“Ozempic?” Scarlett suggested.

“Exactly! Did you know it’s not a slimming drug at all? It’s diabetes medicine! The fact that people lose weight is an unexpected side effect. And the same is true about this bug spray.”

I didn’t think the Ozempic people would appreciate their drug being compared to bug spray, but then Gran was on a roll, and I had a feeling we wouldn’t be able to move her from her point of view, not even with a crane or a bulldozer. And so I figured we might as well go along for the ride. And maybe she was right. Maybe this bug spray did have as its unintentional side effect that it stimulated procreation in mammals, as she seemed to believe. Though a mammal is still an entirely different beast than a bug, of course.

“Maybe I’ll get pregnant,” said Harriet. “Wouldn’t you like to have babies, snowflake?”

Brutus gave me a look of panic. Even though he sincerely regretted having been neutered, the prospect of being a dad took him by surprise. “Um, absolutely. I would love to have babies.”

“Then let’s have some.” She tapped Gran on the shoulder. The old lady jumped up and jerked the wheel to one side, causing the car to swerve and almost swipe a pedestrian off the sidewalk. “Honey, don’t distract me when I’m driving!” she cried. “What is it?”

“Can you zap me with your bug spray? Zap and pop? I want to have babies, also.”

Gran gave her a smile. “Absolutely. In fact, if you like, I’ll test the spray on you before I start using it on women.” She gave me a look in the rear-view mirror. “Just to humor Max. I don’t think it’s necessary to test the stuff, since my gut tells me it will work exactly as I anticipate.”

I didn’t like the fact that she was going to use Harriet as a test subject—a guinea pig, so to speak—any more than I liked that she would use it on women, but I could tell that she wasn’t going to budge, and so I wisely kept my tongue.

We had arrived at the police station, and we all got out. Entering the station, Gran and Scarlett walked up to the desk sergeant, a new hire I’d never seen before. Probably fresh out of police academy. Her name was Maria and she seemed a little nervous. She was sitting ramrod straight behind her desk, a pair of oversized earphones on her head, and talking into the mic. “Yes, sir, I’ll send a patrol car immediately.” She disconnected. “A man complains that his neighbors are organizing a party and he can’t sleep. Is it always so busy at night here?”

“Oh, absolutely,” said Gran. “Especially in the summer, with all the tourists descending on the Hamptons en masse.” She tapped the desk. “I want to pay a quick visit to a couple of prisoners. Carlos Perks and Mindy Horsefield. How do I go about that?”

“But… are you their lawyer, Mrs…?”

“Muffin. Vesta Muffin. I’m not a lawyer but I am your boss’s mother. And this is my friend Scarlett. I’m the president of the neighborhood watch, and Scarlett is my second-in-command. It’s important that we talk to these people about some neighborhood watch business.”

The girl looked like a deer in the headlights. This was a contingency she hadn’t been trained for. But then she got an idea. “I’ll call the chief, shall I? He’s in the building right now. Some kind of emergency, apparently.” And before Gran could stop her, she was already calling her boss’s phone. “Oh, hi, Chief Lip,” she said. “It’s Maria. The new desk sergeant? I have a woman here who claims to be your mother. She wants to see a couple of prisoners. Something about a, um, neighborhood watch?” She listened for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll tell her, sir. Thank you, sir. Good evening, sir.” She disconnected and gave Gran a wide-eyed look. “I’m afraid your son doesn’t want to see you right now. He told me to tell you to go home.”

“Oh, the gall of that man!” Gran cried as she shook her fist. “To think I’ve raised such a disrespectful boy!” She tapped the desk. “Tell him I’m not going anywhere, and if he doesn’t let me see the prisoners, I’ll file a complaint with the police oversight commission!”

“Do we even have a police oversight commission?” asked Scarlett.

“If we don’t, we should start one immediately. My son needs oversight—lots of oversight!”

