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Wallace nodded, visibly relieved.“At the end, he got a little sad, though. He seemed to realize he’d made a big fuss over nothing. I actually felt sorry for the poor guy. He acted like an addict, you know. A Duffer addict.”

“So maybe he should join the ADs. The Anonymous Dufferaholics?” The joke didn’t register, though, but then Odelia’s jokes rarely did. Maybe she wasn’t a born comedian.

Next on her list was the source of all the trouble: the Duffer Store, where those precious Duffers were sold.

When she arrived, though, a sign on the door said that the store was closed, which was odd, as it wasn’t even three o’clock yet. An old lady who’d arrived at the same time as her, shook her permed purple head. “Bad business, Miss Poole. Bad business.”

“Oh, and why is that?”

“I’ve been buying my Duffers here for years—my husband loves his daily slice of Duffer right before going to bed, and so do I, frankly speaking, and little Fifi, of course.”

“Your son?”

“Dog. Oh, does she love her Duffers. And now, for the first time in all these years, they’re out of Duffers! Can you imagine? My husband is going nuts. Fifi is going nuts. I had a small stash of Duffers that I kept in the pantry, like all Duffer lovers do, but then the night before last we ate our last slice. I know it was careless of me to leave my shopping to the last minute, and normally I never do, and then wouldn’t you know it?”

“No more Duffers?”

“No more Duffers! What is the world coming to, Miss Poole? This is a tragedy.”

“Uh-huh,” said Odelia. “Sure.”

The story was starting to get to her. It was often that way. A good story needed to cure a little. Like a Duffer. It started out small and silly, and then turned into a real whopper.“So where do they live, these Duffers? The people, I mean, not the sausages.”

The woman stared at her, appalled.“Never,” she said, wagging a reproachful finger, “never call a Duffer a sausage. It’s a salami. Asaucisse. Write that down, will you?”

She dutifully wrote it down.“Saucisse not sausage,” she muttered.

“They used to live over the store, but that was a long time ago. Nowadays they live in some big mansion out of town. Along what they call the Billionaire Mile. Of course back in my day it was called the Millionaire Mile, but I guess that’s inflation for ya, huh?”

“I guess.”

The woman was eyeing her intently.“Do you know that even the President of the United States of America loves his Duffer of a morning?”

“That wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Well, he does. So there you go.” And having delivered this bit of inside information into the world of the Duffer, she pottered off, probably to break the terrible news to her husband and Fifi that the Duffer Store had run out of Duffers.

Odelia’s phone chimed, and she fished it out of her bag. It was Dan.

“And? Did you talk to the Mayor?” asked the veteran newspaperman. “I would love to see his face when you confront him with his temper tantrum over a slice of sausage.”

“Never call a Duffer a sausage, Dan,” she said sternly. “It’s a saucisse.”

“I can tell this Duffer business is getting to you, honey. Stay objective, all right?”

“I’m just kidding, Dan. But the Duffer clientele clearly isn’t. The mayor isn’t the only one going nuts over this sudden Duffer dearth.”

“Duffer dearth. Nice one.”

“Yeah. It’s a real Dufferdry spell. Get it? Because salamis are air-dried?”

“Yah. Maybe you should stick to being a reporter.”

She cleared her throat.“So do you have any idea where I can find these Duffers?”

She heard the sound of keys clacking, then Dan came back with an address.

She whistled.“Nice digs.”

“Yeah. I should have gone into the sausage business.”

“Saucisse, Dan. Saucisse.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

She got back into her car and was just about to drive off when her phone jangled again. When she saw it was Chase, she picked up with a cheerful,“Howdy, stranger.”

“Howdy,” said Chase, sounding a lot less chipper.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“The weirdest thing. First off, your uncle seems to have gone missing.”

“That is weird.”

“Yeah, and secondly, all of Hampton Cove’s cats have gone missing, too.”

“What?”

“We’ve been getting dozens of calls from worried pet owners. Only cats, though, not dogs or parakeets or whatever, which is kind of specific, don’t you think? Not to mention strange.”

“Yeah,” she said, a worried frown creasing her brow. “Have you called Gran to ask—”

“About your cats? I have, but she’s at the office, so she has no idea. And your mom is at the library so she doesn’t know either. She promised to call me as soon as she gets home.”

“So… about my uncle?” she said slowly, thinking about the missing cats mystery. How strange that all the cats of Hampton Cove would suddenly go missing for some reason.

“Unfortunately he didn’t take the car, so I have no idea where he went.”

“He walked?”

“I know.”

“It’s not like my uncle to not take the car to go anywhere.”

“He has a pedometer app on his phone, so I guess he decided to use it.”

“Mh.”

“So what are you up to?”

“Doing a story on the missing Duffer.”