Dooley stared after Brutus and Harriet as they strutted their stuff without holding back, giggling and prancing like a couple of love cats.
“I like Harriet,” said Dooley sadly. “I like her a lot. And I always thought that over time she’d learn to like me, too. I guess I was wrong, huh?”
I shook my head. “Where does he come off, calling you a gib?”
“Did he say that? I didn’t even notice,” said Dooley, with a hangcat expression on his face.
Suddenly I got an idea. “Do you know if Brutus is neutered?”
“How would I know? I didn’t check… down there.”
“Maybe that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Everything! His aggressive nature. The way Harriet is completely smitten with him. The way he’s taken over this town… That cat,” I said, pointing a paw at Brutus’s retreating back, “has not been fixed, Dooley. Which is a clear violation of the rules and regulations of this town.”
“You think we should tell someone?”
“I think it’s our sacred duty, Dooley,” I declared.
The light of hope was gleaming in my friend’s eyes. “What if we told Odelia? And she told Chief Alec? Who told Chase?”
“He’d have no choice but to have Brutus neutered,” I said with a grin.
“That would change his tune.”
“Bring him down a peg. Or two.”
“Or three or four.”
“Two, Dooley. Even Brutus only has two… you know.”
“Oh! Right. Of course. Two it is.”
“It might even make Harriet fall out of love with the guy.”
“Like you said, Max, it is our sacred duty to make sure the law is upheld.”
“And even more so since Brutus is an officer of that same law.”
I held up my paw, and Dooley slapped it in a genuine and heartfelt high-five. “Let’s get this cat fixed, buddy,” said Dooley, his despondency gone.
And so we set out on a new mission, and set paw for the newspaper, where we hoped to find Odelia. It was a good thing that Dan always liked to leave the door to the office open, so we waltzed in and went straight for Odelia’s office, where we found her checking something on her computer.
“Odelia, have we got news for you!” I announced our presence.
“Oh, hey, Max. Dooley. I don’t have a lot of time, guys. I’m on my way to Uncle Alec for an update on the murder case.”
“We’ll keep it brief,” I promised her, and proceeded to give her a quick summary of the conversation between Chase and Tex. To say that she was surprised was an understatement. Apparently this was all news to her, which was gratifying, of course. But when we added the even more stunning scoop that Brutus wasn’t neutered, she suddenly lost interest. But isn’t that always the case? Cats are only interested in cats, and humans in humans. It’s simply the way the cookie crumbles. So when I told her to tell Chief Alec about Brutus’s unneutered state, she merely mumbled something under her breath, grabbed her clutch from the desk and waltzed out without another word.
“Do you think we got the message across?” asked Dooley.
“I think we’ll need to follow up on that one,” I told him.
“I think so, too. Somehow I don’t think she grasped the significance.”
Humans. They’re perfectly nice people, but you gotta watch them.
Chapter 11
“Poole,” Odelia said. “My name is Poole. Odelia Poole.”
She stared annoyedly at the mayor’s secretary. The woman was new, and apparently didn’t know who she was. Odelia was anxious to have a word with the mayor’s wife, who she knew had an office right next to her husband, from where she coordinated Hampton Cove’s beautification committee. She needed her to confirm Aissa’s story so she could take her off the suspect list.
Upon leaving the newspaper, she’d popped into the police station to have a word with Uncle Alec, but unfortunately he’d proved unavailable. According to Dolores he’d been summoned to the mayor’s office to give an update on the Paulo Frey case, a case destined to shake this small town to its foundations. Not only were murders pretty rare around here, but a celebrity writer being murdered was unheard of. If one celebrity got killed, it was bound to give other celebrities ideas, and soon they would start avoiding this town en masse, which was definitely bad for business.
“I’m sorry, Miss Poole,” the secretary said, “but the mayor is busy right now, and so is his wife.”
She nodded, wondering whether the mayor’s wife was busy with Chase. If he followed the same pattern she did, he probably was in there questioning her right now. If only she could skip one step and go straight to the next suspect, she could get ahead of him, and solve this murder before he did. Wouldn’t it be fun if he read in his morning paper who Paulo Frey’s murderer was? That would make him feel pretty stupid, wouldn’t it?
So she decided not to wait for the mayor’s wife, and to simply assume Aissa hadn’t lied about her alibi. She checked her notes, and saw that the next person to talk to was Gabby Cleret, the well-known Hollywood actress.
She’d left her pickup parked in front of her father’s office, and now quickly returned there to fetch it. And as she did, she saw that her father had just stepped out of his office and was on his way back from the hardware store next door, carrying what looked like a big roll of screen.
“Hey, honey,” he said when he saw her. “We keep running into each other today, don’t we?”
“It’s a small town, Dad,” she said, then gestured at the roll of screen. “What are you up to?”
“Oh, I promised your mother I’d finally fix that screen door. It’s been broken ever since your cat destroyed it last summer.”
“My cat? Wasn’t it your cat who jumped on the screen and ripped it to shreds?”
He grinned. “I think they all played an equal part in its destruction. Oh, before I forget,” he said as she made to go to her pickup. “There’s something I need you to do for me.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know if you met him, but your uncle Alec hired a new cop. His name is Chase Kingsley and he just arrived in town a couple of days ago.”
Her lips tightened and she crossed her arms as she leaned back against her car. “We’ve met.”
He flashed her a grin. “Oh, that’s right. Chase told me you did.”
“Did he now?”
“Uh-huh. He was in here just now for a, um, consultation. The thing is, Chase used to work as a cop in New York, and got in trouble over some business out there. It’s no great secret, as it’s been all over the New York papers a couple of months ago. He was dishonorably discharged from the NYPD,” he said, also leaning against the car.
“Yes, I know,” she said tersely. She could hardly tell her dad that she also knew all about the conversation he’d had with Chase in his office. It had certainly made her think. If it was true that he’d been framed, it changed everything. But she hadn’t made up her mind that he’d been telling the truth.
A few passersby nodded friendly greetings at father and daughter Poole, and Tex greeted them back jovially while Odelia merely glared at them. She knew exactly what her dad was going to ask her to do, and she’d been dreading the moment ever since Max and Dooley had told her about it.
“Look, I’d like to correct the impression that Chase is some kind of bad apple,” said Tex. “I can’t go into too much detail without divulging certain confidential information that’s strictly between my patient and me, but…”
“Just spit it out, Dad. What is it you want to tell me?”
“Chase has been wronged, honey. That story about him assaulting a suspect’s wife? That’s just a load of poppycock. So I told him I’d talk to you, Hampton Cove’s premier reporter, and convince you to help spread the word that Chase Kingsley is a fine, upstanding citizen and a great cop, and that whole nonsense about his dismissal is simply one big misunderstanding.”