by Nic Saint
Dooley looked up, completely oblivious as usual. “Huh?”
“Gran just went into that alley with Leo,” I said.
“She did? Maybe we should see what she’s up to?” Dooley suggested.
“Why would we want to see what she’s up to?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s really none of our business,” Brutus said, not sounding too keen.
“She’s my human, you guys!” Dooley cried. “I have a responsibility!”
“I think it’s the other way around, Dooley,” I said. “She has a responsibility towards you, not you towards her.”
“It goes both ways,” he said stubbornly. “She looks after me, so I need to look after her. What if this guy Leo is up to no good? What then? And I just sat here while she was being assaulted or something!”
“She’s not being assaulted,” I said. “It’s just that she can’t take Leo home because nobody approves of him, so they’ve gone and taken their affair to the streets.”
“Weird,” said Brutus.
“What’s weird?” I asked.
“I always thought human adults could do whatever they wanted. That it was just teenagers and kids that had to sneak around their parents’ backs.”
“Once you reach a certain age you revert back to the same state of having to sneak around,” I said. “Only now you sneak around your kids’ backs.”
“I still think it’s weird,” Brutus said with a shrug.
Well, it was kinda weird, of course. Once upon a time Marge had probably snuck around with Tex, canoodling in backseats of cars or bushes near the beach, and now it was Gran’s turn to do the same to her daughter. It was probably the circle of life or something. Like The Lion King.
“The more I learn about humans the more I think they’re way weird,” Brutus insisted.
“Better not to think about it too much,” Dooley said.
Of course, Dooley never thought about anything too much, so for him that came naturally.
We’d reached the alley, and darted a peek around the corner, fully expecting to see stuff that would hurt our eyes. Instead, I saw something that horrified me to my core. There was Diego, and there was a cat, but that cat wasn’t Harriet!
“Um, am I seeing this right?” asked Brutus. “Is Diego putting the moves on that feline over there?”
“You are seeing this right!” I said.
We all stared. Diego was doing stuff to that feline I’d never seen before, unless in those nature documentaries on the Discovery Channel. I mean, I have been with a female before, of course, but I’d never done… that!
“What are they doing?” Dooley asked.
“Something that’s not suitable for young viewers,” Brutus growled.
“I’m not a young viewer,” said Dooley.
“Well, you’re not an old viewer either,” Brutus said. He let out a long sigh of relief. “You know what this means, right?”
“That Diego is the hottest stud ever to walk these streets?” I asked.
“No! That Diego is cheating on Harriet.”
“Oh. Right,” I said. I was so fascinated by the moves Diego was demonstrating that the thought of Harriet hadn’t even occurred to me.
Dooley twisted his head to try and get the upside-down view. “No, but what are they doing?” he asked.
“If I tell Harriet about this, she’ll break up with Diego in a heartbeat!” Brutus said.
“She won’t believe you,” I said automatically. I was also twisting my head one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. This stuff was fascinating. I was learning things I’d never seen before, not even on the Discovery Channel.
“She’ll have to believe me!” Brutus exclaimed. “You guys are going to back me up on this, right? You’re my witnesses.”
“Sure. But she won’t believe us either,” I said.
“But why? You’re her friends!”
“Trust me, Brutus. When it comes to matters of the heart, a female feline only believes what she wants to believe. And if she wants to believe Diego is God’s gift to cats, nothing we say will convince her otherwise.”
“We need proof!” Brutus said, searching around. “We need Odelia with her phone. She needs to film this! She needs to get this on video and show Harriet!”
“Even so. Harriet is not going to believe it unless she sees it with her own eyes,” I said. “Trust me on this, Brutus. That’s just the way it is.”
“Oh, God!” he cried. “This is just one big nightmare, isn’t it?”
“Do you think it hurts?” Dooley asked, now lying on his back.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“But they’re panting. And look at her. She looks like she’s in pain!”
“That’s not an expression of pain, Dooley,” I said. “That’s… rapture.”
“Rapture? What’s rapture?”
“Nothing you’ll ever experience,” I promised him.
“But why?!”
“Just think about the juiciest chicken wing God ever created.”
He frowned, thinking hard. “Uh-huh.”
“Now multiply that sensation by about a million.”
“Oh, my,” he said, eyes widening.
“Exactly.”
“Look, I’m going to get Odelia. She needs to see this,” Brutus said, sounding very agitated. “She’ll back me up. If she says Diego was doing the horizontal mambo with some other chick, Harriet has got to believe her.”
“What’s the horizontal mambo?” Dooley asked.
“Oh, Dooley,” I said with a sigh.
Brutus went off on his fool’s errand, and I stared after him for a moment. And that’s when I saw it. A Tesla, driving along Main Street. A very black Tesla.
“Dooley!” I said.
“Huh?”
“It’s the Tesla!”
He glanced the way I was looking. “Nice wheels.”
“It’s the car that was parked behind the restaurant that night! It’s got to be!”
