We often do beginnings on Sunday, taking a look at the start of one of my novels. CAT ON A HOT TIN WOOF, the 16th novel – but not the last! – in the Chet and Bernie mystery series – comes out April 14 (preorders make the publisher happy and therefore me). We’re now doing the beginning of each one, going backwards (since the series can be read in any order) and on the 16th Sunday we’ll do CAT ON A HOT TIN WOOF. Today we’re at HEART OF BARKNESS.

“Red-letter day, Chet,” said Sergeant Rick Torres, our buddy at the Valley PD Missing Persons Department. “In the car.”

Red-letter day was a mystery to me, and maybe red is, too. Bernie says I can’t be trusted when it comes to red, something I’ve never understood. I knew fire hydrants were red, for example, knew that as well as I know my own name. Which is Chet, in case you missed it, right up there off the jump. I also know “in the car,” and never need to be asked twice. Or even once. Rick opened the passenger-side door of the black-and-white. I hopped in, sat up nice and tall, totally alert, ready for anything. Was my tongue hanging out? Possibly. I got most of it stuffed back in. We have standards, me and Bernie, just one of the reasons that the Little Detective Agency is so successful, except for the finances part.