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“Find who?” asked Tex, having just taken a savory bite from his sandwich.

“Windex!”

“Who’s Windex?”

“Oh, Tex,” Marge sighed.

“Windex is the dog Chase adopted,” Gran explained.

“But I thought you had adopted her?” asked Charlene.

“Me! Why would I want to adopt a dog? No, this is all Chase.”

She seemed to have conveniently forgotten that it was actually she who picked Windex up at the shelter, before dumping her in Chase’s lap. Then again, she already had her billionaire to think about, of course. One lapdog probably was enough.

“I’m not leaving my daughter to give birth all by herself,” said Tex. “Just to go and find some stupid dog.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know that Windex is a very clever dog,” said Gran. “Not to mention part of this family now.”

“Don’t you think four pets is enough already?” said Uncle Alec. “Why add a dog?”

“It’s a nice mix,” said Gran after giving this some thought. “These days it’s all about diversity, Alec.”

“Fine,” said Uncle Alec, not wanting to get into an argument with his mother. “Take a dog. Take two or three or four. But with a newborn in the house, it doesn’t seem wise.”

“Oh,” said Gran. Clearly she hadn’t thought about things from that angle. But then she dismissed the thought. “Windex is a sweetie. She wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone a baby.”

“Still,” Uncle Alec grumbled as he stared at his coffee as if it had personally insulted him. “This stuff is even worse than the bilge they serve at the station, if that’s possible.”

“Have you caught that killer yet?” asked Scarlett, abruptly changing the topic.

“No, we have not,” said Uncle Alec, glowering at her.

“With Odelia and Chase here, maybe you should assign the case to a different detective?” Marge suggested.

“There is no different detective. There’s only me and Chase.”

“So the case is going to remain unsolved?” asked Charlene. “That won’t do, Alec.”

“They’ve got it as good as wrapped up,” the Chief blustered. “Just a few minor details.”

“Like identifying the actual killer,” I said, but of course nobody was listening.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were working on a case?” asked Brutus. “We could have helped.”

“We did tell you,” I said. “But you didn’t seem particularly interested.”

“I’m sure that if you told us we would have remembered,” said Harriet.

“Odelia is going to kick us all out and drop us off at the shelter,” Dooley announced, dropping his bombshell. “And since pet parents rarely adopt more than one pet, we’ll all be split up, and since most people live in apartments, we won’t even be allowed to get out and so we won’t be able to go to cat choir anymore and we’ll never see each other again.”

Harriet and Brutus gawked at Dooley and both struggled to find speech. Harriet was the first to put into words her extreme displeasure.“But they can’t! They just can’t!”

“I already suggested we go on a sleuth strike,” Dooley continued, “but when we told Odelia she didn’t seem impressed.”

“To be fair, she did have other things on her mind at the time,” I said. Like having a baby.

“But I don’t want us to be split up!” said Harriet, tears of righteous fury in her eyes. “If this is true, I’m running away. And you have to run away with me, starfish. We’ll live on the streets, feed ourselves from dumpsters. It won’t be fun but at least we’ll be together.”

“Of course, starshine,” said Brutus, though the notion of having to feed on dumpsters seemed to put a damper on his excitement for his true love’s escape plan.

“If Clarice can do it,” said Harriet, referring to a feral friend of ours, “we can.”

“Absolutely,” said Brutus with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

“What are you guys going on about?” asked Gran. “What’s all this nonsense of you living out of dumpsters when you’ve got a perfectly fine home? Don’t we feed you enough? Is that it?”

“It won’t be our home much longer, though, will it?” I said.

“Yeah, Odelia is going to take us to the shelter and leave us there,” said Dooley.

“Where we’ll be adopted by single-pet parents who’ll split us up,” said Harriet.

“And then we’ll have to feed on rats,” said Brutus morosely. “And mice and… rats.”

“What a load of nonsense,” said Gran. “Where did you get this crazy idea from?”

“Well, Windex is there now, isn’t she?” I said. “And everyone knows that people consider dogs much better pets for families with babies. They’re man’s best friend.”

“It’s our claws,” Dooley said. “In fact I heard Chase ask Odelia about declawing.”

“Declawing!” Gran cried, causing the others to all regard her with alarm.

“What’s going on?” asked Scarlett.

“The cats think Odelia and Chase want to chuck them out,” said Gran, “because their claws might be dangerous to the baby, and to replace them with Windex.”

“Nonsense,” said Marge firmly. “Besides, it’s not up to Odelia or Chase to decide. And if they do want to keep the cats away from the baby you can all move in with us for a while.”

“With me, you mean,” said Gran.

“Or they could move in with me,” Scarlett suggested.

“Or with me,” Charlene said with a shrug. “I happen to like cats.”