by Nic Saint
“So is Chouchou a… dog?” Odelia guessed.
The woman promptly stopped wailing, and gave Odelia a look of surprise. “Of course she’s not a dog. She’s my precious sweetheart. My sweet and lovely Maine Coon.”
“Huh,” I said, sagging a little as a sense of slight disappointment swept over me. Cats going missing is not exactly the kind of case I live for. Cats go missing all the time, you see, and usually they show up again within twenty-four hours, when their sense of adventure is sated and they return, utterly famished and happy to be home again.
“So Chouchou went missing last night,” said Odelia, summing up the state of affairs succinctly. I could see that she was less than excited at the prospect of traipsing all over town in search of a missing cat. “So does Chouchou usually stay out all night?”
“She does, but like I said, she’s always back in the morning. I have no idea where she goes, and frankly I don’t care—live and let live, I say, and that goes for my pets, too.”
“Pets as in… you have more than one cat?”
“I have a gerbil,” said the woman.
“Gerbils aren’t pets,” I muttered.
“So what are they?” asked Dooley.
“Pests,” I returned.
“Look, you come highly recommended, Miss Poole,” said the woman, who still hadn’t given us her name, by the way. “Everybody knows that you’re Hampton Cove’s leading cat lady, and so if there’s anyone who can find my precious baby it’s you.” She leaned forward, a pleading look in her eyes. “Can you help me find my Chouchou—please?”
“If I were you, Miss…”
“Bunyon,” said the woman. “Kathleen Bunyon. And it’s Mrs.”
“If I were you, Mrs. Bunyon, I’d wait another twenty-four hours. I’m sure that your baby will show up as soon as she gets hungry.”
“But this isn’t like her. She never stays out this long. Can’t you please help me?”
“Did you go to the police?”
“I did. And you know what they said?”
“I can imagine.”
“They said missing pets are not a priority at the moment. Can you imagine? If a missing pet isn’t a priority, what is?”
“Missing people, perhaps?” I suggested.
The woman glanced in my direction, having picked up my discreetly mewled commentary. “Oh, I see you bring your babies to work with you. Very clever.”
“Yeah, they like to be where I am,” Odelia confirmed with a warm smile.
Suddenly Mrs. Bunyon got up and joined me and Dooley in our corner. “Can’t you find my baby for me, sweet pussies? I know you’re as clever as Miss Poole is—or at least that’s what people keep telling me.”
I turned to Dooley. “Do you know this Chouchou?”
“I’m not sure,” said Dooley, thinking hard.
“What does she look like?” I asked.
And if you think it’s strange for two cats as established in our local community as we are not to know all the cats that reside in that community, I have to confess that there are so many cats now that it’s frankly impossible to know them all. Furthermore, not all cats are as socially active as Dooley and myself are, so the name frankly didn’t ring a bell.
“What does your Chouchou look like?” asked Odelia, as she opened a new file on her computer and started typing.
“Well, she’s small and very beautiful. Oh, wait. I’ve got a picture of her on my phone.” Mrs. Bunyon took her phone out of her purse and swiped it to life. “In fact I have more than one,” she admitted, and started showing us a regular barrage of pictures. She must have had thousands on there. All of them showed a very hairy Maine Coon, with a slightly stunned look in her eyes, as if she hadn’t signed up for life as a photo model.
“Nah,” I said. “Never seen her before in my life.”
“You have no idea where she goes at night?” asked Odelia.
“Not a clue,” said Mrs. Bunyon as she pressed play on a video she’d shot of her fur baby playing with a sponge. “The neighbor says he sees her walking in the direction of the park when he walks his dog, and that’s usually around eleven o’clock at night.”
“Cat choir,” I said knowingly.
“I haven’t seen her either,” said Dooley, who’d taken a long time to come to a definite position on this. “If she’s a member of cat choir she’s one of the less noticeable ones.”
Not every member of cat choir likes to stand out, of course. Some of them like to be the star of the show, like Harriet, our Persian housemate, but others simply show up and stay in the background.
