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Tex didn’t look happy, either, but that was mainly because he’d been relieved from his duties as grill master. Tough to be a grill master when there’s nothing to grill. Though he could have tried his hand at the tofu, of course. Difficult to burn tofu. Though I was sure he would give it his best shot.

“I just hope this whole thing goes away soon,” said Alec. “Those reporters keep showing up at the office, looking for a quote. I’m all out of quotes!”

“I can’t even do my job,” said Odelia, munching on a piece of eggplant. “I’m supposed to chase the story, not be the story. Now they all want to interview me!”

“Well, you did crack the story, honey,” said Marge. “Here. Have some quinoa.”

“Thanks, Mom,” said Odelia without much enthusiasm.

“I’m sure this will all blow over in another week or so,” said Chase as he speared a falafel and put it into his mouth. “New scandals pop up all the time, and when they do, the media horde will descend on some other town. Or go back to Washington or New York.”

He’d had trouble doing his job, too, as he’d been the one to catch Marco and Gordo and had been declared the hero of the hour, along with Odelia. Their picture had even graced the cover ofTime Magazine as the crime-fighting couple of the year.

“So they were never going to turn Alec into a sausage?” asked Tex, not for the first time.

“No, they were not,” said Odelia. “Marco and Gordo had been hired to provide security. Their orders were to make sure no one discovered the new production line. And if they could catch a cat or two, they earned bonus points. Only they took their job a little too seriously, and knocked out anyone who came within fifteen feet of the house.”

“And they figured the more cats they collected, the more money they stood to make,” Chase continued, “so they ended up trapping Hampton Cove’s entire cat population.”

“At least something good came out of it,” Gran murmured. She’d been very quiet throughout dinner, barely touching her plate of yellow split peas. Only now did the others notice she’d been playing with a new toy.

“Is that… a smartphone?” asked Marge.

“Oh, you’ve noticed, have you?” said Gran. “Why, yes, it is, sweet child. Oh, and look what it can do.” And before our eyes, she folded it open. It was a foldable smartphone! “And look what happens now,” Gran continued, clearly in excellent mood. And she folded it closed again. “Why, it’s almost like a miracle, wouldn’t you say? A real foldable phone!”

“Where did you get that?” asked Tex, flabbergasted.

“I have my sources,” said Gran with a smug smile. “Dick Bernstein gave it to me, okay? He’s not as stingy with his money as some people,” she added with a pointed look at Tex.

“Dick Bernstein from the senior center?” asked Marge. “But why would he—”

“Because we’re going steady, all right? He’s always been nuts about me and when I saw him showing off his new phone I told him I’d be his girlfriend if he let me have it.”

“You did what?!” cried Marge.

“Ma, that’s not very nice of you,” said Uncle Alec, but it was obvious his heart wasn’t in the fight. The lack of meat probably had sapped him of his strength.

“Who cares? I wanted a phone, and now I got it. See? It folds open like this, and then it closes again like this. It folds open like this, and—”

“Gran, I don’t think you should…” Odelia began.

“Shush. You’re all jealous of my new phone. So it folds open like this, and then I close it again like this. See? Big screen, small screen. Big screen, small screen. Pretty neat, huh?”

Suddenly there was a light popping sound, and smoke poured out of the phone.

“Eek!” said Gran, and threw the phone into the pot of miso soup.

It made a sizzling sound, and immediately sank to the bottom. And when she fished it out again, and opened it, nothing happened.

“It broke!” she cried. “The damn thing’s gone and died on me!”

“Ah, well,” said Tex, a beautiful smile spreading across his face. “These things happen.”

“It wasn’t even mine!” said Gran. “Dick just said I could borrow it, not break it!”

“I’m sure Dick won’t mind,” said Tex, as he dug into his tofu burger with sudden relish. “In fact I’m sure Dick will be more than happy to buy you another one.”

Before anyone could stop her, Gran had picked up the pot of miso soup and was pouring it out over Tex’s head. “This is all your fault, Ebenezer Scrooge!”

“This is what happens when humans go vegetarian,” said Brutus. “They go nuts.”

“Tell me about it,” I said as I watched Tex fish a piece of tofu from his collar.

Clarice, who was the real, unsung hero of the events that had rocked our town, jumped gracefully up onto the porch swing. She stuck her nose in the air and sniffed.

“So where’s the meat?” she asked. “Where are the sausages? Where are the burger patties? And where’s the steak and fries?”

“No steak, no sausages, and no burger patties,” said Dooley. “And no steak and fries.”

She frowned.“What kind of a barbecue is this? It looks more like a funeral. And why is Tex wearing a soup terrine on his head?”

“I think it’s Berghoff, actually,” I said.