The cop was sitting at the kitchen table, talking to his laptop, and if Mr. Cymbal could have seen him, he would have been surprised to see that even though he was wearing a shirt, he was also wearing boxers. But then nobody cares about the lack of vestimentary refinement when talking on Zoom. Until a person gets up and shows his lack of pants, of course, something I hoped Odelia had warned her husband about.
“So I understand you have questions for me about Jeff Felfan?”
“That’s right. Did you personally know Mr. Felfan, sir?”
“No, I did not. Never met the man. I know his father, of course, Felfan Senior. He’s an esteemed colleague of mine, and I was saddened to hear he won’t be running for mayor in the upcoming election.” He flashed a smug grin at us, and I had the impression his sadness wasn’t all that profound. “Is that a cat I see behind you, Detective Kingsley?”
“Yeah, that’s my wife’s cat,” said Chase.
“He’s a big fella, isn’t he? I like the hefty ones, and the color, of course. Did you know that orange is the color of my campaign, detective? Color of the future!”
“I’m blorange,” I muttered, “not orange.”
“Okay, so about Jeff Felfan,” said Chase, getting back on track, “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, sir, but Jeff’s dad has leveled certain allegations against you.”
“I know. He accuses me of murdering his son so he would withdraw from the race. Nonsense, of course. I may play hardball, but I’m not a murderer. And besides, I believe in winning the race on election day, not by getting rid of the opposition by murdering their kids. Is it true that he thinks Ihired a hitman?”
“There has been talk of a professional hit, yes,” Chase said carefully.
“Crazy talk! Where would I find a hitman! On your Craigslist, perhaps? And besides, David knows as well as I do that politicians are under a microscope in this country—and maybe in yours, as well. Anything we say or do is scrutinized in great detail. If I put even as much as a foot wrong it’sgoing to be plastered all across social media. I frowned at a kid during a visit to the zoo last week, and half an hour later the video had gone viral! Said I hated kids. They even turned it into a meme. So you can imagine what they would do if I hired a hitman to kill Jeff Felfan. It would be the scandal of the century, and I’d be thrown in the deepest, darkest dungeon for all eternity.”
“In the Bastille,” Dooley said knowingly. “Or even the guillotine!”
“I don’t think they still have the death penalty in France,” I said.
“Oh, will you look at that? Another fine pussy,” said the politician.
Dooley waved at the camera.
“See?” said Mr. Cymbal. “That’s what I’m all about. Smiling at kiddies and petting pussies. Murdering people? Not so much. And I’m prepared to prove it to you, sir. I’m prepared to have my phone and computer examined by the French police. I have nothing to hide, and that’s exactly the way it should be for the future mayor of the greatest city in the world.”
“Is he going to be mayor of New York, Max?” asked Dooley.
“I think he’s referring to Paris, Dooley,” I said.
“I like Paris,” said Dooley dreamily. “Remember Marion?”
Of course I did. The feisty cat owned by the manager of the hotel where we’d been staying not all that long ago. We would sit on the roof together, the three of us, and Dooley would moon at her, while Marion and I would look at the real moon. A nice time was had by all, and we had even caught a killer that time.
Somehow I didn’t think the man sitting before us now was a killer. Not because he sounded so convincing—all politicians sound convincing, it’s one of the first things they learn in politician school—but because he had a point. If he hired a professional assassin, it would be very hard to keep it a secret. Even if he wanted to, he simply wouldn’t do it. Not if he was smart. And Bill Cymbal struck me as a very smart man. Except that he didn’t know orange from blorange.
And there was more bad news—or perhaps even the worst news of all: cat choir was canceled. The news reached us through Harriet and Brutus, who had been out and about all day, following their assigned humans around and making sure that not a drop of alcohol passed their lips.
“I think we managed,” said Harriet as she gave us an extensive overview of the events as they transpired that day. “Gran tried to create a diversion at some point by shouting, ‘Mouse! Mouse!’ but of course I didn’t fall for that. And then when they split up, with Gran going in one direction and Scarlett in another, I panicked for a moment, but lucky for me Scarlett went into the hair salon, so I simply told Buster to keep an eye on her for the time being, while I went after Gran.”