“I know,” said Odelia. “Oh, have you seen Brutus? He seems to have disappeared.”

  “No, I haven’t. Are you sure he’s not at your place?”

  “No, and the cats haven’t seen him since last night. Harriet is frantic with worry.”

  “Oh, dear. So many things happening right now.”

  “And all since Randy has come to stay with us, have you noticed?”

  Mom’s expression hardened. “I’m sure your grandmother dating the wrong man and Brutus going missing has nothing to do with Randy, honey. You can’t blame the poor man for everything. Let’s not forget he’s a victim in this—an innocent victim of his success.”

  Clearly Mom was completely under the fitness guru’s spell, Odelia thought as she set foot for her own little home.

  32

  Lil Ran wasn’t feeling happy—not with himself but also not with these new humans he and his own human were staying with. Instead of helping Randy save his life all they seemed to care about was that weird old grandmother’s dating life, or Marge Poole’s dating life, or even Randy’s dating life.

  They should be out there looking for the killer, but instead they were looking for one of the cats who’d gone missing.

  Now Lil Ran wasn’t going to say anything bad about those cats. They were nice enough, but all they did was spend time singing in some choir in the park, and even though he’d enjoyed singing with Fifi and Rufus, compared with Randy’s life being in danger these idle pursuits simply weren’t important right now.

  And now the cats had been gone all day, and they hadn’t even asked him to tag along, even though by rights he should have been asked, since he was a dog, and not just any dog but Randy’s dog, and that reporter woman, Odelia Poole, had interviewed a bunch of Randy’s people, and had discovered exactly nothing if he’d heard her right.

  So with barely more than two days before Randy was about to die a painful and miserable death, she had nothing—and was no closer to saving his precious human’s life!

  All day Lil Ran had spent in that backyard going a little loopy, so he decided the time had come for action. If these humans and their cats weren’t going to save Randy, he would. And to that end, he decided to rope in the assistance of his new friends Fifi and Rufus.

  Fifi, when he approached her with the idea, didn’t seem overly excited.

  “But I’m not a detective, Lil Ran,” she said from her side of the fence.

  “Neither am I, Fifi, but I have to do something, and I can’t do it alone. So won’t you please help me?”

  “I don’t know, Lil Ran…”

  “Imagine if this was your human. Would you want Kurt to die from some strange and mysterious poison administered while he slept?”

  “Is that a trick question?” asked the little doggie.

  “You’d do whatever you could to save his life, wouldn’t you?”

  “Um, I guess I would,” said Fifi, though she didn’t seem entirely convinced.

  “Look, all I’m saying is we go out there and hunt for clues. How hard can it be?”

  “Very hard,” said Fifi. “Maybe we better wait for Max. He’s a very good detective. He’ll know what to do.”

  “Max is just a cat, Fifi. How can a cat be a good detective?”

  “Oh, but he is. He’s solved a lot of cases for his human. He has a knack for it.”

  Lil Ran didn’t mind the large orange cat. He even thought he was pretty nice. But a detective? No way. Cats weren’t cut out to be detectives. They lacked the instinct. Dogs, on the other hand, were born detectives. “Okay, so what’s holding you back?” he asked.

  “If Kurt finds out I’m gone, he’ll worry,” said Fifi. “He even worries when I take off to play with the other dogs at the dog park.”

  “He won’t even know you’re gone,” said the large Irish Setter. “We’ll leave once it’s dark, and Kurt will be fast asleep by then.”

  Fifi thought about this for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. I’ll do it. But on one condition.”

  “Anything,” said Lil Ran, who didn’t know the lay of the land as well as Fifi.

  “Like I said, we wait for Max to return, and we ask his advice first.”

  Lil Ran rolled his eyes. “All right, fine. So we’ll ask the big orange cat.”

  “Blorange,” said Fifi.

  “What?”

  “Blorange. Max is very specific about that.”

  “Are you sure blorange is even a real color?”

