Purrfectly Royal. Purrfect Cut. Purrfect Trap

“Is that’s what’s going to happen to us, Max?”

“I’m sure provisions will have been made…” I began, then realized what I was saying. We shared a glance. “Whatever happens,” I said, “we can always turn to the streets, and go and live with Clarice.”

“Clarice scares me, Max.”

“I know. She scares me, too. But she won’t let us die of hunger or thirst. She’ll take care of us if need be.”

“By feeding us rats! Like she did with Brutus, remember?”

“She meant well,” I said.

Once when Brutus was in the dumps, he’d adopted the street life, and Clarice had come through for him, by leaving him the best and juiciest rat she could find behind the dumpsters she considered her personal feeding bowl.

I shivered, and thought of the delicious kibble Odelia always provided us with, and the wet food from those aluminum pouches she liked to buy.

“Too bad humans are so untrustworthy,” said Dooley.

“I hear you, buddy.”

We’d arrived at the deck that had been constructed at the back of the house, and looked for a way in. We finally found one when we discovered someone had left a window open. A burly guard stood sentry—probably part of a collective of burly guards protecting the place against burglars or sensationseekers. He didn’t take any notice of us so we entered the house.

The place was huge, albeit a little sparsely furnished. The floors were all concrete, as were the walls and the ceilings.

“Very modern,” said Dooley appreciatively.

“I guess,” I said as I studied a very large portrait of Leonidas Flake that adorned one wall. It was a black-and-white painting of the famous designer only dressed in a leopard-print G-string and his trademark large sunglasses.

“Huh,” was Dooley’s only comment as he took in the arresting image.

Like the painting, the rest of what I assumed to be the living room was also dominated by the same color scheme: black and white. Very… soothing.

“We need to find the kitchen,” I said. “Or Pussy.”

So we both stuck our noses in the air and sniffed for a hint of either food or Pussy or both. Soon I’d picked up the scent of the Instafamous cat, and we trotted in the direction my powerful sense of smell told me to go. We passed through another sparsely furnished room, this one looking like a study or a library, with plenty of books (all black and white spines) and another room that only heldtwo pianos: one black and one white. Frankly my eyes were starting to hurt.

We finally entered a room at the end of a long corridor that was filled with the kind of paraphernalia only cats would enjoy: plush animals, scratching posts, climbing trees, balls and tunnels… An overpowering smell of catnip filled the air but, like the other rooms, everything was in black and white.

“Where’s the color, Max?!” asked Dooley, on whom the lack of hue was starting to weigh, too. “Is it my eyes? Is everything black and white, or is it just me?”

“It’s not just you. I don’t see any color, either.”

“We’re color-blind!”

I held up my paw in front of his face.“What color is this?”

“Um… orange?”

“Blorange,” I corrected him, and was gratified to see a smile light up his face.

“I can still see color! I’m not color-blind.”

“No, you’re not. It’s this house. Someone has removed all the colors.”

Just then, Pussy came shuffling into the room, looking distinctly depressed. She halted in her tracks when she saw us.“Hey, you guys,” she said, perking up. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, we just thought you’d appreciate some company,” I said.

“Food,” said Dooley, who’s not the diplomat I am. “We’re hungry.”

Pussy nodded mournfully, as if the topic of food disgusted her, but she could still understand where we were coming from.“Follow me,” she said.

“Has this house always been like this?” I asked, gesturing to the endless piles of black-and-white plush animals.

“Like what?” she asked.

“Devoid of color?”

She nodded sadly.“Leo only liked black and white and shades of gray. He hated color.”

“Must be a terrible way to live.”

“It is—or was. Once Gabe gave me an orange Garfield and Leo bust a nut when he saw it. He made Gabe send it back to the store and have it replaced with a gray Garfield. It’s not the same thing.”

“No, it’s not,” I agreed.

“I can’t imagine a gray Garfield,” said Dooley. “Garfield should be orange.”

“Yeah, he should,” said Pussy. She was dragging her heels as if the weight of the world rested on her slender shoulders. Finally we passed the stairwell: concrete stairs set in a concrete wall, and then finally into the kitchen—all concrete floors and walls and plenty of gleaming steel. “Inhere,” she said.

We now found ourselves in a side kitchen, completely devoted to Pussy and her needs. There were large plastic bins hooked to the far wall, with some kind of receptacles below.

“Just follow my lead,” she said, and pushed her snout against what looked like a lever. A few pieces of kibble came dropping down into the receptacle and she gave us a sad look as if saying: Well, there you go. “All the different types of kibble are here,” she said with as much zip and zestas a funeral home director. “You’ve got your chicken, your turkey, your rabbit… And if you want brands, you’ll find them all there—every label under the sun.”

What fascinated me, though, was that all the kibble consisted of different shades of gray.

“Don’t tell me Leo got the kibble painted gray,” I said, amazed.

“Yeah, he got the stuff specially made by the manufacturers. They cooked up batches of the stuff just for him—or me, I guess.”

“Jeez,” I said, but still eagerly thumped my snout against one of the levers of what looked like prime gourmet kibble, and out tumbled several nuggets. I eagerly gobbled them up, then spewed them out again. “Yuck!” I said. “What is this flavor?”

“Ash, I guess,” said Pussy. “Leo didn’t believe in flavor. Or smell. He said we needed to get rid of our unnatural attachment to taste. He liked a clean palate, so his imagination could run rampant. He didn’t like color, or taste, or beautiful music or anything that could interfere with his ability to create.”

“Oh, my Lord,” I said, eyeing the poor cat with unadulterated pity. “What a sad, sad life you must have lived.”

“Hey, at least I’m one of the richest cats in the world,” she said without enthusiasm.

“Well, your days of living life without taste or color or sound or smell will be over now, right?” I said.

“Wanna bet?” she said. “With my luck I’ll probably end up living with someone even worse than Leo.”

We ate in silence, and even though the stuff was utterly tasteless and odorless, I still ate my fill. The stomach wants what it wants, right?

And here I thought I knew how the other half lived, I thought as I watched Pussy drink from what looked like a silver salver filled to the brim with crystal-clear water—probably sterilized, if the rest was any indication.

“You should stick around,” said Pussy finally. “There’s going to be a big meeting tonight. All the important people are going to be there.”

“What important people?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Lawyers and board members and shareholders and executives and such. I’ll bet they’ll decide my fate at the meeting, so I probably shouldn’t miss it for the world, but…” She hesitated and gave me a forlorn look. “Could you do me a great, big, gigantic favor?”

“Anything,” I said.

“Could you attend the meeting for me? And then tell me what they decided?”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s too much for me,” she said. “I’m sure these are pretty horrible people. As lifeless and colorless and soulless as the rest of this place. And I simply can’t bear to listen to them while they discuss my future. I need you to tell me about the parts that are important for me to know. Only the facts.”

“Sure, no problem,” I said. “But aren’t they going to notice us and kick us out?”

“No, they won’t,” she said with a wan smile. “You’ll see.”

And with these mysterious words she left us.

“How very sad,” said Dooley.

“Yeah,” I said. “And to think that I actually used to envy her. When we watched her Instagram pictures I always thought she had it made.”

“Me too,” said Dooley. “The richest, most spoiled cat in the world. Poor, poor Pussy.”

“Poor Pussy,” I agreed, and then gobbled up some more kibble. It was utterly tasteless and odorless, but it still hit the spot, especially since I hadn’t eaten anything since that morning.

“So we’ll stick around and listen in on this meeting?” Dooley asked.

“I think we owe it to Pussy, don’t you?”

“Isn’t this against union rules?”

“I don’t think so. It’s got nothing to do with the case, right? We’re only doing this as a personal favor to Pussy.”

So we ambled out of the kitchen, and then went for a ramble around the house. Pussy, who’d returned from a short interlude in the bathroom to act as our tour guide, showed us all the best spots where she liked to lay her weary head, and invited us to enjoy them. It was the nicest thing any cat had ever done for us. Usually cats hate it when other cats invade their space, or even dare to come near their favorite spots, but Pussy had no qualms. What struck me, after we passed through several of the bedrooms and a couple of the bathrooms, was that life at Chateau Leonidas must have been pretty lonely for her, and quite dull. Maybe Leo and Gabe had loved her, and spoiled her rotten, but she still seemed unhappy. And suddenly I felt a little homesick, and started to long to be home again, snuggling up to Odelia on the couch while watching some silly show. Dooley must have felt the same way, for he gave me a sad glance that offered a glimpse into his soul. That glimpse was like a mirror: once Odelia was married, our lives would never be the same again.

But then I steeled myself. I was not going to allow myself to become prey to my emotions. It was the house, I suddenly realized, and Pussy’s mood, infecting me with their sadness and melancholy.

So I decided to perk up, and enjoy these rare Instagramable moments.

Chapter 13

Uncle Alec and Chase watched the man sitting across from them at the table and Alec wondered when he’d last seen a more miserable piece of human than this guy. Gabriel Crier was a well-preserved quinquagenarian with gentle features and close-cropped hair of a light blond hue. Right now, though, he had dark circles under his eyes, and his tan skin was blotched.

“But I’m telling you, I didn’t do it,” he repeated not for the first time.

“There’s a witness, Gabriel,” said Alec. “One of the maids saw you, with the knife in your hand, and blood all over your shirt.”

“I know,” he said, shaking his head. “I was there, remember? But I’m still telling you I couldn’t have done it. I loved Leo. I would never…”

“So what do you think happened?” asked Chase, who had more patience than Alec.

“I don’t know, but I can’t have killed him. I would never… would I?”

“Is it true you and Leonidas had a big fight last night?”

Gabriel placed his hands on his head and nodded.“We did.”

“Can I ask what the fight was about?”

“The same as usual. I wanted Leo to take a step back—to relinquish the reins—basically to retire, and he flat-out refused. I told him he was seventy-eight and had earned the right to rest on his laurels. I wanted us to spend more time together. Travel the world. He was in excellent health andwe’d been talking about spending a couple of months in Asia. Leo loved Malaysia, and always wanted to visit but his work prevented him. So I told him to leave the heavy lifting to his staff and take a step back but he insisted he couldn’t stop now.”

“Why not?” asked Alec. “I mean, like you said, he was seventy-eight. If he didn’t retire now when was he going to?”

“I don’t know. He claimed that things at the company were such that he simply couldn’t afford to assume a more hands-off role.”

“Things at the company were bad, you mean?” asked Chase.

“No idea. I’m not a business person myself. I used to be Leo’s hairstylist. That’s how we met, and then soon after I became his personal stylist and things progressed from there. I also used to do massages on the side. But that didn’t exactly make me qualified to determine what was going on at Leonidas Flake. All I know is that poor Leo was under a lot of pressure, which is why I told him to consider retirement or at least to take a break. But he refused, and said that if he stepped down as president and CEO now the whole house of cards could very well collapse and then everything he’d worked for would be reduced to nothing. I didn’t understand. How can an empire like Leonidas Flake collapse simply because the founder decides to retire? There must be plenty of people who can run that business, right?”

“I don’t know, buddy,” said Alec, who felt sorry for the guy, in spite of the fact that he was obviously a killer. “I’m not really into fashion myself.”

“Leo had trained a lieutenant. A second-in-command and potential successor. Xavier Yesmanicki. He’d been running the day-to-day side of the business for years, and was ready to take over. Or at least that’s what Leo told me. He was so proud of Xavier. Said that if only he’d found him soonerhe’d have been able to make Leonidas Flake twice as big as it was now. Anyway, our arguments always revolved around the same topic: I saw that he was suffering and so I urged him to slow down, and that made him upset, and so he threw in my face that all I wanted was to destroy his life’s work and yadda yadda yadda.” He threw his hands in the air. “It was horrible. Horrible!”

“And so one thing led to another and in a fit of rage you killed him.”

“No! When I get upset I don’t lash out. That’s not in my nature. I simply… crawl into my shell and completely… shut down, I guess.” His lip trembled as he nervously touched it. “I guess it’s the way I’m built—I don’t know.”

“So you gave him the silent treatment.”

“Yes, I did! Because it’s what I always do. We don’t speak for a day, maybe two days, and then we get up in the morning and we both act as if nothing happened, and then finally we hug it out and there will be tears and apologies and remorse and…” He blushed. “Well, make-up sex is popular for a reason.”

“Only this time there was no make-up sex,” said Chase.

He groaned and buried his face in his hands.“This is a nightmare! This is a horror show! My life is ruined! And who’s going to take care of Pussy now?”

Alec shuffled uneasily in his chair. This interview wasn’t going well.

“So where is Pussy now?” he asked.

“Back at the house. Oh, she’ll get all the food and water she needs, but it’s theaffection she’ll miss. Thelove she gets from her papas.” He was rocking back and forth now, hugging himself. “Poor Pussy. Sheneeds her papas.”

“I’m sure Pussy will be fine,” said Chase. “Now let’s go back to last night. So you and Leo had a fight.”

“A very big fight.”

“So you…”

“So I walked out and went into my room, slamming the door. Then I put my music on as loud as possible. Rihanna, of course. Or it could have been Beyonc?. I don’t remember. Leo hated music. He said it messed up his frequency.”

“His frequency?”

“His body’s vibrational frequency. He had this theory that all creation comes out of the void—out of nothingness. So he needed to create a void in himself. Nothingness. No smell, no color, no taste, no sound… He would even put on gloves to cut out his sense of touch. Turn off the light. Meditate for hours and hours. And out of this nothingness, pure creation would ensue.”

“Well, he did create a pretty big business empire,” said Chase, “so maybe he was onto something.”

“I don’t think so. I think Leo was damaged. He had a horrible childhood, with parents who never showed him an ounce of affection. It made him bitter and withdrawn. He lived like the proverbial boy in the bubble, only his bubble was self-created.”

“And then you entered that bubble,” said Alec.

“Yes, I entered the bubble. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Leo wasn’t antisocial. He had lots of friends, and he liked to have fun. Just not when he was working.”

“I see. So back to last night. You were in your room, listening to Rihanna.”

“Or Beyonc?,” Chase added helpfully.

“I blasted my music all through the house at full volume. Five minutes later he came stomping into my room and yanked the speaker from the wall, then threw it out the window!” He laughed, then cried. “It was the last time I saw him! My beautiful, darling boy!”

“So how do you explain you standing at the side of the bed with a knife in your hand?”

“That’s just it! I can’t! I was asleep in my bed. Took me hours to fall asleep, worried as I was about Leo, and the fight we had. When we fight I always sleep badly. And then suddenly I’m wide awake, and I’m standing over him, and there’s blood everywhere, and there’s something cold and metallic in my hand and-and-and… Leo is dead, staring up at me with those lifeless, accusing eyes! As if he knew what I did and he wanted me to know that he knew!” He broke down, and Alec shook his head. They weren’t getting anywhere with this guy. So he and Chase got up and walked out to confer.

“Either he doesn’t remember or he’s a great actor,” said Chase.

“He seems sincere,” said Alec. “But it doesn’t matter. He was there—he did it. No jury will think otherwise, and no judge will decide not to convict him.”

Chase stared through the one-way mirror into the room where their suspect still sat, rocking back and forth again, his arms wrapped around himself and his face turned up to the ceiling, crying bitter tears.

“I feel sorry for the guy, though,” he said.

“He probably just lost it. Felt abandoned, or angry, flew into a rage. It happens, especially with emotional types like him. They bottle up their emotions for a while, then erupt like a geyser.” When Chase gave him a look of amusement, he said, “What?!”

“Is that your professional opinion, Mr. Freud?”

“The hell should I know! But it stands to reason he must have been out of it, made a grab for the knife, and stabbed. And that’s all it took, unfortunately. And when he finally came to, it was too late. The boyfriend was dead.”

“Diminished responsibility?”

“That’s for the judge to decide. I’m just telling it like I see it.”

There was a commotion behind them, and suddenly a blond-haired woman came bursting into the room, accompanied by a man with a camera, and before they could stop them they were aiming the camera at their suspect and the woman was firing off a barrage of questions at the Chief.

“Hey! Get the hell out of here!” he yelled.

Dolores, the police station receptionist, came huffing in.“I tried to stop them, Chief!” she cried. “They pushed right past me!”

“Is Gabriel Crier the killer, Chief? Why did he do it?” asked the woman. “And is it true that Leo Flake left his entire fortune to his cat? Any comment?”

“Get out!” thundered the Chief. “Out! Out! Out!”

More officers had arrived on the scene, and managed to muscle the twosome out of the room before their chief had a conniption fit.

“Can you believe that?” he demanded hotly.

“Actually, I can,” said Chase, who seemed amused at the interlude.

And as Alec stood reeling, he remembered the woman reporter’s last question: Is it true that Flake is leaving his entire fortune to his cat?

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “Maybe that’s our motive, buddy. If Flake had decided to leave everything to his cat, then maybe this made Crier so angry he decided to kill him.”

“Which means he’ll get nothing,” said Chase. “Not much of a motive, Chief.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said, frowning as he tapped his lip with his index finger. “We’re not talking about a rational person, here, though, Chase. And he might be lying about the fight. They could have been fighting over the inheritance, not about Leo Flake being a workaholic.”

“Let’s get back in there and have another crack at the guy,” Chase suggested.

They both joined Gabriel Crier in the interrogation room once more, and this time Alec decided to change tack. Instead of being the nice cop, he decided to play the bad cop and go for broke.

So he pounded the table with his fist—hard. “Isn’t it true that you and Leo fought about his intention to leave his fortune to his cat?” he demanded.

Gabriel stared at him, the sudden change in the chief’s demeanor shocking.

“N-n-no,” he said feebly. “No, like I said, we—”

“You couldn’t stand that he would leave everything to his cat and nothing to you, could you!” the Chief roared, pounding the table three times in quick succession and causing Gabriel to flinch. “Andthat’s why you fought! Andthat’s why you killed him, because you were so angry you felt you had nothing to lose!”

“N-n-no! I l-l-loved him. He l-l-loved me. The Pussy thing was simply a way for him to… Oh, Christ. Look, he left everything to Pussy, but he also left Pussy to me, so in a roundabout way he left everything to me, you see.”

“Bullshit!” cried Alec, then wondered why he’d said that.

Chase, deciding to take over, said,‘”So is that why you killed him, Gabriel? Because you wanted to lay your hands on all of that money?”

“No! I wasn’t with him for the money. I was with him for love. And I wanted him to live forever, and he could have, for he was in great shape. He was probably in better shape than me, in spite of his age. Look, you have to look into this,” he said, nervously searching Chase’s face. “You really have to. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that I didn’t do this. I know myself. I’m not a killer. Whenever we had a spider in the bathroom I’d yell for Leo. I can’t even swat a fly, or a wasp—or a mosquito! And I definitely can’t kill a human being—or my beloved, lovely Leo!”

“But you did,” Alec pointed out. “And all we need to know is why. But even so, you’re still going to be convicted of this crime, Gabriel, so you might as well talk.”

“Oh, God,” said Gabriel, and thumped his head on the table.

“Hey, Gabriel, hey, hey, hey,” said Alec, realizing he might have taken this bad cop routine too far. “It’s fine. I’m sorry I yelled at you, okay? I’m sorry.”

Chase arched his eyebrows.‘You’re the worst bad cop in the history of bad cops,’ his expression seemed to say.

“Listen, buddy,” said Alec, placing his hand on the man’s shoulder. “We’ll investigate further, all right? But it’s not looking too good for you, you do see that, right?”

Gabriel lifted his head from the table, a big red welt on his forehead. It contrasted nicely with the pallor of the rest of his face.“It doesn’t look too good for me,” he repeated automatically, then added, “Someone is trying to frame me, Chief. There’s no other possibility.”

“Or you killed him and blocked it out,” said the Chief gently.

Gabriel blinked.“Yeah,” he said finally. “I guess that’s also possible.”

Chapter 14

Odelia arrived home a little after six. She’d written the biggest chunk of her article for the paper but there were still a few gaps in the story she needed to patch up. She hoped Max and the others would have sniffed out a few choice tidbits of intel, straight from the horse’s mouth, or, if a horse hadn’t been available, some other animal. The petting zoo should have supplied plenty of material to work with. Those little details that give a story oomph and thatje-ne-sais-quoi your average reader is looking for when picking up his morning paper or checking his morning website, as nowadays was more the habit.

