Chapter 7
There was a policewoman guarding the back entrance but she was A) smoking, which meant the door was conveniently propped open, and B) intently studying her smartphone, which precluded her from seeing two cats sneak in right under her nose.
“I didn’t like the sight of that, Max,” said Dooley.
“Me, neither. I’m not a taxpayer but it’s sad when cops are this negligent.”
He gave me a look of confusion.“I meant the storm clouds, Max. Extreme weather is a precursor to the apocalypse. Do you think they’ll allow us to enter New Zealand?”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“Johnny Depp’s dogs weren’t allowed to enter.”
“Pretty sure that was Australia, not New Zealand, buddy.”
“Phew,” said Dooley.
We’d been prancing through a short corridor, and I was starting to wonder where we’d find the crime scene we were looking for. As the lead detective on this case it kinda bothered me that I hadn’t been given sufficient information to locate the victim’s body.
The door at the end of the corridor suddenly swung open and a large man with a potbelly appeared. When he caught sight of us, he halted in his tracks and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then actually started rubbing them. When he opened his eyes again Dooley and I were gone—having deftly scooted into a small room to our immediate left. I didn’t know who this man was, but I was pretty sure I’d seen him before, so he was probably a cop, and wouldn’t take kindly to civilians trampling all over his crime scene.
The room we found ourselves in contained several bookcases laden with boxes, a small table with two chairs, and a large framed picture of Marge, Tex, and Odelia. Smaller pictures had been placed underneath it, and one of them was a group picture of me, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus!
“Aw, look, Max,” said Dooley. “Someone’s taken our picture and put it up on that wall over there.”
“Marge,” I said. “She works at the library.”
“She does? That explains things.”
It certainly did. My gaze had traveled upwards and now rested on an empty pizza box that had been left on the table. There was also a briefcase, and when I jumped up on the table to take a closer look, I saw that it contained the initials CA. Chris Ackerman. When I realized that this briefcase had belonged to the dead man, I also realized that the potbellied policeman could enter this room any moment now to take a closer look at the briefcase, and I quickly jumped down from the table again.
Just at that moment, the door started to open.
“Dooley! Up there!” I hissed, and hurried over to the bookcase, then leaped on top of that and from there to the top of the concrete brick wall, which held a space where some species of metal ventilation tubes had been fed through into the next room.
Dooley, who was right behind me, sat panting for a moment.
“That was close,” he whispered.
We both stared down at the man who’d entered the room. It was the same man we’d seen in the corridor. I now saw he was carrying a small briefcase of his own, which he placed on top of the table. He then studied Chris Ackerman’s briefcase intently, meanwhile outfitting his hands with plastic gloves.
The door opened again and Chief Alec walked in.“And what have we here, Abe?”
“Briefcase, presumably belonging to the dead man,” said Abe.
Alec flicked open the discarded pizza box, noticed it was empty, and flicked it closed again.“If this is a robbery gone wrong, wouldn’t the perp have taken the briefcase?”
“That’s your department, Alec. The only thing I’m interested in is finding out if there are any fingerprints on this thing that can help you nab the killer.”
“It’s so great to see how professionals handle an investigation, isn’t it, Dooley?” I said. “And we have a front-row seat, too.” When no response came, I repeated, “Dooley?”
Turning, I saw that I was talking to thin air. Dooley was gone.
“Psst! Max!” suddenly his voice called out to me.
I looked over my shoulder and saw he’d disappeared into the next room. I followed suit and soon discovered we were in the library itself, looking down on a small stage where a man was seated on a chair. Judging from the way he was slumped over, he seemed to be fast asleep. And that’s when I saw it: something was sticking out of his neck!
“That’s him!” I cried. “That’s our dead guy!”
The discovery that we’d found what we were looking for didn’t bring Dooley the jolt of joy I expected. Instead, he produced a loud yelp—not unlike the kind of squeaky sound Cameron Tucker ofModern Family fame tends to produce.
And then Dooley dropped off the wall, straight onto the dead body down below.
Chapter 8
You know how they say cats always manage to land on all fours, right? Well, there’s some truth to that. At least, for most cats. Dooley, unfortunately, managed to hit the dead man right on the noggin, bounced off him and then landed on the floor—on all fours.
It was pretty neat to watch, and if I’d had a smartphone, not to mention opposable thumbs, I would have caught it all on video, to post on my Instagram, where it would have gone viral and garnered millions of views in a matter of hours.
As it was, the only witness to Dooley’s complicated acrobatics were me, myself and I. And as soon as I’d recovered from the shock of watching my friend tumble into the abyss, I applauded him heartily.
“Way to go, Dooley!” I cried, momentarily forgetting we were supposed to be here in a strictly undercover capacity.
Dooley would have taken a bow, if he hadn’t been too busy sitting on his butt and shaking his head, looking both dazed and confused.
“What happened?” he finally asked.
“You decided to take a closer look at the dead man so you jumped!” I said, searching around for a way to get to Dooley without taking the plunge myself.
I’m not much of an athlete I’m sorry to say, and even though Odelia has put me on several diets, I’m a cat of Rubenesque proportions or, as a smart cat once said, blessed with a low point of gravity. As a consequence the ten feet to the floor seemed… challenging.
“I think I hit the dead man, Max,” said Dooley, still looking as if he’d been picked up and squashed down by the hand of God. “Do you think he’ll mind?”
“He’s dead so I’m pretty sure he won’t.”
“He doesn’t look happy.”
“That’s because someone killed him. You wouldn’t look happy if someone killed you.”
At this point, I’d given up on navigating my way down to the floor and had decided to sit this one out. I had a great view of the victim and could do all the detecting from up there. And I’d just found a nice spot to sit and relax when all of a sudden this nice spot dropped out from underneath me. One moment it was there, and then it wasn’t, if you see what I mean.
Moments later, I landed with my butt on the dead man’s head, ricocheted away, and landed—on all fours—right next to Dooley.
I blinked a few times, wondering what was going on, when suddenly Dooley bellowed,“Timber!” and grabbed me by the shoulder, giving me a vigorous shove.
We managed to jump out of the way as the dead writer fell out of his chair and crashed to the floor. He bounced once, then lay immobile, a cloud of dust kicking up.
Dooley and I both coughed and stared at the dead man, who stared right back at us.
It was not a pleasant sight, nor was it the proudest moment in my career as a feline sleuth. Feline sleuths—or any sleuths for that matter—don’t make a habit of thumping murder victims on the noggin—twice!—and knocking them out of their chairs. It’s just not done. At least not to my knowledge—which now extended to at least one movie in all of the Hallmark Movies& Mysteries Channel franchises, including but not restricted toGarage Sale Mysteries, Aurora Teagarden Mysteries, Fixer Upper Mysteries andHailey Dean Mysteries.