Purrfect Gang (Max 94) Preview

It wasn’t really my day. First Uncle Alec disappeared, sending a series of disturbing messages to his wife that he wanted out of their marriage and wanted to quit his job, and then Gran and Scarlett also disappeared. Meanwhile Odelia was hot on the trail of a man she suspected had killed his wife and stuffed her body in the trunk of his car. And then he disappeared as well! Suffice it to say we were faced with a pretty mysterious mystery, one that we couldn’t solve all by ourselves. Lucky for us we had the assistance of a very cute puppy, and an army of mean-spirited… rats!


Chapter One

Terence Hill slipped the curtain aside and cautiously glanced out through the window. So far, so good. He’d half thought that they’d be out in force, hunting him down like that poor Doctor Kimble, as played by Harrison Ford. But as far as he could tell, there was no one out there, threatening to break down his door, point the business end of a powerful handgun in his face, and drag him out to a waiting van.
He glanced left and right, and when he was sure that the coast was clear, quickly slipped on his loafers, picked up his suitcase from the couch, and cast a final look around the living room of the house where he had spent the best part of his life. He’d miss the place, there was no doubt about it. But since he cherished being alive more than being comfortable, he had no other choice but to leave his old life behind.
Pup, the puppy Darlene had purchased only a couple of weeks ago, barked once and looked up at him with questioning eyes, as if to say: ‘What’s going on? What are you up to?’
He kneeled down, picked the pup up into his arms, and tucked him inside his coat, where only his cute, tiny head poked out.
“We’re going on a long journey, little buddy,” he said softly. “And at the end of that journey, nothing but rainbows and roses will be waiting for us—just you wait and see.”
The pup gave a soft mewling sound in approval, and he smiled.
Time to head out.
Suitcase in hand, he stepped out of the house, carefully scanning his surroundings one last time. Better to be safe than sorry, as his mom used to say. When he was convinced that no one was hiding in the bushes, intent on jumping him, he quickly set foot for the car, loaded Pup into the passenger seat, and crawled in behind the wheel. Moments later, he was en route to a destination—or destinations—unknown. A place where no one would find him.

***

Unbeknownst to him, though, unseen eyes and ears had indeed been keeping tabs on him, as evidenced by the dinged-up old pickup truck that pulled out from a row of parked vehicles and now tailed him from a safe distance, making sure not to let him out of its sight.
The person behind the wheel should have been familiar to him, for it was none other than well-known local reporter Odelia Kingsley. The very same reporter he’d sat down with only yesterday. Behind her, four cats sat transfixed as she engaged in this most peculiar mission: tailing a man who’d come to her for some urgent assistance. But instead of doing what he had asked her to do, namely finding his wife, she was keeping a close eye on him.
In other words: she was off the reservation. Going rogue. And dragging her cat troupe along with her. The fact that they didn’t look all that happy should have told her all she needed to know about the advisability of her endeavor. But as things stood, she didn’t care.
She was going to see this mission through, whatever the cost.

Chapter Two

“I don’t like this, Max,” said Dooley.
I wasn’t all that sure if I liked it myself, but what can a pet do when their human decides to go off the rails? Not a whole lot!
“Maybe we should reason with her,” Brutus suggested. “You know, try to make her see the light?”
“And what good would that do?” said Harriet. “You know as well as I do that humans are a stubborn species. They’ll do what they do, and no power on earth can make them change their minds. And most definitely not a couple of utterly powerless pets like the four of us.”
“We’re not that powerless,” Brutus argued. “We could…” He thought for a moment, but in the end had to admit defeat. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. There’s not a whole lot we can do.”
“We could go on a hunger strike,” Dooley said. “You know, like they do on the news? Activists who stop eating until all of their demands are met? We could do the same thing. Stop eating until Odelia stops following this man around for no good reason at all?”
“I can hear you guys, you know,” said Odelia. “Every word of it, in fact. And please don’t go on a hunger strike. I know what I’m doing. Trust me.”
