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“Don’t worry,” said the driver. “I’ll get rid of the cats.”

“You took the wrong dogs!”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You took the Queen’s corgis!”

“So?”

“You idiot! You were supposed to take Tessa’s dog—not the Queen’s!”

“Who cares? You told me to snatch royal dogs so I snatched royal dogs. And I’m throwing the cats in as a bonus. Except for the fat one. That’s mine.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sakes. Take them back.”

“Wait, what?”

“Don’t you realize what you’ve done? The entire country will be looking for those dogs. And I don’t even want to describe what they’ll do to the man who took them. You, sir, are an idiot. A moron!”

“Hey! Sticks and stones, mate!”

The man was walking away.

“What about my money?!”

“Return those dogs!” the man yelled back. “Or you’ll be sorry!”

“We had a deal!”

But the man got into his car and drove off.

“He wanted Fluffy,” said Sweetie. “Can you believe it? He prefers a stupid mongrel over us!”

“Why would anyone want to steal Fluffy?” Harriet asked.

“Probably another Tessa-hater,” I said. “Wanting to get back at her for some perceived slight or offense she caused.”

But the corgis weren’t listening. Instead, they were arguing the merits and demerits of Fluffy, whom they didn’t seem to like all that much.

“So now what?” said the guy, glancing back at us.

“Better take us back,” said Molly. “The Queen will be worried.”

“I thought you didn’t care about the Queen?” said Harriet.

“Oh, will you please shut up, cat?” said Sweetie imperiously.

“You know what?” said the kidnapper. “I’ll just dump you here. The guy is probably right. Pretty soon Scotland Yard will be breathing down my neck.”

And so he got out, slammed the door, and started jogging off!

He didn’t get far, though, for a similar Range Rover to ours suddenly materialized, tires screeching as it pulled to a stop, then Chase jumped out! After a short chase, Chase tackled the guy and wrestled him to the ground.

“That’s Chase!” cried Brutus. “That’s my human!”

Odelia then came running in our direction, opened the door and, with tears in her eyes, said,“You guys—are you all right?”

And I have to admit I got a little teary, too, as we all jumped into her arms.

“Drama queens,” said Sweetie.

“I think it’s pretty sweet,” said Fr?ulein.

Chapter 27

“Did you see the man’s face?” asked Odelia.

Max shook his head.“I’m afraid I didn’t.”

The others all shook their heads, too. They hadn’t seen the man either.

“What about the corgis?”

The corgis were being checked out by a doctor, but so far they seemed to be fine. The kidnapper, a low-level career criminal, had been contacted by the unknown man a couple of days ago. The scheme he proposed was simple: dress up like one of the royal drivers, and use any opportunity to kidnap the royal dog. Of course the crook had bungled the thing by kidnapping the corgis instead. He’d figured three royal dogs was better than one. Apparently not.

They were on a stretch of road very light on traffic, parked on the shoulder in the middle of nowhere. All around there was only greenery. No houses. No sign of civilization except for the asphalt, and the gravel of the shoulder.

She watched as Max approached the corgis, then returned a few moments later.“They are so hard to talk to,” he said with a sigh. “Cocky, you know.”

“Cocky corgis?” said Odelia with a grin. “That sounds like a book title.”

“Well, anyway, Fr?ulein is not as cocky as her colleagues, and she claims the man looked familiar, though she doesn’t know who he is, either.”

“But she saw his face?”

“Briefly. They were sitting closer to him when he looked in on us.”

“Did they describe him?”

“Medium height and build. Average features. Sweetie thinks he was blond, Fr?ulein claims he was brown, Molly swears he was black going on gray.”

“You could ask a sketch artist,” said Harriet. “You did that once before, remember?”

Odelia did remember, only she’d been home in Hampton Cove that time, and her uncle had officiated the proceedings. Gran had pretended to be the witness, while being fed information by the actual witness, a cat named Big Mac. This time it would be practically impossible to pull off the same stunt: the corgis would have to talk to Max, who’d have to translate, so she could describe the kidnapper to the sketch artist. And she couldn’t even reasonably claim she’d actually seen the man, as they’d only arrived after he left.

“Sweetie did say he had a babyface, though Molly claims he had a long, thin face. They didn’t notice eye color or any other particular details.”

“An ordinary-looking man trying to abduct Tessa’s dog,” she said musingly.

“Could it be the same person who’s been trying to kill her?” asked Brutus.

“Could be,” she admitted.

“Aren’t there any cameras around here?” asked Max.

She glanced around, and caught sight of Chase, who was still talking to the police. He was the hero of the hour. The man who’d taken down the kidnapper. “I doubt it,” she said. Unless someone had fastened a camera to a tree. The kidnapper wasn’t stupid. He picked this place for a reason.

Chase came jogging up.“It’s in the hands of the police now,” he said. “I’m sure they know what they’re doing. They were surprised when I told them I’m a cop myself.” He waved as the cop car sped by, the kidnapper in the back.

“That guy just became public enemy number one,” said Odelia.

“He claims he doesn’t know who the client was. He was contacted by text, and only met the guy for the first time today.”

“So what did he look like, this mystery man?”

“Medium build, medium height, average face… He was wearing a ball cap to partially obscure his features.”

“Hair color?”

“He figures the man was bald, hence the ball cap.”

Odelia groaned in frustration. Four witnesses and four different descriptions.

“Let’s get back to the cottage,” said Chase. “We don’t want to keep Her Royal Highness waiting.”

The Queen, in a highly unusual initiative, had instructed Odelia and Chase to return her precious corgis. Apparently she didn’t trust anyone at this point, and Chase and Odelia were, after all, highly regarded by Tessa and Dante.

The corgis had been checked out, and were returned to the Queen’s Range Rover. This time Chase took the wheel, while Bart took the wheel of the second Rover, and together they drove back to the cottage, Chase following behind Bart, who knew the way—or had a good command of the royal GPS.

“I’m so glad he didn’t sell us to the highest bidder,” said Harriet from the backseat.

“I’m glad, too,” said Odelia.

“He was going to keep Max,” said Dooley. “He liked him because he’s red and fat.”

Odelia smiled.“Max isn’t fat and he isn’t red. He’s big-boned and blorange. Isn’t that right, Max?” When Max didn’t respond, she looked over. The little guy had tears in his eyes. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, and took him on her lap.

“I love you, Odelia,” Max breathed, choking up.

“And I love you, sweetie,” she said, and gave him a cuddle.

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“Oh, get a room,” said Molly.

“Did she just call my name?” asked Sweetie.

“She said ‘sweetie,’ not ‘Sweetie,’” said Fr?ulein.

“Did you tell your human this kidnapper guy was going to sell us to the ruler of Dubai?” asked Molly. “Which wouldn’t have been all that bad.”

“I think all’s well that ends well,” said Fr?ulein.

“I guess so,” said Molly, a little dejected. Apparently she’d been looking forward to her Dubai adventure.

“You were never going to be sold to anyone,” I said. “The kidnapper wanted to kidnap Fluffy as a way of getting back at Tessa.”

“Such bad taste,” said Sweetie, shaking her head at so much foolishness.

“Someone’s been trying to hurt Tessa for days. And it’s very well possible that they planned to use Fluffy to lure Tessa into a trap.”

“Smart thinking, Max,” said Odelia. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Was the Queen worried about us?” asked Molly.

I translated her words for Odelia’s sake.

“The Queen was worried sick,” she said.

“Oh,” said Molly, and thought for a moment. “I like the Queen,” she said finally. “She’s been very good to us over the years.”

“She has,” confirmed Sweetie. “I’m actually glad we weren’t sold to Dubai.”

“How about you, Odelia?” asked Dooley. “Did you miss us?”

She smiled.“Of course. I wouldn’t have known what to do if something had happened to you. I love you guys so, so much.”

The corgis were speechless.“Does she really mean that?” asked Sweetie.

I relayed the message and Odelia responded,“Of course. They’re my babies.”

“Mh,” said Molly, as if she found it hard to believe anyone could care that much for a cat.

“I guess we learned a valuable lesson today,” said Fr?ulein.

“What’s that?” asked Sweetie.

“That you two knuckleheads are even dumber than I thought. And that humans love their cats, too.”

“Thank you for coming to find us, Odelia,” I said.

“Oh, Maxie,” she said, and tickled my belly until ? fell off her lap laughing.

Even the corgis joined in at some point, proving that even snooty dogs can get unsnootied when pushed.

Chapter 28

They were all gathered in the war room—actually Dante and Tessa’s office. Present were Dante, Tessa and Angela, Odelia, Chase and Gran, and Tessa’s cousin Nesbit. The Queen had left with her entourage and her corgis, happy to return to the safety of Buckingham Palace. The events of the past few hours had shaken the monarch to thecore, and it was obvious Dante and Tessa felt guilty about the whole thing. After all, the kidnapper had targeted Fluffy, and not the corgis.

“My grandmother is still convinced the kidnappers were targeting her corgis, and not Fluffy,” said the Duke now. “There have been plots to kidnap them before, but this is the first time an attempt actually succeeded. Almost.”

“Have they caught the guy who gave the kidnap order?” asked Odelia.

Tessa’s cousin shook his head. “Not yet. They’ll catch him sooner or later, though.”

“No security cameras, right?” said Chase.

“None. They picked a great spot to skedaddle.”

“Too bad the whole episode spooked the Queen,” said Gran. “We were really bonding there. Do you think the chances of her dropping by for another visit are high, medium or rare?”

“Non-existent,” said Dante dryly. “She’s never coming back here—at least not in the foreseeable future. Gran loves those corgis almost as much, or maybe even more, than her own offspring, so to return to the place where they were snatched is not going to hold a lot of appeal to her.”

“Nuts,” grumbled Gran, whose hopes of learning at the knee of the master had received a powerful blow.

“So let’s discuss theories,” said Tessa, getting back to the nub of the thing. She directed her next question to her cousin. “Who do you think is responsible for these attacks, Nesbit? What do your colleagues think?”

“My colleagues think most likely this is the work of a disgruntled employee.” He took out a notebook. “I’ve compiled a list of all the people who’ve worked for you, past and present. One of them must be behind this whole thing. I’ve cross-referenced with the people present at the SummerShow, the homeless shelter, and of course here at the house. When the tea incident happened, Suzy was there, and so were your cook Carolyn and personal assistant Sherri. At the Summer Show, Sherri was present, but she wasn’t at the homeless shelter and neither was Carolyn. Only Suzy was there.”

“There are others,” said Tessa, and brought out her phone. “I’ve compiled my own list of people who seem to resent me to the extent they might want to harm me.” She cleared her throat and gave her husband a weary look. “You’re not going to like this, Dante.”

“I think I can take it,” said the Duke.

“Your brother and his wife, your friend Damien and his cronies. And of course your ex-girlfriends Chrissie, Missy and Sissy. None of them like me very much, and all of them have expressed, veiled or unveiled, the notion that I stole you away from them, which makes me their mortal enemy.”

“That’s ludicrous,” said Dante. “I broke up with them a long time ago. When we met I’d been single for months.”

“Still. They hate my guts, and so do your brother and his wife.”

“Nonsense. Jennie and Jeremy adore you.”

“Yeah, right. That’s why they referred to me as ‘that horrible woman’ at your aunt Caroline’s reception last month. I happened to overhear them.”

“Well, you must have heard wrong.”

“Don’t forget your grandmother, Dante,” said Angela. “I know Tessa is too kind to mention her but she’s definitely on my list of suspects.”

“My grandmother? Really, Angela?”

“The Queen is notoriously averse to scandal. A divorce is the last thing she wants, so if she were to get rid of Tessa the only option would be to make it look like an accident. She could have put someone on staff here to do the dirty work,” she added when Dante made protesting noises.

“Nonsense. My gran has been nothing but supportive of Tessa from the first. In fact she’s told me on more than one occasion how happy she is that I finally found a life partner. She was worried before, and is over the moon now. Especially after the birth of Silvy. She absolutely adores her great-grandchild.”

“So what about this Damien character?” asked Chase.

Dante hesitated.“Damien is… disappointed that I’m not the friend I used to be. And of course he blames Tessa to some extent, but in equal measure he blames me. Deep down, though, I think he knows that change is inevitable, and that he can’t expect the father of a newborn to hit the clubs hard every night. He also knows he has to settle down himself eventually, and he’s rebelling. He would never harm Tessa. I vouch for the bloke. He’s a good egg.”

“So that leaves us with…” Odelia consulted her own list. “You haven’t mentioned the nanny yet.”

“She wasn’t anywhere near the Summer Show, or the homeless shelter,” said Nesbit. “She also wasn’t at the house when the tea thing happened. She’d gone home.”

“What about the housekeeper?” Odelia remembered she’d kicked out her cats the night before, which of course didn’t mean she was a killer, but still.

“She was here when the tea incident happened, but she didn’t attend the Summer Show, and she wasn’t at the homeless shelter this morning.”

“So where does that leave us?” asked Angela.

“Nowhere,” said Gran.

Tessa threw up her hands.“This is crazy. Someone is trying to kill me and we’re just going around in circles. This person might very well be on the verge of striking again and we’re simply getting nowhere.”

“Have you examined the bullet that grazed Tessa’s cheek?” asked Chase.

“We have—in all discretion. It was fired from a Glock 17, probably procured on the black market, as ownership of handguns is tightly regulated.”

“I think we should let the police handle things from now on,” said Dante, voicing an opinion he’d expressed before. “All this cloak and dagger stuff is all very exciting, but they have the resources and the experience to handle the investigation the way it should have been handled from the start.”

“You seem to forget that all members of our protection team are police officers,” said Tessa. “They’re more than qualified to deal with this.”

“After three botched attempts on your life and one dognapping excuse me if I have my doubts about their professionalism, Tessa. I think they should all go and be replaced by an entirely new team. No offense, Nesbit.”

“None taken,” said Odelia’s cousin. “They’re good guys, all of them, dedicated to your family, but whoever is behind this is a slippery bastard.”

“Give us one more chance,” said Odelia. “I know we can find this guy.”

Dante wavered, but Tessa was giving him a pleading look and finally he relented.“All right, fine. One more day. But if by tomorrow evening you don’t have a solid lead, I’m bringing Scotland Yard into the picture. This has got to stop, Tessa. I won’t let you put yourself in harm’s way like this.”

“Odelia will find out what ’s going on,” said Tessa, with a conviction Odelia herself wasn’t feeling.

One more day. She needed to get her act together and get to the bottom of this thing or else they were all on the next plane back to Hampton Cove, or worse, the next attempt on Tessa’s life would be successful. And she would never forgive herself if that happened.

A child started crying in the next room, and Tessa got up. She placed a hand on Odelia’s shoulder. “I trust you, Odelia. You can do this.”

If only she felt as confident in her abilities as Tessa did…

Chapter 29

While the humans were all ensconced in a room discussing the recent dramatic events, I was wandering the house and wondering how to contribute to the unraveling of the mystery. Frankly I didn’t have a lot to contribute. As far as I could tell anyone could have kidnapped us. And it wasn’t anyone we’d met so far.

So I decided to give the investigation a rest for now, and await further instructions from sleuthin-charge Odelia.

And as I was pottering to and fro, trying to find that perfect spot to take a well-deserved nap, I was softly humming a little tune to myself. It’s my habit to sing, not when I’m in the shower, for as you may or may not know, cats don’t enjoy taking showers, but to aid the thinking process. Also, I’m something of a songbird. What can I say—I just enjoy the joy of singing!

Dooley, who was sampling a spot on the couch in front of the big television set, winced as I passed and sang my few bars.

Harriet, who was inspecting a nice throw pillow on the second couch, likewise screwed up her face and gave me a long, lingering look that didn’t harbor a lot of warmth and appreciation for livening up her day with song.

Brutus, who was eyeing a shelf laden with knickknacks, thinking up ways and means of making the jump and lounging there for a while, shook his head.“Can you please stop that racket? I can’t hear myself think.”

“It is a little annoying,” agreed Fluffy, who, as queen of the castle, had reserved the prime spot all to herself: a basket on the floor near the window, where she had a great overview both of the goings-on inside and outside.

“I was just humming a gay little tune,” I said defensively.

“We need to continue our lessons, Max,” Harriet said now. “And we might as well do it now, as there seems to be a lull in the investigation.”

A lull was right. It would appear that none of the humans had a clue how to proceed in catching this dastardly demon who was gunning for lovely Tessa.

“Oh, great,” I said, not expecting this. “I would love to put in some more practice.”

That way, when we finally got back from our trip overseas, I could be reinstated as a full-blown and appreciated member of cat choir once more. Maybe I could even induce Shanille to let me sing a solo. Singing solos, it would appear, is what being part of a choir is all about: it lends one prestige and makes one the standard-bearer of the group, if one catches my meaning.

“Where do you want me to sit?” I asked. “Near the window? Or maybe higher? For the acoustics,” I clarified. “It’s very important to have great acoustics when you’re singing. It gives it that little extra oomph your musical aficionado wants.”

“I think your voice has all the oomph it needs,” said Brutus. He’d finally decided against jumping on top of the high shelf. A wise decision, I thought, as those little knickknacks contained a framed picture of Silvy and a portrait of the Queen, and if Brutus knocked them all to the floor, there would be hell to pay, or at least a stern rebuke from the Duke.

“Maybe we should take this outside,” said Harriet after careful consideration. “There are too many sensitive ears in here to be subjected to the kind of racket you call singing. I’m thinking about the baby.”

I should probably have felt insulted but strangely enough I wasn’t. I was touched that Harriet would want to protect me from the ire of the humans. Most of them are, after all, cultural barbarians, everybody knows that. So I tripped to the door, only to find it closed again, with no pet flap in sight.

“So how do we get out of here?” I asked Fluffy, lounging languorously in her pillow-covered basket.

“You have to ask one of the humans,” she said. “I usually yap loudly, and that does the trick. If that doesn’t work, I jump up and down someone’s leg.”

I wasn’t going to lower myself to jumping up and down someone’s leg. Cats are better than that. But the meowing could work. So I licked my lips, opened my mouth, and let my larynx do the talking. And when that didn’t produce results, Harriet, Brutus and Dooley joined in for an impromptu recital.

“It helps if you stand in front of the door,” Fluffy advised. “That way they know exactly what you want.”

We all moved to the door and restarted our mini-concert for an audience of one: Fluffy, who was holding her paws to her ears, grimacing generously.

I guess dogs are cultural barbarians, too.

The meeting was still in full swing, so those inside couldn’t be bothered with our plight. Luckily there’s always staff members and security people flitting about a royal home like this, and one of them now stuck her head around a corner. I recognized her as Suzy, the maid. When she saw what was going on, she approached hesitantly.

“Um… I guess you want to go out, right?”

We all meowed in confirmation, happy at her acumen.

“The thing is, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to open the door. What with the whole kidnapping thing and all.”

We meowed a little louder, singing with panache and vigor.

“Nature calls, lady,” said Brutus. “And if you don’t let us out right now, we won’t be held responsible for the consequences, if you know what I mean.”

“He means we’re going to leave a permanent mark on the floor,” I said.

“Oh, dear,” said Suzy, bringing a hesitant hand to her face. “Don’t you have, um, litter boxes to do your business in?”

“We do, but we’re rough-and-tumble cats,” Brutus continued the negotiations. “We like to do it in the bushes.”

“I guess you really need to go, huh?” she said finally, darting uncertain glances in the direction of the office. “Oh, I guess it’s fine,” she said, convincing herself. “Just don’t tell anyone it was me that let you out, all right?” Then she laughed. “How silly of me. Who are you going to tell? You’re just cats. You can’t talk.”

So she opened the door. Outside, a burly guard turned his head.

“It’s all right, Phil,” she said. “It’s just the cats wanting to go for a walk.”

“Of course,” said Phil with an indulgent smile. “We don’t want those precious little furballs to do their business on the couch, do we?”

“No, we don’t,” Suzy said a little shyly.

“So how are things with you, Suzy?”

“Oh, can’t complain,” Suzy said conversationally. “This kidnapping thing has got us all on edge, though. Who would do such a horrible thing?”

“The world is full of monsters, Suzy,” he said indulgently. “Which is why it’s good to have a guy like me around, to protect you and yours.”

