by Nic Saint
“It’s all right, sir,” said Chase. “I’m a cop. Hampton Cove Police Department. And Odelia is one of our civilian consultants. Who found her?”
“Her boyfriend,” said Bruce. “Zoltan Falecki. Terrible business. He’s completely upset, of course. Imagine finding your loved one like this—terrible business—terrible.”
“Where is Zoltan now, Pete?”
“In the salon. We’re taking care of him, of course. Making sure he doesn’t do something to himself, too. Who would have thought that a young woman, on the brink of global stardom and a stellar career, would ever…”
Odelia took a sniff from the Coke Emerald can, and the same odor filled her nostrils. “The cyanide was in the can,” she said. “That’s how she must have administered the poison to herself.”
“Self-administered cyanide,” said Pete. “What a horrible death.”
“Yeah, cyanide is not a pleasant way to go,” Chase agreed, “but it’s quick and effective. The question is—where did she get it? It’s not like you can buy this stuff at your local Walgreens.”
Discreetly, Odelia took out her phone and snapped a few shots.
“Poor woman,” said Pete. “I can’t imagine…”
“Where is Alina?” asked Odelia.
“Alina? I don’t...”
“It’s an obvious question, and one the police will ask, too,” said Chase. “Alina was seen almost hitting Kimberlee with a hammer, and now she’s dead.”
“Surely you’re not implying—this is obviously a case of suicide. Very tragic but suicide nonetheless. Alina had nothing whatsoever to do with this…”
“Where is she?” Chase insisted.
“I have absolutely no idea,” said Pete, slightly stiffening.
Chase was using his cop voice, and his cop stance, and it differed from the casually laid-back attitude he’d hitherto displayed. He looked a little grim.
“Surely you don’t think—I mean Alina is not likely to carry cyanide on her person on the off chance she decides to kill her love rival,” said the man with a nervous laugh.
“No, that’s not very probable,” Odelia admitted.
“I think you better leave now,” said Pete, his friendly demeanor quickly waning. “The police will be here soon and they won’t like it that we disobeyed a direct order not to let anyone near poor Miss Cruz.”
He ushered them out of the room, but not before Odelia took another quick snapshot.
“I hope you’re not thinking about publishing those,” said Pete, horrified.
“No, of course not,” she said, earning herself a slight nod. The door closed, and then they were out.
Behind them, there was a commotion on the stairs, and a large man with a hangdog look on his face came trudging up with some effort. The moment he saw Chase and Odelia his ruddy face broke into a wide smile. “Chase! Odelia! Fancy meeting you here!”
“Uncle Alec!” said Odelia, happy to see her uncle. “I hoped it would be you.”
“Of course it’s me. Who else are they going to call on a Saturday morning?” He was still huffing and puffing, catching his breath. “Your mom told me you were off for the weekend—she never told me you’d traded dreary old Hampton Cove for the weekend palaces of the rich and famous?”
“Just a happy coincidence,” she said.
“Or an unhappy one,” said Chase, indicating the door to Kimberlee’s room.
Uncle Alec’s face turned grave. “Suicide, huh? Who is she?”
“Kimberlee Cruz.”
“Never heard of her,” said the Chief. He gestured for Pete to open the door, which Emerald’s husband promptly did. Uncle Alec stepped inside, followed by, once again, Chase and Odelia, earning them both a slightly aggravated look from Pete.
“My, my,” said Alec as he surveyed the scene, then gave Odelia and Chase a quizzical look. “How long have you two been here?”
“Since last night,” said Odelia.
“And already you’ve got a dead body on your hands.”
“We didn’t do this, Chief,” said Chase.
“I know, I know. But trouble does seem to follow you around.” He then crouched down with some effort. “Now let’s see what we have here.”
Chapter 15
Dawn had come and we were still sitting in our tree—pretty much in the same spot where we’d settled down the night before.
“Do you think they’re looking for us already?” asked Dooley for the umpteenth time.
