And as if to prove she wasn’t kidding, Brutus and Harriet now walked in through the door. “Max!” Brutus growled, taking a menacing stance in front of us. “You did your business in my litter box, didn’t you? And now it’s empty.”

  “It’s the litter monster,” Dooley explained. “It’s been eating our litter.”

  Brutus frowned at my friend. “What are you talking about, Dooley?”

  “Oh, can’t you see what’s going on?” asked Harriet. “He’s simply protecting Max.”

  “Protecting Max?” asked Dooley. “From what?” But then his eyes went wide. “Oh no, it’s the litter monster, isn’t it? He’s eaten our litter, and now he’s coming for us next!”

  “Don’t talk nonsense, Dooley,” said Harriet in a snappish way. “Everyone knows that there’s no such thing as a litter monster.”

  “There is! There definitely is! And it’s eaten all of our litter!”

  Brutus and Harriet shared a look of surprise. “I don’t get it,” Brutus finally admitted as he plopped himself down on his tush. “Start from the beginning, will you, and omit no detail, however slight.”

  But before Dooley could do just that, Grace decided to step in. “Someone or something is eating your litter,” she explained. “And that someone or something just might still be in the house!” At this, she glanced around in a meaningful fashion, causing the hair at the back of my neck to stand at attention. We all gave the kitchen a look filled with trepidation and downright fear.

  “The litter monster is still here?” asked Dooley in a shaky voice. “Are you sure?”

  “Where else could it be?” asked Grace. “First, it ate all of your litter, Dooley, and Max’s, and then it polished off Brutus and Harriet’s litter, and now it’s taking a nap. Just like me when I’ve eaten too much.”

  “But, but, but...”

  “Oh nonsense,” said Harriet. “There’s no such thing as a litter monster. Max simply couldn’t hold it in, and so instead of running home to his own litter box, he decided to do his business in mine. And then, since Dooley always has to do whatever Max does, he did the same thing in Brutus’s box. And when Marge got up this morning and found our boxes unusually soiled, she decided to clean them out, and then since she was busy with a million other things, like humans always are, she completely forgot about it.”

  “I’ve been going to Blake’s Field,” Brutus lamented. “And I think I sat on a nettle. My tush is itching.”

  “You should lick it,” Harriet advised. “Lick it until it stops itching.”

  “But I don’t want to lick my tush!” said Brutus. “What am I, a dog?” He glanced up at Gran, who was still engrossed in her phone conversation, seeking her urgent assistance, but the old lady ignored us. So he now asked Grace, “Could you do the honors?”

  “What honors? What are you talking about?” asked the little girl.

  “Clean my tush? Normally, Marge always does it, or Odelia, or even Gran. But since they’re all otherwise engaged...”

  Now it was Grace’s turn to roll her eyes. “Oh, all right. But just this once, you hear?”

  “Marge always uses antibacterial scented wet wipes,” Brutus explained. “They make my tush smell like lavender. It’s very nice.”

  “Yeah, they’ve got aloe vera,” Harriet added. “It helps soothe irritated skin and greatly reduces the presence of blemishes and wrinkles. It’s also hypoallergenic.”

  “God, you guys are spoiled,” said Grace as she climbed a chair to reach the box of wet wipes located on the kitchen table. Moments later, she was applying a wet wipe to Brutus’s tush, much to the latter’s enjoyment. And since he looked so thoroughly satisfied, the rest of us stood in line for the treatment, waiting patiently until Grace had finished with him so she could apply those wonderful wet wipes to our tushies as well. “And to think that I’m the baby here,” she grumbled, “and that I’m supposed to be the one who gets her tushy wiped.”

  Even though her hand-eye coordination might not be up to snuff yet, and she had a hard time focusing on the job at hand, ending up wiping half of my belly in the process, she still did a pretty good job, and besides, it’s the thought that counts. At the end of the process, the box of wet wipes was empty, and we had never smelled more like lavender before.

  So when Gran finally ended her phone call and saw the floor littered with used wet wipes and the four of us looking happy as clams, she shook her head. “I won’t ask what happened,” she said. Then she turned to us. “Odelia needs you out by the marina.”

