PURRFECT STAR

  THE MYSTERIES OF MAX 70

  NIC SAINT

  CONTENTS

  Purrfect Star

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Excerpt from Purrfect Ghost (Max 71)

  About Nic

  PURRFECT STAR

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  The Spy Who Killed Me

  They say that all good things come in threes, but also that misfortunes never come singly, so I’ll let you decide which of these proverbs applies to the following situation: first we discovered that a thief had been stealing our litter, thereby preventing us from doing our business the way we like to do it. And then one of our country’s most beloved actors was found murdered aboard his private yacht, with plenty of suspects likely to have done the deed. And if that wasn’t enough, Gran and Scarlett decided to reform the Neighborhood Watch Committee and actively insert themselves into the investigation, wreaking havoc and mayhem at every turn. In other words: troubled times lay ahead in Hampton Cove, that peaceful little town on the East Coast that always seems to teeter on the verge of disaster.

  PROLOGUE

  Jane Collins was walking along the quay and gazing out at the pretty boats and yachts that were moored in the Hampton Cove marina. It was a nice change of pace from being cooped up inside her home, where she had been hunched over her latest sewing pattern design. As a fashion designer, Jane had made quite a name for herself on sites like Etsy, selling her patterns to a great number of happy customers.

  She wouldn’t have minded boarding one of these yachts now, she thought as she looked upon their owners and passengers with a certain measure of envy. What she wouldn’t give to be far away from Hampton Cove and to lie on deck, her hand trailing in the warm azure waters of some tropical paradise, cloud gazing and generally letting the world go by. It would certainly be a nice change of pace from what she was used to. As a mother of four, she knew what responsibility was, and had been taking care of her offspring and her husband Bert for so long now that she often forgot that she also existed and also had a right to lead an exciting, wonderful and fulfilling life. Not that her patterns didn’t give her a certain measure of satisfaction, and she certainly had received plenty of acclaim. Only not from the people who really mattered to her.

  Which was why she was now walking along the marina and wondering about the choices she’d made. If she hadn’t married Bert, for instance, but decided to somehow hang on to the other man in her life—in many respects the only man she had ever loved. She hadn’t seen Robert in years, which hadn’t stopped her from wondering if her life would have been different if they had stayed together. The man had certainly done very well for himself. So much so that he was being presented with an award by the Hampton Cove Chamber of Commerce. Ever since she had heard the news that her ex-boyfriend would be in town, she had felt unusually restless and wondered if she shouldn’t leave town while he was there, almost as if she wanted to avoid him. On the other hand, she wanted nothing more than to clap eyes on the man who had broken her heart twenty-five years ago.

  She paused for a moment in front of a particularly huge yacht that lay at anchor. Called the Aurora, she was sleek and gorgeous, and as Jane stood admiring her graceful lines, suddenly a person emerged on deck who looked vaguely familiar. But as she looked closer, she realized it was none other than Robert himself. He looked older, of course, but still as handsome as ever. He must have recognized her, too, for he did a double take, then slowly removed his sunglasses as he took her in. For a moment, the two ex-lovers simply stared at each other, then Jane saw that a single tear glistened in the man’s eye, which is when she decided that maybe second chances existed after all, and she set her foot onto the gangway and stepped aboard.

  CHAPTER 1

  Dooley had been snoring softly and was generally lost to the world when a strange sound made him prick up his ears and immediately return to full wakefulness. The sound seemed to come from somewhere nearby, and even though his first thought was that Max had produced the sound, upon further inspection he discovered that his friend was still sleeping peacefully by his side and hadn’t moved an inch since they had fallen asleep together on the couch.

  Dooley now lifted his head to take in the rest of the living room, turning his ears like antennae to scan his surroundings for a bead on the source of the sound, but try as he might, his ultra-sensitive ears could not pick up the sound again. Almost as if its design had been to bring him out of his peaceful slumber and then down tools, knowing its work was done and nothing more was required.

  He yawned and stretched and decided to have a bite to eat, take a trip to his litter box, and generally do what cats do when they wake up and before they go right back to sleep. It wasn’t too much to say that today was a day like most other days, with the marked difference that he didn’t think the sun had been out in such splendor in quite a while. Hampton Cove had been blessed with plenty of rain lately, but now nature had apparently decided that enough was enough and had turned off the tap, bathing the world in a sunny glow for the first time in about a week. Nature was celebrating, for the birds were tweeting up a storm outside, the bushes and trees in the backyard all looked green and lush, and even the lawn looked as if it was in urgent need of a trim.