TheHampton Cove Gazette had been around for such a long time it had become an institution in the home of Hampton Covians, and with a little help from the newspaper gods it would remain that way for a good long time to come. Even though Dan was getting on in years, he wasn’t about to retire any time soon, and even if he was, his succession was assured in the form of Odelia, his number-one lieutenant.

Thinking about succession, Odelia suddenly wondered what the deal with Pussy would be now that she was officially the head of the company. And with Gabe in jail, who the person in charge of her care would be. She’d been searching online but had found precious little information in that regard. Vowing to talk to her future hubby, who had, no doubt, in the course of his fireside chats with Flake’s killer, gleaned that morsel of info and then some, she hurried into the house, eager to interview man and beast in the service of her article.

The first living form she met was Chase, draped across the sofa and reading on his phone.

“Hey, babe,” he said as she came hurrying in. “Did you finish your article?”

“Not yet,” she said as she took a seat across from him. “Now tell me all about what happened with Gabriel. Did he do it, and if he did, why did he do it, and if he didn’t, why was he standing over his lover’s dead body with a bloodied knife in his hand and a murderer’s dazed look in hiseyes?”

“Well, he claims he didn’t do it, though he’s not entirely sure, and he concedes that it’s not looking too good for him,” Chase revealed, with the easygoing manner of the first party who knows all and is about to impart some of his secrets to a deserving second party.

“So he thinks he didn’t do it but he admits he might have done it?”

“Something like that. Your uncle went full bad cop on him but instead of folding the man simply burst into tears and stuck to his guns. He has no recollection of what happened. One minute he was sound asleep in his bed, and the next he was standing there, the image of the crazed killer.”

“Huh.”

“It’s possible he’s lying, of course, though he didn’t give me that impression. “

“He could have done it and then blocked out the memory.”

“Possible, though it will probably take a psychologist to dig that out of his subconscious.”

“Is it possible he didn’t do it? That someone else planted that knife in his hand?”

“How? The man was there. He wasn’t sleepwalking.”

Odelia thought about this.“He could have been. Or someone could have put something in his drink that made him lose consciousness.”

Chase shook his head.“In my experience the most plausible explanation is usually the right one, babe. The man was there, and he more or less confessed, and even if he doesn’t remember we have enough evidence to get a conviction.”

“So case closed?”

“As far as your uncle is concerned, case closed, and I doubt whether a judge will think otherwise.”

She glanced around.“Where are my cats?”

He picked up his phone again.“Haven’t seen them, actually.”

She got up and went in search of her feline brood.“Maxie,” she said, checking the kitchen, then shouting up at the bottom of the stairs, “Max? Dooley? Are you guys up there?”

When no response came, Chase shouted from the living room,“Maybe they’re outside. I think I saw Harriet in the backyard when I got home—or at least a flash of something white and fluffy.”

She walked to the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the deck.“Max? Dooley? Harriet? Brutus? Anyone?”

Suddenly a white head came peeking from beyond the tulip tree at the back of the garden. It was a favored spot for her cats, especially Harriet and Brutus, who’d turned it into some sort of lovers’ lane—minus the lane.

The white head immediately retracted but Odelia headed over there, wondering about the sudden coyness of her cats. Usually when she arrived home they were at the door, welcoming her, or complaining loudly that she’d arrived so late and had left them to their own devices.

“Harriet?” she said. “Is that you?” When no response came she went down on hands and knees and checked underneath the foliage. “I know you’re in there, honey. Is Max with you?”

Finally, realizing the gig was up, and playing hide and seek would no longer serve her purpose, whatever it was, Harriet emerged, followed by Brutus.“No, Max isn’t here,” she said, a little coldly. “Nor will you find him on the premises. At least not as long as he doesn’t want to be found.”

This was getting curiouser and curiouser.“What do you mean? Why would Max not want to be found?”

“We’re on strike,” said Brutus.

“Shush, Brutus, “said Harriet.

“Oh, I didn’t know it was a secret,” said Brutus.

“It’s not a secret, per se,” Harriet admitted, “but it’s better Odelia finds out for herself.”

“You’re on strike?” said Odelia, wondering what her cats were up to this time. “Why?”

“That’s for us to know and for you to find out,” said Harriet, acting her usual prissy self.

“Not enough attention,” said Brutus, who seemed more forthcoming with information than his mate.

“Brutus!”

“What? She’s going to find out soon enough anyway, so why not tell her what’s going on?”

“She knows perfectly well what’s going on. She simply prefers to play dumb,” said Harriet, giving Odelia a nasty look.

“Well, I don’t get it,” said Odelia, taking a seat on the lawn. She moved aside a rubber ball and a garden gnome Gran had put there for the cats’ entertainment. “Now tell me all, please, because I’m not getting it.”

“If you don’t get it, maybe you should think about it a little more,” said Harriet.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” said Odelia, throwing up her hands. “Tell me what’s going on already, will you?”

“Fine,” said Harriet, then pressed her lips together and gave her partner in crime a look that said, ‘You tell her.’

“We feel that you’ve been ignoring us lately,” said Brutus, taking the plunge.

“You told me about that in the car, remember? And I apologized and said I was sorry and you said you each needed twelve percent of my time and I was ready to agree to that in writing when we got interrupted.”

“Well, we feel you’re not taking our negotiations seriously so we decided to go on strike,” said Harriet. “So there will be no more sleuthing on your behalf until you tell us what you’re up to.”

“Up to?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb, Odelia!” said Harriet. “We know very well that you’re about to get married and as soon as you do you and Chase will move away—possibly to England, possibly to New York—and you’ll dump us!”

“Oh, honey, no!” said Odelia, part horrified, part amused.

“Max seems to think you’ll move to England,” said Brutus, “but for my money it’s more likely you’ll move to New York. Chase has family there, after all, so that would be the logical thing to do.”

“And it would suit your ambitions to become an ace reporter for an ace newspaper, and not the local rag you bust your gut at now,” Harriet added.

“And Chase could join the NYPD again,” said Brutus.

“Oh, my sweet, sweet babies,” said Odelia, genuinely touched by this outpouring of concern. “No! Of course I’m not moving away.”

“You’re not?” asked Brutus, suspicious.

“No! We’re staying put, wedding or no wedding. Besides, it’s not that we’re anxious to tie the knot any time soon. It could be months or years before we finally get hitched.”

“But Chase proposed. In London,” Harriet pointed out.” So that has to mean something. Humans don’t just propose and then break it off again.”

“He proposed while under attack. I guess you could say it was one of those moments where you see your life flashing by, and you realize there are so many things you haven’t done yet.”

“Like getting married?”

“Like getting married,” she said with a smile.

“So Chase proposing was just a joke?” asked Brutus hopefully. “A fun little joke?”

“It wasn’t a joke. He meant it at the time, and I meant it when I said yes, but that doesn’t mean we have to rush into things. I’m sure that eventually we will get married, but we’re not in any hurry here. And we’re not planning to move away from Hampton Cove, or this house. I love it here, and I love living next door to my mom and dad.”

“And Gran,” Brutus supplied.

“And Gran,” she said after a pause. “So even after we’re married we’ll stay right here. This is your home, you guys, and we’re not about to take that away from you. And if I paid less attention to you than usual, I’m sorry. It’s just that, when you’ve gone through a terrible experience like the one we had in England, you realize how precious life is, so we decided to go on all the dates we always wanted to go on. But I think we’re done with that for a while.”

“So you’ll become homebodies again?” said Harriet. “I liked it when you were a homebody, Odelia.”

“Yeah, I kinda liked it, too,” said Odelia with a smile. “And lucky for me Chase feels the same way.”

“Chase feels the same way about what?” asked a voice behind her. Chase crouched down next to her and placed a hand on her back. “This is cozy.”

“Hi, Chase,” said Harriet coyly. She was a big fan of Chase, as were all of Odelia’s cats, which was a good thing.

“They feel we’ve been neglecting them lately.”

“Have we?”

“Yeah. We’ve been going out a lot, and they’ve missed spending time with us, huddling on the couch and watching silly shows and silly movies.”

Chase gave Harriet a sheepish look.“Well, I guess you’re right, Harriet. Odelia and I have spent a lot of time on the town. But that’s all over now, isn’t it, babe? We’re ready to kick off our shoes and become Netflix nerds again.”

“I like Netflix nerds,” said Harriet.

“Me, too,” said Brutus.

“And Max,” said Odelia. “He loves being a couch potato even more than the rest of us. So where is he?”

Harriet and Brutus shared a look of concern.“I don’t know,” said Harriet. “I haven’t seen him since we left him and Dooley at Chateau Leonidas.”

“You mean they’re still there?” said Odelia, concern lacing her voice.

“Who’s still where?” asked Chase.

“Max and Dooley are still at the Flake place.”

“What are they doing—oh, right. Interviewing pet witnesses, huh?”

“I hope so,” said Odelia. Though it wasn’t like Max not to come home after a day well spent hunting down clues and talking to pet witnesses. “Maybe we should go and look for them.”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” said Chase, who had a lot of confidence in her cats’ ability to take care of themselves.

“I’m not so sure,” said Brutus. “He was pretty adamant about our strike.”

“The strike? Oh, right, the strike.”

“Yeah, he really ran with it. Said he would never help you investigate a crime ever again.”

“Oh, dear,” said Odelia.

Chapter 15

Unbeknownst to Odelia and Chase, or Harriet and Brutus, for that matter, their conversation hadn’t remained as private as they would have liked it to be. Behind the backyard was a patch of fallow land where no house had been built yet. It was generally used by neighborhood kids to play on, or sometimes by a local farmer to put his sheep, and save the owner the trouble of taking out his lawnmower. It had been a while since the sheep had grazed there, though, and so the grass was high—so high that two people could easily hide in there, and aim a camera and a microphone at the backyard of the unsuspecting Odelia Poole and her future husband and their cats. And by the time Odelia and Chase returned indoors, Lauren Klepfisch patted Zak Kowalski on the back and said, “Did you get all that?”

“Yeah, sure, but I’m not sure what it is I got.”

“Proof that Odelia Poole talks to her pets,” said Lauren triumphantly.

“So? Plenty of people talk to their pets. My mom talks to her Chihuahua.”

“Yeah, lots of people talk to their pets, but few people have their pets talk back to them, and are able to understand what they say.”

“And you think that’s what happened here?”

“Pretty sure it did. I’m not sure how it all works, but it was clear to me they were holding an entire conversation, and now we have everything on tape.”

“So? What does it prove? That Odelia Poole is a little nutty?”

“That’s for our viewers to decide. And I’m sure we’ll get great coverage.”

Zak got up and stretched his sore limbs.“I’m starting to understand what being a war correspondent feels like. Tough to have to lie in bushes.”

“This is not war reporting, you idiot,” Lauren snapped as she plucked a beetle from her shoulder. “For one thing, there are no snipers trying to kill us.”

“Except for my colleague,” he muttered darkly.

“So what did you think of Gabriel Crier? Do you think he did it?”

“How should I know? I’m not a cop,” the cameraman grumbled as he swiped at the knees of his jeans where two nice patches of green had appeared.

“I think he did it,” she said. “And a great story it is, too: Gay Lover Murders King Of Couture. It’s the Gianni Versace thing all over again. Right here in the heart of the Hamptons. Oh, this is going to be a smash. My big break. And then the Odelia Poole pet whisperer thing on top of that, it’s going to be the one-two punch that’s going to blow all my competition out of the water!”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_1]

Christopher Cross, the pet detective, was at that moment applying a slender finger to the buzzer of Chateau Leonidas and patiently waiting for the gates to swing open, which after a brief delay they did. He got back into the van and directed his vehicle along the long drive, his trusty feline sidekick next to him in the passenger seat.

“I wonder what she wants from us this time,” grumbled Tank.<>

“Probably to hand us our paycheck,” said Chris. “We cracked the case, didn’t we? So time to pay up.”

“We didn’t crack the case, Chris,” said the Siamese cat tersely. “The case cracked itself. Or should I say, Gabe cracked under the pressure and killed his lover.”

“The operative word being cracked. The killer was caught so we need to get paid. It’s as simple as that.”

“Yeah, though I’m not so sure.”

“Not so sure about what?”

“That they got the right guy!”

“He was caught red-handed. Why wouldn’t he be the right guy?”

“Cause those two idiots Max and Dooley are still hanging around the chateau, making nice with Flake’s flock of barnyard animals. And let me ask you this: would they bother if the case was cracked? Let me answer that for you: no, they wouldn’t!”

“Max and Dooley are idiots. They wouldn’t know how to find a clue if it stared them right in the face.”

“They may be idiots, but they still manage to solve a lot of cases, bud, or haven’t you been reading dear Odelia Poole’s articles?”

Chris had. In fact those articles were what had put him on this career path in the first place. He’d always had the knack of being able to communicate with his pets, even from a young age. And it had taken him a while to understand how unique this gift was. The truth had probably only dawned on him when his folks had sent him to his first shrink. Dr. Jinx had found nothing particularly wrong with him, apart from a childish belief he could talk to animals, which he described as the Dr. Dolittle Complex, a rare disease for which there was, alas, no cure. The advice Dr. Jinx had given Chris’s parents was to simply ignore the affliction, and it would go away all by itself as he got older.

It hadn’t gone away, but Chris had become hip to the fact that he was always going to be considered a weirdo if he kept insisting he could talk to animals, so from one day to the next he’d simply stopped mentioning the strange gift he had and that had elicited twin sighs of relief from his parents, not to mention the rest of his family. The revelation had come to him when Bethany Kernick, who was in his class, had told him he was a weirdo. Since he was deeply, madly in love with young Bethany at the time, he’d decided then and there that talking to animals was probably not the babe magnet he’d thought it was, and had decided to stop mentioning it to anyone. He’d even gone so far as to admit to Bethany that the only reason he’d told her he could talk to her pet hamster was to make an impression on her because he liked her so much. It had worked, and he and Bethany had gone steady for the rest of the semester, until she met Ernesto Hair and had declared him her boyfriend. It had been a valuable lesson for young Chris, though: don’t let the world know that you’re different, for it can only result in being bullied, or in girls like Bethany Kernick spurning your well-intentioned advances.

It had taken him well into his adult life to embrace his gift. Only when the rumor had reached his ear that Odelia Poole, ofHampton Cove Gazette fame, got a little help from her cats when researching her articles, did he finally realize his was a marketable trait, and so he’d gotten his PI license, hung out his shingle, and hadn’t looked back since.

“So you think there’s more to this story than meets the eye?” asked Chris.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure there is,” said Tank in that gruff voice of his.

For a detective’s pet sidekick Tank was a little on the belligerent side, but Chris didn’t mind. As long as they got the job done, that’s what counted.

“So let’s poke around some more,” he said. “Have you talked to Pussy?”

“Nah. Haven’t been able to track her down.”

“Talk to her. If anyone knows what’s going on it’s her. Spread some of that charm of yours. Put your winning personality on display.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Tank grumbled.

“Just… be nice, okay?”

“I’m always nice!”

“You weren’t very nice to Max.”

“Max is a fat dumbbell,” said Tank, narrowing his eyes at the recollection.

“He’s also the main competition. And if we’re going to wipe out the competition, we’ll have to be smart about it.”

And then once Odelia Poole and Max were out of the picture, the world was their oyster. There was no limit to the heights they could rise as the only man-and-cat detective combo in the business, and soon the money would start rolling in like nobody’s business. In fact he couldn’t understand how Odelia Poole hadn’t tapped the mother lode yet. Probably too dumb to understand that a private sleuth who could talk to animals was the cat’s meow. Soon they’d be making Uncle Scrooge money, and the Bethany Kernicks of this world would weep bitter tears for turning him down for an Ernesto Hair.

Vengeance was his—and would be even sweeter than he’d imagined.

But first they needed to get rid of Odelia Poole and her dumb chums.

Chapter 16

The meeting was about to commence, and Dooley and I were ready to attend and take copious notes so our friend behind the curtain would know what had been discussed in regards to her future fate.

People had been arriving in droves, chauffeured in by fancy cars, as we had been able to witness from our vantage point behind the second-floor window, and judging from the buzz downstairs things were hotting up quickly.

Pussy had already shown us the setup so we could follow the meeting as if seated on the first row. It was a room only Pussy appeared to have access to. Off Flake’s bedroom, she simply put her paw against a hidden security pad, a section of the wall slid open, and we found ourselves in a secret room!

“Wow—real James Bond type of stuff,” said Dooley.

Inside, a wall-to-wall row of screens showed us every part of the house. Apparently Flake had installed it a long time ago, as a parallel system to the official security setup. It was a fairly small space, and probably had to be, or else people would notice this architectural funny business. The state-of-the-art surveillance equipment could take a peek inside every corner of the chateau. Flake had cameras in every room, even the bathrooms, and according to Pussy the designer had spent hours in there, spying on guests and associates.

He liked to organize weekend getaways for the company’s upper crust, and spy on them while they held secret meetings in their rooms, gossiping about Flake, or plotting against him. Many an executive had been given the boot after such a weekend, for scheming against the boss. It had been a way for the designer to keep his fingers in every possible pie, and hold the company reins firmly in hand. According to Pussy all of his other houses were equipped with the same setup, and even the company headquarters in Paris.

With another flick of the paw, Pussy booted up the system, and all the screens flickered to life—in black and white, of course. She handled the joystick with remarkable ease, and brought up one screen in particular: the main meeting room in the basement, where the conference was about to begin.

She flicked a button and now we had sound, too. She hopped down from the console and moved swiftly to the door.“Watch and learn, you guys.”

“Maybe you should stay,” I suggested.

“I told you, Max—I can’t,” she said, with the same pained look she’d displayed before. The loss of her human had hit her hard, that much was obvious, but the uncertainty about her future was even harder to bear.

“We’ll tell you everything you need to know,” Dooley promised.

She smiled.“You’re good cats, both of you. Never change, will you?” And with these words she left the room, and allowed the hidden panel to swing back into place. Now we were effectively cut off from the rest of the house.

“Never change?” said Dooley. “What does she mean, Max?”

“I have no idea,” I said, jumping up onto Flake’s chair—the one where he spent all those hours spying on his own people—hunting down the plotters.

“Because we do change, don’t we? I noticed this morning that a black hair is growing out of my left ear. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t there yesterday.”

“A lot of hair grows out of your ears, Dooley. It’s because you’re a cat.”

“Yeah, but like I said, this particular hair wasn’t there before. And I know this because it’s black, and I don’t have black hairs growing out of my ears.”

I wasn’t going to discuss the color of the hairs in Dooley’s ears, for judging from the buzz sounding from the speakers, the meeting was about to start. And since I didn’t want to miss a thing—for Pussy’s sake—focus was key.

“I could always pull out the hair, of course,” Dooley went on. “But I’m not sure if that’s the way to go. They do say that when you pull out a hair it only grows back thicker and more horrible than before. Or I could cut it. Maybe cutting a hair doesn’t alter its shape and thickness? What do you think, Max?”

“I think I don’t really care about a single hair in those hairy ears of yours, Dooley,” I said as I watched the screen intently.

“Ouch. That’s a mean thing to say, Max.”

“It’s one hair! Who cares?!”

“Well, I care. If hairs are going to start growing indiscriminately without my permission, what’s next? I might turn into the hairiest cat alive if this keeps up.”

“Lady cats love hair on a male cat,” I said, in a bid to get him to shut up.

“They do? I didn’t know that,” he said, perking up.

“Oh, yeah. The hairier the merrier. Mark my words, the more hair you grow, the more attention you’ll start getting from the ladies.”

“Oh,” he said. “I never looked at it that way.”

He lapsed into silence, and I got ready to learn what I could about Pussy’s fate. Then, suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I saw that Dooley was performing a peculiar ritual. I turned to him, and saw he was biting himself!

“Dooley! What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to pull out more hair,” he said between two nips into his fur.

“But why?”

