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

And just when I thought he’d go away, he walked up to the gate and started banging it with his fists, then started actually crawling up the sturdy thing!

It swung open, though, and soon three burly men descended upon him and grabbed him. And then Chase joined them and before the man could utter another bar of the Chickie Hay song, he’d been cuffed and escorted in. The gate closed, and soon all was quiet again. And when I glanced around, I understood why all was so quiet: I was alone up there on that fence. And down below, Harriet, Brutus and Dooley sat staring up at me.

“What are you doing still doing up there, Max?” asked Harriet. “Get down here!”

Easier said than done. I had absolutely no idea how to get down from my perch.

Chapter 12

The experience wasn’t new to me. Usually my bugaboos are tops of trees, or roofs of houses, but the fence was a novelty. Still, it boiled down to the same thing: I was stuck.

I could have jumped, of course, considering the nine lives things and all, but that fence was easily six feet high, and I’ve never harbored a death wish in my life.

“Max! Get down!” Dooley encouraged me.

“I can’t!” I shouted back. “I’m stuck!”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Max,” said Brutus. “Just get down here.”

“Funny, isn’t it!” I replied.

“What is?”

“Usually the two of us are stuck together!”

He chuckled. “You’re right. That is funny.”

Or maybe not.

“I guess we better ask Chase to get you down,” said Harriet with a sigh of annoyance.

“Oh, no, please don’t,” I said.

“Why? What do you have against Chase?”

“Nothing. I’m just embarrassed that he keeps having to save me.”

“You can’t stay up there, Max,” Harriet pointed out with infallible logic.

“What’s going on?” asked Mark the Peacock as he came prancing up.

“Max is stuck on top of your fence,” Brutus explained. “He can’t get down.”

“What are you doing there, cat?!” the peacock shouted.

“Taking in the view, Mark,” I shouted back.

“Who’s this Mark you’re talking about?”

“I thought your name was Mark?”

“My name is Hannibal,” he said. “But my friends all call me Hanny.”

“Well, Hanny, if you have an idea how to get a cat down from a fence…” said Harriet.

“Let me give it some thought,” said Hanny. And he wandered off to exercise his little gray cells.

Next was the little doggie. “What’s Max doing up there?” he asked.

“Hi, Boyce Catt!” I said. “I need a ladder. Can you help me out?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Boyce Catt, and went off in search of a ladder.

“This is silly,” said Harriet. “Chase will happily get you down from there. Chase!” she shouted, and disappeared before I could stop her.

“Now that there’s no chance of you blabbing about it, I don’t mind revealing who killed Chickie Hay,” said Brutus. He paused for effect, then said, “It was Jamie Borowiak.”

“According to our information she and Chickie made peace this morning,” said Dooley. “And Chickie’s bodyguard says Chickie was alive after Jamie left.”

“Shoot,” said Brutus. “And here I thought we’d cracked the case.”

“The case remains uncracked,” Dooley said. “But Odelia has a lead. She thinks a man named Laron Weskit might have done it. So there’s that.”

“Did you give her that lead?”

“I guess we did.”

“Again, shoot,” said Brutus. “Harriet won’t like this.”

“Why is she so competitive about this?” I asked from my position on top of the fence.

“Oh, I don’t know. She feels she should be the number one sleuth, mainly because she’s a girl, and Odelia is a girl, and Gran is a girl, and then it’s all girls together, see?”

“No, I don’t see,” said Dooley, and frankly I didn’t see it either.

“So they can be a team. Harriet, Odelia and Gran. Like Charlie’s Angels? Three girls fighting crime. Harriet saw the movie and now she wants to be the third angel.”

“Why?” asked Dooley, clearly puzzled.

“I’m not sure. She says it’s feminism.”

“So who’s Charlie?” asked Dooley.

“Some old, rich guy,” said Brutus.

“So feminism is an old, rich guy who tells three women what to do?”

“I guess. You better ask Harriet, though. She knows all about it.” He stretched. “Anyway, I guess our work here is done, so it’s back to the homestead for us.”

“Odelia and Chase are still busy figuring things out, though.”

“They don’t need us to do that, Dooley.”

“I think they do.”

“Listen to me, Dooley,” said Brutus, placing a brotherly paw on Dooley’s shoulder. “There’s a point when we cats stop being useful to our humans. A point where they say ‘Thank you very much, cats, but we’ll take it from here.’ And this is just such a point.”

“I’m not sure, Brutus,” said Dooley. “I don’t think we ever stop being useful.”

“I don’t care what you think, I’m getting out of here. All these dead bodies and weird peacocks giving us faulty clues are seriously freaking me out.” And then he was off.

“Do you want me to come up there and keep you company, Max?” asked Dooley.

“Nah, I’m fine, Dooley.”

“Do you want me to get you some food? You’ll starve to death up there.”

“I don’t think I’ll be up here that long. Or at least I hope not.”

“What we need is a fire engine. With one of those nice firemen to help you down.”

“No need,” I assured him. “The solution will come to me. I just need to think really hard for a moment—really think this through—and the answer will pop into my head.”

And as I started thinking hard, suddenly an ambulance came driving up, followed by a black sedan. The black sedan was Abe Cornwall’s, the county coroner, and the ambulance was there to pick up the body of the unfortunate Chickie. The gate swung open, and sedan and ambulance zoomed through.

And as they did, Dooley suddenly yelled, “Jump, Max! Jump!”

“What?”

“Jump on top of that ambulance!”

Clearly Dooley had had a brainwave. And so I jumped.

Chapter 13

“We caught this guy scaling the gate,” said Chase as he pointed in the direction of a skinny youth with pink hair. They were back in the conference room, their ad hoc command center. Odelia stared at the kid. With his effeminate features and lots of makeup it was hard to be sure whether he was a guy or a girl, actually.

“I was just trying to get close to my soulmate!” cried the kid.

“And who might your soulmate be?” asked Chase.

“Chickie, of course.”

Uncle Alec had also joined them, after being informed Abe had finally arrived.

“What’s your name, son?” the Chief asked.

“Chickie Hay,” said the kid.

“What a coincidence,” said Chase with an eyeroll.

“Your name is Olaf Poley,” said Chase, having had the perspicacity to dig out the kid’s wallet.

“I’m having it officially changed to Chickie Hay next month,” said the kid. “I filed the petition so it’s only a matter of time before I’ll share a name with my soulmate.”

He looked a little like Chickie, Odelia had to admit. Fine-boned features. Cupid’s bow lips. He was a lot younger, though, and a boy.

“Are you related to Chickie?” she asked now.

“Of course I’m related! Didn’t you hear a word I said? I’m her soulmate! We were put on this earth to be together forever. I can even sing like her. Do you want to hear?” And before they could stop him he’d burst into song. He didn’t sing all that bad either.

Tyson walked in, took one look at the kid and groaned. “Not again.”