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Marge, still sitting upright in bed, like a strict disciplinarian—though the impact of her iron front was slightly diminished by her unflattering flannel nightgown—seemed to waver. “Like Chase says, we probably should have you both arrested. Then again, you did try to retrieve a diamond you thought was yours.”

“A diamond they stole, Marge,” Gran pointed out.

“Obviously,” said Marge, as she thought for a moment. “Here’s what we’ll do. You’re not going to get the diamond, of course, because that diamond isn’t yours. But I’m not going to press charges or ask Chase to arrest you, on one condition, and one condition only.”

“Which is?” said Jerry, nervously licking his lips.

“The history of the Pink Lady is a little fuzzy, and for reasons that are entirely my own, it intrigues me and I want to find out more. And since you are uniquely placed with contacts in the criminal world, I want you to find out what exactly happened to the diamond between the time it went missing thirty years ago, and the moment it popped up in a safe-deposit box at the Capital First Bank in Hampton Cove of all places. Do you think you can do that for me?”

“Not just for you, Mom,” said Odelia. “I’m sure that the people the diamond belongs to are dying to find out how it ended up here as well.”

“You want us to play detective, is that it?” asked Jerry, rubbing his chin dubiously.

“Absolutely.”

“Of course we will, Marge,” said Johnny, earning himself a look of criticism from his friend.

“How much?” asked Jerry.

“What do you mean?” asked Marge with a frown.

“How much are you paying us to play detective?”

“Jerry Vale!” said Marge. “Isn’t it bad enough that we caught you burgling our house?”

“All right, fair enough. So how about a finder’s fee? At least we should get a finder’s fee, right?”

“No finder’s fee,” said Chase. And when Jerry started to protest, he continued, “You’re lucky Marge and Tex aren’t pressing charges.”

At the mention of his name, Tex opened his eyes again.“You know, Fido just may have a point. The Cookie Monster could be ruling the world.”

“Go back to sleep, Tex,” said Gran with a disgusted gesture of her hand. “You’re drunk.”

At the mention of the D-word, Marge and Odelia frowned, and directed a curious look at the good doctor. But Tex had closed his eyes again, and was now snoring like a practiced lumberjack.

“I guess we’ll be going then,” said Jerry, and headed to the window.

“You can take the stairs,” Marge said, her expression having softened now that she knew she’d added Jerry and Johnny to the family payroll as her own private detectives.

“Gee, thanks, Marge,” said Johnny.

Jerry directed a final, longing look at the portrait of the gnome, probably the only time anyone who wasn’t Tex had ever looked at that ugly munchkin that way, but then his shoulders slumped and he followed his friend out of the room, and soon both crooks were stomping down the stairs.

“What a night,” said Gran, voicing everyone’s opinion on what had definitely been an eventful evening.

“Next time you really have to let me arrest them, Mom,” said Chase, who had the air of frustration any cop would feel when he comes this close to collaring two criminals and then is told that he can’t.

“I know, Chase, and I’m sorry,” said Marge. “But I really want to get to the bottom of the mystery of the Pink Lady, don’t you?”

She’d directed her question at her daughter and son-in-law, and they both nodded.

“I have a feeling there’s probably a great story there,” said Odelia.

“Absolutely,” said Marge, and glanced over to the nightstand, where a very large book was lying. And when I hopped up on the bed to satisfy my own curiosity, I saw that it was titled, ‘The Sheikh’s Passion,’ written by Loretta Gray.

Next to Marge, Tex was still snoring away. The man might be Marge’s own sheikh, but he certainly wasn’t very passionate.

Which reminded me that his was another case we urgently needed to take in hand.

Humans. Even when they reach adulthood they never stop causing trouble, do they?

17

The next morning, Dooley and I decided to take a walk into town. I wanted to see how Fido’s performance had affected his standing in the community, and if perhaps it had had a positive effect on his business. It wasn’t entirely inconceivable, after all, that people would now flock to his hair salon, to find out all there was to know about a Cookie Monster named Roger, who seemed tohold the world’s fate in his hairy paws—when he wasn’t snacking on cookies, that is.

“Do you think Johnny and Jerry can be trusted, Max?” asked Dooley as we sauntered along the sidewalk, passing the paperboy who was aiming newspapers at every porch he passed with unerring accuracy. It was a skill that must have taken him years to develop. Until one of the papers sailed through an open kitchen window and must have landed in a pot of steaming soup, for mere moments later a very irate-looking lady appeared, her face splattered with tomato soup and shaking a very angry fist at the kid, who made sure he pedaled out of reach as fast as he could.