“Look, I’ll see what I can do,” said Odelia with a pointed look in my direction.
I rolled my eyes. “Really?” I said. “She’s probably just wandering around having the time of her life. She’ll be back before you know it.”
“Don’t you worry, Mrs. Bunyon, I’ll find your Chouchou for you” said Odelia, widening her eyes at me.
“Oh, all right,” I said with a groan. “I’ll go look for her. But if she’s home safe and sound while we’re traipsing all over town looking for her…”
“The moment she arrives home you’ll tell me though, right?” said Odelia.
“Oh, yes, of course.” Mrs. Bunyon had clasped her hands together in a gesture of silent prayer. “You’ll find her for me, won’t you, Miss Poole? You’ll do whatever you can to bring my baby home to me?”
“Yes, absolutely,” said Odelia, making a promise I knew she was going to hand over to me as soon as Mrs. Bunyon had left—it’s called delegating and humans are experts at it.
“Thank you,” said Kathleen Bunyon. “Thank you so much!” She’d clasped Odelia’s hand and squeezed it, then vigorously shook it, almost removing it from its parent socket. “I knew I could count on you.”
The moment the woman had left, Odelia gave me and Dooley a smile. “Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you, boys,” she said, then pointed to the door. “So chop, chop. Don’t dawdle. Go and find Chouchou.”
“We’re not dogs, Odelia,” I said with an exaggerated sigh as I got up from my perch.
“I know you’re not dogs, but you saw how devastated Mrs. Bunyon is over the disappearance of her cat. And just imagine if you guys went missing, how devastated I would be.”
“We’d never do that to you, Odelia,” said Dooley earnestly. “If we went missing we’d first tell you where we went missing to.”
“Come on, Dooley,” I said. “Let’s go and find ourselves a Chouchou.”
Chapter 2
Traipsing along the sidewalk, I must confess at that moment I had no idea the mess we’d soon find ourselves in. As I said, cats go missing all the time, and in due course they always come back. So I had no reason to assume that this time things would be different.
“Where are we going, Max?” asked Dooley.
“Well, let’s first talk to Kingman,” I suggested. In our town Kingman is also the king of gossip. I’m not sure if that’s why he’s called Kingman, but he is the cat we all turn to when we need to find out what’s going on in our local little feline community.
Kingman is a very large and frankly slightly obese cat, who likes to hold forth outside his owner’s grocery store, where he enjoys both an endless supply of cat food, courtesy of Wilbur Vickery, his human, and an equally endless supply of pretty lady cats prancing by. Kingman isn’t just the king of gossip, you see, but also something of a ladies’ cat.
“Max! Dooley!” he said by way of greeting. “Just the fellas I wanted to see!”
“Hello, Kingman,” I said as I returned his hearty greeting. “What did you need us for?”
“I’ve got a favor to ask you. See, Wilbur wants back in.”
“Back in what?”
“Back in the neighborhood watch, of course. He’s been reading about how Vesta has been so successful dealing with this recent crime wave, catching bad guys all over the place, and he wants a piece of the action.” He lowered his voice as he darted a quick look
at his human, busily ringing up wares for his never-ending line of customers. “Wilbur is bored to his eyeballs. And he fondly remembers his time, however brief, as a member of the watch. He feels he’s not doing enough for this town so he wants back in. What do you say?”
“What do you want me to say?” I said, not sure what it was that Kingman expected from me.
“Talk to Vesta! Tell her to let Wilbur back on the team!”
“You know Vesta, Kingman. She’ll never go for it.”
“Come on, Max, don’t be like that. You hold sway with the woman. If you ask her to let Wilbur back on the team, I’m sure she’ll give it some serious consideration.”
Frankly, I wasn’t sure that letting Wilbur back on the watch team was such a good idea. The last time he’d been a member he’d made a real nuisance of himself.
“Oh, and you better ask her to let Francis Reilly back in, too.”
“Father Reilly wants back in, too?”
