012222e

Bessie
jumped back in shock
loved the craters

110420c

 

The Prince reflected that, although the pie had been certified blackbird-free, no one had said anything about eldritch horror from beyond  He watched with considerable satisfaction as the King's legs, tightly wrapped by fetid suckered arms, vanished, bite by bite, into a hideous transdimensional maw.

062020b

Mary had a little lamb

At night it went to school

Books and sums availed it naught

It made a savory stew

041920

green
skin
water
minerals
south-facing window
he kept her very very well
but Jack-o-Lantern time, put her foot down, kids come first

120319b

jumpy cows
colonize the moon?
ah, that's bull

111819b

Titan
home to the cows
who didn't jump
quite high enough

110119b

Jack Sprat was found clutching an empty tub of lard. His death was ruled a suicide.

091119d

Peter knew he shouldn't have planted so many pumpkins, but he loved them so! His wife, too, he mused, gazing out across acres of giant pumpkins. She was out here somewhere--

020419c

Bo Peep's job in the nursery was short-lived

010119

Five Little Piggies

Folks call me Deadbolt, Hasp Deadbolt. They do that because it's my name. I'm a PI. Some free advice? Never get involved with quintuplets. Mothers of twins say the kids double-team them from infancy. I've never raised children so I wouldn't know, but it might be like having quints for clients. Four of them anyway. This is how it started.

Alma and I were cuddling on the couch. Or rather, she was talking about how to decorate the nursery, should we ever need one, and I was cuddling her. My cell phone rang. I let it go to voicemail, but later I listened to the message. It was from someone with a squeaky voice.

"Help me, Mr. Deadbolt, you're my only hope. My brother went shopping this morning and never returned. The police will do nothing. My brothers and I are frantic!"

I called him back. He said his name was Long Borsson.

"The police don't consider a person officially missing until they've been gone for 48 hours, Mr. Borsson. Why do you think your brother is in trouble?"

"Sir, he was planning to cook lunch, and now he's missed a fabulous roast-beef dinner. This is not like him, not like him at all. Food is very important to my family. Plus, a big scary-looking wolf has been hanging around and slavering. I suspect fowl play."

"Wolves are not birds," I said absently. I hadn't seen BB since an incident involving Mother Hubbard and a set of triplets*, a few years back. The wolf had escaped, and I wasn't happy to hear that he might be operating in my town again.

"Lemme let you talk to my brother," Mr. Borsson said, and I heard a new voice on the phone.

"Mr. Deadbolt. This is Forthright 'Veggie' Borsson. My brother might not have made clear the gravity of our situation." He went over the whole thing again, but I knew nothing more when he finally ran down than I had when he started.

"Mr. Borsson. 'Veggie.' If the Big Bad Wolf was stalking your brother, the police would have taken it seriously. Did you tell them about that part of it?"

"I'll give the phone to my brother. Maybe he can explain it better."

I started to ask how many of them there were, but a new voice, even higher and squeakier than the other two, started in. "Mr. Deadbolt. I am Squeaky Borsson. Perhaps my brothers did not make themselves clear. My brother, Opposable Borsson, has been kidnapped and eaten by a wolf. I want you to do something. Save him!"

"I am as opposed... err, against cannibalism as the next guy, but how can I save someone who has already been eaten?" His logic wagon had lost a wheel somewhere.

"Mr. Deadbolt. You don't understand. My brother isn't dead. He's standing right here."

"Let me talk to your brother." Maybe the next one would be a better listener.

"Which one?" he asked.

*

I decided that I needed to speak to these guys face-to-face. Maybe that way they'd make more sense. At nine o'clock the next morning I knocked on the door of a large brick ranch house. Closely shaved geometric topiary filled beds between the windows on either side of the door. I didn't know what to expect, so I wasn't surprised when a pig wearing overalls and a clean white T-shirt opened the door.

"Mr. Deadbolt, I presume."

I nodded.

"I'm Homer Borsson," he squeaked, shaking my hand, "please come in."

The foyer contained a small table under a mirror in a large gilt frame. On the table was a framed family photograph: five brothers, arms linked in front of the house. Down the hall I could see heavy dark furniture, and more photographs hanging on the wall. The first room on the right was the den. Three other pigs stood in front of a massive brick fireplace. Above the fireplace hung a gigantic painting of an elderly swinish couple, dressed conservatively and with not a trace of a smile. The three brothers who stood below the painting wore identical overalls, but with different colors and vintages of T-shirts. OMFG.

"Your missing brother, Opposable, he's identical too, right?" They nodded in unison.