“And I’m ever so glad for that, Phil,” she said with a little giggle.

We decided to let the two lovebirds explore their budding affair, and moved off into the wild—or at least the perfectly sculpted gardens that surrounded the cottage.

There were no other humans in sight, not even a pesky reporter trying to snap Tessa’s picture, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t realized it before, but the atmosphere inside the house was rife with tension. So it felt great to be away from that for a moment.

“I’ll bet Harriet is going to make a great singer out of you yet, Max,” said Dooley encouragingly.

“Thanks, Dooley,” I said. “I certainly hope so.”

“When I’m through with you, you’ll be ready to sing at the Royal Albert Hall,” said Harriet.

“What’s the Royal Albert Hall?” asked Dooley.

“It’s like Madison Square Garden, only British. And royal, obviously. You’re going to turn heads, Max. Just you wait and see.”

“Max doesn’t need to turn heads,” said Brutus. “He just has to open his mouth.” And he gave me what I thought was a very insensitive grin.

“I’m at a very difficult time in my life right now, Brutus,” I said. “I’m feeling vulnerable, and it wouldn’t hurt for you to give me some much-needed encouragement.”

“You mean you’re traumatized, Max?” asked Dooley.

“I think there’s every chance that I am,” I said. “Being ridiculed for wanting to be a better singer is the stuff of trauma.”

“You need a shrink,” said Brutus.

I shivered. The last time shrinks were mentioned was when Brutus was having doubts about his sexual orientation. He’d suddenly gotten it into his nut that he might be a female deep down inside. Luckily the moment had passed, and now he was his usual obnoxious self again.

“Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” said Harriet, clapping her paws.

We’d found a nice little clearing behind the cottage, where we wouldn’t be disturbed and where we wouldn’t disturb anyone either.

“Now simply repeat after me, Max,” said Harriet, and started singing a nice, simple scale. “La la la la la la la la laaaah. Now you.”

“Lar lar lar lar laaaaar laaaaar lar laaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr,” I warbled.

Harriet pressed her paws to her ears, and so did Brutus and Dooley.

Mh. Looked like I wasn’t ready for the Royal Albert Hall yet.

Chapter 30

The meeting was over and the participants all walked out of Tessa’s office. And as they did, Nesbit fell into step beside Odelia and said, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, Odelia, if you have a moment.”

“Yes?” she said encouragingly. She liked the young security man. To come to his cousin’s aid like this meant a lot to Tessa, especially as the rest of her family had behaved a little despicably towards her in recent months.

“It’s probably nothing, which is why I didn’t want to bring it up in there,” he said apologetically. “But I found this.”

He handed her his tablet.“What am I looking at?”

“It’s a letter from a reader. Posted when Tessa and Dante had just started dating. It was posted inThe Sun, the UK’s biggest tabloid.”

She quickly read the letter.‘It’s outrageous that a foreigner like Tessa Torrance can just come in and sweep our prince off his feet. Aren’t there enough nice English girls? Why an American? I can promise you this, Dante: the people won’t forgive you. They’ll do whatever they can to break up this match made in hell.I know I will.’ Signed, ‘A concerned English rose.’

She looked up, and Nesbit gave her a meaningful look.

“So who is this English rose?” she asked.

“That’s just it, one of the editors came forward after he heard about the kidnap attempt. This so-called English rose wrote a bunch of these letters. One of them threatening Tess’s dog. She seemed to take umbrage to the fact that Tessa brought her dog Fluffy to England. Said there are plenty of perfectly good dogs right here and she shouldn’t have brought in an American bitch.”

“Nice. So who is she?”

“Suzy Boots.”

“Suzy wrote this?” asked Odelia, shocked.

“Apparently. And about a thousand comments like this. She’s very active. What some people would call a troll. I searched some more, and found that she comments freely on her Facebook page, too. And that she’s left hundreds of comments on Dante and Tess’s Instagram. All of it extremely vitriolic.”

He scrolled through a few of the comments from Suzy’s Facebook page. ‘The Duchess of Essex is a classless gold digger,’ was one of the nicer ones.

“And here’s the clincher,” he said.

‘I happen to work for Tessa,’ she’d written in response to a comment by someone else, ‘so I know what she’s like as a person. And while I agree with you that we should give her a chance, I’ve given her plenty of chances, and she’s let me down every single time. The woman is a fungus to be got rid of.’

“We need to talk to her,” said Odelia. “Right now.”

“She could simply be one of those poison pen people.”

“She posted threats, Nesbit. Actual threats. Why didn’t you tell Tessa?”

He mussed up his hair, looking sheepish.“She’s in such a state—I didn’t want to make it worse by bothering her with unfounded accusations against a member of her staff. Which is why I decided to run it by you first.”

“You did well,” she said, giving his arm a grateful squeeze. “But I think this is a genuine threat, and Tessa needs to know.” She took the tablet and looked around for Tessa. She found her in the nursery, cradling Silvy. “There’s something you need to see, Tessa,” she said, handing her Nesbit’s tablet.

When Tessa was confronted with the evidence, her expression darkened.“I think we just found our assailant.”

“Where is she?” asked Odelia.

“Cleaning,” said Tessa curtly.

Dante, who’d noticed something was going on, joined them. Without a word, Tessa handed him the tablet. As he read the comments, his eyes went wide. “Suzy wrote this?”

“This and a whole lot more,” said Odelia.

“See!” he cried. “I told you to put in stricter background checks!”

“This is not the time for ‘I told you so’s,’ Dante,” she said, stalking off. The others all followed her into the living space. “Suzy!” she snapped when she caught up with the maid, who was turning down the bed in Gran’s room.

“Yes, Ma’am?” said Suzy deferentially. She looked as mousy and reticent as ever. Hard to imagine she wrote the kind of stuff she did, Odelia thought.

“What’s going on?” asked Chase, attracted by the sound of shouting voices.

“I think we’ve found our guy, and it’s a girl,” said Odelia.

“Suzy? Impossible,” said Chase.

Suzy, who’d been handed the tablet, had turned as white as the sheets in her hand.

“Why did you do it?” demanded Tessa.

“I—I don’t know,” she stammered.

“It’s obvious you hate my guts,” said Tessa. “So why work for me?”

“I just figured—I…” She broke down in tears, but Tessa wasn’t placated.

She took her by the arms and shook her.“You’re the one who’s been trying to kill me, aren’t you? Answer me, dammit!”

The girl’s eyes went wide. “Kill you? No, I swear I would never—”

“Of course you would. It’s obvious from the stuff you wrote that you hate me so much you wouldn’t hesitate to take matters into your own hands.”

“No, I would never do you harm, Ma’am—never. For the baby and… and the Duke…” She directed a shy look at Dante, whom she obviously idolized.

“Oh, don’t give me that bullshit. You decided to come and work for me so you could remove me from the equation and save Dante and the country.”

“It’s true that I was very upset when you and the Duke first started dating. And it’s true I wrote all these things. But I’ve since changed my mind. Now that I’ve met you in person, I can see how wrong I was. How kind you are. And how good you are to the Duke and how much he loves you. And since the baby was born, I think you’re the most wonderful mother and…”

“These comments—they were all written on your Facebook,” said Tessa. “They paint a completely different picture. A very hateful, disgusting picture.”

“I wrote those comments a long time ago. Since I started working for you I’ve stopped writing them—I swear,” she said, directing her words to Dante.

“You wrote at least one comment after you started working here,” said Odelia.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, hanging her head. “I-I didn’t know the Duchess the way I do now. I’m so ashamed of myself. I-I feel like…” She gulped. “I almost feel as if a different person wrote all these things. Not the real me but someone else entirely.”

“You tried to kill my wife, Suzy,” said Dante. “You have to understand there will be consequences. That we have to hand you over to the police now.”

“But I didn’t do it! I would never—”

“I’m very disappointed in you, Suzy. I really am.”

“But sir!” she cried, tears springing to her eyes.

Odelia almost felt sorry for the girl. She was obviously delusional, to write the stuff she had—to do the things she did. She was also an accomplished liar.

“We can’t involve the police,” said Tessa. “It will create the biggest fuss.”

“We have to, sweet pea,” he said. “She needs to be punished to the full extent of the law, and that’s something we can’t do ourselves.” He smiled as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Or did you think I was going to play judge, jury and executioner and sentence her all by myself?”

“No, of course not. I just…”

“This isn’t the Middle Ages, darling. We don’t lock people up in the Tower anymore. We let the police handle things—and the justice system. We’re citizens of this country, just like every other person.”

Tessa nodded.“Of course.” She then directed a look of relief at Odelia. “You got her. You finally got her.”

“Actually your cousin did,” said Odelia. “Your real cousin.”

Tessa threw herself into Nesbit’s arms and the big guy actually blushed.

“It’s over,” said Angela with a smile. “It’s really over.”

It was, and Odelia sighed with relief. The ordeal was finally over.

Chapter 31

I was just about to break into song again, on Harriet’s instigation, when voices drifted in our direction, interrupting my practice session.

“This place is infested with humans,” Brutus grumbled, quite harshly I thought. After all, humans have a right to walk around free and untethered.

“England is a lot smaller than America,” Harriet said. “Which is probably why there are humans everywhere.”

She was right. Even though Hampton Cove isn’t exactly the countryside, it’s much more peaceful than the parts of England I’d seen so far.

“There are quiet parts,” said Dooley now, much to my surprise. “In fact there are whole swaths of countryside where not a single person lives.”

“And how would you know?” scoffed Brutus.

“I’ve seen it on TV,” Dooley said. “Marge had a British kick for a while, and watched all things British. Crime shows, the news, and a show calledCountryfile where they show the countryside. It’s quite beautiful.”

“Quite,” Brutus mimicked with an eyeroll.

“No, it is. Very green, with pretty little villages dotting the rolling hills.”

“Sounds like you wouldn’t mind living there,” I said.

He shrugged.“I’ll live wherever my humans live. I’m easy that way.”

I was the same way. If my human decided to move to Antarctica, I’d probably move there, too. Though I’d really prefer if she didn’t. I don’t like the cold all that much. Or the heat, for that matter. I guess I’m fussy that way.

The male voice drifted closer, and so Harriet decided to press pause on our practice session for the time being. She didn’t want to spook people, she said.

I wondered if I should feel insulted but a man had come walking into the clearing, talking into his phone.

I immediately recognized him as the reporter who’d created such a fuss the night before, insisting he had every right to take pictures of Tessa and the baby. He put his phone away and lit up a cigarette. I had the impression he was waiting for someone.

“Isn’t that the reporter from last night?” asked Harriet.

“Yup, that’s him,” I said.

“I don’t like him,” said Dooley.

“I don’t like him either.”

“What is he doing here? I thought he was told to stay away?” said Brutus.

“Looks like he’s meeting someone.”

“This should be interesting,” said Harriet.

“I wonder who he’s here to meet,” said Dooley.

“Probably someone who works at the cottage,” I said.

“But why?”

“Oh, Dooley, isn’t it obvious?” said Harriet.

“No, it’s not.”

“He’s a reporter, dying to write a juicy story about Tessa and Dante. And if he can’t get near the cottage himself, either to interview them or to snap pictures, he needs other people to do it for him. And what better person than someone working there?”

“Um…” said Dooley, clearly not following.

“Someone who works for Tessa and Dante. Someone who can dish the dirt.”

“Can’t wait to see who the rat is,” grunted Brutus.

“Rats!” Dooley cried, jumping a foot in the air.

“He means the informant,” I said. “Not an actual rat.”

“An informant ratting out his employers,” Brutus grumbled. “Sounds like a rat to me.”

So we waited patiently for the rat who was ratting out Tessa to show up, so we could rat the rat out to Tessa ourselves.

Unfortunately, I was so much in the swing of my rehearsal thing, that inadvertently I’d started doing those runs again. “Lar lar lar lar lar lar laaaaaaaaaar!” I sang quietly. Or at least I thought I was being quiet. Apparently I was mistaken, for the reporter glanced over as if stung.

When he spotted us, he growled,“I don’t believe this—stupid cats!”

It would appear the man was not a cat person, for he picked up a dead branch from the ground and came charging in our direction—yelling some very unpleasant and rude words in the process!

Harriet zipped into the shrubbery, along with Dooley, but Brutus and I weren’t that smart. Instead, we scooted up a tree and soon were ensconced on the highest branch, where the reporter couldn’t reach us.

“And stay there!” he yelled, then walked away, shaking his head and muttering dark oaths under his breath.

It was only then that I realized the predicament we were in: we were thirty feet up from the ground, with no way to backtrack and get down again! And no friendly human in sight who could lend us a helping hand—or a pole!

“Um, Max,” said Brutus, anxiously looking down at the ground below. “We’re in trouble here, buddy.”

“You don’t say!” I said.

“Well, I did say. Just now.”

“I know!”

“So why did you say ‘You don’t say?’”

“It’s an expression!”

“Great. We’re stuck in a tree and you have to go all grammar Nazi on me.”

“Look, we’re fine,” I said as much for my own reassurance as his. “We’re perfectly fine.”

“Define fine.”

“Harriet and Dooley will go and fetch Odelia and she will figure this out.”

Brutus glanced down again. Harriet and Dooley were nowhere in sight.

“If Dooley lays one paw on my girl,” he growled, “I’ll rip his throat out.”

“This is not the time to entertain your petty jealousies, Brutus,” I said.

“It’s not petty when it’s real. They’re in those bushes down there, and they’re not coming out. I’ll bet he’s holding her, lending aid and comfort.”

“So what’s wrong with lending aid and comfort?”

“When I’m ripping his throat out he’ll know what’s wrong.”

“Please control those primitive urges of yours, Brutus. What are we? Animals?”

“It’s feline nature, Max! Cats thrown together tend to develop certain… feelings.”

“Nonsense.”

“Is it? What about Tom Hanks and his friend Wilson?”

“That was a volleyball.”

“It still proves my point.”

“Well, we’ve been thrown together in a dangerous situation,” I told him. “And we’re not developing certain feelings, are we?” Except extreme irritation.

“We’re not a male and a female, Max. We can be cool with each other.”

“Look, Dooley would never—”

“Oh, Dooley would most definitely jump at the chance to put his paws on Harriet. He’s been praying for an opportunity to be alone with her in a situation where she’s vulnerable and prone to errors of judgment! And all because of some dumb reporter who likes stalking innocent women and children!”

“Well, if you put it that way,” I murmured.

We sat there for a moment, contemplating ways and means of getting out of the tree without risking our necks, but I couldn’t come up with anything other than that our fate rested in the hands of Dooley and Harriet who still hadn’t—at the time of writing—left those darn bushes!

“If I survive this I’m going to kill Dooley,” said Brutus.

I didn’t respond. I was starting to wonder how long the feline body can survive without taking nourishment and drink. Not long, I imagined.

And as the thought entered my mind, already my stomach was rumbling.

Yep, we were two dead cats, and all because of one cat-hating reporter and Dooley’s out-of-control libido.

Chapter 32

Gran wasn’t having a lot of fun. She’d come on this trip hoping it would be a blast, but so far it was more of a bust than a blast. The investigation was one of those weird ones, where you just kept going around in circles, and frankly she’d lost interest in the case the moment Odelia and Chase had taken the lead, making it clear they did not need a little old lady cramping their style.

And then there was the whole debacle with the Queen. Gran had hoped the Queen would become her BFF. That they’d exchange phone numbers and chat for hours and hours about their lives and how much they had in common. Instead, the Queen had been out of there like a flash the moment her precious corgis were returned, and she hadn’t seen or heard from the woman since.

Not exactly the behavior of a true BFF.

She also hated the whole lockdown scenario they’d been living. She’d hoped to visit London and take in some of the sights—preferably with her new BFF by her side—but being locked in the cottage had put a stop to that.

So no trips to London. No invitations for a slumber party at Buckingham Palace where she could have pillow fights with the Queen and drink hot cocoa while they swapped war stories from their long and eventful lives.

And now it seemed as if the whole thing was over before it even got started, with this maid being arrested. Talk about an anticlimax. The cops had dropped by and escorted the hate-spewing online troll into a car and had carted her off to prison and that was that. The end of the investigation and the end of their English sojourn. Soon it would be bye-bye and back to America.

She needed some air, that’s what she needed. So she headed for the door and walked out. Some security guy was lounging out there, looking all threatening and bearded, but she just said, “I’m going for a walk,” in a tone that allowed no backchat, and he merely nodded and watched her walk off.

He’d probably received instructions to protect Tessa, Dante and the baby, and those American tourists were all expendable. So if someone kidnapped them, who cared? Not Tessa—and most definitely not the Queen!

“Dumbasses,” she muttered as she kicked a rock that had the gall to traverse her path.

She headed along a dirt road, and as she walked, soon her mood started improving considerably. It was a beautiful day, with the sun streaming through the canopy of leaves overhead and lovingly dappling the path ahead. Soon she was wondering if maybe they couldn’t extend their trip for a couple of days. They’d probably only be in England this one time, and they needed to take advantage of the opportunity.

And she’d walked about half a mile when she was greeted by a surprising sight: Dooley and Harriet were hurrying down the road, and when they saw her, they practically yipped with joy.

“Thank God!” said Harriet. “Max and Brutus are in trouble, Gran!”

“What trouble?” she asked as she bent down, ignoring the ache in her back and the twin crackling sounds emanating from her creaky knees.

“They were chased up a tree by that nasty reporter and now they can’t get down!” said Dooley, panting freely.

“Oh, heck,” she said, straightening. “Show me the way, will ya?”

They showed her the way, and soon she found herself in a clearing, a faint whiff of cigarette smoke lingering in the air, probably from that nasty reporter, and when she looked up, she saw two cats, hugging a tree branch, and looking down at her with visible joy.

“Gran! Are we glad to see you!” Max shouted.

“Did you do hanky-panky with my girlfriend?!” Brutus demanded.

“Hanky-panky with your girlfriend? Are you nuts? There’s only one person I’d do hanky-panky with and that’s a prince. Unfortunately they’re all taken, as far as I can tell. I’d settle for a duke or a count, but same story.”

“I’m talking to Dooley,” said Brutus, clearly delusional from being up in that tree.

“Brutus, you’re an idiot!” Harriet shouted.

“Tell me the truth! Did he jump your bones when you were in those bushes?”

“Of course he didn’t jump my bones!”

“You were in there an awfully long time!”

“We were hiding from that nutjob reporter!”

“That nutjob reporter is long gone!”

“Dooley kept saying we should hide out a little longer.”

“A-ha! I knew it!”

“I thought he was still out there!” Dooley explained. “I could hear him. Breathing heavy and uttering threatening curses.”

“That was Brutus you heard, Dooley,” said Max.

“You jumped Harriet’s bones, admit it!” Brutus shouted.

“No, I didn’t!” Dooley shouted back.

“Oh, you’re almost as bad as my boyfriends,” said Gran. “Dumb as rocks.”

“Can you please get us out of this tree, Gran?” asked Max.

“Do you want me to break my neck? Lemme go get some hero to fish you out of that damn tree. And next time use your heads before you pull a stunt like that.”

“Don’t leave us!” Brutus yelled, his plight suddenly more pressing than his petty jealousies.

“Don’t worry!” she yelled. “I’ll be back!”

She hurried back to the cottage, where the same burly guard cocked an eyebrow.“Had a nice walk, Ma’am?”

“My cats are stuck in a tree. Can you get them down?”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am. I can’t leave my post.”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” she said, and headed into the house.

“My cats are stuck in a tree,” she told Dante, who was pacing the living room. “Can you get them out?”

“What are you talking about?” he said, none too friendly, she thought.

Oh, had everyone lost their damn minds?“My cats!” she yelled, figuring all that inbreeding had turned the moron deaf. “They’re stuck! In a tree!”

When he simply stared at her, she threw up her arms. She was starting to see that being queen wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The woman’s grandson was obviously a brainless boob, her other grandson an even bigger numbskull, and the rest of the family probably wasn’t any better. No wonder she preferred the company of a bunch of dogs over her nearest and dearest.

There was only man who could help her. One man in the whole universe. And it wasn’t Superman, or Batman, or Spiderman or any of those chumps.

“Chase!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Chase Kingsley!”

