Roulston dragged his hands across his stubbly head. “That kid is driving me nuts! Collecting cats, partying in the wake of an assassination attempt, leaving the safety of the compound to go on some joyride! He’s every security professional’s worst nightmare!”

  “He’s with his driver,” I said. “I’m sure if you call him he’ll be able to tell you where they are.”

  He walked off, taking out his phone and angrily jabbing it to life.

  “How come you know so much about what the Dieber was up to last night?” asked Chase.

  She gave him what she hoped was an enigmatic smile. “I have my sources.”

  “So you have,” he said with a shake of the head.

  They caught sight of Toby Mulvaney and joined him.

  “Do you have a minute?” she asked the large red-headed man.

  He gave her a curious look. “Sure. What do you want to know?”

  They walked out of the living room, through sliding glass doors and onto the deck. The pool area was quiet this morning, Dieber’s Bediebers probably still sleeping. Several cats stalked about, stropping themselves against the lounges, while others lay around, blinking at the morning sun and generally being their lazy, perfectly contented feline selves. Odelia counted at least a dozen, with more probably inside enjoying a hearty breakfast.

  “The thing is, a witness has come forward,” said Chase, once again lying his heart out. “This witness claims you got into a fight with Ray Cooper just before he got shot.”

  Toby laughed. “Me? Get into a fight with Ray? Better send your witness to an eye doctor. Ray and I got along great.”

  “Our witness is adamant, Toby,” said Odelia. “She saw you and Ray. Up close.”

  Chase darted a curious look in her direction, and mouthed, ‘She?’

  She nodded and watched how Toby’s face fell. “This witness, who is she?”

  “We can’t disclose her name,” said Chase. “But she’s ready to testify in court.”

  His jaw worked, but he wasn’t talking. Odelia decided to try a different tack.

  “Look, we know there’s something going on between you and Regan, Toby. Were you jealous of Ray? Is that why you shot him?”

  “Shoot him! I didn’t shoot Ray. Did Regan tell you this? Is she the witness?” They merely stared at him, and finally he cracked. “Look, it’s true that Regan and I—we had a thing going on, okay? But then she fell for Ray and things got kinda… complicated. She’d broken up with me but there were still all those feelings, you know? I wanted her back, and she wasn’t sure which one of us to choose. And as long as I still had a shot—I mean,” he quickly amended, “a chance of getting back together with her, I definitely wasn’t saying no.”

  “So she basically had a relationship with both you and Ray?” asked Chase.

  “Yeah, basically that’s how it was. Now? I have no idea. She’s still pretty busted up about Ray getting shot—which I had nothing to do with, by the way. I may have given him a piece of my mind that morning, and that may have looked like I was threatening him, but I sure as hell didn’t shoot the guy.”

  “But you hated his guts.”

  “Yes, I did,” he admitted. “Same way he hated mine.”

  “That must have been tough,” Odelia said.

  “It was a living hell to have to work so closely together with Regan and Ray.”

  “Can we take a look at your room?” asked Chase.

  He emitted a hacking laugh. “Why? To find my gun? Go ahead. You won’t find one.”

  “Because you got rid of it?”

  “Because I never had it in the first place! I didn’t kill Ray, Detective. I swear.”

  Just then, there was a commotion inside the house, and they all walked back in. To Odelia’s surprise, Charlie Dieber had arrived, and he’d come bearing gifts in the form of three cats: Shanille, Diego and Harriet!

  Chapter 21

  Charlie held Shanille in one arm with Harriet in the other. His driver was left with the task of holding onto Diego, who, judging from his expression, had preferred to be in Shanille’s place instead.

  “Fresh felines! Three fine fresh felines!” Charlie was shouting, perhaps erroneously thinking he’d arrived at a farmers’ market. “Fresh female felines for the Dieber collection!”

  “Don’t think this one’s a female, boss,” said the driver, darting an anxious glance at Diego. He clearly wasn’t as big a fan of cats as his employer was.