We shared a look. I wasn’t all that convinced that this was true, and I could tell that my friends shared this conviction.
“So… what is it that you’re doing, exactly?” Harriet finally voiced the question that had been at the forefront of our minds. “I mean, if you don’t mind sharing?”
“This man did a terrible thing,” she said as she gripped her steering wheel a little tighter. “I know he did. And I’ll catch him if it’s the last thing I do and make him pay for his crime.”
“So what did he do, exactly?” asked Brutus carefully. We all know what Odelia gets like when she’s got a bee in her bonnet the way she had now.
“I’m pretty sure he murdered his wife,” she said. “And that he stuffed her body in the trunk of his car.”
“In… that car?” asked Brutus, just to be sure.
“Yes, in that car,” Odelia confirmed. “The car he’s driving right now.”
I swallowed away a lump that had formed in my throat. Clearly, our human had fallen prey to one of those maladies that often afflicts her particular species: she had lost the plot.
It had all started not more than twenty-four hours ago, in her own office, to be precise. This man, whose name was Terence Hill, had dropped by the Gazette offices to enlist Odelia in a quest. In other words, he had decided he needed her very particular set of skills to solve a problem for him. The problem consisted of a wife who had removed herself from the equation a couple of days ago, and who he wanted found. If Odelia found it a little peculiar that a man would lose track of his own wife, she didn’t give voice to this sentiment. Instead, she asked him a couple of questions about the woman and sent Terence Hill on his merry way.
It was only after he left that she turned to us and said, a twinkle in her eye, that she knew Terence. Even though he probably didn’t remember her, she had once interviewed him for the paper, back when he was a well-known and quite successful tennis pro, and had been in town to play a tournament. She had been sent out by Dan to snag an interview with the famous tennis player, and even though he clearly didn’t remember her—one meets so many journos on the tennis circuit—she remembered him. Back then he wasn’t married, but he had a girlfriend, who would later become his wife, and apparently, at some point, disappeared.
“Okay, so what if his wife disappeared?” I had argued. “He should go to the police. I mean, it’s not as if you’re a private detective, Odelia. You’re a reporter, and an occasional civilian consultant for your uncle. Finding people that go missing is not your job.”
“I know,” she had said, still with that unmistakable twinkle in her eye. “But I met his wife as well. And she always struck me as a very sane and sensible woman. No way she would simply go missing the way he described it. In other words: if she’s gone, she had good reason to, either because he was being abusive or because…”
We all stared at her.
“You don’t think… he made her disappear?” asked Dooley.
Odelia nodded. “That’s exactly what I think.”
“But… if he got rid of her, why would he ask you to find her for him?” asked Harriet. “That doesn’t make any sense. Does it?” she added, giving me a look of uncertainty.
“It might make sense,” I said. “If he wanted to supply himself with an alibi. You know, make himself look like the concerned husband, even when he knows perfectly well what happened to her.”
Odelia had pointed at me. “What Max said.”
“So… what are you going to do now?” asked Brutus.
“I’m going to find his wife for him, all right,” she said. “And I’m going to prove that there was foul play involved, and that he’s responsible.” She hit the palm of her hand with her fist. “That’s what I’m going to do. And he’s going to rue the day he hurt his wife and hired me.”
And that’s how we ended up in the backseat of Odelia’s truck while she followed this former tennis pro around.
“All this because of a hunch,” Dooley whispered. “I mean, Odelia’s hunches are second to none, but even so. Maybe she should have asked her husband to find this woman instead of going off on some wild-goose chase?”
“Good one, Dooley,” said Brutus appreciatively. “Wild-goose chase? Chase? As in my human Chase?” Dooley stared at our friend, not comprehending. Finally, Brutus decided to drop it and lowered his voice to a whisper, just like Dooley. “I think we need to save Odelia from herself. So who’s with me?”
“Who’s with you on what, Brutus?” asked Dooley.
“Well, on making sure that she doesn’t do anything stupid, of course. Like hound a man suffering the loss of his wife.”
