by Nic Saint
“Do you think I want anyone to know? I haven’t even told Max, and he’s my best bud.”
I was so surprised to hear Brutus refer to me as his best bud that I accidentally stepped on a twig and it snapped. Both Shanille and Brutus looked up and spotted me.
“Hey, guys,” I said with faux cheer. “Great weather we’ve been having, huh?”
Shanille shook her head disgustedly, then said, “You fix this, Brutus.” She stalked off, leaving me and Brutus to stare at each other, an uncomfortable silence stretching out between us.
Finally, Brutus said, “There’s something I need to tell you, Max.”
I steeled myself for the big reveal. “I like Shanille.”
He frowned. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Nothing,” I hastened to say. “Just a comment in the margin.”
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and said in a soft voice, “I’m dying, Max.”
Chapter 18
“Wait, what?”
He nodded sadly. “Come here.”
I came there—reluctantly.
He spread a few hairs on his chest. “See?”
Honestly I didn’t see a thing. Mainly because it was pretty dark where we were standing, and also because Brutus is the color of the night: blacker than black.
“What am I looking at?” I asked finally.
“The spots. Can’t you see them?”
“What spots?”
“The red spots!”
I squinted, straining my eyes and leaning in.
And this is how Dooley found us: me with my nose practically touching Brutus’s chest.
“Guys?” he asked. “Am I interrupting something?”
“He’s dying,” I said without preamble.
In response, Dooley came over and gave Brutus a kick against the rear end.
“Hey!” Brutus cried, jerking up. “What was that for?”
“Do you feel it?” asked Dooley, wide-eyed.
“Of course I felt it. You kicked me!”
“Now you’re in the sixth dimension and you won’t die.”
Brutus’s jaw dropped. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Finally, he reeled it back in and growled, “If you kick me one more time, I swear to God, I’ll kick you so hard your backside will become your new face and you’ll wear your tail as a nose.”
Dooley gulped at this. Milo probably hadn’t told him that even in the sixth dimension cats wouldn’t enjoy being kicked up the backside.
“Have you told Marge or Odelia?” I asked.
“About the sixth dimension?” asked Dooley.
I ignored Dooley. “Someone should take a look at those spots.”
“I’ve told Shanille and now I’ve told you and Justin Tucker over there.”
“Who’s Justin Tucker?” asked Dooley.
We both ignored him. Brutus was still sitting with his chest out and now I finally saw the spots. They were tiny and they were red. I didn’t like the look of them, to be honest.
“I’m afraid that if I tell Odelia or Marge they’ll take me to Vena and she’ll say I’ve got cancer and will put me down on the spot. I don’t want to be put down on the spot, Max.”
“I understand.” I did. No cat likes to be put down on the veterinarian’s table. It’s humiliating, not to mention unpleasant. We all want to die in our sleep after living a long and happy life. And be disease-free right up to the end. And stay far away from the vet.
Dooley, who’d been staring at Brutus’s chest for the past five minutes, now said, “You have spots on your chest, Brutus.”
Brutus muttered something I won’t repeat here, seeing as children and senior citizens might be reading about my adventures, too. Suffice it to say it was the verbal equivalent of Dooley’s sixth-dimension-inducing kick.
“So why Shanille?” I asked the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.
“She’s a religious cat,” said Brutus. “I figured she would have some answers for me. And she did. She says I should invite Jesus into my life and he will heal me. She’s scheduled for me to get baptized tomorrow night in the baptismal font over at St. John’s Church. I’m going to do it, Max,” he added when I gave him a slightly skeptical look.
“Maybe she can wash off those red spots while she’s at it,” said Dooley. He moved to touch Brutus’s chest. “Is that paint or tomato sauce?”
“Don’t touch my spots,” said Brutus, deftly evading Dooley’s grabbing paw.
“Don’t touch his spots, Dooley,” I said. “They could be contagious.”
This was the right approach. Dooley’s paw froze mid-air. “Contagious?” he asked in a strangled, squeaky voice. “You mean… you’re really dying? Like, dying-from-a-contagious-disease dying?”
