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“Come on, you guys!” I said. “Your human is dead! You have to snap out of it and help us catch the killer!”

Rollo’s face clouded. “On second thought…”

“Uh-oh,” Dooley muttered.

Rollo turned to Rex.“Rex. You get the fat one. I’ll get the skinny one. Go!”

Good thing for us the dogs had more bark than bite. And more talk than dash. By the time Dooley and I had cleared the pool area, they were still nowhere near catching up with us.

“See?” asked Dooley, slightly out of breath as we hid under Odelia’s pickup. “That’s another advantage us cats have over dogs: we’re a lot faster!”

Or these two idiots were exceptionally slow, I thought as I saw Rex and Rollo appear around the corner and search around stupidly. Then, in perfect unison, they both plunked down on their haunches and started licking their private parts.

“Yuck,” Dooley muttered. “Imagine being the tongue of a dog. Just… yuck.”

“You lick your private parts,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, but I’m a cat. I’m naturally clean. Dogs are just filthy.”

He had a point, of course. Dogsare filthy, and catsare naturally clean.

“So now what?” I asked. “Our only potential witnesses are two dumb-ass dogs.”

“With the emphasis on ass,” said Dooley as he watched Rex and Rollo turn their attention from their private parts to a different, even filthier part of their canine anatomy.

“Let’s just hope Brutus and Harriet have better luck,” I said.

Just then, Brutus and Harriet emerged from inside the house. They were still gabbing away, probably discussing Bradley Cooper’s face and why it was off limits to cats. Rex and Rollo paused from their hygienic pursuit to gawk at the two newcomers.

“Uh-oh,” said Dooley. “Here we go.”

Within seconds, Brutus and Harriet had joined us underneath the car, scared off by those two idiot poodles, who were now sniffing around in the vicinity of the boxwood hedge.

“So? What did you find out?” I asked.

“That Bradley Cooper is the only human who looks good with a beard,” Brutus said morosely.

“Well, he does!” Harriet cried. “That man makes a beard look totally sexy.”

“Because it hides his big mouth!”

“It does not!”

Brutus, Dooley and I shared an agonized groan.“What about the murder?” I asked.

“What about it?” asked Harriet.

“Did you talk to anyone inside? Did Donna Bruce have other pets besides Beavis and Butt-head over there?”

Dooley snickered.“You said butt.”

“For your information, that place is filled with cops,” said Harriet. “So even if there were any pets around, the cops probably scared them off.”

Now it was my turn to place my chin on my front paws. This investigation was not exactly going the way I’d hoped. “So nothing?” I asked.

Harriet remained conspicuously silent.

“At least now we know that Bradley Cooper looks great with a beard,” Dooley offered. “That’s something, right? Right, Max?”

“Oh, Dooley,” I muttered.

Chapter 5

Inside the house, Odelia and Chase sat down with Hillary Davies, who was the CEO of donna.vip. Hillary, a fortysomething woman with short blond hair streaked with gray and a square face, knitted her brows.“I still can’t believe Donna’s dead. That’s just not like her.”

Odelia would have said it wasn’t like anyone to be dead, but she thought she understood. Donna Bruce had apparently been one of those extremely dynamic women, possessing a very strong personality and an iron will to succeed. People like that often seemed indestructible.

She handed the CEO a cup of chamomile tea. Hillary took it gratefully, the cup shaking between her fingers as she put it to her lips.

“How long have you known Donna Bruce?” Odelia asked.

“I started to work for her five years ago, so that’s when our relationship began, though I was a customer way before that. Donna.vip was already an established brand by that time, and Donna felt that in order to expand, she needed to professionalize and hire a CEO. And that’s where I came in.”

“Was she tough to work for?” asked Odelia.

Hillary smiled.“She wasn’t easy to work for, that’s for sure. She was demanding and outspoken. And she definitely didn’t keep her opinions to herself. But she was also generous and eager to give credit where credit was due. She lived for the brand, so if you improved the brand, she considered you a friend.”

“And did you? Improve the brand?” asked Chase.

“Yes, I think I did,” said the woman, tilting her chin. “I took it from twenty million annual gross to two hundred, and I like to believe I played a big part in that expansion. And judging from the bonus Donna paid me last Christmas, I think she knew it too.”

“Did she have any enemies?” Odelia asked.

“Oh, more than I can count on the fingers of my two hands,” said Hillary. “A strong and visible woman like Donna Bruce will always rub a lot of people the wrong way and she was no exception.”

“Can you think of anyone who could have killed her?” asked Chase.

Hillary thought for a moment, touching her lips with her fingers.“Well, there was her ex-husband, of course.”

“Tad Rip,” Chase read from his notes.