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“No, but they could make your life very difficult,” I said. “These two are up there with the happy few, honey. They’ve got powerful friends who might put the squeeze on Dan and his advertisers until he’s forced to choose between you or the survival of his paper. No, if you’re going after those two you’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way: by launching a smear campaign.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re a reporter. You write the story and credit an anonymous source.” I pointed at myself and Dooley. “We’re your anonymous sources, honey.”

“But how can I go after him? I don’t have a single shred of proof.”

“Leave that to us,” I said. “First we’ll find ourselves a witness of the commissioner’s indiscretions, and then we’ll get you your proof. Like I said, someone somewhere saw those two, and, like with cats, nowadays smartphones are pretty much ubiquitous, so someone’s bound to have snapped a picture, even if they don’t know its importance. And once those pictures surface, they’ll corroborate the story you’re about to write.”

She smiled down at me.“You guys are really special, do you know that?”

“I do know that,” I acknowledged. “Of course we’re special.”

“Just like Babe,” Dooley muttered.

“Just like Babe,” I said. Dooley had been right all along. We were special, and we didn’t even have to speak sheep to prove it. Or dance like penguins.

Chapter 16

Odelia pulled the car up in front of the police station, and let the cats out. Dooley seemed reluctant to be shifted, so Max gave him a poke and he finally relented, muttering something about never being allowed to get any sleep.

“We have a job to do, Dooley,” said Max solemnly. “Sleep can wait.”

She watched the two cats stalk off, launching their all-important mission, and smiled to herself. If it hadn’t been for her special talent of being able to talk to cats, her life would have looked quite different. She walked into the police station and waltzed straight past Dolores, who announced that this time the chief was in, and would be more than happy to see her.

Happy or not, he was going to see her anyway. She needed to know what the medical examiner had discovered.

“Hey, Odelia,” said her uncle when she breezed into his office. “I was just going to call you.” And he held up his phone as proof of these words.

She plunked down in a chair and gave him a tense look. All this business with Chase had only served to take her mind off the murder case, which was probably a whole lot more important than whether the detective was innocent of the crime he’d been accused of or not.

“Shoot,” she finally said. “How did Paulo Frey die?”

“Well,” said her uncle, leaning back in his chair, “looks like bludgeoning.”

“Bludgeoning?”

“The guy had his head smashed in. And since we found a poker next to the body, that just might be our murder weapon. Especially since it was a little bent out of shape, exactly the shape of a person’s head, actually.”

She whistled through her teeth.“That must have been some hit.”

“Yeah, whoever killed him hit him so hard they fractured his skull, which, according to the ME, is what caused his death. And a good thing, too.”

“That’s a little harsh. You didn’t even know the guy.”

Her uncle emitted a chuckle.“I mean that if he’d been stabbed or had his throat slit we might never have found out, as the body was too decomposed.”

“Anything else? Chase told me you pinpointed time of death?”

“Yeah, the techies discovered that Frey used to sync his smartphone to his laptop, which was an automated process, apparently. The last time he did was September sixteen, which is also the last time the laptop was accessed.”

“Because it ended up in the cesspit along with the body.”

“Exactly.”

“Did you get anything off his phone?”

“Nope. We’re checking his laptop, but so far it hasn’t yielded any clues.”

“No webcam picture of the killer bending over the victim while he was busy working on his next masterpiece?”

He laughed.“Now wouldn’t that be something? But no. No picture of the killer.”

“Too bad.”

“Yeah.” He gave her a quick look. “Chase tells me you keep popping up wherever he goes?”

“I could say the same thing about him.”

“It’s driving him nuts,” said her uncle with a grin. “I guess NYPD cops aren’t used to reporters interviewing suspects and going over the crime scene.”

“I guess not,” she said with a smile.

“You talked to Aissa Spring and Gabby Cleret, so there’s not much you don’t already know, I guess,” he said, checking a file on his desk.

“Apart from the fact that Paulo Frey was not a nice person? I guess not.”

“Yeah, he was a piece of work, all right,” her uncle admitted. “I talked to Hetta Fried, by the way.”

“The owner of the Writer’s Lodge? What did she have to say?”

“Well, apparently Frey never paid his bills. He had this thing where he simply ignored any reminder she’d send him until she threatened with a lawsuit. Then he’d pay up, but only a fraction of the total amount.”

“But why? I thought he was rich.”