by Nic Saint
Chase glanced up at Odelia. “I’m the real deal?”
She nodded a little coyly.
He stared at me for a moment, then said, “Translate this for me, will you? What kind of underwear was I wearing yesterday morning?”
“No need to translate,” said Odelia. “They can understand us humans pretty well. Max?”
“Is this a trick question? Dancing blue mice on a pink background.”
“Dancing blue mice on a pink background,” said Odelia.
“Oh, my God,” said Chase with a grin of surprise. “He’s the only one who saw me, so it must be true.”
“Of course it’s true, you numbnuts,” said Gran. “Do you think we’d be lying about a thing like that? Now get with the program or remove yourself from the room already, would you?”
“Oh, I’m staying put,” he said, still staring at me. “Amazing. I mean, I had my suspicions, but…” He looked up. “Does Tex know?”
“Of course. Dad has known for years. And so does Uncle Alec. They’re the only ones, though.”
“My husband didn’t know—I never felt like telling him,” said Gran. “And he wouldn’t have believed me anyway. But then he was a jackass.”
“Can I... learn the language?” asked Chase.
Odelia shook her head. “It’s not so much about language than about some sort of mystical connection. Only the women in our family have the gift.”
“Yeah, Alec doesn’t have it,” Gran confirmed. “Though he claims he can talk to goats. Easy for him to say. I’ve never seen a goat in Hampton Cove.”
“Alec can talk to goats?” asked Chase.
“I think he was pulling my leg.” She clapped her hands. “Now can we get going on this murder business? I want this wrapped before dinner. I don’t do murder mysteries on a full stomach, and something tells me I’m going to indulge tonight.”
“Okay,” said Odelia. “Max, you and the others spread out and talk to as many pets as you can.”
“I thought we weren’t supposed to wander around?” said Harriet.
“Emerald isn’t allergic, I’m sure of it,” said Gran. “She didn’t even sneeze once. So you wander around to your heart’s content, my pet.”
“Meanwhile we’ll take another look at the crime scene photos,” said Odelia. “Maybe there’s something we overlooked.”
She opened the door to let us out, and the four of us tiptoed from the room. As we moved out, Chase gave us a big thumbs-up. We gave him a paws-up in return, and then we were off to the races.
Chapter 24
I thought our mission lacked both purpose and structure, and I said as much to the others. “I mean, it’s not as if we’re in downtown Hampton Cove and we can chat to Kingman and Clarice and the others and find out what the word on the street is,” I said.
“This time we have to find out what the word in the castle is,” said Dooley, as he glanced around this new environment admiringly.
“It’s not a castle, Dooley,” said Harriet. “It’s just a big house.”
“A castle is a big house,” I said.
“Fine, whatever,” said Harriet, who was clearly not in the best of moods.
“Are you all right, tootsie roll?” asked Brutus, who’d noticed the same thing.
“I don’t get why humans can settle down and have a nice little family and when us cats try to do the same they sound the alarm.”
“Didn’t you hear Gran?” I said. “A single cat can produce offspring numbering almost half a million souls. That’s a lot of mouths to feed. And where do you think those cats will end up? At the pound, being euthanized.”
“What’s euthanized, Max?” asked Dooley without missing a beat.
“That’s nothing for you to concern yourself with, Dooley,” I said.
“Euthanized is when they keep cats at the pound indefinitely,” said Harriet.
“Indefinitely, as in they never get to leave the pound and find a home?”
“That’s right,” I said. It wasn’t a lie, per se. Those cats would never leave the pound. Alive, at least. “So you see, this neutering business is the humane thing to do.”
“It may be humane, but it’s definitely not feline,” grumbled Harriet.
“We can still adopt, sweet pea,” said Brutus.
“It’s not the same and you know it,” Harriet said. “I’m going to ask Odelia to make an exception for me. All she needs to do is to ask Vena to untie my tube, then tie it up again when I’ve had my 2.4 babies. How hard can it be?”
