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“Look, I wouldn’t want to receive these kinds of horrible pictures myself, nor do I think anyone should send them to someone as young as you. So frankly I want to catch the bastard as badly as you do.” She smiled. “In short: I’ll be happy do this for free.”

Rose’s smile lit up her face and warmed Odelia’s heart. “Thank you,” she said, and clasped the reporter’s hands. “I knew you were the right person to ask. I just knew it.”

Chapter 2

“Max?”

“Mh?”

“What is a dick pic?”

I’d just been taking a liberal swig of water from my water bowl when Dooley hit me with this frankly shocking question. As a consequence I almost choked on my intake of my usual H2O and slowly turned to my friend, who was looking at me with that innocent look in his eyes which is so typical for him.

But before I could formulate a response, he went on,“I mean, I know it’s a picture of a man named Dick, but we don’t know any men named Dick, do we? So why is Odelia showing his picture to Chase right now, and why are they whispering?”

I glanced over to where our humans were conducting a whispered conversation at the kitchen counter, both intently looking down at something positioned on the counter.

Harriet, who’d overheard the conversation, gave me a cheeky wink. “Yes, Max, please tell us what picture of Dick Odelia and Chase are studying. Inquiring minds want to know.”

Harriet had until now been licking her precious white fur, but Dooley’s question clearly held enough intrigue to make her halt this favored pastime. Her green eyes were sparkling with mischievous mirth, and I gave her a hopeless look.

“I think you’re absolutely right, Dooley,” I said. “A dick pic is obviously a picture of a man named Dick, and if I’d hazard a guess this Dick person is probably someone related to either Odelia’s job or Chase’s.”

Dooley nodded sagely.“That’s what I thought,” he said. “I heard Chase use a curse word, Max, when Odelia showed him this Dick person’s picture, so Dick must be a man who did a very bad thing.”

“A very bad thing indeed,” said Harriet with a slight grin, and without further ado resumed her interrupted grooming session.

Her boyfriend Brutus, the fourth member of Odelia’s feline household, now came tripping up through the pet flap. Brutus is a butch black cat, and now looked slightly bored when he joined us. “Gran is watching Jeopardy again,” he announced. “And she’s yelling out all the questions. Much to Tex’s annoyance.”

Now that Dooley’s curiosity was satisfied, at least temporarily, it was time to satisfy mine. And as I directed a curious glance at my humans, still in whispered conference, I decided to hop up onto one of the kitchen stools and find out what they were up to.

The moment I did, the whispered conversation abruptly halted, and two pairs of human eyes quickly swiveled to the intruder in their midst: me.

“What do you want, Max?” asked Odelia, a little curtly I thought.

“Dooley says that you received a dick pic, and he wants to know all about it,” I said.

“Oh, dear,” said Odelia with an expressive eye roll. “I should have known not to bring Rose’s phone home.”

“Who’s Rose?” I asked.

“Rose is a girl I met at the gym,” she said. “And she’s been receiving these very offensive pictures… of a man’s undercarriage. She neither asked for these pictures to be sent to her, nor does she enjoy the experience of receiving them.”

“Who does?” Chase muttered. The lanky cop was staring intently at something on a smartphone that didn’t belong either to him or to Odelia. I could tell from the pictures of flowers pasted on the pink phone cover and the glitter with which it had been encrusted.

“And now Rose wants me to find out who’s been sending her these pictures,” Odelia went on. “She thinks it’s probably some kid at her school.”

“If I get my hands on the little jerk,” Chase grumbled as he flexed and unflexed a fist.

“So… have you found out?” I asked, darting a glance in the direction of the phone in question. But Chase was carefully shielding it from view, and probably that was a good thing, too. Frankly I’d never witnessed a human male’s undercarriage up close and personal and I honestly liked to keep it that way. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

“It’s not so easy,” said Odelia, as she took what was left of the pepperoni pizza she and Chase had enjoyed and deposited it into her mouth.

“Well, it is easy,” said Chase, “but it’s not something you or I can accomplish. But if I take this phone into the station tomorrow, and hand it over to one of our techies—”

“No way,” said Odelia. “I promised Rose I wouldn’t involve the police, and I intend to keep my promise.”

“She doesn’t have to know I took it,” Chase argued. “Heck, your uncle doesn’t even have to know.”

“You would keep this from my uncle?” asked Odelia with an amused look at her boyfriend.