“I take it you don’t believe Odelia’s take on things?” asked Harriet. “That Terence Hill is a murderer and stuffed his wife’s body in the trunk of his car?”
“I mean, look at the guy,” said Brutus. “He’s got that nice little puppy and all. No way that man is a killer. Plus, he plays tennis, and we all know that tennis players are some of the nicest people on the planet. Just look at Marge and Tex.”
He was right. Odelia’s parents played tennis, and they were very nice. Still, I had a feeling there was a flaw in his argument. If two tennis players are nice, does that infer that all tennis players are nice? Something to think about.
“I can still hear you,” said Odelia. “And if he’s so innocent, why is he making a run for it?”
“You don’t know that,” said Brutus. “He could just be on his way to the grocery store.”
“Then why did he pack a suitcase?” she said, and she got us there. Most people don’t pack a suitcase when they go grocery shopping.
“Maybe he needs a lot of groceries?” Dooley suggested. “So much he needs a suitcase?”
“Or he could be going on a vacation,” said Brutus. “Like an innocent trip to take his mind off the fact that his wife has gone missing?”
But Odelia wasn’t having any of it. She shook her head decidedly. “Terence Hill is a murderer. I don’t know why he killed her, but he did, and now he’s running from the law.”
At least there was no question that Darlene Hill had, in fact, disappeared. It had only taken one phone call to Chase to ascertain the basic premise of Terence Hill’s story. Darlene Hill had been reported missing one week ago by her husband. One evening, they had gone to bed together, like any loving couple does, after binge-watching some crime show on Netflix, and the next morning, when Terence woke up, Darlene was no longer there. What he did discover, after investigating the matter a little further, were several droplets of blood on her side of the bed. Droplets of blood that, by all rights, had no reason to be there.
The only conclusion was that she had been taken in the night—someone had snatched her from the marital bed under the cover of darkness. But when he went to the police to report her missing, he received the cold shoulder treatment. They refused to see things his way and asked him a lot of questions about a possible row he might have had with his wife, whereupon she decided to leave home to go and stay with a relative or a friend without taking the trouble of informing her husband. When he pointed out there was blood on the sheet, that hadn’t impressed them in the slightest, and in the end, they told him to take a hike.
Or at least that’s the story that Terence had told Odelia.
When she asked Chase about it, the reality was slightly different. The part about Terence dropping by the station to report his wife missing was true. But from then on, the accounts varied widely. Chase himself had interviewed the man and said that he had behaved shiftily and couldn’t answer simple questions about his wife. When prompted, he had admitted that the couple had had a fight the night before—about some trivial matter, according to Terence—and that he had slept on the couch. Instead of checking on his wife in the morning, he had simply left for work and had only discovered her missing when he returned home that evening and she wasn’t there. He had to admit there was a good chance that she had simply left home because of the fight and didn’t feel the need to inform him of her whereabouts.
A week later, Darlene Hill still hadn’t given a sign of life. But he had refrained from informing the police—in his words, because they were useless and refused to believe him.
It all sounded very suspicious, I had to admit, but that still didn’t mean that Odelia had to go chasing after this guy as if he was the sole suspect in his wife’s disappearance—if she had disappeared at all. Chase might very well be right, and Darlene Hill might be holed up with a friend, unwilling to get in touch with her husband out of sheer spite.
“I think you should let Chase handle this, Odelia,” I said, therefore. “He can find Darlene and ask her what’s going on. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”
“The only explanation is that he killed her,” said Odelia stubbornly.
“But why?” I asked. “There’s no reason to suggest that he did.”
She glanced in her rear-view mirror and locked eyes with me. “Like I said, I have a hunch about this guy.” She shrugged. “And also, I spoke to his neighbor Bud Spencer, and he claims that he saw Terence tuck a body in his car the night he says his wife went missing.”

