Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Cut

This was getting curiouser and curiouser. “What do you mean? Why would Max not want to be found?”

“We’re on strike,” said Brutus.

“Shush, Brutus, “said Harriet.

“Oh, I didn’t know it was a secret,” said Brutus.

“It’s not a secret, per se,” Harriet admitted, “but it’s better Odelia finds out for herself.”

“You’re on strike?” said Odelia, wondering what her cats were up to this time. “Why?”

“That’s for us to know and for you to find out,” said Harriet, acting her usual prissy self.

“Not enough attention,” said Brutus, who seemed more forthcoming with information than his mate.

“Brutus!”

“What? She’s going to find out soon enough anyway, so why not tell her what’s going on?”

“She knows perfectly well what’s going on. She simply prefers to play dumb,” said Harriet, giving Odelia a nasty look.

“Well, I don’t get it,” said Odelia, taking a seat on the lawn. She moved aside a rubber ball and a garden gnome Gran had put there for the cats’ entertainment. “Now tell me all, please, because I’m not getting it.”

“If you don’t get it, maybe you should think about it a little more,” said Harriet.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” said Odelia, throwing up her hands. “Tell me what’s going on already, will you?”

“Fine,” said Harriet, then pressed her lips together and gave her partner in crime a look that said, ‘You tell her.’

“We feel that you’ve been ignoring us lately,” said Brutus, taking the plunge.

“You told me about that in the car, remember? And I apologized and said I was sorry and you said you each needed twelve percent of my time and I was ready to agree to that in writing when we got interrupted.”

“Well, we feel you’re not taking our negotiations seriously so we decided to go on strike,” said Harriet. “So there will be no more sleuthing on your behalf until you tell us what you’re up to.”

“Up to?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb, Odelia!” said Harriet. “We know very well that you’re about to get married and as soon as you do you and Chase will move away—possibly to England, possibly to New York—and you’ll dump us!”

“Oh, honey, no!” said Odelia, part horrified, part amused.

“Max seems to think you’ll move to England,” said Brutus, “but for my money it’s more likely you’ll move to New York. Chase has family there, after all, so that would be the logical thing to do.”

“And it would suit your ambitions to become an ace reporter for an ace newspaper, and not the local rag you bust your gut at now,” Harriet added.

“And Chase could join the NYPD again,” said Brutus.

“Oh, my sweet, sweet babies,” said Odelia, genuinely touched by this outpouring of concern. “No! Of course I’m not moving away.”

“You’re not?” asked Brutus, suspicious.

“No! We’re staying put, wedding or no wedding. Besides, it’s not that we’re anxious to tie the knot any time soon. It could be months or years before we finally get hitched.”

“But Chase proposed. In London,” Harriet pointed out.” So that has to mean something. Humans don’t just propose and then break it off again.”

“He proposed while under attack. I guess you could say it was one of those moments where you see your life flashing by, and you realize there are so many things you haven’t done yet.”

“Like getting married?”

“Like getting married,” she said with a smile.

“So Chase proposing was just a joke?” asked Brutus hopefully. “A fun little joke?”

“It wasn’t a joke. He meant it at the time, and I meant it when I said yes, but that doesn’t mean we have to rush into things. I’m sure that eventually we will get married, but we’re not in any hurry here. And we’re not planning to move away from Hampton Cove, or this house. I love it here, and I love living next door to my mom and dad.”

“And Gran,” Brutus supplied.

“And Gran,” she said after a pause. “So even after we’re married we’ll stay right here. This is your home, you guys, and we’re not about to take that away from you. And if I paid less attention to you than usual, I’m sorry. It’s just that, when you’ve gone through a terrible experience like the one we had in England, you realize how precious life is, so we decided to go on all the dates we always wanted to go on. But I think we’re done with that for a while.”

“So you’ll become homebodies again?” said Harriet. “I liked it when you were a homebody, Odelia.”

“Yeah, I kinda liked it, too,” said Odelia with a smile. “And lucky for me Chase feels the same way.”

“Chase feels the same way about what?” asked a voice behind her. Chase crouched down next to her and placed a hand on her back. “This is cozy.”

“Hi, Chase,” said Harriet coyly. She was a big fan of Chase, as were all of Odelia’s cats, which was a good thing.

“They feel we’ve been neglecting them lately.”

“Have we?”

“Yeah. We’ve been going out a lot, and they’ve missed spending time with us, huddling on the couch and watching silly shows and silly movies.”

Chase gave Harriet a sheepish look. “Well, I guess you’re right, Harriet. Odelia and I have spent a lot of time on the town. But that’s all over now, isn’t it, babe? We’re ready to kick off our shoes and become Netflix nerds again.”

“I like Netflix nerds,” said Harriet.

“Me, too,” said Brutus.

“And Max,” said Odelia. “He loves being a couch potato even more than the rest of us. So where is he?”

Harriet and Brutus shared a look of concern. “I don’t know,” said Harriet. “I haven’t seen him since we left him and Dooley at Chateau Leonidas.”

“You mean they’re still there?” said Odelia, concern lacing her voice.

“Who’s still where?” asked Chase.

“Max and Dooley are still at the Flake place.”

“What are they doing—oh, right. Interviewing pet witnesses, huh?”

“I hope so,” said Odelia. Though it wasn’t like Max not to come home after a day well spent hunting down clues and talking to pet witnesses. “Maybe we should go and look for them.”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” said Chase, who had a lot of confidence in her cats’ ability to take care of themselves.

“I’m not so sure,” said Brutus. “He was pretty adamant about our strike.”

“The strike? Oh, right, the strike.”

“Yeah, he really ran with it. Said he would never help you investigate a crime ever again.”

“Oh, dear,” said Odelia.

Chapter 15

Unbeknownst to Odelia and Chase, or Harriet and Brutus, for that matter, their conversation hadn’t remained as private as they would have liked it to be. Behind the backyard was a patch of fallow land where no house had been built yet. It was generally used by neighborhood kids to play on, or sometimes by a local farmer to put his sheep, and save the owner the trouble of taking out his lawnmower. It had been a while since the sheep had grazed there, though, and so the grass was high—so high that two people could easily hide in there, and aim a camera and a microphone at the backyard of the unsuspecting Odelia Poole and her future husband and their cats. And by the time Odelia and Chase returned indoors, Lauren Klepfisch patted Zak Kowalski on the back and said, “Did you get all that?”

“Yeah, sure, but I’m not sure what it is I got.”

“Proof that Odelia Poole talks to her pets,” said Lauren triumphantly.

“So? Plenty of people talk to their pets. My mom talks to her Chihuahua.”

“Yeah, lots of people talk to their pets, but few people have their pets talk back to them, and are able to understand what they say.”