“You said it yourself, Max. The hairier the merrier. So I figure if I pull out all of my hair, it will only grow back thicker and shinier, and it will increase my appeal with a factor of at least twelve.”

“Dooley, that whole spiel about hair growing back thicker is only a myth. It grows back, but not thicker than before.”

“It doesn’t?” he said, a tuft of gray hair between his lips.

“It doesn’t. So please stop pulling out your hair and start watching the meeting with me, will you? We owe it to Pussy to do this right.”

“Okay,” he said, and spat out his hair, which fluttered to the concrete floor of Flake’s secret control room.

On the screen, about a dozen people had taken a seat around the table. At the head of the table an old woman sat, and when I say old I mean ancient. She looked about a hundred, was seated in a wheelchair, and was sucking from an oxygen mask. Behind her stood a sturdy female nurse, administering the oxygen from a bulky tank on wheels.

For the rest there were plenty of men and women in suits, and they all looked very serious and businesslike.

“First off, I think I speak for all of us when I say we’re all deeply shocked and saddened by the tragic death of our friend and founder, Leonidas Flake,” suddenly spoke a man with a natty little mustache and thick-rimmed glasses. He was dressed in a charcoal suit, and his hair was combed neatly back from a high forehead. He now raised a glass of what looked like champagne. “A toast. To the man. The myth. The legend.Monsieur Leonidas Flake.”

Echoes of his words rang out around the table, all those present standing for a moment—except the lady in the wheelchair—and raising their glasses in a salute to Leo Flake.

“I call this meeting to order,” said the chairman. “And I think I speak for all of us when I say that the tragic events have shaken us to the core. Leo’s death came as a shock to me personally, but I think it’s imperative that we carry on. Leo would have wanted the company that he built from scratch to continue and to flourish, even without him.”

“Is it true, Xavier, that Gabe is the culprit?” asked a woman with wavy blond hair.

“It would appear so,” said Xavier, adjusting his glasses. “At least that’s what the police have told me. Gabe has been arrested, and he has been charged.”

Sounds of shock reverberated through the room.

“But why?” asked a well-coiffed older lady. “Why did he do it?”

“A lovers’ tiff?” said Xavier, who seemed to be the one in charge. “A jealous rage? A momentary lapse of sanity? Who knows? I’m sure the police will keep us abreast of the exact circumstances of Leo’s death. The only thing we need to concern ourselves with right now is the appointment of a new president and CEO and figuring out how to take this company into the future. Leonidas was a strong leader. A hands-on leader. And until the very last he designed all of his own collections, with the assistance of a small cadre of minions like myself,” he added with a smile, “but always under his guiding genius. So the first question we need to ask ourselves is this: can we continue existing at the high level of excellence that we have, in the absence of the master couturier?”

For the next half hour or so, a discussion ensued on what, exactly, constituted the Leonidas Flake brand, and if it was possible for anyone to step into the shoes of the master, and provide continuity for a company now officially in crisis. Apparently in the recent past several talented designers had been hired to assist Flake, only to be kicked to the curb by the old master within the space of weeks or sometimes even days. It would appear he’d figured he’d live forever, and hadn’t condoned anyone to take the baton.

The only one who’d come close was this Xavier person—full name Xavier Yesmanicki—who confessed he was more a glorified administrator than a creative genius like Leo Flake. At the end of the discussion, Xavier had assumed the role of president and CEO, and now the conversation turned to the recruitment of fresh talent, either in-house or outside the company, to create the spring collection—the fall collection had been created by Flake.

“This is not very interesting,” said Dooley as the discussion flowed as easily as the champagne.

“No, it’s not,” I said. “And not a word about Pussy.”

“I think they completely forgot about her.”

“Yeah, just like Odelia has completely forgotten about us,” I said with a touch of bitterness. Humans weren’t as trustworthy as I’d always imagined. When push came to shove, they preferred to be surrounded by other humans, not the feline species they professed to love so much.

But then, suddenly, the old lady in the wheelchair piped up. She’d put down the oxygen mask and spoke with a croaky but clear voice.

“You’re all nuts!” she declared, and silence immediately descended upon the room. “Don’t you realize you’re wasting your time? My son decided to leave his entire fortune, and the company he built, to a cat!”

“I don’t think—” Xavier began with a little smile.

“A darn cat! Who cares who the new CEO or president is? From now on, Leo’s cat is in charge! She’s going to sign the paychecks. She’s your boss!”

“But surely a cat can’t run a business,” said the well-coiffed woman.

“Yes, that is simply ludicrous!” said another.

“You’re right! Cats don’t run companies! So my son appointed a guardian for his cat, and so this guardian will effectively run things from now on.”

“Who’s the guardian?” asked one of the suits.

“And how do you know all this?” asked another.

“Because Leo’s lawyer is also my lawyer. And the guy called me the minute he learned about what happened. So the lawyer told me about Leo’s will—apparently he’d only had it drawn up last week—and the cat situation, and I was as shocked as you are. And as shocked as I’m sure the rest of the world will be when they find out about my son’s final folly. They’ll all be surprised to learn that Leo went a little cuckoo at the end. But the fact remains that Pussy now owns the company!”

“Can’t this will be contested on account of the fact that the person who made it was… well, not to put too fine a point on it… nuts?” asked another suit.

Xavier spread his arms.“Leo wasn’t nuts,” he said. “Just… a little eccentric.” He looked flustered. He probably hadn’t expected to have to report to a cat from now on.

“Well, the lawyer assured me that Leo was of sound mind and body when he drew up his new will,” said Leo’s mother after taking a gasp from her oxygen tank. “And that it will stand the tests of the courts and whatever else you want to throw at it. The only problem is that the guardian is nowin jail for murder, and won’t be able to take up his role.”

“The guardian is Gabriel Crier?” asked Xavier, looking flabbergasted.

“Yes, it is. And since he killed my son, and will be sent to Rikers Island if there’s any justice in the world, the law clearly states that the next person in line for this guardianship is Leo’s next of kin.” She tapped her chest. “Moi.”

Chapter 17

The meeting turned into complete pandemonium. People were rocketing up out of their chairs, they were screaming, some were pulling at their hair, while others hammered the table with their fists, one even with his head.

“Silence!” suddenly a voice bellowed. It was hard to imagine, but it actually came from the old lady who looked a hundred, and who probably was a hundred, but who was as vivid and lively as any of her cronies.

“But this is an outrage!” Xavier was crying. “This will not stand!”

“Yes, how can a cat—a cat!—run this company!” someone else said, clearly speaking for all those present.

“I take offense, Max,” said Dooley. “A cat can just as easily run a company as any human, right?”

“I would think so,” I said. Though I had no personal experience running a company, I could well imagine that a cat, given the proper training, could run a company just as well as the next CEO. After all, a lot of Fortune 500 companies are run by jackals and hyenas, and some even by an ass.

“Pussy is quite capable of running this company,” said Leo’s mother, echoing our words exactly.

“I think I like this woman,” said Dooley.

“A woman after my own heart,” I agreed.

“At least she seems to appreciate that sometimes the smartest person in the room is a cat,” said Dooley.

“But you don’t even know what she thinks!” said Xavier, whose hair was now all mussed and whose glasses were bedewed with honest perspiration.

“I don’t claim to understand cats either,” said the old lady. “But fortunately I know someone who does. Come on in, Chris!” she yelled in that same hale and hearty voice of hers that resonated through the room—both the one in the basement and the one Dooley and I were currently holed upin.

Chris came in, and to my surprise it was the pet detective.

“Isn’t that…” said Dooley.

“Yeah, I think it is,” I said.

To remove the last vestige of doubt as to who he was, the Siamese cat that had been so rude to us walked right behind him, and immediately meowed,“What a bunch of losers, boss!”

“Yeah, I know,” said his boss.

Lucky for him no one understood what they were saying, which seemed to add to their enjoyment, for they both smiled. Yes, cats do smile, even though there is some discussion about that. Some scientists claim they don’t, while other, equally learned scholars claim that they do. Well, let me clear up this misunderstanding: we do smile, but since we have a very refined sense of humor, we rarely indulge in the habit, so you probably missed it that time.

“Gentlemen and ladies,” said Leo’s mother, “let me introduce you to Christopher Cross and his trusty sidekick Tank. Chris is a latter-day Dr. Dolittle, in the sense that he can talk to any pet, great or small, and can actually understand what those pets are talking about. He’s the original pet whisperer, and I’m very grateful that he’s accepted my invitation to play a senior role in the newly structured Leonidas Flake Company.”

There was more shouting, this time directed at the newcomer, but the old lady once again managed to drown out the hubbub with her stentorian voice.

“This is how it’s going to be from now on! Pussy will take on the role of company president, and her dictates will be carefully noted by Chris and Tank, then turned into instructions and executive orders, which will trickle down through the company. I will be on hand to keep an eye on the proceedings, as I have formed a close bond with Pussy myself, and will play a vital role in the new structure that will be put in place.”

“But what role will you assume?” asked an exasperated chairman.

The lady puffed out her chest.“I’m the new CEO. And together with my president I will make this company great again!”

“This is an outrage!” someone yelled.

“Well, you don’t have to feel that way anymore,” said the woman, after taking a puff from her oxygen mask. “You’re fired, effective immediately.”

A collective gasp of shock reverberated through the room.

“Anyone else want to lodge a formal complaint about the new management structure?” asked Mrs. Flake.

“I don’t want to sound critical…” the well-coiffed lady began.

“I have a feeling you will.”

“But aren’t you a little… old for the role, Mrs. Flake?”

“You’re only as old as you feel,” said Leo’s mother. “And I feel a sprightly fifty, so I have a lot of good years still left in the tank.” She patted the oxygen tank for good measure. “Anyone else? Comments, criticisms? No? Then court is adjourned and I’ll see you lot in Paris for our annual board meeting where we will formalize the new company structure and I hope to be able to convey to you some of the new plans I’m sure Pussy will be excited to come up with.”

“Oh, boy,” I said. “Pussy isn’t going to like this.”

“Why not?” said Dooley. “She’s president of the company now.”

“I’m not sure that’s what she wants, though.”

Pussy, who had an impeccable sense of timing, chose that moment to join us again.“Is the meeting over?”

“Yeah, it’s over,” I said, gesturing to the screen, where people were now shouting and screaming and all hell seemed to have broken loose.

“What’s going on?” asked Pussy with a frown. “Are they fighting?”

“Pretty much.”

“You’re in charge now, Pussy,” said Dooley, clapping his paws with glee. “From now on you are the president of the Leonidas Flake Company!”

“Come again?” said Pussy after a pause. “I’m what now?”

“You’re in charge,” I said. “Leo’s mother took over the meeting and announced that you’re the new president. It’s official.”

“But… I can’t run a company,” said Pussy, looking seriously distraught.

“I’m sure Mrs. Flake will help you with the finer points of running the business. She’ll be your CEO so she’ll be in charge of the day-to-day stuff.”

“But I don’t know the first thing about fashion!”

“You could have fooled me,” I said, indicating the crown and the pendant she was still rocking.

“Oh, that,” she said modestly. “Just something I threw on this morning. No, but seriously, what did they say?”

“Exactly that. They’ve appointed a pet whisperer, some guy named Christopher Cross, to be your official translator, along with his cat Tank.”

“Not a very nice cat,” said Dooley.

“Not a very nice cat,” I agreed. “But maybe he’ll grow on you as you take the reins.”

“So some guy is going to sit in my office and translate my decisions to the CEO, who will be Leo’s mother?”

“That seems to be the gist.”

“But… Leo didn’t even like his mother. In fact it’s safe to say he hated her.”

“He did? Odd.”

“Not so odd. The woman is crazy. Power hungry and mad. Leonora always felt Leo should have given her a bigger stake in the company, and when Leo refused, she went bananas. She tried to get him removed from his own company by bribing several board members to get him kicked out for mental health reasons, and when that didn’t work she joined forces with LMVH, a large luxury goods conglomerate, to organize a hostile takeover of the company, forcing Leo out. That didn’t work either, but it caused Leo a big headache for a while.”

“That must have been tough,” I said sympathetically.

“It was especially tough on Gabe. They never used to fight like they fought these last couple of months.”

“So is that what they fought about?”

“Gabe felt Leo worked too hard, and wanted him to slow down, and even thought that this takeover was a good thing. These LMVH people know their stuff, so the future of the Leonidas Flake brand was safe, and the takeover would make Leo a very rich man. But Leo felt that Gabe didn’t understand. He couldn’t lose control over his company. It was, after all, his life’s work. And so they fought a lot.”

“And then last night Gabe snapped and killed him.”

“Is that the official story?”

“Yeah, that seems to be the way it went down.”

“I’m sorry to say I wasn’t there,” she said softly. “When Leo was murdered I was holed up in my room. I never liked it when they fought, so I got out of there the moment the shouting began. If only I’d been there…”

“You can’t think like that,” said Dooley immediately.

She nodded.“It’s hard to imagine Gabe would do such a horrible thing. Those two loved each other so, so much. You should have seen them together. They were crazy about each other. Even now, after all these years.”

“Well, what happened, happened,” I said. “And now you’re the boss, and you can do whatever you want.”

“But I don’t want to be the boss,” said Pussy stubbornly. “I want Leo back, and Gabe, and the three of us on the couch watchingProject Runway orRuPaul’s Drag Race.”

“We used to watch a lot of TV with Odelia, too,” I said wistfully. “Only now she’s too busy to bother.”

“Good times,” Dooley murmured.

“You’ll do great,” I told the gorgeous feline. “You’ll do Leo proud.”

In response, Pussy merely groaned. Obviously she wasn’t so sure.

We heard voices, and with a flick of the wrist Pussy flipped through several screens until she’d called up the one where the voices were coming from: we saw Leonora Flake, along with her nurse, Christopher Cross and Tank step into Pussy’s room.

“Uh-oh,” said Pussy. “I think they’re looking for me.”

“Well, better put in an appearance,” I said. “Or else they’ll organize a search party. You are, after all, the new company president.”

The three of us quickly moved through the hidden panel and into Leo’s bedroom, then via the corridor to Pussy’s very own domain, where we were greeted by a small welcoming committee.

“What’s all this?” asked Leonora Flake. “I thought my son only had one cat?”

“That’s Max and Dooley,” Chris Cross said. “They belong to Odelia Poole, a local nosy parker.”

“Oh, right,” said Leonora. “She was snooping around here this morning, wasn’t she? Assisting the cops.”

“She was, and she seems to have left her feline brood behind to keep an eye on things.”

“I told you to take a hike, didn’t I?” growled Tank.

“You’re not the boss of us,” said Dooley, quite sensibly, I thought.

“What are they saying?” asked Mrs. Flake.

“That we’re not the boss of them,” said Chris.

It surprised me greatly to meet another human who could understand what we said, but the surprise was short-lived, for Leonora laughed loudly and said,“Clever little pussies.” Then the smile disappeared. “Get rid of them, will you? We don’t need a bunch of annoying busybodies.”

Chris took one step in our direction, but Pussy said,“They’re staying put!”

Chris frowned at the cat.“You can’t be serious.”

“What’s going on?” asked Leonora, who was starting to resemble a cuckoo clock.

“Pussy wants those two to stick around.”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” she said. “Lock ‘em up, will you? And make sure they stay out of sight.”

“Will do,” said Chris curtly, and the small band of humans left the room.

The last one to leave was Tank, and when he turned to us it was with a cruel grin on his face.“Told you,” he said with a silky voice, then walked out.

“What’s happening, Max?” asked Dooley.

“I have a feeling we’re about to become like the man in the iron mask,” I said.

“Leonardo DiCaprio?” asked Dooley, excitedly. Dooley knows his movies.

“Who’s the man in the iron mask?” asked Pussy.

The door closed and a key was turned.

“Quick. Into the next room!” I said, and we sprinted for the door. Only to see it slammed shut in front of our faces, and locked from the outside.

“The man in the iron mask was a prisoner in the French Bastille—a famous former Paris prison,” I told Pussy as I caught my breath. “He was forced to wear a mask—hence the moniker—so no one would know who he was. Rumor had it that he was the king’s twin brother, and imprisoned in a dispute over the throne. In the movie version he was played by Leo DiCaprio.”

“Leo loved Leo,” said Pussy reverently. “And so do I.”

“I love Leo, too,” said Dooley. “Not your Leo, I mean, but-but-but…”

Pussy smiled.“I know what you mean, Dooley,” she said.

Dooley blinked and I frowned. I’d never seen him this flustered before.

“So what happened to the man in the iron mask?” asked Pussy.

“Oh, he died in prison,” I said.

“But he didn’t die in the movie!” said Dooley, eyes widening. “He lived happily ever after!”

“That’s Hollywood for you. Always going for the happy end.”

“I think I like the Hollywood version better, Max!”

“Me, too, Dooley,” I said. “But this isn’t a movie, is it?”

“Oh, cheer up, you guys,” said Pussy. “I’m the company president now, right? So they’re not going to lock me up and throw away the key. Right?”

I didn’t respond. Because I had a feeling that was exactly what they were going to do.

Chapter 18

It was late by the time Odelia and Chase arrived at the chateau, but that didn’t deter the intrepid reporter from pressing her finger to the bell and to keep on pressing until a gruff voice spoke through the intercom.

“What do you want?” the voiced inquired.

It was a far cry from the warm welcome they’d enjoyed that morning, but Odelia wasn’t deterred. “Hi, My name is Odelia Poole, and I think my cats are somewhere on the premises. Do you mind if we take a look around?”

“Yes, I do mind,” said the gruff voice. “This is a private residence and you can’t just barge in here without an appointment. Now please go away.”

Next it was Chase’s turn to press his finger to the bell.

“I told you to leave!” the voice growled when it returned.

Chase held his police badge in front of the camera. “Chase Kingsley, Detective with the Hampton Cove Police Department. Open the gate.”

“That badge doesn’t give you the right to snoop around, Detective. I suggest you come back with a warrant. Until you do, get lost.” And the connection was once again abruptly severed.

Odelia stared at the gate for a moment. She couldn’t believe what was happening. “Did they really just tell us to take a hike?”

“I guess they did,” said Chase, who looked as surprised as Odelia.

Just then, the gate swung open, and moments later a small fleet of black SUVs exited. They all seemed to be in a hurry to get away from the place.

“Huh,” said Odelia. “I didn’t know there was a UN meeting taking place.”

“Time to go look for your cats,” said Chase, and walked through the gate, Odelia close on his heels.

“Don’t you think we’ll get in trouble for this?” she asked.

“Pretty sure the gate swung open after we rang the bell.”

She grinned.“Well, if you look at it that way, I guess you’re right.”

“Stick with me, kid,” he quipped. “I’m always right.”

“Big man on campus,” she said as she had to hurry to keep up with the long-legged cop.

“So where did you last see your cats?” he asked.

“When we got here this morning, remember? They got out of the car and that’s the last time I saw them.”

“They could literally be anywhere. They could even be roaming the streets of Hampton Cove right now.”

“They could,” she agreed, “but something tells me they never left.”

“Don’t tell me. Female intuition?”

“You may scoff at the notion that women have a very powerful and fine-tuned sense of intuition, but it’s a fact that very often we’re right.”

“I’m not making fun of you, babe. I do believe you when you say your cats are here. No one else I know has such a strong connection to their pets.”

“Thanks,” she said. “That’s a very nice thing to say.”

They’d arrived at the house and now stood where their car had been parked that morning: in the drive in front of the house.

All the lights were out inside, except on the second floor.

“Why don’t we knock on the door and go in?” Chase suggested. “After all, we’re still laboring under the assumption we were buzzed in just now.”

“A false assumption,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, but they don’t know that we know that.”

So they moved up to the house and Chase pounded his fist on the door. Of course there was no response.

“Let’s move to the back,” said Odelia. “Maybe Max and Dooley are still around somewhere.”

They walked around to the back of the house, and in the distance Odelia could see the famous petting zoo. The lights were on in the different sections and she could see a horse staring back at her, and also a donkey.

“You can’t talk to them, can you?” asked Chase.

“No, unfortunately I can only talk to cats.”

