“Mama would never leave without telling me. We’re very close—we’re more best friends than mother and daughter. She wouldn’t simply up and leave and not let me know. She simply wouldn’t.”
She’d pressed a tissue to her nose while tears still rolled across her cheeks.
“Look, it’s not because your father doesn’t want to involve the police that you can’t,” said Odelia. “She’s your mother, and if you have reason to believe her disappearance is troubling, you should tell my uncle. If you want I’ll come with you. Chief Alec is a very nice man and very capable. He’ll find your mother.”
“My father would never speak to me again. He thinks it’s bad enough the servants know, and now to involve the police…” She shook her head. “No way. Besides, what if he’s right? What if Mama simply ran away with her lover? The police aren’t going to be able to bring her back. She’s a grown woman. She’ll simply refuse to come with them.”
“See what I mean?” said Dan, who was clearly worried about his godchild. “You have to find Grace, Odelia. And if you’re worried about expenses, don’t be. I’ll pay you out of my own pocket to find her.”
“And I’ll pay you the rest,” said Alicia. “I just want to know what happened to her. If she did run away, that’s her business. I just want to know, so that I can stop worrying.”
“Do you know the name of this artist boyfriend?” asked Odelia, taking out her notebook and pencil.
“His name is Fabio Shakespeare. He’s a painter and he lives in a small cottage on our domain. Papa wanted to kick him out when he first started suspecting he was having an affair with Mama, but Mama convinced him not to. My parents have been living separate lives for years. They live in different wings of the house, so it’s not as if Mama was really doing anything wrong when she got involved with Fabio.”
“What do you know about this Fabio?”
“Oh, he’s wonderful. A real genius. You should see his paintings. He painted my portrait, too, and it’s the most amazing thing.”
She clearly seemed taken with this painter, Odelia thought. “So you didn’t mind that your mother was having an affair with him?”
“No, I was happy for her. Very happy. Papa is… a difficult man to live with. Even I find him hard to tolerate. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my father, but he’s very tough and demanding—not sweet and loving, like Fabio, and definitely not a romantic.”
Odelia nodded. “Do you think your dad will mind if I ask him a couple of questions and snoop around?”
“No, I think it’s fine, as long as you promise not to tell anyone.”
“Be discreet,” said Dan. “Be very discreet, Odelia. And Alicia, tell your dad I’m not going to print anything about this. This is not newspaper business to me—this is personal.”
“Oh, thank you so much, Uncle Dan,” said Alicia, as she rounded the desk and gave her godfather a big hug. “I won’t forget this.”
“It’s the least I can do for my precious goddaughter,” said Dan warmly.
“So when did your mother disappear, exactly?” asked Odelia.
“Um… the last time I saw her was the day before yesterday. At breakfast. We were supposed to head into town that afternoon to do some shopping, but she never showed up. And then the next day when I checked her room I saw that her bed hadn’t been slept in. I decided to tell Papa, who hadn’t even noticed Mama had gone missing, and he told me to wait another day, just to be sure. And so this morning, when I told him Mama was still nowhere to be found, he told me in no uncertain terms I shouldn’t get the police involved, and that Mama had probably eloped with Fabio.”
“Did you check to see if Fabio is gone, too?”
“I did. Immediately. And he’s gone. Packed his bags and disappeared.”
“So that would suggest your father is right.”
“I guess so, but like I said, Mama would never leave without telling me. She simply wouldn’t.”
“Have you tried calling her?”
“Of course. I’ve called and texted—but she’s not picking up and not responding to my texts. Oh, Miss Poole, you have to find her. I’m so scared something bad has happened.”
“I will find her, Alicia,” she said, even as she wondered if she was making a promise she wouldn’t be able to keep. “Trust me.”
Chapter 5
Gran walked out of the house and closed the door behind her. As she passed us, presumably on her way to the office, she paused. “What’s going on here? Are you guys having a meeting?”
“Yes, we are,” said Dooley promptly. “We’ve just formed the first-ever Cat Committee for the Re-education of Canines, also known as the CCREC.”
“Crack? What crack?” asked Gran. “I don’t see no crack.”
“We want to teach dogs not to poo in the street,” Harriet explained.
“Yes, we want to re-educate dogs. Make them more like cats,” Shanille added.
Gran guffawed. “Good luck with that!”
“But, Gran, just look at it. Isn’t it a disgrace?” said Harriet, gesturing to the still steaming pile of dog dung.
Gran looked at the evidence of a dog’s bowel movement and frowned. “Who left that there?”
“I think it belongs to Rufus,” said Harriet. “Marcie and Ted’s new dog?”
“Not on my watch!” said Gran, and immediately stalked over to Marcie’s doorstep and mashed the bell with her finger.
“Your Grandma Muffin could be a most formidable ally,” said Shanille.
We watched on as the door opened and Marcie appeared. She’s a dark-haired slender woman of Marge’s age, and very sweet. “Oh, hey, Vesta,” she said. “So nice to see you.”
“What were you thinking, Marcie?” said Gran, shaking her head. “What were you thinking when you left that stinking heap of stinky doo stinking up my sidewalk?!” She pointed an accusatory finger at the turd.
Marcie looked past Gran and frowned. “That’s not mine.”
“I know it’s not yours. It’s your dog’s.”
“Impossible,” said Marcie. “Ted always picks up after Rufus. He would never leave our baby’s doo-doo just lying around for people to step in. No way. Nuh-uh.”
“My cats think it’s Rufus’s, and my cats are never wrong,” said Gran, and too late realized her faux-pas.
“How would you know what your cats think?” asked Marcie with a laugh. “Unless the rumors are true, and you Poole girls really can talk to your cats.”
“Never mind,” Gran grumbled, and executed a strategic retreat. “I shouldn’t have said that,” she muttered when she’d joined us on the sidewalk again. “Now Marcie will blab about it everywhere she goes. That’s the way she operates.” She stared at the heap of poo. “How sure are you that this belongs to Marcie’s dog, on a scale of one to ten?”
“Ten,” said Harriet immediately. “All excrement has a particular scent, and I needed only one sniff to know this particular pile belongs to Rufus.”
“Mh.” Gran directed a not-so-friendly look at Marcie’s house, where presumably Marcie was at that moment watching us from behind her curtains. “You know what? You cats just gave me a fantastic idea. A real scorcher.”
And without further explanation, she took off and left.
“So now what?” asked Brutus.
“Now we start our re-education campaign,” said Harriet. “And we begin with the culprit of this here eyesore.”
“You’re not serious,” said Brutus. “You’re going to try and re-educate Rufus?”
“Yes, I am,” said Harriet, “and so are you.”
“Ugh,” said Brutus, and I like to think that he spoke for all of us.
I mean, it’s one thing to engage in idle talk about the re-education of dogs and teaching them how to be potty-trained, but another to actually go out and do it. Dogs, you see, don’t take kindly to interference from cats, and Rufus is a big dog. A sheepdog. Those big and woolly ones? Sometimes I think there must have been a woolly mammoth among his forebears. I hadn’t really made Rufus’s acquaintance, apart from the occasional greeting across the fence, but if there is one thing a long life lived in Hampton Cove has taught me, it is always to steer clear of dogs, especially the really big ones.