“Won’t the whole town of Brookridge now think that the actress playing Zoe Huckleberry was murdered by the actor with the pimple?”
“The whole town of Brookridge?” said Dana. “Of course not. The only ones who know about this are you and Brutus. And I made sure that the memory implant I installed in Brutus only lasted long enough to convince you about Zoe floating in the pond. By now he’s forgotten all about the affair.”
“But Brutus said he’d heard it from—”
Dana waved an impatient paw.“All part of the implant. He didn’t hear it from anyone but invisible old me.”
I frowned thoughtfully.“But what about Zack and Terrell? Won’t they go blabbing the story around town?”
Dana eyed me strangely.“Zack and Terrell? They don’t know about this.”
“Sure they do. Zack was telling the story to Terrell. He said he heard it from Milton who heard it from Barbara Vale who heard it from Fisk Grackle who heard it from Bart Ganglion himself. And I’m sure the story must have spread all over Brookridge by now. Your Barbara doesn’t stint on gossip, you know that.”
As I’ve mentioned before, Barbara Vale is Dana’s human. She works as a secretary at City Hall and is a very, um, sociable woman.
“But that’s impossible,” said Dana, now looking thoroughly perturbed.
“Why impossible? Barbara works faster than the Internet, Zack always says.”
Dana looked up, and there was a worried expression in her big, brown eyes.“It’s impossible because I never implanted the story in any of those people.”
“Then how…” I began, but all of a sudden I was interrupted by a ghoulish voice sounding from somewhere in the vicinity of the second branch from the top of my tree.
“You should have saved me, little one,” groaned the voice.
Dana and I started violently. Stevie merely winced. Throughout our conversation he’d been clinging to the tree branch, and this voice clearly didn’t mean as much to him as it did to us.
“You should have saved me when you had the chance,” said the voice.
“Who are you?” said Dana, a slight trill in her voice. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“Hey, that was my line,” I protested.
“Who is that?” said Stevie, joining in.
“Probably Brutus,” I said, taking a wild guess. But from the look on Dana’s face I had the distinct impression something else was going on.
“I am Lucy Knicx,” said the voice, drifting in and out of earshot, like the wailing of the wind. It was all quite spooky, I can tell you. “And I was murdered tonight… I was rehearsing a scene for Murder in the Park, the play… performing with the Brookridge Theatrical Society.”
“Zoe Huckleberry,” I said.
“That’s right,” moaned Lucy. “That was my part… I was playing with… when suddenly he stuck a knife… next moment… floating in the pond… no way to treat a girl.”
“So it did happen,” I said.
Dana nodded distractedly. The sudden appearance of Lucy’s ghost seemed to have rattled her even more than it had me. Of course, when the highest purpose of your organization is the saving of human lives and you organize a test for new recruits, it’s rather disconcerting when in the course of this test a human life is lost.
“Who was playing the part of Jack Mackintosh?” said Dana.
“Rick Mascarpone was supposed to… last minute replaced by an understudy… never met him before… quite good performance, except for the finale.”
“What was his name?” said Dana.
“His name was… quite good-looking and charming… until he stuck a knife in my back… bluebell…”
“His name,” repeated Dana.
“… have to go now… Saint-Peter calling… hope he has plenty of rice pudding… starving,” said Lucy. Then there was some sort of a popping sound, and silence returned.
13
Meet the Peterbalds
“Darn it,” said Dana, stomping the tree branch. It slightly swayed under the impact.
“Hey,” cried Stevie, digging his claws deeper into the cork. “Don’t do that.”
“Stevie,” I said.
“Steve,” he corrected.
“Steve,” I amended, “don’t you think it’s kind of odd for a secret agent to be afraid of heights?”
“I’m not afraid of heights,” he said. “I just don’t like to climb trees.”
“Will you two be quiet,” said Dana, who was gazing in the direction Lucy’s voice had sounded from. We were quiet for a spell, but nothing stirred. Dana sighed. “This is bad,” she said. “Very, very bad.”
“What’s so bad about it?” I said. “We knew Zoe Huckleberry was killed.”
She rolled her eyes.“That was a fake,” she said. “Merely a ruse we applied as a test.”
“Oh, that’s right,” I said. I’d forgotten about that again. “Well, you can’t blame me for losing track,” I said. “First she was murdered, then she wasn’t, and now she was.” I eyed her suspiciously. “Don’t tell me this is another one of your tests.”
“No, it’s not,” she said sharply. “What we saw was real after all. If I had only known…” She hung her head.
“Had known what?” said Stevie, having come to the conclusion he wasn’t going to plummet to an untimely death after all.
I explained to him the state of affairs, and to his credit he grasped it instantly.
“Great!” he exclaimed. “That means we’ve got our first case, Agent Tom.”
“I don’t think so, Agent Stevie, um, Steve. We’re trainees. Trainees don’t take cases.”
“Why not?” he said. “On the job training.”
I had to admit it wasn’t such a bad idea. “He’s right,” I said. “We could crack this case and learn a ton.”
“No way,” said Dana. “This is for professionals only. You two would only get in the way of the real spies.”
“But we’re here. We’re eyewitnesses to what happened. I’m sure that if we put our heads together—”
“Yeah,” chimed in Stevie. “Tommy and I will simply put our heads together. Like this.” And he proceeded to demonstrate his point by giving me a head-butt. And in spite of all of the fluff it hurt.
“Ouch!” I said, rubbing the spot. “What did you do that for?”
“Just to demonstrate my point,” said Stevie apologetically. “So we’re on for the case?”
“No way,” said Dana with some vehemence. “And that’s my last word. In fact, I think it’s best if you two head on home now. The moment the training starts, I will let you know.”
“You’re calling in the cavalry?” I said, and I couldn’t hide my disappointment.
“I am. Now scoot.”
“I’m not moving,” said Stevie, to whom the prospect of leaving this tree under his own steam was tantamount to suicide. “I… like it here.”
Without much further ado, Dana gave the unfortunate Ragamuffin a forceful shove and sent him plummeting down. As his big, hairy body hurtled through the air, Stevie gave a piercing scream, but finally managed to land on all fours on the mulch below.
“That’s no way to treat a fellow agent,” the fluffy cat muttered under his breath, as he started checking himself for injuries.
“Go home,” called Dana after him. “This is a crime scene now.”
“Oh, all right,” mumbled Stevie, and stalked off.
“You too, Tom,” said Dana. “There’s nothing further you can do here.”
“Oh, but I can,” I said, in a last-ditch effort to change her mind. “With Stevie gone, you can speak freely now. I’m sure I can be of assistance. After all, I was here when it all happened. I saw the whole thing.”
“Get lost, Tom,” she said. “I’ve got this.”
I wanted to say that so did I, but there was something in her voice that told me I better made for the exit, so I toddled off, my tail held high, and left the scene.
And as I was threading my way back home, cursing under my breath about high-minded spymasters taking over my tree, I noticed a strange procession approaching. Three Peterbald cats came trotting my way. You know the breed: Russian in origin, very skinny, no fur, and big ears. The moment I saw them I knew they were FSA, and I greeted them like long-lost brothers.