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“No cat lives for decades,” the Chief interrupted him. “So I don’t see how Max and the others could help us solve Baker’s murder. No, it’s just us, Chase. Just like the old days.”

Chase laughed.“The old days? Chief, I’ve only been in town a year.”

“Funny,” said Alec with a frown. “Sometimes I have a feeling you’ve been here forever.”

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“I’m bored, Jerry,” said Johnny as he leaned his head back. Spot sat in his lap and seemed bored, too, for he had placed his head on Johnny’s knee and was panting softly.

“Yeah, well, that’s what surveillance is all about,” said Jerry.

“Being bored?”

“Stalking out a place until you’re ready to move in and rob its owners blind.”

“We don’t even know if there’s anything of value to be found in there, Jer.”

“Doesn’t matter! This is our trial run, Johnny. This is where we find out how vigilant the cops in this town are, and if this all turns out the way I think it will, we can launch a run that will sustain us for the rest of our lives. Do you realize how much wealth there is in this town? This place is crawling with millionaires and billionaires and gazillionaires.”

“All with very sophisticated security systems.”

“Which you won’t have a problem to hack into.”

Johnny perked up. He liked a challenge, and cracking and hacking security systems was his forte. Call it a hobby.

“I don’t know, Jer,” he said, his smile fading. “I have a bad feeling in my gut. And so does Spot.”

“How can you possibly know what feeling Spot has in his tiny little gut? I don’t even know if dogs are capable of having feelings in their gut.”

“A dog person knows, Jer. And I can feel that he’s restless.”

“He’s probably hungry.”

A rumbling sound echoed through the car. Johnny produced a sheepish grin.

“Patience, Johnny, patience. As soon as the house is quiet we go in and do what we do best.”

“Raid the fridge?”

“Rob the poor suckers.”

Chapter 13

We’d finally arrived home and found that the sliding glass door that leads into the living room was closed and locked, which probably meant Odelia had gone out.

“If you’re hungry I can always bring you some food, Max,” Dooley offered graciously.

“No, it’s fine,” I said. “I should probably lose some weight, if I ever want to fit through that flap again.”

We moved over to Marge and Tex’s backyard and discovered the door to the living room was closed there, too, so we hopped up on the porch swing, and moments later were fast asleep. I don’t know what awoke me, but it may have been the pitter-patter of raindrops on the porch roof. And as I opened my eyes to take a look, I saw that yes, indeed, the nice sun that had warmed the world had been rudely obscured by a thick deck of clouds, and rain was now pouring from the heavens, soaking all and sundry.

“Good thing we’re up here, nice and dry,” I said.

“Yes, good thing,” Dooley agreed, though he was shivering. With the rain a distinct chill had set in, and Dooley felt it more keenly than I did. He has less insulation from the elements, you see. I have thicker skin, I guess, and perhaps a thicker coat of fur, too.

“You go inside, Dooley,” I said. “You don’t have to stay out here and catch a cold on my account.”

“No, I want to stay with you, Max,” he said.

“Please go in. If you catch a cold I’ll feel bad.”

“Oh, all right.”

He trotted off in the direction of the pet flap, and moments later had disappeared inside. And then it was just me and the elements. I wasn’t cold, but I still felt the chill. Not sure if it was the weather or the knowledge that beneath my paws, in the basement of the house, a dead man had spent the last couple of decades cooling his or her heels.

Weird thought, I thought, and then promptly dozed off again.

The next thing that awakened me was the movement of the swing. I looked up and saw that Dooley had joined me once more.

“Dooley, I told you to go inside.”

“I can’t be in there, Max. It’s the dead person.” He shivered, and this time it wasn’t from the cold. “I keep thinking about that skeleton, and how maybe there’s a lot of other skeletons buried down there.”

“I think there’s a big chance this is the only skeleton.”

“But how can you be sure? How can you be sure there’s not a dozen skeletons buried down there, or underneath the house? Do you remember that movie we saw about the house that had been built on top of an ancient burial ground for Native Americans?”

I distinctly remembered that movie, and was now shivering myself. Odelia loves to watch horror movies, even though they scare her to death, and she always makes us watch them with her, because if she watches them by herself she’s too scared to go to bed afterward. Over the years we must have seen dozens of horror movies, and since I don’t like horror movies, and neither does Dooley, I remember practically all of them.

And one that stood out to me was one where the heroine of the story at a certain point is trying to stay afloat in a hole where her house used to be, skeletons popping up all around her. It was a horrible scene, and one I remembered with distinct distaste.