  “Nonsense!” cried Charlie, who was dressed in low-riding khaki cargo pants and nothing else. Odelia thought she preferred the star-spangled boxers. “Three fine babes for the Dieber!” Then his eye fell on Odelia and Chase. “Oh, hi,” he said, stalking up. “Now aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” He dropped the cats to the floor and held out his hand. “Charlie Dieber at your service, doll face. And aren’t you the prettiest, hottest, sweetest piece of—”

  “We met,” Odelia cut him off. “Odelia Poole. I work with the police.”

  Charlie narrowed his eyes at her. “Oh, right! The cop chick. Now I remember.”

  “Hey,” Chase said, stepping between Odelia and the pop star. “Show some respect.”

  The Dieber held up his hands in a defensive gesture. “I’m all about respect, dude. I respect the hell out of this hot piece of—”

  “And for your information, those are my cats,” said Odelia, pointing at Harriet and Diego. “You can’t just steal people’s cats. And that is Shanille. She belongs to Father Reilly.”

  He glanced down at Shanille. “Father Reilly, huh? I thought she looked a little austere. No ray of sunshine, that one.”

  “So if you don’t mind, I’ll take these back, and I will ask you not to steal any more of Hampton Cove’s cats. You simply can’t do this, Charlie,” she said, really getting going now.

  Charlie grinned at Chase. “She’s one hot pistol, isn’t she?”

  Chase gave the singer a look that could kill. It didn’t seem to affect the kid in the slightest.

  “I told you, boss,” the driver said. “You can’t go around taking cats that don’t belong to you.” He allowed Diego to leap from his arms and carefully started to pick at the mass of orange hair stuck to his driver’s costume. “Now look at that,” he muttered with an expression of distaste. “I’m gonna need one of them rollers. One of them sticky things.”

  “Look, I’m on a mission from God,” the Dieber explained.

  Odelia, who was thinking hard about removing her Charlie Dieber Spotify selection from her phone and canceling her fan club enrollment, heaved a soft groan. “Oh, God.”

  “Exactly! I collect cats, feed them, nourish them, shower them with the Dieber’s love and affection, and then I gift them to my Bediebers. Why do you think I’ve got so many cats? I’m grooming them! They’re my gift to the world, babe! A blessing for everyone. Bediebers get to hold a little piece of the Dieber in their arms—something to show them my true appreciation. My cats find a wonderful home. And I get to spread sweetness and light!”

  She folded her arms across her chest, giving him a stern look. “You’re going to give all these cats away?”

  “From the Lord through me and into the world. I bless—you bless—bless you.”

  “You’re telling me you steal cats from all over the place and then you foist them on some unsuspecting preteens?! You steal my cats and treat them as hand-me-downs?!”

  He rubbed his hairless chest and giggled. “I wouldn’t put it that way, babe.”

  A red mist drew up in front of her eyes. “HOW WOULD YOU PUT IT, THEN?!”

  Chase, who saw she was about to throttle the Dieber, pulled her aside. “Please don’t kill him, babe,” he said. “He’s a moron. I know that. You know that. Heck, I think even he knows it. But if you kill him I’m gonna have to arrest you and that would break my heart.”

  The red mist evaporated. “Arresting me would break your heart?”

  “It would. So please calm down. We’ve got a murder to solve, and you going off on the Dieber isn’t helping.”

  She threw up her hands. “It’s fine. It’s just that… the gall of the guy!”

  “I know, I know. Deep breaths, babe. Deep breaths.”

  “Aargh!”

  “In. And out. That’s it.”

  She took a steadying breath, fists planted on her hips. “Stealing my cats.”

  “Well, technically Diego is my cat, Shanille is Father Reilly’s cat, and Harriet is your mother’s pride and joy.”

  She turned, watching Charlie play with the latest additions to his cat menagerie. Harriet seemed to enjoy the attention, and so did Shanille. Diego? Not so much.

  “Okay,” she said, closing her eyes. “Let’s pick up where we left off. Where’s Toby?”

