Chapter 24
Pippy had been hiding under that car for God knows how long. She felt as if she had been there forever. And the problem was that she had no idea where to go.
After the terrible thing that had happened to Harley, she had fled the room and had been running as fast as her tiny little legs could carry her until she had found safety and refuge under the car.
As she poked her head out from time to time, all she could see were people. Plenty of people. Walking and talking. Shopping and going about their daily business.
Too bad Harley would never go about his business ever again. At least if her suspicions were correct that he was dead.
She had never seen a dead person before, but Harley clearly was in that category. Judging by the way he had stopped breathing, and how he looked so deathly pale, there was nothing anyone could do to bring him back to life.
Which left her in a big heap of trouble.
As she glanced out from under the car again, where she had spent the night, she saw that a gigantic car had pulled up across the street. It had parked right in front of that General Store where so many people seemed to go for their shopping.
Out of the car an old lady emerged, and also, much to Pippy’s surprise, a bunch of cats.
She watched in amazement as the contingent of cats gracefully descended to the street and trotted up to the General Store, where they proceeded to chat with yet another cat.
If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought that Hampton Cove was full of cats, and maybe it was.
It certainly was different from the town she and Harley hailed from, which was full of dogs.
Then again, maybe the people of Hampton Cove were all cat people. She had heard of such a phenomenon and figured it was certainly a good explanation.
She sat quietly shivering under the car and wondered if she shouldn’t simply wait until nightfall and start in the direction of home. Harley’s wife would take care of her. She simply knew she would.
The trouble was that Harley lived far away.
So far away that they had actually been forced to take a plane to get here.
And since Pippy didn’t have a clue about how to get on a plane—she figured you probably needed a ticket, and she had no idea how to get one—she didn’t think she would manage.
Not without someone there to tuck her into their costume and carry her to the plane, the way Harley had done.
Just then, a loud voice sounded right next to her. She would have jumped if the car wasn’t one of those low vehicles that prevented one from stretching out and not touching the undercarriage, which was dirty with soot and caked mud and all of that nasty stuff.
“Hey there, little one,” the voice intoned. “What are you doing hiding under this car?”
When she looked up, much to her surprise, she saw that a cat was addressing her. It wasn’t one of the cats she had seen emerging from that car but yet another one.
Looked like she was right, and Hampton Cove simply had an abundance of cats. An endless supply of the feline menace.
But there was something about this particular cat’s demeanor that inspired confidence, and since her desire to confide in someone was a lot greater than her fear of getting chased by a cat, or scratched by one, she decided to answer the question as politely and honestly as she could.
It was the least she could do. And also, Harley had trained her to always be nice to people—and cats.
“My name is Pippy,” she said, therefore. “What is yours?”
“Shanille,” said the cat. “I was on my way to the General Store to say hi to my friends when I saw you. What are you doing under there? Did you get lost?”
“I did get lost,” she admitted.
“You’re not from around here, are you? I know all the dogs in Hampton Cove, and I have never seen you before.”
“There are dogs in Hampton Cove?”
“Oh, sure. Plenty of them.”
“The thing is, Shanille,” she said, shyly directing a hopeful look at the cat who was proving a lot nicer than she had anticipated, “that I lost my human. Well, he died. And now I don’t know what to do, since my other human is far away from here, and I don’t know how to catch a plane and fly home.”
“Oh, sweet darling,” said the cat, and actually clasped her paws together. She seemed touched by Pippy’s story to a degree. “Don’t you worry about a thing. We will take care of you, and we will find a way to send you home. Who is your human who died?”
“His name is Harley Glad, and he lived in that hotel over there.”
“Come with me,” said the cat, and even though Pippy had always been told never to talk to strangers, and definitely not to go anywhere with them, she was in such a bad place that she decided she didn’t have a choice but to take a chance on this friendly cat.
“Where do you live?” she asked as the two of them carefully crossed the road.
“I belong to Father Reilly,” said Shanille.
“He’s a priest, and he lives next to his church, and so do I.
Here we go,” she added when they had managed to get to the other side of the street without being hit by a car, of which there were a lot.
“I’m going to introduce you to some of my friends.
You’ll see that they’re all very nice. And they have humans who can help you. ”
“But how are these humans going to know I need help?”
“Because these cats can talk to their humans,” Shanille explained, which was quite a strange thing to say, Pippy thought. “So they can explain to them what’s going on. And also, one of their humans is a cop, so he’ll be able to look into this business with your human dying.”
“I wasn’t there when he died, you know,” said Pippy. She still regretted having deserted her human in his hour of need. “I was out on the balcony, enjoying the fresh air. And when I returned inside the room, he was lying next to the bed, and he was dead.”
“You poor thing,” said Shanille. “Okay, see that group of cats over there, by the entrance to the General Store? Those are all my friends. You see, I run cat choir, which is the premier choir and meeting place for cats in this town, so I pretty much know every single cat. But these are not just members of cat choir. They’re my friends. ”
“All of them?” asked Pippy, amazed at the sheer number of cats in the group.
“Yeah, all of them. Why, don’t you have friends where you live?”
“Not many,” she admitted. “I see some friends when Harley takes me out for my walk, and also at the dog park, but I wouldn’t really call them friends. They’re more acquaintances, you know.”
