over.“I am Raban,” he said. “What is this about?”

“My name is Chase Kingsley, Hampton Cove police, and this is Odelia Poole, civilian police consultant. We would like to ask you a couple of questions, Mr. Pacoccha.”

“Yes?” said Raban cautiously as he approached us. He glanced down at Dooley and me, then up to Chase again, dismissing us as unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

“You work for Neda Hoeppner?”

“Yes, I do. Neda is one of my oldest clients.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Um, let me think,” said Raban, as he his eyes flitted up and to the left. “That must have been… last Monday. Mondays I always work at Neda’s.”

“Today is Monday,” Chase pointed out.

Raban smiled an indulgent smile.“Janette had an urgent job for me, so I couldn’t make it to Neda’s. I suggested tomorrow, but she refused and told me to skip a week.”

“So under normal circumstances you would have gone in today?” asked Odelia.

“Yes, today. But as I said, Janette had work for me.”

“What was so urgent?”

“Beats me,” said the gardener with a shrug. “All I’ve done is rake some leaves.”

“So you weren’t at Neda’s house this morning?”

“Oh, no, I’ve been here since nine o’clock.” He gestured to the leaves he’d raked. “As it turns out there wasn’t much for me to do here. But then that’s Janette for you.”

“How do you mean?”

“She and Neda don’t get along,” the handsome gardener explained as he raked a hand through his curly hair. “Especially since Neda was selected as the new choir director.”

“There was some kind of rivalry?”

“You can say that again. They’re at each other’s throats all the time.” Then suddenly he seemed to regret his words, for he lowered his voice, and shot a nervous glance in the direction of the house. “Please don’t tell them I said that. They’re both clients of mine, and I want to keepit that way.” He seemed to realize that this entire conversation had been a little one-sided so far, and he asked, “So why all the questions?”

“I’m afraid we have some bad news, Raban,” said Chase.

“Bad news? Oh, I think I know what’s going on here.” He gave the cop a grim-faced look. “Neda fired me, didn’t she? I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. That woman hates Janette so much she can’t forgive me for working for her. So she hired another gardener, huh? Who did shego with? Shakeel?”

“It’s not that. I’m sorry to tell you that Neda is dead, Raban.”

The gardener blinked.“Dead? What do you mean?”

“She was robbed and killed this morning,” Odelia explained.

“And we’re trying to find out what happened,” Chase added.

“Dead,” said Raban in hushed tones as his gaze raked his fallen rake.

“So you were here all morning, were you?” asked Odelia. “You never left?”

“No, I was here all morning,” said the gardener, once again gesturing to the fallen leaves, as if they could testify and provide him with an alibi.

“Can anyone confirm that you were here? Janette, maybe?”

“No, I haven’t seen Janette today. She had choir practice.”

“Can anyone else vouch for you?”

“Well, no. I guess not.”

“You have a key?”

“I have a key to the garden house, not the main house.”

“And how about at Neda Hoeppner’s place?” asked Chase.

“What about Neda?”

“Did Neda give you a key to the house?”

“No. No, she didn’t. None of them do. I just need access to the garden house. That’s where I keep all my stuff. And they all have one. Neda, Janette… Hazel.”

“Hazel?”

“Hazel Larobski and her husband Amadeo. They’re all members of the same choir.”

“And none of these people get along?”

Raban displayed a rare smile.“They hate each other, Detective Kingsley. It wouldn’t surprise me if one of them killed Neda. They all hated her.”

“But why?”

He shrugged.“You have to ask them. I just know that when Neda became director of that choir, that’s when the trouble started.”

Just then, a well-dressed middle-aged woman rounded the corner, and when she saw us all standing there chatting, she called out,“Raban, what did I tell you about inviting your friends over for a chat?!”

“These are not my friends, Miss Janette,” he said immediately. “They are police. They’re here because Mrs. Neda was murdered.”

Janette Bittiner’s reaction was a thing to behold: her jaw literally sagged, then her hand moved to her face and then she uttered a loud, startled cry of anguish.

“Either she’s very upset or she’s a very good actress,” said Dooley.

A small ball of fur fell from the woman’s arms and hit the ground running. It was a small dog, and when he caught sight of Dooley and me, he started yapping up a storm.

Lucky for us Janette quickly scooped up the ball of fur and tucked him into her arms again. Then she said,“You better come in.” And then turned on her heel and walked off.

I wasn’t exactly excited to accept the woman’s invitation, because that little doggie had once more sprung free from her grip and was once again making a break for freedom, trying to reach Dooley and me, yapping furiously all the while, but lucky for us Janette gave her dog’s leash a yank and snapped, “Sugar, quiet!”

And lo and behold: Sugar immediately shut up and tripped behind his mistress in the direction of the house. I noticed he was wearing a blue coat on top of his own coat of fur.

“Maybe we better stay out here,” I suggested to Odelia, who was following in the woman’s wake, as was Chase.

“Nonsense,” she said. “Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to talk to that dog and find out where Janette was when Neda Hoeppner was killed.”

I swallowed as I regarded the little fluffy ball of fury, which kept darting nasty glances in our direction even as he obediently tripped along behind his mistress.

“Are you sure?” I asked in a small voice.

“Absolutely. It’s important that we find out what’s going on with this choir business.”

I shared a look of concern with Dooley. But then like the brave little soldiers that we are, we decided to risk all for the sake of the investigation and our human.

After all, maybe this little dog’s bark was worse than his bite?

5

“This is terrible,” said Janette Bittiner as she shook her auburn curls. “Simply terrible. Murder, you say? Actualmurder?”

“Yes,” Chase confirmed. “Does this come as a surprise to you, Mrs. Bittiner?”

“Miss Bittiner. And yes, it does come as a surprise. Of course it does. I saw Neda just this morning, at choir practice, and now this…” She shook her curls some more. I noticed how glossy they looked, and even though the woman’s face was lined, I couldn’t detect a single gray hair in her hairdo, which was full and luxurious, like in one of those shampoo commercials.

The little doggy she called Sugar was lying next to her on the sofa, and had his beady eyes fixed on me, gauging the potential danger in this feline intruder, no doubt.

“Did you know Neda Hoeppner well?”

“Of course. We were members of the same choir, and had been for years. In fact Neda was one of my dearest, closest friends. And certainly one of my oldest ones, too.”

