Rosa and Tilton Bond were also there, and stood chatting with Scott and Layla’s folks. Scott himself was checking some notes he had in his hand, and I think he was going to read something he’d written, presumably saying a couple of words about his best friend.

  Just then, Aisha Bond suddenly walked up to Layla Walcott, and threw a glass of orange juice into the girl’s face! Immediately voices were raised, and a good deal of shouting ensued, and if both sets of parents hadn’t kept the girls apart, I think hair-pulling and an actual physical altercation would have been in the cards as well. As it was, though, Aisha stomped off on a huff, ignoring her mother’s shouts to come back and apologize, and since I’m the kind of cat who always wants to know what is going on, I decided to follow her, and so did Dooley.

  We watched her walk off and hit the sidewalk, and saw how Odelia got out of the car and approached the teenager. Aisha broke down, and Odelia wrapped her in her arms.

  “She did it!” said Aisha, sniffling.

  “Who did what, Aisha?” asked Odelia.

  “Layla, of course. I’m sure of it. She killed my brother, and now she’s playing the grieving girlfriend.”

  “But I thought Layla and your brother had broken up?”

  “They didn’t break up—Todd dumped her. Layla was too needy—he told me so himself. She was crazy. Obsessed. Always sending him messages—up to a hundred a day. And leaving him little notes in his locker, and even writing him letters. She said she couldn’t live without him, and finally he’d had enough so he told her he couldn’t see her anymore, and that’s when she went crazy. Started stalking him everywhere he went.”

  “So you think she killed him?”

  “Of course she did. She once told him: if I can’t have you, no one can! Isn’t that clear enough? She should be locked up.”

  “Do you still have those notes and letters?” asked Chase.

  “No, Todd threw them all away.”

  “And what about the messages on his phone?”

  “She must have taken his phone and destroyed it. To make sure no one would find out. But I know what she did—and she won’t get away with it!” She turned to Chase. “You have to arrest her, Detective Kingsley. She did it—she killed my brother.”

  “I’m afraid that without any evidence we can’t arrest her, Aisha,” said Chase.

  “What evidence do you need? I’ll help you. Ask me anything. I’ll help you catch her!”

  But when Chase gave her a helpless look, she muttered a loud groan of frustration, then stalked off, angrily swiping at her tears.

  “If we could just get our hands on that phone,” said Odelia, as she stood looking after Aisha as the girl disappeared around the corner.

  “I applied to get access to his phone records,” said Chase, “so maybe that will give us something. And I’ve been working to get access to his phone’s backup.”

  “Is there a backup?”

  “Let’s hope so, though I’m not holding my breath. His service provider told me to get in touch with Google, but that will take time. Also, since this investigation is now officially closed, I might get some grief from the Chief.”

  “Even Uncle Alec has to admit that there’s more to this case than meets the eye.”

  “Yeah, after what Aisha just told us, I think I might be able to convince him to reopen the case.”

  “Though even if Layla wrote him a hundred messages a day, that still doesn’t prove she killed him.”

  “No, but it would give us a reason to question her. I have a feeling she knows more than she’s telling us. Scott, too.”

  They both stood watching the house where now the voice of Scott could be heard, extolling the virtues of his deceased friend.

  He sounded sincere enough.

  Chapter 27

  It was time for us to return home. The wake had come to an end, and we hadn’t learned much that made us any the wiser as to the circumstances surrounding Todd’s death. And as we rode the short distance to Harrington Street, Odelia offered a fresh take on the matter.

  “Isn’t it possible that Todd killed himself?”

  “How do you mean?” asked Chase

  “Well, he wasn’t doing well in school lately, he’d broken up with Layla, and was being pursued by her, and he missed his real dad, didn’t get along with his stepdad. Maybe it all got to be too much, and so he simply jumped into that pool and… didn’t come up again.”

  “It is possible,” Chase allowed. “Though not very likely, babe.”

  “But why not? It happens. People can get into such a funk that they don’t know what they’re doing. And especially if he’d been drinking and smoking weed. He was in a bad place, and drink and drugs just made it worse.”