The man of the hour arrived, looking cool as a cucumber as usual.

“Gran?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Max and Brutus,” she said. “They’re stuck in a tree. Can you…”

He held up a hand.“Say no more.”

Odelia now also came walking in from her bedroom.“What’s going on?”

“The cats need saving,” said Chase.

A resolute look stole over Odelia’s face. “Lead the way,” she said.

And Gran led the way. On the walk over, she explained the predicament, including the horrible role played by that vile reporter. When they arrived in the clearing, Max and Brutus were now clinging to each other, looking scared.

Chase put his hands to his mouth to form a makeshift megaphone and shouted,“Max! Brutus! Hang on! I’m coming to get you!”

“Yes, please, Chase!” Max yelled, a quiver in his voice.

“Oh, please, Chase!” Brutus said, a similar quiver in his voice.

Obviously the black cat had been chastened by his stay in the tree.

And before Gran and Odelia’s eyes, not to mention Harriet and Dooley, Chase climbed that tree as if he’d never done anything else in his life.

“Be careful, honey,” said Odelia, nervously biting her lip.

“Be back in a jiffy,” the hero cop announced.

And he was. He climbed that tree as if it was the boardwalk, transferred the two cats onto his broad shoulders, and then came climbing down again.

“Damn,” said Gran when he placed Brutus in her arms and Max in Odelia’s. “You are something else, Chase, and I don’t say that lightly.”

“Oh, honey, you’re a hero,” said Odelia.

Max and Brutus, who were staring at the man adoringly, were too emotional for speech, but Dooley said it best when he spoke those historic words:“Chase is the greatest thing to hit this family since sliced bread.”

Chapter 33

That night, after everyone retired for the night, Gran was the only one still up. She looked a little sad, I thought, which worried me. She was on the sofa, channel-surfing and sipping from a glass of sherry, the sound of the TV muted so as not to disturb the rest of the house, with only Dooley and I to keep her company. Harriet and Brutus had had a reconciliation, and were somewhere outside, frolicking like a couple of frolicking honeymooners.

“What’s wrong, Gran?” I asked after she’d been watching a man with big ears trying to teach a cat to jump through hoops. “Aren’t you feeling well?”

“If you must know, I’m sad, Max,” she said.

“Sad? But why? Suzy’s been caught. Tessa is safe, and all’s well that ends well.”

“That’s just it. All’s well that ends well but no thanks to me—as usual. It seems to me that other people are always the hero and I’m the wild card.”

“The wild card?”

“The fool. The silly sidekick who gets the funniest lines but plays a minor part. I thought coming to England I could be the hero for once, you know.”

“I thought you wanted to be queen?”

“That was just an idea. I should have known it wasn’t gonna fly. Oh, why do I get these crazy ideas and then create trouble for everyone around me?”

“I like your ideas,” said Dooley. “I think they’re great. And how boring would life be if you weren’t around to lend it some color and some fun?”

Gran smiled at these words and stroked Dooley’s fur. “Sweet, sweet Dooley. What would I do without you guys?”

“I think Dooley is right,” I said. “You’re the heart of this family, Gran. You’re its center. You’re the glue that keeps the whole thing together.”

“That’s very kind of you to say, Max, but you know that’s not true. I’m the fool. The court jester. Someone to make people laugh. The only reason they tolerate me is because I’m old and they can’t get rid of me that easy.”

“Everybody loves you, Gran,” I said. “You’re a real hoot.”

“A real hoot,” she repeated. “Yeah, that wasn’t exactly my goal in life.” She’d switched the channel again, and now a reporter was launching into some diatribe about Tessa. He was behind a desk and looked very serious and very angry. I sat up a little straighter when I recognized him. It was that same reporter again. The one who’d chased us up that tree that afternoon.

“Nasty piece of journalist,” said Gran, shaking her head.

“He’s not really a journalist,” said Dooley. “He’s a hatemonger and a troublemaker. At least that’s what Dante said.”

Gran smiled.“Hatemonger. That’s a big word for you, Dooley.”

“Thanks, Gran.” He grinned, happy with the compliment.

I was listening intently to the reporter. His voice sounded familiar, though I couldn’t place it. Of course I’d heard him before, so that was probably it.

Next to Gran, a phone started singing out a tune. She frowned and picked it up.“The Duchess of Essex’s phone. Who dis?”

When the voice on the other end replied something, her brow unfurrowed and shot into her curly white fringe. She sat up with a jerk.

“Your Royal Highness!” she cried.

“It’s the Queen!” said Dooley.

“No, Tessa’s gone to bed. Dante, too. The corgis? What about the corgis?”

She messed with the phone for a moment, and then suddenly we could both hear and see the Queen. Apparently she was using an app.

“Oh, Vesta. I’m so glad it’s you,” said the Queen. “I felt ever so silly calling Tessa, but I didn’t know who else to call. But I’m so happy you picked up. I’m not sure she would have understood. It’s the corgis, you see. They’ve been acting up. I think they saw something on thetelly just now and they’re suddenly all excited and yapping up a storm!”

“Put them on,” said Gran firmly.

“Put them—what do you—”

“Trust me—just put them on,” repeated Gran.

The corgis came into view, all three of them, seated on the couch, just like we were, and yapping excitedly when they caught sight of us.

“It’s the guy!” said Sweetie.

“What guy?” I asked.

“The kidnapper!”

“They’re saying it’s the guy,” I told Gran.

“Can you direct the camera at the TV, Your Majesty?” asked Gran.

“Oh, do call me Lizzie, please.”

“Show us what’s on TV, Lizzie.”

“Will do,” said Lizzie. She directed the camera at the TV and there he was: Otis Robbins. The reporter who was also on our TV, lamenting the sad state of affairs when an American was allowed to marry into the British royal family.

“He’s the one who gave the kidnap order?” I asked.

“Yes, yes, yes!” cried Sweetie. “How many times do I have to repeat myself?”

“I would recognize that guy everywhere,” said Molly.

“But you said he was blond,” I said.

“Well, he is,” said Sweetie. “Sort of.”

“He’s dark-haired,” said Fr?ulein decidedly. “With gray streaks. Just as I said.”

“Oh, why do you always have to be right?” Molly grumbled.

“Because I am?”

“Gran, he’s the one,” I said. “He’s the one who had us kidnapped. And I’ll bet he’s also the one who’s been trying to kill Tessa.”

“But he wasn’t anywhere near the house when that poisoned tea was served,” said Gran.

“So he must be working with someone on the inside,” I said. “That’s why he was hanging around the cottage. He was meeting his associate.”

“Suzy,” said Gran.

And that’s when we heard a noise.

“What was that?” asked the Queen, visibly perturbed.

“I don’t know,” said Gran. “It came from your grandson’s room.”

“Can you please check? I’ve been worried sick about those two. I know they haven’t told me everything, and I can’t help feeling something is going on.”

“You’re right,” said Gran. “Someone’s been trying to kill Tessa.”

“I knew it!” said the Queen. “Vesta, you have to stop them!”

“Oh, don’t worry, Lizzie, I will,” said Gran as she rushed to the door of Dante and Tessa’s room.

She burst inside, followed by Dooley and me. The sight that met our eyes was shocking to say the least: Tessa’s cousin Nesbit was aiming a gun at Tessa, while Dante stood in a corner of the room, his hands behind his head.

Chapter 34

“Come on in,” said Nesbit, turning the gun to cover Gran now.

“Oh, dear,” I could hear the Queen say. Nesbit hadn’t heard, though.

Gran held up her hands, aiming the phone at Nesbit, so the Queen had a first-row seat to the proceedings. Dooley and I were on the floor, and I don’t think the security man even noticed us. Isn’t that often the case, though?

“Close the door behind you, that’s a nice old lady,” said the guy.

Gran kicked the door closed with such force the guy winced.

“If you don’t want the kid to get it, you’ll do exactly as I say,” he said, aiming the gun at Silvy now. Tessa protectively cradled the child in her arms, eliciting a grimace from her cousin.

“How could you?” she asked. “You’re family!”

“I could ask you the same thing. Ever since you married this ginger bozo you haven’t exactly shared the wealth, have you? You’re living in luxury, enjoying carrot top’s fortune while the rest of your family has to struggle to make ends meet.”

“I gave you a job.”

“Yeah, working as your messenger boy,” he scoffed. “You’re a big disappointment to all of us, Tessa. But then I should have known. You always were as tightfisted and self-centered as your mother.”

If looks could kill, the guy would have been dead.

“You’re making a big mistake,” said Dante.

“No, I’m finally making my connection to Tessa pay off.”

“How is my death going to pay off for you?” she asked.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“He’s working with Otis Robbins,” said Gran. “The two of them are in this together.”

“Aren’t you the smartest one in the room!” said the guy. “Yeah, Otis and I met in the pub late one night and got to talking. We soon discovered we shared a mutual hobby: hating on Tessa. He’d been snubbed by her, when he asked for an exclusive interview, and so had I. So after a couple ofpints of lager he came up with a brilliant idea: he was going to write a book revealing all of Tess’s deepest, darkest secrets and he wanted me to provide the material.

“You know, the kind of stuff only a loving cousin who’s known Tessa all her life would know about. And then I did him one better: I said the best way to guarantee the book’s success was for its subject to die. He thought I was joking but I wasn’t. It’s the only way for her to pay for the neglect and the hardship she’s caused us all. So we made a pact, only half in jest: I would kill Tessa and he would write his tell-all book and we’d split the proceeds fifty-fifty.”

“That’s horrible, Nesbit,” said Tessa, shaking her head.

“I think it’s pretty clever. And I’m sure the rest of the family will agree.”

“Are they in on this, too?”

“Nope. Just me. I guess that makes me the smart one, huh?”

“I think it makes you an asshat,” said Gran.

Nesbit grinned.“You got a potty mouth, granny.”

“You ain’t heard nothing yet, sonny boy. Now put down that gun.”

“Not a chance.” He switched the gun to cover Dante. “So who wants to go first? Prince Charming over there? Or the People’s Princess?”

“You’re going to make it look like a murder-suicide, aren’t you?” said Gran.

“Boom! The lady is on fire!”

“So how are you going to explain about me?”

“Collateral damage. When Dante went nuts and decided to kill his wife, his baby and turn the gun on himself, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Noooo!” Tessa cried, aghast when the depravity of her cousin came home to her.

“Don’t do this,” Dante growled, and took a step towards Nesbit.

“Not so fast, Prince. Back off!”

I had a feeling that the scenario didn’t just look bleak for the humans in the room, but for Dooley and me, too. If this man didn’t blink at taking four human lives, he would mind even less about two cats who just happened to be on the scene. If he noticed us, of course, which until then he still hadn’t.

The thing is, cats aren’t dogs. We don’t have the superlative biting power in our maws the way some dogs do. One thing we do have are very sharp claws and some very sharp teeth. And hey, we don’t mind using them. We stem from the jungle cat, you see, and I wasn’t going to let this loser murder my precious human just because he wanted to make a quick buck.

So while the guy was gabbing away as if there was no tomorrow, Dooley and I locked eyes. We were going to teach this little piggy a lesson he wouldn’t forget. Only one thing gave me pause: he was holding that gun. And if we launched ourselves at him he would probably fire off a shot. Chances were he was going to hit someone in that room. And we couldn’t very well have that.

And then, as if she’d read my mind, suddenly the voice of the Queen boomed through the room, imperious and decisive.

“Nesbit Seller, put down that gun at once!”

“What the hell?!” said the guy, looking as if he’d just heard a ghost.

“This is your Queen speaking,” said the Queen, and when Gran turned the phone so the guy could see the Queen’s face, his jaw dropped a few inches.

And so did the gun…

“Now, Dooley!” I cried, and we both launched ourselves at the man. I went for the face while Dooley went for the man’s gun hand. We landed simultaneously and while I clung to the man’s visage, digging my claws in while I hissed up a storm, Dooley sank his teeth into the man’s hand.

I can assure you—it was not pretty. The man shrieked like a piglet.

The gun must have dropped from his hand, for he tried to wrench us off with both hands. But cats are like the Canadian Mounties. We always get our man! And we don’t let go, no matter what.

“Max, Dooley,” suddenly a soft voice spoke.

It was the most wondrous sound in the world. The sound of my human.

“You can let go now,” said Odelia.

And so we did.

Epilogue

A week after the harrowing time we’d lived through at Newtmore Cottage, we were in Scotland, enjoying a leisurely time at Balmoral Castle, the Queen’s favorite getaway.

The royal Numero Uno had invited us all up there to recover from the shock of the recent events. Tessa and Dante were there, along with Angela. Jeremy and Jennie had also arrived, with the kids, and the Queen had organized an actual feast in her backyard, complete with a grill for one of the guests of honor: none other than Tex, who’d been flown in on the Queen’s private jet with Marge and Alec. In other words: the gang was together again.

Tex, aided and abetted by one of the Queen’s very own chefs, was flipping burgers on the grill, while the rest of the family had put its feet under the table. The Queen—or Lizzie to us—was enjoying some leisurely time with her kids, grandkids and great-grandkids, while the rest enjoyed the great food.

Meanwhile, a separate table had been set up for the pets, which comprised Dooley and me, Harriet and Brutus, Fluffy, of course, and the Queen’s corgis, who had since become a little less frosty about the prospect of breathing the same air as cats. Though they still didn’t seem entirely happy about sitting at the same table with us.

“So is it true you guys attacked the bad man?” asked Sweetie.

“That’s right,” I said. “I went for the face and Dooley went for his gun.”

“That’s the way to do it,” growled Fr?ulein, punching the air with her paw.

On the table in front of us the most delicious food had been set out. Liver p?t?, peanut butter and bacon treats, organic chicken strips, cat donuts with bacon sprinkles and lots and lots more. A regular royal feast!

“We couldn’t have done it without you, though,” I said.

“The moment I saw that guy, I said, that’s the kidnapper!” Molly cried.

“But why did the Queen suddenly decide to get on the phone with Tessa?” asked Harriet. “That’s what I don’t understand.”

“She must have realized that what we were yapping about was significant,” said Sweetie. “And she wanted to talk to a fellow dog person.”

“The Queen understands us,” said Fr?ulein. “I don’t know how she does it, but it’s true.”

“You mean the Queen can talk to her pets, like our humans can?” asked Dooley.

“I’m not absolutely certain, but she is very intuitive. Like when I fell through that hole in the ice last winter. She knew something was wrong, and she’d fished me out of that pond before I was going down for the third time.”

“The Queen is amazing,” Sweetie confirmed. “She is. She loves all her animals, from her Shetland ponies to her horses to her corgis to the bagpipes that wake her up every morning.”

“Bagpipes are an instrument, not an animal,” Fr?ulein pointed out.

“But she loves her subjects more, right?” said Harriet.

“The three corgis laughed. “I wouldn’t be too sure!” said Fr?ulein.

“Well, I’m glad it’s all over,” said Fluffy. “The tension was killing me. It’s no fun knowing that there’s someone out there trying to kill your mistress.”

“I can only imagine,” said Fr?ulein, shaking her head. “That must have been terrible for you.”

“It was,” confirmed Fluffy. “And if it hadn’t been for these hero cats, the bad guys would have succeeded, and I’d be an orphan now.”

The dogs all stared at us, then Sweetie said, holding up a piece of chicken,“I think it’s high time we salute these brave cats.”

All paws went up, and then Fr?ulein said, “From now on we declare you honorary dogs.”

I grimaced. It’s not a big honor to be an honorary dog, I meant to say. But I’m sure they meant well, so we all smiled and thanked them profusely.

Tessa’s cousin had been arrested, though later we were told he needed stitches, which actually gave me a twinge of pride. His associate Otis Robbins had also been arrested, and both men were going away for a long time, to a place called Belmarsh, which didn’t have the same ring to it as the Tower.

The Queen had come down in person that night, without her corgis, and made Tessa and Dante promise that next time something like this happened, they had to tell her immediately, and not keep anything from her ever again.

She’d also invited us up to Balmoral, and told Gran she might not be able to become Queen of America, but she was always welcome to visit so they could chat over tea. I’d never seen Gran so over the moon as in that moment.

We spent a couple of days in London, seeing the sights, or at least the humans did, and then we all traveled down to Scotland on the Queen’s personal train—yes, the Queen has her own private train!—so here we were.

Gran wandered over to our table.“Now isn’t this the life?” she said with a wistful sigh. We were leaving for Hampton Cove next week, and I could tell she would have preferred to stick around for a couple of weeks more.

“It’s pretty sweet,” I agreed.

“Lizzie is going to make me a dame,” said Gran. “Can you believe it? Dame Vesta Muffin. Wait till I tell my friends back home. Wait till I tell Scarlett!”

Scarlett Canyon is Gran’s nemesis. And the fact that she could upstage her probably meant more to Gran than all possible royal honors combined.

Odelia and Chase also wandered over, accompanied by Marge, Tex and Uncle Alec.

“You guys did great,” said Odelia, not for the first time. “And so did you,” she said as she held up her glass in a salute to the corgis.

“Aw,” said Sweetie, in an uncharacteristic display of modesty.

“See?” said Gran. “The Queen of England has her corgis, the Queen of America has her cats, and together they make history.”

A voice startled Gran.“Did I hear my name?” the Queen asked.

“I was just saying how one can tell a real queen from a fake one by the way she communicates with her pets,” said Gran.

The Queen smiled.“It’s true! Like the night we caught that nasty Otis Robbins. The moment that horrid man filled the screen with his horrible visage, Sweetie, Fr?ulein and Molly told me immediately. ‘That’s the one!’ they said. ‘That’s the man who kidnapped us!’ So naturally the first thought that popped into my head was that I had to warn dear Tessa. Luckily you were there to pick up the phone and the rest, as they say, is history!”

“Is this going to be in the history books?” asked Tex, curious.

“I doubt it,” said the Queen. “No one would believe it. And the ones that do would think their precious monarch had gone a little soft in the head.”

“But… you can actually talk to your dogs?” asked Chase.

The Queen smiled enigmatically.“Is that so hard to believe?” she said, and walked off.

Stunned, the others all stared after her.

“I knew it,” said Gran. “I just knew it! And that’s why I need to be crowned Queen of America!”

“Yeah, that’ll happen,” said Uncle Alec.

“Now don’t be a Negative Ned, Alec,” said Gran. “It will happen because I want it to happen.”

“It would definitely be an improvement,” said Marge.

Tex raised both eyebrows. He clearly wasn’t in agreement.

“Would that mean you have to move to Washington?” asked Dooley.

“Of course. I’d have to move into the White House. You’ll all be invited to stay, of course. I’ll make sure there’s plenty of space for the whole family.”

Tex was smiling now, the prospect of his mother-in-law finally moving out of the house doing much to warm him to the prospect of calling her Queen.

“I would like to live in the White House,” said Harriet. “And be First Cat.”

“I think I’d be First Cat, though,” said Brutus. “I am the most handsome.”

“Obviously the First Cat would be the prettiest cat,” said Harriet with a laugh. “In other words: me.”

“I think the First Cat should be a hero,” said Brutus. “Someone like me.”

“And I think the First Cat should look good on Instagram.”

“The First Cat should be butch. An inspiration to all the cats in America.”

“Oh, give me a break,” said Harriet. “You? An inspiration? As if.”

“Oh, dear,” said Marge. “Here we go again.”

“What are they talking about?” asked Chase.

“They’re arguing about who gets to be First Cat once Gran becomes America’s queen,” said Odelia.

They all laughed, even though for Brutus and Harriet it was clearly no laughing matter.

“You both get to be First Cats,” said Gran. “We’ll do it in rotation.”

Tessa and Dante now joined us, Tessa carrying the baby.“Having a good time?” said Tessa with a smile.

“A great time, thanks,” said Odelia gratefully.

“I can’t thank you guys enough. I’ll never forget this.”

“The queen is giving us all honorary KBEs,” said Odelia. “Which is so great.”

“Yeah, I asked her,” said Dante. “No one deserves it more than you.”

‘Wait, you’reall going to be dames and knights?” asked Gran, appalled.

Odelia and Chase nodded.“Yup,” said Angela. “I’m going to be a dame, too. Can you imagine? When I tell my friends they won’t believe me.”

