“Not yet. I was wondering if you knew anything about his cat?”
“Ugh. Yes. Mr. Relish… Wait. No. Pickles. He adopted that mangy thing right after he moved out. I’m allergic to cats, so we never had one. Okay. Technically, I’m not allergic. I just didn’t want to add a litter box to my to-do list.”
“You wouldn’t know where Mr. Pickles hides, would you? Or if Larry had anyone feed the cat if he went away?”
“Let me ask the kids.”
The noise level on her end of the call returned to deafening decibels. “Hey! Stop licking your sister. I don’t care if she spilled Frosty down her arm. Where does Dad’s cat hide when you guys are at his place?”
Nick winced as the noise crescendoed.
It went quiet again abruptly.
“The kids say Mr. Pickles likes to hide under Larry’s bed and in the bathtub behind the curtain. They don’t know anything about anyone else looking in on the cat. Larry never goes anywhere. He’s a cheapskate and a homebody.”
“Okay. I appreciate the info. I’ll keep looking.”
“Wait. Is the cat missing too?” she asked.
“It appears so.”
“Then he must have gone somewhere and taken Mr. Pickles with him! Which means my ex-husband faked his own disappearance just so he wouldn’t have to take care of his own kids for a weekend. That son of a bitch.”
“I’ll find him,” Nick promised.
“When you do, I’ll pay you extra if you break his nose for me,” Shelley said.
After he did another run through the apartment, paying special attention to cat hiding places, Nick returned to the kitchen and eyeballed the untouched food dish.
Where was Larry?
Where was Mr. Pickles?
He wasn’t sure about cats, but people didn’t just disappear. He let himself out and locked the door behind him. The brunch sign across the lot caught his eye again, and then he spotted something even more interesting. With a grin, Nick crossed to the other townhouse and jabbed the doorbell.
He was turned around and checking the angle when the door opened behind him.
“Well,hellothere.”
The man who answered was immaculately groomed in unwrinkled chinos and a short-sleeved button-down patterned with tiny hammocks and umbrellas. He had a mustache, and his short, silvery hair was expertly mussed.
“Hi. I’m Nick.”
“I’m Alistair, and I know who you are,” the man said with a wink. “You can’t keep secrets in this neighborhood. You’re Nick Santiago, handsome private investigator looking for Larry.”
“Well, I don’t have handsome listed on my business card, but now I’ll consider it. I was wondering if you had a few minutes to answer some questions.”
Alistair crossed his arms over his chest. “That depends. How good are you at julienning vegetables?”
* * *
Four minutes later,Nick found himself in a stylish kitchen clutching an expensive paring knife and staring at a cutting board of mushrooms and green peppers. Alistair expertly ran his knife through a slice of pepper. “You want each piece to be about a quarter of an inch square. Anything bigger will throw off the texture of the omelets. Now, where was I?”
“You were telling me about the neighborhood.”
The man was the kind of witness Nick wished every case had. Nosyandchatty.
“Ah. Yes! We bought this unit about ten years ago. Then when the place next door went up for sale, we snapped it up and spent a year renovating to combine them.”
