by Nic Saint
“Oh, no. You’re scaring me!”
He placed a paw on Dooley’s shoulder. “Sit down a minute, will you? The shock might be too great.”
“Big Mac!”
“Dooley, there is a type of alien we alienologists like to call the CEAs—Chief Executive Aliens. They’re like in charge of all the regular aliens. Now these CEAs seldom show up on planets as ordinary and bland as ours. They like to leave the work to their underlings—the workers. But from time to time they do show up, usually to make sure that the regular aliens are doing what they’re supposed to do. They’re very big on hierarchy, aliens are.”
“Can you speed it up, Big Mac,” I said, as I glanced to the kitchen door, hoping Odelia and Chase were still in there, and hopefully hadn’t forgotten about our patties and wings.
“Okay, so when a worker drone beams you up, he just does his job, leaves his mark and that’s it. Just another day on the job. But when those CEAs are on the floor, they like to get involved—set an example and show off, if you know what I mean. So when they beam you up, you really get the full treatment. And they leave a mark that looks like a freckle.” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully. “It’s considered a great honor to be handled by a CEA and not a regular worker. They don’t just pick anyone, see. They only pick the best.”
“It’s just a freckle, Big Mac,” I said.
“It’s the mark of a Chief Executive Alien!”
“Oh, my God, Big Mac!” said Dooley.
“I’ve been chosen,” said the voluminous cat, a reverent quiver in his voice.
“Chosen for what, exactly?” I asked, not hiding my skepticism.
“For my genes, of course! They’re probably planning to create a planet populated only by felines. And I’ll be the main progenitor. Me! Little Big Mac! Oh, happy day!”
“Oh, Big Mac,” said Dooley, tears of joy springing to his eyes. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Don’t worry, Dooley,” said the large cat, clapping an earnest paw on my friend’s back. “One day they’ll pick you. And then you will have a planet filled with your offspring.”
“I can’t wait,” said Dooley.
Oh, brother. I don’t think Sherlock Holmes ever had to contend with this kind of nonsense. Doctor Watson may not have been the brightest bulb in the bulb shop, but at least he wasn’t crowing about being the progenitor of his own planet!
And so when I returned indoors, thinking dark thoughts about Big Mac and his alien race, I just hoped Chase and Odelia had had better luck. At least now we knew that when the entire group of friends gathered here last night, Angel had already disappeared. But why? Why had she decided to forego her favorite part of a night out with her friends?
26
We arrived just in time to sit in on the interview Odelia and Chase were conducting with Carmel Kraft, Angel’s best friend.
“Where were you?” asked Odelia when we jumped up onto the bench. When I told her we met Big Mac and gave her a brief report of what we’d learned—minus the alien stuff—she frowned, and I could see that the wheels in her mind were turning already as she tried to reconcile this new information with what we already knew.
Carmel, who’d joined us at our table and was still wearing her McDonald’s outfit, looked nervous. She was a petite young lady, with a lot of frizzy dark hair and fine-boned features.
“This stuff is great,” said Chase as he worked through a bag of French fries, freely dipping them into the small container of mayonnaise that came with them.
Meanwhile Odelia had distributed a few tasty morsels of food for Dooley and myself, and we both eagerly dug in.
“So you have absolutely no idea where Angel could be?” asked Odelia, continuing a conversation that had clearly already begun.
“No idea,” she confirmed.
“But you did see her last night?” Odelia asked, taking a sip from her soda.
“Oh, yes,” said Carmel. “There were six of us. Angel, me, Amy, Beatrice, Jody and Bridget. We’ve been besties since middle school, and we keep in touch, even though Bea and Jody are in college now, and Angel is considering going next year.”
“So we talked to Mariko Jarmusch,” said Chase, “and she told us that Angel is dating a boy named…” He consulted his notebook, which was lying open on the table. “Um, Matteo…”
“Drews. Matteo Drews. Yes, that’s right. Angel and Matteo started dating a couple of weeks ago, which we all thought was weird, since we figured Matteo wasn’t into girls. But apparently he is.” She made a face.