“I—I’ll tell him right now,” said Maria nervously. She pressed a button on her phone and moments later was in communication with the chief once again. “Chief Lip, your mother tells me she’s going to file a complaint with the police oversight commission if she can’t have access to the prisoners right now.” She grimaced when his response came back, and even had to take off her earphones. We could hear the chief yelling through the device. Maria gave us a sheepish look. “He doesn’t sound very happy, Mrs. Muffin. He says not to bother him again or else.”

“I’ll give him something else,” said Gran, rolling up her sleeves. And then she was taking off in the direction of the station proper, Scarlett on her tail, the four of us picking up the rear.

“Shall I tell him you’re coming?” Maria yelled, but Gran didn’t even deign to respond.

“What is a police oversight commission, Max?” asked Dooley.

“I’m not sure,” I confessed. “But probably it has something to do with keeping an eye on the police. Making sure they do what they’re supposed to do.”

“I’ll bet Gran would love to be on that commission,” he said. “She’s always finding things that can be improved upon. She’s very creative that way.”

“I hope this won’t take long,” said Harriet. “I really need to be at cat choir. Shanille told me last night she wants to introduce a new song into the repertoire, and I don’t want to miss it.”

“What song would that be?” asked Brutus.

“I’m not sure, but I think she said it was a power ballad? I do love a good power ballad.”

We had arrived at the main room where all the police officers have their desks, but it was empty, and the lights were off, so it looked as if the force had retired for the night. Moving on, we heard voices further down the hall, and when Gran slammed into her son’s office, we discovered that he and Chase were in a meeting. They both looked up when we arrived.

“Didn’t I tell you to go home?” asked the chief unhappily.

“You don’t get to order me about, sonny boy,” said Gran, planting her fists on her hips. “Now what’s all this about me not being allowed to see the prisoners? I’ll have you know that I have very important matters to discuss with them. Matters that are a matter of life and death.”

“Go away,” said Uncle Alec as he waved a tired hand.

Gran bridled. “I will not go away!”

“Don’t you have a neighborhood watch patrol to go to or something?” the chief asked.

“I have a business meeting with my business associates to attend, and I intend to attend it right now!”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” said the chief, getting up from behind his desk. “Chase, can you please escort my mother and her friend from the premises? Thanks.”

And for the first time in her life, Gran was being escorted out of the police station instead of into it. It certainly was a novel experience, and judging from the way she yelled up a storm, she didn’t like it very much!

Scarlett went quietly, as is her habit, and the four of us followed along.

“All this walking around has made me very hungry,” Brutus lamented.

But if we thought we were off the hook, it turned out that Gran had other plans. “Follow me!” she said the moment Chase had escorted us out of the building and told us to go home and have a good night’s sleep and come back in the morning. “I know how we can have our meeting!”

And she started sneaking off in the direction of the jail cells, which are located at the back of the building. It wasn’t long before we arrived there, and Gran stood on her tippy toes and approached a barred window. “Psssst!” she loud-whispered. “Psssst! You guys in there!”

A face appeared, and I saw that it belonged to the man who had been lugging that giant fly around that morning.

“What do you want?” asked the man.

“You the bug spray fella?”

The guy paused for a moment. “Yes, I am he.”

“I have a business proposition for you,” said Gran. She gestured to Scarlett. “My name is Vesta Muffin, and this is my business partner Scarlett Canyon. Together, we want to buy some of that bug spray from you. Gallons and gallons of the stuff. The more you got the better!”

The guy seemed both surprised but also pleased. “That can be arranged,” he said. “In fact, I have a nice big stock ready for shipment in our warehouse right now. We were supposed to ship it out to Abou-Yamen as soon as the contracts with Prince Abdullah were signed, but unfortunately, he died this morning.”

Gran waved an impatient hand. “I know all about that. His loss is our gain. So how much?”

“How much what?”

“How much of the stuff can you ship to us immediately?”

“We have ten thousand drums ready for shipment,” said the guy. “Each drum holds fifty-five gallons, so that’s half a million gallons, give or take. They’re loaded onto pallets already.”

“That’s great. I’ll take all of them,” said Gran.