And before he could respond, I broke into a run, in hot pursuit of the Tesla. I needed to get a glimpse at the license plate. I needed to figure out who that car belonged to. And as I came racing out of the alley, I saw that the car stopped right in front of a boutique store, halfway down the street. Panting, I came running up, and I watched as a tall Asian man stepped from the car and disappeared into the store. He was elegantly dressed in a kind of cape draped across his shoulders, shiny slicked-back black hair and snazzy sunglasses. I glanced at the license plate. It said Z1VR1D1N. I stared. Huh? Then I got it. ZIV RIDING!
Chapter 26
Konrad Daines had been charged with the murder of his celebrity chef rival and arrested. A lawyer was on his way over, though it was obvious there wasn’t a lot he’d be able to do for his client. Konrad had confessed. Case closed.
And Odelia was just about to go to the Gazette to write up the shocking story of the two rival TV stars, when Brutus came barging into the police station, meowing up a storm.
“You have to come with me, Odelia,” he pleaded.
She quickly glanced around, but Dolores had gone on a bathroom break, and Chase was still in the Chief’s office, discussing the denouement of the case. She crouched down. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
“Nobody’s hurt! It’s Diego!” Brutus said between two pants. He looked as if he’d been running, his heart beating a mile a minute.
“Diego? What about Diego?”
“He’s with another cat! You have to come along as my witness.”
“He’s with a cat? You mean, in the biblical sense?”
He stared at her blankly. “I don’t know what that means.”
“I mean, are they… smooching?”
He gave a disgusted snort. “Not just smooching. They’re having sex!”
She laughed, tickling Brutus behind his ears. “Oh, my. And we can’t have that, right?”
“No, we can’t! I mean, of course we can, but Harriet… I mean…”
“I think I understand. You want
me to tell Harriet that Diego is with some other cat, being unfaithful to her, so you and Harriet can get back together.”
“That’s it! You’re so smart!”
She sighed, getting up. “I can’t do that, Brutus. I can’t be a snitch on my own cats. If you feel Diego isn’t doing right by Harriet, you have to tell her, but I’m not going to sneak around and spy on him so I can tell on him to Harriet.”
“But why?! He shouldn’t be doing that!”
“That’s not for me to judge, Brutus. And, honestly, I think you should just let it go. I’m sure Harriet will find out soon enough what kind of cat Diego is. And she doesn’t need you to tell her.”
“But I… love her!”
“Then you’ll just have to trust her to do the right thing.”
“But how is she going to know about Diego if I don’t tell her?”
“She’ll know,” she said with a smile. “But if you go and snitch on Diego, she’ll lose all respect for Diego, and she’ll lose all respect for you, too.”
Brutus groaned in agony. “Why is everything always so complicated?!”
“I’m glad it’s not just us humans that make things complicated,” she said.
Just then, Max came slamming into the police station. “Odelia! You have to see this!”
She held up her hand. “Brutus already told me all about Diego, Max. And I told him I wouldn’t turn snitch on my own cats.”
“Who cares about Diego?!” Max cried. “It’s the Tesla! I saw the Tesla!”
Her curiosity piqued, she bent down again. “The black Tesla?”
He nodded furiously. “It belongs to Ziv Riding. He’s got one of those vanity plates, that’s how I found out. He went into one of the boutiques on Main Street.”
Now this was definitely interesting. “I think I better go and get Chase,” she said, and gave Max a pat on the head. “Well done, buddy. Great sleuthing.”
“Thanks,” he said, then caught Brutus’s scowl. “What?”
“Nothing,” said Brutus. “Just that I thought you’d back me up on the Diego thing.”
Max rolled his eyes. “Oh, God. Enough with the Diego thing already.”
She left the two cats and went in search of Chase. They needed to check up on this Tesla sighting. She hadn’t told Chase cats had seen the black Tesla parked behind Fry Me for an Oyster, and neither would she tell Riding. It was enough that an anonymous witness had seen the car. She needn’t involve Max.
She stuck her head into her uncle’s office. “The black Tesla has been sighted. And guess what? It belongs to Ziv Riding.”
“Sweatshop Ziv Riding?” Chase asked.
“Yep. One and the same.”
“Well, go on, then,” said the Chief. “Go ask him what he was doing here the night of the murder.”
They didn’t need her uncle’s encouragement. She and Chase were hotfooting it out of the police station and hurrying along the street before Chief Alec had managed to get up from his seat.
“So who saw the car?” Chase asked.
“I did, actually,” she said after a moment’s pause.
“I thought you said the Tesla had been sighted?”
“Yeah, by me. It was sighted by me.”
He gave her a curious look. “Why didn’t you just say that?”
She flapped her hands a bit. “I was so excited I couldn’t think straight!”
“Right,” he said, and she had the impression he didn’t believe one word she said. But she couldn’t worry about that now. They needed to figure out what the fashion designer had been doing that night at the restaurant.
“Are you sure it’s the same car that was parked in the alley that night?”
“Not a hundred percent sure, no,” she admitted.
“I mean, there must be hundreds of Teslas, thousands, even. And a lot of them are black.”
“I guess so,” she said.
“So what makes you think it was Riding’s car?”
She paused for a moment. “Actually…”
He gave her a wry look and halted, right in front of the General Store. “What’s going on, Odelia? Why are you going about half-cocked?”
