“I wouldn’t be so sure, Max,” said Dooley. “Rose says her father was murdered, remember?”

  “Yeah, but that’s just the emotion talking,” I pointed out. “I’m sure this was a suicide—plain and simple.”

  “I still think it was the sausage that did it,” Dooley said.

  I sighed and said, “Oh, Dooley.” And then I gobbled up another piece of turkey.

  6

  The next morning Odelia arrived at the office bright and early. She’d already been outlining a piece about Dino Wimmer’s suicide to put up on the Gazette website when she walked in and was surprised to be greeted by a new face seated at the reception desk—a reception desk that hadn’t been occupied for God knows how long.

  “Hi!” said the young woman, giving Odelia a cheery welcome. She was slim and trim and sported blue-rimmed glasses and generally looked like a secretary, not a reporter.

  “Hi,” said Odelia. “I’m sorry but… who are you?”

  “I’m Kimberly,” said the woman, and got up to shake Odelia’s hand. “And you must be Odelia. I’ve heard so much about you—couldn’t wait to meet you in person.”

  “Oh, hey, Odelia,” said Dan Goory, joining them at the desk. “I see you’ve met Kimberly. Kimberly Moraga, this is Odelia Poole. Odelia, meet Kimberly Moraga, our new colleague.” The aged editor grinned behind his long white beard and said, “Step into my office a moment?”

  So Odelia stepped into her editor’s office, wondering why he hadn’t told her he was hiring a receptionist, and took a seat in front of his desk.

  “Look, if you needed a receptionist I could have done the job for you,” she said. “I mean, it’s not as if we get a lot of visitors, and it would have saved you money.”

  “I didn’t hire Kimberly as a receptionist, Odelia,” said Dan as he turned this way and that in his swivel chair. “I hired her as a reporter.”

  “A reporter? But…”

  “I know, I know,” said Dan, holding up his hands in an appeasing gesture. “I said I wasn’t going to expand. I was going to slowly ease myself into early retirement so you could take over. Well, the thing is, Odelia, that I’ve finally seen the flaw in my reasoning.”

  “The flaw?”

  “Yes! Look at me!”

  She looked at him and blinked.

  “I’m not old, am I?”

  “Um…”

  “I’m only sixty-nine, Odelia. People live to be a hundred these days. And live well! Doctors, it’s amazing what they can do. I take my vitamins. I eat my vegetables. I can do this for at least another twenty or thirty years. So instead of winding down, I’m expanding!”

  “Expanding,” she said, as she wondered if the man had lost his mind.

  “Exactly! I’m going to distribute the Gazette all along the coast. I’m going to rename it the Hamptons Gazette. I’m going to hire more reporters, and correspondents, and salespeople, and I’m not going to stop until we’re the number-one selling paper on the South Shore!”

  “Oh-kay,” she said cautiously. Yep, definitely gone completely bananas.

  “So Kimberly is my first hire—straight out of journalism school, I might add. A bright and clever young lady with a promising future ahead of her. And she’s just the first of many, many more. Oh, and we’re moving into a new office.”

  “A new office!” she cried.

  “Yes! You know that new office tower they’re planning to build behind Town Hall?”

  “Corinthian Tower?”

  “That’s the one. We’re going to occupy an entire floor.” He rubbed his hands. “Oh, Odelia, I feel so energized I could jump for joy! Can you feel it?”

  She could feel it, all right. Madness. “What?”

  He took a deep breath, a big smile creasing his face, his beard waggling excitedly. “It’s a new era rolling in, baby. The Era of Dan!”

  Odelia staggered out of the editor’s office, not exactly feeling energized as much as sandbagged. Before she could reach her own office—which soon wouldn’t be her office anymore—she was waylaid by the still chipper-looking Kimberly. The woman grabbed her hand and pumped it energetically

  “Can I just say it’s an honor, Odelia?” said Kimberly. “A tremendous honor to be working alongside a reporter of your stature.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Odelia, who didn’t exactly know what to say to that. “Thanks, Kimberly.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be able to learn a ton from watching you in action,” said Kimberly with a slightly frantic gleam in her eye. “Oh, and if you need anything, just holler. Anything for the great Odelia Poole!”

