1c8c0f371c0d914159db2df0bf94b5c6

Werewolves, thought Odelia with a shiver. How was that even possible?

“Your grandmother means well, Odelia,” said Father Reilly now. “She wants people to clean up after their dogs, but she needs to realize it’s hard to make people change their ways. The only thing that works is the stick and the carrot. You fine people when they leave their doggie’s doo on the street, and you reward them when they clean it up by distributing free baggies. It’s a crude way of doing things but I can assure you it works.”

“So no more trying to convince them to buy litter boxes?” she asked with a smile.

“It was a long shot, I fully realize that,” he said, “but I thought it was an idea worth pursuing. And in the process I managed to bury the hatchet with your grandmother. She’s a formidable woman, but prone to overexcitement. She does get carried away.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” she said with a laugh. “I just hope she hasn’t jeopardized my uncle’s chances of remaining chief of police.”

“And why is that?” asked Father Reilly curiously.

“Well, the Mayor wants him to take early retirement, and for Chase Kingsley to take over as chief.”

“Ooh, that would devastate Alec. He loves that job. And what reason did the Mayor give? Isn’t Alec giving satisfaction in his job anymore?”

“I have no idea. The Mayor says he wants a breath of fresh air, and that Alec has been chief for far too long, so…”

“Unwise,” said the priest, shaking his head. “This tendency of doing away with experience in favor of youth. Youth has many qualities, but we mustn’t forget to honor and appreciate experience, too. And Alec has been the best chief this town has ever known. And I would know, as I’ve been around long enough to have seen how his predecessors made a mess of things. I just hope the Mayor knows what he’s doing.”

Somehow Odelia had a feeling he didn’t.

Chapter 27

Chase studied Grace Farnsworth’s phone. Odelia had been right. Alicia did have the passcode to her mother’s phone, and had easily been able to unlock it. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything on it to indicate what could have happened to the woman.

There were plenty of messages back and forth between her and Fabio, and the nature of the messages revealed the two of them had indeed been having an affair. The last message was sent the day before around eleven in the morning, and was a giddy one.

‘Can’t wait to sit for you!’ she wrote, to which Fabio had responded, ‘You mean sit on me!’

After that, nothing. Lots of selfies of her and Fabio, the same kind of pictures as the one hanging above the makeshift bed in the cottage. Some were a little risqu?, or a lot. Not exactly fit for public consumption, or Alicia’s eyes, which is why Chase hadn’t allowed her to scroll through the phone, but had immediately confiscated the thing.

“And?” asked Alec as he took a seat on the edge of Chase’s desk. “Anything?”

“They were having an affair, all right, but no indication of what might have happened to her.” He placed the phone on his desk and folded his hands behind his head. “Do you think your friend Jock could have something to do with his wife’s disappearance?”

“You mean did he finally get fed up with her philandering and killed both her and her lover? I don’t know, Chase, but honestly? I don’t think he’s the type.”

“He didn’t look particularly bothered by the affair,” said Chase. “In fact he almost seemed to condone it.”

“You heard what he said. He and Grace had drifted apart, and only stayed together for Alicia.”

“He probably has a girlfriend, too.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me. A handsome man like him?”

“So where does that leave us?”

“I’m starting to think Jock is right. That they eloped.”

“Possible,” Chase allowed. “But then why leave the phone?”

“She could have had more than one phone. Decided to start a new life with the boyfriend, instead of sneaking behind her husband’s back all the time.”

“But would she leave her daughter in the lurch?”

“Grace Farnsworth always struck me as the kind of woman who only cared about herself and her little pleasures, I’m afraid. So it’s very well possible she didn’t spend a single thought about what effect her sudden disappearance would have on Alicia.”

“Harsh.”

“But in character.”

They weren’t getting anywhere, that much was obvious.

“Maybe we should search the house, and the domain,” said Chase. “Take a couple of dogs.”

Uncle Alec got up.“Let’s wait another day. She could still turn up.”

Chase decided to change the topic.“So have you heard from the Mayor?”

“Nope. And I hope it stays that way,” said the Chief with a grimace.

He walked out of the office and Chase was alone with his thoughts once more. He wondered about Grace, but then found his thoughts turning to Odelia, wondering how she figured this whole thing. Odelia had good instincts, and then there were her cats, who always seemed to rout out little clues and hints here and there. He decided to wait until tonight. Odelia was probably busy, and he didn’t want to bother her at work.

He sighed, brought his computer back to life by pressing the space bar, and started typing up his report of that morning’s events.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_3]

Odelia had dropped Father Reilly and Shanille off at the church, and now made her way home to drop off Harriet and Brutus. She thought about returning to the office to talk to Dan but didn’t see the point. She hadn’t made any progress with the case of Grace and was pretty sure that if Dan had any news to spill he would have called her.

And since she hadn’t heard from Chase or her uncle either, it was obvious the investigation was officially stalled.

Then again, this was often so: for a long time no progress seemed to be made, things simmering and percolating, and then suddenly everything happened all at once.

She was curious to find out how Max and Dooley had fared, and if they had unearthed some new and exciting clues.

When she didn’t immediately find the twosome, she wondered not for the first time if she shouldn’t outfit her cats with GPS collars. Chase had once suggested the idea but it sounded a little too much science fiction for her taste. On the other hand, always knowing where her feline brood was would be an enormous help. They had a tendency to land themselves in trouble, and that way she could easily track their movements.

She walked out into the backyard, knowing they loved to lounge on the bench and let the world go by, but they weren’t there either.

Suddenly a loud cry of anguish sounded from next door, and immediately she made her way over.

Harriet was in the kitchen, screaming her head off, and she crouched down to check if she hadn’t hurt herself. She didn’t see any blood, though, or any cuts or injuries.

“What’s wrong, Harriet?” she asked urgently. “Are you hurt?”

“My litter box!” the gorgeous Persian cried.

Odelia checked the litter box, but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

“A dog!” Harriet finally managed between two anguished pants. “A dog has made a dump in my litter box!”

Oops.

Chapter 28

As the Poole family sat down for dinner that night, the atmosphere was fraught with a peculiar kind of tension that hung over the dinner table like a wet blanket.

Grandma Muffin hadn’t said a word all evening, and neither had Tex, still sore that his trusty secretary and receptionist had deserted him during business hours, not to return.

“Amazing pork chops, Marge,” said Uncle Alec, valiantly trying to break the ice.

“Thanks, Alec. Want some more?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” he said gratefully, and offered his plate for replenishments.

Uncle Alec has always been a good trencherman, and even though Chase had been trying to make him adopt the fitness lifestyle, so far it hadn’t really worked.

“So how is the case, boys?” asked Marge now. “Have you found Grace yet?”

“Not a trace of Grace, I’m afraid,” said Alec. “I’m seriously starting to think Jock was right, and that she ran off with this Fabio guy.”

“Is that the same Grace you were friends with back in high school?” asked Tex now. “The Grace who married Jock Farnsworth?”

“The one and only,” said Marge, suspiciously chipper.

“Your wife’s ex-boyfriend Jock, you mean,” said Gran.

“Ma!” said Alec sharply.

“What? It’s common knowledge that Marge used to date Jock long before there was any mention of Tex.”

Dooley and I, who were lying on the carpet, shared a look of concern. Marge had specifically asked Odelia not to mention that she’d gone out to the Farnsworth house that morning, so as not to make her husband jealous, but she hadn’t told Gran, which she probably should have.

“So did you and Odelia find something at the Farnsworth cottage this morning?” Gran now asked. “I’ll bet Jock was happy to see you, huh? I’ll bet he’s still got the hots for you.”

Tex looked up as if stung.“You went to see Jock Farnsworth this morning?”

“Well, Alicia asked for our help, so…”

“Who’s Alicia? “asked Tex suspiciously.

“She’s Grace and Jock’s daughter,” said Odelia, “and also Dan’s goddaughter. So when her mother went missing she turned first to her father, but he claimed Grace was probably on holiday and had neglected to tell her daughter. Alicia didn’t buy that explanation, so she turned to her godfather for help, and then Dan asked me, and then I asked Mom to make the necessary introductions.”

“So you met Jock,” said Tex, staring down at a big glob of mayonnaise. He’d dabbed his index finger in the glob and was making circular motions for some reason.

“Tex is playing with his food. Marge isn’t going to like that,” said Dooley.

“I think that’s probably the furthest thing from her mind right now,” I said.

“Oh, honey, don’t be upset,” said Marge, placing a hand on her husband’s arm. He jerked it away.

“So did you and Jock have a good time? Reminisce? Talk about the good old days?”

“Oh, Dad, don’t be that way,” said Odelia.

“Yeah, Tex, don’t be an asshole,” said Gran.

But Tex’s face had taken on a mutinous expression. “Thank you all for your concern, but I just lost my appetite.” And with these words he pushed back his chair, got up, and walked off.

“I guess he didn’t like those pork chops,” said Alec, untroubled by the events that had just transpired. He eyed his brother-in-law’s plate. Marge took it and handed it to him.

“Thanks, honey,” said Alec. “Sure he doesn’t want them anymore?”

“Pretty sure,” said Marge.

“Why is Tex behaving like a moron?” asked Gran.

“Oh, Ma, please,” said Marge, and also left the table.

Now it was just Gran, Alec, Chase and Odelia. And Dooley and me under the table.

“He can’t possibly still be jealous after thirty years, can he?” said Gran. “Only an idiot would feel threatened by a boyfriend who dumped Marge three decades ago.”

“Tex has always felt threatened by Jock,” said Uncle Alec. “And why not? Jock is successful, rich and handsome. And Tex always felt he played second fiddle to the guy, and that Marge only picked him because she couldn’t have Jock. So she settled for less.”

“Tex was the rebound guy?” asked Gran.

Alec nodded.“At first I think he was, and it’s always made him feel insecure. Tex has never been Mr. Popular the way Jock was. Jock was the kid all the girls wanted to be with, the kid all the boys wanted to be. And so when Marge got dumped, and hooked up with Tex, he was always looking over his shoulder, afraid Jock would decide to take her back.”

“She would never have done that, would she?” asked Odelia.

“I’m not sure. She took it pretty hard when Jock dumped her for Grace,” said Alec, “especially since Grace held onto him, and eventually married the guy. Marge probably wondered why she hadn’t been able to do that, and what Grace had that she didn’t have. But I say it was all for the best. Tex is ten times the man Jock Farnsworth is, and I’m sure Jock would never have been able to make Marge happy the way Tex has.”

“A pity he doesn’t realize that himself,” said Odelia.

“Yeah, but isn’t that always the way, though?” asked Chase. “The best guys don’t realize their own value?”

“I realize how valuable you are,” said Odelia, smiling at her boyfriend. “And how lucky I am.”

“No I’m the lucky one,” he said.

“No, I’m the lucky one.”

“Oh, can you two lovebirds go and coo somewhere else?” said Gran. “It’s making me sick to the stomach.”

“Gran is in a great mood,” said Dooley.

“Gran is always in a great mood,” I said.

“So how about your litter box revolution, Gran?” asked Odelia. “Are you still going through with it?”

“I dropped it,” said Gran morosely. “Because of a certain nosy parker who decided to show up unannounced and uninvited.”

“I told you, you can’t go around telling people to buy litter boxes and make it sound as if Uncle Alec ordered them to.”

“Wait, what?” asked Alec. “She did what now?”

“Gran went door to door today with Father Reilly and Harriet and Brutus and Shanille,” said Odelia with a smile, as Gran rolled her eyes. “She tried to sell dog owners on the litter box revolution and told them you sanctioned a new rule whereby they’re not allowed to let their dogs do theirbusiness on the sidewalk and have to train them to use a litter box.”

“You told them I said that?” asked Alec, replacing his pork chop on his plate. It was a testament to his extreme emotion. Under normal circumstances Alec would never put down a pork chop once he’s targeted it for consumption.

“I wanted to boost your candidacy!” said Gran. “At thirty percent dog owners are a minority in this town, like I told you, and so sixty percent of the population would be happy they didn’t have to step in dog shit anymore—giving you a nice fat majority.”

“I think that’s seventy percent, Vesta,” said Chase.

“Who asked you, mathlete wannabe?!”

“But I told you I don’t want to run for mayor!” said Alec.

“You don’t know what’s good for you, Alec. You never did. You need your mother to decide for you—always have!”

“No, I don’t! I like being chief. I want to be chief. I want to keep on being chief!”

“Not for much longer, you won’t,” said Chase.

“Exactly!” said Gran. “If you want to keep on being chief, you need to get rid of this mayor! And the only way to do that is by running for mayor yourself. That way you can appoint yourself chief.”

“I can’t be mayor and chief, Ma.”

“Yes, you can. It’s called multi-tasking and people do it every day. Just look at Jeff Bezos. He’s CEOand hot stud muffin at the same time. And if Jeff can do it, you can, too!”

Alec was shaking his head, then pushed himself away from the table and got up.“I’m going home to watch the game. Are you coming, Chase?”

“You can watch it at my place,” said Odelia.

“Are you going out?” asked Chase.

“Yes, I am,” said Odelia, giving me and Dooley a wink. “I have some unfinished business involving chickens.”

Chapter 29

“Oh, honey, don’t be upset,” said Marge as she tried to talk her unresponsive husband off the proverbial ledge. “You know I only went down there because Odelia asked me to. I haven’t thought about Jock in many, many years.”

But Tex was staring at the TV, where some Netflix horror movie was playing, a genre he normally hated. His face had taken on a rebellious expression and he was sitting with his arms folded across his chest.

“You can’t still be jealous of Jock after all these years. Do you really think I would have married you if I loved Jock? You’re crazy if you think that.”

“Jock calls and immediately you go running,” said Tex. “That tells me everything I need to know.”

“I didn’t go running because Jock called. I went because Odelia asked me to. What did you want me to do? Tell her I couldn’t go because it would make you upset?”

“I’m not upset,” he grunted, looking extremely upset.

She laughed.“Oh, Mr. Grumpy McGrumpypants. I only love you, Tex, and have loved you for thirty years now. Yes, I was in love with Jock back in high school, or at least I thought I was, but that was just a schoolgirl crush. And it’s also true I was sad when he left me for Grace, but then I met you, and I soon realized Jock had done me a huge favor. If he hadn’t dumped me I wouldn’t have fallen for you, and we wouldn’t have made this wonderful life together, and had this amazing daughter.”

“You fell for me?” he asked in a small voice.

“Of course I did!”

“I wasn’t just some… rebound guy?”

“Of course not! By the time I met you I’d long forgotten about Jock. I was over him.”

“I didn’t know that,” he said. “I always assumed you only hooked up with me so you could show off to Jock—make him jealous.”

“Oh, Tex,” she said, and looped her arm through his. He let her, and gave her his best lost puppy look.

“Vesta’s right. I’m an idiot.”

“Yes, you are, but you’re my idiot,” she said, nestling against his chest.

“I’m sorry, Marge. I’ve behaved like a silly school kid.”

“Yes, you did, and you didn’t finish your pork chop.”

“I’m hungry,” he said now.

“I think my brother ate your pork chop.”

“Of course he did.”

She laughed.“What is this stuff you’re watching?”

“I don’t know but it’s terrible!”

Now they both laughed, and kissed.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I guess sometimes I still feel I’m not good enough for you. I wonder from time to time why you picked me, and how I ever got to be so lucky.”

“I picked you because I love you, and that hasn’t changed in all these years. In fact I might love you even more now than I did when we first met.”

“You do?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I do, too,” he murmured, and then they kissed again.

Vesta, who’d come into the living room to watch some television, grunted, “Oh, get a room,” and walked out again.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_3]

“I think this is it, Jer,” said Johnny.

“I think you’re right, Johnny,” said Jerry.

They’d just managed to cut a nice hole in the steel plate, and were now waiting for the smoke to clear and the metal to cool off. Johnny had slid up the goggles he used when handling the blowtorch, and waited with bated breath for the result of his efforts.

Finally Jerry decided the coast was clear, and stuck his hand in. When he pulled it out again, it wasn’t filled with gold or coins or even jewels. Instead, he was grasping a big brown paper envelope, and stared at it, an expression of annoyance on his ferrety face.

He then stuck his hand back in and searched around.

Nothing.

“It’s empty!” he cried, aghast.

“What’s in the envelope?” asked Johnny.

“Who cares! It can’t be gold or cash!”

“Could be bearer bonds or checks.”

With a growl, Jerry tore open the envelope. It contained a sheaf of papers. Scanning the first page, he frowned.“It’s a contract. A contract! Who keeps contracts in their safe! Of all the stupid…”

And he was about to tear the contract into little pieces when Johnny took them from his hands. He studied them carefully.“Hey, Jer, this must be the Mayor’s safe. It says here Dirk Dunham. Isn’t that the name of the new mayor?”

“Who cares? It’s just a stupid document! Let’s do the next one. Come on!”

Johnny nodded and did as he was told, but as he thought about the contract, an idea started to creep into his mind. It wasn’t a fully formed idea, but the seed of an idea. It would take a little time before it grew into an actual notion, but as he lowered the safety goggles over his eyes and lit up the blowtorch, it was gestating away in that big head of his.

He had a feeling it was a good idea—a super idea—but couldn’t quite grasp it yet.

Chapter 30

Odelia had parked her pickup down the road from the Farnsworth house. I’d told her how to get to the chicken shed, and she’d listened carefully.

She now pulled a black mask over her face, two holes where her eyes were, and Dooley and I stared at her.

“What’s with the mask?” I asked.

“Duh. So people won’t recognize me, of course.”

“Oh,” I said. “Of course.”

“You look like a crook,” Dooley laughed.

“You look like a bank robber,” Brutus grinned.

“You look like a monster,” Harriet giggled.

“I look like a person who doesn’t want to get caught trespassing,” said Odelia, and got out, then opened the back door for us so we could do the same. “Now listen to me very carefully. If by some unfortunate circumstance I should get caught, you run like the wind, you hear me? You don’t let these people catch you.”

“But you’re not going to get caught, are you, Odelia?” said Dooley, a note of worry in his voice. “I mean, you’re wearing the mask, so you can’t get caught, right?”

“Oh, Dooley,” said Harriet. “That mask isn’t going to prevent her from getting caught.”

“Oh,” said Dooley, processing this nugget of information. “So maybe you shouldn’t wear it?”

“Let’s get going,” said Odelia, who was done wasting time explaining the hows and whys of this most important chicken mission. She’d brought her camera, so she could snap pictures of the chickens, and even shoot a video.

So we all set paw for the chicken shed, and followed Odelia’s instructions, which were to keep quiet until we got to our destination. But of course those instructions had fallen on deaf ears with Harriet.

“I still don’t understand why you told Fifi she could use my litter box,” she said now.

“Because she asked us to,” said Dooley, “and she looked so sad.”

“That’s still no reason to let her take a huge dump in my litter box. Now Marge had to go and change all of my litter again.”

“But why?” I asked. “She just changed it this morning.”

“I’m not going on a litter box that has been used by a dog!” said Harriet indignantly.

“It was just the one little doo-doo,” said Dooley.

“Oh, no, it wasn’t. You should have seen that doo-doo. It was a gigantic pile of doo-doo. I didn’t even know a tiny dog like Fifi could produce a doo-doo that big.”

“She’d been keeping it in,” I said, “so she probably saved up.”

“Well, she was happy,” said Dooley. “And isn’t that what life is all about, doing little favors here and there, carrying old ladies’ groceries and making dogs happy?”

“Besides, you made that dog a lot of promises, Harriet,” I pointed out. “You said litter would make her skin glow, and her fur nice and shiny like yours.”

“That’s sales talk!” said Harriet. “Everybody knows sales talk is a bunch of baloney.”

“Fifi doesn’t know. She believed everything you told her.”

“She was really looking forward to all that muscularity,” said Dooley.

“I probably shouldn’t have told her that,” Brutus grunted. “I guess I got carried away.”

“Yes, you did,” I said. “And so did you, Harriet. You promised that poor dog all kinds of things litter simply can’t deliver, and now she’s going to be disappointed when it doesn’t come to pass, and then what?”

