Purrfect nap, p.14
Purrfect Nap, page 14
“I know, but it’ll send a message, wouldn’t you agree?”
“It would most definitely send a message,” said Tex, nodding.
“So what are you waiting for, Tex? What are you, a man or a mouse?”
“Definitely not a mouse,” said the doctor thoughtfully. “No, definitely not a mouse.”
Blake squeezed his fellow gnome collector’s arm. “Just don’t get caught would be my advice. It’s never a good idea to get caught when doing these things.”
And after having delivered this sterling piece of advice, he bid the doctor a good night, and walked back to his car. He glanced up at the sky. Stars had started to twinkle and a full moon had come peeping over the horizon. By all accounts it promised to be a wonderful night.
CHAPTER 29
Harriet, Brutus, Shanille, Kingman, Buster and the rest of cat choir’s paying members were intensely worried about the fate that had befallen Max and Dooley—and Rufus, of course, but to a lesser extent. Dogs will be dogs, and probably whatever had happened to Rufus, he only had himself to blame. And so that night cat choir wasn’t the scene of gaiety and song but of an urgent meeting to discuss these recent and frankly shocking events.
“We need to find them,” Shanille was saying. “It doesn’t do for members of Hampton Cove’s cat community to be snatched like this. Especially a prominent member like Max.”
“And Dooley,” Kingman added.
“Yes, and Dooley,” said Shanille with a smile.
Whereas Max was one of the pillars of their community, Dooley was such a sweetheart and was beloved by all.
“They’ll be sorely missed,” said Buster, shaking his head sadly.
“They’re not dead, Buster!” said Harriet.
“They might be dead,” said Buster. “In fact they probably are. And so is that baby. Fido is convinced they were snatched up by a serial killer. And we all know that serial killers kill—it’s what they do.”
“Fido is an idiot,” said Harriet with decision. “And besides, what does he know? He doesn’t know anything,” she answered her own question. “Because he’s an idiot.”
Buster frowned. “My human is not an idiot.”
“He is if he thinks that Max and Dooley are dead!”
“Guys, guys,” said Kingman, spreading his arms to nip this argument in the bud. “The truth is that nobody knows what happened. Which is what this meeting is all about: to find out where Max and Dooley are, and how to find them and get them back to safety.”
“It’s not just Max and Dooley,” said Brutus. “Aurelie was also kidnapped, and so were Rufus and Jackie Pearce.”
“Okay, so who is this Aurelie, exactly?” asked Shanille, who had a hard time following the thread of the story as it was developing.
“Aurelie belongs to a tourist named Regarda Cooper,” Brutus explained. “Regarda and her son are staying at the Star Hotel, where a man gained access to their hotel room by sweet-talking a staff member into printing a room key, and grabbed Aurelie. He sent a message demanding fifty thousand dollars for her safe return, and sent a picture as proof of life. This all happened this morning.”
“God, what a terrible story,” said Buster. “Wait till I tell Fido.” He blinked. “Oh, no, I can’t tell him—that’s too bad.”
“Nobody is telling anybody anything,” said Shanille. “What we need to focus on right now is to find… What’s going on?”
This last question was referring to a sort of ruckus or fracas that seemed to have broken out on the outskirts of their small gathering. Bright lights had suddenly been turned on, and were pinning them to the spot, blinding them and making it impossible to see what was happening. And then, as near as she could tell, something descended from the sky. It fell on top of her and pressed her down on the ground, as it did the other members of her choir.
The choir leader yelled, “What’s happening!”
“The sky! It’s falling!” Buster cried.
“I think we’ve just been caught,” said Kingman, who was closest to her.
“Caught? What do you mean, caught!” Harriet demanded.
“It’s a net, Harriet,” said Kingman. “Someone has thrown a big net on top of us. And if I’m not mistaken, they’re going to take us all!”
