You simply couldn’t win with a woman like that.

  “Okay, so I need you both to think hard,” said Ida, a look of determination stealing over her face. “We need a family who wants to take care of fifty pugs—and we need them now. The animal shelter can’t possibly keep them, as they don’t have the space or the means to feed them, so think, Doctor Poole. You too, Vesta. Think hard! There has to be someone!”

  And so Vesta thought hard, and so did Tex. Try as they might, though, they couldn’t come up with a name for a family who might be in the market to adopt fifty pugs.

  Until Vesta suddenly had one of her bright ideas. “You know what we should do?” she said. “Organize a raffle! And the main prize is fifty pugs!”

  The expression on Ida’s face told her that her plan hadn’t met with the woman’s approval. “They’re dogs, Vesta, not microwaves. How in heaven’s name can you suggest a thing like that? Giving away fifty creatures who haven’t done anything wrong in a raffle?!”

  “Hear me out,” said Vesta. “You know how these raffles are always giving away the most crappy prizes, right? And still people act as if they’ve won a pot of gold? And that’s because they all love to win something. It doesn’t matter what it is—just the fact that they’ve won makes them happy.”

  “So? I don’t see the connection,” said Ida, her face still like a thundercloud.

  “Okay, so nobody in their right mind would ever willingly adopt fifty pugs.”

  “I beg to differ. A family with their heart in the right⁠—”

  “But if they could win them in a raffle? Now that’s a whole different story. They’d crawl over hot coals for a chance to snag those adorable little puppies—they are puppies, right?”

  “They are,” said Ida. “Mostly. Bramwell wanted to sell them, but we managed to stop the sale every single time. It was a tough slog, but we persevered. Not a single one was sold.”

  “Okay, so puppies and a raffle,” said Vesta, holding up her hands and making a weighing gesture. “Can you see the appeal? Huh?”

  “I guess,” said Ida. “In a weird and perverse sense I guess there is a certain logic to this insane idea of yours.”

  Vesta could be mistaken, but she sensed that Ida still wasn’t fully on board. “Okay, just try it,” she suggested. “Organize a big raffle, and the main prize is fifty cute puppies. And they can only win on one condition: that the puppies aren’t separated. Either they take them all, or they don’t take any. And then you watch the money flow in.”

  Ida pursed her lips in an expression of utter disapproval. “This isn’t about money, Vesta. Why do you always have to add the mercenary aspect to everything?”

  “Because money is important?” Vesta suggested. “And anyway, it’s not about the money. It’s about finding a forever home for those pups of yours.”

  “Hmm,” said Ida, and turned to Tex, who had been idly standing there, his face a blank screen. Like a robot that had been switched off. He often did that during conversations that didn’t particularly fascinate him, but that he couldn’t find an excuse to get out of. It drove Marge mad. “What do you think, Doctor Poole?”

  Tex’s brain rebooted with a start. “Eh?”

  “About your mother-in-law’s idea? The raffle?”

  “Oh, I love a good raffle,” said Tex with a smile. “When I was eleven I once won a harmonica. Now that was a great prize to win. I played that thing all summer, until suddenly it was gone.” He sighed wistfully. “I later found it stuffed in the drain. I strongly suspect my dad must have put it there. He had expressed his annoyance with my playing. Said it sounded like a thousand cats being strangled simultaneously. I rescued the harmonica but it never sounded the same again. Before he had stuffed it in the drain, my dad had taken a sledgehammer to the thing. Flattened it.” He paused when he realized that two people were staring at him intently, so he smiled his absent smile. “So a raffle, huh? Great stuff.”

  Ida shook her head, and Vesta suppressed a grin, and they both watched Tex slink off and disappear into his office again, carefully closing the door behind himself.

  “Tex Poole is a great doctor,” said Ida as she directed a frown at the closed door, “but he is one strange man.”

  “He’s a weirdo,” Vesta confirmed, “but he’s our weirdo. So how about that raffle, huh? Do you want me to set it up for you?”