“Oh, for crying out loud!” Gran said, shaking her fist.

And as the humans drifted off to scoop some more food onto their plates, Dooley said,“Do you think they’ll make us dames and knights too, Max?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “That seems to be a thing for humans only.”

“She’ll do you one better,” said Fr?ulein.

“Yeah, she told us she’ll give you all PBEs,” said Sweetie.

“What’s a PBE?” I asked.

“Pet of the Order of the British Empire,” Fr?ulein explained. “It’s a secret society the Queen launched shortly after her coronation. Only the bravest pets are members. And all of her corgis, of course. Now you’ll be inducted, too.”

Sweetie gave us a warm smile.“You know what? You’ve earned it—all of you.”

“Did you hear that, Max?” said Dooley. “We’re going to be knighted!”

“Well, congratulations, Sir Dooley,” I said.

“Why, thank you, Sir Max,” he said.

It certainly took the sting out of being kicked out of cat choir. Shanille might even take me back now. She was a sucker for all things royal.

“First Catand a knight,” Brutus grunted. “Sweet.”

Harriet produced a feeble whimper. We all looked at her. She was biting her lip, clearly worried about something.

“Aren’t you happy, Harriet?” I asked. “This is a huge honor.”

She gave me an apologetic smile.“I just wonder where they’ll pin the badge and ribbon.”

Ouch!

14. PURRFECT CUT

Chapter 1

A bashful sun was playing peekaboo over the horizon and distributing its first timid rays upon a restful world when I woke up. As usual I’d been dozing at the foot of my human’s bed after having spent the first part of the night exploring the ultimate range of my singing voice. As you may or may not know, I’ve long been a member of Hampton Cove’s cat choir, pride of our small town, where cats can still be cats and sing theirlittle hearts out. Only Shanille, our stalwart and earnest conductor, had recently kicked me out of the choir, on account of the fact that several of the members had complained about my abject failure to carry a tune. The incident had greatly saddened me, as you can well imagine, since I’ve always been a staunch proponent of cats’ rights to express themselves in song. So when my membership card was withdrawn I must confess it shook me to the very core of my being.

Fortunately I’m not the kind of cat who takes life’s vicissitudes lying down, so to speak, even though ironically enough I do spend a great portion of my life lying down, and soon I was practicing hard to make a triumphant return.

Last night offered me the first opportunity since returning from England, where my human’s adventures had taken us, to showcase my progress. And to my elation Shanille and the other members—even those whose complaints had terminated my contract in the first place—deemed me fit for duty once more.

So it was with renewed fervor that I rejoined the choir’s rank and file, and I won’t conceal the fact that the whole thing gave me a distinct sense that all was well in my world, and upon ending last night’s rehearsal, I practically skipped along the road, extremely pleased with myself and my progress.

It isn’t too much to say that the mood was festive, so my friends and I decided to paint this small town of ours red, and Brutus led us along all of his favorite haunts, like a nice little rooftop restaurant that keeps the bins out where we can reach them, and our gang of four—myself, Dooley, Harrietand of course Brutus—experienced an enjoyable night on the town. It was only understandable, then, that I felt the need to sleep in. It was with a slight sense of annoyance, therefore, that I greeted the rising sun, which had decided to cut my extended slumber short by spreading its light across a peaceful world.

I stretched and yawned cavernously, as is my habit, and glanced around in search of Dooley, who usually likes to fall asleep next to me. Once upon a time we used to have a big chunk of the bed all to ourselves, but that was before Odelia decided to hook up with a burly policeman who answers to the name Chase Kingsley, and asked him to move in with her. Nowadays the bed is a little cramped for two humans and two cats, which tends to create a touch of awkwardness. The issue isn’t Odelia, who’s a fairly shortish human being, so her feet don’t invade the stretch of bed I like to call my own. What’s more, she tends to curl up into a ball when she sleeps—the fetus position I think experts like to call it—which adds to my acreage. No, the problem is Chase, who’sone of those long and stretchy humans, and likes to stick his feet where they don’t belong: in our territory. I’ve mentioned this to Odelia, and she’s promised to have a talk with the invasive cop, but until then it’s tough for a cat to find the space to sleep in peace. Especially since Chase is not one of your more peaceful sleepers. The man tends to toss and turn, and even lash out when the mood strikes, giving poor Dooley the occasional kick in the tail end.

I guess scientists who claim that people sleeping in separate beds enjoy a deeper, better sleep are on to something. All I know is that if only Chase would sleep in a separate bed, we’d all be better off—or at least I would.

Yes, I know I can always sleep on the couch, and I also know there are several other spots at my disposal. Like Marge and Tex’s bed. But Odelia’s parents’ bed is already spoken for, by Brutus and Harriet, and even they have confided in me they suffer the same fate Dooley and I do, with Tex being one of those stringbeany types, whose highly-strung feet seem to have a mind of their own. Dooley, of course, is in the best position of all: he can choose to sleep at Odelia’s, or Grandma’s. Why he chooses Odelia’s is beyond me. She’s not technically his human, and still he spends all of his nights here. Then again, it’s comforting to have my best friend and wingman nearby, and perhaps he feels the same way, which is why he endures Chase’s nervous footwork, and so do I.

I opened one eye, then the other, and saw that Odelia was awake already. Oddly enough she was staring at Chase, who was still fast asleep. So I elbowed Dooley in the tummy and he muttered something that didn’t sound entirely friendly.

“Check this out,” I whispered. “Odelia is making a study of Chase.”

Dooley reluctantly dragged his heavy eyelids open and stared in the direction indicated.

“Huh,” he said finally. “Weird.”

“Right?”

We both watched on as Odelia watched, with a strange look on her face, the sleeping cop.

“I don’t get it,” said Dooley. “What’s the big attraction?”

“I have no idea,” I confessed.

“It’s just a sleeping human.”

“It is, and he’s not even looking his best.”

Chase, who some people claim is a handsome fellow, with one of those chiseled faces, strong jaws and long, brown hair, doesn’t look his best in the morning. His trademark mane is usually tousled, and more often than not there’s a tiny thread of drool visibly at the corner of his mouth. Not exactly the kind of face that would successfully grace the cover of a romance novel. Then again, Odelia’s features aren’t much to write home about either. Her fair hair is usually a mess, and she develops weird sleep marks on her fine-boned face.

“I mean, if you’ve seen one sleeping human, you’ve seen them all,” I said.

“It’s love,” suddenly a third party entered the discussion.

Dooley and I looked up in surprise, to discover that Harriet had joined us. She must have jumped up onto the bed while we were chatting, and was now gazing upon the peaceful scene with a strange little smile on her furry face.

“Love?” I said. “Um, I don’t think so. I think she’s counting the pores on his nose. And judging from the time it’s taking her there are a lot of them.”

“Or the stubble on his cheeks,” said Dooley. “The man has a lot of stubble.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Lots of stubble and lots of pores so plenty to look at.”

“Oh, you silly, silly boys,” said Harriet good-naturedly. “Can’t you see Odelia is in love and is simply drinking in the sheer beauty of her beloved?”

I studied the scene with this new information in mind.“Nope,” I said finally. “I don’t see it.”

“That’s because you’ve never been in love,” said Harriet curtly.

“Oh, I’ve been in love,” I said. “I’ve been in love plenty of times. But even then I didn’t stare at the face of my beloved like some doofus.”

“Odelia is not a doofus,” said Harriet. “She’s a woman in love, and that’s what a woman in love looks like when faced with the object of her affection.”

I studied Odelia more closely. Her lips were curved in a tiny smile, her half-lidded eyes sparkled, and a blush mantled her cheeks. All in all she looked a little dopey. As if she needed to go poo-poo and didn’t want to wake up Chase.

“I think she needs to go wee-wee and she’s afraid to wake him,” said Dooley, proving that we were kindred spirits.

Harriet rolled her eyes in that expressive way only she can pull off.

“Ugh. You guys are so dumb,” she said.

“It’s obvious,” said Dooley. “And I can’t believe you can’t see it.”

“Apart from the fact that I think she needs to go poo-poo and not wee-wee, Dooley is right,” I said. “This is obviously a woman who is silently praying for her boyfriend to finally wake up so she can make a run for the bathroom.”

“I’m telling you it’s love! How can you confuse love with having to go wee-wee or poo-poo!” Odelia uttered a little sigh, and the three of us looked up. “See?” said Harriet triumphantly. “Only a person in love can produce such a delightful little sigh.”

“It’s the sigh of a woman who needs to go pee-pee and knows she can’t go,” said Dooley, sticking to his guns.

Suddenly a deep, rumbling voice echoed through the room.“When are those darned cats going to shut up?” The voice was Chase’s and obviously, in spite of our best efforts, we hadn’t been as quiet and respectful as we’d hoped.

“Finally,” I said. “He’s awake. Now Odelia can stop counting his pores and his stubble and go to the bathroom.”

“A bowl of kibble says they’re going to snuggle,” said Harriet. “Because snuggling is what humans in love always do.”

“You’re on,” I said. “A bowl of kibble says she’s going to take this opportunity to make a run for the bathroom.”

But we were both disappointed, and the bet would have to remain a toss-up. For at that exact moment the front doorbell jangled, and both Odelia and Chase uttered a groan of annoyance and made to get up and start their day.

Unfortunately Chase did this with a little less tact and care than Odelia, and the upshot was that his sudden movements bumped Harriet from the bed and onto the carpeted floor, then also sent Dooley flying. The only one still in position was me, and I carefully watched Odelia as she swung her feet to the floor.“A bowl of kibble says Chase will go downstairs to open the door and Odelia is going to race to the bathroom,” I said, still wanting to win my bet.

Three pairs of cat’s eyes watched carefully as two humans stuck their feet into their respective slippers—a pair of Hello Kitty slippers for Odelia and boring old brown ones for Chase—and got up. They both moved out of the room, but before reaching the door Chase took a sharp left turn and muttered, “Can youget that, babe? I need to take a wee.” And before she had the chance to respond, he’d closed the bathroom door behind him and that was that.

Talk about a shock twist! Which just goes to show that human behavior is very hard to predict indeed.

“All bets are off,” said Dooley, sounding disappointed.

“And we still don’t know why Odelia was staring at Chase’s face for the best part of an hour,” I added, equally disappointed.

“Love!” Harriet cried as she padded to the door. “I keep telling you. Love!”

“Yeah, right,” I said. Only a female feline could come up with a dumb theory like that. Dooley and I exchanged a knowing glance. We were in agreement: Harriet was crazy. And we didn’t even need to bet kibble over that. It was a fact, borne out by long association with the white-haired Persian.

And since we were all up now we decided to follow in Odelia’s footsteps and see who this early morning visitor could be. Even before we’d set paw on the first step of the stairs, I recognized the voice of Odelia’s uncle Alec, Hampton Cove’s police chief and generally a harbinger of bad news.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “This can’t be good.”

We hurried down the stairs, all questions regarding human behavior wiped from our minds. And as we arrived in the living room, the first words I heard were,“He was dead when we got there. Dead as a dodo.”

I heaved a deep sigh. I may not know why humans like to stare at one another in the early morning, but here’s one thing I do know: humans simply can’t seem to stop murdering each other. The good thing, of course, is that this unseemly habit provides a steady flow of income for the fine upstanding men and women employed by the Hampton Cove Police Department. And Odelia.

I probably should have mentioned this before, but Odelia is by way of being a local sleuthhound. Officially she’s a reporter for theHampton Cove Gazette, but her natural curiosity and keen intelligence have turned her into something of a local amateur detective. And that’s where the four of us come in. As cats we have access to all those places that are usually off-limits even to your intrepid reporter-slash-sleuth. Places only cats can sneak into unseen and unheard, and pick up those precious tidbits of information that are not designed for snooping eyes and ears. Plus, we get to talk to all the other cats that freely roam our town, along with its resident animal population, wild or domesticated, large or small. And it provides us what a pretty accurate picture of what goes on in our town at all times, which we then dutifully convey to Odelia, and which has helped her solve numerous crimes so far.

I know they say cats are selfish and solitary creatures, and if a human wants to choose a partner from the animal kingdom they should pick a dog. Well, that’s where they would be wrong. Dogs, because of their natural tendency to shoot their mouths off and trip over their own clumsy feet, are the worst sidekick imaginable. If you really want to get the job done, you should pick a cat. Discreet, silent as the night, and naturally nosy, we are the perfect amateur sleuth’s assistant, and that isn’t merely my humble opinion. It’s a fact.

“So who’s dead?” asked Odelia, stifling a yawn.

Uncle Alec, a ruddy-faced man with russet sideburns and only a few token hairs left on top of his head, cocked an eyebrow.“Have you ever heard of Leonidas Flake?”

Odelia frowned.“The fashion designer?”

Uncle Alec nodded.“That’s the one.”

“He died?”

“He died,” the portly police chief confirmed. “And what’s more, we know exactly who did it.”

“Who?”

“Gabriel Crier. His partner of thirty years. We found him with the bloody knife in his hands, bent over the corpse of his dead lover.”

“If you know who did it, then why are you here?” Odelia asked.

He shrugged.“I just figured you’d like to have the scoop.”

Odelia’s face twisted into a wide smile. “I love you, Uncle Alec.”

“I know you do. Now where the hell is Chase? I’ve been trying to call him all morning.”

Chapter 2

Chase joined his boss and Odelia in the kitchen. Odelia had made the three of them a pot of her trademark strong coffee and they were now sipping from the tasty black brew, accompanied by toasted waffles for Uncle Alec, yogurt for Odelia, and a bowl of cereal for Chase.

“You should watch that stuff,” said Odelia, pointing to the warm waffle her uncle was devouring.

Alec blinked.“Watch the waffle?” he stared at the thing as if expecting some bug to come crawling out.

“It contains a lot of bad stuff. Palm oil, for one thing. And you know what palm oil does for your cholesterol, Uncle Alec.”

He stared at her.“Um, no, I don’t.”

“It’s bad for you, all right? Just… try not to eat too much of it.”

He gave her a sheepish nod, then shoved the rest of his waffle home. He’d sprayed a liberal helping of whipped cream from the can on top of it, and now licked the remnants from his fingers. There were a lot of people in Alec’s life who tried to make him eat the right thing, and who had taken it upon themselves to alter his diet for the better. Only problem was, Uncle Alec was a bachelor, and what he did in the sanctity of his own home was nobody’s business but his own, an opinion he stuck to diligently. Chase had lived with the big guy for a while, and seen firsthand the kind of diet the Chief kept. Many were the nights the two of them had sat on the big couch in Alec’s living room, watching a game on the big TV and shoving down burgers, slices of pepperoni pizza and chips. Washed down with beer, it added to the impressive belly the police chief had managed to construct around his midsection.

Good thing, at least, that he usually ate his dinners at his sister Marge’s place, who made sure her brother got some wholesome nourishment in him.

“So if this fashion designer was killed with a knife,” said Odelia, “and his boyfriend was found standing over him with that same knife clutched in his hand, blood all over him, has he confessed to the crime already?”

“Funny you should ask that,” said Uncle Alec. “No, he hasn’t.”

Odelia cut a glance to her boyfriend, who’d risen from the table and was now engaged in his favorite morning ritual of preparing a protein shake to take into the office. “So… he’s claiming to be innocent or what?” asked Chase.

“Not exactly,” said Alec, digging a knife into the pot of Nutella and applying an ample spread to his next waffle and ignoring Odelia’s look of concern. “He has no recollection of the crime.”

“What do you mean?” asked Odelia.

“He has no idea how he got there, how the knife got into his hand, and how his dead boyfriend got dead in the first place. Complete blackout.”

“Who is this Gabriel Crier anyway?” asked Chase.

Alec took his little notebook from his front shirt pocket and flipped it open. He cleared his throat noisily.“Gabriel Jake Crier. Fifty-four. Worked as a hairstylist to the stars for a while, before meeting Leonidas Flake at an art show in Paris and becoming his personal hairdresser and then something more.”

“How old was Leonidas?” asked Odelia, gratefully accepting the protein shake Chase had just mixed up.

“Um, seventy-eight, and still going strong by all accounts,” said Alec, kindly refusing a similar offer.

“It’s good for you,” Odelia pointed out. “Drink it. You’ll like it. It’s a vitamin bomb and you’ll feel much better.”

“It tastes like horse piss.”

Instead of being insulted, Chase laughed loudly.“And how would you know what horse piss tastes like?”

“I don’t have to taste it to know what it tastes like,” said Alec, with the kind of strange logic the unhealthy use to remain unhealthy. He took a pack of cigarettes from his other front shirt pocket and shook one out.

Odelia watched on in horror.“Don’t tell me you started smoking again!”

“No, I haven’t,” he said. “But I can’t seem to shake the habit of taking one out of the pack from time to time.” And as he said it, he put the cigarette to his lips. He smiled a beatific smile. “Feels so good,” he muttered, then grudgingly put it away again and returned the pack to his shirt pocket. “Where were we?”

“So Gabriel Crier worked for Leonidas Flake as his personal hairstylist and something more?” Chase prompted as he licked the green sludge from his lips.

“Right. He was also rumored to be the designer’s right-hand man.”

“As a fashion designer?” asked Odelia.

“Was he any good?”

“Who knows,” said the chief with a sigh. “I know about as much about fashion as the next chief of police.” He tucked away his little notebook.

“Maybe he felt things weren’t moving along fast enough?” Odelia said. “And so he figured if he killed his boyfriend he’d become the new top guy?”

“Yeah, but that’s just it. I talked to the guy’s attorney early this morning. As far as he knows the most recent will and testament doesn’t exactly hand the keys to the kingdom to the boyfriend. On the contrary. Everything goes to—”

“The kids?” Chase offered.

“Siblings?” Odelia guessed.

“—his cat,” said Uncle Alec with a quick look towards the living room couch, where four cats sat listening to the kitchen counter conversation—Brutus had joined his friends, who had all made themselves comfortable.

“What?” asked Chase with a laugh. “A cat is inheriting the Leonidas Flake empire?”

“Looks like,” said Alec. “Unless Mr. Flake made a last-minute change his attorney isn’t aware of—and this seems very unlikely—the cat gets everything. The millions, the brand, the stores, the global fashion empire.”

Odelia frowned.“I don’t get it. How can a cat inherit a company?”

“Yeah, a cat can’t run a business, can it?” said Chase, directing his question at Odelia, just to be on the safe side. She was, after all, the feline expert.

“I guess a cat could run a company,” she said slowly, “if that cat knew a thing or two about business. But they would still have to relay all of the decisions through a human, who would then have to organize the actual day-to-day running of the business along those instructions. It would require a person who could intuit the cat’s decision-making process, of course.”

“A person like you, you mean,” said Chase, who’d recently been made aware of the fact that his fianc?e was one of those rare people who could actually communicate with cats.

She nodded.

Chase turned to Alec.“And did Flake have such a person on the payroll?”

“That was Gabriel’s task,” he said. “He was in charge of Pussy’s routine. Pussy being the name of Flake’s cat. Mr. Crier took Pussy to her weekly visits to the pet salon, kept a close eye on her diet, organized her parties—”

“Sorry, her parties?” asked Chase.

“Yes, apparently this Pussy has a very busy social life, and as a rule Mr. Crier planned a lot of activities for her—she had a full schedule.”

“Who told you all this stuff?” asked Odelia.

Alec dragged a meaty paw through the devastated area that was his scalp.“You’d be surprised how chatty staff members of the recently departed can be.”

“You should have called,” said Chase. “I would have helped set up the interviews.”

“I did call you,” said Uncle Alec. “And Odelia.”

Both Odelia and Chase grabbed for their phones.“Shoot,” Chase muttered. “Must have forgotten to plug the darn thing in last night.”

“Same here,” said Odelia, taking Chase’s phone and proceeding to plug in both phones so they could recharge before they left the house.

“Anyway, it’s a slam-dunk case,” said Alec, eagerly checking out the uneaten waffle on his niece’s plate and gratefully accepting it when she handed it to him. “Crier was caught red-handed, so I’m guessing we’ll be done with this before lunch. Still, always good to cross our T’s anddot our I’s.”

“Weird that the only person who stands to gain from the designer’s death is the man’s cat,” said Chase. “What do you make of that, Chief?”

