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But before he could wonder who was playing this cruel joke on him, suddenly two more people appeared in his office, this duo hoisting a microphone and a camera.

And as he glanced up, still struggling to contain his disappointment, the one with the microphone asked,“So did your wish come true, Father Reilly? Did Madame Solange work her miracles again?”

He would have thrown them out on their ear, or given them a piece of his mind, but a good Christian doesn’t let his anger get the better of him, and so he said, in measured tones, “I think there’s been some kind of mistake.”

Chapter 40

Usually when people announce that they’re going to spend a fun day at the fair, this is greeted with loud cheers and happy faces all around. When Odelia had told us last night that she wanted us to join her at the fair, only grim faces set with resolute looks of determination greeted her announcement.

It had, after all, been one of those weeks, where tragedy meets misery, and bumps shoulders with terrible misfortune.

For a short rundown I’d like to remind you that this was the week Uncle Alec had been kidnapped, Marge Poole had lost her mind, Tex Poole had been accused of lottery fraud, Charlene Butterwick had gone cuckoo, Gran had been arrested numerous times, Dan Goory had been accused of theft, Sarah Flunk had been proposed marriage by a car salesman and wannabe bigamist under duress, Wilbur Vickery had been accused of lies and deceit by the British royal family, Fido Siniawski had been accused of deceit by an uncle who wasn’t even his uncle, and I’m probably forgetting a host of other stuff.

All in all, it had been a pretty eventful couple of days for Hampton Covians, and it all seemed to be connected to the fair in some way that Odelia vowed to figure out before the day was through.

Lucky for us, we had a powerful ally in Norm, or Buzzing Bond as he was now calling himself. So it wasn’t without a certain sense of hope that we piled into Odelia’s aged pickup, and made the trip down to the fair.

“So you guys spread out and try to pick up some of the chatter, all right?” said Odelia, giving us some of those last-minute instructions any good coach knows mean the difference between winning or losing.

“Yes, Odelia,” said Dooley dutifully.

“Meanwhile I’ll go and have another word with Madame Solange. There simply has to be a connection between what she claims to see in that crystal ball of hers and what’s been happening to the people of this town.”

“Do you think she’s a witch?” asked Harriet now, introducing an interesting new theory.

“I’m sorry, Harriet, but witches don’t exist,” said Odelia with a smile.

“But… how about Harry Potter?” asked Dooley, looking disappointed. “Doesn’t Harry Potter exist?”

“Harry Potter is fiction, Dooley,” said Odelia. “He’s not real, and neither is the world of wizardry described in those books.”

“Are you sure?” my friend asked, looking stricken by this revelation.

“Yes, I’m sure,” said Odelia. Her smile then was replaced with the look of determination that had been there before. This was clearly a woman on a mission—a mission to find her missing uncle, and her mother’s missing memory.

“I just hope that we won’t lose our memory, too,” said Brutus, striking the morbid note. He turned to Harriet. “If I forget who you are, honey bunny, I just want you to know that the last couple of months have been the best years of my life.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you, honey plum,” said Harriet. “But don’t worry about losing your mind. If you forget who I am I’ll simply hit you over the head until you remember.”

Brutus gulped a little at this, and I think it was safe to say he swore a solemn oath right then and there never to lose his memory.

“Chase just called,” said Odelia as she cruised along the small roads that traverse the fields surrounding Hampton Cove. “My dad tried to cash in his fifty-thousand-dollar lottery ticket and was almost arrested for fraud. Turns out the ticket was a fake, and now they’re considering pressingcharges against him. And Chase was chased out of Charlene’s office—he says she doesn’t remember who he is.” She sighed. “Things just keep getting worse and worse, don’t they?”

“You’ll figure it out,” I assured my human. “And we’ll help you as much as we can.” I was drawing the line at entering Madame Solange’s trailer, though. The woman was a cat hater, and there was no telling what she might do when she laid eyes on us again.

“So what is my mission, M?” asked Norm.

“Your mission, if you choose to accept it,” I said with a smile at the industrious fly, “is to sneak into Solange’s trailer once more and try to find out as much as you can about her operation. There must be something we’re missing, Norm. There just has to be.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the fly. “One more question if I may, sir?”

“Shoot, Norm,” I said, perhaps a little injudiciously.

He dropped his voice an octave, to indicate the gravity of his request.“Do I have a license to kill?”