Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Advice. Purrfect Passion. A Purrfect Gnomeful

I didn’t really want to be the founding cat of anything, but I had the distinct impression I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. When Gran’s mind is made up about something it’s very hard to dislodge the idea.

“I’m also nominating Scarlett, of course,” she said. “And maybe Rock and Dick.”

“What’s the big to-do?” asked Marge, stepping into the backyard from the house. She was dressed in her dressing gown and looking a little disheveled, with bed hair and sleep wrinkles on the side of her face. Like her daughter Odelia, Marge is fair-haired and slim, and a genuinely good and kind person. Her eyes now widened as she took in the backyard, and she actually clutched the sides of her head. “Oh, no—the gnomes!”

“Yes, the gnomes,” said Gran grimly. “Tex is not going to be happy.”

“Happy about what?” asked Tex, as he joined the conference. He dragged a hand through his white mane as he took in the crowd that had gathered in his backyard. He was smiling, probably the only member of the Poole family who’s always in a happy mood, even when just having rolled out of bed and not having had his morning coffee.

“Your gnomes, Tex,” said his wife of twenty-five years. “Someone took your gnomes.”

Tex’s amiable face fell, and his lower jaw drooped. “My gnomes!” he cried. “Oh, no!”

Honestly I couldn’t really see what all the fuss was about, but then humans often develop these strange attachments to inanimate objects. And it was just such a case with Tex, who’d suddenly gotten it into his nut that collecting garden gnomes was a good idea. I didn’t see the attraction, and even found the colorful little fellas slightly creepy, but humans will be humans, and clearly gnomes held a certain kind of strange fascination, as Tex wasn’t the only one who liked to litter his backyard with the quaint creatures.

“What’s going on?” now asked Odelia as she and Chase stepped through the hole in the hedge. Odelia was looking even more frumpy than her mother, and Chase was dressed in boxers and a T-shirt as usual, showcasing his muscular physique.

“Someone stole your father’s gnomes,” Marge said.

Chase suppressed a smile, indicating he didn’t think the news was especially worrisome, but quickly rearranged his features in the recommended look of concern your small-town copper knows how to perfect when faced with these trifling matters that are nevertheless of great concern to the ordinary citizenry that pays his salary.

“Don’t you worry about a thing, Tex,” said Gran, clapping her son-in-law on the back. “I’m launching my new neighborhood watch, and your gnomes are my first case.”

“A neighborhood watch?” asked Marge. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. With this crime wave sweeping our town I think it’s high time someone stepped up and did the right thing.”

“I think you’ll find that the police department has matters well in hand, Vesta,” said Chase, who clearly wasn’t a big fan of Gran’s new initiative.

“I’m doing this to help you, young man,” said Gran, taking the diplomatic approach for once. “I know you have your hands full and this will take some of the pressure off.”

“Mh,” said Chase, not convinced.

“Oh, and I’ve recruited your cats,” said Gran, addressing her granddaughter. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“By all means, recruit away,” said Odelia, yawning. Then she crooked a finger in my direction and said, “Max? A word, please?”

Meekly, I followed her back through the hedge and into our own backyard.

She crouched down next to me, not looking entirely happy. I could already tell what was going on before she opened her mouth. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

I nodded guiltily. “The mice,” I said quietly. “They were at it again last night.”

“This can’t go on like this, Max,” she said. “You have to do something. Because if you don’t, I’ll be forced to take steps, and you know what that means, right?”

I nodded once more. “Traps,” I said, even more quietly than before.

“Humane traps, of course, but traps all the same.”

“I tried to talk to them,” I said. “But they’re not listening. They feel they’re actually doing us a favor.”

“By plundering the fridge and cupboards?”

“They feel their presence keeps the real pests out, like beetles and, um, roaches.”

Now that I was repeating the mouse’s words I could hear how lame it all sounded.

Odelia made a face. “Look, this has got to stop. So either you make them behave, or I’m going to have to get rid of them.”

“Where will you take them once you’ve caught them in your traps?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about that. But far enough so they won’t come back.”

“They’re not going to like it,” I murmured.

“Well, too bad. No one believes me when I tell them I’m dealing with a mouse infestation. ‘Don’t you have four cats?’ they ask me. ‘Yes,’ I tell them. ‘Four cats and a mouse colony in my basement.’” She rubbed my back and I heaved another deep sigh.

See what I mean? Humans simply don’t understand that not all cats are natural-born killers. Some of us are more the peaceable kind. Still, she had a point. Something clearly needed to be done, and the onus was on me to come up with a plan of campaign.

A plan that involved making a colony of mice behave, not like squatters, but like perfectly decent house guests.

Talk about a tough proposition!

Chapter 3

As Odelia walked to work, putting some pep in her step, she thought about the look on Max’s face when she gently scolded him about the mouse issue. She felt sorry for her precious blorange feline, but she also felt strongly that it was his job to keep the house free of mice or, in case they decided to stay, to make them behave.

God had given her the rare gift of being able to talk to cats, but that gift unfortunately didn’t extend to other species of animals. Max, on the other hand, could talk to anyone, and so she’d relegated the task of disciplining the mice to his capable care.

She’d hate to have to put the mice out of the house, as she was a feeling young woman, and loved all creatures great or small. Still, she had to draw the line somewhere.

In her mind, she went over the tasks that lay ahead. Dan, her editor, had assigned her the unenviable task of covering the upcoming pigfest, where the biggest porker and its keeper would fetch a nice prize, and of course there was the summer ball to think about.

Dan himself had been engrossed in the Maria Power retrospective at the Seabreeze Music Center. Maria Power was one of Hampton Cove’s most famous residents, but also its most elusive one.

The world-renowned actress, now in her seventh decade, had been a star of the silver screen for decades, until her retirement ten years before, at which point she’d disappeared from the public eye. She steadfastly refused to be interviewed, even by Dan, one of her biggest fans and the head of one of the two fan clubs Hampton Cove boasted, but now that she was turning seventy, and Hampton Cove was the scene of an elaborate celebration of her illustrious movie career, Dan had been doing everything in his power to land that exclusive interview with the grande dame of American cinema.

Now that was the sort of article Odelia would have liked to write, instead of pigfest.

She arrived at the office and walked in. She passed Dan’s office and called out her usual morning greeting. When her greeting wasn’t returned with a hale and hearty ‘And a good morning to you, sunshine!’ she retraced her steps and glanced into his office. And that’s when she saw it. Or rather… her.

On the floor, in the middle of Dan’s office, the body of a woman lay spread-eagle.