Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Secret

“Raisins,” her husband insisted stubbornly. “When I touched them they came right off. Look, that’s all beside the point. Your mother hates the fact that I hired a new receptionist, and she’ll go to any lengths to sabotage my work.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Gran. “If this Canyon woman is such a lousy receptionist why do you let her work there in the first place? Besides, you don’t even pay her, so what’s up with that?”

Mom turned on her husband. “Scarlett Canyon is volunteering for you?”

“Yes, she is,” said Dad. “And she’s doing a great job, too—until your mother started interfering.”

“You do know that Scarlett Canyon had an affair with my dad, don’t you?” said Mom.

Uh-oh, Odelia thought. Things were about to get ugly.

Dad opened and closed his mouth like a fish on dry land for a moment, then stammered, “I… she didn’t… she didn’t mention that on her—are you sure that was her?”

“Of course I know that was her. It’s the whole reason Dad walked out on us in the first place. And you know about that. I told you.”

More of the fish on dry land routine. Odelia was starting to feel sorry for her dad. She decided to put in her two cents. “Look, none of this would have happened if Gran hadn’t deserted Dad when he needed her the most.”

“Oh, don’t give me that crap,” said Gran. “None of this would have happened if Tex hadn’t deserted me when I needed him the most!”

“You were pretending to be a man’s mother!” Tex cried. “That’s a felony!”

“Just a little fib,” Gran insisted. “Besides, I did it for this family.”

The argument would go on all night if not nipped in the bud, Odelia knew, so she held up her hands and yelled over the yellers, “I think this calls for a time-out!”

That got their attention. Mom gawked at her, Gran blinked, and Dad frowned.

“We’re not toddlers, honey,” said Mom. “You can’t give us a time-out.”

“I can if you behave like toddlers. So not a peep from you for the next five minutes.”

She would have put them in the corner but that was probably too much. To her relief, the three other adults in the room respected her decision to call for a time-out under her own roof, and she went right back to preparing the spaghetti bolognese she was making. Five minutes wasn’t much, but it was amazing how peaceful things suddenly became.

Dad was glaring at Gran, though, who was scowling at him, and Mom was alternately glowering at both her husband and her mother, so this time-out wouldn’t solve the bigger issue, which was that these grownups had to learn to behave like adults. As it was, Odelia’s cats were better-behaved than the humans who were supposed to take care of them.

Five minutes later, Dad stalked out angrily, Mom followed suit, and Gran settled in to watch Jeopardy .

Ugh. At least the shouting had stopped.

And then Dua Lipa began to sing and she frowned at her phone. Wiping her hands once more, she picked it up. “Mr. Paunch?”

“Hey, Odelia. Can I call you Odelia? I feel like we know each other. And I love this connection we have.” When she didn’t respond, he cleared his throat. “Anyway, just wanted to congratulate you on the updated rich list. Van is a very happy camper right now. How is that Wikipedia article coming along?”

“I told you—I don’t work for Wikipedia, Mr. Paunch.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now could you mention in tomorrow’s piece that President Wilcox is the tallest president that ever served this country? The absolute tallest?”

“Tomorrow’s piece? How did you know I’m writing a piece for tomorrow’s edition?”

“Oh, please, Odelia. Must we play this game? I’m one of the best-informed people in the country, okay? So why wouldn’t I know what you and Dan Goory are up to?”

Odelia was surprised this Paunch person would know her editor. Then again, he seemed to know everyone else. “Okay, I’ll try to squeeze it in. I’ll have to fact-check it first, though.”

“No need. I already took care of that for you. Consider it fact-checked. Tallest President in history. Oh, and he’s also the President with the most hair.”

“Most hair?”

“Most hair. I counted them myself. Also the softest hair.”

“Softest hair?”

“That’s right. Touched it myself. Soft as a baby’s bottom.”

And with this startling revelation, he disconnected.

Odelia stared at her phone. Otto Paunch was her own personal Deep Throat, only the information he imparted wasn’t exactly groundbreaking or earth-shattering. Still, it was something. Like her own personal line to the President.

Chapter 24

The nocturnal blanket of darkness swept down on Hampton Cove, covering the picturesque Hamptons community in a cloak of peacefulness, most of its human inhabitants now fast asleep, while its cat population moved out of their houses in droves, led by that ancient hunting instinct and the desire to protect their domain from other felines.

And so it was that Odelia hopped into her car, watched her small cat menagerie gracefully jump into the backseat, and launched us on what she hoped would be a very fruitful night of snooping around on someone else’s property. For where humans fear to tread, cats have absolutely no compunction to trespass with absolute impunity.

Our destination? Geary Potbelly’s duck farm.

Our mission? Elicit the descriptions and possibly the names of the miscreants who had so dastardly stolen Mr. Potbelly’s equipment to carry out their murderous scheme.

Five cats rode in the backseat in relative silence. Relative, I say, because wherever there is more than one cat present, banter inevitably enters the picture. Cats hate those uncomfortable silences even more than humans do and are quick to fill them with chatter.

“Is duck poop smelly?” asked Dooley now.

“All poop is smelly,” I said.

“No, but I mean is it more smelly than cat poop—or even human poop?”

Harriet wasn’t in a chatting mood. “Didn’t you hear what Max said? All poop is smelly.”

“I know. But what I want to find out is how smelly duck poop is in comparison with our own poop and human poop. On a scale of smelliness, where would you place duck poop?”

Brutus was grunting something. He was keeping a close eye on Milo, who he suspected of having secretly developed a crush on Harriet. Why else would he have gone to such lengths to try and break up this love affair he and the feisty white Persian enjoyed? “Who cares how smelly duck poop is?” the black cat said now. “It’s a nonissue, Dooley.”

Dooley seemed to beg to disagree. He was also begging for a smack on the snoot if he kept this up.

“I think duck poop probably rates a five on the Richter Poop Scale,” said Milo, throwing his two cents in. “Human poop rates a six, and cat poop a solid seven.”

“Richter scale?” I said with a frown. “I thought the Richter scale was for earthquakes?”

“Oh, Dr. Richter worked on a lot of scales,” said Milo. “The earthquake thing was only one of them. For a long time he was actually more famous for his Poop Scale than for the Earthquake Scale. Of course he didn’t call it the Poop Scale. Scientists dislike simple names. He called it the Defecation Magnitude Scale. Worked very hard on it. Involved a powerful olfactory machine of his own design called The Sniffer. Now mainly used in the perfume industry.”

Dooley was interested. “So if cat poop is a seven on the Richter scale, what’s an eight or a nine or even a ten?”

“Elephant poop, obviously, is an eight. Mice poop a nine. And it will surprise you to know that fly poop is a ten. But because fly poop is so tiny it is very hard for us to detect its odor. Richter set up this massive experiment where he collected fresh fly poop in large Mason jars then subjected its contents to The Sniffer. It registered as a ten.”