“You’re meowing up the wrong tree here, Max,” said Harriet. “Gran provided us with the script for these sales pitches, remember? She fed us these lines.”

“You can’t blame this on Gran, Harriet. You have a responsibility, and I think you should apologize to Fifi.”

“Me! Apologize to her! She should apologize to me for using my litter box!”

“Shush, you guys,” said Odelia. “We’re almost there!”

We’d been traipsing along the road, and had now arrived at the entrance to the Farnsworth chicken farm—or factory. I couldn’t see a lot of security, but then that’s probably the point of security: to make sure you don’t see them until they see you.

I hoped Odelia wouldn’t get caught, though. I didn’t think that would go down well with Jock. During the daytime she was helping him find his wife, and at night she was sneaking around his property. Not a good look.

She was leading the charge now, jumping over a small creek, then getting down into the long grass on the other side, and scanning the place. When she decided the coast was clear, and our cat’s eyes didn’t spot any sign of life either, she proceeded, staying low. We’d reached the large shed, and she ran straight out to the door, then looked inside.

Chickens were softly clucking, and she stuck up her thumb, then stealthily proceeded inside. We followed in her wake, and found ourselves in a different, more horrible world.

The stench of ammonia and chicken dung was overpowering, and I felt nauseous.

“Now I understand why Odelia is wearing that mask!” said Harriet. “Not for the guards but for the stench!”

“Maybe we should wear masks,” said Dooley now. “So we don’t get recognized.”

Thirty thousand chickens sat cooped up inside the long chicken house, and Odelia immediately started snapping pictures.

I proceeded along, in search of the chicken we’d made the acquaintance of that morning. It was hard to find her, amidst thousands of her sisters, but finally I managed.

“Oh, hey, there,” she said. “I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”

“Of course not,” I said. “So this is our human, Odelia. As I told you, she’s a reporter, and she’s here to write a story about the way you guys are being treated in here.”

And as the chicken told her tale of woe, and Odelia carefully listened to my translation, and jotted everything down, Harriet and Brutus and Dooley spread out, and checked out the rest of the chicken shed. There wasn’t a lot to see, but Harriet had had this idea that Jock might have killed his wife and her lover, and fed her to his chickens, so she was adamant to prove her theory right.

I’d told her people didn’t feed bodies of murdered spouses to their chickens but to their pigs, but of course she wouldn’t listen, as usual.

And just when Odelia was rounding up her visit, having shot a little video of the circumstances in which these poor animals had to live, suddenly a voice rang out.

“Hey! What are you doing!”

It was one of the workers, carrying a bucket, which he now dropped as he came rushing towards us.

“Time to go!” said Odelia, and was off like a rocket!

“Harriet! Brutus! Dooley!” I bellowed, but the chickens had been stirred up by the shouts, and were flapping their wings and clucking loudly, drowning out my shouts.

So I decided to paw it, too, if I didn’t want to get caught by this man, who looked very annoyed indeed. I also saw he’d picked up a weapon in the form of a pitchfork, and if there’s one thing that gives me nightmares, it’s to become the victim of a pitchfork attack!

So I ran and ran and ran, until I’d reached that creek, and only then did I look back.

I’m not really built for running, I have to admit, so I was panting pretty heavily. Odelia had already vaulted across the creek, and now urged me to do the same.

“But the others are still back there!” I said.

“Don’t worry about them. They’re smart. They’ll have gotten out,” she said.

I made the jump, but all that running had worn me out, and I landed in the middle of the creek. Eek! Lucky for me, Odelia immediately grabbed me by the neck and fished me out.

“You’re heavy, Max,” she grunted.

“It’s all that water,” I said. “I’m like a sponge. I soak it all up.”

“We’ll have to teach you how to swim one of these days,” she said as she took off her mask and used it to rub me down.

When she was done, I shook myself, but now felt thoroughly annoyed. Running, swimming, what was next? Riding a bike? This was starting to feel like a triathlon!

I shouldn’t have worried about my friends, though, for they soon met up with us, having escaped through a different exit.

“And?” asked Dooley. “What did you think?”

Odelia looked grim.“I had no idea,” she said. “It’s horrible what Jock is doing. Absolutely terrible.”

It was clear Jock stock was trading at an absolute low.

Just about as low as it could possibly go, in fact.

And it served him right, too.

Chapter 31

We’d been walking back to the car when I suddenly heard a loud and piercing scream, followed by a terrifying roar!

We all halted in our tracks, and looked in the direction the sounds were coming from.

“The werewolf!” Dooley said. “It came back!”

“Werewolves don’t exist,” Dooley, said Odelia, but her words lacked conviction.

We were close to the car, and could have easily made the run to safety, but instead, Odelia hesitated. It’s the curse of the reporter: they do put themselves in the most terrible situations, simply to satisfy that insatiable curiosity.

“Werewolves don’t exist,” she repeated, more to herself than to us. “Which means that’s not a werewolf but some other beast, or maybe even a man. Which means…” She fingered her camera longingly.

“No, Odelia,” I told her. “No way. That’s clearly some wild and extremely dangerous animal, and we should run away from danger, not towards it.”

“If I could only snap a picture of this creature…” she began.

“No, Odelia!” we all yelled in chorus.

“But just think, you guys! Tomorrow’s front page, featuring a picture of the beast.”

“Featuring our obituaries, you mean,” Brutus murmured.

“No,” I said, making my meaning perfectly clear. “And no means no.”

And then, of course, the beast suddenly came crashing through the undergrowth and we stood face to face with it.

It was huge, as Victor Ball had indicated, and hairy and horrifying. It had long fangs that were dripping with saliva, catching the light of the full moon, and its eyes were red and menacing. Its claws were also dripping, and I realized they were probably dripping with blood! The monster had already made one victim, and now it was about to add us to the list, mere notches on its sizable belt—if werewolves wear belts, of course.

But what did Odelia do? Instead of turning and running away, she took out her camera and started snapping shots of the vile and hideous creature!

It’s the same way with war reporters. The moment a bomb goes off, do they run and hide? No, they start taking pictures.

“Odelia!” I cried. “Run!”

Harriet and Brutus and Dooley hadn’t waited for my instructions. They were already running full tilt in the direction of the car.

“Look at the thing, Max,” said Odelia, sounding excited rather than scared. “It’s so big and scary!”

The beast suddenly roared, showing its fangs and pawing the air with its claws of steel.

And then it was charging towards us!

“Odelia, run!” I tried again.

And this time she must have understood my advice was sound, and joined me in beating a hasty retreat. But even then she found the time to turn around and snap a couple more pictures of the monstrous apparition.

And the weird thing was: the monster seemed eager to pose.

An attention-seeking werewolf. Probably a sign of these social-media-infested times.

We made it to the car, and immediately got in. But before Odelia managed to start her up, the monster was already upon us. It pounced on the car and slammed the hood with its fists, roaring fiercely, and spitting saliva at the windshield like some demon car wash.

“Get us out of here!” Harriet cried frantically.

“It’s going to eat us alive!” was Brutus’s contribution.

“I don’t like this, Max!” were Dooley’s two cents.

And me? I just sat there, too stunned for speech.

The monster was crawling on top of the car now, and pouncing on the roof in a clear attempt to punch a hole and drag us out so it could devour us whole.

But then Odelia finally managed to get the engine to turn over, shoved her foot down on the accelerator, and then we were out of there!

There was a thunk and a surprised grunt, and when we looked back we saw the monster lying on the road. As we drove off, it got up and shook its fists at us, raised its formidable fanged maw to the full moon, and roared again—a terrifying sound.

“Victor Ball was right!” Harriet said. “The werewolf exists!”

“And tomorrow morning all of Hampton Cove is going to read my exclusive report and see my exclusive pictures!” said Odelia jubilantly.

She didn’t seem to mind one bit we’d almost been mangled to death!

We arrived back at the house and walked in, still trembling from the adrenaline. Harriet immediately made a beeline for her litter box, and as I did the same, I suddenly heard three cries of terror. I immediately walked out of my litter box again, and shot into the backyard, through the hedge and into Marge and Tex’s house.

The werewolf!

It had followed us home!

But when I arrived there, I saw that Harriet was shaking, but not with fear and anguish but sheer indignation.

“She did it again! Fifi used my litter box again!”

“She used mine, too!” said Brutus, shaking an irate paw.

“And mine as well,” said Dooley sadly.

Marge, Tex and Gran suddenly materialized into the kitchen.

“What’s going on?” asked Marge, flicking on the light.

Odelia, who’d run in from next door, along with Chase, now also stood in the kitchen, staring down at four cats, three of which were looking extremely unhappy.

“It’s Fifi,” I said. “She’s been using their litter boxes while we were out.”

Then Dooley took a sniff at his litter box, and said,“It wasn’t Fifi. It was Rufus.”

Odelia closed the kitchen door and looked out, as if expecting Rufus to return for seconds.

Brutus, frowning, sniffed at his litter box.“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “I think it’s that dog from down the street. That Cooper something.”

We all stared at Harriet, but she shook her head.“Nope. Mine is Fifi, all right. She seems to have selected my litter box for her own.”

All eyes turned to Gran, four pairs of cat’s eyes included.

“What!” the old lady cried. “So now this is my fault? You’re all nuts!”

And with these words, she returned to bed.

“Apr?s moi, le d?luge,” Tex muttered.

I had no idea what he meant, but it sounded apropos.

Chapter 32

The next morning, all of Hampton Cove was atwitter. Odelia’s article had appeared in theHampton Cove Gazette, and the phone at the office was ringing off the hook. The picture of the werewolf on the front page had clearly stirred up Odelia’s townies, and there was talk of the FBI stepping in, or the army, or even the National Guard.

Odelia’s article about the chicken shed had been held back, as both she and Dan felt it needed more work before they dropped that particular bombshell, too.

“I can’t believe this,” said Dan, shaking his head. He was holding a copy of his own newspaper and staring at the picture of the werewolf.

“Yeah, I found it hard to believe, too,” said Odelia, “until I was face to face with the creature.”

“No, not the werewolf,” said Dan. “Jock! I’ve known the guy all his life. I stood next to the baptismal font, for crying out loud. And now this.”

“Do you think his dad knows?”

“No way. Franklin always treated his animals with kindness and respect. I mean, he was a tough businessman, sure, but he would never allow his chickens to suffer like this.”

“I got a call from a guy who works at the chicken plant,” said Odelia. “He told me some things you’re not going to like, Dan.”

“Come on,” he said, sitting back. “Give it to me straight.”

“The chickens are fed some kind of concoction containing hormones and antibiotics, to make them grow faster, and pack on more meat. It also makes them too sick and too heavy to stand on their feet. And there’s more. A lot more.”

“God,” said Dan. “I have to talk to Jock. I can’t just spring this on him. We need to ask him for an official reaction.”

Odelia nodded.“Let’s publish tomorrow, yeah? We shouldn’t sit on this for too long.”

She’d been afraid Dan would tell her to drop the story, to protect his friend, but to the editor’s credit he’d told her to dig deeper, and by all means pursue the truth, even if it meant exposing Jock.

“I’m starting to wonder now, Dan,” said Odelia, deciding to broach another painful topic.

“If a man who can be so cruel to animals could also be cruel to his wife?” asked Dan, anticipating her reflection.

“It’s a fair question.”

“I know, and it was the first thing that came to mind when you showed me the pictures of those chickens.”

“I don’t think Grace is buried underneath the chicken shed, though,” she said.

“God, Odelia—I hadn’t even thought that far!”

“It would be an obvious place to dispose of a body,” she argued.

Harriet, Brutus and Dooley had sniffed around the shed, and even though the ammonia and chicken dung had seriously hampered their keen sense of smell, they hadn’t picked up anything unusual, and she trusted their judgment implicitly. Whatever happened to Grace and Fabio—they weren’t buried underneath that chicken shed.

“Jock told my uncle that he applied for a building permit to erect three or four more of those sheds,” she said now. “I think it’s important we stop the process of approval in its tracks. It’s only going to cause more suffering for those poor animals.”

“You’re absolutely right. And I’ll get on the phone with the Mayor right away. Tell him about the article we’re about to publish. Get the proper authorities up to speed.”

“I’ll drop by the police station,” she said, getting up. “I want to know what my uncle plans to do about that werewolf.”

Dan smiled.“Now that should be interesting.”

It was. When Odelia arrived at the precinct, dozens of people were shouting at the desk sergeant, who wasn’t a sergeant at all, but the Mayor’s niece Fiona, who clearly wasn’t coping well. The girl, who was a strikingly gorgeous and willowy blonde, was red-faced, her blond tresses sticking to the sides of her sweaty face, and trying to control a situation that was quickly spinning out of control.

“I saw it—clear as day!” a woman was shouting. Odelia recognized her as Blanche Captor, a regular at the police station. She was gesticulating wildly, as she described, to anyone who would listen, her encounter with the werewolf. “I’m lucky it didn’t kill me!”

Odelia, her curiosity spiked, approached the woman.“Mrs. Captor, where did you see the werewolf exactly?”

“Well, out near Garrison’s Field,” she said, “close to those woods out there. I was visiting my dear friend Alice Ball—her husband has had another episode and she needed my support, you see. And as I was coming back from the house, and walking to my car, there it was! A monster big as a house! It roared and showed its horrible fangs! And I ran and ran and ran, and when I looked back, it was gone!”

“It didn’t attack you?”

“No, it didn’t. I guess I was one of the lucky ones.”

“Why, has someone been attacked?”

“No, but I heard Scarlett Canyon tripped and fell when she ran from the beast. Nasty cut on her elbow.”

“Mh,” said Odelia, and walked along to the main open-floor precinct office.

Even there, highly upset citizens were accosting every available police officer, and a harried Alec was trying to drown out their voices by shouting louder than they were.

Finally, he gave up and returned to his office and slammed the door. To no avail. They simply followed him and yanked open his door and crowded around his desk, screaming.

Tough crowd.

She went in search of Chase, and found him next to the coffee machine, where he was smiling before him bemusedly.

“Shouldn’t you be out there chasing werewolves?” she asked.

“Oh, that’s all taken care of,” said Chase. “The Mayor is organizing a volunteer task force. They’re going to patrol the area tonight, armed to the teeth no doubt, to catch the beast.”

“But… isn’t that your job?”

“I thought so, too, but the Mayor decided differently. He said this is a shared responsibility for the whole community, and so the community should handle it.”

“What does my uncle think?”

“He’s not doing a lot of thinking at the moment,” said Chase, taking a sip from his cup of joe. “People are pestering him so much I don’t think he’s had time to think just yet.”

“Fiona isn’t coping very well either.”

He grinned.“Yeah, I noticed. Too bad, huh? I almost feel sorry for the girl.”

“I think you should get a warrant to search Jock Farnsworth’s place.”

He looked up in surprise.“You think he killed Grace?”

“I do. And I think he hid the body nearby. Either the house or the grounds.”

He nodded.“I’ll talk to the DA. Get the paperwork started. Alec won’t be pleased. He and Jock seem pretty close.”

“When he sees the pictures I took of Jock’s chicken shed, he’ll think differently.”

“I know. Who would have thought, huh?”

She’d shown the pictures to Chase last night, and he’d been as horrified as she was. His suggestion had been to bring in animal control, but she felt it was important to compile the full file before alerting Jock to what was going on. Catch him off guard.

“Chase!” Uncle Alec bellowed. “Get in here! Chase!”

Chase gave her a comical grimace.“I guess that’s my cue. Watch me go in.” And off he went, to save his superior officer from being torn limb from limb by his own citizenry.

Odelia returned to the front desk, and was greeted with a surprising sight: Fiona had picked up her coat and was shouting“I quit! You hear me, you losers?! I quit!” And then she was stalking off towards the exit, presumably with the intention never to return.

And as people howled with indignation, suddenly an irascible voice bellowed,“Silence!”

All eyes turned to the source of the impressive sound.

And there she was: Dolores Peltz, and as she proceeded, parting the masses like a latter-day female Moses, she quickly claimed her rightful position behind the desk.

And as she barked a set of curt orders for people to sit down and get in line, they all did as they were told, as if moved by an invisible but steely and all-powerful hand.

Odelia smiled, and as she caught Dolores’s eye, the older woman gave her a fat wink.

Odelia returned the wink and walked out.

Where would this town be without Dolores? Descending into a welter of chaos, probably.

And then she was heading home.

She’d suddenly had a crazy idea, and decided to put it to the test without delay.

Chapter 33

When Marge returned to work that morning, she found to her surprise that Jerry and Johnny hadn’t arrived yet. The two ex-cons worked long hours, and could usually be found at the library until late at night, trying to finish that wonky old wall for her.

They were really devoted to their work, that much was obvious.

When she stepped behind her desk, she found a brown paper envelope sticking up between the keys of her keyboard. On it, the words‘For Marge’ had been written in a spidery scrawl she recognized as Johnny’s.

She opened the envelope, only to find a contract inside. It appeared to have been drawn up a couple of weeks before, and the only name that jumped out at her was the Mayor’s, Dirk Dunham.

What was one of the Mayor’s contracts doing on her desk?

And suddenly a feeling of apprehension took hold of her, and she quickly headed for the stairs that led into the basement. And even before she’d reached the back wall where the two ex-cons had done such a great job, she had a feeling she knew what she’d find.

A blue plastic tarp had been placed in front of the wall, and she pulled it aside. She now remembered she hadn’t seen that wall since the day the reformed crooks had started work.

She wasn’t surprised, therefore, to find behind it a tunnel gaping back at her.

“Oh, Johnny,” she murmured, and took a flashlight that had conveniently been left behind by the twosome, and switched it on. Heading deeper into the tunnel, she had to admire the fine craftsmanship that had gone into its creation: it was easily a hundred feet long, and was supported with jaggedpieces of metal that looked as if they’d been swiped from a local scrapyard. Finally, she arrived at a steel wall, where several holes had been cut with a blowtorch, which was still lying in evidence at her feet.

And even as she stared into one of the holes, a little door on the other side was opened and she found herself staring into the stupefied face of her neighbor: bank manager Brady Dexter.

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“I have another mission for you!” said Odelia the moment she stepped through the door.

We’d been lounging on the couch, taking repose and getting our strength back after the hair-raising events of the night before. I felt we deserved this little break. But now it was apparently over already.

“What mission?” asked Brutus, perking up.

Brutus has never been one for lounging about for interminable lengths of time. He’s an action cat, and inactivity saps his strength.

“I would like you to pay another visit to the Farnsworth place, and this time I want you to use your noses.”

“Our noses?” I asked, mystified.

“I have reason to believe Grace’s body has been buried somewhere inside that house, or the grounds surrounding it, and I want you to prove that you can sniff out a dead body as well as a dog can.”

“Oh, don’t you doubt it,” said Harriet, who was still sore about the litter box incident, and now harbored a particular grudge against all dogs, great or small.

“So prove it,” said Odelia with a smile as she offered up this challenge.

“Prove what?” asked Dooley, who’d just entered the kitchen through the pet flap.

“We’re going to find a dead body,” I said, getting him up to speed on the latest events.

“A dead body?” he asked. “Did the werewolf kill someone?”

“Not the werewolf. Jock Farnsworth,” said Odelia.

“Oh, him,” said Dooley, losing his interest. The werewolf encounter had set him thinking, and he seemed to consider the monster a friend rather than a foe. In fact he’d told us he wouldn’t mind another face-to-face meeting, and this time he’d engage it in conversation. Try to find out what made it tick.

I’d told him what made it tick was an intense desire for blood and guts, but he said it probably was just a creature like the rest of us, yearning for some love and affection.

Brutus had told him he was nuts, and that had been the end of that conversation.

“Let’s go,” said Odelia, who didn’t believe in wasting time.

So we went out the door, into her pickup, and then we were on our way, making good time as she headed out of town, even as people all seemed eager to get into town, as proven by the long line of traffic going the other direction.

“All going to the police station no doubt,” said Odelia. “You should have seen them. Practically mobbing my uncle.”

“People are scared,” I said. “And they have every reason to be.”