“I think it’s too soon,” I answered, also for the umpteenth time.
“Gran does get up early,” said Harriet. “She will wonder where we are.”
“Maybe we should have waited for a more opportune moment?” I said.
“Like when?”
“Like… when they’re all together having dinner? Or watching TV?”
“They’ll miss us now for sure,” said Harriet. “Gran likes to wake up with Dooley poking his nose in her side, and Marge is the same way with me.”
“Nobody wakes up expecting me to snuggle up to them,” said Brutus, and he sounded a little annoyed by the fact.
“I’m sure Chase would love you to snuggle up to him,” I said.
Brutus scoffed, “Chase would probably kick me out of bed if I tried to pull a stunt like that.”
It was true that Chase wasn’t exactly cut from the same cloth as Odelia or her mom or gran, but that didn’t mean he would exactly kick Brutus out of bed for showing some affection, which is what I told Brutus.
“He has changed,” Brutus agreed. “He used to think cats were furry furniture ornaments for old ladies and now he’s starting to appreciate us more.”
“I wonder if he’ll ever be let in on Odelia’s little secret, though,” I said.
“Not a chance. Outsiders like Chase will never understand the special bond between us cats and the Poole ladies,” said Harriet.
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” I said. “Chase has saved our lives several times now—he’s part of the family. Isn’t that right, Dooley?”
“Chase is Jesus,” said Dooley reverently. “Only without the sheep.”
“It’s true,” I said. “Chase is a latter-day Jesus, only without the sheep.”
Which was only to be expected. Nobody walks around with a flock of sheep nowadays. It’s not very practical.
We were silent for a moment, the only sound interrupting the silence the gentle clicking of our chattering teeth. It gets a little chilly in the park at night, especially after five o’clock in the morning, and we’d all gotten a little shivery.
“And thinking we could be home right now, snuggling up to our humans,” said Dooley.
“Be strong, Dooley,” said Harriet. “We’re teaching them a lesson.”
“The very least they could do is pay for the operations,” said Brutus. “That way I can be a real male again and you can be a real female.”
“For your information, I am a real female, even if I’m not a fully functioning one,” said Harriet a little snappishly. “But it would be nice if we could have a couple of babies to celebrate our love, sparky star,” she added after a pregnant pause.
“My thoughts exactly, sugar biscuit,” said Brutus.
“Oh, I’m so sorry I was mean to you, hubby wubby.”
“And I’m sorry I went a little cuckoo, bugsie wugsie.”
Kissing ensued, and a lot more silly names were bandied about.
“Let’s get out of here,” I told Dooley after I’d heard all that I could stand.
“Yeah, let’s go someplace warm,” agreed Dooley, who wasn’t a big fan of cuddling couples either.
“I think that’s why they do it, you know,” I said as we set paw for the nearest bench, so we could sit in the sun and defrost our frozen tushies.
“Do what?”
“Fight? They love to make up so much they will find any excuse to have a fight,” I said, gesturing with my head to the couple still holed up in the tree.
“Do you really think so?”
said Dooley. “That would explain a lot.”
“They do seem to fight for the silliest of reasons nowadays,” I said. “Which tells me it’s not the fighting they love so much as the making up afterward.”
“You could be right,” said Dooley. “It seemed weird Brutus would want to turn into a female all of a sudden. He’s a very butch cat. Very manly, too.”
“He is,” I said. “Probably the butchest male I’ve ever met.”
“So you think he made it all up to get into an argument with Harriet?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Couples are weird,” said Dooley as we settled in on the park bench.
“And Harriet and Brutus are even weirder.”
We watched as the sun cleared the roofs of the houses surrounding the park and warmed our chilly bones. It wasn’t the same thing as waking up with my nose dug into Odelia’s armpit or neck, pawing her soft and silky hair, but it was better than freezing my tush off in a drafty tree and having to listen to Brutus and Harriet.
“Do you really think they’ll come look for us, Max?” Dooley said finally.