  “Sure thing,” said Odelia, awarding the overly excited junior reporter a strained smile.

  As soon as she was alone, she let herself drop down into her chair and wondered what her role in the future Hamptons Gazette would look like. Not that she begrudged Dan another twenty or thirty years of productive activity, but if he was going to fill up the office with an army of new recruits, what was her professional life going to be like from now on? Would she still be able to come and go as she pleased? Or would she get an ID swipe card or have to punch a clock from now on in this new ‘Era of Dan’?

  And as she booted up her computer, she didn’t even look up when someone strode into her office and took a seat in the chair across from her desk.

  “Just leave it there, Kimberly,” she said, assuming the hyper-active and no doubt hyper-efficient new colleague had decided to bring the great Odelia Poole a cup of coffee.

  “Leave what there?” asked a familiar voice. And when she looked up, she saw it wasn’t Kimberly seated at her desk, but Rose Wimmer.

  “Rose!” she said. “How are you?”

  The young woman shrugged. “Okay, I guess. Under the circumstances. I dropped by to pick up my phone.”

  Odelia made a face. “Um, I don’t have it with me at the moment, but if you could come back later this after—”

  “Forget about the phone,” said Rose, leaning forward and lowering her voice. “Did you think about my proposal from last night?”

  “What proposal?” said Odelia with a frown of confusion.

  “The job! I want to hire you to find my dad’s killer, remember?”

  “Oh, that,” she said, sitting back as she studied the young woman’s eager face.

  “Don’t tell me you won’t take my case, Odelia,” said Rose. “I know for a fact that my father didn’t kill himself, and I’m also sure that if you take a closer look you’ll absolutely agree with me that he wasn’t the kind of man to commit suicide. He just wasn’t!”

  “Okay, all right,” said Odelia. “Look, the thing is—the police are still investigating. And if they decide that your dad’s death was suicide, I don’t see what I can do to dispute it.”

  “But he didn’t do it, I’m telling you!”

  “What makes you so sure? Apart from the fact that he was your father and you obviously loved him very much and you simply can’t wrap you head around the fact that he did what he did.”

  Rose stared at her for a moment, a little taken aback, then said, “Just look into what happened, all right? That’s all I’m asking. Just take a closer look.” She abruptly got up. “Have you found out who sent me those horrible pictures?”

  “Not yet,” said Odelia, who keenly felt she was letting Rose down. That couldn’t be helped, though. She wasn’t going to investigate a murder that had never taken place.

  Suddenly Rose dumped several rolls of cash on the desk. They were held together with multi-colored elastic bands. “This is all I have,” she said. “My entire savings. Do you think it’s enough?”

  Odelia shook her head as she picked up the money and handed it back to the girl. “It’s not about the money, Rose. I just don’t think—”

  “Keep it, all right?” said Rose, suddenly sounding desperate. “Just… keep it.” And she turned to leave. Before she walked out, though, she turned and said, “He didn’t do it, Odelia. He just didn’t.”

  And then she was gone.

  7

  As Odelia left the office, she didn’t notice that someone was watching her closely. The moment Odelia slammed the door behind her, Kimberly emerged from the shadows in the corridor that housed the offices of both Odelia, the Gazette’s star reporter, and Dan, its editor. The junior reporter was frowning before herself. She hesitated for a moment, then entered the office of the wizened editor.

  Dan looked up. He’d been chuckling to himself and now said, “I keep forgetting what a great writer I am. This latest editorial is a real pippin. Did you read it?”

  “Yes, I did. It’s great,” said Kimberly, quickly plastering an ingratiating smile onto her face. “You know, I couldn’t help but overhear Odelia talking to this girl just now.”

  “Girl? What girl?”

  “Rose something. She was asking Odelia to investigate her father’s murder.”

  “Rose Wimmer? Her father wasn’t murdered. He committed suicide last night.”