“Too bad. They might know where Max and Dooley went.”

And they’d reached the deck when suddenly floodlights bathed the scene in a blinding light. Moments later they were surrounded by a small group of armed men, whom Odelia recognized as part of the house’s security detail.

“Easy, guys,” said Chase, carefully taking out his police badge. “We were invited.”

“Oh, hey, Detective Kingsley,” said the burliest and biggest of the lot. “Going for an evening stroll?”

“Yeah, enjoying the night air,” he said. “So what’s going on here? What’s with all the SUVs that just drove off?”

“Oh, we had a conference of some kind,” said the guy, who appeared to be the more garrulous type. With a gesture of the hand he dismissed his men, who holstered their weapons and returned indoors, to fight off another threat to the safety of the chateau’s inhabitants.

“A conference?” asked Odelia.

“Yeah. Discussing the future of the company now that the top guy is dead.”

“So who’s the new top guy?” asked Chase.

“I’m not sure but I think it’s Leonora Flake,” said the guy. “At least that’s who we’re getting our instructions from now. Her and some skinny dude with a cat.”

“Skinny dude with a cat?” asked Chase.

“Not Chris Cross,” said Odelia, surprised.

“Yeah, Cross. That’s the name I got.”

“Is he in charge now? I thought he was just a private detective, hired by Leonora?”

“Yeah, well, I guess he got promoted.”

“Weird,” said Chase.

“So have you seen any other cats around? “asked Odelia. “My cats in particular? One is large and orange, the other small and gray.”

The guy furrowed his brow.“Um… can’t say that I have, Miss…”

“Poole.”

“Oh, right. I’ve read your articles, Miss Poole. Well-written and well-informed every time. They’re the first thing I read when I get theGazette.”

“Thanks,” said Odelia. “Always nice to meet a fan. So no cats, huh?”

“Only Pussy, but then she’s the star of the show, isn’t she?” said the guy with a laugh. He turned to Chase. “So did you arrest Gabe Crier?”

“Yeah, we did. And charged him.”

“Yeah, seems like a foregone conclusion that he did it. Martha is still pretty shook up. And now even more, since she got fired.”

“Who’s Martha?” asked Odelia.

“The maid who discovered the body,” said Chase. “She got fired?”

“Yeah, her and all the others. Looks like Leonora is doing a clean sweep. The entire household staff was fired this evening, and sent home. Tomorrow she’ll start hiring new people. At least security hasn’t been given their marching orders yet, but I have a hunch we’re next. New brooms, huh?”

And with these words he wandered back to the house and disappeared inside.

Odelia and Chase stared after the man.“What do you make of that?” asked Odelia. “Leonora in charge, with a pet detective and his cat, and the entire staff fired.”

“Like the guy said. New brooms.”

Odelia thought for a moment.“Maybe that’s why they hired Chris Cross. He claims to be able to talk to pets, just like me. Only I always thought it was just a gimmick. You know, like a sales pitch.”

“Maybe he really can talk to pets, and now he’ll talk to Pussy and together they’ll run the show.”

Odelia glanced around. They still had no clue where Max and Dooley could be, and she was seriously starting to get worried now.

Chase, who could sense her agitation, said,“They’re probably home by now. Strike or no strike, they don’t like to be out and about for too long.”

“No, they don’t,” she agreed. “Maybe it’s time for us to head back.”

And so they strolled back to the front of the house.

Above their heads, and unbeknownst to them, three cats were yelling their little hearts out, pounding the window of Pussy’s room. Unfortunately a cat’s paws are outfitted with soft pink pads, and soft pink pads are not what you want when you try to attract attention by pounding on windows. The upshot was that their efforts produced no effect. And so it was with a desperate eye that Max and Dooley and Pussy saw the two humans who could have saved them from their imprisonment walk away and pass into the night.

Chapter 19

“How can they not have seen us?” asked Dooley with asperity.

“I guess they didn’t,” I said, feeling extremely disappointed in my human. I’d always assumed that Odelia and I shared a sacred bond. The kind of bond whereby she would instinctively know I was in grave danger and she’d come running to offer aid and support no matter the obstacles in her path. But whatever bond we’d once shared was clearly in very bad shape indeed, for even though I’d willed her to look up, she hadn’t done so once. Not a glimpse.

“Maybe they’re simply pretending not to notice us to throw Leonora and Chris Cross and Tank off the scent,” said Dooley, cheering up. “And any moment now they’ll come barging in here with the entire Hampton Cove police force and save us!”

“I don’t think, so, Dooley. They simply didn’t see us.”

“But how is that possible? It’s Odelia. She has to see us. She’s our human.”

“I’m starting to think she no longer is,” I said.

And we would have discussed the topic in depth if the door hadn’t swung open at that exact moment and the same motley crew that had locked us up was upon us once more: Leonora Flake, pushed by her strangely stoic nurse, Chris Cross and his feline sidekick Tank.

“Keep an eye on them, Tank,” said Chris. “Those two are cunning.”

“They don’t look cunning,” said Tank. “In fact they look pretty dumb. Dumb and dumber.” He laughed at his own joke, and so did Chris Cross.

“Will you stop with the inside jokes already?” said Leonora irritably. “So have we decided? Out with the intruders and in with Little Miss Sweet?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s the only way to go,” said Chris. “Max and Dooley clearly know too much now, and the moment we set them loose they’ll run and tell mama. And we can’t do without Pussy, in case we need to show her to the investors or the board at some point.”

“Fine. Do it quietly, though, will you? And make sure no one sees you.”

“Wait, you expectme to do it? Why don’t you do it?”

“Have you seen the wheelchair?”

“I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about Nurse Ratched over there.”

Nurse Ratched didn’t seem all that happy with her new moniker. “My name is Helga Cooper,” she said in clipped tones. “And nowhere does it say in my job description that I should go around murdering cats. So I refuse.”

“You do it,” Leonora told Chris. “You’re good with cats.”

“I’m good with live cats, not dead ones!”

“Oh, for crying out loud!”

Dooley, who’d been gulping freely next to me, appeared on the verge of a panic attack. “They’re going to kill us, Max!” he cried. “Did you hear that? They’re going to kill us and throw away the bodies!”

“Bury the bodies, most likely,” said Tank with an evil glint in his eyes. “Deep, so that no one will ever find you. And if by some miracle they do, the worms will have eaten through your rotting corpses and all that will be left will be your bones. Sad, sad bones.”

“Oh, no!” said Dooley, hyperventilating now.

“Deep breaths, Dooley,” I said. “Deep, steady breaths.”

“Look, you don’t have to do this,” said Pussy. “You can keep us all in here and no one has to die.”

“Yeah, I know we don’thave to do it,” said Tank. “But that’s just the thing: we want to do it.” He turned to Chris. “Let me do it, boss.”

“You? You can’t kill those two.”

“Oh, but I can,” said Tank, licking his lips and extending a gleaming claw. “In fact I know just how. One nice jab to the jugular and they’ll bleed out like gutted pigs. And then all you have to do is dig the hole and dump the bodies.”

“I don’t want to die, Max!” Dooley cried. “I’m too young to die!”

“I don’t want to die either, Dooley,” I said, and already I was eyeing the door with a keen eye. “If we move fast,” I whispered in his ear, “we can make it. On three. One two three—go!”

And I raced for the door. Only I felt a keen sense of emptiness behind me and when I looked back I saw that Dooley was glued to the spot, looking at me with wide panicky eyes. So I halted and retraced my steps.

“Ha ha ha!” Tank laughed. “Look at them. Dumb and dumber—the sequel!”

“Close the door, you idiots,” Leonora snapped. “If they get out they’ll spill the beans and then all this will have been for naught.”

“Max,” said Dooley when I’d returned to his side. “Why didn’t you make a run for it?”

“I couldn’t very well leave my best friend behind, could I?”

“But you could have escaped and warned Odelia!”

Oh, shoot. Why hadn’t I thought of that!

“So this is your final word?” asked Leonora.

“This is my final word,” Chris confirmed. “I’m not a cat killer. If you want them dead, you’ll have to find someone else to do it.”

“Imbeciles and incompetents!” shouted Leonora as she directed her wheelchair to the door. “I’m surrounded by imbeciles and incompetents!” She passed through the door, followed by Helga and Chris. The last one to leave us in our new prison was, of course, Tank.

“Too bad they didn’t task me with the kill,” he said. And he slashed the air with his gleaming claw. Then the door closed and we were once again alone.

“Someone will come for us,” said Pussy. “Your humans will realize what’s going on and they’ll come looking for you.”

Under normal circumstances I would have heartily agreed with her. Only this time I had the distinct impression that no one would come for us. Or even if they did, it would be too late, and we’d already be dead and buried.

Chapter 20

Gran wasn’t feeling like herself. Ever since her granddaughter had branched out into the world of private detecting, she’d been her loyal and able sidekick on many an investigation. Today, though, things hadn’t gone according to plan, to say the least. The worst kind of investigation was the one that was over before it even got started. And yet…

While at the reception desk in her son-in-law’s office, she’d been surfing the web on the newly minted smartphone Tex had gifted her, and she discovered a couple of things about the case that greatly worried her. For one thing, by all accounts Leonidas Flake and Gabriel Crier had been a devoted couple. They’d been together for thirty years, and all that time they’d appeared in public displaying an affection that was unmistakable. It was hard to imagine that suddenly one partner in the tryst would snap and murder the other partner in the tryst and then not even remember what he’d done.

Furthermore, there had been rumors that the empire Leo had built was rocking on its foundations, not least because his mother was shaking the tree, insisting her son was squandering his legacy by bad business decisions. The woman had actually had the gall to try and oust her son from his own company by launching a hostile takeover bid. The fact that it had failed didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. It had spooked investors, and the stock had been trading at an all-time low.

Shops had been closed, sales had slumped, and the company was on shaky ground. And now this murder. Gran couldn’t help but feel there was more to the murder than a simple lovers’ tiff. Rumors had been flying around all day that now that her son was dead, Mama Flake was moving in and finalizing her takeover attempt. She’d been spotted in town, even before the murder, staying at the Hampton Cove Star, which was highly suspect to say the least. Then again, Ma Flake was old. She was ninety-eight, and wheelchair bound, so it was hardly feasible she would have held the knife that killed her only son.

Furthermore, after the bad blood that had existed between herself and her son, she’d become persona non grata at Chateau Leonidas and hadn’t been allowed to set foot inside the premises. At least not until today. So even if she’d wanted to murder her son, she wouldn’t have had the chance.

Still, Gran felt there were loose ends attached to this case, and had already placed a strongly worded phone call to her own son Alec, telling him not to put all his eggs in one basket but to give the investigation another chance.

So great was her concern that when she arrived home after her shift, instead of plunking down in front of the TV to watchJeopardy!, she hunkered down at the kitchen table to do some more digging into the family Flake.

Her daughter Marge, when arriving home from the library, watched her with a curious eye.“What’s going on with you, Ma? NoJeopardy! today?”

“Murder investigation,” she grunted curtly.

“Not the Flake case? Terrible business, that. I loved the man’s designs.”

This had Gran look up in surprise.“You liked Flake’s designs?”

“Yeah, loved them. I have several Leonidas Flakes upstairs. Of course I only wear them on special occasions.”

“What’s this about special occasions, hon?” asked Tex, coming into the kitchen to grab something from the fridge.

“Leonidas Flake. Remember him?”

“Oh, of course. Terrible business. I have several Flake suits upstairs.”

“You have Flake suits?” asked Gran. “But they cost a fortune.”

“Oh, no,” said Marge. “He has his haute couture line, of course, and those pieces are priceless, but he has his pr?t-?-porter line and he did a collaboration with the Gap a couple of years ago, and those were very reasonably priced.”

“Very reasonably priced,” Tex agreed as he took a barbecued chicken wing from the fridge and gave it a tentative nibble.

“Leonidas Flake and the Gap? Well, what do you know?” said Gran.

“Lots of designers pull stunts like that,” said Marge. “Stella McCartney did a line for H&M a couple of years ago, and I heard Vera Wang might team up with Costco next year. If they want to survive, these high-end fashion brands need to find a fresh clientele. They can’t go on like they used to, and only sell the high-priced stuff in their flagship stores on Fifth Avenue or whatever. It’s called the democratization of fashion and Leonidas Flake was all for it.”

“The opportunity for the common man and woman to wear haute couture is a chance you don’t want to miss, Vesta,” said Tex, waving the chicken wing.

Gran felt like grabbing the chicken wing and shoving it down Tex’s throat, but she restrained herself with a powerful effort. For some reason her son-in-law always brought out the worst in her, even though by all accounts he was a great guy, and she couldn’t have wished Marge a better husband.

“I’ve been looking into this Flake,” she said, “and all his business decisions the last couple of years have been sound. Extremely sound, in fact. His worst period seems to have been the early eighties, when he was on the verge of collapse. The big turnaround for him came about thirty yearsago—not coincidentally the year he met Gabriel Crier.”

“Leo Flake always called Gabe Crier his good-luck charm,” said Marge.

Gran goggled at her daughter.“How come you know so much about Flake? I never even heard of the guy before today.”

Marge shrugged.“I guess I like to read about fashion,” she said, suddenly displaying a slight blush.

“Your daughter has quite the passion for fashion,” Tex quipped. “In fact if she hadn’t found a job at the library she would have gone into designing, isn’t that right, darling?”

“Yeah, well, I guess it’s a little hobby of mine,” said Marge. “And I wouldn’t mind designing a few pieces from time to time.”

“Well, why don’t you?” said Tex. “You never know where it will take you.”

“Oh, but I’m not a designer, darling.”

“I’m not saying you are and I’m not saying you aren’t. I’m just saying give it a shot.”

“Oh, darling,” said Marge, and wrapped her arms around her husband’s neck. “Look at you being all supportive.”

“That’s because I love you, my sweet, and I want you to be happy.”

Kissing ensued, and Gran rolled her eyes.“So this Gabriel guy is the real genius behind Flake’s success?” she asked, trying to get the lovebirds back on track.

“Well, no, the real genius has always been Leo Flake,” said Marge. “But even a genius can have a lesser period. And that lesser period threatened to derail his career, until he met Gabe, and that’s when the magic returned.”

“Huh,” said Gran. “Interesting. So by all rights Gabe should be the one to take over the company now that his boyfriend is dead.”

“Yeah, but that will never happen,” said Tex. “Because Gabe is a murderer. And murderers don’t run companies, do they?” He was talking to Gran as if she were a toddler, and she had to bite back a scathing retort or two.

“Yeah, tough to run a company from prison,” she said.

“Too bad,” said Marge. “With Leonora in charge things don’t look too good. She’s very old-fashioned, and has been dying to return to the old way of doing business: only high-end fashion and only selling through a few well-chosen flagship stores. So no more Leonidas Flake for me, I’m afraid.”

“Design your own dresses, darling,” said Tex. “And a few tuxes for me, while you’re at it.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” said Marge.

“No, I’m telling you you could.”

“Oh, darling, no.”

“Yes, darling, yes.”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Gran groaned, and took her phone and walked out of the house, through the backyard, through the hole in the hedge, into Odelia’s backyard, and then into the house through the sliding glass door.

She plunked herself down at the kitchen table and was gratified to find that Odelia was out so she had the place to herself. Sometimes that was exactly what a person needed: some peace and quiet to hear oneself think.

And she’d been sitting there for a couple of minutes, her Wi-Fi switched over to Odelia’s network, when Harriet hopped up onto the high stool next to hers and gave her a plaintive look.

“Gran,” she said. “Have you seen Max and Dooley?”

“No, I haven’t,” said Gran. “Why? Are they missing?”

“I guess they are,” said Harriet. “First they went on strike, and then they disappeared.”

“They should have been home by now,” grumbled Brutus, taking up position on the stool to Gran’s other side.

“They’re probably in town or in the park,” said Gran distractedly while she read through Gabe Crier’s Wikipedia page again.

“I guess they are,” said Harriet dubiously.

It was actually the first time that Harriet had expressed concern about Max, and the realization made Gran sit up.“So what makes you think they’re in trouble?”

“I’m not sure,” said Harriet. “Just a bad feeling I have.”

“Yeah, I have a bad feeling, too,” said Brutus.

Huh. Two cats with bad feelings. That was a first.“What do you think happened?” she asked. Others might scoff at feline intuition, just as they might scoff at female intuition, but Gran, after a long life lived in the company of cats, knew never to discard those sensations. Often they were warranted.

“I’m not sure,” said Harriet. “But they should be home by now.”

“Yeah, Max isn’t one to miss his dinner,” said Brutus.

“Nor is Dooley,” Harriet added.

“We told Odelia and Chase, and they left to look for them,” said Brutus.

“Oh, so Odelia is on the case? Then you’ve got nothing to worry about. If anyone can find them it’s Odelia. She and Max share a special bond.”

“Not lately,” said Harriet.

“What do you mean?”

“Odelia has been neglecting us. Which is why we went on strike.”

“You went on strike?” asked Gran with a laugh.

“Yeah, all of us,” said Brutus. “If Odelia stops sending the love, we stop helping her catch the bad guys or write her articles. So we went on strike.”

“Huh,” said Gran. It made perfect sense to her. If Odelia decided to ignore her precious cats, of course they would rebel. “You did the right thing,” she said. “Though you might have talked to Odelia before you decided to go on strike. I mean, how do you know she knows you’re on strike,if you know what I mean? And if she doesn’t know, how can she be expected to change?”

This made both Harriet and Brutus think for a moment.

“Yeah, I guess we should have said something,” Harriet finally admitted.

“We were upset,” said Brutus. “So we didn’t think.”

“Don’t worry. It’s been known to happen to me,” said Gran. “Now why don’t we simply wait for Odelia to return? I’m sure she’ll find Max and Dooley. Okay?”

Both cats nodded, clearly much relieved. It touched Gran’s heart to know how much her cats cared for each other. Usually cats are characterized as solitary creatures who don’t play nice with other members of their species, but that obviously wasn’t the case with Max, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus. They were a foursome that watched out for one another.

“What are you doing, Gran?” asked Harriet now, her most pressing concern addressed and alleviated.

“The Leonidas Flake business. I’m not so sure they got the right guy.”

“You don’t think the lover did it?” asked Brutus.

“Just a hunch,” she said. “Like you with Max missing? Same for me with this case. Just a hunch not all is as it seems.”

“We should probably talk to Pussy,” said Harriet.

“Pussy? I thought you had talked to her.”

“No, we didn’t,” said Harriet. “We were on strike, remember?”

Harriet was right. If there was one cat who knew what was going on, it would be Pussy. And so Gran made one of those impulsive decisions that were typical of her and could drive the people around her up the wall sometimes.“Let’s go,” she told Harriet and Brutus, and jumped down from the stool.

“Go where?” asked Harriet, perking up.

“We’re driving over to the Flake place to talk to Pussy. I don’t know why, but I have a strong suspicion she’s the key to this whole darn mystery.”

Chapter 21

“I want you to know, Max,” said Dooley, “that you’ve always been the cat in the world I’ve admired the most.”

“Thanks, I guess,” I said. I was pacing the room, trying to come up with a way out of our predicament. It was a little hard to see how, though, as the room had been designed to keep its inhabitants in, or at least that was my impression.

“And I want you to know that you can have all my earthly possessions after I’m gone,” Dooley continued.

“You seem to forget that if you die, I’m dying along with you, Dooley.”

This seemed to give him pause.“Oh, right,” he said. “I forgot about that. So to whom can I dictate my last will and testament?” He turned to Pussy. “Pussy, I’ve always admired you from afar, and I want you to know—”

“You didn’t even know me before today,” said Pussy. “And besides, once you two are dead I might as well be dead, too. They’re never going to let me out of this room. This is going to be my prison until the day I die, which might be sooner than I want. Cats in captivity rarely live to a ripe old age.”

“How old are you now?” asked Dooley, interested.

“Four.”

“Oh? You look a lot older.”

“Um, thanks, I guess.”