“She was your dear friend?” asked Odelia. She couldn’t hide her surprise, and I didn’t blame her, after what this woman’s gardener had told us about this choir rivalry.

“Yes, she was. We’re the same age, you see, and have known each other since we went to kindergarten together. Though she used to take away my toys and I used to hit her over the head with a tennis racket.” She laughed. “At least that’s what our teacher Mrs. Willems used to say. I honestlycan’t remember, and neither could Neda.”

“So you were at choir practice this morning?” asked Chase, as Odelia shot a glance in my direction, urging me on to talk to Sugar, and verify Janette’s claims.

“That’s right. Every Monday morning from nine till eleven we have choir practice. And then on Sunday, of course, we sing during morning mass. You have seen us, haven’t you, Miss Poole? Or I should probably say Mrs. Kingsley now,” she added with an indulgent smile.

“I think I’ll keep my maiden name,” said Odelia, returning the smile.

“Oh,” said Janette, her smile wavering, as if she didn’t approve such extravagance.

“But to answer your question, I have seen you sing, and most importantly heard you. Though I have to admit that we don’t come to mass as often as we probably should.”

Janette sniffed.“Of course you don’t. Not many young people do, and even then only on the big days, like Christmas. But we’re there every week regardless,” she added as she flicked away a speck of dust from her blouse. “Singing our hearts out for the Lord.”

“So what did you do after you left choir practice?” asked Chase.

“Oh, this and that. I dropped Sugar off at the pet salon, as I do every Monday, and then I had some errands to run in town.”

“Is there anyone who can confirm that?” asked Chase.

Janette frowned.“Why? I’m not a suspect, am I? I just told you that Neda and I were best friends.”

“Someone told us that you and Neda didn’t see eye to eye lately,” Chase explained.

“Not see eye to eye!” Janette exclaimed. “Who told you that?”

Chase’s response was a shrug, indicating she wasn’t going to get that kind of information from him.

“Well, I can tell you that whoever has been spreading these foul lies about us is very much mistaken. Neda and I were dear, dear friends, and that’s the absolute truth. And if you don’t believe me, you can ask anybody. Ask Father Reilly—he’ll tell you.”

“Oh, we will, Miss Bittiner,” said Chase as he gave her the kind of look he reserved for people who lied to him. It wasn’t a very friendly look, but Janette took it in stride.

Sugar had finally taken the leap from the couch, after spending the last half hour trying to hypnotize me with his intent gaze, and had started approaching us with a slight sense of trepidation. He kept glancing over to Janette, clearly wondering if she’d stop him from giving these intruders a closer inspection, but Janette was still trying to convince Chase that she and Neda had indeed been the best of friends. The very best.

“Hi there,” I said as the small ball of fluff joined me and Dooley on the carpet. He was of the Shih Tzu persuasion if I wasn’t mistaken, and I just hoped he wouldn’t suddenly jump out at me and dig his tiny sharp teeth into my nose or something.

“Hi,” said Sugar. “What’s your name, cat?”

“Max,” I said with what I hoped was a disarming smile, screwing up my charm to make sure we wouldn’t become victims of a sudden attack.

“I’m Dooley,” said Dooley, who’d crept back a little and was using me for cover. I must say it was a sound strategy, as I’m twice Dooley’s size, so if Sugar, for reasons only known to him, would suddenly get it into his nut to attack, he’d find a bigger target in me.

“Nice place you got here,” I said, continuing to ooze charm from every pore.

“It’s all right,” said Sugar dismissively.

“So how were things at the pet salon?” I asked, deciding to get our mission on the road. I had no intention of remaining in Sugar’s company any longer than I needed to.

“Fine,” said the doggie, who clearly was one of those strong and silent types.

“What do they do at these pet salons?” asked Dooley now, and I could tell that in spite of himself, he was genuinely curious.

“Oh, this and that,” said the small dog.

“This and that what?” Dooley insisted.

“Well, they shampoo you and they trim you and then they primp you and they groom you. Why? I thought cats didn’t like to go to the pet salon? I thought you guys didn’t like to have your hair cut, or to be washed and shampooed and have people fuss over you?”

“Oh, no, that’s definitely true,” I agreed. “We don’t necessarily enjoy people sprinkling water on our precious coats and then attack us with comb and scissors. But we do enjoy a new experience as much as the next pet, isn’t that right, Dooley?”

“Absolutely,” said Dooley. “We went to a pet salon once, when Odelia flew us to LA.”

“Odelia is your human, yes?” said Sugar. “That pretty blonde over there?”

“She is pretty, isn’t she?” said Dooley proudly.

“Very pretty,” I agreed, equally proudly.

“And that beefy guy is her husband?”

“Yes, that’s Chase,” I said. “He’s a police detective, and he is very strong.”

“He saved our lives many times,” Dooley confided. “He’s a superhero.”

Sugar gave Chase a skeptical look, then dismissed the burly cop out of paw.“Yeah, right.”

“No, he really is. He saved our lives from two homicidal seagulls only recently.”

“Of course he did,” said Sugar with an indulgent grin.

“And right now he’s looking into the murder of Neda Hoeppner,” I said. “Did you know Neda Hoeppner, Sugar?”

The doggie, who’d decided to finally halt his progress in our direction, probably feeling he was close enough, and had plunked himself down on the carpet, said, “Sure I knew Neda Hoeppner. She was only Janette’s biggest enemy in the whole wide world.”

“Enemy?” I said. “I thought Neda was Janette’s best friend since kindergarten?”

“Don’t believe everything Janette tells you,” said Sugar with a smirk. “She hated Neda’s guts, and the feeling was entirely mutual.”

“But why?”

“Long story,” said Sugar with a slight yawn.

“Tell us,” I said. “We like long stories.”

“We do,” Dooley confirmed. “My favorite story has been running for almost sixty years.”

“Dooley loves General Hospital,” I explained. “He watches it with one of our other humans, Odelia’s grandmother.”

“Okay, so Neda and Janette are both members of the same choir. The St. Theresa Choir. And two weeks ago the previous choir conductor, Samuel Smalls, died of a heart attack. So a new choir director had to be picked. And since that’s Father Reilly’s prerogative, he suggested that all the candidates put their name in the proverbial hat and he would select the best one—or the one he felt was most qualified for the job.”