“Yeah, I was scared, too,” said Harriet. “Though I’m more scared of Fifi taking another dump in my litter box while we’re gone.”

“I told her not to,” I said. “But I don’t think she was paying attention.”

“She invited all the dogs of the neighborhood to use our litter boxes,” said Harriet sadly. “She’s decided to be the best ambassador she can be of the litter revolution, and when I told her the litter revolution is a bust, she said she understood. It often happens that the original foundersof a movement step back, only for the second generation to take over. And now it’s happening to the litter movement, and she’s happy to take over.”

“I’ll talk to Kurt,” said Odelia. “Make him buy Fifi a litter box. I’ll even pay him.”

“Or fix that hole in the fence,” said Brutus. “That seems to be the way they all get in.”

“Or I could temporarily block the pet door,” said Odelia, but that only drew horrified cries from the four of us. “Okay,” she said with a laugh. “I guess not. But I will make sure to always close the kitchen door from now on.”

We’d arrived at the entrance to the Farnsworth domain and she parked the car.

“Okay, this is it, you guys. I’ll ring the bell, and you slip in through the back, all right? Are you ready to do this?”

“We’re ready,” I said determinedly.

“Are we going to meet the werewolf after this?” asked Dooley. “I think I know what I’m going to say to him. I’ve prepared a speech.”

“No, Dooley,” said Odelia. “We’re not going to meet the werewolf. Besides, werewolves only come out at night, when the moon is full.”

“So where is he now?” asked Dooley, visibly disappointed.

“He’s in his human form,” said Harriet.

“Yeah, probably working as a bank teller or an insurance broker or a trash collector,” said Brutus. “It’s always the ones you least expect it from.”

“Okay, this is it,” said Odelia, who clearly felt it was time for action. “Let’s go!”

Chapter 34

Father Reilly had been lighting a few candles in his church, and was just staring down at his nice tile floor, wondering how many layers of dog dung had been stamped into it, and whether he should contract a deep cleaning service, when Victor Ball walked in.

“Oh, hi, Victor,” he said. “What a nice surprise. What brings you here?”

Victor glanced around a little uncertainly, his mustache quivering gently.

“Um… you told me to join your meeting, so…” He spread his arms and gave a sheepish little grin. “Here I am.”

“I also told you the meeting is Monday nights at eight, and what day is today, Victor?”

If he disliked being treated like a five-year-old, Victor didn’t show it. Instead, he thought hard. “Um… Thursday?”

“Come back on Monday, and you’ll find a group of the warmest, most inviting people you could ever hope to meet.”

But Victor didn’t budge. Instead, he just stood there, now tugging at his mustache as if hoping it would give him strength.

Father Reilly, who was a patient man, and a people person, saw that here was a person in need, and so he walked over and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I can see there’s something on your mind, Victor. Out with it. Come on.”

When the man still appeared hesitant, the priest said,“Would you feel more comfortable if we take this into the confession booth?”

“I would, yes,” said Victor finally, and with a sweeping gesture, Father Reilly led this troubled soul into the small booth.

The moment they were both comfortably seated, Father Reilly opened the hatch, and said,“What is it, Victor? You know you can unburden your soul with only the Lord as your witness, and that nothing you say goes beyond this confessional.”

“Yes, father,” said Victor dutifully.

“How long has it been since your last confession?”

“Too long, father.”

“Well, then. No time like the present. What’s preying on your mind, son?”

“The thing is, Father, I’m at a quandary.”

Father Reilly, surprised that Victor would be familiar with such a big word, hid his astonishment well. All he said was,“Oh?”

“I had an offer that’s too good to refuse, father, but Alice told me to say no, so I did say no, but then I said yes, and now I don’t know what to tell Alice.”

“And what offer would that be?” asked the priest, pretty sure it involved the services of some wanton woman at one of the bars in town Victor liked to frequent.

“It’s the Mayor, see. He’s offered to buy my property, and he’s offered a fine price for it, too. But Alice says over her dead body will she ever sell the house where generations of Balls have been raised. She told me to tell the Mayor to go to hell, and so I did tell him to go to hell, andhe didn’t take it well.”

“Mayor Dunham wants to buy your property? What does he intend to do with it?”

He couldn’t imagine what Mayor Dunham would want with a dilapidated old farmhouse and the surrounding bit of barren land located in the middle of the woods.

“I don’t know, father, but Giles down the road got the same offer, and he’s also refusing to sell, and I heard there are more farmers told to sell up. Some of them did, some of them didn’t.”

“Huh,” said the priest. “And so what’s your quandary, son? You feel bad about telling the Mayor to go to hell, is that it?”

He would tell the Mayor to go to hell in a heartbeat. He didn’t like his bullying ways, and he certainly didn’t like that he was trying to get his good friend Chief Alec to take early retirement.

“No, father. It’s just that… The Mayor then upped his offer, complimenting me on driving such a hard bargain, and the second time I actually told him I’d accept, and so he already paid me an advance. In cash. And I’m pretty sure Alice is going to be pretty mad.”

“I think you owe it to Alice to tell her the truth, Victor.”

“But the thing is, father, that Alice is very fond of her rolling pin. She likes to use it on my head, and I have a feeling if I tell her I sold the house she’s going to do a lot more than beat the living shit out of me. She’s going to go berserk and use my head like a drum. She loves that house, even more than I do, and was real adamant about not selling.”

“So what made you go behind her back?”

“It was a big fat advance the Mayor gave me, father.”

“So maybe you can give it back? Explain to the Mayor how you changed your mind. No contracts were signed, right? This was merely a verbal agreement?”

“See, the thing is—I more or less spent the money, father. So there’s nothing to give back.”

“Oh, dear.”

“It’s a quandary, father,” said Victor. “A genuine quandary.”

“It certainly is,” he agreed. “How much did the Mayor give you?”

“Ten thousand dollars.”

“Ten thou— and you spent it?” He didn’t need to ask what Victor spent the money on. That was quite obvious. “You know what we’ll do? I’ll have a talk with Alice, and I’m going to explain to her what happened, and I’m going to advise her against the use of her rolling pin for any purpose other than the preparation of her fine bread and pastry. How does that sound to you? And perhaps I can have a word with the Mayor, too. Tell him about your predicament, and ask if you can’t pay him back the money in installments.”

“Oh, would you, father? Would you really?”

“It’s the least I can do for a member of my flock,” said the priest warmly.

Victor was clearly much relieved. In fact he was over the moon.“Thank you, Father Reilly. Thank you so much. That would be a big help. Alice would never hit a priest.”

“Why don’t I drop by the house later and you and Alice and I sit down for that chat?”

It was perhaps too much to say that Victor walked out of the church with a spring in his step, as a man who’s been drinking as much as he had for as long as he had has a hard time walking straight, even when sober, but a weight had clearly been lifted from his shoulders. And as Father Reilly watched him leave, he found his mind wandering back to the man’s words. Why did the Mayor want to buy up a bunch of old farmhouses and surrounding land? What was he planning to do with them?

And then, vowing to get to the bottom of this thing, he took out his phone and called the woman he’d come to consider an ally.

“Vesta? Do you have a minute?”

Chapter 35

So far everything had gone according to plan. Odelia had rung the front doorbell, while the rest of us snuck in through the kitchen door.

Once we were inside, we split up in two teams, and used our noses to discover whether Grace and Fabio’s bodies might have been buried somewhere on the premises. Once we’d gone over the house, we’d meet back in the kitchen, and cover the grounds.

It was a gruesome task, of course, and frankly I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. I’ve never been much of a cadaver dog, or even a cadaver cat, but Odelia said it needed to be done, so do it we did.

“Let’s start in the basement,” I suggested.

“Why is it that people always hide dead bodies in the basement, Max?” asked Dooley. “Why can’t they hide them in the bathroom or the bedroom instead?”

“Because people don’t like to take a shower next to a dead body,” I said, “or sleep next to one. Out of sight, out of mind, and what better place to get rid of a dead body than to bury it under a nice slab of concrete in the basement where no one will ever find it?”

“I guess so,” he said, still not fully convinced. Which just goes to show Dooley would make a lousy murderer.

We carefully made our way down a set of stone steps into the Farnsworth basement, and found a nice collection of wines and spirits all neatly organized on wooden racks.

“Looks like Jock is an alcoholic,” said Dooley.

“It’s not because people enjoy a glass of wine now and then that they’re necessarily alcoholics, Dooley,” I said. “Odelia and Chase like the occasional glass of wine with their dinner, and so do Marge and Tex. That doesn’t make them raging alcoholics.”

“It doesn’t?”

“There’s a difference between enjoying a sip of wine and drinking it by the gallon,” I intimated as I let my eyes drift past the rows and rows of wine, all displayed labels out, and then resumed my task of sniffing around for traces of dead bodies. But as far as I could tell the only dead bodies located there were cockroaches, beetles, rats and mice.

And as we headed deeper into the basement, it soon became clear that wherever Jock had stashed his wife and her lover, it wasn’t down there.

“Too bad,” Dooley said. “I think Odelia is really looking forward to finding Grace.”

“She’s looking forward to finding her alive,” I corrected him. “And hopefully she is.”

We climbed those stairs again, and when we reached the kitchen Harriet and Brutus had just returned from their search of the rest of the house.

“And? Find anything?” asked Harriet hopefully.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Lots of wine,” said Dooley.

We could hear Odelia’s voice. She was talking to Jock, keeping him distracted while her cats inspected his property.

“Let’s check those grounds,” I said.

This was a much tougher proposition, as they were really stretched out, and Grace and Fabio could be buried anywhere.

Still, I trusted that our keen senses of smell would carry us through and save the day.

So we headed outside, and as Harriet and Brutus turned left, Dooley and I turned right. We’d circle around and meet back by Odelia’s car.

Dooley and I kept our noses close to the ground, as we sniffed around. We’re not as well-versed in sniffing out bodies as dogs, perhaps, but we’re no amateurs either. And soon I thought I’d picked up what smelled like Grace. Odelia had handed us a dress that had belonged to her, so we could pick up her scent, and I now thought I was onto something. Dooley had smelled it, too, for he said, “I think I’ve got something, Max.”

Our search led us in the direction of a remote part of the domain, and we were actually not all that far from the chicken shed now. A derelict smaller shed that had weathered many a storm, nevertheless still stood erect. We were on a hill, and could see the chicken shed and the farm from where we sat, and had a good view of the house, too.

“I never noticed this shed before,” said Dooley as we stared at the crooked structure.

“Me neither,” I said. “I guess we missed it when we passed here yesterday.”

We moved closer, and saw that the door was locked. The wood was decayed in places, though, and we managed to enter through an opening between two wooden planks.

Once inside, it took us a moment for our eyes to adjust. The scent of Grace had become much stronger, and there was a second scent mixed in with the first. Could it be Fabio?

And then suddenly I saw it: two people sat there, trussed up nice and good.

“I think we found them, Dooley,” I said.

“Are they dead?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Let’s find out, shall we?”

We moved a little closer, and I immediately sensed body heat. I’m not an expert, but dead people tend to be cold to the touch, so it was obvious these two were still alive.

Just then, I could hear footsteps approaching, and the two trussed-up figures started moving and hollering something I couldn’t understand as they had gags in their mouths.

There was a rattle of chains, and I said,“Quick, Dooley. Hide!”

And quick as a flash—or two flashes—we hid behind an old cupboard in a corner of the small space.

A shaft of light fell on us when the door was opened a crack, then opened further.

A man stepped inside, and I immediately recognized him as the same man who’d chased us from the chicken shed the night before.

“It’s the same man!” Dooley said, excitedly.

“Shush, Dooley,” I said.

I didn’t want to suffer the same fate as Grace and Fabio, who clearly had become the man’s prisoners for some reason.

The man removed the gags, then placed a Tupperware container on the table and removed the lid. The scent of something edible wafted in my direction, and I recognized it as broccoli, eggs and potatoes. Not exactly the most sumptuous meal for a person like Grace Farnsworth, probably more accustomed to dining at five-star restaurants.

Grace said,“You have to let us go, Gino. You can’t keep us here forever.”

But Gino didn’t respond.

“Do you hear me? Tell my husband he can’t do this. When the police find out what he’s been up to, there will be hell to pay, and that goes for you, too.”

“Oh, shut up already, will you?” growled the man.

“This is an outrage,” said Fabio. “I’ll complain to my manager about this. Nowhere did it say in my contract that I would be subjected to this kind of horrible treatment!”

“And you shut up as well, painter boy,” said the man. “Now eat.”

He’d released the prisoners’ ties so they could eat, and they did so now, with visible and audible relish. I guess everything tastes better when you’re hungry. Meanwhile, the man kept a close eye on them, making sure they didn’t escape. I saw he was casually holding a gun, which he loosely pointed in their direction.

“How much longer are you going to keep us here?” asked Grace.

The man shrugged.“As long as the boss tells me to.”

“And how long will that be?” she insisted.

“Enough with the questions. Shut up and eat.”

“We have to tell Odelia,” I whispered.

“I can’t believe Jock would lock up his own wife!” said Dooley.

Unfortunately our meowing, even though hushed, had attracted the man’s attention. He stomped his rubber-booted foot, shouting, “Get out of here, you filthy cats! Now get!”

And get we did, fleeing swiftly, then racing back to the house to meet Odelia and give her the good news.

Grace and Fabio were still alive. The less than good news was that the man who could have been Odelia’s dad in a different life was a criminal.

Chapter 36

“So I’m afraid we’re nowhere closer to finding out what happened to your wife, Mr. Farnsworth,” Odelia said.

“Well, thank you for driving all the way out here to keep me informed,” said Jock courteously. “And I’m sorry Alicia couldn’t be here. But I’ll be sure to tell her.”

“You haven’t heard from your wife by any chance?”

“No, not a single word, I’m afraid,” said the man, looking as dapper and handsome as ever. His gray hair was perfectly coiffed, his polo shirt neatly ironed. There was even a crease in his pants.

“The thing is, my uncle is pretty swamped with this werewolf story,” said Odelia.

“Ah, yes, the werewolf. Interesting story. You met the beast yourself?”

“I did, yes. I would never have believed the stories if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes.”

“So it’s true? There is a monster out there?”

“I’m afraid so. I met it near Garrison’s Field last night.”

Jock nodded.“I saw the pictures you took. Hard to believe such a creature could actually exist, and have kept out of sight for all these years. Though of course there have been rumors. Farmers whose sheep have been killed, cows attacked in the middle of the night. We always assumed wolves were responsible. Imyself have had chickens slaughtered, which I attributed to foxes. But I would never have thought a werewolf…”

“Yes, it’s hard to imagine,” she agreed, wondering if she’d given Max and Dooley and the others enough time now to conduct a thorough search of the house.

“Still, the pictures speak for themselves. Your uncle will probably organize a search party to hunt the beast down?”

“Actually the Mayor is organizing a group of volunteers tonight, to search those fields and surrounding woods.”

“Well done. Mayor Dunham is really taking control of the situation.”

“He is,” said Odelia. “I guess he wants the beast caught before these stories and sightings start to affect the tourist trade.”

“Of course,” said Jock, nodding. “So how is Marge? I must say it was wonderful seeing her again after all those years. I’ve seen her in town in passing, but never had the chance to talk to her until yesterday.”

“She’s fine,” said Odelia.

“Good. Good.”

The conversation was a little strained and stilted, which Odelia attributed to her desire to drag it out as long as she could, to give Max and the others the opportunity to search the house undetected. But there was also something about the man she couldn’t quite put her finger on. He was friendly enough, but she still got the sense he was hiding something. Of course she was, too. Not just about the fact that she was about to expose his chicken operation, but also the suspicions she harbored that he was responsible for whatever had happened to this wife.

But he couldn’t possibly know that, could he?

He’d gotten up and swiftly moved over to the door. Then, much to her surprise, closed the door and turned the key in the lock. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

His charming smile remained firmly in place, but had acquired a menacing quality.

“You haven’t exactly been forthcoming with me, have you, Odelia?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her heart having skipped a beat. Was she in danger? Was he going to kill her like he’d killed his wife?

“Mayor Dunham called me just before you arrived. He told me about your visit to my farm last night. And my foreman Gino Nickel told me this morning we’d had nocturnal visitors. Of course I couldn’t have imagined it was you, but there it is.”

“Mayor Dunham told you, but how?”

“Your editor called him this morning, to formally ask him to launch an investigation into my business practices. Animal cruelty was mentioned, and animal control.”

“And instead of calling animal control, the Mayor called you.”

“Oh, Dirk Dunham and I go way back,” said Jock now, as he took a seat.

“You can’t keep me here, Jock,” she said. “Dan knows where I am, and so does Chase.”

“I have no intention of keeping you here, Odelia. I just want to explain a few things to you. When my father handed me the business several years ago, we were on the verge of bankruptcy. You see, it’s very difficult to make a profit as a small-time chicken farmer these days. You need to scale up, while still keeping down your costs, which is impossible without, shall we say, cutting a few corners.”

“By treating your animals like chattel, you mean,” she said, the images of those poor animals still burned on her retinae.

“I treat my animals fairly well, compared to some of my colleagues. Of course, the old story of chickens clucking happily away while they scurry round the barnyard is long gone. That isn’t an economically viable model. So you see, it’s not as if I have a choice here. It’s either this, or nochicken business in Hampton Cove at all. And Dirk Dunham, being an economic realist, and not a dreamer like some of these animal rights activists, knows this, and has supported my vision for the future of Hampton Cove from the first. Now all I want to ask you is to reconsider publishing that article.”

“I’m publishing my article, Jock, and the pictures that go with it,” she said.

He got up, his jaw working.“I guess I expected more from Marge’s daughter.”

“I can’t turn a blind eye to animal cruelty. And if you can’t run a chicken business without torturing those poor animals, maybe you shouldn’t be in the chicken business.”

“I think we’re done here,” he said, and walked to the door, and unlocked it.

She walked out, her heart still beating a mile a minute, and her throat dry.

“You’re not getting away with this, you know,” he said as she walked past him.

“No, it’s you who isn’t getting away with this,” she said, and stalked along the corridor until she’d reached the front door.

She expected him to stop her, but when she looked back he was nowhere to be found.

She walked out and closed the door behind her, then hurried back to her car.

Max, Dooley, Brutus and Harriet were waiting for her, seated on the hood of the car.

“We found Grace and Fabio,” said Max. “They’re locked up in a shed near the chicken farm. And they’re alive and well. Apart from the broccoli they’re forced to eat, of course.”

Chapter 37

Chase didn’t know where to look first. The precinct was being overrun by concerned citizens inquiring after the werewolf sightings. As it turned out, very few people had actually seen the beast. Most had just read Odelia’s article and seen the pictures.

By the time Chase and his fellow officers had managed to calm down the frantic citizenry besieging the police station, Odelia’s call came in.

“We found Grace and Fabio. Jock locked them up in an old shed near his farm.”

“Don’t do anything. I’ll be there in five,” he promised, and then relayed the message to Chief Alec, who decided to drop everything and join him.

“I can’t believe Jock would do such a thing,” said the Chief as they raced through Hampton Cove, their police siren whining away and the light flashing on the roof.

“Yeah, I don’t understand the reasoning,” said Chase. “Why lock up Grace?”

“To punish her because she was unfaithful? But wouldn’t she go to the police the first chance she got?”

“Let’s hear what he has to say—but first we need to free her and Fabio.”

They arrived at Jock’s house in next to no time where Odelia was already waiting.

Chase and Alec walked up to the front door and rang the bell, and when Jock opened the door, looking mystified, Chase said,“We have reason to believe your wife is being held prisoner on your property, sir. We could either arrange for a warrant or—”

“No, that’s all right,” said Jock, a concerned look on his face. He stepped out and closed the door behind him. “By all means, let’s find her. Where is she being held?”

“I don’t know—Odelia found her,” said Chief Alec.

He cut an accusing look in Odelia’s direction. “She did, did she? She didn’t mention that to me when she visited me earlier.”

“I think that’s because she figuresyou put your wife there,” said Chase.