I’d already checked the windows, but they were all locked solid, the door was one of those rusty steel doors that Leo seemed to have favored, so no dice either, and there were no nooks and crannies that could assist us in our escape. Unless…

I glanced up and noticed that the ventilation system in the room was of an odd design. In line with the rest of the house it had an industrial look: the pipes led straight into the room and hung suspended from the ceiling with a series of rings and bolts and iron wiring. If only we could get up there, and pry loose one of those grates, we might have a shot at getting out of the room.

“No, really,” Dooley was saying. “I thought you were six, or maybe seven.”

“Uh-huh,” said Pussy. “Is that a fact?”

“Pussy?” I said. “Is there a way we can get up there?” I indicated the high-wire act above our heads.

“If we put all my plush toys in a big pile in the corner we might reach there,” said Pussy. “But even if we could, we’d still have to remove the grate.”

“I know. But we have to give it a try. It might be our only shot before they come back.”

So for the next couple of minutes we created a big pile out of Pussy’s plush animals. To our delight there were a lot of them. Like, a great big lot. Finally the pile reached about three quarters to the ceiling, and we took a break to think up the next part of our grand plan.

“I think Dooley should go,” said Pussy. “He’s the lightest and might reach the highest.”

“Agreed,” I said.

“You think?” said Dooley. “I think Pussy should try. She’s very light on her paws, and will simply whizz through the air like a trapeze artist.”

“Why, thank you, Dooley,” Pussy said, pleasantly surprised.

“No, I mean it. You could be a ballet dancer for all your grace and beauty.”

“Well, I could give it a shot, of course,” she said, “but it’s really you who should get out of here. I’m not to the one they’re going to try and murder.”

“Touch?,” said Dooley, grinning awkwardly for some reason.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” I said and gave my friend a nudge in the direction of the pile of plush. “Jump high and aim for that grate over there.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” said Dooley, licking his lips nervously. He retreated all the way to the opposite corner of the room, then took a long approach and at high speed raced to the pile, hopped up in a few jumps to the top, then took a flying leap in the direction of the grate, and… managed tohang on by his nails!

Unfortunately, two things happened simultaneously: the grate didn’t budge, sturdily fastened as it apparently was, and the pile of plush animals, as a consequence of Dooley’s ministrations, collapsed and tumbled down.

“Help!” Dooley now bleated, dangling from the ceiling by his nails. “Help me, Max!”

“Oh, hang on, Dooley!” Pussy shouted. “Max will figure something out!”

They both looked at me for aid and comfort, but frankly I drew a complete blank. I mean, I’m not Bruce Willis traipsing all over Nakatomi Plaza!

The only thing I could think of was:“Just let go, Dooley. I’ll break your fall.”

Just then, two more things happened: the grate finally decided to give up the struggle and dropped out. Dooley, in a supreme demonstration of nimbleness, managed to grab onto the vent opening. And then the door to the room opened and Chris walked in.

The grate fell on top of the man’s head, and he went down like a sack of potatoes. And Dooley, up above, quickly disappeared into the vent the moment he heard the door opening and immediately scrabbled out of sight.

“Go, Max!” Pussy shouted. “Now’s your chance. Go, go, go!”

And like a speed racer who’s been given the all-clear, I bolted for the door. And just when I reached there an obstacle appeared in my path: it was Tank. But since I was going fast and speeding up as I went, I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. Cats don’t have inbuilt brakes, so I bumped into Tank at full speed, and since I am easily twice his size it was like a bowling ball hitting a pin: Tank was flung to the side and I still kept going, momentum propelling me through the door.

I was free, and nothing could stop me now!

Except for the maze that was Chateau Leonidas.

Before long I was lost in the warren of corridors, but all the while I kept on running at full tilt, for right behind me was a cat in hot pursuit, and I knew it was Tank, pissed that he’d been bowled over by a mere mongrel like myself.

Chapter 22

Odelia and Chase had been driving along, en route back to town, when suddenly they passed a familiar-looking red car, speeding in the opposite direction, a little old white-haired lady behind the wheel, her face practically plastered against the windshield, a look of determination on her face.

They turned to one another and said in chorus,“Gran.”

Odelia performed her second U-turn of the day and moments later was following Gran who, for some reason, was on her way to the Flake house.

The old lady was making good time, though, and no matter how deeply Odelia punched in the accelerator, she wasn’t making any headway.

“Where did she go?” cried Chase.

“Gran is in a different category than the rest of the traffic participants,” said Odelia through gritted teeth. “She thinks the traffic code is just a suggestion.”

“Well, speed up before she wraps her car around a tree.”

“Oh, she’ll never go and do a silly thing like that,” said Odelia. “She’s got the luck of the drunk, even though she doesn’t drink.”

Finally they were back where they started: at Casa Flake, and to Odelia’s elation Gran’s car was idling in front of the gate. In spite of her words she’d worried that Chase’s predictions might have come true and that she’d find Gran’s car wrapped around some indignant tree.

They parked right behind Gran and got out. The old lady was already yelling into the intercom.“Open this gate right now, you shit-for-brains, or I’ll come down there and personally rearrange your face!” she was shouting. “Oh, and my cop grandson just arrived and he’s going to arrest you and kick your sorry ass into his deepest, darkest dungeon and throw away the key!” she added when she caught sight of Odelia and Chase bearing down on her.

“Don’t bother,” said Odelia. “They won’t let you in.”

“They have to, or by golly I’ll smite this gate and bring it down!” she said, shaking an irate fist.

And then, suddenly, as if her threats had worked, the gate swung open!

“Glad to see you’re back, Kingsley!” a cheerful voice sounded from the intercom. “Forget something, did you?”

“Thanks, buddy!” Chase shouted back.

Apparently whoever had been manning the booth before had now been replaced by Chase’s friend, the head of security at the place.

Gran directed her car along the long and winding drive, followed by Odelia and Chase.

“Why are we back here?” asked Chase.

“Um, I have no idea,” Odelia confessed. She probably should have asked her grandmother that exact question. Only the moment the gate had swung open Gran had jumped into her car and hared off at the speed of light.

Now she screeched to a halt in front of the house and hopped out, followed by none other than Harriet and Brutus!

“What’s the big plan here, Gran?” asked Odelia, also getting out.

“The big plan is to look for Max,” said Gran, “and to find out what really happened to this fashion bozo.”

“We already looked for Max,” said Odelia. “He’s not here. And as far as the big fashion bozo is concerned, the guy who killed him is in jail right now.”

“Yeah, you don’t really think that poor guy had anything to do with this, do you?”

“Actually, I do,” said Chase. “Not only did he kill his partner, but he practically confessed, and that’s good enough for me, good enough for your son, and I’m willing to bet it’s good enough for a judge and a jury of the guy’s peers.”

“Well, I don’t buy it,” said Gran.

“Why am I not surprised?” said Chase, throwing up his hands.

“We’ll stay here and look for Max, shall we?” Harriet suggested, but Gran was already marching up to the house.

“Yeah, you do that,” said Odelia, and went after her grandmother before she got shot or, worse, punched someone in the face and accused them of murder.

“Odelia, we shouldn’t be out here,” said Chase. “We’re trespassing on private property.”

“We were invited, remember?” she said.

“Yeah, but that’s only because the guard likes your face.”

“Likes your face, you mean.”

“Also a possibility,” Chase admitted. “Still, we’re not supposed to be here, and…”

But whatever he’d been about to say would have to wait, for the front door flew open and the lady of the house appeared, seated in her wheelchair, and accompanied by a sturdily-built female nurse with an expressionless face.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Mrs. Flake asked.

“You’re hiding something, and I’m here to find out what it is,” said Gran, throwing down the gauntlet.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the old lady who, if she was shocked by this accusation, didn’t show it.

“Oh, I know you tried to take over your son’s company,” said Gran. “And each time he managed to get you off his back. But you wouldn’t give up, would you? And now you finally achieved what you set out to do. You’re in charge now, and you’re going to run it straight into the ground!”

“Who are you?” asked the woman.

“My name is Vesta Muffin and I’m a private dick!” said Gran, planting both feet on the ground and her hands on her hips.

“She’s not a private detective, Leonora,” spoke a voice behind the woman. Chris Cross had arrived on the scene. Oddly enough he was rubbing his head, as if he’d bumped it against something, and of his cat there was no sign.

“I am, too,” Gran insisted.

“No, you’re not. You’re a receptionist at your son-in-law’s doctor’s office and that’s all you are. Even your granddaughter is not a private detective but a reporter, though sometimes she likes to pretend that she’s a PI.”

“At any rate I’m a cop,” said Chase, displaying his badge, “and if you don’t mind, can you please answer Mrs. Muffin’s questions?”

Cross closed his mouth with a click of the teeth, then said,“You don’t have to do this, Leonora. You don’t have to say a word to these people.”

“It’s all right, Chris. I have nothing to hide from this old woman.”

“Look who’s talking, Mother Time,” said Gran.

“The only reason I tried to take over my son’s business was because he managed it in a shoddy way and I wanted to save it from his incompetence.”

“Odd,” said Gran. “It’s been highly profitable for the past thirty years.”

“And how would you know? My son did a very good job at hiding the real numbers from his board of directors and his shareholders. I know the real picture and it wasn’t pretty. I was doing him a favor by taking over. You see, my son was an artist, a genius, but he had no head for business. And that’s where I came in. I ran several companies in my time, and all very successful ones. Together, we would have taken over the world of haute couture.”

“Isn’t it true that you simply wanted to turn back the clock and make Leonidas Flake all about haute couture again, with no pr?t-?-porter collections and no collaborations with the Gap or even Walmart or Costco?” asked Gran.

“Of course I wanted us out of Gap and Costco! Leo was diminishing the value of the brand by selling out. He had to be stopped before the name Leonidas Flake was mud, like so many other formerly great brands.”

“I think what happened was that your son was the genius designer, just like you say, and that he indeed didn’t have the head for business that you have, but he had a partner who had a feel for the market and who gave Leo the love and affection he needed to soar. And the two of them created magic. “

“Gabriel was the one who got the idea to sell out, if that’s what you mean,” said Leonora. “He’s the one who heralded in the downturn of the once-iconic Leonidas Flake name. It was obvious to me and my advisers that he had to go.”

“You got some bad advice, Leonora,” said Gran. “Your son’s business was flourishing, and Gabe was integral to that success. Instead of saving the company you killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. Just you wait and see.”

The corners of the woman’s lips turned down. “Are you accusing me of murder, Mrs. Muffin?”

“I’m accusing you of bad judgment. And of being a bad mother.”

Leonora’s eyes narrowed. “I want you off the premises. All of you.” She turned to Chase. “Unless you have a warrant, Detective Kingsley, I want you gone, and please take this raving lunatic with you.”

“I’ll show you a raving lunatic,” said Gran, and actually leaped at the woman! Just before she could land a punch, though, Chase intercepted her.

“Let’s go, Vesta,” said Chase, leading Gran away with a firm hand.

“She’s responsible for her son’s death!” said Gran. “I know she is!”

“I wasn’t even here when it happened!” the woman shouted. “Ask anyone!”

“She’s right,” said Chase. “She was at the Hampton Cove Star when her son died. Now let’s get out of here before you land us in a big ol’ heap of doo-doo.”

“What is she going to do?” scoffed Gran. “Call the cops?”

“She might, and I’d probably lose my badge. Now unless you have solid evidence linking her to the death of her son, I suggest we retreat and regroup.”

Gran uttered a low growl, but still complied. She shook herself free of Chase’s grasp and set foot for the car. “This isn’t over, Flake!” she shouted, shaking her fist in the direction of the old woman. “Mark my words!”

“Oh, go away, you crazy old bat,” said Leonora, and slammed the door.

Gran got into the car and drove off, kicking up a spray of dust and gravel as she did, and as Odelia and Chase followed her at a more leisurely pace, suddenly Odelia remembered Harriet and Brutus.

“Dang it,” she said.

“What’s wrong?” asked Chase, who was driving this time.

“Harriet and Brutus. We left them at the house.”

“They’ll find their way home,” said Chase.

And so they would, Odelia thought. And hopefully they’d find Max and Dooley and manage to snap them out of their ‘strike.’

Chapter 23

I was racing along, trying to find my way out of the maze that Leonidas had built, still persecuted by the sound of a cat in hot pursuit—I could hear his nails scrabbling as he raced along behind me—when suddenly I reached a dead end and almost slammed into a wall. And then the wall slammed into me, or at least that’s what it felt like when a solid object and I collided.

The solid object soon turned out not to be all that solid. It was a cat, and before I knew what was happening, I was putting up a fight with the furry fiend, knowing that it was Tank who’d taken a shortcut and who’d managed to intercept my progress. I knew I had to watch out for his claw going for my jugular, and it was only when Tank uttered a loud cry of distress that something registered in my brain and gaveme pause.

That cry hadn’t sounded like Tank at all.

It had sounded more like Dooley’s bleats.

So I halted the proceedings and lo and behold: I was actually fighting my best friend and not, as I had supposed, my mortal enemy!

“Dooley!” I cried.

“Max!” he yelped. “I thought you were Tank!”

“I thoughtyou were Tank!”

We fell into each other’s arms and before long were laughing at the strange coincidence of both of us thinking we were engaged in the fight of a lifetime against a formidable foe.

“I dropped down from up there,” he said, indicating the open vent that gaped overhead and then the grate that had buckled under his weight.

“I thought Tank was chasing me. So that was you?”

“And I thought Tank was chasing me!”

How funny it was, if only our situation hadn’t been so dire.

“We still need to get out of here,” I said. “Tank probablyis chasing us.”

“Which way is the exit?” asked Dooley, glancing back nervously for a sign of the murderous Siamese.

We both searched around, and suddenly a growling sound came rumbling out of the darkness. There was no doubt this time that it was Tank, and he did not sound happy.

He suddenly stepped into the light, and his eyes glowed red and menacing, his teeth sharp and deadly. His tail was distended and his back was arched and he looked ready to move in for the kill!

“Frankly I’ve just about had it with this guy,” said Dooley, much to my surprise. And before I could stop him, he was charging in the direction of the fearful cat, screaming at the top of his lungs!

“Dooley, no!” I yelled, and then I was racing after my buddy, ready for any fate.

Tank, instead of putting up a fight, saw the two of us storming towards him, gulped a little, then let out a high squeal, and turned around and ran!

“Huh,” I said as we watched him streak off in the direction he came from.

“I guess he’s not as tough as he looks,” said Dooley, who seemed disappointed that he hadn’t been able to engage the horrible cat.

“That was very brave of you, Dooley,” I said as I placed my paw on his shoulder. “Probably the bravest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Sometimes you just have to stand up for yourself, you know.”

“You’re absolutely right.”

We both turned, intent on locating that elusive exit, when suddenly we found ourselves face to face with the biggest, meanest-looking rat I’d ever seen! It was baring its fangs, saliva dripping from the pointy snappers, and it looked about to move in for the kill!

Without a moment’s hesitation, Dooley and I turned around and fled the scene—running as fast as our legs could carry us! Before long, we’d reached the staircase, scrambled down at top speed, and kept on running, through the living room, streaked through a crack in the sliding door and out into the open. And as we ran, I thought for a moment I heard Gran’s voice. It must have been my imagination, though, for I knew she couldn’t possibly be there.

And as Dooley and I stood panting, he said,“So that’s why Tank turned and ran! He wasn’t afraid of us but of the big, nasty rat!”

“He must have dropped down from that vent—same as you,” I said, trying to catch my breath. I’m one of those cats that’s built for comfort, not speed, you see, and cardiovascular activity always has a deleterious effect on me.

“Did you hear Gran?” he asked.

“I did.”

“We must be hallucinating.”

“It’s because we were imprisoned. Prisoners often start hearing things.”

“Let’s go home,” said Dooley. “Odelia might not be the ideal human we thought she was, but she’s a damn sight better than the people that run this house—or the big, scary rats that infest the ventilation system!”

“I can’t believe you were cooped up in there—with that rat!”

“I know!” he said, his eyes wide as saucers.

We both glanced up to the second-floor window of the room we’d just escaped from, and saw to our elation that Pussy was sitting there, looking down at us. And she was smiling!

She held up her paw in greeting, and Dooley shouted,“We’re coming back for you, Pussy! We won’t leave you there to die!”

Pussy gave us a cheery wave, and then we were off at a trot. Unfortunately we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, still not fully ourselves after our harrowing ordeal, and before long we found ourselves not on the road to Hampton Cove where home and safety lay, but back in the petting zoo.

“We’re back where we started, Max,” said Dooley, who’d come to the same conclusion.

“It sure looks that way. Oh, well. I guess all roads lead to Rome,” I said.

“They do? And how does that work, exactly?”

“It’s just an expression. I don’t think all roads literally lead to Rome.”

“They’d have to cross an entire ocean, which I think is a little tricky.”

And on this note of wisdom, we entered the petting zoo. Any place was better than the Flake house, which had turned out to be a house of horrors.

Chapter 24

Lauren Klepfisch and Zak Kowalski had been staking out the Flake house long enough to know that the place was practically a beehive, with people coming and going at all hours. First a bunch of black SUVs had passed through the gates, probably transporting a US government contingent, or maybe SEAL Team Six, then Odelia Poole had arrived with her cop sidekick, had come and gone, only to return a little while later with her grandmother, before passing out again.

“Something is definitely going on in there,” said Lauren, with her reporter’s nose for a scoop.

“No shit, Sherlock,” said her cameraman. They’d been out there for too long, and Zak was getting a little antsy. He was also hungry for some real food, and not the pizzas they’d had delivered about an hour before.

“I say we move in for a closer look,” Lauren suggested. She tapped her nose. “I have a nose for these things, Zak.”

“Yeah, like you had a nose for barging into the police station this afternoon and getting kicked out?”

“I may have reacted a little hastily that time.”

But she was so sure that they would find a great little scoop there that she’d decided to go for broke and barge into the place. It hadn’t worked out so well, and their exclusive interview with Gabriel Crier or Chief Alec or both had been a bust. And now they were forbidden from ever setting foot inside the police station ever again. And after Chief Alec had called Lauren and Zak’s boss at WLBC-9, he’d chewed her out and told her in no uncertain terms he was unhappy with her behavior. And if she ever pulled a stunt like that again, she was off the story and off the air. And when she told him she had another scoop, and that Odelia Poole could talk to cats and she could prove it, he’d called her a long list of opprobrious names and slammed down the phone.

Looked like the world wasn’t ready to learn Miss Poole’s secret yet…

“Let’s get the inside scoop,” she said. “Something is going on in there and we need to know what it is.”

Zak groaned, but he wasn’t saying no. A scoop would put food on the table, and maybe even propel him to the next level: a fixed contract. Anything was better than the piecemeal stuff he did now—being paid as a freelancer.

“Let’s go for it, Zak,” she said. “And if it doesn’t work out, I’ll tell them it was my fault. I’ll take full responsibility.”

“Like you will take all the credit if we hit the jackpot, huh? No way, Lauren. We share the credit this time. And no buts.”

“Sure. Fine,” she said, glad he was willing to follow her into the lion’s den. She eyed the fence with a keen eye. “So how high do you think that thing is?”

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Leonora Flake was staring out across the grounds that backed the estate. It was dark out, so there wasn’t a lot to see. She didn’t mind. She needed to put all of her ducks in a row. The words of that horrible old woman kept ringing in her ears: you’re going to destroy this company with your stupid ideas.

Could she be onto something? Was the reason Leonidas Flake had been as successful as it was, the wedding of two minds: her son and his boyfriend’s?

She’d always thought the company was going down the drain, and had tried to save it from Leo’s incompetence many times, even if it turned him against her. She’d always justified her actions by arguing she was doing Leo a favor. And now this woman had offered her a completely different view.

She decided to take a little ride through the grounds. It always gave her a fresh perspective to go for an evening stroll, even if stroll wasn’t exactly the word that applied to the wheelchair-bound sojourn she liked to undertake.

She lived in her own villa, not far from her son’s estate, and also had an apartment in Paris, from where she’d launched her campaign to convince the board that she was the better choice to run the company. It hadn’t worked that time, but now it finally had, even if the price was high: the death of her son. It was something that weighed heavily on her mind. She knew she’d miss him, that stubborn mulish man. But she also knew it was all for the best.

