Chapter 13
“I’m not too sure about this, you guys,” said Clarice.
Gran was finally driving us to the senior center, where we were meeting Scarlett.
“You mean going to see Scarlett?” asked Brutus.
“No, I mean Odelia becoming a detective. I thought she was doing an excellent job as a reporter, and now all of a sudden she is going to ditch that? It doesn’t sound like something that she should do.”
“I mean, if she can combine the two jobs, I guess that’s all right,” said Harriet.
“Exactly,” said Brutus. “She will get the best of both worlds. And isn’t that what she has been doing all along? Only now it will be official.”
“I don’t know,” said Clarice. “Being a detective is different from being the occasional tourist inside an investigation. Now she will have to wear a uniform.”
“Detectives don’t wear uniforms,” said Gran, who had been listening in.
“And she will have to file reports.”
“She is a reporter,” said Gran. “So filing reports is like second nature to her.”
“Whatever,” said Clarice. “I’m telling you guys that I have doubts. But does anyone ever listen to Clarice? Of course not. So I’ll just sit here and keep my mouth shut as usual.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I told her.
“Oh, the great Max has just told me I’m right!” said Clarice. “This is a day of rejoicing.”
“I said maybe you’re right,” I pointed out. “But we won’t know that until Odelia actually becomes a detective and does what a detective is supposed to do.”
“What is a detective supposed to do?” asked Dooley.
“Detect,” said Brutus dryly.
“I’m sure that she will be perfectly up to the task,” said Gran. “I believe in my granddaughter. She is the best. And now will you please shut up while I try to figure out what all of these buttons do?”
She was referring to the panel on the dashboard that held a lot of different buttons.
“Please don’t touch any of those, Gran,” I said.
“Yeah, maybe one of them fires off a rocket or something,” said Brutus. “This is a military vehicle, remember?”
“Huh,” said Gran as her hand hovered over the panel.
I would have broken out in a cold sweat if I hadn’t been a cat. But since cats don’t sweat like humans do, instead I felt my heart quicken and my paw pads turning moist.
“Please don’t touch the buttons, Gran,” I repeated. “Not unless you want to set off World War III or something.”
“I’m not touching anything,” she said, while her hand kept hovering over those buttons, as if trying to decide which of them she was going to press. “Anyway, I’ve got the manual lying around somewhere. I should probably read it.”
“When Odelia is a detective, and Chase is a detective,” said Harriet, “that means that we are now officially a police family.”
“How do you reckon that?” asked Brutus.
“Well, all of our household budget will come from the police. So we are officially police cats, since our food will be bought with police money, and so will our kitty litter.” She grinned. “We are finally police cats, you guys!”
“Good for you,” Clarice grumbled. Looked like she really wasn’t happy with this latest news.
“Okay, we’re here,” said Gran. “Now let’s see if we can’t find Scarlett wrapped in Dick Bernstein’s arms, shall we? And if she is, I swear to God, I will end our friendship.”
“Why are you jealous, Gran?” asked Dooley. “I thought you didn’t even want to go out with Dick Bernstein?”
“Of course I don’t want to go out with that man. He’s a philanderer. A ladies’ man. A Lothario. And for your information, I’m not jealous at all.”
As she got out of the car, Harriet whispered, “Oh, she’s jealous, all right. Extremely so!”
“I hope Scarlett won’t get married to Dick Bernstein,” said Clarice. “Because that would mean that I have to go and live with that man. And he’s not exactly God’s gift to cats.”
As we followed Gran into the senior center, I couldn’t stop thinking about that poor man who had been killed.
And the fact that we wouldn’t be able to participate in the investigation.
I felt it wasn’t fair. But on the other hand, I understood that Chase wouldn’t be able to drag us along everywhere.
Unlike Odelia, he can’t talk to us, and so we wouldn’t be much use to him.
Plus, people being interviewed by a police detective don’t expect him to be accompanied by no fewer than four cats. Five if Clarice decided to join in, as she might.
No, it was probably for the best that we were excluded this time. But that didn’t mean I had to like it.
The senior center was packed, which was probably par for the course considering the demographic it served.
Some of the residents were playing pickleball, foosball, or table tennis, while others had settled down to games of bingo, bridge, and mah-jongg.
In one corner, a small group was painting watercolors, and in another, several seniors were performing tai chi with such solemn concentration that they looked like they were practicing to become very slow-moving ninjas.
The main attraction, however, was the dance floor, where a visiting DJ was playing music that reminded me of old movies from the thirties and forties. Some people were dancing, while those who preferred to remain seated clapped and swayed along.
“I wonder where Scarlett can be,” said Harriet.
“Probably hiding in the broom closet with Dick ‘the Smoocher’ Bernstein,” said Clarice unhappily.
As it turned out, Clarice’s human wasn’t in the broom closet, and she wasn’t smooching with anyone either. Instead, she was painting someone’s nails with nail polish.
They were in a small room off to the side of the main room where the group activities were taking place, and when I took a sniff, the powerful smell of the nail polish immediately made me regret having come within a mile of the place.
“Yuck,” said Brutus. “What is that awful smell?”
“Nail polish,” said Harriet with a smile. “I love it. I wouldn’t mind if Odelia did my nails, too.”
“If Scarlett ever comes anywhere close to me with that stuff,” said Clarice, “I will scratch her.”
“And yet you would look really pretty in pink,” said Harriet. “Pink nails and a pink bow on top of your head. Maybe even a pink sweater with hearts of glitter.”
The look Clarice gave her told us that this was never going to happen. Over her dead body.
“Ooh, look who’s here!” said Scarlett. “Hi, Vesta! Do you want your nails done?”
“Where is Dick Bernstein?” asked Gran, looking here and there. “I heard that you and Dick were having a grand old time.”
“Dick? Haven’t seen him in a while,” said Scarlett. “I don’t even think he’s in today.”
Gran visibly relaxed, and her crusty look vanished from her face entirely. “In that case, I don’t mind if you do my nails,” she said as she took a seat at a free table.
Brutus took up a position on the floor and sighed deeply. “Looks like this will be our life from now on, you guys: having to watch old ladies apply nail polish while the world goes by. In other words: boring!”
“Let’s check out this place,” I suggested, since the last thing I needed was to breathe in those toxic fumes.
And so we all wandered off to see what the other senior citizens were up to. Not that I thought we would discover anything earth-shattering, but cats are born with this curious streak, and we couldn’t not make sure that we weren’t missing anything of importance.
One thing was for sure, though: now that Odelia was off on her course or training, or whatever it was called, things were going to be pretty tedious for us for a while.