“Sure! You know that he and Wilbur are like this.” He intertwined twin nails to show us how close the shop owner and the parish priest were. It was an unlikely friendship, I must admit, since Wilbur isn’t exactly a paragon of virtue. More like a paragon of vice, the way he likes to ogle any person of the opposite sex, whether eligible or ineligible.
“Look, I’ll talk to Gran, all right?” I said. “But first you’ve got to help us, Kingman.”
“Ask me anything! Frankly, between you and me, if Vesta doesn’t take Wilbur back that man is going to drive me nuts. All he does all night is sit on his couch and whine!”
“Look, a cat has gone missing,” I said, wanting to get off the topic of Wilbur and onto the topic I was really interested in.
“Her name is Chouchou,” Dooley supplied helpfully. “And she’s a Maine Coon.”
“She’s a member of cat choir but after last night’s rehearsal she didn’t come home.”
“Probably out on a toot,” said Kingman knowingly. “You know how it is. A couple of us like to hit the town after cat choir, and this Chouchou of yours must be just like that.”
“She doesn’t sound like a party-loving cat to me, Kingman,” I said.
“More like a peace-and-quiet-loving cat,” Dooley added.
“What does she look like?” asked Kingman with a slight frown.
“White with red stripes across her face.”
“She’s very pretty,” said Dooley. “In an understated sort of way.”
“Very pretty, eh?” said Kingman, rubbing his whiskers thoughtfully. “Mh.”
Kingman knows pretty. In fact I’m willing to bet that Kingman probably knows every cat who scores more than a five or a six on his personal prettiness scale.
“I think I know the cat you’re talking about,” the large cat finally said. “Chouchou. Yeah, definitely rings a bell. Mousy kind of feline, right?”
“Chouchou is not a mouse, Kingman,” said Dooley with a laugh. “She’s a cat!”
“Yeah, even a cat can be mousy, Dooley.”
“They can?” asked Dooley, much surprised.
“Sure. Just like a mouse can be catty, a cat can be mousy.”
“Huh,” said Dooley with a frown as he processed this startling new information.
“So have you seen her or haven’t you seen her?” I asked, wanting to get to the bottom of this missing cat business and move on. I’d been enjoying a leisurely time in Odelia’s office and wanted to return to my cozy little nook as soon as possible if you please.
But Kingman shook his head. “Can’t say that I have,” he said. “You see, Chouchou is not one of those cats that really stand out, if you know what I mean.”
“You mean she’s more like a cat who stands in?” asked Dooley.
“Not exactly,” Kingman replied with a grin. “And besides, you know how it is—cats go missing all the time. But they always come back.”
I didn’t enjoy my own line being quoted back to me, and I grimaced at this.
“And it’s not as if Chouchou is the only cat that’s gone missing lately. In fact I know of at least half a dozen who’ve suddenly disappeared. But do I look worried?”
Dooley studied Kingman closely. “You don’t look worried, Kingman,” he determined.
“And that’s because I’m not worried! Because cats always land on their feet!”
“So you have no idea where she could be?” I asked, not hiding my sense of disappointment. Usually Kingman is a fount of information, but today he was more like a fount of frustration, with his pleas to let Wilbur Vickery and Father Reilly back on the neighborhood watch, something I was pretty sure Gran would be dead set against.
“Sorry, fellas,” said Kingman as his eyes wandered in the direction of a petite Siamese who’d come walking along. “Can’t help you.” And it was clear our audience with our town’s feline mayor was at an end when he called out, “Trixie! Long time no see!”
So we decided to move on and soon were treated to a rare sight: our very own human, putting up flyers on lampposts, depicting the very cat we were looking for.
Chapter 3
Odelia had decided that the best thing she could do was to print out some flyers of Mrs. Bunyon’s missing cat and distribute these around Hampton Cove. And she’d just started doing this when she came upon her grandmother, who was sipping her usual hot cocoa in the outside dining area of the Star hotel, along with her friend Scarlett Canyon.
“I’ve got a job for you, Gran,” said Odelia as she placed a little stack of flyers in front of both ladies. “A cat’s gone missing, and I want you to put up these flyers for me.”
