“Fine. Do it quietly, though, will you? And make sure no one sees you.”
“Wait, you expect me to do it? Why don’t you do it?”
“Have you seen the wheelchair?”
“I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about Nurse Ratched over there.”
Nurse Ratched didn’t seem all that happy with her new moniker. “My name is Helga Cooper,” she said in clipped tones. “And nowhere does it say in my job description that I should go around murdering cats. So I refuse.”
“You do it,” Leonora told Chris. “You’re good with cats.”
“I’m good with live cats, not dead ones!”
“Oh, for crying out loud!”
Dooley, who’d been gulping freely next to me, appeared on the verge of a panic attack. “They’re going to kill us, Max!” he cried. “Did you hear that? They’re going to kill us and throw away the bodies!”
“Bury the bodies, most likely,” said Tank with an evil glint in his eyes. “Deep, so that no one will ever find you. And if by some miracle they do, the worms will have eaten through your rotting corpses and all that will be left will be your bones. Sad, sad bones.”
“Oh, no!” said Dooley, hyperventilating now.
“Deep breaths, Dooley,” I said. “Deep, steady breaths.”
“Look, you don’t have to do this,” said Pussy. “You can keep us all in here and no one has to die.”
“Yeah, I know we don’t have to do it,” said Tank. “But that’s just the thing: we want to do it.” He turned to Chris. “Let me do it, boss.”
“You? You can’t kill those two.”
“Oh, but I can,” said Tank, licking his lips and extending a gleaming claw. “In fact I know just how. One nice jab to the jugular and they’ll bleed out like gutted pigs. And then all you have to do is dig the hole and dump the bodies.”
“I don’t want to die, Max!” Dooley cried. “I’m too young to die!”
“I don’t want to die either, Dooley,” I said, and already I was eyeing the door with a keen eye. “If we move fast,” I whispered in his ear, “we can make it. On three. One two three—go!”
And I raced for the door. Only I felt a keen sense of emptiness behind me and when I looked back I saw that Dooley was glued to the spot, looking at me with wide panicky eyes. So I halted and retraced my steps.
“Ha ha ha!” Tank laughed. “Look at them. Dumb and dumber—the sequel!”
“Close the door, you idiots,” Leonora snapped. “If they get out they’ll spill the beans and then all this will have been for naught.”
“Max,” said Dooley when I’d returned to his side. “Why didn’t you make a run for it?”
“I couldn’t very well leave my best friend behind, could I?”
“But you could have escaped and warned Odelia!”
Oh, shoot. Why hadn’t I thought of that!
“So this is your final word?” asked Leonora.
“This is my final word,” Chris confirmed. “I’m not a cat killer. If you want them dead, you’ll have to find someone else to do it.”
“Imbeciles and incompetents!” shouted Leonora as she directed her wheelchair to the door. “I’m surrounded by imbeciles and incompetents!” She passed through the door, followed by Helga and Chris. The last one to leave us in our new prison was, of course, Tank.
“Too bad they didn’t task me with the kill,” he said. And he slashed the air with his gleaming claw. Then the door closed and we were once again alone.
“Someone will come for us,” said Pussy. “Your humans will realize what’s going on and they’ll come looking for you.”
Under normal circumstances I would have heartily agreed with her. Only this time I had the distinct impression that no one would come for us. Or even if they did, it would be too late, and we’d already be dead and buried.
Chapter 20
Gran wasn’t feeling like herself. Ever since her granddaughter had branched out into the world of private detecting, she’d been her loyal and able sidekick on many an investigation. Today, though, things hadn’t gone according to plan, to say the least. The worst kind of investigation was the one that was over before it even got started. And yet…
While at the reception desk in her son-in-law’s office, she’d been surfing the web on the newly minted smartphone Tex had gifted her, and she discovered a couple of things about the case that greatly worried her. For one thing, by all accounts Leonidas Flake and Gabriel Crier had been a devoted couple. They’d been together for thirty years, and all that time they’d appeared in public displaying an affection that was unmistakable. It was hard to imagine that suddenly one partner in the tryst would snap and murder the other partner in the tryst and then not even remember what he’d done.
Furthermore, there had been rumors that the empire Leo had built was rocking on its foundations, not least because his mother was shaking the tree, insisting her son was squandering his legacy by bad business decisions. The woman had actually had the gall to try and oust her son from his own company by launching a hostile takeover bid. The fact that it had failed didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. It had spooked investors, and the stock had been trading at an all-time low.
Shops had been closed, sales had slumped, and the company was on shaky ground. And now this murder. Gran couldn’t help but feel there was more to the murder than a simple lovers’ tiff. Rumors had been flying around all day that now that her son was dead, Mama Flake was moving in and finalizing her takeover attempt. She’d been spotted in town, even before the murder, staying at the Hampton Cove Star, which was highly suspect to say the least. Then again, Ma Flake was old. She was ninety-eight, and wheelchair bound, so it was hardly feasible she would have held the knife that killed her only son.
Furthermore, after the bad blood that had existed between herself and her son, she’d become persona non grata at Chateau Leonidas and hadn’t been allowed to set foot inside the premises. At least not until today. So even if she’d wanted to murder her son, she wouldn’t have had the chance.
Still, Gran felt there were loose ends attached to this case, and had already placed a strongly worded phone call to her own son Alec, telling him not to put all his eggs in one basket but to give the investigation another chance.
So great was her concern that when she arrived home after her shift, instead of plunking down in front of the TV to watch Jeopardy!, she hunkered down at the kitchen table to do some more digging into the family Flake.
Her daughter Marge, when arriving home from the library, watched her with a curious eye. “What’s going on with you, Ma? No Jeopardy! today?”
“Murder investigation,” she grunted curtly.
“Not the Flake case? Terrible business, that. I loved the man’s designs.”
This had Gran look up in surprise. “You liked Flake’s designs?”
“Yeah, loved them. I have several Leonidas Flakes upstairs. Of course I only wear them on special occasions.”
“What’s this about special occasions, hon?” asked Tex, coming into the kitchen to grab something from the fridge.
“Leonidas Flake. Remember him?”
“Oh, of course. Terrible business. I have several Flake suits upstairs.”
“You have Flake suits?” asked Gran. “But they cost a fortune.”
“Oh, no,” said Marge. “He has his haute couture line, of course, and those pieces are priceless, but he has his prêt-à-porter line and he did a collaboration with the Gap a couple of years ago, and those were very reasonably priced.”
“Very reasonably priced,” Tex agreed as he took a barbecued chicken wing from the fridge and gave it a tentative nibble.