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The firm of Morro& Wissinski was located in a corridor that forked off the main atrium of the Keystone Mall in Hampton Keys. The mall serves Hampton Cove, Hampton Keys and Happy Bays, and has been a popular mainstay in these parts for many decades. For obvious reasons I haven’t been there a lot—cats don’t like to do their own shopping, leaving the carrying of those heavy bags of cat kibble and cat litter to their loving owners. The parking lot was pretty much full, indicating that the mall was as popular as ever. And when we entered, the atrium was a sight to behold: a large display ofZeus: Tempter of Fate was in obvious evidence. The new Zeus movie was having its Long Island premiere at the mall this weekend, and they had pulled out all the stops. Life-sized figures of Zeus and his main nemesis Dr. Ghoul had been placed there, surrounded by props depicting a scene from the movie, where clearly Zeus was fighting the good fight against his eternal enemy.

“Very impressive,” Dooley said as he watched the display with awe. Around us, young kids were also looking their eyes out, they being the main audience for the Zeus franchise, and presumably every other motion picture that comes out of Hollywood these days.

“I wonder how we’ll be able to talk to this Sergio Sorbet guy,” I said. “If he’s as big a star as this display tells me he is, he’ll have agents and minders and assistants and lawyers and bodyguards, all of them shielding him from a woman determined to find out if he drove the car that killed Poppy.”

“Odelia will find a way,” said Dooley as we trudged on in our human’s wake. “She always does.”

“Yeah, she is tenacious,” I agreed. “And she can always play the pregnancy card.”

“The pregnancy card?”

“Yeah, when they try to throw her out, or things get rough, she can point to her belly and demand that they treat a pregnant woman with the respect she deserves.”

“She can tell them about her baby lump. I’m sure they’ll be impressed.”

“Baby bump, Dooley, not lump.”

And we would have entered the offices of Morro& Wissinski, if not a beefy and serious-looking police officer stood parked in front, clearly put there to keep people out.

“What’s going on?” asked Odelia.

“Robbery,” the man said, then lowered his voice. “One of them got a car dropped on top of him, if you can believe it!”

“A car dropped on top of him?” asked Odelia, looking at the man as if he’d gone nuts.

“Better take a look,” the cop advised, and stepped aside to allow Odelia in. She was, after all, a colleague of his.

You see, Odelia is a reporter, but she’s also a civilian consultant attached to the police department, and as such even has the badge to prove it.

Once inside, we quickly saw what the cop at the door had meant: a very large car had been dropped on top of a desk. The desk had collapsed under the weight of the car, which must have weighed a ton—literally—and I could see an arm poking from between the car and what was left of the desk. On the floor, a pool of blood indicated that the man hadn’t survived the incident.

“Hey, babe,” suddenly a voice sounded. “What brings you here?”

We glanced up, and found ourselves looking into the smiling face of Odelia’s husband Chase. The burly cop was donning plastic gloves, and now handed similar gloves to our human. He was dressed in his usual outfit: jeans, boots and a white T-shirt stretched taut over a muscular torso. His dark hair almost reached his shoulders. Chase never did enjoy visiting the hairdresser.

“Is that…” Odelia said, pointing to the dead man.

“Jona Morro,” said Chase, his smile vanishing.

Next to the car wreck, a man was poking around, trying to get a good look at the body. It was hard, since the car was blocking his view. The man was Abe Cornwall, our county coroner, and he clearly resented having to work under these circumstances.

“What have you got for us, Abe?” asked Chase.

“Well, he’s dead, I’m afraid,” said Abe.

“Don’t tell me. Death by car crash?”

“Something like that.” The paunchy coroner looked up. “From what I understand this car used to be suspended up there, hanging from the ceiling.”

“So an accident, you think?”

“I doubt it. Look at this.”

We all looked where the coroner was pointing. A sledgehammer stood leaning against the door.

“Someone knocked the supporting bolts out of the wall, causing the car to drop down on top of the fellow.” He now gestured to his crew of crime scene technicians, who all looked like Martians, in their CSI gear. “Can someone get this car out of here!” Abe said.

“Weird way to kill a person,” said Chase.

“I thought it was a robbery?” said Odelia as we stepped into the next office. Here a man sat, nursing a cup of coffee and looking white as a sheet. His head was bandaged and I had a feeling this just might be the Wissinski of Morro& Wissinski fame.

“Oh, it was. Knocked out this poor bastard, emptied the safe, and killed the other guy.”

“Is that Wissinski?”

“Yep, that’s him. I was just going to take his statement. Care to join me?”