Authors: Tim Davys
S
uperintendent Larry Bloodhound stopped at a Springergaast convenience store on the way out to Le Vezinot and bought a chocolate bar. It was a new kind, called Mammoth, because it was so large; dark chocolate around honey-rolled almonds and small bits of marshmallow. The fog was on its way into Mollisan Town. Bloodhound saw white veils forming over the clear blue horizon, and he leaned against the car and unwrapped the colorful paper. The aroma of chocolate filled his nose. The week before, he had finished a diet based on avoiding carbohydrates. For ten days he had followed—to the extent that it was reasonable at least—a carefully designed diet program that guaranteed weight loss of more than twenty pounds. Bloodhound didn’t own a scale—he wasn’t a masochist—but nonetheless he felt satisfied with the results. There was reason to celebrate a little today. With a Mammoth, to start with.
The superintendent had left Falcon Ècu on Boulevard de la Villette and was on his way out to Oswald Vulture’s newly made widow. Talking with family members was something he had never learned to handle. He was not a savage. His manner was perhaps on the coarse side and he drooled a good deal when he was eating, but deep down he was a sensitive soul. The growling surface was only a façade, you might say. Meeting families crushed by sorrow, unexpectedly met by brutal violence, was an ordeal. And then, in their private moment of anxiety and emptiness, to get them to talk, to contribute something to the police investigation, was a balancing act that Bloodhound seldom managed very well.
Saliva mixed with chocolate was about to run down the corner of his mouth, and he dried it off with the sleeve of his jacket. The sleeve, he discovered, reeked of sausage, and he suddenly longed for a bratwurst. He ate up the last piece of chocolate and jumped into the car.
It was hardly surprising that the Vulture family lived in Le Vezinot. The prosperous western suburb, right at the edge of Tourquai, was the obvious choice for stuffed animals who wanted to show off their recently acquired fortunes. With every new generation of merchants and entrepreneurs, the houses grew larger and more elaborate. They were torn down and rebuilt, torn down and rebuilt, and nowadays nothing but short driveways remained of the yards behind the dense hedges that prevented animals from peeking in from the street.
Vulture and his wife lived in a villa that imitated a Tourquaian temple from the fifteenth century. Towers and pinnacles, narrow windows that resembled arrow slits in a fortress, and a kind of symbolic moat over which the superintendent passed on an arched stone bridge. It was not just tasteless, it was incomprehensible as well.
Bloodhound rang the doorbell, and the sound of a massive church bell was heard from inside the house. It took a minute or two before a reindeer dressed in livery opened and asked what he wanted.
“I’m here to see . . . uh . . . the widow,” Bloodhound growled. “I believe that an Emanuelle Cobra called to let you know?”
For a moment the reindeer appeared to faint, but then he opened the door. He led the superintendent through a bare hallway that smelled of stone and dampness. At the end of the hall they turned off to the right, entering a library where a fire was crackling in an open fireplace, even though it was the middle of the day. The superintendent sat down at a respectful distance from the dangerous sparks of the fire.
“Mrs. Flamingo will join you shortly,” the reindeer said and left.
It took almost half an hour before the newly widowed bird condescended to appear.
During that time, Bloodhound was able to determine that none of the thousands of books on the lovely oak shelves had ever been opened, only the finest sorts of alcohol were in the bar cabinet (and all were nearly empty), and one of the five bridge trays he found in the drawer in the coffee table was set up so that the home pair would almost certainly make five diamonds or three no trumps. He didn’t know which made him most depressed.
“I’m sorry,” said Irina Flamingo as she made her entrance, “but I thought he meant you were sitting in the other library.”
The superintendent growled something vaguely, held out his police badge to identify himself, and mumbled his condolences.
“Yes, now there’s the money without the corresponding vulture,” Flamingo replied cryptically, stumbling as she walked into the room but managing to avoid falling by sitting on the armchair across from the superintendent.
“Didn’t you get anything to drink?” she added with dismay.
Bloodhound shook his head, and Irina raised her voice to call to the reindeer, who appeared in the doorway at once.
“Two cups of tea, please,” she said. “Do you take milk, Superintendent?”
Bloodhound loathed tea but nodded anyway.
“No milk,” he said. “But perhaps a cookie?”
The reindeer’s expression did not indicate whether he even registered the suggestion. He left without a sound.
