Detective Peak arrive at Felimore mansion
as soon as he could. But before he could even leave the pumpkin carriage, his old friend - officer Squiggle – jumped at him with the protocol of the issue.- Not even gonna ask how the cheese’s flowing in the city? – the newcomer smirked.
- Ah, wouldn’t I know! The cheese is same everywhere. What matters is how you collect it. Now, Mr. Peak, as I’ve told you already, the cat died, but by the time you’ve arrived they’ve already buried her at the backyard.
Detective Peak strained the air through his teeth.
- So no access to body, huh?
- Yes. Fo… Four days ago. Unfortunately, there is no dog in the neighborhood to exhume it.
- Very w-weird notion for such neighborhood as this one. But at least it leaves us devoid of wrong conclusions.
- Oh, yes, in such wobbly times as these, another story about police and species bias wouldn’t help our department, - giggled Squiggle, pulling his shirt collar.
The carriage carried by pigeons was already gone, and by the time the conversation of the investigation team that you’ve just read ended, the two mice were halfway near the backyard. Squiggle pointed at a fresh hill of soil hiding amidst blueberry bushes and partly covered by a shadow of a small bird fountain.
Two vigorous lads were just in the middle of water tennis, spewing out little streams of water at each other and hopping in circles to avoid opponent’s shots. But after every such attack both birds would then leap deep into the ceramic sink to reload their tiny cheeky magazines. Detective ran to the grave, and moved his eyes upwards to the porcelain birdbath, a symbol of birds’ freedom that now literally stood above the tomb of cats’ tyranny and misavemy (miso+avem = hatred+bird in latin).
- Ask them not to leave until we come back again, - Peak commanded to Squiggle briskly. And while his helper started his attempts of climbing onto the bath, or at least onto one of the berry bushes, Detective Peak hurried to the back door, hoping to find the crime scene himself, following the details of the letter that Squiggle had sent him a few days ago.
Mr. Peak breached the pet door, shook his head. He saw a back of some man who was coming from the second floor. With a precise roll he crossed the hallway, slightly kicked a door on his left, made yet another roll to outrun the slowly moving door and squeezed between the door and the wall so no one could see him. Just in…
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARHHRFHHRH! The wooden frame hit the tip of detective’s tail. The mouse lied on the floor with its eyes tightly shut in pain and its paws hugging its head in hopeless excruciation. All he could do was to wait until the door naturally moves away from the wall so he could get his tail out. But the room was quiet, and pretty soon Peak had to push the door back to lock himself inside and scrutinize the interior with relative safety.
He saw the cat’s tower. And next to it – a large cage full of decorative sawdust. There was also some wheel inside the cage and at that moment it was occupied. Detective Peak could see no other option but to use his own claws and crawl up the cat tower to see what or who was inside the cage. To his astonishment, he saw some cookie crumbs near the tower, and a small footprint at its soft base. Soon he climbed onto the very top - which emitted such a stark cat reek that Peak shiver so much he nearly collapsed down the floor – and from there he could see a window, and an oak with an empty nest on its branches. But wait a second! Someone is approaching the nest, tiny wings flap louder every second, and soon a grey figure lands onto the brunch, gazes at the nest with pity, tucks out a quarter bottle and gulps a few beaks of vodka. The window leaf is open, so Peak stays still and quiet not to startle the suspicious bird.
- Oh, hey mister! – suddenly the resident of the cage screamed. The bird trembled and flew away not even once looking at the window. Detective roared and jump down onto the roof of the cage, clutching its thin bars:
- Hey! Good day, - his voice is raspy because of fury, his claws are menacingly bending the bar, but he tries to handle
himself. – Are you… Kuh, kuh… Are you the neighbor of the poor soul that has died here recently?
- Ah, yes, - answered the cheerful orange hamster. – A nice guy. Quite short-tempered, but at least he never minded me working out even at night.
The little fat guy was just brushing himself with gym towel, a smile of successful guy never left his face. All of his actions were full of some queer “gentleman” mannerism.
- What could you tell me about him?.. and what was his name, actually?
- Uuh, Miss Felicia, was a pretty solemn being. At least, while she was at this room. Cannot tell much about her life outside of the room, really. – the hamster clasped his puffy paws and went to the water tank.
- Listen, I’m… My name is detective Peak, I was called here by my colleague mister Squiggle, if you know such..
- Oh, him. – hamster stood motionless. – Well, hopefully you will shed more light onto her death than your colleague, pardon me for my rudeness.
- I understand, Squiggles has been quite negligent since our college years.
- Oh god, her hair is still in my tank, - sighed hamster, putting his palm into the tube of the water tank. Soon enough he pulled out a few white hairs.
- Are there any other pets in the house or its proximity?
- No, no, there are not. Just two of us, Squiggles, who lives in the basement, local birds. If there were any cats or dogs – I cannot really tell, as I’ve said – I never left the cage.
- Fine, I see. Oh, and… as far as I know, the demise of poor Miss Felicia happened right on her tall bed?
- That’s what I heard, but I was probably asleep when it happened. Three days ago, I woke up and saw some humans by the tower, dropping tears and whining, all that weird human stuff. But honestly they crowded the place so much I couldn’t see anything.
The hamster leaned onto the side of the cage.
- You know, unplanned awakening can really affect one’s health, so it was quite inconsiderate of them. Oh, speaking of health, your tail seems to be injured.
- Oh, it’s…
But the hamster was already digging deep within the woodchips, and soon enough he emerged by the door of the cage with a small flask of balm in his hand. Then he forced the door open with some little effort, which made Mr.
Peak quite astonished, though he was good at keeping a straight face.