  “Oh no,” said Dooley. “Not another boat trip!”

  “No boat trip,” said Gran. “Another murder!”

  CHAPTER 5

  When we arrived at the marina, traveling in Marge’s little red Peugeot driven at breakneck speed by Gran, the place was already crawling with police cars. Gran had a hard time getting past the cordon, but fortunately, that wasn’t a problem we faced. So we simply passed through the police officer’s legs and hurried to the scene of the crime. It took us a slight moment of hesitation to traverse the gangway, as the plank that connects a ship with the mainland is called, but then we were on the boat, in search of our human.

  We found Odelia and Chase on the top deck, which surprisingly enough housed an actual pool, and we saw that the victim had already been removed from the pool and placed on a stretcher. The man looked very much dead, I have to admit, which is probably normal when you’ve just been murdered by a proficient killer who knows what they’re doing.

  “So, what’s going on?” I asked when we had toddled up to Odelia. She was seated with Chase and a third individual who was wearing a captain’s cap, causing me to guess that he was, in fact, the captain of the vessel. The man looked thoroughly shocked and couldn’t drag his eyes away from the victim.

  Odelia would have given us the lowdown on what was going on, but obviously, she couldn’t, so she merely gestured with her eyes at the pool. Catching her drift, I wandered over to inspect said pool and see if I couldn’t detect any clues that she or the crime scene people might have missed.

  The pool was a smallish affair, which probably is normal since it was located on a boat, where space is mostly at a premium. As we walked around the pool, there was nothing out of the ordinary that I could see until we suddenly stumbled upon a smallish creature of the canine persuasion, seated on a lounger and giving us a keen look of alarm. The happy little yapper did not seem pleased to see us, and now I understood why Odelia had asked us to head this way. She wanted us to interview the dog while she interviewed the captain. A nice example of teamwork in action.

  “A dog, Max,” Dooley whispered as he also spotted the creature.

  “I can see that it’s a dog, Dooley,” I said.

  “I’ll go talk to him,” said Brutus. “I’m not afraid of a little dog.”

  “Oh, but I’m not afraid either,” I said. “Just careful, you know.”

  “And you should be careful, tootsie roll,” said Harriet, referring to her boyfriend, not me, with this quaint epithet. “Dogs can be mean, especially the small ones, and they have a nasty bite.”

  “He won’t bite me,” said Brutus. “You have to fix them with one look, you see. That’s the trick. You have to show them that you’re not scared and that, in fact, you’re the alpha male. Obviously, Max can’t do that since he’s a wuss, and Dooley can’t do that either since he’s basically a soft-bellied little pussy. And...” He eyed his girlfriend uncertainly.

  “Yes?” said Harriet with a touch of ice in her voice. “What am I?”

  “Well, you’re a girl,” said Brutus finally, picking his words carefully.

  “And you’re a dinosaur,” said Harriet acerbically.

  Dooley laughed at this. “But Harriet, Brutus can’t be a dinosaur.”

  “And yet, he is,” said Harriet, then stepped to the fore. “I’ll talk to the dog. You guys wait here.”

  And so she approached the dog, and we watched as she did. And even though I had fully expected her to be attacked by the creature, or at the very least receive the cold-shoulder treatment, instead, cat and dog seemed to get along well, and before long, they were chatting amiably. Which I have to say rankled to some extent since I’m supposed to be the detective, interviewing witnesses and possible suspects, only now Harriet was doing my job for me.

  Brutus must have seen I wasn’t happy with the state of affairs, for he grinned at me. “Don’t like being sidelined by a girl, do you, Maxie baby?”

  “No, I don’t,” I said. “And for your information, it has nothing to do with the fact that Harriet is a girl. I just don’t like to be kept in the dark, and if this dog saw what happened, then...”

  Harriet rejoined us, a satisfied smile on her face. “Flame says she didn’t see what happened, for one of the crew members was walking her when Robert fell in, but she does feel very sad about his demise.”

