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“Oh, and the gardener is called Chester and he doesn’t like cats,” said Dooley. “He even chased us but we were too fast for him—isn’t that right, Max?”

“Yeah, we were too fast for the guy,” Max said with a grin.

“He chased you?” said Odelia. “But why?”

“No idea,” said Max. “He seems to think cats are a pest.”

“Some gardeners do think cats destroy their nice lawns,” she admitted. “Digging holes to do their business in.”

“We would never do that,” said Max indignantly.

“We might eat the grass,” Dooley said. “Especially if it’s nice grass. We do like a bit of nice grass, right, Max?”

“Yeah, but how much damage can one cat do? Nobody will miss a few blades of grass.”

“I’m still happy he didn’t catch you,” said Odelia. “Some of these gardeners have pitchforks, and they don’t mind using them.”

“Pitchforks!” said Dooley, his voice skipping an octave. “Yikes!”

“I probably should have told them I was bringing my cats along, that way you wouldn’t have been in any danger.”

“Oh, dear,” Max murmured.

“Max, pitchforks!” Dooley cried. “But I don’t want to die by pitchfork! That sounds very painful!”

“I don’t think we were ever in any danger, Dooley,” said Max. “And I didn’t see any pitchforks—did you?”

“No, I didn’t see any pitchforks, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there!”

“You made it out alive, and that’s the main thing,” said Odelia.

Just then, her phone chimed, and she pressed one of the earbuds into her ear, and pressed the button on the phone.“Odelia Poole speaking,” she said over the noise of her ancient car’s whining engine.

“Hi, Miss Poole,” said a familiar voice. “This is Francine Ritter. I came to see you this morning?”

“Oh, yes, of course. I just paid a visit to your former in-laws, Mrs. Ritter.”

“There’s no need, Miss Poole. I just talked to Marvin Harrison on the phone, and he’s agreed to pay me what his brother owed me. He’ll even throw in a little bonus.”

“He did? But that’s great news!”

“Isn’t it? I’m so happy I could cry.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful news.”

“Thanks, Miss Poole,” said Francine. “Thank you so much for all that you’ve done.”

“I didn’t do much,” said Odelia, feeling much relieved. “I just had a little chat, that’s all.”

“Well, anyway, just thought you’d want to know.”

After they’d disconnected, she thought back to her conversation with Marvin and his mother. Clearly in spite of Ruth’s hard words, Marvin had managed to convince her to take a less cruel stance, and pay the mother of her grandchildren her due.

“What happened, Odelia?” asked Max.

“That was Francine Ritter. Marvin called her. He’s going to pay her the back child support. Isn’t that great?”

“That is great news!” said Max.

“You should ask him to let the kids play with Jane again,” said Dooley. “He really needs to do that, so that Jane will be a happy pony again.”

“Well, let’s hope that relations will get back to normal and Ruth will invite her granddaughters over for visits again,” said Odelia. Marvin looked like a decent person, and she hoped he’d continue to do right by Francine and his two little nieces.

For a moment, she lapsed into thought, and soon found her mind drifting back to the case of Franklin Harrison’s death. For some reason something was still bothering her about the whole business. And suddenly she decided to have another chat with those disagreeable neighbors—the Dibbles.

“Are we going to visit the Dibbles again?” asked Max after she’d steered the car in that direction. That cat never missed a trick.

“Yeah, I thought I’d apologize on Gran’s behalf,” she said. “And maybe ask them again about that phone call. See, that keeps bothering me, Max.”

“What does?”

“So there were three phone calls, okay?”

“Uh-huh.”

“One of those calls was Gran, the other one was Joshua—so who was the third caller?”

“And you think it might have been the Dibbles?”

“It must be, right?”

“But they say it wasn’t them.”

“I know, but they could be lying.”

Max thought about that for a moment.“Why is this so important?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Call it a hunch.”

“Your hunches are usually aces.”

“Why, thanks, Max.”

“So you should follow them,” he advised.

She pulled up outside the Dibble place and got out.“I think this time you better stay put. The Dibbles didn’t strike me as the kind of people who would love your company.”

“Sure thing,” said Max.

She hurried across the street and rung that now-familiar mother-of-pearl bell again. Moments later the door opened a crack, just like it had last night, and two hostile eyes bored into hers.“You again,” said the woman. “What do you want this time?”

“Hi, Mrs. Dibble. I just thought I’d drop by to—”

“Bart!” the woman suddenly bellowed. “Better watch out! That reporter from last night is here again. I’ll bet she’s trying to distract us while her grandma burgles the place!”

“My grandmother is nowhere near here,” said Odelia, who hoped that this was true. “In fact I’m here to apologize on her behalf. She should never have done what she did.”