The Mysteries of Max: Books 31-33

by Nic Saint

  “How can you ruin sushi?” I heard Scarlett whisper back. “It’s raw fish!”

  But when we glanced over to Odelia and Chase, they both looked so obviously happy Tex could have served them roadkill and they’d have savored it with relish, thinking it was the finest gourmet dish.

  “Why was that priest dressed so funny, Max?” asked Dooley. “And why did he break into song in the middle of the service?”

  “He was dressed as Elvis, Dooley,” explained Harriet. “It’s a local custom here in Vegas.”

  “Yeah, plenty of Elvis impersonators here,” Brutus confirmed.

  “Are you sure they’re really married, though?” asked Dooley. “That guy didn’t look like a priest to me.”

  “He wasn’t a priest, but yes, they’re officially married,” I confirmed. “You don’t need a priest to be married in the eyes of the law. All you need is an officiant who’s certified.”

  “Well, he certainly looked certifiable to me,” Dooley said, nodding.

  We all laughed, except for Dooley, who didn’t realize he’d said something funny.

  “So you caught the real killers, did you?” asked Charlene.

  “Yeah, we did,” Uncle Alec confirmed. “Bojanowsky and Bonikowski will do time.”

  “But how did you find out that they were the ones behind all this?”

  “Um…” Uncle Alec paused and glanced in my direction. “Well, part of it is good old-fashioned police work, of course. The other part…” He shrugged. “If I tell you that Max solved the case, along with some friendly assistance from Evelina Pytel’s pet snail, you’re not going to think I’m funny in the head, are you?”

  Charlene laughed, then stared at her boyfriend with a touch of incredulity. “No,” she finally said, when she realized he wasn’t pulling her leg. “No, of course not. A cat and a snail, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, what do you know?”

  “And what about Johnny and Jerry?” asked Marge, who seemed to have a soft spot for the two crooks who had such a hard time getting and staying on the straight and narrow.

  “Johnny and Jerry are fine,” Chase assured his mother-in-law. “They’ve been released and they’ve promised to stay out of trouble from now on.”

  “Did I tell you they were in my office the other day?” said Uncle Alec.

  “What did they want?” asked Odelia.

  “To ask what the procedure was to become a cop.”

  Chase uttered a bark of incredulity. “No way.”

  “Yeah, way,” said Uncle Alec with a touch of somberness. “Johnny wanted to know all about job openings at the station, and Jerry was particularly interested in pay scales. I told them they didn’t stand a chance of becoming cops, as you need a clean record and their record is probably about as long as my arm. But that didn’t seem to deter them.”

  “So we might see them patrolling our streets soon?” asked Tex as he flipped a piece of pale pink fish onto the Chief’s plate. At least I think he was aiming for the Chief’s plate. Instead it landed on the Chief’s head with a squishy sound and then just lay there, looking inedible and kinda sad before the Chief plucked it from his brow and… ate it.

  Charlene patted her boyfriend on the back. “The hotel has a twenty-four-hour restaurant,” she whispered.

  “Yeah, well, I doubt whether they’ll be patrolling our streets any time soon,” the Chief grunted, giving his girlfriend a grateful look.

  “They could always become parking enforcement officers,” Marge suggested. “You don’t need to have a clean record to do that, or do you?”

  “Please, Marge, don’t encourage them,” the Chief pleaded with his sister. “It’s bad enough that they’ve been regular visitors at the station holding cell. I don’t want them to start infesting the rest of my precinct as well.”

  “Well, I firmly believe in the power of rehabilitation,” said Marge stubbornly.

  “Good for you, Marge,” said Scarlett, who was intently studying a piece of fish, probably wondering what it was. She then glanced surreptitiously in my direction. I got the message. She wasn’t my first customer of the evening. So I quickly padded over and accepted the piece of fish from her hand, which she proceeded to use to give me a grateful pat on the head. I gave her hand an equally grateful lick.

  “I wanna make a toast,” said Gran now as she got to her feet a little unsteadily. She’d discovered saké at the beginning of the evening and had taken a distinct liking to the brew. “To the gride and broom,” she said, raising her glass high and spilling some of the clear liquid. “May they live happily ever after and, and, and… and all of that good stuff!”

