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“Frankly I have no idea where to begin. Unless…”

“Unless?”

“Max and Dooley overheard a strange conversation last night.” In a few words she brought her grandmother up to speed on Helga and Hector.

Gran hit the palm of her hand with her fist.“That’s it! It’s always the servants that did it! The server sabotaged the car and the cook poisoned the coffee. Of course!”

“But why?”

“Who cares why? We got em—or the cats got them. Let’s go and tell Opal now.”

“Let’s not. We’re not sure they’re the ones behind this thing.”

“Sure we’re sure!”

“No, Gran. Before I start throwing accusations around I want to be one hundred percent sure. What if they didn’t do it? Opal will lose her faith in us, and the whole thing will get messy. I want to talk to this Hector and Helga before we break the news to Opal.”

“Oh, all right. Have it your way, but I think you’re too prudent. For all we know they could have sewn a bomb into Opal’s kaftan which could detonate any moment now.”

Just then, a loud voice hollered,“I want to speak to Opal! Opal! Are you there! OPAL!”

Chapter 11

We followed the loud woman into the building, wondering what was going on. Security couldn’t hold her, and she stalked down the corridor in the direction of Opal’s offices.

“Opal Harvey! I demand to see you now!” the woman was yelling.

From different offices heads came poking out, and I was surprised to see how many people actually worked there.

“Opal has a lot of staff,” Dooley commented, having come to the same conclusion.

“Well, she does run a website, a magazine and a show,” I said.

“Opal Harvey! Show your face if you dare!” the woman was screaming. “OPAL!”

“Yes, yes, YES!” said Opal, suddenly emerging from the conference room, along with the rest of her staff. “What’s all this noise?”

“You ruined me!” the woman said, stabbing an accusing finger in the talk show mogul’s direction. “You did a piece on our farm and you ruined us!”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” said Opal. “Who are you?”

“My name is Jacqueline Jackson, and you did a piece on our dairy farm last month, how badly we treat our cows, and how horrible our milk is, and now no one wants to buy our products and we had to close down the farm. I demand retribution!”

“Well, if I did a piece on your farm I probably had good reason,” said Opal, standing her ground.

“You had no right!” the woman screamed. She was squat and ruddy-faced, probably from screaming so much.

“Oh, you’ll find that I have every right.”

“I’ll sue you! I’ll sue all of you!”

“Oh, take a number, honey,” said Opal with a shake of the head.

“You heard me!” the woman said, fixing the people surrounding her with a menacing glare. All of Opal’s staff had now emerged from their offices. There were easily thirty or forty people standing there, taking in the surprising scene.

“I’ll sue every last one of you! You work for a disreputable company and I’m going to make sure the world knows what’s going on here!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Opal, clearly not impressed.

Security had finally caught up with the woman and now gently escorted her away.

“You ruined us! You did that, Opal! That’s on your head!”

“Show’s over, people,” said Opal, clapping her hands. “Back to work, all of you.”

“What was that all about?” asked Dooley.

“I guess Opal did a piece on that woman’s farm and she didn’t like it.”

“No, I guess she didn’t.”

“Do you think she could be a suspect?”

“She could be. She certainly seems angry enough.”

I could see that Odelia had the same idea, for she was already hurrying after the woman and the burly security guards escorting her out.

“Hey, wait up!” Odelia yelled, as she jogged after them.

“A woman in Opal’s position probably has a lot of enemies,” I mused.

“She does? But she seems so nice.”

“Nice people can make enemies, too. Opal wields a lot of power. Every person she ever interviewed who didn’t like the outcome of the interview could potentially be a threat. So how do we know who’s the one?”

“I don’t think she has enemies, Max. Opal loves cats. Cat people don’t have enemies.”

I wasn’t listening. Instead I was following my own train of thought. “I’m sure Opal’s security people have a list of all the people who ever threatened her,” I said. “Let’s tell Odelia to talk to them. It might be a wild goose chase but we have to start somewhere.”

“Why would Odelia chase wild geese?” asked Dooley, but I was already off in search of Odelia. We finally found her in the lobby of the studio building, where she was seated in a corner, talking to the shouting woman. Security people stood nearby, keeping an eye out for trouble, in case the woman tried to accost Opal again.