“She also needs to untie my tube,” said Brutus, who didn’t seem to like the prospect of being operated on.
“So? That’s a small sacrifice to make for eternal bliss and familial happiness,” said Harriet, giving her mate a gentle nudge.
“Oh, all right,” he said. “We’ll ask Odelia once we’ve finished this mission.” He turned to me. “What’s our mission, Max?”
“Talk to all creatures great and small and report back to Odelia,” I said. “Oh, and try to stay out of Emerald’s way. She may or may not be allergic.”
“Like Tex is allergic to Gran?” asked Dooley.
“More like how some people are allergic to pollen.”
“Speaking of pollen. What’s the deal with those birds and bees, Max?”
“Ugh,” Harriet muttered. “Brutus, let’s go. We have a mission to finish, and a very important question to ask Odelia.”
Brutus dutifully followed his designated mate for life, and held up his paw in a gesture of goodbye.
“So about those birds and bees,” said Dooley.
“Can we talk about that later?” I said. “We only have today to solve this murder—if that’s what this is—so we need to move fast.”
“Oh, all right. But you won’t forget? I really want to know. And I also want to know what this business with the tubes is all about. It sounds fascinating.”
I heaved a silent sigh. Why was it always me who had to have the tough conversations?
We trudged along, and already I was wondering how we were going to pull this off. In a big place like this, all participants were locked up in their rooms, not unlike the way the inhabitants of Hampton Cove were locked up in their homes. Only with homes pets were free to come and go as they pleased, thanks to the invention of the fantastic and revolutionary pet flap. And as far as I could tell there were no pet flaps in the doors on this particular second-floor hallway, which presumably was where all the pets were holed up.
“We better head down and outside, Max,” said Dooley. “Sooner or later all these dogs have to go for a walk to do their business, so that’s our best shot at having a crack at them.”
I slowly turned to my friend. “Dooley, that’s brilliant!”
“Gee, thanks, Max. The thought just occurred to me.”
“And a good thing it did. See? If you don’t let your mind get cluttered with useless information about birds and bees and tubes you get to put in some good thinking.”
“I still want to know about the birds and the bees and the tubes, though.”
“Of course you do,” I said, and then we made our way down that nice marble staircase and wandered around downstairs until we managed to wend our way into a large dining room whose doors were open, a gentle breeze wafting in from outside. We’d arrived at the fabled grounds of Casa Emerald, where the dogs of the house presumably all met up to do their business, as humans euphemistically like to call the doo-doo that dogs do.
“So weird that dogs are supposed to be these ultra-smart creatures and yet they still haven’t learned how to use a litter box,” said Dooley, taking the words right out of my mouth.
Immediately upon our arrival we spotted our first victim. It was a Chihuahua, and it was being led on its leash by a petite blond-haired woman I recognized as Abbey Moret, star of such movies as Blond Ambition 1 and Blond Ambition 2: Ambitiously Blonder. She was smoking a cigarette, staring off into the middle distance. The Chihuahua, meanwhile, sniffed around a nearby rosebush, lifted
its hind leg and performed what is colloquially called a wee.
“Yuck, how disgusting,” Dooley said.
The mutt looked up when he overheard us, and said, in a surprisingly deep and rumbling voice, “Watch what you say, cats.”
“I wasn’t saying anything,” said Dooley.
“You were commenting on my sanitary break,” he grumbled.
“The thing is, we would like to ask you a couple of questions. Mr. Mutt,” I said in as pleasant and deferential a tone as felinely possible.
“Call me August,” he said, sniffing his own wee.
“Yuck,” Dooley said, and I gave him a gentle shove. No need to antagonize what potentially might be an important witness to a potentially horrendous crime.
“So a woman died today,” I began.
“Yeah, I know. Terrible business, sirs. Just terrible,” said August.
“So what are your thoughts?”
The Chihuahua thought hard, judging from the way he puckered up his face. “Thoughts?” he said finally, as if surprised we assumed he had any.