“And Neda and Janette were both candidates?” I asked, starting to see where the story was going.

Sugar nodded.“Janette always wanted to be choir director. In fact she’s been practicing for years, hoping one day to take over from old Mr. Smalls. She even claims she had some kind of arrangement with Samuel. That when he decided to retire, he would appoint her his successor. Only he died before he could name a successor, and then suddenly it was up to Father Reilly. Janette wasn’t worried, though. Everyone knew that she’d been gunning for the position for years, and that she’d been preparing, even going so far as to take lessons from Samuel Smalls, so she’d be ready when the time came. Only when the time did come, suddenly Neda also threw her name in the hat, even though she knew Janette wanted the position. So Janette felt betrayed.”

“Had they been friends before that?”

“Not really friends, but at least they hadn’t fought like cats and dogs, pardon the pun,” he added with a grin.

I smiled an uncertain smile. I didn’t like the pun, and neither did Dooley, I could tell, for he was moving a little more behind my broad back.

“So it was between Janette and Neda?” I asked.

“There were three candidates, actually,” said Sugar. “Neda, Janette and Yoko Bricknell. But even though Janette felt hurt and betrayed by Neda, she was sure that Father Reilly would pick her… until he didn’t.”

“He picked Neda.”

“He did. And ever since then it’s been all-out war. Janette has sworn a solemn oath that she would prove that Neda was the worst choice as choir director, and set out on a campaign of sabotage.”

“Sabotage?” I asked.

“She’s been derailing every rehearsal Neda has led, and this morning she quit.”

“Quit?”

“If you’re going to keep repeating everything I say you’re going to make this a very difficult conversation, Max,” said Sugar with an eyeroll. “Yes, quit. Janette walked out of the rehearsal, vowing never to return.”

“Ouch,” I said.

Sugar studied me for a long moment.“You know, there’s something I’ve always wondered.”

“Yes, what?” I asked, grateful that Sugar had revealed such an important piece of information, one I was eager to share with Odelia the moment we were back in the car.

“Is it dogs that can run the fastest? Or cats?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I said, but before I could ask more questions about Neda and Janette, suddenly Sugar had sprung to life and was chasing me! It was all I could do to stay ahead of him, as he was yapping up a storm, and putting on a burst of speed the likes of which I’d never before witnessed from a creature as small as him!

He raced me around the room, causing me to jump up and down couches, ignoring frantic cries from our humans to stop this nonsense right now—it wasn’t me who started this nonsense!—and finally jump up onto the table, upend a bowl of potpourri someone had placed there for some strange reason, and take a long jump straight into the curtains, then quickly work my way up those same curtains until I was near the ceiling. Looking down I saw I’d finally managed to shake off my tormentor!

“Congratulations, Max!” Sugar yelled from down below. “You won this round! But I can tell you right now that the next round is mine! Mine, you hear! Mine!”

6

Our next stop was the pet salon where Janette Bittiner claimed she’d dropped off her precious pet—or raging terror in my opinion—and so soon Dooley’s wish to find out what went on behind the closed doors of this establishment would finally come true.

“You moved so fast back there, Max,” said Dooley as we eagerly glanced around the small space of the pet palace. “I didn’t even know you could climb curtains like that!”

“I didn’t know either,” I confessed. “I’ve never climbed curtains before, at least not to my recollection.”

“Pity you destroyed them, and the carpet.”

“Not my fault,” I pointed out. “If Sugar hadn’t chased me, I wouldn’t have felt the need to run like the wind.”

“And run like the wind you certainly did!” said my friend, the admiration in his voice making me feel warm and fuzzy inside despite my recent run-in with a rabid dog.

On a table in the center of the pet salon, a small dog was being primped to his heart’s content, and on what looked like a barber’s chair another dog, this one not so small, was having his coat given a relaxing treatment with a soft brush. It shone like spun gold.

I gulped a little. Coming so close on the heels of my contretemps with a member of the canine species, the last thing I was looking for was to be in the same room with two more members of that same species. These dogs didn’t look dangerous, though. Then again, Sugar hadn’t looked all that dangerous, either!

“Hi,” said Chase when a woman approached the counter located near the entrance. He showed her his badge and immediately a wary look came into the young woman’s eyes. People often have that reaction when Chase shows them his badge.

“Why does she look like she’s about to be arrested, Max?” asked Dooley, who had noticed the same phenomenon.

“I think the presence of a police officer makes people feel guilty, even if they haven’t done anything wrong,” I explained.

“But if they haven’t done anything wrong, why should they feel guilty?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe they think they might have done something, but they’re not sure what.”

“I don’t understand. How can you do something wrong and not know what it was?”

I gave him a smile.“If I walked up to you and said, ‘Dooley, look what you did!’ wouldn’t you feel anxious, even though for the life of you, you can’t remember what it was that you’re supposed to have done?”

He thought about that for a brief moment, then shook his head.“No, I wouldn’t.”

He was the wrong cat to ask, of course. Dooley would never do anything wrong. He’s just not that kind of cat. His conscience is clear, and so he doesn’t have anything to worry about, even if the police suddenly do show up on his doorstep, and flash a badge in his face. But humans are different. They live in a world with so many rules it’s inevitable that by lunchtime they will have broken a couple of them, even inadvertently. Maybe they started to cross the street before the light changed, or maybe they forgot to pay their car insurance, or inadvertently jumped the line at their local Starbucks.

“I just want to verify that Janette Bittiner was in here earlier,” said Chase, trying his best to put the young pet shop employee at ease by offering her a disarming smile.

“Janette? Yeah, she was in here,” said the girl, visibly glad Chase wasn’t there for her.

“Could you tell us what time? Just part of a routine inquiry,” he hastened to add.

And while the young woman searched her memory, Dooley and I inspected the place. They did indeed have everything your pampered pet needs: a nail clipping station, a grooming station, a place where pets could be deloused, if they so chose, and even a small assortment of toys and clothes for your proud pet to wear!

We studied the clothes long and hard, but couldn’t for the life of us imagine ever wearing anything like that.

“I always thought it was just humans who liked to wear clothes and shoes, Max,” Dooley said as he intently studied a pink tutu.

“Dogs, too,” I said.

“Sugar, you mean.”

