“That’s because it was Harriet finding that clue,” he said cleverly. “But we’re not Harriet, Max. We’re the real sleuths in this household. If we put our minds to it, I’m sure we’ll find out more than Harriet ever could.”
I opened my eyes. Had Dooley just delivered an intelligent statement? I believed he had. And it was so unlike Dooley to make sense that I actually sat up and took notice.“What did you just say?”
“That we’re better sleuths than Harriet and Brutus?”
I nodded.“You have a point, Dooley. Weare better sleuths. In fact we’re ace sleuths.”
Reluctantly, I abandoned my spot and jumped down from the couch. Dooley had already taken up position in front of the computer and I joined him. We both stared at the screen, which was black.
“So… how does this work, exactly?” I asked. I have to confess I’m not much of a computer cat. I love lying down on the keyboard when Odelia is working, and making sure she can’t see the screen, but that’s as far as my knowledge of computers goes, to be perfectly honest.
“Just do something, Max,” Dooley suggested. “If Harriet can do it, so can we.”
He was right, and his statement totally galvanized me. So did the fact that my tummy was full of that delicious meatloaf. Odelia might not like it when I eat my fill, but I certainly did. I took a stab at the keyboard and to my surprise the screen flickered to life.
“Hey! How did you do that?” asked Dooley.
“No idea. I just did this…” I stabbed at the keyboard again and some letters appeared on the screen.
“Oh, my God, Max. You can type!”
“Yes, I can!” I said enthusiastically, and stabbed at the keyboard some more. More letters appeared, forming one long word that didn’t make any sense. But it was something. We were going places! I decided to use the backspace key to remove all those funny symbols and start over. So I carefully typed in donna.vip and we landed on Donna’s website. There were a lot of funny things for sale there, so for the next half hour or so, Dooley and I had fun clicking through to the pages of all these items and reading the descriptions. There were those jade eggs Gran had ordered, and for the first time we understood they weren’t actual eggs but served an entirely different purpose. Something to do with pelvic muscles, whatever that was. And then there was Maureen Cranberry’s V-steamer, which appeared to be beneficial for personal hygiene and improved fertility.
“What’s fertility, Max?” asked Dooley.
“I think it’s a kind of plant.”
“Oh, right. Like a fern.”
“They must have misspelled ferntility.”
“Humans.”
“Yeah.”
There was a lot more stuff, and it was all weird and wonderful, sort of like the Discovery Channel. There was a prisoner’s ball and chain, a toothpaste squeezer, nipple clamps, very expensive paper wipes, a pouch with magically charged stones, gold dumbbells for weightlifting, a facial massager, a heated couch, and… the same kind of rocket that Odelia keeps in her bedside drawer but this one was made of gold. Itwas called a dildo and its purpose wasn’t immediately clear to me.
“What does it do, Max?” Dooley asked, staring at the shiny gold object.
“I’m not sure. It says here it’s a massager, but I’m not sure what it’s supposed to massage.”
“It also says it’s elegant and decadent, and has to be used with something called lube. What is a lube, Max?”
“Maybe like a long kind of tube?”
We read some more. It was all very confusing.
“What’s a G-spot, Max?”
“I have no idea, Dooley.” But then I got it. “I think it’s one of those spots that are very hard to reach. Like behind the bed or behind the cupboard.”
We shared a look of understanding.“So that’s why Odelia keeps it in the bedroom.”
“In case she needs to reach those hard-to-reach G-spots.”
Well, I was sure glad we figured that out. It’s not much fun feeling dumb.
I clicked on another link and this time we ended up on a page extolling the virtues of bee sting therapy.“Weird,” Dooley said. “Here they say bee stings are actually good for you.”
“Well, maybe they are,” I said. “Like nettle stings. Remember that one time you stung your nose on those nettles? And Odelia said it was good for you? This is probably the same thing.”
“But then why did Donna end up dead?”
“Well, too much of a good thing isn’t good at all, I suppose.”
“Like when you eat too many Cat Snax?”
“I’m not sure you can eat too many Cat Snax, Dooley. At least I’ve never had too many.”
“That’s true,” he admitted. “Me neither.”
Just then, there was a loud rap on the glass sliding door, which was now closed due to my house arrest. We hopped down from our perch on the computer table and wandered over. To my pleasant surprise, it was Gran. But to my less pleasant surprise, she appeared incapable of opening the sliding door from the outside. She was shouting something, though. It sounded a lot like,“Has the UPS guy brought another one of my packages?!”
I shook my head and shouted back,“No, he hasn’t!”
“Darn!” she yelled, and then stalked off.
“Hey! Aren’t you going to let us out?!” I yelled, but she was already gone.
Dooley sat chuckling next to me. I turned to him.“What’s so funny?”
“I wonder what she ordered this time. Those dumbbells, that toothpaste squeezer, or that dildo.”
“I don’t think she would order a dildo.”
“And why is that?”
“Marge cleans your house, doesn’t she? So why would Gran need to reach those hard-to-reach G-spots?”
“You’ve got a point, Max.”
“Of course I have. I’m very clever.”
Chapter 21
It was dinner time at the Pooles, and as usual Uncle Alec and Chase had been invited. Dad was master of his domain again—in other words, the barbecue set—and before long a wonderful time was had by all. Well, almost all, as Odelia had locked Max up in the house. She couldn’t risk him hanging around all that raw meat. He would have a conniption fit if she tried to keep him away from all that juicy temptation. And to show him she didn’t have a heart of stone, she’d given him an extra helping of Vena’s diet kibble. Not that he seemed to appreciate it. He’d told her there was only so much cardboard one could stomach, and he’d already had his fill and then some.
It was a hard lesson to learn for the big, red cat, but one that was absolutely necessary. If he kept eating like this, he’d simply dig his own grave with his teeth, the poor baby, and she did not want that on her conscience.
Harriet and Brutus had shown up just when the meat was starting to give off its delicious scent, but when she cut a glance to Harriet, the gorgeous Persian had sadly shaken her head. So far she hadn’t discovered a thing. Brutus, who’d immediately pounced on some slivers Dad had cut from the steaks, didn’t seem to have any news for her either. That only left Dooley, but all he said was that he’d finally discovered how she cleaned those hard-to-reach spots in her bedroom, and given her a big, fat wink. Weird. Then she remembered she’d left the computer running. Oh, dear. She hoped she’d turned on Parental Control. There was so much on the Internet her cats did not need to see.
Uncle Alec walked up to her, a can of Heineken in his hand.“And? Any luck with the Cranberry woman?”
“Nope. Turns out she had an alibi, just like everyone else in this case.”
“Dang. She looked promising.”
“She did,” Odelia agreed. “Very promising. Just like the ex-husband looked promising, the boyfriend looked promising, and the leader of the home owner’s association looked promising.”
“Tough day, huh?” asked her uncle, shooting her a keen look.
“Yeah, pretty tough,” she admitted. “We keep catching breaks that turn out not to be breaks after all.”
“What about your cats?” he asked. “They usually provide the telling clue.”