“That’s interesting. So do you think it’s possible one of the people Pete owed money to might have killed him? Maybe this Charlie person, even?”

  “Well, Charlie was seen wandering around the neighborhood where the Bunyons live, and it is conceivable, though highly unlikely, that he might have broken into the house, and it’s even conceivable, but even more unlikely, that he could have taken Karl Bunyon’s gun. But still, we’re really clutching at straws here wouldn’t you agree, babe?”

  “But it is still a possibility, right?”

  “A very, very, very remote one. Besides, like I told you before, the only prints we found on that gun are Karl’s, and from talking to my new friend Charlie I have to say he’s not the kind of guy who’d think about wearing plastic gloves when handling a gun. In fact I don’t think he’d know what to do with a gun if you handed him one. He’s more the type of person who’d settle a disagreement with his fists, if you catch my drift.”

  Oh, she caught his drift, all right. And even though she didn’t like what Chase said, it all sounded very plausible to her. “So you still aren’t ready to release Karl?”

  “Not a chance.”

  27

  The four of us sat in the backyard of Marge and Tex’s place, taking in the devastation and the remnants of what once had been a fine family home—our family home. Workers were busy clearing the debris, loading it into a series of containers positioned on the street in front, and neighbors had come out in droves to gawk at the sad spectacle.

  Gran, who seemed repentant but also reluctant to accept responsibility for what had happened, stood discussing things with the new contractor, both of them wearing their yellow hard hats, while Tex and Marge stood discussing things with their insurance guy, hoping to salvage what they could from their savings.

  “It doesn’t look good, Max,” said Dooley, stating the obvious.

  “No, it doesn’t look good indeed,” I agreed.

  “At least we still have one home left, you guys,” said Harriet, striking the positive note.

  We all darted a quick and frankly anxious look at Odelia and Chase’s house, just in case that had suddenly also collapsed under the strain. But luckily it still stood proud and erect, reluctant to follow its sister home into the abyss of contractor incompetence.

  Marge had kicked Gran’s contractor to the curb, and had taken matters into her own hands by hiring one with an excellent reputation and track record, and an equally reputable architect. It would probably cost them a pretty penny, but at least they’d do a better job than the previous guy, who’d botched things to a great extent.

  One of the workers now emerged from the rubble carrying a litter box and, after a moment’s hesitation, placed it in front of us, then gave us a kindly nod in greeting, and walked off again.

  “Hey, what do you know? It’s your litter box, Brutus,” I said.

  “Yeah, what do you know,” said Brutus somberly. “Even though I’m homeless, at least I can still do my doo-doo,” he added, though he didn’t sound particularly happy about it.

  “Look, you guys,” said Harriet. “It’s all going to be fine, just you wait and see. In fact if anything, the new house they’re building will be better and bigger and nicer and more modern than before.”

  “Yeah, it was a pretty old house,” I said, feeling we’d had enough of this doom and gloom for one morning. “The new house will be better built, better quality building materials, state-of-the-art insulation, roomier, lighter and brighter… All in all, I think we’ll look back on this day as the beginning of something new and pretty darn exciting.”

  “They say that building from scratch is always cheaper and better than renovating,” Harriet said, giving me a grateful look.

  “I guess if you look at it like that, you just might be right,” said Brutus after a pause.

  “I like roomier and brighter,” said Dooley, nodding.

  And so we quickly turned what could have been a tragedy into a good thing. It’s the power of resilience, you guys, something us cats have got in spades. And while we were talking about turning a bad thing into a good thing, just then Odelia came walking up to us, a frown furrowing her brow, and obviously needing our urgent assistance.

  “So I need your advice,” she said as she pulled up a lawn chair and sat down next to us. “Karl Bunyon is in jail, right?”

  “Oh, is this about the murder case?” asked Dooley. “Cause I thought we were discussing the new house they’re building.”

