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“What are they saying?” asked Scarlett, who then had the decency to pick me up and place me on her lap. So of course I rewarded her with plenty of purring!

“Carl tried to kill Dooley and called Max fat and orange,” Gran explained.

“Oh, the poor darlings!” said Scarlett, endearing herself to me even more than she already had. She plucked at my ears. “He’s a bad, bad, bad man, isn’t he, Max?”

“He sure is,” I said, a little piteously.

“At least he didn’t do them any harm,” said Odelia, “which is more than I can say about the divorce that isn’t happening.”

“Can’t Erica hire some ace lawyer? One of those people who can work miracles?”

“She can’t afford one of those miracle workers. Carl froze all of her bank accounts, canceled her credit cards and is blackballing her in the modeling world, making sure she’ll never work again as long as she doesn’t comply with his wishes.”

“I don’t get it,” said Scarlett. “What is this? The nineteenth century? You can’t hold a woman hostage like that. If she doesn’t want to stay married to the guy she should be able to get rid of him.”

“It’s not as simple as that,” said Odelia.

“Maybe you can write an article denouncing him,” Gran suggested. “Tell the world Erica’s story. Maybe then he’ll think twice about treating her like his personal property.”

“Dan asked me to play nice with the guy,” said Odelia. “I think he’s afraid that if we rock the boat we’ll lose advertisers. Or maybe he’ll come after us. Apparently Carl is a big name in town, and if we get in bad with him, it just might jeopardize the paper’s future.”

“This is just terrible,” said Scarlett. “Isn’t there anything we can do for Erica?”

Odelia shrugged.“I’m not sure. But if you have an idea, I’m all ears.”

Just then, her phone chimed and she picked it up from the table to glance at the number.“Chase,” she said, and picked up. “Hey, babe, what’s up?” She listened for a moment, and a frown soon creased her brow.

Scarlett watched the brow-creasing and sucked in her breath with a hissing sound.“Don’t do that,” she murmured. “You’ll get early-onset wrinkles if you keep doing that.”

But Odelia wasn’t listening. Instead, she said, “I’ll be there in ten.” She hung up, then announced to a captive audience, “The Hampton Heisters just broke into Katrina MacKney’s house.”

“No, they didn’t!” Gran cried, consternation making her sit upright with a jerk, causing Dooley to be relegated to the ground again.

“Who’s Katrina MacKney?” I asked.

“She’s a soap star,” Dooley explained. “One of Gran’s absolute favorites. She’s onGeneral Hospital. She plays Mrs. Emerald Brown. I think she’s the general who runs theGeneral Hospital hospital.”

“Do you guys want to come?” asked Odelia as she signaled the waitress for the check.

“Does a bear shit in the woods!” Gran cried.

“Does he?” Dooley asked, turning to me.

“I hope so,” I said. “Imagine if a bear shat on the carpet.”

So when Scarlett got up and deposited me on the ground, I heaved a sigh of disappointment. I quite enjoyed her strokes and had been purring up a storm.

But duty calls, I guess, and soon we were on our way, this time to lend aid and comfort to a soap star.

9

While in the car, we briefly touched on the topic of Harriet and Brutus suddenly having decided to up and leave our nice little home for yonder shores and adopting a dog’s life instead.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” said Odelia. “I’m sure they’ll be back in no time.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Last time I talked to Brutus he seemed to enjoy living with the Trappers.”

“How about Harriet?” asked Odelia. “What does she think?”

“Harriet is reserving her judgment. Until she’s spent some more time over there.”

“They’ll be back,” Odelia reiterated, seeming awfully sure of herself. “No cats of mine have ever left to find a better home elsewhere, and I don’t think it will happen this time.”

“Brutus doesn’t like all the fuss Gran makes,” said Dooley, who was riding in the backseat along with me. Gran and Scarlett, of course, were following behind in the little red Peugeot Gran likes to drive, though driving probably isn’t the right word for the kind of thing Gran does with a car. “And he doesn’t like all the murder business either.”

“All the murder business? As if we have to deal with murder so often.”

“Well, we have dealt with murder quite often in the recent past,” I said.

“Have we really?” said Odelia as she checked her GPS to make sure we were still going in the right direction. “I wasn’t aware that we had.”

“We’ve been involved with dozens of murders, Odelia,” I pointed out, “which is something of an oddity as there are only fifteen thousand people in Hampton Cove.”