by Nic Saint
There was a sound from the next room, and Maureen sat up with a start.
“Is anyone else here?” asked Chase, his hand moving to his holster.
“No. I live all by myself,” said Maureen, a trembling hand moving to her lips.
Chase got up and moved over without making a sound, treading carefully. He’d taken out his gun and was aiming it in the direction of the noise. For a moment Odelia wondered if Donna’s killer was now coming after Donna lookalikes as well. She followed at a safe distance, Maureen right behind her, her hand on Odelia’s shoulder, as they slowly made their way to the next room.
“What’s in there?” Odelia whispered.
“The kitchen,” Maureen whispered back. Then she added, “I must have left the door open!”
That bit of information, coupled with the grunt of astonishment from Chase, told Odelia who the intruder was even before she’d reached the door and entered the kitchen.
Three cats sat looking up at them from the kitchen floor, with one cat seated on the kitchen counter, snacking on a very delicious-looking meatloaf: Max. When he finally noticed they were no longer alone, Max looked up, his face covered in crumbs of meatloaf. “Oops,” he said.
Chapter 20
For the rest of the day, I was confined to the house. House arrest, Odelia called it. Bummer. Luckily, Dooley had opted to stay behind and share my punishment. Harriet and Brutus, not surprisingly, had not. They were out and about somewhere, continuing their investigation. Harriet, after having supplied Odelia with the identity of the vajayjay woman, had become cocky, and now truly believed she was the second coming of Sherlock Holmes or something, and no longer needed my or Dooley’s assistance in solving this particularly heinous crime.
Good for her. If she didn’t need me, I certainly didn’t need her. But if she thought she could catch Donna’s killer, she was dead wrong. What she hadn’t grasped was that Maureen Cranberry was innocent, which meant she’d led Odelia and Chase on a wild goose chase.
At least I’d had some prime meatloaf. Whatever Maureen Cranberry’s faults, she prepared one mean meatloaf. The meat had been tender, succulent and tasty. Just the way I like it.
I opened one eye when Dooley’s insufferable snuffling told me he was somewhere nearby. He looked up at me expectantly. The moment Odelia had delivered the verdict, I’d plunked myself down in my usual spot on the couch and hadn’t moved from it. I swear, this diet was slowly killing me, not only robbing me of my physical strength but also of my will to live.
“What do you want, Dooley?” I grumbled, closing my one eye again.
“Aren’t we going to continue our investigation?” he asked excitedly.
“What investigation? If you hadn’t noticed, we’re grounded. We’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”
“But we have the computer! We can find clues, just like Harriet found that clue about the woman with her burnt business.”
I groaned. “If you hadn’t noticed, Dooley, that was a rubbish clue. Nothing came of it.”
“That’s because it was Harriet finding that clue,” he said cleverly. “But we’re not Harriet, Max. We’re the real sleuths in this household. If we put our minds to it, I’m sure we’ll find out more than Harriet ever could.”
I opened my eyes. Had Dooley just delivered an intelligent statement? I believed he had. And it was so unlike Dooley to make sense that I actually sat up and took notice. “What did you just say?”
“That we’re better sleuths than Harriet and Brutus?”
I nodded. “You have a point, Dooley. We are better sleuths. In fact we’re ace sleuths.”
Reluctantly, I abandoned my spot and jumped down from the couch. Dooley had already taken up position in front of the computer and I joined him. We both stared at the screen, which was black.
“So… how does this work, exactly?” I asked. I have to confess I’m not much of a computer cat. I love lying down on the keyboard when Odelia is working, and making sure she can’t see the screen, but that’s as far as my knowledge of computers goes, to be perfectly honest.
“Just do something, Max,” Dooley suggested. “If Harriet can do it, so can we.”
He was right, and his statement totally galvanized me. So did the fact that my tummy was full of that delicious meatloaf. Odelia might not like it when I eat my fill, but I certainly did. I took a stab at the keyboard and to my surprise the screen flickered to life.
