“This man has broken so many hearts,” said Dooley, shaking his head.
A little fluffy doggie came tripping out of the house. The moment it saw us it stood there, panting slightly, vibrating on its tiny paws, as if it had never seen a pair of cats before.
“Hey there, dog,” I said, hoping it wouldn’t start barking and acting mad like most dogs do when they come across a cat.
It gave one sharp bark and Fae’s mother looked up. When she saw us, she smiled. “What are you sweethearts doing here?” She came over and crouched down next to us. “You look like you belong to someone,” she said, gently stroking my fur. “You’re too nice-looking and well-groomed to be feral cats.”
I did the purring thing again, and so did Dooley when the woman extended the same courtesy to him.
The doggie had cocked its head in our direction and stood staring with a strange look on its face. It probably wasn’t used to seeing his human engage with a pair of cats.
“You know, Max,” said Dooley now as he cast a glance at the pile of tissues on the table. “Maybe we have to convince Odelia to take on this case anyway.”
“I’m starting to think so, too,” I said as the woman suddenly burst into tears and some of those tears splashed across my head like the dewy rain.
I sneezed and she cried some more.
“She’s clearly heart-broken and so is her daughter,” said Dooley. “I don’t think humans would cry so much over a man if that man was a murderous maniacal monster.”
“You’re right,” I said. The plight of these women touched my heart. And so did the bowl of food Fae’s mom pushed in our direction and from which I was taking hearty bites.
So we’re cats. We fall in love with any human that feeds us.
The woman finally disappeared into the house, presumably to look for her daughter, and then it was just us and the dog, whom I’d identified as a Bichon Fris? dog, one of those hairy white creatures that look like a walking ball of fluff.
“What do you think, dog?” I asked around a mouth filled with kibble.
“You do know that’s my food you’re eating, right?” said the dog, head still cocked and giving us sour looks.
“And very tasty it is, too,” said Dooley. “Thank you, dog.”
“The name is Sasha, and I’d say you’re welcome if I’d had a choice in the matter. As it is, my human seems to like you, so I will not bite you in the ankles. I repeat, I will not bite you in the ankles.”
“Very kind of you,” I said.
“I probably should, though,” said Sasha, indicating we were not in the clear yet. So I took a few quick bites, just in case she changed her mind and went for my ankles anyway. Although, do cats even have ankles? “It’s in the dog rulebook, you know,” Sasha continued.
“What is?” I asked.
“When confronted with an invading feline, go for the ankles. Printed right there in black and white.”
“Right,” I said. Of all the dogs in the world, we had to come across a fanatic and a rule follower. “So what can you tell us about Jeb Pott and the woman he murdered?”
“Yes, do you believe Jeb did it or that he was framed, like Fae seems to think?” Dooley added.
“I like Jeb,” said Sasha. “He’s a decent human being. He once took me to New Zealand on a trip. Only I got kicked out by some politician on account of the fact that I’d neglected to bring along my passport.” She shrugged. “Humans. They’re just weird.”
“Tell us about it,” said Dooley.
At least we agreed on one thing.
“So no, if I’m absolutely honest, I don’t think Jeb could ever murder Camilla.”
“Wait, you knew Camilla?” I asked.
“Sure. I was hers and Jeb’s when they were married. But after the divorce there was so much lawyerly fuss that Jeb decided to give me to Helena and Fae, so here I am.”
“What about Camilla? Didn’t she want you?”
“Not sure, actually. There was some legal wrangling, and the lawyers decided that nothing was decided until everything was decided. About the divorce, I mean. And by then I’d become so accustomed to living here that I’m actually happy nothing was decided.”
It all sounded pretty complicated, and I could tell from the strange look on Dooley’s face he had a hard time following the story, too. But regardless, one thing clearly stood out: here sat yet another individual who was familiar with Jeb and believed he was innocent.
“But then how do you explain what happened?” I asked.
Sasha shrugged.“I can’t. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a lapdog, not a member of a K9 unit. But what I can tell you is that Jeb had a lot of enemies, and I wouldn’t put it past them to pull a dirty trick like this on him.”
“Or on Camilla,” I said. After all, she was the one who was dead right now.
“Or Camilla,” agreed Sasha.
I shared a meaningful look with Dooley.“I think we need to have a long talk with our human, Dooley,” I said.
“I think so, too,” he agreed.
And then we took some more kibble. What? My mother always taught me never to skip a free meal. And I’m nothing if not a momma’s cat.
Chapter 9
Odelia was in her office, typing up her piece on the Camilla Kirby murder, when her boss walked in. Dan Goory, a white-bearded pint-sized man, had been running the Hampton Cove Gazette for so long now people identified him with it. He’d started the paper back in the stone age, and had kept it running all this time, single-handedly writing most of the copy, until he’d started looking for someone to help him lighten his load, and had found, after a lot of trial and error, the right person in Odelia. Her predecessors hadn’t fared as well as she had, but their amicable collaboration had been so successful that there was even talk now of her taking over the paper if or when Dan would finally decide to retire.
She hoped that day would never come, for she knew that running a paper was a different beast from filling its pages with newsworthy stories. As it was, Dan took care of the business side as well as the editing and she was free to write articles people enjoyed to read.
“So Jeb Pott, huh?” said Dan now, in his low gravelly voice, courtesy of smoking a pack a day for years, even though he’d now stopped—doctor’s orders. “Who would have thunk?”
“Not me,” said Odelia, raising her hands from the keyboard and lacing her fingers behind her head. “In fact I was more than a little shocked to hear it.”
“Yeah, me too,” Dan admitted. “Even though Pott is an amateur compared to greats like Olivier and Gielgud.”
“Who?” said Odelia with a slight grin.
“Oh, you barbarian.” He paused, flicking an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve. Today he’d opted for a heliotrope shirt with yellow suspenders, and looked very snazzy. “So what do you reckon? Did he do it?”
“Looks like,” said Odelia. “At least that’s what the police think.”
“We both know the police aren’t always right.”
“We do know that, but this time I think they are.” She ticked off the items on her fingers. “A witness saw the murder—actually witnessed the murder and called it in. Camilla’s blood was all over Jeb, and his prints all over the knife. And he’d invited her to come visit.”
“But why? What was he hoping to accomplish?”
“As far as Uncle Alec could tell from the text messages on her phone he was looking for a reconciliation. He said he still loved her and couldn’t stop thinking about her in spite of the divorce, and he wanted to try and heal the rift and put the past behind them.”
“And apparently she felt the same way or else she wouldn’t have flown all the way out here to see him.”
“Apparently.”
They were both silent for a beat, then Dan rapped the door with his knuckle and said,“Keep up the good work, Poole, and write me a killer article, will you? I have a feeling this might be our biggest issue yet.”
“Will do, sir,” she said dutifully, and bent over her laptop to pound out the rest of her article. She looked up when the outer door to the office swung open and the bell jangled.