At least that’s what she’d always thought. She wasn’t so sure now.

The numbers didn’t lie: Leonidas Flake was in a bad way. But was it in a bad way because of her son’s mismanagement, or because of her actions?

She took off along the little dirt path that wound its way through the rolling parkland that stretched out for half a mile in every direction. She soon arrived at what she considered emblematic of her son’s silliness: the petting zoo. And as she pushed the wheelchair along the path, she found herself listening to the sounds of the animals. They were soothing sounds, and she had to admit that perhaps there was something to be said for the zoo.

Leo had always told her it calmed his frayed nerves after a long day when surrounded by his little flock, and maybe he had a point. She heard the soft snorts of a horse, the quiet braying of a donkey, and the rustling of straw as the hog dug its snout into its trough. She even heard the grunting of rabbits.

Nice, she thought, and felt her mood improving with leaps and bounds. She’d wanted to get rid of the zoo the moment she took over the house and the company, but now she reflected that maybe she would keep it instead. She’d fired the zookeeper that afternoon, along with the rest of Leo’s staff, and had called a local farmer to pick up the animals the next day. Now she might hire a new zookeeper, or rehire the old zookeeper and tell him that she’d made a mistake, and did he want to stay on at half his salary? If he refused, she’d tell him that the animals were all going to the slaughterhouse. He’d quickly agree, as apt as these half-witted animal lovers all were.

Take that stupid cat Pussy, for instance. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could love a cat the way Leo and Gabe had. And a pretty hideous cat the creature was at that. With those horrible claws and that terrible cat smell. At least for now, though, she needed to keep the foul beast around. To parade in front of the world’s media at next week’s press conference, and for the board of directors. But as soon as she didn’t need the stupid little bag of bones, it was off to the vet for a lethal injection. Or maybe she would put the thing down herself, and have Pussy buried somewhere on the grounds right next to those other two cats, Max andDooley. Stupid names for stupid beasts. At least if Chris managed to catch them, which he better had, or else there would be hell to pay. Maybe she’d better ask Helga. Her trusty nurse never messed up.

And she was so lost in thought that she didn’t even notice that she’d taken a wrong turn and had gone off the path. She only perceived something wasn’t right when she was riding downhill, unable to stop her progress. The next moment she was crashing into a ditch. When she dropped out of her chair and splashed into the water, she screamed, but to no avail. She’d told Helga she wanted to be alone, and of course Leo’s security people didn’t care what happened to the new owner, since they were all about to be laid off anyway.

Soon she was sinking, and discovered this was no ditch but a pond. And before long the water closed over her head, and she was drowning!

Chapter 25

We’d been wandering around the petting zoo for a while, absolutely lost, I don’t mind confessing. The problem with being locked up and then escaping by the skin of your teeth is that you’re so pumped up on adrenaline that you don’t know which way is up or down. We were so elated to be out of our temporary prison that we’d simply been trucking along, without really looking which way we were going. And we were still pottering about the zoo when suddenly loud voices greeted us. They sounded awfully familiar.

“No, I’m telling you, Max would never be seen dead in a pigsty,” a female voice said.

“And I’m tellingyouthat Max loves all creatures great and small, so this petting zoo is exactly where we’ll find him and Dooley.”

“Hey, isn’t that Harriet?” asked Dooley.

“And Brutus!”

We made for the voices, and when we emerged from a bush found ourselves gazing at a wondrous scene: Harriet and Brutus, sitting next to a very sizable pig!

The pig was munching on something located in a trough, while Harriet and Brutus were arguing back and forth about the strategy they needed to employ to find me and Dooley.

“You guys!” I cried as we burst onto the peculiar scene. “You found us!”

“Max! Dooley!” yelled Harriet, and streaked forward and actually pushed her wet nose into my neck, overjoyed to see me. Displaying affection has never been Harriet’s strong suit and it surprised me to see so much of it now.

“Hey, Dooley, old buddy,” said Brutus with a grin.

“How did you find us?” asked Dooley.

“Well, you found us,” said Brutus, making a good point, “so you tell me.”

“Can you guys take this meeting elsewhere?” suddenly spoke the pig in a deep rumbling voice. “You’re interrupting a perfectly good meal.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr. Pig,” said Dooley. “I apologize for the intrusion.”

“Yeah, it’s okay,” said the pig. “Just don’t do it again, will you?”

“Of course,” I said.

We moved away from the pigpen and soon found ourselves wandering near a small duck pond.“So what happened?” asked Harriet.

“Oh, we’ve been hanging out all day in a chicken coop,” said Dooley.

“See?!” said Brutus, giving Harriet a light shove. “What did I tell you?”

“The chicken had fled the scene, you see. Her name was Samson,” Dooley continued the narrative. “But then we got tired of eating chicken feed, and so we went in search of something tastier and that’s when we met Pussy.”

In a few words, Dooley and I told the tale of meeting Pussy, attending the conference from the confines of Leo’s secret control room, and being locked up and threatened with death by lethal claw by Leonora Flake, Chris Cross and the very scary Tank. Harriet and Brutus were hanging on our every word.

“So they were going to kill you?” asked Harriet. “Actually kill you dead?”

“Yeah, and bury us in a very deep grave,” said Dooley.

“Gruesome,” said Brutus, duly impressed by our harrowing adventure.

“These are not very nice people,” said Dooley. “And Leo’s mother is the worst of the bunch.”

“Is she behind the whole thing?” asked Brutus.

“You mean did she kill her son?” I said. “That wouldn’t surprise me.”

“If she can kill a cat, she can kill a human,” said Dooley with iron logic.

“She’s mean,” I agreed. “Capable of just about anything.”

Just then, we heard screams and shouts coming from the other side of the pond, and to my surprise it was the same woman we’d been verbally filleting, and who seemed to have landed herself in hot water herself now. Though I should probably say cold water, for as a rule duck ponds are not hot tubs.

“It’s Mrs. Flake,” I said as we hurried over to where the screams seemed to be coming from. And just as we reached the spot, the woman was going under for the third time, and the only thing that remained were bubbles reaching the surface. Then all was quiet as the watery grave closed above her head…

“We have to save her!” said Harriet.

“Yeah, but how?” I said. Cats, to their detriment, are not equipped with the type of accessories that allow for a waterlogged existence: webbed toes and gills and such. Even if we braved all and jumped into the water, what good would it do? We’d probably perish ourselves, and end up at the bottom.

Then Dooley suddenly started yelling his head off.“Heeeeelp!” he screamed. “Heeeeeeelp us!”

I felt bad for the kid. Obviously the day’s many brushes with danger and peril had gotten to him, and now he’d lost what little sanity he had left.

Soon, though, a cow waddled up to take a closer look.

“What’s going on?” she asked in her customary amiable way.

“Somebody’s drowning!” Dooley said. “You have to help her!”

“Ooh, that’s a job for Francis,” she said, then displaced a wad of grass from one cheek to the other and hollered, “Francis! We’ve got a jumper!”

Francis the donkey came toddling up, and directed a curious look at the pond.“No can do,” he said after a moment’s deliberation. “Too deep for me, I’m afraid. But maybe Streaker can handle it. Streaker! Come here a minute, will ya?”

Streaker the horse came cantering up.“Yes? Yes?” she said, eager for any fate. It was obvious that here was a horse dying to get some serious action.

“Jumper,” said Francis, indicating the pond with his hoof.

“Ooh, wee!” said Streaker happily, and jumped headfirst into the pond!

Moments later she returned grabbing the old lady between her large teeth, then proceeded to drag her onto the shore!

“Way to go, Streaker,” said Brutus with admiration.

“Now we need to do CPR,” said Dooley, happy that his plan was working but still not fully satisfied with the outcome.

“CPR?” asked Streaker eagerly. “What is CPR? Can I do it? Please?”

“Thump her chest and then put your lips on hers,” said Brutus, “and blow.”

“Thump, lips and blow,” said Streaker excitedly. “I can do it.”

“Let me handle this, fellas,” said the pig, who’d joined the festivities. “I have the build for this kind of thing.” And so she heaved herself down on the woman’s chest for a moment, then put her lips to Leonora’s and blew hard.

“Nothing doing,” she said after a moment. “Looks dead to me.”

“Well, don’t you just stand there!” Francis told two sheep who’d come shambling up. “You perform heart massage while Empress does her thing.”

The pig, whose name appeared to be Empress, gave a curt nod of agreement, and soon the sheep showed a side of themselves I’d rarely seen in the Discovery Channel’s nature movies: they gently put their front hooves on the woman’s chest and started performing heart massage while Empress kept blowing into the woman’s mouth.

“Let me do it!” said Streaker. “I can do it! Let me do it!”

“Shush,” said Francis, who seemed to be the donkey in charge. “Empress is a natural. She’ll pull this off—just you wait and see.”

And then, suddenly, a miracle! The corpse came to life again with a start: first she spewed out a stream of mucky pond scum, and then she actually started sputtering and coughing. The ducks, who’d been awakened by all this activity, waddled up onto the shore, took one look at the drowning victim, then waddled off again. They obviously had no sympathy for landlubbers.

“Yesss!” said Francis. “We did it, you guys. She’s saved!”

“How are you doing, ma’am?” inquired Empress politely. “Anything else I can help you with? I have some nice slop in my trough you’re welcome to.”

Mrs. Flake stared at the pig with a horrified expression on her face. Unfortunately the pig mistook the look she gave her for a cry for help, and so put her lips to Mrs. Flake’s again, and blew some more hot air into her lungs.

“Blech!” the woman uttered curtly, and frantically wiped her lips. And then she threw up some more pond scum, showing us how alive she really was.

“A success story, you guys,” said the cow happily.

“A miracle,” said one of the sheep, and bleated its delight.

“Teamwork!” said Francis the donkey.

“Is there anyone else in the water?” asked Streaker. “A man? A girl? A boy? I can get them for you! I can do it—I swear! I can do it!”

“You saved me?” Mrs. Flake asked, glancing around at the nativity scene.

“Yup, we sure did,” said a goat, who’d only now joined the gang.

Two rabbits came hopping up.“What’s going on? Did we miss the party?”

“If you like I’ll jump in and save you all over again!” Streaker cried excitedly.

“It’s all right, Streaker,” said Francis. “You did good.”

“I know I did—and I can do it again in a flash!”

Mrs. Flake now stared at the four of us, seated in a neat row: Dooley, yours truly, Harriet and Brutus.

“You saved me?” she asked again. “After everything I did to you?”

“Oh, well,” I said. “We don’t like to hold a grudge.”

“Yeah, we’re all human, after all,” said Dooley.

“Forgive and forget and all that,” added Brutus.

And then, to my surprise, Leo’s mother actually burst into tears!

“She’s probably just realized she lost her wheelchair,” said Dooley.

“A wheelchair?” asked Streaker. “Where is it? Where! Tell me!”

“Still in the pond,” I said. “Must have sunk to the bottom by now.”

“Hop in, Streak. Fetch,” said Francis with an indulgent smile.

“I’m on it!” Streaker cried, and jumped into the pond. Moments later she came out with the wheelchair clasped between her teeth. “Here you go, ma’am!” she said as she deposited the contraption next to the old lady.

The wheelchair was covered in muck and looked a little worse for wear.

“Some love from the high-pressure hose and it’s as good as new,” said Francis, who’d noticed the same.

“Oh, I’m such a horrible person,” said Mrs. Flake, shaking her head mournfully. “I killed my own son!”

“You did?” I said, surprised at this impromptu confession.

“He was doing such a lousy job with the company and I had a feeling he was dragging us all down and if I didn’t get rid of him I’d go down with the ship. I own thirty percent of the company, and my shares were going to be worthless if Leo kept this up—or at least that’s what my advisors told me.”

“Killing your own son, huh? That wasn’t very nice of you,” grunted Francis.

“Can she understand what we’re saying?” asked Harriet.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “But I guess she feels like confessing.”

“She almost died,” said Francis. “It’s a pivotal moment for her.”

“I didn’t kill him myself, of course,” Leonora said now. “I told my nurse to do it for me. I could never have held the knife that took my son’s life. Besides, I was persona non grata at the chateau. But Helga wasn’t. She simply swapped shifts with one of Leo’s nurses and gave Gabe a sedative. She then planted the knife in his hands and made sure he was at the scene just as the maid walked in. The whole thing was arranged like clockwork. Helga is German, you see,” she said, as if this explained everything. “She’s been with me for so long she’s like a daughter to me. She’d do everything for me. So when I told her I needed to get rid of my boy, she immediately understood and arranged the whole thing with impeccable precision and efficiency.”

“So she was the one who plunged the knife into your son’s chest?” I asked.

“It was a little hard to juggle all the different elements, of course,” Mrs. Flake went on. “But I knew for a fact that my son is a stickler for punctuality, and liked his maid to wake him up every morning at seven o’clock on the dot. So all Helga had to do was make sure that Gabe was standing there, knife in hand, at seven o’clock sharp, and the deal was done. It wasn’t hard. The hard part, she later told me, was to drive that knife into his heart. She hit bone, you see, and since she only had a very short window of time, she got a little nervous at some point. Especially since my son woke up at that moment and started to scream. She managed in the end, though. It all worked out fine.”

“Define fine,” mumbled Brutus.

“We should probably call the police,” said Dooley.

“Take out your phone, Dooley,” said Harriet. “I forgot mine at the house.”

Dooley actually reached around, before realizing Harriet was playing a little joke on him.“Oh, ha ha,” he said. “You don’t have a phone, do you?”

“No, I don’t. And neither do you.”

“Oh, no,” said Leonora, burying her face in her hands. “What have I done?”

All the animals were quiet as they listened to the woman unburdening her soul. It wasn’t a pleasant tale to hear, and I’m sorry to say I didn’t feel a lot of compassion for Mrs. Flake. The only thing I was sorry about was that we didn’t have anyone to witness her confession, for as you may or may not know, the word of a cat, or a cow, a pig, a horse, a donkey or even a sheep, goat or rabbit, for that matter, doesn’t carry a lot of weight in a court of law.

And for a moment I feared that this whole exercise was in vain, when suddenly two people popped up from a nearby bush, one of them holding a camera, the other a microphone, and abruptly descended on the scene.

“Are you sorry now, Mrs. Flake, that you gave the order to murder your son?” asked the woman, whose eyes were glittering with excitement.

Leo’s mom stared at the woman, then at the camera, then broke down into a flood of tears again.

Yep. The jig was up.

Chapter 26

A week had passed since the stirring events at Chateau Leonidas and we’d all had a little time to reflect on the incidents that had transpired at the house of that celebrated and now mourned couturier. We were in Marge and Tex’s backyard, where Tex was working away at the grill, preparing us one of his excellent meals. I must say that in all the years I’ve beenwith the Pooles, I’d never seen him more excited. Marge had recently bought him a new grill, some state-of-the-art contraption, ostensibly for his birthday, but we all knew her secret hope was that it would magically turn him into a better grill master.

Unfortunately there were still a few kinks to work out, and the upshot was that the patties Tex threw on the grill, or the steaks and ribs, for that matter, were instantly turned to ash and not the culinary feast Marge had anticipated when she forked over the money for the Webber Master-Touch 2010102b.

Good thing Uncle Alec had the presence of mind to call his buddy Bud Bouchard over in the neighboring town of Happy Bays, and have that stalwart butcher whip up a nice spread. If Tex was embarrassed by this fiasco, he didn’t show it. And it was my impression he had every intention to keep grilling away at his new cool toy until there was no more meat left in the world.

Alec was seated at the table, along with Marge, Tex, Odelia, Chase and Gran, while the cat population was relegated to the kids’ table, or in our case, the porch, where we occupied the swing. One extra plate had been set out—or rather a bowl—for Pussy, who was our guest of honor. And at the table for the grownups a human guest was seated: it was none other than Gabriel Crier, who’d been invited by Uncle Alec and Chase, to make up for the gross miscarriage of justice which had almost taken place under their auspices.

“Amazing flavor,” said Pussy as she dug her teeth into a nugget of meat.

“Tastes a damn sight better than Tex’s ash flavor,” Brutus chimed in.

“It’s the gesture that counts,” said Dooley.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Tex has his heart in the right place, even though he’s not exactly the world’s best grill master.”

Odelia came over to check on us, and when she saw we were all tucking in with relish, crouched down next to me, and whispered,“Can you ever forgive me, buddy?”

“Oh, but I forgave you a long time ago, Odelia,” I said, and I meant it. Moments after those reporters had come springing from the bushes, the sound of a police siren had told us they hadn’t merely filmed Leonora’s confession but had also done the right thing by calling in the cavalry.

Soon cops were crawling all over the petting zoo, accompanied by Odelia and Chase and Gran, who’d scooped us up into their arms and had hugged us and kissed us and held us as if they’d missed us for days and days. And when Dooley and I had told them our adventures, Odelia had actually cried. Her distress was short-lived, though, when Pussy joined us, and had related the tale of our heroic escape attempt and how Dooley had been the hero of the hour. And when I related how Dooley had actually saved Mrs. Flake’s life by calling for help, Odelia had hugged him so close his ribs had actually creaked.

“I’m sorry I neglected you guys,” she said now, for the hundredth time. “It was never my intention. It’s just that between work and Chase and things I kinda got distracted.”

“You have to keep your eye on the ball,” said Pussy. “That’s what Leo taught me. Never take your eye off the ball or the whole thing might fall apart.”

“Words to live by,” Dooley said, putting a piece of sausage into his mouth.

“He also told me never to eat sausage because you never know what they put into those things and the skin is made from the bowels of a dead pig.”

Dooley spat out the piece of sausage.

Pussy laughed.“Just kidding!” she said, then grew serious. “Or am I?”

“Fun times,” said Brutus with a grin.

“I’m going to make up for my sins by taking you all out next weekend,” said Odelia now.

“Out? Where?” I asked.

“To Banner’s Farm,” she said with a smile.

We all yipped. Gabe had put Chateau Leonidas up for sale. He didn’t want to keep on living there since it reminded him too much of the happy times with his partner. The animals who’d inhabited the small zoo had been transferred to Banner’s Farm, where visitors could interact with them, and where kids could attend workshops and even help feed the animals.

“Am I also invited?” asked Pussy timidly.

“Of course,” said Odelia. “It wouldn’t be the same without you, Pussy.”

Gabe was now officially Pussy’s guardian, and together they actually ran the company, with a little help from Odelia, who was able via Skype to relay Pussy’s input to Gabe.

Chris had been relegated to jail, with Tank now spending his days in the care of Chris’s mom, who was a strict disciplinarian, and wasn’t taking any nonsense from the nasty little brute. Leonora was also in jail awaiting trial. Her confession had been headline news, and even though she kept screaming fake news, and claiming the whole thing had been created with Photoshop, there wasn’t a person who believed her. Especially since Helga had decided to come clean and confess what she’d done. It ended a particularly sordid history in the annals of Hampton Cove, one we were all glad to leave behind us.

Odelia straightened and joined the humans at their table.

“I still think we should set up a detective agency,” Gran was saying.

“You mean you and me?” said Odelia.

“Of course you and me, and Max, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus. Whatever that guy Chris Cross was doing we can do, too. Only much, much better.”

“It’s an idea,” said Chase carefully.

“I like it,” said Tex. “The Pet Detective Agency. PDA.”

They all laughed at that, except Tex, who didn’t get the joke.

“It’s going to attract a lot of attention,” said Marge. “And potentially a lot of negative publicity.”

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s a good idea, Gran,” said Odelia. “We’ll get a ton of crackpots who are drawn in by the publicity. I think we should continue the way we have, out of the limelight, and keeping things as discreet as we can.”

“I guess so,” said Gran grudgingly.

“You don’t want to subject your cats to that kind of scrutiny,” Uncle Alec said. “It will bring in kidnappers and all kinds of weirdos and nutcases who might try to grab the cats and hang them on their walls as trophies.”

I shivered at the word picture Uncle Alec had painted. Not a pretty one.

“What are trophies, Max?” asked Dooley.