  “Absolutely. Now let’s ask Rufus,” said Fifi, and tripped through the hole in the fence and led the way through Odelia’s backyard, into Marge and Tex’s backyard, and up to where Rufus lived. The big sheepdog barked happily when he saw them coming.

  “Hey, buddies. So are we on for dog choir tonight?”

  “Lil Ran has an even better idea,” said Fifi. “We’re going sleuthing.”

  “Sleuthing?” asked Rufus. “What do you mean?”

  “We’re going to save my human’s life,” said Lil Ran proudly. He might have fumbled the ball when he’d allowed those dastardly poisoners to enter the house undetected and injected his human with a life-ending toxin, but he was going to make up for that now.

  “What do you say, Rufus?” said Fifi. “Do you want to solve a crime tonight? Walk in the footsteps of the great detectives?”

  “But I’m not a detective, you guys,” said the big fluffy dog. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  “Exactly what I said!” said Fifi. “Which is why we’ll consult with Max first, and he’ll tell us what to do.”

  “Oh,” said Rufus, nodding. “Yeah, I think that might be a good idea. If Max says it’s fine, of course I’ll come with you.”

  Lil Ran rolled his eyes and suppressed a groan of exasperation. What was all this business about Max? These two mutts seemed to have more respect for a stupid cat than for one of their own!

  At least he had secured himself the assistance of two sidekicks. And if things went according to plan, very soon now they’d be out there, chasing the bad guys.

  He frankly couldn’t wait!

  33

  I wasn’t exactly feeling on top of the world, and I think you’ll excuse me for feeling like that. Imagine you were kicked out of the wedding of one of your own humans because you were deemed not aesthetically pleasing enough to be allowed to parade in front of the wedding guests. I’d bet you wouldn’t feel so hot either, right?

  And I’d been idly wandering through town, my mind a jumble of thoughts, when once again I came upon that van I’d seen before, the one driven by Johnny and Jerry. This time it was parked right outside the same pet shop depicted on the decal: Pete’s Pet Paradise.

  Johnny and Jerry are two crooks who’ve been on their way to being reformed for so long it’s hard to imagine they’ll ever get there. They’ve been stumbling back onto the path of crime more than once, but then probably every addict has a hard time staying on the straight and narrow path to sobriety the first time out—or at least so I’ve been told.

  And since I’m always curious to know what those two crooks are up to, I decided to take a closer look at this pet shop.

  It was of course possible that they’d finally found gainful employ, and were now two law-abiding citizens, but somehow I doubted it.

  On the other hand, pet shops aren’t usually associated with the life of crime, and I didn’t see what they could possibly hope to gain by breeding and selling pets to unsuspecting customers.

  I glanced through the window and saw Johnny acting the part of a salesman, a hamster in a small cage placed on the counter, the ex-con talking to a man with a small child and presumably extolling the virtues of owning and caring for that hamster.

  I then noticed a basement window, set low in a recess. The window had a half-busted metal grille in front of it, and I now wondered what they might be hiding down there.

  Call it my natural feline curiosity. Some people say that it has the power to kill, but so far I’d always escaped my nosy parker tendencies with my life, so I was prepared to take my chances.

  So I hopped down into that recess, and took a peek through the window. All I could see were very large tanks. They were blue in color, made of some kind of plastic, and reminded me of the inflatable pool Chase had once bought us so Odelia could teach us how to swim. It hadn’t been Chase’s finest hour—or mine for that matter.

  Inside those large tanks I could see a mass of writhing forms. They could be fishes, or they could be… turtles. Yes, they were unmistakably turtles, and plenty of them, too.

  I frowned at the strange sight. What would a pet shop need this many turtles for? The market for pet turtles might be larger than I thought—I will readily admit I’m not exactly an expert on turtles kept as pets—but surely not to this extent.

  And then I saw the other half of the criminal duo: Jerry was walking along the tanks, dumping in fish food from large bags placed against the basement wall. He was strewing the fish food with a generous hand, like a farmer sowing seeds onto fertile soil.