  “I guess,” said Ida without much excitement. “Though I still think it’s a lousy idea.”

  “It’s a great idea, you’ll see. And if nobody enters the raffle, we can always release the pups in Blake’s Field. Plenty of folks would be more than happy to provide them with food, and we can even build them a nice big shelter.”

  Ida made a face. “I didn’t save them from a maniac to leave them to their own devices, Vesta. No, we need an actual loving home for them.” She pointed a finger at her. “And if you can’t do me that little favor, the name ‘Vesta Muffin’ should be removed from that shelter.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Mick had pretty much had it. The day he joined the Hampton Cove Police Department had been one of the happiest days of his life—on par with the day he’d won his first hockey trophy, and his wedding day—now marred somewhat by the fact that he and Melissa subsequently divorced. Alec Lip telling him what a great addition to the team he made, and promising him a bright future as one of the town’s best and brightest. Telling him that he was going to team up with the great Chase Kingsley, who was going to be his mentor—that was the stuff of dreams. The stuff of miracles.

  But these past couple of days he’d seen the true face of Chase Kingsley. The man might be one of Hampton Cove’s finest detectives, but he was also a bully—a man who couldn’t stand that Mick had quickly grown into his own, and was now a better police officer than Chase would ever be.

  Mick didn’t mind petty. He’d suffered enough fools over a long career as a professional hockey player. But what he hated were people trying to drag him down to their level. All he wanted was to serve his community by solving crimes. But did Chase let him? No, of course not. Instead, he kept trying to impose his stupid rules on him. Rules that didn’t make any sense at all.

  And so, after Chase had given him another one of his speeches, he had decided that he didn’t need this nonsense, and had left.

  He knew exactly who had killed the Eiderducks, even if Chase didn’t. Clearly the guy was operating with a blindfold on. And what was the deal with insisting that he bring his wife into every single investigation he ran? If that wasn’t nepotism, he didn’t know what was. And those cats! He didn’t mind Max and his friends, but why did they have to be present at the crime scene? That made no sense at all. Everyone knew that cats were useless creatures. It’s dogs you want. Dogs can sniff out clues. They can track possible suspects. They can even save your life through the display of bravery.

  “Come on, boys,” he said as he stepped on the accelerator. “We’re going to catch these killers ourselves. And no talentless detective is going to stop us this time.”

  His huskies barked their approval from the backseat, and he grinned. He had put on his shades, turned down the top, and was racing along the road, ready to take down names and bust some killers!

  “Where is Mick?” asked Odelia. She hadn’t seen the detective since his bust-up with Chase.

  “Gone,” said Chase curtly.

  “Gone where? Back to the station?”

  Chase shrugged. “Beats me. He said that I was holding him back, and that he was going to catch those killers himself without my help. So I told him good luck, and he left. In his own car, no less.”

  It was one of the points of contention between Chase and his protégé—that Mick had insisted on using his own car during police hours, instead of taking a car from the station pool like every other officer. Mick had said that he didn’t like any of the cars they had, and that he preferred not to make a fool of himself by being seen in those clunkers. He said he preferred his bright-red Maserati so that’s what he’d been driving.

  It had enraged Chase to some extent, and he had even raised the point with Odelia’s uncle, who didn’t see the problem.

  “If the guy wants to drive his own car, why not let him? He’s a detective, not a beat cop,” the chief had told Chase with a shrug.

  Which was yet another point of contention. Most cops fresh out of the academy—like Mick—started at the bottom, walking the beat, gaining experience, and getting to know the community they served. But Uncle Alec, believing the detective division needed reinforcement, had assigned Mick there straight away. The move stirred up plenty of resentment among the rank and file—and even with Chase himself, since many suspected he’d pulled strings to make it happen.

  All in all, it hadn’t been Odelia’s uncle’s best decision, but then he seemed almost enamored with Mick, who could do no wrong in his eyes.

  “At least he’s out of our hair now,” said Odelia.

  They had interviewed the business manager, and the rest of the staff, and according to the cats, the only dogs on the premises hadn’t pointed at any other possible suspects.