I nodded, and silently thanked that little blue coat the Shih Tzu had been wearing. If he hadn’t, it’s not inconceivable that he’d shaved off a couple of milliseconds from his time, and would have been able to nab me before I reached the safety of Janette’s curtains.

“I don’t think I’d feel comfortable in this, Max,” said Dooley, finally having come to a decision in regards to the tutu.

“No, me neither,” I said.

“Oh, look at you sweethearts,” suddenly a woman tooted in our ears. She was a woman with a very deep tan, very thin, and her breath smelled like an ashtray. She’d bent down and snapped up the tutu. “Here, let me give you guys a hand,” she said, and before I knew what was happening, suddenly she’d outfitted me with the tutu!

“Um, I don’t want to wear this, ma’am,” I said as politely as I could.

“Look in that mirror over there,” she said, and as I did as instructed, I had to blink when I caught sight of myself. “Looks lovely, doesn’t it, sweetheart?” said the woman. “Though I’m not sure about the size. You are a hefty fella, aren’t you? Let me see if I can find something inyour size—a little less snug around that chubby tummy of yours!”

“Dooley,” I said as I slowly turned to my friend, who was quietly snickering next to me as he took in the scene. “If you breathe a word about this to anyone, I swear I’ll… I’ll…”

“You look great, Max,” said my friend, still grinning from ear to ear. “I think Odelia should snap a couple of pictures.” And before I could stop him, he’d already skedaddled.

And try as I might, I simply couldn’t get out of that terrible outfit! I wiggled and I squirmed but it was all to no avail!

“Easy there, big fella,” said the woman, who’d returned with a similar tutu, only a few sizes bigger. “Let me help you out of that.” And much to my delight, she removed the terrible tutu from my corpus, only to immediately slip the new one on! I have no idea how she did it. It almost looked like sleight of hand!

There,” she said, regarding me with professional pride. “Much better, isn’t it?”

I blinked at her, then glanced in the mirror again. This tutu was even worse than the last one: this one had a lace collar and came with little pink-and-lace booties!

“Please get it off!” I cried, but of course she couldn’t understand me.

Just then, Odelia and Chase finally arrived. But instead of helping me in my hour of need, they both laughed and raised their phones and started snapping pictures of me!

Ugh.

7

I must confess that once I was out of that tutu, and out of that pet salon, the desire to find out who’d murdered Neda Hoeppner had left me. The only desire I now felt was to head on home and remove myself from circulation for a while, but not before imbibing a healthy dose of cat kibble. But since that would involve a long trek home, I decided to go for the nearest thing, which was a visit to Kingman, at the General Store.

Kingman, Hampton Cove’s unofficial feline mayor, is a cat as well-fed and pampered as any, and he never stints for kibble. So it was with the hope of stealing a few bits from his bowl that I now set paw in that direction, deciding to leave Odelia and Chase to it.

Kingman was on the sidewalk, having a nice nap, and when we trotted up, he opened one lazy eye, then closed it again.“Not now, fellas,” he said. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“You don’t look busy, Kingman,” said Dooley.

“I’m thinking. Thinking hard.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“The meaning of life.” He opened that lazy eye again. “Wilbur gave me a new type of wet food last night—I think it was a sample from one of his new pet food suppliers—using me as a guinea pig, you know—and I didn’t like it. So I didn’t eat it, and made my displeasure known by loudlycomplaining. But do you think he understood and gave me my usual tasty snack? No way. He doubled down and this morning gave me the same yucky crap, only this time mixed with some even yuckier stuff. Thought he could fool me!”

“And did you eat it?” I asked.

“What do you think? Of course not!” He sighed. “Though I have a feeling he’ll try feeding me this garbage until I cave. But I’m not budging, Max. I’m standing my ground.”

“Good for you, Kingman.”

“Do you want us to tell Odelia so she can tell Gran so she can tell Wilbur that you don’t like this particular wet food?” Dooley suggested.

But Kingman raised a lazy paw.“Don’t bother. I’ll simply refuse to eat the junk. Eventually he’ll get the message and throw it in the trash.”

“Why do humans insist on feeding us things we don’t like?” I said, the tutu incident still fresh in my mind. Yes, I know that a tutu isn’t food, but it’s the same principle.

“Because they’re stubborn, and they always think they’re right,” said Kingman. “Take Wilbur for instance. He knows women hate his beard, and still he insists on wearing it.”

We all looked up at Wilbur, who was sitting at his counter as usual, picking items from the conveyor belt and scanning them.

“What’s that on his face?” asked Dooley. “Is that a rash?”

“It’s the new beard,” said Kingman.

“It looks like a rash.”

“It’s beard dye.”

“It’s red.”

“Light red brown it said on the label.”

“It’s fire-engine red, Kingman. And why is it in splotches?”

Wilbur’s beard was one of those intricate ones, which take hours to sculpt with a sophisticated trimmer. He’d also decided to paint it a vivid red, which gave the impression as if the lower half of his face was on fire, or dipped in Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce.

“He saw an action movie the other night where the hero had a beard like that, and now he thinks this will make all the difference with the ladies. I could have told him not to bother, but I’m just a cat, so what do I know? He never listens to a meow I say.”

“I think it’s time Wilbur found himself a nice girlfriend,” I said, “and settled down.”

“Yeah, but what woman is going to date that?” he asked, gesturing to his human.

We all looked up at Wilbur again, who was leering at a young lady, his crooked teeth on full display. The woman seemed to gulp in horror, then quickly skedaddled.

“Max was fitted a tutu at the pet parlor just now,” Dooley announced, even though I’d told him never to mention the tutu incident to anyone—ever.

“A tutu?” asked Kingman, a sly smile creeping up his face. “Why, Max, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“I don’t have it in me,” I said, annoyed. “Look, what can you tell us about Neda Hoeppner? She was found dead this morning, her safe ransacked, and according to her gardener Janette Bittiner might be involved.”

“Janette Bittiner?”

“Yeah, she claims she’s one of Neda’s best friends, but according to the woman’s own dog she hated her guts. Something about a dispute over who got to lead the church choir.”

“I think the dog was right,” said Kingman.

“Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent. Look over there.”

We both looked where Kingman was pointing, and I suddenly noticed a flyer, which had been stuck to a lamppost in front of the General Store. It showed a picture of Neda, and above it the words‘Neda Hoeppner is a Jezebel’ had been written. Huh.

