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

“Of course,” I said. Still, I thought it was very thoughtful of Harriet to step up to the plate like this.

The humans in the bed stirred, and Odelia lifted her head sleepily. “What’s with all the yapping?” she muttered. “Is it time to get up yet?”

“Not yet,” I told her. It was only five o’clock, after all. Too early for man or beast, with the exception of four cats, apparently. “Go back to sleep, Odelia.”

“Thanks,” she murmured, and promptly dozed off again.

Moments later four cats could be seen tiptoeing down the stairs and into the kitchen. For the humans their day had yet to begin, but for us it already had. We’re not the kind of creatures who like to keep regular hours, you see. No eight hours of sleep for us. We like to take our eighteen hours intermittently, spread out throughout the day or night. We’re flexible that way. And since we’d already dozed enough for now, we headed into the kitchen for a nice breakfast. Until we discovered that our bowls were empty once more, the last mouse carrying the last piece of kibble and laughing maniacally as it did.

“I’m going to kill them!” Brutus yelled, slamming the floor with his fist.

“If only we were more like Clarice,” Harriet said wistfully. “Between the four of us we could gobble up two hundred mice in a heartbeat.”

The mere thought of eating fifty mice with hide and hair almost made me retch, though, so clearly this was not the solution.

“Maybe we should ask Clarice again?” I suggested.

“No dice, I’m afraid,” said Brutus. “I saw her yesterday, and she still insists we should deal with our own problems and keep her out of it.”

Clarice is one of those feral cats you see in every town. She usually stays close to the dumpsters behind the stores and restaurants of Main Street and she likes it that way.

For a moment we all thought about the kind of damage Clarice could do to Hector and Helga’s offspring but then dismissed the thought. We’re not animals. But it just goes to show how this war with the mice was taxing us. And taxing Odelia’s budget, of course.

“Let’s head into town,” I suggested. “See if we can’t find out what happened to Heather Gallop.”

“You do that,” said Harriet. “And Brutus and I will stay here and help Gran and Scarlett find out who’s stealing all these gnomes.”

Gran had arrived home very late last night. In fact we’d arrived together—we cats having just returned from cat choir, and she from a stakeout with Scarlett. She’d almost caught two gnome thieves, she’d told us, ‘almost’ being the keyword.

“We’ll ask Kingman if he knows anything about two gnome thieves,” I said.

“And we’ll tell Gran and Scarlett to ask around about that murder business,” said Harriet.

And matters thus arranged, we went our merry ways, to start another wonderful day of sleuthing and, hopefully, finding a bite to eat before the mice managed to abscond with it.

Chapter 19

It felt a little strange for Odelia to go into the office that morning, in light of the previous day’s events. Not just the fact that a murder had been committed at the Gazette offices but that her boss had been accused and arrested for murder, before being released again.

When she arrived, Dan was already in his office. When she entered, after a perfunctory knock on the doorjamb—his door was always open—she found him sitting behind his desk, staring into space. When he saw her, he seemed to wake up from his stupor and gave her a pained smile.

“Hey, honey. No dead bodies today, I’m happy to announce.”

“And a good thing, too,” she said, returning his smile. She took a seat in front of his desk. “How are you holding up?”

He looked pale and gaunt, and much older than his years. Dan wasn’t a young man but he seemed to have aged considerably these past twenty-four hours.

“Hanging in there,” he said. “Can you imagine that Wilbur Vickery gave me the stink eye this morning? And Blanche Captor and Ida Baumgartner even crossed the street when they saw me coming. Like a leper,” he said with more than a hint of bitterness.

“I’m sure it’ll all pass soon,” she said soothingly. “As soon as the real killer is caught they’ll be apologizing to you, I’m sure.”

“I’m not so sure. And what if the killer is never caught? You know what people are like. They’ll think I did it and they’ll give me a wide berth from now on.” He shook his head despondently. “What good is a reporter if no one will talk to him? You’ll have to take over the paper, Odelia. And I’ll have to retire in disgrace.”

“Don’t say things like that, Dan,” she said, her concern spiking. “I’m going to catch that killer if it’s the last thing I do, and your reputation will be just the way it was before: sterling.”

He gave her a half-smile. “I’m not sure it was ever sterling to begin with.”

“Oh, yes it is,” she said emphatically. “Now buck up and stop using the R word.”

He gave her a look of confusion.

“Retirement” she clarified with a smile.

“Oh, right.” He checked his watch. “I’m sorry but I have to go now. I have an important appointment I can’t miss.” And with these words he got up and walked out. He lingered by the door for a moment, and Odelia saw that he was staring at the spot where Heather Gallop’s body had lain. “When this is all over I think I’ll have this office completely remodeled,” he said. “I can’t work here without thinking about…” He swallowed. “Awful business. Absolutely awful,” he muttered, then tapped the doorjamb once and left.

Odelia walked over to her own office and started working on her article on the Maria Power retrospective. And she’d been working for about half an hour, smiling at some of the pictures she’d snapped of her uncle and Charlene Butterwick dressed up as gnomes, when suddenly her door flew open and Chase walked in. He was slightly out of breath.

“There’s been another murder,” he said without preamble. “Jack Warner. And this time Dan was caught red-handed.” He eyed her seriously. “I’m afraid he did it, babe. Your boss is officially a serial killer.”

Dooley and I were lounging on the sidewalk in front of Wilbur Vickery’s General Store, enjoying a few rays of sun on our fur, and some of the kibble Kingman had been so kind to wrangle up for us, when all hell broke loose across the street.

The Hampton Cove Star is our town’s boutique hotel, and home to visiting celebrities and other notables. Now it was also the scene of quite the ruckus, as police cars arrived in droves, and suddenly we could see Odelia and Chase hurry up and enter the hotel.

“Let’s go, Dooley,” I said immediately. “Something’s happened.”

“Oh, do we have to?” he asked, chewing on a piece of chicken kibble. He, too, was suffering from the strain the mice had imposed on our home and hearth.

But when he saw my expression, he immediately swallowed the piece of kibble whole and joined me in padding across the street, careful not to get pancaked by an overzealous driver.

We arrived there just as Odelia and Chase were standing around waiting for the elevator to heed their call, and Odelia smiled. “Just in time,” she said as she crouched down and tickled our necks. Then she grew serious, and whispered, “Keep your eyes peeled, you guys. Dan’s life depends on it.”

She didn’t offer any more information, but what she’d said sounded ominous enough to me.

We rode the elevator up in silence, and got off on the third floor. It soon became clear what had happened when we stepped into one of the rooms. There, lying on the floor, was Jack Warner, and he looked pretty dead to me. And right next to him… another garden gnome.