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“It is, Dooley, it absolutely is,” said our choir director, and then burst into tears in earnest. We all rallied round to pat her the back and such, and it was obvious that the news had struck a chord with the feisty choral leader.

Brutus and I stood back to give Shanille some much-needed space, and my butch black friend said,“Don’t feel bad, Max.”

“Bad about what?”

“About getting it wrong. You got a great track record, buddy. And even the best of us have an off day, you know.”

“But it all fits,” I said.

“I know it does, buddy. I know it does.”

“He’s her father, Brutus—her father.”

“Of course. I hear you.”

“So he must be the one who…”

“Oh, for sure—only he isn’t. So it’s back to the drawing board for you.” And he gave me a vigorous pat on the back. A little too vigorous, I thought, but then I hardly noticed, as I was thinking hard about where I’d gone wrong. And so while Shanille was still shedding hot tears of joyfor her human’s future bliss, I went over the entire case again, as far as I could see it, and tried to make the pieces of the puzzle fit. Brutus was right. I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. We all make mistakes, and clearly I had made one now.

And soon, as I collected my thoughts, and tried to think this through in a calm and methodical manner, I saw a different angle to the case I hadn’t considered before. And the more I thought along the lines of this new theory, the more the pieces fell into place. And before long, I experienced that familiar tingle I get when I’m on the right track. Though if my instincts were correct this time, we had to hurry—if we weren’t too late already!

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Angel had a hard time falling asleep. Even though by her calculations it was the middle of the night, she was still wide awake. If at first she’d figured people were pulling a prank on her, she’d grown increasingly anxious as the day wore on, then turned into night. And as she stared up at the ceiling, she wondered how much longer this ordeal would last. Or if at dawn, like a movie she recently saw, her final hour would strike, and they’d come for her—whoever ‘they’ were.

30

Vesta was up early as usual, and pottering about in the kitchen, when she happened upon a suspicious plastic bottle in the fridge. The bottle contained a yellowish-greenish liquid that looked a lot like apple juice, only when she took a sniff it didn’t smell like apple juice at all. And she was just about to have a taste to determine what it could possibly be, when suddenly Tex stormed into the kitchen and grabbed the bottle from her hands.

“That’s mine,” he said, and stomped off again, as if she’d done him a personal disservice by taking a sniff at his precious bottle.

“You can have your stupid bottle!” she called after the man. But when she opened the cupboard, she noticed that it was filled with jars of mayonnaise, and when she stepped into the pantry, she found cartons of mayonnaise stacked high wherever she looked. It gave her the impression that her son-in-law’s hair loss issue was becoming everyone else’s issue, too, which wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she decided to give him some advice.

Marge, who came wandering into the kitchen looking sleepy, asked,“What’s with all the shouting?”

“Your husband keeps weird bottles in the fridge and when I wanted to take a sip he blew his top. And look at this.” She gestured to the pots of mayonnaise taking up precious space. “How much longer is he going to carry on like this?”

“You’re the one who told him to rub mayonnaise on his scalp, Ma,” Marge reminded her. “So if you want him to stop, you need to think of something.”

“Oh, I’ll think of something, all right,” Vesta grumbled, and stormed out of the kitchen then stomped up the stairs. And she’d just shoved open the bathroom door when she happened upon a strange scene: Tex was in the bath, holding his bottle over his head.

“What are you doing? What is in that bottle?” she demanded.

Tex looked up as if caught doing something he shouldn’t. “None of your business,” he said, and quickly screwed the cap back on the bottle and held it to his chest protectively.

Vesta now became aware of a strange odor in the bathroom. As if one of the cats had peed in there. She dove for that bottle, trying to prise it from her son-in-law’s fingers. Only Tex was faster than she was, and successfully managed to hold it out of reach.

“What is that smell?” asked Marge, who’d also come in. Then she caught sight of her husband in the bath, guilt written all over his face. “Tex—what the hell is going on?”

“He won’t let me touch his bottle,” Vesta lamented.

“This is my house,” Tex declared. “Can’t a man expect a minimum of privacy in his own home?”

“Privacy is overrated,” said Vesta, and eyed her son-in-law keenly. “If you won’t tell me what’s in that bottle, I won’t tell you the secret the cats shared with me last night about how not to lose your hair.”

Tex looked wounded.“That’s blackmail!”