They started to tell me the story again. The first one had been home all day, and hadn't seen or heard a thing. He wanted to make sure I understood this, and impressed it upon me vigorously, to the tune of 30 minutes plus. The next was the fellow who had enjoyed dinner. He had _really_ enjoyed it. By the time he was through I could have drawn you a timeline of each bite. Roast beef, medium rare, the tip of an asparagus spear (lemon butter), potatoes (not much gravy, but it had been made with oysters), etc.. The third didn't eat meat at all, he explained, but his vegetarian meal had been more than adequate, I gathered. The last was a timid sort, emphasizing how terrified his missing brother must be, and how much more terrified he would be if he was in the same situation. Don't think this story came across as coherently as it appears in the summary I just gave you! Two hours after I got there, I knew less of importance than I had when I walked in the door. I _did_ know the complete grocery shopping list that Opposable had taken with him to the market, but I wasn't sure how that was going to help me find him. In the end, I took the case in self-defense. I could discount the cacophony of his overprotective brothers, but something didn't smell right about Opposable's disappearance. I thought he was in trouble.

*

I decided to start by tackling the problem from the wolf angle. At first I couldn't find a thing. www.circleoflife.com didn't list him under "Predation Forecast," and the Carnivory Service (www.cs.gov) had not issued a Wolf Watch, much less a Warning. Then, taking a break with the Citynews.com, I spotted a notice about the neighborhood watch program in Heritage Hills beefing up its security patrols. The Hills weren't far from where the five little pigs lived.

The gatehouse at Heritage Hills was staffed by a goose.

"Petunia! I'm surprised to see you working for The Man."**

"A girl's gotta eat. Don't worry. I put in my time for the workers when I'm not on duty. Not to mention raising my goslings as responsible global citizens. What brings you here, Mr. Deadbolt?" I explained about the wolf, and she told me where to find the security chief. It's a small world. This is the kind of town where you can't go any place without running into somebody you know. That's why I'm always amazed when people seem to think they can keep their affairs secret. If I was going to cheat on Alma, I'd have to go to the next county to do it. Gas ain't cheap.

The chief of security I hadn't met, but Mr. al Rashri had heard of me.

"Mr. Deadbolt!" he exclaimed. "So good to meet you." He shook my hand vigorously. "I follow your adventures assiduously. The Humpty Dumpty case?*** Brilliant! What brings you to HH? Thinking of moving up?" He laughed. Picture Santa Claus, but with a louder voice.

"No sir, although you have a wonderful place here. I want to talk about wolves." He lost his smile then.

Al Rashri motioned me to a seat and offered me some coffee. He waited until we were both settled before he said anything else.

"I'll tell you, Mr. Deadbolt, in this business you hear things."

"Like what?" I said, taking a sip. I shuddered, ever so slightly, and set the cup down on his desk, far enough away so that I wouldn't absentmindedly pick it up again.

"Things like howls in the night. Heard something last night. I'm not sure what it was, but it wasn't no coyote." He leaned forward. "Can I trust you to be discreet? I don't want to hurt sales over something that's probably nothing, really. The owners don't like anything that hurts sales"

I nodded. "Mum's the word." And it is, if you're buying flowers for Mother's Day.

He was whispering now, and I had to lean forward myself. My hearing hasn't been so good since the little drummer boy moved in next door. "Pets have been disappearing. Dogs, cats, chickens, a couple of hedgehogs. I can't keep it quiet much longer. I've doubled my patrols, but half the herbivores quit, and I haven't been able to hire enough tough guys to fill the shifts. Some of the residents are threatening to move out, and the owners are on my case. I don't know what to do!"

I gulped my coffee. Gah! It was all I could to keep from hurling it across the room. I set the cup down and clasped my hands together.

"Let me handle it. Give me a security pass."

*

That's how I found myself out in the woods at midnight with a taser and a pair of night vision goggles. I've been on some stakeouts in my time, but out there, with the owls hooting, and the stars peeping between the leaves above my head, peepers peeping down by a woodland pond, was one of the most pleasant I have ever experienced. That is, it was until I felt something touch the back of my neck, and all of my muscles contracted violently and simultaneously. The next thing I knew I was lying on my back. A huge wolf had his jaws around my neck, teeth gently indenting the skin of my throat.

Been there before, but I can't say I care for it.

"Hey there, BB, long time no see." I smiled weakly. "Since when did you start using a taser?"

He growled, and bit down slightly.

"I know you're not supposed to talk with your mouth full. I promise not to try to get away."

He let go and backed up a pace. He knew I wasn't going anywhere.

"I'm a predator, Deadbolt. Kung Pao Tofu just doesn't do it for me. Besides, if your meal doesn't try to escape before you pour the barbecue sauce on, it's not worth eating."

He had a point. Not a good one, but he had it.

"I hear where you're coming from," I said, "but in this multicultural and multi-species civilization of ours, you can't just go devouring citizens willy-nilly. I suggest you get your kicks virtually, or, here's a thought. Why not check out paintball? It can be a pretty challenging sport. I have the bruises to prove it." I could feel the strength seeping back into my limbs, so when he lunged for my throat, I grabbed his paw and jammed his own taser right into his mouth. He was something else. Oh, he had it all right. He was smoking. And by the time the judge got through with him he'd be making license plates until the end of time. At least.

I found the missing pig bound and gagged in a hollow under some brush. The wolf had been using the place as a den. The little guy was starving, dehydrated, and filthy, but as soon as I untied him and took off the gag, he ran screaming all the way home. As for me, I'm relieved to see the wolf behind bars at last.

