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“What are you doing here?” asked a gruff voice in our immediate vicinity.

I glanced over and found myself locking eyes with a tiny French Bulldog.

“Oh, hi,” I said. “My name is Max and this is Dooley, and we’re here to—”

“Trespass, that’s what you’re doing,” he barked. “Get lost, cats. This is private property.”

“But—”

“No buts. Get lost now or I’m calling security.”

“Oh,” said Dooley. “I thought you were security, tiny dog.”

The dog’s expression darkened. “What did you just call me?”

“Um? Security?”

“No, the other thing. Starts with a T and ends with Y. Horrible slur.”

“Tiny dog?”

“That’s the one. I’m going to have to punish you for that. Lie down and willingly submit to your punishment, cat. Come on, now. I’m going to give you one nip in the butt. And if you repeat the slur I’ll have to give you two nips, so don’t go there.”

“But, tiny dog,” said Dooley, “we’re simply here because—”

“And you just had to go there, didn’t you? Lie down and accept two nips in the butt.” And he approached Dooley to administer the appropriate punishment.

But Dooley wasn’t taking it lying down. He wasn’t even taking it standing up. Instead, he said, “But, tiny dog, all we want is to—”

“And there you go again. Three nips is the proper punishment and you will take it like a cat, cat. Now face the other way. This will only take a second, and it will remind you not to repeat these horrible slurs to my freckled face.”

“Look, tiny dog…” Dooley began.

“Four is the score! You’re not the smartest cat in the litter, are you, cat? Four nips in the butt.”

“Look, we’re here to investigate the murder of Chickie Hay,” I said. “So if you could tell us what you know we would be very much obli—”

“Murder?” asked the dog, expression darkening. “What are you talking about, cat?”

“Our human is a detective,” I explained, “and she was called here to investigate the murder of Miss Hay. And as her pet sleuths we were hoping you could shed some light on the matter.”

“This is crazy,” said the doggie. “Chickie Hay is my human, and she’s not dead. She’s alive and kicking. Well, maybe not kicking, exactly, but singing and dancing. In fact she’s right up there practicing for her new tour. And if you don’t believe me just direct your attention yonder and you’ll hear her angelic voice belting out her latest hit song.”

We directed our attention yonder, as instructed, but I couldn’t hear anyone belting out any song, new or old. In fact I didn’t hear a thing, except for Harriet yapping a mile a minute to the peacock, who was looking slightly dazed from all this verbal diarrhea.

“Um? I don’t hear anything,” Dooley finally announced.

“Me neither,” I said. “Are you sure she’s up there?”

“Of course I’m sure,” said the doggie, even though he now looked slightly worried.

The French Bulldog stared at us, clearly distraught, then, suddenly and without another word about nips in the butt, tripped off in the direction of the house.

“Not much of a witness,” said Dooley. “He doesn’t even know his human is dead.”

“He could still prove a valuable witness,” I said.

“He could?”

“He might not know what he knows and when we talk to him again, he might remember what it is that he didn’t know he knew. If you know what I mean.”

Dooley stared at me.“I’m not sure I got all that, Max.”

I wasn’t sure I got it myself. That’s the trouble with being a detective: you just muck about for a while, hunting down clues, speaking to pets and people, and finally you may or may not happen upon a clue that may or may not be vital to the investigation. And if you’re lucky you end up figuring out what happened. And if you’re unlucky, well, then Harriet beats you to it by extracting the telling clue from a silly-looking big bird with spectacular plumage.

Chapter 4

Laron Weskit sat enjoying his morning coffee whilst ensconced in front of the window of his hotel room. The room overlooked Hampton Cove’s Main Street and as such was perhaps not the best room in the house for a man who valued his privacy, but still preferable to a view of the back streets of the small Hamptons town.

A buff young man with a fashionable buzz cut and a trim hipster beard, he was one of the youngest and most successful record executives, with several popular artists on his roster. He’d already scanned the business section of theWall Street Journal on his phone and was just checking his emails when his smartphone sang out Charlie Dieber’s latest smash hit. A good record executive plugs his clients any way he can, and adopting his prot?g?’s hit song as his ringtone was but one way to accomplish this, subtly inflicting Charlie’s latest earworm on whoever happened to be in the room with him.

“Tyson, my man!” he said. “Whaddya got for me, buddy?”

“Bad news, I’m afraid, Mr. Weskit,” said Tyson.

“What is it this time? Another lawsuit? Or some fresh dig on Instagram?”

“I’m afraid Chickie’s dead, Mr. Weskit.”

For a moment Laron’s brain ceased to function, as if incapable of grasping this plain truth. “Dead? What do you mean, dead?”