“Of course,” he said. “Whatever you need.”

  “So Jamie was here early this morning? And she and Chickie met in the dance studio?”

  “That’s correct. Jamie is one of Chickie’s oldest friends, and she always got access to her. Though this morning Chickie didn’t seem very happy when I ushered Jamie in.”

  “They had a fight yesterday,” Odelia explained.

  “Oh, right. That would explain the frosty reception.”

  “When did Jamie leave?”

  “Um, just after six, I would say.”

  “And Chickie was still alive at that time?”

  “Yes, she was. I saw her myself. She told me she didn’t want to be disturbed.”

  “And did anyone else drop by after Jamie left?”

  “Nobody.”

  “So where were you when Chickie was holed up in her studio?”

  “In the kitchen, having breakfast,” he said, looking a little embarrassed.

  “How many security people were watching the Hay family this morning?”

  “Um, there’s a crew of five.”

  “And you’re the person in charge?”

  “Yes. I tell them where to go and what to watch out for. The house has a top-of-the-line security system. No one gets in or out without being seen. We have motion sensors and security cameras. Also, two people walk the perimeter, keeping their eyes peeled.”

  “So… correct me if I’m wrong…”

  “Yes, Miss Poole?”

  “No one came into the house after Jamie left. And the house was so well-guarded you would have noticed if anyone did.”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “And yet Chickie was killed somewhere between…”

  “The last time I saw her was at six thirty.”

  “And Hortense found her at seven. So she was killed between six thirty and seven.”

  The man nodded.

  “So this must be an inside job, no question about it.”

  “Yes,” Tyson agreed. “Someone who was already in the house must have killed her.”

  “And only you were here, and your team, and Nickie, Yuki, Hortense…”

  “And half a dozen staff.”

  She gave the man a pointed look. “You do realize you’ve just incriminated yourself, don’t you, Tyson?”

  “Oh, no, Miss Poole. I would never do anything to harm Miss Hay.”

  “Is it true you’ve been in contact with Laron Weskit recently, Tyson?”

  His eyes went wide and he stammered for a moment, but then finally cast down his eyes. “Yes, Miss Poole. Yes, I have.”

  11

  It was our opportunity to listen in on a real-live interrogation and we weren’t going to miss it for the world. Odelia was grilling a potential killer. Dooley and I sat around, casually being inconspicuous, while Odelia asked this bodyguard a couple of zingers.

  “Is this what a detective does, Max?” asked Dooley, and I confirmed that this was exactly what a detective did, which, in a sense, Odelia was and more.

  “Laron Weskit contacted me last year,” said Tyson. He’d lit up another cigarette and was taking a long, fortifying drag. “He and Chickie had fallen out by then and she was in search of a new record company, ready to sign a contract for her next couple of albums. Laron needed someone on the inside, and asked me to be his eyes and ears.”

  “He wanted you to spy on Chickie.”

  “Yes, that’s what it boiled down to. He said Chickie had abandoned him, and it was only a matter of time before she did the same to me.”

  “Did she have a history of dumping business associates, or members of staff?”

  “Not that I was aware of. Most people left after working for her for a while. Chickie was a perfectionist, and if you didn’t do things exactly the way she liked, she could really haul you over the coals. So I knew Laron had a point. Sooner or later I’d make a mistake and it would be my ass on the line. So I decided to take him up on his offer.”

  “Which was?”

  “If I kept him informed of which record companies Chickie was in contact with, and the state of the negotiations, he’d recommend me to the stars he had under contract.”

  “Do you think Laron is the kind of man capable of murder?” she asked.

  “I doubt it. Laron is a businessman, not a killer.”

  “Yes, but we all know what happens when an artist dies, Tyson.”

  He looked puzzled. “I don’t…”

  “The value of their catalog goes up. And Laron Weskit owns the rights to all of Chickie’s old songs, doesn’t he?”

  “He does,” the man confirmed.

  “It’s a strong motive for murder, Tyson. Was Chickie’s new album ready?”