Chapter Three

Grover Hopegood checked his mailbox and discovered to his surprise that a letter had arrived. He picked up the letter and studied it for a moment. It was so very rare that he got mail that, at first, he figured Bambi Wiggins, their trusty USPS mailwoman, had made a mistake and confused him with his next-door neighbor, Dick Bernstein, who was infinitely more popular than he was. But the name Grover Hopegood was clearly written on the envelope, so there could be no mistake. No sender’s address, though, which made it all the more puzzling and, if he was absolutely honest with himself, a little disconcerting.
As he walked back to the house, he ripped open the envelope with his index finger and discovered that a single sheet of paper had been placed inside. He took it out and unfolded it. Quickly scanning its contents, a cold chill ran up his spine.
‘Your wife is cheating on you with your next-door neighbor. Yours truly—a well-wisher.’
Just then, his wife Joann appeared at the door, holding two mugs of tea. “Made you a cuppa, honey,” she said, as she held out one of the cups for his inspection.
He quickly shoved the letter into his pants pocket and gratefully took the mug from her hand.
“It’s that new flavor I picked up in town the other day,” she said. “Ginger and chamomile with a hint of lemon. It’s supposed to be good for settling an achy tummy.”
“Thanks, honey,” he said. He’d been suffering from a sore stomach for days now, and Joann’s concern was touching. She had urged him to go and see Doctor Poole, but so far, he’d held off on that. He knew what Tex would say: stop eating foods that irritate your stomach and take it easy. Even though he was retired now, after a long career as a long-haul trucker, from time to time the ulcer he had developed back then, mainly from lack of sleep and bad eating habits, reared its ugly head again. Nothing some ginger tea couldn’t handle.
“Any mail?” she asked.
He shook his head and took a sip from his cup of tea. “Nope. Nothing.”
“Strange. I thought I saw you take a letter from the mailbox.”
“No letter,” he said staunchly. “Nothing at all.”
“So what’s this, then?” she asked, and expertly slipped the letter from her husband’s pocket and held it out of reach. She quickly read the contents and frowned. “What’s this nonsense?”
“Probably some kook,” he said.
“Me! Having an affair with Dick! As if!”
He shrugged. “Like I said, must be some kook.”
She glanced at the house across the street, a dark expression on her face. “It’s probably that witch Sandra Jensson again. Always causing trouble, the nosy woman.” And before he could stop her, she was already marching across the street!
“Joann!” he called after her. “Just let it go. Joann!”
But knowing his wife, the last thing she would do was let this go. She and Sandra had never gotten along, ever since they had moved in all those many years ago. Most of the neighbors had welcomed the Hopegoods with open arms and had even thrown a block party in their honor. The only one who hadn’t bothered was Sandra Jensson, a widow and the person who had lived there the longest. Even Dick Bernstein, a man who got along with just about anyone, wasn’t a big fan of Sandra, accusing her of being an annoying busybody.
Grover sighed and hurried after his wife, who was already banging on Sandra’s door with her fist. “I know you’re in there, Sandra!” she yelled as she checked the window. “Don’t think I didn’t see you spying on us!”
But even if Sandra was home, she wasn’t answering the door. And if Grover was absolutely honest, he figured he wouldn’t open the door to Joann either—not when she was in this state.
“We don’t know it’s her that sent the letter,” he pointed out. “For one thing, it has a stamp.”
“So?”
“So why would Sandra put a stamp on the envelope when all she has to do is cross the street and deposit the letter in our mailbox?”
“If she did, we’d know without a doubt that she was the one that wrote the letter,” Joann argued. “But she’s much smarter than that. Instead, she stuck a stamp on it, making us think that it was someone else. But I know it was you!” she finished, raising her voice again.
“Maybe we should leave,” Grover suggested. The last thing he needed was to get into some kind of altercation with their neighbor. But Joann obviously thought differently, for she was already stomping around the house, en route to the backyard.
“Joann!” he said. “Just leave it!”
“I’m not going to leave it!” she said as he trailed after her. They had arrived at the back of the house, but if Joann thought they’d find their neighbor there, she was in for a disappointment: the backyard was devoid of anyone answering Sandra’s description.