“Is it possible that Angel is with Matteo?”
“No, he’s in Milan right now—that’s in Italy.”
“Okay, so take me through the events of last night, Carmel,” said Odelia.
“Well, we all met up at Amy’s house, like we always do, and got ready to go out. Amy has the most amazing collection of clothes and accessories—her mom owns her own boutique and she has great taste and so does Amy. So it’s become a tradition that we go over to her place and have fun getting dressed and put on makeup. And so then we came here to have a little supper and we started off by going to Club Couture, then to Eclectic—that’s a new place we wanted to check out—it sucked, by the way. And from there we pretty much went from club to club, like we always do, and then we usually finish back here, for a bite to eat.”
“But last night Angel left early, is that correct?”
“Yeah, she did. She wasn’t feeling good, so she decided to skip the last part and go home, take an ibuprofen and crash.”
“What time was this?”
“Oh, around… two-ish, I guess?”
“And the rest of you took a cab and came here?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“And Angel walked home.”
“Yeah, she said she thought some fresh air would do her good. It would sober her up.” She bit her lower lip. “We shouldn’t have let her take off like that, should we? She was probably snatched by some maniac in the woods.”
“We don’t know that, Carmel,” said Odelia reassuringly. “All we know right now is that she made it to the woods near where she lives, and that’s when the trail runs cold.”
“So she never made it home?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“I tried calling her this morning, and when she didn’t pick up, and didn’t answer any of my messages, I knew something was wrong.” Suddenly she burst into tears. “This is all my fault. I should never have allowed her to walk home all by herself!”
“It’s not your fault, Carmel,” said Odelia, and gave the girl’s arm a comforting squeeze.
Carmel glanced up when a man dressed in a manager’s outfit called out her name, looking none too friendly.
“I have to get back,” she said, then looked at Odelia imploringly. “Please find her, will you? She’s my best friend. I don’t know what I’d do if…” She swallowed, and tears sprung to her eyes anew. She wiped them away.
“Can I ask you one more thing? Is it true that you fancied Matteo at some point?”
An amused smile flitted across the girl’s face. “Who told you that? Yeah, I did fancy him for a little while—all the girls did. But that was before someone told me he was into boys.”
“So what did you think when Angel started dating him?”
“I was surprised,” said the girl. “Angel said it wasn’t serious, though. Said they were just fooling around. So I just figured Matteo wanted to experiment. See what it’s like to be with a girl, you know.” She shrugged. “At least he didn’t experiment with me. I wouldn’t want to be that girl.”
“What girl?”
“The girl a guy like Matteo fools around with. When I date a boy I want him to be with me because he’s into me. Not just for fun, if that makes sense.”
“It does,” said Odelia, and shared a quick smile with Chase.
Carmel looked from Odelia to Chase, and said, a little breathlessly. “You’re a couple?”
“Yeah, Chase is my husband,” said
Odelia, and showed the girl her wedding ring.
“Oh, my God, that’s so cute,” said Carmel, and proceeded to give Odelia a quick hug before hurrying off to her boss, who looked on the verge of an aneurysm.
“So what do you think?” asked Chase as he popped the last French fry into his mouth.
“I don’t know what to make of it,” said Odelia, and proceeded to tell Chase about what Big Mac had revealed: that Angel’s favorite part of the evening was a visit to McDonald’s.
“The girl was drunk, babe. Probably felt sick. So she decided to do the sensible thing and go home. I know I can’t bear the sight of food when I’m sick to the stomach.”
“And what about that Matteo business?”
“Kids that age experiment,” said Chase as he threw down his napkin. “Nothing out of the ordinary about that.” He glanced over to Carmel, who had resumed her duties behind the counter. “Do you think Angel could be staying with her?”
