The Mysteries of Max Box Sets 3

by Nic Saint

  “Where are you going?” asked Dooley as I slipped right past him.

  “Out!” I snapped.

  “Want me to tag along?” he asked.

  I directed as cold a look at him as I could muster. Then I turned my back on him and stalked off. You’re dead to me, that look said, and judging from Dooley’s expression of surprise, he caught it right in the ribs.

  Chapter 9

  Chase rode his pickup to the farm where Geary Potbelly did his business. The rutted road led them to a farmhouse, long clapboard structures located right behind it, and huge silos where presumably Geary stored the food for the ducks or—and Odelia didn’t even want to contemplate this—the poop the animals produced.

  “So… I don’t see no ducks,” she said as Chase parked the rig next to the farmhouse.

  “They moved them all indoors a decade ago,” said Chase. “They used to roam free, but then environmental laws tightened and allowing the duck poop to drain into the ground and pollute the groundwater with nitrates became strictly prohibited. So now the ducks are all in those long white buildings over there, where they can poop through the mesh wire so it can be flushed into big holding tanks and then procured for processing.”

  “What do they use it for?”

  “It ends up on huge compost heaps, where it’s mixed with mulch and yard waste which binds the nitrogen in the manure and prevents it from leaking into the ground and leaching into the groundwater. Then it’s sold to garden centers and Home Depot and such.”

  “How come you know so much about duck poop, Chase?”

  He laughed. “Before you start thinking this is my latest hobby, let me assure you it’s not. No, I talked to Geary on the phone to figure out how his poop ended up killing Dickerson and he explained to me a little about the process they have out here.”

  As they walked up to the house, the same guy in coveralls they met out at the Dickerson place, held up his hand in greeting. He was shoveling straw onto a wheelbarrow.

  “Bert! Have you seen Geary around?” Chase yelled at him.

  “Come on in!” Bert yelled back. “He’s inside.” He was pointing to the stable.

  “I guess we’re going to meet some of those famous Long Island ducks up close and personal,” Chase quipped.

  They strode into a large space, surprisingly light and airy, and immediately Odelia saw thousands upon thousands of ducks lounging around, buckets of feed attached to wooden poles, light fixtures dangling from the ceiling, and the ducks not in cages as she’d feared, but free to roam the large space, straw under their feet and happily quacking away.

  “Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many ducks in one place,” she said.

  “Me neither,” Chase chimed in.

  A man dressed in blue coveralls was crouched down over what looked like feeding troughs, and they walked up to him, the ducks scuttling away as they did.

  “Mr. Potbelly!” Chase said as they joined the duck farmer.

  Contrary to the name, he was a tall, reedy man with a tan, weather-beaten face and a ball cap with the name ‘Potbelly Farm’ lodged firmly on his head.

  “Hey there, Detective,” said Geary. “Nice to put a name to the face.”

  “Likewise,” said Chase. “This is Odelia Poole. Odelia is a reporter for the Hampton Cove Gazette, but she also frequently helps us out in our investigations.”

  “Your daddy is Tex Poole, right?” asked Geary, nodding. “He’s my doctor.”

  “I think my dad is pretty much everybody’s doctor,” said Odelia.

  “He’s a good one, though. Got me some of those patches for my chest pains.” He slapped his chest. “Been feeling like a new man ever since. Real miracle cure, Miss Poole.”

  “Odelia. And I’m glad my dad could help you out, Mr. Potbelly.”

  “Geary,” he said with a grin that displayed two rows of nicotine-stained teeth. “So what can I do you for?”

  “You can help us understand how a tanker full of your duck poop ended up all the way out at Dick Dickerson’s place.”

  He scratched his scalp. “Well, sir, like I told you over the phone, one of our tankers got stolen last night, along with one of our tractors. So that might explain things.”

  “Any idea who could have taken them?”

  “Nope. Must have happened sometime after midnight, though, cause my youngest one just got back from checking on the ducklings in the hatchery and he says the tanker was still there when he did.”

  “He’s sure about that?”

  “Absolutely. That thing’s an eyesore, and he would have noticed if it was gone.”