But Joann wasn’t giving up. Instead, she tried the door handle of the kitchen door. And when that proved reluctant to yield to any pressure on her part, she glanced in through the large picture window, placing her hands to the sides of her face to have a better chance of locating their neighbor.
Just then, a voice attracted their attention. It was coming from Sandra’s next-door neighbor, Bud Spencer. A large man dressed in a white wife beater, with dark hair standing out in tufts on his arms, back and chest, he seemed amused by the Hopegoods’ attempts to track down their neighbor.
“Looking for Sandra?” he asked, a grin revealing his amusement. “Well, she’s not here. Left early this morning,” he added, proving once and for all that every person on this block took an inordinate interest in what their neighbors were up to. “Took the car and left.”
“Oh,” said Joann, finally accepting that her mission was a bust. She approached Bud, who was leaning his thick arms on the fence. “You’ve known Sandra a long time, haven’t you, Bud?”
He nodded. “I was her first neighbor, back in the day. Why?”
“Would you recognize her handwriting?”
“Not sure,” he said. He looked surprised when she handed him the letter. “What’s this?”
“A letter that arrived just now. Is this Sandra’s handwriting, you think?”
He frowned as he read, “‘Your wife is cheating on you with your next-door neighbor.’” He grinned as he looked up at Grover. “Looks like someone has been spying on you guys.”
“I’m sure it’s just a pack of lies,” said Grover, his cheeks coloring. The last thing he needed was for the entire neighborhood to chime in on what the letter was trying to convey.
“So is this Sandra’s handwriting, yes or no?” asked Joann.
“I’m not sure,” said Bud as he focused back on the letter. “I mean, I’ve seen stuff she wrote over the years, but…” Then he snapped his fingers. “Hang on. I think I kept some of her notes. Let me get them for you.”
“Notes?” asked Joann. “What notes?”
“When Flicka and I take a vacation, we ask Sandra to water the plants. And then when we get back, there are all these notes scattered around the place. Messages, you know, about the various things she feels she needs to report to us. About the state of the house, mostly. Repairs she figures we should make.” He grinned. “She’s a real busybody, that one.”
He hurried inside the house, and Grover and Joann shared a look.
“Do you think it was wise to let Bud read the letter?” he asked.
“Why not? I didn’t do anything wrong.” She then stared at him—astonishment clear in her eyes. “You don’t actually think she’s right, do you? About me having an affair with Dick?”
“No, of course not,” he said. Though it was true that once upon a time Dick had behaved in a flirty way towards Joann. Joann made it clear she wasn’t interested, Grover added his voice to the choir and told Dick to cease and desist, and that was that. At least as far as he knew.
But now with this letter…
Bud returned, waving a handful of notes, his wife Flicka hot on his heels. Pretty soon the entire neighborhood would be out there, poking their noses where they didn’t belong.
“Let’s compare,” said Bud as he held up one of the notes that Sandra had placed in his house.
“Sandra is such a busybody,” said Flicka. “If she ever tried something like that with me, I’d…” She balled her fists. “Well, I don’t know what I’d do, but that would be the last time she pulled a nasty stunt like that. Stirring up trouble.”
She was a smallish woman with bright red hair and a fiery disposition. Being married to Bud, she needed to be.
“Looks like it’s her handwriting,” Bud determined as he compared the note to the letter. “What do you guys think?”
Grover checked the handwriting on both missives, but had to admit he had absolutely no clue. “I mean, I’m not an expert,” he finally admitted.
“It looks the same,” said Flicka. “Though it could be different.”
“Yeah, it could be a different person wrote this,” said Bud, and sounded disappointed.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Joann. “She probably changed her handwriting. People do that, don’t they, to avoid detection? I’ll bet that’s what’s going on here.”
“Hey! What are you doing in my backyard!” suddenly a voice yelled behind them. When Grover turned, he found himself face to face with none other than Sandra herself. She must have just returned from her trip. “I don’t remember inviting you to a party!”
