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

“See what you can do,” he said, and disconnected.

Odelia swiveled in her chair for a moment, thinking up ways and means of figuring out who this mystery man could possibly be.

Chapter 5

‘This was probably the shortest case in the history of cases,” said Dooley.

“Yeah, it sure was,” I agreed.

“And we solved it, Max!”

“We didn’t solve anything, Dooley,” I said. “The case more or less solved itself.”

“I don’t get it,” said Harriet. “This is an attractive woman, and this guy simply dumps her? And over the phone, no less? If I were her I’d press charges.”

“You can’t press charges against a man you’re having an affair with, Harriet,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, if she presses charges her husband will find out,” Brutus said. “And I don’t think that’s what she wants.”

“But he can’t just treat her like that!” said Harriet, all the female in her annoyed.

“Poor Melanie,” said Dooley. “She looked very sad, didn’t she?”

“She sure did,” I said.

After having been dismissed by Odelia, we operatives found nothing better to do than to wander around a little aimlessly in downtown Hampton Cove. That’s what operatives do, you know: they live for the chase, but when the chase is over, all that adrenaline that’s been coursing through their system needs to settle down, and it makes you feel a little bit on edge. Just like soldiers who’ve been fighting several tours of duty and then arrive home to a sedentary life. Though probably I’m stretching the comparison a little.

We’d arrived at the General Store, where I saw that our friend Kingman was holding court on the sidewalk as usual.

“Hey, you guys!” he shouted by way of greeting. “Wilbur is still pretty upset with you. So if I were you I wouldn’t let him see you.”

“Indeed? Why is he upset with us?” asked Harriet.

“Because he wasn’t invited to the wedding, of course!” said Kingman. “In fact there’s a whole lot of very angry people in Hampton Cove right now!”

“But we can’t help it if Odelia decided to cancel the wedding,” I said. “It was her decision, not ours. So why do we have to suffer?”

“Wilbur wouldn’t chase us away,” said Brutus. “He knows it’s not our fault.”

But we still made sure to glance in Wilbur’s direction, and make sure that if he did come after us, our exit strategy was in place.

“So how did it go?” asked Kingman eagerly.

“We solved the case in less than ten minutes!” said Dooley proudly.

“What case? I was talking about the wedding.”

“Oh, the wedding” said Dooley, as if Kingman was referring to some old news.

“Yeah, the wedding!” said Kingman, sounding a little peeved himself, to be honest. “The wedding we were all invited to, and were all looking forward to, and then all of a sudden it was canceled and now we don’t even get to see pictures! Or silly videos!”

“Oh, there are pictures,” said Harriet.

“And silly videos,” Brutus added.

“But Odelia is not going to put them on the Gazette website.”

“Or her social media.”

“She’s not?” asked Kingman, looking surprised. “But… isn’t she obliged to publish that stuff? She is a reporter, isn’t she? Isn’t there a law about that kind of thing?”

“A reporter isn’t required by law to publish an article about their own wedding, Kingman,” I pointed out. “Or release the pictures and video she shot.”

“Well, I think there should be a law!” an irate voice sounded at our immediate rear.

We all whirled around, and found ourselves looking into the furious furry face of Shanille. Shanille is cat choir’s conductor, but she’s also Father Reilly’s cat, and Father Reilly is the person who was supposed to marry Odelia, until she decided to cancel.

“Uh-oh,” Harriet muttered next to me.

“Can you please explain to me why you decided to cancel that wedding?!” Shanille practically screamed.

“We didn’t cancel anything, Shanille,” I was quick to point out. “Odelia did all the canceling, and we were just along for the ride.”

“But you were there! You should have said something! You can’t just cancel a wedding! Father Reilly is so upset he’s started drinking again!”

“Father Reilly has become an alcoholic?” I asked.

“Coffee, not alcohol. And he knows it’s not good for him.”

“I’m sure Odelia’s wedding had nothing to do with that.”

“It had everything to do with it! Father Reilly had the most beautiful wedding planned. It was going to be the highlight of his career. Never would there have been a more beautiful wedding. It was going to be a day people talked about for generations to come. And then—nothing! Not a word! Not a single peep from the Pooles!”

“Oh, poor man,” said Dooley. “Maybe he should get married himself. That way he can enjoy the wedding of his dreams, and since he’s the one getting married it won’t get canceled.”

“Unless the bride cancels,” said Harriet.

“He first has to find a woman who wants to marry him,” said Brutus.

“Catholic priests don’t marry, you dimwits!” Shanille practically shouted.

“But why?” asked Dooley. “Don’t they like getting married?”

“Don’t try to cloud the issue,” said Shanille, pointing a threatening paw in my friend’s direction. “You should have convinced your human to let that wedding go through.”

“You overestimate the influence we have on our human, Shanille,” I said.

“Yeah, Odelia is a grown person who doesn’t listen to us,” Harriet argued.

I smiled at this, for I’d had this argument with Harriet before, and she’d taken the view that I should have stopped Odelia from flying to Vegas and antagonizing the whole town. Looked like now that Shanille argued the same thing Harriet had switched sides.

“You did it on purpose, didn’t you?” said Shanille, wagging that threatening finger in Harriet’s face now. “You know how excited I was about staging the cat choir performance to end all cat choir performances, and you willfully and purposely set out to sabotage my moment of glory. Admit it!”

“I admit no such thing!”

“You know what? I don’t think I can tolerate this kind of behavior any longer, and so I don’t think I will.” She raised her head high and gave us that supercilious look she does so well, and regarded us from between narrowed eyes. “Consider yourselves expelled!”

“Expelled?” I asked. “Expelled from what?”

“Expelled from cat choir!” she said, then started to walk away, even before we had recovered from the shock, adding, “You’re not welcome anymore, same way I wasn’t welcome at your wedding!”

“But… it wasn’t our wedding!” Harriet cried.

But her pleas fell on deaf ears, for Shanille had left the gathering.

Chapter 6

“Where do you think you’re going?” asked Vesta when her friend opened the car door.

“I have to pee,” said Scarlett. “Why? Do I need to ask permission?”

“Where are you going to pee? There’s no bathrooms that I can see.”

“There’s a vacant lot over there behind that fence. That all right with you?”

Ever since they’d launched the neighborhood watch, Vesta had been thinking of a simple solution to a problem that had vexed them from the start: both she and Scarlett were ladies of a certain age, and their bladders weren’t what they used to be, meaning that if they sat in a car all night, following doctor’s orders in regard to the regular intake of fluids, there came a moment they needed a bathroom break. Unfortunately, Hampton Cove wasn’t exactly littered with public restrooms, and since bars and restaurants were mostly closed by the time they started patrolling those mean streets of their small town… It was one of those vexing problems, and thus far they hadn’t been able to solve it—apart from peeing in the bushes, of course.