  “Did you know that Eiderduck kept fifty pugs on site?” she asked her husband. “Ida Baumgartner just took them all away.”

  Chase frowned. “Ida Baumgartner? As in Tex’s patient?”

  Odelia nodded. “She ran the animal rights group that protested Eiderduck breeding those pugs. According to Max, they were kept in pretty miserable conditions. A regular disgrace.”

  “We better have a chat with Ida,” said Chase. “If she felt so strongly about those pugs, that gives her a clear motive to get rid of the Eiderducks.”

  The house hadn’t been released yet, but as far as Odelia could ascertain, there weren’t more clues to be garnered, so they might as well release the scene. According to the doctor she had spoken to on the phone, Anthemia was recovering well, and would be home from the hospital soon.

  They walked out of the front door of the large mansion and she looked back. “She will probably have to sell this,” she told her husband. “Just to cover her father’s debt.”

  “Eiderduck’s former business manager advised her to disclaim the inheritance,” said Chase. “Even the sale of the house won’t cover those debts. Better if she simply walks away from this disaster.”

  “Poor girl,” said Odelia. “Not only did she just lose her parents in the most horrific way possible, but now she has to find out that her dad left her with a pile of debt.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes,” Chase agreed.

  When they spoke to the girl in the hospital the previous night, she hadn’t been able to give them much of a description of her attacker, for the simple reason that the man had worn a mask—at least she thought it was a man—and that her father, the moment she came down and found her parents tied up in the living room, had yelled, “Run, Anthemia, run!”

  So she had run, but unfortunately for her, the attacker had an accomplice, also masked, who had caught her and tortured her to give up the combination of the safe. She had told him that she didn’t know, but that hadn’t stopped him from cutting her.

  “He seemed to derive great pleasure from torturing me,” she had told Chase and Odelia in tears. “He kept saying that if I didn’t talk, I would die, and then he cut me again and again. I really thought I was going to die.”

  “So how did you escape?” asked Odelia.

  “My attacker was called away, and that was the moment I realized it was now or never. So I managed to untie myself and then I ran and hid in the stables.”

  She must have fainted, for by the time she came to, and ventured back to the house, her attackers were gone, and she found her parents—both dead. That’s when she called 911.

  They found her covered in her own blood and frantic, the poor thing.

  “I want to talk to her again,” said Chase as they got into the car. “She said her attacker wore a mask, but maybe there was something that could point to his identity. A piece of clothing, maybe, or the tone of his voice?”

  “Let’s wait until she’s home,” Odelia suggested. “For now we need to focus on the suspects we have. The housekeeper and the gardener, the actor, and Ida Baumgartner.”

  Chase grinned. “Imagine if it was Ida that did this. Tex would have a field day.”

  “I’m sure Ida is innocent,” said Odelia. “She’s not the kind of person who would go around murdering people, even if they were mean to dogs.”

  In the backseat, her four cats had settled in, and when she turned to check on them, she saw they didn’t look all that happy.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. Then a thought occurred to her. “It’s not your stomach again, is it, Harriet? Still feeling under the weather?”

  “My stomach is fine,” said Harriet. “No, it’s those poor dogs. Just the thought of being locked up in cages like that?” She shivered. “What a horrible thing to do.”

  “Yeah, that Bramwell Eiderduck was not a nice man,” said Dooley. “Poor puppies.”

  Even Max looked impressed by what he had seen. “Are you sure you need to talk to Ida?” he asked. “She’ll probably be busy finding a new home for those dogs right now. Maybe you shouldn’t disturb her?”

  She smiled. “Ida may have done a good thing today, but that doesn’t mean she’s innocent, you guys. We have to talk to her. You understand.”

  “I guess,” said Brutus. “But if something like that ever happened to me, I would want an Ida to come and save me, too. The woman is a hero.”

  “Good thing we have you, Odelia,” said Harriet with feeling. “You are so good to us—you and your family.”

  And then all of a sudden, all four cats were all over her, butting their heads against her chin, and meowing up a storm.

