ff3a28bfbb25315bb8c90759d8632474

She nodded, and a look of understanding passed between herself and her uncle. She would cut the new detective some slack. But then she remembered something else, and turned to Chase again.“Could you please do something about that cat of yours, Detective Kingsley?”

His eyebrows shot up.“My… cat?”

“Yes. He’s been throwing his weight around all over town, scaring the local cats and behaving as if he owns the place. More specifically, he’s been terrorizing my own cat Max. Really behaving like a genuine bully.”

Chase’s eyebrows shot up even further into his fringe. “Your cat Max.”

She nodded seriously.“He’s chased him out of the park…” She was going to add he’d also barred Max access to the police station, but stopped herself.

The chief coughed.“Odelia loves her cat, don’t you, honey?”

Chase barked an incredulous laugh.“I don’t believe this. You’re telling me that my cat is bullying your cat?”

She pursed her lips.“That’s exactly what I’m saying. You can’t simply barge into town and start throwing your weight around, Detective Kingsley.”

He rolled his eyes.“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“So you better have a talk with your cat and tell him to behave, all right?”

Chase threw up his hands.“Sure! Of course! Why not? I’ll ‘talk’ to my cat. Is there anything else you’d like me to do, Miss Poole? Tell my begonias not to take up so much space in my garden? Cause God knows they shouldn’t simply barge in here and start bullying other plants in other gardens!”

“You’re making fun of me now,” she said, eyeing him darkly.

“No,you’re making fun ofme!” he snapped, then turned away from her, muttering something under his breath that sounded an awful lot like ‘Who the heck do you think I am? Doctor frickin’ Dolittle?’

“Well, that’s settled then,” said the chief, placing his hands on his desk. He was looking uncomfortable. “Chase will have a word with his cat, and—”

“—as soon as you hear from the ME’s office—”

“—I’ll be sure to give you a call,” he finished with a wide smile.

“Of course you will,” Chase added with another eye roll.

She turned.“You’ll soon find that down here in Hampton Cove we do things differently than in the big city, Detective Kingsley,” she snapped.

“You don’t say,” he muttered.

“So I suggest you get used to it,” she added, and without deigning him another glance, swept from the office and slammed the door behind her.

Chapter 5

I decided to return to the house and regroup. This whole business with Brutus had thrown me for a loop. If you can’t even go where you want in your own town, it’s a sad state of affairs. So when I arrived in my own backyard again, I felt both relieved—this was most definitely my domain and no domineering cat could tell me otherwise—and annoyed, for I suddenly felt cooped up for the first time in my life. When you’re a free roaming spirit and suddenly you’re forcibly confined to your own backyard, it’s not much fun.

I suddenly felt what prisoners must feel like once they find themselves locked up in Guantanamo Bay. I even had the orange jumpsuit to go with my current position. Well, not the jumpsuit, maybe. But definitely the right color.

The moment I set foot in my yard, Harriet and Dooley came trotting up. I swear they have a sixth sense about these things. Or maybe they simply gab a lot. Word spreads fast in our small Hampton Cove cat community.

“What happened?” asked Harriet. She appeared genuinely worried, which felt like balm to my wounded pride.

“Yeah, what’s going on?” Dooley asked. “I heard you got kicked out of the police station by that brute Brutus?”

“And is it true that a man was murdered?” asked Harriet, eyes wide.

“How do you guys even know about that?”

“Well, Stacy Brown’s cat witnessed the standoff between you and Brutus, and Father Reilly’s tabby Shanille was out snooping around the Writer’s Lodge yesterday,” said Harriet, studying her paw intently. “The place was crawling with cops, and next thing she knew an ambulance rode up and took away what looked like a corpse. She had to move upwind at some point, as the place was stinking to high heaven.” She wrinkled her nose. “Shanille said they found the body in the lodge’s poo-poo pit.”

“It’s true,” I confirmed. “They found the body of that writer that went missing last year. Paulo Frey, remember? He used to stay at the lodge at least once a year, to write his bestsellers, and last year vanished without a trace.”

“So they found him, huh?” asked Dooley, licking his butt. All this talk about poo-poo had apparently inspired him to have a taste of his own poo-poo pit. What can I say? Us cats are a very suggestible bunch.

“So what happened? Did he commit suicide? Jump into the pit?” asked Harriet, her green eyes glittering with excitement. “Why would he do that?”

“Humans love poo-poo,” said Dooley wisely. “He must have wanted to take a bath in the stuff and accidentally drowned. It’s the latest craze.”

I stared at him.“What are you talking about?”