  “Hear, hear!” said Marge.

  “And to our cats,” Gran added as she turned to us. “May they keep being the best helpers that ever solved a crime in our fair town. To Max, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus!”

  Loud cheers rang out, and more fish was aimed at our humans’ plates by an enthusiastic father of the bride—soon to be redistributed to us, conveniently located nearby!

  “Why am I always the last one to be mentioned?” Brutus lamented.

  I gave him a gentle nudge and said, “Have you never heard the expression ‘The last will be first?’”

  “No, I haven’t. You just made that up, didn’t you?”

  “No, it’s a thing,” I assured him. “And I’m sure that next time you’ll be the one to crack the case. You’ve got the brains, you’ve got the skills, and you certainly got the brawn.”

  “Very kind of you to say so, Max. You’re absolutely right. I’ve got both the brains and the brawn. So I’m ready to start cracking some tough cases. And who knows? Maybe I’ll even let you be my loyal but slightly goofy sidekick from now on. How about that?”

  “Very generous of you, Brutus.”

  “Think nothing of it, Max.”

  And so the long night wore on. One by one people started disappearing: first Uncle Alec and Charlene, who said they wanted to get an early night, then Gran and Scarlett, who said they wanted to take a stroll along the Strip, and of course Odelia and Chase were also eager to return to their room, as they had something to celebrate in the privacy of their bedroom: their wedding night. Though it’s entirely possible that after the week they’d had, they’d both fall asleep the moment their heads hit the pillow.

  So finally it was just Tex and Marge and us cats. When Tex looked up and saw that his entire roster of customers had vanished into thin air, he looked a little sheepish at first, but Marge was quick to console him. “You did a wonderful job, honey,” she said. “And do you realize that our daughter just got married? And to a wonderful husband to boot?”

  That quickly put a smile on the good doctor’s face again, even as he was dissecting a piece of fish filet, probably trying to ascertain what kind of diseases it might be suffering. “We did a good job raising Odelia, didn’t we?” he said as he took a seat at the table.

  “We sure did,” said Marge, then gave her husband’s arm a squeeze. “What do you say we go up to our room, too?”

  Now he was positively beaming. “Best idea ever,” he said, and then they, too, left the building.

  For a moment, silence reigned, and then Harriet said, “I can’t believe they forgot about us!”

  “Well, at least they didn’t leave us without something to eat,” Brutus pointed out.

  Silver linings, people. Life is all about recognizing the silver linings. And sometimes, just sometimes, those silver linings consist of raw fish—lots and lots of raw fish!

  THE END

  You probably noticed that I kind of glossed over the actual wedding. The good news is that you can read all about those missing moments in Purrfect Wedding, a free story for newsletter subscribers. Sign up here: nicsaint.com/news

  Purrfect Deceit

  The Mysteries of Max - Book 32

  Chapter 1

  We were in Odelia’s office doing what we do best: having a refreshing nap. Not that napping is all we do, mind you. Sometimes
we doze, and sometimes we even sleep. Dooley and I occupied one corner of the office, Harriet and Brutus another. Recently a sort of disagreement had broken out between the two factions that make up Odelia’s cat contingent and I can only blame The Wedding for this frankly embarrassing fracas.

  A wedding had taken place in Las Vegas, and Odelia and Chase Kingsley had officially been declared husband and wife. It had been one of those shotgun weddings, though fortunately no shotguns had featured into the thing, and a good thing, too, I should say.

  The moment we returned from Vegas however, two things happened that caused a kind of rift: first off, a great number of people who’d heard through the grapevine about the wedding were vocally displeased, and didn’t mind expressing this displeasure to one and all. As Odelia’s cats we more or less bore the brunt of this displeasure, as our fellow felines in the local community turned to us to tell of their annoyance with the way the whole thing had gone down, and this naturally weighed on all of our minds.

  Harriet, fed up with all this criticism, which she felt she didn’t deserve, figured Dooley and I were mostly to blame, as we should have used our influence to discourage Odelia from going through with her plan, even though at the time Harriet had thought it was a great idea—something she’d since conveniently forgotten, I might add.

