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“Uncle Dirk,” said Fiona. “What do you want me to do?”

Dirk sighed.“Just get me a good lawyer, honey. I’m gonna need it.”

“And go back to school and get a degree,” said Vesta. “Your Uncle Dirk won’t be able to support you anymore.”

Chapter 40

Things had turned a little chaotic there at the end, with Chase mud wrestling Jock, and Uncle Alec calling in reinforcements, and Grace screaming at her husband. And by the time more officers arrived on the scene, to take Jock and Gino away, and an ambulance arrived for Grace and Fabio, I guess Odelia kind of forgot about us, and so when all was said and done we were the only ones left.

Well, us and a couple of thousand chickens, of course.

So we decided to walk. It was a nice way to end the investigation. Grace and Fabio had been saved, the bad people arrested, and we could now rest on our laurels.

And we’d been walking not even a mile when we came upon an altercation. Well, altercation is perhaps a big word for the crowd that had gathered around some object.

We joined the gawking throng and when we saw what the object was, reeled back as one cat.

It was a large heap of dung, about a meter in diameter, and two meters high, and had been deposited strategically in the middle of the road.

“It’s the werewolf’s,” one woman said.

“Yes, it has to be,” said a man.

“That monster must be big!” said a third person.

“Well, did you see the pictures in theGazette? That monster is huge! Big as a house!”

They all stared at the heap of werewolf doo-doo, taking pictures with their smartphones, while some members of the public had the good sense to call the police.

I could have told them the police were a little busy right now, arresting bad people, but of course they couldn’t know that.

Dooley had approached the heap of dung, which was still steaming, and took a tentative sniff.“It doesn’t smell like werewolf dung,” he said now, rejoining us at the edge of the circle of spectators.

“It doesn’t?” I asked.

I decided to put his theory to the test and approached the pile myself, taking a whiff of the penetrating odor.“Dooley is right,” I said. “This isn’t werewolf dung.”

“And how would you know what werewolf dung smells like?” asked Brutus.

“I don’t, but I know what chicken dung smells like, and this is chicken dung.”

“That’s it!” Dooley said. “I thought it smelled familiar.”

Brutus, frowning, now decided to olfactorily sample the pile for himself, followed by Harriet. When they returned to our huddle, they both concurred that, in their professional opinion, it was indeed a big pile of chicken dung.

“Which can only mean one thing,” I said.

“Oh?” said Brutus. “And what is that?”

“Someone put that pile there. Someone went to the trouble of collecting chicken dung and constructing this pile so people would think the werewolf was here.”

“But why?” asked Dooley.

I shrugged.“I have no idea. But this means that maybe, just maybe, that werewolf isn’t a real werewolf.”

“Is it a chickenwolf, Max?” asked Dooley. “Like a mutated monster chicken?”

“I think it’s not a monster but man-made.”

In other words, a man in a suit. But why? And who?

It gave us something to think about while we resumed our long hike into town. And then, when we’d almost reached the finish line, Odelia’s pickup suddenly showed up, driving fast in the other direction. She must have spotted us, for she immediately braked, then performed a U-turn and halted right next to us, and pushed open the door.

“I’m so sorry, guys. I forgot all about you!”

“That’s all right,” I said as we climbed in.

“We discovered something,” Dooley said as we made ourselves comfortable on the backseat and Odelia put the car in gear.

“Me, too,” she said with a smile. “Did you know that the Mayor was in cahoots with Jock and the County Executive to buy up as much land as they could, through some murky corporation, and then turn it into industrially zoned land they could sell at a much higher price?”

“That doesn’t sound good,” said Brutus, though clearly he hadn’t understood a word she’d said, and neither had I.

But before she had a chance to explain further, Dooley blurted out,“The werewolf isn’t a werewolf at all, but a human! Well, either a human or a mutated giant chicken.”

“My money is on a human,” I said.

Odelia thought for a moment.“And I’ll bet I know who,” she said, then turned that car around once more, and headed back the way we’d come!

“Hey, we just came from there!” said Harriet, who hates walking, and especially walking without a clear purpose.

“I know, but I just had an idea,” said Odelia.

“Uh-oh,” said Brutus, who’s well familiar with Odelia’s ideas. Oftentimes they will land us in trouble—or Chase knee-deep in a puddle of chicken muck.

We arrived back at the Farnsworth house, and this time she drove the car up the drive and parked in front of the house. She rang the bell, and Alicia opened the door.

“Oh, hey, Odelia,” said the young woman. “Where is everybody? I just got home and there’s no one here.”