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Chase cocked an eyebrow. He had a feeling Odelia wouldn’t be the only one sinking her teeth into the mysterious disappearance of Vicky Gardner, and moments later she was already turning to him, her eyes gleaming. “Chase, honey? Let’s find Vicky!”

“I don’t know, babe,” he said. “A twenty-year-old cold case? Finding a woman based on a ring?”

“Oh, please—it’ll be fun!”

“I need a cold drink,” he said, and as he walked into the house, he soon found himself joined by his future father-in-law. And as both men dug up a pair of cold sodas from the fridge, Chase said musingly, “Why is it always this family that gets mixed up in this kind of thing, Dad? Is it karma, you think? Or just plain old coincidence?”

“I have no idea… son,” said Tex, clinking sodas with the cop, “but you better get used to it.”

Chapter 7

“So who is this woman, Max?”

“I don’t know, Dooley. All I know is that she was rich and that she disappeared a long time ago.”

“Oh,” he said. “Not much to go on, then?”

“Not much to go on,” I agreed. Though that had never stopped a pair of feline sleuths like us before. Last night Odelia had recruited us on the spot, and since we still felt exceedingly guilty about destroying Chase’s precious inflatable pool, we’d immediately and without demurring agreed that we’d find out what had happened to the mysterious owner of that mysterious ring hidden inside that mysterious figurine on the double.

And as we were traversing Hampton Cove’s streets, early in the morning and therefore still relatively cool, I thought how hard this assignment was going to prove.

I mean, it’s hard enough to find a person who went missing yesterday, let alone one who disappeared two decades ago, wouldn’t you agree?

Still, we were both determined to give it our best shot, and it was with this purpose in mind that we joined Kingman. The spreading piebald was seated in his usual spot: right in front of his owner’s general store, and already busily chatting with whoever awarded him their attention.

“Hey, Kingman,” I said by way of greeting as we walked up. “Boy do we have a doozy for you this morning.”

“Hiya, fellas,” said the voluminous cat. “Did you know that the world is actually a flat disk? I didn’t know but Wilbur told me all about it this morning.”

“A flat disk?” I asked, much surprised by this revelation.

“Yeah, turns out we’ve all been lied to all these years. The earth is flat, you guys, and if we stray too far near the edges we just might fall off!”

“I, um, did not know that,” I said.

“Yeah, Wilbur joined some group online that is all about revealing the truth to the world,” said Kingman with a nod.

I looked up at Wilbur Vickery, who was busy surfing on his phone and ignoring his customers. He did indeed look like the kind of person who’d believe anything anyone posted on the internet.

“So what is it you wanted to ask me?” said Kingman. “And better make it quick, cause I’ve got a date with a hot young lass lined up.”

That didn’t surprise me one bit either. Kingman always has dates with young undiscerning lasses lined up. How he does I do not know, for he’s hardly the most beautiful cat in the world. He does have the gift of the gab, though, so maybe that’s got something to do with it.

“A spider jumped Marge yesterday,” said Dooley, deciding to start his story from the very beginning. I could have told him that sometimes it’s better to startin medias res, so to speak, but Dooley clearly hadn’t been made aware of this. “It was a very hairy spider. But that’s not important. She found a goatherd,” he continued, much to Kingman’s confusion.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “So a hairy spider and then a goatherd. Gotcha.”

“And then Harriet broke the goatherd—”

“How did she manage to do that? Usually goatherders are pretty tough fellas.”

“It wasn’t a fella—it was a girl goatherd. And a very pretty one, too, with a blush on her cheeks and a smile on her face. Clearly a goatherd who loved herding goats.”

“Oh-kay… So how did Harriet manage to break this blushing goatherd, may I ask?”

“It wasn’t a real goatherd,” I explained. “It was a figurine of one, and it broke.”

“Uh-huh,” said Kingman, whose attention was already starting to wane, as his gaze drifted away from us, looking for more interesting avenues to explore—not unlike a fellow guest at a reception or dinner party, glancing over your shoulder in search of a more interesting person to talk to than you.

“And inside the goatherd was a ring,” Dooley continued, oblivious that the attention of his audience was slipping and slipping fast. “And this ring belonged to Vicky Gardner, who disappeared twenty years ago. And now Odelia wants us to find her, dead or alive.”

“Dead or alive, huh?” said Kingman. “That’s the way to go, boys. Always catch ‘em dead or alive. Now if you’ll excuse me for one sec…” And with these words he was waddling off in the direction of two pretty female felines who just happened to pass by.

“I think we just lost Kingman,” I said.