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In spite of her irritation at her lying client, Odelia smiled, and so did Gran.“You’re absolutely right, Dooley. Now why don’t you tell Joshua Curtis that?”

“Do you think I should? Can he understand what I’m saying?”

“No, honey, I don’t think he can,” said Odelia.

“Pity,” said Dooley. “I could have made him talk.” To which we all laughed heartily—except Scarlett, of course. Though after Gran translated Dooley’s words, she laughed even harder than the rest of us.

“You know what you should do?” said Gran at length.

Odelia was frowning before her.“No, what?”

“You should prove that your client is innocent.”

“He’s not my client, Gran. He’s just a guy who asked me to do him a favor.”

“Well, then you should prove that your not-client is innocent.”

“I don’t know if he’s innocent, do I?”

“So prove that your not-client is not not-innocent!”

When Odelia groaned, Scarlett patted her hand.“I know how you feel, honey. I have to put with this every. Single. Night.”

“Oh, shut up,” Gran grumbled, starting up the car. “You love it.”

“Yeah, I do,” said Scarlett with a grin.

And then we were off again, trying to prove… something.

Chapter 10

The next morning Dooley and I were on the road again, this time in the wake of our human, who was ready to tackle this thing the way it should be tackled: with fortitude and a quizzical mind. So following our example, she decided to drop by the General Store. Though in all honesty I don’t know if picking Wilbur Vickery’s brain was such a good idea—Wilbur’s brain being not all that interesting to pick. Though the man does have a fount of gossip to spread about our local populace, of course.

And so while Odelia was shopping for wares and gossip, we sat down with Kingman, who looked a little nervous when he caught sight of us. I soon learned it wasn’t us he was nervous about but the twosome who stepped up behind us: Harriet and Brutus.

“H-hi there,” said Kingman as he eyed Harriet a little trepidatiously. “H-how are you this fine morning, your highness?”

“Your highness?” said Dooley. “I didn’t know Harriet was royalty, Max?”

“She’s not,” I said. “It’s just a way of showing respect for a person.”

“A sign of deep, deep, very deep respect,” said Kingman with a congenial smile. “Deep respect for a person I deeply… respect. Isn’t that true, Harriet?”

“Well, I’m sure I’m honored,” said Harriet, who seemed different this morning. I don’t know exactly in what sense, but she definitely was. For one thing, she had this supercilious smile on her face that seemed stuck there with superglue, and nothing appeared capable of fazing her, which isn’t like the Harriet I know. Also, even after the fracas of last night, there wasn’t a scratch on her. Not a single bit of fur out of place.

“So Odelia’s client was arrested last night,” I said, wanting to get this show on the road. “You don’t happen to know anything about the guy, do you Kingman?” I asked.

“His name is Joshua Curtis,” Dooley supplied helpfully.

“Um… no,” said Kingman. “Can’t say that I do.” He was still eyeing Harriet with a slight sense of alarm that I found very peculiar.

“No gossip that you know of?” I insisted. I couldn’t imagine that Kingman would be totally unaware of Mr. Curtis’s particulars, as he’s usually so well-informed.

“I’m telling you, Max, I don’t know anything about this guy. Not a thing. He’s a nobody. A complete zero. Never done anything, never been on anybody’s radar until now.”

“He killed three people,” Dooley said. “So he’s probably on everybody’s radar.”

“We don’t know that he killed them,” I said. “It’s quite possible that he’s completely innocent, and that he has a good explanation for what he was doing there.”

Just then, Shanille came walking up. Contrary to Harriet, she did look a little… damaged. More than a few patches of fur were missing from her corpus, and there was a thick scratch right across her nose.

“Shanille!” said Dooley. “What happened to you?”

Shanille directed a scathing look at Harriet.“That happened to me. Yourfriend.”

Harriet’s look of smug satisfaction deepened. “Oh, you’re not still sore about our little tiff, are you, Shanille?”

“Tiff? Have you seen me? I look like I’ve been in the wars! Even Father Reilly was worried. He wants to take me to the vet, if you please! Figures I’ve been attacked!”

“You should consider that a good thing,” said Harriet. “It shows that he cares.”

I was starting to understand now why Kingman was treating Harriet with such deference. He probably had witnessed the massacre, and didn’t want to be next on Harriet’s list.

“Look, if you insult my human,” said Harriet, “you should know that I won’t take it lying down. So as I see it, you got exactly what you deserved. Isn’t that right, Brutus?”

“Yup,” said Brutus. He cut a look in my direction, and I could tell that he wasn’t fully committed to Harriet’s tough new stance, taken straight from The Equalizer’s playbook.

“Well, you’re still out,” said Shanille. “No more cat choir for you.”

“I don’t think so,” said Harriet.

“You’re out of cat choir, I’m telling you.”