  “Robert? Not Robert Ross?” I said and directed another, closer look at the victim, who was still being examined by Abe Cornwall, our county coroner. And as I looked, I saw to my surprise that Harriet was right. The victim was indeed the famous James Fox actor, who had played the spy six times in a row to much acclaim, from the public but also from the critics.

  “Who’s Flame?” asked Dooley.

  “The dog,” Harriet pointed out.

  “What a funny name,” said Dooley as he regarded the dog with interest.

  “It’s because of the color of her fur,” said Brutus. And the dog did indeed look as if she had recently been set alight, her fur being an odd blend of red and streaks of beige. She was of the Papillon variety and was still eyeing us in an alert sort of way, clearly not all that happy with the presence of four cats trespassing on her territory.

  “So she wasn’t hostile to you?” I asked, much surprised.

  “Oh, no, absolutely not,” said Harriet. “I told her we’re police cats, you see, and she said she’s only too glad to help since she can’t possibly imagine who would want to harm her human, who was the most wonderful and amazing man on the entire planet as far as she was concerned.”

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “Nothing of note, Max,” said Harriet. “She was out walking with a member of her human’s crew, so she didn’t see anything. When she left, Robert was still alive and getting ready for a swim, and when she returned, Odelia was here and Robert was in the state he is in now.”

  “Odelia found him?” I asked.

  Harriet nodded. “Looks like. At first, the crew member thought that Odelia had harmed the man, but when she produced her credentials, she understood. Apparently, Robert had set up an interview with Odelia but wanted to have a refreshing swim before she arrived.”

  “So was it murder or an accident?” asked Dooley.

  Harriet shrugged. “Odelia said it was murder, and the dog doesn’t know.”

  There was a sort of commotion on the staircase leading to the upper deck, and moments later, Gran’s head cleared the edge. She didn’t look happy. “They tried to stop me!” she said. “Can you believe these people? The Chief’s mother!”

  Behind her, a police officer had also appeared, her face red, and her eyes burning holes in Gran’s back.

  “You can’t be here, Mrs. Muffin,” she said. “This is a crime scene.”

  “I’m your boss’s mom,” the old lady pointed out. “If I wanted to, I could have you fired like that!” She snapped her fingers.

  “That may be so,” said the woman, “but you can’t be here, so I have to ask you to leave. If you don’t comply, I have no choice but to place you under arrest.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t dare.”

  “I most certainly would.”

  For a moment, the young policewoman and the old lady squared off, but then Chase approached. “It’s fine,” he said.

  “But, sir.”

  “It’s all right, Sarah.”

  And with a final dirty look at Gran, the woman retreated to prevent other rubberneckers and lookie-loos from crashing the crime scene.

  “You have to hand it to her, she’s feisty,” said Brutus.

  “Feisty and tenacious,” I said.

  For a moment, Gran bent over the body of the dead actor, then shook her head. “So sad,” she murmured. “I thought he was pretty great as Indiana Jones.”

  “James Fox, Gran,” I pointed out. “Not Indiana Jones.”

  “Oh?” said Gran, though she didn’t look all that interested in exactly what role the iconic actor had played. “So how did he die?” she asked Abe Cornwall.

  Abe gave her a scrutinizing look, then said, “I didn’t know you had joined the force, Vesta.”

  “I haven’t, but as a concerned citizen, it’s my sacred duty to get involved in the investigation. After all, where would we be if we allowed these murderous individuals to run riot in our town?”

  “That’s why we have a police force,” Abe pointed out, but the corners of his lips had curled up in amusement.

  “Look, I gave birth to a policeman,” Gran pointed out, “which gives me all the knowledge I need to handle cases like these. So how did he die?”

  Abe sighed. “Well, I’m not sure yet,” he admitted. “He doesn’t appear to have any water in his lungs, which tells me he was dead before he hit the water.”

  “Heart attack?” asked Gran. “He wasn’t in great shape, was he?”

