Purrfect Harmony (The Mysteries of Max Book 36) Read online

  Purrfect Harmony

  The Mysteries of Max 36

  Nic Saint

  Puss in Books

  Contents

  Purrfect Harmony

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Excerpt from Purrfect Sparkle (The Mysteries of Max 37)

  About Nic

  Also by Nic Saint

  Purrfect Harmony

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  From a Whisker to a Scream

  I have never claimed to possess any particular musical talent. In fact I think it’s rare for a cat to stake a claim to fame based on musical ability alone (a certain Broadway musical notwithstanding). So when Harriet suggested a joint performance of cat choir and Father Reilly’s St. Theresa Choir, I didn’t exactly bubble over with excitement.

  You see, St. Theresa Choir’s conductor had recently been murdered, and I was more occupied with solving this heinous crime than Harriet’s audacious plans. And then of course there was Tex and Marge Poole’s house that needed to be decorated, with Gran finding the perfect interior decorator to meet this challenge. His unorthodox methods quickly drew criticism, though, especially from Tex. And so things got a little heated, but then what else is new?

  Prologue

  Neda Hoeppner had a habit of directing St. Theresa Choir with bold, vigorous movements of her arms. She was a formidable woman, with an abundance of dark curly hair that vibrated in tune with the music. She hadn’t been choirmaster long but had already adjusted surprisingly well to her new role as musical director.

  “No, no, no, no, no!” she shouted in short staccato bursts of her stentorian voice. “Janette, I can hear that shrill squeak of yours over all the rest—harmony, ladies, harmony!”

  Janette Bittiner, first soprano and a woman of about Neda’s own age, gave the choir conductor a look that would have killed a lesser woman stone-cold dead on the spot. Fortunately for Neda, she wasn’t a lesser woman, and frankly she was used to being the target of these unfavorable looks from certain members of the choir.

  She had, after all, been one of them until very recently, and had only risen to the treasured role of director when its previous musical leader, Samuel Smalls, had been called to that great big choir in the sky, where presumably he was now giving the angels the benefit of his reedy tenor voice and tendency to shout at the top of his lungs when the altos failed to pick up the pace again.

  “From the top!” Neda yelled, and raised her arms, expectantly tilting her chin. Suddenly a hand went up and she gave its owner a look of annoyance. “Yes, Yoko,” she said, suppressing a groan. She thoroughly disliked being held up by these stragglers.

  “Wouldn’t it be better if the tenors joined us one bar in?” the young woman suggested. Yoko was the youngest member of the choir and prone to these sudden flashes of ill-advised and frankly unwelcome ‘inspiration.’

  “No, the tenors will not be joining us one bar in,” Neda snapped decidedly.

  “But…”

  “From the top!” Neda shouted over the young woman’s protestations.

  Once more the choir launched into its rendition of an uptempo little ditty from Johannes Brahms. In the first pew, Father Reilly was watching on. He didn’t seem one hundred percent relaxed that his choice of choir director had been a good one, as he kept tugging at his nose and upsetting his coiffure, a clear sign he was ill at ease.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sakes, Janette!” Neda suddenly yelled, and the choir’s rendition of the concerto once more ended in a jumble of discordant notes. “Can you keep it down, please? This is a choir, not your one-woman show! Destiny’s Child, not Beyoncé!”

  “You know what, Neda?” said Janette, raising a quaking voice as she threw down her songbook. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense. If you really think you know so much better, you take my place and sing my part. Cause I’m officially done!” And with these surprising words, she strode off stage, her face set in a look of intense constipation.

  “Janette, you get back here!” Neda shouted to the woman’s retreating back. “Janette!”

  But Janette did a most unladylike thing and raised her hand in a gesture of defiance, which caused her fellow choir members and her director to draw in a shocked gasp.

  “Janette,” said Father Reilly, on his feet and hurrying after the deserter. “Janette, please wait.” His polished shoes clacking on the stone floor, he almost ran, not walked.

  Janette turned with as much dignity as she could muster. “Francis, I can’t do this anymore,” she declared, her voice echoing through St. John’s Church’s nave, and mingling with the soft chatterings of the choir, even as Neda stood tapping her baton against the conductor stand and heatedly demanding that choir practice was resumed at once.

  “But Janette, you have to understand that Neda is simply nervous. She’s new at this.”

  “I told you from the start that this wasn’t going to work,” said the offended soprano.

  “The least you could do is give Neda a chance. I’m sure she’ll grow in her role and—”

  “Grow in her role!” Janette scoffed. “Oh, please. The only thing that will grow is that insufferable woman’s ego. No, I’m sorry,” she said, holding up her hand when the priest made to speak. “I gave it my best shot, but this isn’t working for me. Adieu, Francis.”

  And with these words, she walked off in high dudgeon, stared after by the priest.