He lowered his bristly brows into a frown.“Not sure, buddy. But you have to allow for the fact that these are celebrities, and as we all know celebrities are eccentric. Leonidas only changed his will last week. The one before that had the boyfriend as the main beneficiary, so there’s always a chance he didn’t know Flake cut him out of his will.”

“I think the cat did it,” Chase quipped.

“Funny guy,” the Chief grumbled.

Odelia glanced over to her cats, who were listening attentively.“Did you hear that, you guys? Looks like we have a feline suspect for this one.”

“Impossible,” said Max. “A cat would never kill a human.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Brutus. “If that human treated him or her badly, anything is possible.”

“But he was stabbed with a knife,” Max pointed out. “Cats don’t stab people with knives, Brutus.”

“Cats don’t need knives,” said Harriet. “We use our inbuilt tools.” And she unsheathed a razor-sharp claw to turn her words into a show-and-tell.

“Was he stabbed with the knife Crier was holding?” asked Odelia now.

“Um… not sure,” said Alec. “Abe is delayed.” He checked his watch. “He should be there shortly, though, so I better start heading back over there.”

Odelia jumped down from the kitchen stool.“You mean to say the body is still there? The coroner hasn’t even examined the victim?”

“Nope,” said Alec with faux cheer. “Which is why I figured I might as well pick up you two, so you can give me a hand wrapping this thing up.”

“We better get going,” said Odelia. “I can’t believe we’ve been sitting here chatting while that poor man is lying there.”

“He’s not going anywhere,” said Alec, buttering a piece of toast.

“And I haven’t taken a shower yet,” said Odelia, patting her hair.

“You look fine,” said Chase.

“Oh, God,” she muttered. She hated leaving the house without taking a shower or putting on a fresh set of threads. “Give me five minutes.”

“You can take ten,” said Uncle Alec, unconcerned.

She hurried up the stairs, and took the quickest shower in the history of mankind, put on a pair of jeans, pulled a T-shirt and sweater over her head, and decided to forgo drying her hair for once, then hurried down again.

Alec and Chase were still chatting away, not a care in the world.

“Cats don’t frame humans,” Uncle Alec was saying. “That’s a fact. I mean, no offense to you guys,” he added, gesturing to Max and the others, “but I don’t think you have it in you to try and frame someone for a crime you committed. Am I right or am I right?”

“Cats may be a lot of things but we’re not that cunning,” Brutus agreed.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” said Harriet. “Cats can be very, very cunning.”

“What is he saying, honey?” asked Alec.

“He’s saying cats are not that cunning,” said Odelia, shoving her notebook into her purse and checking the kitchen to see if all the appliances were turned off.

“And then there’s the logistics of the thing,” said Chase. “How would a cat kill a person, then plant the knife into the hand of another person, without that person’s knowledge? It can’t be done. No, I think you’re right, Alec. The case is open-and-shut. All we need to do is get a confession and we’re done.”

“That’s the plan,” said Alec. He got down from the kitchen stool and hoisted up his pants. “Well, let’s get going, kids. Chateau Leonidas awaits us.”

“Chateau Leonidas?” asked Chase. “Why am I not surprised that the man lived in an actual castle?”

“Because if you’re one of the most successful designers in the world, of course you live in a castle,” said Alec. “Besides, he’s French, so there’s that.”

“Do all French people live in castles?” asked Dooley.

“No, I don’t think they do, Dooley,” said Odelia with a smile. “Only the very wealthy.”

“Oh,” said Dooley, looking slightly disappointed.

“I, for one, can’t wait to meet this Pussy,” said Brutus with relish, then, when he caught Harriet’s sideways glance, quickly added, “I mean, so we can talk to her, and find out what she knows.”

Harriet, who’d narrowed her eyes, didn’t seem all that excited at the prospect of meeting what could very well be the richest cat in the world. And as she extended and retracted her claws a few times, Odelia thought she could actually see Brutus’s Adam’s apple nervously shift up and down.

She hadn’t even known cats actually had an Adam’s apple.

Chapter 3

I glanced over to my feline comrades. It’s one thing to act as a sleuthcat, but another to have to investigate a fellow cat for a crime they may or may not have committed. At least for me this marked the first occasion that a cat had been singled out as a possible suspect in a heinous crime like murder. Usually cats, when accused of a crime, are only guilty of misdemeanors like destroying a beloved set of curtains, a nice carpet here or there or stealing a fish from the fishmonger’s slab. I’ve even known a cat who chased little chicks around the backyard of some minor amateur chicken farmer. When interviewed after the fact, he claimed to have been looking for a feathered little friend to play with.

“Cats can be killers, though,” said Harriet seriously. “Cats have been known to kill birds and mice and on occasion even a rat or two.”

“Cats kill fish,” said Dooley, adding his two cents to the discussion.

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Brutus brusquely. “Cats don’t kill fish.”

“They do!” said Dooley. “I once saw Shadow racing down Main Street with a complete fish between his teeth.”

“I’m sure Shadow didn’t catch that fish,” said Harriet.

“No, he did,” Dooley insisted. “He got it from Wilbur Vickery’s store.”

We all laughed, except for Dooley, who didn’t seem to get the joke.

“That fish was already dead, Dooley,” I said finally, when he merely stared at me, clearly expecting me to provide him with an explanation for the sudden chucklefest.

“Dead? I don’t think so.”

“Fish live in the sea,” I said, “or in rivers or lakes or even the occasional pond. They don’t hang around Wilbur Vickery’s General Store.”

“The fish Vickery sells is caught by fishermen,” Harriet said. “Men who fish. In the sea,” she added, as if addressing a not-so-clever kitten.

“Oh,” said Dooley, clearly disappointed that his war story turned out to be a benign little tale instead. “Well, he did catch it, even if it was dead already.”

“Just like I catch my kibble every day,” Brutus said with a grin.

Harriet clapped her paws.“Order, people. Let’s come to order,” she said. “Let’s focus on the task at hand. We won’t be able to help Odelia by telling tall tales of Shadow stealing fish from the General Store. We need to decide once and for all if cats are capable of homicide—in other words, the killing of a hominid.”

“A what?” asked Brutus.

“A hominid. A member of the family of the Hominidae or great apes.”

“A human,” I explained.

“Oh, right,” said Brutus.

“I once saw a story about a cat that likes to lie on top of its human’s face,” said Dooley. When we all stared at him, he added, “It was on the Discovery Channel so it must be true!”

“So did the human die?” asked Harriet.

“Yeah, that’s the real issue here,” Brutus added. “Did that human die?”

“I don’t think so,” said Dooley, frowning as he searched his memory. “No, I think he survived. At least he was alive when they interviewed him.”

More eye rolls greeted Dooley’s second contribution to our discussion, with some exasperated groans coming from Harriet, but once again it was up to me to explain to my dear friend what the problem was with his story.

“Dooley, if they interviewed the man after the fact, and he was able to recount the experience, he didn’t die, see?”

He thought about this for a moment, then conceded,“No, I guess he didn’t.”

“Why did he lie on top of his human’s face?” I asked, for the story did possess an element of intrigue.

“Yeah, did he try to kill him?” asked Brutus, who has a penchant for all things violent.

“No, I think he just wanted to show his affection,” said Dooley. “Or maybe he was afraid his human’s face would get cold during the night.”

“Well, he shouldn’t have,” Harriet snapped. “Lying on top of a hominid’s face might block certain aspects of the breathing apparatus and kill it dead.”

“What’s all this talk about hominids?” I asked.

“Marge loaned me an eBook she got from the library the other day,” said Harriet. “Very interesting stuff. About the different species that make up this great big beautiful planet of ours. She felt I’d been spending too much time watching the Kardashians with Gran, and I should read something that would feed my mind instead. I like it. I might read a few more of them.”

I was greatly surprised, but also greatly impressed. Harriet is not exactly known as the intellectual of our gang of four, and this was all to the good.

“Look, all this talk about killer cats is all well and good,” said Brutus, “but frankly I don’t buy it. Not for one second.”

“What don’t you buy?” asked Dooley, interested.

“That cats are capable of killing humans! It’s simply not possible. I mean, they can claw their humans, when provoked, or even bite them, but kill them? I don’t think any member of the feline species, in the long history we share with the human race, has ever been responsible for the death ofa human.”

“A cat could kill if it accidentally kicked over a candle and set the house on fire,” Harriet pointed out.

“Yeah, but that’s not exactly murder, is it? That’s more like an accident.”

“Brutus is right,” I said. “What we need to ask ourselves is this: are cats capable of possessing the intent to kill? Willfully murder a human being?”

We all chewed on that one for a moment, then Dooley finally said,“Do you think Pussy is one of those cats that likes to wear booties?”

“Dooley, let’s try to focus on the issue at hand for a moment, shall we?” I said. “In a show of paws, who thinks cats are capable of manslaughter?”

No paws were raised.“Well, that settles it,” said Harriet. “Pussy is innocent, and whoever claims she did what they say she did is lying through their teeth.”

“We’ll know more after we’ve talked to her,” I said.

Odelia, who’d been surfing the internet, preparatory to launching her investigation, now called out, “Did you know that Leonidas was couturier to kings and queens and presidents?”

“No, I did not know that,” I said, but when Chase joined her at the computer it dawned on me that her question hadn’t actually been directed at me.

Instead, Chase said,“Well what do you know?”

I stared at my human for a moment, then back at my posse. They quickly looked away. It had been an embarrassing moment for me, and none of them wanted to rub my face in it. Which was nice of them, I guess. Then again, it highlighted a growing concern we all shared: ever since Chase had moved in, our face time with Odelia had gradually diminished to the point it had almost been reduced to zero. Used to be she spent all of her free time with us, or her family, who live right next door. These days she spends mostof her time with Chase, and what little time is left, she devotes to taking care of our basic needs. It’s been an adjustment, let me tell you, and one we’re struggling with.

“It’s all right, Maxie, baby,” said Brutus finally. “It’s happened to us all.”

And it had, which meant it was turning into a serious problem. I mean, what good is it to be able to talk to your human, if that human is always busy talking to her significant other human? None whatsoever, right?

Anyway, I know I’m nagging and whining, which is so not me. Cats rarely nag and whine. At least not this cat. Still, being ignored by your favorite human in all the world is a tough one, and if I hadn’t known better I’d have thought Odelia sometimes did it on purpose, to show us that things had changed around here. That we were no longer her top priority.

Just then Odelia and Chase moved to the door, then passed out into the street and we could hear the key being turned in the lock. Silence reigned for a moment, as we all stared at the closed door. Finally, Harriet spoke.“Correct me if I’m wrong, you guys. But did Odelia just forget to take us along?”

Chapter 4

Odelia was already in her pickup and maneuvering the vehicle away from the curb when she felt Chase’s eyes raking her visage.

“What?” she asked as she reached the end of the road, then flashed her blinker to take the turn.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” asked Chase, looking amused.

“Forget what?” she asked, her mind now occupied by all that she’d read on Leonidas Flake. The man had lived a full life, that much was obvious. Born in Paris, France, he’d launched himself as a contender in the fashion trade in the sixties. He’d worked for several of the big fashion houses before establishing his own brand, which had made him a household name over the course of the six decades he’d been in the business. Now everyone the world over, from the cognoscenti to the non-cognoscenti, was aware of the name Leonidas Flake. A name that brought to mind gorgeous haute couture,but also couture designed for the masses, in his pr?t-?-porter collections and collaborations with some of the major clothing retailers like Gap, Banana Republic, J. Crew and H&M.

“Weren’t you planning on taking your cats along?” asked Chase now.

She frowned at him, then glanced over her shoulder.“Oh, God,” she said, suddenly mortified. “I forgot my cats!”

“That’s what I figured.”

Immediately she performed a U-turn and before long was right back where she started. She cut the engine but before she could jump from the vehicle, Chase had already beaten her to the punch.

“I’ll get them,” he said.

She shook her head in dismay. What was wrong with her? She’d never ever forgotten her cats before. Never. Her excuse, of course, was that she’d been so busy thinking about the case her uncle had landed in her lap that she’d totally forgotten about her little dears. As she glanced over, she saw them walking out of the house, single file, right behindChase. They didn’t look happy. In fact Max was giving her an accusatory look that she absolutely deserved.

They hopped into the car without a word, then sat silently staring before them, not deigning her a single glance.

“Look, I’m sorry, all right?” she tried. “I was so wrapped up in this Leonidas business that I completely forgot. I’m so, so sorry, you guys.”

“We can forgive you, Odelia,” finally spoke Harriet, “but we’ll never forget.”

Her words elicited a snicker from Brutus, but the nasty glance she gave him quickly shut him up.

“What do you mean?” Odelia asked.

“It means we’re insulted,” said Harriet. “And a cat never forgets.”

“I think that’s elephants, though,” said Max.

“Cats, too,” said Dooley. “We have a mind like a steel trap.”

“That’s elephants,” Max insisted. “Elephants never forget a face, or if someone stepped on their toe at some point. They will take revenge, even if years have passed since the toe-stepping incident.”

“How can someone step on an elephant’s toes?” said Brutus. “Have you seen an elephant’s foot? He doesn’t even have toes.”

“An elephant does have toes,” Max insisted stubbornly, “and if you step on them he’ll never forget your face, and the first chance he gets, even if a hundred years have passed, he’ll step right back on your toes. Quid pro quo.”

“Quit what?” asked Brutus.

“If an elephant stepped on my toes I’d be flat as a pancake,” said Harriet.

“I’m sure it’s not elephants but cats that never forget a face,” said Dooley. “It was on the Discovery Channel.”

“Oh, my God!” said Harriet. “Will you shut up about the Discovery Channel for one minute!”

Odelia turned back to face the front, put the car in gear, and soon they were tootling along the road in perfect silence, apart from Dooley’s occasional mutterings about elephants and things he’d seen on the Discovery Channel.

They made good time, and before long had left Hampton Cove behind and were driving along the coast, where all the billionaires lived—and the occasional millionaire who got lost when looking to land a house deal. This was celebrity land, with more celebrities living in close proximity than in probably any other place in the country, except, of course, Beverly Hills or Malibu, where celebrities tend to spring up like a rash, ora fungoid growth.

“Nice houses,” said Chase finally as they passed million-dollar home after million-dollar home. Not that there was a lot to see, as billionaires are notoriously shy, and don’t like to show their faces or even their million-dollar dwellings, except in the form of an exclusive spread inArchitectural Digest.

“I wouldn’t mind living here,” said Harriet as she stared out the window.

“I would,” said Max, surprisingly. “I like my home just the way it is.”

“Small, you mean?” asked Harriet.

“Cozy,” he countered. “These McMansions are so gigantic you can spend days wandering around without meeting a single soul. You could probably get lost and only be found when there’s nothing left of you but a rotting carcass.”

“Aren’t we in a sunny mood?” said Brutus.

“Just a passing thought,” said Max.

“You exaggerate, Max,” said Harriet, who liked her celebrities.

“No, I don’t. And it’s probably the reason these celebrity couples never stick it out for more than a couple of months. They move in together, then never see each other again as they live in separate wings, and if they do happen to run into each other they haven’t seen each other for so long they don’t even recognize their spouse and call the police to report a prowler.”

The cats all laughed at this, and so did Odelia. The only one who didn’t laugh was Chase, which was understandable, as he didn’t understand the finer points of the feline language. So Odelia translated the joke to him and he nodded. “I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that,” he said. “Who said it? Max?”

“Hey,” said Brutus. “Why does it always have to be Max who says the clever stuff? I’m clever, too!”

“It was Brutus,” said Odelia quickly, in an attempt to pour oil on trouble waters.

“No, it wasn’t,” Brutus muttered.

“Oh?” said Chase, sounding surprised.

“Why is he sounding so surprised?” asked Brutus. “I’m a very clever cat!”

“Don’t act so surprised,” said Odelia. “Brutus feels a little offended.”

“I’m right here!” said Brutus.

“Well, I didn’t mean to,” said Chase. “It’s just that you mention Max the most, and hardly ever talk about the others.”

Odelia felt heat rise to her cheeks.“Chase,” she said. “Maybe you shouldn’t…”

“Shouldn’t what?” said Harriet, whose eyes had turned into tiny slits. “Mention that Max is your favorite? Oh, but we’ve known about that for a long time, haven’t we?”

“Yes, we have,” Brutus grumbled.

“You guys, I’m not Odelia’s favorite,” said Max, laughing. “Not by a mile. In fact if there’s one favorite in Odelia’s life it’s Chase.”

“Max is right,” said Dooley. “He used to be the favorite but now Chase is.”

“You guys!” said Odelia, mortified. “How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t play favorites! I love you all the same.”

“Is that why you hardly ever spend time with us anymore?” asked Harriet now. “And why you spend all of your time with Chase?”

“Look, if I have, I’m sorry, all right?” Had she been spending all of her time with Chase? Hard to imagine. Then again, maybe Harriet was right. Since Chase had moved in they had been spending a lot of time together. And lately they’d gone on a lot of dates—movie nights, dinners, the odd show or concert.

“Look, if I have neglected you, I promise I’ll make it up to you, all right?”

“And how are you going to do that?” asked Harriet, who seemed to be the self-appointed president of the cat complaints committee.

“I’ll… take you all out on a date. Just the five of us. We’ll hang out all night and have the time of our lives.”

“We’re cats, Odelia,” said Max. “We don’t go out on dates.”

“Yeah, you’re confusing us with dogs,” said Harriet.

“So what would you like to do?” she asked, desperate to make it up to her feline menagerie.

“Just spend a cozy evening at home,” said Max.

“Without Chase, you mean?”

Max hesitated, then stuck his head together with the others while they seriously considered this question.

Finally, they broke the huddle and Max cleared his throat.“We don’t mind if Chase is there, as long as we all get snuggle time on the couch with you.”

“We’ll time it,” Dooley suggested. “There’s five of us, Chase included, so you can spend fifty percent of your time paying attention to us, and fifty percent to Chase.”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” said Brutus. “We should all get twelve percent of her time. Fair is fair.”

“What are those precious little furballs talking about?” asked Chase with a smile. He still found it hilarious that Odelia’s cats could talk.

“We’re in the middle of a negotiation. One night spent at home, with equal face time with me. Right now we’re at twelve percent for each of you.”

“Huh. Interesting.”

“One night isn’t enough,” said Max. “I’d say you spend one night out on the town with Chase, the other nights at home with us. Take it or leave it.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Max,” she said.

“Strictly speaking she should spend 1.4 nights with Chase, and 5.6 nights with us,” said Dooley, who’d clearly been making complicated calculations in his head.

“We can work out the details later,” said Harriet. “Right now all we want from you is a preliminary agreement.”

“Um…” said Odelia. She’d suddenly noticed that a car had been following them for a while now. It wasn’t trying very hard not to be noticed either: the little red Peugeot was almost bumper to bumper with Odelia’s pickup, and the little old lady that sat behind the wheel had her face practically plastered to the windshield and was staring at them intently.

Chase had noticed, too, for he suddenly asked, a slight note of worry in his voice,“Um, babe? Why is your grandmother trying to ram us off the road?”

Chapter 5

If there’s one thing I’m grateful for it is that cats are not able to drive cars. The plain truth of the matter is that I don’t like cars. What’s to like, really? Cars smell funny, they’re cramped and closed off, like a big metal box, and they move way too fast most of the time. And then of course there’s the fact that cats don’t wear seatbelts. I mean, the first car manufacturer who designs seatbelts for pets still has to arrive on the scene. Elon Musk, maybe? At any rate, even if seatbelts for pets were invented, I don’t think I’d use them. Too confining. They’d probably feel like a noose, or, worse, a leash, and as you well know cats don’t condone leashes. We’re not dogs, for crying out loud!

One of the issues that vex me when riding in cars with strangers, or even non-strangers like Odelia, is the harrowing driving style of most humans. They drive their cars as if they’re bumper cars, looking for other cars they can hit. Humans seem to enjoy driving at breakneck speeds through places teeming with people, pets and kids, where at any given moment one of those people, pets or kids might wander into the flight path of the incoming vehicle and be run over. It’s one of those absurdities I’ve never understood. One of those maniacs was now giving chase, flashing their lights and leaning on their horn, probably wanting to overtake us but not being able to, due to space constraints on this stretch of road, as well as cars coming from the opposite direction. Then, when I glanced back, to see who this road rage person could be, I was surprised to find that it was none other than Grandma Muffin!