  “So walk us through this, Geary. Someone got onto your property and took off with a tractor and a tanker. How is that possible?”

  “We sleep all the way out there,” said Geary, pointing to the west. “The entire family lives on the perimeter, in houses we built ourselves. Five generations of Potbellies have lived there and still do, so we don’t hear what goes on up here at night.”

  “Don’t you have guard dogs? A fence? Security?”

  “We have a fence, but they took out an entire section. Professional job, too. When my son told me I thought they’d come for the ducks. We were surprised they’d taken the tanker. Couldn’t imagine what they wanted with nine thousand gallons of duck poop.”

  “Now we know,” said Chase grimly.

  “We have a couple dogs, too, but I guess those sneak thieves must have managed to get past them.” He grunted. “At least they didn’t hurt them. Those dogs are like family.”

  “So no cameras, huh?” asked Odelia.

  “Potbelly Farm isn’t the Chase Manhattan or Tiffany’s, Odelia. We’ve had a few break-ins over the years but nothing major. The fence is more to keep the deer out and the ducks in than anything else. The rest is up to the dogs, and usually they’re enough of a deterrent. But the visitors we had last night were something else. Real pros, if you ask me.”

  Chapter 10

  Grandma was huffing a little by the time she reached the doctor’s office. It was only a short walk from the house but still. She was seventy-five, not twenty-five, and even when she was twenty-five working out wasn’t the hype it had become later on. Oh, she’d bought those tapes Jane Fonda had put out in the eighties. She’d even bought herself some of those funky leg warmers Jane was so nuts about, and those colorful leotards. But the workouts looked too strenuous even then, and she’d never gotten into them the way Victoria Principal or Linda Evans did. Or even that hot John Travolta in Perfect. Now there was a fine man.

  She crossed the street on a huff. She’d prepared her little speech and Tex was gonna get it now. How she’d been waiting and waiting for him to apologize and how it was starting to look like she’d be waiting until she was dead and buried before he finally came round.

  She opened the door and walked into the waiting room that had been her domain until a few weeks ago. When she walked up to the desk her jaw dropped when she caught sight of the woman seated behind it. Seated in her chair, behind her desk, in her exact spot!

  None other than Scarlett Canyon herself was staring back at her, giving her that impudent look she was famous for. Not a day younger than Vesta herself, Scarlett nevertheless looked younger, thanks to the numerous procedures she’d undergone. Her boob lift-slash-enhancement especially had cemented her reputation with the senior center’s male membership, but her face, too, had been extensively worked on, her eyes now resembling a cat’s eyes and her lips plumped up way beyond what was esthetically pleasing.

  Then again, with boobs like that, what hot-blooded male cared about the face?

  “Scarlett,” Vesta said curtly. “Patients are supposed to wait in the waiting room.”

  “I’m not here as a patient, Vesta,” said Scarlett, tapping a single long nail on the keyboard spacebar. “I work here now.”

  Vesta’s jaw dropped a few inches. “Work here? What do you mean, work here?!”

  “I heard you abandoned poor Tex and how he was desperate
for a new receptionist, so I volunteered.” She smiled widely, or at least as widely as her collagen-filled lips would allow. “And I have to tell you, I love it, Vesta. I don’t understand why you quit.”

  “Don’t you mind why I quit. That’s my chair, Scarlett, and that’s my desk, and that’s my computer. So you better walk out of here now, or I’ll have you thrown out so fast not even those implants of yours will be able to break your fall when you hit the pavement.”

  A cough sounded behind her, and she whipped her head around. Half a dozen people were seated in the waiting area, following the altercation with rapt attention. She didn’t mind. Scarlett was going to get what was coming to her and she didn’t care who heard it.

  “Are you threatening me with violence, Vesta?” asked Scarlett, bringing a shocked hand to her chest.

  “If you don’t clear out of here I’m kicking your enhanced booty so hard those butt implants will end up dangling behind your ears. And that’s not a threat—that’s a promise!”

  Scarlett rose and jutted out her butt. “For your information, this booty is all-natural, just like my boobies,” she said, a noticeable purr in her voice. “Unlike your bony butt and your flat chest, Vesta dear.” She even had the gall to flash her eyebrows at her!