“Hey! How did you do that?” asked Dooley.
“No idea. I just did this…” I stabbed at the keyboard again and some letters appeared on the screen.
“Oh, my God, Max. You can type!”
“Yes, I can!” I said enthusiastically, and stabbed at the keyboard some more. More letters appeared, forming one long word that didn’t make any sense. But it was something. We were going places! I decided to use the backspace key to remove all those funny symbols and start over. So I carefully typed in donna.vip and we landed on Donna’s website. There were a lot of funny things for sale there, so for the next half hour or so, Dooley and I had fun clicking through to the pages of all these items and reading the descriptions. There were those jade eggs Gran had ordered, and for the first time we understood they weren’t actual eggs but served an entirely different purpose. Something to do with pelvic muscles, whatever that was. And then there was Maureen Cranberry’s V-steamer, which appeared to be beneficial for personal hygiene and improved fertility.
“What’s fertility, Max?” asked Dooley.
“I think it’s a kind of plant.”
“Oh, right. Like a fern.”
“They must have misspelled ferntility.”
“Humans.”
“Yeah.”
There was a lot more stuff, and it was all weird and wonderful, sort of like the Discovery Channel. There was a prisoner’s ball and chain, a toothpaste squeezer, nipple clamps, very expensive paper wipes, a pouch with magically charged stones, gold dumbbells for weightlifting, a facial massager, a heated couch, and… the same kind of rocket that Odelia keeps in her bedside drawer but this one was made of gold. It was called a dildo and its purpose wasn’t immediately clear to me.
“What does it do, Max?” Dooley asked, staring at the shiny gold object.
“I’m not sure. It says here it’s a massager, but I’m not sure what it’s supposed to massage.”
“It also says it’s elegant and decadent, and has to be used with something called lube. What is a lube, Max?”
“Maybe like a long kind of tube?”
We read some more. It was all very confusing.
“What’s a G-spot, Max?”
“I have no idea, Dooley.” But then I got it. “I think it’s one of those spots that are very hard to reach. Like behind the bed or behind the cupboard.”
We shared a look of understanding. “So that’s why Odelia keeps it in the bedroom.”
“In case she needs to reach those hard-to-reach G-spots.”
Well, I was sure glad we figured that out. It’s not much fun feeling dumb.
I clicked on another link and this time we ended up on a page extolling the virtues of bee sting therapy. “Weird,” Dooley said. “Here they say bee stings are actually good for you.”
“Well, maybe they are,” I said. “Like nettle stings. Remember that one time you stung your nose on those nettles? And Odelia said it was good for you? This is probably the same thing.”
“But then why did Donna end up dead?”
“Well, too much of a good thing isn’t good at all, I suppose.”
“Like when you eat too many Cat Snax?”
“I’m not sure you can eat too many Cat Snax, Dooley. At least I’ve never had too many.”
“That’s true,” he admitted. “Me neither.”
Just then, there was a loud rap on the glass sliding door, which was now closed due to my house arrest. We hopped down from our perch on the computer table and wandered over. To my pleasant surprise, it was Gran. But to my less pleasant surprise, she appe
ared incapable of opening the sliding door from the outside. She was shouting something, though. It sounded a lot like, “Has the UPS guy brought another one of my packages?!”
I shook my head and shouted back, “No, he hasn’t!”
“Darn!” she yelled, and then stalked off.
“Hey! Aren’t you going to let us out?!” I yelled, but she was already gone.
Dooley sat chuckling next to me. I turned to him. “What’s so funny?”
“I wonder what she ordered this time. Those dumbbells, that toothpaste squeezer, or that dildo.”
“I don’t think she would order a dildo.”
“And why is that?”
“Marge cleans your house, doesn’t she? So why would Gran need to reach those hard-to-reach G-spots?”
“You’ve got a point, Max.”
“Of course I have. I’m very clever.”
