“It might be,” I said carefully. I’m not big on signs, but if Dex thought our arrival on his doorstep was one, and it induced him to tell us the story of his life, I was all for it.
“Okay, so let’s get out of here, and I’ll tell you all about it on the way. How does that sound?”
“But we haven’t even found anything incriminating yet,” said Dooley.
“I think we owe it to Dex to take him to cat choir, don’t you?” I said, giving my friend a knowing wink, which I hoped he’d catch.
He didn’t, but still stopped harping on the incriminating part of our mission, and tagged along.
“Let’s head out the back door,” Dex suggested. And as we did, I caught a whiff of some powerful and faintly familiar scent. It was a yeasty odor of some kind, and when I asked Dex about it, he explained that Mr. Dexter’s gardener had complained about snails and slugs infesting his precious garden, and had been trying a true and tried technique to get rid of them.
“Our human’s backyard is also having a snail problem,” Dooley confessed. “And their solution is to catch the snails one by one and deposit them elsewhere.”
“Don’t get me wrong, snails are a very useful and beneficial species,” said Dex, who had perked up a great deal as we went on our way. He clearly wasn’t a homebody, and enjoyed being out and about. “They’re very beneficial for getting rid of rotten leaves, or anything decaying, and alsothey spread some very useful nutrients and manure in your backyard, which feeds the plants. The only problem is when you have too many of them, and they start eating your regular plants and flowers, which they rarely do, mostly focusing on the rotting stuff.”
“Exactly the problem we have!” said Dooley. “There’s simply too many of them, and they’ve turned Tex and Marge’s backyard, and now also Odelia’s, into a wasteland.”
“Okay, so what’s the story with Edward Dexter and his daughter?” I said. All this talk about snails was all well and good, but what I really wanted to know was the Dexter business.
“Remember how I told you that Mr. Dexter wasn’t always my human? Well, that’s because I used to belong to his brother Edward.”
“But… this guy is Edward, isn’t he?”
“No, the Mr. Dexter you know is actually Andrew, Edward’s twin brother.”
“Huh.” Now this was news.
“So I used to belong to Edward. Only he went through some sort of breakdown, and had to step down from his position at the head of his company, and asked his brother to take his place. Just for the time being, you know. Until he got back on his feet. But it’s been ten years now, and we still haven’t heard from Edward. So obviously I’m worried that something might have happened to him, and that he might never come back.” He shrugged. “Though Andrew treats me well enough, I guess. He’s not a cat person, per se, but he tries hard to be.”
“So… the guy who lives in that house isn’t Edward?” I asked, just to be clear.
“Nope. Andrew stepped in as chairman of the board and CEO or whatever, and he also moved into the house. Before this happened he ran a fishing tackle store in Boca Raton. He had to learn on the job, but I think he’s done a pretty good job. And of course he’s got plenty of talented folk actually running the company.”
“But… so who’s Addie?”
“Addie is Edward’s daughter.”
“And she’s also been living with Andrew?”
Dex nodded.“She was still very young at the time, of course. A teenager. So the transition happened more or less smoothly. But yeah, Andrew is her uncle, not her dad.”
“Okay,” I said, thinking hard.
“It’s very kind of Andrew to take over for his brother like that,” said Dooley. “It shows his good heart.”
“Yeah, he’s all right,” said Dex. “And of course we’re not dogs, so we don’t form this silly attachment to our humans dogs suffer from.” He laughed, but I could tell that his heart wasn’t in it.
“You miss Edward, don’t you?” I said.
He nodded, and his eyes grew moist. It told me that he might not be a dog, but he’d much rather have Edward back, no matter how hard Andrew tried to be a good pet parent.
“Okay, so this throws a different light on this matter altogether,” I said. “It’s entirely possible that the reason Addie went missing has something to do with this whole twin brother thing.”
“Addie didn’t go missing,” said Dex with a frown. “Who told you that?”
“Why, Edward—um, Andrew, of course. It’s why Odelia got involved. He asked her to track down his daughter, since the authorities couldn’t.”
Dex burst out laughing.“Max, he’s pulling your leg! Addie isn’t missing. She’s off on a road trip with her boyfriend Ted. Probably having the time of their lives.”
Obviously Dex wasn’t as well informed as he thought he was, and since I didn’t want him to worry, I decided not to mention the fact that Addie hadn’t returned from her road trip.
“So how well does Addie get along with her uncle?” I asked instead.
“Well, obviously they don’t have the kind of relationship a father and daughter would have, but they get along great. Addie adores her uncle, and he’s crazy about his niece, probably feeling sorry for the way her dad abandoned her.”
“They don’t know where Edward is?”
“Not a clue. The guy just went up in smoke one day.”
“Odd. You’d think a big CEO like that would stay in touch.”
“Yeah, you would think so. But you’d be wrong.”
I noticed a touch of bitterness in the orange cat’s voice, and I didn’t wonder. “So is he married, this Andrew?”
“Nope. Never found the one. At least not yet.”
“He’s finally found the one in Odelia,” said Dooley. “She’ll be like a mother to Addie, and it’s so great that Grace will have a big sister now.” Then he seemed to realize what he was saying, for he turned to me. “Oh, no, Max! We have to find Addie, or else Grace will grow up without a sister!”
I sighed.“Oh, Dooley.”
CHAPTER 36
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“Who would have thought, right?” said Dooley.
“Mh,” I said.
“Edward isn’t Edward but Andrew. And he’s not Addie’s dad but her uncle.”
“Mh.”
“It’s all very complicated, isn’t it? Hard to keep track, I mean.”
“Mh.”
“So maybe Addie also got confused, and that’s why she ran away?”
We had joined our usual lineup at cat choir, but while the other cats, and Dex Dexter in particular, were singing their hearts out, my own heart wasn’t really in it, and I was merely going through the motions.
“Dooley, stop blabbing!” Shanille shouted. “And you, Max, start showing you care! And where the hell is Harriet—my star soprano!”
“She’s chasing slugs and snails with Brutus!” said Dooley.
But Shanille, who hates interruptions, shushed him into silence, and bellowed,“From the top! And this time, try to pretend you care, you two!”
And so the rehearsals went on.
It took me a while to work it out, but I think I finally managed halfway through a haunting rendition of an Adele song. It was around the same time that a shoe hit me in the rear and I toppled from my perch on top of the slide. Luckily I landed on all fours, and I don’t know if it was the shoe or the soothing effect of the song, but a lightbulb seemed to go off in my head, and the word ‘Eureka’ was trembling on my lips as I finally saw the light. Or at least part of it.
I’d landed right in front of a snail, as it happened. Possibly one of the specimens that had infested our backyard earlier. It gave me its typical supercilious look that a lot of these snails seem to share, and turned away from me while making a sort of scoffing noise, before slithering back into the undergrowth whence it came.