“Somebody help me!” Max was yelling. “I know who did it!”
The introduction of this new theme threw her. Stuck, she understood. He must have tried to get in through the pet door and gotten stuck. But he knew who did it? Knew who did what?
She cursed herself for not leaving the kitchen door open last night—she’d been so beat that the moment she let herself into the house she’d staggered up the stairs, dropped into the bed and had been asleep in seconds, without giving a single thought to poor Max.
“I’m coming!” she repeated, picking her way down the narrow stairs. Even under normal circumstances it was a tricky staircase to negotiate, and in her current state of sleep deprivation it was a downright safety hazard. She managed to reach the ground floor unscathed and speed-shuffled into the kitchen, where she was greeted with a piteous sight: Max’s head was inside the house, while the rest of his body was still outside.
“I can’t move,” he said when he caught sight of her. “I’m stuck, Odelia.”
“Oh, poor baby,” she said, kneeling down next to him. “I’ve asked my dad to fix this thing, and this time Chase is going to help him, so from now on you should be fine.”
She placed her hands on his neck, and tried to ease him in.
“I don’t think that’s gonna work,” Max said with a giggle. He’d always been ticklish.
“Just hang in there, baby. I’m going to get you out of this thing.”
She decided to reverse her technique and shove him out instead. So she pushed on his head, but that didn’t work either. He was really and truly stuck. “Huh,” she said, stumped.
She carefully opened the door and stepped out onto the paved deck, Max swinging with the door. Just as she’d surmised, the largest portion of the voluminous cat was sticking out, not unlike the iceberg that had sunk the Titanic. So now all she needed to do was get a firm grip on his body, and dislodge the rest of him.
“Can you breathe out for me?” she asked as she placed her hands on his trunk.
Max blew out a deep breath, she eased her fingers into his fur, and carefully pulled.
Dooley, who’d come walking up, stared at the scene. “This looks like a fun game,” he said. “Can I play, too?”
“This isn’t a game, Dooley,” said Odelia. “Max is stuck.”
“Oh.” He thought about this for a moment. “Why?”
“Because Dad screwed up and made the pet door a size too small.”
“Why did he do that?” asked Dooley.
“Can you stop asking stupid questions and just push my head?” Max burst out.
Dooley quickly trotted over. “Where do I push?”
“My head! Just push on my head while Odelia pulls my butt.”
“Can’t I pull your butt? I have a hunch I’d be great at butt-pulling.”
“Just do it already!”
“Right,” said Dooley dubiously. He clearly wasn’t fully on board with the plan. He did as he was told, though, by placing both paws on Max’s nose and pushing with all his might.
“Not the nose!” Max cried in a nasal tone.
Dooley, who was clearly not a professional cat pusher, adjusted his position and placed his paws on the top of Max’s head instead. The concerted effort of both cat and human finally yielded results, and soon Max popped from the pet door like a cork from a bottle. And as he sat on his haunches, panting slightly, he announced, “Have I got news for you, Odelia. Thank you, by the way, for getting me out of this hellhole.”
“It’s called a pet door, Max,” said Dooley. “Not a hellhole.”
Max gave his friend a dark look, then continued, “Oh, boy, did we have a night.”
“A night to remember,” said Dooley.
“Charlie Dieber tried to kidnap us, before his driver told him we were three males and then he kicked us out of his limo and into a ditch,” he began.
“And then we saw Diego and Harriet on the rooftop of The Hungry Pipe and Brutus had a meltdown,” Dooley added.
Max turned to him. “Are you going to tell the story, or am I?”
“You tell the story,” Dooley said graciously.
“Then we saw Gran talking to Angela Merkel, and Shanille being sad because Diego took her place as cat choir conductor, and—”
“And then Charlie Dieber showed up again and adopted Shanille!” Dooley cried with a laugh. “What a night!” When Max shot him a glare, he added, “Sorry. Please continue.”
Odelia frowned. “Grandma was talking to Angela Merkel? But why?”
“Giving her advice on world peace or something,” said Max, waving an impatient paw. “The thing is, before she got adopted by Dieber, Shanille said something.” He raised a whisker and paused for effect. “She was there when Dieber’s bodyguard was shot.”
“She saw who did it!” Dooley cried triumphantly.
“She saw who did it!” Max said, giving Dooley a nasty look. “It was—”
“—one of the other bodyguards!” Dooley caroled, at which point Max gave his shoulder a slap. Dooley returned the slap, and for a moment a lot of slapping ensued.
“Break it up, you guys,” said Odelia. When Max and Dooley were staring up at her, panting slightly from the exertion, she asked, “Can you repeat that last thing?”
“One of the bodyguards killed the other bodyguard,” said Max.
A trill of excitement shot through her. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, we are!” said Dooley. “Shanille is a big Dieber fan, so she had a front-row seat to his radio show thingy. She said one bodyguard approached the other bodyguard and spoke to him in a menacing tone of voice. There was some kind of scuffle and some shoving and then, suddenly, the bodyguard was shot! She saw everything because she was on the ground and had the dog perspective!”
“Frog perspective,” Max corrected.
Dooley frowned. “Yeah, I don’t get that.”
Her heart bouncing against her breastbone, she crouched down and took Dooley’s face in both hands. “This is very important, Dooley. What did the shooter look like?”
“Shanille didn’t say,” said Dooley.
“She did say he had the same color as me,” Max said.
“Oh, that’s right,” said Dooley. “Orange.”
“Blorange. I’m blorange. How many times do I have to repeat it?”
Just then, Brutus came trudging up, looking like something the cat dragged in. A different cat than himself, obviously, for cats can’t drag themselves in. “Blorange is not even a color, Max.”
“It is, too!” Max cried, cut to the quick.
In spite of her excitement about having solved the case—or, rather, of Shanille, Max and Dooley having solved the case, Odelia couldn’t help giving Brutus a worried look. “What happened to you, Brutus?”
“He broke his heart,” said Dooley knowingly.
“I had my heart broken,” Brutus corrected him.
“Oh. Diego and Harriet,” she said, understanding dawning. “I’m so sorry, Brutus.”
When you communicated with cats the way she did, you soon realized that their lives were a never-ending version of The Bold and the Beautiful. Or maybe even The Young and the Restless. Though neither soap opera could hold a candle to the drama cats could create.
“I’m going to put myself up for adoption,” Brutus announced somberly.
“But you can’t,” said Odelia. “This is your home now, Brutus.”
“I can’t share a home with Harriet and Diego,” said the cat morosely. “I’m going to elope to Charlie Dieber.”
“Charlie doesn’t adopt male cats, you know that, Brutus.”
“He’s going to have the transformation,” said Dooley.
“Transition,” Max corrected him.
Brutus gave her a wan smile. “From now on please call me Bruta.”
Chapter 20
Odelia parked her pickup in front of Uncle Alec’s house and got out. It was still early, and the street was pretty much deserted. But this couldn’t wait. So she walked up to the house, which was a modest row house in a street of similar houses, and rang the bell.