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“No price was mentioned as far as I know,” said Marge. She wasn’t happy that Dudley was inserting himself into the conversation, but Tex had insisted, figuring he was part of the family now. Odelia, unfortunately, had already left for work, and so had Chase, otherwise they could have weighed in, too.

“So the mall is happening?” asked Tex.

“It’s still early days,” said Charlene. “Which is why if you’re going to sell you better do it now. Because if nothing comes of this, they’ll immediately rescind their offer.”

“Thanks for letting us know,” said Marge, and she meant it. They could always use the extra money, now that they apparently had an extra mouth to feed in the form of Dudley.

“I think you should hold off on accepting their offer, Daddy,” said the kid now. “Let them come back with a higher offer, and see how high you can get them to go before accepting.” He leaned back. “I’ll bet you can get them to offer you millions for that plot.”

“Millions!” said Tex with a laugh. “In your dreams, buddy.”

“No, I’m serious, Daddy! They need that land. Without it they can’t build their precious mall. So I’ll bet they’re willing to pay you whatever it takes to get rid of you.”

“Dudley isn’t lying, Tex,” said Charlene. “They seem very willing to make you a great offer. Their exact words were: whatever it takes.”

“Oh, my,” said Tex, a blush of excitement mantling his cheeks. “Do you hear that, honey? We could be rich.”

“Let’s wait and see,” said Marge, who didn’t like the way Dudley kept interfering in what she considered a private family matter.

“Okay, I gotta go,” said Alec, getting up. “Marge—can I have a quick word?”

She got up and followed her brother into the house. The moment they entered the kitchen he turned and said, with a frown,“What’s that kid up to?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but I don’t trust him—do you?”

“I’m not sure.” He glanced out through the window at Dudley, who was talking a mile a minute, with Tex smiling all the while. “Do you want me to check him out for you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—how do you know he really is who he says he is? He could be anyone.”

“I know. I was thinking the exact same thing. But Tex doesn’t want to hear it. He’s convinced Dudley is his son—end of discussion.”

Alec nodded, and glanced around.“Got anything that belongs to Dudley?”

“Um…” She picked up a sweater the kid had dropped on one of the kitchen chairs. “You mean something like this?”

The police chief quickly extracted a few hairs and tucked them into a small plastic baggie.“And now I’m going to need something of your husband.”

“DNA?” she said, understanding dawning.

“I hope he won’t mind that we’re going behind his back on this,” said Alec as he watched Marge rifle through the laundry hamper in the laundry room off the kitchen until she found one of Tex’s shirts. Alec repeated the procedure and tucked both baggies away.

“Oh, he won’t be happy about it,” she said. “But that can’t be helped.” She folded her arms across her chest. “What if he isn’t Tex’s son? What do we do then?”

“You let me worry about that,” he said with a smile as he placed a kiss on her brow.

She gratefully put a hand on his broad chest. In moments like these she was happy that her big brother was a cop.

As soon as Alec had left, she returned to the breakfast table, where the topic under discussion was still the same as before: the millions of dollars that would be flowing into the Poole coffers now that this mall development was underway. And as Marge studied Dudley, she found herself thinking once again that she didn’t trust this kid.

But how was she going to convince her husband?

Now there was an interesting problem.

Chapter 24

The moment Chase had returned from walking Rambo, Odelia had swept us all into her car and rushed off. Perhaps swept is too strong a word, as it’s probably hard for any human to sweep a two hundred pound dog into a car. Cajole is perhaps the better description, and so there we were, on our way to a destination unknown, four cats in the backseat, while Rambo took up space in the trunk of the car.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“My uncle gave me a secret assignment yesterday,” Odelia announced, sounding happy and excited in equal measure. “You remember Charlene’s uncle who died?”

“Yeah, he fell into his own pool, right?”

“Right. Well, Uncle Alec isn’t the kind of cop who likes to accept the most obvious explanation about anything, and so he wants me to look into this death a little closer. Make sure there’s nothing suspicious about it.”

“You think Charlene’s uncle was murdered?” asked Harriet.

“I don’t know. But I’m sure I’ll find out.”

“I like this,” grunted the dog who was breathing down my neck. “Just like the old days: out on patrol, catching the bad guys.”

“Did you go out on patrol a lot when you were on active duty?” asked Brutus, who, technically at least, was also a police animal, as he’d once belonged to a cop.