  Honestly, I didn’t see it that way. Todd’s death raised all kinds of questions, and we all wanted to find the answers. But suicide? It wasn’t impossible, of course, but somehow the idea didn’t strike me as the solution to this baffling mystery.

  As to what the solution actually was, I have to admit that I was still stumped.

  We arrived home to find Gran and Scarlett in conference with Harriet and Brutus. They were all seated around the garden table, with Harriet trying to teach Scarlett the ABC’s of felinedom, and judging from the long faces not exactly succeeding!

  “Look, if we can’t make this work, Baker Street Cats is a lost cause!” said Brutus.

  “I know, sweet potato,” said Harriet, looking distinctly unhappy, “but what do you want me to do? The woman doesn’t even understand the simplest thing!”

  “And?” said Odelia. “Have you made progress?”

  “It’s hopeless,” said Gran, throwing up her hands. “I’m ready to give up.”

  “And me,” said Scarlett. “I’ve been at this all day, and I still don’t understand a single syllable!”

  “Hel-lo, Scar-lett,” said Harriet, drawing the words out.

  “Me-ow me-ow,” said Scarlett.

  “Why is this so hard to understand!”

  “Meow meow meow etcetera etcetera etcetera.”

  “Aaargh!” Harriet cried, and threw up her paws in a fine imitation of Gran’s frustration.

  “How did it go with you guys?” asked Brutus.

  “There was a wake,” I said, “and Aisha Bond accused Layla Walcott of killing her brother.”

  “She did, did she?”

  “She says Layla was obsessed with Todd, and couldn’t forgive him for breaking up with her. So she killed him.”

  “You’re investigating a murder?” asked Gran.

  “What murder?” asked Scarlett.

  “According to my uncle it was an accidental drowning,” Odelia explained as she took a seat at the table. “But we think something more nefarious is going on.”

  “This is exactly the kind of thing the Baker Street Cats should be investigating,” said Brutus. “Only we’re not getting anywhere.”

  “Didn’t you mention that Scarlett’s cousin could build an app that could translate feline communication?” I asked.

  “Yeah, well, he said that’s pretty much science fiction at this point. We still need human operators to work as dispatchers and to field the incoming calls from the cats. Which means that Marge, Odelia or Gran have to drop everything and exclusively work for the Baker Street Cats from now on. And none of them are prepared to do that.”

  “I’m not going to drop my job to work as a cat dispatcher,” said Odelia.

  “Me neither,” said Gran. “So much as it pains me to say, I think your idea is dead in the water, Brutus.”

  “My idea!” said Brutus. “This was all Harriet’s idea!”

  “I think you’ll find that it was actually Gran’s idea,” said Harriet frostily.

  And while they argued about whose idea it was to start this ill-conceived cat watch, I decided to have a little think, and put my thoughts in order. We were now working on two cases, and both of them were as yet unsolved. How is it possible that two people had died, and we still weren’t even close to finding out exactly what had happened?

  Of course they were both very different cases, and nowhere near connected or even similar, but still—Hampton Cove isn’t a metropolis. It’s not a major town where murders happen on every street corner every minute of every day. When a murder does happen, it’s so rare and so shocking it still rallies the entire community and puts pressure on law enforcement to come up with answers, and to guarantee that the person or persons responsible are punished to the fullest extent of the law.

  “You know,” said Scarlett, “you should stop fighting, you guys.”

  “We’re not fighting,” said Gran as she gratefully accepted a cup of tea from Chase, who’d put on the kettle and had made everyone a nice cup of the hot beverage.

  Marge and Tex had also joined us, and as the sun set, the whole family was seated around the table, enjoying a balmy night.

  “I mean, just look at you,” said Scarlett.

  They looked at each other, a little puzzled by her words.

  “Look at who?” asked Marge.

  “I think she means you,” said Tex.

  “Who, me?”

  “All of you!” said Scarlett.

  “What’s your point, Scarlett?” asked Gran.

