Finally, Odelia came shooting out of the bathroom, smelling deliciously of fresh soap, and looking fresh as a daisy. For the occasion she was wearing a T-shirt that read ‘John Paul George for President,’ beige slacks and her usual Chuck Taylors. She was also wearing a look of panic over how late it was.
“If you’re coming, you better get a move on!” she yelled as she hurried down the stairs, then came pounding up again to snatch her smartphone from the nightstand and raced out again.
“Looks like she’s going to have to skip breakfast,” I told Dooley.
“And coffee,” he said. “I wonder how she’s going to survive without her daily dose of caffeine.”
“I’m sure she’ll manage,” I said, reluctantly dragging my eyes away from the feathery feast outside my window, where the birds were still tweeting up a storm. Odelia had once made us swear never to kill a bird, and even though it killed us, we’d kept up our bargain so far. It was hard, though. Very hard. But in exchange for curbing our innate savagery she got us some of those delicious cat treats from time to time. What can I say? Life’s a trade-off.
Dooley and I gracefully dropped down to the floor, and languidly made our way to the landing, then descended the stairs. While Odelia rummaged around, grabbing her notes she’d prepared for the interview, her recorder and a couple John Paul George CDs she wanted signed, and dumped it all into her purse, I gobbled up a few tasty morsels of kibble, took a few licks of water, and then waited patiently by the door until Odelia was ready.
I knew it would take her at least three runs to fetch all of her stuff. She was one of those humans who are extremely disorganized. So when she finally yelled, “Ready or not, I’m going!” Dooley and I had been waiting ten minutes. We were eager, actually. Hot to trot, in fact. It’s not every day you meet your idol, and I knew Odelia was as excited as I was to meet JPG in the flesh. She because she’d grown up with his music, and I because I was finally going to find out if the rumors about that pâté were true. No matter who I had to bribe, I was going to sample me some of those delicious goodies.
Dooley and I hopped into Odelia’s old pickup, and made ourselves comfortable on the backseat while she put the car in gear with a dreadful crunching sound that indicated she’d just destroyed what was left of the transmission. Miraculously, the car still lurched away from the curb, and five minutes later, we were cruising down the main drag of our small town.
Hampton Cove was just waking up, and Main Street was still pretty much deserted as we came hurtling through at breakneck speed. As a driver, Odelia is something of a legend in town. She’s probably had more fender benders than all the other residents combined, and the only reason she hasn’t been forced to declare bankruptcy to avoid paying traffic tickets is because her uncle is chief of police and tends to turn a blind eye to his niece’s peccadillos. He has repeatedly told her to be more careful, but she insists the problem doesn’t lie with her. She happens to be a great driver. It’s other road users insisting on getting in her way that create all that trouble for her.
Meanwhile, we’d zoomed through Hampton Cove and were now racing along a stretch of road that took us along the coastline and the fancy mansions that the rich and famous had built for themselves. Dooley and I glanced out at them with relish. We had friends who lived here, and sometimes described the kind of lifestyle they’d grown accustomed to. It was enough to boggle the mind. Not that we’re jealous cats, mind you. Odelia Poole is probably among the nicest and most decent and loving humans a cat can ever hope to adopt, but a monthly spa retreat just for cats? Cat birthday parties where all the other cat owners bring special treats? A walk-in closet just to fit all the costumes and fancy outfits? Like I said, it boggled the mind.
We finally arrived at the villa that was the home of John Paul George, eighties icon, and we were surprised to find that the entrance gate was wide open, a car haphazardly parked right next to it. As we rode past, we saw that inside the car a male figure was sleeping, his head slumped on the steering wheel, and recognized him as Jasper Pruce, JPG’s long-suffering boy toy.
“Someone was naughty last night,” Odelia said, lowering her sunglasses to get a good look at the guy. “JPG made him sleep outside, apparently.”
“Don’t humans usually have to sleep on the couch when they’re bad?” asked Dooley, who looked confused. Human behavior often confuses him.
“Looks like the couch was occupied,” I said, shaking my head.
We rode up to the house, and Odelia parked in the circular drive, right next to a fountain with a statue of JPG as a nude angel, spewing water out of its tush. We all hopped out and sauntered up to the front door. Odelia rang the bell, and we could hear it resonate inside the house. But even after she’d repeated the procedure, nobody showed up to answer, and she frowned.
She tried to peek through the glass brick wall next to the door, but it was impossible to get a good look because of its opaqueness.
She rang the bell again, biting her lower lip. “I hope he didn’t forget about our appointment. It has taken me months to nail down this exclusive.”
“Want us to have a look round the back?” I asked.
“Would you? I don’t dare to go there myself. What if he’s sunbathing in the nude and accuses me of trespassing? I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Dooley and I moved off on a trot and rounded the house. We arrived at the back, where a large verandah offered a glimpse of the inside, but saw no evidence of anyone sunbathing, in the nude or otherwise.
“Oh, look,” said Dooley. “He’s got a pool.”
And indeed he did. We walked over to the pool to take a closer look, and that’s when we saw it: a lifeless figure was floating facedown in the center of the pool, completely in the nude, and judging from the large tattoo of two mating unicorns on his left buttock and a rainbow on the right, this was none other than John Paul George himself. I remembered seeing that tattoo when Odelia was researching the singer last night, and even though it looked slightly saggy now, having been tatted during the pop sensation’s glory days, it was still recognizable.
John Paul George, eighties boy wonder, was either breathing underwater, or he was dead.
Chapter Two
After we told Odelia what was going on, we pussyfooted back to the pool area, this time with Odelia right behind us. But even as we led the way, she told us, “This is a very bad idea, you guys. I shouldn’t be back here.”
It seemed like a weird thing to say for a top reporter, and I told her so.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Strictly speaking this is trespassing. And what’s even worse, if what you’re saying is true and John Paul George is dead and floating in his pool, I might get into a lot of trouble here.”
It was the arrival in town of that new cop, I knew. The old Odelia wouldn’t have thought twice about trespassing, and the fact that a famous celebrity was dead in their pool would only have made her run faster. But Kingsley’s arrival had apparently robbed her of her journalistic instincts.
“Look, the guy invited you,” I said. “So you’re not trespassing.”
“Well, that’s true, I suppose.”
“Besides, officially you don’t know that he’s dead. You didn’t hear it from us. You just wondered why he didn’t answer the door, you got worried, and you thought you’d better check, in case something had happened to him.”
“I like your thinking,” she said, nodding. We’d walked around to the back of the house, and she gasped when she caught sight of the floating body. The last doubts as to whether the guy was snorkeling were removed: for one thing he wasn’t equipped with a snorkel, and for another, no one can hold their breath for that long, and certainly not a fifty-year-old drug-addled pop star.