  Odelia darted a quick glance at what had once been her parental home, then dismissed it with a gesture. “No, this is about the murder,” she confirmed. “I want to run something by you and see what you think. I’ve got a couple of suspects for Pete’s murder.”

  “Pete?” I asked.

  “The homeless person’s name was Pete, according to another homeless person named Charlie, who knew him and to whom he owed money, by the way.”

  “Okay,” I said. I confess the whole murder business had momentarily been relegated to the back of my mind, and the collapse of Marge and Tex’s home had everything to do with that, of course. But if Odelia needed our sleuthing prowess, she got it, of course. “So Pete was killed,” I reiterated, “and Karl Bunyon is one of the suspects.”

  “He is. Likely motive would be that he didn’t want people to know that he enjoyed dumping cats in the woods, because if that became known it could cause him to lose his kids. So he panicked and killed the witness and tried to hide the body.”

  “Okay, so the problem with that,” I said, “is that a clever killer would also get rid of the murder weapon, and definitely not put it back in his own gun safe.”

  “I like that, Max,” said Odelia, pointing at me. “That’s why I want to run the other suspects by you one by one and see what you guys think. The first one is Charlie himself, who was seen hanging around the Bunyon residence, and could easily have gained access to the house and grabbed the gun from the safe.”

  “Possibly,” I agreed, “though highly unlikely.”

  “Charlie’s motive would have been to get the money Pete owed him, and they could have gotten into some kind of tussle and the gun could have discharged by accident.”

  “Who is Charlie?” asked Dooley, who had trouble following the barrage of different names pertaining to the case.

  “He’s the bum who might have killed the other bum,” said Brutus, who was able to keep up.

  “Oh,” said Dooley. “Okay.”

  “And then there’s the stepdaughter,” Odelia continued. “Suzy could have taken her stepdad’s gun and given it to her raver boyfriend Darryl, or any of his friends, who could have used it to kill Pete. So let’s suppose that Todd Park, for instance, shot and killed Pete. Then Darryl, who was hard up and needed the money, could have blackmailed his friend, at which point Todd pushed Darryl down that shaft to get rid of him.”

  “I like this theory,” I confessed. “Though it doesn’t necessarily have to be Todd Park. It could be any one of Daryl’s raver friends.”

  “We probably should talk to some of these raving friends,” Harriet said.

  “Raver friends,” Brutus corrected her gently. “Though they might be raving, too, of course,” he quickly added when she shot him an angry look.

  “And that brings us to my final theory,” said Odelia, “and this is the one Kathleen Bunyon suggested: Grace Kramer could have taken the gun and killed Pete so she could put the blame on her ex-husband and take the kids from him once and for all.”

  “Unlikely,” was my verdict. “Grace wouldn’t have had easy access to the house, like the stepdaughter would, and besides, she would have had to sneak in twice: once to take the gun and once to put it back. And both times she needed to do it unseen by anyone, which would be a big risk for her.”

  “Yeah, I agree with you, Max,” said Odelia. “And Karl does, too. He told me he doesn’t think Grace is capable of murder.”

  “Though clearly Grace seems to think Karl is,” Harriet pointed out. “No, I like the ex-wife for this. She had a clear motive, and she seems vindictive and clever enough to get her hands on that gun. Maybe she even hired a professional to do it for her.”

  “A hitman?” I asked, and couldn’t keep the skepticism out of my voice, unfortunately.

  “And why not? People hire hitmen all the time.”

  “I don’t think people hire hitmen all the time, Harriet,” I said, “or the streets would be littered with dead people.”

  “Nitpicky,” Harriet snapped. “You are so nitpicky, Max.”

  “So what do you think?” asked Odelia. “Chase is convinced Karl is guilty, and so is my uncle. But I’m not so sure. I talked to him and he doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d do this kind of thing.”

  “I think we need to talk to those ravers again,” I said. “Todd Park, for one, but also some of the others that knew Darryl. See what they have to say.”