“I’m sure of it. They love us, and would never desert us. I mean, isn’t that what Odelia keeps telling us?”
“I know she says it, but actions speak louder than words,” said Dooley, dispensing a rare nugget of wisdom for once.
So we decided to settle in and wait for our humans to come look for us. I had to say this whole teaching-them-a-lesson thing was proving a lot harder than I’d imagined. It also meant giving up all of our creature comforts, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make. We could rough it out for a couple of hours—or as long as it took for our humans to become aware of the fact that we’d disappeared.
A school kid was tacking up flyers on trees and lampposts, approaching us as he did. Both Dooley and I looked up expectantly.
“This is it, Max,” said Dooley excitedly. “They’re already putting up flyers telling people to look for us.”
The liberally pimpled kid with the carrot hair drew closer and we watched as he tacked a flyer on the lamppost next to our park bench. To my disappointment it didn’t depict a nice rendering of my blorange features or Dooley’s ragamuffin likeness, or even Harriet’s Persian beauty or Brutus’s black butchness but an urgent plea to buy one Axe Dark Temptation body spray for men and get a second one for free.
So we sank back down on the bench and decided to wait it out.
It wouldn’t be long now.
They’d come looking any minute.
Any minute now…
Chapter 16
Gran had been sleeping peacefully when she was awakened by a strange sound. It took her a while to realize the sound was her phone ringing. She frowned, put on her glasses and stared at the ringing annoyance. Finally, she reached out a hand and grabbed the damn thing. If this was a telemarketer trying to interest her in some insurance scheme or one of them damn robocalls, she was going to give them hell—and in case of the robocall she would file another complaint with the FTC—her one hundredth already.
But then she saw it was her granddaughter and her demeanor softened.
“Hey, honey, what are you up to?”
“There’s been a death here, Gran. Just wanted to let you know before you saw it on the news. It’s got nothing to do with me or Chase—we’re both fine.”
“A death? What death—who died?”
“One of the actresses committed suicide. She got into a fight with another actress, went to her room and drank a Coke laced with cyanide.”
“Strange way to settle an argument,” said Gran. “So who is she?”
“Kimberlee Cruz. She was the youngest—about to hit the big time.”
“Are you sure it’s suicide? Did Emerald Rhone dump the cyanide in her drink so she could wipe out the competition? Hollywood is a tough town.”
“Pretty sure. She was alone in her room with the door locked from the inside.”
“That doesn’t mean a thing,” said Gran. “Lemme get dressed. I’ll meet you there. It’s obvious you’re in way over your head and you need my help.”
“No, Gran, you don’t have to come. In fact please stay home.”
“Sounds like you’re begging me to come—don’t despair. I’m on my way.”
“I can handle this. Besides, Chase is here, Uncle Alec is here—it’s fine.”
“Are you telling your ailing old grandmother that she can’t share her final moments with her favorite granddaughter? Is that what you’re telling me?”
Odelia groaned, and Gran smiled. Emotional blackmail never failed. When you’re an old lady you have to play the cards you’re dealt. She then noticed something odd. No cats.
“Have you see Max and Dooley?” she asked.
“Why should I have seen Max and Dooley? They’re with you.”
“No, they’re not. Unless they’re downstairs, eating their fill.”
They were usually at the foot of the bed, or at least Dooley was, and now that Odelia was gone for the weekend, Max, too, had been extremely affectionate. She’d noticed his affection seemed to follow a hierarchy. Odelia was at the top, and in case she was absent, he shifted his devotion to the number two on his list, which was Gran, then Marge, then Tex, then Chase.
It had been like that since they had him, and the fact that he wasn’t there, and nor was Dooley, gave Gran a twinge of worry. Just a twinge, though, for food also featured pretty high on Max’s list of priorities. Higher than cuddles.
“They’ll probably be downstairs,” she repeated. “I’ll bring them along. Now that we’ve got a case to crack we’ll need all the help we can get.”