“She struck me as pretty sincere. So if she is hiding Angel, she should get an Oscar.”
“I’m leaning more and more to the possibility that the girl was snatched.”
“Like Serena Kahl, you mean?”
Chase nodded. “In which case we might be dealing with a serial killer, babe.”
I would have reiterated my theory that Father Reilly was the one they needed to take a closer look at, but clearly they’d already rejected my involuntary manslaughter theory, and I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself by trying to push it on them again and again.
And that’s when a brilliant flash of inspiration suddenly struck me.
“Dooley,” I said, “let’s get out of here.”
“Where are we going?”
“I think I know where Angel is.”
27
The moment we walked out of the restaurant, Dooley said, “I forgot something, Max,” and ran back in. And when I glanced through the window, I saw that he’d rejoined Odelia, and was telling her something. Moments later he returned, this time wearing… a tinfoil hat.
“What’s that?” I asked, staring at the abomination.
“It will protect me from the aliens,” he proudly declared.
“Don’t tell me, you saw that on the Discovery Channel?”
“No, on the news,” he said. “With this, aliens can’t pick up your brainwaves, and so they don’t even know you’re there, and so they can’t abduct you.” He gave me a worried look. “We should probably get you one, too, Max. You’re not very healthy, but you’re very smart, so the CEAs might choose you as their next target to experiment on.”
“For your information, I’m perfectly healthy, Dooley.”
“Of course you are, Max,” he said indulgently. “Do you want me to get you a hat now?”
“Absolutely not. I’m not wearing a tinfoil hat!” I said with a touch of heat.
“Here, you can have mine,” he said, and proceeded to shake off his hat and nudge it in my direction.
I was touched by this gesture. “Thanks, Dooley,” I said. “But you keep it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Here, I’ll help you get it in position.” I don’t believe in aliens, but Dooley does, and that was enough for me. And so I helped my friend don his silly little hat. It still smelled like chicken wings, which was a nice bonus.
“You know, Max, if this wave of environmentalism continues, soon there won’t be any more tinfoil.”
“So? Isn’t that a good thing? For the environment, I mean?”
“Oh, sure. But it also means we won’t be able to protect ourselves from the aliens anymore.”
“Of course, Dooley,” I said resignedly.
“So where are we going?”
I perked up. “To the graveyard.”
And so we started on our trek into town. Destination: the graveyard.
“See, if you’re going to solve a crime, you have to put yourself in the mind of the criminal, Dooley,” I said as we trudged along. “Now in my view the person with the best motive to do away with Angel is her father: Father Reilly.”
“Why do they call Father Reilly Father Reilly, Max?” asked my friend. “Because as far as I can tell he’s Angel’s father, but not everybody else’s father.” Then his eyes went wide. “Or do you think he is everybody else’s father? Maybe he’s one of those sperm donors with hundreds and hundreds of children!”
“No, Dooley, it’s just a term used to refer to a priest. As in: he’s the father of his flock, not their actual biological father.”
“Oh, phew,” said Dooley. “Imagine the whole town being Father Reilly’s kids. That would be something, wouldn’t it?”
“Okay, so hear me out, will you?” I said, resuming my little speech where I’d left off. “So where would a priest like Father Reilly bury the body of his victim?”
“Um… roll it in a carpet and put it in his car?”
“He’s a priest, Dooley, so his place of business is St. John’s Church. And what is right next to the church?”
“Um… the pizzeria? Oh, Max! You don’t think he turned Angel into a pizza, do you?”
“No, Dooley, I don’t think he turned his daughter into a pizza. Now what else is located next to the church, apart from the pizzeria? I’ll give you a hint. It’s a place where people have been burying their dead for generations.”
“Oh, I know—the graveyard!”
“Exactly! So now you have to put yourself in Father Reilly’s shoes. He’s just accidentally killed his daughter, and now he wants to get rid of her body—ASAP!”
