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“Let’s grab him!” Chase said, and was out of those bushes and proving his parents correct in naming him Chase: he hurried in the direction of the blackmailer, and made haste doing so. Unfortunately the blackmailer must have seen him coming, for he, too, quickened his step, then broke into an outright run. Odelia had sprang from the bushes like a coiled spring, and even Dooley and myself were giving chase, though at a much more sedate tempo. And as the chase was on, we could see Chase gaining on the blackmailer, and I anticipated an imminent capture any moment when all of a sudden, out of the bushes Gran and Scarlett appeared, followed by Harriet and Brutus. They crossed Chase’s path as the cop was in the homestretch to tackle the blackmailer, and their timing was thus that Gran collided with Chase, Scarlett collided with Odelia, Harriet collided with Dooley, and Brutus collided with me. So on the whole you might say that it was one serendipitous collision, and the upshot was that by the time all the limbs had been disentangled, and all the heads had been screwed on right again, and the loud and vociferous recriminations had died away, of our blackmailer there was not a single trace.

In other words, the neighborhood watch—or should I call them the Neighborhood Cat Watch now?—had effectively been instrumental in allowing the bad guy to get away.

Not a propitious start for Gran and Harriet’s latest harebrained scheme!

The conversation that followed wasn’t a very fruitful one, either.

“You let him get away!” Chase cried.

“Let who get away?” asked Gran, massaging a sore spot where the large and muscular cop had bumped into her. It was in fact a small miracle that all her body parts were still attached and that she was still breathing. If a man of Chase’s dimensions had bumped into me, going at that speed, I would have been flattened. Like running into a bulldozer.

“Can’t tell you,” Chase grunted, scanning the horizon for the elusive blackmailer.

“Can’t tell me what?”

“Sorry—it’s classified,” the cop announced.

“Classified? Who are you? James Bond? Do you have a license to kill, too? Cause you tried to kill me just now!”

“As if,” Chase scoffed. He was clearly annoyed that he’d lost his man.

“Chase is probably right,” said Dooley. “I think Gran is very hard to kill.”

“Oh, don’t say things like that, Dooley,” said Harriet. “It’s upsetting.”

“No, but it’s true. She reminds me of a certain bug.”

“What bug?” asked Harriet.

“Well, it was in a Discovery Channel documentary the other night. There’s this bug that can survive anything. They’ve even shot it into space and it survived. Now what are they called?”

“Tartigrades,” I said. I’d also seen this particular documentary.

“That’s it!” Dooley cried.

“Also called water bears or moss piglets.”

“Who are you calling a moss piglet?” asked Gran, giving me a dangerous look.

“So who were you chasing?” asked Brutus, getting back to the point at issue.

“Oh, you know, Brutus,” I said. “You were in Odelia’s office this morning.”

“Oh, that,” said Brutus, as if suddenly remembering what was the most important case that had come our way in weeks.

“Who were they chasing, Brutus?” asked Gran.

“Umm…” said Brutus, cutting a quick glance to Odelia, who placed a finger to her lips in the universal sign of ‘Shut up if you know what’s good for you!’ And so Brutus did shut up, because he did know what was good for him–and who.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” said Gran. “We’re all part of the same neighborhood watch now. And us neighborhood watchers don’t keep secrets from each other. That’s immoral.”

“Immoral!” spat Chase. “Wanna know what’s immoral? Sabotaging our operation!”

“If only you’d told us about your ‘operation,’ Mr. Bond, we could have helped you!” said Gran, getting a little hot under her collar.

Dooley uttered a giggle, causing all eyes to turn to him.“Mr. Bond,” he said. “It’s funny, because we’re working for Mrs. Bond.”

“Mrs. Bond? Who’s Mrs. Bond?” said Gran.

“Rosa Bond?” asked Scarlett. “The wife of Tilton Bond?”

“Who’s Tilton Bond?” asked Gran. “James Bond’s brother?”

“He used to run an internet business, then sold it for a lot of money and since then he’s set up a foundation and has been giving a lot of his money to charity.”

“Nutjob,” Gran grunted. Clearly she couldn’t understand why anyone would give their precious millions to charity.

Odelia turned to her husband.“Maybe we better tell her,” she said.

“I thought your client had sworn you to absolute secrecy?”

“Yeah, but Gran won’t tell anyone, will you, Gran?”

“Me? Tell anyone? Never has there ever been anyone as discreet as me.”

Scarlett made a scoffing sound at that, but when Gran gave her a look that could kill, she quickly shut up.

“Look, this has to remain between the four of us, all right?” said Odelia.

“Absolutely—now spill.”

And so Odelia proceeded to explain to her grandmother and Scarlett the circumstances of our nocturnal stakeout. It caused the two friends to utter a whistle of surprise.