  Abe frowned. “He was one of the finest specimens of the male species I’ve ever seen, Vesta. Muscular, well-toned. Obviously, a man who took great care of himself and worked out on a regular basis. Though even so, a heart attack is always a possibility, of course.” But then he seemed to realize he was basically discussing a case with a member of the public, even if she had given birth to the chief of police, and clammed up. “The rest you’ll have to ask your son, I’m afraid.” He had gotten up from his position next to the body and now walked over to Chase to confer with him about his preliminary conclusions.

  “Hmm,” said Gran as she fingered her chin. “If Odelia says it’s murder, she must have her reasons, even if Abe doesn’t want to disclose them. So let’s just say the man was shot—”

  “No gunshot wounds,” I said.

  “—stabbed.”

  “No stab wounds.”

  “—garroted?”

  “No—”

  “All right, all right, smarty-pants. Then how did he die?”

  Against my better judgment, I had approached the dead man and now sniffed. I detected a powerful smell of bitter almonds and nodded knowingly.

  “Poisoned,” I concluded, therefore. “Mr. Ross was poisoned with cyanide.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Odelia hoped that her cats would be able to get something out of that dog. Since it belonged to the dead man, the dog must have a vested interest in seeing its owner’s killer caught. Or at least she hoped it would. In a recent investigation, they had encountered a dog who had been glad that her humans had been murdered. Though that was admittedly a very peculiar case.

  She refocused her attention on the captain.

  “Yeah, like I said, Robert loved being pampered. He couldn’t even pour himself a drink and expected to be waited on hand and foot day and night. So when he told me that he needed the crew to leave the vessel so he could be alone, that set off all kinds of alarm bells in my head. But since he was the boss, we did as we were told and got off board.”

  “Did he tell you that he had scheduled an interview with Odelia?” asked Chase.

  The captain shook his head. “He never shared that kind of information with me, I’m afraid. The guy was pretty much an enigma. Didn’t talk about himself and kept a distance from myself and my crew. He was a major movie star, of course, and guys like Robert often are that way. Friendly but distant. But I have to say that Robert took it to the extreme.”

  “How do you mean?” asked Odelia.

  “Well, we weren’t supposed to look him in the eye for one thing, and we had to avoid bumping into him as much as possible. Preferably, he would have liked that we served him in as unobtrusive a way as possible. Invisible, as he called it. He wanted to feel as if he was the only person on board, or if he was traveling with friends, as if they were alone on the vessel.”

  “Tough proposition,” said Chase sympathetically.

  “Oh, but he’s not the only one,” said the captain. “Yachts in this price range are often chartered by the rich and famous, and mostly they hate to come into contact with the crew, whom they often deem unworthy or beneath them. As if we belong to a lower class of people.”

  “So where did you come from now?” asked Odelia.

  “We spent a couple of months in the Bahamas and the Caribbean before we arrived here.”

  “Did he have a shoot there?”

  “No, just vacationing. We’ve been slowly making our way up along the coast.”

  “And there was no one else on board except Mr. Ross?”

  “That’s right.”

  “We’ll still have to talk to the rest of your crew,” said Odelia. “I hope you understand.”

  “Of course. And you’re saying he was murdered?”

  Odelia nodded. “That’s what the coroner seems to think.”

  It had come as a huge shock when she saw the man floating in the pool, and then when she tried to revive him, she had quickly determined that it was no use. The paramedics had arrived very quickly, followed by police officers who had cordoned off the marina, and when Chase arrived he had immediately taken the investigation in hand, as he always did, with admirable fortitude and professionalism. Slowly the crew had trickled in, as apparently they had been given the morning off so Robert could be alone. What she didn’t understand was why he would want to be alone with her. She had never met the man, and it wasn’t as if she was a big celebrity herself, just a reporter from a small-town local paper. But from the way Captain Gerard said it, Robert had made it out as if he was meeting someone very important and absolutely did not want to be disturbed as he did. Surely that person could not be her?

  Her cats now approached, and Max told her that Flame, apparently Robert’s dog’s name, said she had been taken for a walk when her human had died and couldn’t help them identify her human’s murderer any more than the captain or the rest of the crew could.