It’s three o’clock in the morning when the telephone wakes up Chief and his wife. It takes a few seconds for Chief to identify the voice as Max, one of his investigators. Max is in tears as he describes for Chief the gory details of the death of a beloved member of his family.

Chief is unable to console Max, so he contacts the duty officer and sends him over to Max’s house. "See what you can do to calm him down—you know how Max is," says the Chief.

Max is sitting on the floor in the utility room sobbing. The body is on the floor next to him. "Stella (Max’s wife) will never forgive me for this," Max groans.

With a deep breath, Max pulls himself together long enough to explain to the duty officer what happened. Stella’s beloved cat, Fluffy, loves to curl up in a pile of clothing, especially Stella’s. But this particular pile of clothing was in the washing machine ready to go.

On his way to bed, Max pours in a few soap granules, shuts the door and turns on the washing machine, unaware that Fluffy is trapped inside.

During the night Max wakes up and goes out to the kitchen for a glass of milk. On his way back to bed he remembers the clothes in the washer and decides to move them over to the dryer. When Max opens the washer door there’s Fluffy—all clean, spin dried, and with the last of her nine lives wasted.

After that incident Max and Stella start sending their laundry out. Eventually she’s able to forgive Max for what happened to poor ’ole Fluffy.

Chief’s phone rings nearly every night. That goes with the with the territory in police work. But for years after that, whenever the phone rings late at night, Chief wakes up wondering, "Is that Max having another family crisis?"