Then again, I probably shouldn’t have been too surprised. Gran is the worst driver known to man, and that is saying something. She drives as if she’s the only person on the road, which was probably the case back when she got her license, but in the meantime more drivers have arrived on the scene, a fact which irks her to such an extent she tries to remove them from her path like corn before her sickle. She usually drives Marge’s little red Peugeot, since Marge doesn’t really need it to go to work, the library being within walking distance from the house. If I were Uncle Alec, though, I’d have grounded Gran a long time ago. A question of protecting the safety of the many from the lack of driving skills of the few, if you see what I mean.

“I think she wants us to pull over,” said Odelia now.

“I think she wants torun us over,” said Chase, craning his neck.

Odelia slowed down the car, then parked it on the shoulder. Grandma, true to Chase’s predictions, pulled over right behind us and got out. She didn’t look happy. In fact it wasn’t too much to say she looked livid.

“Hey!” she shouted even before she’d reached us. “Hey, you!”

Odelia rolled down the window.“Gran. What’s wrong?”

“I had to hear it from Tex, who had to hear it from Marge, who had to hear it from Alec!” she said, shaking her fists like one about to blow her top.

“Hear what?” asked Odelia.

“That there’s been a murder!”

“Has there been a murder?” asked Odelia.

“Don’t you play dumb with me, missy!” said Gran, still fuming.

Grandma Muffin, who is Marge and Alec’s mother, is a little old lady, with tiny white curls and tiny round glasses. She looks like Sylvester Stallone’s mom in that ageless classicStop! Or My Mom Will Shootif Estelle Getty hadn’t dyed her hair in that one. If you see Gran for the first time you might be mistaken to think she’s one of those sweet old ladies who bake cookies for her grandkids and read them bed-time stories. Gran isn’t like that. She’s more likely to shoot you where you stand than sing a lullaby. Atleast if New York gun laws weren’t so strict, and if her son didn’t keep a close eye on her.

“So why wasn’t I invited?” she demanded, practically stomping her foot.

“Invited to what?” asked Odelia, still playing coy.

“To the murder! You know how much I like a good murder!”

“Nobody likes a murder, Gran,” said Odelia. “Murders are horrible, and not something to be enjoyed.”

“You promised me I could tag along when you had another murder case. You know as well as I do what a great team we make. Like Starsky and Hutch. I’m Hutch, of course, the pretty one, and you’re the Brooklyn babe.”

“I’m not from Brooklyn.”

“Who cares! We’re a team! You don’t break up the team!”

Odelia rubbed her eyes.“Well, I guess I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Wake me! I’ve been up since five! I was up while you were still in la la land!” She stuck her head in the window and directed a scathing look at Chase. “You!”

“Ma’am?” said Chase, meeting Gran’s kindling eye.

She wagged a bony finger at him.“You should be ashamed of yourself, Detective Kingsley. Hogging my granddaughter’s time like that. You know as well as I do that I only got a couple of good years left to spend with my one and only grandchild, and you’re stealing it!”

“I’m very sorry, ma’am,” he said, trying not to grin and failing.

“What’s with all the ma’am crap! It’s Mrs. Muffin!”

“Of course, Mrs. Muffin.”

“I could be dead tomorrow, and because of you Odelia would have missed her last chance to spend some quality time with her favorite granny.”

“You’re my only granny, Gran,” said Odelia.

“Only because Tex’s folks were a bunch of ninnies who croaked before their time. It just goes to show we should cherish the little time we have.”

“Hop in, Mrs. Muffin,” said Chase. “We were just driving down to check out the murder scene now.”

“I’m not hopping in with you. Not after having been so rudely ignored. But I will drive along behind you. Who’s in charge of this here investigation?”

“I guess I am,” said Chase, as if the thought had only now occurred to him.

“Consider me your sidekick from now on. I’m sticking to you like glue!”

And with these words full of promise, she stomped back to her vehicle, got in and slammed the door, then sat staring at us with an expectant look.

“We better do as she says,” said Chase. “I have a feeling she’ll kill us if we don’t.”

“I’d really hoped she’d sit this one out,” said Odelia as she started the car.

“Oh, so youdid leave her behind on purpose.”

She shrugged.“I didn’t think it through.”

“Great,” he said. “And now she’ll stick to me like glue.” But he was grinning, indicating he didn’t mind.

“Amazing,” said Harriet quietly, as Odelia and Chase discussed the logistics of running an investigation consisting of one police detective, one local reporter, and one little old lady with no clear designation or authority.

“What is?” I asked.

“Haven’t you been listening? First Odelia leaves us behind, and then she purposely decides to ditch Gran. Don’t you see what’s going on here?”

I had a feeling I was going to find out soon, whether I replied in the affirmative or not.

“She’s engaged to be married now, and slowly but surely she’s edging us all out! Her cats, her grandmother—all of us!”

“No, she’s not,” I said automatically, for I rarely believe anything negative about my human.

“Yes, she is! Once she’s married she’s going to get rid of us, and then she’s going to get rid of Gran, too!”

“But why would she do that? She loves us,” said Dooley. “And she loves her grandmother, too. Doesn’t she?”

“No, she doesn’t,” said Harriet. She groaned. “I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid! Don’t you see? She’s been wanting to get rid of us all along, and now she’s found the perfect excuse.”

“The wedding?” asked Brutus.

“Yes! The wedding! She’ll get married, and that will be the end of this.” She was gesturing vaguely between us and Odelia.

We all stared dumbly at her paw motions.

“What’s… this?” I asked, mimicking the gesture.

“The bond we share! This rare and unique fellowship of cats and humans. Clearly she’s sick and tired of having to lug us all over the place like so much ballast, and her grandmother, too. Didn’t you catch the dirty looks she gave poor Gran? She can’t wait to be rid of her, and us. Free at last!”

We stared at her, the harbinger of such terrible and upsetting news.

“I think Harriet is right,” said Brutus. “Odelia is getting ready to dump us.”

“But what is she going to do with us?” asked Dooley, sounding panicky.

I should probably point out that it doesn’t take much for Dooley to panic. And being abandoned by our dear, sweet human definitely fit the bill.

“She’ll probably try to dump us on Marge and Tex,” said Harriet. “And then she and Chase are finally free to live their lives unencumbered by the presence of four cats and an annoying old grandmother.”

Her words had a chilling effect on us, and the rest of the drive we were all conspicuously silent. And as I turned Harriet’s words over in my mind, I had to admit they made sense. Odelia had been spending less and less time with us, giving us less and less attention, and this morning she’d even ‘forgotten’ to bring us along, just as she’d ‘forgotten’ about Gran, who loved to go on these little outings with her granddaughter.

Could it be that she and Chase had a secret plan? That they were getting ready to move away from Hampton Cove, maybe even overseas? They’d clearly had a ball in England, and since Odelia was a reporter she could very easily get a job anywhere, and Chase being a cop he could have already landed himself a snazzy position in Europol or Interpol or some other pol. My heart sank as I contemplated this terrible prospect. We’d still be taken care of, of course, and Marge and Tex and Gran were wonderful people. Only problem was: they weren’t my people, per se. I only had one people and that was Odelia, and the prospect of never seeing her again suddenly filled me with dread.

And so it was with a sinking heart that I watched Odelia expertly navigate the car in the direction of a tall iron gate, which swung open the moment we arrived, then swung closed again behind Gran’s little red car.

Suddenly I didn’t feel like cracking this case.

Because it could very well be our last one.

Chapter 6

The sun shone brightly, reflecting off the abundance of glass the late Leonidas Flake had opted for when he’d commissioned an architect to build his chateau. It wasn’t so much a chateau, though, but more of a bunker the designer had built. The entire structure appeared to have been constructed out of slabs of black concrete, interspersed with plate-glass windows. All in all it reminded Odelia of a gigantic Lego house, if those Legos had been used by a child who preferred his or her Legos black and slightly ominous-looking.

“It looks… a little scary,” she now confessed to her partner in crime.

“It looks like a black cube,” Chase said. The cop rarely minced words.

“Yeah. I don’t know. I guess I expected something more along the lines of the castle of Versailles,” she said as she opened the rear door of the car and allowed four cats to pour out gracefully to the gravel drive.

She crouched down, to provide them with her customary pep talk and instructions for the assignment ahead. Her loyal troupe, however, instead of eagerly listening to their master’s voice, as they usually did, simply ignored her and tripped off in the direction of the house.

“Huh,” she said, straightening and ignoring the tiny crick in her knees. “What’s gotten into them?”

But she didn’t have time to contemplate the state of mind her cats were in, for Gran had parked her car right next to Odelia’s and now came clambering out with some effort.

“So what’s the lowdown?” the old lady asked, directing her question at Chase and ignoring her one and only grandchild.

“Victim is Leonidas Flake,” said Chase. “Fashion designer of French origin. Seventy-eight years old.”

“So sad when they’re struck down in their prime,” said Gran, clucking her tongue.

Chase frowned, then continued to give her‘the lowdown.’ “Plenty of staff on the premises. Housekeeper, cleaners, chauffeur, gardener, chef… and one boyfriend, Gabriel Crier, who was discovered standing over the body, a bloodied knife in his hands.”

“Who saw him?”

“One of the maids. She usually came to open the curtains in the morning, always around the same time, only this morning she found that the master was beyond waking.”

“Clever,” said Gran, giving Chase an encouraging pat on the back. “Keep this up and you’ll go far, Detective Kingsley. Now take me to the body. I need to get a sense of the crime scene.”

And without waiting for a reply, she hoofed it in the direction of the black block of concrete that was the famous designer’s Hamptons home.

Chase stared after her, then scratched his scalp.“Is she now in charge of this investigation or what?”

“It would appear so,” Odelia confirmed.

“And to think that there was once a time I felt very strongly about civilians poking their noses into my investigations,” he said as they set foot for the house in Gran’s wake.

“I remember,” said Odelia with a smile. “When you first arrived in town you used to give me hell, remember?”

“Oh, I do remember,” he said. “It took me a while to get used to the way things are done around here.”

“You never thought you’d be running your investigations alongside a little old lady, a nosy reporter and four cats, did you?” she teased.

He chuckled lightly.“Not in a million years. Back when I was still with the NYPD I was known to be a stickler for protocol.”

“Protocol will only get you so far.”

“I had to learn that the hard way.”

They’d reached the house and watched as Gran pressed her finger on the bell then kept on pressing it, almost drilling the thing into the wall. Inside, a distinct and very annoying buzzing sound could be heard, and the longer Gran kept pressure on the button, the louder and more annoying it became.

Finally, the door was yanked open by a breathless young woman dressed in a maid’s uniform.

“Yes?” she asked, looking flustered.

“Chase Kingsley, ma’am,” said Chase, producing his police badge and holding it up for her inspection. “Hampton Cove PD. And this is Odelia Poole, civilian consultant, and…” He directed a quizzical look at Gran.

“I’m Vesta Muffin,” croaked Gran. “Now take me to the body!”

The woman nodded nervously, then stepped aside to admit the small band of three into the house.

“Chief Alec told me you were coming,” she said. “He also told me the coroner would be here shortly, but we haven’t had the pleasure of his company yet.”

“So who’s been guarding the body?” asked Chase, putting his detective’s cap on.

“Two of your people,” said the girl. “They’ve been standing watch in the room where…” She gulped. “Where he was found,” she finished with a sob. She took a tissue out of her pocket and pressed it to her nose. “This is all so horrible. One moment he was alive and well and the next… I mean, who would have thought he was capable?”

“Mr. Crier, you mean?” asked Chase.

The girl nodded.“Such a nice man.”

“The world is a dangerous place, miss,” said Gran. “You just truck along, happy as pie, and then suddenly, BOOM! Out of the blue disaster strikes. Now take me to the body, will you? I need to get a feel for the scene, and the stiff.”

“Of course,” said the girl, nodding. She then led the way into the house, which was as starkly modern on the inside as on the outside. There was only one color scheme, really: black and white, with shades of gray. No decorations. Black concrete walls. Gray concrete floors and ceilings. And tinylittle pinpricks of halogen casting a hard light across the starkly empty rooms.

“Nice place you got here,” said Gran, by way of small talk, but the maid was obviously too distraught to engage in social niceties.

“Were you the one who found Mr. Flake?” asked Odelia.

She nodded.“Yes, I was. Mr. Flake hated alarm clocks, or any indicators of time, really. He didn’t wear a watch, or condone clocks in the house. We even had to get rid of the digital clock on the microwave. So he instructed me to wake him up in the morning by entering his room, and switching on the light therapy lamps. They mimic natural sunlight, you see.”

“Couldn’t you simply open the curtains?” asked Gran.

“Mr. Flake hated the sun. He rarely left the house.”

“Like a vampire,” Gran muttered.

They’d arrived at a floor-to-ceiling set of double rusty decorative sheet metal doors, and the girl halted. “I-I went in to wake him, as I usually did, at seven o’clock, only the moment I set foot inside the room, I-I saw him.”

“Gabriel?” asked Odelia gently.

The girl nodded, then pressed the tissue to her nose again and closed her eyes as she relived that horrible moment.

“He was just standing there, frozen like a statue. At first I didn’t know what was going on. It was dark, of course. So I cheerfully asked, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you were up already, sir.’ He didn’t respond, though, and just stood there. So I switched on the lights, and as they slowly lit up the room, that’s when I saw it: he was holding a knife in his right hand, blood dripping to the floor. And he had the weirdest expression on his face.”

“What expression?” asked Gran.

She shook her head, a frown on her face.“Confusion? Yes, that’s probably what it was. He looked confused, and scared, and then he spoke those horrible words. ‘Is he dead?’ And that’s when I saw Mr. Flake. His silk pajamas were streaked with blood, and his eyes were wide open, staring up into space.” She shivered. “That’s when I knew Mr. Crier was right. Mr. Flake was dead, and he’d killed him.”

She opened the door, almost as an afterthought, and the first sight that met Odelia’s eyes was the red-haired female cop standing just inside the door. She recognized her as Sarah Flunk, Chase’s colleague. Sarah tipped an imaginary peaked cap to the newcomers. “Detective,” she said. “Odelia.” She hesitated as she fastened her eyes on Gran, then nodded in greeting. “Mrs. Muffin.”

Tough to deny the mother of your boss admission to a crime scene.

Near the window, a burly cop had been stationed. His name was Randal Skip, and judging from his dark scowl he was not a man to be trifled with. When he saw Odelia, though, his crusty features crumbled into a smile. He’d always been a big fan of the boss’s niece. He held up a hand in greeting.

On the bed, as the maid had found him, lay one of the most famous fashion designers of his generation. His trademark white mane was unruffled, his square face with the thin lips chalk-white as usual, and the only thing that gave away that he was dead was the fact that he wasn’t breathing.

After uttering a distraught little yelp of distress, the maid fled from the room, and Sarah Flunk closed the heavy steel doors behind her.

“No one’s been in or out?” asked Gran, as she took out a pair of plastic gloves from her pocket and directed an earnest look at the dead man.

“No one, ma’am,” said Officer Randal Skip. “Your son told us he’d send in a team, so…” He directed a quizzical look at Chase, but the latter merely shook his head, and Randal rearranged his features into a stoic expression.

“So where’s the culprit?” asked Gran now.

“You mean the boyfriend?” asked Sarah. “At the station, ma’am. Chief Alec took him into custody.”

“So did he confess?”

“Not to my knowledge. But then he doesn’t have to confess, does he? He was caught red-handed, so to speak.”

“He was covered with his victim’s blood,” said Randal. “As clear-cut a case as there ever was, ma’am.”

“Mh,” said Gran, not convinced. “Too clear-cut, wouldn’t you say?”

“Ma’am?”

“A case as clear-cut as this is a rarity. In all my years I don’t think I’ve ever handled a case where the killer, instead of fleeing the scene of the crime, simply chose to wait for a witness to show up, if you see what I mean.”

Randal cut another glance to Chase, who, once again, shook his head.‘Humor the lady,’ his demeanor appeared to indicate.

“So you don’t think he did it?” asked Sarah, not hiding her skepticism.

“I’m not saying he did, and I’m not saying he didn’t,” Gran said as she checked the body. “He looks pretty dead to me,” she concluded after a long moment, then bent over to put her ear against the man’s lips. Straightening, she added, “Yep, I think he’s dead. What did Abe Cornwall say?”

“Hasn’t shown up yet, ma’am.”

“Mh,” she said, then studied the wound more closely. “Stab wound would you say, Randal?”

“That would be my conclusion, ma’am,” said the burly cop. “Of course I’m not an expert, but seeing as the killer was still holding the knife, that would be my best guess.”

“Straight to the heart,” Sarah murmured as she looked on reverently.

“A-ha,” said Gran. “Of course.Crime passionnel.”

“I wouldn’t know, ma’am. I’m not a detective.”

Gran turned to Chase.“What do you say, Detective Kingsley?”

Chase had taken up position on the other side of the bed.“Any cameras?” he asked, glancing around.

“As a matter of fact there are,” said Randal. He pointed to the only painting in the room. It depicted the dead man, seated on what looked like a throne, his trademark dark glasses obscuring the upper strata of his face, a white cat perched on his knee. It reminded Odelia of Dr. No, the James Bond villain.

“There’s a camera embedded in the painting,” Sarah explained. “It’s the cat’s eyes. They’re actually two lenses. But we haven’t been able to locate the footage.”

“Did you check with Flake’s security team?” asked Odelia.

“We did. The guy in charge of security reckons that either the camera is a dud—just for show—or else it fed into a parallel security system only accessible to Flake himself. At any rate he doesn’t seem to have a clue.”

“It must feed into something,” said Gran, as she climbed on top of the bed to take a closer look at the camera. “Clever,” she said. “Very clever indeed.”

“There’s a rumor going around that Flake and Crier used it to create their own private home movies, sir,” said Sarah, addressing Chase. She lowered her voice. “Home sex movies, sir. Only we haven’t been able to find them yet.”

“When I talk to Crier I’ll ask him about it,” said Chase as he cast a worried glance at Gran, who was still trudging around on the bed, potentially disturbing the crime scene. Finally she was satisfied and climbed down.

“Kinky,” she commented, then swung round with the air of one who has come to a conclusion. “Sex game gone wrong is my conclusion. Flake had probably found himself a new, younger, boyfriend, and had been adding to his collection of sex tapes with this virile young man. And when Crier found out, he flew into a rage and killed his lover in a moment of insanity. Classic.”

“Right,” said Chase. “Sarah and Randal. I want you to talk to the rest of the staff. And ask them about the camera. I’ll talk to the head of security.” He turned to Odelia. “Are you all right in here, babe?”

Odelia nodded. And when Chase gestured with his head to Gran, she understood his meaning. Not only was she to keep an eye on Leonidas Flake and the crime scene, but also on her grandmother, who was now checking under the bed, as if fully expecting another killer to be holed up there.

Chase and the other police officers walked out and closed the door behind them and then it was just her and Gran and… the dead man.

Chapter 7

Instead of joining Odelia and Chase inside the house, as was our habit, we’d instead opted to inspect the outer rim of the Leonidas dwelling. Not that this was part of a new strategy on our part. We were upset with Odelia, and wanted to showcase that annoyance by doing things our way instead of hers. Not that it would do us a lot of good. Humans are notoriously obtuse,and it would take more than the silent treatment for Odelia to become aware of our grievances.

“So what’s the plan?” asked Brutus now, and I had to confess that I didn’t have any. And since Harriet, usually filled to the brim with plans, was coming up empty in that department, too, and Dooley was, as usual, a spent force when it came to racking the old noggin, we simply wandered around aimlessly, deciding that instead of coming up with a plan to aid and abet our human in solving yet another crime, we were going to go on strike for once.

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

“It means we’re not going to do what we usually do and instead do nothing at all,” I explained.

“Oh, you mean taking a break?”

“No, going on strike,” said Harriet. “Like factory workers when negotiations between management and trade unions have broken down and failed to reach the pay raise anticipated.”