  “I… I’m not sure. Chickie was very secretive about it. She didn’t confide in a lot of people. Not even her own family. Only last week Yuki complained she hadn’t heard the new songs yet.”

  “Who had heard those new songs?”

  “Um, just the producer, I guess.”

  “Is he here?”

  “No, he’s in New York. Chickie has been coming and going to his studio for the past couple of months. I know because I’m the one who’s been driving her.”

  Odelia smiled. “Tell me honestly, Tyson—you have heard the new songs, haven’t you? And you’ve been secretly recording them and sending them to Laron Weskit.”

  “No! I would never do that, Miss Poole. You have to believe me. All I did was keep an eye on the record executives Chickie was in negotiation with. Laron was still hoping to reach an understanding with her. Make a new deal. He wanted to know if he still had a chance. These big players have deep pockets, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep up.”

  “Is Laron in town?”

  “Yes, he and his wife are staying at the Hampton Cove Star. Charlie Dieber, who’s under contract with Laron, is being offered some kind of award. Keys to the city.”

  “So Charlie and Laron are both staying at the Star,” said Odelia pensively.

  “I guess so.”

  Odelia nodded, and I could tell what she was thinking: time to pay a visit to Laron and Charlie, and find out what they’d been up to.

  “One last question,” she said.

  “Yes, Miss Poole.”

  “Can you definitely rule out the possibility that an intruder managed to get past security and murder your employer?”

  He stared at her for a moment, then heaved a deep sigh. “No. I know I should probably lie and tell you such a contingency is out of the question, but that’s not the case. Theoretically there’s always a chance someone managed to sneak in unseen and out again, killing Miss Hay in the process. But the chance of that happening is very slim.”

  “But there is a chance?”

  “There’s always a chance, yes, whatever any security expert might tell you.”

  Odelia returned indoors while the bodyguard stayed rooted in place, eagerly drawing from his cigarette. The man had just admitted something he probably shouldn’t have.

  “If this is true, anyone could have come in and murdered Chickie,” said Dooley.

  “Yes, any old prowler could have killed her,” I agreed.

  And then a strange sound reached my ears. It seemed to come from the other side of the house. And as Dooley and I went in search of its source, we were met by Harriet and Brutus, who’d noticed the same thing. It came from across the fence, so Dooley quickly scaled it, followed by Brutus and Harriet. The only one who wasn’t scaling it was me.

  Look, I’ve lost weight recently. A lot of weight. To the extent that I now fit through the pet flap again. But that still doesn’t make me the skinniest cat on the planet—the kind of cat that scales fences with effortless ease.

  “What’s going on?” I yelled to my three friends.

  “Come up here and see for yourself!” Harriet yelled back.

  I stared at the fence. It was conveniently covered in ivy and looked scalable. So I took a deep breath, and put my first paw on the ivy, then slowly but gradually moved up until I’d reached my friends. And I was so over the moon with my heroic effort that I almost didn’t notice the strange young man who stood singing a famous Chickie song below us. He was also lobbing long-stemmed red roses over the fence for some strange reason.

  And just when I thought he’d go away, he walked up to the gate and started banging it with his fists, then started actually crawling up the sturdy thing!

  It swung open, though, and soon three burly men descended upon him and grabbed him. And then Chase joined them and before the man could utter another bar of the Chickie Hay song, he’d been cuffed and escorted in. The gate closed, and soon all was quiet again. And when I glanced around, I understood why all was so quiet: I was alone up there on that fence. And down below, Harriet, Brutus and Dooley sat staring up at me.

  “What are you doing still doing up there, Max?” asked Harriet. “Get down here!”

  Easier said than done. I had absolutely no idea how to get down from my perch.

  12

  The experience wasn’t new to me. Usually my bugaboos are tops of trees, or roofs of houses, but the fence was a novelty. Still, it boiled down to the same thing: I was stuck.