Chapter 21
It was dinner time at the Pooles, and as usual Uncle Alec and Chase had been invited. Dad was master of his domain again—in other words, the barbecue set—and before long a wonderful time was had by all. Well, almost all, as Odelia had locked Max up in the house. She couldn’t risk him hanging around all that raw meat. He would have a conniption fit if she tried to keep him away from all that juicy temptation. And to show him she didn’t have a heart of stone, she’d given him an extra helping of Vena’s diet kibble. Not that he seemed to appreciate it. He’d told her there was only so much cardboard one could stomach, and he’d already had his fill and then some.
It was a hard lesson to learn for the big, red cat, but one that was absolutely necessary. If he kept eating like this, he’d simply dig his own grave with his teeth, the poor baby, and she did not want that on her conscience.
Harriet and Brutus had shown up just when the meat was starting to give off its delicious scent, but when she cut a glance to Harriet, the gorgeous Persian had sadly shaken her head. So far she hadn’t discovered a thing. Brutus, who’d immediately pounced on some slivers Dad had cut from the steaks, didn’t seem to have any news for her either. That only left Dooley, but all he said was that he’d finally discovered how she cleaned those hard-to-reach spots in her bedroom, and given her a big, fat wink. Weird. Then she remembered she’d left the computer running. Oh, dear. She hoped she’d turned on Parental Control. There was so much on the Internet her cats did not need to see.
Uncle Alec walked up to her, a can of Heineken in his hand. “And? Any luck with the Cranberry woman?”
“Nope. Turns out she had an alibi, just like everyone else in this case.”
“Dang. She looked promising.”
“She did,” Odelia agreed. “Very promising. Just like the ex-husband looked promising, the boyfriend looked promising, and the leader of the home owner’s association looked promising.”
“Tough day, huh?” asked her uncle, shooting her a keen look.
“Yeah, pretty tough,” she admitted. “We keep catching breaks that turn out not to be breaks after all.”
“What about your cats?” he asked. “They usually provide the telling clue.”
“So far my cats have provided me nothing but trouble,” she admitted, and told her uncle about Max’s embarrassing behavior at Maureen Cranberry’s place.
“So that’s why my meatball went missing from my meatball sub,” said her uncle with a grin.
“It seems he’s eating everything he can get his paws on. Ever since I put him on a diet he’s been totally insufferable. It has taken his focus completely off trying to find Donna’s killer. All he’s interested in is finding food, not clues.”
“That’ll pass,” her uncle assured her. “He just needs some adjusting is all. When your aunt put me on a diet the hardest part were those first few days. Once I got past that it was smooth sailing all the way.”
She glanced down at her uncle’s rotund belly. Pity Aunt Ginny was gone. Alec could have used one of her patent diets right now. But who was going to put him on one? Certainly not her. She had a hard enough time trying to keep Max to his diet, and he was just a cat.
Chase came ambling up, also a can of Heineken in hand. “So? Another long day at the office, huh? Time for some R&R.”
“Speak for yourself,” grunted Chief Alec. “When dinner is over I’m heading straight back to the station. I’ve got a ton of paperwork to finish. What about you, Odelia?”
“I have an article to write,” she confessed. She’d started writing it when they came back from Maureen Cranberry, but she still had to put the finishing touches on the piece. “The paper is going to print tomorrow and Dan wants the article done.”
“On the Donna Bruce case?” asked Chase.
“Yep. I don’t really know what to write, as we’re nowhere near figuring out what happened, but deadlines are deadlines.”
“And what are you up to, Chase?” asked the Chief.
“Well, I was actually thinking about asking out your niece, but I have a feeling she’s about to blow me off.”
Odelia looked up in surprise. “You wanted to take me out tonight?”
“I promised I was going to, remember? And you told me you were going to think about it.”
“I know, but I figured, with this whole Donna Bruce thing…”
He smiled. “There will always be work, Odelia. You can’t let it interfere with your personal life.”
