Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Sidekick. Purrfect Deseit. Purrfect Ruse [calibre 5.14.0]

“A hitman?” I asked, and couldn’t keep the skepticism out of my voice, unfortunately.

“And why not? People hire hitmen all the time.”

“I don’t think people hire hitmen all the time, Harriet,” I said, “or the streets would be littered with dead people.”

“Nitpicky,” Harriet snapped. “You are so nitpicky, Max.”

“So what do you think?” asked Odelia. “Chase is convinced Karl is guilty, and so is my uncle. But I’m not so sure. I talked to him and he doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d do this kind of thing.”

“I think we need to talk to those ravers again,” I said. “Todd Park, for one, but also some of the others that knew Darryl. See what they have to say.”

“Okay,” said Odelia, nodding. “I’ll try to convince Chase and we’ll set up some more interviews.” She got up, then glanced at the house. “You know? It looks pretty terrible now, but maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing. After all, the house was old when Mom and Dad bought it, and at the time they didn’t have the money to do the kind of remodeling they had in mind. So maybe now they’ll finally be able to build it just the way they like.”

“See?” said Harriet after Odelia had left. “Even Odelia thinks this was a good thing.”

And she was right. Like they say: every cloud has a silver lining. And this disaster might have one, too. Though looking at Tex’s murderous frown each time he darted a look at his mother-in-law, I had the impression he didn’t see that silver lining yet. In fact he looked more like a man who had silver daggers on his mind. Or even silver bullets.

Chapter 28

That night cat choir had a different quality than usual. Mainly because practically all of the cats had followed our example and were wearing… collars with inbuilt trackers! And I must say they were wearing them proudly.

Shanille had one of the nicest collars: hers was inlaid with what looked like gold thread! She was parading the gizmo for everyone to see, and for a moment I thought she must have raided the church coffers to get her paws on all of that gold, but then she explained how Father Reilly had talked to Gran, who’d told him the whole story of the catnapping, and how our collars had saved our lives, causing Odelia and Chase to quickly and efficiently find us in the middle of nowhere, and since Gran said she could make him a good deal, the good priest hadn’t hesitated and had procured a collar from her.

And so there Shanille was, safe from any attempts at catnapping, and with Father Reilly knowing at every moment of the day or night exactly where she was, and ready to come to her rescue in case anyone tried any funny business.

Kingman, too, was wearing what looked like a pricy gadget, with what looked like diamonds, but which could also have been glass, and he told us pretty much the same story: Gran had gone round to talk to all the cat owners she knew, and regale the story of the latest catnappings, and the power of the tracker, and had sold Wilbur one.

“You guys really did us a great service,” Kingman said, and Shanille chimed in, along with Buster, and some of the other cats, who all stood around in a circle, discussing the benefits of their new and wonderful devices. “If it hadn’t been for you to allow yourselves to be taken,” Kingman continued, “we’d all be at risk of abduction and wouldn’t even have known it!”

“You’re heroes,” Buster exclaimed. “Actual heroes and role models for the rest of us.”

And much to my surprise, suddenly a round of applause broke out, muted of course, as it’s hard to really make noise when your paws are equipped with soft pink pads.

“You guys,” said Harriet with mock modesty. “It was a big sacrifice we made, that’s true, but we did it for the good of the whole community. And frankly if I had to do it all over again I would—of course I would!”

“Oh, Harriet, you’re such a blessing to this community,” Shanille gushed.

And since it looked like this sudden outpouring of affection could go on for a little while longer, I decided to remove myself from the scene.

“They really seem to be happy with their trackers, aren’t they, Max?” said Dooley.

“A little too happy if you ask me,” I grunted.

“Why do you think that?”

“Who wants their humans to know where they are twenty-four seven, Dooley? I certainly don’t. We probably have the best human in the world, but even she doesn’t need to know where we go or what we are up to all the time.” I gestured to Kingman and Shanille and the others. “Can you imagine what Father Reilly and Wilbur Vickery and Fido Siniawski and the other cat owners are going to say when they discover that their precious darlings are out all night, roaming the streets and generally having a great time? I’m pretty sure…”

But before I could finish my sentence, suddenly we heard a car pull up to a nearby curb, and a car door slam, then hurried footsteps proceeding in our direction. Moments later Father Reilly appeared, looking stricken and annoyed, his phone in his hand as he darted intermittent glances at his phone and then at his surroundings. When finally his eyes landed on Shanille, he cried, “Shanille! There you are! Oh, darling, I was worried sick about you! What has gotten into you to stray so far from the parish! Let’s go!”

“But…” said Shanille, looking up at her human with wide-eyed consternation. “But…”

“Let’s go, I said!” the priest exclaimed, and gave the rest of us cats a nasty look before scooping our choir director up in his arms and carrying her off with him!

“Carry on without me, you guys!” Shanille managed to shout, but then we heard that car door slam again, the car take off in a hurry, and our choir conductor was gone.

“What just happened?” asked Harriet.

“I think Father Reilly never fully realized what Shanille was up to at night,” I explained, “and now that he has, thanks to her tracking device, it’s obvious he doesn’t fully agree with her nocturnal escapades.”

More cars were pulling up nearby, and more car doors slammed, and the sound of humans talking amongst themselves could be heard, their voices carrying far in the night’s silence. They were approaching, and before long they were upon us, all looking startled and surprised that so many cats would have gathered at the park’s playground.

Buster’s human was there: Fido Siniawski, the hairdresser, and Kingman’s human, Wilbur Vickery, and Norberto Beachhead, the electrician, who’s Misty’s human, and Franklin Beaver, the hardware store owner and Shadow’s human. Garvin Chanting appeared—he’s a landscaper and Missy’s human—and I could probably go on for a little while. Suffice it to say that all of Hampton Cove suddenly appeared to have discovered our hiding place, and before long they’d all swooped down and took off with their cats.

All of them had their phones glued to their hands, and their eyes glued to their tracking apps, brought to the park by the beep-beeping insistence of the software. And so the playground quickly emptied out, and soon only myself, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus were left! The others had all been collected by their respective human owners, and taken away in their cars to safe havens scattered all across town.

“Looks like cat choir has been canceled,” said Brutus finally, stating the obvious.

“I hate this tracker!” said Harriet. “I wish it had never been invented!”

“It’s a fine device,” I said, “but maybe someone should have warned our friends that there are two sides to wearing a tracking device: it provides safety in case of a catnapping, but it also takes away every notion of privacy, unfortunately.”

“Get it off me, Max!” Harriet cried. “I don’t want it anymore! I don’t want our humans to follow us around all the time!”