  I could have jumped, of course, considering the nine lives things and all, but that fence was easily six feet high, and I’ve never harbored a death wish in my life.

  “Max! Get down!” Dooley encouraged me.

  “I can’t!” I shouted back. “I’m stuck!”

  “Don’t talk nonsense, Max,” said Brutus. “Just get down here.”

  “Funny, isn’t it!” I replied.

  “What is?”

  “Usually the two of us are stuck together!”

  He chuckled. “You’re right. That is funny.”

  Or maybe not.

  “I guess we better ask Chase to get you down,” said Harriet with a sigh of annoyance.

  “Oh, no, please don’t,” I said.

  “Why? What do you have against Chase?”

  “Nothing. I’m just embarrassed that he keeps having to save me.”

  “You can’t stay up there, Max,” Harriet pointed out with infallible logic.

  “What’s going on?” asked Mark the Peacock as he came prancing up.

  “Max is stuck on top of your fence,” Brutus explained. “He can’t get down.”

  “What are you doing there, cat?!” the peacock shouted.

  “Taking in the view, Mark,” I shouted back.

  “Who’s this Mark you’re talking about?”

  “I thought your name was Mark?”

  “My name is Hannibal,” he said. “But my friends all call me Hanny.”

  “Well, Hanny, if you have an idea how to get a cat down from a fence…” said Harriet.

  “Let me give it some thought,” said Hanny. And he wandered off to exercise his little gray cells.

  Next was the little doggie. “What’s Max doing up there?” he asked.

  “Hi, Boyce Catt!” I said. “I need a ladder. Can you help me out?”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” said Boyce Catt, and went off in search of a ladder.

  “This is silly,” said Harriet. “Chase will happily get you down from there. Chase!” she shouted, and disappeared before I could stop her.

  “Now that there’s no chance of you blabbing about it, I don’t mind revealing who killed Chickie Hay,” said Brutus. He paused for effect, then said, “It was Jamie Borowiak.”

  “According to our information she and Chickie made peace this morning,” said Dooley. “And Chickie’s bodyguard says Chickie was alive after Jamie left.”

  “Shoot,” said Brutus. “And here I thought we’d cracked the case.”

  “The case remains uncracked,” Dooley said. “But Odelia has a lead. She thinks a man named Laron Weskit might have done it. So there’s that.”

  “Did you give her that lead?”

  “I guess we did.”

  “Again, shoot,” said Brutus. “Harriet won’t like this.”

  “Why is she so competitive about this?” I asked from my position on top of the fence.

  “Oh, I don’t know. She feels she should be the number one sleuth, mainly because she’s a girl, and Odelia is a girl, and Gran is a girl, and then it’s all girls together, see?”

  “No, I don’t see,” said Dooley, and frankly I didn’t see it either.

  “So they can be a team. Harriet, Odelia and Gran. Like Charlie’s Angels? Three girls fighting crime. Harriet saw the movie and now she wants to be the third angel.”

  “Why?” asked Dooley, clearly puzzled.

  “I’m not sure. She says it’s feminism.”

  “So who’s Charlie?” asked Dooley.

  “Some old, rich guy,” said Brutus.

  “So feminism is an old, rich guy who tells three women what to do?”

  “I guess. You better ask Harriet, though. She knows all about it.” He stretched. “Anyway, I guess our work here is done, so it’s back to the homestead for us.”

  “Odelia and Chase are still busy figuring things out, though.”

  “They don’t need us to do that, Dooley.”

  “I think they do.”

  “Listen to me, Dooley,” said Brutus, placing a brotherly paw on Dooley’s shoulder. “There’s a point when we cats stop being useful to our humans. A point where they say ‘Thank you very much, cats, but we’ll take it from here.’ And this is just such a point.”

  “I’m not sure, Brutus,” said Dooley. “I don’t think we ever stop being useful.”

  “I don’t care what you think, I’m getting out of here. All these dead bodies and weird peacocks giving us faulty clues are seriously freaking me out.” And then he was off.