His words proved prophetic. Since they couldn’t move, on account of the big net that had been thrown from above, the members of cat choir were easy pickings. One by one they were being gathered and thrown into the back of a van that had been equipped with steel cages. And before she realized what was happening, strong gloved hands hoisted Shanille up by the neck and carried her over to the van, parked next to one of those bright lights. Without much care for her wellbeing she was shoved into one of the cages, along with Kingman, who unfortunately took up most of the cage real estate, and then the cage door was slammed shut and she was suddenly a prisoner!
“Hey!” she cried. “Let us out of here!”
“I doubt whether they’ll be amenable to your suggestion,” said Kingman sadly. He settled down on the cage floor. “I just hope they won’t demand fifty thousand smackers from Wilbur, cause they won’t get it.”
“You mean… we’ve been kidnapped by the same gang that took Aurelie?” asked Shanille, much perturbed by this development.
“I’m afraid so,” said Kingman. He shrugged. “Look at the bright side. At least we’ll get to see Max and Dooley again.” And after a long pause he added, “And Rufus.”
CHAPTER 30
Dan, who had been present at the search party for the missing baby, wondered where his star reporter could have gone off to. Collecting TikTok videos and Facebook stories about the search was all well and good, and he’d already posted a ton of them on the Gazette website, but they were no substitute for an in-depth story from a seasoned reporter. He wanted interviews with all involved, first and foremost the parents of the missing child, and of course Chief Lip, who had personally led the search. Unfortunately Odelia’s uncle didn’t appear to be big on Facebook, and he wasn’t on TikTok either, and neither were the parents.
He’d been trying to reach Odelia, to tell her to write a front-page article about the disappearance of the child, but for some reason she had blocked his calls. He had no idea why, and frankly he was more than a little worried. He would have asked her mom or grandmother, with whom she was close, but they were nowhere to be found, and when he asked Tex, Odelia’s dad said he had no idea where his daughter was, nor did he seem overly concerned. For some reason he kept muttering something about gnomes, and wanting to know if Dan intended to devote a special issue to the upcoming Gnome of the Year competition. Since he’d never heard of this elusive competition, he had prevaricated, telling the man he should talk to his daughter, and why not talk to her now?
But Tex had simply made a noise of disgust and had walked away.
So now what? The most shocking event of the week wasn’t going to be reported in the Gazette, for even though he had talked to a couple of the people involved himself, he simply didn’t have enough material. The parents were too distraught, Chief Lip was too busy, and the participants didn’t have anything interesting to say.
So now all he had were TikTok videos, Instagram and Facebook posts and that was it! Not exactly the kind of stuff his paying customers wanted to see on their favorite paper’s website. After all, they could easily read all of that social media stuff themselves—and for free!
It was a disaster, that’s what it was. And where was Odelia!
Ed and Regarda were still ensconced in their room, only instead of their old room, they had received an impressive upgrade and were now staying in the Gwyneth Paltrow Suite, one of the best rooms in the house. The general manager of the hotel had personally offered his apologies for the appalling behavior of one of his members of staff, who had been instrumental in the abduction of Regarda’s beloved Aurelie, and had expressed the fervent hope that they wouldn’t press charges and sue the hotel for substantial damages after this unfortunate incident. Apparently the kidnapper had taken advantage of the naïveté of a young female receptionist and had acquired information and a working key card that had led to the abduction. The young woman had been reprimanded and her imminent dismissal was being considered in connection to this serious error of judgment.
Next, Odelia Kingsley had paid them a visit, this time accompanied by her husband Chase. The two of them had asked their permission to talk to the young woman in question, and have her sit down with a sketch artist so they could start the process of identifying the person who was behind Aurelie’s abduction.
Regarda had been hesitant, still mindful of the kidnapper’s admonition not to involve the police, but Chase had promised them absolute discretion. And since Ed seemed to think it was a good idea, she had finally relented and given them the go-ahead. In due course a facial composite had been produced and shown to Regarda and Ed, asking whether they recognized the person. Studying the face of the man who had kidnapped her precious Aurelie, Regarda had experienced a wave of an emotion she hadn’t understood at first, but later thought must have been justified anger.