Shanille and she had joined the group, and they all seemed surprised to see a dog. There was one very large orange cat, a small fluffy one, a Persian who looked a little haughty, Pippy thought, a black cat who was very butch, and a very large cat whose antecedents weren’t immediately clear to her.
And finally, there was a cat who looked as if she had been in the wars, with parts of her fur gone and plenty of scars. She even had one eye that looked different from the other one.
In short order, she was introduced to all of them and discovered that their names were Max, Dooley, Harriet, Brutus, Kingman, and Clarice.
“Nice to meet you,” she said shyly. Not since Harley had taken her to the dog park for the first time had she talked to so many other pets all at once.
“Pippy lived with her human,” Shanille explained. “But he died, and now she doesn’t know how to make it home.”
“Who was your human?” asked Dooley, who seemed the sweetest of the bunch.
“Harley Glad,” said Pippy, and for some reason this caused the cats to exchange knowing glances. “Oh, did you know Harley?” she asked.
Max shook his formidable head. “We didn’t. But we have heard of him.”
“My human is investigating his… death,” said Brutus. “Chase is a police detective, and he told us all about it last night. How Harley was found by the hotel room-service attendant, and how they think that foul play was involved.”
“Foul play?” asked Pippy. “What do you mean?”
“Chase thinks that Harley was murdered,” said Harriet. “That’s what foul play means.”
Pippy stared at the white Persian. “Murdered? You mean…”
“Someone else made him dead,” said Dooley. “And this someone else is not a nice person, because murder is not nice. And so Chase will catch them and put them in jail, so they can’t murder other people.”
Pippy was speechless for a moment. “Murdered,” she finally said. “But who would do such a thing?”
“According to Chase, Harley was a big fan of a German band called Turbo Heartthrob,” said Max. “And he had met someone who had sold him a guitar belonging to the guitar player and main composer of the band. Well, after he was found, the police discovered that the guitar was gone.”
“And now Chase believes that the person who killed your human was after the guitar,” said Brutus.
“One fan was killed by another fan,” Harriet pointed out. “Or at least that’s the theory that Chase is working from.”
“Oh, poor Harley,” said Pippy. “Killed for a guitar. That’s so… well, that’s just terrible.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have seen the killer, would you?” asked Max, who seemed very interested in this murder business.
“No, I was out on the balcony when it happened,” said Pippy. “I didn’t even hear a thing, because of all the noise of traffic and people on the street. When I returned to the room, Harley was already dead.”
“Poor darling,” said Harriet. “And now you want to go home to your other human?”
She nodded. “Harley’s wife, Philomena. She doesn’t love me as much as Harley did, but she loves me enough. I hope she will take care of me from now on.”
“Only problem is that Philomena lives far away,” said Shanille. “So someone needs to get in touch with her and tell her to come pick Pippy up.”
“We’ll tell Gran,” said Dooley. “She will make sure that you get home safe and sound, Pippy.”
“But until that happens,” said Max, “you wouldn’t be interested in staying with us, would you? I mean, you can’t live on the street, right?”
“I found her hiding under a car,” said Shanille.
“Oh, my God,” said Harriet as she placed two paws on her heart. “Stay with us, Pippy,” she suggested. “Just for the time being. Until Philomena can come and pick you up.”
“Okay,” she said, even though she wasn’t all that convinced that staying with a bunch of cats was a good idea for a dog. But since it looked as if she didn’t have another choice, she might as well accept these nice cats’ hospitality. “Do you all live together?”
“I live with my human,” Clarice grunted.
“Though until last night, that looked sort of iffy, since Scarlett has been neglecting me. But let’s not get into all of that,” she added.
“We talked it through, and she has promised to change her ways.” She pointed a sharp-clawed paw at Pippy.
“Never let your human jerk you around, Pippy. Put your paw down, is all I’m saying. Make sure that they respect you.”
“I will,” she said timidly. This Clarice certainly was a force of nature, she thought.
“We all live together,” said Max. “Me, Dooley, Harriet, and Brutus.”
“I live here at the General Store,” said Kingman. “Though I might as well live with you guys,” he added, addressing the foursome. “Since we see each other all the time.”
“Yeah, Hampton Cove’s cat community is one big happy family,” said Shanille. “I told her about cat choir,” she explained for the benefit of the others.
“Oh, you should check out dog choir,” said Dooley. “They meet at the park every night, and they have a lot of members. And they’re all dogs.”
“I will, Dooley,” said Pippy shyly. “Thank you.”
At that moment, three old ladies walked out of the store. They all seemed over the moon to see her, as one of them immediately picked her up and started fussing over her.
“That is my human,” said Dooley proudly. “Her name is Gran, and she will take care of you from now on.”
“And what is the story with you, huh?” said Gran as she hugged her close. “I’ve never seen such a cutie pie!”
“Her human was murdered,” Max explained. “Harley Glad?”
“The case Chase is working on,” Brutus added.
“Oh, no!” said Gran as she held Pippy out in front of her, then hugged her close again. “Don’t you worry about a thing, honey. I will take good care of you.”
“She needs to return to her other human,” said Shanille. “But she lives far away.”
“I will personally deal with all of that,” Gran assured the present company of cats.
Which is when Pippy realized that Shanille hadn’t lied: this lady could indeed talk to her cats!