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“And all I wanted to know is why you haven’t been blessed with lots and lots of babies, Harriet, because with that gorgeous fur of yours, by all rights you should. That’s not a dumb question, is it?”

“Um…” said Harriet, and swallowed. “Look, you guys, I’d love to stay and chat, but I gotta run.”

“But, Harriet!” I cried.

But Harriet was already flitting through the pet flap, en route to who knows where.

Brutus gave me a sad look.“For what it’s worth—and I know I’m not Chloe—but I think there is a lid for every pot, even your pot, Max, and most definitely for this Mia person that I don’t know. And as far as your question is concerned, Dooley, static electricity can only do so much, and so can a gorgeous coat of fur. So I’m afraid the matter of a large litter for me and Harriet can best be put to bed. It’s not gonna happen.”

And with these sad words, he, too, was off.

Dooley looked at me, I looked at Dooley, and then we both heaved deep sighs and hunkered down on the couch.

What a strange day! And I was refreshing the screen again, hoping Chloe had printed a retraction of her‘obnoxious’ and ‘dumb’ statements when a squeaky little voice sounded nearby.

“Hey, fellas!” the voice said. “Yeah, you fat cats on the couch!”

And when I looked in the direction of the voice, I saw a small furry face, attached to a small gray furry body. It was a mouse. And it was grinning widely.“I brought you guys a little present!” the tiny critter cried, and then dropped a little something on the top step of the stairs to the basement, and scurried away again.

“Was that… a mouse?” asked Dooley.

“Yeah, I guess it was,” I said.

“He left a present,” said Dooley, and we both jumped down from the couch to have a closer look, then stared down at the item the mouse had dropped.

“It’s droppings,” I finally determined.

“What, Max?” asked Dooley, as he reached out a tentative paw.

“Don’t touch that!” I warned him.

“Why? It looks like a piece of chocolate or a cookie. It’s brown and shiny and… Oh, my god it’s poop!” he said as he finally got a good whiff of the thing.

“Yeah, Dooley. That’s exactly what it is. Mouse poop.”

Our new neighbors had thrown down the gauntlet and pooped in our house.

This meant war.

Chapter 18

Gran and Scarlett sat down at the same table they’d deserted earlier, only this time they’d brought a friend in the form of Kirk’s widow. The woman didn’t look happy, which was only to be expected after the devastating news she’d just received: not her husband’s demise, presumably, but the fact that he’d died destitute.

“So we were at Allison Gray’s place yesterday when Kirk was killed,” Gran said, deciding to forge ahead without preamble, as was her habit. “And at first it looked like Mia Gray was the culprit, as she was covered in the man’s blood. Looking closer, though, it looked as if Allison herselfmight have done it, but once again we were wrong. And when my niece, who’s also working the investigation, questioned Allison, she actually thought you might have done it. So what do you have to say to that, Mrs. Weaver?”

“Yeah, what do you have to say to that?” said Scarlett, who’d clearly never heard of the concept of good cop, bad cop, and was bad copping right along with Vesta.

“I don’t know what to say, except that those charges are ludicrous. Ludicrous!” said Sandy Weaver, who seemed to have something of the drama queen in her. She was a handsome woman in her late thirties or early forties, with large almond-shaped eyes and skin the color of mocha. Her lips were unnaturally plumped, and her face suspiciously wrinkle-free, which led Vesta to surmise she needed Kirk’s money to keep her Botox treatments going, and those lip fillers didn’t pay for themselves either.

“So tell me, why were you and Kirk having a divorce?” asked Vesta.

“Yeah, why were you divorcing the guy?” Scarlett chimed in as she directed a critical look at the woman’s exposed cleavage, which was almost as stunning as her own.

“First tell me something—who are you people? And why are you investigating Kirk’s murder? Don’t you have cops in this town? Or are you two the cops?”

“Sure, you can think of us as cops,” said Vesta. “It’s much easier that way. In fact the chief of police in this town is my son, and I often help him out on his investigations.”

“Me, too,” said Scarlett. “I’m a natural-born sleuth, just like Vesta here.”

“And since the lead detective on the case is dating my granddaughter, you can see how this is pretty much a family affair.”

“Uh-huh,” said Sandy, clearly not fully convinced. “So if your son is chief of police, why isn’t he asking me these questions? Why leave it to his mother?”

It was a good question, and one for which Vesta didn’t have a ready answer.

“Alec is too busy with other stuff to bother with Kirk’s murder right now,” said Scarlett. “So he asked us to do some of the legwork. Happens all the time in small towns.”