“The heads of animals that hunters like to collect so they can show off to their friends how good they are at murdering animals.”

Now Dooley shivered, too.“How terrible!”

How terrible, indeed.

“You know, I can’t thank you guys enough,” said Gabe. “If not for you, I’d still be in prison and the company would have probably been run into the ground by Leonora.”

“Yeah, she was misguided when she thought she would do a better job than you and Leo,” said Odelia.

“Sadly she was misinformed,” said Gabe. “Apparently some of the shareholders had been feeding her the wrong kind of information for years, and she truly believed that Leo and I were destroying the company, and the only way to save it was to get rid of Leo and myself.”

“Sad story,” said Marge as she ladled a large helping of potato salad onto the former hair stylist’s plate.

“Yeah, if only I’d known what she was up to,” said Gabe. “I might have been able to stop her.”

“You can’t think that way, Gabe,” said Marge.

“Marge is right,” said Tex. “Thinking like that will drive you nuts.”

Alec clapped the other man on the back, almost making him choke on a piece of potato salad.“I knew you didn’t do it, buddy. Call it a cop’s hunch.”

“You seemed pretty convinced, Alec,” said Chase.

“Oh, in my heart of hearts I knew all along Gabe wasn’t our guy.”

“Good to know!” said Gabe laconically, eliciting a grin from Chase and a frown from Alec.

“So this is the second time our lack of swimming skills has hampered us,” I said.

“Wasn’t Odelia going to teach us how to swim?” asked Brutus.

“She was, but I’m not exactly looking forward to it,” said Harriet. “Imagine this fur, wet. It’s going to be a tragedy.”

“It’s not a joke,” said Pussy when Dooley laughed. “If I get wet my fur soaks up water like a sponge and I turn into a balloon. Drags me right down.”

“Only short-haired cats should swim,” said Brutus. “Like you and me, Dooley.”

“I’m not sure,” said Dooley, not all that keen on becoming a swimmer.

“By the way,” I said, “when are we going to be able to congratulate you two?”

Harriet frowned.“What are you talking about?”

“The kittens,” said Dooley, catching my drift. “You were going to adopt.”

Harriet and Brutus shared a quick look, then Harriet shook her head.“We’ve thought about it and we’ve decided to wait.”

“Wait?” asked Dooley. “Wait for what?”

“For later, all right? And now can you please shut up about kittens already?!”

Dooley shut up. I could have told him that Harriet was the kind of cat who, once she got an idea into her head, could drive everyone crazy harping on about it, but just as soon forgot all about it when a new idea entered her head. I had the impression she’d forgotten about those kittens the moment she’d mentioned them, and didn’t enjoy being reminded of her impetuousness.

“I like kittens,” said Pussy dreamily.

“Hey, I like kittens!” said Dooley.

“What a coincidence!” Pussy cried.

“I like kibble,” said Dooley.

“Me, too!”

The two stared at each other for a moment, then Pussy giggled, and so did Dooley, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he actually blushed beneath his fur.

Oh, dear. This could only mean one thing. Dooley was in love.

“Let’s give these two lovebirds some space, Max,” said Brutus with all the delicacy and diplomacy of an elephant stomping on someone’s toes.

But he was probably right. Still, it was with some reluctance that I followed Harriet and Brutus and left Dooley and Pussy to explore what else they had in common, aside from their self-professed love of kittens and kibble.

And as I walked away I could see the love light shining brightly in Dooley’s eyes.

“Let’s slip next door, snuggle bunny,” said Harriet, on whom young love always had an aphrodisiacal effect.

“Great idea, angel face,” grunted Brutus.

And before I knew what was happening, I suddenly found myself all by myself. And as I wandered into the fallow piece of land lining Odelia’s backyard, I was feeling slightly dejected. If my best friend was going to hook up with the richest cat in the world, what was going to happen to me? And as I aimlessly drifted here and there, I suddenly noticed a pair of cat’s eyes following my every movement. When I looked over, I saw they belonged to a cat I knew very well indeed.

“Hey, Clarice,” I said. “How are things?”

“Things could literally not be better,” she said.

Clarice is a feral cat who likes to live wild and free. She roams the fields and forests surrounding Hampton Cove, and is the best dumpster diver I know. She’s also something of an acquired taste. And she has a standing invitation, extended by Odelia, to consider our house her home.

“Care for a piece of succulent meat?” I asked.

“Is Tex manning the grill?”

“No. They hired a caterer.”

“Then I don’t mind if I do,” she said, and followed me into the backyard.

She watched as Dooley and Pussy got cozy, and clicked her tongue.“Young love,” she said. “It disgusts me.”

I laughed.“Most people wouldn’t agree with that particular view.”

“That’s because most people are idiots.”

“Well, if not for young love no babies would be born, or kittens.”

“And would that be such a bad thing?”

What did I tell you? Acquired taste.

We moved over to Odelia’s side and when Odelia saw Clarice she smiled and petted her. Odelia is the only one who is allowed to do that, and Clarice actually purred with delight!

Odelia then handed down a piece of burger and Clarice gobbled it up.“Keep em coming,” she snarled, and Odelia did just that.

Clarice then jumped up on Odelia’s lap, and the feast continued unabated.

And as I watched on, Clarice being fed and petted by Odelia, Dooley and Pussy gabbing away on the swing, my humans prattling gaily in the backyard, and Brutus and Harriet ducking in and out of the shrubbery, my heart warmed. Who was I kidding? Even if Dooley hooked up with Pussy, which I kinda doubted he would, I wasn’t losing a friend but gaining another friend.

“I kinda like this human of yours, Max,” Clarice grunted. “If you’re tired with her, I just might adopt her for my own.”

“No way,” I said. “Odelia is mine.”

“Hah,” said Clarice with a sly grin. “I knew you’d say that.”

“Max!” Dooley shouted. “Pussy likes naps, and I like naps, too! How about that!”

“God,” said Clarice, shaking her head. “This is torture.”

“And I hate getting wet and Dooley hates getting wet, too!” Pussy said.

“And guess what? There’s something else we have in common!” Dooley said.

“Yeah, we both like you, Max!” Pussy said.

“We love you, buddy!” said Dooley.

I held up my paw. Somehow I’d suddenly lost my voice.

I swiped at my eyes. Tears, you ask? Nah. Just a speck of dust. In both eyes.

15. PURRFECT TRAP

Prologue

Heavy rain lashed the windows of the homes that lined the road. A storm had blown in overnight and the wind had picked up speed. Lightning slashed the sky and the night was black as ink. Elon Pope, as he pushed down on the pedals of his bicycle, cursed his decision to take his bike and not the Lambo. He could have been home by now, warm and dry, heating himself by the family fireplace. But no, he had to play the hero again.

When his sister Marcie had accused him of being a climate denier and a grade-A polluter, he’d pointed out to her that he wasn’t merely the proud owner of a Maserati and a Lamborghini but also of a good old-fashioned bike, so when she’d challenged him to hit the pubs on his bike and leave his supercars at home, he’d foolishly taken her on.

And now here he was, riding along this deserted stretch of road in the middle of the night, while Hampton Covians were all safely tucked into their beds, pedaling away like a madman. His nice Moreschi shoes were ruined, his black Armani jeans spattered and caked with mud and muck, and his favorite Ralph Lauren polo shirt completely soaked.

His hair was plastered to his skull and he had trouble seeing which way he was going from the rain lashing his face and running into his eyes. Oh, damn you, Marcie.

Soon he’d left Hampton Cove behind, and was traveling along one of the smaller roads out of town. No posh residences here, though—only a bunch of old houses and rundown farms. One of those old houses was his family home, and the knowledge that he was close made him push down on those pedals with renewed fervor. One more mile.

And he’d just reached a fork in the road, and taken a left turn, when suddenly lightning flashed once again, only this time hitting much closer. It actually struck a willow tree close by and the sparks made Elon utter an inadvertent yelp of fear.

Yikes. This horrible storm was not only inconvenient but also seriously dangerous! Hadn’t he once read about a man being struck by lightning in just such a storm? And what had the advice been? To hide under a tree? Or not to hide under a tree? He couldn’t remember. One thing he shouldn’t do was stand still in the middle of the street. Or ride an iron bicycle on the open road…He looked around for a moment, wondering whether to go on or to take cover for a moment. Maybe let the worst of the storm blow over.

He wiped the rain from his eyes and glanced over to the old Buschmann house, just beyond the bend. Rumor had it that the place was haunted by the ghost of old Royce Buschmann. Nonsense, of course. Old man Buschmann had simply died and the house had fallen into disrepair, its owner having had no children or siblings to inherit the place.

Lightning struck once more, eerily illuminating the old structure. He shivered, and not just from being soaked through and through. It was almost as if the house had a soul. As if an evil entity possessed it. Even as a child he’d never been able to pass the house without a shiver, and to this day he preferred to take the other road into town, and avoid this part of the neighborhood.

He didn’t look away, though. For some reason he couldn’t, his gaze inexorably drawn to that hideous facade, those dormer windows like eyes, that gaping mouth for a door.

He suddenly realized that he’d stopped, and instead of bicycling away from the house as fast as his chilled legs could carry him, he was actually getting off his bike and approaching the house, as if some dark and mysterious force compelled him.

Thunder made the earth quake, and he snapped out of his strange reverie.

He’d simply had one too many to drink, and wasn’t thinking straight right now.

And that’s when he saw it: a pale face was staring right back at him from inside the house! A horrible face with eyes black as coal. It was old man Buschmann himself!

But before he could drag his eyes away from the hideous sight, something exploded across his skull. A sudden pain bloomed at the back of his head. And he knew no more.

Chapter 1

“Well, you can’t have it.”

“Yes, I can!”

“Over my dead body!”

“That can be arranged!”

I sat watching the spectacle like a spectator at the US Open.

“Who are you rooting for, Max?” asked Dooley, who was sitting next to me and enjoying the same show.

“I’m not sure,” I confessed. “Normally I’d root for Tex, as he often seems to be the voice of reason in this crazy family, but I feel that Gran has a point, too.”

“I agree,” said Dooley, which wasn’t a big surprise. After all, Grandma Muffin is his human, and if only out of a sense of self-preservation cats often take the side of the humans that feed them. Hypocritical, I know, but there you go.

“I need one of those newfangled smartphones and if you won’t buy me one I’m moving out!”

“Fine!” said Tex. “Move out if you want. See if I care!”

The two opponents stood at daggers drawn, both with their arms crossed in front of their chests, and their noses practically touching.

“I need that phone!” Gran tried again, clearly not as keen on moving out as her threat had promised.

“No, you don’t. You have a perfectly functioning smartphone and that’ll have to do!”

We were in Marge and Tex’s kitchen, where all good fights between Tex and his mother-in-law usually take place.

“My phone is old—I need a new one.”

“It’s not old—it’s practically brand-new!”

“It’s five years old! It’s an antique!”

“My phone is five years old, and you don’t hear me complaining.”

“That’s because you’re an antique yourself.”

“Sticks and stones, ma. Sticks and stones.”

“You probably got my phone at a frickin’ yard sale!”

In actual fact Tex had bought Gran’s phone on eBay, but he wasn’t going to let an insignificant little detail like that derail a perfectly good fight.

“It’s as good as new, and it’ll have to do.”

“It’s an iPhone five! They’re already up to ten or eleven!”

“So? If every time Apple comes out with a new iPhone I have to buy you one, I’d be broke!”

He had a point, and Dooley murmured his agreement, as did I. At the rate these smartphone manufacturers kept putting out new models you could spend a fortune, especially as they kept getting more and more expensive. The latest ones cost well over a thousand bucks. A thousand dollars for a silly little gadget! Nuts. It just goes to show that there’s no limit to the avarice of your latter-day capitalist when he hits on a guileless public willing to part with its hard-earned cash. Or, in this case, Tex’s hard-earned cash.

“Ma, you don’t need a new phone,” said Marge, also entering the argument, albeit reluctantly, as nothing good ever came from getting into a fight with her mother.

Grandma Muffin may look like a sweet old granny, with her little white curls and her angelic pink face, but underneath all that loveliness lurks a tough old baby.

“It folds!” Gran now yelled.

Both Tex and Marge stared at her.“It does what now?” asked Tex.

“The new phones! They fold right down the middle. And I want one.”

Tex rolled his eyes, and so did Marge. A collective eye roll. Not good.

“You don’t need a foldable smartphone, ma,” said Marge.

“Yeah, those things are fragile,” said Tex. “Plus they cost a fortune.”

“I need the bigger screen, so I can watch my shows on my phone.”

Gran is an avid consumer of soap operas. I think she watches all of them, if she has the chance. And the ones she can’t watch, on account of the fact that she works at Tex’s doctor’s office as a receptionist, she records on her DVR and watches later in the day.

“You can watch your shows on the TV like a normal person,” said Tex.

“I want to watch them live at the office. It’s different when you watch them live.”

“Someone should tell Gran that none of those shows are live,” I said.

Instead, Marge wagged her finger at her mother.“You shouldn’t watch shows when you’re working, ma.”

“Well, I want to, and I will,” Gran said stubbornly. “There’s never much to do at the office in the afternoon. Besides, Tex’s patients bore me, with all their yapping about their irritable bowel syndrome and their hemorrhoids. Who cares about some old idiot’s bowels! I don’t need thatcrap in my life. I want my shows and I want to watch them live.”

“She’s right,” said Dooley. “She always misses her favorite shows these days.”

“All working people miss their favorite shows,” I pointed out. “That’s what DVRs are for. Besides, she can watch them online. Most networks put shows online these days.”

Frankly the whole argument was starting to get a little tedious, not to mention repetitive, so I decided to leave them to it, and move into the living room, where a couch was waiting that had my name on it. Well, not literally, of course. But it is very comfy.

Dooley felt the same way, for he followed me out, the voices of three adults yelling at each other over a foldable smartphone following us into the living room. We hopped up onto the couch, turned around a couple of times to find ourselves the perfect spot, and finally lay down, neatly folding our tails around our faces, and promptly dozed off.

You’re probably wondering why I wasn’t over at Odelia’s, enjoying my perfectly good nap on my own perfectly good couch. Well, I will tell you why. Odelia and Chase are redecorating, and the house is a total mess right now. Not only that, but there’s a weirdly annoying smell of wallpaper glue and paint that pervades the entire house, and it fills me with such a sense of nausea I have trouble finding sleep. So for the time being Dooley and I have both decided to seek refuge at Tex and Marge’s. Fights are never pleasant, unless you love their entertainment value, like we do, but the stench of paint fumes is actually a lot worse, and even deleterious for one’s general health and wellbeing.

And I’d just dozed off and had started dreaming about the birds and bees—real birds and bees, mind you—when a loud booming voice practically had me tumbling down from my high perch. I was up and poised in a fight-or-flight position, ready for any contingency, when I saw that the booming voice didn’t actually belong to a human presence in the room, but to some loudmouth on the television, which Gran had just switched on and was watching intently, the volume cranked up to maximum capacity.

“Gran! Turn that down!” Tex bellowed from the kitchen.

But Gran decided to play deaf, and sat watching the TV with a mulish expression on her face. Obviously foldable smartphone negotiations hadn’t reached a breakthrough.

“Max?” said Dooley.

“Uh-huh?” I said, my heart rate slowly climbing down from its Himalayan heights.

“Isn’t that the guy?”

“What guy?” I said, wishing not for the first time that cats were able to put their fingers in their ears, the way humans can.

“The guy on the TV.”

I redirected my attention to the television for the first time. Apart from the noise, I hadn’t really paid any attention to the particular spectacle that was unfolding there.

The evening news was on, and newscaster Lauren Klepfisch, a lady we’d met in a recent adventure, was announcing that a person had gone missing, and asking the public to keep an eye out for him. I have to admit I didn’t recognize the youth in question. He was liberally pimpled and had a big zit on the tip of his nose. Not the picture of beauty.

“I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure…” I began.

“The lottery guy,” said Dooley. “The kid who won the lottery.”

I stared at the picture of the youth some more. According to the report his name was Elon Pope, and apart from the pimples he was also red-bearded and a little portly. In fact he looked like a younger, chunkier Ed Sheeran. He was grimacing awkwardly into the camera, a hunted expression in his eyes. It was one of those pictures paparazzi like to snap of unsuspecting celebrities. Paparazzi just love to make celebrities look like fools, and they must have had a field day with Elon Pope. His entire expression screamed deer in the headlights, and I wondered if they’d caught him exiting some local den of inequity or other house of disrepute. And then I recognized him. “Hey, isn’t that…”

“One of the youngest kids ever to win the lottery,” said Gran, who was following the story with rapt attention, her anger at being denied Tim Cook’s latest toy a distant memory.

“That’s right,” I said. “How much did he win again?”

“Three hundred million and change,” said Gran with a wistful look on her face. “You can buy a lot of foldable smartphones with three hundred million and change,” she added, indicating Tim Cook’s toy shop was still very much at the forefront of her mind.

According to the report Elon had vanished without a trace. He’d last been seen exiting the Caf? Baron, the hipster bar on Downey Street, but never made it home.

“Maybe he decided to disappear,” Dooley suggested.

“Could be,” Gran agreed.

Dooley might be on to something. The kid hadn’t expected to win the big pot and had been struggling in the aftermath of his big win. At twenty-one, he’d immediately walked out of his job at the 7-Eleven where he’d made a career as a shelf stacker, and never looked back. But then stories had started to surface about the fancy house he bought, and the fleet of fancy cars he acquired, and the models he’d been dating, and the wild and crazy parties he’d been throwing, where a bunch of strangers he’d never met before but who’d suddenly become his best friends forever had enjoyed his lavish hospitality.

“He probably decided enough was enough,” said Gran. “Or else he ran out of money already, and decided to move to Mexico and start a new life as a shelf stacker over there.”

She then resolutely switched the channel toJeopardy, and for the next half hour intently followed the exciting exploits of Alex Trebek as he guided us through another series of tough questions to guess. To Gran’s credit, she guessed every last one of them.

But Dooley and I had had enough. Gran’s habit of turning the volume up to the max was impeding with our natural predilection for peace and quiet, so we decided to leg it.

We hopped down from the couch and moved upstairs to Gran’s room, which was devoid of both noise and humans, curled up at the foot of her bed and were soon fast asleep once more.

Ah, blisssss…

It wasn’t long, though, before the world decided to intrude upon our slumber. This time not in the form of Lauren Klepfisch or Alex Trebek, but our fellow cats Harriet and Brutus.

“What are you guys doing in here?” asked Harriet, who looked annoyed by our presence, even though technically she was the one who was intruding.

“We’re trying to get some quality Z’s,” I said pointedly. “What are you doing here?”

“Haven’t you heard?” said Brutus. “Odelia has decided to take us all to Vena’s again, so we figured we’d hide in the last place she would look.”

I gulped, and so did Dooley. Vena Aleman is Hampton Cove’s number-one veterinarian, and Odelia always finds some excuse to take us there and have us turned inside out by Vena’s gloved hands. More often than not discomfort and pain is involved, not to mention needles and all manner of torture gear. Suffice it to say we don’t like Vena, and we don’t like this habit of Odelia of dragging us there, even when we’re not sick.

“Oh, my God,” I said, raising my paws. “Why can’t she just leave us alone?!”

“Right?” said Harriet. “All of us are the picture of health, but still she insists on having us checked out over and over and over again. And Vena never finds a thing!”

“Exactly!” I cried, indignation making me sound squeaky. Like a squirrel.

“You have been having trouble chewing lately, though, Max,” said Dooley.

“No, I haven’t,” I said quickly.

“Yeah, you have,” said Brutus. “You told me so yourself.”

“Yeah, and you keep favoring your left side, because of the pain on the right,” said Harriet.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I said, my paws breaking out into a sweat. “It will pass.”

I should never have told Dooley, or Harriet, or Brutus! Of course they would go blabbing to Odelia and now she was taking me to Vena’s and I was for it! For it!

“You should have that tooth checked out, Max,” Dooley said now. “It’s not good for you to keep walking around with a bad tooth.”