“No, I’ve never seen him before,” she admitted.
“Me neither,” said Ed, studying the sketch on Odelia’s tablet. “So is this the guy who took Aurelie?”
“Yep, that’s him,” said Odelia. “So now we’ll get to work trying to find out who he is, exactly, which will bring us one step closer to bringing Aurelie home to you.”
Regarda burst into tears at these hopeful words. “Oh, I hope he hasn’t harmed my precious baby.” She thought the man looked like a serial killer: all charm and arresting good looks on the surface, but hiding a dark, dark heart underneath.
“It’s not just Aurelie who’s been taken,” said Odelia. “This man has kidnapped our cats, too.”
“And a baby and our neighbors’ dog,” Chase added.
“Oh, God, what is going on!” Regarda cried, much dismayed. She turned to Ed. “Of all the places in the country you could have picked for your honeymoon, you had to pick the one place where a serial kidnapper has decided to go on a rampage!”
“How was I supposed to know that Hampton Cove is the kidnapping capital of the country!” said Ed, not unjustified.
“To be fair, this has never happened before,” said Odelia.
“Well…” said Chase, making a face.
“Oh, dear,” said Regarda.
“There have been catnappings before,” the cop intimated when pressed on the matter. “A local butcher had run out of cheap meat to put in his sausages after his Romanian supplier went bust, so he built an illegal facility where he could produce his own sausages and hired a couple of goons to kidnap cats so he could…” He gave a delicate cough.
“Oh, no!” said Regarda.
“We caught him before… Well, let’s just say the factory was shut down.”
“Why isn’t any of this on TripAdvisor!” Regarda demanded heatedly. “If only I’d known what kind of town this was, I would never have come. Never!”
Just then, Odelia’s phone made a dinging sound, and when she checked the message she had just received, her jaw dropped and she paled considerably. She turned to her husband and said, “We have to go, Chase. We have to go now!”
“What is it?” said Regarda. “Have they found Aurelie? Oh, God. She’s dead, isn’t she? This horrible man has killed my baby girl!”
“Aurelie hasn’t been found,” Odelia assured her. “But the kidnapper has just snatched more cats. In fact he has snatched all of the cats in Hampton Cove. Every single one of them!”
CHAPTER 31
I don’t know what your views are on being kidnapped, but speaking from personal experience I’d say there are three stages: at first you’re discombobulated and have no idea what’s going on. Then, once you’ve come to terms with your predicament, you start looking for a way out, and maybe even stage an escape attempt. But at a certain point resignation sets in, and I guess we had reached this stage now, where we had mentally accepted the fact that we were going to be there for just a little while longer. Not indefinitely, as Dooley seemed to think, but it was clear that our imminent release wasn’t in the cards.
Lucky for us Aurelie had run out of steam, and had stopped resembling a pandemonium of parrots. Insomuch that I had closed my eyes and was actually on the verge of falling into blissful sleep. I hadn’t slept in quite a while, but the events of the past couple of hours hadn’t missed their effect and this cat was bone-tired and ready to catch up on some much-needed repose!
Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. For just as I was starting to drift off into the sweet land of dreams, suddenly a loud noise reached my ears.
“What’s that, Max?” asked Dooley, who was resting next to me.
“I don’t know, Dooley,” I said. It sounded like a thousand cats talking at the same time, and at the top of their lungs, too.
“It seems to be coming closer.”
“It does. And quite rapidly, too.”
“What’s going on, you guys?” asked Aurelie, who had woken up from her nap and now stretched herself out on the cold stone floor. “Are they finally coming to rescue us? Is that the United States Marines I hear? Or the FBI? Or possibly a SWAT team?” But then she listened more intently and frowned. “It’s cats. And a lot of them. I didn’t know SWAT employed cats?”
“They don’t. Or at least not to my knowledge,” I said. Hope was surging in my bosom. “It must be our friends from cat choir. They must have found us and are here to set us free!”
“Oh, yay!” said Dooley. “Hooray for cat choir!”
“What is cat choir?” asked Aurelie.
