Purrfect Cover (The Mysteries of Max Book 25) Read online

  “Look, I’ll talk to Odelia, if that’s what you want,” I said, “but I don’t think you have to worry about the danger these dust bunnies offer. I’m sure they’re all pretty harmless.”

  “Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” said Harriet decidedly. “And if you were a true leader of cats you would know this.”

  I frowned. “A true what now?”

  “A true leader knows when to take responsibility. He wouldn’t allow things to get as bad as this.”

  “I’m not a leader of cats,” I pointed out. “I’m just me. Max. A common house cat.”

  “Oh, Max,” said Harriet, shaking her head sadly. “You still don’t see it, do you?”

  “Um, no,” I said. “I guess I don’t.” I wondered what she was on about this time.

  “You are the cat everyone looks up to, Max, whether you like it or not.”

  “No, they don’t,” I said, greatly surprised.

  “Dooley looks up to you. And I know for a fact that Brutus does, too.”

  I laughed what I hoped was a rollicking laugh. “Brutus, looking up to me? No way.”

  “Oh, yes. In fact half the town’s cat population looks to you for leadership, Max, and frankly so do I. And all I can say is that you’ve failed us.” She nodded seriously. “You have failed us and you’ve put us all in mortal danger when you took your eye off the ball.”

  I stared at the ball of fluff, and wondered if this was the ball she was referring to.

  “You dropped the ball, Max, and I’m very, very disappointed in you.”

  First I took my eye off the ball and then I dropped it. Or was it the other way around?

  Suddenly the idea of moving into a different home, far away from Harriet and her strange theories and bossy ways sounded a lot more appealing than it had before.

  Maybe I should participate in this quiz. But first I needed to find out who can run faster: a hare or a fox. Something told me it was one of those trick questions, though.

  3

  “Max—Max, where are you—Max?!”

  Oh, dear Lord in heaven! “What?!” I yelled from my position on the couch. Some days are like that: everyone and their grandmother seems to need to talk to you about something, and feels it incumbent upon them to disturb your peaceful slumber.

  This time it was my very own human who’d come to bring me great tidings of joy—or sorrow, as the case may be.

  “Hey, Max,” said Odelia, sounding and looking a little breathless. She was blushing, and looked as if she’d just run a marathon—or at least a 60-yard dash. “How are you, my precious little Maxie?” she said, and started nuzzling me in the most outrageous fashion: digging her nose into my neck and making the kind of nonsensical gibbering sounds humans usually reserve for the moment they encounter a newly born baby.

  “I’m fine,” I said a little frostily. Being rudely dragged from those precious snatches of sleep will do that to a cat. This time I’d been dreaming of a nice piece of fish fillet that had my name on it.

  Odelia was still fussing over me, and stroking my fur and even going so far as to tickle my fluffy cheeks, grabbing my face in both hands and rubbing me under my chin. And in spite of the fact that I’d had my imaginary fish fillet rudely snatched away from me, I couldn’t resist to smile at the treatment my human was giving me, and then, of course, I was betrayed by my own body when I started purring. It’s an involuntary thing, I tell you.

  “So what’s the emergency?” I asked finally, when Odelia’s fervor started dissipating.

  “No emergency,” she said with a smile as she grabbed her phone from the table and made herself comfortable on the couch next to me. “Just happy to see my precious baby.”

  I cleared my throat. Maybe this was the time to address the issue Harriet had brought to my attention. No time like the present, right? “There have been some complaints.”

  “Oh?” she said distractedly, as she’d started reading something on her phone.

  “Yeah, about cleanliness and a general lack of hygiene.”

  “Mh,” she responded as she started tapping a message on her phone. Clearly I’d missed my window of opportunity and had lost her full attention.

  Still I trudged on. “The thing is… Harriet feels that standards have been dropping precipitously as of late, and she doesn’t think this is necessarily a good thing.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yeah—it’s all the dust she seems to object to, mainly. Dust bunnies in particular. She doesn’t like them. She found one underneath this couch, and one over by the window.”

  We have one of those nice hardwood floors, and with the sun bathing it in a warm glow right now, the dust bunny was clearly visible from where I was lying and looking.

  Odelia didn’t even glance up, though, focused as she was on her digital gizmo.

  “Odelia?” I said, gently giving her leg a tap.

  “Mh…”

  “So what do you think should be done about this dust bunny issue?”

  “That’s great, Max,” she said, and then got up and moved away, her eyes still glued to her phone, and her fingers too, as she tapped out another message with lightning speed.

  I let out a deep sigh and vowed to give it another shot at a later date. Tough to compete with a smartphone for your human’s attention, I mean to say.

  But as luck would have it, just then Gran walked in, looking as spry and chipper as ever. Well, maybe not chipper. As a rule Grandma Muffin doesn’t do chipper.

  “Gran,” I said, perking up. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  “Later,” she snapped, as she searched around for someone who wasn’t me. “Odelia,” she said as she located her granddaughter. “The neighborhood watch are organizing a meeting next week and I want you to come. Odelia, are you listening? Odelia!”

  “What?” Odelia asked, looking up from her phone.

