by Nic Saint
“I prefer the term big-boned,” I said. “I have big bones. It’s in my genes.”
“Maybe I could go see a doctor?” Dooley asked. “I do feel a little weak.”
“Sure,” Odelia said, ignoring my groans of exasperation. “Why don’t we go see Vena? That way you can relax. And we better take you, too, Max.”
I gulped. “Me? Go see Vena? Why? I mean, why? Why Vena? Why?”
“Because when we went to see her last year she said you were too big for your size, and she wanted to put you on a diet, remember?”
I remembered. What a horrible suggestion! I’m not too big. It’s my bones. “But I followed the diet,” I reminded her. “I did everything she told me to.”
“Yes, and she also said we should come back in a year so she could check.”
“But… I don’t want to go. I’m fine. I followed the diet. I—I’m good.”
“We’re going,” she said firmly. “End of discussion.”
I gave Dooley an angry look. “This is all your fault,” I grumbled. “If you hadn’t gone all hypochondriac on us this would never have happened.”
“Max, be nice to Dooley. If he thinks there’s something wrong with him, we better have him looked at. And you, mister, were never going to escape Vena.”
“I wasn’t?”
“Of course not. She has you scheduled for next month. But since we’re taking Dooley anyway, she can take a look at you, too.”
I just knew what she was going to say. She was going to say I hadn’t lost enough weight and she was going to put me on that rotten diet again. Eating nothing but diet kibble for six months. No special treats. No chicken liver. No yummy surprises. “Just so you know, that diet stuff tastes like cardboard,” I said.
“Well, you better hope that you lost enough weight, then,” said Odelia.
No sympathy. No sympathy whatsoever. Humans are cruel. Just plain cruel.
“Oh, and we’re taking Diego, too. He has to get his shots and he has to be neutered.”
I shared a happy look with Dooley. Humans. Aren’t they the best?
Odelia tapped her space bar and a video started playing on her screen.
“This is some raw footage from Kitchen Disasters. Niklaus used to upload snippets for his upcoming show to his website. Now watch this.”
I watched this, and so did Dooley. All I saw was this Niklaus guy yelling and screaming at a chubby guy with a chef hat. The chef just kept on decorating a plate, looking thoroughly uncomfortable, his face a very unhealthy pasty white, until Niklaus snatched the plate out of his hands and dumped its contents into a trash can. The chef looked absolutely horrified after that, as if someone had taken his baby and thrown it away.
Odelia pressed the space bar again. “That was Hendrik Serarols being chewed out by Niklaus. Fun stuff, huh?”
“Pretty brutal,” I said.
“Yeah, that Niklaus guy was not very nice,” Dooley commented.
“No, he sure wasn’t,” Odelia said, swiveling in her office chair.
She picked up the phone. When it connected, she said, “Chase, any word on the Echo alibi?”
She pressed a button on her phone, and suddenly we could hear Chase’s voice. “To get the information from Amazon would take weeks, and require a warrant—maybe even a court order. Luckily the Stowes were so kind to let me listen in on their account. Did you know you can play back your own audio recordings and delete them if you want?”
“No, I did not know that. So was it as bad as I think it was?”
“A lot of moaning and giggling. Turns out they asked Alexa to give them instructions.”
“Instructions on what?”
He laughed. “What do you think, Poole? How to clean the sink? They asked Alexa to read them the entire Kama Sutra. They got to chapter five last night. And they ordered a bunch of saucy stuff on Amazon as well.”
I could see that Odelia was blushing slightly, and I wondered what this Kama thing was. I nudged Dooley, but he was still looking depressed. No amount of giggling and moaning could cheer him up.
“So their alibi checked out, huh?”
“Pretty much. First time I had to listen in on a couple’s recordings with the couple present. Brainard looked pretty proud of himself. Isabella? Not so much. She looked like she’d rather be anywhere but there. Still, it got them off the hook, so I’m guessing they’re fine.”
