Clever is as Clever Does (The Clever Detective)
Clever is as Clever Does
Linsey Lanier
Copyright © 2011 by Linsey Lanier
I was sitting under one of the trees near Thrugood Castle, staring up at the bursts of gold and red above me, my head nestled on Prince Chad’s muscular lap, while he lazily popped grapes -- the sweet kind, not the sour -- into my mouth one by one, the dear boy.
It was hard to believe it was Fall already.
“He loves me,” I said, chewing on the juicy morsel, mooning over my paramour’s wavy dark hair and deep blue eyes. Those delicious peepers could make any female in the kingdom swoon. I swallowed and opened my mouth for another grape.
Chad popped it in.
“He loves me not.” I didn’t mind talking with my mouth full. Not about this topic anyway.
We’d been seeing each other since I rescued the Prince’s sexy butt from a fire-breathing dragon a couple months ago, but he’d never actually said those three little words to me. Ace detective that I am, I figured he just needed a little help.
He got a dreamy look in his eye and my heart skipped a beat. “Was not last night’s ball spectacular, Stacey?”
No cigar. “It was okay.”
“Just okay?”
I thought of Chad eyeing a good-looking babe wearing glass slippers. “I don’t know. I’m getting tired of balls. After awhile, minueting, wearing scratchy dresses, and sitting around being fed by servants gets old.”
“Most of the time, you work out and wear your jeans and boots and those wonderfully close-fitting T-shirts. Besides I’m the servant feeding you right now.” He held up a grape and lifted a brow.
He was making my blood run hot, but I shook my head and sat up. “I don’t know, Babe. I think I need to go back to work.”
He looked surprised. “Why?”
“I’m bored.”
Just then a rabbit came hopping up the trail, heading right for us. It wasn’t your ordinary, garden-variety bunny. This one was about the size of a Saint Bernard, dressed in a plaid coat and tie, with a fedora on his head. And of course, he talked.
“Sire,” he said as he reached us, alarm in his voice. Then he bowed his head, snatched his hat off his head, and lowered his ears in respect.
Chad rose, helped me to my feet and gave him a regal nod. I made an attempt at a curtsy, but I looked more like a skinny linebacker being tackled. Especially compared to the graceful flamingos at the ball last night. If I was going to stick around here, I really needed to get in touch with my inner girly-girl.
“What is it, Wenceslas?” Chad asked.
Wenceslas? Well, what else would you call a three-foot tall rabbit? The movie
Harvey
came to mind. Maybe I’d been in this place too long.
“Somethin’ awful’s happened, sire,” the bunny said with a distinct Brooklyn accent.
Chad looked concerned. “Is that girl still chasing you?”
“Alice?” Wenceslas shook his head. “Naw, we worked out our differences a couple weeks ago.”
“That’s good. What is it then?”
His round eyes took on a glassy hue. “Oh, sire. There’s been a murder.” Only he said “moider,” like someone in an old James Cagney movie.
Now my ears perked up. Murder was my area of expertise. Investigating it, that was. “Who’s the victim?”
“Oh, you won’t believe it.” His whiskers flickered and he began to talk a mile a minute. “I was sound asleep this morning, when I was wakened by a terrible pounding on my door. Bam, bam, bam. I got up and opened it. It was one of the dwarfs. The one who can’t stay awake. I knew something had to be wrong if he was visiting that early.”
“How early was it?” I asked.
“About nine.”
“That’s not so early.”
“It is for him.”
It was also about an hour and a half ago, I noted. “Go on.”
“Well, the poor fellow was beside himself. He could barely talk.” Unlike present company. “I brought him in, sat him down, gave him a cup of coffee.”
This was getting detailed. I rolled my hand, like a director trying to speed up the action.
“That’s when he told me what happened. They had all gotten up to get ready to go down to the mine.”
“They?”
“He and the other dwarfs.”
“Any how many of them are there?”
The bunny cocked his head in confusion. “Why seven, of course.”
