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“I know that, and you know that,” I said. “But Marge doesn’t. She has no idea who Randy really is. All she knows is the man she’s seen on those videos for the past thirty years. So how do we convince her that the real Randy is a terrible person and make her fall out of love with him?”

Lil Ran gave me a slow nod.“I like what you’re saying, Max. And it just might work.”

“Or we could simply tell Odelia to let Randy die,” said Harriet. “Problem solved.”

“We can’t do that,” I said, even as Lil Ran gave his future sister a look of abject horror. “It wouldn’t be ethical.”

“Ethical schmethical,” Harriet murmured. “Look, you guys figure it out. I’m going to try and find Brutus—and his damn pet turtle.”

And with these words, she turned on her heel and was off.

“I think it’s very easy to convince Marge that Randy is a horrible person, Max,” Dooley said now. “We simply tell her that he is, and she’ll believe us, because she trusts us.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Dooley,” I said. “Love is blind. She might not believe us whatever we say.”

“We still have to give it a try,” my friend said. “We can’t let Harriet become Lil Ran’s sister. She’s our sister, and this is her home.”

“Absolutely,” said Lil Ran with fervor. “We have to stop this wedding, whatever it takes.”

And so a new alliance was formed, and a very strange alliance, too: an alliance between three cats and a dog. But with the stakes this high, I was prepared for anything.

Chapter 23

“I want to file a missing persons report,” said Odelia when she’d taken a seat in front of her uncle’s desk. “Brutus is missing.”

“A missing persons report for a cat?” said her uncle. “Really?”

“Yes, really. Brutus wouldn’t just go off, Uncle Alec. Something must have happened, so if you could ask your officers to be on the lookout for my cat, I’d appreciate it.”

Alec Lip, Hampton Cove’s Chief of Police and also Odelia’s uncle, moved in his chair, which groaned tiredly under his sizable bulk. Even though the Chief’s girlfriend Charlene had told him numerous times to go on a diet, the big man was reluctant, as he liked to eat, and apparently dieting and eating your fill doesn’t usually go hand in hand.

He rubbed his practically bald scalp and sighed.“Look, honey, I can’t really tell my people to go look for your cat. They’ve got other stuff to do, if you see what I mean.”

“What other stuff? What could be more important than finding Brutus? He’s never gone missing before and he must be terrified—wherever he is. In fact I think he’s probably been taken.”

“Taken,” said her uncle, his voice dripping with skepticism. “No offense, but who would want to take Brutus? He’s not exactly a show cat.”

“Brutus is a gorgeous cat,” said Odelia, finding her uncle’s behavior repulsive to the extreme. “So you’re actually going to sit there and tell me there’s nothing you can do?”

“You could put up flyers,” he suggested. “It’s what most people do when their cats go missing. And have you tried asking your neighbors?”

“Yes, I have,” she said. “They haven’t seen him. And Harriet says he must have slipped out of the house somewhere between midnight and early this morning, for they arrived home together last night, after cat choir, and he wasn’t there when she woke up.”

Her uncle shrugged.“I’m sure he’ll be back. Cats are like that. They just wander off from time to time, and they show up again when they’re tired or hungry or both.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m sure he’ll turn up soon, honey. Just you wait and see.”

“Hopeless,” she said, throwing up her hands. “Why do we have a police force if they’re not going to help find people when they go missing?”

“The key word being people,” said her uncle. “When people go missing, we turn out in force. Cats? Not so much.”

“And why is that may I ask?”

“Probably because cats don’t pay taxes?”

“Oh, Uncle Alec!”

“Okay, all right! I’ll see what I can do. But have you considered asking your grandmother? This seems like a perfect job for that neighborhood watch of hers.”

“Yes, I’ve asked her, and she’s already going door to door, doing whatever she can to find Brutus.” She got up and raised her voice. “Because she knows how important that cat is to me—to us—contrary to some people I know!”

“Honey, don’t be like that,” said her uncle, holding up his hands in a gesture of supplication. “If every time a cat goes missing I have to mobilize the entire police force nothing would ever get done!”

“I think I’ve heard enough,” she said, and opened the door, then added, “I’m very disappointed in you, Uncle Alec. Very, VERY disappointed!”

“Honey!”

“Goodbye!”

And she left his office, slamming the door as she went. He made a pretty good case, she thought in spite of herself, but her cats meant so much to her that however specious her uncle’s arguments might be, she simply couldn’t imagine him just sitting there and blithely telling her not to worry. If he fed the same line to parents whose kids had gone missing… Frankly it was a miracle he’d been chief of police for so long!