  “Well, his daughter seems to think he was murdered. And she asked Odelia to investigate the murder. Offered her money and everything.”

  “Well, that’s her prerogative, I guess,” said Dan with a shrug. “Odelia has been known to dabble in some amateur sleuthing from time to time. Guess the apple doesn’t fall from the tree. You do know her uncle is—”

  “Chief of police. Yes, I know.” She grimaced. “It’s just that…”

  The editor eyed her keenly. “Spit it out, young lady. I can see you’ve got something on your chest. What is it?”

  “Well, isn’t all this amateur sleuthing as you call it bound to interfere with Odelia’s work for the paper? I mean, I don’t want to pry or anything, but she just left, presumably to investigate this murder business.”

  Dan smiled. “I guess they teach you at journalism school that being a reporter is like being a regular employee, right? Put in your eight hours? Well let me tell you right now, honey, that that isn’t the case. If a story develops and requires you to hunt down some witness or lead, you will have to go above and beyond for the sake of your story.”

  “But Odelia—”

  “Just let Odelia be. She knows what she’s doing. Now did you arrange that interview with Mayor Butterwick for me?”

  “Yes, I did, Mr. Goory,” said Kimberly, sobered by this rebuke.

  “Dan, please,” said Dan. “Well, don’t let me keep you,” he added, a clear sign that the meeting was over.

  “Thank you, Dan,” she said, and returned to her desk. She sat there for a moment, thinking things through, then got up again, and surreptitiously moved past Dan’s office—the editor was reading his own work again, judging from his fruity chuckle, and didn’t notice her—and quickly moved into Odelia’s office.

  She sat down behind the reporter’s desk, opened her laptop, and started to read.

  It was one of those lazy days where nothing much seems to happen, and Dooley and I were walking along the sidewalk, with no particular destination in mind, when we saw Odelia come stepping out of her office and hurrying off in the direction of Town Hall.

  “Must be tough to be a reporter,” said Dooley, who’d observed the same phenomenon. “Always chasing some story or following up some lead. Stressful.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I said. Oftentimes Odelia will be working on a case and insisting Dooley and I tag along, but since she didn’t have a case to work on right now, we were off the hook and I didn’t mind one bit, I have to admit.

  “It’s not good for her blood pressure, you know,” said Dooley. “Or her general wellbeing.”

  “She’s fine,” I assured my friend. “Odelia is young and in great shape, thanks to all those workout sessions she puts in at the gym.”

  “Still,” said Dooley.

  “Still,” I agreed.

  “It would probably be better for her health if she’d quit that stressful job and found some other, more relaxing job.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Zookeeper,” Dooley said immediately. “It’s very relaxing, spending all your time surrounded by animals. You feed the lion, then you clean out the lion’s cage, then you feed the elephant, you clean out the elephant’s cage. All that repetition is soothing.”

  “Entering a lion’s cage doesn’t sound like a very soothing thing to do,” I said. “It sounds really dangerous. And therefore stressful.”

  “Oh, no. These zookeepers are professionals,” said Dooley, who’d clearly been watching another Discovery Channel documentary. “They know how to handle these animals. And since Odelia is already familiar with handling her pets, I think she’d be perfect for the job.”

  “You better tell her that,” I suggested with a slight grin. “In fact you better tell her tonight. She could apply as a zookeeper tomorrow, and leave the stress and strife of being a small-town reporter and writing articles on pumpkin patch hayrides behind.”

  Dooley’s face lit up with a smile. “I will, Max. Thanks. I thought you’d be skeptical.”

  “Oh, I’m not. And I’m sure Odelia will be thrilled.”

  Just then, an old lady was trying to cross the road, but couldn’t because cars kept zooming past her at a high rate of speed, ignoring her feeble attempts to attract their attention and let her pass.

  “Will you look at that,” I said, shaking my head. But I was speaking to thin air, as my friend had suddenly skedaddled. Skedaddled in the direction of the old lady. He was meowing loudly, and as she looked down, suddenly Dooley started to cross the street, putting himself in harm’s way before I could stop him!