She flapped her arms again, looking more like a chicken than a reporter. “I have a hunch, all right?”
“A hunch,” he said skeptically. He’d crossed his arms over his chest and stood regarding her with his head to one side, as if wondering what to do with her.
“A hunch! I have a hunch that this Tesla is that Tesla!”
“You never told me who the witness was that saw the Tesla that night.”
“I—I can’t. I—I promised I wouldn’t reveal her name.”
“If you’ll just let me talk to her I might get a confirmation on the license plate.”
She shook her head decidedly. “She didn’t see the license plate.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” She wondered what would happen if she told Chase Max had heard it from Montserrat, the stray Erin Coka had taken under her wing, who’d heard it from some other stray. He’d probably have her 5150ed.
“So let me get this straight,” he said. “Someone—who doesn’t want to be named—told you she saw a black Tesla parked outside the restaurant the night Niklaus Skad was killed. No license plate. Now you see another black Tesla, driven by Ziv Riding, parked along the street, and you want to talk to the man, why, exactly?”
“Don’t you think it’s too much of a coincidence? Ziv Riding has this sweatshop in town, and his car was seen at a murder scene?”
“We don’t even know if Riding and Skad knew each other. And may I remind you that we caught Skad’s killer? He’s in custody right now. The case is closed, Odelia.”
“But what about the sweatshop thing?”
“Not our concern! We’re not handling that investigation and we’re not going to get involved, either.”
She shook her head, stubbornly. “I still feel—”
“It’s not about what you ‘feel,’” he said. “It’s about the facts.” He raked his fingers through his mane. “Oh, God. And I almost went along with this nonsense. Me and your uncle.” He held up his hands. “Look, you’re on your own with this. Please don’t involve me. And may I add that I have a strong suspicion you’re not telling me everything you know?”
They stared at each other, and then she said. “I know Riding’s Tesla was parked at the restaurant. And I’m going to find out what’s going on. With or without you.”
“Well, it’s going to be without me, honey,” he said, stepping back. “Like I said, you’re on your own from here on out.”
And without another word, he turned around and started walking back to the police station.
Nice, she thought. Nicely played, Odelia. So now what?
Chapter 27
Brutus and I walked out of the police station and back to the alley, where presumably Dooley still sat watching—and having his youthful innocence thoroughly screwed up.
“Odelia should have backed us up,” Brutus said. “She should have had our backs.”
“Odelia has our backs,” I said. “All of our backs, Diego included.”
“But how is that even possible?! Diego isn’t even part of our family.”
“He is to her. The moment that cat set foot inside her home, he became family.”
“It’s just not fair.”
“You don’t get it, do you? Odelia doesn’t play favorites. She doesn’t love one of us more than the others. And she’s right about Harriet. She’s smarter than you give her credit for. Have you ever considered Harriet has Diego’s number?”
“She can’t have his number. She doesn’t even know he’s out here.”
“Let’s just wait and see,” I said. “First things first, though. We have to get Dooley out of there. Diego is a bad influence on him.”
We arrived at the alley. To my surprise there was no trace of Dooley.
“Where did he go?” I muttered, looking around.
“And whe
re did Diego go?” asked Brutus. There were dumpsters parked along the alley, butting up to the bricked-up back walls of the stores that lined the parallel street. We headed deeper into the alley, half expecting to find Gran and Leo cavorting around somewhere. What we found were Dooley and Diego, however, seated behind a dumpster and deep in conversation.
“So that’s the secret, dude,” Diego was saying. “You just snag ‘em, bag ‘em and then throw ‘em back.”
“But won’t they resent you for it?” Dooley asked.
“What do you care? There’s plenty of cats in the sea. When you’re finished with one, you just start tagging another one.”
Dooley laughed. “Tag ‘em, snag ‘em and bag ‘em. That rhymes!”
“It sure does,” said Diego with a smirk. “I’m glad you’re catching on, dude.”
“Let me just stop you right there,” I said, stepping from behind the dumpster.
“Max!” Dooley cried. “Diego’s been teaching me all about his technique for bagging queens! Isn’t that great?!”
I winced. “Not so great. Queens aren’t a commodity to be tagged, snagged and bagged, Dooley. They’re our fellow creatures and they deserve our respect.”
“What a load of nonsense,” said Diego. “Don’t listen to him, Dooley. You just do what I taught you, and you’ll have the females eating out of the palm of your paw for the rest of your life. Just like they do with me. They’ll just swoon!”
“Well, I certainly would like females to swoon,” Dooley said.
“Just think about Harriet,” I said. “And how Diego has been treating her.”
“Hey, I treated Harriet just fine,” said Diego. He grinned. “Just ask her. She said she’s never been with a cat that made her feel the way I did.”
“That’s a lie!” Brutus yelled.
Diego held up his paw. “Straight from the cat’s mouth, brother.”
“Females are not chattel, Dooley,” I said sternly. “You need to treat them with respect, just like you do with everyone.”
“Don’t listen to that wuss,” said Diego. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Hey, who are you calling a wuss?” Brutus snarled, stepping to my defense.
“You! All of you! You’re just a bunch of pussies.”