Scarlett smirked. “Honey, you’ve faced off against bigger enemies. Remember how we used to tussle all the time?”
“Oh, do I?” said Vesta with a wistful gleam in her eye. “Those were the good old days.”
“The Vesta I knew didn’t take prisoners, and she never, ever backed down from a fight.”
Vesta nodded, her shoulders sagging. “The Vesta you’re talking about is long gone. I don’t know what’s going on, but when I woke up this morning I felt old. Old and tired.”
“You probably forgot to take your vitamins.”
“It’s not that. It’s having no allies in my own home. Always having to fight alone.”
“What are you talking about? You’ve got me now, hun. And the rest of the watch. We’re your allies.”
Vesta perked up at that. “You mean that?”
“Sure I mean that. I’m in your corner now, Vesta. And I can assure you I’ve got plenty of fight left in me. Enough fight for the both of us.”
Vesta smiled, and that holy fire was back, Scarlett saw to her satisfaction. “Thanks, Scarlett. I guess I needed to hear that.”
“But being in your corner doesn’t mean I’m wearing that ass-ugly outfit—no way.”
Vesta laughed “Fine. You can wear whatever the hell you want. And tonight? We’re going to kick some ass!”
Chapter 7
Dooley glanced at his friend Max and wasn’t happy with what he saw. Max looked preoccupied, he thought. Worried. And he was pretty sure it had something to do with this whole peeing-in-the-water-bowl episode.
Max was a kind cat—sometimes too kind for his own good. And Dooley was absolutely sure that Max had taken the incident very badly indeed, but was too nice to say it.
Dooley couldn’t imagine what it would be like for your best friend to abuse your trust like that. To do something so heinous and so gross, and then to come right out and just… blurt it out like that.
It was something that had been preying on his mind for the past couple of days now, ever since it happened, and he’d been thinking about telling Max the whole time but had been afraid to. And then with the fire, and death suddenly staring them right in the face, he’d just blurted it out, and now he’d have to live with the consequences: Max’s trust in him was obviously completely and utterly shattered, that was only to be expected, and it would take him a long time to learn how to trust again—if he ever would.
Dooley hopped down from his spot on the couch and walked over to the window again, to see if Odelia had arrived home yet. He wanted those water dispensers in place as soon as possible, to alleviate some of the damage he’d done.
He glanced over to Max again, and thought he caught his friend looking over to the kitchen, where his water bowl was placed, and Dooley knew exactly what he was thinking: if Dooley peed in my water bowl once, what’s going to stop him from doing it again? And how will I know?
Oh, the shame! The shame!
Dooley heaved a long and tremulous sigh. Replacing that water bowl with a dispenser wasn’t enough to make Max trust him again. Bigger and more drastic measures needed to be taken, and so he vowed to take them right this minute.
And then he was walking up to Max, and solemnly announced, “Max, I’m going to stop drinking.”
“Mh?” said Max, looking up.
“I said I’m going to stop drinking from now on.”
“And why would you do a silly thing like that?” asked Max, his glance frosty and his tone cold as ice. Clearly Max hated him right now. As well he should!
“Because when I don’t drink, I won’t have to pee, and when I don’t have to pee, I won’t accidentally pee in your bowl again.”
“Oh, Dooley,” said Max, annoyance making his eyes shoot javelins at his former friend.
“Just letting you know, Max,” said Dooley, walking away again. “Just letting you know.”
“Dooley!” said Max, but Dooley was already slouching off. He simply couldn’t bear the look in his former friend’s eyes: a look of sheer contempt and extreme loathing. And who could blame him? Not Dooley!
I stared after my friend, wondering what had gotten into him this time. Dooley sometimes has a habit of seeing trouble where there’s no trouble at all, but stop drinking? That was extremely unhealthy, as far as I could tell. But since I was too busy trying to figure out why this assailant who’d attacked us in Marge and Tex’s attic had done what he did, I soon found my mind returning to this most baffling question.
Odelia must have wondered the same thing, for when she breezed in through the sliding glass doors a few minutes later, the first thing she said was, “I don’t get it, Max. Do you?”
“No, I don’t get it either,” I confessed.
“If he was a burglar, why didn’t he take anything? And if he was a pet killer, why did he use such a roundabout way? Unless he simply panicked when he saw you guys?”
“Usually people panic when they see a dog,” I pointed out. “Cats are not often considered a threat to your run-of-the-mill burglar.”
Odelia had walked up to the fridge and took out a bottle of cold water and poured herself a glass. “My uncle assigned Chase guard duty tonight,” she announced with a twinkle in her eye.
“Guard duty? Who is he guarding?”
“You guys!” said Odelia with a laugh. “And he’s not happy about it.”
“So… he’s going to sit out there in his car and guard us?”
“I think he’d prefer to sit in here and guard you,” said Odelia. “And since he can’t be on guard twenty-four hours, Uncle Alec will have to find a second person.”
“Dooley had a great idea,” I began.
“Oh, I know. He told me all about it. I was skeptical at first, but I’m starting to see his point. I’ll have to talk to my uncle, but I think it can probably be arranged.”
“Great,” I said, though I wasn’t really feeling all that great about the prospect of having to go into cat police academy training. Then again, sometimes the circumstances are such that you simply have no other option than to take the least desirable one.
“Dooley also said something about water and kibble dispensers?”
“Yeah, he feels bad about having done his business in my water bowl. And it got him thinking about who else might be doing the same thing.”
“I’m sure you’ve got nothing to worry about, Max,” said Odelia. “I change your water every day, so…”
“Oh, I know. And I’m sure that if someone did pee in my bowl, I’d smell it and tell you.” And the fact that I hadn’t, at any point in the last couple of weeks, smelled anything funny about my water, led me to think that Dooley might have made a mistake, and hadn’t, in fact, peed in my water bowl, but one of the other bowls instead, possibly Harriet’s, or Brutus’s, and since they often drank next door, where we also had an array of bowls, they never even found out. And since Odelia changed the water every day, Dooley’s little tinkle had simply been chucked down the sink, no harm done.
I’d meant to tell him, but I’d been so preoccupied with this whole burglary business that it had slipped my mind.
“So does your uncle think this man will be back?” I asked now.
“No idea. But if he does come back, he’ll have Chase to contend with this time. And I can assure you that is a prospect any would-be burglar or pet killer would be wise to avoid.”
Chapter 8
Chase walked into the police station thinking hard thoughts about his superior officer throwing him under the bus like that. He was a detective, for crying out loud—not a glorified catsitter.
Dolores, the station dispatcher and receptionist, saw him come in and said, “Is it true what they’re saying, Chase? That you’re guarding your girlfriend’s cats from now on?”