  “Dooley!” I cried. “Dooley, no!”

  Car drivers, as a rule, pay little to no attention to certain other occupants of the road, such as there are: children, old ladies, cyclists, pets… In fact anyone who isn’t driving a car. So when Dooley started crossing the road, instead of halting their progress they simply kept on driving. And as I watched, a large truck came rumbling down the road.

  “Dooley!” I screamed as the truck made no attempt to stop.

  Dooley was holding up one paw, like a traffic cop. Unfortunately he’s so small and that truck was so big he simply didn’t stand a chance.

  I closed my eyes as the truck simply drove right over my bestest friend in all the world!

  “You beast!” suddenly Dooley’s voice rang out, and when I opened my eyes again, I saw that he was shaking his fist at the truck who was now rumbling around the bend and soon disappeared out of sight. “You inconsiderate beast!” Dooley was saying.

  “Dooley! I snapped. “Come back here now!”

  Dooley came back here, and said, “He didn’t stop, Max. Did you see that? He didn’t stop!”

  “Of course he didn’t stop. He probably didn’t even see you!”

  “But how could he not see me? I was right there, motioning for him to stop!”

  “What were you thinking!” I practically screamed. “You could have gotten yourself killed!”

  And then I got it. Last night. The suicide. I’d once heard that suicides can be contagious. That when a celebrity dies, plenty of his or her fans jump off that same cliff, like lemmings—if lemmings jump off cliffs. I could be thinking of some other species. “Dooley, that man last night. He was very unhappy. That’s why he did what he did. You don’t have to do what he did.”

  He was staring at me, confusion written all over his features. “What are you talking about, Max?”

  “That banker from last night. Dino Wimmer. Please don’t jump off the same cliff, Dooley. Just because he did what he did, you don’t have to, see? You’re not him. You’re not a lemming!”

  “I know I’m not a lemming, Max,” he said, giving me a curious look. “I’m a cat. And I was just trying to help that little old lady cross the road.”

  Now it was my turn to stare at him in confusion. “Help her cross the road? But why?”

  “Because I haven’t done my good deed of the day yet,” he explained. “Gran said that if I want to be a good cub scout I should do one good deed a day, like helping little old ladies cross the road. And when I saw this little old lady—where did she go?”

  We both looked around, and indeed the little old lady was gone. And then I saw her: she’d safely reached the other shore and was now shuffling on to wherever she was heading.

  “Please don’t ever do that again, Dooley,” I said. I held up my paw. “See this?”

  “See what?”

  “I’m shaking all over!”

  “Why are you shaking, Max?” Then his eyes widened. “Oh, no. Is that what you’ve been trying to tell me? That you’re dying, just like Dino Wimmer? Is it cancer, Max?”

  “No, I’m not dying, Dooley, but if you ever pull a stunt like that again, I just might. Of heart failure!”

  “But I have to do a good deed, Max,” he said as we walked on. “It’s important.”

  “But why? I don’t get it.”

  “Gran and I watched this documentary last night. It was all about the Cub Scouts of America, and how they do good deeds all the time.”

  “I think it’s Boy Scouts of America, Dooley. Not Cub Scouts.”

  “Pretty sure it’s Cub Scouts. And I told Gran how nice it is that these kids—they call themselves cubs on account of the fact that they’re cute and cuddly, just like real cubs—”

  “Pretty sure that’s not the reason they’re called cubs.”

  “Pretty sure it is. So they do these things for their fellow man, see? And Gran said why don’t you follow their lead? You’re a real cub, not a fake one like these kids. So that’s when she made me take a pledge.”

  “Gran made you take a pledge,” I said, not concealing my surprise.

  “Sure. And you can, too. It’s very simple. You just promise to be a good cub from now on, and be kind to people and pets alike, and you’re on your way to making this world a better place. And isn’t that what we all want, Max? To make the world a better place?”

  “Yes, Dooley,” I said, touched by his words of sincerity. “You’re absolutely right.”