Ник Сайнт - Purrfectly Hidden. Purrfect Kill. Purrfect Boy Toy

Denby meant well, but he didn’t fully grasp the situation. Best to leave things as they were. And so he walked over to the door and opened it, then plastered his best smile onto his face. “Mrs. Baumgartner? Come on in.”

“Vesta not here today?” asked Mrs. Baumgartner, who was one of Tex’s best patients—though Vesta claimed she simply carried a torch for him and that’s why she was in all the time. He had to admit the woman had hypochondriacal tendencies. “So is she sick? Did something happen to her? I thought she looked under the weather when I saw her yesterday. Pale—and has she lost weight? She walked with a limp, too. Hip issues, probably. But then you would know best, wouldn’t you? You are her doctor, aren’t you?”

Great. Soon the whole town would think Vesta was knocking on death’s door.

Chapter 6

It was nice to be out in the garden. There were big exotic flowers everywhere, very colorful and very fragrant. And if I hadn’t been given a very particular assignment, I probably would have wanted to spend the rest of the day there—or at least until my stomach told me it was time to look for greener, food-providing pastures. But as it was, we needed to find out who had murdered this nice singing person, so onward we went.

“Pity the little doggie didn’t have a clue, right, Max?” said Dooley.

“Yeah, real pity,” I agreed.

“Maybe Chickie has other, more observant pets?”

“I don’t doubt it. She probably has a whole army of pets.”

I was still eying Harriet and Brutus with a measure of pique. They seemed to have hit the jackpot when they stumbled upon that peacock. Sleuthing is a collaborative effort—a team sport, if you will—but Harriet and Brutus don’t see it that way. They have this competitive streak that makes them view it as a competition sport instead. If they can manage to lay their paws on the telling clue, they won’t hesitate to rub my face in it. So I decided to go and look for a second peacock, hoping peacocks travel in pairs.

“We need to find peacock number two, Dooley,” I said.

“Peacock number two? Who is peacock number two?”

“Where there’s one peacock, there’s bound to be a second one.”

“You mean peacocks mate for life?”

“You tell me.” Dooley had been watching a lot of the Discovery Channel lately, so if anyone had the inside scoop on these birds with the riotous plumage, it was him.

He thought for a moment. “I’m not sure, Max. Though I saw a documentary about hippopotamuses last week, and they don’t mate for life, if that helps.”

It didn’t, but I decided to let it go. “Do peacocks sit in trees?” I muttered as I directed my eyes upwards to the foliage.

“Why are you so eager to find a second peacock, Max? We could ask Harriet what she learned from the first peacock.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Dooley,” I said. “You know what Harriet and Brutus are like. They think this is all one big competition. They’ll never let us near peacock number one, and they’ll refuse to divulge the information the peacock has offered them.”

“I don’t know, Max. Brutus has changed. And so has Harriet. They’re not as competitive as they used to be. I’m sure they all want us to work together now.”

Just then, Harriet and Brutus passed us by. They were both looking extremely pleased with themselves. “So how is it going?” asked Harriet. “Not too well, I imagine?”

“We just discovered a Very Important Clue,” said Brutus with a smirk. “A VIC, as they call it in our business. The Mother Of All Clues, or MOAC as we professionals like to say.”

“It’s going to break this case wide open,” said Harriet.

“So what’s the clue?” asked Dooley.

But Brutus mimicked locking his lips with a key and throwing it away.

Dooley stared at the gesture. “Why are you making those weird movements, Brutus?”

“It means his lips are locked,” Harriet explained. “And so are mine.”

“But… we’re a team, right? We’re all in this together.”

“We’re a team,” said Harriet, gesturing between herself and Brutus. “And you’re a team. And may the best team win.”

“Let’s talk to the peacock, Dooley,” I said, turning away from the duo.

“He won’t tell you a thing!” Harriet called out after me.

I turned back. “And why is that?”

“We made him sign a Nondisclosure Agreement,” said Brutus. “An NDA as I call it.”

“Everybody calls it an NDA, Brutus,” I said. “And how can you make a peacock sign an NDA? You don’t even have pen and paper.”

“It’s a figure of speech,” said Harriet. “We told him not to tell you what he told us.”

“But why?” asked Dooley, still looking puzzled by all this subterfuge.

“Why do you think? May the best cat win, Dooley.”

“And get all the tasty kibble and gourmet food,” Brutus added, licking his lips.

And then they were off, presumably in search of Odelia to deliver her the good news about the MOAC and the VIC, though perhaps not about the NDA.

After a moment, Dooley said, “Maybe you were right, Max. Maybe Brutus and Harriet haven’t lost their competitive streak after all.”

So we redoubled our efforts to find Peacock Number Two (or PNT). And I’d almost given up hope when we finally found it. PNT was strutting its stuff near a nice pond where I could see several fishes of exotic gillage flitting agilely through the water.

Any other cat would have stared at those fishes, eager to dip a paw in to try and catch one, but not me, and not Dooley. We’re made of sterner stuff, and so we forewent the fishes and focused on the peacock instead.

“Hi, Mr. or Mrs. Peacock,” I said as an introductory remark. “A word, please?”

The peacock rolled its beady little eyes. “Not again,” it said. “I just told those other cats everything I know and I’m not going to say it a second time.”

I was disappointed that this was not PNT but PNO. Still, I decided not to show it.

It’s like that age-old advice when facing a predator: never show fear, because the predator will smell your fear and attack. When faced with a possible witness in a murder investigation the same principle applies: never show disappointment. Act as if you’re one of those know-it-all detectives. Let nothing the potential witness says faze you.

“So where were you on the night of the fifteenth?” asked Dooley, who apparently had been watching too many cop shows recently, on top of his Discovery Channel binges.

“What my friend means to say is, where were you when Miss Hay was murdered?” I asked, hoping to break Harriet and Brutus’s imposed NDA.

“Like I told your friends, I was right here, minding my own business, not getting involved in human affairs. Never get involved in human affairs,” PNO admonished us.

“I’m sorry, but are you a he or a she?” asked Dooley, incapable of curbing his curiosity.

“First let me see some ID,” said the peacock. “Who are you cats?”

“I’m Max, and this is Dooley,” I said. “And I’m afraid we left our ID cards at home.”

“I’m a he, and so is he,” Dooley added, just to make matters crystal clear.

“In lieu of an ID we do have microchips implanted in our necks,” I said. “So if you have a device capable of reading chips, you will be able to glean all there is to know about us, including but not limited to the name and address of our human and other valuable personal information.”

“Okay, fine,” said the big bird a little grumpily, “So what do you want to know? Oh, right, my gender. Well, if you must know, I find your question insulting. Why do I have to choose a gender? Why can’t I simply be gender-fluid? Maybe today I feel like a girl, and tomorrow I feel like a boy. Why does society try to pin me down on one or the other?”