“Me? Lock up Grace?” He laughed an incredulous laugh. “That’s ridiculous!”

“Who else could have done it? It’s your property,” said Odelia, not too kindly.

“You have the wrong idea about me,” said Jock, shaking his head. “I would never do anything to hurt Grace. Never.”

They had walked the short distance to the shed, Odelia leading the way. When they arrived, Chase saw that the door was unlocked, a chain dangling from it.

He carefully opened the door and looked inside.

The shed was empty.

“Did you find her?” Jock called out. “Is she in there?”

“Empty,” said Chase as Odelia appeared next to him.

“But… I don’t understand,” she said. “They were in here half an hour ago.”

“Did you see them?”

“No, Max and Dooley did, and they wouldn’t lie about something like this.”

“Whoever kept them here must have smelled a rat and moved them,” said Chase.

“Where is my wife?” asked Jock, now also entering the small shed. He glanced around. “Where is she?”

“Oh, don’t you play dumb with me,” said Odelia. “You had them moved, didn’t you?”

“What, me? Of course not! You have to believe me—I had nothing to do with this. So you saw them in here? With your own eyes?”

Odelia hesitated, and Chase said,“They were here half an hour ago, so they can’t be far.”

His eyes fell on the chicken house.“Let’s take a look over there.”

The small company set foot for the chicken house, Chief Alec sputtering something about his feet as they climbed down from the hill and he stubbed his toe on a rock.

Behind them, four cats had fallen in line with the four humans making their way down, and Chase could hear Max say something to Odelia that he didn’t understand.

Jock glanced over, and frowned at the cats.“Where did they come from?”

“They’re my cats,” said Odelia, “and they have an excellent sense of smell. If Grace and Fabio are around here somewhere, you can bet they’ll find them.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Jock. “And if I find whoever has been holding my wife…”

They’d arrived at the large chicken house, and Jock pushed open the heavy sliding door. Inside, chickens were roaming around, clucking happily and picking at seed being dispensed with a generous hand by one of Jock’s workers.

“But…” said Odelia, visibly surprised. “There were a lot more chickens in here last night.”

“Ah, yes,” said Jock. “I had temporarily housed some more animals in here, while a second shed was under construction. Luckily it was finally finished and so we moved some of the chickens into the new shed. Now they have plenty of space, they can even roam around outside if they like. Everything perfectly up to code and according to regulations, as you can see.” He waved to the man dispensing the feed. “Everything all right, Gino?”

“Chickens happy as clams, sir,” said the man, waving a hand.

“I like to see my chickens happy,” said Jock. “Happy chickens make me happy, too.”

“You tricked me!” said Odelia, accosting the chicken wing king.

“Tricked you? What do you mean?” asked Jock, confused.

Chase glanced around. Obviously these chickens were being raised in excellent circumstances, and any animal control inspectors would have nothing to cavil at.

“Let’s find Grace and Fabio,” he said now.

“Can I have a word with you in private, Detective?” asked Jock.

They walked out of the shed, and Jock glanced back, a look of concern on his face.“It’s Odelia,” he said. “I’m worried about her. She barged in earlier, accusing me of mistreating my chickens, while you can see for yourself her accusations are unfounded. Then she accused me of kidnapping my wife and keeping her locked up in that shed, while there is no sign of Grace. Ithink seeing that werewolf last night—or whatever that creature was—must have brought on some sort of traumatic episode, causing her to act out now.”

But Chase wasn’t having any of this nonsense. “I saw the pictures myself, Jock. Last night this shed was overloaded with chickens, living cheek to jowl. I don’t know who warned you off, but someone clearly did. And as far as your wife is concerned, if Odelia says she saw them in that shed, she saw them in that shed. I don’t know what game you think you’re playing here, but it’s not going to work.”

Jock gave him a look of shock.“Detective! You’re not honestly accusing me of… Alec! Listen to this. Your detective is actually thinking I had something to do with my wife’s disappearance. He can’t be serious, right?”

But Alec held up his hands.“I don’t know what’s going on here, Jock, but it stinks.”

Chase sniffed. It certainly did.

Chapter 38

Odelia was taking a proverbial beating. First Grace and Fabio had disappeared. Again. And now the chickens had suddenly been redistributed. Obviously Jock had been given a heads-up about Odelia’s investigation, and had taken precautions.

“Are you sure you saw them?” asked Harriet.

“Yes, we saw them,” I said. “Both Grace and Fabio were being held in that shed.”

We all stared up at the hill where the shed was located. The door was open now, and nothing indicated anyone had ever been locked up in there.

“I don’t understand,” said Dooley. “How can they suddenly disappear?”

“Maybe you saw a mirage,” said Brutus. “It happens. You think you see something, and in actual fact it’s not there at all. Like an oasis in the desert.”

“No, we saw them,” I insisted. I couldn’t believe my keen eyesight was being questioned by my fellow cats.

“Did you really see them?” asked Odelia now, crouching down next to us.

“Yes, we saw them!” I said. “They were there.”

Odelia studied me thoughtfully. A little ways away Jock stood talking to Uncle Alec and Chase. Clearly the investigation had hit a snag, in the form of the missing abductees. And the chickens suddenly being treated humanely didn’t help Odelia’s case either.

She’d risen to her feet and stood, hands on hips, thinking hard.

“Let’s get out of here,” her uncle said now. “Nothing to see.”

“If we don’t find them now, we never will,” I said. “Jock will make them disappear for sure. And this time permanently. He can’t risk them being found. Not after this.”

Odelia nodded, to indicate she’d heard me.

“I don’t smell anything,” said Brutus, sniffing the air. “All I smell is chickens. Lots and lots of chickens.”

I wandered over in the direction of the chicken shed, and a plump chicken came waddling up to me. I recognized her as the chicken we’d had such a nice chat with the night before.

“Thank you, cat,” she said. “Our circumstances have improved considerably since your intervention.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said. “Jock is simply covering his tracks now that he’s under investigation.”

“Whatever you did or didn’t do, we’re all grateful,” she said. “So thank you, cat.”

“Max,” I said. “My name is Max.”

“You can call me Bertha,” she said.

“I thought you didn’t have a name?”

She smiled.“I’ve decided to adopt one from now on.”

“Bertha. I like it,” I said. “It suits you.” And then I thought of something. “Did you by any chance see a man and a woman being taken out of that shed on that hill over there?”

“You mean Grace? Oh, sure. She and her friend were taken into that trailer just now.”

“They were? What trailer?”

“The yellow one over there—the big one. It’s been there ever since they started construction on the second shed.”

“Thank you so much, Bertha,” I said. “I owe you one.”

“No, you don’t. I owed you one.”

I hurried back, and was just in time to see Chase, Alec, Jock and Odelia walk up the hill, in the direction of the main house.

“Wait!” I yelled. “I know where he’s keeping Grace!”

Odelia turned back, and said,“Wait up, Uncle Alec.”

“What is it now?” asked Jock, clearly annoyed.

“She’s in that trailer over there,” I said.

Odelia stared at the trailer, a glint of hope in her eyes.

“And yes, I’m sure. Bertha saw her—one of the chickens.”

“I want that trailer checked,” said Odelia now, pointing to the trailer.

“Not again,” said Jock. “Can’t you see she’s delusional? I mean, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Alec, but clearly your niece is losing it—no offense.”

Alec hesitated.

“And may I remind you that you’re my guests?” Jock added. “I don’t want to play hardball here, but you don’t even have a warrant. So technically I could ask you to leave.”

“Do you want to find your wife or not, Jock?” said Chase.

“Of course I want to find my wife! But you’re not going to find her in a trailer!”

“Grace!” Odelia called out. “Grace, are you there?”

“Oh, please,” said Jock. “This is embarrassing. Please, for her own sake, stop your niece, Alec.”

“Odelia, honey,” said Alec. “Maybe it’s time to head on home now.”

“Grace!” Odelia bellowed, now running towards the trailer. Suddenly the door opened and Gino walked out.

When he saw Odelia racing towards him, he directed a look of uncertainty at Jock.

“Stop her, Gino! She’s completely lost it!”

“Um, miss. You’re not supposed to be here,” he said, holding up his hand like a traffic cop.

But Odelia wasn’t deterred. “Grace!”

“Stop her, for crying out loud! Can’t you see she’s deranged?!”

Odelia had now entered the trailer, and we all waited with bated breath. Had Bertha made a bloomer? Had I?

And then, suddenly, Odelia reappeared, a look of satisfaction on her face. Behind her, Grace walked out, looking much the worse for wear, and then, finally, Fabio.

“Jock, you bastard!” Grace yelled.

And then Jock was running up that hill.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” said Uncle Alec, but lucky for him he had a fit and healthy deputy, and within seconds Chase was in hot pursuit.

We watched on as Jock clambered up the hill, but even before he reached the summit, Chase was upon him, and grabbed his legs. Both men fell and came tumbling down. At the bottom, a puddle of chicken dung was waiting, and they now both plunged into it.

“Yuck,” said Harriet. “That’s going to smell.”

Jock wasn’t giving in, though, and put up a good fight. The men exchanged a few blows, then fell down again. By then they were both covered in mud and chicken muck from head to toe, and were grappling like a pair of wannabe pro wrestlers.

Finally Chase got the upper hand and managed to subdue the chicken wing king, who cried out,“You can’t do this! I didn’t do anything!”

“You locked me up in a frickin shed, Jock!” Grace yelled. “Who does that?”

“I’m lodging a formal complaint with the painters’ association,” said Fabio. “And I can you tell right now they are not to be trifled with.”

Chase dragged the other man to his feet and came trudging out of that puddle.“Handcuffs, Alec,” he said, panting.

“Use your own,” said Alec. “I’m not giving you my nice and shiny handcuffs. You’ll only get them dirty.”

“Oh, just give him the handcuffs, Uncle Alec,” said Odelia.

And so Alec did as he was told. In due time Jock was handcuffed and read his rights while Alec called in reinforcements.

“I owe you an apology, Max,” said Harriet. “I thought you and Dooley had imagined things, but clearly you hadn’t.”

“I guess it wasn’t an oasis in the desert,” said Brutus, eyeing Chase with distaste.

“Jock knows about you guys,” said Odelia now. “He must have heard the rumors about me and my cats, and when this Gino Nickel guy told him he saw you in that shed up there, he must have figured better safe than sorry, and had Grace and Fabio moved.”

“Well, now he’s the one being locked up,” I said. “And good riddance, too.”

“He’s a smooth operator,” said Odelia. “He’s such a skilled liar I was actually starting to doubt myself.”

“Good thing Marge never married him,” said Harriet. “Or else he’d be your dad.”

“Oh, God forbid,” said Odelia with a slight shiver.

Alec had placed Gino Nickel under arrest, and both him and Jock now sat gloomily waiting to be taken to the police station.

“You did great, Odelia,” said Alec now. “And I’m getting animal control out here ASAP. I’m pretty sure there’s about a ton of regulations Jock has been violating.” Just then, his phone dinged, and he picked up. “Yes, Marge,” he said good-naturedly. He listened for a moment, then his face sagged. “The bank? Robbed? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Chapter 39

Mayor Dirk Dunham was in his office, staring out the window. Down below, Hampton Cove stretched out before him. His town. His dominion. He smiled as he watched Hampton Covians walk past Town Hall, going about their business, while their beloved Mayor watched on, guarding over them like a benevolent god—all-knowing, all-seeing.

He liked the feeling. He liked being in control, and as he contemplated expanding his vision to include not just Hampton Cove but perhaps the entire county, or even the state, his thoughts returned to some troubling events that had transpired that morning.

Jock had called, telling him that nosy reporter Odelia Poole had been snooping around his chicken farm last night. At least he thought it was her, for no other reporter would be accompanied by a small contingent of cats. He had been able to confirm that it had, indeed, been the Poole woman, as her editor had called in to tell him they were running an article on the chicken farm and he should probably call animal control.

That was the advantage of having friends in many places. Friends like Dan Goory, or even Chase Kingsley, Hampton Cove’s next chief of police. Chase would be able to keep that nosy parker girlfriend of his on a tight leash, and so would her editor Dan.

He looked up with a touch of annoyance when his secretary walked in, and announced that his niece was there to see him.

“Send her in,” he growled. Fiona was a sweet girl, and he had big plans for her, but she was also one of those high-maintenance women who needed a lot of attention. He hated high-maintenance women, or giving his attention where it wasn’t due.

“Fiona, darling, how nice to see you,” he said, his frown easily morphing into a smile.

Her face was a thundercloud, though. She clearly wasn’t her usual radiant self.

“I quit that lousy job you gave me, Uncle Dirk. I hate it. Hate it!”

She was in foot-stomping mood.“You quit the police station job? But why?”

“People kept pestering me about that stupid werewolf. It was horrible. They were badgering me and harassing me and I just lost it. So I told them I quit—and I did!”

“That’s all right, darling. You don’t have to do anything you don’t like.”

“I know. So now what do I do?”

“Um… You could help out here in Town Hall? Join my administration?”

“You know I hate typing, Uncle Dirk. Don’t you have a fun job instead?”

“Sure, um…” He thought hard. “Something fun… like what?”

“Well, I could oversee the construction of the new town hall. That would be fun.”

He’d been planning to raze the old town hall to the ground and erect a completely new building, state-of-the-art, with an entire floor devoted to himself and his legacy.

“But you don’t know the first thing about construction, honey, or architecture.”

She waved an airy hand.“I’ll learn on the job. How hard can it be?”

“Well…”

The door opened again, and this time Vesta Muffin came charging in.“I know what you’re up to and I won’t stand for it!” she announced.

“Oh, get lost, you horrible woman,” said Fiona, but Dirk silenced her with a gesture. “What can I do for you, Vesta?” he asked, always remembering these people were his voters, and he needed to appease them.

“You’re trying to buy up all the land south of Garrison’s Field. What are you up to? Huh? I’ll bet it’s nothing good!”

He laughed what he hoped was a careless laugh.“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Vesta. Honestly I don’t.”

“Victor Ball said you bought up his land, and several of his neighbors. So what’s your game, huh? A new shopping mall? Housing tract? Factory? Spill, you spineless weasel!”

“Uncle Dirk, do you want me to throw her out?” asked Fiona. “Cause I will.”

But before he could respond, the door flew open again, and Marge Poole walked in, waving some kind of document.

“I know what you’re up to, Dirk. You and Jock Farnsworth and Jerome Winkle! You’re rezoning the land around Garrison’s Field as an industrial zone, aren’t you? Destroy all those nice woods and get rid of all of those small farms and turn them into factories! You can’t do that—it’s illegal!”

“Um… I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, Marge,” he said, starting to feel a little hot under his collar all of a sudden.

“I have it all right here,” she said, slapping the document down on his desk. “It’s the contract you signed with Jock and Jerome to rezone the entire area, probably netting you millions in the process.”

“How did you get this?” he asked as he picked up the contract. “It was in my safe.”

“Your safe was broken into last night, I’m not sorry to say, as well as half a dozen other safes.”

“Oh, my God!” said Dirk, horrified. This was a disaster!

The door flew open again, and Brady Dexter barged in.“I’m so sorry, Mr. Mayor,” the bank manager said, visibly distraught, “but I’m afraid the bank was burgled last night. Criminals got into half a dozen safes, one of which was yours, unfortunately. They’ve absconded with their entire contents. I thought I’d tell you personally.”

Dirk sank down onto his chair. This wasn’t happening.

“Do you want me to throw all these people out, uncle?” asked Fiona. “I don’t mind.”

Dirk didn’t respond, but merely stared at the door, half expecting it to fly open again, and then it did!

Alec Lip came barging in, followed by Chase Kingsley and Odelia Poole.

“You’re under arrest, Dirk Dunlap,” said the Chief, “for aiding and abetting the kidnapping and false imprisonment of Grace Farnsworth and Fabio Shakespeare. Jock has confessed everything. How Grace overheard a phone call between you, County Executive Jerome Winkle and her husband last week, about turning Garrison’s Field into an industrial zone, and threatened to expose you. So you locked her up until the necessary paperwork was all taken care of, and she couldn’t stop your little scheme.”

Detective Kingsley had walked up to the Mayor, and now ordered him to stand, then outfitted his hands with a pair of handcuffs. Dirk wrinkled his nose, and Chase said,“Chicken dung, in case you were wondering. And you should see the other guy.”

“Uncle Dirk,” said Fiona. “What do you want me to do?”

Dirk sighed.“Just get me a good lawyer, honey. I’m gonna need it.”

“And go back to school and get a degree,” said Vesta. “Your Uncle Dirk won’t be able to support you anymore.”

Chapter 40

Things had turned a little chaotic there at the end, with Chase mud wrestling Jock, and Uncle Alec calling in reinforcements, and Grace screaming at her husband. And by the time more officers arrived on the scene, to take Jock and Gino away, and an ambulance arrived for Grace and Fabio, I guess Odelia kind of forgot about us, and so when all was said and done we were the only ones left.

Well, us and a couple of thousand chickens, of course.

So we decided to walk. It was a nice way to end the investigation. Grace and Fabio had been saved, the bad people arrested, and we could now rest on our laurels.

And we’d been walking not even a mile when we came upon an altercation. Well, altercation is perhaps a big word for the crowd that had gathered around some object.

We joined the gawking throng and when we saw what the object was, reeled back as one cat.

It was a large heap of dung, about a meter in diameter, and two meters high, and had been deposited strategically in the middle of the road.

“It’s the werewolf’s,” one woman said.

“Yes, it has to be,” said a man.

“That monster must be big!” said a third person.

“Well, did you see the pictures in theGazette? That monster is huge! Big as a house!”

They all stared at the heap of werewolf doo-doo, taking pictures with their smartphones, while some members of the public had the good sense to call the police.

I could have told them the police were a little busy right now, arresting bad people, but of course they couldn’t know that.

Dooley had approached the heap of dung, which was still steaming, and took a tentative sniff.“It doesn’t smell like werewolf dung,” he said now, rejoining us at the edge of the circle of spectators.

“It doesn’t?” I asked.

I decided to put his theory to the test and approached the pile myself, taking a whiff of the penetrating odor.“Dooley is right,” I said. “This isn’t werewolf dung.”

“And how would you know what werewolf dung smells like?” asked Brutus.

“I don’t, but I know what chicken dung smells like, and this is chicken dung.”

“That’s it!” Dooley said. “I thought it smelled familiar.”

Brutus, frowning, now decided to olfactorily sample the pile for himself, followed by Harriet. When they returned to our huddle, they both concurred that, in their professional opinion, it was indeed a big pile of chicken dung.

“Which can only mean one thing,” I said.

“Oh?” said Brutus. “And what is that?”

“Someone put that pile there. Someone went to the trouble of collecting chicken dung and constructing this pile so people would think the werewolf was here.”

“But why?” asked Dooley.

I shrugged.“I have no idea. But this means that maybe, just maybe, that werewolf isn’t a real werewolf.”

“Is it a chickenwolf, Max?” asked Dooley. “Like a mutated monster chicken?”

“I think it’s not a monster but man-made.”

In other words, a man in a suit. But why? And who?

It gave us something to think about while we resumed our long hike into town. And then, when we’d almost reached the finish line, Odelia’s pickup suddenly showed up, driving fast in the other direction. She must have spotted us, for she immediately braked, then performed a U-turn and halted right next to us, and pushed open the door.

“I’m so sorry, guys. I forgot all about you!”

“That’s all right,” I said as we climbed in.

“We discovered something,” Dooley said as we made ourselves comfortable on the backseat and Odelia put the car in gear.

“Me, too,” she said with a smile. “Did you know that the Mayor was in cahoots with Jock and the County Executive to buy up as much land as they could, through some murky corporation, and then turn it into industrially zoned land they could sell at a much higher price?”

“That doesn’t sound good,” said Brutus, though clearly he hadn’t understood a word she’d said, and neither had I.

But before she had a chance to explain further, Dooley blurted out,“The werewolf isn’t a werewolf at all, but a human! Well, either a human or a mutated giant chicken.”

“My money is on a human,” I said.