And one more thing. Alma and I are going with a barnyard theme for the nursery, in pastel pink and blue, if you're thinking of purchasing a gift. Don't spend a lot, and think spring.

The end

* "Give Your Dog a Bone," _Nursery Rhyme Noir_, Sam's Dot, 2008.

** "Encounter in St. Ives," _Nursery Rhyme Noir_, Sam's Dot, 2008.

*** "The Addled Egg," _Nursery Rhyme Noir_, Sam's Dot, 2008.

Nursery Rhyme Noir: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/42875 

123118

A Price Beyond Pearls

My feet were up and my socks were white. I wiggled my big toe and considered whether it was time to get new shoes. Maybe this week the check would come in on the blackbird case I'd solved for the Royal School of Culinary Arts. Maybe. And maybe Lunar Cheese Corp. would crawl back out of bankruptcy and I could sell my 10 shares. My name is Hasp Deadbolt. I'm a P.I.

The door slammed open, glass rattling. A 2-meter lobster stormed into my office. He slapped a newspaper down on my desk and clacked his chelae in my face. The ceiling fan, a little off kilter, broke the ensuing silence with its wobbly click click click.

The lobster tapped the paper, leaned forward. “Whadda ya call this, Deadbolt? Keepin' a lid on it?” Clack! My gooseneck lamp was a spark-spraying stub.

My feet hit the floor. So did my ass. My wife Alma likes my nose and I want to keep it, for her sake.

“Cool it, Red,” I replied, scrambling to my feet and straightening my shirt. “Keep your shell on. I haven't seen the paper.”

He flipped it around. The headline read “Homarus-on-Homarus Violence: Bay Cannibal Slays SCUBA Instructor.”

I shrugged. “They didn't get this from me. Maxillipeds and eyestalks floating by Pier 13. No way to keep that quiet. But see that forest-green stain in the photo? Some of that blood is the killer's. And he's missing a right maxilla. I'll find him.” Before he regenerates, I added silently.

“You'd better.”

He was down the stairs and out the door before I saw the chunks missing from the front of my desk. “Son of a witch!” That was going on his bill.

Chester Homarus had hired me to find the infamous Decapod Destroyer. The cops were hopeless, and the Lethal Lobster was giving all Decapoda a bad name. Like “Ten-foot” wasn't bad enough already.

I put on a worn suede jacket and hit the street. Coffee shop on the corner still closed. This whole part of town was too full of for-rent dumps. Crumbling brick apartment buildings abandoned and occupied only by skittering vermin, unglazed windows whistling into the wind, garbage strewn about and piled up in windrows. Precisely why I could afford to keep my office here.

The downtown police station was an ugly brick, built in the decade before I was born. The wiring was in disrepair and the place smelled like an abandoned swimming pool. Lynne was at her desk in cubicle city. She was a friendly blonde about my age. She'd liked me since I changed her baby sister's flat tire for her at 3 in the morning.

“What can I do you for, Hotcakes?” She blew at a lock of hair hanging in front of her face. I poured some sludge into her “visitor” mug.

“What've you got on those two right maxillas fished out of the harbor yesterday? “I asked.

“Maxillae. Not a damn thing. Two-month backlog at the DNA lab.” She waved to the battered wooden chair beside me.

I sank into it like a third strike hitting a catcher's glove. “Come on. I know those tests have gotten fast and cheap.” I took a sip, shuddered, and poured the coffee into the trash.

Lynne shook her head. “Not for us. Not yet. City's still using a vintage tester bigger than my apartment.”

“Not even for the Horrid Homarid?” Not even.

On my way out I passed a room containing a cluttered white board. The door was open, and the room was empty. Naturally, I ducked inside. I thought the board might contain some new information about the Deadly Decapod. But this was about a completely different case. A whole school full of Crassostrea virginica youngsters (oysters, to those who don't dig the Latin tongue) had been abducted a couple of weeks ago. I remembered reading about it. Now, their empty shells had been found. The kids had all been murdered. Devoured.

A hand landed on my shoulder like a sack of cement on a loading dock floor. “What gives, Deadbolt,” someone said in a voice like a truckload of gravel. I turned around, and looked up. And up. Detective Sergeant Wilson must've gotten human growth hormone in his mother's milk. That's the only explanation I can come up with. He isn't skinny, either. He gets asked to play Santa Claus more than pickup basketball. “I wasn't aware you were working with us on this case.” He shooed me out of the room and closed the door behind us.

“Looking for the facilities,” I replied, moving towards the stairs, “have you renovated since the last time I was here?”

“Have you been here before?” He was reaching for my arm when a couple of patrol officers stepped out of a side hall between us. I strode off quickly and hit the stairwell.