“So that’s one suspect you can scratch from your list.”
“Unfortunately, yes. What have you got so far?”
“I talked to Mrs. Niklaus Skad. Also known as Cybil Truscott.”
And while Odelia regaled Chase with the story of her meeting with Mrs. Truscott, I jumped from the desk, and so did Dooley. Frankly I’d heard enough. The investigation was still nowhere, and what was even worse: I was going to have to face Vena Aleman again, my worst nightmare. Not that the veterinarian is a bad person. She’s not. But she has this penchant for needles. It seems that each time Odelia takes me to see her she has to stick a needle in me. I hate it. They say it’s for my own good, but I doubt it. I secretly suspect her of being a sadist. And a sadist with a medical degree is a very bad thing. Especially for us cats, who are pretty much defenseless.
“So are you happy with yourself now, Dooley?” I asked as we left the Happy Bays Gazette office and ambled down the street. “Now you’ve got us both going to Vena again. And you know what happens when we go to Vena. We get stuck with needles. Needles in the butt, needles in the neck, needles in the tummy. You name it, she sticks it.”
“If only one of her needles will save my life,” said Dooley.
I had to admit he did look like he was about to die. All because of the power of suggestion.
“You’ve got nothing to worry about. Since there’s nothing wrong with you Vena will just give you a clean bill of health and a hit with the needle. Me? She’s going to put me on that scale again and decide I’m still too fat for my size and she’s going to put me on a diet and stick me with the needle.” I sighed. “What did I ever do to deserve this?”
At least Vena would neuter Diego. It was a small consolation.
“Do you think Vena can cure cancer?”
“If she could, she’d be a billionaire now.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
He gave me a sad look. “I want you to know I’ve always considered you my best friend, Max. And when I’m gone, could you look after Harriet for me?”
“You look after Harriet. You’re going to outlive us all, buddy. It’s the thin ones that live to be forty.”
“Forty? There’s no cat alive who’s forty.”
“There was this one cat who lived to be thirty-eight. She’s in the Guinness Book of Records. I’m sure someone will best her and beat her record one day.”
“Well, it won’t be me,” Dooley said gloomily. “I won’t live another week.”
I groaned. Was I really going to have to listen to this for much longer? “You’re fine, Dooley. Even Odelia said you’re fine.”
“Odelia’s no doctor.”
“Her dad’s a doctor.”
“So?”
“So it’s in her genes. That kind of stuff runs in the family.”
He gave me a dubious look. “Being a doctor is a genetic thing?”
“Sure,” I lied brazenly. “Didn’t you ever watch Diagnosis: Murder? Dick Van Dyke’s son was a doctor, too, remember? It’s all in the genes!” He seemed to perk up, so I continued. “So when Odelia tells you you’re fine, you can rest assured she knows what she’s talking about. She’s got the, um, doctor gene.”
“You’re not saying that just to make me feel better?”
I was saying that to make me feel better. “Of course not! Everybody knows that’s how it works. Trust me. Odelia knows.”
He bobbed his head. “Thanks, Max. It’s like a weight off my shoulders.”
I clapped my paw on those same shoulders. “You’re fine, buddy! The picture of health!”
“Phew. And here I was thinking I was a goner.”
“Imagine that.”
He shivered. “I’ve imagined that ever since we talked to Montserrat, so no thank you. I won’t be imagining that anymore. I was actually feeling really sick.”
“Power of the mind, Dooley. It’s all up here.” I tapped his noggin.
“What is up there, Max?”
In his case? Not much. “Your mind, Dooley. Whatever your mind pictures, your body carries out.”
“So, if my mind pictured a nice juicy chicken wing, my body will somehow get it for me?”
“Sure,” I said. “You just have to think hard enough and it’ll happen.”
“Wow, that’s great, Max. Why don’t I try that right now?” And he closed his eyes, presumably thinking very hard about chicken wings.
