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“I won’t forget this, Kingman!” I yelled.

“I’m sorry, Max!” he yelled back. “If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas!”

And as we put some distance between ourselves and Kingman’s berserk human, Dooley asked, “What did Kingman mean, Max?”

“It’s an expression,” I explained, still greatly perturbed by the blatant betrayal of our friend. “It means that if you get involved with a bad person you suffer the consequences.”

“And who’s the bad person?”

“I suppose he means Gran, and Odelia, too, probably.”

“Odelia? But Odelia isn’t a bad person, Max.”

“I know she isn’t, but you know the kind of gossipmonger Kingman is. He heard something about Odelia getting questioned, and he’s turned it into a story about her being arrested for the attack on Carl.”

“Odelia arrested!”

“She wasn’t, all right?” I said, perhaps a little more curtly than I intended. “Odelia was simply asked to explain why her fingerprints were on the golf club used as a weapon to hit Carl Strauss over the head with. Unfortunately she couldn’t explain, but that doesn’t mean she’s guiltyof attacking the man. Odelia would never do a thing like that.”

“Oh, I know she wouldn’t. Odelia isn’t capable of such an act of violence. She’s the nicest, sweetest person on the planet. In fact I think she must be some kind of saint.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said, glancing back and noticing how Wilbur was still staring after us. And then I noticed something else: the same person who’d been filming us at the dog park was filming us now: a round-faced individual of considerable proportions was holding up his smartphone and following us at a couple of paces distance, filming our every move. “There he is again,” I told Dooley, as my friend, too, turned around. We both sat staring at the man, as he brazenly stood there filming us!

“And he’s filming us again.”

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” I asked.

“You can’t film us,” Dooley added. “Not without talking to our Hollywood agent!”

But of course the man didn’t understand a word we said. He probably just thought it was funny to see two cats meowing up a storm like this.

“Get lost, you,” I said, and when he didn’t budge, I walked up to him, hoping to exude menace. And when that didn’t do the trick, I hissed at the guy, and extended the old claw.

“So cute,” he said, and mustn’t have realized I meant business, for he just kept on filming, the horrible wannabe director! “So where’s your human, kitty cat?” he asked. “Where is Odelia? Shouldn’t you help her write her stories, mh?”

I frowned at the guy.“What are you talking about?”

“You are her cat spy, aren’t you? So what are you doing out here, wasting time with other cats? Or is that part of your MO? You interact with other cats of the neighborhood, gathering information, and then deliver it to Odelia? Is that how this works?”

“Oh, will you get lost already?” I said, borrowing Wilbur’s words, and walked off.

“What does he want, Max?” asked Dooley.

“He seems to know about us,” I said as I glanced over my shoulder. The guy was still filming, but at least he’d stopped pursuing us.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure, but he seems to know that we spy around for Odelia, and give her the information we collect.”

“But how? How would he know about that?”

“You know, Dooley, the longer I live in this town, the more I start to realize that nothing is sacred, and nothing is secret. Everybody seems to be all over everybody else’s business, and frankly it’s starting to annoy me.”

“Maybe he’s one of Carl Strauss’s sex maniac friends,” Dooley suggested. “And he thinks Odelia attacked his friend and now he’s trying to find out more about her.”

“I very much doubt whether Carl has any sex maniac friends, Dooley,” I said with a smile.

“Oh, but if he’s a sex maniac, he must have gone to sex maniac meetings, like the anonymous alcoholics, and he must have had a buddy, like the anonymous alcoholics always have a buddy they can call when they want a drink. So maybe this guy is Carl’s buddy from his sex maniacs anonymous group,and he’s trying to help his friend.”

“It’s possible,” I said. “I’m definitely going to report this to Odelia. If there’s a guy going around filming us and asking a lot of questions, she needs to know about it.”

22

Odelia was in her office putting the final touches to her article about her visit to the hospital that morning, where Carl Strauss was still laid up after the breakin. Ellie was sitting next to her, watching as she wrote, which felt a little weird to Odelia, as she’d never allowed anyone to look over her shoulder as she typed up her articles before.

“You type so fast,” said Ellie admiringly. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to type as fast as you.”

“It’s practice. You just need to practice a lot and you’ll get better at it—and faster.”

“I still type with two fingers,” said Ellie with an eyeroll, “so I have a lot of practicing to do before I’ll ever be as good as you.”

“Why don’t you write your version of the story?” Odelia now suggested. “And maybe we can add it to mine—sort of like a second perspective?”

Ellie’s eyes went wide. “You want me to write an article for the Gazette?”

“Well, not a whole article, more like a short piece. We could print it next to mine.”

“Oh, this is so great,” said Ellie. She was beaming. “When do you need it?”

“Before tonight. Let’s say… three hundred words?”

“You got it,” said Ellie, and got up to start work on her first article for the Gazette.

The door to the office suddenly flew open, and a woman walked in.“Odelia Poole? My daughter’s been arrested and you’re responsible.” She didn’t look happy, not happy at all.

“Who is your daughter, Mrs…”

“Hudson. Jacqueline Hudson. My daughter’s name is Emma, and she was arrested last night because of your doing!” She was pointing an irate finger in Odelia’s direction.

Immediately Ellie got up and said,“Hey, you can’t just barge in here and start accusing Odelia of all kinds of things.”

“But she did—she got my Emma arrested last night, and now she’s in jail, and they’re accusing her of attempted murder!”

“Look, your daughter was caught breaking into Carl Strauss’s home last night,” said Odelia, also getting up. “And she’s already confessed to being a member of the Hampton Heisters, who are suspected of at least half a dozen other breakins. So Emma is not innocent in all of this, Mrs. Hudson.”

Suddenly the woman sank down onto a chair and burst into tears, burying her face in her hands.“I know,” she said between sobs. “And I don’t get it. She never used to be like this. Emma was an A-level student. We already had a college picked out for her, and now this.”

“You didn’t know she was breaking into people’s homes?” asked Odelia.

“No, of course I didn’t! If I’d known do you think I wouldn’t have tried to stop her?”

“Your daughter is refusing to tell the police what they want to know,” said Odelia. “Is that your doing? Did you advise her not to cooperate with the authorities?”

“No, I most certainly did not. Look, she doesn’t want to talk to us, and her father and I are frantic with worry. First this whole breakin thing, and now she’s being accused of attempted murder? I just don’t understand!”

“Emma is part of a gang of burglars,” Odelia explained. “The Hampton Heisters, as they’ve been dubbed. They only target the rich and famous, and always take a lot of memorabilia, apart from the valuables and the money that they steal.”

“I know. I read the papers. I know what she’s being accused of. I’m just telling you this is not like her. Emma is a good girl. All I can think is that she must have gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd somehow.”