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Brutus plunked down on his haunches, a look of distress in his dark eyes.“I know how bad this looks, but… have you never been in a long-term relationship and started to wonder?”

Since I’d never been in a long-term relationship, or a short-term one, I wisely kept my tongue.

“Sometimes you just wonder if you’ve still got it, you know?”

“No, I don’t know. What are you talking about?”

“Yes, what are you talking about, Brutus?” Dooley said, looking as puzzled as I was feeling. “Harriet is the finest cat for miles around. How can you cheat on her?”

Dooley had a point. Harrietwas the finest cat for miles around. What’s more, Dooley had always had a thing for Harriet, so this whole Darlene thing came as a shock to him, too.

Brutus raised a helpless paw.“You wonder if you still have it.”

“Have what?” I asked.

“It! The pizzazz. The fatal attraction.”

“I don’t get it,” I said, in case that wasn’t obvious from the confused look on my map.

Brutus sighed.“I used to be a big thing before, you know. Cats would fawn over me. I’d strut my stuff and heads would turn. I was the Tom Brady of cats, all eyes on me. Queens wanted to be with me—tomcats wanted to be me. I was top cat. Leader of the pack. Head of the herd. Now, no cat looks at me twice, because they know I’m with Harriet. So they don’t even bother. It’s like I’ve become invisible, all of a sudden. Not worth their while.”

I hardly would have called Brutus, a buff black cat, invisible, but that just goes to show that you can never know another cat’s mind. “You’re not invisible, Brutus,” I said.

“No, I see you, Brutus,” Dooley concurred.

These words didn’t seem to do much to buck the butch cat up, though. If possible, he slumped even more. “Look, I love Harriet with all my heart—she’s the only cat for me. But sometimes a fellow just wants to know if he hasn’t lost it, you know? So when Darlene suggested I meet her in the bushes—thicket—I jumped at the chance. I guess I was flattered. Happy that my fatal charm still worked. And it did! Only it worked a little too well, I guess.”

“You were sniffing her butt, Brutus,” I said.

“I wasn’t! Honestly! I would never cheat on Harriet. You know that, Max.”

I did know that, but I also knew things looked bad for Brutus. Very bad.

“You gotta help me, Max,” he said now, a pleading note in his voice. “You gotta explain to Harriet. Make things right. I can’t lose her. I’m nothing without that cat. Nothing!”

“I don’t know, Brutus. I know Harriet, and she’s not the forgiving kind.”

“Oh, man,” he moaned. “I’ve really done it this time, haven’t I?”

And with these words, he slunk off in the direction of the pond. For a moment I expected to hear a plunge and was already bracing myself to jump in after him to save his life. No plunging sound came, though, and the moment passed. I should have known. Even in the depths of despair, Brutus wasn’t the kind of cat to take his own life. Probably because he knows he’d have to repeat the procedure nine times, and who wants to be bothered?

“What are we going to do, Max?” asked Dooley.

“First we’re going to give Harriet a little time to cool off,” I said.

“And then we’re going to talk to her? Convince her Brutus wasn’t really cheating on her? That he was doing exactly what Odelia was doing: playing make-believe?”

I smiled at Dooley’s quick insight. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’re going to play Cupid, Dooley.”

“It’s going to be tough.”

“Yes, it is. But when have we ever turned away from a challenge?”

“Never.”

I eyed him appreciatively.“Any other cat would have jumped at the chance to use this opportunity to seduce Harriet—become her shoulder to cry on and move in on her.”

Dooley looked sincerely shocked.“No way! Harriet loves Brutus and he loves her. I would never do that to two of my best friends.”

“You know what, Dooley? You just might be one of the most chivalrous cats around.”

He looked confused.“What’s chivalrous, Max?”

“You, Dooley. You are chivalrous. A regular knight of old.” These words didn’t seem to mean a thing to my friend, so I added, “You’re a true friend. Now let’s go and check out this hullaballoo. I do believe Odelia just may have stumbled upon yet another murder.”

“She should probably stop doing that. It’s a very bad habit.”

Chapter 6

“Who was she?” asked Uncle Alec.

Odelia was seated on a bench, still experiencing the kind of dread that accompanies the discovery of a fellow human being whose life has been snuffed out prematurely.

“Her name was Dany Cooper.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen her around,” said Alec, glancing in the direction of the crime scene, which his officers had cordoned off and where the coroner was now conducting his investigations.

“She’s not from around here. We haven’t exchanged more than a few words but I think she’s from Albany, though she’s been living in New York for the past couple of months, with aspirations of becoming an actress on the stage.”