“Okay, so he rolls her in a carpet…”
“What’s with the carpet! No, Dooley, no carpets are involved here.”
“Okay, so he doesn’t roll her in a carpet, but…” He gave me helpless look. “I really don’t know how to put myself in the shoes of a killer, Max. And I think it’s probably because I’ve never killed anyone before. Have you?”
“No, I haven’t killed anyone either, Dooley,” I admitted.
“So how can you put yourself in the shoes of a killer?”
“Just use your imagination, Dooley. Just like a writer, see? As far as I know James Patterson has never killed anyone either, and yet his books are full of killers.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, adjusting his tinfoil hat. “Okay, so I’ve just killed my daughter…” He frowned. “I don’t have a daughter, Max. Does that make a difference?”
“No, it doesn’t, Dooley. Just imagine you’re Father Reilly for a moment, will you?”
He closed his eyes. “Okay, so I’m Father Reilly. I have white hair and I’m very, very old.”
“Father Reilly isn’t that old, Dooley. He’s probably younger than Gran.”
“He is? He looks old.”
“That’s because he has white hair. White hair makes people look old.”
“But Harriet has white hair, and she doesn’t look old.”
“Focus for a moment, Dooley. Don’t get sidetracked. You’ve just killed your daughter and then what?”
“Okay… so I want to roll her in a carpet.”
“No carpets, Dooley! Forget about the carpet!”
He was frowning intensely as he thought hard. “Is she heavy?”
“Who?”
“Well, my daughter. Is she very heavy? Cause I’m old and I’m not very strong, and now I have to carry… how much does a human weigh, Max? Just a ballpark figure.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” I muttered. “Let’s just skip a couple of steps. Somehow Father Reilly managed to carry his dead daughter to the graveyard, where he proceeds to bury her in an unmarked grave. And it’s that grave we need to find, Dooley, you and me.”
“We do? But how?”
“We simply look around for freshly dug graves, and…”
“And?” he prompted.
“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” I admitted. “But at least it’s a first step in proving that Father Reilly killed Angel.”
“If you say so, Max,” said Dooley,
though he didn’t sound convinced.
It took us a little while, but finally we arrived back in town, and headed for the graveyard. I have to confess I’d never set foot in that graveyard before in my life—ever. Since it’s not a very happy place, see? Cats as a rule aren’t crazy about spending time surrounded by thousands of dead folks. Not that I believe in old wives’ tales about zombies or the walking dead or anything like that, but still—it’s not very pleasant to imagine being surrounded by the remnants of all of those people. And if you think I’ll ever set paw inside a pet cemetery, you’re very much mistaken, for the same principle applies.
“Okay, so now we spread out and start looking, Dooley,” I said.
“But I don’t want to spread out, Max,” said my friend. “I’m scared.”
“No need to be scared. It’s just a graveyard. No one here can harm you.”
“They might crawl out of their graves and try to bite me.”
“Oh, Dooley,” I said. “All right, so we’ll go look together.”
“We should have asked Harriet and Brutus to join us,” he said after we’d poked around a nice chunk of graveyard and had discovered exactly nothing. “We could have covered a lot more ground. Or Fifi and Rufus. They have great noses. They could have sniffed out Angel, even if she’s dead and buried.”
I blinked and stared at my friend. “You know what, Dooley? That’s a great idea.”
“You think?” he said proudly.
“It’s brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that? They probably still have Angel’s scent in their noses, and so all they would need to do is sniff around and lead us straight to her grave!”
“So can we go now, Max? This place gives me the creeps.”
It was a bit creepy, I had to admit. The moon had risen, and was casting a pale light on the old tombstones that stood scattered around us like broken teeth, and the gravel under our paws was making a crunching sound I didn’t enjoy. All in all not a fun place to hang out of an evening. Then again, your intrepid detective goes where he must, and this is where my intuition had led me, so I was bound to find something important—like Angel Church’s mortal remains!