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

“Um, a woman whose morals are a little loosey-goosey, Dooley,” I said.

“Loosey-goosey? What do you mean?”

“A woman who likes the men a little too much, okay?” said Kingman.

“Who put that there?” I asked, though I had a feeling I already knew the answer.

“Why, Janette Bittiner, of course,” said Kingman with a grin. “I saw her at it when I got back from cat choir last night. Must have been three in the morning. She was going from pole to pole, putting up those flyers, looking left and right as she did.”

“Janette Bittiner did that?” I asked.

“Sure. So not such a dear friend after all, huh?”

“Mh,” I said as I thought this through. “So Janette hates Neda’s guts, ever since Neda took her spot as the choir director, and so she decides to attack her in this way.”

“Not just this way,” Kingman added. “She was in here this morning, bright and early, and told Wilbur that Neda and Father Reilly…” He darted a quick look at Dooley, then nodded in my direction. “You know.”

“Know what?” asked Dooley.

“Father Reilly and Neda were… special friends.”

“Oh, that’s sweet.”

“Yeah, very sweet,” said Kingman, with a wink in my direction.

“So that’s what she meant by the Jezebel thing,” I said. “Do you really think Neda was having an affair with Father Reilly?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me one bit. Neda was a widow, and she spent an awful lot of time with Francis, her being the new choir director and all. Wilbur certainly believed it. You should have seen him this morning. He couldn’t shut up about it after Janette left.”

“But I thought Wilbur and Father Reilly were friends?” said Dooley. “Why would Wilbur gossip about his friend?”

Kingman shrugged.“Why doesn’t he give me the food I like? And why does he insist on wearing that ridiculous beard? He’s a weirdo, Dooley, and I’m saying that with the utmost love and respect. Now have you given any consideration to Harriet’s new idea?”

“What new idea?” I asked, still thinking hard about Janette’s feud with Neda, and wondering if she would go so far as to actually murder the woman.

“Oh, here she comes now,” said Kingman. “She can tell you herself.”

And indeed Harriet and Brutus had wandered up, and now parked themselves next to us.“Tell you what?” asked Harriet.

“Well, about the choir thing you mentioned earlier,” said Kingman.

“Oh, right,” said Harriet, and gave me a slightly nervous look. “Max, before you say anything, I want you to hear me out, okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

“Max wore a tutu just now,” said Dooley happily, “and Odelia took pictures.”

“Dooley!” I cried.

“But you looked so nice, Max! You should wear it more often. It really brings out your eyes. Oh, and also, Max was almost killed by a vicious dog, but he managed to escape.”

“Killed by a dog!” Harriet cried.

“Had a narrow escape there, buddy?” asked Brutus with a grin.

“Yeah, well, it was only a small dog, but hewas vicious,” I said, not wanting to shine a light on what hadn’t exactly been my finest hour.

“It was a Shit Sue,” said Dooley.

“Shih Tzu,” I corrected him.

“That’s what I said. A Shit Sue.”

“Oh, one of them big and dangerous dogs, huh, Max?” said Brutus, his grin widening.

“Size doesn’t matter, Brutus,” I pointed out. “It’s the personality that matters, and this particular dog’s personality stinks. He tried to bite me, and would have succeeded if I hadn’t been able to escape up the curtains.”

“Not the waterspout?” Brutus asked quasi-innocently.

“No, Brutus. The curtains.” Which unfortunately, and unlike myself, hadn’t made it out alive.

“Classic,” said Brutus with a low chuckle.

“He ripped them to shreds!” said Dooley gleefully, as he relived the terrifying event.

“Way to go, Max!” said Brutus, and clapped me on the back. “Welcome to the club.”

“You have destroyed curtains?” I asked, much surprised.

“Have I destroyed curtains? Yards of them! Back when I was still living in New York, you know, that rough-and-tumble existence before I joined your laid-back life out here in the leafy suburbs, I was having to fight my way out of a tight spot all the time, and many a curtain has experienced my wrath!” He laughed loudly, thinking back to those halcyon days of yore, when New York’s no doubt many curtains weren’t safe from his claws.

“So the choir,” said Harriet, giving her mate a censorious glance, which quickly shut him up. “I was thinking, why is it always the human choirs that get all the attention?” She gestured to a flyer stuck up on the General Store’s bulletin board, which announced an upcoming concert of St. Theresa Choir. “Why can’t cat choir receive that kind of attention for a change? We’re easily as good as these human choirs.”

I was going to beg to differ, but then I caught Brutus’s warning look, and so I shut up. Cat choir is one of Harriet’s pet projects, since she’s its main soprano, and gets to sing all the solos.

“So that’s why I thought, why don’t we schedule a joint performance? Cat choir and St. Theresa Choir—double bill. That will draw in the crowds, don’t you think?”

I was quiet for a moment, waiting for the punchline. If this was a joke, it wasn’t a very good one, but I was still prepared to laugh heartily. So when it finally dawned on me that this wasn’t a joke, and that Harriet was dead serious, I gulped a little. “You want… cat choir… to sing together… with Father Reilly’s church choir?”

“Absolutely! And why I didn’t think of it sooner, I don’t know. It’s the best idea I’ve ever had.”

“Um…” Once more Brutus gave me an intent look, then slowly shook his head, as if to warn me not to laugh, and most definitely not to deny Harriet this triumph.

“Oh, for sure,” I said finally. “I think it’s a wonderful idea.” And completely bananas.

8

“I didn’t know Janette Bittiner was a flower girl, Max,” said Dooley.

“She’s not a flower girl, Dooley. She runs a flower shop, that’s not the same as being a flower girl.”

We were in Bittiner Petals, Janette’s flower shop, where Odelia and Chase were asking the woman a couple more questions, after I’d told Odelia what Kingman had told me. I’d dutifully reported the large cat’s words to Odelia at her office, and immediately she’d set out on this interview.

“Who saw me, exactly?” Janette demanded. She was standing behind the counter of her shop, snipping the stems from flowers before sticking them in nice vases.

“That doesn’t matter,” said Chase. “What matters is that you were seen putting up this flyer,” he said, and slammed one of the flyers in question down on the counter.

Janette jumped a little at the sudden change in the cop’s demeanor and glanced at the object in question. “Okay, yes, so I did put those up. But I had every reason to.”