Back out on the street, I wasn't sure what to do next. The oyster shells had been discovered in a heap out behind an abandoned boat-building shop a few miles north of the city. But of course, that wasn't my case. I needed to find that injured lobster. It was about lunchtime, and I headed down to chelicerate city. This is an area along the waterfront where a lot of crustaceans hang out, and I thought I might be able to find out something about the murder. I ducked into Pinch's, and took a table in the corner. The area away from the bar wasn't too crowded yet, because this place was not known for the quality of its food. Or of the clientele. When the waitress stopped by I ordered a beer, and I mentioned that I was looking for information. I gave her a tip for her trouble.

“There will be more if I learn anything useful,” I said. She shrugged all of her shoulders and sashayed away. I wasn't sure she was going to pass my request along, but a few minutes later a blue crab sidled up to my table. “Have a seat,” I said. His claws snapped together nervously, and I was afraid he was going to run. I passed him a couple of bills and offered to buy him a drink, but he said he couldn't stay. He did sit down, and fiddled with the graffiti carved into the stained wooden table. “Who killed the lobster?” I asked, but he just blinked. “I know he lost a limb, have you seen him?” Nothing. I asked him every way I could think of, but he just kept on messing with the table and he didn't say a word. When he finished his beer, he left. I stood up to leave myself, and that's when I noticed the fresh scratches across the table. A crude drawing of a saber toothed mermaid. What the hell? It had to mean something. I took out a pocket knife and defaced the drawing quickly. It was time to go.

There were some other people I would like to talk to about dead decapods, but I wouldn't be able to get to them for hours, so I decided to take a drive up the coast. Alma wasn't busy, so she went with me. I rolled down the windows to make a poor man's convertible and soon we were flying up the highway, the wind in our hair and the sun on our shades. For most of the way I took the inland road, because there was less traffic. Rolling hills dotted with the white puffs of sheep, windmills, weatherbeaten old farmhouses, and clusters of trees in the stream valleys. Not like the shining white mansions lined up along the sea cliffs on the “A”. When we got close I turned left on a shell road called Carpenter Bay Road. It wasn't named for a woodworker, at least not directly. The Carpenter family had lived at the end of the road for generations. Gradually they dwindled, and no one lives on the property now, but they still won't sell the land to developers. The road dead ended on Carpenter Bay, a small and shallow water body whose waves lapped against the rotten pilings of Carpenter Boatbuilding Inc.

Nothing left standing besides the swaybacked boathouse, and a couple of small shacks that looked like they had been used for storage. In a previous century.

“Are you sure you're up for this,” I asked again, as we picked our way through thorny scrub toward the back of the boathouse,”might be kind of gruesome.”

“For God's sake,” Alma snapped, “we had raw oysters for dinner just last week!”

“Okay, okay.” We continued on our way in silence, but as we did so a somber mood took hold of me, and Alma put her arm through mine just before we turned the corner and beheld the site where the shells had been found.

There wasn't much to see anymore. The investigators had picked up all the shells. There was a scattering of reflective bits that could've been flecks of mica if we didn't know better. I wasn't interested in the children's remains, anyway. I was hoping for some information about the killer or killers that might have been missed by the local police.

“What do you think this is?” I pointed to some areas where the ground looked like it had been swept by some heavy object. “It's almost like a footprint, but not a human one,” I said.

“What could have caused it?”

“I don't know, but I may know someone who does.” I took pictures from several different directions and distances. We found plenty of human footprints, but we couldn't tell which had been made by police investigators and whether the large creature whose tracks we'd found had butchered the oysters alone.. “Too bad there were no eyewitnesses.”

“What about the gulls?” Alma asked.

“Birdbrains!,” I said. “Everything's a joke to them.” These were laughing gulls; they're the worst. You never get anything useful from them.

Professor Dani Martini is a marine biologist at the Institute of Marine Sciences. She studies tracks. You would know at first glance that she had tenure, because anyone with that much facial hardware isn't trying to suck up to old guys. Her small office was crowded with books, computer hardware, skulls of marine creatures, framed photos, and other bric-a-brac. I'd had to shift a half-meter stack of papers just to find a place to sit.

“What do you think?” She had been scrutinizing my photos for 15 minutes.

“Hmm. At least a ton, I'd say. Something more at home in the water than on land. See? This is the mark of a flipper.” She tapped a pencil against one of her monitors.

“Sooo, can you identify individuals?”

“Heck no, Hasp. I can't even tell a walrus from an elephant seal. It's very rare to be able to recognize individuals from tracks. Some kind of unique deformity is about the only way.”

I should be so lucky. Still, I knew something I hadn't known before. I was looking for a large pinniped. And then I remembered the crab's carving. A saber-toothed mermaid? A walrus! And how many of them frequented the waterfront?

One, as it turned out. Doug Pinni worked for cash under the table, doing whatever called for a strong flipper and tight lips. As far as I could tell he had only one friend: an unemployed busboy named Lewis Carpenter with a soft spot for oysters on the half shell. Carpenter! How very interesting. Alma offered to find out how he was connected to the boatbuilding Carpenters. I decided to pay a visit to Doug the walrus. Then I really needed to do something to keep Chester pacified.