Irina Flamingo was like a caricature of a rich housewife in a successful male’s first marriage. The flamingo’s compact upper body was dressed in a white, broad jacket with big black buttons. This meant that she appeared rounder than she presumably was. Her pink legs had become somewhat crooked over the years. The long beak was painted in a bright red lipstick, and someone had recently plucked her eyebrows in a manner that made her resemble a bird of prey.
To top it off she was clearly inebriated. Whether it was from alcohol or sedatives was difficult to determine, but her fine-motor ability was not functioning, and the vacant smile she showed Bloodhound must have been unconscious.
The reindeer returned immediately with the teacups. Bloodhound did not see any cookies.
“Yes, I can already assure you here and now, Superintendent, that I intend to take measures,” Flamingo said.
“Measures?”
“My attorney is connected. Established, yes? You under-
stand?”
“Mrs. Flamingo,” Bloodhound grunted amiably, “at this point you are not suspected of anything.”
“That”—Flamingo sniffed condescendingly, filling her teacup with sugar—“I am aware of. No, dear Superintendent, this is not about him. This is about me. And I intend to sue the decapitated bird.”
“Sue
whom
?”
“The bird. You know, the vulture.”
She continued to fill her cup with sugar, whereupon the tea ran over the edge. This she did not notice.
“Your husband?” asked the superintendent. “But he’s—”
“If all the money goes to that foundation for circus performers, then I will, excuse the expression, sue him,” explained Flamingo. “There won’t be any foundation here.”
Bloodhound furrowed his brow and felt tired.
“Excuse me, now I really don’t understand—”
“He’s always threatened that. Instead of leaving the money to his dear, beloved family, he would let all of it go to a foundation for . . . circus acrobats.”
“A foundation?”
“Have you ever heard anything so stupid?”
Now she discovered the overflowing cup in terror.
“But what kind of stupidity is this?” she asked, staring at the cup.
“Did your husband talk about his demise?” asked Bloodhound. “He wasn’t old, but did he feel threatened in any way? Was there anyone who—”
“Stupidities,” Flamingo repeated, but now with clear reference to the superintendent’s line of reasoning. “He wasn’t threatened by anyone. The only reason for that stupid circus idea was to annoy us. Take away our inheritance. Us. His own family.”
“Do you mean that you won’t get anything?”
“Practically speaking, nothing,” she confirmed.
She sounded desperate now; it was as if the thought became more concrete when she said it out loud.
“Practically speaking?” asked the superintendent.
“All we have is what’s in the bank. Twenty million or so.”
“Twenty million?” Bloodhound exclaimed. “And you don’t think that’s anything?”
“The company is worth several hundred million,” sighed Flamingo. “By comparison I get nothing. That crook-beaked swine.”
“And this foundation,” said Bloodhound. “Who will administer it?”
“I don’t know a thing,” Flamingo answered loudly. “I don’t know a thing. I’m only a stupid home bird, aren’t I? But I’m going to stop them—”
“Who, then?” asked the superintendent.
“Who, then?” repeated Flamingo, who apparently had lost her thread.
She poured the tea into an ashtray and started pouring more sugar in the teacup.
“Yes, Lord Magnus,” Flamingo sighed as she filled the teacup with sugar, “what is one to do now?”
Bloodhound didn’t know what she was talking about.
“With the body and that?” Irina Flamingo clarified. She suddenly decided that was enough sugar and set the cup aside. “Because I have an appointment at the manicurist later this afternoon, and tomorrow is my massage day. Can he stay at the office until Wednesday, do you think?”
The superintendent was about to answer but was interrupted.
“No, no,” Flamingo cried out. “On Wednesday Guy is coming in the morning! And after a few rounds with Guy you’re completely wiped out. He claims my backhand is getting better, but I haven’t noticed it myself. Thursday. It will have to be Thursday. Can he stay at the office until Thursday? I don’t think anyone will mind, they can just close the door, can’t they?”
“The law is very clear on this point,” Bloodhound explained amiably to the widow. “Stuffed animals without heads are not considered . . . dead. It happens fairly often that the heads are found again, and then they can be sewn back on. Simple as that. Some smarmy surgeon invoices the shit out of us and everything is back to normal. But we are . . . that is, not the police, but . . . the authorities are responsible for storing the headless body in a special warehouse.”
“In a warehouse?” Flamingo asked, confused.
“It’s the Chauffeurs who decide when life ends. We store the body in the warehouse until the Chauffeurs come and get it.”
“And when is that?” the widow asked.
Superintendent Bloodhound refrained from the cruder ironies that popped into his head. Instead he replied, “One never knows, Mrs. Flamingo.”