  “That’s it,” Vesta snapped. “I’m coming for you, Scarlett.”

  And she would have mounted that desk, sciatica or no sciatica, and given Scarlett a piece of her mind, when Tex’s door opened and the doctor himself came walking in.

  “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

  With his shock of white hair and his kind face Tex Poole reminded some people of Dick Van Dyke when he was solving murders as Dr. Mark Sloan on Diagnosis: Murder. Now, though, he looked more like a masked avenger, without the mask, as he stepped up to his mother-in-law, and took her arm in a firm grip, then took Scarlett’s arm in an equally firm grip, and dragged the two women apart.

  “What the cuss do you think you’re doing, Vesta?” he said. “Barging in here and threatening my receptionist with bodily harm?”

  “She took my place!” Vesta croaked. “And on top of that she insulted me!”

  “All I said was that you are very slim, Vesta,” said Scarlett coyly. “I was paying you a compliment. I really was, Dr. Tex.”

  Tex was looking grim. “I don’t get it, Vesta. First you quit on me and now you attack the woman who was so kind to step up and offer her help when she saw I was struggling?”

  “Oh, she was offering to help, all right,” said Vesta. “Though I’m not sure my daughter would appreciate the kind of help Scarlett has to offer!”

  Tex had the decency to blush. “Now, Vesta, you know that’s nonsense talk.”

  “Filthy gossip, that’s what it is,” said Scarlett. “And mean-spirited, too.”

  “I’ll give you mean-spirited,” Vesta growled, and tried to poke her nemesis in the fake nose. She never got close, for Tex was still acting like a buffer between the two women.

  “Now, now, Vesta,” he was saying in that horribly soothing doctor’s voice of his. “Calm down.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Vesta, shaking off Tex’s hand. “I’m going already. But I’m warning you,” she spat in Scarlett’s direction. “This is not the end.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t expect it to be, Vesta, dear,” said Scarlett sweetly.

  And as Vesta stalked huffily to the door, Scarlett even blew her a kiss. In return, Vesta blew her nemesis a raspberry, made a very rude gesture with one of the fingers of her right hand, and slammed the door shut behind her.

  No, this was not the end. In fact this had only just begun.

  Chapter 11

  Dooley sat on the wooden garden bench, feeling miserable. He didn’t understand why Max had suddenly decided to give him the cold shoulder. In spite of Gran’s assurances that Dooley was loved, he was starting to think that Milo was right after all, and that Max didn’t give a hoot about him. Or anyone else, for that matter.

  And just when he was thinking of maybe sneaking after Max and asking his old friend what was going on, Milo jumped up onto the bench and made himself comfortable.

  “Hey, buddy,” said Milo. “You don’t look so good. Are you sure you’re not sick?”

  Dooley blinked a few times. “Sick? Do you think I’m sick?”

  Milo held up his paws. “Hey, I’m not a doctor, buddy, but you look kinda pale. Max just told me the same thing, so I figured I’d do the square thing by you and check it out.”

  “Max told you I looked sick?”

  “Sure. Then again, he said you were born sickly. Been weak and prone to disease ever since Grandma brought you home from the pound.”

  Dooley’s heart was beating fast now, a sickening sense of doom extending its icy tentacles into his soul. “The pound? Grandma brought me home from the pound? But she always said she got me from a very dear friend of hers. From a litter of eight little Dooleys.”

  “A little white lie, Dooley. Humans are big on little white lies. They think it’s for the best, but they often end up doing a lot of damage. Anyhoo, I think maybe it’s time for you to head on down to the vet, don’t you think? You’re coming down with something. And it wouldn’t surprise me if isn’t some parasite wreaking havoc inside your digestion system.”

  “A parasite!”

  “Yup. Worms, probably.”

  “Worms! Inside me?!”

  “Sure. You’ve got your tapeworm, your hookworm, your whipworm, your roundworm… Have you lost weight recently?”

  “I-I think so,” said Dooley, touching his shrinking belly. “Haven’t been hungry.”