Doug lived in a one-room shack at the south end of the bay. Not much there but an industrial size freezer, a well-appointed kitchen, and a pool that communicated directly with the bay. This seemed to be where he slept. I knocked on the gray-plank wall.

“Come,” I thought I heard, so I did. Doug was wallowing in his pool, sucking on a hand-rolled smoke more than an inch in diameter.

“Damn, you ain't Lew!”

“We can be distinguished with the naked eye. The name's Dead-”

The walrus surged out of the pool and pinned me to the wall. “I know who you are,” it growled, one yard-long tusk pressing into my ribcage. “What are you doin' here?”

“Doug Pinni?”

“Duh. I am the walrus!”

“I can place you at the mass-oystering site on Carpenter Bay when those kids were shucked. Tell me you didn't kill and eat any of those children.” With a wordless bellow the walrus picked me up and threw me through the wall.

When I came to I made a mental note: don't barge in on a 2-ton walrus and throw your weight around. It was pitch dark by the time I limped up to the streetcar stop at Oysterers Wharf, and nearly midnight when I got home.

I smelled chowder. I tried to sneak into the bathroom to clean up before Alma saw me, but I guess she'd gotten pretty hungry waiting. She stepped into the hall, did a double-take, and screamed.

“You shoulda seen the other guy,” I mumbled. Then she hugged me and I screamed myself.

“Oh H.D.,” she moaned, “what am I gonna do with you?!”

“Bath, dinner, strong drink?” I suggested. But I must've dropped off before the bath was ready and that was all she wrote until morning.

The next day I hurt all over and I stayed in. I probably wouldn't have gotten far. A day of recuperation meant that I couldn't put the screws to Lewis Carpenter. I really should have tracked him down before tackling the walrus. Now, they had time to get together, come up with consistent stories, and tie up loose ends. There was little I could do from home, so I took a nap.

About 3 in the afternoon I got a visit from Lynne. I was lying on the couch, aching, and trying to make a to-do list.

“Deadbolt! You look terrible!” she cried. Her arms twitched.

“No hugs!” I whispered.

“You'll never guess!” she said. I just shook my head. “Carpenter's been found dead!” I blinked.

“Murdered, probably.”

“Makes sense,” I replied. Now what. That worm could have been my best witness against the walrus. “How did he die?” I asked.

“Beaten to death and thrown in the bay,” she said. Talk about loose ends! I was back to square one on the oysters, and hadn't made even that much progress on the lobster killing. But hold on, the crab had suggested that the two crimes were connected. Maybe the walrus knew who was killing lobsters. This time I wouldn't go unprepared.

Walruses are pretty nearly blind, so I went at night. I wore black and carried a flashlight with a dim red bulb. I walked softly.

The shack was dark and quiet. A light breeze carried the scent of the sea. A few of the brighter stars twinkled through a thin haze. I slipped through the open door.

The light came on. Pinni was staring right at me. “You want some more?” he growled. His muscles tensed.

“I want to talk,” I said. “I think you can help me.”

“Why should I?” He didn't sound inclined to do me any favors, but he was no longer poised to charge.

“Someone's been murdering decapods,” I said, leaning against the wall and crossing my legs at the ankle.

“Not me, I can't stand 'em. An oyster, now, or a quahog: yum! But lobsters? I'd have to be starving!”

I shook my head. “I know you wouldn't eat a lobster. But you might know who did. I've been hired to find out who killed the SCUBA teacher. Only that. I have no reason to bother the police with anything else.” I disgusted myself by saying it, a little. Does knowing that oyster parents never even know their spawn, that oysters lack the tiniest shred of empathy, salve the conscience? A little.

The walrus galumphed toward me. I tensed, ready to dive for the door if it charged. It might already be too close.

“Won't do you any good,” the walrus said, “what I have to tell you, but I'll hold you to your promise.” It opened its mouth wide, raising yellowed tusks. I nodded.

“It's not some crazed serial killer,” Pinni continued. I raised one eyebrow. “Two killers. The second death was revenge for the first killing. So there won't be any more. Do nothing and the furore will die down soon enough.”

“The one that's out there needs to be brought to justice,” I retorted angrily, then jumped back at the walrus' bark. He barked again and I realized he was laughing.

”You poor sap, you won't get paid. You were set up from the beginning.” The walrus dove into the pool and was gone.

This was bullshit. I'd seen Chester almost right after the second killing. He hadn't been maimed. But what else could Pinni have meant? Did the walrus mean that Chester had paid another lobster to kill and eat the SCUBA instructor? That seemed … implausible. Chester didn't have the kind of money that would require. The walrus had said “revenge,” which implied a connection between Chester and the first victim. I hurried back towards home. First thing in the morning I'd check out the back numbers of the paper at the library.

