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

“Look, Max,” said Dooley, gesturing to a car that stood parked right next to the ambulance. It was only a short jump from the roof of the ambulance to the roof of the other car, and only a short jump to the hood of the car and then to the garage floor.

“I feel very strongly we should stay put,” I said. “Otherwise Odelia will never be able to find us.”

“Or we could go home on paw.”

“It’s a long walk back to Hampton Cove.”

For a moment, we stayed on top of that roof, but then one of the coroner’s people came walking up to the ambulance, got in, and started up the engine.

“Now or never, Dooley!” I cried, and we made the jump. Just in time, for the ambulance peeled out of the bay, probably to pick up more dead people.

And that’s how we found ourselves on the concrete floor of the garage of the medical examiner’s office, with no plan of where to go or how to get out of our predicament.

“I suggest we hang around here,” I said. “Odelia will come and find us sooner or later.”

So we hunkered down and decided to wait for our savior to show up.

“It’s not very nice in here,” said Dooley after a while.

“No, it’s not.”

It was a garage, and looked like any garage: all concrete and very smelly.

“Let’s go and find us something to eat,” I finally said, making a decision.

“But I thought you said we needed to stay put?”

“Yeah, but it will take Odelia a while to find us, and in the meantime we might as well eat. This place is full of humans. And wherever humans are, there’s food to be found.”

“Especially considering how big Abe is,” said Dooley. “He must need a lot of food.”

Abe Cornwall is the county coroner and looks as if at some point he swallowed another county coroner. The man is large. And since large people like to stay large, they need a constant supply of fatty and starchy foods. And since we just lived through a very harrowing adventure I felt I urgently needed to get my paws on some of Abe’s stash.

We soon found ourselves in a series of long and sterile-looking corridors, all white walls and concrete floors. Just like a hospital—or a veterinarian’s office. Yuck.

“I don’t like this place, Max,” Dooley intimated. “It’s not very cozy.”

We wandered here and there, and finally became aware of the sound of voices. They came from a large room that reminded me even more of a hospital, complete with an operating table at its center. And on that operating table lay… Chickie Hay!

“Max, what are they doing to her!” Dooley cried.

“Don’t look, Dooley! Cover your eyes!”

“They’re operating on her, Max, even though she’s dead!”

The sight was so upsetting we decided to flee the scene, and soon found ourselves in yet another room, this time a very cold one. The door behind us slammed shut and as I glanced around I had the impression that all those white sheets on all of those metal tables were covering something that could only be…

“Dead people!” Dooley cried as he caught sight of one person without a sheet.

And as the truth came home to me that we were surrounded by dead people from all sides, my appetite suddenly went right out the window. I was hungry no more!

“This place is full of dead people, Max!” cried Dooley.

“I know, Dooley!”

“I don’t like it!”

“I don’t like it, either!”

Unfortunately the door was shut, and so we were pretty much stuck in there. I might mention that it was also very cold in there—freezing cold, in fact.

“Scream, Dooley,” I said. “We need to get out of here.”

And so scream we did. We meowed, we yowled, we mewed, and we screamed up a storm. Before long, a human person, a live one, yanked open the door and when he saw us scratched his head and muttered, “Well, I’ll be damned.” Then he shouted, “Abe! There’s two cats in the freezer!”

Abe came waddling up and when he saw us frowned deeply.

“Those are Odelia Poole’s cats,” he said. “How did they get in there?”

“Max!” Dooley cried. “He’s got blood… on his hands!”

And so he had. Abe’s gloved hands were covered in blood, and so was his apron. In fact he looked more like a butcher than a doctor!

So we both screamed some more.

“Call Odelia,” said Abe. “Tell her that her cats somehow got shipped back here.”

“Probably hitched a ride with the body,” said the man who’d opened the door for us.

“Yeah, probably.” He chuckled freely. “Funny.”

I didn’t think it was all that funny, though. Not funny at all.

“Take them in the kitchen,” Abe instructed. “And give them some milk, will you?”

And so the guy picked us both up and carried us out of the horrible dead people freezer. He took us into a kitchen, where it was warm and didn’t smell like a hospital, and gave us a saucer of milk, and a couple of slices of liverwurst. And by the time Odelia finally showed up, we’d both settled down a little from our most terrifying ordeal.

“Oh, my sweet pets,” she said as she knelt down. “What happened to you guys, huh?”

“I got stuck on top of an ambulance,” I said.

“And I kept him company,” said Dooley.

“And then we suddenly found ourselves in a room full of dead people.”

“And Abe with his hands full of blood.”

“And Chickie on an operating table.”

“So horrible!”

“I know, I know,” she said. “Let’s get you guys home, shall we?”

She brought us back to her car and we happily jumped in. To our surprise, Harriet and Brutus sat waiting for us in the backseat. Before Odelia closed the door, though, she said, “Let me just check something. I’ll be back in a sec.” And stalked off.

After a moment, Dooley said, “She’s probably gone to get us some more liverwurst.”

Chapter 15

It had been a long time since Odelia had set foot inside the medical examiner’s office, and she did so with a sense of unease. The clinical feel of the place did little to encourage her to venture into its inner sanctum: the operating room where Abe conducted his autopsies. He was a dedicated professional and actually enjoyed his work, which she found both admirable and a little hard to fathom. Cutting open dead people seemed like a strange way to make a living. Then again, to each their own, of course.

She found Abe as he removed his plastic gloves. He was humming a little tune. His assistants, meanwhile, returned Chickie to a semblance of good form for the funeral.

“And?” she asked, deciding to ignore the work in progress lest she lose the bagel she’d eaten while driving over here for her urgent cat rescue operation.

“Oh, hey, Odelia,” said Abe as he glanced up. He walked into his office and gestured for her to follow him. The office was a mess, documents strewn about, his desk piled high with work-related files. He sat back for a moment as he frowned. “Um… you’re here for…”

“Chickie Hay? The woman you just examined?”

“Oh, that’s right,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Chickie Hay. Well, as I suspected she died from strangulation. And the person didn’t use a cord or a rope or anything like that.” He held up his hands instead, and wiggled his fingers. “He or she used this.”

Odelia gulped. “Anything on the perpetrator?”

“Nothing yet, except that they must have really hated Chickie. Strangulation usually indicates a personal motive. The killer has to get in there, up close and personal.”

“So was it a he or a she? I mean, you can probably tell from the size of the hands?”

But Abe shook his head. He wasn’t going to allow himself to be pinned down. “I’m sorry. Could be a man. Could be a woman. I can’t tell you with absolute certainty, Odelia.”