  “You all have each other, a wonderful family, who all love and care for each other. Me? I don’t have anyone.”

  “You have me,” Gran pointed out.

  “You know what I mean, Vesta.”

  We all knew what she meant. Scarlett had never married, and as a consequence didn’t have kids, or grandkids.

  “You have many male… friends,” Marge pointed out carefully.

  “Oh, please,” said Scarlett. “They don’t care a hoot about me, those male ‘friends’ of mine.”

  “You know we love you, Scarlett,” said Odelia, as she gave Gran’s friend a smile. “And that you’re like family to us.”

  “And I’m very grateful for that,” said Scarlett.

  “Yeah, we love you, even though you’re lousy at speaking our cats’ language,” Gran grunted.

  They all laughed, and Tex said, “Don’t listen to her, Scarlett. I don’t speak that language either.”

  “Or me,” said Chase.

  “And that’s fine,” Tex concluded.

  “You know that I’ve always been jealous of you?” said Scarlett, turning to Gran.

  “Jealous! Of me!”

  “Sure. When I saw what you had, with your husband and your family.” She gave a little sigh. “Maybe that’s why Jack and I…”

  She didn’t have to say more. “It’s fine,” said Gran, placing a hand on her friend’s arm. “That’s all in the past now.”

  “I know—and I’m grateful that we put that all behind us.”

  “You and me both,” said Gran.

  Dooley was staring at me. “What’s wrong, Max?” he asked. “Why are you looking as if you’ve just seen a ghost?”

  “Because I have, Dooley,” I said. “I think I’ve just seen the ghost of Josslyn Aldridge.”

  “You have?” He glanced around. “Where?”

  But it wasn’t the literal ghost of Josslyn I had seen, but the proverbial one.

  And suddenly, and just like that, the whole puzzle fell into place. And I knew just what needed to be done to catch one very dangerous and extremely ruthless, calculating killer.

  Chapter 28

  We had returned to the Bonds, with Odelia and Chase deciding Todd’s parents deserved an update on the investigation. They didn’t want to tell the couple that the case had been closed, though, instead assuring them that the investigation was still ongoing, and that new elements had been recently discovered which made it look promising that a break in the case was imminent.

  “Right now we’re focusing our attention on the tablet computer your son owned, Mrs. Bond,” said Chase.

  “Tablet? My son didn’t have a tablet,” said Rosa.

  Once again we’d been invited into the Bonds’ cozy living room, and even though Rosa looked wan, she was bearing up bravely—especially in light of the big scene her daughter had created at Todd’s wake last night.

  Aisha wasn’t with us—presumably she was upstairs in her room, moping.

  “Oh, yes, he most certainly had one,” said Chase. “He got it from Scott. It was an old one that belonged to him, and since Scott’s parents decided to buy him a new one, he gave his old one to Todd.”

  “He set it up to sync with his phone and his laptop,” Odelia explained, “which will allow us to finally be able to see all the messages he sent and received.”

  “And the phone calls he made on that fatal night.”

  “Where is it—this tablet?” asked Tilton, giving us a look of concern. He’d placed a supportive arm around his wife’s shoulder.

  “We think we might have a line on that,” Chase said.

  “So you haven’t found it yet?” asked Rosa.

  “We haven’t. But we think we know who might have taken it.”

  Rosa frowned. “I don’t understand…”

  “Where is your daughter, Rosa?” asked Odelia abruptly.

  “Upstairs in her room,” said Rosa. “Why?”

  “Could you ask her to come down? We would like to ask her a couple of questions, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Okay,” said Rosa, frowning. She got up and bellowed at the foot of the stairs, “Aisha! Come down a minute, will you?”

  “I’m busy!” Aisha shouted back.

  “It’s the police—they want to talk to you!”

  There was much stomping of feet again as Aisha came down the stairs, her face a thundercloud.

  “What?” she said, crossing her arms across her chest.

  “Don’t talk to Odelia and Detective Kingsley like that,” her mother admonished her. “Now sit down and be polite.”