“You don’t have to rub it in,” Brutus growled.
Dooley immediately retracted his paw and took a few steps back. Dooley has a thing about dying and diseases. He doesn’t like them. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, a look of panic in his eyes. “I want to get baptized, too—but I get to go first!” he now exclaimed.
“Don’t tell me. You’re afraid Brutus will contaminate the baptismal font,” I said wearily.
Dooley nodded fifteen times in quick succession. “I’m going first!”
Looked like Dooley had found Jesus, too. Well, it was only a matter of time.
“Will you come with me, Max?” asked Brutus, giving me a pleading look.
“Of course I will,” I told the other cat. “I draw the line at holding your paw, though.”
Brutus laughed, though I could tell he’d been hoping I would hold his paw.
“So I go first, then Max, then Brutus,” said Dooley, who had it all figured out.
“Wait, what?” I said. “I’m not getting baptized, you guys.”
“Why not? The world is ending tomorrow night, Brutus is dying. What do you have to lose?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not into religion.” In fact the only church I prayed at was the church of Cat Snax. Now there was something I believed in.
“These are desperate times, Max,” said Dooley, switching to seasoned preacher mode. “And desperate times call for desperate measures. Do you really want to risk your soul burning in hell for all of eternity? Or do you want to join me and Brutus in cat heaven?”
“What does cat heaven look like, exactly?” asked Brutus, interested.
“No idea,” said Dooley. “You have to ask Shanille. She’s the expert.”
And so she was. “What about Harriet?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we tell her?”
“No, don’t tell her, Max,” Brutus urged me. “She’ll be devastated.”
“She’ll be more devastated when you die without telling her.”
“That’s the whole point, isn’t it?” asked Brutus with more than a little heat. “I hope I won’t die. I hope Shanille will heal me.”
“I thought you said Jesus would heal you,” said Dooley, puzzled.
“I don’t care who heals me!” Brutus cried. “As long as someone does!”
“Keep your shirt on, Brutus,” I said, which probably didn’t make sense. Cats don’t wear shirts. Dogs do, but then we all know dogs are idiots.
“I’m desperate here, Max, can’t you see?” said Brutus, and I had to admit I’d never seen him quite as unraveled as this.
I could tell I was going to have to hold his paw. And Dooley’s. I was going to be the official pawholder of our little band of three. I didn’t mind. I liked Brutus. He’d grown on me ever since he’d come to live with us. If holding his paw got rid of his red spots I was all for it.
Brutus looked down. Dooley’s paw had surreptitiously slipped against his own. Brutus looked up, giving Dooley a look that could kill. Dooley produced a sheepish smile.
“I figured since we’re going to be Jesus buddies, we might hold paws,” he said.
Brutus lifted his upper lip in a snarl, and Dooley quickly removed his paw.
Brutus might be covered in red spots, but he’d l
ost none of his bite.
Chapter 19
Nine o’clock on the dot the next morning Odelia and Gran strode into Uncle Alec’s office. Chase and the Chief were already present, and they were accompanied by a young woman with long bright pink hair and denim overalls over a Calvin & Hobbes T-shirt.
“Odelia—Ma—this is Lara Dun. She works for the Suffolk County Police Department. We have her on loan for the day so make sure you don’t waste her time.”
With these words, he directed a pointed look at Big Mac, who was safely ensconced in Odelia’s arms, and Max, who was being carried by Gran.
Chase, when he noticed that both Gran and Odelia had come bearing cats, gave them a look of surprise.
“Oh, you brought your cats,” said Lara, and got up to give Max a cuddle. He had the good decency to purr in response.
“So where’s the pizza?” asked Big Mac, as he wriggled in Odelia’s arms.
“Work first, food later,” said Max, and Odelia couldn’t have expressed it better.
“Why don’t you use my office?” said Uncle Alec. “No one will disturb you here,” he added with a knowing look at his niece.
Chase got the hint, for he filed out of the room, followed by the Chief, who closed the door behind him.
