The Mysteries of Max Box Sets 3

by Nic Saint

  He made a face. “Litter box?”

  “You know, remove the old litter, scrape out the clumps of pee stuck to the bottom, wash it out with soapy water—I like to add a little bleach, too. For some reason Max loves the scent of bleach, don’t ask me why. Take a fresh sponge and a fresh pair of gloves—I hope they’re not too small for you. It’s one size fits all, though, so you should be good. Towel the box dry—use paper towels, not kitchen towels—and fill it up with about three to five inches of litter and you’re done.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why I’m telling you, though, seeing as you’re an even bigger cat person than I am. You’ve probably done this a million times.”

  For a moment, Chase didn’t speak, then he said, a catch in his voice, “I may not be a bigger cat person than you, though, babe.”

  “Oh?”

  “The thing is—Alec told me to be extra-nice to your cats.”

  “Now why would he say a thing like that?”

  He turned to her. “The thing is, I like you, Odelia. I like you a lot. In fact it’s not too much to say I like you a whole damn lot—probably more than I’ve liked any woman.”

  Her face flushed, as she realized four cats were holding their breaths in the backseat.

  “I like spending time with you. I like coming home to you. I like sleeping with you. Heck, I’ve never felt happier than these past few months we’ve spent together.” He took a deep breath. “I like your cats, but I like you a lot more. I know you’re a package deal, babe. One woman and a litter of crazy cats. And that’s fine. In fact it’s more than fine. What I’m trying to say is…” He lowered his voice. “How do you feel about moving in together?”

  She smiled and darted a quick look in the rearview mirror at her menagerie. They were still holding their breaths, or so it seemed. “Breathe, you guys,” she said. “Deep breaths.” She applied the same advice to herself, then looked over at Chase and spoke a single word. “Yes.”

  Chase pumped the air with his fist. “One catsitter, free of charge, at your service.”

  She laughed. “You don’t have to catsit. I was just joshing you.”

  “Oh, thank God,” he said, throwing his head back.

  “I thought you were so busted up when Blackie died? Or was it Smokey?”

  “I was busted up when Blackie and Smokey died. Both of them. I had Blackie when I was six. And my folks got me Smokey when I was twelve. Those two were with me for many wonderful years. Only Smokey was a Lab and Blackie was a Golden Retriever. Best dogs a man has ever known. I still miss ‘em every day.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, Chase. Maybe we should get a dog?”

  There was a collective intake of breath behind Odelia.

  “Four cats and a dog? Don’t you think that’s a bit much?”

  She patted his leg. “We’ll figure it out.”

  Can a cat person peacefully coexist with a dog person? She had no idea, but she was willing to try.

  “A dog,” Harriet said, a whining note in her voice. “She’s getting a dog. I hate dogs.”

  “He’s moving in,” said Dooley, sounding shell-shocked. “He’ll eat all her pills and then there will be babies!”

  “Oh, relax, you guys,” said Max. “Chase is okay. He saved us from that wild cat.”

  “That’s true,” said Dooley musingly. “There may be hope for us yet.”

  “My pee-pee,” said Brutus suddenly, interrupting the others. “It hurts.”

  “Jeezus, Brutus,” said Max. “What is that thing?”

  “Is that…” Harriet began, then cried, “Brutus, it’s huge!”

  “And painful!” he cried. “Owowowow!”

  “Didn’t you take the same pills, Max?” asked Dooley.

  “I did.”

  “Yours is tiny,” Harriet said with distaste. “Miniscule. Almost non-existent.”

  Max sighed, the sigh of a long-suffering cat. “Why me?” he said.

  “Are they all right?” asked Chase, turning in his seat to look back.

  “They’re fine,” she assured him. At least she hoped they were.

  Chapter 19

  That night, we were all sufficiently recovered to attend cat choir, which is just about the biggest social event for cats in Hampton Cove. Cat choir is all about letting our inner cat out and sing to its heart’s content. The only drawback is that the neighbors of Hampton Cove Park are cultural barbarians who don’t appreciate the finer points of cat-produced art.

