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“I guess I did.” She could hear loud snores in the background. “Trouble is, the moment we got back he dropped down on the bed and fell asleep. And we only have the one single bed.”

“Can’t you just roll him over?”

“Tough. Your uncle contends in the heavyweight division.”

“Well, you’re used to pushing weights, aren’t you? So push this one.”

“Babe, I can bench press two-fifty, but moving dead weight around is beyond me.”

“Did you just call my uncle dead weight?”

“As much as I love the guy, at this point I do.”

She laughed and disconnected.

“And?” said Gran. “Serge?”

She shook her head.“Arrested for underage drinking sixteen years ago. I wonder why his record hasn’t been expunged yet.”

“That doesn’t sound like the stone-cold wannabe killer we’re looking for.” Gran lifted her arms and dropped them again. “Day two and we’re still nowhere, honey. Nowhere!”

“Oh, well. Tomorrow is another day. Maybe we’ll get lucky.” And maybe her cats would come up with a vital clue—they often did.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_3]

Chase stared at the inert form of Chief Alec. He’d already tried rolling him over but that risked dropping him to the floor, and he didn’t want to do that to his friend and colleague. Shoving him sideways wasn’t possible, because of his spread-eagle position and the friction of his clothes against the sheets. And then he got it. He took a firm grip on the sheet and started pulling. It worked: Alec nicely shifted along with it.

Unfortunately, the police chief chose this exact moment to shift over to his side. And since he was on the edge of the bed by then, he simply plunged into the void, landing on the floor with a dull thud.

Amazingly, he didn’t even wake up—just kept on snoring like a lawnmower.

“Thanks, buddy,” said Chase, and dropped down on the bed and dozed off.

Chapter 20

We’d been hiding underneath that desk for what felt like hours and hours and hours.

First Odelia and Gran had left the room, but then soon after, just when we thought the coast was clear, Harlan had come stalking in, followed by Opal. They’d argued back and forth about the liquor cabinet for a while, until Harlan had watched as Opal opened the cabinet, which was indeed located right next to the desk, and had taken out all of the bottles, and carried them out of the room, followed by a wildly gesticulating Harlan.

Then, even as I’d already started poking my head from under the desk, the door had opened again and Hector had come sneaking in, had taken one look at the empty liquor cabinet and had uttered a loud lament, then had moved off again. The same thing happened five minutes later when the cook entered. She hadn’t cursed as loudly as Hector, but clearly hadn’t been happy with the new state of affairs either. And when finally a third man had come sneaking in, this one a bespectacled specimen with a big red nose, and had cursed, I was pretty sure we’d just met the elusive George.

When he left, I had a feeling the endless passage of humans might finally have abated. I was right, for the next ten minutes nothing more happened to disturb the peace and quiet of the study, and so we finally emerged from our hiding place.

Hopping onto Opal’s chair, and then onto the desk, I looked around, like a general surveying the battlefield. There were plenty of bookcases in the study, as seems to be typical for studies the world over, but nothing that screamed records or personal files.

“She probably keeps her files in these drawers,” said Brutus, who’d also crawled up.

Unfortunately, cats are slightly handicapped in the sense that we don’t open drawers with the same ease humans do. Still, Harriet gave it a shot, squeezing a nail into the crack and pulling. And she actually managed!

“Hurray!” I said, like a general spurring on his troops.

The drawer contained a large assortment of medication. Cough drops, pill bottles, a box promising a good night’s sleep to be had by all, but no documents or secret files.

The other drawers revealed nothing about a cloning factory either.

Finally I turned my attention to the computer located on top of the desk.

I pushed the button to boot it up, and before long we were glancing at a large picture of Prunella staring back at us from the computer screen.

The computer was locked, though, and in urgent need of a password to reveal all of its secrets.

I tapped the letters forming the word Prunella, and snap! We were in!

“Great job, Max,” Brutus grunted, in a rare compliment.

“I watch a lot of movies,” I told him.

“And it pays off dividends now,” he said with a smile.

Dooley and Harriet had also mounted the desk and now four cats stood side by side, staring at Prunella’s face.

“Now what?” asked Harriet.

“Now we look for any files associated with cloning,” I said, and called up the search window, then spelled out the word KLONE.

Nothing.

“I think clone is spelled with a C, though,” said Dooley, who watches a lot of the Discovery Channel.

“No, it’s not. It’s spelled KLOAN,” said Harriet.

“No, it’s KLOWN,” Brutus opined.

“I think it might be CLOWN,” said Dooley.