I winched.
“Anyway, when they sat down to breakfast, there was nothing there.”
I pointed to the fedora he’d put back on his head. “Are you sure that hat you’re wearing isn’t too tight?”
He frowned.
“I don’t see any murder in your story.”
“I haven’t gotten to that part yet.” He turned to Chad. “Your majesty. You know the young woman who’s been living with them as a housekeeper?”
“Yes. There’s a rumor going around she’s a princess. What’s her name again?”
Wenceslas scratched his head. “Something to do with winter. Ice, sleet. Snow, that’s it.”
I shifted my weight and folded my arms. “Do you mean Snow White?”
“Yes, that’s her.”
Oh, brother. I should have known.
“She always has breakfast on the table for them every morning. When it wasn’t there today, they knew something was wrong. They searched the cottage and found her lying on the floor of her room. She’s dead.”
I turned to Chad. “Sounds like it’s time for an investigation.”
The bunny did a little hop. “Oh, yes. Please. Anything you can do to help.”
I held up my hands. What could I say? “Just show me where the body is.”
We followed Wenceslas as he hopped along a bright blue path through a forest that looked more like cotton balls on popsicle sticks than trees. Due to the season, some of the cotton balls had turned gold and red and yellow. Bits of fluff had fallen to the ground, making it look like a messy manicurist’s station.
At the end of the forest, we crossed a large field filled with big orange pumpkins wearing smiley faces, and eventually came to a cheery little pink-and-white cottage that looked suspiciously like a cupcake.
Man, it was hard to get used to this place.
Overhead the birds that usually sang Disney tunes, cheeped mournfully. A sad sound that made me feel somber. And yet I couldn’t help wondering why the critters hadn’t pecked the sugar drops off the cottage roof. In my world, it wasn’t smart to use candy as shingles. But then I wasn’t in my world, I reminded myself for the kajillionth time.
I stepped up to the front door, which looked a lot like a wafer cookie, and hesitated. I turned to Chad. “You didn’t have to come along.”
He seemed a bit insulted. “Why Stacey, I wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s been a murder. This could be dangerous.”
He wanted to protect me? I didn’t know whether to feel flattered or annoyed. Still, I was a professional. He wasn’t. “Just don’t get in my way.”
His mouth opened in shock. “I beg your pardon?”
Lucky for me, the door burst open before I could answer. A fight with your boyfriend on the client’s doorstep doesn’t make a good first impression.
“Oh, your Majesty!” cried a little man with a beard. “Detective Alexander. We’re so relieved you’re both here.” He seemed friendly and genuinely glad to see us, though his eyes were red. From weeping, I presumed.
“What in tarnation took you so long?” said another voice over his shoulder. “With a rabbit along, you ought to have gotten here faster.”
“Excuse me?” I scowled and craned my neck to get a look at the whiner.
Embarrassed, the friendly little man waved his hands in the air. “Never mind him. Please come in.”
We stepped inside.
The room was rustic, with plain wooden furniture, and full of short men in beards, all dressed in flannel robes and PJs, running around like decapitated chickens. One was holding his head in his hands like he had a migraine. Another was wringing his hands. All of them were moaning and groaning.
I felt like I was at a monk’s convention.
“What are we going to do? What are we going to do?” one of them sobbed, then blew his nose into a handkerchief.
Another one yawned, then wiped his tears on a baggy sleeve. “Who’s going to wash our clothes? Cook our food?”
Another one paced around in fuzzy pink slippers looking kind of silly. “Who’s going to sing us to sleep?”
“Hey. Everybody shut up,” cried the grouchy one. “The detective’s here.” He jerked a thumb my way with a scowl and muttered, “as if a female gumshoe’s going to do us any good.”
Beside me, Chad tensed, but I could take care of myself. I folded my arms and glared at the little man. “Look you. If you want my professional help, you’d better change your tone right now.”
I never took back talk from clients.