  As he walked to the kitchen to see if his bowls were still filled to his satisfaction, Dooley noticed that the pet flap was gently swinging, as if someone had recently passed through there and had quickly left again when they became aware of his presence. He didn’t pay any mind to the strange phenomenon, figuring it was probably either Brutus or Harriet, the other two cats in their household. In due course he reached his bowls, and saw they still contained sufficient amounts of the good stuff, then made a beeline for his litter box for a tinkle. And that’s when things turned a little weird. For when he arrived there, he saw that all the litter was gone, and not just in his personal litter box but also in Max’s!

  For a moment he simply stared at his empty box, scratching his head in wonder. That someone would have entered the house through the pet door to steal food from his bowl or drink his water was something he could have wrapped his head around, but why would anyone decide to steal his litter? As far as he knew, litter wasn’t one of the major food groups. It wasn’t nutritious, and possibly might even be harmful when ingested. And as he sat staring at his empty litter box, the front door of the house opened and closed, and moments later Odelia entered the kitchen, Grace on her arm, and he shared with her the gist of his complaint. Namely, that as a healthy grown-up kitty, he wasn’t merely in regular need of sustenance but also of a receptacle to deposit the end result of his mastication and digestive processes.

  Odelia, who clearly was as surprised as he was, promised she would look into the matter post-haste. At which point she simply walked out of the kitchen and left Dooley to his own devices, making him wonder if maybe he had failed to impress upon her the urgency of his request. Then again, he now realized she had looked a little distracted. In fact, she had only listened to him in a sort of half-hearted way and looked upon him as only a human could: her eyes seeing him, her ears hearing him, but her mind a million miles away. Almost as if she was dealing with problems of her own. Which was impossible, of course, for what could be more important than a sneak thief who went around stealing litter from innocent cats?

  Shaking his head at such a lack of cooperation, he decided to return to the couch and pour his lament into Max’s ears. Max would listen. Max would understand what was going on here, and most importantly, Max would act and fix things. Max always did. Dooley didn’t know how, but his friend was one of the great fixers in the world. Anything that was wrong, anything that went missing, any person or persons engaged in some form of wrongdoing, Max managed to right those wrongs and generally make things fine again. It was his greatest quality and what had made him Hampton Cove’s very own feline Sherlock Holmes. And the great benefit of being friends with such a powerhouse of detection was that Dooley had access to that formidable brain at all times, which was both a blessing and a curse. A curse in the sense that a lot of people lay claim to Max’s time, often causing Dooley’s problems to take a back seat, just as they now had with Odelia. But also a blessing, for often Max only needed a single word to know how to proceed. But as he now approached the couch with the intention of uttering just this single word to place his friend in possession of the facts pertaining to the strange case of the missing litter, he saw that of his friend... there was not a single trace!

  Somehow, in the five minutes that Dooley had been gone, Max had skedaddled
. This made Dooley realize that the worst had happened—the thing he had feared the most for the longest time. Along with his litter, this mysterious sneak thief had also... stolen Max!

  CHAPTER 2

  Odelia wasn’t feeling at the top of her game. Not only did she have several articles to finish and multiple looming deadlines hanging over her head like the proverbial swords of Damocles, but the woman who ran the daycare Grace attended had sent a message in the parents’ WhatsApp group stating that due to a family emergency, the daycare would be closed for the next couple of days. This meant alternative solutions had to be found. Consequently, Odelia had paid scant attention to Dooley’s litter lament and had immediately rushed out the door in search of her grandmother, hoping she would find the old lady next door.

  She found Gran gazing intently at a caterpillar that had taken up position underneath a leaf on one of her precious rose bushes, seemingly transfixed on the bug. Observing the intensity with which her grandmother regarded the caterpillar, Odelia thought she wanted to zap it with her eyes, laser-beam it into oblivion. When Odelia cleared her throat to alert her of her presence, Gran redirected her gaze and, for a moment, something stirred within Odelia as she experienced the full impact of the old lady’s baleful eye. But then Gran’s gaze softened, and she even managed a smile. She probably had realized that Odelia was not a caterpillar.

  “I’ve been keeping an eye on that one,” she announced. “The old Vesta would have killed it dead, but the new Vesta wants to protect life. It’s all about the preservation of life, you see. If we want to save the planet from destruction, we need to do it one caterpillar at a time.”

  “So you’re going to let it eat your plants?” Odelia asked, surprised by this position.

  “I didn’t say I’m going to stand idly by and watch it destroy my lovely garden,” Gran replied. “I said I’m keeping an eye on the little bugger. And if I see it take so much as one bite out of this here rose bush of mine, I’m going to pounce.” She wagged a bony finger at the caterpillar. “Consider this your first warning, buster! One bite and you’re out. Is that clear?”