  “Okay,” said Odelia, nodding. “I’ll try to convince Chase and we’ll set up some more interviews.” She got up, then glanced at the house. “You know? It looks pretty terrible now, but maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing. After all, the house was old when Mom and Dad bought it, and at the time they didn’t have the money to do the kind of remodeling they had in mind. So maybe now they’ll finally be able to build it just the way they like.”

  “See?” said Harriet after Odelia had left. “Even Odelia thinks this was a good thing.”

  And she was right. Like they say: every cloud has a silver lining. And this disaster might have one, too. Though looking at Tex’s murderous frown each time he darted a look at his mother-in-law, I had the impression he didn’t see that silver lining yet. In fact he looked more like a man who had silver daggers on his mind. Or even silver bullets.

  28

  That night cat choir had a different quality than usual. Mainly because practically all of the cats had followed our example and were wearing… collars with inbuilt trackers! And I must say they were wearing them proudly.

  Shanille had one of the nicest collars: hers was inlaid with what looked like gold thread! She was parading the gizmo for everyone to see, and for a moment I thought she must have raided the church coffers to get her paws on all of that gold, but then she explained how Father Reilly had talked to Gran, who’d told him the whole story of the catnapping, and how our collars had saved our lives, causing Odelia and Chase to quickly and efficiently find us in the middle of nowhere, and since Gran said she could make him a good deal, the good priest hadn’t hesitated and had procured a collar from her.

  And so there Shanille was, safe from any attempts at catnapping, and with Father Reilly knowing at every moment of the day or night exactly where she was, and ready to come to her rescue in case anyone tried any funny business.

  Kingman, too, was wearing what looked like a pricy gadget, with what looked like diamonds, but which could also have been glass, and he told us pretty much the same story: Gran had gone round to talk to all the cat owners she knew, and regale the story of the latest catnappings, and the power of the tracker, and had sold Wilbur one.

  “You guys really did us a great service,” Kingman said, and Shanille chimed in, along with Buster, and some of the other cats, who all stood around in a circle, discussing the benefits of their new and wonderful devices. “If it hadn’t been for you to allow yourselves to be taken,” Kingman continued, “we’d all be at risk of abduction and wouldn’t even have known it!”

  “You’re heroes,” Buster exclaimed. “Actual heroes and role models for the rest of us.”

  And much to my surprise, suddenly a round of applause broke out, muted of course, as it’s hard to really make noise when your paws are equipped with soft pink pads.

  “You guys,” said Harriet with mock modesty. “It was a big sacrifice we made, that’s true, but we did it for the good of the whole community. And frankly if I had to do it all over again I would—of course I would!”

  “Oh, Harriet, you’re such a blessing to this community,” Shanille gushed.

  And since it looked like this sudden outpouring of affection could go on for a little while longer, I decided to remove myself from the scene.

  “They really seem to be happy with their trackers, aren’t they, Max?” said Dooley.

  “A little too happy if you ask me,” I grunted.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Who wants their humans to know where they are twenty-four seven, Dooley? I certainly don’t. We probably have the best human in the world, but even she doesn’t need to know where we go or what we are up to all the time.” I gestured to Kingman and Shanille and the others. “Can you imagine what Father Reilly and Wilbur Vickery and Fido Siniawski and the other cat owners are going to say when they discover that their precious darlings are out all night, roaming the streets and generally having a great time? I’m pretty sure…”

  But before I could finish my sentence, suddenly we heard a car pull up to a nearby curb, and a car door slam, then hurried footsteps proceeding in our direction. Moments later Father Reilly appeared, looking stricken and annoyed, his phone in his hand as he darted intermittent glances at his phone and then at his surroundings. When finally his eyes landed on Shanille, he cried, “Shanille! There you are! Oh, darling, I was worried sick about you! What has gotten into you to stray so far from the parish! Let’s go!”

