Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Cut

The guy cut a quick glance at the body, then took out his phone and started snapping pictures of the dead body.

“Hey!” said Chase. “What part of buzz off don’t you understand?”

“I have an official mandate from the victim’s mother,” said the detective. “And I will not be bullied!”

Officers Flunk and Skip had returned, and now attached themselves to the man’s arms and proceeded to escort him from the room.

“This is an outrage!” the detective was saying. “You’ll regret this, Detective Kingsley! Mark my words!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Chase. “So are we finished here?”

“Yes, we are,” said Odelia.

“You can take him away, Doc,” Chase told the coroner.

“So what’s the verdict?” asked Gran as they left the room. “What did your people find out?”

“Nothing much,” said Chase as they descended the stairs. “The maid is the only one who witnessed the aftermath of the crime. We talked to the rest of the staff, and all of them tell the same story: Flake was a very private man, who kept himself to himself. When he was in town he lived here with his boyfriend, and they rarely ventured out. Even though Crier is twenty-five years Flake’s junior, the match was a happy one, by all accounts, and they’re all shocked Crier could have done what he did. No one expected this.”

“Let’s hope you find out more when you talk to him,” said Gran.

“We will,” said Chase. He directed an apologetic look at Odelia. “I’m sorry for dragging you all the way out here.”

“That’s okay,” said Odelia. “I’m glad you won’t need my help.”

They walked out of the house. “So…” said Chase. “I’m sticking around, to make sure we wrap this up nice and tidy, and to make sure that idiot private detective doesn’t give us any more trouble. You two head on back to town.”

That idiot detective was at that moment talking to a member of Flake’s staff.

“You might tell the guy the case is closed,” suggested Gran. “Otherwise he’ll only waste Flake’s mother a lot of money and his staff a lot of time.”

“Oh, he’ll drag this out as long as he can,” said Chase, giving the man a scornful look. “That’s the kind of detective he is.”

“You know him?” asked Odelia, surprised.

“I know of him. He’s a pet detective. Hired to find missing pets. Looks like he’s stepping up in the world, and tackling the more challenging cases.”

They watched the man for a moment, then Odelia decided to look around for her cats. She didn’t see any sign of them, though. Odd. And she’d just started calling out their names when a Siamese cat came waddling up to them.

“Look at that furball,” said Gran with a grin. “Must be Flake’s cat.”

“No, it’s not,” said Chase. “Flake’s cat is a Birman and much smaller.”

“She’s very pretty,” said Odelia. “She even has her own Instagram.”

The Siamese cat approached them and spoke in a gruff tone. “Hey. You that detective babe?”

Odelia frowned. “Um, I’m a reporter, and sometime detective, yes.”

“Tell your cats this case is mine now, you hear?”

“Wait, what?” said Odelia as the cat turned on its paw and snuck into the house.

“You heard,” said the cat over his shoulder. “Tell those losers of yours to stay away while I crack this case. And now piss off, will you?”

“Hey, come back here and apologize, you jerk!” Gran shouted, but the cat was gone. “What a shmuck,” she said. “Did you hear what he said?”

“Um, no,” said Chase. “What?”

Odelia’s jaw was still on the floor. No cat had ever spoken to her like that. And when Gran had repeated the cat’s words, Chase agreed he was a jerk.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Gran. “I’m sick to death of this place already.”

“Max!” Odelia hollered. “Dooley! We’re leaving!”

When no response came, she quickly jogged to the side of the house, but when she saw no sign of her cats, and they didn’t respond to more yelling from her part, she finally gave up.

“They’re probably halfway home by now,” said Gran, who’d joined her.

“Yeah, probably,” she agreed.

She got into Gran’s car and waved to Chase as they drove off. She couldn’t help feeling a slight sensation of unease, though. The same kind of sensation she got when something not-so-good was about to happen.

“I don’t like this, Gran,” she intimated as her grandmother steered the car along the road back to Hampton Cove.

“Yeah, me neither,” said Gran. “No challenge, huh? Way too easy.”

“I’m not talking about the case. It’s Max and the others. Where are they?”

“Like I said, on their way home. They got a lot less patience than we do, honey. They probably decided half an hour into the thing that it was a big old washout and decided to skedaddle. Cats are a lot smarter than us humans.”

Odelia nodded distractedly. In spite of Gran’s words she had a very bad feeling. Her stomach was in knots, and not the good kind of knots either.

Chapter 9

Cats can be difficult. For one thing, we don’t like the cold, but neither do we like the heat. Which is why, after having spent an hour soaking up the rays, both Dooley and I felt we needed a change of scenery. So we got up and went in search of a touch of shade, which we found at the back of the house. As is customary in the homes of the rich and famous, we fully expected to find a pool back there, or at the very least a nice jacuzzi. Nothing doing, though. The only thing Mr. Leonidas Flake had indulged in was… a petting zoo.

“Oh, cool!” said Dooley as we found ourselves staring out across a sea of barnyard animals. Even at first glance I could detect a donkey, complete with long ears and a dumb expression on its face, a couple of rabbits, a goat, a flock of sheep, a horse, and even a cow. The whole thing would have excited Noah.

“It sure beats the celebrity penchant for orgies,” I said.

“Or drug parties,” Dooley added.

As you can well imagine, in the course of our investigations we’ve seen our fair share of celebrity depravity, and to find a dead celebrity who enjoyed spending time surrounded by barnyard animals was a nice change of pace.

And as we went in search of a place to spend the remainder of our strike, we discovered that one section of the petting zoo was empty. There was the nice little patch of grass, there was the sturdily-built wooden house, and there was the bowl of water, accompanied by a similar bowl filled to the brim with nuggets of food. What there wasn’t a trace of was its occupant, whether large or small. So Dooley and I shared a quick glance of understanding, and we moved as one cat into this enclosure, took a sip from the water, took a few bites from the frugal meal, and took a peek inside the little wooden house to see if the owners weren’t home by any chance, and when we’d determined to our satisfaction that they weren’t, stretched out on the grass and dozed off.

It wasn’t until I felt a tickle in my backside that I woke up again. Glancing back, I saw that we’d been joined by… the Siamese cat we’d seen earlier.

“You Max?” the cat asked gruffly.

I answered in the affirmative, happy in the knowledge that my reputation had spread to these faraway parts of Hampton Cove. For a brief moment I experienced what every celebrity must feel like when someone asks for a selfie.

“Just wanted to tell you face to face that your days are numbered, fatso.”

I blinked, rudely awakened from my roseate dream of selfie-loving fandom. “Wait, what?” I asked. “What did you just call me?”

“What’s going on, Max?” asked Dooley, also waking up from his slumber. I’d never before realized how comforting petting zoos can be. You have your own little space, you have plenty of food and drink, and you get adoring fans who gather round to give you all of their love and affection—apart from the occasional prod in the ribs with a stick from a wayward child.