In response, Joann practically shoved the letter into their neighbor’s face. “You wrote this, didn’t you? Admit it!”
Sandra, a chunky woman in her late fifties or early sixties, frowned as she grabbed the letter from Joann’s hand. “What’s all this nonsense about a letter?”
“Read it!” said Joann.
“I don’t take orders from you!” said Sandra. “And besides, I can’t read this fine print without my reading glasses. Now where did I put them? I keep losing track of those darn—”
“On top of your head, Sandra,” Flicka said helpfully.
“Oh, right,” said Sandra as she lowered the spectacles to her eyes. “Where they usually are. Now let me take a look at this letter of yours. ‘Your wife is cheating on you with your next-door neighbor. Yours truly—a well-wisher.’” Her frown deepened. “Well, I didn’t write this. Why would I?”
“Because you’re always sticking your great big beak into our affairs!” Joann snapped.
“That’s a nasty thing to say!” said Sandra, wagging a finger in Joann’s face. “And I could sue you for deformation of my character.”
“I think it’s defamation,” said Bud.
“Whatever. I didn’t write this nonsense.” She raised an eyebrow in Grover’s direction. “Unless it’s true? Is your wife having an affair with your next-door neighbor, Grover?”
“Of course not,” said Grover, though he hated how unconvincing he sounded to his own ears. The thought had occurred to him often over the years. And it wasn’t hard to see why: after all, Joann was twenty years his junior, and back when he was always on the road, she spent most of her time on her own. He often wondered what she was up to when he wasn’t home. And even though she had less opportunity now that he was retired, that didn’t mean the affair had ended.
Maybe they were simply more circumspect these days.
Bud and Flicka also stared at Joann now, as did Sandra.
Suddenly she erupted, “I don’t believe this! You all believe I’m having an affair with Dick Bernstein!”
“Well, no…” said Bud carefully.
“Of course we don’t think you’re having an affair with Dick, Joann,” said Flicka. “And even if you are, that’s nobody’s business but yours, isn’t it?”
“Well, I’m not having an affair,” said Joann. “And if you don’t believe me, just ask Dick. He’ll tell you.”
Both Bud and Flicka quickly demurred. Only Sandra seemed inclined to take Joann up on her offer, but then finally decided it wouldn’t improve her standing in the neighborhood if she went around asking delicate and extremely personal questions to her neighbors.
“Look, I didn’t write this letter,” Sandra said finally as she handed the missive back to Joann and tipped her reading glasses back to the top of her head. “But whoever did must know something. Or else they wouldn’t have written it. You know what they say: where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
“It’s just a load of garbage,” Joann insisted. “And if I ever catch who’s behind this, they’ll rue the day they dumped this in my mailbox!”
With these words, she swept from the scene. And as Grover made to follow, he discovered that his progress was thwarted by Sandra having grabbed hold of his sleeve. She fixed him with a pair of glowing eyes and said emphatically, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks!”
And as he slunk back to his own home across the street, he couldn’t help but suspect there might be some truth to these words.

Chapter Four

Flicka watched the retreat of the Hopegoods with a kindling eye. She had never liked Joann Hopegood, and this latest incident had done little to change her mind about the woman.
“She’s such a pain in the patootie,” she said once the Hopegoods were out of earshot. “Always causing trouble.”
“This neighborhood has really gone to the dogs ever since they arrived,” Sandra agreed with her. “I mean, Grover is a great guy, but that wife of his is just so annoying.”
“What do you say, Bud?” asked Flicka. She now noticed how her husband stood staring after the Hopegoods, his tongue dangling from his mouth. Her eyes narrowed. “Bud!”
Her husband practically jumped to attention, like a puppy who’s just been caught sniffing its own behind. “Oh, absolutely,” he quickly said. “An absolute nuisance.”
If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought that Bud was infatuated with that terrible woman, but of course that couldn’t be the case, as Flicka knew that her husband liked redheads, and whatever else Joann was, she was anything but that. So not Bud’s type at all.