  The little turtles all scrambled to gobble up the tiny nuggets of food, and I watched the spectacle with a curious eye.

  I now remembered how Brutus’s turtle had recently escaped a pond, and had roped Brutus into finding this pond and freeing her friends from that selfsame pond.

  The turtle theme seemed prevalent lately, and as I hopped up from my perch, back to street level, I wondered once more where Brutus could possibly be.

  There is only one pond in Hampton Cove, located at our local park, and since I didn’t have much else to do, I decided to wend my way there, and hopefully find my friend. I needed to tell my tale of woe to someone, and Brutus would do as well as the next cat.

  And as I set paw in the direction of the park, a loud voice alerted me someone wanted speech with me. When I looked back, I saw that it was Dooley, and it honestly warmed the cockles of my heart to see him.

  “Max!” he said as he drew level with me. “Why did you leave all of a sudden?”

  “I didn’t think I was needed anymore,” I said. “Shanille made it clear she didn’t want me to attend the wedding, so I just figured I’d leave you guys to it.”

  “But I don’t want to be in that wedding either, Max. I don’t want to walk behind Gran and Wilbur with flowers in my hair.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Of course not! I want to be in Odelia’s wedding, and in Uncle Alec’s wedding, if he ever decides to go ahead and propose to Charlene, but I don’t want Gran to marry Wilbur Vickery, and I told Shanille.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “That it’s not up to us cats to say who can or can’t get married, and if Gran and Wilbur have decided to engage in the holy sacrament of matrimony, no power on earth can or should come between them, and most definitely not a silly little cat like me.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “I said that if Gran decides to get married, I’m going to ask Odelia to adopt me, and Gran can go and live with Wilbur without me.”

  I smiled at my friend. “That’s very brave of you, Dooley.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Of course. Gran won’t be happy her cat decides not to follow her to her new home.”

  “Well, that can’t be helped,” said Dooley with a look of determination in his eyes I’d rarely seen there before. “I’m going to stay with you, Max, and with Brutus and Harriet. We’re the fearsome foursome, and no one is going to separate us—certainly not Wilbur.”

  I laughed at the fierceness with which he spoke. “Looks like your mind is made up.”

  “Yes, it is. I don’t want to wear flowers in my hair, Max—no way!”

  “What about Harriet? She’ll want that tiara, I’m sure.”

  “Well, she can have her tiara. And if she wants she can go and live with Wilbur and call Kingman her brother from now on—but not me!”

  “Let’s hope she doesn’t,” I said. I didn’t want to break up the band either. And even though Harriet can be a handful sometimes, I would miss her dearly.

  “What were you doing outside that shop just now, Max?” asked my friend.

  “Oh, just looking. I saw Johnny and Jerry messing about in there, so I just figured I’d see what they were up to.”

  “Pete’s Pet Paradise,” he read from the sign on the window. “Are they selling pets?”

  “Yeah, looks like. Turtles, mainly, it would seem.” And I told him about the thousands of little turtles in the basement of the shop. “Could be that they’re breeding them and selling them to local seafood restaurants.”

  He gave me a look of shock. “Eat turtles! But why, Max?”

  I shrugged. “I guess some people like that sort of thing.”

  And as we set paw for the park, Dooley reiterated the need for us to break up the upcoming wedding of Gran and Wilbur, and also of Marge and Randy. In other words: we had our work cut out for us.

  34

  As Harriet walked back home, she was experiencing a welter of emotions. On the plus side, she was undoubtedly going to be the star of Gran and Wilbur’s wedding. And with any luck she might be able to pull off the same hat trick at Marge and Randy Hancock’s wedding—and Odelia and Chase’s matrimonial endeavor.

  On the minus side of the equation, if Gran did indeed get married, Dooley would have to go and live with her and Wilbur, and even though Dooley annoyed her sometimes, she also loved the silly cat to bits.

  Also on the minus side was the fact that Brutus was still missing, and now Max and Dooley had walked out on her, leaving her and Shanille alone to handle the wedding preparations. Then again, wasn’t it always that way: when it came down to it, it was always the women who had to deal with these matters, while the men went down to the bar to have a drink with their buddies.