  “Do you want me to come up there and keep you company, Max?” asked Dooley.

  “Nah, I’m fine, Dooley.”

  “Do you want me to get you some food? You’ll starve to death up there.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be up here that long. Or at least I hope not.”

  “What we need is a fire engine. With one of those nice firemen to help you down.”

  “No need,” I assured him. “The solution will come to me. I just need to think really hard for a moment—really think this through—and the answer will pop into my head.”

  And as I started thinking hard, suddenly an ambulance came driving up, followed by a black sedan. The black sedan was Abe Cornwall’s, the county coroner, and the ambulance was there to pick up the body of the unfortunate Chickie. The gate swung open, and sedan and ambulance zoomed through.

  And as they did, Dooley suddenly yelled, “Jump, Max! Jump!”

  “What?”

  “Jump on top of that ambulance!”

  Clearly Dooley had had a brainwave. And so I jumped.

  13

  “We caught this guy scaling the gate,” said Chase as he pointed in the direction of a skinny youth with pink hair. They were back in the conference room, their ad hoc command center. Odelia stared at the kid. With his effeminate features and lots of makeup it was hard to be sure whether he was a guy or a girl, actually.

  “I was just trying to get close to my soulmate!” cried the kid.

  “And who might your soulmate be?” asked Chase.

  “Chickie, of course.”

  Uncle Alec had also joined them, after being informed Abe had finally arrived.

  “What’s your name, son?” the Chief asked.

  “Chickie Hay,” said the kid.

  “What a coincidence,” said Chase with an eyeroll.

  “Your name is Olaf Poley,” said Chase, having had the perspicacity to dig out the kid’s wallet.

  “I’m having it officially changed to Chickie Hay next month,” said the kid. “I filed the petition so it’s only a matter of time before I’ll share a name with my soulmate.”

  He looked a little like Chickie, Odelia had to admit. Fine-boned features. Cupid’s bow lips. He was a lot younger, though, and a boy.

  “Are you related to Chickie?” she asked now.

  “Of course I’m related! Didn’t you hear a word I said? I’m her soulmate! We were put on this earth to be together forever. I can even sing like her. Do you want to hear?” And before they could stop him he’d burst into song. He didn’t sing all that bad either.

  Tyson walked in, took one look at the kid and groaned. “Not again.”

  “Hi, Tyson,” said the kid happily. “Say hi to Chickie for me, will you?”

  “Do you know this guy?” asked Uncle Alec.

  “Yeah, we filed a restraining order against him last year. I think it still stands. You’re not allowed within a hundred yards of Chickie, you know that, right?” he asked, sternly addressing the young man.

  “I’m sure Chickie doesn’t know about the restraining order. You filed that just to keep us apart. She waved at me this morning. So I know it’s her entourage that wants me out of her life, not Chickie. An entourage, I might add, that’s jealous of the bond we share.”

  “He’s Chickie’s most persistent and annoying stalker,” said Tyson.

  “She had more than one?” asked Odelia.

  “Yeah, she had plenty, but this one takes the cake. Can’t keep him away.”

  “Because we’re soulmates,” the kid repeated in a sing-songy voice.

  “Do you think he could be the person we’re looking for?” asked Uncle Alec.

  “Of course I’m the one,” said the kid with a little curtsy.

  “The one who killed her, I mean,” Uncle Alec said.

  The kid stared at the chief of police, his jaw dropping so precipitously Odelia had the impression it was going to fall off.

  “Wait, what?” Olaf said, suddenly adopting a normal tone.

  “I think he could be,” said Tyson. “He’s crazy enough.”

  “Take a seat,” said Uncle Alec, and gestured to a chair.

  “No, but wait,” said the kid. “What did you just say?”

  “Sit. Down,” the chief growled, and pushed Olaf down onto a chair.

  Faced with two police officers, Odelia and Tyson, Olaf suddenly was a lot less cocky.

  “Chickie is… dead?” he asked in a small voice.