  We don’t care, though, and carry on regardless of the catcalls and shoes thrown.

  That night the meeting was a sad affair, though. All members were wearing their flea collars—perhaps the rest of the world had abandoned the terrible practice of outfitting cats with collars when the first flea reared its ugly head, but here in Hampton Cove the collar still reigned supreme, or so it seemed. There’s nothing to put a good cat down like the collar does, and we were all suffering the indignation. Even Shanille, our conductor, was downcast.

  Brutus, recovered from his vitamin poisoning, for that was what he had apparently suffered, Dooley, the consumption of Odelia’s pill having had as its worst effect a slight case of diarrhea, and Harriet, vowing never to ingest flea-repellent ever again, were all present and accounted for. On me, those vitamin pills Vena had prescribed for Brutus merely had the effect of boosting my energy levels to such an extent that I was feeling fit as a fiddle.

  So when suddenly Princess, the Most Compelling Cat in the World, showed up, along with a troupe of other cats I’d never seen, I felt oddly complacent. In fact I would have told the black cat to ‘bring it on!’ had it not been for my innate sense of self-preservation. Also, that scratch across the left butt cheek still hurt, and I wasn’t looking to turn the other cheek.

  “Who are those cats?” asked Harriet as she stared in abject fascination.

  And I had to admit that the small troupe of cats looked absolutely amazing.

  For one thing, none of them were wearing flea collars, which made them stand out. And for another, they entered the scene with a marked swagger, as if they owned the place. You cannot own a park, of course, but it was obvious nobody had told them.

  “Isn’t that…” Dooley said, his voice dying away. “Max, it’s Princess!”

  Princess raised her paw. “We come in peace!” she declared, loud enough for the entire gathering to hear. “And we come bearing gifts!” she added, gesturing to her friends.

  One by one, the cats stepped to the fore, tapping their chests and introducing themselves. “My name is Princess,” said Princess. “The Most Compelling Cat in the World.”

  “My name is Beca, and I’m the Most Attractive Cat in the World,” a fit red cat said.

  “I’m Chloe,” said a pretty striped cat. “And I’m the Most Intriguing Cat in the World.”

  “I’m Aubrey and I’m the Most Iconic Cat in the World,” said a strapping white cat.

  “And I’m Fat Amy, and I’m the Sexiest Cat Alive,” a well-rounded cat said.

  “And together we’re the Most Interesting Cats in the World!” Princess yelled.

  And suddenly, before our very eyes, the cats started performing the kind of routine one habitually sees on the stage of some Broadway musical. Or in those funny Pitch Perfect movies. They launched into a song-and-dance routine that had us all staring in abject awe.

  They started off with a bit of Taylor Swift’s Shake it Off, shaking their tails provocatively, flawlessly segued into Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love, synchronized dancing to the beat, then it was on to Gwen Stefani’s Hollaback Girl before finishing off with a rousing rendition of Pink’s Get The Party Started, really blowing up the scene, dancing up a storm.

  When the show was over, we all blew out a collective gasp of appreciation, then the entire cat choir burst into a loud and raucous applause.

  The interesting cat collective stood panting for a moment, basking in the admiration, then took a slight bow, with Princess declaring, “Now it’s time for you guys to blow us away!”
<
br />   I gulped, and so did some of the other members of cat choir. Truth be told, our repertoire is a little limited. Cat choir isn’t so much about putting on a compelling show but more about giving local cats a chance to shoot the breeze and sniff each other’s butts. And that’s what some of the members now did, approaching the Most Interesting Cats in the World and sniffing their butts. I could have told them this was not a good idea, but some cats can’t be told and need to be shown. A few harsh words and well-aimed lashes of razor-sharp claws later, five cats were racing away into the tree line with their tails between their legs.

  “Let’s do what we do best, fellas,” said Kingman. “Let’s sing our anthem!”

  We all gave him a bewildered look. Anthem? Did we have an anthem?

