e9c12ac8d703d9a536f23183edf8b22c

Moving on, they happened to pass by the park, and decided to take a breather there. Harriet hoped they wouldn’t bump into more loved-up couples. She might be a true romantic at heart, but the last thing she needed right now were kissing couples. After the spectacle they’d just witnessed, the thought of humans kissing made her sick.

“I really don’t understand what the big deal is with kissing,” she said. “Personally I think it’s gross. Putting your tongue against the tongue of another person. Yuck.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty disgusting,” said Brutus, making a face.

“And besides, it’s very unhygienic. All that saliva that’s involved, and those bacteria. There should probably be a law against kissing. It’s a public health risk. I think it would be in the benefit of all of mankind if—say, what are those two doing there?”

She was referring to Dwayne Late and Oscar Godish, seated on a nearby park bench and talking animatedly with a third person, some blonde who looked familiar somehow. And then she had it.“Isn’t that the writer whose book Marge is reading?” She’d seen it lying on Marge’s nightstand.

“Yeah, I think so,” said Brutus.

“So what is she doing with those two guys?”

And then, before their very eyes, suddenly the shortest guy, the insurance man, took out a small box from his pocket, and handed it to the writer, who gratefully tucked it away into her purse!

“Hey, they’re handing the Pink Lady to that author woman!” said Harriet.

“Maybe she’s the Sheikh?”

“Don’t be stupid, Brutus. There are no women sheikhs. Besides, why would a sheikh meet in a public park to exchange diamonds? No, there’s something fishy going on.”

“So what do we do?”

“We don’t do anything. We just make sure they don’t see us, and we follow that diamond.”

“Good idea,” said Brutus approvingly.

Harriet smiled in spite of the shocking scene.“You know what this means, don’t you?”

“No, what?”

“That we might be able to best Max at his own game for once.”

Brutus’s face lit up with a smile of such wattage it probably could be seen from outer space. “Oh, my,” he said softly.

It had been far too long since they’d cracked a case, Max usually being the one who found the killer or solved the mystery, in spite of Harriet and Brutus’s best efforts. But not this time!

And so when finally the trio split up, with the insurance guy and the diamond expert going one way and the author lady going another, Harriet and Brutus decided to follow the money—or at least the diamond—and were soon tailing the author through the park, tails high, and making sure they stayed out of sight, just like real detectives would.

Their mission was suddenly complicated—or simplified—by the fact that they spotted another familiar figure reposing on a bench: Marge Poole!

25

Marge, who’d been relaxing with her new favorite book, suddenly started when a loud “Pshhhht!” sounded in her ear, immediately followed by, “Don’t turn around!”

“It’s us,” a second voice chimed in. “Harriet and Brutus!”

“Oh, hey, you guys,” she said as she placed down the book. “What’s with all the cloak and dagger stuff?”

“Don’t look now, Marge, but to your immediate right there’s that woman—the writer of that book you’re reading.”

So she glanced over ever so discreetly, and saw that Harriet was right: there was Loretta Gray, walking past with a certain briskness in her step, not looking left or right.

“Don’t scream, Marge, but she just took possession of the Pink Lady!” Harriet loud-whispered.

Marge had no intention of screaming—in fact it would have taken a lot more than this message for her to start hollering her head off, but still she couldn’t suppress a quick intake of breath. “The Pink Lady? But I thought Odelia and Chase were supposed to give it to the insurance people?”

“They did, and the insurance people just gave it to this lady.”

“So now we’re following her and trying to find out what’s going on,” Brutus added.

This time Marge did glance back, and saw that both cats were hiding in the bushes behind the bench.“I don’t get it. Why would the insurance people hand the diamond to Loretta Gray?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” said Harriet, “but my spider sense is tingling, which tells me that something is off.”

She smiled.“You have a spider sense?”

“Not really,” said Harriet with a shrug. “But I have feline intuition, which is probably even better.”

“Yeah, I have feline intuition, too,” said Brutus, “and plenty of alarm bells are going off in my head right now.”

“Okay, so maybe I’ll follow along with you guys. Cause I have to tell you that I don’t trust this woman either. When I talked to her yesterday she was acting very strange, and I’ve been reading her book, and she knows a lot of stuff that she couldn’t possibly know.”

“Like what?” asked Harriet as she and Brutus emerged from the bushes and the trio got going, following Loretta from a safe distance.

“Like the fact that Laura Burns, the Sheikh’s ninety-ninth wife, wasn’t well-liked by the Sheikh’s courtiers or by his ninety-eight other wives.”

“But why?” asked Harriet.