“You guys, I keep telling you, I don’t have a bad tooth! It’s all good, I’m fine!” They gave me a look of pity that almost hurt as much as my tooth was hurting. “I swear!” I said. “It doesn’t hurt. Look!” I chewed down on the comforter. “Do you think I would do this if my tooth hurt? Huh?”

“It’s very soft, this comforter,” said Harriet skeptically. “Try biting down on this.”

She pointed to Gran’s wooden footboard. I flinched, then decided to accept the challenge, and bit down on the board, which was about half an inch of laminated chipboard. Immediately I regretted my initiative, as a sharp pain shot through my jaw, then blossomed into my head like a full-blown headache. Ouch! I let goof the board and had to grit my teeth to keep from uttering a yelp. Of course by gritting my teeth I only made matters worse, and when the faces of my friends contorted in a vicarious pain response, I cried, “Okay, so my tooth hurts a little bit! But so what? It will heal, right?”

“Wrong,” said Harriet, who was quickly becoming the voice of unreason. “Teeth don’t heal by themselves, Max. They should be looked at by a professional.”

“Like Vena,” said Dooley helpfully.

“So you’re going to the vet, buddy,” said Brutus. “Whether you like it or not.”

“In fact we’re all going,” said Harriet, patting my back.

“To give you the emotional support you need,” Dooley added.

I shook off Harriet’s paw. “I’m not going and that’s my final word,” I said. “In fact if I never set foot in Vena’s office ever again it will be too soon!”

Chapter 2

Vena was making a face, which told me things with my tooth weren’t as good as I’d imagined.

“This isn’t good,” she said, as if she’d read my mind. Then made a tsk-tsking sound.

“Oh, poor Maxie,” said Odelia. She still had a few splashes of paint on her face, and wallpaper glue in her hair. Also with us at the doctor’s office were, as promised, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus. For moral support, though judging from their faces and the rapt attention they now paid to the procedure, they were more there as rubberneckers and disaster tourists. You know. The kind of cats that enjoy train wrecks and car crashes.

“Is it bad?” I finally asked around Vena’s gloved fingers as they probed my gums and caused me no small degree of discomfort and pain.

“Oh, how sweet,” said Vena, who could only hear my meows.

Odelia, on the other hand, understands what cats are saying, and she translated my thoughts to the medical woman.“Is it bad, Vena?” she asked.

“You better believe it, baby,” said the large woman. Vena is cut from the same mold that produced the likes of John Cena and Arnold Schwarzenegger and could probably have been a pro wrestler if she hadn’t decided to become a professional pet torturer instead. She was shaking her head in abject dismay. “He must have been in a lot of pain for a long time. Three teeth are beyond salvage. Broken off, protruding roots, infected gum, pus dripping from an abscess. Here. I’ll show you,” she said, and probed my painful gum with obvious delight. “See? And here. See how swollen his gums are?”

I had half a mind to bite down on her fingers, but decided not to. Not out of the goodness of my own heart, mind you, but because I didn’t want to risk hurting my teeth even more. Vena was right. I had been suffering quite a bit of pain lately, but had simply favored the other side of my mouth until the pain went away all by itself. Unfortunately it looked as if Harriet might be right after all: toothaches don’t simply go away,the way other aches and pains often do. They need a professional’s touch to get better.

“So is she going to fix my teeth now?” I asked, speaking a little unclearly as one does when a veterinarian has her fingers jammed practically down one’s throat.

“You’re going to have to leave him with me,” said Vena, finally dragging her eyes away from the devastated area that apparently was my mouth.

“What?” I said, aghast.

“I need to pull all these,” she said, as she raked her finger along my painful teeth, in the process drawing a whimper from yours truly. “And to do that I need to sedate him, of course, and then when he wakes up I’d like to make sure he’s fine before I send him home.”

“But I don’t want to stay here!” I said.

“It’s necessary,” Vena said, as if she could actually understand my heartfelt lament.

“Of course,” said Odelia, immediately caving like a true wimp!

“I’m also going to draw some blood,” said Vena, and proceeded to bring out a huge lawnmower!

Well, not a lawnmower, maybe, but one of those contraptions Chase likes to use in the morning to remove the stubble from his chin and cheeks.

And before I knew what was happening, she’d planted the contraption against my arm and was using it to remove my precious fur!

“Oh, my God!” Brutus cried, holding his paws up to his head in consternation.

“I can’t watch this,” said Harriet, turning away from the horrid procedure.

“Does it hurt, Max?” asked Dooley, the third one in the peanut gallery to make a comment.

“No, it doesn’t hurt, but it’s not much fun either!” I said. “Any more stupid questions?”

They all winced as they watched how Vena, with practiced ease, removed a large swath of perfectly fine fur from my arm, then plucked away the remainder and threw the whole lot into the garbage!

“Hey, I need that fur!” I said, aghast. “That’s my fur! You can’t just go and—”

“Just a tiny little prick,” said Vena, and suddenly jabbed a needle into my arm!

“Owowow!” I cried. That wasn’t a tiny prick, you liar!

“Normally I sedate them at this point,” said Vena, “but since Max is always such a good boy…” She casually extracted about a pint of blood, then attached a second tube!

“Is that… blood?” asked Harriet, and promptly passed out.

“Oops,” said Vena. “Yeah, this is not very pleasant, is it, Maxie, darling?”

“No, it’s not!” I cried as I stared at my blood draining away into the tube.

“Harriet!” Brutus squealed. “Harriet! Say something! Doc! Harriet dropped dead! My snuggle bug just dropped dead on me! She’s dead, I’m telling you. Doooooc!”

“Harriet?” said Odelia as she rubbed Harriet’s back. “Are you all right, sweetie?”

In response, Harriet merely muttered something about blood.

Vena adroitly extracted the second tube, removed the needle from my arm, then checked Harriet. She smiled. “She’ll be fine. Maybe you shouldn’t have brought them, Odelia. Cats are sensitive creatures, and it looks a great deal worse than it feels.”

“No, it doesn’t!” I said. “In fact it feels a great deal worse than it looks!”

“Since they don’t know what’s happening, and don’t understand, all they see is me poking their friend with a needle, so they must all be pretty upset right now.”

“I’m not upset,” said Dooley. “I just wonder where all that red stuff is coming from?”

“That’s blood, Dooley,” I said tersely. “My blood!”

“Oh,” said Dooley, frowning. “You mean, Vena is a vampire?”

“Just give her a minute,” said Vena, placing Harriet on a chair. “Now let’s continue, shall we?” She had spilled a drop of blood on her metal operation table, and now pressed some sort of contraption against it. “Let’s check his blood sugar level…” she murmured. She keenly eyed the device and nodded. “Looks good. He doesn’t have diabetes.”

“Diabetes!” I said.

“Now let’s have a listen to his heart…” And she pressed some cold thingamabob into my chest! “Mh…” she said, listening intently at the other end of the weird-looking device, and proceeding to poke me all over my tender corpus! Finally she smiled. “No. No problems there. His heart isfine. Now let’s put him on the scale.”

And before I knew what was happening, she’d carried me over to a corner of her consulting room, and placed me on a big metal plate and held me in place with her gloved hand. I have to confess I wasn’t giving her friendly glances. But she paid me no mind.

“Mh,” she said after a moment. “He’s still a little heavier than I like to see.”

“I’m not heavy!” I said, indignant.

“How much do you feed him?”

“Well…” said Odelia, thinking.

Basically she feeds me however much I like to eat. As she should!

“Does he get a lot of exercise?”

“He does move around a lot,” Odelia confirmed.

“Where am I?” asked Harriet, emerging from her malaise. “Blood!” she cried when she saw me, and immediately became woozy again. Only this time, at least, she didn’t pass out on us.

“I would like him to lose at least three pounds,” said Vena now, the spoilsport. “We don’t want him to get diabetes, or heart disease.”

“And I would like to state, for the record, that I feel perfectly fine,” I said.

“You should limit his portions,” said Vena, “and perhaps switch back over to the diet kibble. That seems to have done the trick last time.”

“He doesn’t like the diet kibble, though,” said Odelia, and I gave her two paws up for coming to my defense!

“Yeah, well, that can’t be helped, I’m afraid,” said Vena with a truly wicked smile. “I’m going to run some more tests right now, and then later tonight I’ll do the procedure.”

“Thanks, Vena,” said Odelia, then turned to me, still sitting on that sneaky scale. “See you later, sweetie,” she said, grabbing my cheeks between her hands and pushing them together, like humans tend to do with babies and toddlers.

“Do I really have to stay here, Odelia?” I asked with a groan.

“Oh, yes, you do,” she said. “You need to have this operation, Max. But I promise, you’ll feel so much better afterward. No more pain. And you’ll be able to chew again.”

“Diet kibble,” I muttered darkly.

“He won’t be able to eat kibble for three weeks, though,” said Vena now. “Only soft food for a while.” And she proceeded to pick me up, and inject something into my back.

“Ouch!” I cried. “When is this torture ever going to stop?!”

“Just some antibiotics,” she explained. “Against the infection.”

What did I tell you? A visit to Vena is like a visit to a torture chamber, or the place where that guy fromSaw lives. Needles, needles, more needles and diet kibble!

And to add insult to injury, Harriet, Brutus and Dooley filed out of the room, giving me waves with their paws, and then Odelia closed the door and it was just me and Vena…

Chapter 3

“I don’t like this, you guys,” said Dooley, shaking his head. No, he didn’t like this at all.

Odelia was driving them back to the house, all three cats ensconced on the backseat. The mood wasn’t festive, to say the least.

“Never leave a cat behind,” he continued. “Isn’t that what being a cat is all about? And here we are, leaving our best friend in the hands of the enemy.”

“Vena isn’t exactly the enemy,” said Harriet. “Well, maybe a little.” She still looked a little white around the nostrils. Then again, Harriet is a white Persian, so she always looks white around the nostrils.

“Did you see how Vena was poking needles into Max as if he was a pincushion?” said Brutus, who looked as if he’d enjoyed the show.

“Brutus!” said Dooley. “How can you say such a thing? That’s our friend you’re talking about. Our best friend and housemate.”

“Oh, I know, I know,” Brutus said without a hint of contrition. “But you have to admit it was quite the spectacle.” He grinned. “Max looked so mad I thought for a moment he was actually going to bite Vena.”

“Max would never do such a thing,” said Dooley. “Max is a gentlecat, and he would never bite a human unless they deserved it.”

“Looked to me like Vena deserved it plenty,” said Brutus.

“Let’s not forget that everything Vena does, she does for a good reason,” said Harriet. “All she wants to do is make Max better. And he did have a lot of pain in his tooth.”

“Teeth,” said Brutus. “Is she really going to pull three teeth? Ouch!”

Ouch, indeed, Dooley thought. He felt for his friend. Not only was Max going to be forced to spend the night at Vena’s—the last place in the world he would voluntarily have chosen to be—but he was going to suffer the indignation of having no less than three teeth pulled.

And as they sat there, Odelia’s car wending its way home, it suddenly occurred to him that maybe one day they would be driving home like this, and Max wouldn’t be with them, as he wasn’t with them now, and in fact he wouldn’t be joining them ever again.

The thought actually saddened him to a great degree.

So he made the jump from the backseat to the passenger seat, which was conveniently empty.“Odelia?” he asked.

“Yes, Dooley?” said Odelia, while she kept a close eye on the road.

“Is Max going to be okay?”

“You heard Vena, honey. Max is going to be perfectly fine. Once those bad teeth are gone, he’s going to be right as rain, and he won’t be in so much pain anymore.”

Dooley thought about this for a moment, then swallowed away a lump of uneasiness. Thinking hard always made him uneasy.“Odelia?”

“Mh?”

“What if Max doesn’t come back?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if something happens and Max… dies?”

Odelia gave him a quick sideways glance.“Oh, honey. It’s so sweet of you to worry about your friend. But I can promise you that he’ll be fine. Vena is an excellent vet. The best. She won’t let anything happen to your best friend.”

He nodded, but was still not fully convinced. Being without his friend was almost like being without a body part, but he found it very hard to put those feelings into words. So he simply stared out the window, while Harriet and Brutus talked in the backseat, and Odelia directed the car to the homestead.

He couldn’t quite place his finger on it, but for some reason he felt a twinge of worry. And no matter what Odelia said about Vena’s skills, that twinge of worry wouldn’t go away.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]

Not that far from where Dooley sat worrying about his friend Max, Albert Balk was thinking dark thoughts about his wife Lenora. She’d sent him out on a fool’s errand. She’d told him to go and fetch her the latestCosmopolitan, but when he arrived at the newsagent they’d assured him the nextCosmo didn’t come out for another couple of days. Darn it, he thought. It wasn’t as if he had all the time in the world. Then again, maybe she was planning a surprise? His birthday was coming up soon, so…

He perked up considerably at the thought of finding all of his friends and family yelling‘Surprise!’ the moment he walked through the door. Ha ha. He loved surprises.

He parked the car in the drive and got out. Hurrying up to the door, key in hand, he had a spring in his step. And when he entered the house he was smiling in anticipation. No one jumped out at him, though. They were probably in the living room. Ha ha. Funny!

“Lenora?” he said as he carefully poked his head through the door. “Honey?”

And that’s when he got the shock of a lifetime. Lenora was on the couch, but she wasn’t alone. She wasn’t even dressed, and neither was the hunky male lying on top of her. He pushed his glasses further up his nose, just in case he was seeing things.

“Lenora?” he said, his voice suddenly weak and his knees wobbly.

Lenora had the decency to look appalled by this sudden intrusion into her extramarital activities.“Bertie—I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

“They didn’t have the newCosmo,” he muttered.

Lenora produced a feeble smile.“Um… this is Hank,” she said, introducing the man with whom she was closely entangled. “Hank, meet Bertie, my husband. Hank is a traveling salesman for Berghoff,” she told Bertie, as if passing on an interesting little tidbit of information. “You should see the quality of his pots and pans. Really remarkable.”

“Oh?” said Bertie, staring at Hank, who gave him an uncertain grin, then held out his hand. It was a firm hand, with a lot of dark hair on the back. The same color of his hairy chest. His head, though, was fully bald, which obviously didn’t seem to bother Lenora.

“Nice to meet you, buddy,” said Hank the traveling Berghoff salesman.

For a moment, silence ensued, then Bertie shook the man’s hand, dropped it, and walked out of his own house, back to his car, and moments later was cruising down the road, in search of a place to stay. He had the impression his life had just turned to crap.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]

When Odelia finally arrived home, she let the three cats out of her pickup, then slammed the door, still lost in thought. Like Dooley, she wasn’t happy about leaving Max in Vena’s care. Not that she doubted the vet’s qualifications, or that she would take excellent care of Max. But she had a bad feeling about leaving her cat behind, and would have preferred to stay with him throughout the procedure. The thought of Max waking up in the middle of the night in a cage gave her a sick feeling, and she wondered if she shouldn’t ask Vena if she could pick up Max as soon as the operation was behind him.

She entered the house, three cats scooting between her legs, and her heart sank as she watched the devastation. She and Chase had decided to give the house a thorough remodeling. Now that Chase had officially moved in with her, they needed to make some changes. Chase needed shelf space and closet space, and wanted to turn the guest room into an office so they could both work from home if they wanted to. Until now she’d simply plunked her laptop on the kitchen counter but a regular office was a great idea.

They’d also decided to put a stationary bike in there, and use the room as a home gym as well. And while they were at it they’d decided to put up some nice new wallpaper and give the ceilings a fresh coat of paint, too. All in all, it would be great when it was done, but right now it looked like a tornado had hit the house and decided to linger.

Chase was home already, and greeted her with a smile and a kiss.“Hey, babe. So how did it go with Max?”

“Not so good,” she said as she dropped her purse on a chair. “He needs to have an operation. Vena is going to pull three teeth. And he needs to stay there overnight.”

“Oh, heck,” he said. “That’s tough. How did he take it?”

“Um… I’m not sure. We didn’t have a lot of time to say goodbye. He wasn’t happy.”

“Yeah, I can imagine. And how are you?”

“Oh, I’ll be fine,” she said with a wave of the hand. “I was thinking…” She hesitated as she slung her arms around her boyfriend’s neck.

“Were you thinking? That’s interesting,” he said with a grin.

“I was thinking about picking up Max after the operation. There’s no need for him to stay there, is there? Locked up in a small cage, feeling woozy, waking up all alone…”

“He’s not alone. Vena is there, remember? And the other pets.”

“Yeah, but still.”

“Let’s ask Vena. She probably knows best.”

“Yeah, she probably does,” she relented, then sniffed the air. “Something smells good in here, and it’s not paint or bleach or wallpaper glue.”

He grinned, more widely this time.“I decided to surprise you with a nice home-cooked meal. To celebrate the end of phase one of our home renovation project.”

She closed her eyes with relish.“Oh, thank you thank you thank you. I’m starving.”

She hadn’t realized it before, but she really was starving. They’d painted the guest bedroom ceiling that afternoon, then she’d brought the cats to the vet, and she now realized she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast.

Moments later she hopped up onto the high kitchen stool and enjoyed the sight of her boyfriend placing a plate in front of her. It was spaghetti bolognese, the special sauce probably her mother’s, microwaved from the freezer. She didn’t care, though. She was grateful Chase had put in the work, and she appreciated the gesture.

In a corner of the kitchen the television was softly playing, and she now focused on the image of a familiar figure.

“Isn’t that the lottery guy?” asked Chase, pointing to the screen with his fork.

“Yeah. Looks like he went missing.”

“Weird,” said Chase, twirling spaghetti around the tines of his fork like an expert.

“Why?”

“Missing person in Hampton Cove? And your uncle didn’t think to tell me?”

“He’s keeping his promise, Chase. He told you to enjoy your vacation, and that he wouldn’t trouble you with work, and that’s exactly what he’s doing. As promised.”

“Still. It would be nice to be kept in the loop.”

“Enjoy being out of the loop for a change.” But she understood where he was coming from. She hated to be out of the loop, too, and wondered why her boss, Dan Goory, hadn’t told her about the missing Elon Pope.

But then she decided to put the whole thing out of her mind. She was home, she was with Chase, and other people were probably out there, scouring the countryside for the missing kid. So she dug in, and ate with relish.

Chapter 4

Nicky and Jay were kicking the ball around in the backyard when suddenly Jay gave it a mighty kick and it flew over the hedge and sailed straight into the neighbor’s yard.

“Oh, darn it!” Nicky yelled. “Now look what you did!”

Both boys stared at the forbidding hedge, which was high and impossible to scale. Nicky’s mom and dad had planted it when they bought the house, long before Nicky was born, so they wouldn’t have to see the neighboring house, which was an eyesore.

“We have to go and get it, Nicky,” said Jay. “That was our last ball.”

“Yeah, I know, I know,” said Nicky without much enthusiasm.

Then an idea occurred to him. His dog Marcia had recently dug a hole underneath the fence, and had managed to sneak through. Mom and Dad had caught the reprobate, though, and had plugged the hole. But wasn’t it possible they’d done a sloppy job?

“Come on,” he said. “I think I know how to get our ball back.”

They ran to the end of the backyard, then behind the rose bushes, and Nicky crouched down next to the hole Marcia had dug. He was right. Dad had done a lousy job. All he’d done was put a piece of cardboard in front of the hole, and call it a day.

Both boys shared a look, then Nicky said, with a resolute frown,“Let’s do this, Jay. Let’s get our ball back.”

Jay didn’t look convinced. “It’s just an old house, right?”

Nicky gulped.“Yeah, just an old house.”

Neither dared to mention that the old house was haunted, and that no one had been in there for many, many years. Or that a weird smell drifted from the house when the wind sat in that direction. A smell of rot and decay and… death.

They carefully removed the piece of cardboard, and found themselves staring into the next-door yard. It was a real jungle out there, just as Nicky had expected. The house had been empty for at least the last twenty years, and the grass probably hadn’t been cut for a decade. At first the real estate agency had hired a gardener to keep the progress of nature in check, hoping to sell the house, but when no buyers had showed an interest they’d given up, and allowed nature to run its course, which it had—with a vengeance.