“So how do you want to do this?” asked Odelia.
“Just take a seat and I’ll be over here doing my thing,” said Lara with a bright smile. She seemed like a sweet young woman. She took a seat, one leg tucked underneath her bum, and positioned a large sketch pad on her knee, a pencil in her hand, and sat poised.
Odelia and Gran sat across from the sketch artist while Big Mac and Max sat at their feet.
“So you saw several people enter the library last night, right?” said Odelia.
“That’s right,” said Big Mac.
“Uh-huh,” said Gran.
“How many people would you say you saw?”
Big Mac thought hard. “Um, seven. Eight if you count the pizza guy.”
“Eight,” Gran announced.
“Let’s go through the list,” said Odelia.
And so they did. Big Mac shared his recollections with them, Gran passed them on as her own, and Lara quietly worked away. It took quite a while to produce composites of all the people who’d visited the library that night. The morning passed quickly, and by the time Uncle Alec waltzed in, carrying three pizza boxes and placing them on the desk, seven sketches were the end result of the long session. The pizza guy was the only one Big Mac hadn’t been able to describe, as he’d been wearing a ball cap and the cat had been watching the pizza more than the deliverer. They would check all the pizza parlors and get the name of the delivery guy. Or, better yet, check Ackerman’s phone to see what parlor he’d called.
“So?” asked Uncle Alec, planting his hands on the desk. “How did it go?”
Lara handed him the sketches and he frowned as he went through them. “Huh. Now all we gotta do is figure out who these people are.”
“Can I take a look?” asked Odelia.
Alec handed her the pictures while he placed one of the pizza boxes on the floor and watched as Big Mac dug in with relish and a fervor that elicited chuckles from everyone present. He was a great little eater. Well, maybe little wasn’t the right word to describe him.
Odelia flipped through the sketches. “Nice work,” she said. “These are amazing.”
“Thanks,” said Lara with a smile. “You gave me so much detail to work with it wasn’t hard. You’re very perceptive, Mrs. Muffin. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone with as good an eye for detail as you.”
“Yeah, well,” said Gran. “It’s a gift.”
“Under the circumstances your eyesight is simply amazing. Your son told me that there’s only one lamp at the back of the library, and it doesn’t even give a lot of light.”
Gran adjusted her glasses. “I’ve always had great eyesight. Some people say I have the eyes of a cat.”
Lara laughed at this. “If you had cat’s eyes that would explain how you pulled this off.” She rose to her feet and held out her hand. “It’s been a pleasure working with you. And you, Miss Poole. Usually people don’t remember half of what you remembered. I had fun.”
“It was so nice meeting you,” Odelia said gratefully.
Lara walked out and Gran puffed out her chest. “I like that girl. She knows her stuff. The things she said about my eyesight and my powers of observation confirmed I’ve got what it takes to be an ace detective.”
“You do realize she was unknowingly complimenting Big Mac, don’t you?” said Odelia.
“Let’s not split hairs,” said Gran.
Odelia, who’d picked up the sketches again, tapped one depicting a man with sunken eyes and a square chin. “Isn’t this Rockwell Burke? The horror writer?”
Gran squinted at the sketch. “Dang it. I forgot my reading glasses.”
So much for her amazing cat-like eyesight.
“We better show these to Mom,” said Odelia. “She’s always been Chris Ackerman’s biggest fan. If these people are associated with Ackerman, she might recognize them.”
And so she did. Fifteen minutes later Marge Poole joined them, and another ten minutes later she’d identified four out of seven.
“That’s Ackerman’s wife. I think her name is Angelique. That’s Ackerman’s son Trey. That’s Rockwell Burke—weird. I thought he hadn’t shown up. Um, and that’s Malcolm Buckerfield. Like I told you before, he is—or was—Ackerman’s publisher.” She stared at the final three sketches but shook her head. “I’ve never seen these. Maybe they’re more of Ackerman’s relatives?”
“That’s Sasha Drood,” said Uncle Alec. “He’s the one who stole Ackerman’s valuables. He might be the one who killed him.”