  They walked out of the living room and onto the deck, but the thickset bodyguard was gone. They returned inside, and mounted the stairs, then set foot for Roulston’s office, hoping to find Toby ensconced there. The only one present and accounted for was Roulston himself. He quirked an eyebrow at them. “You were right, Miss Poole. Turns out Charlie was having some fun last night, picking up cats left and right.”

  “Stealing cats, you mean,” she said.

  “Deep breaths,” Chase whispered.

  She sucked in a few more breaths.

  “Any idea where we can find Toby?” asked Chase. “We need to ask him a couple questions.”

  Roulston heaved the sigh of a long-suffering security man. “What has he done?”

  “He—” Odelia began, but Chase shut her up with a glance.

  “We just need to have a word with him, if that’s all right with you,” he said.

  “Last room on the right. And please tell him to get his act together.”

  “Why is that?” asked Odelia.

  “He’s been acting weird all morning. Cagey, if you know what I mean. And he and Regan aren’t on speaking terms for whatever reason.” He shook his head. “Place is falling apart. Cat-napping pop stars, drama queen bodyguards, murder and mayhem…”

  Odelia exchanged a look with Chase, and they went in search of Toby. They passed a room whose door was open and saw Regan lying on the bed, tossing a tennis ball at the wall and deftly catching it. She was frowning so hard and lost so deeply in thought she didn’t even notice Chase and Odelia looking in on her.

  “Last room on the right,” Chase muttered. The door was closed, and he gave it a knock. Loud techno music was coming from inside the room, a pulsating beat that drowned out any other sound “Toby?!” he yelled. “We never finished that conversation, buddy!”

  When no response came, except for the staccato thump of the speakers, he pushed down on the door handle. The door swung open, and the next moment Odelia clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle a scream.

  There, on the floor of the small room, lay Toby Mulvaney, his eyes open and staring unseeingly up at them. In his hand, a small-caliber gun. And in his temple, a nice round hole.

  Chapter 22

  Brutus, Dooley and I were watching as Tex and Uncle Alec worked on the pet door. It was a fascinating sight. Like watching a train wreck in slow motion. The two men had had some trouble removing the door from its hinges, but had finally managed to place it on top of a workbench Tex had dragged over from his garden shed. They’d hemmed and hawed for a while, scratching their heads and trying to decide how to do this thing, and had then both decided to take a break and had gone inside for a cup of coffee and a chocolate donut.

  When they came out again, the door was still there, the pet door was still too small, and so they went straight back to dilly-dallying and drawing up a plan of campaign.

  They kept darting furtive glances in my direction, and at one point Tex came over with a tape measure, wrapped it around my belly, then returned to the door and scratched his head some more.

  “He’s measuring you for your coffin, Max,” said Brutus, who’d become very morbid since he’d begun his transition into Bruna. “Soon they’ll lay you to rest in the backyard.”

  Dooley’s eyes went wide. “They’re going to bury Max? But why? Are you sick, Max? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “I’m not sick, I’m not dying, and nobody is going to bury me,” I assured him with a reproachful look at Brutus, who merely lifted his shoulders. “They’re simply trying to make the pet door fit to my particular… size.”

  “Which is considerable,” Brutus commented nastily.

  “Which is normal for the type of cat I am,” I corrected him haughtily.

  “A fat cat.”

  “A big-boned cat. I simply share more of my DNA with the big cats of the jungle than most,” I told him, reciting something I’d seen on the Discovery Channel. “Your tigers, your lions, your leopards, your jaguars…” I shrugged. “I guess you could say I’m part domestic cat, part member of the Panthera genus—the big cats that roam wild and free on the Serengeti.”

  Brutus rolled his eyes. He was clearly not in the mood for a lesson in biology. Dooley was staring at me, though, clearly impressed. “Wow, Max. I never knew you were a tiger.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said, flicking a speck of sawdust from my fur. “Scientia potential est. Knowledge is power.”

  “Michael Jackson?”

  “Francis Bacon.”

  “Is he the one who invented bacon and eggs?”

  “He could very well be, Dooley. He could very well be.”