– Come in, I will treat your bruise well. But no worries, no hidden fees or vested interests inside, I wear tracksuits
only, ha-hah.
After the kind procedures done by Markus the hamster, detective Peak jumped back to the base of the cat’s tower.
Now he had almost no doubts that the footprint belonged to Markus. Out of blue, Squiggle ran into the room, with his tail drawing clumsy squiggly patterns in the air and his chest panting rapidly.
- Hide, hide they … the broom! Haitshfor god sake!
Peak’s limbs went cold. The human steps were right behind the corner, whereas his colleague had already hidden under the bed. To top it all up, some bird suddenly started hitting the windowpane, scratching it with its paws and beak, and Markus, as if overwhelmed by an episode of lunacy, started running on the walls of his cage and yelling:
- There they are, human! There are the vermin! Kill them, make them pay for the death, you blind shmuck!
But then the yet invisible bird finally flew into the room, and simultaneously the human has reached the threshold.
- Quick, mice, grab by my feet, - screamed the bird. Alas, it was the same grumpy grey bird that was sitting by the nest few minutes ago. The investigators accepted the aid and embraced the feet with all of their feet, holding them as tenderly as they could while the bird was circling under the ceiling to get the perfect angle to trespass the window leaf. “It must have been the most bizarre thing ever seen by that human – Mr. Peak thought. – Seeing a crow carry two mice like some grocery bags”. But soon enough the crow was out of energy and they crashed onto the lawn all together.
After expressing gratefulness to the crow, detective Peak asked Squiggle about her. She lost her husband and children – up that nest by the window. The little chirpers were once stolen by some cat. Not necessarily Miss Felicia. But it was definitely some cat with white fur. “Which means, the crow had some motif too. But I don’t know how Miss Felicia died yet, I haven’t even seen her once, so the possibility of crow-murder retains, but its probability is still questionable” – thought detective Peak as they approached the backyard again. The two playful sparrows were still waiting, even though their faces lacked any expression of joy. But before approaching the birds, detective started a confidential talk with his helper:
- Have you seen the body yourself?
- Sure.
- Any likely causes of death?
- Not sure…
- Jees, Squiggle, talking to you is sheer excitement!
- I’m not sure, but… I think I’ve seen some wounds on her, by the neck. They weren’t really big, can’t tell about their depth tho.
- Okay, I got it. – Peak turned towards the sparrows. – Hey, lads.
One of the sparrows nodded.
- Have you seen the cat funeral?
- No, we haven’t.
- Don’t you visit this bath every day?
- No, we don’t, - tweeted the other sparrow.
- Oh, where have you been then? The sun was ablaze that day, - Squiggles cut in. – Matt, there is no need to lie. We just need to know some details.
- Well, we stayed here for a few hours, sat on that tall eve, but when we realized we would not be able to enjoy the bath that day, we flew back to the flock.
- Have you seen the body? What can you tell about it? – asked Peak.
- It was just a body, nothing special. Why even bother about this cat, just because its body is more noticeable?
- Why?
- The cat did nothing good throughout these years. Haven’t seen it hunt mice even. Your colleague is a living proof.
All it did was wander around the block and always turn up in the worst time possible. It must have died of heat or something. Hah, frick, if we knew it couldn’t stand heat that much, in all honesty, my brother and I would kill it ourselves. If only we had more courage when it would scare us away and slurp all our bathwater…
It was bright as day now that something didn’t add up. Peak lied eyes on Squiggles. The officer looked back, but his gaze was weak and had something confusing about it.
- You said she had wounds. These two say she didn’t. What’s your deal, Squiggles? Are you hiding something? We certainly need to exhume the body, and if you have no dogs here, I will bring one from the city!
- Hey, we could call the Gerthrude, she lives two houses away from here, - the sparrow chipped in.
- Who’s Gerthrude? – asked Peak with ever growing curiosity. But he could already hear Squiggles’ feet stomping further away.
- Squiggles killed her! – yelled Peak and ran after the murderer. One of the sparrows flew away, probably to get some help from Gerthrude, while the other one flew to a neighboring yard to call up the flock. Soon they all gathered at the front door of Felimore mansion and watched the two mice fight and tumble on the lawn.
- You, mad prostitute! Not only did you defame your own uniform, but decided to drag the city department into this as well. – Peak hissed. – I will arrest you and make sure that your empty barrel rests in the Rat King’s gallery of heads!
- Mercy, mercy, Peak, - Squiggles squeaked, but all in vain. Suddenly the hustle of the bloody fight stopped, for a more violent and loud sound shook the neighborhood. Everyone turned their gazes towards the source, even Peak took control over his rage and turned towards it.
Upon a thick branch with the abandoned nest, in the gentle shade of oak, they saw a black cat with a small white spot on her chest, and in the mouth of the beast lied a freshly dead crow. The cat dropped the prey, licked her lips clean and uttered with angelic ignorance:
- Oh, hello, dear neighbors. What’s all the fuss about?
- F-f-felicia?! – sparrows were about to lose their marbles, detective Peak’s hemispheres turned hemisquares, Squiggles started praying to the mice lords to appease the dark spirit and turned white by the end of his prayer, for not only did the apparition refuse to vanish, but it approached the group of animals of different species and was especially amazed by the religiosity of her old cynical pal Squiggles and the miracle that happened to his fur right before her eyes. But then she returned to the crow, and everyone heard the scream of the hamster:
- Felicia, you won’t believe! While you were away, some pussy-thief died at your very bed!
Yet, the case wasn’t over for Peak: Squiggles had something to do with this death. And possibly - not only him…
No comments:
Post a Comment