Odelia thought for a moment.“And I’ll bet I know who,” she said, then turned that car around once more, and headed back the way we’d come!

“Hey, we just came from there!” said Harriet, who hates walking, and especially walking without a clear purpose.

“I know, but I just had an idea,” said Odelia.

“Uh-oh,” said Brutus, who’s well familiar with Odelia’s ideas. Oftentimes they will land us in trouble—or Chase knee-deep in a puddle of chicken muck.

We arrived back at the Farnsworth house, and this time she drove the car up the drive and parked in front of the house. She rang the bell, and Alicia opened the door.

“Oh, hey, Odelia,” said the young woman. “Where is everybody? I just got home and there’s no one here.”

“Your dad is in jail,” said Odelia, “your mom and Fabio are in the hospital, and I’m here to search your dad’s room if I may.”

Alicia blinked as she processed this information, then her face lit up.“You found my mom?”

“Yes, I did. Or actually my cats did,” said Odelia. “They sniffed her out.”

“And my dad is in jail?” she asked, a little more subdued.

“I’m afraid he is. He’s the one who had your mother and Fabio locked up.”

“But… why?”

“It’s a long story, but what it all boils down to is that your father stood to gain a great deal of money by manipulating some zoning regulations. Your mother found out and had to be silenced, at least until he could carry out his plans.”

Odelia stepped inside, and told us to wait on the doorstep, which we dutifully did.

Ten minutes later, she came walking out again, holding up a large suit.

And when she unfolded the suit, we saw that it was… a werewolf suit!

Chapter 41

We were in Marge and Tex’s backyard, and Tex was manning his Webber Master-Touch super-grill again. There was nothing particularly super about his burgers, though, for even with Chase’s assistance they weren’t much to write home about. Tex is not a grillmeister, even though he desperately wants to be. The rest of the family copes while he practices his art. Marge, meanwhile, makes sure her family members are all well-provided for with actual edible food, and so everybody is happy. Tex, because he gets to show off his non-existent skills, and the rest of the family because they get to enjoy Marge’s excellentcooking. She, contrary to her husband, is a master at her craft.

“That’s love,” said Dooley with a sigh.

“What is, Dooley?” I asked.

“Marge allowing her husband to believe he’s a grill king.”

“I guess it is,” I said, as we watched Tex aim another patty into the neighbor’s backyard. He’d been improving, though. He used to aim them straight into Rufus’s maw, but now he also sailed a couple into Kurt’s backyard, where Fifi gladly gobbled them up.

“So the werewolf doesn’t exist?” asked Dooley. He still hadn’t gotten over the fact that this much-vaunted beast was a figment of Jock’s creativity and some careful planning.

“No, it doesn’t,” I said. “Jock and the Mayor and their friend who runs the county had decided they wanted to turn those old woods and those couple of shaggy farms into an industrial zone, which they could sell for a huge profit. Jock wanted to expand his farm, and that’s probably how theball got rolling. Once Mayor Dunham was elected mayor, and Jerome Winkle County Executive, they could organize this land grab through official channels. Only problem was that a couple of those farmers refused to sell, so that’s where the werewolf came in. They figured that if people were scared enough, they might be encouraged to sell out. Plus, if those werewolf sightings intensified, the value of people’s land would drop, making it cheaper to buy up.”

“But it looked so real,” said Dooley.

“Yeah, it did. Jock had the money to buy himself a top-of-the-line suit and mask.”

“I knew it wasn’t real,” said Brutus. “I knew there was something off when I first laid eyes on that thing.”

“No, you didn’t,” said Harriet. “You believed it was a werewolf just like the rest of us.”

“And just like Victor Ball and his neighbors,” I said.

“What a scheme,” said Dooley. “And to think I thought the Mayor was a good mayor.”

“Well, he wasn’t.”

“At least now Chief Alec will get to keep his job,” said Brutus.

“And Abe Cornwall,” Harriet added.

The Mayor and the County Executive had wanted to get rid of the Chief and the coroner when they discovered both of them had signed a petition protesting against the destruction of those woods. Rumors had started to fly about the rezoning and a petition was launched. It was enough to put Alec and Abe on the Mayor and the Executive’s blacklist.

“So have you convinced Kurt to buy his dog a litter box?” asked Marge now.

“He’s stubborn,” said Odelia. “He says it’s not natural, and he flatly refuses to get one. I told him I’d buy one for Fifi, but he says he’s not a charity case and besides, it’s the principle of the thing, not the money.”

“You got that right,” said Kurt, suddenly popping his shiny bald head over the hedge—apparently he’d snuck into Odelia’s backyard simply to eavesdrop on us! “Dogs aren’t meant to go on litter boxes. They’re meant to be free to do their thing.”

“But you have to admit, Kurt, that it is a little unhygienic,” said Marge.

“I clean up after her,” said Kurt stubbornly. “And that pavement sees a lot more unhygienic things than my dog’s poo-poo.”

“Still, she keeps using Harriet’s litter box,” said Marge. “And that has got to stop.”

“Maybe you should teach your cats to go out in the wild, like my Fifi,” said Kurt. “That way you wouldn’t need a litter box, or all that expensive litter. Have you considered that you need to get rid of that litter after it’s been used? You pay for the litter, and then you pay to get rid of it!”

He had a point, and Marge now acknowledged that he did.

“Look, Kurt, it’s very simple,” said Gran. “Either you stop that dog of yours from taking a dump in my cat’s litter box, or I’m going to start taking my morning dump on your porch from now on. How does that sound?”

He shot her a nasty look, then retreated, like a turtle’s head returning to its shell.

“You shouldn’t talk to the neighbors like that, Ma,” said Uncle Alec. “It’s important we all get along.”

“Oh, I get along great, it’s him that’s not getting along,” she grunted, and pronged a piece of lettuce, then eyed it with distinct malice.

“Well, I’m sure glad we get to keep you on as chief, Chief,” said Chase, clapping his superior officer on the wide back. “I was afraid you were serious about me following in your footsteps.”

“I was serious!” said Uncle Alec. “I think you’d make a great chief of police.”

“But you’re staying on, aren’t you, Alec?” asked Tex, flicking a burger patty straight into Odelia’s backyard. It was sizzling hot and judging from the loud cry of anguish, it had just landed on our neighbor’s bald pate. Served him right for spying on us, I guess.

“That all depends on who the next mayor is,” said Alec. And when Gran’s eyes started to sparkle, he immediately added, “And no, it’s not gonna be me, Ma!”

“You’re a mean bastard, Alec Lip,” Gran snarled. “You don’t even want to grant your old mother’s dying wish!”

“You’re not dying, Ma.”

“I could be dying,” she said as she stared at that piece of lettuce some more, as if it might be the final nail in her coffin.

“I’m just glad that Grace is back, and that Jock is in jail,” said Marge, “where he belongs.”

“Amen to that,” said Tex cheerfully, unable to contain his glee to see his old love rival behind bars.

“So what’s happening with Johnny and Jerry?” asked Odelia. “Any trace of those two?”

Chase shook his head sadly.“We’ve asked the Mexican police to help us find them, but they’ve not been entirely forthcoming.”

“So they’re in Mexico?”

“It would appear so. At least according to the information we got from the airline.”

“How much did they take?”

“According to the bank manager not that much. Maybe fifty thousand?”

“Not enough to retire on,” said Uncle Alec.

“I got a nice postcard from Johnny last week,” said Marge conversationally, and her words startled the entire company.

“Mom! And you didn’t tell us?” Odelia cried.

“It’s a very nice postcard,” she said defensively. “And it was addressed to me personally, not the library.”

She disappeared into the house, then returned a minute later with the card.

“’Having a nice time here on the beach in Tulum,’” Odelia read, “’but I miss the library and was wondering if you could put in a good word for me if I decide to apply for the job. Sunny greetings from Tulum, Johnny. PS: Jerry says hi.’”

“So I guess they’re in Tulum,” said Gran with a grin.

“Gimme that card,” said Alec, and snatched it from his niece’s fingers.

“Isn’t that nice?” said Dooley. “Johnny wants to change careers.”

“I think the only career he’ll get is printing license plates,” said Brutus.

“He might get a reduced sentence because he helped the authorities catch the Mayor and his cronies,” I said.

And somehow I hoped that he did. Marge seemed to like Johnny, and that meant something. Marge is a librarian, and librarians are smart. They have to be, from scanning all those books.

In the meantime, I was glad this whole episode was finally behind us. All this hawking litter and checking different types of dung had seriously worn me out, and I now longed for a nice long vacation, free from detecting or the strains of selling litter.

And just as I was about to close my eyes to take a nap, a little doggie came tripping past. It was Fifi and she gave me a wink. Harriet and the others hadn’t seen her, as they’d all dozed off by then, their bellies full and their minds at ease.

Fifi tiptoed into the house through the pet flap. Moments later, she returned.

I have to say her skin looked great, and so did her fur. Even her muscularity had improved.

Could it be that cat litter was the miracle cure after all? I mean, look at us cats. Our fur is shiny, our health optimal, and our muscles nicely toned. Must be the litter, right?

And I’d just dozed off when I heard a noise and saw Rufus tiptoe past.

He disappeared into the house, then returned moments later.

I was about to take another stab at this nap thing, when a third dog came tripping up, disappeared inside, then emerged a minute later. I recognized him as Cooper the dog that had begun to favor Brutus’s litter box. He had the cheek to give me a big grin and two thumbs up, before sashaying off, a swing in his step and a song on his lips.

And I’d finally fallen asleep when I was alarmed by triple screams of horror from Harriet, Brutus and Dooley. I guess the dog litter revolution rages on unabated.

Now see, that’s the problem with being a cat: everybody wants to be us.

Even dogs.

20. PURRFECTLY DEAD

Prologue

Pamela Witherspoon was walking her Pomeranian like she did every night. She took her usual route past Hampton Cove park, and watched and listened to the rare spectacle of dozens of cats all gathering in the park’s playground and yowling up a storm.

Why they did this was anyone’s guess. People had wondered about the strange ritual for years, and even zoologists had studied the phenomenon and been left stumped.

No one knew exactly what drove all of these cats to gather in the same spot night after night and make these strange and frankly disturbing sounds.

Dirk Benedict, world-renowned zoologist and self-declared feline specialist, had suggested that it might have something to do with this particular spot. That perhaps located in the heart of the park was an ancient burial ground where the original inhabitants of Long Island had buried their cats, and now these modern-day cats, through some ancient wisdom, came together to honor the memory of their ancestors.

Others, like Laurence Tureaud, the famous ufologist, thought this was probably the spot where aliens would one day land, when and if they finally decided on their invasion, and cats, being the mystical creatures they are, acted as the harbingers of this doom.

And then of course there were the more exotic of explanations. Some people, most notable amongst whom the renowned geologist Dwight Schultz, claimed the earth’s crust was particularly thin in this exact spot, and the cats’ yowls were a way of communicating with their counterparts living in the earth’s core, which, still according to Mr. Schultz’s more outlandish musings, wasn’t solid iron and nickel, as most scientists agreed it was, but a large and complicated cave system where our counterparts live.

Pamela didn’t care one hoot about all of those theories. She quite enjoyed the spectacle, and thought it was pretty. Boomer, though, didn’t think it was pretty at all. On the contrary. The peppy little Pomeranian never stopped barking at the cats’ meows, which from time to time earned him a shoe aimed in his direction. Usually these shoes were meant for the cats, but Boomer sometimes happened to be collateral damage.

“Pretty, isn’t it, Boomer baby?” asked Pamela now.

“Woof, woof!” said Boomer in response.

“Don’t you wish you were a cat in moments like these, Boomer?” asked Pamela. “So you could sing along with the rest of your lovely little friends?”

“Warrrrrf!”

Pamela smiled. Oh, how she wished sometimes she could talk to her Boomer, and understand what he said. She was pretty sure he was the smartest doggie on the planet, and every bark that rolled from his lips a nugget of wisdom.

“My own precious little genius,” she said now, as she took a plastic baggie from her pocket and crouched down to clean up Boomer’s doo-doo.

There had been a rumor flying around about a new rule instigated by Chief Alec that dogs would have to use a litter box from now on, but so far she hadn’t heard any more.

And as she walked on, Boomer straining at the leash to get at those darn cats howling up a storm, she suddenly came upon a strange and frightening sight: a man was staggering in her direction, his arms outstretched, his fingers grasping the air!

Boomer, who’d noticed the same thing, now redirected his attention from the offending cats to the offending stranger.

And as the man reached the circle of light cast by a streetlamp, Pamela saw to her horror that his face was white as a sheet, and his skin was devastated by dozens of open sores covering its acreage. In fact it wasn’t too much to say that the man looked… dead!

She uttered an involuntary little yelp of fear as the man picked up his pace and moved in her direction, his clawing hands clearly yearning to grab hold of her!

“Come on, Boomer!” said Pamela as she turned on her heel and started walking away.

The man wasn’t deterred. As she glanced over her shoulder, she saw to her dismay he’d picked up his pace and was now stumbling after her, a lumbering quality to his gait.

“Run, Boomer, run!” Pamela yelled, and as she followed her own advice, they were soon running at a rapid clip, trying to escape the horrid and menacing creature.

And she’d just turned a corner when she almost bumped into a large and voluminous figure. To her not inconsiderable relief it was Chief Alec himself, Hampton Cove’s stalwart chief of police.

“Chief!” she cried. “Someone is chasing me!”

“Easy now, Pamela,” said the Chief in his easygoing and reassuring way. He was a man with very little hair left on top of his scalp, and a considerable paunch, and was loved by all Hampton Covians for his kindly demeanor and years of consistent selfless service.

The cop was glancing beyond her now, at the corner where any moment the stalker would appear.

“I was walking my Boomer, minding my own business, when suddenly I saw this horrible, horrible creature. And he must have seen me, too, for he immediately gave chase. Oh, Chief. Am I glad to see you!”

She’d clasped a hand to her chest, which was heaving, her heart beating a mile a minute.

“You’re all right now, Pamela,” rumbled the Chief. “You’re perfectly safe with me.”

They were both still staring at the corner, but of her assailant there was no trace.

“I swear he was right behind me, Chief,” said Pamela, starting to feel a little silly now. It’s one thing to be chased by a monster, but another for that monster to suddenly get cold feet the moment the constabulary arrives. She secretly wished now her assailant would show his ugly face so the Chief could see for himself she wasn’t making this up.

“Let’s take a look,” said the Chief now. She saw that his right hand was on his weapon, and as she stayed safely behind the man’s broad back, she followed as he approached the corner of the park, then cautiously glanced around it.

“And?” she asked, her voice strained. “Is he still there?”

“Weirdest thing,” grumbled the Chief.

She ventured from behind the safety of the police officer, and took a look for herself. To her surprise, the man was gone.

“Oh,” she said, and even Boomer seemed surprised, for he suddenly stopped yapping.

She was growing a little hot under her collar when the Chief directed a curious look at her, the kind of look a doctor would award a patient just before calling the loony bin.

“He was there, Chief, I swear,” she said.

“Oh, I believe you, Pamela. I do.” But it was obvious from his demeanor that he didn’t. “So can you describe this man to me?”

She nodded.“This is going to sound a little strange, Chief, but the man looked like…” She sank her teeth into her lower lip.

“Yes?” he prompted. “He looked like what?”

“Well, he looked like a—like a zombie.”

Chapter 1

Look, I realize that I’m one of the lucky ones. My human treats me well, my food bowl is almost always filled to the rim—except when Vena the veterinarian convinces Odelia that I have to go on a diet—and I have friends in high places. I’m referring to Dooley, who had opted to lie on top of the couch’s back forsome reason. I guess he likes his heights.

But some days even I experience this strange pang of unhappiness. That nebulous feeling that something is lacking and you simply can’t put your paw on it.

Today was one of those days. It wasn’t that my bowl was empty—when it is, I make sure to wake up my human by kneading her arm and mewling into her ear until she wakes up and rectifies her mistake. It was that, what was in my bowl suddenly failed to grip.

And I blame it on that TV commercial we’d been watching for the third day in a row.

Lately my friends and I have developed the habit of watching television in the early morning, long before Odelia and Chase are up.

Odelia leaves the remote lying on the coffee table, and we’d discovered—or I should probably say Dooley has discovered, quite by accident by landing his tush on top of the remote one morning—that one click on the big red button on the remote switches on the television, and a couple of clicks will take us to one of many shopping networks, which feature, every morning between five and six, a lot of commercials for pet food.

One of those commercials had attracted our attention, and we were watching it again now, all four of us on the couch.

“The revolution in pet food continues,” a very beautiful young woman dressed, for some reason, in a white lab coat, was saying, smiling a perfect toothpaste smile.

“Pet food revolution,” Dooley muttered reverently, as if trying to memorize the line.

“Peppard Nutrition Revolution brings you the latest scientific research and the highest quality pet food on the market. And the best part? It’s free! Sign your pet up for our free testing program and enjoy all the benefits of Peppard Pet Food free of charge.”

“She said free three times,” said Dooley happily. “Which must mean something.”

“I guess it means the food is free,” said Harriet. She was smacking her lips at the sight of a gourmet dinner being presented now on the screen. Even though the woman with the lab coat always spoke of pets and pet food, the animals on the screen were all cats.

“Lucky cats,” said Brutus as he shook his head. “What do they have that we don’t?”

“Access to a good manager who got them into this commercial?” I said.

“We should be in there,” said Brutus. “We should be the ones tasting that godly food.”

“We could always ask Odelia to sign us up,” I said. “I’m sure if she does we’d be selected.”

“And why is that, Max?” asked Dooley, speaking from his high perch.

“Because Odelia is a famous reporter,” I said. “And I’m sure these Peppard Pet Food people would love an article about their products in theGazette, something which she could give them in exchange for our participation in this revolutionary new program.”

“And I’m sure it doesn’t work like that,” said Harriet. “You probably have to know someone to get into the program.”

“Maybe Chase could get us in?” said Dooley, obviously as eager as the rest of us to taste some of this ‘revolutionary new pet food with the greatest taste and the highest-possible nutritional value on the market.’

“Chase? How would Chase be able to get us in?” scoffed Brutus.

“Chase is a cop,” said Dooley, “and cops arrest people when they don’t do as he says.”

“I don’t think Chase will arrest the Peppard people if they don’t admit us into the program, Dooley,” I said.

“Who is Chase going to arrest?” asked Odelia as she walked into the living room, yawning and dressed in her Betty Boop jammies and Hello Kitty slippers.

She took a seat on the couch and stared at the TV, her eyes still a little bleary. She and Chase had gone out last night on a date, and it had gotten a little late.

“We need to get into this new program,” said Harriet now. “They promise its nuggets will add at least sixty percent extra shine to my coat.”

“And make me lose fifty percent of my flab,” I added.

“And make me seventy-five percent more butch,” said Brutus.

“And make me at least forty percent more intelligent,” said Dooley.

Odelia laughed.“This food can do all that? What is it? A kind of miracle cure?”

“How did you know?” asked Dooley excitedly.

On the screen, the woman in the lab coat now held up a can of that miracle food and smiled into the camera, her eyes shining with excitement, almost as if she’d tasted the food herself and loved what it had done for her. “Our scientists have developed Miracle Cure specifically with your beloved fur babies in mind. You will find that it doesn’t just meet all of their needs, but makes them more healthy, strong, smart and gorgeous. Peppard Pet Food. The pet food revolution. And that’s a promise, not a pitch.”

“See?” said Dooley, practically vibrating with excitement. “It’s a promise, not a pitch.”

But Odelia didn’t look convinced. “Miracle Cure? Sounds a little fishy, if you ask me.”

“What’s going on here?” asked Chase who’d walked into the room, barefoot and clad in a T-shirt that proclaimed he was the ‘World’s Greatest Pet Dad.’

“They’ve been watching one of those shopping networks,” said Odelia, “and now they want to try this new pet food called Miracle Cure. A brand called Peppard Pet Food.”

Chase stared at the screen for all of two seconds before he grunted,“Snake oil. There should probably be a law against them.”