  “Gran, could you babysit Grace for me? Chantal at the daycare sent a message saying she’s dealing with a family emergency and she has to close the daycare for the next couple of days.”

  “Oh, sure, honey,” her grandmother said vaguely, her attention still riveted on the caterpillar, indicating she wasn’t paying much attention elsewhere.

  “Could you do it now?” asked Odelia. “I’m already late for work. I didn’t see Chantal’s message until I arrived at the daycare with Grace.” She hadn’t been the only one either. Three other moms had also arrived, surprised to find the daycare closed for the day, with a sign on the door informing them of Chantal’s unexpected unavailability. It was highly unusual since Chantal Jones was a most conscientious and dedicated daycare owner, who loved the kids in her care as if they were her own. For her to suddenly close up shop was disconcerting, and when Odelia had more time to spare, she would definitely pay her a visit and see what was going on. She sincerely hoped Chantal wouldn’t be inconvenienced indefinitely. Otherwise she’d have to find a different daycare, which might prove to be a tough proposition, as most of them were already full and didn’t accept any new charges, especially a couple dozen of them.

  “Sure, sure,” said Gran with a wave of the hand. “Just leave it with me.”

  She would have pointed out that her daughter was not an ‘it’ but a ‘she,’ but then she knew it would be pointless. Once Gran had her mind set on something, it was pretty much impossible to shift it. So she placed Grace on the porch swing, kissed the top of her head, and hurried off again. Not only did she have several articles to write, but she also had an interview scheduled with the one and only Robert Ross, the multimillionaire actor whose yacht had arrived in the Hampton Cove marina just the other day and had attracted so much attention.

  Robert Ross was a local man who had left his home town many years ago to try his hand at different endeavors. According to local lore, he had worked as a handyman in a maharajah’s harem, had competed in several boat races alongside the Prince of Brunei, and had even been the personal bodyguard of the Crown Prince of Jordan. He earned the man’s eternal gratitude when he saved his life from an assassination attempt. During that particular act of heroism, he had sustained a gunshot wound to the stomach, which had been successfully remedied with the first pig-to-human stomach transplant in history, earning him an entry in the Guinness Book of Records.

  After his checkered career, he had been selected as the next James Fox, and had now finished no less than six very successful Fox movies in a row, becoming one of the most popular actors ever to play that famous British spy. In other words, the man was a legend. When the rumor spread that his yacht was arriving in the marina, all of Hampton Cove showed up to greet him and give him a hero’s welcome. Even Mayor Butterwick and Odelia’s uncle had been there, although the latter’s presence was for professional reasons only, to prevent anyone from trespassing or assaulting Mr. Ross aboard his vessel.

  She hopped into her pickup and raced away, although the behavior of her aged Ford pickup was more akin to rattling away, as the noise the car made could probably be heard three streets over. She really should get a new one, but when she had asked Dan if he couldn’t by any chance provide her with a company car, the editor had chuckled amusedly, pointing out that the newspaper trade was a dying industry and she was lucky to still have a job. Perks like company cars were not in the cards, unfortunately, and would never be as long as she insisted on working as a reporter, as opposed to, say, an investment banker or a stock broker.

  She arrived at the marina in due course and parked her car between a Porsche Cayenne and a Tesla, doing her best not to scratch either. She knew that these wealthy yacht owners didn’t take kindly to scratches on their precious cars’ paintwork. She hurried across the boardwalk to the quay where all the fancy yachts were moored. It didn’t take her long to spot the Aurora, Robert Ross’s personal yacht. It was easily the largest one in the small harbor. Recently, the marina had been completely redesigned and now featured a few luxury boutiques and fancy restaurants catering to the yacht owners who liked to visit these shops before heading into town. A more rustic experience awaited them there. If it were up to Charlene Butterwick, she would probably redesign all of Hampton Cove. However, she would face opposition from the locals, most of whom preferred things the way they were and had always been. Not that Odelia could blame them. Hampton Cove was a pretty pleasant town, even though it appeared a little sleepy to the more hip and cool segment of the tourist class.

  She stepped onto the gangway to board the vessel, hoping Mr. Ross wouldn’t be too upset that she was running late. But when she arrived on board, she was surprised to find that the yacht seemed to be deserted. Normally, for a man of Mr. Ross’s stature, she had expected to encounter a small regiment of security personnel, personal assistants, and other crew members. However, she had boarded the vessel without being stopped, causing her forehead to wrinkle up in a frown. Having been on yachts before, she had some understanding of how they operated. Therefore, she headed to the bridge first, hoping to find a sign of life. The door was, of course, locked, which was understandable. As she walked along the deck, lightly placing her hand on the bulwark, she traversed the vessel from bow to stern. To her disappointment, she found no trace of the famous movie actor.