  Though she doubted whether Max and Dooley were at the bar, and neither was Brutus.

  She arrived home just in time to see Gran park her car at the curb and get out.

  “Gran!” she said. “I’m going to be wearing the nicest, cutest little tiara for your wedding. I’m going to look like the belle of the ball—though I won’t steal your thunder, of course. The bride should always be the center of attention—even I know that.”

  Gran looked down at her, a look of confusion on her face. “What are you talking about? What wedding?”

  “Why your wedding with Wilbur, of course. It’s going to be just grand. Shanille has a lot of ideas and so have I. So we should definitely get together to discuss them. I’m thinking a nice tux for Wilbur, and white for you. Now I know that white isn’t the obvious choice for one who’s been married before, and has two adult children of her own, but—”

  “Harriet, hold on. I specifically told Max and Dooley last night that I’m not getting married—I mean, me? Getting married to that lecherous pipsqueak? Never in my life!”

  “But we saw you. We saw you and Wilbur hugging at the store.”

  “Yeah, he took me by surprise,” Gran grunted annoyedly. “But I can promise you right now it’ll never happen again. He can apologize until he’s blue in the face, but I’m never going out on a date with that man again, and if he thinks he still has a place in the neighborhood watch he can think again. He’s out.”

  “But—”

  “Look,” said Gran. “I’m never getting married again, Harriet. I did it once and it didn’t become me. Married life may suit some people, but I’m too attached to my freedom to go and hitch my wagon to a deserving or undeserving male ever again. Got that?”

  “But what about my tiara?”

  Gran laughed. “You can wear your tiara as much as you want, darling, but it won’t be at my wedding.”

  “So maybe I can wear it at Marge and Randy’s wedding?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Chase saw them together. They were buck naked and hugging and Marge was crying tears of joy.”

  “Oh, God,” said Vesta with a groan. “I’m too old for this nonsense.”

  “We’re going to try and stop the wedding, though,” said Harriet. “So there’s still hope. And Lil Ran said he’s going to help us, even though he seems to think his human is not into women but into men instead. But clearly he’s mistaken, as Randy is interested in Marge, and Marge is a woman, right?”

  “Last time I checked she was,” said Gran with a bemused smile. “So you’re going to try and stop this wedding, huh? And how are you going to do that?”

  “We haven’t really come up with a plan yet,” said Harriet. “First we wanted to sabotage your wedding, but then I liked my tiara so much I was starting to have second thoughts about my commitment to the plan. Now I’m thinking that the opportunity to wear a tiara isn’t worth having to go and live with Randy at his mansion, and for Dooley to have to go and live with Wilbur above the store.”

  “I told you, Harriet. No way in hell am I getting married to that man.”

  “Oh, right,” said Harriet, who had a hard time following the plot. People were getting married, then they weren’t getting married, then they were getting married again. Who could blame a poor cat for getting all confused! “So you’re not getting married but Marge is,” she said, nodding to herself. “Got it.”

  “The only reason I was over at Wilbur’s is I wanted to talk to Kingman,” said Gran, leaning against the car and folding her arms. “I thought he might be able to tell me where Brutus was. But no such luck, I’m afraid. He says Brutus went off to look for turtles in a pond and free them. Though he secretly thinks Brutus went off on a toot because of the wedding.” She shook her head. “So many weird stories doing the rounds. I think it’s time for Odelia to set the record straight. Print an article in the Gazette before this whole thing gets out of hand.”

  “So… did you find Brutus?” asked Harriet, trying to decode Gran’s stream of words.

  “Nah. I checked the pond. No Brutus anywhere in sight—or turtles for that matter. I even asked the park ranger and he says there have never been turtles and there never will be turtles at the park. The ducks would eat them, and they can’t have that.” She sighed deeply. “I really don’t know what that cat is up to, honey.” She glanced down at Harriet. “Did you have better luck?”