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

“Mh?”

“When we die, are you going to have us cloned, too?”

“Why? Do you want to be cloned, Dooley?”

He paused for a moment, then said, “Can I think about it?”

“Of course you can.”

“I’ll let you know what I decide.”

“No way in hell am I getting cloned,” said Brutus. “End up like that fruitcake? No way.”

“We don’t refer to other cats as fruitcakes, Brutus,” said Odelia sternly. “That’s not nice.”

“Yeah, how would you feel if someone talked about you like that behind your back?” said Harriet.

“I wouldn’t mind because I wouldn’t know, would I?”

“Smart-ass.”

“Try to be nice to Prunella,” said Odelia. “She is your hostess.”

“Oh, all right,” Brutus grumbled, and put his head on his front paws. “But I still think she’s weird.”

“Yes, we’ve established that by now,” said Odelia, and turned to switch off her bedside lamp. She felt a little weird herself, she had to admit. It was her first night in a long time sleeping alone again, without Chase by her side, and she was already missing him.

The light clicked off and the room was plunged into darkness. Then Max suddenly said, “It’s really strange without Chase, Odelia. I miss him.”

“Yeah, I miss him, too,” said Dooley.

Harriet and Brutus agreed that they, too, keenly felt the absence of the burly cop.

“I miss him, too,” said Odelia softly, gratified that her cats liked Chase as much as she did. But then she closed her eyes and soon sleep rolled over her like a warm blanket.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Uncle Alec and Chase were also missing something—the comfort of sleeping in their own beds, for one thing.

“This is just weird,” Alec grumbled.

Next to him, Chase was feeling cramped. He was no small man himself, and lying next to the voluminous form of his superior officer in a bed that obviously wasn’t made for two grown men of outsized proportions, he found he had very little wiggle room indeed.

“I’d sleep on the couch if we had one,” he said.

“I’ll bet the mayor did it on purpose,” said Alec. “I’ll bet he told his secretary to book us the smallest room in the hotel with the smallest bed. Just to get back at us.”

“The mayor would never do such a thing. Would he?”

“Of course he would! Everybody knows the mayor hates my guts ever since I told him I didn’t want Dolores replaced by a younger, prettier specimen.”

“The mayor can’t replace Dolores. She’s the heart and soul of the precinct.”

“Exactly what I told him. You know what he said? That we need to bring the Hampton Cove police department into the twenty-first century, and the only way to do that is by getting rid of old fossils like Dolores. He said that each time he walks into the precinct he almost gets a heart attack when he sees her grouchy mug staring back at him. A pretty young face would do wonders for our image. And he even had the perfect candidate.”

“Don’t tell me. That young niece of his?”

“Exactly! He wants her to get started at reception and rise through the ranks…”

“… until she’s ready to replace you as chief.”

“You guessed it, buddy.”

“Well, it would make for a nice change to have a woman chief, Chief,” Chase said with a grin.

“Over my dead body, son.”

“Pardon my French, but you sound like an old fossil yourself, Chief. A dinosaur.”

“I don’t care! I’m going to stay in that Chief’s chair until long after this lousy mayor is gone and been replaced with a decent one. A mayor who appreciates that a police officer doesn’t have to look like a hot young model to get the job done.”

“Did you just call the mayor’s niece a hot young model?”

“Well, I guess she is nice to look at,” the Chief admitted.

“I heard she’s into older men, Chief, so if I were you I’d try my luck. Who knows, you might be calling the mayor your uncle soon.”

Instead of responding, the chief merely grunted something that wasn’t fit for print, and Chase laughed. In spite of the fact that he probably wasn’t going to get a lot of sleep due to their peculiar sleeping arrangements, and the fact that he missed Odelia, he was still feeling pretty cheerful. But then the weight of running a police force wasn’t on his shoulders. In fact there was no weight on his shoulders at all, since he had no cases to run, no suspects to pursue, and for the next five days there was nothing on his schedule except associating and fraternizing with fellow police officers from all across the country, swapping war stories and learning from the best of the best of the best. And even better: his sweetheart was in town, and any time he wanted to see her, he could.

And as his eyes drifted closed, he was still grinning.

Chapter 9

The next morning, bright and early, Opal’s limo took us into town, to the studio where her show was being taped. Opal’s show ran daily on weekdays, and I was surprised to discover how many people worked behind the screens. I’d seen the show a couple of times—it was hard not to, with an avid fan like Gran—but it had always just been Opal on stage, interviewing people in front of a live studio audience. Well, her cat Prunella was usually there as well. She was a constant source of entertainment and something of a mascot for Opal fans. She usually sat peacefully next to Opal on her couch, but from time to time wandered off into the audience to go and sit on someone’s lap.

I’d always figured the show was just Opal and Prunella doing their thing, but when we walked into the studio, the place was abuzz with activity, with literally dozens of people milling about. There were lighting people and sound people and props people and camera people, and when Opal took us backstage into a large conference room, I saw that there were half a dozen staff members sitting around the table, a large whiteboard on one wall, preparing that day’s show. This was her team of writers and producers, and when Opal introduced Odelia and Gran, she didn’t introduce them as two detectives, but as two new assistants-in-training being added to her team.

I think Odelia and Gran were as surprised as the rest of the team, and I could tell from the expression on Odelia’s face she didn’t know the first thing about writing and producing a daytime talk show.

Tex and Marge had accepted Opal’s offer to be taken into town, where they planned to spend the day seeing the sights, and somehow I had a feeling they’d have a lot more fun than we would. I think Gran was already starting to regret insisting to assist Odelia.

Being carted around LA in a limo suddenly sounded like a lot more fun than sitting in this small conference room trying to come up with ideas for Opal’s next show.

Harriet and Brutus had wandered off, and so Dooley and I decided to do the same.

“This place is huge,” said Dooley as we returned to the studio where the show was being taped.

“Yeah, it’s a lot bigger than I imagined,” I agreed.

The stage looked just like it did on television, though without Opal there and no studio audience, it felt pretty empty.

People were rigging up lights and one person was vacuuming Opal’s couch, paying special attention to the spot where Prunella usually sat.

After a while, we decided to get some fresh air. The studio was part of a larger studio lot, and there were plenty of so-called soundstages where shows were being taped. Some were talk shows, like Opal’s, but some were actual television shows, and Opal had told us in the car on the drive over that big Hollywood movies were also being shot at the studio.

The studio lot was in Burbank, a part of LA where a lot of big studios are located, and as we wandered about, people passed us by riding in funny-looking little cars that reminded me of golf carts.