“He’s right,” Uncle Alec grunted. “You never know how much time you’re going to have with your loved ones. If I’d known that back when Ginny was still alive, I’d have spent a lot more time with her. Now it’s too late.” He looked somber for a moment, the memory obviously still haunting him.
Odelia placed a hand on her uncle’s arm. “You had a lot of good years together, Uncle Alec. You should be grateful you got to spend them with Aunt Ginny as long as you did.”
He gave her a weak smile. “You’re right, honey. And I am. Grateful, I mean. I’m just telling you not to make the same mistake I did. Putting work before everything else. This case will get solved, or it won’t. You can’t let that stop you from spending time with this hotshot detective over here. At least if that’s what you want.”
Now it was her turn to smile. “What are you saying? I should give this hotshot detective a shot?”
“He’s not a bad guy,” said Chief Alec. “He’s young and impetuous, of course, but then all guys are at his age. But with some patience and effort I think we might make something out of him yet.”
Chase gave the chief a playful shove. “Thanks, old-timer. I appreciate the vote of confidence. So what about it, Odelia? Wanna catch a movie with this hotshot detective?”
And she was just about to respond in the affirmative, when a wide-eyed young man dressed in a brown uniform showed up in the backyard, carrying a huge box. Judging from the logo on his uniform he was the UPS guy, and when he was done scanning the small group gathered around the barbecue set, he gulped and asked, “Who is Vesta Muffin? I’m looking for a Vesta Muffin.”
Gran seemed reluctant to reveal herself, so finally Mom had to step up and tell the guy, “That’s my mother. Why didn’t you ring at the front door?”
“I did. More than once. Can I leave this with you, ma’am? It’s… buzzing.”
He placed the bulky package on the lawn and quickly took a few steps back.
“Buzzing?” asked Mom, eyeing the package with suspicion. Then she turned to Gran. “Mom. What did you order this time?”
“Nothing,” said Gran. “Must be some mistake.”
“No mistake,” said the UPS guy. “You ordered from donna.vip. Paid extra for special delivery. Though nobody told me the package would be alive.”
His eyes were wide as he offered Mom the gadget to sign. Mom jotted down her scrawl and the UPS guy immediately was off like a rocket. “Thanks!” he yelled and disappeared from view.
They all gathered around the package, and Odelia discovered that the UPS guy had been right: the thing was buzzing.
“What did you order, Gran?” s
he asked.
“Nothing!” Gran insisted. “You told me to stop ordering stuff so I did.”
Dad bent down, a glass of red wine in his hand, and read from the label on the package. “It says your name right here, Vesta.”
“Must be a namesake. Lots of Vestas around.”
“Vesta Muffin? Living at this address?”
“Sure. UPS screwed up again. Figures.”
She seemed awfully nervous about a simple mistake, though, which told Odelia it wasn’t a mistake at all. The only reason she was mad at the UPS guy was that he’d shown up now, when everyone was there, and not a couple of hours earlier, when she could have intercepted the package.
“Well, I guess we better see what’s inside,” said Uncle Alec, and started removing the packaging. And that’s when something came buzzing from inside the box and attached itself to his nose. He swatted it away, and Odelia got a good look at the culprit. It was a bee!
“Gran,” she demanded. “Tell me you didn’t order a bunch of bees!”
“Of course not!” Gran said. “I’m not crazy. Who orders a bunch of bees?! Not me!”
They all worked together to remove the wrapping, and found themselves staring down at an actual beehive! And its inhabitants were obviously not very happy at having been cooped up for so long, for more than a few of them started flying through the cracks in the cage and zooming around.
“Christ!” Uncle Alec yelled. “Who in their right mind ships a bunch of bees with UPS?!”
“Vesta,” said Dad phlegmatically, swatting away a couple of bees buzzing around his wine.
“I think we better call the fire department,” Chase said. “Before they all escape and attack us.”