  Aisha rolled her eyes in a perfectly practiced gesture, and plunked herself down on the couch. “What do you want?” she asked.

  “Please try and take an interest, Aisha,” said Tilton. “It’s important.”

  “I know, Tilton,” she said. “Todd was my brother, remember?”

  “I do remember,” said Tilton, cutting a quick glance to Rosa, who shook her head.

  “I’ll go and check on the baby,” she muttered, and hurried up the stairs.

  “Aisha, we know about your brother’s tablet,” said Odelia.

  Moments later, Rosa returned, carrying the baby.

  “What tablet?” asked Aisha morosely.

  “The tablet Todd got from Scott.”

  “I don’t know about any tablet.”

  “We talked to Scott, and he confirmed that he gave his old iPad to Todd last month. He even helped him set it up so that it synced with his phone and with his laptop.”

  “So why are you asking me? If it was Scott’s tablet, you should ask him.”

  “Aisha!” said Rosa.

  “I’m sorry, Mom, but I don’t know anything about a tablet.”

  “It wasn’t amongst his personal effects,” said Odelia, “and it wasn’t in his room, so do you have any idea where it might be?”

  “No idea,” said Aisha immediately. “Now can I go? I have tons of homework to finish.”

  “No, you don’t,” said Rosa. She turned to Odelia and gave her a look of apology. “We’ve been keeping her home from school ever since her brother…” She swallowed with difficulty, and her eyes were soon brimming with tears again.

  “I still have a ton of homework, Mom,” said Aisha. “Even if I don’t go to school, I don’t want to fall behind.”

  “It’s fine,” said Chase, and immediately Aisha shot up from the couch and was stomping up those stairs again. Moments later the door to her room slammed shut, causing both Rosa and Tilton to wince.

  “If she keeps this up we’ll have to get a new doorframe soon,” said Tilton, and I could tell he wasn’t kidding.

  “Do you think Aisha knows about her brother’s tablet?” asked Rosa.

  “Yes, I do,” said Chase.

  “So why is she lying? And where is it?”

  “We’re not sure. But if maybe you could keep an eye on her for the next couple of days?”

  Rosa nodded, and so did Tilton, both looking extremely concerned now.

  “Are you saying… that Aisha could be involved with what happened to Todd?” asked Rosa finally, voicing the question that had forced itself to the forefront of her mind.

  “It’s too soon to tell,” said Chase, getting up. “Just keep an eye on her, will you?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Tilton as he also got up to escort us to the door.

  “I can’t believe Aisha would do anything to harm her brother,” said Rosa. “She and Todd didn’t always get along, but she would never do that.”

  “Unless it was an accident?” Tilton suggested, giving Odelia and Chase a keen look, as if hoping they would confirm or deny the suspicions of him and his wife.

  But Chase was as stony-faced as ever, and Odelia’s face, too, didn’t reveal anything.

  And so moments later we were out on the sidewalk again, and I had the impression we’d left behind two very concerned parents, and one very troubled teenager.

  Chapter 29

  It was the morning after the surprise visit of Detective Kingsley and Odelia Kingsley, and the Bond household was in something of a turmoil. Aisha had insisted today was the day she was going back to school, even though her mom insisted she stay home for another couple of days.

  “No, Mom, I’ll get too much behind if I stay home.”

  “But, honey, you’re not well.”

  “I’m fine,” said Aisha curtly.

  “At least wait until after the funeral.”

  “I want to go now, okay?”

  “If she wants to go, maybe we should let her,” said Tilton, who was seated at the kitchen counter, reading his paper and sipping from his cup of black coffee.

  “Fine,” said Rosa with a sigh of resignation.

  The baby was in the high chair, being fed by Rosa, while Aisha stuffed her books into her backpack, clearly eager for her life to return to normal as soon as possible.

  Amongst the things she stuffed into her backpack was an iPad. She had cleverly tried to conceal that fact, but it’s hard to conceal things from two concerned parents, especially parents who have been told by the police detective in charge of the investigation into their son’s death to be extra vigilant where their daughter is concerned.