  “Oh, dear,” Father Reilly murmured, wringing his hands as he returned to the altar.

  As Neda got into her car, a brand-new Mini Cooper, she was carrying her songbook with the sheet music under her arm, and also the powerful grudge that she held against that terrible woman Janette Bittiner. “Stupid woman,” she muttered as she dropped down into the driver’s seat, adjusted her glasses, snapped the seatbelt into place and slammed the door shut. She just had to go and ruin things for her by playing the grande dame, didn’t she? Well, good riddance. There were plenty of sopranos in the world apart from Janette Bittiner. And with less corrosive personalities, too.

  She started the car and could soon be seen tootling along the road that led from St. John’s Church to her beloved home, which she’d christened Bootles, after her dearly departed German shepherd of the same name. And as she drove along, her eye happened to catch a flyer depicting her likeness having been tacked to a lamppost. Abruptly she stomped on the brakes, almost causing the car behind her to slam into her, and frowned as she took in the flyer in question. It was a very simple flyer, consisting of a picture of Neda’s face, above which the message ‘Neda Hoeppner is a Jezebel’ had been printed.

  “Well, really!” Neda snapped as she got out of the car, her door almost knocking a cyclist from his bike, she stalked over to the lamppost, and ripped down the flyer, then crumpled it up and threw it into the gutter, littering laws be damne
d. But when she glanced up along Main Street, she saw that every single lamppost, as far as the eye could see, had been decorated in the same way, and carried the same message, depicting her as some kind of latter-day slut or harlot. But instead of demeaning herself by going from lamppost to lamppost and removing every last remnant of this outrageous and public insult, she decided to do the dignified thing and ignore the slur. So she got back into her car, and soon was racing along, her face set in an expression of utter determination.

  The moment she arrived home, she took out her phone and got in touch with her secretary. “Cher, drop everything and go down to Main Street at once.”

  “Main Street?” asked her loyal secretary. “What for?”

  “Some absolute idiot has plastered the entire street with extremely derogatory and inflammatory flyers. I want you to collect every single one of them and then go down to the police station and file a complaint for defamation of character and slander.”

  “Do you know who’s behind this campaign?” asked Cher promptly.

  “Janette Bittiner,” she snapped.

  “Janette? Are you sure?”

  “One hundred percent. This is just the kind of horrible thing that woman would do.”

  She disconnected and tapped her formidable chin with the phone as she wondered to what lengths the Bittiner woman would take this feud that had existed between them ever since Neda had been selected as St. Theresa Choir’s new conductor. Better to nip this thing in the bud before it got completely out of hand. “Jezebel,” she scoffed bitterly as she placed down her phone. “I’ll show her who the real Jezebel is!”

  Just then, the doorbell chimed its melodious three-tone sound, indicating someone wanted to have speech with her. She frowned and collected herself. She would never have admitted it to anyone, but this most recent altercation with Janette had rattled her. And it was imperative that she be cool and collected for her upcoming interview. There was nothing she hated more than to lose control. So she sucked in a steadying breath, tilted up her chin, and proceeded in the direction of the door, like a galleon under sail.

  “Please come in,” she said as she threw the door wide to greet her visitor.

  1

  We were all gathered in Marge and Tex’s newly rebuilt home, and judging from the oohs and aahs being uttered, the collective sentiment was favorable, the builders and the contractor and the architect in line for high praise. And I must admit the house did look nice, though a little empty. No furnishings, no lights, no carpets, no nothing, which made me realize that a house isn’t the same thing as a home, and that as long as its owners haven’t added their personal touch, it’s just a blank canvas, eagerly waiting to be filled.

  “I think they did a great job,” said Uncle Alec appreciatively.

  “It’s so spacious!” said Odelia as she marveled at the living room, which now formed one large space with the kitchen and former sitting room, and ran across the entire floor.

  “And so light!” Marge enthused.

  We were in luck that it was a sunny day, and the sun had free rein to cover the entire acreage of the newly formed ground floor of Odelia’s parents’ home.

  “We’ll have sun all day,” said Tex, who looked every bit the proud homeowner as he explained what everyone already knew. “In the morning we’ll have the sun in the kitchen, and in the evening we’ll have the sun in the front—nice and sunny all day!”

  “Are you sure, Dad?” asked Chase. “I always thought the sun went counterclockwise.”

  Tex looked confused for a moment, until he saw the smile flickering on his son-in-law’s lips, and he laughed good-naturedly. “Good one, Chase. Ha ha ha. Very funny.”

  “Now all we need is a good decorator,” said Gran. “And we’re in luck, cause I’ve got just the right guy for the job. Highly in demand, and he’s between gigs right now.”

  Alarmed, Marge looked over to her mother. “A decorator? What are you talking about?”