  But Shanille seemed to have picked up on his cue, for she cried over the hubbub that followed Kingman’s words, “From the top—one and two and three and four!” And proceeded to belt out, “Midnight. Not a sound from the pavement. Has the moon lost her—”

  “Has she lost her mind?” asked Harriet next to me. “I can’t sing that.”

  Shanille was doing little movements with her paws, dancing in a circle, head and tail held high, just the way they did it in the musical Cats. I’d only seen it once. On YouTube. And it had failed to impress. Though I had to admit I enjoyed Barbra’s version of the hit song.

  Other cats soon fell in, caterwauling with absolute abandon, the yowls and ear-splitting screeches lighting up windows all along the streets that lined the park. Soon voices could be heard from neighbors, and next thing we knew the shoes were raining down.

  As Dooley dodged one particularly well-aimed shoe, he said, “Don’t these people ever run out of footwear?”

  Apparently not. Meanwhile, Shanille was undeterred, and kept giving her moving rendition of Memory, swaying to the music like a cat under the influence of a powerful narcotic, possibly marijuana or some other hallucinatory substance. Other cats mimicked her movements, turning the performance into something akin to a first-grade school play.

  The Most Interesting Cats in the World where mostly unimpressed. Shaking their heads, they decided not to stick around and left the scene before the grand finale, chuckling at the sad show. Looked like the visitors had won this particular competition.

  Shanille hadn’t even noticed her audience had dispersed, for she kept belting out those hard-to-reach high notes. The moment her final shriek died away, she took a bow and a size-fifteen combat boot in the small of her back and was out for the count.

  Things kind of petered out after that. The neighbor who’d thrown the boot must have known that if you want to defeat an army you take out its leader. With Shanille down, there was no sense sticking around, and we decided to set a course for the good old homestead.

  “Shanille did well,” Dooley said. “She has a really good voice.”

  “I thought she sucked,” Harriet commented, harsh theater critic that she was.

  “But what about those Most Interesting Cats, huh?” said Brutus hoarsely. It was obvious those five cats had left an indelible impression on his impressionable soul.

  Harriet snapped her head up. “If you like them so much, why don’t you join them!”

  And with this crack, she stalked off, tail in the air.

  “Harriet!” he cried after her. “I didn’t mean it like that!”

  “Oh, yes, you did!”

  “No, I didn’t! Harriet—come back!”

  We watched as Brutus trotted after his mate. And then it was just me and Dooley.

  “You know, we still haven’t found Burt’s cat Shadow,” he said.

  “Yeah, we should probably have asked those other interesting cats.” Dooley had reminded me that we were seriously remiss in our duty towards our human: we had a crime to solve, and all this gallivanting around had put a serious crimp in our sleuthing efforts.

  “Max?”

  “Mh?”

  “If Grandma moves out, do you think she’ll take me along with her to Colorado?”

  I stared at my friend in shock. “You think so?”

  He shrugged as we paused underneath a streetlamp. The hubbub of cat choir and its army of shoe-throwing fans were reduced to mere echoes, the soft sounds of the night now all around us. There was a nip in the air, and an owl was stoically hooting somewhere nearby.

  “I don’t want to move to Colorado, Max. I like my life in Hampton Cove. I have my friends here.” He gestured at me. “And I have Odelia and Marge and Tex. I like Grandma, of course. She is my human. And if she moves away I guess I’ll move away, too. But I don’t mind telling you I don’t like it.” He shook his head sadly. “No, sir, I don’t like it one bit.”

  “I don’t like it either,” I admitted. “I don’t want you to move away, Dooley.”

  He heaved a deep sigh. “Well, let’s hope she stays. Then I can stay, too.”

  We walked on. There was a soft rustling sound in the underbrush, and moments later a small rodent came peeping its twitchy nose out. It was a mouse. A nice, white, juicy mouse. The kind of mouse any able-bodied cat like me or Dooley would have enjoyed to chase.

  It was a testament to our mood that we didn’t even give it a second glance.