“Look, I think it’s time we took measures,” said Sandra now. “I mean, I didn’t want to say this in front of the Hopegoods, but this nonsense has gone on long enough, and so I think it’s time that we put a stop to it.”
“What did you have in mind?” asked Flicka.
“A petition,” said Sandra. “Asking for the Hopegoods to relocate to a different neighborhood. One that is more receptive to their brand of nonsense. Though, to be honest, I don’t see them faring any better someplace else. Women like Joann rub people the wrong way. They simply can’t help themselves. But I say we make a stand and get rid of them.”
“We can’t force them to move,” said Flicka.
“No, we can’t,” Sandra agreed. “But we can make life difficult for them... So difficult, in fact, that they finally decide they’re better off elsewhere.”
“I’m not sure,” said Bud. “Are you sure this is legal?”
“Of course it is!” said Sandra. “We’re all members of the homeowners association. And if we say that we want them out, they’re out—whether they like it or not.”
Sandra had a point, of course. It was true that Joann Hopegood had never gelled with any of them. Too bad for Grover, who wasn’t a bad sort. But if he couldn’t keep his wife under control, he’d simply have to suffer the consequences, along with her.
“Look, we’ll simply create a petition, and see what the other members think,” said Sandra. “And if we’re all in agreement, we’ll tell the Hopegoods the bad news at the next HOA meeting. And if they refuse…” She held up her hands. “Well, I guess it’s open season on the Hopegoods.”
“There’s one problem with that,” Bud pointed out.
“I don’t see any problem,” Sandra said.
“The Hills,” said Bud.
“Oh, right,” said Flicka.
Terence Hill’s wife, Darlene, had left her husband. And since she was the official owner of her home and the person who held the vote in the HOA, her absence might be construed as problematic if they wanted to present a united front.
“I just saw Terence take off,” said Bud. “He put a suitcase in the trunk of his car and drove off. So looks like both the Hills have left Greenleaf.”
“I didn’t notice that,” said Sandra, and looked perturbed. Flicka understood why. As the self-proclaimed leader of the HOA, Sandra prided herself on always knowing everything that happened on their block and liked to keep a close eye on all the goings-on by spying from her window. But since even she couldn’t keep watch twenty-four-seven, she was bound to miss some things sometimes. Though Terence Hill leaving so soon after Darlene was certainly big news. Rumor had it that not everything had been A-okay in the Hill household for some time now. And Marlene from across the road had even told Flicka that Terence was a wife-beater. She’d seen Darlene at the deli only last week, and she was wearing sunglasses and a scarf that Marlene was absolutely convinced covered an extensive range of bruises.
“Okay, we’ll deal with the Hills when the time comes,” said Sandra. “If need be, I’ll go and talk to Darlene myself, and get her signature. As far as Terence goes, we don’t need him.”
“So… are we really doing this?” asked Flicka, thrilled that finally action was being taken against the Hopegoods.
“Absolutely,” said Sandra. “The time has come to act.”
“But… what if the new people that move into the Hopegoods’ house are even worse than they are?” Bud asked.
For a moment, no one spoke, as they all imagined someone even worse than Joann Hopegood. It was hard to believe that such a person could possibly exist, but Bud was right. It could happen. “We’ll just have to make sure that the next family that moves in is vetted properly,” said Sandra.
“But how?” asked Bud. “It’s not as if this is a co-op.”
“It should be,” said Sandra. “That way we would have more control over who moves into the neighborhood.” She thought for a moment, then nodded. “We need to talk to the realtor. Get them on board. Get them to involve us in the decision-making process from the get-go.”
“But isn’t that illegal?” asked Bud.
“Again with the difficult questions!” Sandra cried. “Would you rather have another terrible neighbor terrorizing us for years to come? No? I didn’t think so. I’ll talk to the real estate agent, and make sure they talk to the HOA before they allow the sale to go through. But first,” she added as a keen look stole over her face, “we need to get rid of the Hopegoods.”