“What do you think happened?”
“Well, she died, didn’t she? Took some kind of poison and died.”
Very enlightening. “Is that what your human thinks?” I asked, glancing up at Abbey, who was still frowning hard throughout her cigarette break.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what she thinks. She also thinks it’s probably good riddance, as she wasn’t particularly fond of the dead woman.”
“What does your master think?”
“Oh, he’s a little sad. I think he liked the dead woman.”
“Kimberlee,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“Her name was Kimberlee.”
“It still is,” said Dooley. “I mean,” he added when I glanced over at him, “it’s not because she’s dead that suddenly she’s Jane Doe or something, right?”
Dooley was on fire today! “You’re absolutely right,” I said with an indulgent smile. “So your master liked Kimberlee, huh?”
“Yeah, he liked her a lot. In fact Abbey just caught him studying pictures of her on his phone and crying in his beard. No idea why. Maybe he’s allergic to lingerie, cause that’s all she was wearing in the pictures. Pretty weird, huh?”
“So do you think he liked liked her?” I asked.
“Liked liked her?”
“Did he like her the way he likes your mistress?”
“Oh, you mean did they kiss and hug and lie on top of each and make strange noises?”
I winced at the mental image. “Yeah, exactly like that.”
“I don’t think so,” said August, “though that’s exactly what Abbey accused him of just now. They had a huge fight when she discovered him staring at those pictures. She said he was having an affair, whatever that’s supposed to mean, and that’s why he was so sad she was dead. And then he said she was full of crap and he cried some more. Humans, right? They’re so weird.”
“So did he? Have an affair with Kimberlee?”
“If Abbey said it, it must be true. She’s a sharp cookie, my mistress.”
“But you never saw him with Kimberlee, right?”
“Hey, man. I’m not my master’s keeper. I don’t know what he gets up to when I’m not around.”
“One final question. This is very important, August. Do you think someone may have murdered Kimberlee? Your master, maybe? Or your mistress?”
The Chihuahua stared at me with his big brown eyes. I could tell this was a tough one. “Murdered her? But I thought she murdered herself?”
“It’s possible she was murdered by someone else.”
“Which is why it’s called murder,” Dooley explained.
“I know what murder is, cat,” he said.
“So? Could Abbey or her husband have killed Kimberlee?”
“Oh, sure,” said August. “Only they didn’t, did they? Cause she killed herself.”
Abbey gave the leash a yank. “Come along, August,” she snapped. Then she saw us and frowned. “Weird,” she muttered. “Now I’m seeing cats.”
Then she walked off, her little doggie tripping behind her.
“See ya later, cats!” August cried, and then he was gone.
“That was a big flop,” I said.
“At least we have one suspect,” said Dooley. “Abbey? If her husband was having an affair with Kimberlee, she had a motive to get rid of the woman.”
“Right you are, Dooley,” I said. Dang it. Soon Dooley was going to become lead feline investigator, with me as his funny and slightly ridiculous sidekick!
Chapter 25
We returned to the house, after ascertaining there were no more canine witnesses to be interviewed, and for a moment just sat there, trying to figure out our next move. Or at least I thought about our next move, while Dooley merely stared at a giant pile of Coke cans. They were called Coke Emerald, for some reason, and appeared to be some kind of special edition.
“I wonder if the Coca-Cola Company will ever make a Coke for cats,” said Dooley.
“Personally I don’t care for the taste,” I said. “Too fizzy.”
“Yeah, they should probably invent a fizzy-less Coke if they want to appeal to the feline demographic.”
“Or you could open a can and leave it out for a couple of hours. That takes care of the fizziness.”
We shared a glance. “Yuck,” we said simultaneously.
I’d tried Coke once, when Uncle Alec, in exuberant mood, had first let me have a sip of beer—double yuck—and then a sip of Coke. Ugh. No way.