Mom pressed her lips together in disapproval. “What a nasty, nasty man. Even if he didn’t actually kill Chris Ackerman he did something that’s almost just as bad. You don’t steal from a dead man.”
“Or a dying man,” said Odelia softly. The thought hadn’t occurred to her before, but if what Drood said was true, and he hadn’t actually killed Ackerman, he might have watched him die, and hadn’t lifted a finger to help him. She frowned and turned to her uncle. “If Drood is telling the truth, then he must have arrived just after Ackerman was killed. In which case he might have seen the killer.”
“I asked him that same question. He says he didn’t see anyone.”
“He could be lying to protect the killer.”
Uncle Alec agreed that that was a distinct possibility.
“Hey, this pizza is amazing!” Big Mac cried from his position on the floor. When Odelia looked, she saw that the pizza was gone.
“Max? Did you get to eat something?” she asked.
Max shook his head. “I figured Big Mac deserved the whole thing.”
And so he did. Two more pizzas were sitting on the desk. She picked up a slice and placed it down in front of Max. “This is for you,” she said warmly. “You brought us Big Mac. You deserve a treat just as much as he does.”
“Yes, you did great, Max,” said Marge, and Gran confirmed that Max was a real trooper. Uncle Alec merely grinned. Even though he’d heard his mother, his sister and his niece talk feline all his life, it never failed to elicit a smile from the big guy.
Chapter 20
Once Odelia had dropped Big Mac off at Mickey D’s and picked up Dooley from the house, it was time for us to conduct our first interview on the Baffling Case of the Murdered Best-Selling Author of the World. As all self-respecting sleuths know, interviews are a detective’s bread and butter. It’s what we live for. Read any Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple novel and it’s wall-to-wall interviews. Some people think it gets a little boring after a while, but not me. Oh, no. I love chatting with suspects. Getting under their skin. Making them talk!
Only problem is, most suspects don’t speak cat. But I don’t mind. I talk to their pets instead, and boy, oh, boy do pets have the most fascinating stories to sha
re. Often they know more about humans and their weird and quirky ways than the humans themselves!
And so it was that Odelia steered her decrepit old Ford in the direction of downtown Hampton Cove, me and Dooley in the back and Grandma Muffin riding shotgun. Usually it’s Chase who’s Odelia’s preferential sleuthpartner, but I guess family comes first. And since Chase wasn’t family yet, Gran had effectively managed to usurp the cop’s position.
“So before we go in there we need to establish a few ground rules,” said Odelia as the car hurtled through town, belching out fumes and rattling as if something was going to bust loose any minute now. A hubcap, maybe, or a vital piece of engine. “One. We behave professionally, which means we don’t pretend to be cops, and we always stay polite.”
“Too bad. I figured we’d do good cop, bad cop and I’d get to be the bad cop,” said Gran.
“Second, better let me ask the questions. I’ve done this before and I know how to handle myself.”
“Honey, I’ve done this a thousand times before. I’m old!” she added when Odelia gave her a skeptical look. “I’ve talked people into saying stuff they didn’t want to say from way before you were even born. Men, mostly, but women, too.” She looked grim. “You wouldn’t believe the things I got your grandfather to confess when I used my thumbscrews on him.”
Odelia laughed, but then seemed to realize Gran wasn’t kidding. She cleared her throat. “Three. We find a way to insert Max and Dooley into the room so they can talk to the suspects’ pets. And we never, ever, leave them behind.”
Never leave a fallen pet behind. I liked it. One of those rules to live by, huh?
“You don’t have to tell me how to do my job,” said Gran, holding up a hand. “I’m a born detective, sweetie. Put me in a room with a suspect and I can tell at a glance whether they did it or not.” She tapped her nose. “It’s called intuition and I’ve got it up the wazoo.”
“Just… let me do the talking,” said Odelia, who didn’t seem comfortable with the idea of bringing her grandmother along for these interviews.
“So how did it go with Big Mac?” asked Dooley.