  “I love you too, you guys,” she said, touched by this unexpected display of affection.

  “What’s going on?” asked Chase.

  “The cats have suddenly realized how good they have it,” she said. “And they’re grateful.”

  “They’re absolutely right,” said Chase. “You are a saint, babe. An absolute saint.”

  And on that note, they drove off.

  CHAPTER 15

  As we rode into town, on our way to pay a visit to Ida Baumgartner, we passed through Main Street. I was just about to suggest we stop for a chat with Kingman—who always knows what’s going on in Hampton Cove and might put us on the trail of the culprits in the Eiderduck double homicide—when, across from the General Store, there appeared to be some kind of commotion in progress.

  A crowd had gathered in front of the Star Hotel, and since it had spilled out onto the street, traffic had come to a complete standstill.

  And so Chase, being a good cop, got out of the car to take a look. And we, being cats, followed suit.

  “I’ll bet it’s a parade,” said Dooley as we tried not to get trampled by the crowd that had gathered. “I love a nice parade. Don’t you love a nice parade, Max?”

  “I don’t mind a parade,” I said. “If I can watch it from the safety of the General Store.”

  Like today, parades provide the perfect opportunity to be stepped on by a member of the public, which is why I’m not a big fan of the phenomenon.

  “I would love to be part of a parade one day,” said Dooley dreamily. “Wouldn’t that be nice? To be on one of those floats and to be cheered on by the crowd? I would love that, Max. Wouldn’t you love that?”

  “Well…” I said, trying to pick my words carefully. ‘Over my dead body’ probably sounded a little strong, so instead I went with, “It’s certainly bound to be an interesting experience.”

  “I can just imagine the crowds,” said Dooley. “Waving and yelling and throwing candy.”

  “Usually it’s the other way around,” said Brutus. “We throw candy at the crowd.”

  “I wouldn’t mind throwing candy,” said Dooley. “Though I might find it awkward with my paws.”

  “I think this is a great idea, Dooley,” said Harriet. “Of course, I would be on the main float—the big one. The star float, so to speak. And I’d be the star of that star float—star of the entire parade, in fact. People would cheer me on and express their admiration for my beauty and my grace. They’d throw flowers and snap pictures.” She sighed wistfully. “We have to ask Odelia to ask her uncle to ask Charlene to put us on a float like that.”

  “We will,” Brutus promised. “But first we need to get through this crowd in one piece.”

  Easier said than done, but finally we managed, in Odelia and Chase’s wake, to get to the front of the line. And I have to admit I was as surprised as anyone to find that we had arrived in the middle of some kind of stand-off. On one balcony stood Mick Harper, and on the next, two people I hadn’t seen before. And then one balcony over were Blizzard and Storm, barking up a storm at the two figures on the middle balcony.

  “What’s going on?” asked Brutus.

  Odelia crouched down and said, “Those are the housekeeper and the gardener of the Eiderducks. Looks like Mick has found them.”

  She rose to her feet again and conversed quietly with Chase, possibly on how to handle the situation. Chase was already on the phone, presumably to arrange backup for his colleague.

  Higher up, Mick was shouting, “Give yourselves up! You are surrounded!”

  “But we didn’t do anything!” the housekeeper yelled back. She was a stout, apple-cheeked, middle-aged lady, her companion a rail-thin man of about the same age, with a receding hairline and a thin little mustache of a kind you don’t see so often these days.

  Both of them were in a state of undress, I would have said, judging from the fact that the gardener was in his underwear, and the housekeeper was wearing pink pajamas with a unicorn motif.

  “Give yourselves up now!” Mick repeated. “Or I will have to sic my dogs on you!”

  The twosome looked over to where Blizzard and Storm were still barking madly, and looked absolutely terrified. I have to admit that if I were faced with those dogs in that state, I’d be terrified, too. They looked as if they’d gone berserk, with saliva flying from their razor-sharp teeth, and were on the verge of launching themselves into space to bridge the gap between the two balconies and attack the duo.