  Gran had pressed her lips together and gave her granddaughter a look of reproach. “I swear to God, one of these days that thing is going to be the death of you.”

  “What thing?” asked Odelia.

  “So are you coming or not?”

  “Coming to what?”

  “See? I knew you weren’t listening. Here, let me have that.” And with these words, she unceremoniously grabbed my human’s phone and tucked it into the pocket of her green-and-purple tracksuit.

  “Hey, that’s my phone!” Odelia cried, as if she’d just lost a limb or vital body part.

  “I know, and now it’s mine. And if you do as I say I just might let you have it back. Now are you going to listen to me or not?”

  Odelia frowned, and crossed her arms in front of her. She clearly wasn’t happy to be treated like a recalcitrant child. “I’m listening.”

  “I’m organizing a meeting of the neighborhood watch next week. Big meeting. We hope to welcome plenty of new members. I want you to come. You and Chase.”

  “I’m sorry, Gran,” Odelia began, shaking her head.

  But Gran arched a menacing eyebrow. “No meeting, no phone,” she said.

  “You can’t do that!”

  “Watch me.” Then she softened. “Look, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. There’s been a spate of burglaries lately, and we need to get on top of it before it’s too late.”

  “Burglaries? Have you told Uncle Alec?”

  “He’s too busy buttering up Charlene Butterwick,” said Gran with a throwaway gesture of the hand. “No, it’s up to us to save this neighborhood from falling prey to this gang of burglars, and that means you, too. The neighborhood needs you, honey.”

  “Okay, sure,” said Odelia with a shrug. “If you think I can help.”

  “We can only pull this neighborhood away from the brink if we all work together,” said Gran, sounding so much like a motivational coach even Odelia looked impressed.

  “No, of course,” she said. “Anything I can do to help.”

  “That’s settled then,” said Gran, and turned to leave.

 
“Wait, my phone,” said Odelia.

  Gran dangled the phone from her fingertips. “Are you sure you want it back? You know smartphones aren’t good for you. They’re like the crack cocaine of the digital age.”

  “Please please please can I have it back?” Odelia begged, inadvertently proving her grandmother right.

  The old lady sighed, then handed her granddaughter back her phone. “Sometimes I fear for your generation,” she said, then stalked off and slammed the door.

  Odelia, a happy smile on her face, immediately was immersed in her phone again.

  The dust bunny was swept up from the floor by the draft caused by Gran’s departure. It happily fluttered through the living room, then into the salon, and finally settled right on top of my nose. I squinted at the bunny, cross-eyed, then sneezed, dislodging it from its perch. It flittered down right next to me, and for a moment I watched it for signs of malevolence. When nothing happened, though, I slowly drifted off to sleep again, proving once and for all that dust bunnies and cats can live together in perfect harmony.

  4

  Mort Hodge was seated at his desk, hard at work as usual, when a sudden sound had him look up.

  Mort, a popular and successful creator of comics for daily distribution in all the important and even the less important papers in the country, had made his fortune drawing a daily cartoon about a cat. Titled Mort’s Molly, it had been an instant hit and now, forty years into a lucrative and rewarding career, people still clamored for Mort’s creation. Unlike lots of other cartoons, Mort still did most of the work himself, and had turned part of his home into his office, the nerve center of Mort’s Molly’s universe.

  “Megan?” he yelled loudly, referring to his wife. “Megan, is that you?”

  When there was no response, he got up and went in search of answers. Next to his desk, a radio was quietly playing, and the atmosphere in the studio was mellow and relaxed, just the way he liked it.

  He emerged from his workspace, located at the back of the garden, and glanced around. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he decided he could use a snack, as his tummy was rumbling, and he felt like taking a break. That, and a chat with his wife, to bounce a couple of new ideas off her, and to sit down for that snack and a cup of joe.

  It was eleven o’clock in the morning, and Mort had already been busy since six, having risen at five as was his habit. He was an early riser and liked that whole gag about the early bird and the worm. Not that he was into worms, per se, but he did enjoy getting an early start on his day, and getting the bulk of his work done before lunchtime.

  “Megan?” he asked as he walked into the house. “Did you just…” The rest of the sentence got stuck in his throat, though, when he observed the mess that was his cozy home. Documents strewn about, couch cushions ripped up, feathers covering every available surface. Tables had been upended and chairs lay like so many fallen soldiers on the battlefield that was his living room. “Megan,” he whispered when his eyes had taken in the devastation, then, louder, “Megan!”

  And as he went in search of his helpmeet, a sense of panic took hold of him, and gave him wings as he went from room to room, everywhere finding the same mess and evidence of a recent break-in. Finally he hurtled up the stairs with a speed and alacrity belying his sixty-eight years, and swept into the bedroom. And there, tied to the headboard of the conjugal bed, was his wife. The first thing Mort ascertained was that she was still alive, her eyes wide and fearful, then hopeful when she saw it was him. He moved over to the bed, and started removing the rope with which she’d been tied to the bed, and the gag that had been pressed into her mouth.

  “Megan, thank God,” he said. “What happened?”

