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“Be my guest,” riposted Kimmy, returning Gran’s stare and adding some fire of her own.

The suspect and the detectives were squaring off, and soon the scene would turn ugly. So I decided to take a breath of fresh air, before the mood turned acrimonious.

I walked out onto the balcony, which offered a nice view of the backside of some of the buildings behind the Star. Inside the room, I could hear the accusations flying, while Chase took on the role of referee, with Norma and Kimmy playing defense, and Scarlett and Gran offense. Odelia, meanwhile, seemed to have taken on the role of Switzerland, indicating she hadn’t made up her mind yet whether Kimmy was guilty or not.

And as I stretched myself out for a moment, enjoying a few rays of sun tickling my blorange fur, on the balcony one room over a man appeared. He was talking furiously to a second man, and it was with a mild curiosity that I listened to their conversation.

One of the men was thickset, and possessed no neck to speak of, while the other was thin and wiry, with veins pulsating in his neck. Neither of them looked very nice to me.

“How was I supposed to know?! You never told me!”

“I told you loud and clear when you took over the contract!”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did! I told you to make itlook like murder.”

“Well, it looked like murder to me.”

“It looked like murder because itwas murder, you moron!”

At this point, I pricked up my ears, my attention no longer on the adventures of Kimmy and Norma, but on these two peculiar characters.

Could it be…

“Look, I made a mistake, all right?”

“No shit. Now who’s going to pay me?”

“What do you mean?”

“You killed the client!”

“But…”

“You killed the client, so he can’t pay. And if I’m not being paid, neither are you.”

“Hey, you can’t do this to me. I did the work, I deserve to get paid.”

The thin guy raised his arms and looked as if he was about to pounce on the big guy. The veins in his neck were now as thick as cords.“Then you shouldn’t have killed him!”

Suddenly, someone inside the room threw something and it broke. It could have been Kimmy, or it could have been Gran, but at any rate it made the two men on the balcony look in my direction.

“Jack, that cat is staring at us,” said the big guy.

“Who cares? Cats are dumb creatures,” said the man Jack.

Still, he seemed to think that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to discuss murder on his balcony, so they both returned indoors and closed the window.

And as I sat there digesting what I’d just heard, I thought that maybe, just maybe, I’d just solved Kirk’s murder.

Chapter 35

Odelia was starting to appreciate the kind of ordeal referees go through, as she tried to prevent the scene in the room from turning into the sort of ribald riot that slays six.

“Maybe we should take this to the police station,” she now suggested as Gran and Kimmy were face to face and both screaming at the tops of their lungs.

Scarlett, meanwhile, sat with Norma and held her hand as they stared at the match, wondering who’d come out on top.

“Maybe you’re right,” said Chase, standing next to her.

Dooley, Harriet and Brutus had disappeared under the bed. The coffee cup being hurled across the room by Kimmy and shattering into a thousand pieces against the wall clearly had signaled to them it was time to conduct a strategic and orderly retreat.

“You killed him—just admit it already!” Gran yelled. “You were jealous and so you snuck into Allison’s house and stabbed the guy until death did you part!”

“You’re a crazy old bat and you shouldn’t even be allowed out of the bat house where they usually keep you!” Kimmy fired back.

“Confess!”

“Never!”

Just then, Max came padding into the room from the balcony and sidled up to Odelia.

“Odelia?” he said quietly. “I think I may have solved the murder.” She didn’t grasp his meaning at first, what with Gran and Kimmy duking it out at full volume, but when he cleared his throat and repeated, a little louder this time, “I think I’ve just found out who killed Kirk,” shefinally paid attention.

And when he regaled her with the amazing conversation he’d just overheard on the balcony, her eyes went a little wider, and her heart rate shot up a few ticks.

“Chase,” she said, in as calm a voice as she could muster. “I think we got the wrong room.”

“What?” he asked over the din.

“We’re in the wrong room!” she cried. “The real killers are one room over!”

This time he paid attention, and as she repeated Max’s words to the cop, he, too, was greatly impressed.

“I better call for backup,” he said. “This sounds like the real deal.” And instantly, he removed himself from present company, taking out his phone.

“What’s happening?” asked Scarlett from the bed.

“I think Max just cracked the case,” said Odelia. “Chase is calling for backup.”

“About time!” Gran cried, who’d heard the word ‘backup.’ “Your time is up, missy. Backup is arriving and they’ll haul your bony ass to prison.”