Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Rivalry

Harriet, who’d been in seclusion inside the house, finally walked out and joined us.

At first things were a little awkward between us. The last words she’d spoken still rankled. ‘I never want to see you again for as long as I live’ is one of those statements it’s a little hard to walk back on. She was still alive, and she was seeing us right now, so…

She cleared her throat. “Look, you guys. I owe you an apology. I mean…” She cast an apologetic look at Brutus, her former boyfriend. “I guess Diego fooled me.”

“Not for the first time,” Brutus couldn’t help but point out.

I placed a paw on his leg. “Don’t be petty, Brutus. Let’s hear what she has to say.”

“Yeah, the joke is on me, isn’t it?” Harriet said bitterly. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…” She sighed, directing a searching look into the distance, beyond the cloud of thick, black smoke wafting up from Tex’s barbecue, a clear indication he was torching his sausages again. “I thought he’d changed his ways, you know,” she said. “He told me he was now a different, better cat. That I brought out the best in him. I guess Diego’s best was not all that good to begin with. When I heard how happy he was to go and live with that Kitty Nala person, and that he didn’t even give a single thought to me—as if I didn’t even exist…”

She brought a distraught paw to her quivering lip, and tears glistened in her eyes.

It was obvious that she hadn’t fully recovered from the terrible episode yet.

“I heard everything, you know. I was in my box but I could hear the whole thing.”

“Oh, sweetness,” said Brutus, sidling closer to her. “Forget about that cat. He isn’t worth a single tear.”

“I know,” she said, nodding hard, then turned her tear-streaked face up to Brutus. “You’re so nice to me, Brutus. Why are you so nice?”

“Because I care about you, babycheeks. You’re my girl. You’ll always be my girl.”

“Oh, Brutus.”

“There, there. Now lemme dry those tears. Everything is gonna be all right.”

“Oh, honey bucket. I missed you.”

“I missed you too, buttercup.”

“Oh, booksie-bug.”

“Oh, snooksie-tootsie-wootsie.”

“I’m gonna be sick,” Dooley announced, making a face.

I grinned. “Looks like things are back to normal on the home front, buddy.”

“Yuck.”

And while the lovebirds renewed their lovebirdiness, Dooley and I watched the Pooles come together and prepare to be poisoned by Tex’s nonexistent barbecue skills.

“So did you get a confession, Uncle Alec?” Odelia was asking as she held up her glass of rosé.

“I most certainly did,” the Chief said. “And I didn’t even have to beat him up.” When his comment attracted worried glances from his family members, he quickly added, “That was a joke. I would never beat up my prisoners. Not even the nasty ones.”

“Nugent confessed to the whole thing,” Chase chimed in. “Said he thought that if Ray and Toby were out of the picture Regan would come crying to him, and eventually develop feelings deeper than mere friendship. When that didn’t happen, he decided she had to die.”

“Yeah, a real Romeo, that one,” said Alec.

“I think it’s sad,” intimated Marge, who was officiating the carving of a big slice of roast that she’d prepared on the grill just in case her husband’s barbecue prowess failed them.

“Yeah, it’s pretty sad,” Odelia agreed. “But at least Regan is fine. And Jason Nugent will be punished for his crimes.”

“I still don’t get how you got it,” Chase said, returning to one of his favorite themes. “I mean, those hunches of yours are quickly becoming the stuff of legend, Poole.”

Odelia shrugged and took a sip of her wine, her eyes sparkling as much as the wine did. She wasn’t going to reveal her big secret to Chase, who would never understand.

I cast a look at Vesta, who’d been remarkably quiet throughout the evening.

“What’s the matter with Grandma?” asked Dooley, following my gaze. “She hasn’t spoken a word all day. It’s not like her to be in silence. And when she put out my bowl she gave me an extra cuddle and said, ‘You’re the only in this house who truly loves me, Dooley. My one true friend. The only one who would never betray me.’ What was that all about?”

We watched as Grandma Muffin sat cloaked in resolute silence, her lips pressed together in a thin line and her wrinkly face a thundercloud. She was even refusing to take nourishment, causing Marge to dart occasional exasperated glances in her direction.

“The thing is, Dooley, your human has been very naughty again.”

Dooley uttered a groan. “What did she do this time?”

“Apparently when Tex and Marge gifted her an iPhone and a remarkably affordable cell phone plan so she could call her friends, she quickly discovered a fun game in the App Store.”

“What kind of game?”

“Well, it’s called ‘Game of Phones.’ The trick is to select as many world leaders as you can, and then call them for as long as possible. The person with the most world leaders on the leaderboard and the most phone time racked up wins a cruise to the Bahamas.”

“So that’s why she was calling Angela Merkel in the middle of the night!”

“I think she’s hardly slept all week. She’s been chatting non-stop with these non-existent world leaders all this time.”

“Non-existent? You mean…”

I leveled a grim look at him. “Do you really think the German Chancellor would give a little old lady from Hampton Cove, USA, the time of day? Or listen to her rambling advice?”

“But Angela Merkel talked back to her. And so did this Ban Ki-moon and the others.”

“Artificial intelligence automated response system,” I said, repeating what Odelia had told me before dinner. “Grandma was talking to a bot, Dooley. Just a stupid computer bot.”

“So what’s so naughty about that? It must be fun to pretend-talk to the President.”

“The thing is, Game of Phones is a scam. You pay an exorbitant amount of money for every minute you chat with their bots, and since Gran gave them Tex’s credit card details…”

Dooley slapped a paw to his brow. “Oh, dear. Not again.”

“Yes, again. So when Tex got his credit card bill this morning…”

“He wasn’t happy.”

“He was very unhappy. And then he confiscated Vesta’s iPhone.”

“And now she’s unhappy.”

“Come on, Mom,” said Uncle Alec to his mother now. “You have to eat something. You’ll starve to death!”

“So be it,” croaked Grandma, her arms crossed defiantly over her chest. “This family hates me, so I hate them back.” She wagged a bony finger. “If I die, it’s on all of you!”

“You’ll get your phone back once I figure out how to have it kid-proofed,” said Tex.

She darted a look at him that no mother should ever direct at her son-in-law. “For your information, I’m not a child, Tex!”

“As long as you act like one, you’ll be treated as one,” Tex said cheerfully. “Sausage, anyone?” He presented a plate with six blackened sausages. Uncle Alec, Odelia and Chase took one look at the incinerated carcasses and demurred, preferring Marge’s roast instead.

“I want my phone,” said Grandma mutinously. “You can’t do this to me. This is a human rights violation and I’m gonna call Ban Ki-moon the minute I get my phone back.”

“That wasn’t the real Ban Ki-moon, Mom,” said Marge gently. “That was just a computer bot in the Philippines pretending to be Ban Ki-moon so it could scam you.”

“I don’t care. He told me I could be the next Secretary-General of the United Nations. Said I had the gumption and the wherewithal to save the planet and restore world peace to a troubled humanity! Do you really think a fake Ban Ki-moon would say those things to me?”