“Oh, my God,” said Harriet, rolling her own eyes at this. She then turned to me. “Max, you’re not seriously going to accept this case, are you?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, musing on Mr. Ed’s story. “It is entirely conceivable that Bob was behind his own abduction, and that the only thing he was interested in was the money, not Evelina’s hand in marriage.”
“Well, I’m not buying it,” said Harriet.
“Me neither,” said Brutus. “I think you were jealous, Mr. Ed. You were afraid that Evelina was going to get married and that once they moved in together you’d get kicked out. So you concocted this cockamamie story trying to paint Bob as the bad guy, when it’s pretty obvious the poor guy is the victim. Max, just skip this one. The client is biased.”
“I’m not a client!” said Mr. Ed. “I’m just a snail, who’s concerned about his human, and who’s turning to you, Max and Dooley, to help out a fellow pet.”
“A fellow pet!” said Brutus. “Everybody knows snails aren’t pets. They’re pests.”
Mr. Ed was shaking with sheer indignation at this slur. “I beg your pardon!” he cried.
“No human takes a snail as a pet,” said Brutus. “It’s pretty obvious you’ve made this whole story up, buddy. Is your name even Ed? We only have your word for it.”
“I’ll drag you to court for slander and defamation of character!” said the tiny snail.
“What court?” said Brutus, then made a throwaway gesture with his paw. “Oh, forget about it. I’m out of here. I don’t have to listen to this. Are you coming, sweet pea?”
“Absolutely, smoochie poo,” said Harriet.
Once our friends had disappeared through the hedge, Mr. Ed gave me and Dooley a pleading look. “I’m not lying, Mr. Max. I promise you that everything I just told you is the God’s honest truth.”
“I believe you, Mr. Ed,” I said, and I meant it, too. Due to the limited size of his cranium, I frankly didn’t think Mr. Ed could have made up such an elaborate story. Besides, why would he?
“So will you help me? Please?”
I shared a smile with Dooley and the latter said, “I’m happy to announce that Max will take your case, Mr. Ed. And so will I. Now tell me everything you know about those potatoes, because I have a feeling they’re the most important clue here.”
Chapter 6
“Can you believe how gullible Max and Dooley are?” said Brutus as he and Harriet moved into the house to see if Gran or Marge had managed to fill up their food bowls since the last time they checked—about twenty minutes ago. “Nobody keeps a snail as a pet, and definitely not some rich businesswoman.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” said Harriet. “We all know humans are eccentric, and especially the rich and famous.”
“Yeah, I know, but most of those keep pet snakes or lemurs or alpacas. Surely snails are pets non grata for that set.”
“Like I said, I wouldn’t write off the possibility,” said Harriet. “But where I do follow you is that this story of this Bob seems highly unlikely. We both saw that potato guy. Did he look like the kind of guy anyone would pay seventy-five thousand for?”
“More like the kind of guy you’d pay to get rid of,” Brutus agreed. “With his silly suit.”
“Well, it’s none of our business,” said Harriet. “If Max and Dooley want to waste their time running all over town because some snail told them to, Godspeed.” And she frowned at her bowl, which was empty, a sight she obviously didn’t enjoy. “Why is it that humans work so hard?” she lamented. “Gran is always sitting behind that desk saying hi and how are you to Tex’s patients, Marge is always giving or receiving books at that library of hers and Odelia is always writing articles about things that happened to other people. I mean—when are they finally going to start living, Brutus?”
“What do you mean?” asked Brutus, who’d also noticed that his bowl was empty, and didn’t like it any more than Harriet did. They could, of course, dig into Max or Dooley’s bowls, which were still pretty full. But the sacred code between the four cats that made up the Poole household strictly forbade that kind of behavior.
“Our humans,” said Harriet. “They work so hard, and for what?”
“Um… so they can buy food for us and for themselves?” Brutus suggested.
“Exactly! There should be more to life than working your fingers to the bone just so you can put food on the table for your family, right?”
Since both his and Harriet’s bowls were pretty much empty, Brutus would have suggested their humans didn’t work hard enough, since they had obviously failed in their most important task. “I wouldn’t say they work their fingers to the bone, exactly,” he said, still eyeing Max’s bowl with a keen eye. “You know… I was thinking that maybe, just this once, we could dip into one of the other bowls.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Max and Dooley’s bowls,” Brutus clarified.
Harriet turned to him. “Oh, no. No, no, no.”
“Just this once.”
“We can’t break the code, Brutus. You know we can’t.”
“But…”
“No. Absolutely not. No way.” Though Brutus could see she was slowly warming to the idea. She was taking in those bowls and soon her tongue stole out and she was licking her lips.
“We could tell them one of the neighbors snuck in and stole all of our food,” Brutus suggested. “It wouldn’t be the first time either.”
“But that would be lying,” said Harriet, giving him a startled look.
“So? You know as well as I do that it’s not fair that Max has a food bowl here while he spends all his time next door and almost never sets paw in here.”
“It would be a pity for that lovely food to get stale,” Harriet agreed.
“Stale food is the worst.”
“Marge was complaining to me just the other day how she’d had to throw out some of Max’s food, as he hadn’t touched it in days and she was sure it had gone bad.”
“See? We’d be doing Marge a favor.”
For a moment, they both studied Max and Dooley’s bowls, then, as one cat, they descended upon the neglected delicacies and attacked those poor neglected nuggets.
Vesta was in a bad mood. She’d gone out to get some free potatoes and instead had found a dead man. Not exactly the kind of thing a person looking for a bargain hopes to find. Her conscience told her this is what you get when you try to get something for nothing, and of course in a sense her conscience was absolutely right. Then again, who wouldn’t like to fill up their pantry without cost when given the opportunity?
She took her place behind the desk at her son-in-law’s doctor’s office and picked up the phone, which had been ringing off the hook.
“Doctor Poole’s office,” she said. “How can I help you?”
“Well, aren’t you the consummate professional?” a familiar voice said on the other end of the call.
She smiled. “Scarlett. Don’t tell me you need to see Tex.”
“I heard you found a dead body this morning?”
“I didn’t find it. A truck driver did. I just happened to be in the neighborhood.”
“Of course you were. So what do you reckon? Neighborhood watch business?”
“I don’t think so,” said Vesta as she powered up her computer. “He was found just beyond the town limit, way past the town sign. Now I know we of the watch like to take the broad view when determining our purview, but even for us that would be stretching things. Besides, as far as I can tell there was no foul play involved. Just some poor schmuck who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“So he wasn’t dead when he got onto that truck?”
Vesta paused. She hadn’t thought that far. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”