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Dooley’s eyebrows rose at her use of the term ‘we’. “We were just going over to the general store, to see what the word on the street is,” he said.

“Yeah, we wanted to pick Kingman’s brain. See what he has to say.”

Kingman was the cat of Wilbur Vickery, owner of Vickery General Store on Main Street, and a great source of information on what was happening in this town and what people were talking about. Along with the barbershop and the doctor’s office, the store was among our favorite places to hang out.

Kingman slept all day on Wilbur’s counter, and even though it looked like he was out of it, he was actually acutely aware of everything that went on around him, which made him such a great source of information.

“Good idea,” said Harriet cheerfully. “Let’s go talk to Kingman.”

I had my qualms about Harriet being an agent for the enemy, like Dooley had said, but decided to let her tag along anyway. It would have been sad to have to send her away, especially as she’d been our friend for as long as the three of us had been alive on this planet. I guess I was just being sentimental.

Chapter 8

We arrived at the general store, and walked straight in through the open door. As usual, Kingman was asleep on his high perch on the counter, while Wilbur was busily ringing up his customers.

“Psst, hey, Kingman,” I said.

The spreading piebald opened one lazy eye and stared down at us, then acknowledged our presence by grunting,“Meet me outside in five.”

We did as we were told and trooped out again, staking out a spot next to the display table full of fruits and vegetables. Five minutes later, Kingman came trotting out.“Wilbur doesn’t like it when the place is full of cats,” he said, quite surprisingly.

“Why?” I asked. “He’s never had a problem with cats before.”

“There’s been a spate of thefts lately,” said Kingman, “and he suspects cats are involved. I’ve been trying to catch them but they’re pretty sneaky.”

“Well, we would never steal anything,” said Dooley.

“You stole an entire bowl of p?t? this morning,” I reminded him.

“That was different.”

“How was that different? You cleaned out Princess’s bowl. I saw you.”

“Princess? Who’s Princess?” asked Harriet.

“Just some cat,” said Dooley vaguely.

“John Paul George’s cat.”

“And you cleaned out her bowl?” asked Harriet.

“We were guests,” said Dooley. “Guests are allowed to eat a host’s food.”

“Not when you’re not invited, you’re not,” I said.

“We were invited.”

“How were we invited? The host was dead. You can’t be invited by a dead host.”

Dooley rolled his eyes.“Oh, please. You ate from all the bowls.”

I shrugged.“I was hungry. If I don’t eat I get cranky.”

“All right, all right, all right,” said Kingman now. “Settle down, you guys. It’s not stealing if the food’s out there in the open, all right?”

“See?” asked Dooley. “I wasn’t stealing. I was just sampling.”

“An entire bowl?” I asked. “That’s not sampling. That’s gobbling.”

“Who’s Princess?” Harriet asked again. “Have I met her?”

“No, you haven’t,” I said. “She’s one of Johnny’s dozen cats.”

Harriet gave Dooley a curious look.“So why did you eat her food?”

“It was p?t?, all right?” cried Dooley. “I couldn’t resist.”

“Actual p?t??” asked Kingman, interested.

“Yeah, the expensive kind,” Dooley said. “To die for, I swear.”

“It was pretty good,” I conceded.

“Pretty good? It was the best food I’ve ever tasted.”

“So what does this Princess look like?” asked Harriet.

“Can we just talk about the dead guy now?” I asked. I was already regretting having started this whole thing about the p?t?. If you’re going to accuse someone of stealing, you better make sure you haven’t stolen the stuff yourself, I now discovered. It kinda destroys your moral superiority.

“Yeah, what about that, huh?” asked Kingman with a shake of the head. “A regular murder in Hampton Cove. What’s the world coming to?”

“So you heard about that?” asked Dooley. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Kingman always knew everything that was going on in this town.

“The mayor’s wife came in early this morning to buy plums to make plum pie, and she’d heard it from her husband who’d heard it from the Chief that the body of John Paul George was found floating face down in his pool.”

“News sure travels fast,” said Harriet, still studying Dooley.

“It sure does,” said Kingman with a grin. Like most cats in Hampton Cove he had a thing for Harriet, who was pretty much the prettiest cat for miles around. Except for Princess, maybe, which was probably why Harriet was so curious to find out more about her. Keep an eye on the competition.

“Any idea who did it?” asked Dooley.

“I could ask you the same thing. You were out there, weren’t you? One of Johnny’s cats strolled by here before. Said you were all over their place.”

“We only know what we saw,” said Dooley. “JPG in the pool. Poisoned.”

I gave him a warning look. Even though the story about Johnny’s death by poisoning would spread through town fast, there was no need to help it along. At least not until Odelia had written her article and got the scoop.