The friendly one who’d opened the door took my arm. “Please Detective Alexander. Don’t mind him. He’s always a little . . . “
Now I got it. I curled my lip. “ . . . Grumpy?”
“Uh huh.”
Might have known. “Just show me where you found the victim.”
The group of little men waddled into a short hallway and led us down it to a back room that was cozy and tidy, with a neatly made bed, frilly curtains, and a single dresser.
“This is where we found her this morning,” said the friendly one.
I looked around once. Twice. Then I put my hands on my hips. “Where’s the body?”
The grouchy one shook a finger at me. “Well we couldn’t leave her there on the floor. She is a princess, after all.”
My teeth grinding, I turned to him. “You moved the freaking body?”
“We put her outside. In a glass coffin.”
“That you just had lying around?”
They all shrugged in unison.
I gestured at the place. “And you cleaned the room.”
“Oh no,” said the silly one with the pink slippers. “She always kept it spotless. She was a bit OCD.”
With a smirk, I bent down, lifted the cover on the bed and peered under it. Chad did the same. We both spotted it at the same time. “Not so neat as you thought.” The floor was clean. But lying a few inches away was a half-eaten apple.
Chad started to reach for it. I grabbed his wrist. “We’ve already lost enough evidence. Darn, I wish I had my investigator’s kit.”
“I have an idea.” He rose, went out of the room and came back a minute later with a plastic glove and a Glad bag from the kitchen. “You don’t mind if we use these, do you?” he said to the friendly one.
“Of course not.”
Eyeing Chad, I slipped on the glove and opened the bag. “What made you think of this?”
He gave me that delectable smile of his and lifted a darkly confident brow. “I watch CSI.”
I wanted to give his butt a pinch with my gloved hand. If only he wasn’t such a ladies’ man.
Instead, I reached under the bed, dropped the apple into the bag, sealed it and held it up to the dwarfs. “Here’s your murder weapon. I believe the cause of death is poisoning. You realize this puts you all under suspicion.”
They gasped like a chorus of vacuum cleaners. “Oh, no. Not us. We wouldn’t hurt Snow. We loved her.”
“Even I loved her,” said the cranky one.
I was starting to believe them. They seemed too pathetic to commit a cold-blooded murder. “Did she have any enemies?”
They looked at each other, bewildered. “No. Everyone loved her.”
The one with the hanky waved it toward the window. “Wait. There was that motorcycle gang that came around last week.”
My brows shot up. “Motorcycle gang?”
Hanky nodded. “They wanted Snow to be one of their biker babes. She told them to get lost.”
“Yeah,” said the grouchy one. “We all got our clubs and chased them off.”
The silly one in the slippers shook his head. “Oh, that gang is terrible. They ride around the countryside terrorizing people all the time. I bet they came back and poisoned Snow in retaliation.”
Biker gang. I scratched my chin. “Are you sure there wasn’t an old woman hanging around the cottage?”
They looked at each other blankly. “No.”
“You know. Ugly, stooped shoulders, black cape?”
They shook their heads.
I tried to be plainer. “Didn’t Snow have a step-mother who didn’t like her?”
Grouchy frowned. “We never asked her about her family.”
Not the open and shut case I thought it was going to be.
“Oh, I just know it was the biker gang,” the silly one insisted. “They’re downright vicious.”
I didn’t think there were any gangs in this place, but I’d dealt with such before I came here. Might as well check it out. I didn’t have anything else to go on. “Okay. Where does this gang hang out?”
Silly’s eyes grew round. “We wouldn’t know that.”
The one who couldn’t stop yawning put a hand to his mouth. “They’re related to the Slate Brothers.”
Slate Brothers? “The pigs?”
He nodded. “That’s right.”
I’d talked to that bunch when I was looking for Chad. “But they’re housing contractors.”
The little guy held up his hands. “Every family’s got its black sheep.”
Or in this case, tainted pork. “Does this motorcycle gang have a name?”
“They sure do. The Murderati.”