“But can’t you call up the Chauffeurs? So that there’s an end to this?”
“Don’t give up,” Bloodhound encouraged. “We have far from ruled out the possibility of finding his head, and—”
“Or can’t you simply incinerate him?” the widow continued; it seemed as if she were talking with the books on the bookshelf. “Well, I don’t know. Not that it matters, really, if he comes home again or not. We didn’t see each other all that much.”
“You and your husband?” the superintendent asked. “You didn’t see each other very often?”
Unwillingly, Bloodhound began to realize that, true, this widow may be drugged, but sorry she was not. That felt sad, somehow. Larry had a romantic heart under his filthy shirts.
“No, no, not all that often,” Flamingo repeated. “He was at the office, he lived at the other end of the house, and, well, he was an unpleasant animal, if I may say so myself. It was unpleasant to run into him, in the kitchen or in the garage, but . . . I suppose that’s over with now.”
Bloodhound nodded.
“May I offer you some tea?” Flamingo asked.
“I already have some, thanks,” Bloodhound replied.
“What service!” Flamingo exclaimed with surprise. “Was there anything else you wanted to know, Superintendent?”
“Well,” said Bloodhound, picking up his notebook. “Just a few formalities. Did your husband have any other family? Parents still living? Were there any siblings?”
“No siblings, no parents,” Flamingo answered clearly. “But we have a cub. He’s grown now, of course. Doesn’t live at home. That was long ago.”
“A cub . . . and you have informed him about . . . what happened?”
“I haven’t got hold of him yet,” Flamingo replied. “But he’ll probably call back soon. He calls sometimes.”
“And, can you . . .” Bloodhound began. “This is an unpleasant question, Mrs. Flamingo, but I have to ask it. Can you imagine anyone who would have wanted to kill your husband?”
Irina Flamingo giggled. “But, Superintendent, everyone knows that. No one liked Oswald. I can think of quite a few who wanted to kill him!”
H
e regretted it as soon as he opened the trunk and took out the socks. It was the sudden silence that made him realize something was wrong. He was in a windowless dressing room. Simple benches ran along the walls, and above the benches was a long row of hangers. The low ceiling and the closed-in smell of wet terry cloth made the room claustrophobic, and the light green paint on the walls had started to flake off. There were five of them, but there was room for just as many more. Nonetheless, Falcon Ècu was alone on his side of the room, and as he was pulling on the mauve socks, his colleagues on the other side could no longer control themselves.
“It’s hellish,” said a bear Falcon didn’t know, “separating the white laundry sometimes.”
Everyone laughed. Falcon smiled.
“You can laugh now,” said Field Mouse Pedersen, “but when you see his mauve balls it’s not going to be as funny.”
And everyone laughed again, louder this time.
Field Mouse Pedersen was actually a friendly soul who, like Falcon, worked for Bloodhound at WE on rue de Cadix. He had accompanied Falcon to Tourquai’s Tennis Stadium straight from Nova Park and the scene of Oswald Vulture’s murder. The stadium was in the northwest corner of the district, almost to the food industries. Twelve courts, a manager’s office, a small pro shop, and an even smaller snack bar whose hours of operations no one had yet been able to figure out were housed in a dark green tent that appeared to be inflated to the breaking point; it would probably collapse like a punctured soufflé if a hole were made in the cloth. All the championships in that part of the city were played at the stadium, even though there were many other tennis courts around Tourquai. In accordance with tradition, the police rented the courts the entire first week of June. The dressing rooms were on the basement level.
Pedersen had not meant anything bad by his little joke, and Falcon did not take offense, either. On the other hand, he was now afraid to continue changing. His tennis shirt was in the trunk. It, too, was mauve, to match the socks. He realized that when he took out the shirt the jibes about the socks would sound like flattery.
“Is it so strange to want to look nice on the court?” he mumbled.
But so quietly that no one heard.
Falcon Ècu had joined the tennis club when he started at the station a year before, and more and more the club seemed like his only chance to approach his colleagues. On the tennis court his merits seemed to come into their own. He was a good loser; that was one of his better qualities. He played to win, he fought his way into a sweat, but he was technically inferior. So he quickly became a popular opponent; he was fun to beat. The club championship included all the police stations in Tourquai, and it had just begun. So far, it was a round-robin tournament, where everyone played everyone.