“It’s our nightly hang-out,” I said.
“We sing, we chat, we have fun,” Dooley said, summing up the purpose and practice of cat choir to a T. “And we rescue our friends when they’re kidnapped!”
“Oh, goodie,” said Aurelie, getting up from the floor. “Let’s give a warm welcome to our saviors. Three cheers for the heroes!”
The door swung open, but instead of coming face to face with a band of heroic rescuers, we saw a pile of cages, one stacked on top of the other, wheeled in on a hand cart being pushed by Johnny. The big guy took his time unloading the cages, then returned to fetch some more, while his associate Jerry wheeled in a second hand cart, this one also carrying a stack of cages!
I recognized the faces of our friends Kingman, Shanille, Buster, Tom, Tigger, Misty, Shadow, Missy… And Harriet and Brutus!
“Hey, you guys,” said Harriet, and she didn’t look happy.
“Have you come to rescue us?” asked Dooley eagerly.
“No, Dooley, this is a social call,” said Brutus.
“Oh, that’s so nice of you!” said Dooley.
“Can’t you see we’ve been kidnapped, you doofus!” said Shanille.
“Kidnapped? What do you mean, kidnapped?”
“They’re locked up in cages, Dooley,” I pointed out. “So they can’t really do a lot of rescuing, now can they?”
“Oh,” said Dooley, as if noticing this little detail for the first time. “But that’s not good.”
“No kidding,” Kingman grumbled.
“That’s not very nice,” Dooley added.
More cages had been rolled in, and by the time the last ones were dispatched, the room was full, with cages stacked high—almost to the ceiling.
“Hey, aren’t you going to let us out!” Kingman demanded when Johnny and Jerry made to leave.
“We’ll be back to feed you later,” Johnny announced, as if he had understood Kingman’s words.
“And what if we have to go potty?” asked Harriet, who seemed a little shocked to be locked up like this. “You can’t expect us to go potty in these cages!” But apparently this was the big idea, and as Harriet directed first a look down, and her eyes met Shanille’s, then a look up, where Brutus was located, she said, “No way!”
“Hold it in, will you, princess?” Shanille said. “You, too, Brutus!”
“Oh, I’ll hold it in,” Brutus said. After all, if he didn’t, both Harriet and Shanille would suffer!
“And I thought we had it bad,” said Aurelie, stretching out on the floor once again. “Our litter box may not be squeaky clean, but at least I don’t have to do my business on top of… well, you know.”
“Okay, urgent meeting of cat choir,” said Shanille, in spite of her predicament still every inch the community leader. “I don’t have to tell you guys that we find ourselves in a bit of a pickle here.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” a ginger cat pronounced.
“So we have to come up with a plan, people. A plan of escape!”
“We tried to escape,” Dooley said. “But they caught us.”
“Not what I want to hear, Dooley!” said Shanille.
“It just means your plan wasn’t good enough,” said Harriet. “Whose plan was it?”
I deferentially inclined my head and earned myself a frown from my cat choir colleagues. “Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a good plan, but it was the best one I could come up with,” I said in my defense.
“So think, Max!” Brutus suddenly exhorted. “Use that big brain of yours and get us out of this hellhole, buddy! Cause frankly I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep this up—or more specifically: in!”
And so I gave myself up to thought. There had to be a way to escape from this place. I closed my eyes and redoubled my efforts. It didn’t help that very soon the atmosphere turned into what can only be described as a barroom brawl. Heated arguments broke out over who was to blame for this unwelcome predicament, and there was a lot of yelling and screaming, recriminations flying back and forth.
At one point they got so loud I couldn’t hear myself think… until that very noise suddenly gave me an idea. So I gave Shanille a sign, and she used her conductor’s voice to summon our friends to pipe down.
And as I explained my big idea, smiles lit up faces left and right and soon my plan was unanimously approved, the consensus being that it was a pippin. And so all eyes turned to Harriet, the latter took a deep breath, smoothed her ruffled fur, and did what she does best.
