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“So where’s your pot of gold?” I asked.

But Kingman was too annoyed to be baited. Instead, he grumbled,“I should have known he was the ghost.”

“He’s the ghost?” asked Dooley, staring at the man in awe.

“Looks like he’s been coming down here,” Kingman said, inspecting the ‘throne’ the man had been sitting on, which was just an old overstuff chair. “He told Wilbur something about working on new material, so this must be where he’s been hiding all this time.”

“Rudolph is staying with you?” I asked.

“Yeah, his wife kicked him out again, and so he’s been crashing on the couch. I hope he doesn’t stick around too long. My delicate senses won’t be able to stand it much longer.”

“He does have a very particular body odor,” I admitted.

Unlike Wilbur himself, Rudolph is one of those people who have trouble holding down a job, or making much headway in life. Instead, he likes to sponge off his brother, and hope Wilbur will pay his way through life. He is harmless, though, and when he’s sober even pretty funny, apt at cracking jokes and generally the life and soul of the party.

“So if I understand you correctly,” I said. “Your ghost is actually Rudolph Vickery?”

Kingman merely glared at me, then headed for those stairs.

“So no ghost?” asked Dooley unhappily.

“No ghost,” I said. “Just a boozer.”

“And no gold?”

“No gold,” I said decidedly, happy that this ghost nonsense was settled. I hurried after Kingman. “Say, Kingman, did you hear about what happened to Dave James?”

“Yeah, I heard,” said Kingman, not too well pleased as we mounted the stairs.

“So have you heard any gossip? Anything that might tell us who killed the guy?”

“Nothing special,” he admitted, which is a rarity for the cat, and which showed me that he wasn’t entirely himself today. Having your human’s relative stay with you and haunt your house at night will do that to a cat, of course. We like our lives orderly and predictable, and don’t appreciate it when strangers suddenly come to call and end up sticking around and upsetting the status quo.

Instead of assuming his usual position at the front of the store, though, Kingman led us into the kitchen, where he proceeded to gobble up half a bowl of kibble, his way of coping with the circumstances that had made his life a little challenging of late. And to show us he had his heart in the right place, he then invited us to partake in this gourmet feast, a gesture for which we both thanked him profusely.

“I heard that Dave James was killed sometime late last night,” he said.

“Yeah, according to Abe Cornwall time of death was between six and eight.”

“One of your uncle Alec’s officers was in here earlier, and said they’ve already arrested his killer. A fine piece of police work, he called it. A young woman named Jayme Ricardo.”

“Jayme Ziccardi,” I corrected him. “Though she claims she didn’t do it.”

“What else is new, Max? Have you ever known a killer to admit he did it?”

“No, but I think she might actually be innocent.”

He shrugged, clearly not in the mood to delve too deep into the Dave James murder case.“According to this officer she stood to inherit a great deal of money.”

“Killers don’t inherit from their victims, Kingman.”

“So? No killer thinks they’ll get caught. No, the way I see it: she thought she could strike now, and get her hands on the guy’s millions, instead of waiting for him to die, which could take years and years. It’s the same old thing, Max: good old-fashioned greed.”

I wasn’t convinced, though. I’d met Jayme, and she didn’t strike me as the murderous type. Though of course Kingman was right: she did have an excellent motive for murder.

“Case closed, Max. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got things to do.”

“Big plans, Kingman?” asked Dooley.

Kingman gave us a sad look.“How about packing my bags and looking for a new home?”

We both regarded him with concern.“So bad, is it?” I said.

He nodded wordlessly, and as we stood there commiserating with our friend, suddenly an earthquake rocked the building. It took a while before I realized it was actually heavy metal music, and when I saw that the ceiling was undulating, dust falling down on us, and I heard a man stomping about upstairs, I felt safe in concluding it wasn’t an earthquake but Rudolph Vickery.

“He thinks he’s an artist now,” said Kingman sadly. “A heavy metal artist.”

“Oh, so those are the songs he’s been composing in the basement.”

“If you can call them songs. He basically just screams a lot and plays air guitar.”

A loud voice could now be heard, even as the stomping continued unabated.

“He wants to audition forThe Voice,” Kingman explained, “and he’s been practicing.”

The screeching became louder, and so did the howling guitars. My ears were hurting, and the dust was covering me all over. Not the ideal place to be in, in other words.

“He’s been practicing all week, and trying to destroy our ceiling in the process,” Kingman said, pointing out several cracks that had appeared in the kitchen ceiling.

“He’s going to come crashing through that ceiling if he keeps this up,” I said.