“Okay, so what have you discovered so far?” asked Scarlett.

  “Only that for fifteen long years, Ross refused to return to Hampton Cove to pick up his prize from the Chamber of Commerce until finally this year he decided to show up in person. But when I asked the committee chairwoman, who goes over this stuff, she had no idea what had changed his mind.”

  “Probably a woman,” Scarlett suggested. “Only a woman has the power to make a man change his mind like that. He probably had a girl here he didn’t want to see, and now he did.”

  “You mean, she died and so now he figured the coast was clear?”

  “Something like that. He must have knocked her up back in the day, and so her dad and brothers chased him out of town with pitchforks. Only the dad died, and the brothers left, and so now he finally felt safe enough to return.”

  “That sounds a little far-fetched to me,” said Gran. “Though it’s possible, of course. Oh, and have you heard of a man named Sebastian Poe? Apparently, he was a childhood friend of Robert’s who died. Only Robert’s dog, Flame, saw him last night on the Aurora.”

  “A dead man paying a visit to a man who is soon found dead himself?”

  “That’s right. It all feels a little off, don’t you agree? As if we’re being led by the hand to some kind of foregone conclusion.”

  “See!” said Harriet. “I knew that dog Flame was feeding us a lot of nonsense. I’ll bet she’s been lying to us from the very beginning!”

  Gran’s phone chimed, and when she picked up, it soon became clear she was talking to her granddaughter. The words, ‘Hey, Odelia, I was just telling Scarlett all about the investigation,’ were probably a good indication of that.

  She listened for a moment, then said in a low voice, “No way! That’s exactly what Scarlett thought! Okay, we’ll find this woman for you, honey, no problem.” When she hung up, her eyes were glistening. “You were right, Scarlett. Robert did have a girlfriend, only he didn’t knock her up, or at least that’s not what Max heard, who told Odelia.” And she proceeded to tell them all about what Max had heard from Kingman, who had heard it from one of his human’s customers at the General Store, so it must be true!

  “Oh, my God,” said Scarlett, clutching her face in excitement. “It’s almost like an episode of General Hospital!”

  “I want you to join the investigation, honey,” said Gran.

  “What, me?”

  “Absolutely. We’re going to find this mystery woman for Odelia.”

  “Oh, goodie!”

  “After all, the Hampton Cove Neighborhood Watch Committee can’t just stand idly by while its citizens are being murdered in their beds, right?”

  “Robert wasn’t a citizen.”

  “He used to be.”

  “And he wasn’t murdered in his bed.”

  “He could have been!”

  And since that was good enough for Gran and Scarlett, it certainly was good enough for Harriet and Brutus. And so their select company of three had expanded to four. That’s when Harriet decided to tell Gran all about her own brilliant theory about the killer. Gran didn’t seem overly impressed but was willing to put Suzanne Palmer on her list of suspects, to be interviewed and interrogated at some point during her investigation.

  Maybe they’d even crack this case before Max did this time.

  Now, wouldn’t that be something?

  CHAPTER 13

  Suzanne Palmer was glad the endless series of interviews was finally over. She had never been involved in a police investigation before, but now that she had, she decided she never wanted to go through that whole ordeal again. And now they couldn’t even stay on the boat and have access to their personal belongings, just because the Aurora was apparently a crime scene. She didn’t see how her own cabin was a crime scene since no crime had ever been committed there, except maybe some very bad thoughts she’d harbored about her employer, but also about some of her colleagues. Marcus O’Reilly, for one, had never been one of her favorites.

  Shifty-eyed and with a mind full of malice, he always had some glib comment to make and generally struck her as a particularly obnoxious human being. But then you didn’t choose the people you worked with and simply tried to make the best of the situation that you could. At least their captain had been a good guy. Jean-Luc Gerard was such a sweetheart it was a miracle he’d ever been made captain. Though of course, it wasn’t as if he actually steered big cruise ships or anything. In all probability, he had simply taken a couple of courses and that was that. But he certainly was a sweetheart and had always been there for her when she needed a shoulder to cry on. And that had happened often enough, unfortunately.

  But now their ordeal was finally over—or at least almost. Once the investigation had pinpointed who had murdered that horrible piece of excrement, they could all move on with their lives and hopefully put this whole sordid episode behind them.

  She, for sure, was never going to think back to the weeks she had spent waiting on that monster. Then again, maybe she would. Gerard had told her that maybe she needed to consult a shrink so she could process what had happened. By all rights, she should sue the company that had put her on the same boat with that maniac. But then she knew she didn’t stand a chance of winning. After all, she was just a lowly server, and Ross a big millionaire star. It would always have been her word against his, and no doubt the person who had the money to pay for the fancy lawyers invariably won. That’s the way the game was rigged in their favor. At least that’s what her colleague Jeanine had told her. Jeanine was an older colleague, probably in her late forties, which had surprised Suzanne when they first met since most of the colleagues she had worked with on other boats had been her age. Working on yachts for the super-rich was mostly a young person’s game. When you got older, you tried to get a more solid gig with better pay and better hours—and clients who didn’t treat you like dirt.