Falcon Ècu would not describe himself as a clothes snob, although he realized he might be perceived that way. He had grown up in simple circumstances, and it had always been important to keep himself clean and not shabby. If you could, why not choose a shirt that suited the pink color of your neck? Why not accentuate your natural straight posture by dressing in dark colors and vertical stripes? It was easier when he was a patrol officer, because a uniform suited him. As a detective he had to weigh his vanity against the ridicule he brought on himself. However, Falcon would never go to work in stained, stinking clothes like Larry Bloodhound. He realized that they joked with him when he sorted the pencils on his desk by size, and he had noticed that he was the only one who used disinfectant spray on the computer keyboard. But he did not intend to be ashamed that his clothes were ironed and clean.
With a sigh he took the mauve tennis shirt out of the trunk and pulled it over his head, while his colleagues on the other side of the dressing room burst into laughter.
Falcon Ècu was an
animal who wanted too much.
How had that come about? He couldn’t explain it. He wanted to help create a better society; he himself wanted to be a better animal. But despite valiant efforts, he didn’t measure up. You have to start with yourself, he knew that. Therefore he followed the rules, the written and unwritten rules of life. He went to church on Sundays, he knew portions of the Proclamations by heart, and he lived as they taught. In his co-op association he was in charge of the laundry room and rose beds by turns, and yet he had time left over for his aging parents. He made friends, but for some reason these friendships never lasted very long. He was never stingy, and he gave the animals around him space and trust, and even showed his weaknesses, just as he had read that you should do.
Yet it didn’t really work out.
Falcon didn’t know why.
The laundry room was clean and tidy, the roses bloomed, the deacon in the church blessed him, and none of his friends had anything bad to say, not even when he called them later and asked what he’d done wrong.
He had always wanted to be a police officer. For an animal like Ècu the choice was between the police profession and becoming a prosecutor. It was a choice between an intellectual life and a more physical one, and Falcon was better suited to the latter. He thought that within the police corps he would finally feel at home together with stuffed animals who shared his way of looking at life.
But it didn’t turn out that way.
The hard-to-define awkwardness of which Falcon had always been aware created a distance between him and his colleagues. That had been the real reason he moved up to Tourquai and WE. Things had become impossible in Amberville, and he needed a second chance.
Unfortunately, though, things seemed to be going the same way with Larry Bloodhound.
But he was lucky to have Anna Lynx as his partner.
At first Anna seemed just as irritated as any other police officer with Falcon as a new partner. He no longer took it personally. No one wanted a new partner. The interplay between two colleagues was far too important for anyone to want to start with a newcomer. But Anna had showed her irritation in a different way than Falcon was used to. She had been frank. This had both shocked and disarmed him.
“C’mon, it might not be easy, but let’s give it a try,” she had said. “Who knows, it might work out.”
Even then there had been something in her charisma that made him slightly better than he usually was. He could feel it clearly. And for the first time since he had started as a police officer, Falcon thought it might work out.
“It looks like it’ll
be you and me in the first match,” Field Mouse Pedersen said as they were on their way up the spiral staircase from the locker room.
“Oy,” Falcon answered without turning around. “Well, then I’m lucky it’s group play. I haven’t recovered since the last time.”
“No false modesty, Falcon. Besides, you had your racket restrung, didn’t you?”
“It was necessary,” Falcon answered quickly, blushing slightly. “It wasn’t easy to—”
“But of course you should restring it,” the field mouse interrupted. “Nothing to apologize about.”
“Just so I don’t have any excuses,” Falcon explained.
They went out to the court together. Play was going on everywhere; the red foam rubber balls flew like missiles back and forth over the nets. Without wanting to, Falcon felt his competitive instinct awaken. He knew he didn’t have a chance against Pedersen. The last time they played he won only two games in the second set. But Falcon knew exactly what he’d done wrong that time. If only he’d played more aggressively. If only he’d dared go to the net on Field Mouse’s second serve.
“This is going to be a real battle,” said Pedersen, taking the cover off his racket.
“This is going to be a warm-up for you,” Falcon replied. “But I’ll do my best.”
“Just remember to bend your knees,” said Pedersen.
But Falcon Ècu was not good at bending his knees, he was stiff and straight and had massive force in his wings. Deep inside he was thinking: If I top my forehand enough he won’t be able to return. But out loud he said, “Who’s going to serve?”
An hour and a
half later Falcon Ècu was sitting with Anna Lynx, having a sports drink at one of the four tables at the Tennis Stadium snack bar. Anna had brought the sports drinks with her, as the snack bar was closed as usual.
“You really didn’t need to come,” said Falcon for the second or third time.
