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I’d seen it before and I now recognized the signs: Odelia was developing feelings for this cop, even though she probably didn’t know it herself.

Why else would she care whether Chase Kingsley was innocent in this whole harassment business or not? If he were simply some Mr. Nobody she would have dismissed him out of hand, but now she was almost as eager to solve his mystery as she was to solve the Paulo Frey murder.

And then I got an idea. I know, it sometimes happens, even to cats. I don’t know where these sudden moments of illumination come from, but I’m grateful they do. And no, I’m not saying I’m the smartest cat around, because I’m not, but I do have my moments of sudden brilliance, if I say so myself.

“Hey,” I said, deftly hopping into the passenger seat. “I’ve got an idea.”

“Mh?” asked Odelia without looking up. She was still deep in thought as she steered her pickup expertly down the winding road back into town.

“You want to find out if Chase is innocent, right?”

This time she did look up, and gave me a sideways glance.“Yes? So?”

“Well, if the commissioner and the mayor’s wife are having a torrid affair, it’s bound to have spilled over from his office to other places as well, right?”

“Probably,” she agreed.

“I mean, if the flames of passion are that high, they won’t be able to confine themselves to doing it in his office, right?”

She laughed at his.“I don’t know if this is an appropriate conversation for a young cat like yourself, Max.”

I puffed up my chest.“Young cat? Haven’t you ever heard of cat years? I’m not a spring chicken, honey. I’m a grownup. I can handle this stuff.”

“All right,” she said with a slight smile. “So what’s your big idea?”

“Well, it’s not as if you can walk up to the commissioner and ask him point blank if he’s having an affair with the mayor’s wife, right?”

“No, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” she agreed with a grimace.

“What are you guys talking about?” asked Dooley from the backseat. He’d woken up and was yawning cavernously, inspiring me to follow suit.

“Max has got an idea,” said Odelia.

“Well that’s a first,” said Dooley, joining me on the front seat.

I scowled at him.“I’ll have you know I get plenty of ideas, and a lot of them are pretty smoking hot, too.”

“Sure, sure,” he said. “Just tell us already. Don’t keep us in suspense.”

After a last censorious look at my friend, I continued.“Like I was telling Odelia, if the commissioner and the mayor’s wife have been doing it all over the place, as they probably have, seeing as they’re probably in love and all of that soppy stuff, someone’s bound to have noticed.”

“Someone?” asked Odelia. “I doubt that very much, Max.”

“Did I say ‘someone’? I meant ‘some cat,’ of course. Whatever humans do, there’s usually a cat around, as there’s so many of us, and humans tend not to notice we’re even there half the time. They don’t realize we’re everywhere—and we like to blab.”

“Oh, do we like to blab,” Dooley confirmed, stolidly licking his paws.

“We blab a lot.”

“All the time.”

“So there you have it!” I said triumphantly, settling back to collect my well-deserved round of applause.

But Odelia didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t get it. What are you saying?”

I frowned at her. Sometimes I wonder if human intelligence is as well-developed as they seem to think it is.“I’m saying that there’s bound to be a cat out there who has seen something, and since all cats blab, probably the entire cat community of New York knows about this by now, and since cats also like to wander around, word has probably reached beyond city limits and might even have traveled as far as Hampton Cove. Do you get it now?”

Dooley didn’t seem to think she had, for he explained, “So all we need to do is find us a cat who knows a cat who knows a cat who’s seen—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, stemming the flow of words. “What Dooley means is that we need to find a cat who knows a cat who’s seen—”

“Hey! That’s what I said!” exclaimed Dooley.

“No, it’s not,” I argued.

“It is, too!”

“Not!”

“You guys!” Odelia cried, laughing. “I get the picture. So you’re telling me you’re willing to look into this whole Chase Kingsley harassment case?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I said.

“And what I’m saying too,” Dooley said.

Odelia glanced at us.“It’s very sweet of you to offer, but I don’t know…”

“Well, I do,” I said. “Not that we need to, mind you, cause us cats have a sixth sense so we already know if Chase Kingsley is telling the truth or not.”

Her eyes widened.“Oh? Sois he telling the truth?”