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“I’ll talk to Pamela again.”

“No! Whatever you do, don’t go near that woman again. Not after what happened between you two.”

“Nothing happened between us!”

“And that’s why we need the zombie. He’ll be able to confirm or deny.”

“Do you think Uncle Alec saw a zombie last night, Max?” asked Dooley now.

“I doubt it,” I said. “For one thing, zombies don’t exist, and for another, clearly something else is going on here, Dooley.”

“Uncle Alec did something to that Pamela woman, you think?”

“I don’t know, Dooley, but he is a man, and he hasn’t been with a woman for a long time, so…”

Dooley’s eyes had gone wide. “We have to tell Odelia. This is a great story for her newspaper!”

“It is a great story,” I admitted, “but not one Odelia will want to print. It’s going to damage her uncle’s reputation, and that’s the last thing she’d ever do.”

“But if it’s true, she has to print it. It’s in the reporter’s code!”

“There is no reporter’s code, Dooley,” I said. “You’re thinking about doctors.”

“Don’t reporters have an obligation to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?”

“Odelia does, but not all reporters are like her.”

“So now I have to go out and find a non-existent zombie,” said Uncle Alec.

“You’ll do no such thing,” said the Mayor. “Chase will find the zombie.”

“And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Twiddle my thumbs?”

“Until this matter is resolved, I suggest you go home, Alec. And that’s not a friendly suggestion, that’s an order.”

“Go home! But…”

“I’m suspending you, and appointing Chase acting chief.” She got up. “Go home, Alec, and in your own best interest better don’t show your face around town for a while.”

And then she was gone, leaving Chief Alec looking both stricken and dumbfounded, which is not an easy combination to pull off but he still managed it convincingly.

Chapter 5

“We have to find this zombie, Dooley,” I said. “He’s the only one who can confirm or deny Uncle Alec’s account of what happened last night.”

“But didn’t you say zombies don’t exist?”

“No, they don’t, so it must be a real person, and not a zombie, which is a good thing.”

“How so?”

“Because otherwise we’d have to go to the graveyard to find the zombie, and I don’t like graveyards.”

We’d jumped down from the windowsill and were now passing by the barbershop, which usually is good for at least two or three stories a week.

We walked in, and settled ourselves near the window. Fido Siniawski, the hairdresser, was busy cutting a client’s long mane. He was one of those so-called hard rockers, with the black leather jackets and the long hair, and had apparently decided to change genres and become a punk rocker instead, which meant he needed a Mohawk.

“Why is that man having his nice hair cut, Max?” asked Dooley as we watched on.

“Because he changed music genres,” I explained. “He was a hard rocker, and hard rockers like to have the long greasy hair. But now he’s a punk rocker and punk rockers like their hair to stand up and be painted in different colors.”

“But why, Max?” he asked, mystified.

“I have no idea, Dooley,” I admitted. “I guess it’s one of those things that are a little hard for us cats to understand.”

“Have you heard about the Chief?” asked the former hard rocker, now punk rocker.

“Yeah, terrible business,” said Fido. “Who would have thought a nice man like the Chief would suddenly grope a woman in the bushes like that, huh?”

“Horrible,” said the rocker, shaking his head and causing the hairdresser to almost snip off an ear. “Then again, I guess these authority figures are all the same. Can’t keep their hands to themselves. The first opportunity they get, they jump some innocent woman and drag her into the bushes.”

“I’ll bet he’s done it a million times, only we never heard about it until now.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet he paid off all of those other women, and Pamela Witherspoon is the first one who decided that enough was enough, and came forward with the story.”

“She’s a hero,” Fido agreed as he studied the picture of a man with a Mohawk he was using as a reference. “And she should probably lawyer up. Get together with all of the Chief’s other victims and sue the man’s ass.”

“I’ll bet he’s rich, though. He can probably afford the most expensive lawyers.”

“Oh, he’ll get off, all right,” said the barber, snipping away to his heart’s content. “All those rich bastards do. But I’ll tell you one thing. This town will never forget.”

“Never,” the rocker agreed. He winced a little as the barber fired up his razor and went to work removing the last remnants of hair along a thin strip in the middle.

“This is bad, Max,” said Dooley as we walked out of the barbershop and set paw for the General Store. “Uncle Alec is quickly turning into a persona non gratis.”

“Persona non grata,” I corrected him. “And you’re right. It’s looking pretty bad for him.”