“C’mon, listen,” Anna replied. “Todd is at a party, and we haven’t had a decent murder to investigate for several months—I’m curious.”
Pedersen had won by a score of 6–1, 6–0. Falcon said he lost the grip on his racket in the middle of the second set, but anyone could have seen that he threw it in desperation.
“Take it from the top, Falcon,” Anna asked. “Although I don’t really need to ask you to be thorough.”
Falcon cleared his throat. He had received suitable taunts and then changed and left his colleagues out on the court. Many of them had another match later that evening; he would not be playing anymore today.
“You’ve heard about Vulture?” Falcon began.
“I talked with Larry,” Anna confirmed. “I have a handle on the first part. But then you and Pedersen stayed behind at Nova Park and questioned the personnel?”
The snack bar was just to the right of the stadium exit. Two large potted palms marked off the area; the palm leaves hung down over four round metal tables and the chairs around them, small and rickety. Only Anna Lynx and Falcon were sitting there. From the food sack she had brought with her, Anna took out a prepackaged ham sandwich that looked positively inedible.
“Yes, it’s a real mystery,” Falcon nodded. “You won’t be disappointed.”
“Okay. And what do you mean by that?”
“Oswald Vulture’s head has disappeared,” said Falcon. “Someone cut it off. Outside Vulture’s room on the sixty-second floor at Bourg de la Villette sits his secretary, Emanuelle Cobra. To get in to Vulture, you have to go through Cobra’s office. And Cobra hadn’t left her office all morning.”
“C’mon, you don’t need to be a genius to realize that it has to be Cobra who did it,” Lynx stated.
“That’s a very hasty conclusion,” Falcon said. “Cobra was seriously shocked when we found her boss. I’m pretty sure the superintendent and I both had the same feeling. She wasn’t pretending. She didn’t know what had happened.”
“Good-looking?”
“What?”
“Is she good-looking?” Anna repeated. “Cobra.”
Falcon blushed.
“C’mon,” said Anna, “anyone could fool you testosterone-ruled males.”
“Since you already know who’s guilty, perhaps there’s no point in me continuing,” said Falcon, deeply offended.
“Go on,” Anna smiled. “Tell me everything you know.”
“Well, when we talked with Cobra, we got a pretty good idea of the victim’s morning. He arrived at work at the usual time, right after the Morning Rain, and behaved exactly as usual. He began the day by going over his calendar with his secretary. He had meetings all morning, and in the afternoon he planned to go to an auction where his wife was interested in a vase.”
“C’mon, he lied about the vase.”
“Yes, probably. There was no vase. Whatever. The first meeting in the morning he had with Leonard Earthworm. Earthworm is one of the partners and sits in the office closest to the elevators. But they had their meeting in Vulture’s office. Earthworm stayed an hour, perhaps a little less. I talked with Earthworm, he told me about their conversation, though I can’t say I understood that much. They were working on some big business contract.”
“What does Nova Park do?” asked Anna.
“It’s a financial company. They buy into companies they believe in, and then sell when they can make a profit. There are twelve stuffed animals in the office. Six partners and six assistants. Vulture’s second meeting was with Oleg Earwig. Earwig is an inventor that Nova Park invested in many years ago, but evidently he didn’t measure up. That’s how it goes. You make five investments, and if one of them works out, then you’re successful.”
“Okay odds,” commented Anna. “Don’t think we can work with the same—”
“Oleg Earwig was the last one who saw Vulture alive. At least we assume so. Earwig was in Vulture’s office for half an hour, maybe forty minutes. Half an hour after that, the superintendent and I opened the door and found Vulture headless.”
“Did your little cutie talk with Vulture after the meeting with the inventor?” Anna asked.
“Cobra is a little vague on that point . . .” Falcon replied hesitantly, finishing the last of the sports drink. “Maybe, but she’s not sure.”
“Hm. Do you want the ham sandwich?”
Falcon looked with disgust at the prepackaged sandwich and shook his head. Anna picked it up and unwrapped the plastic. When she got in the car to drive up to the Tennis Stadium the breeze had not yet reached the city, but now twilight was falling quickly over Mollisan Town and she was hungry.
“Sorry,” she said, “but I didn’t have time to eat anything.”
“We talked our way through the whole office,” Falcon continued, “but I don’t think anything leaped out that . . . here comes Field Mouse.”
Falcon pointed with the tip of his wing.
Field Mouse Pedersen had played another match but was now changed and on his way home. Anna Lynx called to him, and he joined the two partners.