So we were relegated to the waiting room, and were soon joined by the others: Marge and Tex were the first to arrive, then Uncle Alec and Charlene made their appearance, and finally Gran and Scarlett showed up, Harriet, Brutus and Gran’s Finnish billionaire in tow, who seemed to enjoy the process tremendously, though he did have a sort of puzzled look on his face.
Chase was there to inform the family of the progress, before making his way back to the delivery room like an intrepid reporter returning to the frontline.
Once I thought I heard Odelia scream something about an epidural, whatever that might be, but apart from that the Pooles seemed to settle in for the long haul, with Tex disappearing from time to time only to return with plastic cups of coffee and some sandwiches from the hospital canteen, and Gran’s billionaire to disappear, period.
“Where is Dallas?” suddenly Gran asked, becoming aware of a distinct dearth of Finnish billionaires in the room. “Did anyone see Dallas?”
“I lovedDallas,” Uncle Alec admitted. “Especially when they shot JR.”
“Not that Dallas, you fool!” Gran cried. “My Dallas!”
“I think I saw him heading in the direction of the geriatrics ward,” said Tex.
“So you still don’t speak Finnish, do you?” asked Charlene.
“No, and I have a feeling I never will,” said Gran. “It’s a tough language to learn. Though I have picked up a couple of words here and there.”
“And his English is still nonexistent?”
She shrugged.“I don’t know what it is. You’d expect a billionaire to speak the most popular business language on the planet, but apparently not. He keeps repeating my name a lot, so he must be really smitten, but when I think he’s going to kiss me, he always has some excuse. Frankly it’s infuriating.”
“I hope she’s all right in there,” said Marge, chewing her lip nervously. Obviously she couldn’t care less about Gran’s billionaire or the language barrier preventing love’s young dream from coming to fruition. “Where is Chase? He should have given us an update already.”
“She’s fine, honey,” said Tex, patting his wife’s knee and studying a rather large baloney sandwich. He seemed about the only one there who was enjoying himself.
“Why don’t you go and have a look?” Marge suggested. “You’re a doctor.”
“Best to leave them be,” said Tex. “We don’t want to get in the way, now do we?”
Judging from Marge’s expression getting in the way was the only thing she did want.
“So have they got a name for the baby yet?” asked Scarlett. She was dressed in her usual attire: tight shirt, short skirt and plenty of garish makeup.
“I have absolutely no idea,” said Marge, pulling a face. “They haven’t mentioned anything to you?” she asked her mother.
“Not a thing,” said Gran, looking under a plastic chair in hopes of finding her elusive billionaire.
“So is it a boy or a girl?” was Scarlett’s next question.
“No idea,” said Marge reluctantly.
“I don’t think they know themselves,” said Gran. “Some couples don’t want to know, you know.”
“I’m sure they know,” said Tex. “Only they’re keeping it to themselves.”
Marge stared at her hubby in dismay.“You think they know but haven’t told us? But why?”
“Honey, it’s fine. We’ll know soon enough, won’t we?”
Marge resumed her position of rigid unease.“The least you could have done was ask Chase. I thought you and he were so close?”
“We are close, which is why I decided not to pry.”
“Where is Windex?” suddenly Dooley asked.
“Yeah, where is that weird creature Chase adopted?” asked Gran.
“She wasn’t home when we arrived,” said Harriet.
“I thought she was with you,” said Marge, directing an accusatory look at me.
“No, we left her at the house when we set out this morning,” I said.
“God, now we’ve gone and lost Windex!” Marge cried, throwing up her hands. She turned to her husband. “Better go and find her, Tex.”
“Find who?” asked Tex, having just taken a savory bite from his sandwich.
“Windex!”
“Who’s Windex?”
“Oh, Tex,” Marge sighed.
“Windex is the dog Chase adopted,” Gran explained.
“But I thought you had adopted her?” asked Charlene.
“Me! Why would I want to adopt a dog? No, this is all Chase.”
She seemed to have conveniently forgotten that it was actually she who picked Windex up at the shelter, before dumping her in Chase’s lap. Then again, she already had her billionaire to think about, of course. One lapdog probably was enough.
“I’m not leaving my daughter to give birth all by herself,” said Tex. “Just to go and find some stupid dog.”
“Hey, I’ll have you know that Windex is a very clever dog,” said Gran. “Not to mention part of this family now.”
“Don’t you think four pets is enough already?” said Uncle Alec. “Why add a dog?”
“It’s a nice mix,” said Gran after giving this some thought. “These days it’s all about diversity, Alec.”
“Fine,” said Uncle Alec, not wanting to get into an argument with his mother. “Take a dog. Take two or three or four. But with a newborn in the house, it doesn’t seem wise.”
“Oh,” said Gran. Clearly she hadn’t thought about things from that angle. But then she dismissed the thought. “Windex is a sweetie. She wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone a baby.”
“Still,” Uncle Alec grumbled as he stared at his coffee as if it had personally insulted him. “This stuff is even worse than the bilge they serve at the station, if that’s possible.”
“Have you caught that killer yet?” asked Scarlett, abruptly changing the topic.
“No, we have not,” said Uncle Alec, glowering at her.
“With Odelia and Chase here, maybe you should assign the case to a different detective?” Marge suggested.
“There is no different detective. There’s only me and Chase.”
“So the case is going to remain unsolved?” asked Charlene. “That won’t do, Alec.”
“They’ve got it as good as wrapped up,” the Chief blustered. “Just a few minor details.”
“Like identifying the actual killer,” I said, but of course nobody was listening.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were working on a case?” asked Brutus. “We could have helped.”
“We did tell you,” I said. “But you didn’t seem particularly interested.”
“I’m sure that if you told us we would have remembered,” said Harriet.
“Odelia is going to kick us all out and drop us off at the shelter,” Dooley announced, dropping his bombshell. “And since pet parents rarely adopt more than one pet, we’ll all be split up, and since most people live in apartments, we won’t even be allowed to get out and so we won’t be able to go to cat choir anymore and we’ll never see each other again.”
Harriet and Brutus gawked at Dooley and both struggled to find speech. Harriet was the first to put into words her extreme displeasure.“But they can’t! They just can’t!”
“I already suggested we go on a sleuth strike,” Dooley continued, “but when we told Odelia she didn’t seem impressed.”
“To be fair, she did have other things on her mind at the time,” I said. Like having a baby.
“But I don’t want us to be split up!” said Harriet, tears of righteous fury in her eyes. “If this is true, I’m running away. And you have to run away with me, starfish. We’ll live on the streets, feed ourselves from dumpsters. It won’t be fun but at least we’ll be together.”
“Of course, starshine,” said Brutus, though the notion of having to feed on dumpsters seemed to put a damper on his excitement for his true love’s escape plan.