You’re telling me that wasn’t a very nice thing to do to my best friend? I think it was the best thing I could have done. At least he wasn’t thinking about his imminent death anymore. Now he was thinking about the imminent death of a chicken. Hey, better a dead chicken than a dead Dooley, right?
Chapter 10
When Odelia ended the conversation with Chase she discovered that Max and Dooley had skedaddled. Which didn’t surprise her. Max hated going to the vet, and Dooley seemed convinced he was about to die. She got up from her desk and found Dan leaning against the doorjamb.
“So? How’s the investigation going?”
“So far the most likely suspect is the chef.”
“Isn’t it always?” he quipped with a twinkle in his eye.
“Chase seems to be convinced the couple running the restaurant didn’t do it, and I talked to Skad’s wife and she claims she has a solid alibi.”
“Which you will undoubtedly go check.”
“Undoubtedly,” she said with a smile.
“So did I hear you talking to your cats again?” Dan asked.
“Dooley isn’t feeling well,” she said cautiously. Dan didn’t know she could talk to her cats, though she suspected he had some idea of what was going on. They’d never discussed it, though, and she wasn’t going to risk her career at the newspaper by admitting that her cats were the source of many of her best and most exclusive stories.
“I can imagine it must be quite a burden looking out for—how many cats do you have now?”
“Four—and it’s not a burden. My mom and Gran take care of them, too, so it’s no biggie.”
“You know, when I hired you all those years ago, I partly did so because I figured you were young and you were going to go after the stories with the freshness and zeal that I’m lacking, due to my advanced age.”
“You’re not old, Dan,” she protested.
“Wait,” he said, holding up his hand. “Let me finish. But I also hired you on a hunch. Someone had told me once that the Poole women are special. That they have a feline streak. That they understand cats more than the rest of us do. My hunch proved correct. You’re a better reporter than I ever was, and that’s saying something, as I launched this damn paper.”
She wondered what he was trying to say, if anything. “Thanks, Dan. That’s high praise coming from you.”
“You take good care of those cats for me, won’t you? And tell them thanks.”
She reddened. “I, um—I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. Cats can’t talk.”
“No, but they can listen. And they ask the right questions.” He tapped his nose. “And that, my dear, are the hallmarks of a great reporter.”
She left the office wondering if she shouldn’t have protested more. Now it looked like she was accepting Dan’s idea that somehow she could talk to her cats. Then again, she hadn’t admitted anything, and if she knew Dan, she was sure he’d keep her secret.
She arrived at the police station and saw that Chase’s car was gone. She walked into the squat one-story building and breezed past Dolores, who manned the front desk. She gave her a wave and walked right through to her uncle’s office at the end of the hallway. She knocked and stepped inside without waiting for a reply.
Her uncle was sitting with his feet up on his desk when she entered, and she took a seat across from him, also putting her feet up. “So Max and Dooley talked to Erin Coka’s cat Montserrat, who told them another cat, this one called Fred, not that it matters, saw a black Tesla parked in the alley behind the restaurant last night. Just thought you’d like to know.”
Her uncle took pad and pencil and wrote down, “Anonymous witness sees black Tesla parked in alley behind Fry Me for an Oyster.” He looked up. “Plates?”
“No plates.”
He smiled. “That would have been too easy. Anything else your feline detectives discovered?”
“I found out something.” She told him about her conversation with Cybil Truscott and her uncle whistled.
“Now there’s a nice, juicy suspect if I ever saw one. Motive, opportunity… I think she might even have managed to get the body up in the oven. Big, strong woman, right?”
“Not big, but I’ll bet pure rage would have fueled her. She’s the vindictive type.”
“Real ball-buster, huh?” He picked up his pad again, and wrote, tongue between his teeth, “Talk to pool boy at Hampton Springs Hotel.”
“Any word from the coroner?”
“Just got a call from him, as a matter of fact. Found a fortune cookie in the victim’s stomach.”
“A fortune cookie? What did it say?”