Dooley stared at me.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Harriet burst out. “We’re not going to help Odelia solve her murder for her this time, all right? Instead we do nothing.”

Dooley continued mystified, though.“But… why?”

“For one thing, the murder has already been solved,” I said. “Clearly the boyfriend did it. And for another, if Odelia doesn’t care about us, why should we care about her? Or the murder cases she decides to get involved in?”

This was clearly a tough one, and Dooley stared at me for a moment before responding.“Because that’s what we always do?”

“Well, I for one think it’s time we switched up our routine,” said Harriet. “How long have we been assisting Odelia with this murder business?”

“Um… a long time?” Dooley hazarded a guess.

“Exactly! Too long. We’re cats. We’re not even supposed to be involved in this crime stuff. What we should do is lie around, have a bit to eat from time to time, or go for a stroll, and generally have a great old time. What we shouldn’t be doing, because it is unnatural, and not in our job description, is hunt around for killers. It’s dangerous, and it’s not a lot of fun.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Brutus. “I kinda like hunting around for horrible killers.”

“Speak for yourself. I’ve had enough of this nonsense, and I think going on strike, as Max suggests, is a great idea. In fact I think we should go on an indefinite strike.”

“Meaning?” asked Brutus.

“Meaning we hand in our resignation! We tell Odelia that we won’t be her flunkeys any longer and that from now on she can find her own killers.”

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” said Dooley, always the most conscientious of the lot. “Odelia relies on us to bring her those vital clues she likes so much.”

“Well, from now on she’ll just have to root around for those vital clues herself, won’t she? In fact,” she added, getting up from her prostrate position, “I’ve seen all I need to see of this horrible place. Brutus, let’s go home.”

And since a suggestion from Harriet always has the ring of finality to it, Brutus had no other choice than to follow her home. Before she turned away, though, she had one last thing to say.“If you two decide to stick around and help Odelia in any way, you’re the worst suckers in the history of suckerhood.”

“We’re not sticking around, are we, Dooley?” I said.

“I don’t mind sticking around,” said Dooley.

“Of course you don’t,” said Harriet, a little nastily I thought. “What about you, Max? You’re the one who suggested we go on strike.”

“I know,” I said. “But we just got here, and I don’t feel like walking all the way back to the house.”

“Well, I do,” she said, and beckoned for her mate to follow her.

“Sorry, guys,” said Brutus. “Looks like you’ll have to go on strike all by yourselves.”

I had a feeling Brutus was still a little fuzzy about the whole strike concept, but I didn’t feel like explaining it to him, so I merely held up a paw in goodbye, and then Harriet and Brutus were off for a leisurely walk through the outer boroughs of Hampton Cove.

“I’m not sure I want to strike, Max,” said Dooley. “Is it difficult?”

“It’s very easy,” I said. “You simply don’t do what you normally do.”

He thought hard about this, judging from the thought wrinkles on his brow.“So… we’re supposed to be looking around for witnesses of this murder business, right?”

“Right.”

“So… going on strike means we don’t look for witnesses of the murder?”

“Exactly!”

His face fell.“But then what are we supposed to do? I mean, this striking business seems to be more a lack of activity and not an activity in itself.”

“We can simply lounge around out here and wait for Odelia to return and take us back into town. In the meantime we take a nap or something.”

“But if she asks what we’ve discovered, what are we going to tell her?”

“We tell her the truth. That we’re on strike and we haven’t discovered a single thing.”

He gave me a dubious look.“I don’t think she’ll be happy about that.”

“That’s the point, Dooley. We show her that we’re not happy by not doing what she tells us to do, at which point she’ll realize how badly she’s been treating us and she’ll repent and promise to do better next time.”

“And do you think that’s going to work?”

“I don’t know, Dooley. But we have to try. It’s obvious she and Chase are getting ready to leave Hampton Cove and start a new life across the pond, leaving us in the hands of Tex and Marge and Gran. And even though I believe in every individual’s right to map their own course in life, I still feel we should express our disappointment and try to persuade her to include us in her plans.” Though, truth be told, if Odelia really was planning on leaving us behind, I didn’t know if I wanted to be included in her future endeavors. A human capable of betrayal on such a massive scale wasn’t the kind of human I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, if you know what I mean.

Dooley seemed to feel the same way, for he now plunked down on the fashion designer’s smooth lawn, and heaved a deep sigh as he placed his head on his front paws. “Life is complicated, Max, don’t you agree?”

“Yes, I do,” I said simply, and lay down on the manicured turf next to Dooley, placing my chin on my paws just like him.

After a moment, he asked,“So are we on strike now?”

“We’re on strike,” I confirmed.

“Nice,” he said. “I kinda like it.”

“Me, too, actually. Peaceful.”

“Very peaceful.”

And in spite of our predicament, we decided to make the best of things by enjoying this rare lull in our busy schedule. And we’d been dozing for the better part of half an hour, the sun warming our weary bones, when a green van came driving up to the house, its tires crunching the gravel. We watched on as it pulled to a full stop and a man came stepping out. He was dressed in a long black overcoat, and had flowing blond hair and a nice blond mustache and beard. On top of his head was a fashionable homburg hat and he was carrying a suitcase. Next, a cat came hopping out of the van. One of those Siamese specimens. Very skinny, but also very loud. So loud we could hear him complaining all the way to where we were lying on Flake’s lawn.

“Look at this dump,” the cat was saying. “This is beneath us, Chris. Way, way beneath us.”

“I know,” said the guy. “But a job is a job, buddy, so buck up, will you?”

“How much are they paying us? Cause if it’s less than our usual quote I say we get out of here and dump this dump.”

“Ten K now, and another ten if we catch her son’s killer.”

“Twenty K, huh. Not too shabby.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. So are we doing this?”

“Hell, yeah,” said the cat.

And cat and man moved towards the front door as one man, then out of sight.

“Weird,” said Dooley.

“What’s weird?” I asked, closing my eyes again now that the show was over.

“That guy could talk to his cat.”

It took me a few moments before realizing the truth in Dooley’s worlds. Then my eyes shot open again. “Great Scott, Dooley!” I cried.

“What?”

“That guy can talk to his cat!”

“That’s what I said.”

“But I always thought Odelia was the only one—and her mom and grandma, of course.”

“Well, looks like they’re not the only ones,” said Dooley sensibly.

I stared at the green van, the engine still ticking as it cooled down. On the side of the car a decal had been stuck. It read‘Christopher Cross—Pet Detective.’

“Competition,” I murmured.

“Mh?” asked Dooley, who’d closed his eyes, his favorite strike pose.

“Odelia is getting some serious competition, Dooley.”

“So? We’re on strike, Max. Officially we’ve stopped caring about Odelia.”

He was right. Officially we didn’t care about what happened to Odelia. “Still, I don’t think she’s going to like it,” I said as I rested my head on my paws again.

“Maybe it will stop her from taking us for granted,” said Dooley.

I smiled. Some people call Dooley dumb. Dooley isn’t dumb. A little slow perhaps, but smarter than he often gets credit for. “You’re absolutely right, Dooley,” I said. “Maybe this is what she needs to stop taking us for granted.”

Chapter 8

Odelia was staring out of the window. She felt a little creeped out by being in the same room as the victim of a crime. Not that she was particularly squeamish about being in the presence of a dead person. She’d been involved in more murder cases than any reporter had a right to be, especially in a small town like Hampton Cove. But still… It didn’t feel right. Disrespectful, even. Leonidas Flake should be in the presence of his loved ones. Being laid up in a funeral home so he could be mourned properly. Not on display for all the world to see—or at least two amateur sleuths like herself and Gran.

“Look at this, Odelia,” said her grandmother, and she turned in the direction the old lady was indicating. She was on hands and knees, poking at something under the bed.

“What is it?” she asked, also getting down on all fours.

“I don’t know. Looks like a wrapper.”

“A wrapper? Like a candy wrapper?”

“I don’t think so. More like the kind of wrapper you use for a syringe.”

“Probably something Flake’s nurse dropped.”

“Yeah, probably. I mean, the guy was old, right? So he probably was prodded and jabbed with a bunch of syringes, like, all the time.”

Odelia agreed. Still, just to be on the safe side she took a picture of the item, then shuffled back from under the bed. She was just in time to watch the door swing open and Chase stroll in, followed by the coroner, looking harried.

“Finally,” said Gran. “We thought you’d never get here, Abe.”

Abe Cornwall was a scruffy-looking man in his mid-fifties with a marked paunch and hair that stuck out in every direction, as if he’d stuck his fingers in a socket. “Another homicide over in Happy Bays,” he said as he placed his medical bag on the floor. “Got here as fast as I could. So what have we here?”

“Leonidas Flake,” said Gran helpfully. “Designer to the stars. And now up amongst the stars in heaven himself. Unless he’s gone straight down to hell, of course. I guess with the kind of life the dude probably led all bets are off.”

The coroner stared at Gran for a moment, then proceeded to check the dead man’s pulse. “Dead,” he said with an air of finality.

“No shit,” said Gran. “We didn’t need a doctor to tell us that.”

Abe gave her a censorious look.“Don’t you have someplace to be, Vesta?”

“You ain’t getting rid of me that easy, Abe,” she said caustically. “Now tell us, did he get whacked, yes or no.”

The doctor grumbled something under his breath, then proceeded to pull on a pair of plastic gloves, and give the patient on display his full attention. Moments later, he rose with a serious expression on his face.“Francine will be devastated. She loved his designs.”

“Who cares what your wife thinks?” said Gran. “Give us the verdict, medicine man.”

“She picked up a nice pair of pants from Costco last month. Two blouses, too. Discounted, of course. Still, she was happy as a clam. Guy knew his stuff.”

“Oh, my God! Are you going to keep flapping your gums or are you going to get to the point already?”

“Well, as far as I can tell—and this is very preliminary, mind you—he’s been dead for three or four hours. Cause of death is almost certainly a stab wound to the heart. I’ll know more once I get him on my slab.”

“Thanks, Abe,” said Chase, nodding.

“You’re welcome. Now if there’s nothing else…”

“We found a wrapper for a syringe under the bed,” said Gran.

“Probably something his nurse dropped,” said the doctor. He moved over to the nightstand and picked through the small collection of medication collected there. “Heart medicine, and diabetes, of course. Hypertension, anxiety… the usual. I’ll make you a list if you want.”

And as they were about to leave the room, allowing the coroner’s people to move the body down to a waiting ambulance and then to the morgue, there was suddenly a commotion at the door and a strange-looking man dressed in a long black overcoat came waltzing in.

“Not so fast,” he said, fixing all those present with a steely look.

“And who are you?” asked Chase.

The man drew himself up to his full height.“My name is Christopher Cross. And I was hired by that man’s mother,” he said, pointing to Leonidas.

All eyes swiveled to the old man on the bed.“Leonidas Flake had a mother?” asked Odelia, voicing the question that had occurred to everyone.

“Yes, he had. She’s ninety-eight years old but still in full possession of all her faculties. And upon learning the fate that has befallen her one and only son, she’s decided to engage my services.”

“And those are…” Gran prompted.

“I’m a private detective, with a long list of accolades and clients, and I’m here to take over this investigation.”

“I’m Hampton Cove PD, buddy,” said Chase, “so you’re not taking over anything.”

“Pardon me, sir. Of course I meant taking over from the amateur detectives present.” He directed a pointed look to Odelia and Gran. “Odelia Poole, if I’m not mistaken? I thought I’d find you here. And you must be Vesta Muffin. Charmed, I’m sure.” And he actually grabbed Gran’s hand and tried to press a kiss on it. He would have succeeded if Gran hadn’t pulled back her hand and in the process managed to smack the guy across the face with it.

“Ouch,” he said, then gave her a nasty look. “If that’s the way it’s going to be…”

“Look, I don’t know what your game is,” said Chase, “but this is a police investigation, and this is a crime scene, and you’re not invited. So buzz off.”

The guy cut a quick glance at the body, then took out his phone and started snapping pictures of the dead body.

“Hey!” said Chase. “What part of buzz off don’t you understand?”

“I have an official mandate from the victim’s mother,” said the detective. “And I will not be bullied!”

Officers Flunk and Skip had returned, and now attached themselves to the man’s arms and proceeded to escort him from the room.

“This is an outrage!” the detective was saying. “You’ll regret this, Detective Kingsley! Mark my words!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Chase. “So are we finished here?”

“Yes, we are,” said Odelia.

“You can take him away, Doc,” Chase told the coroner.

“So what’s the verdict?” asked Gran as they left the room. “What did your people find out?”

“Nothing much,” said Chase as they descended the stairs. “The maid is the only one who witnessed the aftermath of the crime. We talked to the rest of the staff, and all of them tell the same story: Flake was a very private man, who kept himself to himself. When he was in town he lived here with his boyfriend, and they rarely ventured out. Even though Crier is twenty-five years Flake’s junior, the match was a happy one, by all accounts, and they’re all shocked Crier could have done what he did. No one expected this.”

“Let’s hope you find out more when you talk to him,” said Gran.

“We will,” said Chase. He directed an apologetic look at Odelia. “I’m sorry for dragging you all the way out here.”

“That’s okay,” said Odelia. “I’m glad you won’t need my help.”

They walked out of the house.“So…” said Chase. “I’m sticking around, to make sure we wrap this up nice and tidy, and to make sure that idiot private detective doesn’t give us any more trouble. You two head on back to town.”

That idiot detective was at that moment talking to a member of Flake’s staff.

“You might tell the guy the case is closed,” suggested Gran. “Otherwise he’ll only waste Flake’s mother a lot of money and his staff a lot of time.”

“Oh, he’ll drag this out as long as he can,” said Chase, giving the man a scornful look. “That’s the kind of detective he is.”

“You know him?” asked Odelia, surprised.

“I know of him. He’s a pet detective. Hired to find missing pets. Looks like he’s stepping up in the world, and tackling the more challenging cases.”

They watched the man for a moment, then Odelia decided to look around for her cats. She didn’t see any sign of them, though. Odd. And she’d just started calling out their names when a Siamese cat came waddling up to them.

“Look at that furball,” said Gran with a grin. “Must be Flake’s cat.”

“No, it’s not,” said Chase. “Flake’s cat is a Birman and much smaller.”

“She’s very pretty,” said Odelia. “She even has her own Instagram.”

The Siamese cat approached them and spoke in a gruff tone.“Hey. You that detective babe?”

Odelia frowned.“Um, I’m a reporter, and sometime detective, yes.”

“Tell your cats this case is mine now, you hear?”

“Wait, what?” said Odelia as the cat turned on its paw and snuck into the house.

“You heard,” said the cat over his shoulder. “Tell those losers of yours to stay away while I crack this case. And now piss off, will you?”

“Hey, come back here and apologize, you jerk!” Gran shouted, but the cat was gone. “What a shmuck,” she said. “Did you hear what he said?”

“Um, no,” said Chase. “What?”

Odelia’s jaw was still on the floor. No cat had ever spoken to her like that. And when Gran had repeated the cat’s words, Chase agreed he was a jerk.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Gran. “I’m sick to death of this place already.”

“Max!” Odelia hollered. “Dooley! We’re leaving!”

When no response came, she quickly jogged to the side of the house, but when she saw no sign of her cats, and they didn’t respond to more yelling from her part, she finally gave up.

“They’re probably halfway home by now,” said Gran, who’d joined her.

“Yeah, probably,” she agreed.

She got into Gran’s car and waved to Chase as they drove off. She couldn’t help feeling a slight sensation of unease, though. The same kind of sensation she got when something not-so-good was about to happen.

“I don’t like this, Gran,” she intimated as her grandmother steered the car along the road back to Hampton Cove.

“Yeah, me neither,” said Gran. “No challenge, huh? Way too easy.”

“I’m not talking about the case. It’s Max and the others. Where are they?”

“Like I said, on their way home. They got a lot less patience than we do, honey. They probably decided half an hour into the thing that it was a big old washout and decided to skedaddle. Cats are a lot smarter than us humans.”

Odelia nodded distractedly. In spite of Gran’s words she had a very bad feeling. Her stomach was in knots, and not the good kind of knots either.

Chapter 9

Cats can be difficult. For one thing, we don’t like the cold, but neither do we like the heat. Which is why, after having spent an hour soaking up the rays, both Dooley and I felt we needed a change of scenery. So we got up and went in search of a touch of shade, which we found at the back of the house. As is customary in the homes of the rich and famous, we fully expected to find a pool back there, or at the very least a nice jacuzzi. Nothing doing, though. The only thing Mr. Leonidas Flake had indulged in was… a petting zoo.

“Oh, cool!” said Dooley as we found ourselves staring out across a sea of barnyard animals. Even at first glance I could detect a donkey, complete with long ears and a dumb expression on its face, a couple of rabbits, a goat, a flock of sheep, a horse, and even a cow. The whole thing would haveexcited Noah.

“It sure beats the celebrity penchant for orgies,” I said.

“Or drug parties,” Dooley added.

As you can well imagine, in the course of our investigations we’ve seen our fair share of celebrity depravity, and to find a dead celebrity who enjoyed spending time surrounded by barnyard animals was a nice change of pace.

And as we went in search of a place to spend the remainder of our strike, we discovered that one section of the petting zoo was empty. There was the nice little patch of grass, there was the sturdily-built wooden house, and there was the bowl of water, accompanied by a similar bowl filled to the brim with nuggets of food. What there wasn’t a trace of was its occupant, whether large or small. So Dooley and I shared a quick glance of understanding, and we moved as one cat into this enclosure, took a sip from the water, took a few bites from the frugal meal, and took a peek inside the little wooden house to see if the owners weren’t home by any chance, and when we’d determined to our satisfaction that they weren’t, stretched out on the grass and dozed off.

It wasn’t until I felt a tickle in my backside that I woke up again. Glancing back, I saw that we’d been joined by… the Siamese cat we’d seen earlier.

“You Max?” the cat asked gruffly.

I answered in the affirmative, happy in the knowledge that my reputation had spread to these faraway parts of Hampton Cove. For a brief moment I experienced what every celebrity must feel like when someone asks for a selfie.

“Just wanted to tell you face to face that your days are numbered, fatso.”

I blinked, rudely awakened from my roseate dream of selfie-loving fandom.“Wait, what?” I asked. “What did you just call me?”

“What’s going on, Max?” asked Dooley, also waking up from his slumber. I’d never before realized how comforting petting zoos can be. You have your own little space, you have plenty of food and drink, and you get adoring fans who gather round to give you all of their love and affection—apart from the occasional prod in the ribs with a stick from a wayward child.

“You heard me,” growled the Siamese. He directed a nasty look at Dooley. “And you must be Dooley. You look even dumber than I thought you would.”

We both stared at him. He wasn’t a large specimen, but what he lacked in size he made up for in venom. “Who are you?” I cried, greatly disturbed.

“Name is Tank, and I’m here to tell you that there’s a new game in town.” He tapped his own chest for some reason. “Move over, bozos. Tank is here.”

“Tank?” I asked. “Your name is actually Tank?”

“You don’t look like a tank,” said Dooley.

“Got a problem with my name?” Tank asked in a challenging, macho way. Like a bully looking for a fight, which I guess he was.

“Oh, no, just an observation,” said Dooley.

“Yeah, we never met a cat named Tank before,” I said.

“Well, you met him now,” Tank growled.

“What do you mean when you say there’s a new game in town, though?” asked Dooley. “What game? And which town?”

Tank grinned, displaying some very sharp teeth.“Oh, you are dumb.” He tapped my chest, hard. If he’d expected me to roll over, though, he was mistaken. Not because of my extreme courage and superior physical strength, but because of my unique body type. I’m big-boned, you see, and Tank’s paw merely disappeared into those big bones of mine, which made a gentle ploinking sound, then wrapped themselves around his paw. Much like Jell-O. Yes, I know most bones aren’t made of Jell-O, but mine are, all right?

“My God you are fat!” cried Tank, then tapped my chest again. There was more ploinking and quivering as my body adjusted itself to his touch, and after a while I got quite tired of the whole experience and got up.

He must have been impressed by my sheer size, for he stopped poking me. I may not be strong, or courageous, but what I lack in bravery I make up for in size. Twice the size of Tank, in fact. And even though I’m as docile as a butterfly, size does tend to impress.

