Today was a slow day, though. Only three people were waiting, with two seated in chairs and being worked on by the barber—a handsome man in his fifties named Fido Siniawski—and his assistant. In spite of his age, Fido still sported a full head of shiny black hair, and a wrinkle-free face. People said he’d had work done both on his face and his hair—implants, if the rumors were to be believed—but he looked pretty natural to me.
All cats like Fido. The barber is the proud owner of a Maine Coon named Buster, and any human who loves cats is a human after our own heart.
“Did you hear about Dick Dickerson?” asked one of the two women in the chair. Fido was dabbing at her hair with a brush, presumably applying some sort of dye or gel.
“Oh, such a horrible way to go,” said Fido, his voice dripping with relish. “Duck poop. Really. Can you imagine?”
“Horrible,” the woman agreed.
I recognized her as Aissa Spring, who runs No Spring Chicks, the vegan restaurant.
“Have they caught the killer yet?” asked Fido.
“No idea. That Odelia Poole has been trucking around with that cop Chase Kingsley again. They seem to be onto something. Marisa saw them drive by the store this morning in Detective Kingsley’s pickup.”
“That Detective Kingsley,” said Fido unctuously. “Now that’s one drop-dead gorgeous man.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Aissa, who is a lesbian. “I don’t play for that team, Fido.”
“But I do, Aissa!” said Fido, much to Aissa’s hilarity. “And he’s simply scrumptious!”
“What is scrumptious, Max?” asked Dooley.
“Um…”
“It means he’s one handsome devil,” said Buster, who’d snuck up on us and was studying us intently. “What are you two doing in here? Soaking up more of that gossip, are you? Whispering it into your Odelia’s ear so she can fill her newspaper with a lot of nonsense.” He shook his head. “You’re all the same, you tabloid cats.”
“Um, we’re not tabloid cats, Buster,” I said. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“I’ll bet you’re here to collect gossip on me, too, aren’t you? Write about me in that lousy little paper of yours? Well, let me tell you something, Maxi Pad. Maybe you should stop gossiping about others and start putting your own house in order first.”
I had absolutely no idea what had gotten into Buster.“I don’t understand,” I said therefore.
“Sure you do. He told me all about you,” said Buster.
“Who did?”
“Some white cat came in here yesterday. Telling me all the stuff you told him about me.” He was balling his paws into fists now, and I had a feeling whatever Milo had told Buster wasn’t good.
“What did I supposedly tell him about you?” I asked resignedly.
Buster frowned.“That I should be in the Guinness Book of Records as the Ugliest Cat Alive. That I’m so ugly mirrors crack when I look in them. That I’m so ugly I make onions cry. That I’m so ugly I give Freddy Krueger nightmares. I don’t get that last one, though. I’m pretty sure I don’t know any cat named Freddy Krueger. So why is he having nightmares about me?”
“Oh, Buster,” I said. “Don’t listen to Milo.”
“It’s not him that said all those nasty things about me—it’s you!”
“No, it’s not,” I said. “Milo is a liar—he likes to spread these nasty rumors and pit cats against other cats. It’s what he does. He seems to draw some kind of perverse pleasure from creating trouble for others.”
“He told me I have worms,” said Dooley mournfully.
“You mean you don’t think I’m stupid?” asked Buster, surprised.
“Of course not! I would never think that, Buster.” And even if I did, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to tell anyone, I thought. “It’s all lies.”
“I can’t believe he would say something like that.”
“He told me I should scoot my tush across the floor—squish the worms.”
Buster blinked.“I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t know.”
“He barged into cat choir last night, too,” I said, remembering the veto Milo had exercised against me and Dooley. “Made a lot of trouble for us there as well.”
“Did you know that worms don’t like Cat Snax?” Dooley asked. “It’s true. They hate it. So if you ever have worms, Buster,” he said earnestly, “eat a lot of Cat Snax. And scoot.” I gave him a critical look and he had the decency to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I forgot. Scootingis not really a thing. And neither is eating Cat Snax to get rid of worms.” He kicked at a small pile of hair that Fido had swept into the corner. “Damn that cat is convincing!”
“He is,” said Buster. “I believed every word he said. He’d make a great politician.”
“Or a great lawyer,” I added.
“Or a Cat Snax salesperson,” Dooley said.
A harrowing thought suddenly occurred to me.“Do you think Milo’s been talking to other cats, too?” I asked Buster.
“Sure. Up and down the block. He’s real chatty.” Then his expression darkened. “Did you know that Kingman tells everyone who wants to listen that my mother was a bald cat? My mother wasn’t bald. She had beautiful fur, just like me. Big, beautiful fur. Orange, too. Lovely color. Now who would say such a horrible thing?” I gave Buster a keen look. He stared at me for a moment, then understanding dawned. “Kingman never said anything about my mother, did he?”
“No, he did not.”
“Milo invented that story to make me upset with Kingman.”
“Yes, he did.”
“Fooled again! Oh, man!”
I patted him on the back.“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Buster. He fooled us, too.”
And as we walked out of the barber shop, I had the sinking feeling that Hampton Cove’s entire cat population would soon be on the verge of war. And all because of one cat.
Ugh.
Chapter 36
Down at the precinct, Chase had just walked in when Dolores, who ruled over the station reception with an iron fist, yelled out,“Kingsley!”
He joined her at the front desk.“Dolores?”
Dolores was a big-boned woman with blond, curly hair, a no-nonsense expression tattooed on her face, and a fondness for mascara that made her look slightly scary.“You got a visitor, Kingsley.”
“Who is it? Santa?”
She grinned.“Santa only visits boys who’ve been good.”
“I’ve been good.”
“That’s not what I hear. Word on the street is that you’ve allowed yourself to be muscled out of the Chief’s niece’s house by his own damn mother!”
“Hey, what do you want me to do, Dolores? Kick out Odelia’s granny so I can move in?”
“You could make an honest woman out of Odelia by putting a ring on her finger.”
“And all this from the word on the street, huh?”
“The street is wise, Kingsley.”
“The street’s a wise-ass,” he said as he walked away. “Who’s my visitor?”
“Yasir Bellinowski. Said you’d told him to come in.”
And so he had. Only he’d never expected Mr. Bellinowski to actually comply.
He walked through the station office, where several of his colleagues were hard at work answering phone calls, typing out reports on their computers, and generally doing their darndest to keep the peace in the rustic little town of Hampton Cove.
Yasir Bellinowski was waiting in one of the interview rooms. He was dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit that probably cost more than Chase’s paycheck for that month, and was glancing annoyedly at a gold watch that might have cost more than Chase’s paycheck for the whole year. The man’s hair was slicked back, and Chase wondered if no one had bothered to tell him that people didn’t wear their hair like that anymore.
He waltzed in and took a seat across from the guy.“Mr. Bellinowski. I wasn’t expecting you.”
The other man smirked.“Don’t tell me. You’re pleasantly surprised.”
“I wouldn’t go as far as that.” He opened a file folder on the table in front of him. “You probably know why I asked you to come in.”