“Someone special will soon enter your life.”
“Huh. Guess that must have referred to the killer.”
“He or she certainly left an indelible impression.”
They shared a smile. Gallows humor was typical for cops and reporters alike. “What else did he find? Cause of death?” she asked.
Uncle Alec shook his head and shifted his bulk in his chair, which creaked under his weight. “Abe says it’s hard to figure out what happened when the integrity of the body has been compromised to such an extent. He’s still trying to find out, but so far he couldn’t determine cause of death.”
“Maybe toxicology will tell us something.”
“It certainly wasn’t a bullet that killed him, or a blow to the head. That would have been obvious. Strangulation? Impossible to determine. Knife wound? So far nothing indicates he was stabbed.”
“What happens if Abe isn’t able to discover a cause of death?”
“It’ll just make things a little harder for us. We won’t have a murder weapon to look for, or an MO to use to pinpoint the killer.”
She nodded. “So Chase told me about the Echo?”
Her uncle laughed. “Yeah, that was something. And good thing they decided to come clean. Getting Amazon to release the recordings would have been tricky.”
“I think it’s smart they came forward. They must have known they’d be the prime suspects until their alibi was confirmed.”
“Maybe you and Chase could get one of these Echo contraptions. Spice up your love life.”
She gave him a dark look. “Chase and I have no love life to spice up. We’re not dating, Uncle Alec.”
“Then maybe you should start. I think you guys would be great together. I know for a fact he likes you, Odelia. Likes you a lot.”
“He... he told you?”
“He didn’t have to. I can tell from the way he talks about you. He admires the hell out of you. Thinks you’d make a great detective.”
“That’s because he doesn’t know… my little secret.”
“He doesn’t have to know. Besides, even without Max and Dooley you still make a great detective. You just have a knack for it.”
“Thanks. It’s just that… what if he found out? I mean, not just for me. I have to think about Mom and Gran, too. Nobody can find out. They’d just label us freaks. And the attention that would garner would destroy us.”
“Nobody is going to find out, honey,” he said softly. “And even if Chase got an inkling, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. And he definitely wouldn’t tell on
you.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s much harder to keep something like that a secret when you’re involved with a person.”
“Of course. And if you are serious about him, I think sooner or later you’re going to have to come clean.”
She shook her head. “Never. I’d rather not date him than tell him.”
“Then you’d be making a big mistake,” he warned her.
“It would be an even bigger mistake to tell him,” she insisted. “He wouldn’t understand. Nobody does.”
“I do.”
“That’s different, Uncle Alec. You’re family. You grew up with it. Chase is—”
“Chase could be family. I know the boy, Odelia. He’s got a good heart.”
She was still shaking her head when the Chief’s phone rang. He picked up with a jovial, “Lay it on me!” He listened for a moment, then his face fell and he removed his feet from the desk. “Well, I’ll be damned. Are you sure it’s her? Uh-huh. Okay. I’ll be right over.” He hung up and stared at Odelia.
“Well? What is it?” she insisted.
“It’s your grandmother. There’s been an incident.”
Her heart constricted as she shot up from her chair. “Is she all right?”
The Chief grinned. “More than all right, apparently. There’s talk of indecent exposure.”
She closed her eyes. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. Several beachgoers complained to one of the lifeguards near Pyke Point that an old woman and an old guy were going at it on the beach, in full view of the other visitors. The lifeguard called the cops and your gran and the guy have both been placed under arrest.” He shook his head. “I never thought that the day would come I’d have to bust my own mother for lurid behavior.”
“If it’s any consolation, I never thought the day would come I’d be embarrassed by my own grandmother.”
“Well,” said Uncle Alec, getting up and slipping on his gun belt. “The day has come, honey. So let’s see what she’s got to say for herself, shall we?”
Chapter 11
Dooley and I were strutting our stuff along the beach. Dooley had been trying hard to picture a nice fat juicy chicken wing but so far he wasn’t having any luck.