I walked up to the house and saw that the door was open a crack. No way Alma was going to let that happen. Something was wrong. I took the alley, more like a brick tunnel, narrow as it was, and glanced in the windows on my way. Living room, nothing; den: nothing; kitchen. Nothing. Back door hallway, nothing. Second floor bathroom window doesn't lock. I had long since figured out how to break in silently. My ribs wouldn't thank me, but I thought I'd make it. I climbed the wall, digging in to the toe holds, till I was within reach of the window. I stepped up a bit more, avoiding the loose brick, and gently pushed up the sash. I leaned in and the sash dropped. Tears came to my eyes. I felt like an icepick had come through the top of my head. I bit my tongue, waited while the pain subsided to a pounding that kept time with my pulse. I didn't hear anything stir inside the house. After a minute I climbed over the sink (ouch!) and went to the door. Listened. Out in the hall. I could hear the ticking of the bedroom clock. I went that way. The bed was made, nothing out of place. I searched the whole house: spare room (empty, but it hadn't been for long), Alma's work room, the other bathroom, the 5 rooms on the first floor. My home office looked like someone had rummaged through it, as usual. On the kitchen table I found a note, propped against the salt shaker. In Alma's hand it read “Your office. Hurry!” I was working blind, not knowing what Chester wanted, how he related to the killer's two victims, or what I'd find at the office. I needed time to make sense of it all, and time had just run out.

*

I parked right in front of my building, locked the car, and walked in the front door. I took the stairs. I haven't trusted the elevator since I found out what the maintenance schedule was: the mechanism gets a lube job every time hell freezes over, need it or not. When I got to the 4^th floor I paused to catch my breath. Outside my office I paused again. Were they here? Yes! I didn't hear the ceiling fan, which I never turned off. I knocked. Hard!

Some quiet muttering. I knocked again. After the third time, Alma said “Who is it?”

I didn't say anything, just gave 'em the old shave-and-a-haircut one more time. Someone ripped the door open. Chester stuck his head out. “Deadboooooolt!!” he screamed. I reached out, grabbed his right maxilla, and tore it off. Then I waved it in his face. The real new maxilla, growing from the stub the diver had left him with a few days ago, curled involuntarily as he glared and flexed his chelae.

“Was the first victim your son? Your brother?” I tossed him the plastic maxilla. “Look, it doesn't matter. No matter your justification, you have to pay your debt.” He opened his mouth, but it was Alma who spoke.

“Hasp! What if Chester had killed me? Would you have turned him over to the custodians of justice?”

“Heck no. I'd have torn out his limbs one by one. And fed them to him. But that's--”

She turned to the lobster. “Run. You have 15 minutes.” He didn't move. “GO!!” she screamed. He went.

The cops didn't hesitate when I told them Chester had overpowered me and skedaddled. They boiled out of the station like a nest of stomped fire ants, but they never found him.

Later, I mailed a photo of the walrus drag marks I'd found behind the Carpenter's boathouse to Lynne. I hoped the cops would figure that one out on their own. Since I had promised not to tell.

End

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walrus_and_the_Carpenter

More Hasp Deadbolt: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/42875

123018

Who Killed Wee Willie?

Ever since the leaping cow caper I’ve been jumpy, so when a middle-aged broad knocked on my door I heaved a sigh of relief. I should have known better.

“What is it, Ma’am?” I asked.

Mrs. Winkie told me her son William had had a good job in curfew management, but two days ago he’d disappeared. He hadn’t been seen since.

“Curfew, eh?” I probed, “Anybody you know who likes to stay up late?” She hadn’t a clue, so I hit the streets.

It didn’t take long to garner some suspects. Word was that a rough crowd called the Nine O’Clock Gang had objected to Winkie’s zealous enforcement of the 8 p.m. curfew. They’d tried to buy Winkie off with a sack of suckers.

“Dey even said dey’d trow in some jawbreakas,” Chas told me. But it was no good. I was developing the theory that, at approximately 8:01 last Wednesday, the Niners had offed Willie so they could stay up late.

I cornered the leader of the Niners in a dive near the waterfront. He denied killing Willie. “But we seen somethin’,” he told me. He and his boys had seen Willie knock on a window. The window had opened and Willie had been dragged inside. They hadn’t seen him come out.

I visited the two-story brick house that night. No one was home, so I entered through a back window. When Miss Muffet came home about 4 a.m. I was waiting for her.

“Why’d you do it?” I asked.

“Do what?” she asked innocently. I showed her one of the odd-shaped packages from the freezer and she broke down.

“It was that incessant rapping and calling. Every single night at 8 o’clock! I just couldn’t take it. My nerves haven’t been the same since the spider incident.”

“I sympathise, lady, but you can’t kill people because they’re irritating.”

* * *

Mrs. Winkie took it hard. I tried to cheer her up. “Willie was a martyr for decency, order, and bed time,” I told her, “maybe some day they’ll write a song about him.”

end

Reference:

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,

Upstairs and downstairs, in his night gown,

Rapping at the windows, calling through the locks,

Are the children in their beds? Now it’s 8 o’clock!

More Hasp Deadbolt: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/42875

122918

Encounter in St. Ives

I almost decided not to tell this story. No one likes to admit he's acted like a fool. Still, I had the best of intentions. Anyway, try not to judge me too harshly. Alma was gone and I was on my own. She was taking care of her mother, who was recovering from a serious injury that resulted from, well, basically forgetting that she was a little old lady with brittle bones. There, it had to be said. At the time this all happened I had been depending on my own cooking and my own company for a couple of weeks.