  And then there was the second dispute that soured things to some extent.

  “The stork, Max!” said Dooley. “It’s the stork! I can see him! Quick, let’s catch him before he takes off again!”

  I looked in the direction indicated but unfortunately didn’t see any sign of said stork.

  “Um… I’m afraid I don’t see any stork, Dooley,” I said therefore.

  He stared at the window, through which a sliver of blue sky was visible. “Oh,” he said finally. “I thought I saw it. Must have been some other bird.”

  “Will you please shut up about your stork,” Harriet yelled from her side of the room.

  “Yeah, some of us are trying to take a quiet nap,” Brutus chimed in.

  “I’m sorry,” said Dooley. “It’s just that… you know how important it is, you guys. And I think we should all be on the lookout for that stork twenty-four seven.”

  “You be on the lookout,” said Harriet. “Brutus and I have better things to do.”

  “We could take shifts,” Dooley suggested, turning a hopeful face to me. “I could watch out while you take a nap, and you could watch out while I take a nap. And vice versa?”

  “Sure, Dooley,” I said reassuringly. “Don’t you worry about a thing. You take your nap and I’ll make sure that stork doesn’t pass by this office without me attracting its attention and making sure it does what it’s supposed to do.”

  “And what’s that?” asked Brutus. “Take a dump and fly off again?” He seemed to think his joke was very funny, for he suddenly broke into uproarious laughter.

  “You know how important this is, Brutus,” said Dooley, sounding a little hurt. “If we don’t catch that stork, Odelia will never have her baby, and then she’ll be very sad.”

  “Oh, Dooley,” said Harriet with a sigh, even as Brutus shook his head.

  “What?” said Dooley. “It’s true, though, isn’t it? This is very, very important.”

  “Absolutely, Dooley,” I said with a smile. As long as Dooley was on the lookout for the stork delivering Odelia’s baby there was no need for me to go into all that birds and bees stuff again, something I thoroughly dislike, I don’t mind telling you.

  “What are you guys talking about?” asked Odelia, busily typing at her computer.

  “Oh, nothing special,” I said, and Dooley gave me a fat wink.

  So you can probably see what the issue was, can’t you: ever since we got back from Vegas, Dooley has been very anxious about the baby he was sure was about to land any moment now, courtesy of that mysterious stork. He’d pretty much equated marriage with the arrival of a bundle of joy from the heavens, and since Odelia was so incredibly busy all the time, he was afraid she’d miss the stork’s arrival and her chance at having a baby—or two.

  Harriet and Brutus, on the other hand, weren’t all that excited at the prospect of an addition to the family, though in all honesty it was mostly Harriet who was very vocal in expressing her views on the subject. Not when Odelia could hear her, mind you. The last thing she wanted was to antagonize our human and cause that incessant flow of kibble to suddenly dry up, something that was entirely Odelia’s prerogative, of course.

  A knock at the door sounded, and when we looked up we saw that a man had arrived sporting an anxious look on his face.

  “Miss Poole?” he said hesitantly. “Miss Odelia Poole?”

  “Yep, that’s me,” said Odelia, looking up from her computer. “What can I do for you?”

  The man hesitantly entered the office and took a seat across from the intrepid reporter. He was a man in his early thirties I would have guessed, a little thin on top, who wore thick-framed glasses and had a mephistophelian beard going on. The kind of beard Robert Downey Jr. rocks when he’s flying around dressed as a man of iron. Unfortunately while such a beard becomes Mr. Downey well, it didn’t do much for this man’s doughy face and pasty pallor. Then again, we can’t all be Hollywood stars, now can we?

  “A friend of mine said you’re the person to talk to when some delicate issue crops up,” the man said, after shuffling back and forth on his chair for a few beats, while Odelia patiently waited for him to launch into an explanation for why he’d decided to intrude upon her precious time.