“A reason to suggest that Neda and Father Reilly were having an affair?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re saying theywere having an affair?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Francis and Neda? Of course not.”

“But then why would you suggest it? And make Wilbur Vickery spread this rumor?”

“Oh, so that’s who saw me, huh? He could have said something when I talked to him.”

“Answer the question, Janette,” said Chase. “Why did you spread this rumor about your so-called best friend? And what’s all this nonsense about a church choir feud?”

“It’s not nonsense,” Janette snapped as she put the vase aside and placed both hands on the counter. “Look, that role of choir director was mine. Samuel Smalls trained me—everyone knew I’d been preparing to take over from him for years, and Samuel had even promised me as much. ‘When Iretire,’ he told me more than once, ‘I’m going to present you as my successor. You have the skills, Janette, and you should be the one to lead St. Theresa Choir when I’m gone.’ Only Sam died before he could name me his successor, and then of course Neda had to add her name to the list of candidates.”

“You weren’t the only one up for the role,” said Odelia.

“Apparently not. Even though Neda knew perfectly well that I’d had my heart set on that position. And then of course Father Reilly twisted the knife by picking her over me!”

“You were hurt.”

“Of course I was hurt! Wouldn’t you be? She was supposed to be my friend, and then she stabbed me in the back when she had the chance. And so did Francis, by the way—he’s also to blame for this fiasco. He told me he wanted to be fair. That he couldn’t very well appoint me out of the blue.Out of the blue! I’d been waiting for this for years!”

“And so you decided to sabotage Neda’s directorship, and when that didn’t work, you quit.”

Janette’s face took on an expression of bitterness. “You are very well informed, Mrs. Poole. Did Wilbur tell you about that, too?”

“It doesn’t matter who told us,” said Odelia. “What matters is that you said Neda was your best friend, and now it turns out she wasn’t, and in fact you did whatever you could to undermine her.”

“You went to see her this morning, didn’t you?” said Chase, as he leaned in. “And you argued, just like you did this morning in church, and she said something outrageous that made you even more upset, and finally you gave her a shove and she fell and hit her head. And when you realized she was dead, you emptied her safe, which happened to be open, and decided to make it look like a robbery. Isn’t that what happened!” He pounded the counter with his fist, and caused the vase to jump up and pay attention.

Janette flinched, but calmly said,“No, that’s not what happened, Detective Kingsley. Yes, I did put up those flyers. And yes, I tried to undermine Neda, but I didn’t go over to her house this morning, and I most certainly did not kill her.”

“Oh, please,” said Chase.

“What you’re conveniently forgetting is that Neda and I weren’t the only two people interested in that directorship. There was a third person who desperately wanted to lead that choir. And she probably resented Neda becoming director even more than I did.”

“Yoko Bricknell,” said Odelia.

“Yes, Yoko. Sweet, darling Yoko. But you should have seen her face when Francis announced he’d chosen Neda. She could have killed her—and I’m not sure she didn’t.”

After leaving Janette to her flowers, we all repaired to the police station, for a meeting with Uncle Alec. A chance for Odelia and Chase to report to him about their progress, and for the Chief to share with them any information he might have gleaned.

Until now access to the police station has always been prohibited to both Dooley and myself, and so when we arrived together, out of sheer habit we stopped in front of Dolores Peltz’s desk, the station dispatcher and receptionist, and decided to wait for Odelia and Chase to return from their meeting. But much to our surprise, Odelia beckoned us on, and with a smile told us that her uncle, on her instigation, had lifted his unreasonable embargo, and that we could consider ourselves ‘cats grata’ from now on.

It was a nice change, I must admit. I don’t mind sneaking around and getting my information by means of stealth and such, but being able to sit in on a conversation is much easier, of course.

Just as we walked on, a man walked into the station, and approached Dolores. He told her he was there about this morning’s car crash, and could he speak to a police officer?

I was torn between wanting to find out more about this car crash—for some reason they’ve always fascinated me, and I can watch a nice car crash for hours, not unlike the next rubbernecker—and proceeding into the station house proper. But then the prospect of setting paw inside this holiest of holy places took precedence over my rubbernecking, and so I followed Odelia and Chase inside Chase’s place of work.

If this kept up, soon I’d be sent to police academy to train as a police cat!

9

“So what have we got?” asked Uncle Alec, as he gave Dooley and me a not-so-friendly look. Clearly Odelia had twisted his arm in making him accept our presence there, but he wasn’t happy about it.

“Well, so far we have interviewed Cher Shorn—that’s Neda’s secretary—Raban Pacoccha, her gardener, and Janette Bittiner, one of St. Theresa Choir’s members, and also Neda’s rival for the much-coveted post of choir director,” said Odelia, giving her uncle a brief overview of the investigation as it stood so far.

“So what do you think? This gardener looking good for the murder? Or Janette?”

“Both, I would say,” said Chase. “Raban Pacoccha, at least according to Cher Shorn, is a man always in need of money, to fund his drug habit, and Janette Bittiner confessed to putting up those flyers all over town, calling Neda a Jezebel, and pretty much suggesting she and Francis Reilly werehaving an affair.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” the Chief grunted. “So what about the gardener?”

“He’s been arrested once or twice for drug use,” Chase confirmed, “though lately he’s kept his nose clean, so to speak.”

“And Janette?”

“Clean record. Though she did admit that she and Neda fought tooth and claw over that choir directorship.”

“You better have a chat with Francis Reilly,” the Chief suggested. “Find out what the deal was with that choir business. So how about alibis?”

“Neither Raban or Janette have an alibi,” said Odelia. “Raban was working in Janette’s garden, but has no witnesses to corroborate this, and Janette dropped her dog off at the pet parlor, then went shopping—or so she says. She could very easily have paid a visit to Neda, and gotten into another argument. Things got heated, she gave Neda a shove, which made her hit her head, and gameover.”

“And if Neda had left that safe open, Janette could have decided to empty it, to make it look like a robbery gone wrong,” Chase finished the story.

“I’ll arrange for two search warrants,” said Uncle Alec, nodding. “One for Janette Bittiner and one for Raban Pacoccha. If we’re lucky we find the gold and the jewels, and we’ve got our killer.”

“What did Abe say?” asked Chase.