  “But…” said Shanille, looking up at her human with wide-eyed consternation. “But…”

  “Let’s go, I said!” the priest exclaimed, and gave the rest of us cats a nasty look before scooping our choir director up in his arms and carrying her off with him!

  “Carry on without me, you guys!” Shanille managed to shout, but then we heard that car door slam again, the car take off in a hurry, and our choir conductor was gone.

  “What just happened?” asked Harriet.

  “I think Father Reilly never fully realized what Shanille was up to at night,” I explained, “and now that he has, thanks to her tracking device, it’s obvious he doesn’t fully agree with her nocturnal escapades.”

  More cars were pulling up nearby, and more car doors slammed, and the sound of humans talking amongst themselves could be heard, their voices carrying far in the night’s silence. They were approaching, and before long they were upon us, all looking startled and surprised that so many cats would have gathered at the park’s playground.

  Buster’s human was there: Fido Siniawski, the hairdresser, and Kingman’s human, Wilbur Vickery, and Norberto Beachhead, the electrician, who’s Misty’s human, and Franklin Beaver, the hardware store owner and Shadow’s human. Garvin Chanting appeared—he’s a landscaper and Missy’s human—and I could probably go on for a little while. Suffice it to say that all of Hampton Cove suddenly appeared to have discovered our hiding place, and before long they’d all swooped down and took off with their cats.

  All of them had their phones glued to their hands, and their eyes glued to their tracking apps, brought to the park by the beep-beeping insistence of the software. And so the playground quickly emptied out, and soon only myself, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus were left! The others had all been collected by their respective human owners, and taken away in their cars to safe havens scattered all across town.

  “Looks like cat choir has been canceled,” said Brutus finally, stating the obvious.

  “I hate this tracker!” said Harriet. “I wish it had never been invented!”

  “It’s a fine device,” I said, “but maybe someone should have warned our friends that there are two sides to wearing a tracking device: it provides safety in case of a catnapping, but it also takes away every notion of privacy, unfortunately.”

  “Get it off me, Max!” Harriet cried. “I don’t want it anymore! I don’t want our humans to follow us around all the time!”

  “I’m afraid it takes a human to remove it,” I said.

  “I could gnaw it off,” Brutus suggested.

  “Oh, please do, smoochie poo,” said Harriet.

  “I wouldn’t do that that if I were—”

  There was a sudden spark and a soft pop and a loud yelp from Brutus, and then he was sitting back on his haunches and smoke was billowing from his mouth and ears.

  “It’s an electronic device with a built-in battery,” I explained. “Best not to chew on it.”

  “And now you tell me!” he cried indignantly.

  29

  The next morning, bright and early, saw me and Dooley heading into town. The night had been relatively uneventful, apart from the tracking device business: Gran had shared the guestroom with her daughter, while Tex slept on the couch. It wasn’t an ideal situation, to be sure, but it was better than the alternative Tex had suggested, with Gran sleeping on the couch. Odelia and Marge had argued that they couldn’t very well let an old woman sleep on the couch, and Tex had finally seen reason and had decided to comply.

  “I think it’s nice that Harriet and Brutus are staying over,” said Dooley, who’s a real family cat, and likes nothing more than to have our entire family under one roof. “I hope it takes a really long time before the house is ready, so we all can live happily together.”

  “You like it now,” I told him, “but I wonder if you’ll still like it a couple of weeks from now.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I will,” he said. “It’s so nice to have everyone under the same roof. You know, Max, maybe we could suggest that Marge and Tex build one big house.”

  “They are building one big house, Dooley.”

  “No, but I mean tear down Odelia’s house, too, and build one big house instead of two. That way we can all live together all the time. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  I made a face, but I doubt whether he saw it. I didn’t want to crush his illusions, though, so I said nothing.

  “Oh, look, it’s Gran,” he said when we’d arrived in town. “What is she doing, Max?”