Ник Сайнт: Purrfect Murder

“How do you even know about that?” I asked. I was starting to wonder if all my snooping around the police office was even necessary. If Harriet could find out as much as I had simply by talking to other cats, what was the point?

“Well, it’s only common sense,” she said. “Chase used to be NYPD, after all, so what better person to run a murder investigation than him, right?”

“Yeah, what about that?” asked Dooley, nodding. “A genuine NYPD cop. How cool is that, huh?”

“Way cool,” Harriet agreed with a grin.

“If he’s so cool, what is he doing here?” I asked. “Why didn’t he simply stay in New York with the big boys?” It was a question that begged asking. If this hotshot detective was so cool, why choose to bury himself in a small town like Hampton Cove, where the homicide rate was probably close to zero?

Harriet stared at me. “Don’t you know?”

“Know what?”

“Well, he was fired.”

“Fired! But why?” Now this was news. If I’d known this before, I could have told Odelia. Make sure she didn’t do something stupid like fall for him.

Harriet slowly and methodically started licking her paw and then rubbing it across her face. “Gross misconduct. At least that’s what Shanille said, who heard it from Trudy, Lora Escort’s cat, who’d read it in the New York Post .”

“That’s impossible,” I scoffed. “If Chase Kingsley was fired for gross misconduct, he would never be able to work as a cop again, not even in Hampton Cove. No,” I mused, “it must be something else.”

“Shanille was pretty adamant. And you know tabloids never lie.”

“Right. They wouldn’t dare,” I said. Could it be? Could Chase have been a bad boy? Why else would he accept a job here? Not for the excitement. Unless riding around on a dune buggy was Chase’s idea of excitement.

“What’s gross misconduct?” asked Dooley. “I mean, is it really gross?”

“Something about the wife of a suspect,” said Harriet. “She claims Chase molested her during an interrogation, so she filed charges against him. He was consequently suspended pending an investigation, and eventually forced to hand in his gun and badge, his employment effectively terminated.”

I stared at her. “He was discharged for molestation and you still think he’s a dreamboat?”

“I don’t believe it, all right?” she said, holding up her paw, then continuing to groom the left side of her face. “I’m sure he was framed.”

“Framed?” I asked, incredulous.

“It happens all the time. Supercop gets framed. At least that’s what Brutus says and I happen to believe him.”

“Brutus says his human was framed,” I said blankly. Now I’d heard it all.

“Yes, he did. He said he saw something he wasn’t supposed to see, and so they set him up to destroy his credibility. It happens all the time,” she added when she caught my dubious look. “Successful people often get a lot of flak. And I’m sure this woman who accused him must have perjured herself.”

“Ouch. That must have hurt,” said Dooley.

“Perjured, Dooley,” I said automatically. “Not injured.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, go away,” I muttered, thinking hard. This changed matters entirely. If this was true, and I didn’t doubt it since Brutus himself had confirmed the story, Odelia had to be warned. I was sure that once she found out she’d never want to come near the guy. Which solved the Brutus situation nicely.

“I’m telling Odelia,” I said. “She needs to know who she’s dealing with.”

Harriet sighed. “I was afraid of this. Can’t you just let it go, Max?”

“Let it go! Are you nuts?!”

“Why can’t you just give Odelia a shot at real happiness? I’m sure that she and Chase are simply made for each other. Two beautiful people like that? It’s a match made in heaven. The moment they walk down the aisle together, we’ll all be family.” She sighed again, wistfully this time. “You, me, Dooley… Brutus… just one big, happy, family.”

“One big happy family with Brutus? I don’t think so!” I cried. “The cat kicked me out of the police station! Actually forbade me to even go there. How can I do my job if I can’t even eavesdrop on the Chief? It’s an outrage!”

“He was only doing his duty,” said Harriet a little stiffly. It was obvious that nothing could convince her that Brutus, and by extension Chase Kingsley, were bad news.

“You can’t still like that cat,” I said, outraged. “He actually threatened me with violence if I ever come near the police station again. Violence!”

Which, now that I knew what kind of guy Chase was, wasn’t surprising.

“That’s wasn’t very nice,” Dooley said, with a tentative look at Harriet.

But Harriet wasn’t convinced. “I’m sure he simply feels he’s doing his duty, Max. If only more cats were like Brutus, the world would be a better, safer place.”

“The world would be a Nazi prison camp and Brutus would run it,” I said, shaking my head. I simply couldn’t understand how she could still defend that cat. He was a menace to our community. “I think we should all get together and take a vote,” I said now. “Have Brutus expelled. We simply cannot allow him to come here and try to take over. A line has been crossed.”

“You’re simply jealous,” Harriet challenged.

“Jealous!” I cried. “Of that clown! As if! All I’m doing is protecting my human from a terrible fate. Is that so wrong?”

“No, you’re doing the right thing, Max,” said Dooley, who was still casting anxious glances at Harriet, whom he obviously seemed to consider the real authority here, and not me, which offended me to some extent. But then Dooley had always drooled over Harriet ever since the three of us met, many years ago. His attempts at wooing her have always failed, though. Harriet doesn’t like just any cat. It takes a special cat to touch her heart, and apparently in Brutus she’d found just such a cat.

A horrible thought entered my mind. “You’re not thinking of getting together with Brutus, are you?” I asked, horrified. The thought of a litter of little Brutuses was too much to bear.

She gave me a dark look. “Please, Max. You know they… fixed me,” she added in hushed tones. The disgrace of being spayed still weighed heavy on her. Before, she’d been able to produce a sizable litter a couple of times a year, but then Odelia’s mom had taken matters into her own hands and had her fixed. The same way Odelia had had me neutered and Gran had had Dooley neutered as well. I loved my human, and so did Dooley and Harriet, but it was almost as if they didn’t want more cats brought into this world. As if they didn’t enjoy the sight of a litter full of little kittens, gamboling about.

Except for little Brutuses. I drew the line firmly at a litter of Brutuses.

“I think we should continue this investigation ourselves,” I now said, deciding to change the subject. “If it’s true that Chase was dishonorably discharged from the NYPD, I can’t imagine he’s fit to lead this investigation.”

“So we do it ourselves?” asked Dooley excitedly.

“We do it ourselves,” I confirmed. “We catch that killer.”

“I don’t know, Max,” said Harriet dubiously. “Do you think we’re up for it? I mean, we’ve never done anything like this before. It might be dangerous.”

“We owe it to Hampton Cove to catch any killer that might be lurking in our community,” I said solemnly. “And we need to make sure that the Writer’s Lodge is once again safe for writers to scribble their horrible drivel.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” said Harriet pensively.

“Do you really think writers are going to avoid the Writer’s Lodge as long as that killer isn’t caught?” asked Dooley.