  She smiled as Jeanine now joined her. They had arranged to meet for a cup of coffee in one of the new eateries in the New Marina, as the shopping plaza was called. They shared a quick hug before Jeanine sat down across from her.

  “So how did it go?” she asked. “They didn’t give you a hard time, did they?”

  “Nope. They asked me a ton of questions, to which I invariably answered that I had no idea since it’s my policy to keep a safe distance from any client I’m supposed to be working for. And that was it.”

  “And they accepted it?”

  “What else could they do? If we all tell them the same story, they’re bound to accept it, aren’t they?”

  It was true enough. Once they had become aware that Ross was dead, they had quickly shared the story in their WhatsApp group and had agreed, mainly on Gerard’s instigation, to close ranks and not to divulge anything that might put them at odds with the police investigation that no doubt would follow and consume their lives for the foreseeable future. At that time, they hadn’t known whether he’d been murdered or had simply died from natural causes, but the consensus had been that he was murdered, and good riddance too.

  “I just hope they won’t go digging any deeper,” said Suzanne.

  “Oh, they won’t. They’ll soon find their killer, and then this will all be over with.”

  “How can you be so sure?” asked Suzanne.

  Jeanine gave her a fine smile. “Trust me, I know.”

  “You didn’t do anything... I mean, you won’t get into trouble, will you?”

  “Of course not. It’s got nothing to do with me, any of this. But I’m pretty sure they’ll finally come to the conclusion that someone saw their chance to climb aboard, murdered the guy, and stole the sizable pile of cash he had lying around in that safe of his.”

  “And to think the fool thought we didn’t know,” said Suzanne.

  “So what are you going to do once the investigation is over?” asked Jeanine.

  She shrugged. “I was thinking of moving back home.”

  “North Dakota, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Northwood.” It might be the middle of nowhere, but frankly, that’s what she was looking for more than anything right now. She’d had her adventure, had traveled with the rich and famous on their superyachts for three years now, and she was done. Done with the traveling, but most of all, done with the annoying clients and their never-ending demands and their shocking arrogance. She longed to be treated like a human being again, not a mere serf, eager to please and always ready to serve. When she had left home, she had been looking forward to traveling the world, making friends, and earning lots of money. Now all she wanted was to lick her wounds and think about her future in more practical terms. Which, at least, was something good that had come from the ordeal. “And you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I’ll keep going and hope to get some nice clients for a change. There are nice rich people out there somewhere, you know. Only we haven’t met them yet.”

  “I hope you’re right,” she said with a smile. “We’ll stay in touch, yeah?”

  “Absolutely,” said Jeanine and placed her hand on hers for a moment. They exchanged a look of understanding. Together they’d been through a lot and had come out the other end, alive and more or less fine. But as they had agreed with the others, they would never tell. Not to the police, not to anyone. What had happened on the Aurora would be their secret, always.

  CHAPTER 14

  We had finally made it home, and I was about to enjoy my long-overdue and, as far as I was concerned, well-deserved nap when we were waylaid in the backyard by a loud voice demanding our attention. The voice belonged to Joe the caterpillar, and apparently he had a matter of some urgency to discuss with us.

  So we joined him near the rose bushes posthaste and were quite surprised to see that where before one Joe had been, now about a dozen Joes perched. Or at least that’s how it seemed to me at first glance.

  “Are these... your twins?” I asked.

  “Huh? Oh, they’re my cousins,” said Joe. “What I wanted to see you about, Max. Have you had a chance to chat with that Pesto scarecrow yet?”

  “I talked to Gran, whose name is Vesta, by the way, and not Pesto, and I have agreed with her to try and dissuade you from using her rose bushes as food,” I said. “So, without further ado: please don’t use our humans’ rose bushes as food. They don’t like it, the roses don’t like it—they might not even survive if you eat all of their leaves and nibble at their roots—and as a consequence, we also don’t like it.”

  “But then what are we going to eat?” said Joe, much disappointed in my work as his emissary. “You don’t expect us to eat grass, do you? Do you know how horrible that tastes?”

  “I’m not a grass gourmet, that’s true,” I said. “Though I have been known to nibble on a blade from time to time. It turns my stomach, you see, and provides certain enzymes that are very beneficial to the overall digestive—”

  “Well, I don’t like grass!” said Joe. “And frankly speaking, Max, you can’t force us to eat grass. Not only does it taste horrible, but it’s not as nutritious as you would think. Not something your growing caterpillar needs.”

  “Is it true that you guys all turn into butterflies?” asked Dooley, who had been studying Joe and his cousins with rapt attention and not a small measure of delight.

  “Butterflies or moths,” Joe confirmed. “Though in our case, butterflies. Of course.”

  “Why of course?”

  “Who wants to turn into a moth? I don’t.”

  “But why?”

  “Let me put it to you this way: do you want to be a moth?”

  “Um... I guess I’ve never given it a lot of thought.”

  “Moths are not your most beloved creatures...”

  “Dooley,” Dooley supplied helpfully.

