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He was such a moron, wasn’t he? And he was just kicking another rock when suddenly the ground opened up underneath him and he was falling. Fully expecting to fall into some abyss or ravine, he let out a squeal. Suddenly his fall was broken by a soft object.

“Hey, little buddy,” the soft object spoke, and looking up Brutus realized he’d been caught by a friendly giant.

Looking up even further, he saw he’d dropped off a cliff. A sort of man-made promontory that overlooked another duck pond. And by the side of that pond, a man had been sleeping off his hangover—at least judging from the powerful smell of booze on him.

Dang it! This was the third time he’d almost died today!

Chapter 24

Dooley and I snuck further into the room, adamant to talk to that dog, whether he liked it or not. And obviously he didn’t like it one bit.

“Hey, dog,” I said, in a bid to get him to come from behind the nightstand. “Nice doggie, doggie.”

“We just want to talk to you,” said Dooley.

In the bed just by our side, Wolf Langdon stirred. No matter how softly we talked, our meowing probably disturbed his slumber. We needed to do this fast, before he woke up and kicked us out of his room!

“Doggie!” I loud-whispered. “We need to ask you a few questions.”

“Yeah, it’s not as if we’re going to bite you or something,” Dooley chimed in.

We both laughed at that. Just the idea. Cats biting a dog! Ha ha.

But the Chihuahua didn’t laugh along. He probably wasn’t in on the joke.

“Look, we’re cat detectives,” I said, “And we’re trying to figure out who killed Dany Cooper.”

“Do you know who Dany Cooper was?” asked Dooley.

“I know who Dany was,” the dog said, in a scared little voice. He didn’t sound or behave like any dog I’d ever met.

“Well, she was murdered this afternoon,” I said, “so we’re trying to figure out who did it.”

“You’re not going to hurt me?” asked the doggie.

“Of course not. Why would we want to hurt you?” I said, more abruptly than I intended.

“Oh, please don’t scratch me,” said the doggie. “A cat once scratched me and I didn’t like it.”

“We’re not the scratching kind,” I assured him.

“I’m sure glad Harriet didn’t come along,” Dooley whispered. “She would have scratched him for sure.”

“Dooley, shush,” I said. Addressing the Chihuahua, I repeated, “We don’t scratch dogs, dog. Usually it’s the other way around.”

“Yeah, dogs like to bite us, for some reason,” Dooley added. “No idea why. We’re not that tasty, as far as I know.”

“I’m not going to bite you,” said the doggie. “I never bite anyone—except my bone, of course. I like to chew my bone.”

“Well, that’s all right,” I said. “You won’t bite us and we won’t scratch you. Deal?”

“Um, okay,” he said, then reluctantly came crawling out from behind the nightstand.

He looked funny, with his big ears and his short body. His tail was down and he still looked pretty scared.

It was a novel experience. No dog had ever been afraid of me before.

“So what do you know about Dany Cooper?” I asked.

“She was nice. And my master liked her a lot. And I do mean a lot.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, they were putting their lips together a lot, and they spent an awful lot of time naked in bed together.”

Dooley and I were silent for a beat, then Dooley said,“Yeah, I guess they did like each other a lot.”

“Do you think your master could have something to do with Dany’s death?”

“Like what?”

“Like maybe he killed her?”

The dog cocked his head and stared at me.“I don’t get it.”

He didn’t strike me as the sharpest dog in the shed, so I repeated the question. “Did Wolf kill Dany?”

“But why would he kill her? He kept telling her he loved her. He’d also bought her a big ring and he said he was going to marry her as soon as his wife signed off on the divorce.”

“Divorce? Wolf was getting a divorce?”

“Sure. At least that’s what he told Dany. I don’t think he told Emily, though.”

“Emily?”

“Wolf’s wife. She’s very sweet. She was here, and then she wasn’t. I don’t think she liked it that Wolf spent so much time with Dany, even though he said he didn’t.” He shook his little head. “Humans are weird.”

“Tell me about it,” I said with a sigh.

“Anyway, Wolf loved Dany, so he would never hurt her. Besides, I was sitting next to him the whole time, so if he had killed her, don’t you think I would have noticed?”

So there went that particular theory.“I guess so.”

“This is just so sad. Dany always gave me lots of cuddles and kisses. I liked her.”

I suppressed a shiver. Who would want to kiss and cuddle a dog? Now that I was this close to him, I discovered Harriet was right. Dogs did smell. Some type of musky odor. Yuck.

“So exactly where were you when Dany was killed?” I heard Dooley ask. I was already moving back to the door, writing the interview off as a huge waste of time.

“I was right there. I actually saw her getting killed.”

“Wait, what?” I said, turning back.

“Yeah, it wasn’t pleasant,” said the dog. “This human stood chatting with her, then suddenly they made a move and her face went all weird, and then she dropped down.”

“Doggie,” I said intently.