  “This is just the first step, Marge,” said her aged mother as she gestured around. “Four walls and a roof, that’s all this is right now. What makes a regular home into a show home is a great interior designer—or decorator—I always forget which is which.”

  “Show home?” asked Tex, his proud smile morphing into a frown. It was the frown he usually reserved for his mother-in-law, and which crept up his face with practiced ease.

  “Sure! Didn’t I tell you? I agreed with the contractor to make this place a show home for the next foreseeable future. That way he can show potential clients what he’s got in store for them, and he’s agreed to give us a ten percent discount on his original quote.”

  “Ma, you didn’t,” said Marge.

  “Don’t thank me yet, honey. First we need to dress this place up. Turn it into something fit to be printed on the pages of Architectural Digest. And that’s where Jason comes in.”

  “Jason?” asked Marge, a deep wrinkle having appeared on her brow. “Who’s Jason?”

  “Why, the interior decorator, of course. Jason Knauff. He’s only the most famous interior decorator in the country. He did Diane Keaton’s place, and Meryl’s new home.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Odelia, as she cast a worried glance in the direction of her mother.

  “Look, we don’t need a decorator, Vesta,” said Tex. “Isn’t that right, honey?”

  “Absolutely,” said Marge with conviction, as she gave her mom a censorious look, which slid off the latter’s back like water from a duck.

  “So I was thinking we give Jason a free hand,” said Gran. “The man is a genius, after all, and frankly I can’t wait to see what he’s going to do.”

  “How much does he cost, this genius of yours?” asked Uncle Alec.

  “Oh, don’t you worry about that,” said Gran, waving an airy hand. And before her family members had recovered from the shock her words had caused, her phone sang out a ringtone in Barry White’s sultry voice and she removed herself from the scene.

  The Poole clan stood there, exchanging glances, then collectively heaved a deep sigh.

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” said Odelia. “I’ll talk her out of it.”

  “And if that doesn’t work, we can always murder this Jason Knauff and bury his body in the woods,” Uncle Alec grunted, and frankly I wasn’t entirely sure he didn’t mean it.

  “I think it’s a lovely space, Max, don’t you?” said Dooley, who’d returned from a quick ramble around the newly finished house.

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “Though it does have a weird smell to it,” said Harriet, our white Persian friend. And she proceeded to stick her nose in the air and take a sniff, then wrinkled up her nose.

  “It smells to new, smoochie poo,” said her boyfriend Brutus. The butch black cat didn’t seem entirely impressed with the minor miracle the builders had pulled off. Then again, like I said, there wasn’t a lot to see yet. One big plus in my book was that this new house had floor heating. I love floor heating, don’t you? So nice and warm to the paws.

  “Do you really think Gran is going to hire a decorator?” asked Dooley.

  “It certainly looks that way,” I said.

  “She’s right,” said Harriet. “Remember what this place looked like before it collapsed? Marge and Tex are lovely people, don’t get me wrong, but they have no sense of style.”

  “I thought the house was very cozy,” said Dooley.

  “I liked it,” I chimed in.

  “Oh, please,” said Harriet. “It was a dump, you guys, and I think being razed to the ground and rebuilt from scratch was the best thing that could have happened to it.” She cut a quick glance to Odelia. “In fact I can think of another house that could benefit from the same treatment.”

  Alarmed, I followed her gaze. “There’s nothing wrong with Odelia’s house,” I said quickly, to head off my friend’s train of thought. “Her house is just fine the way it is.”

  “Oh, Maxie,” said Harriet with a shake of her head. “It needs a complete ma
keover. New kitchen, new bathroom—and have you seen that bedroom?”

  I had seen that bedroom. In fact I’d slept in that bedroom only last night, as I had for all the other nights of my entire existence.

  “What’s wrong with Odelia’s bedroom?” I asked.

  “It’s old! And smelly!”

  “It’s not smelly,” I said.

  “That’s because you live there,” she pointed out. “If you’ve lived somewhere for as long as you have, you don’t smell the bad smells anymore. And that’s because you’ve gotten used to them. But to a set of fresh noses like mine and Brutus, it smells old and musty. Isn’t that right, sweetums? Doesn’t Odelia’s bedroom smell old and musty?”

  “Oh, sure,” said Brutus, though he didn’t look entirely convinced.

  “I think we should ask Gran to rehire that Polish builder who destroyed Marge and Tex’s house, and apply the same technique to Odelia and Chase’s place,” Harriet declared. “That way she, too, can have an entirely new house built, and then we both have bright new places to grace with our presence,” she concluded with a smile.

  “I think that Polish builder is in prison right now,” I pointed out.

  “So we get another one. I’m sure there are plenty of cowboy builders out there.”

  “But I don’t want Odelia’s house torn down,” said Dooley. “I like the house just the way it is!”