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All in all I counted no less than six of them. They were drinking from open containers of beer, sipping from liquor bottles, and looked drunk and getting drunker by the second.

“You see, Dooley?” I said. “No zombies and no aliens. Just stupid kids.”

A wheelbarrow stood nearby, and the kids now dragged something up out of the grave, and placed it on the wheelbarrow.

“Giddy-up!” said the kid who’d dug the grave. He crawled out and dumped the shovel.

And then they were off, maneuvering the wheelbarrow with its precious load, singing a merry tune all the while. They were zigzagging, but that was probably the alcohol.

“Grave robbers,” I said.

I found myself wondering if these were the same kids who were responsible for the skeleton in Blake Carrington’s field, especially since I now remembered the empty cans of beer lying around that area, and the remnants of a fire.

“Let’s follow them,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I want to know what they’re up to.”

And so we followed them at a safe distance, and soon we’d left the graveyard, and watched as they placed the remains of what must have been a human in the back of a car, then slammed the trunk shut and were off, the car swerving violently before it raced away at a very respectable rate of speed, the kids howling like timberwolves. A beer can came whizzing from the car window, hit Dooley’s tinfoil hat off his head, and rolled to a stop.

“Hooligans, Max!” said Dooley as he retrieved his little hat.

I gave the beer can a good sniff, and memorized the scent for later use.

What? If dogs can do it, so can we!

“And now let’s go and get Fifi and Rufus out here,” I said. “We have a murder to solve, Dooley, and the sooner we do it, the better!”

“All right, Max,” said my friend. So he straightened his hat, and then we were off.

28

“Chase?”

“Yeah, babe?”

They were in bed, and instead of reading a book, Odelia was studying some of the information her uncle had sent over about the girl whose skeleton had been found nearby.

“That girl—Serena Kahl?”

“Mh-mh?”

“She was exactly the same age as Angel.”

“Is that so?”

Chase looked up from the hard-boiled crime novel he’d been reading.

“Yeah, and there are other similarities. Listen to this. Serena Kahl was nineteen, same as Angel, she went to a Catholic school, her father was a pastor and her mother the school principal. She disappeared after a night out with her friends and she was never found. And also, when she disappeared there was a full moon.”

“There was a full moon last night?”

“Yep, there was.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Chase. “So you think…”

“Like you said, we could be dealing with a serial killer, Chase.”

Chase frowned thoughtfully.“We better dig a little deeper, and see if there haven’t been more of these mysterious disappearances.”

“You know what this means, though, right?”

“That Angel might be dead already.”

It was a sobering thought, and one Odelia didn’t like to dwell on, but it certainly was a thought that seemed all too plausible.

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So we finally arrived home, and when we did, and proceeded straight into Marge and Tex’s backyard, hoping to find Rufus out and about, we came upon Gran instead, who was seated on the porch swing reading a book. The sight was so incongruous that we both sat and stared for a moment, before making our presence known.

“Gran, you’re reading a book,” said Dooley.

“Oh, hey, you guys,” said Gran. “And full marks for being so observant, Dooley. You’re right. I am reading a book. And not just any book—a great little tome.”

“But… you never read.”

It was true. I’d never seen Gran read a book before. Usually all she did was watch television: Jeopardy, reality shows, soap operas, movies—she was up for almost anything.

“Like I said, this is a great book.” She held it up so we could see the cover.

“My life in Tahiti,” I read. “By Malcolm Philan.”

“Who’s Malcolm Philan, Gran?” asked Dooley.

“Scarlett’s uncle. He lived in Tahiti for over seventy years and he’s written a book about his life. Very entertaining, I must say.” She adjusted her glasses and frowned. “Why are you wearing a tinfoil hat?”

“Dooley is afraid he’s going to be abducted by aliens,” I explained.

“They abducted Angel Church,” said Dooley. “And Big Mac says they’re also abducting pets now, especially pets that are either healthy or smart or both, and since I’m healthy I have to make sure they won’t catch me.”

“Okay, I see,” said Gran with a grin of amusement. “I actually wanted to ask you something.”

“Sure, shoot,” I said.

“Well, you know how Tex is worried about losing his hair, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So he asked me to ask you what your secret is—why cats don’t lose their hair, like humans do.”

“Oh, gee, Gran,” said Dooley, “that’s easy. Because we’re much smaller than humans, see?”

“And how do you explain that?”

“Well, gravity pulls at you, and when you’re big, it pulls at you hard, but when you’re small, like us, it pulls at you much less.”

“So?”