“Gran, no!”
But she’d already pressed that big handy red button that meant that whoever was blabbering into her ear could be shut down instantly.
It had taken Gran a while to get used to smartphones but now that she had she never wanted to go back to the day of the rotary dial phone. Besides, she could check the Internet on this phone as well as play video games and call and annoy her friends in one handy device and how cool was that, right?
She swung her feet to the floor, slipped them into her favorite pair of velvety burgundy slippers and stretched. The day was breaking and the sun was already wide awake. So she padded down the stairs, in search of Max and Dooley and the others, so she could give them the good news: they were going on an adventure. One that involved dead Hollywood actresses and cyanide, which was always a fun change from having to take calls from sick people who wanted an appointment with Tex. It was all fine and dandy to be a doctor’s receptionist but a girl wants some action from time to time, and this suicide provided just that.
As she arrived downstairs, she saw to her surprise that the four bowls, lined up neatly on the kitchen floor, hadn’t been touched. None of them, and the water bowls hadn’t been drunk from either.
“What the hell…”
Tex, who came downstairs yawning, white hair standing up on one side of his head and sporting sleep wrinkles on his cheek, muttered, “Morning, Vesta.”
“Have you seen the cats?” she asked.
“Cats?” said Tex, as if the concept was a novel one.
“Yeah, the cats. They haven’t touched their food and they weren’t there when I woke up.”
He thought for a moment, trying to wrench his mind to a topic he clearly was reluctant to broach. Finally, he shook his head. “Probably outside. Don’t they go to the park at night or something?”
“Yeah, but they should have been back by now. They go to the park at dusk, spend a couple hours there, before hurrying back for a midnight snack and then settling in at the foot of the bed. Max at Odelia’s, Dooley alternating between Odelia’s and mine, and Brutus and Harriet usually taking up space in your bed.” She pointed a bony finger in her son-in-law’s direction, practically accusing him of doing away with her cats.
“I didn’t see them,” he said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Have you asked Marge?”
/> “Oh, don’t you worry about Marge—I will ask her. In fact I’ll ask her right now. We have a duty of care towards those cats, Tex, and if Odelia finds out they’ve all gone missing, there will be hell to pay.”
Tex didn’t seem overly concerned. “They’re cats,” he said. “Who knows what they’re up to?” And he went in search of the coffeemaker, which was right in front of his nose.
Gran went back upstairs and blew into her daughter’s room. Marge was still asleep, and when Gran searched around, she found no cats in evidence there, either.
“Where are my cats?!” Gran hollered, and Marge practically flew to the ceiling.
“Who died?!” she cried.
“The cats are gone,” said Gran, narrowing her eyes at her daughter. “What did you do to them?”
“I didn’t do anything to them! Aren’t they in your room?”
“No, they’re not, and they haven’t touched their food. They’re gone, Marge.”
Marge gulped and brought a distraught hand to her throat. “Maybe they’re next door?”
“We closed up the house, remember? Even the pet flap?”
Marge nodded. Unlike Tex she knew the ins and outs of their small flock of cats better than anyone, and knew this was highly unusual behavior indeed. Just then, Gran’s phone rang again and she took it out of the pocket of her dressing gown. “What do you want?” she snapped.
“I just remembered something,” said Odelia, for it was her. “You called me in the middle of the night, remember? Something about the cats wanting to know why they were snipped?”
Gran frowned as she threw her mind back. She hated to admit it, but it wasn’t as sharp a tool as it once had been. “Oh, that’s right,” she said now. “They were pretty pissed off, too. Accused you of violating their feline rights or something.”
“Could it be that they ran away, just to teach us a lesson?”
“Could be,” Gran admitted. “In which case this is your fault. Not mine.” It was never too soon to start building a defense strategy, just in case her granddaughter accused her of neglect. “I didn’t do this,” she added, so there could be no misunderstanding. “You did, with your unconscionable behavior.”