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

“If you want tyranny to get a kick in the teeth, you’ll vote for me,” Shanille snapped.

“Free Cat Snax for all!” Harriet countered.

“Don’t listen to her!” said Shanille. “She’ll promise you Cat Snax today and eat them all herself tomorrow. Because that’s the kind of cat Harriet is: selfish!”

“Oh, shut up, Shanille.”

“No, you shut up!”

“Oh, dear,” I murmured.

“If this keeps up,” said Dooley, “the stork will be scared off by all the yelling.”

Soon it was time to vote, and oddly enough the electorate was split right down the middle: Harriet got half of the vote, and so did Shanille.

“I demand a recount!” Harriet cried. “This can’t be right!”

“Yeah, let’s have a recount!” Shanille agreed. “This can’t possibly be right!”

After a few tense moments, it turned out that the vote was exactly the same as the first time, so it was finally decided that a committee would be created that would try and figure a way out of this stalemate. So more voting took place, and suddenly I found myself the leader of this commission.

Yikes!

My fellow committee members were Dooley, Brutus, Kingman and Buster, and before long we were engaged in a tense meeting trying to resolve this remarkable situation.

“I think we should probably have a dual leadership of cat choir from now on,” Kingman suggested.

“You mean put both Harriet and Shanille in charge?” I asked.

“Exactly! It would solve all of our problems. They could be co-directors. Everybody happy!”

“I don’t think so,” said Brutus, once more providing the gloomy note. “Harriet is not the kind of cat who’s great at cooperation. Put her and Shanille in charge and they’ll end up fighting tooth and claw.”

“I think he’s right,” said Buster. “They simply are incapable of sharing the power.”

“So what do we do then?” asked Kingman. “Any other suggestions?”

“We could alternate,” said Brutus. “One night will be Shanille night, and the next will be Harriet’s turn. That way they both get what they want.”

“Not entirely,” I said. “On the nights Harriet is in charge Shanille will do everything in her power to sabotage the rehearsals, and vice versa. We’ll end up with a protracted war.”

“So then what?”

Frankly we were all stumped and out of ideas. So we decided to sleep on it and reconvene the next day. It sure was a tough proposition.

And as we walked home that night, Dooley said, “I’m worried, Max.”

“Me, too,” I admitted.

“I mean, what will the stork think? He’s probably going to be scared off by all the bickering and fighting. And then what?”

I decided to settle this thing once and for all. “Look, Dooley, Odelia has clearly said that she and Chase don’t want to start a family right now. They have plenty of time and so let’s give them that time, all right? The stork will just have to wait,” I added, anticipating his next remark.

He thought about this for a moment, then finally nodded. “All right, Max. We have to respect Odelia’s wishes. The stork will just have to wait.”

“Exactly.”

“I mean, after all it’s up to Odelia and Chase. They’re the ones who get to decide.”

“Absolutely!” I said, much relieved he was taking this stance.

“On the other hand,” he said, “we have to think of that poor stork, too.”

“What?”

“Well, we do. Storks are hard-working birds. They have to fly around carrying babies all the time. And you know babies are heavy, Max. They come in at seven or eight pounds. Can you imagine that poor stork, flying all the way out here, carrying a seven-pound baby in its beak, having to turn back? I don’t think we can do that to the poor bird.”

“But…”

“No, I think Odelia will just have to change her mind, and I’m going to have a long talk with her the first chance I get.”

“But, Dooley!”

“Storks have rights, too, Max!”

Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.

Chapter 25

Odelia was having breakfast when her mom and dad suddenly stormed into the house, looking perturbed. Marge, who was Odelia’s lookalike, only twenty years her senior, and Tex, her white-haired amiable doctor husband, immediately got down to brass tacks.

“Is it true that your grandmother was arrested last night?” asked Mom.

“Um, yeah, I guess she was,” said Odelia, who’d been enjoying a cup of strong black coffee and a Nutella sandwich. “But they let her walk as soon as she confessed.”

“Confessed!” Mom cried, raising her eyes heavenward and placing a hand to her chest in a gesture of extreme agitation.

“But what was she arrested for in the first place is what I’d like to know,” said Odelia’s dad as he took the Nutella pot, a spoon, and dipped it into the pot with the air of a man digging for treasure.

“It’s a long story,” said Odelia. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes! Of course we want to know why a woman who’s living under our roof got arrested!” said Mom.

“Well…”

“Howdy folks,” said Chase, as he came ambling down the stairs, looking chipper and bright.

“Is it true that you arrested my mother last night?” Mom demanded, not looking exactly like a loving mother-in-law should regard her newly acquired son-in-law.

“Why, yeah, I guess I did,” said Chase a little sheepishly.

“And did you grill her hard?” asked Dad with some relish.

“Tex!” Mom cried.

“I’m sorry. I meant: did she confess to whatever it was she was up to?”

“Oh, yeah, she confessed all right,” said Chase with a slight grin as he, in turn, filled a cup with delicious black brew and took a seat at the kitchen counter.

“What did she do?!” Mom practically yelled.

“Well, she was caught trying to plant four stolen jerrycans in the tool shed belonging to an old couple,” Chase explained.

“She did what?! Oh, my God!” Again the eyes went heavenward and the hand desperately clutched at the chest, as if trying to draw comfort from the gesture.

“It’s fine, Mom,” said Odelia. “The Dibbles aren’t pressing charges, are they, Chase?”

“No, I don’t think they will. The Chief managed to talk them out of it. They were pretty eager to, though. Apparently people aren’t happy when two burglars sneak into their backyard at night and try to plant stolen evidence in a murder case. Go figure.”

“This evidence was stolen?” asked Dad, delightedly licking from his spoon and helping himself to a cup of coffee. He seemed to enjoy the episode tremendously.

“Yeah, they stole the jerrycans from the house of Joshua Curtis, suspect in a murder case. They figured they were doing Odelia a favor, while in fact they weren’t doing anyone any favors at all, least of all themselves. But we got it all squared away and the evidence is safely secured, and will be processed for fingerprints and the like.”

“But why? Why is she doing this?!” Mom cried.

“Because I wanted to save Odelia’s client, of course,” a voice spoke from the sliding glass door, which had opened and closed to allow the final member of the Poole family to join this impromptu breakfast meeting.

“Thanks for nothing by the way, Gran,” said Odelia. “I never asked you to steal evidence for me. And now Uncle Alec thinks I’m trying to sabotage his investigation and won’t let me come anywhere near the case.”

“Look, I’m sure Joshua Curtis will have a perfectly good explanation for why those empty jerrycans were in his garage.”

“Actually he doesn’t,” said Chase. “I interviewed him again last night, and he claims he’s never seen those jerrycans before, nor did he put them in his garage. He claims someone must have planted them.”