-----

After successfully concluding a case involving a large number of fowl, egregious food safety violations, and foreign royalty*, I stopped off in a bar to relax. With Alma out of town there was no reason to hurry home. I chose a place I'd never been before, called the Unicorn Cutlet (obviously a story there**). It was a place frequented primarily by locals. Shopkeepers with their dirty aprons and worn shoes pointedly ignored servants and apprentices of various kinds (their clothing in even greater stages of disrepair), and everyone seemed to know each other. Even a gaggle of geese in the corner were on a first name basis with the servers and with the butchers' apprentices at the next table. Perfect!

Now I'm sitting at the bar, drinking a beer and minding my own business, when I overhear a fellow talking about something that happened to him on the St. Ives highway. I missed the beginning of the conversation.

".... So this guy had a whole crowd of women with him. He claimed he'd married them all. And get this, he said each of those women had 40 cats. Well, there is this crazy old woman on my block who has 13 cats, but everybody knows she's crazy. This guy was talking like it's perfectly normal to have more than three dozen cats. That wasn't the half of it! He also said each one of those cats had 40 kittens." At this point he stopped to take a drink and the kid next to him says

"Holy mackerel! That's like 120, what with the wives and livestock and all."

And then Phil, the bartender, chimes in. "How did they carry all these critters around? It's not like cats will stroll along with you. Did they have wagons? And why didn't he count the horses pulling the wagons?"

"No, they didn't have the cats with them, they just said they had them. Right, Mr. P.?" The young man replied, turning to the first speaker for confirmation.

"Course he didn't have them with him. That would be a herd, for which you need a permit. And everybody knows you can't herd cats. Getting a little dry here Phil." Mr. P. took off his battered fedora, ran his fingers through his hair, and pulled the hat firmly back down over his ears again. Phil handed him a fresh beer and he took a deep gulp. "And it wasn't 80 cats, must've been a couple hundred."

"40 and 40, that's 80." The kid says, and he drains his beer. The state of public education these days! It'll be kids like this running things in a few years, and then the whole city will really be going you know where in a basket.

I cleared my throat. "Actually, wives, cats, kits, and all, not counting whatever he keeps the animals in, that's 64,000." This pronouncement met with a stunned silence. "Well that's 40 cubed, don't you know. Nevermind, that's not important now. What is important is that this fellow seems to be guilty of both polygamy and animal cruelty. Where did you say he came from?"

Mr. P. turns to me and looks me up and down under the brim of his hat. "I didn't say. And who are you again?"

"Deadbolt. Hasp Deadbolt. I'm a PI. But that's not important now. What this guy might be doing to cats isn't right and needs to be stopped."

The kid broke in. "Lookit, Mister, no one's paying you to investigate this, so just let it rest. If there's anything to handle, the authorities can do that."

Well, it was true I wasn't involved. I finished my beer and left. But while I stood waiting at the bus stop, I felt a tug on my arm. It was one of the geese. Actually, it was all of the geese. But the one tugging on my arm introduced herself as Petunia.

"I heard what you said about the cats Mr. Deadbolt," she said. "Now I don't like cats any more than the next goose, but mistreatment of sentient beings is wrong. We are in solidarity with oppressed lifeforms everywhere. And were any of those wives underage brides? Forced marriage, feline slavery, this might just be the tip of the iceberg with this egg stealer. This kind of behavior is a natural outgrowth of the depravity of a hierarchical being-owning agrarian oligarchy, and the sheriff here isn't going to do anything. We want to help."

I guess it figured that socialism would go along with flocking behavior, but I had never encountered it before. "Do you know how to get to St. Ives?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," Petunia said. "Is that near Altoona?"***

"Never mind," I said. "Meet me out by the highway at midnight. We have some investigating to do."

-----

I had not realized that Petunia intended to bring the whole flock. They were not professional sleuths like I am and they were noisy. I ended up sending most of the flock around to the other side of the farm on a fool's errand, looking for some of their wild counterparts, who I assured them wanted to join our cause. Petunia and I ducked under the single strand of barbed wire and went in.

I realized immediately something was wrong. The place was quiet, too quite. Too quiet for a farm that had 64,000 cats living on just a few acres. And there was only one barn. How many cats can fit in a single barn anyway? I'm not a farmer, I don't know the answers to these questions. But I'm certain it isn't 64K. Petunia was no help; she couldn't calculate the volume of a non-cubicle barn with both hands, er, wings. Behind the barn was a pigpen. There was only one pig in there, a young hog wearing a red bandanna around his neck. Before I could stop her, Petunia woke him up.

"Hey you," she hissed, "wake up."

He raised his head, shook it a few times, then staggered to his feet. He trotted over to the fence. "Who are you," he asked. Well, she spilled the whole story, invited him to join the revolution. He shook his head.

