But the woman shrugged. “He didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask.” And continued her pruning.
“Great,” Odelia muttered. And as she walked back to her car, her phone dinged, and when she looked she saw she’d received a message from her mom. It contained a link, and when she clicked on the link, it took her to a Gofundme page, set up by… Vesta Muffin!
“Oh, dear,” she murmured. As she got back into her car, she showed the cats the page. “Looks like Gran is collecting money for a new car,” she announced.
“Nice,” said Brutus. “I like the look of that Escalade.”
“Yeah, I like it, too,” she said. “But the way Gran drives I pity the people who get in her way.”
In fact it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to get Gran to take her driving test again. But that probably wasn’t in the cards.
“Why don’t you get a new car?” asked Harriet. “You could set up one of these Gofundme pages, too, and get rid of this piece of junk.”
She smiled. “It may be a piece of junk, Harriet, but I’m attached to my car.”
Her clunky but precious pickup was the first car she’d ever bought, with money she’d earned herself, and she didn’t want to get rid of it until she had to.
“As long as it keeps on rolling, I will keep on driving it,” she announced, and as she said the words, suddenly there was a loud crunching sound, and the engine… died!
Chapter 28
Harriet wasn’t feeling particularly happy. This was not an unusual state of affairs for the gorgeous white Persian, but this time she could attribute her unhappiness to a very specific incident: her boyfriend admitting that he had a habit of peeing in her bowl. The fact that he also liked to pee in Max and Dooley’s bowls didn’t much interest her, but he shouldn’t have peed in hers—that was obvious.
So she was upset, and when she was upset she liked to make it known to everyone around her, and most specifically to the person she was upset with, in this case Brutus.
Problem was that this cat killer was still around, and now Odelia had more or less corralled them all together with either Chase as their protector, or Rambo. So she couldn’t even walk off on a huff and ignore Brutus the way he should be ignored after what he’d put her through. She was forced to stick together with the offender, and act as if nothing happened, which was agony for a cat as proficient at expressing her anger as she was.
Lucky for her she was also a very clever kitten, so the moment Odelia had called Triple-A and was patiently waiting for the tow truck to show up, she sidled up to her human and said, ever so sweetly, “I had a great idea, Odelia, and I wanted to run it by you if you’ve got a moment.”
“Oh, sure, Harriet,” said Odelia. “What’s on your mind?”
“Well, you know how Rambo and Chase are supposed to protect us?”
“Uh-huh?”
“The thing is, I’m pretty sure that cat killer was in fact targeting me, not the others. So I think it only stands to reason that Chase and Rambo should protect me, and let the others go about their business the way they usually do.” She gave Odelia a mournful look. “You know the burden us females have to carry, always being targeted by some nasty element of the male species? Max, Dooley and Brutus simply don’t have that kind of experience, nor do I feel they should be punished because I’m the one under attack.”
“You think the attacker was gunning for you, is that what you’re saying?”
“Absolutely. And isn’t that always the case? So if you could ask Chase to guard my back from now on, and Rambo, too, I’d be very much obliged, Odelia, sweetie.”
Odelia, who wasn’t in the best of moods, after her car had broken down, eyed her a little strangely, Harriet thought. “You and Brutus have been fighting again, haven’t you?”
“Just one of those lovers’ tiffs,” said Harriet airily. “You know how it goes. I’ll bet you and Chase go through that sort of thing all the time.”
“No, actually we don’t,” said Odelia. “So what have you been fighting about this time?”
She sighed. “I really don’t want to bother you with my petty problems, Odelia. You have so much on your mind already.”
“Indulge me,” said Odelia.
“Well…” She glanced over to where Brutus stood chatting with Max and Dooley and Rambo, and frowned. “Brutus confessed that sometimes he pees in our bowls. Not a full tinkle, you see, but just a pre-pee or pre-tinkle, as he calls it, when he feels he won’t be able to reach his litter box in time. So he unleashes a few drops into the first bowl he sees, which just so happens to be either mine or Dooley’s or Max’s and not his own if you please, and then he proceeds to his box for the main course, as it were. And when I asked him why he doesn’t pee in his own bowl, he didn’t really have an answer for me.”
Odelia smiled, which struck Harriet as highly inappropriate indeed. “Maybe I should ask Mom to put a small plastic tub in the bedroom, just for these kinds of midnight emergencies,” she said. “In the old days people actually put a chamber pot in their bedrooms, so maybe we should dust off that old custom for you guys.”
“Oh, I don’t have a problem reaching my litter box in time,” Harriet assured her human. “It’s only Brutus who seems to have an acute bladder control issue.”
“Harriet, honey, you can’t really blame Brutus because he has a small bladder. I mean, I agree he shouldn’t have done it, but I think we can all agree that he didn’t do it on purpose. It was just an accident.”
“An accident is when it happens once,” Harriet argued, starting to wonder in whose corner Odelia was: hers or Brutus’s. “But this happened several times—six times, to be exact. And six times doesn’t qualify as an accident but more as something he’s been doing on purpose, just because he can.”
“I’m sure Brutus was simply too embarrassed to talk about his midnight mishaps. It is a little embarrassing for a proud cat like him to have to admit that he can’t hold up his pee. And so instead of being angry with him, I think you should have some compassion.”
“Compassion?” asked Harriet, as if the word was new to her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that this isn’t something Brutus can do much about. It happens to humans, too, you know. When we get older, sometimes we simply lose the ability to control our bladders. And sometimes it leads to these little mishaps.” She patted Harriet’s head. “Just be gentle with Brutus, sweetheart. He’s a good cat, and you should be proud to call him your boyfriend.”
“Mh,” said Harriet, not convinced. “So what are you saying? That you won’t assign Chase and Rambo as my private bodyguards from now on?”
“I’m sure you weren’t the only target,” said Odelia, adding insult to injury with these words. “If you were, he wouldn’t have put you all in that chest and set it on fire, would he?”
She hated this kind of spurious argument, so she gave Odelia an unhappy look and turned away. She’d specifically asked Odelia because she figured women had to stick together in a man’s world, and all Odelia had for her were empty words like ‘compassion’ and ‘mishaps’ and vague promises about ‘chamber pots,’ whatever that was.
Fat lot of good that did her, she meant to say. And when she joined the others again, she vowed to find a different solution to her problem—one that didn’t involve that treacherous Odelia Poole.
What good was it to have a human if she wasn’t in your corner when it mattered?
Chapter 29
“Bellamy Butt Movers and Shakers? Yes, this is Odelia Poole. I’m a reporter for the Hampton Cove Gazette, and I’m working on a story about the death of Frank Butterwick. Mr. Butterwick had someone who worked for him that I’d like to speak to. And it is my understanding that you helped move him out of his apartment a couple of months ago.”