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It had been an eventful evening already, what with Gran and Scarlett being arrested in flagrante delicto, for trying to plant stolen evidence in the Dibbles’ tool shed, and probably for trespassing, as I don’t think they’d asked permission before they snuck in.

“Let’s go, Dooley,” I said as Odelia opened the door.

So we tripped across the street to find out what was going on. Already we knew that four jerrycans had been found in Joshua’s garage, but now it looked like more stuff was going to be used to tie Odelia’s client to this triple homicide.

Dooley, who’d been glancing upwards, now asked, “Do you think storks work at night, Max? Or do you think they sleep?”

“I thought you’d finally dropped the whole stork thing?”

“Well, I know that Odelia says she wants to wait to have babies, but it’s not up to her, is it? When that stork decides to drop a baby in her lap, he’s going to drop that baby in her lap, whether she likes it or not.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Dooley.”

“No, but it does, Max! It happens all the time on General Hospital. Even to people who aren’t even married. One of the doctors had an affair with a nurse and one morning she came into his office and announced that she was pregnant. And he was married to another person! So either that stork madea big mistake, or storks simply don’t care whether a person is ready or not. They just deliver those babies anyway.”

“Sure, Dooley,” I said as we watched the cops work like beavers—or glorified movers. When all this was over, and Joshua was let out of jail again, he’d have a hard time recognizing his place, with all the stuff that had been removed from it.

“I have a theory,” said Dooley now, visibly pleased with himself.

“What is your theory?” I asked, curious in spite of myself.

“Well, I think that the International Association of Storks is tasked with the important task that there should always be a certain number of babies in the world, so they simply go around distributing them. Now if a person is ready to have a baby, so much the better. But even if they’re not, those babies have to be placed somewhere, right? So they are going to be placed, whether the people getting them are ready or not.”

“Right,” I said dubiously as I watched Sarah Flunk, one of Odelia’s uncle’s officers, carry a very large portrait out of the house, along with another cop. The portrait portrayed Melanie Myers in the nude, and was a vivid depiction of her likeness.

“Hey, that’s that painting of Melanie Myers without any clothes on,” said Dooley, momentarily distracted from his stork theory. “You still haven’t explained to me why she’s not wearing any clothes, Max.”

“She probably forgot to get dressed,” I said. “It happens. Let’s go inside and have a closer look.”

“But who’s going to watch for the stork?”

“Storks don’t work at night, Dooley,” I said. “They’re like most people: they work nine to five and then they take a load off. Let’s go.”

Much relieved, Dooley traipsed after me as we entered the house.

We quickly made our way upstairs, where all the activity seemed to be focused, and found ourselves in a small room adjacent to Joshua’s bedroom.

“Oh, my God,” said Dooley. “Will you look at that.”

I was looking at that, and it became clear to me that Joshua Curtis had some serious issues: everywhere we looked the smiling face of Melanie Myers greeted us. From pictures hanging on the walls, to painted portraits, to sculpted busts and even a life-sized statue literally placed on a pedestal, LED lights illuminating it from below. There was even one of those small bubbling water features, with Melanie clearly recognizable in the cherub pouring water from her pitcher and looking entirely too happy as she did.

“I think Joshua really likes Melanie,” Dooley said. “Like, really really likes her.”

“Yeah, a little too much, I would say.”

Just then, Chase came walking in, followed by Uncle Alec. They looked around and shook their collective heads, then Chase said,“This is just evidence overload, Chief.”

“Talk about an open-and-shut case,” his superior officer agreed. “Holy hell, what are those two doing here?”

Since he was staring straight at us, I immediately assumed he was referring to Dooley and myself, so I gave him my best smile and said,“Top of the morning to you, Chief.”

But of course he couldn’t understand a word I said. Also, it was mid-afternoon at that point, so my greeting was probably out of place. At any rate, he was glowering at us now, clearly not all that happy with our presence at the scene.

“I can’t go anywhere without these two spying on me!” he cried, shaking an irate fist. “Pretty soon they’ll be in my bedroom, watching me sleep! I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and there will be two pairs of cats eyes looking at me from the foot of the bed!”

“We would never do that,” I assured the big guy.

“No, we like to sleep at the foot of our own human’s bed,” Dooley added.

“And watch her sleep.”

“It’s too much!” Uncle Alec cried.

“They’re just cats, Chief,” Chase said.