“Missing cat?” asked Gran with a frown as she glanced at the flyer. “I’m sorry, honey,” she promptly added as she handed the little stack back. “The watch doesn’t do missing cats.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Of course I’m serious. The watch takes care of the big stuff—serious crime—hardened criminals. Missing cats is not something we’ve got time for, I’m afraid.”
“Vesta, we could look into this one missing cat for Odelia,” said Scarlett, who was dressed to the nines in a nice little floral top, her red hair done up and her makeup tastefully applied. “I mean, it’s not like we’ve got anything else going on at the moment.”
“No, but we could have something else going on soon, and if we’re locked into this cat business we won’t have time for the other, more important stuff, now would we?”
“Just… do it already, will you?” said Odelia, who didn’t want to waste time standing around arguing with her recalcitrant grandmother.
And she placed the flyers in Scarlett’s hands, who took them gratefully, and said, “Don’t you worry about a thing, honey. We’ll take care of this for you.”
“Scarlett!” said Gran. “What are you doing?”
“Missing cats are part of the watch’s mission statement, or didn’t you get the memo?”
“What memo? What mission statement?”
Scarlett grinned. “Okay, so there’s no memo, but I think finding missing pets definitely should be part of our mission statement.”
“Oh, all right,” Gran grumbled. “But if the big one hits and we’re too busy looking for this… Chouchou of yours, I’m going to blame you.”
Just then, Max and Dooley came trotting up. “We just talked to Kingman,” said Dooley, “and he says at least half a dozen cats have gone missing, but he’s not worried, because cats always land on their feet.”
“Half a dozen cats?” said Odelia.
“What did he say?” asked Scarlett.
“That more cats have gone missing,” said Gran.
“At least half a dozen,” Dooley reiterated. “But he’s not worried and so neither should we. Isn’t that right, Max?”
“Absolutely,” said Max, though the large blorange cat did look slightly worried.
“Kingman thinks that these missing cats went on a toot and they’ll be back soon.”
“Cats don’t go on toots,” said Odelia with a
frown.
“What did he say?” asked Scarlett, trying to read Dooley’s lips and failing.
“That Kingman says the missing cats have gone on a toot.”
“Do cats go on toots?”
“No, they don’t. Cats don’t drink,” said Gran. “So correct me if I’m wrong, but if half a dozen cats have gone missing, shouldn’t the police be out looking for them?”
“The police aren’t interested in missing cats,” said Scarlett. “They’ve got better things to do—just like you, by the way, Vesta.”
Gran had the decency to pull a remorseful face. “Okay, so maybe you were right.”
“Can you please repeat that?” asked Scarlett, placing her hand to her ear.
“You were right, all right?!”
“This is a momentous occasion,” said Scarlett, giving Odelia a wink. “Vesta Muffin admitting she was wrong.”
“I didn’t say I was wrong. I just said you were right. There’s a difference.”
“Oh, and Kingman says Wilbur and Father Reilly want to rejoin the watch,” said Max.
“No way in hell,” Gran growled.
“What did he say?” asked Scarlett, starting to look a little frustrated.
“Wilbur and Francis want back on the watch.”
“No way in hell,” said Scarlett, a rare frown marring her smooth brow.
“That’s what I said!”
“So what do you want us to do?” asked Max. “About Chouchou, I mean?”
“I want you to keep looking,” Odelia instructed. “Meanwhile I’ll drop by the police station and see if they’ve received any of these missing cats reports. If they all went missing around the same time we just might have a catnapper on our hands.”
“A catnapper!” Dooley cried.
“Better ask the people from the shelter, too,” said Gran. “They may have hired some overzealous newbie, who goes around picking up any and all pets that are roaming free.”
“But I don’t want to be napped!” said Dooley, much disturbed. “I don’t think I’d like it.”
“You’re not going to get napped, Dooley,” said Max reassuringly. Then, turning to Odelia, he added, “We’re on the case. If those cats were nabbed, we’ll find them for you.”