“See!” said Dooley. “Chase is going to arrest them—this is our in, you guys!”

“It’s actually not available in stores yet,” I said. “The only way to get the food is by entering your pets into their free testing program. Which is free,” I added, hoping to convey some of my enthusiasm. “Free as in, it doesn’t cost any money.”

Odelia raised an eyebrow.“Don’t tell me. You want to be entered into this program?”

“Yes, please!” we all shouted simultaneously.

She shook her head.“Oh, come on. It’s probably just a marketing push for some new and dodgy product.”

A phone number had appeared on the screen, and I now nudged Odelia’s phone, which she’d left on the couch the night before.

She laughed and picked it up.“Okay, okay! I get the message.” She tapped the number into her phone as Chase walked into the kitchen, shaking his head. He might be the world’s greatest pet dad, but Odelia clearly was the world’s greatest cat lady.

Moments later, she was talking to the Peppard Pet Food people, or at least I assumed that she was. And when she hung up she said,“It was an answering service but I left my name and number and told them I have four fur babies who can’t wait to get their paws on some of those Miracle Cure nuggets,” we all shared a look of utter excitement.

“You know what this means, right?” said Harriet. “We’re going to be Miracle Cure pets!”

“If you’re selected,” said Odelia, dampening our excitement. “Andif I approve of the program.”

So we all crossed our digits that we would be selected, and that Odelia would approve our entry into the program.

Frankly, after having sampled every available brand of cat kibble and soft food on the market, I was dying to try something new.

Like I said, I know I’m one of the lucky ones, but even the lucky ones get bored.

Dooley had jumped down from the couch and was now tripping toward the pet door.

“Hey, where are you going?” asked Harriet.

“I’m going to ask Gran to call the same number, and also Marge,” said Dooley. “It’s probably like the lottery. The more tickets you buy, the bigger your chances of winning.”

See what I mean? Dooley hadn’t even eaten this revolutionary new cat food yet, and already it was boosting his IQ!

Chapter 2

Things were pretty slow at the doctor’s office, so Vesta decided to run into the pharmacy and pick up her prescription. Even though she liked to proclaim she was as healthy as a woman half her age or less, she still was plagued with little aches and pains from time to time. Lucky for her then that her daughter had married a fine doctor, who, even though he sometimes liked to express his desire for her expedient expiration, still tried to make sure she lived as long and as happy a life as he could manage in his medical wisdom and expertise.

She walked into the pharmacy on Downing Street now and the first person she saw was Scarlett Canyon. The woman’s puffy lips puffed some more, and her cat’s eyes flashed even more catty than usual when she spotted her mortal enemy. She smiled.

“Oh, hi, Vesta, darling,” she said in unctuous tones that reeked of insincerity. “So nice to see you.”

“Scarlett,” Vesta grunted unhappily. For a moment she debated turning around and walking out again, but Scarlet had seen her, and so had the half a dozen other customers waiting in line, so she forced herself to close the door behind her and proceed inside.

“So what’s ailing you?” asked Scarlett. “Heart palpitations? Wonky bladder? Cancer?”

“None of the above,” said Vesta, carefully hiding her prescription behind her back. “How about you? Hemorrhoids? Flatulence? Venereal disease?”

Scarlett laughed a raucous laugh.“Oh, Vesta. You’re such a hoot!”

Blanche Captor, one of the women in front of them in line, turned and said in a low voice,“Did you hear what happened to Pamela Witherspoon last night?”

Immediately all eyes turned to her. There’s nothing like small-town gossip to draw people closer together. Even Vesta and Scarlett momentarily forgot their feud as they turned their attention to Blanche, a woman with cleavage as deep as her desire to gossip.

“She accosted your son last night, Vesta.”

“Alec? What do you mean?” asked Vesta. She knew that her son was a real catch, being a widower with a steady job and all, but she could hardly imagine Pamela Witherspoon throwing herself in his arms. Alec might be a catch, but even though his mother, she was keenly aware her son wasn’t exactly a Brad Pitt or Chris Hemsworth..

“She said she was being attacked, but when Chief Alec went to look for her attacker, he was nowhere to be found!”

“An attacker!” said Ida Baumgartner excitedly. She was one of Tex’s regulars.

Blanche nodded.“By the park. Late last night.”

“I heard it was a rapist,” said Marcie, who was Vesta’s neighbor. “And the Chief barely managed to save her. Pamela’s clothes were all torn and tattered, and by the time she fell into the Chief’s arms, she was only half dressed.”

“A half-naked Pamela Witherspoon in the arms of a widower. Now really,” said Scarlett, clucking her tongue with delight.

“Oh, baloney,” said the pharmacist, a no-nonsense older gentleman answering to the improbable name of Rory Suds. “Pamela was in here first thing this morning, and she told me the whole story.” All attention now focused on the pharmacist, who seemed to bask in it. “It wasn’t just a man she saw. It was a zombie!”

“A zombie!” said Scarlett, clutching her not inconsiderable chest.

“Zombies don’t exist, Rory,” said Marcie. “Everybody knows that.”

“Well, she swore up and down that that was what she saw: a real live zombie.”

“That’s a contradiction in terms,” said Vesta. “Zombies, as a rule, are dead.”

“It is possible,” said Blanche, “that Pamela had been drinking. I walked past St. John’s Church the other day and saw her coming out with Victor Ball.” She gave her audience a meaningful look, and they all gasped in shock once more.

The whole town knew Victor Ball as a recovering alcoholic, and to be seen with him was as much as an admission of guilt—of having issues with the bottle oneself.

“Victor is sober now,” said Vesta. “He told me so.”

“But he’s still going to Father Reilly’s AA meetings,” said Scarlett. “And so, apparently, is Pamela Witherspoon.”

Lips were pressed together, and silent looks exchanged. It was determined therefore, and writ large in the town’s lore, that Pamela Witherspoon was a raging alcoholic who had taken to accosting police chiefs in the middle of the night, half-naked and rambling on about non-existing zombies.

Rory Suds shook his grizzled head, quickly worked his way through the line of customers, and when it was finally Scarlett’s turn, she cleared her voice, and said, clear as a bell, “My usual prescription for the contraceptive pill, Rory.”

Vesta’s head jerked up, as if stung. “Now Scarlet, really,” she said. “You’re not still trying to convince me you’re on the pill, are you?”

“I’m not trying to convince you of anything,” said Scarlett with a little laugh. “I’m on the pill, that’s a fact.”

“But you’re my age! You passed menopause two or three decades ago!”

“Speak for yourself,” said Scarlett snippily. “You may have passed your menopause but I haven’t. And that’s because I’ve been taking care of myself. As you know, I’m very sexually active, and therefore I need to protect myself from unwanted pregnancies.”

“Unwanted pregnancies! You couldn’t get pregnant if the Holy Ghost came down and impregnated you himself!”

Rory had returned with Scarlett’s prescription and now placed it on the counter. “That’ll be nineteen ninety-nine,” he said, rubbing his hands with glee. He was having a good sales morning. His smile vanished when Vesta grabbed the box and stared at it.

“Um, Vesta, you can’t just grab someone else’s medication,” he pointed out.

“Yes, Vesta,” said Scarlett with a smile. “That’s just plain rude.”

But Vesta was studying the pillbox closely.“This is impossible,” she said. “Rory, you don’t believe this nonsense, do you? A woman of seventy-five can’t possibly still be on the pill, right?”

Rory tilted his head.“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss Mrs. Canyon’s particular…”

“Miss Canyon,” said Scarlett. “I never married, which is probably why I’m something of a medical anomaly. Isn’t that what you told me just the other day, Rory, darling?”

Rory gave a curt and embarrassed little laugh.“It’s really not my place to—”

“Yes or no, Rory,” Vesta demanded. “Has she passed menopause or not?”

But the pharmacist merely tapped the prescription and shrugged.“Like I was trying to point out, it’s not a pharmacist’s place to make these kinds of judgments. If Scarlett’s doctor prescribed her the contraceptive pill, he must have done so for a good reason.”

Vesta now picked up the prescription. It was as she had surmised: written up by Tex. She frowned darkly. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, Scarlett, but I can promise you this: I’ll get to the bottom of your so-called medical miracle and I’ll do it right now!”

And as she stalked off, Rory called after her,“Vesta! Did you need something?”

But she was already slamming the door. Scarlett might have fooled Tex, but she wasn’t fooling her. No way a seventy-five-year-old woman could still be in danger of getting pregnant. And she was going to prove it, too.

Chapter 3

Chase Kingsley breezed into the police precinct and was greeted by Dolores, who waved him over the moment he walked through the door.

“Pssst!” said the grumpy-faced and heavily-made-up desk sergeant. She glanced around, as if expecting spies to pop out of the woodwork and listen in on their conversation.

“What is it this time?” asked Chase, who knew Dolores well enough to know she was eager to spill some gossip.

“It’s the big boss!” she said.

“The Chief? What about him?”

“Listen to this. Do you know Pamela Witherspoon? No, well, good for you. She’s a widow,” she said, making it sound as if Pamela was some kind of monster. “And last night she jumped the Chief in the park! Buck naked, she was, and dragging him into the bushes, asking him to make sweet, sweet love to her right then and there, if you please!”

“Huh,” said Chase. “And? Did he comply?”

“Of course he didn’t comply, you idiot! He told her he was on duty, and as everyone knows, cops on duty can’t just engage in any frivolous activity they damn well please. So he plucked her naked bosoms from his chest and told her to put some clothes on. And listen to this—he then escorted her home, like the sap—I mean gentleman that he is.”

“Right,” said Chase, too skeptical for Dolores’s taste, though, for she frowned.

“You don’t believe me? Ask the Chief. He’ll tell you it’s the God’s honest truth. The only part of the story I’m still a bit fuzzy on is what happened after he walked her home. I heard she invited him in for a quickie, but my sources weren’t clear on whether he was able to restrain himself and walk away, or if he went in and enjoyed some midnight nookie in the widow’s lair. Ask him, will you?” she added, as she picked up the phone. “And then tell me.” And as Chase walked away, she yelled after him, “Don’t forget to ask him, Chase!”

He held up a hand and set foot for the coffee machine. He had no intention of asking the Chief anything, but had to admit his curiosity was piqued. No smoke without fire, was one of Dolores’s favorite expressions, and he had to admit that more often than not there was some truth to it.

And as the Chief joined him and held out his cup for a refill, Chase eyed him with a keen expression on his face.“You look like you didn’t sleep a wink last night, Chief.”

“Oh, don’t you start, too,” the Chief grumbled. “You’ll never believe what happened to me. Zombies!”

“Zombies? I thought it was widows that had kept you up all night.”

The Chief rolled his eyes.“Dolores!”

“Yeah, if she’s to be believed you’ve been up all night doing the horizontal mambo with Pamela Witherspoon.”

“What?!”

Chase grinned.“You old dog, you.”

“Listen,” said the Chief, tapping Chase on the chest with a disconcerted finger. “I never touched the woman, all right? I was getting some fresh air when I bumped into her. She claimed she saw a zombie, but try as I might I was unable to locate said zombie, but I could tell she’d had a big scare, so I walked her and her dog Boomer home, and that’s as far as it went. I never set foot inside her house, no matter what anyone says.”

“They also claim she jumped you, buck naked, and dragged you into the bushes for some sweet nookie.”

“Oh, God!” the Chief said. “Sometimes I hate this town, Chase. I really do.”

“So zombies, huh?”

“That’s what she said. A man with a face full of sores, white as a sheet, eyes wide and scary, dressed in dirty clothes. As she described him he’d just crawled out of the grave and was now walking the streets, looking for fresh victims to feed on. He chased her around the park until she bumped into me. At which point he mysteriously vanished.”

“She hadn’t been drinking by any chance?”

“No, as far as I could tell she was stone-cold sober. Besides, I know Pamela. She doesn’t drink.” He scratched his few remaining hairs. “It’s baffling, Chase. Baffling.”

“Well, I’m sure it was just a bum who scared the bejesus out of your Pamela.”

“She’s not my Pamela!” the Chief insisted, gritting his teeth.

“Whatever you say, Chief,” said Chase, clapping the other man on the back.

“Please tell Dolores not to keep spreading these tall tales. I know she listens to you.”

“I’ll tell her. Not sure what good it’ll do, but I’ll tell her,” he assured the older man.

And as the Chief returned to his office, shaking his head and muttering strange oaths under his breath, Chase took a sip from his coffee and promptly spat it out again.

Chapter 4

The moment Odelia and Chase had left for work, we decided to go on our morning rounds and collect some stories for our human. And if I say we, I mean Dooley and myself, as Harriet and Brutus had decided to go on a different mission today, namely convincing Marge to ask as many people as possible to phone the network and put our names up for that Peppard Pet Food Miracle Cure testing program.

Perhaps I should have mentioned that Odelia is a reporter, and a lot of the stories she writes are sourced by her faithful cats. You see, we like to roam around town and listen in on conversations of unsuspecting humans, then relay those stories to Odelia.

And as is our habit, we tracked our usual route: to the police station, where there’s always stories to be found, then to the barbershop, which is also a particularly rich source, and of course past the General Store, where our friend Kingman keeps watch.

First things first, though: the police station. The thing is, even though Chief Alec is Odelia’s uncle, and therefore genetically obliged to tell her everything that goes on in his town, he tends to keep stuff to himself, even though he probably should know better.

So when we jumped up onto the windowsill outside the Chief’s office and put our ears to the window, I fully expected to discover some juicy little nuggets and tidbits.

I’d never expected the story to be quite as juicy as this, though.

“No, Madam Mayor, I’m telling you, it never happened!”

Seated in front of the Chief was Hampton Cove’s new mayor Charlene Butterwick. She was blond and pretty, looking very professional with her snazzy glasses, and I would have put her around Marge’s age. She certainly seemed more capable than the last mayor, who’d recently been arrested for a long list of crimes.

“And I’m telling you that it doesn’t matter, Chief,” said Mayor Butterwick. “It’s all about perception. If people think you did something, in their minds you did it.”

“But I never jumped the woman’s bones, and she didn’t jump mine!”

“The story I heard was that she was dancing naked under the light of the full moon, and that you couldn’t control yourself and dragged her into the bushes where you had your way with her.”

“It never happened!”

“And I’m telling you it doesn’t matter if it did or didn’t happen. This story is doing the rounds of Hampton Cove right now, whether you like it or not.”

“Oh, dear God,” said the Chief, rubbing his face. “I so don’t need this.”

“Do you think I need it? If we don’t get this situation under control we face a big problem, Chief.”

“Alec, please, Madam Mayor.”

She smiled.“Only if you call me Charlene.”

“So what do you suggest? A public statement? I could ask Pamela to come in and draw up some kind of formal—”

But Charlene was already shaking her head.“Won’t work. People will simply say she was coerced into signing a bogus statement. No, we need to find this zombie and then we might have something to go on.”

“Find what zombie?” asked the Chief miserably. “You know as well as I do that zombies don’t exist.”

“I know that, and you know that, but Pamela seems to believe otherwise, and so, I’m sure, will John Q. Public. If we can produce the zombie, and publish his statement, there’s a chance this can be contained. Otherwise…”

“I’ll talk to Pamela again.”

“No! Whatever you do, don’t go near that woman again. Not after what happened between you two.”

“Nothing happened between us!”

“And that’s why we need the zombie. He’ll be able to confirm or deny.”

“Do you think Uncle Alec saw a zombie last night, Max?” asked Dooley now.

“I doubt it,” I said. “For one thing, zombies don’t exist, and for another, clearly something else is going on here, Dooley.”

“Uncle Alec did something to that Pamela woman, you think?”

“I don’t know, Dooley, but he is a man, and he hasn’t been with a woman for a long time, so…”

Dooley’s eyes had gone wide. “We have to tell Odelia. This is a great story for her newspaper!”

“It is a great story,” I admitted, “but not one Odelia will want to print. It’s going to damage her uncle’s reputation, and that’s the last thing she’d ever do.”

“But if it’s true, she has to print it. It’s in the reporter’s code!”

“There is no reporter’s code, Dooley,” I said. “You’re thinking about doctors.”

“Don’t reporters have an obligation to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?”

“Odelia does, but not all reporters are like her.”

“So now I have to go out and find a non-existent zombie,” said Uncle Alec.

“You’ll do no such thing,” said the Mayor. “Chase will find the zombie.”

“And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Twiddle my thumbs?”

“Until this matter is resolved, I suggest you go home, Alec. And that’s not a friendly suggestion, that’s an order.”

“Go home! But…”

“I’m suspending you, and appointing Chase acting chief.” She got up. “Go home, Alec, and in your own best interest better don’t show your face around town for a while.”

And then she was gone, leaving Chief Alec looking both stricken and dumbfounded, which is not an easy combination to pull off but he still managed it convincingly.

Chapter 5

“We have to find this zombie, Dooley,” I said. “He’s the only one who can confirm or deny Uncle Alec’s account of what happened last night.”

“But didn’t you say zombies don’t exist?”

“No, they don’t, so it must be a real person, and not a zombie, which is a good thing.”

“How so?”

“Because otherwise we’d have to go to the graveyard to find the zombie, and I don’t like graveyards.”

We’d jumped down from the windowsill and were now passing by the barbershop, which usually is good for at least two or three stories a week.

We walked in, and settled ourselves near the window. Fido Siniawski, the hairdresser, was busy cutting a client’s long mane. He was one of those so-called hard rockers, with the black leather jackets and the long hair, and had apparently decided to change genres and become a punk rocker instead, which meant he needed a Mohawk.

“Why is that man having his nice hair cut, Max?” asked Dooley as we watched on.

“Because he changed music genres,” I explained. “He was a hard rocker, and hard rockers like to have the long greasy hair. But now he’s a punk rocker and punk rockers like their hair to stand up and be painted in different colors.”

“But why, Max?” he asked, mystified.

“I have no idea, Dooley,” I admitted. “I guess it’s one of those things that are a little hard for us cats to understand.”

“Have you heard about the Chief?” asked the former hard rocker, now punk rocker.

“Yeah, terrible business,” said Fido. “Who would have thought a nice man like the Chief would suddenly grope a woman in the bushes like that, huh?”

“Horrible,” said the rocker, shaking his head and causing the hairdresser to almost snip off an ear. “Then again, I guess these authority figures are all the same. Can’t keep their hands to themselves. The first opportunity they get, they jump some innocent woman and drag her into the bushes.”

“I’ll bet he’s done it a million times, only we never heard about it until now.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet he paid off all of those other women, and Pamela Witherspoon is the first one who decided that enough was enough, and came forward with the story.”

“She’s a hero,” Fido agreed as he studied the picture of a man with a Mohawk he was using as a reference. “And she should probably lawyer up. Get together with all of the Chief’s other victims and sue the man’s ass.”

“I’ll bet he’s rich, though. He can probably afford the most expensive lawyers.”

“Oh, he’ll get off, all right,” said the barber, snipping away to his heart’s content. “All those rich bastards do. But I’ll tell you one thing. This town will never forget.”

“Never,” the rocker agreed. He winced a little as the barber fired up his razor and went to work removing the last remnants of hair along a thin strip in the middle.

“This is bad, Max,” said Dooley as we walked out of the barbershop and set paw for the General Store. “Uncle Alec is quickly turning into a persona non gratis.”

“Persona non grata,” I corrected him. “And you’re right. It’s looking pretty bad for him.”

We’d arrived at the General Store, where Kingman, one of our best friends, likes to sit on top of the counter and help his human by keeping a close eye on the CCTV screens that cover the entire store. Whenever he sees something untoward happening, he loudly meows, and Wilbur has managed to catch a lot of would-be shoplifters in the act that way. Today, though, the sun was shining, and Kingman was sunning on the pavement.

“Oh, hey, you guys,” he said the moment we hove into view. “So bad business about that uncle of Odelia’s, huh? A serial rapist? Who would have thought?”

“Uncle Alec is not a rapist,” I said. “Serial or otherwise. He merely tried to help a woman who claimed she saw a zombie and then town gossip did the rest.”