He took a step back, and eyed me from beneath glowering brows.“Tell your cronies Harriet and Brutus that from now on I’m the bee’s knees, okay? Odelia Poole’s reign is over. The name to remember is Christopher Cross.”

“I thought it was Tank?” said Dooley, curious.

“Chris Cross and Tank! We’re taking over!”

“So who is this Chris Cross?” I asked.

“Don’t you play dumb with me, Max,” he said, baring his teeth once more. “You know who Chris is—and you know who I am, too.”

Dooley and I shared a look, then we both shook our heads.“Never heard of you, I’m afraid,” I said.

“Or this Chris Cross person,” Dooley added.

“Oh, I see what you’re doing. Clever. Very clever. But psyching me out won’t work. Chris Cross is the best pet detective in the county—maybe even the country. So it’s goodbye to Odelia and Max and hello to Chris and Tank!”

“Hello,” said Dooley good-naturedly. “Nice to meet you, Tank.” He glanced around. “So where is this Chris?”

“We’re taking over the investigation,” said Tank, ignoring Dooley. “Just so you know.”

“That’s all right,” said Dooley. “We’re on strike anyway.”

Tank gave Dooley a strange look, then held up a paw, extended his claws and pretended to slice his own throat for some reason.“Game over,” he said, and then he was off, leaving us to stare after him.

“What was that all about?” asked Dooley finally.

“Beats me,” I said. “Something about Chris Cross and some game.”

“Do you think he understood why we’re on strike?” asked Dooley.

“No idea,” I said, and I plunked back down again.

“I like this strike thing, Max,” said Dooley, closing his eyes.

“I know. You said it before.”

“No, but I really like it.”

“Me, too, buddy.”

“Very relaxing.”

“Very.”

And then we slept.

Chapter 10

The next visitor who swam into our ken wasn’t the strangely rude cat who called himself Tank, but a timid white cat who looked as if she’d just seen a ghost. I’d opened one eye at the sound of something or someone slithering through the low grass, and found myself face to face with this new arrival.

“Hey, there,” I said good-naturedly, for my mood always improves when I can get some quality shut-eye. Plus, I was happy Tank hadn’t returned.

The cat stared at me with fear etched across her furry features. She was a very pretty, smallish cat of the Birman variety if I wasn’t mistaken. She also had a little crown on her head and a pendant around her neck that could have been a diamond. My guess was that she lived on the premises. And that her name was Pussy.

“Nice weather we’ve been having,” I said by way of introduction. Always a nice icebreaker. It didn’t work on this cat, though, for she continued staring at me as if I were some monster from the deep about to devour her whole.

“Do you live around here?” I asked, going for my second most popular icebreaker.

This time there was a response, as the cat nodded twice.

“Hey, that’s great. We’re just visiting,” I said. “Our human is an amateur sleuth and she’s looking into the death of the owner of this place. Did you know him?”

Again a quick nod.

Dooley, who’d woken up from all of my chattering, also opened his eyes.

“Hey there,” he said. “Nice weather we’ve been having.”

“Already tried that, Dooley,” I said from the corner of my mouth. “No dice.”

“Do you live around here?” he asked next.

The cat opened her mouth and said, in a squeaky voice,“I live here. What are you doing in Samson’s pen?”

“Samson’s pen? Oh, you mean this pen belongs to someone?” I asked.

“Who’s Samson?” asked Dooley, deciding to go for the direct approach.

“Samson is Gabe’s pet chicken,” said the cat, surprising us with her sudden eloquence.

“Pet chicken?” I asked.

She nodded three times.“She ran away last night. I should have known it was a bad sign.”

“Chickens do tend to run away,” I said, as if I were the world’s greatest expert on poultry, which I’m not. I haven’t met a lot of chickens in my time, or made friends with our feathered friends. Chickens tend to make themselves scarce when cats are around.

“So where did Samson run off to?” asked Dooley.

The cat shrugged.

“And why is Samson running away a bad sign?” I asked.

“My human died this morning,” she said, and looked as if she were on the verge of tears. “And then my other human was arrested for murder, and now it’s just me and a dozen staff and who knows what will happen next?”

“I guess the human that’s dead will stay dead and the human that was arrested for murder will go to prison,” said Dooley. “But that’s just a wild guess so don’t pin me down on that.”

“Dooley!” I hissed. “Can’t you see she’s distraught.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Dooley, horrified. “I didn’t realize…”

“It’s all right,” said the cat, her eyes downcast and her lips trembling. “Like I said, I should have seen it coming.”

“You mean with Samson running off and all?” I asked.

“Yeah, and with Leo and Gabe fighting all the time.”

“Yeah, that’s usually a bad sign.”

She’d plunked herself down in front of us, and seemed more amenable to chatting now. Always good to get this kind of stuff off your chest. And without boasting I can tell you that both Dooley and I are excellent listeners. That’s what you get from living with Harriet and Brutus: they’re excellent talkers and we’re excellent listeners. And so the world keeps on turning.

“So you’re Pussy, right?” I said.

She nodded.“That’s me. Lady of the house. Only now I’ll probably be foisted off on some relative. I’m not sure I will like that.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will,” I said, more as a blanket statement of consolation than because I had a clue of the inner workings of the Flake family dynamics.

She gave me a strange look.“I’m worth a great deal of money, you know. So whoever gets me, pretty much wins the lottery.”

“Is that right?”

“Well, at least I think I am. Rich, I mean. Leo always said that when he died I would inherit. Not sure if he decided to go through with it in the end.”

“From what I heard you inherit the lot,” I said. “At least if no will turns up.”

“That’s… gratifying, I guess,” she said. “Though money isn’t everything. I’d rather have Leo and Gabe back than to be the richest cat in the world.”

“Oh, no, sure,” I said, though I had no idea. I’ve never been the richest cat in the world.

“You also inherit the company,” said Dooley.

“Not sure what I’m going to do with it.”

“Can cats run a company?”

“I think it might be a little hard. After all, you need to be able to delegate, or get your instructions across, and in this world it’s tough to get a human to listen to you, much less do as you say. And then there’s the fact that I don’t know the first thing about designing, whether for the fall or spring edition.”

“Yeah, there’s that,” I muttered, not a clue what she was talking about.

“Anyway, I’m very glad you decided to listen to me,” she said, getting up. “It’s nice to have someone to chat with.”

“Oh, any time,” said Dooley. “We’re on strike right now, you see, so we have all the time in the world to listen to all of your gripes and thoughts.”

“Thanks,” she said softly. “So what are your names?”

“Max,” I said.

“Dooley,” said Dooley.

“Very nice to meet you, Max and Dooley,” she said with a smile.

“Likewise,” I said.

“Stick around. I have a feeling Samson isn’t coming back, so this pen is yours.”

“Thanks for the offer, but we actually have a home.”

“Not for long,” said Dooley with a sad glance at me.

“Yeah, not for long,” I said. “Our human is getting married soon, and we have reason to believe she’s going to chuck us out when she does.”

“Oh, that’s terrible,” said Pussy. “It seems to draw us even closer together, doesn’t it? I’m without a human right now, and soon you two will be, too.”

We thought about this for a moment, and I had to swallow away a lump. I’ve never been without a human before, and the prospect didn’t appeal to me.

“Maybe we will stay here,” said Dooley. “At least for the time being, until Odelia figures out what she wants to do with us.”

I nodded my agreement.“We’ll hang around,” I told Pussy. “We’re in the same boat now, and we might as well stick together.”

“That’s so nice of you,” she said, and I could see that the prospect of having a friend in this, her hour of need, greatly bucked her up.

And as she returned to the house, a nice swing in her walk, I thought about the things she’d said.

“Do you really think she’ll inherit the Flake fortune?” asked Dooley.

“I doubt it,” I said. “Humans may be crazy, but no human is as crazy as that. No, he’ll probably have set up some kind of trust fund with Pussy as the beneficiary as long as she lives. She’ll be well-provided for.”

“Unlike us,” said Dooley sadly.

“Unlike us,” I agreed.

And as we placed our heads on our paws again, enjoying the hospitality of the absent Samson the chicken, the thought occurred to me that maybe whoever Pussy’s new owners were going to be, they might be induced to adopt Dooley and myself and Harriet and Brutus. Unless Marge and Tex and Gran were up to the task, of course. Then again, maybe they weren’t. Taking care of one cat is one thing, or even two, but four? Not many humans were prepared to take their love of pets to such an extreme.

And as I drifted off to sleep, the words of Tank came back to me: your reign is over. It very well might be, whatever a reign was.

Chapter 11

Lauren Klepfisch had been watching the house from afar for the better part of the morning, when her trained eye spotted a van arriving and being let through the gate.“Film this,” she told her cameraman Zak Kowalski. Zak had been standing slumped against their news van, checking his phone.

He immediately hoisted the camera onto his shoulder and directed it to where Lauren was pointing.

The van carried a decal indicating it belonged to Christopher Cross, Pet Detective, and had a logo of a mean-looking Siamese cat as an added bonus.

Lauren’s eyes sparkled as she watched the van drive up to the house, the gate swinging closed behind it. She was a vivacious blonde, and very photogenic, too, which had earned her this job as a correspondent for WLBC-9, Long Island’s premier news network—all the news that’s fit to broadcast.

Zak put his camera down again.“Pet detective?” he asked. “What the hell is a pet detective?”

“Technically a pet detective is a detective who hunts down missing pets,” she said. “But get this. Chris Cross claims he can actually talk to his cat, and has enlisted him in helping find the pets they’re looking for. The cat talks to other pets, and relays the information to Cross. They’ve been at it for years.”

“A load of crock, of course.”

“I’m not so sure. He does get great results from time to time. He found Lady Delilah’s pet canary last month. Silly bird got itself stuck in a chimney.”

“Lady Delilah? The pop star?”

“The one and only.”

“Lucky for her the cat didn’t eat the canary, instead of returning it to its owner.”

The gate swung open again and a car came pulling out. Lauren recognized its occupants as Odelia Poole and her grandmother.

“There’s a rumor that Odelia Poole can talk to her cat,” she said as she watched Odelia drive past without acknowledging her.

“She’s the big cheese in town, isn’t she? This Odelia Poole?”

“Yeah, she is. Or at least she thinks she is.”

“I read her stuff from time to time,” said Zak. “Not too shabby.”

“Print is a dying medium,” said Lauren. “Everybody knows that. And the Gazette’s editor is old, so there’s no future for an ambitious reporter.”

Lauren had built up quite a career as a roving reporter. Burying herself in a town like Hampton Cove the way Odelia Poole had done was not her thing.

“Local news channels are a dying breed too,” said Zak. “Online is the future.”

“People will always watch local news,” she said. “Who else brings the kind of stories that we do? But that doesn’t mean I need to stay local, too.”

“Ah? Big plans? Do tell.”

She smiled.“Not a chance.” She liked to play her cards close to her chest. And a notorious blabbermouth like Zak Kowalski was the last person she’d confide in. She had her eye on an anchor position, but as long as no contracts were signed, her lips were sealed. She didn’t want to jinx her big break.

“Fine,” he said. “So don’t tell me.” And he went back to playing Tetris on his phone, the only thing he was good at, apart from blabbing.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said. “The person we need to talk to isn’t here anyway.”

“So where are they?”

“In jail. And I know just the way we can land ourselves an exclusive.”

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Odelia and Gran had arrived back in town, and Gran parked the car in front of the doctor’s office. “Are you sure you don’t need me anymore?” asked Gran as they got out. There was a touch of wistfulness in her voice.

“Yeah, I’m good,” said Odelia. “I’ll just pop in at the office to write my article and then we can forget all about this nasty murder business.”

“Too bad,” said Gran with a sigh as she directed a reluctant glance at the door to the doctor’s office. “I like a juicy murder mystery from time to time.”

“Well, you shouldn’t,” said Odelia. “Murder mysteries are not meant to be enjoyed, Gran. They’re meant to be mourned.”

“Oh, but I’m mourning Leonidas Flake,” said Gran. “I’m mourning the hell out of that poor man.”

After another pregnant pause, in which Odelia kept her tongue, she finally walked up to the door to the office and disappeared inside. Obviously taking down appointments from people suffering the flu or hemorrhoids was a lot less exciting than hunting down clues and chasing down murderers. Still, Tex needed his receptionist, and Odelia needed her paycheck, so the moment Gran was safely back where she belonged, she walked down the street to the headquarters of theHampton Cove Gazette.

She hadn’t lied when she told her grandmother she needed to write her article. What she hadn’t mentioned was that she had no intention of dropping the case. Not yet, anyway. Until Leonidas Flake’s boyfriend had confessed to the crime of murdering his partner, there was still a chance that new developments might swing the case in a different direction altogether. Chances of that happening were very slim, of course, but she’d investigated enough crimes by now to know that things are not always what they seem.

Though in this case it looked very bad for Gabriel Crier. Very bad indeed.

She walked into the office and greeted Dan, who was ensconced in his office, furiously typing away on his computer. He looked up when Odelia strode in.

“Oh, hey there,” he greeted her cheerfully. “So how were things atLe Chateau Flake?”

“Pretty straightforward,” she said as she took a seat on the leather couch that Dan kept in his office for visitors. “Flake was killed with a single stab to the heart, and his boyfriend was seen with the knife in his hand, standing over the body of his dead lover.”

“Too bad,” said Dan, shaking his head. “I liked this Flake fellow. Contrary to some of the other celebrities that consider Hampton Cove their second home, he actually had a gift, and made this world a more beautiful place.”

“I’ve never heard you get lyrical over a celebrity before, Dan,” said Odelia, surprised. “Did you know the guy well?”

Dan, a weathered-looking man in his late sixties with a long white beard, nodded.“He used to come into the office from time to time and we’d share a glass. Did you know he loved animals? Always told me that if he hadn’t become a designer he would have been a vet. He sometimes thought he might become one yet, if and when he decided to retire from creating the most gorgeousgarments imaginable. Of course he was never going to retire.”

“And now he’ll never be a vet,” said Odelia.

Dan, who loved animals himself, perked up at the chance to hold forth on one of his favorite topics.“He once invited me to check out his petting zoo. He had all sorts of pets, and not the exotic ones either. He would never imprison an animal if he could help it. Only kept the barnyard variety. Eccentric fellow. Very eccentric, with very strong ideas on all sorts of topics. He’ll be missed.”

“He’ll also be missed by all the people who watched his shows, or bought his designs.” She herself had never been into couture, haute or low. Too expensive and too impractical. She was more a jeans-and-T-shirt sort of girl, though she did love a nice pair of exclusive Converse and had a modest collection at the house. And if she were as rich as Leonidas Flake, she might take an interest in fashion, and start spending serious money on her outfit. On a reporter’s salary that simply wasn’t possible, but she was okay with that.

Dan had taken a whiskey bottle from his desk drawer and now poured a finger into a glass, then offered her one.

“No, thanks,” she said, holding up her hand. “I need to finish the Flake piece.”

“Have you talked to Crier?”

“Chase and Uncle Alec will interview him.”

“Good luck with that.”

“You know something I don’t?”

“Only that Gabe Crier is a cryer. The man cries for the least little thing. When he sees a newborn baby—waterworks. When he watchesWill& Grace—same thing. Leo used to complain that living with Gabe was like living life on an emotional roller coaster. Every high was followed by an even deeper low.”

“So why did he stay with him?”

Dan raised his glass.“He said Gabe had… other qualities.” He quirked a meaningful eyebrow, and Odelia got the message.

Retreating to her office, she wondered briefly where Max and the others could be. By now they should have had the chance to talk to Pussy, Flake’s famous cat. If only to add another angle to her story. But then she relaxed. Gran was right. They’d probably returned home by now. Or maybe, just maybe, they were still scouting the Flake place. Max liked to be thorough when he was investigating a crime. He was probably still hard at work, extracting information from Pussy. And if Flake really had a petting zoo, they would have found plenty of witnesses to talk to. Good thing she had until tonight to finish her story. She’d find Max when she got home, get a few juicy quotes, sprinkle them into her story, then send it to Dan for his final edit.

She took out her phone and brought up Pussy’s Instagram. She was an exceedingly pretty cat, and her feed showcased her expensive habits: gorgeous haircuts, fancy outfits, exclusive parties, funky playpen, gourmet p?t?…

She smiled. No wonder Max and the others had vanished from the face of the earth. They were probably having the time of their life with Princess Pussy.

Chapter 12

When I say that cats, as a rule, don’t like it when things get too hot or too cold, I like to include myself in that description. The sun had gradually risen, and had kept on rising, and had now reached the point where it had hoisted itself over the roof of the monstrosity that Leonidas Flake had built. And showcasing its customaryplayfulness, it now tickled my nose, and soon I was hotting up to such an extent that, even though the grass was still cool, I was getting increasingly uncomfortable. Dooley must have reached the same conclusion, for he opened his eyes at the same time I did, and said plaintively, “This darned sun keeps following us wherever we go, Max. It’s persecution.”

I could have told him that the sun in actual fact did no such thing. That the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around, but I was too lazy from my nice nap to bother. So all I said was,“Let’s find another spot.”

But as soon as we got up we both experienced a little hunger, so instead of relocating we decided instead to follow in our ancestors’ paw steps and go in search of a bite to eat instead. Even though Samson the chicken might have enjoyed the food he’d been given, I have to admit it left much to be desired.

So we set paw for the house, the only place we hadn’t examined, since we were still on strike.

“We can sneak into the house and not break our strike, can’t we, Max?” asked Dooley as we approached that ominous block of black concrete.

“Of course,” I said. “The only thing we can’t do is perform acts of detection. So no talking to any suspects or witnesses or whatever.”

“I can do that,” said Dooley cheerfully.

As we moved away from the petting zoo, a deep voice rang out behind us.“Hey, cats!” the voice spoke.

We both turned, and discovered the voice belonged to the donkey.

“Yes, donkey?” I said politely, for Odelia has always taught us to be polite.

“Is it true that you’re some kind of detectives?”

“No, we’re not,” I said. “Well, technically we are,” I admitted when Dooley gave me a curious look, “but right now we’re on strike so we’re not allowed by our union to perform any detective-related activities.”

The donkey was silent while he absorbed this important information, then said,“Is it true that the boss is dead?”

“Yes,” I said, not seeing how confirming the man’s death broke the union decree. “Yes, he is. At least that’s what a usually reliable source told us.”

“How did he die?”

“Stabbed in the chest. By his live-in lover, a man called…”

“Gabriel Crier,” said the donkey somberly. “I know Gabe. We all do.”

More animals had gathered around. I saw a horse, a cow, a goat, two rabbits, two sheep… Quite the collection.

“I liked Leonidas,” said one of the rabbits. “He always gave me fresh grass and hay. Who’s going to give me fresh grass and hay now?”

“I’m sure someone else will come along to take care of you all,” I said. “By all accounts Mr. Flake was a very wealthy man and I’m sure he’ll have made provisions for you in his last will and testament.”

“I’ll bet he didn’t,” bleated the goat, who seemed like a somber sort of fellow. “I’ll bet he forgot all about us.”

“I’m sure he didn’t,” countered the donkey. “I actually asked Gabe about it last week.”

“And what did he say?”

“Well, always considering the fact that Gabe doesn’t actually speak donkey, the impression I got was that he cares for us a great deal and would never leave us to fend for ourselves.”

“What does that even mean?!” cried the cow.

“It means that he will have made sure we’d be taken care of.”

“But he’s in jail, isn’t he? For murder!” said the sheep. “So if he’s gone, and the old man’s gone, who’s going to need me? Who’s going to feed me?”

Somehow this reminded me of a song, though I couldn’t quite place my finger on it.

All the animals now started talking across one another, and things were getting a little heated. So Dooley and I decided to withdraw. We were still on strike, so there was very little we could do for these poor creatures. And as we walked in the direction of the house, Dooley said,“So sad, right, Max?”

“Yes, very sad,” I said.

“Poor animals. They’ll probably end up being sold to the highest bidder.”

“Or end up like Bubbles.”

“Bubbles?” he asked.

“Michael Jackson’s chimpanzee. He was a global celebrity back in the eighties and nineties, until he got too big and unruly, and he was transferred to a sanctuary for chimps and orangutans.”