  Just then, Grandma came strolling through the hole in the hedge that divides our two gardens. She was frowning, and talking animatedly into her phone. “Of course, Mr. President. I know, Mr. President. You’re absolutely right, Mr. President. Yes, I’ll get on it right away, Mr. President. Yes, I agree with you that world peace is what we should all be striving for, but at what cost, Mr. President? At what cost?!”

  She disappeared through the hedge again, and Uncle Alec directed a puzzled look at his brother-in-law. “Is she talking to the President?”

  Tex sighed. “Yeah, looks like. I don’t know what’s gotten into her lately, but she’s been consulting with world leaders all week. Some guy called Ban Ki-moon, the Pope, of course, and now the President… She even talked to Bill Gates the other day.”

  “But why? And how come they even listen to her?”

  “Beats me, Alec. What I’ve learned over the years is to simply let Vesta be Vesta. If these world leaders want to take advice from your mother, they have my blessing.”

  “And mine,” said Alec, looking slightly taken aback. It’s not every day that your mother becomes the go-to person for the top leaders of the world.

  Just then, my cat ears pricked up, and so did Dooley’s and Brutus’s. We exchanged a look of understanding, and simultaneously said, “Odelia!”

  Then Brutus sniffed, and his face lit up. “And Harriet!”

  Moments later, Odelia came walking through the kitchen door opening—now without door—and smiled when she saw her dad and uncle hard at work—or at least thinking hard about work. “Hey, you guys. Am I glad to see you.”

  In her arms she was holding Harriet, who meowed plaintively, and only relaxed when Odelia had placed her on the ground. Immediately Brutus ran up to her. “Harriet, I…”

  She gave him a supercilious look. “Please don’t talk to me, Brutus.”

  I would have told her it was Bruta now, but I had the impression Brutus had had another change of heart, and had decided to give Harriet another shot at breaking it.

  “Where’s Diego?” asked Brutus.

  “At Charlie Dieber’s house.”

  “What?!” Brutus cried. “But… how?”

  Harriet, who looked troubled, shook her beautiful white fluffy head. “Charlie grabbed me and Diego off the street early this morning. Told us he was adopting us. We decided to play along—just for the fun of it. But then Odelia showed up and blew a gasket. She took me and Shanille and wanted to take Diego, too, but by then he’d disappeared.”

  “Disappeared,” repeated Brutus, looking like a cat who’s seen Jesus.

  “Yeah. He told me he was going for a bite to eat—the Dieber offers a nice spread of cat treats—but when Odelia went looking he wasn’t in the kitchen. He must have slunk off.”

  “Slunk off,” Brutus said, rolling the words around his tongue with relish. “Gone.”

  Harriet cut him a nasty glance. “Don’t say it as if it’s the best thing that ever happened to you, Brutus. I like that cat. I miss him.”

  Brutus grinned. “Trust me, sugar plum. You’re better off without him.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Diego knows how to treat a girl. He’s… gentle.”

  Brutus’s smile vanished. “Please don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

  “Oh, leave me alone,” she said irritably, and stalked off in the direction of the hedge.

  “I’m not leaving you, Harriet,” said Brutus decidedly, as he trotted after her.

  “Can’t you see I’m in mourning?”

  “You’re in mourning? I’m in mourning!”

  “I’m pining, Brutus. Pining for Diego.”

  “And I’m pining for you, sweetcheeks!”

  We watched them disappear into the next garden, arguing all the while.

  “Good news about the disappearance of Diego,” Dooley said.

  “Yeah, great news,” I agreed. “Let’s hope he stays away this time.”

  “Not so great, you guys,” said Odelia, who’d been listening while her dad and uncle messed with the door.

  “Diego vanishing into thin air is the best news I’ve ever heard,” I told her decidedly.

  “Not that. Another bodyguard died. Shot to death in his room. The bodyguard Shanille thought killed Ray Cooper. Looks like suicide but…” She grimaced. “I’m not sure.”

  “Oh,” I said, my exuberance waning. Rejoicing in the face of tragedy just wasn’t right. “You’re right. That is pretty bad. So you think he didn’t do it?”