“I haven’t gotten his report yet, but I called him and he says everything points to accidental death. She hit her head, cracked her skull. No other wounds on the body, and her bloodwork looks clean, too. No, I think your theory looks like the most probable one,” he added, pointing to his niece. “Either the gardener or Janette got into a fight with Neda, there was some pushing and shoving, she hit her head and that’s it. And frankly if it wasn’t for that safe there wouldn’t even be a case. People take bad falls all the time.”

Just then, Dolores stuck her head in.“Chief, I’ve got a guy here wanting to know if a witness has come forward about that traffic accident this morning on Groveler Street? Man or woman on a red bike? One of those rental bikes?”

“No, Dolores,” said the Chief. “Haven’t heard anything about a witness on a red bike.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Ask Sully to take a statement,” said Uncle Alec, waving off his dispatcher with an impatient hand. “I don’t have time for this. I’m up to my neck in this murder business.”

“And what a fine neck it is,” said Dolores with a cheeky grin.

Uncle Alec, who has no neck to speak off, directed a dark frown at his insubordinate subordinate, but his frown hit the door, as Dolores had ducked out again.

“So what’s next?” asked Chase.

“You tell me.”

“I would like to talk to Yoko Bricknell,” said Odelia. “Janette says Yoko hated Neda even more than she did. She also wanted to direct the choir,” she explained.

“You do that, and don’t forget about Francis,” said her uncle. “I’ll arrange those search warrants and send a couple of uniforms to go through those places with a fine-tooth comb.”

Odelia and Chase both got up to leave.“Oh, and better check Janette’s flower shop,” said Odelia. “It would be the perfect place to hide some valuables.” When her uncle gave her a questioning look, she added, “Buried in a flower pot?”

“Great thinking, honey,” said Uncle Alec with a nod. “Well, off you go. Catch me a killer.” He then shot a nasty glance at me. “You, too, Max. Make yourself useful.”

I could tell he didn’t like the presence of two cats in his office, and so I said, “We’ll catch your killer for you, Uncle Alec,” just to make him realize he was doing the right thing, giving us his confidence like this, and access to his office.

“What did he say?” asked Uncle Alec.

“He says that he’ll catch you this killer,” said Odelia with a smile.

“He’d better,” said the Chief. He leaned back in his chair, which uttered a loud groan in protest. Uncle Alec is a large man, and with every hair on his head he loses, he gains a couple of pounds to keep things in balance. “You know, if Max keeps solving all of my crimes for me, soon he’ll be in this chair running this office, and I’ll be out on the street.”

“No one knows that Max helps us solve crimes,” said Odelia soothingly.

“Oh, you think they don’t know? Honey, there are no secrets in this town. I’m sure that people are saying why pay this guy Alec Lip a handsome salary when that darn cat does all the work and all he’s asking in return is a nice bowl of cat food!”

“I’m sure they don’t, Uncle Alec,” I said.

But judging from the dark look he shot in my direction, it was obvious that the whole feline sleuthing thing was bothering him—and bothering him a lot!

10

Yoko Bricknell turned out to be a lovely young woman with bright orange hair. And I thought I could detect a few touches of verdant green in there as well. It all seemed very fitting with her place of business, which was a restaurant that prided itself on its bouillabaisse.‘Serving the best bouillabaisse in the Hamptons,’ it claimed on the sign placed outside. I think it’s probably hard to confirm such a bold claim, unless one wants to sample all the bouillabaisse served in all the restaurants in the Hamptons, and who would be up for such a challenge? Not me, Ican tell you. I don’t even like bouillabaisse.

Yoko didn’t seem surprised to be paid a visit by the local constabulary, and even the fact that it came with two cats in tow didn’t faze this young woman in the slightest.

She gestured to a table near the back of the establishment where she worked as a waitress, and waited for her interrogators to get down to business.

There weren’t many people in the restaurant, which meant that either public taste has gone off bouillabaisse, or that we were in the lull between the lunch and dinner hour.

“So what do you want to know?” she asked, tapping a green fingernail on the tabletop.

She was dressed in black from top to toe, and even had a black apron tied in front, with a large pocket where presumably she kept her order book and whatever change she needed to have on hand for those few people who still like to pay with cash, not plastic.

“We’re investigating the murder of Neda Hoeppner,” said Chase, not beating about the bush.

“Neda is dead?” asked Yoko, halting the tapping and bringing that same hand to her face in a gesture of consternation. “But… I just saw her this morning. At choir rehearsal.”

“She was attacked in her home after she came back from choir practice,” Odelia explained in gentle tones—gentler than her police officer counterpart at least.

“Oh, God,” said Yoko, and her face betrayed her shock and surprise at this unexpected development. “Do you know what happened? Was it a random attack?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” said Chase as he placed his little notebook on the table and held his pencil, poised, over the standard-issue police paraphernalia. “How well did you know Neda, Miss Bricknell?”

“Um…” Yoko needed a moment to compose herself, and I could see that her hand was trembling. “Not all that well,” she finally said. “I mean, we weren’t friends or anything, and didn’t meet outside of choir practice. She was a good deal older than me, and she wasn’t the kind of person I’d see myself socializing with, if you know what I mean.”

“Can you explain that?” asked Chase as he fixed the young woman with an inquisitive look.

“Umm, well, Neda was the boss, you know. The boss of the choir, and she liked to make us feel that she was in charge. She created this… distance. Ever since she was appointed the new conductor, she liked us to refer to her as Mrs. Hoeppner.”

“And before?”

“We called her by her Christian name, but the moment she was appointed, she felt that we needed to treat her with the respect she deserved.” There was an undertone of annoyance in Yoko’s voice. It was obvious she hadn’t been Neda’s biggest fan.

“You were also applying for the same position,” said Odelia. “So how did you feel about Neda being chosen over you?”

“I didn’t like it,” said Yoko frankly. “In fact I hated it.”

“Hated her? Or…”

Yoko thought for a moment.“No, I can’t say I hated her. I just thought it was the wrong decision. And that’s what I told Father Reilly when he made the announcement.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him what I’d said before, when I applied for the position. I said that I felt St. Theresa Choir should try to appeal to young people more, and not just Neda’s generation and up. You know that I’m the youngest person in that choir? The next person is fifteen years older than me. Average age is sixty-eight, with the oldest one being Mrs. Gumpel at eighty-seven. So I told Father Reilly that if he really wanted St. Theresa to die out in a couple of years he needed to keep doing what he was doing. But if he wanted us to survive, he needed to bring in more people of my generation.” She was speaking passionately, her eyes sparkling with the holy fire of conviction, her cheeks flushed.