  “A delicate issue?” asked Odelia, frowning slightly. “What delicate issue, Mr…”

  “Curtis,” said the man. “Joshua Curtis. Um…” He glanced around, as if to make sure they wouldn’t be disturbed, and conveniently ignored all four of us, dismissing us as not relevant, as most humans do. He scooted a little forward on his chair, then said, “Can I rely on your absolute discretion, Miss Poole? This is, as I said, a matter of the utmost delicacy.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Odelia. She gave the man a smile intended to put him at ease. “While I’m not an attorney, and I can’t fall back on the old client confidentiality thing…”

  “Or a priest,” I muttered.

  “I will of course treat whatever you want to tell me with the necessary discretion.”

  Mr. Curtis nodded, then seemed to screw up his courage and said, “A friend of mine is in trouble, Miss Poole.”

  “Just call me Odelia,” said our fair-haired human who, last I checked, was as svelte as she’s always been, which meant that in spite of Dooley’s ministrations no baby bump was growing. She flashed more of that encouraging smile of hers at the man, the smile that makes people in all walks of life entrust her with their deepest confidences.

  “The thing is, Jason and I have been best friends since college, see. And since he got married I like to think that his wife Melanie and I have also become very close friends.”

  “Are you yourself married, Joshua?” asked Odelia, as a way to break the ice.

  “Um, no, as a matter of fact I’m not,” said the man, nervously rubbing his hands on his trousers. “I came close,” he quickly added with a weak smile, “but no luck so far.”

  “So your friend Jason is in some kind of trouble?”

  “Yes, well, actually his wife Melanie is. She…” Mr. Curtis took another deep breath. “The thing is, Melanie’s been seeing someone.”

  “You mean, someone other than her husband?”

  Joshua nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Does your friend know about this?”

  “Pretty sure that he doesn’t. And frankly I’d like to keep it that way. See the thing is… Jason and Melanie mean a lot to me, Miss Poo—Odelia. I consider them more than friends. They’re like family, and their happiness is very important to me.”

  “Have you talked to Melanie about this?”

  “No. No, I haven’t. I’m afraid that if I do… See, the thing is that I’m not a hundred percent sure.
” He shrugged. “Maybe I’m seeing things. But I don’t think so.”

  “Why do you think she’s having an affair?”

  “It all started two weeks ago. Jason told me that Melanie had started working late, and that he was worried about her. He felt she was taking on too much. And so he asked me to talk to her. Maybe convince her to talk to her boss about rearranging her workload some.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “The thing is,” said Joshua, looking a little embarrassed, “that I thought the best thing would be for me to have a talk with Melanie’s boss myself. You see, Melanie and I used to be colleagues once upon a time, and her boss used to be my boss, too. So I just figured I’d have a friendly little chat with him at his local hangout, which happens to be my local hangout, too. Only when I told him to cut Melanie some slack, he was surprised. Said Melanie’s workload hasn’t changed. No overtime, no nothing. She clocks in and out like she’s always done. Actually he’d noticed the opposite: she’s been clocking out early the last couple of weeks, and taking longer lunch breaks.”

  “Which of course made you wonder where she’d been spending those hours she claimed she was working late,” Odelia said, nodding.

  Joshua cleared his throat. “I would have asked Melanie about it, but I really don’t want to ruin a beautiful friendship, and I don’t want her to think I’m spying on her. So…” He gave Odelia a hopeful look.

  Odelia smiled. “You want me to find out what your friend’s wife’s been up to.”

  “I’ll pay you, of course,” said Joshua quickly, taking out his wallet.

  Odelia held up her hand. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’m not a private detective, Joshua. I’m a reporter.”

  “Oh, I know you’re a reporter. But my friend told me you’re also an ace detective—probably the only detective in town. So…”

  Odelia settled back for a moment, and cast a glance in my direction. I gave her a thoughtful nod. She was, indeed, a grade-A sleuth, and why shouldn’t she earn an extra buck if people wanted to avail themselves of her obvious talents? Besides, now that she was married she probably could use the extra money. Contrary to what you might think reporters don’t exactly make the big bucks, and neither do small-town cops. And even if no stork flew in through the window and deposited a newborn on her couch, she still had four extra mouths to feed, so basically I was just looking out for yours truly!