04b1ef9c60873c444a27c4afd3197be1

“—his cat,” said Uncle Alec with a quick look towards the living room couch, where four cats sat listening to the kitchen counter conversation—Brutus had joined his friends, who had all made themselves comfortable.

“What?” asked Chase with a laugh. “A cat is inheriting the Leonidas Flake empire?”

“Looks like,” said Alec. “Unless Mr. Flake made a last-minute change his attorney isn’t aware of—and this seems very unlikely—the cat gets everything. The millions, the brand, the stores, the global fashion empire.”

Odelia frowned.“I don’t get it. How can a cat inherit a company?”

“Yeah, a cat can’t run a business, can it?” said Chase, directing his question at Odelia, just to be on the safe side. She was, after all, the feline expert.

“I guess a cat could run a company,” she said slowly, “if that cat knew a thing or two about business. But they would still have to relay all of the decisions through a human, who would then have to organize the actual day-to-day running of the business along those instructions. It would require a person who could intuit the cat’s decision-making process, of course.”

“A person like you, you mean,” said Chase, who’d recently been made aware of the fact that his fianc?e was one of those rare people who could actually communicate with cats.

She nodded.

Chase turned to Alec.“And did Flake have such a person on the payroll?”

“That was Gabriel’s task,” he said. “He was in charge of Pussy’s routine. Pussy being the name of Flake’s cat. Mr. Crier took Pussy to her weekly visits to the pet salon, kept a close eye on her diet, organized her parties—”

“Sorry, her parties?” asked Chase.

“Yes, apparently this Pussy has a very busy social life, and as a rule Mr. Crier planned a lot of activities for her—she had a full schedule.”

“Who told you all this stuff?” asked Odelia.

Alec dragged a meaty paw through the devastated area that was his scalp.“You’d be surprised how chatty staff members of the recently departed can be.”

“You should have called,” said Chase. “I would have helped set up the interviews.”

“I did call you,” said Uncle Alec. “And Odelia.”

Both Odelia and Chase grabbed for their phones.“Shoot,” Chase muttered. “Must have forgotten to plug the darn thing in last night.”

“Same here,” said Odelia, taking Chase’s phone and proceeding to plug in both phones so they could recharge before they left the house.

“Anyway, it’s a slam-dunk case,” said Alec, eagerly checking out the uneaten waffle on his niece’s plate and gratefully accepting it when she handed it to him. “Crier was caught red-handed, so I’m guessing we’ll be done with this before lunch. Still, always good to cross our T’s anddot our I’s.”

“Weird that the only person who stands to gain from the designer’s death is the man’s cat,” said Chase. “What do you make of that, Chief?”

He lowered his bristly brows into a frown.“Not sure, buddy. But you have to allow for the fact that these are celebrities, and as we all know celebrities are eccentric. Leonidas only changed his will last week. The one before that had the boyfriend as the main beneficiary, so there’s always a chance he didn’t know Flake cut him out of his will.”

“I think the cat did it,” Chase quipped.

“Funny guy,” the Chief grumbled.

Odelia glanced over to her cats, who were listening attentively.“Did you hear that, you guys? Looks like we have a feline suspect for this one.”

“Impossible,” said Max. “A cat would never kill a human.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Brutus. “If that human treated him or her badly, anything is possible.”

“But he was stabbed with a knife,” Max pointed out. “Cats don’t stab people with knives, Brutus.”

“Cats don’t need knives,” said Harriet. “We use our inbuilt tools.” And she unsheathed a razor-sharp claw to turn her words into a show-and-tell.

“Was he stabbed with the knife Crier was holding?” asked Odelia now.

“Um… not sure,” said Alec. “Abe is delayed.” He checked his watch. “He should be there shortly, though, so I better start heading back over there.”

Odelia jumped down from the kitchen stool.“You mean to say the body is still there? The coroner hasn’t even examined the victim?”

“Nope,” said Alec with faux cheer. “Which is why I figured I might as well pick up you two, so you can give me a hand wrapping this thing up.”

“We better get going,” said Odelia. “I can’t believe we’ve been sitting here chatting while that poor man is lying there.”

“He’s not going anywhere,” said Alec, buttering a piece of toast.

“And I haven’t taken a shower yet,” said Odelia, patting her hair.

“You look fine,” said Chase.

“Oh, God,” she muttered. She hated leaving the house without taking a shower or putting on a fresh set of threads. “Give me five minutes.”

“You can take ten,” said Uncle Alec, unconcerned.

She hurried up the stairs, and took the quickest shower in the history of mankind, put on a pair of jeans, pulled a T-shirt and sweater over her head, and decided to forgo drying her hair for once, then hurried down again.

Alec and Chase were still chatting away, not a care in the world.