  “They’ve got a bad reputation.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Whereas butterflies have a great reputation. Everybody likes butterflies. People love our colors, they love our shapes, and most of all, they love our devil-may-care attitude, fluttering from flower to flower with not a care in the world. In other words, butterflies are the ‘it’ bugs.”

  “And moths aren’t?”

  “If butterflies are it, moths are out, Dooley. People associate moths with darkness and destruction. So no, I wouldn’t want to be a moth. Not if you gave me a million bucks. Now back to the topic at hand. Max, you gotta convince that scarecrow—”

  “Gran.”

  “Whatever—to leave us be. Tell her we’ll be out of her hair soon enough when we all turn into butterflies, and she’ll be glad she didn’t zap us to kingdom come. She’ll be delighted with the atmosphere of summery delight we bring to her backyard, and the fact that we pollinate stuff and generally are a boon for the environment. Plus, we look pretty cool.”

  “You do look cool,” I admitted.

  “So be patient, is what I would suggest to the scarecrow. Curb that tendency to spray us with that noxious stuff, and you’ll be rewarded with a most gorgeous scene in just a few short weeks.”

  “How long before you turn into butterflies?” asked Dooley, the Discovery Channel fan.

  “I’d say about a month or so for me. Some of these fellas might take a little longer. But all in all, by the time summer is here, we’ll also be here. With bells on.”

  It certainly was a passionate plea, and I promised to be Joe’s emissary when relaying his message to Gran. Though I was starting to feel like a go-between now, not all that sure I was doing a good job of conveying the messages I was receiving from either side of the great divide.

  We said goodbye to Joe and his cousins and were about to enter the house when Grace came toddling up. “Hey, you guys,” she said in that charming way of hers. “What’s going on? Where are my mom and dad? And why haven’t they dropped me off at the daycare as usual?”

  “Because your daycare is closed today,” I told the kid. “And it might be closed for the next couple of days as well, and even the foreseeable—and possibly the unforeseeable—future.”

  “But why?”

  “No idea. Family circumstances, apparently. Whatever that means.”

  “Maybe Chantal is ill?” Dooley suggested. “Even daycare people get sick sometimes, Grace. And when they do, they can’t take care of you.”

  Grace thought about this for a moment, then said, “I want to visit her.”

  We both looked up in alarm. “What?”

  “I said I want to visit her. If she’s sick, I should go and wish her well and maybe bring her flowers.” She thought some more. “Or a banana.”

  “Grapes,” said Dooley. “When people are sick, they always get grapes. Don’t ask me why, but they do. My theory is that grapes have magical healing powers, but please don’t quote me on that. It’s only a theory. It would have to be tested before it becomes scientific fact.”

  “We could go and buy grapes now,” Grace suggested, “and pay a visit to Chantal. She lives in the same house the daycare is at, so I know the way.”

  “You know the way to the daycare?”

  “Of course. I pay attention, you know, when they take me there. So we could go now,” she continued, giving me much the same kind of look Joe the caterpillar had given me earlier.

  “We can’t,” I told her. “You’re too young to venture out on your own.”

  “No, I’m not. And besides, I wouldn’t be alone. You’d both be going with me.”

  “And Tex,” Dooley pointed out. “Don’t forget about Tex.”

  “Tex won’t come,” I said. “Because we won’t be able to communicate to him that we want to visit the daycare.”

  “We could type it on our tablet,” Dooley said. “That way he’ll understand.”

  It was a thought, of course. I wasn’t sure if it was doable, but it certainly merited a try since I could already see that there would be no naps in my immediate future.

  “Oh, all right,” I said with a sigh.

  “Yay!” said Grace. “I knew you’d say yes!”

  “That’s because we always say yes,” said Dooley happily, the pushover.

  We went into the house to look for our tablet, which we found tucked behind the couch, where presumably Harriet had left it after her last session. When we started it up, the first thing I saw was a YouTube video about how to fashion the perfect bow for cats. I quickly switched to one of the note apps, and before long, we were typing a message to Tex. Grace then took the tablet and proceeded to carry it over into the garden next door to show to Tex, who was gazing intelligently into the middle distance, no doubt thinking about life and such.

  When he became aware of Grace’s presence because she had hit him in the shin with the tablet, after cursing a little, he took the tablet and made to deposit it on the table while the three of us tried to make it clear to him he should start it up and read what we had written.

  It took us a while before he got the picture, but finally, he did start up the tablet and read, “Grace wants to pay a visit to Chantal. Please take us.” He frowned at this, then his face morphed into an expression of delight. “Grace, you can write! What a genius!”

  “What an idiot,” Grace said as she thunked her head.

  It didn’t matter who had written the message, though, as long as it was clear, and that, it most certainly was. And since Tex has always been the amenable type, five minutes later we were all filing into his car and we took off in the direction of the daycare.

  “I wonder how sick she is,” said Grace with a note of concern in her voice. “I mean, if she’s really sick, we should probably bring her more than just grapes, right?”

  “Oh, the grapes!” said Dooley. “We should tell Tex about the grapes!”