"I'm a confirmed capitalist. I think rewards come to those who work. If you gain wealth, it's because you deserve it. There are a few bad apples in the trough, but they are outcompeted by those who work hard, network together, and whose word is bond. But I'm a liberal. Thought about becoming a Unitarian at one time. I believe in your right to pursue your dreams. Of course, what do I know? I'm just a pig. By the way, my name's Freddie."

I was getting impatient. "Look," I said, "I'm getting impatient. We are here to find out if there's anything wrong on this farm. What can you tell us?"

"Wrong? Wrong?! I can tell you plenty that's wrong. Starting with me being stuck in this pen day after day, night after night. Let me out, and I'll help you any way I can." So we did.

"Solidarity," Petunia whispered.

"Enlightened self interest," Freddie whispered back.

"Whatever," I said.

Freddie showed us how to jigger the back door on the barn, and in moments we were inside. We looked around for a few minutes, and then I said "where are the cats?"

"Beats me," the pig replied. "I've seen them around during the day, but I don't know where they sleep. I do know it's somewhere in this barn, because I see them going in here every evening. I don't think I've ever seen 64,000. Maybe two or three hundred at the most."

Just then, Petunia said "look what I found." She was holding a bag over her head. It was about twice as big as she was, and completely stuffed with something. "What do you suppose is in here?" She asked.

"One way to find out." The pig pulled out a pocketknife and reached out to the bag.

"Don't touch that!" I hissed, but I was too late. As soon as the point of the knife touched it the sack ripped apart. Kittens shot everywhere.

Petunia dug herself out from under a pile of sleepy fluff balls. "What did you do that for? You broke the magic bag."

"Magic isn't real," Freddie said angrily, "it's just a fairy tale!"

"Oh yeah!" The goose shot back angrily. "And how do you explain 343 cats in a bag small and light enough for me to hold over my head?"

"How do you know how many there are? Who died and made you an idiot savant?"

"I've got lots of experience counting goslings. Goslings never sit still, you have to learn to count fast and accurately."

"Then that means he only has seven wives," I mused.

"That's right," growled a deep voice, "and what are you doing in my barn in the middle of the night?" A tall man with a big black beard, a pot belly, a t-shirt from the "Cock and Bull Café", and a pair of worn suspender overalls covered us from the front door of the barn with a double barreled shotgun. "And who are you anyway?"

"Sir, I can explain," I began, but Freddie jumped in front of me.

"Farmer Bean," he said, "it's all my fault. I cut the bag. But I don't think it's right for you to keep the cats in there all night. They should have some fresh air every now and then. And what about me? I'm stuck in my pen all the time, don't you think I deserve the opportunity to get out occasionally?"

"I don't have room for all these cats otherwise. The little women, bless their hearts, love kittens so, but kittens grow up to be cats, and they have more kittens and there are only so many mice to go around. I can't have them eating the geese."

"I have to agree with you there," Petunia put in, "but if you keep the people in chains, or in bags, they will rise up and overthrow you. Or at least, they are within their rights to do so." She had noticed in mid manifesto that most of the kittens had curled up and gone to sleep. Just about every horizontal surface in the barn had two or three sleeping cats on it. There must've been 150 of them on the floor around us. "I guess we jumped to unjustified conclusions," she went on, "is there any way we can make it up to you?"

Farmer Bean rubbed his chin. "Well," he began, "do you know anyone who can lay golden eggs? That would really help my cash flow. Farm equipment has gotten so expensive these days."

"I know somebody who knows somebody," Petunia replied, "but I don't know how she would feel about joining a free-market economy. Let me talk to her."

"I'm wondering about your wives," I put in. "I'd like to speak to at least one or two of them. Just to make sure everything is all right."

Farmer Bean scowled at me. "I resent the implications," he said. "But I'll make allowances, because you're an idiot." I opened my mouth, but shut it again. Maybe I deserved it. Something about being away from Alma for extended periods did something to my brain.

"Maybe not a total idiot," he went on. "They must be just about ready, let's go." He led us out of the barn, across the yard, and into the big house. There, six or seven women, I never did manage a definitive count, were laying out platters of freshly baked cookies and pitchers of milk at a long dining room table. One place had a pile of flowers on the plate, and I assumed that was for Petunia. We all sat down to a delicious home-cooked snack. But just then there was a knock at the door, it opened, and the rest of the geese trooped in. After a short pause to put out some more flowers everybody dug in. I apologized to Farmer Bean, told him that detective services would be his at no charge just for the asking, shook hands with everyone (unless I missed one of the wives), and headed home, dropping the geese off on the way.

I didn't hear from any of them again until a courier delivered a big festively wrapped box at the house the following December. A box with air holes. The label read "Compliments of the Bean family."

"Alma," I called, "what do you think about a kitten?"

The end

Source material:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_I_Was_Going_to_St_Ives

Footnotes:

*"Death of a king: fowl play or simply bad hygiene?"

**A horrific tale of love, loss, and cannibalism, for which the world is not yet ready.

***Thanks Walt.

Reprinted from Nursery Rhyme Noir -- https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/42875