“And you thought that with you as choir director, you would appeal more to young people,” said Odelia, nodding.

“Of course! I know I’ve tried to get my friends to join the choir, but they all say they don’t feel welcome in a choir where the large majority could be their mother or grandmother. But of course Father Reilly wouldn’t listen,” she concluded with a shrug.

“And why do you think that is?” asked Chase, who’d jotted down a few notes in his illegible handwriting even he probably has a hard time interpreting.

“You’d have to ask him.”

“Some people have suggested that he was having an affair with Neda,” said Odelia.

Yoko smiled at this.“With some people you probably mean Janette Bittiner. But she’s only saying that because she wanted that position very badly herself, and she’ll do anything to undermine Neda’s directorship.”

“Even… murder?” asked Chase.

“I didn’t say that. All I know is that Janette was very upset when Neda was appointed. And she certainly wasn’t quiet about it.”

“Those flyers…” Odelia said.

“You think that was her?” asked Yoko, her eyes widening.

Odelia nodded.

Yoko rolled her eyes.“Look, I wanted that position, too, but I’d never make a total fool of myself. I mean, I’ve thought about leaving ever since Neda took over, but I have to admit she does a good job.” She remembered why we were sitting together, and sobered. “Did a good job—I still can’t believe what happened. Are you sure it was… murder?”

“We’re sure,” said Odelia gently, as she placed a hand on the girl’s arm. “Now can you think of anyone else who’d be able to shed some more light on what happened?”

“Father Reilly,” said the girl promptly. “If anyone knows what was going on in St. Theresa it’s him. Neda may have been the director, but he’s in charge. He’s the one pulling all the strings, and he’s also the person people go to when they have an issue. So if anyone knows what kind of machinations were going on behind the scenes, it’s him.”

Chase and Odelia got up, and thanked Yoko for her time. But before they left, Chase turned and said,“Oh, one more thing, Miss Bricknell. Where were you this morning between eleven-thirty and twelve?”

“I was here,” said the girl. “My shift started at eleven, which is why I had to leave the rehearsal ten minutes early.”

“Can anyone confirm that?”

“Ask my boss. In fact Bill would be more than happy to tell you if I was even one minute late. He’s a real stickler for punctuality. Unfortunately,” she added ruefully.

“So what do you think, Max?” asked Dooley. “She didn’t look like a killer to me.”

“No, she certainly did not,” I agreed as we reconvened out on the sidewalk. Odelia and Chase were holding a similar conversation, and they, too, had been favorably impressed with young Miss Bricknell.

“She seemed upset that she wasn’t chosen to lead the choir,” I said, “but not upset enough that she would murder its current incumbent. So no, at first glance I don’t think we just had a conversation with a killer. Also, she seems to have a pretty solid alibi.”

“Yes, it’s all about the alibi, isn’t it, Max?”

“It often comes down to that,” I agreed.

“Unless Bill Bouillabaisse is her accomplice,” said my friend as he thought things through to their logical conclusion, as a good detective is wont to do.

“I don’t think Bill’s name is Bouillabaisse,” I said. “Bouillabaisse is just his signature dish.”

But my friend was too deep in thought to listen to this minor addendum.“She could be having an affair with Mr. Bouillabaisse, of course, and he could be one of those men that are putty in a femme fatale’s hands.”

“Yoko didn’t exactly strike me as a femme fatale,” I said. “More like a sweet-nurtured young woman with ambition and pluck.”

“She could be a femme fatale. Femme fatales have a way of concealing their femme fataleness. She could have harbored a deeper grudge against Neda than she admitted, and could have enlisted her demon lover’s assistance to do away with her rival. And now that Neda is gone, she’ll take over the choir and she’ll be its new and undisputed leader.”

“But…”

“And if anyone else dares to oppose her, she’ll deal with them as well,” he concluded.

“Now really, Dooley,” I said. “That all seems very—”

“Far-fetched? Not at all. In Friday’s episode of General Hospital Doctor Adolf murdered a patient in cold blood, with the willing assistance of his lover, Nurse Braun. In fact Doctor Adolf handled the lethal syringe while she looked on appreciatively. You see, the patient was Nurse Braun’s rival, being in pole position for the position of head nurse. So she had to die, and now the road is clear for Nurse Braun to ascend the throne and become the hospital’s undisputed head nurse.” He nodded wisely. “There’s a lot to be learned from General Hospital, Max. It holds up a mirror to humanity, showing us what makes these humans tick. Any student of crime should follow its storylines closely.”

“I really don’t think your Nurse Braun and Yoko Bricknell’s situation are comparable,” I protested.

“Just you wait and see, Max,” said my friend, the soap opera fan. “Nurse Braun still hasn’t been caught, and I doubt she ever will. And the same probably goes for Yoko.” He cast a critical look at the restaurant, where both Yoko and Bill now stood watching us.

“See? They’re watching us, talking about the murder,” said Dooley.

“I’m sure they’re simply talking about what happened to Neda.”

“Exactly,” said Dooley. “And about who their next victim will be. Mark my words,” he said as we walked on, “Neda isn’t the first victim of these Bonnie and Clyde wannabes.”

“I thought it was Nurse Braun and Doctor Adolf?” I said with a smile.

He gave me a keen look.“Do you know what Nurse Braun’s first name is?”

“Um, no,” I had to admit. I’m not keen on watching soap operas myself.

“Bonnie,” he said, and gave me a meaningful nod. “And Doctor Adolf’s is Clyde.”

“Bonnie Braun and Clyde Adolf?”

“Exactly. I rest my case, Max.”

11

While Dooley was still ruminating on the repercussions of his stunning discovery, Odelia and Chase had walked the short distance from the restaurant to St. John’s Church, where Father Reilly holds forth on a regular basis.

The aged priest is a dear friend of Gran, and also a member of one of the two neighborhood watches Hampton Cove is proud to look to for its protection. When we arrived we found him pottering about in the church, making sure he had all his ducks in a row, though in his case those ducks had taken the shape of the chairs his parishioners liked to lower themselves on to hear him spread the word of their Lord and Savior.