  “That’s the worms for you,” said Milo with a knowing nod. “Make you lose your appetite. You’re probably full of them, crawling all over your insides. What about vomiting? Diarrhea? Coughing? Feeling bloated?”

  Dooley felt sick, and suddenly retched. “How-how big are these worms, Milo?”

  “Oh, the smallest ones are at least five inches long. The big ones?” He gave Dooley a worried look that spoke volumes.

  Dooley could imagine dozens of worms moving around inside his gut, and when he glanced down at his belly, he could almost see them, wriggling underneath the skin! “G-get them out of there!” he cried. “Milo! Help me—you need to help me get rid out of them!”

  “I want to help you,” said Milo earnestly. “But Max told me not to.”

  “Max told you what?!”

  “Yeah, he said you’re such a crybaby it’s better just to leave you to your own devices. He said he’s tried to help you out before, but you end up making life a living hell for him, so nowadays he simply prefers not to tell you anything at all, and hope you won’t notice that you’re sick and…” He grimaced. “Maybe I should just follow Max’s advice.”

  “Tell me!”

  “I don’t know, Dooley. Max said I shouldn’t bother. Then again, I’m of the opinion that a true friend always tells his friends the truth—even when it’s just… terrible, horrible.”

  Dooley stared at this newfound friend of his. “Tell me the truth, Milo. Just… tell me.” Milo placed a paw on Dooley’s shoulder and looked him in the eyes. One of those earnest, heartfelt looks. The kind of look a real friend gave his best friend and compatriot. And Dooley remembered the cold look Max had given him and he knew. Max was not his friend. No matter what Gran said. Max was simply a liar. “Just… tell me?” he whispered.

  “You’re dying, Dooley. This is the end of the line for you, pal. I give you two more days—three, tops—and then it’s bye-bye, baby for Dooley.”

  “Oh, no!” he cried. “But-but is there nothing I can do? Milo—please!”

  Milo looked doubtful, like a doctor after giving his patient the final verdict. Then he softened. “You need to get rid of those worms, buddy. Either you live, or those worms do. Only one of you can live. Just like Harry Potter and his old chum Voldemort, remember?”

  “How-how do I get rid of these Voldemort worms?”

  “There’s only one w
ay.” He squeezed Dooley’s shoulder. “Cat Snax.”

  “Max’s favorite snack.”

  “That’s right. Cat Snax contain a secret ingredient that worms hate. The more Cat Snax you eat, the greater your chance of survival.”

  “But Max hates it when we snack on his Cat Snax.”

  “Come on, Dooley. This is do or die, buddy. If you don’t get rid of those worms you’ll be dead inside the day.”

  “The day! You just said two or three days!”

  “I didn’t want to upset you.”

  “Cat Snax,” said Dooley thoughtfully.

  “Cat Snax. And you need to scoot.”

  “Scoot?”

  “Wipe your tush across the floor.”

  “Why?”

  Milo sighed. “Isn’t it obvious? When those Cat Snax kick in, those worms are flushed out of your system. But they hang on for dear life, digging their little pincers into your butt. So you need to boogie-woogie those suckers. Crush them and turn them into poop smears.”

  “Poop smears,” repeated Dooley, thinking that this sounded like music to his ears.

  “Yeah, so don’t you go poopy doopy in the litter box now, you hear? Those blood-sucking parasites love litter. They snack on that litter. And then they jump right back onto your fur, burrow their way through your skin, and you’re right back where you started.”

  “You mean I have to… poop on the floor?”

  “The floor, the rug, the bed, heck, you can poop on the kitchen table for all I care. As long as you scoot.”

  “Scoot.”

  “Scoot like your life depends on it, Dooley.” He nodded seriously. “Cause it does.”

  Chapter 12

  I’d been wandering along aimlessly, and finally reached downtown and I still had no idea where I was going. The idea that Dooley had been saying those horrible things about me, and so had Brutus and Harriet, had cut me to the quick. How could they even think that stuff? Me, in love with Harriet. Or possessive of Odelia. Or the dumbest and ugliest cat in Hampton Cove. So ugly, in fact, that no female cat had ever shown an interest in me.