“And I heard she was walking her dog and minding her own business when Chief Alec dragged her into some bushes, ripped off her clothes and forced himself upon her.”

“None of that is true,” I said, even though of course I hadn’t actually been there.

Kingman gave me a hard look.“Well, I heard a cry last night,” he said. “When we were at cat choir? That must have been Pamela, being dragged into the bushes by your Alec.”

“It didn’t happen, Kingman,” I insisted.

“No, Uncle Alec says it didn’t happen, so it didn’t happen,” Dooley confirmed.

“I don’t know, you guys,” said Kingman, holding up his paws. “But if I were you, I’d be careful around the dude. Obviously he’s some kind of sick pervert.”

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

“Um…”

“Your uncle Alec is a pervert,” said Kingman. “And if he’s capable of ambushing innocent widows, who knows what he’ll do next.”

“Look, Pamela Witherspoon saw a zombie, okay? And Alec merely tried to help her.”

“A zombie!” said Kingman with a laugh. “A likely story!”

“No, but it’s true. He was a man who looked like a zombie, and she was scared, so she turned to Uncle Alec, who just happened to—”

“—be lurking in the bushes with his pants around his ankles. Yeah, I know the drill. I’ve seenCriminal Minds. He’s a pervert who deserves to rot in jail. And now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” And with these words, he turned indoors and left us staring after him.

“Is it just my impression, Max, or was Kingman less than nice to us just now?”

“It’s not just your impression, Dooley. I have a feeling cats are going to start taking sides, and if we stick with Uncle Alec we might just find ourselves left out in the cold.”

“I’m not cold,” said Dooley. “I’m nice and warm, in fact.”

“Yeah, well. If this keeps up,” I said, as I watched a cat I knew very well suddenly cross the street as we approached, “we might be moving to Alaska pretty soon…”

Chapter 6

Vesta Muffin had finally arrived at the office, but instead of greeting Tex’s patients and telling them to be patient while they waited for their turn, she waltzed straight through the outer office, her domain, and into the inner office, the doctor’s realm.

“Tex!” she demanded heatedly the moment she’d slammed the door behind her. “Is it true that Scarlett Canyon is still on the pill?”

On her son-in-law’s examination table, Franklin Beaver was lying, while Tex was closely studying something on his hairy buttocks with a loupe.

“Vesta!” said the doctor. “You can’t just come barging in here!”

“Hi, Vesta,” said Franklin with a little wave. He ran the hardware store, and even in this awkward position still managed to retain a customer-friendly attitude.

“Franklin,” she acknowledged. “So what’s the problem this time?”

“Pain in my left buttock,” said Franklin.

“You probably shouldn’t have sat on that thumbtack yesterday then.”

“Thumbtack?” asked Tex, dumbfounded.

“I didn’t sit on no thumbtack,” said Franklin, equally stunned.

“We all know you were drunk as a skunk last night and your so-called friends put a thumbtack on your chair at the Rusty Beaver as a wager to see if you would feel the sting. Clearly someone won that wager, as you didn’t feel a thing, until this morning when you woke up with a distinct but sharppain in your left cheek.”

Tex, frowning, directed a closer look at the cheek indicated and then cried,“She’s right! There’s tiny puncture mark consistent with a well-placed thumbtack here!”

“The cheeky bastards,” said Franklin good-naturedly. “I’ll get them for this.”

This mystery solved, Vesta returned to her point of contention.“Did you or didn’t you prescribe Scarlett Canyon the birth control pill, Tex?”

“You know I can’t divulge that kind of information, Vesta. Scarlett is a patient.”

“Fine. I’ll look it up myself then,” she said, and stalked out again.

“Vesta!” Tex cried.

But she was already behind her computer, calling up the program that handled the medical files of their patients. She was momentarily stumped when a prompt popped up inviting her to introduce a password. So she typed‘MARGE’ and the popup went away.

Tex, who’d appeared in the door, walked over. As he looked over her shoulder, he asked, “How did you get past my password?”

“Easily,” she retorted, and typed in Scarlett’s name. “And when did you install a password? We’re family, Tex. Family doesn’t keep secrets from each other.”

“These are medical records!”

“I know,” she said, as she pulled up Scarlet’s.

Tex held a hand in front of the screen.“I can’t allow you to see this, Vesta. I’m sorry but I simply can’t.”

“Move your hand or you’ll be sorry, Tex,” she said warningly.

But instead of removing his hand, he pushed the button that powered down the screen.

“Oh, Tex. I wish you hadn’t done that,” she said with a sigh. And before he could respond, she’d sprinted past him and into his office, then closed and locked the door.

“Hey! Let me in!” he cried. “That’s my office—let me in!”

But instead, she merely took a leisurely seat behind his desk and pulled up Scarlet’s file, then calmly read through it, and nodded to herself. She then took a piece of paper, a pen, and jotted down a name and phone number.

“I knew it,” she muttered to herself.

When she looked up, she saw that Franklin Beaver was still lying in the same position. She’d totally forgotten about him. He was smiling at her, so she held up her hand. “Not today, Franklin. But ask me again in a couple weeks.” She waved the little piece of paper. “I might ask you to make a small… donation.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_3]

At the library, Marge Poole was reading a couple of chapters of Danielle Steel’s latest bestseller. It had been quiet all morning, and since all of her work was done, she’d decided to skim the first page. Now, half an hour later, she was still reading, and hoping no new clients would walk in so she could keep on reading.

And she’d been so deeply engrossed in the story of a princess who marries a commoner only to discover his family are all members in good standing with the Sicilian Mafia, when suddenly the sound of a throat being cleared had her look up. Bertha Braithwaite had walked up to the desk so quietly she hadn’t even noticed. The older woman was now staring at her with a distinctly malicious glint in her eyes.

“You have to renounce him, Marge,” she said now.

“What?” Marge asked, her head still filled with scenes of mafia members suddenly showing up at the princess’s wedding and threatening to shoot the place to smithereens.

“Your brother! You have to renounce him.”

“My brother… what are you talking about?”

“The way he attacked that poor Pamela Witherspoon last night. I can’t believe I never saw it before, but he has an evil streak. I should have known when I asked him to arrest my neighbor after he threw that dead mouse into my backyard and he flat-out refused. So here’s my ultimatum to you, Marge Poole,” Bertha said as she wagged a bony finger in the librarian’s face. “Either you renounce your no-good pervert brother or you’re losing my business, you hear? And not just mine. My friends are all saying the same thing.”

“I don’t get it, Bertha. What’s going on?”

“Oh, don’t you play dumb with me, Marge. Your brother attacked Pamela in the park last night. Forced himself on her and now he’s trying to cover his tracks by acting as if nothing happened. But we all know what happened, and it won’t be long now before his time of reckoning will come. I heard he’s resigned already. And good riddance, too.”

“My brother? Attacked Pamela? There must be some mistake,” she said, stunned.

“No mistake. Alec has always been a dirty little deviant, and now everybody knows. So what’s it going to be, Marge? Are you going to tell him to leave town all nice and quiet like? Or are we going to have to kick him out, and you, too? Cause trust me, we will!”

“But Bertha!”

“Don’t you but Bertha me, Marge. You have until tomorrow to tell your brother to pack up and leave Hampton Cove, or else we’ll have your job.”

And with these words, the old woman stalked off again, though this time without her usual stack of thrillers (all killer, no filler) neatly tucked into her big bulky purse.

Marge stared after this regular client of hers, stunned to the core. Then she picked up the phone and called her brother. He answered on the first ring.

“Alec! What did you do?!!!!”

Chapter 7

We’d finally arrived at Odelia’s office, a little later than usual, but with a big story to tell.

Odelia was typing away in her office, and when we walked in didn’t even look up.

Only when we jumped on top of her desk did she finally pay us attention.

“Oh, hey, you guys. I thought you’d gotten lost somewhere.”

“Uncle Alec just lost his job!” Dooley blurted out.

“Yeah, and he’s being accused of attacking a woman in the bushes,” I added.

Odelia blinked.“Wait, slow down—what?”

And in a few words we painted a picture of the things we’d learned that morning. Our human was staring at us, completely flabbergasted. The moment we were done, she picked up her phone and dialed her uncle’s number.

“Straight to voicemail,” she muttered, then thought for a moment. “What’s the name of this woman? Pamela…”

“Witherspoon,” I said.

“Dan!” she shouted. “Do you know a woman named Pamela Witherspoon?!”

“We have her number on file!” Dan yelled back from his own office.

“Thanks!” Moments later, Odelia was on the phone with the illustrious widow, and then she was grabbing her purse and walking out. When we didn’t move, she said, “Well, come on, you guys. Let’s get cracking.”

And so cracking we got.

“Dan! I’m going out!” she shouted.

“Great!” he shouted back.

“Strange way of communicating,” said Dooley.

“Yeah, they do shout a lot,” I agreed.

And then we were outside and jumping into Odelia’s battered old Ford pickup. The vehicle might be old, but it still got us from point A to B. We hopped onto the backseat, Odelia put the aged thing in gear, and moments later we were creeping away from the curb, the engine making a whiny sound. The whine petered out after a while, as if realizing it could whine as much as it wanted, it wasn’t getting to a mechanic anytime soon.

“I don’t believe this for one second,” Odelia was saying now, gripping the steering wheel in an iron grip. “Uncle Alec would never do such a thing. He’s an honorable man. He would never attack a woman, much less drag her into the bushes and have his way with her.”

“Well, it seems you’re just about the only person in town who thinks that,” I pointed out. “Most everyone seems to think he’s guilty.”

“Guilty of what, exactly?!” she cried.

“Let’s hear what Mrs. Witherspoon has to say,” I said.

We didn’t have to wait long. Pamela Witherspoon lived close to the bus station, and after Odelia had parked across the street and we’d managed to cross without being turned into pancakes, she pressed her finger on the buzzer. Moments later, the woman of the hour opened the door, looking harried. She glanced left, then right, then ushered us in. If she thought it strange that Odelia would have shown up with two cats in tow, she didn’t show it. I think people in Hampton Cove are used to Odelia showing up with her cats in tow by now.

Pamela Witherspoon was a sixty-something plump woman with a jowly face. Her gray hair dangled in little ringlets around a high forehead, and as she sat down, a smallish dog immediately jumped onto her lap and stared at Dooley and me with a look of defiance in his eyes.

“Boomer, no,” said Pamela as the Pomeranian produced a growling sound at the back of his throat. Obviously not big on cats.

“So what’s all this about my uncle dragging you into the bushes last night? “asked Odelia, deciding to get straight to the point.

“Oh, I know,” Pamela said. “And I swear it’s just rumors. A lot of malicious gossip.”

“Rumors? Are you sure?”

“Of course! Your uncle would never do such a thing. All he did was save me from that terrible zombie man and then walk me home so I would be safe. We said goodbye at the door and that was it. And then I went to the store this morning, and all I heard were stories about Chief Alec forcing himself on me. Crazy!”

“But where did those stories come from?” asked Odelia.

Pamela’s face suddenly took on a note of embarrassment. “I may have had something to do with that. I told my cleaning lady this morning about what happened, and she must have misunderstood. And then she visited her next job and must have embellished the story, and from there the whole thing must havesnowballed, taking on a life of its own.”

“You have to stop this, Pamela,” said Odelia sternly. “My uncle could get into some serious trouble over this.”

The widow threw up her hands in a gesture of despair.“What do you want me to do? I tell people what happened but they simply won’t believe me! Even my family and friends all think I’m lying to protect my attacker. They think I took your uncle’s money and signed some kind of non-disclosure agreement and now I’m lying through my teeth!”

“Mh,” said Odelia, thinking. “What if I interviewed you and put the story on tomorrow’s front page? They’d have to believe you then, wouldn’t they? Or we could even do a double interview, featuring both you and my uncle. Set the record straight.”

“I don’t know,” said Pamela, shaking her head. “I’m not so big on interviews. And after the ordeal I went through last night I don’t want my picture on the front page of theGazette, Odelia. What if the zombie recognizes me and comes after me?” She shivered.

“What zombie? What are you talking about?”

“The zombie your uncle saved me from!”

Odelia plunked down on the couch next to Pamela.“Start from the beginning, Pamela, and tell me exactly what happened.”

And so Pamela did. The story was a great one, full of twists and turns, and even the ending didn’t disappoint: a vanishing zombie? That was the best part, I thought, even though Odelia clearly didn’t think so.

“We have to find this person,” she said.

“Oh, I know exactly where to find him,” said Pamela, nodding.

“Hey, that’s great,” said Odelia, taking out her notebook. “You have his address?”

Pamela nodded primly.“The graveyard, of course. That’s where all zombies live.”

Chapter 8

Alec was driving home, and stopped his car at a traffic light. He was still thinking about Mayor Butterwick’s words—Charlene’s words—when suddenly an altercation dragged his attention away from his own thoughts. For some mysterious reason people had gathered around his squad car and were yelling at him. Some were pounding the hood of the car, while others were trying their best to break the windows.

“Rapist! Murderer!” some woman screamed.

“I hope you rot in jail, Alec Lip!” a man was shouting.

“Let’s drag him out of his car,” a third person suggested, and tried to open the door.

Good thing that Alec always locked his doors, so as to avoid his car being the object of a carjacking. Still, he felt he probably shouldn’t linger. So in spite of the fact that the light was still red, he stomped on the gas and the car hurtled across the intersection, one man still sprawled on the hood. Alec stopped suddenly and the man disappeared from view, then popped up again and screamed, “I’ll get you for this, you rapist piece of scum!”

But Alec was already speeding onwards. He had no idea what was going on, and why this was happening to him. How could these people—his people—possibly think he could do such a horrible thing? Didn’t they know him after thirty years on the job?

Apparently not, for as he cruised down Main Street, heads turned all along the sidewalk, and nasty glances were aimed in his direction, as well as insults hurled and even a Coke bottle that cracked his windshield. He shook his head as he sped up and vowed to heed Charlene’s advice and stay home until this whole thing had blown over.

And blow over, it most definitely would. He was, after all, the town’s beloved chief.

When he arrived home, he was dismayed to discover that all across his garage door the words,‘SHIEF ALEK IS A PURVURD’ had been sprayed.

Oddly enough he was more annoyed by the horrible spelling than the actual message.

He clicked a button and the garage door trundled up, then he drove inside and the door rumbled down again behind him.

He closed his eyes and tried to relax. Finally home. Safe and sound.

His phone chimed and he picked up when he saw who it was.

“Hey, Marge,” he said.

“Alec!” she practically screamed. “What did you do?!!!”

“Calm down, Marge. I didn’t do nothing. It’s all nasty gossip. None of it is true.”

“People are telling me to renounce you or else they’ll ask the council to have me replaced as librarian. And is it true that the Mayor asked you to step down?”

“She suspended me,” he confirmed. “But only for my own safety and the reputation of the force. She’ll conduct a full investigation into the allegations, which are all unfounded, and then I’ll be back at my post in no time.”

“I don’t understand.”

Frankly he didn’t understand either. Only that morning he’d gotten up, a little grumpy as usual but still happy to go to work, and now he was suddenly rapist scum?

“You need to talk to Pamela Witherspoon,” he said. “She’ll confirm that what happened last night was all perfectly above board.”

“Oh, Alec. Are you all right?” Sisterly affection came through her voice, and it warmed his heart.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’m home now, and I’m not leaving here until this is over.”

“You’re coming round for dinner tonight, though, right?”

“I don’t think I should show my face in town. And I’m not sure I should show my face at your place, either. If people see me, they’ll come after you, too.”

“Oh, nonsense. I’m not going to let my big brother fight this thing on his own. You’re coming over and that’s final.”

After he disconnected, he smiled. The town might have turned its back on him, but at least his family was still in his corner. He now saw he’d missed a call from his niece, and put the phone to his ear.

Odelia picked up immediately.“Uncle Alec? I’m so glad you called. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said, and then gave her a blow-by-blow of his eventful trip through Hampton Cove, and the way people had gone completely mad.

“We’ll set the record straight,” she promised. “I’m at Pamela’s now, and she just told me the truth. I would like to interview you both and put the interview on tomorrow’s front page, but she doesn’t want to. She’s afraid the publicity will make the zombie come after her.”

“The zombie,” he muttered as he rolled his eyes. He’d gotten out of his pickup and was now walking into his living room, then dropped down on his couch. “Look, the best way to deal with this whole mess is to find this so-called zombie. He’ll be able to confirm what happened last night.”

“I know, but where do we find him? Pamela’s suggestion was to go to the graveyard and locate him there. But that seems a little… impractical.”

He could hear she was still in the same room with Pamela, or else she would have used a lot stronger language. He grimaced.“Maybe return to the park tonight around the same time? If this is a guy attacking women he might show up again, looking for his next victim.”

“Good idea. I’ll arrange it with Chase. I can play the victim and Chase can hide in the bushes, waiting for the creep to attack me.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, honey,” he said, the thought of his niece being bait for some weirdo frankly appalling.

“Do you have a better idea?”

“No, frankly I don’t,” he admitted.

“I’ll run it by Chase. Oh, and is it true that he’s now the acting chief?”

“Yeah, he is. Charlene—Mayor Butterwick—didn’t think it was a good idea for me to stay on as chief while she got to the bottom of this mess.”

“Bad advice,” said Odelia curtly. “Now it looks as if you’re admitting guilt, and the Mayor is punishing you. So I’ll talk to her as well. Don’t you worry, Uncle Alec. I’ll fix this.”

And with these hopeful words, she rang off.

And as he settled back, suddenly a stone came sailing through his living room window, shattering it into a million pieces. He was on his feet in seconds, and when he looked out, he could see two neighborhood kids running away.

He picked up the stone. Around it, a piece of paper had been wrapped.

He unfolded it and read,“YOUR A DED MAN SHIEF RAPIST!”

He tsk-tsked. Again with the terrible spelling.

Chapter 9

Odelia had dropped us off at the house before returning to the office. When we walked in, I saw that Harriet and Brutus had made themselves comfortable on the couch, and were now intently watching that same home shopping network, with the Peppard Pet Food company’s lab coat girl offering them the enticing prospect of snacking on Miracle Cure kibble for the rest of their lives.

“And?” I asked as I joined them. “How did it go?”

“Marge called the Peppard Pet Food people, and Gran called them, and even Tex called them, but so far nothing,” said Brutus sadly.

“Maybe we should get more people to call in,” said Harriet now. “I’ll bet a lot of Marge’s nice library customers would do her this big favor, and also Tex’s patients.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said. “Marge is about to get kicked out of the library by those same nice customers.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s a long story,” said Dooley, “and a very sad one, too.”

“Maybe you can tell it, Dooley,” I suggested. “You were there from the beginning.”

Dooley’s face took on an appropriately serious expression now that he’d been tasked with this very important assignment. “So Uncle Alec met a woman in the park last night and the woman saw a zombie and then people said he attacked this woman but it was actually the zombie who attacked her and so things got a little mixed up and now Chief Alec isn’t Chief Alec anymore but Chase is and the woman doesn’t want to have her picture on the front page of the newspaper because she thinks it will make the zombie come after her but if she doesn’t Uncle Alec will never get his job back and maybe we’ll all have to move to Alaska soon and be cold and live in the snow.” He took a deep breath.

“Well done, Dooley,” I said. “You gave a very good summary of the recent events as they transpired.”

But Harriet and Brutus didn’t agree with this assessment. On the contrary, they looked thoroughly mystified. “Alaska?” asked Brutus, as this seemed to be the point that had struck him most vividly. “We’re all moving to Alaska? But it’s cold up there!”

“I’m not going,” said Harriet, shaking her head decidedly. “No way. Even though people always think I love snow, because of my gorgeous snowy white fur, I don’t like snow at all. Not really. Snow is cold and wet, and I hate cold and wet. I really do.”

“Alaska isn’t the issue here,” I said. “The issue is that Uncle Alec has been falsely accused and now Odelia is trying to clear his name.”

“I think I could get used to Alaska,” said Brutus. “I think all that snow and ice is good for your blood circulation. And of course you don’t have to spend time outside. I bet inside it’s always nice and warm. And cozy. You like cozy, don’t you, sugar plum?”