  Chapter 20

  Odelia awoke in the middle of the night from a sense that something was amiss. It took her a few moments to realize what it was: no cats. Usually Max slept at the foot of the bed—at least when he wasn’t out and about, exploring Hampton Cove with his friends. After the ordeal he’d had, that was probably what he was doing right now.

  Since she was up, she decided to head down to the kitchen for a glass of milk.

  Next to her, the figure of Chase stirred. The cop was sound asleep, his arm draped across his pillow, his tousled hair visible in the diffuse light of a moon curiously peeping through the curtains.

  She smiled. Now wasn’t that a sight for sore eyes? It was a long time since a man had slept in her bed, and this particular man was something else indeed. As she slipped her feet into her slippers, she thought about his words. Move in together? Was she ready for that?

  She padded across the hardwood floor to the door, careful not to make a sound, and then snuck downstairs. In the kitchen she poured some milk into her Fozzie Bear cup and placed it in the microwave, then leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed her arms. Through the kitchen window she could see the backyard, still plunged into darkness, the moon generously sprinkling its milky white light upon the world below.

  The cat door hung motionless, and Max’s bowls were untouched, a testament to his roaming ways. He was probably in the park, where he and others of his kind enjoyed spending part of their nights. Cats are nocturnal animals, and like to be out and about while the rest of the world sleeps. She just hoped he was all right, and so were the others.

  And as the microwave softly dinged and she took the cup between her hands and attempted a first sip of the warm brew, she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Chase was walking into the kitchen, yawning, and she smiled.

  “Up already?” he asked, joining her.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” she admitted, and held up her cup. “Want some?”

  “Sure. I’ll take mine with a little honey.”

  “The man has a sweet tooth.”

  “He sure has,” he said with a wolfish grin, and pulled her close, planting a kiss on her lips. It wasn’t the heat from the milk that spread through her but a completely different kind of heat. One she could definitely get used to. She didn’t know if it would help her sleep but suddenly she didn’t care so much about sleep anymore.

  There was more kissing, and the cup of milk was soon transferred to the counter and so was her perky behind.

  She wasn’t sure if she wanted Chase to move in with her, but she sure as heck wanted him to keep kissing her like this and bending her backwards over the countertop.

  When they both came up for air, he took a sip from her cup and looked at her over the rim with those dark eyes of his. So
mething stirred and she said, “Let’s go back to bed.”

  He smiled. “Thought you’d never ask.”

  By the time Max and Dooley strolled in, Odelia and Chase were fast asleep, enjoying a well-deserved rest after some very strenuous midnight activities.

  Chapter 21

  The next morning, Odelia joined Chase as they drove off to work. He’d scheduled four more interviews with four more very interesting men, and wanted her there. He claimed she had a knack for getting people to confess stuff. That and he liked her company. How could she say no to an offer like that? Plus, she got to collect some great quotes for the series of articles she was writing on the explosive murder case.

  As they rode along the streets of Hampton Cove, which were slowly coming alive again after a short night, she sat slumped down in the passenger seat while he expertly maneuvered his pickup through traffic. “So did you get that report from the fire marshals?”

  “We did, actually,” he said, looking as cool and collected as ever. Not much ruffled this man, which was probably what made him so good at his job. And in her bed.

  “And was nitroglycerin involved?” she prompted.

  “Yes, it was. A whole lot of the stuff. And it did come in a beer bottle, as they suspected. But when they checked Curt Pigott’s room they found nothing. Not a trace. Not on his person, not on his clothes, not on any of his possessions. Which makes this a very puzzling case.”

  “And, like he said, why would he use room service to deliver a bomb to his rival? That would make him the dumbest killer in history,” she mused as she gazed out the window at the streets outside, where people were walking their children to school and others were hurrying to get to work on time. “So what about the others?”

  Chase shook his head. “Nothing. All the interesting men were cleared.”

  “Someone must have had a bottle of nitroglycerin in their room.”

  “Someone sure did. Only we haven’t been able to find it. Yet. The thing is, this particular nitro was homemade, not factory-made, which tells us a few things.”