  “There were two men,” she said, a little breathless. “They said they were from the gas company, but once they were inside they overpowered me and dragged me upstairs.”

  “Oh, Megan,” he said, and clasped her into his arms. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  She held him close, and for a moment they both relished the fact that no harm had come to them. Then Megan said, “Did they… take anything?”

  “I’m not sure. But they did make an awful mess downstairs.”

  “The safe,” said Megan, massaging her wrists. “Did you check the safe?”

  Together they went into Mort’s old office, which had been turned into a small storage room for all paraphernalia connected with his work, and headed to the safe that was conveniently hidden behind a large portrait of Mort’s Molly. Immediately it became clear to Mort that the safe was quite safe: the portrait hadn’t been moved, and when he did move it, swinging it open on its hinges, he saw that the safe hadn’t been messed with.

  He heaved a small sigh of relief. Inside was a minor cache of gold and valuables.

  “Weird thieves,” said Megan, as Mort tapped in the code and opened the safe, just to be sure nothing had been taken. “Why would they ransack the house but not touch the safe?”

  Mort quickly checked the contents and saw that at first glance everything was still present and accounted for.

  “Yeah, weird thieves indeed,” he agreed, then shrugged. “Or maybe we got lucky.”

  “We did get lucky,” Megan agreed, as she hugged her husband. “By the same token they could have turned violent when they didn’t find what they were looking for.”

  The thought had occurred to Mort, too. Material possessions were all well and good, but mostly he was relieved that no harm had come to his wife, or himself for that matter.

  “I think it’s time to call the police,” said Megan.

  It was only then that Mort noticed something that really shook him: the door to the big metal bookcase was slightly ajar, the padlock broken and lying on the floor.

  And when he looked inside, his heart sank.

  “It’s gone,” he said, disbelief suddenly making him weak at the knees.

  “Gone?” asked Megan, hurrying over.

  “All of them,” he said. He turned at his wife. “They took everything.”

  Megan was crestfallen. “So they got what they were looking for after all.”

  5

  I woke up again when Odelia left the house and pulled the front door closed behind her. I found myself staring at that inoffensive dust bunny again, and wondering what the bunny would say if it could talk. Probably a lot of very interesting and fascinating stuff.

  It just goes to show I was in the throes of a sudden and unexplainable case of ennui. It happens to all of us at some point, and usually out of the blue. My ennui probably had to do with the fact that nothing much of interest had happened in my life of late.

  No particularly juicy cases had come Odelia’s way, no shocking or exciting events had come to pass, and pretty much the only excitement I’d had in a long time was this exact dust bunny, which suddenly had turned into the bane of my existence.

  “What are you looking at, Max?” asked Brutus, who’d chosen this moment to walk in through the pet flap.

  “Oh, nothing special,” I said. “Harriet told me to take a firm line with dust bunnies, and to tell Odelia to run a tighter ship, hygiene wise, and I’ve been looking for the right opportunity to talk to her about it.”

  The big black cat draped himself down right next to me and looked in the direction I was looking. “Harriet should lighten up,” he said as he casually observed the dust bunny and didn’t seem particularly troubled by its presence in our house.

  “She’s afraid it will spread fungi and germs,” I said. “The kind of fungi and germs that could prove hazardous to our health and safety. She sounded extremely concerned.”

  Brutus’s robust features displayed a slight grin. He did not look like a cat susceptible to the deleterious effects of germs or fungi. “I don’t think we have much to worry about, buddy,” he said. “A germ or even a fungus is not exactly the danger to life and limb that Harriet is making it out to be.”

  He got up and walked into the kitchen, in search of something edible, no doubt.
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  “So you don’t think dust bunnies are dangerous?” I called after him.

  “Maxie, baby,” he said after swallowing down a particularly tasty-looking piece of kibble, “I always say ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’ and as far as I know fungi have yet to kill a cat, so there’s your answer. Straight from the horse’s mouth.”

  First off, Brutus, as far as I knew, was not a horse. And secondly I’d never even once heard him say anything about stuff that didn’t kill him but made him stronger, but I was prepare to let these minor verbal transgressions slide. His words had provided me with a certain buoying up of the mood, and I was grateful for that.

  “Harriet made it sound as if I was neglecting my duties as a cat, and responsible for potential disaster and mayhem in our home,” I explained when Brutus had eaten his fill and joined me once more on the couch.

  “Like I said, Harriet should lighten up,” he said, and emitted what can only be termed a gastro-esophageal eruption. Or in other words a tiny burp, showing that his late breakfast—or early brunch—had arrived at its chosen destination in one piece.

  “Lighten up about what?” asked a voice from the door. We both looked up in surprise, and found ourselves once again in the presence of Harriet, quite possibly the most gorgeous white Persian in these parts. But also the most high-maintenance one.

  Brutus gulped a little, then said, “I was just telling Max here how every day spent with you is a delight, snookums,” he blustered. “And how much you light up my life.”

  The tiny frown that had formed on Harriet’s brow relaxed its grip on her musculature and she smiled. “Oh, sugar cookie, that’s such a nice thing to say. You light up my life, too, you know.”