“Oh, I do love cozy, sweetums,” said Harriet. “It’s the cold and the wet I don’t like.”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” I asked. “Uncle Alec is being falsely accused of attacking a woman in the park last night.”

“Yes, and now we have to find a zombie,” said Dooley, “but weirdly enough Odelia isn’t looking for the zombie in the graveyard, as you would expect, but in the park tonight.”

“Zombie?” asked Harriet, finally dragging her mind away from Alaska and its no-doubt myriad pros and cons. “What are you talking about, Dooley? What zombie?”

“Well, Pamela Witherspoon saw a zombie, and then she ran into Uncle Alec, who saved her from being eaten alive, and now everybody thinks he dragged her into the bushes and did bad things to her, and if we can find the zombie he’ll be able to confirm that Uncle Alec did no such thing.”

“Clear now?” I asked, patting my friend on the back for a job well done.

“Clear as mud,” said Brutus, but his attention was already wandering back to the screen, where the Peppard Pet Food company was doing a fine job of making all of our mouths water.

I shook my head and decided to take a nap. I had a feeling Odelia was going to ask us to tag along tonight on her zombie hunt, and I wanted to be fresh and alert. Zombies are not to be trifled with, and you never know when they’ll attack and try to eat your brains.

And I’d just dozed off when I became aware of a strange sound. When I opened my eyes I saw that a cameraman was filming me!

I practically jumped from the couch, and as I stared into the lens, suddenly Gran’s voice spoke in my immediate rear.

“That’s Max, and the small gray one is mine. His name is Dooley. The white Persian is Marge’s, and the black one is Chase’s, though he gifted him to Odelia, my granddaughter.”

I looked up, wondering who she was talking to, and saw that a woman stood holding a microphone under Gran’s nose. A fourth person was also present. He was dressed in a black silk shirt, red leather tie, and had wild electric hair sprouting from his head.

Next to me, my friends, also roused from their slumber, stared at the spectacle with as much wonder and surprise as me.

“Your family is really into cats, aren’t they, Mrs. Muffin?”

“Vesta, please,” said Gran, displaying an uncharacteristic full-toothed smile. “And yes, we all love cats. My daughter Marge and Odelia most of all. The men in our family, well, let’s just say they tolerate our peculiar predilection.” She laughed at her own joke, and the woman with the microphone laughed right along. She was very thin and young, with an abundance of dark curly hair and large-framed glasses. The cameraman, meanwhile, who was filming Gran, was a short and stubby individual with a round face and strange little beard that looked like a ring around his lips. He was munching on something.

“Thank you so much for inviting us into your home, Vesta,” said Microphone Lady.

“Oh, no, I’m happy to oblige,” said Gran. “It is, after all, something very special we’re doing here, and the world should be our witness.”

We all stared at one another, wondering what was going on.

The wild-haired man in the black shirt and red tie was pulling his nose now, and staring intently into the middle distance.“Are you sure there will be room for us?” he asked. “It’s a very small place you got here, Vesta.”

“Odelia has a spare bedroom upstairs,” said Vesta. “And we have another spare bedroom next door.”

“We could always stay at a hotel,” suggested Microphone Lady. “I’d be happy to.”

“No, we should be right here,” said the wild-haired one. “We need to follow Vesta day and night. So I suggest I stay next door, while you two share the upstairs bedroom.”

“Great idea,” said Vesta, though the cameraman and the microphone woman didn’t look convinced.

“Are you sure your family are on board with this?” asked Microphone Lady.

“Oh, absolutely,” said Vesta, displaying another toothy grin. “They’ll be thrilled.”

Chapter 10

Marge was thoroughly worried. It wasn’t just that Alec was in trouble, it was more that all of a sudden her entire world had been thrown out of whack. Alec wasn’t just her big brother, the one she could always turn to. He was also the town’s chief of police—the maneveryone turned to. And now all of a sudden he’d been turned into an outcast.

It was almost as if she’d suddenly fallen down into the upside-down version of her normal world. As if she were living her own worst nightmare.

When she arrived home that night, after fending off dozens of questions from her customers, some worried, others irate, like Bertha Braithwaite, she was happy to be home. Happy finally to find a respite from a world that had obviously gone mad.

So when she walked in the door and was greeted by a film crew and a man who looked like Doc Brown fromBack to the Future, it was frankly a little too much. And when her mother turned to her with a big smile and blithely announced,“I’ve decided to have another baby,” she dropped to the floor and promptly passed out.

Lucky for her there were not one but two doctors in the house: her husband Tex, but also, quite surprisingly, Doc Brown, whose name wasn’t Doc Brown at all but Clam.

So when she was quickly and efficiently revived, and found herself lying on the couch in a darkened room while muffled voices discussed her‘episode,’ she thought she must still be dreaming, and for the briefest of moments thought that maybe the whole thing was a dream: the fact that her brother was suddenly being accused of a heinous act, and the fact that her mother had invited what looked like a television crew into their home.

But when Tex walked in and sat down next to her, a cup of tea in his hand, which he handed her, and a grave expression on his face, she knew it hadn’t been a dream at all, but stark reality.

“Did I just pass out?” she asked.

“Yes, you did, darling. But nothing to worry about. Doctor Clam caught you the moment your knees buckled, so you didn’t even hit your head or anything.”

“Doctor…”

“Clam. Zebediah Clam.” Tex’s right eye twitched, something she’d never seen before.

“So who is Doctor Clam, and why is there a television crew in my house?”

“Um… maybe you better take a good long sip of tea first,” said Tex as he tried to reassure her with a smile that came off more like a grimace.

But she took the sip, and then waited as he first cleared his throat, then inserted a finger between collar and neck and tugged.

“The thing is, darling, that your mother has decided…” He grimaced again. “Well, she has decided to…”

“To have another baby? But honey, how is that even possible? She’s too old to have a baby.”

“Exactly what I told her!” said Tex, slapping his knee. “But Doc Clam, who apparently is a fertility expert, claims it can be done. He claims that with the right hormonal mix the effects of menopause can be reversed, and even a woman of your mother’s age can get pregnant and carry a baby tofull term.”

Marge stared at her husband, then took another sip of tea, hoping it would clear her mind of the sneaking suspicion not only Hampton Cove had gone mad, but her own family, too.“This is a joke, right? You’re not serious, are you?” she finally asked.

“I’m afraid I am—and so is Vesta. She already started the treatment, and Doc Clam will be right here so he can take her case well in hand.”

“And the television crew?”

“They’re with Clam. He considers Vesta’s case his most ambitious project to date, and wants to document every moment of her historic journey from conception to delivery.”

“I don’t believe this,” said Marge, closing her eyes. “Tell me this is all a bad dream, Tex. Tell me this isn’t happening.”

“Oh, it’s happening, and we’re going to be in this documentary, too. Because Doctor Clam is staying in our spare bedroom, and his television crew is staying in Odelia’s. Vesta was so kind to invite them to stay here, as the doctor feels it’s important he’s on the premises to monitor herprogress closely, day and night. For nine. Long. Months.”

“Nine months. Day and night,” Marge echoed morosely.

“I’m… not entirely sanguine that this Clam’s methods are entirely… scientific. Or even ethical. But when I tried to voice some of my objections, your mother overruled me. She said it’s her body and her decision, and I should butt out. So I guess I’m butting out.”

“I so rue the day I invited her to stay with us. I felt sorry for her, you know, after the divorce, and I thought I did the right thing by letting her stay with us until she got back on her feet.”

“Oh, she’s back on her feet all right.”

She most definitely was. But then Marge took a deep breath and decided that this would pass, too. Her mother had pulled some crazy stunts before, and somehow they’d survived them all. And this time would be no different. She hoped.

“Say, what’s all this I’m hearing about Alec attacking Pamela Witherspoon in the park last night?” asked Tex now.

“Oh, I completely forgot to tell you about that. Alec is the victim of a vicious gossip campaign, which has already led to his suspension as chief of police, and which might lead to my suspension as librarian as well. But Odelia is on the case, and tonight she and Chase are going to the park to look for that zombie. He’s the key to this whole thing.”

Tex stared at her, then wordlessly took the cup from her fingers and drained it.

Yup. It was one of those days.

Just then, the doorbell rang, and she got up to open the door. When she did, she found a stranger standing on the mat, smiling at her. He had a long white Santa Claus beard, long white Santa Claus hair, and was dressed in a red Santa suit.

“It’s too early for Christmas,” she said automatically, and made to close the door.

But then Santa pulled down his beard and said,“Marge, it’s me—Alec!”

Uh-huh. Definitely one of those days.

Chapter 11

All of our humans were seated around the dinner table, only this time three more humans had been added to the mix: Doctor Zebediah Clam, Libby Elk, who was a freelance reporter and documentary maker, and Jonah Zappa, her associate and cameraman.

Instead of joining the others for creamy prawn pasta, though, Libby and Jonah were filming, as if this were the scene of some reality show orLifetime production. It was all very weird, and I wasn’t entirely sure my humans were fully on board with the scheme.

Gran obviously was, as she was the life and soul of the party, giggling and laughing and telling anecdote after anecdote. In fact I don’t think I’d ever seen her this lively and animated since making her acquaintance all those many years ago.

“Gran seems to be having a great time,” said Dooley, making the same observation.

“Is it true she’s having another baby?” asked Harriet, who looked slightly worried at the prospect.

“It sure looks that way,” I said. “This Doctor Zebediah Clam is one of the world’s leading fertility experts, and he claims he can make it happen.”

“But… isn’t Gran too old to have a baby?” asked Dooley, putting his paw on the nub.

“According to Doctor Clam she isn’t.”

“I wonder what Marge and Alec will say,” said Brutus. “About the fact that in only nine months’ time they’re getting a little brother or sister.”

Judging from the looks on their faces, they weren’t exactly over the moon, I thought. Alec, who’d downed both Santa beard and hair, clearly wasn’t in the mood to become a big brother to a little munchkin again. His life was a shambles, and he clearly was harboring dark thoughts toward his dear old mommy. In front of the camera crew and Doctor Clam, though, the Pooles were all on their best behavior, and didn’t offer a word of criticism, all keenly aware they were being filmed, their responses and reactions saved for posterity.

“I think it’s going to be a happy occasion,” said Dooley now. “Having a baby is always a good thing. A time for joy and happiness. Moments of love and light and laughter.”

“I thought you didn’t like babies, Dooley?” asked Harriet. “I thought you said they’d take your place and you didn’t want them in the house?”

“I know that’s what I used to think, but since then I’ve changed my mind,” said Dooley. “And now I know that cats and babies can live together in perfect harmony.”

“Very good, Dooley,” I said, “And you’re absolutely right. Having a baby is a source of great joy for any family. Soon the sound of a baby crying will be heard, and then the sound of its feet going pitter-patter on the kitchen floor. A great time for all of us.”

“Tell that to our humans,” said Harriet. “They look like they’re at a funeral.”

She was right. They did all look as if this upcoming birth was a funeral and not the happy occasion it was supposed to be.

Then again, even after spending all this time around humans, the species still remains a mystery to me.

“So what’s going to happen next, Doctor Clam?” asked Chase as he sliced into a tomato and managed to spray some tomato juice all over his nice clean shirt.

The doctor steepled his fingers and looked appropriately serious.“Well, first I’ve started Vesta on hormone therapy—my own very special concoction. And then when she’s ready we’re going to perform the in vitro fertilization of one of her egg cells.”

“Wait, what?” said Gran. “I didn’t sign up for no frickin IVF! I thought this was going to go the natural way. You know, with me and some deserving male doing the deed.”

“Please, Ma, don’t go there,” said Alec, holding up his hand. “I don’t need that image in my head.”

“I know what images you have in that head of yours, Alec,” said Gran. “From what I heard all you can think about is you and Pamela Witherspoon getting jiggy in the bushes.”

“Ma!” said Marge. “How can you even think such a thing?”

“What? Alec getting jiggy with Pamela? It’s only natural. A half-naked woman jumps into his arms? Any man would be tempted, and especially a widower like Alec.”

“Is that the story you heard?” asked Odelia.

“Sure. At the pharmacy this morning. Blanche Captor and Ida Baumgartner were talking up a storm. How a half-naked or fully-naked Pamela—depending on who told the story—jumped Alec’s bones and they got hot and heavy in the bushes. And I’m happy for you, Alec. I’m happy you finally found yourself a girlfriend. Even though you probably should be careful, because according to all accounts Pamela Witherspoon is a lush who sees zombies everywhere she goes.”

“Looks like the story has changed a little since this morning,” said Odelia.

“Yeah, the latest version is that Alec attacked an innocent Pamela as she was walking along the road, dragged her into the bushes and went all caveman on her,” said Marge.

“I think I like Ma’s version better,” said Alec now.

“Wait, can you give us a little more background?” asked Libby Elk, the reporter.

“Well, my brother Alec, who is our chief of police,” Marge said, “has been falsely accused of doing something very bad to Pamela Witherspoon. Isn’t that right, honey?”

Odelia nodded.“The gossip mill running amok. It happens.”

“Look, who cares about Pamela Witherspoon?” said Vesta. “I already selected a father for my future child and now you’re telling me I can’t even go the full monty with the guy?”

“The chances of you getting pregnant the natural way are practically nil,” said Doctor Clam. “So I’m afraid in vitro is the only way we will be able to pull this off, Vesta.”

“Well, holy moly. I’m having a test tube babyand will be the oldest mother in history?Guinness Book of Records here I come!”

“Are you sure this is such a good idea?” asked Marge, always the voice of reason in our family.

“Sure? Of course I’m sure! Look, when I had you two I was full of hopes and dreams. I thought Marge would become the first female president of this country, and Alec could blaze the trail for her by becoming president first, and now look at you: a librarian and a cop! What a disappointment! So now that I’m getting a second chance to get it right I’m going to grab it with both hands. This new baby is finally gonna make me proud!”

“Nice,” said Marge.

“Yeah, real nice, Ma,” said Alec.

“You’re welcome,” she said, and popped a prawn into her mouth.

“So who’s the father going to be?” asked Chase.

“Oh, I have someone in mind you’re all gonna love.”

“Who?” asked Marge.

She smiled.“Let’s just say it’ll be a nice surprise.”

Chapter 12

That evening, Odelia officially invited us to go zombie-hunting. I know I should have been excited, as I’d never engaged in such an activity before, but frankly I was a little trepidatious. Personally I don’t know any zombies, but from what I’ve heard they’re not very nice creatures and can, when provoked, turn vicious and downright nasty.

So it was with a heart weighed down with the weight of woe that I set paw in Odelia’s pickup and allowed myself to be transported to the town park, where the nocturnal vigil was taking place.

Odelia, dressed for the occasion in a tank top, short-short skirt and a blond wig, looked as if she wasn’t there to pick up zombies but men. In other words, she looked like Julia Roberts inPretty Woman.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” she asked nervously as she pulled down her skirt, which was showing so much leg it almost appeared as if she was nothing but legs. She was also on high heels and in fishnet stockings. The end result was supposed to look sexy, but I guess I’m not the rightaudience, as I didn’t think it was all that sexy-looking at all.

“I think it’s going to work wonders,” said Chase, the only one who seemed confident in the scheme. “If that zombie sees you, he’s going to try to jump you so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

“My head is spinning already,” she said, “but that may have something to do with this wig. It’s really tight around my head.”

“Has to be, babe, or it will fall off.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” I asked, and I think I was speaking for the entire cat contingent when I posed this question.

“You just keep a close eye on the proceedings,” she said. “And if you see any sign of the zombie, you holler.”

Well, holler is one thing cats do very well. In fact it often earns us shoes thrown in our direction, especially when the hollering takes place in the context of cat choir.

“You do realize we’re totally going to miss cat choir, don’t you?” said Harriet.

“I know, but this is more important,” I said.

“I’m not so sure about that,” she argued. “Odelia doesn’t need us. She has Chase to look after her. Besides, what are we going to do when she’s attacked by a zombie? Everyone knows zombies are dead people, and you can’t protect yourself from dead people. All you can do is run.”

“Or bash their heads in,” said Brutus, who’d watched his share of zombie movies.

“Bash their heads in?” asked Dooley. “What do you mean, Brutus?”

“Well, zombies are operated by their brain stem, the most primal part of the brain, so if you bash their heads in, you make them fully dead, instead of just half dead.” He leaned in, and added, “Their brain is where the virus lives—the virus that made them undead in the first place. So a well-aimed thunk on the noggin will take care of them.”

“But… how are we going to deliver that well-aimed thunk on the noggin?” asked Dooley. “We’re cats. We can’t even get that high.”

“Don’t you worry about that part, Dooley,” said Brutus. “Me and Chase got it all covered. All you have to do is play canary in the coal mine. Tweet if you see the zombie.”

“Tweet if I see the…” Dooley muttered, thinking hard.

Brutus gave me a wink.“You, too, Max. Just be on the lookout for the zombie, and me my man Chase will take care of the rest.”

“And how are you going to handle the zombie, exactly?” I asked,

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that, Maxie baby,” he said, puffing out his chest a little.

I rolled my eyes in response, and even Harriet seemed less than impressed by her mate’s fighting spirit.

We finally arrived at the park, and walked the distance to the spot where apparently the altercation between Pamela Witherspoon and the zombie had taken place.

Chase quickly withdrew into the bushes that lined the road, and so did the rest of us. Odelia, of course, didn’t have that luxury. She was the one acting as zombie bait.

Suddenly, Santa Claus came hurrying up, pulling on his red pants which were clearly too wide, and adjusting his white beard, which was a little ill-fitting, too.

“Alec!” Chase hissed from his bush. “Get over here!”

With surprising alacrity Santa Alec disappeared into the bushes.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said. “Marge gave me a long lecture about the inappropriateness of our mother having another baby and I couldn’t get away.”

“Are you sure you being here is a good idea? You are being suspected of assaulting a woman in this very spot, and here you are, returning to the scene of the crime.”

“Pretty sure no one will recognize me,” said Alec.

“You’re dressed up as Santa Claus, Alec! You stick out like a sore thumb!”

“Yeah, I probably should have worn something a little less conspicuous,” the former chief admitted. “Then again, like I said, no one will recognize me, and isn’t that the main effect we’re going for here?”

“The main effect is catching this zombie.”

“Yeah, that, too.”

“Maybe I could attend cat choir while you guys stake out the zombie,” said Harriet now. “I mean, you don’t really need me here, do you?”

“Maybe I’ll attend cat choir too,” said Dooley.

“Dooley!” I said, aghast. “You can’t desert us. Odelia needs you. Uncle Alec needs you.”

“I know, but I don’t like zombies, Max,” he said.

I sighed.“Fine. You and Harriet go to cat choir. Brutus and I will hold down the fort.”

“You got that right, buddy,” said Brutus.

We watched as Harriet and Dooley snuck off to cat choir.

“So how exactly are you going to bash that zombie’s head in, Brutus?” I asked.

“Like I said, you don’t have to worry about that,” he grumbled. “I have my methods.”

Brutus is butch, I have to admit. He’s also a very strong cat. But he’s no match for a zombie I didn’t think.

Meanwhile, Alec and Chase were lurking in bush number one, so to speak, and Brutus and I were lurking in bush number two, while poor Odelia was resigned to stalking up and down the stretch of street lining the park. She was still uncomfortable in her outfit, but like a real trooper didn’t let it stop her. And as she passed our bush for the third time in fifteen minutes, she whispered, “Still no sign of the zombie!”

“Are you sure it was here that Pamela met him?” asked Chase.

“Yeah, absolutely sure,” said Uncle Alec. “He came up to her right here, and then she ran off, and bumped into me just around that corner over there.”

“Maybe zombies aren’t territorial,” I suggested.

“Meaning?” asked Brutus.

“Meaning they don’t stick to a well-defined area. Maybe our zombie is wandering Main Street right now, terrorizing people back there.”

“We would have heard about that by now,” said Brutus.

“Yes, Max,” Odelia agreed. “If the zombie was showing his ugly face in some other part of town, we would have heard about it.”