“We haven’t been lying,” I said. “We just haven’t told you the truth. There’s a difference.”

“Max is right,” said Brutus. “We would never lie to you, buttercup. But sometimes we don’t tell you the truth—just to spare your feelings, you know.”

“Oh. My. God! This is the worst day of my life!”

“Yeah, it’s not the greatest day of my life either,” I said. All I could think about was that either I was going to have my throat slit or I was about to drown. Neither option held a lot of appeal to me.

The bag was swinging from side to side as Johnny carried us on his back. Moments later we were put down on a hard surface, and I thought this was the moment. The moment he was going to take out his big knife and do his worst. But instead we heard a door slam and a car engine turning over. Before long, we were mobile again, rocking and bumping over uneven terrain, just like before.

“I don’t understand,” said Brutus. “Where is he taking us?”

“Maybe he wants to drown us in the lake?” I suggested.

“But I don’t want to drown in the lake!” said Dooley.

“I don’t want to drown, period,” said Brutus dryly.

The trip seemed endless, and then all of a sudden it ended. The van pulled to a stop and the door was opened, and the bag grabbed again before being placed down. There was a sort of scratchy noise and then the bag fell away, and we found ourselves blinking. Johnny stared down at us and gave us a smile. Then he waved. “See you around, little buddies.”

When we looked around, we saw that he had dropped us off in front of our own home! And then he got back into the van and took off in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes—not a fan of electric vehicles, this one, but of sturdy old diesel.

“But… I thought he was going to murder us,” said Harriet.

Instead, we watched him take off at a fast clip, and turn the corner at the end of the street with screeching tires before disappearing from view. We all yipped in jubilation, but then all of a sudden I became aware of Harriet looking at us in a not-so-friendly way, tapping the tarmac with her front paw.

“So you don’t like my singing, huh!” she said in a snappish sort of tone.

Uh-oh!

CHAPTER 24

As we stood there, wondering how to escape Harriet’s ire, a fleet of police vehicles came driving up and parked in front of the house next door. We watched as Chase got out of one of the vehicles, accompanied by Uncle Alec, Odelia, and several officers. They hurried up to the Trapper place and applied their fingers to the buzzer.

“Why are they calling on the Trappers in the middle of the night?” asked Brutus. “Don’t they know they’re fast asleep?”

“Maybe they want to ask them an urgent question?” Dooley suggested.

“Or maybe Ted has been a naughty boy,” Brutus said. “And now they’ve come to arrest him.”

“Ted may not be a very nice man sometimes,” I said, “but I can’t imagine he would ever knowingly break the law.”

“No, he definitely is the epitome of the law-abiding citizen,” Brutus agreed.

“Look, you can try and distract my attention all you want,” said Harriet. “But it won’t work, you know. You’ve all been busted. You don’t like my singing and yet you pretended all this time that you did! So who else doesn’t like my singing? Tell me!”

When the ringing of the bell didn’t work, Chase used his fist to bang on the door, while Uncle Alec used his fist to bang on the front window. And when that didn’t produce the desired effect, Odelia started yelling, “Police! Open the door!”

“Looks like it’s really urgent,” said Brutus.

“Must be important,” said Dooley.

“Maybe they urgently need an accountant?” I suggested.

Brutus laughed. “An accountancy emergency. Good one, Max.”

We saw that another car had driven up. It was Gran’s little red Peugeot, and as the old lady parked behind the fleet of police vehicles, she and Scarlett got out and joined the growing throng of people on the Trappers’ doorstep desiring to speak with the couple.

“Let us in!” Gran demanded as she, too, applied her fist to the door.

“Let us handle this, Vesta,” said Chase.

“But they’re mine, too, you know,” said Gran.

We all shared a look, and even Harriet had forgotten about her beef with us. “I wonder if this is connected to the shooting,” she said. “Do you think Ted was involved somehow?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “Why would Ted hire two crooks to shoot up the police station? It doesn’t make sense.”

“I’ve always suspected that man of having hidden depths,” said Brutus. “It’s in his face, you know. He seems too nice. Exactly the kind of person who’s hiding a deep, dark secret.”

“So you think Ted killed Prince Abdullah and is now trying to get rid of the man’s lawyer?” I asked.

“And why not? Maybe the prince is a client of Ted’s accountancy firm and they fell out over some tax issue?”

It was definitely the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard, but since I didn’t want to insult Brutus’s intelligence by voicing this determination, I simply kept my mouth firmly shut.

The Trappers must finally have understood that there was someone out there who wanted to talk to them, for the light upstairs suddenly flicked on, then the light downstairs, and the door opened a crack and a pair of suspicious eyes peered out through the opening. “What’s this all about?” asked a sleepy Ted.

“Police,” said Chase, flashing his badge. “We need to borrow your dog, Ted.”

“My dog? What do you want to borrow my dog for?”

“The cats have been abducted,” Odelia explained. “Rufus needs to track them down.”

“But… Rufus isn’t a police dog,” said Ted, having opened the door fully and revealing himself to be wearing nice-looking pajamas with blue Smurfs and ditto fluffy slippers. His hair was tousled and his eyes half-lidded, but otherwise he looked his usual self—not the crime lord that Brutus had him pegged as.

“Rufus knows the cats,” said Odelia. “And he’s found them before.”

It was at this moment that we felt we should probably let our presence be known, to avoid further complications and embarrassing situations. And so we stepped to the fore to join the small throng on the Trapper doorstep.

“Odelia,” I said. “We’re fine.”

But Odelia paid me no mind at all. Instead, she addressed Ted in a rather recalcitrant way. “Look, if you don’t want to lend Rufus to us, I’m afraid we’ll have to confiscate him.”

“You can’t do that,” said Ted. “Rufus is my dog and you can’t have him.”

“Odelia,” said Harriet. “We’re right here, honey.”