“They say Coke can turn a rusty nail into a regular nail,” said Dooley. “So if a human has a rusty nail in his stomach, and drinks a lot of Coke, it will eventually turn into a regular nail.”
“Why would a human swallow a rusty nail?”
“Beats me,” said Dooley, “but that’s what I heard Tex tell Marge once.”
Humans. They’re so weird.
We moved through the house, and up the stairs. My immediate goal was to talk to Kimberlee’s dog Stevie, the one who’d been in the room with her when it happened. If anyone would know what went down, it was him.
Thinking logically, Stevie would be in the custody of Kimberlee’s boyfriend, who presumably would have been given a different room. We stood at the top of the stairs and stared down the long hallway. There were a lot of rooms, and of course they all had their doors closed.
“We’ll have to play this by ear,” I said.
“Whose ear?” asked Dooley.
“Any ear. We need to improvise.”
“Don’t we always?”
We did. It’s nice to be able to tell people you have some kind of plan when you’re working a case, but the fact of the matter is that your true sleuth mostly relies on his gut. And since I had the largest gut, I usually got to decide.
So I put my ear against door after door, then sniffed the floor hard. You may not know this, but cats have amazing sense of smell, and hearing—a lot more powerful than any human. And that’s what I was putting to work for me now: we needed to find this pooch and by golly we were going to find him.
“I think he’s in here, Max,” said Dooley. “I smell pooch.”
“I smell pooch, too,” I said. “Let the games begin.”
And we both started meowing at the top of our lungs. Anyone familiar with our capacity for yowling knows it can be both piercing and extremely annoying. It didn’t take long, therefore, for the door to be yanked open and a wiry-looking human with a tan face to appear. He first looked left and then right, before finally looking down. Classic mistake. By the time he looked down, we’d already slipped between his legs and into the room.
Dooley and I spread out, in search of the mutt Stevie.
“Got him!” said Dooley from the other room.
We were in a nice-looking suite, with separate bedroom, living space and bathroom. The dog was in the bedroom, lying on a four-poster bed and looking sadly at a picture of his mistress that stood perc
hed on the nightstand.
The wiry-looking man with the tan face, meanwhile, muttered something about morons and slammed the door shut. He never even saw us, the doofus.
“Hey there,” I said as I jumped up on the bed.
“Hey yourself,” said Stevie, wiping away a tear. To my surprise, Stevie was a she, and not a he. A tawny-colored Brussels Griffon with a well-groomed mustache and beard and looking at me with intelligent eyes.
“Hi,” said Dooley, now also jumping up on the bed and joining us.
“Hey,” said the Ewok lookalike.
“We’re detectives,” I said by way of introduction, “and we’re investigating the possible murder of your mistress Kimberlee.”
Stevie uttered a stifled sob at this. “Kimberlee. Oh, how I’m going to miss her.” She directed a sad look at the framed picture and burst into tears.
“We’re very sorry for your loss, by the way,” said Dooley. “I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose your human like that.”
She gave Dooley an appreciative look. “Thanks,” she said softly.
I hadn’t even thought of offering my condolences. Instead I’d just barged in and was about to launch into a barrage of questions. Rude. Rude and tactless.
“She was a wonderful person,” said Stevie. “The best. Hard to believe she would do this to herself. She had so much to live for. This is a sad, sad day.”
“That’s the thing,” I said, seeing my opening. “We think she may not have done this to herself. We think she may have been murdered. And we were hoping you could help us figure out who killed her.”
“You were there, right?” said Dooley.
“I was,” said Stevie sadly. “I was there until the bitter end.”
“So can you tell us a little bit about what happened?” I asked.
“There’s not much to tell. I was in the next room, napping and dreaming of rabbits.”
“Do dogs often dream of rabbits?” asked Dooley, interested.
“Not now, Dooley,” I said.
“So I was lying in my basket, dreaming of rabbits and birds.”
“Birds?” asked Dooley. “That’s a coincidence. I dream of birds, too. Like, every night. And sometimes during the day, too. What kind of birds?”