Captain Heinz Noonan, the “Bearded Holmes” of the Sandersonville Police Department, was contemplating a meal without the family, a once-a-month blessing when he got to cook his own meal. But since he knew as much about cooking as he did Tibetan Monk Tantric Harmonics, he left the cooking to someone who knew what he was doing. Or, in this case, she who was Avalon Lone – spelled with a silent “e” she was always quick to say – at the Pamlico Lobster Pit.
Lone was always quick with the joke. She swore she got her lobsters from a pit she dug in her back yard and advised Noonan to dig the same in his back yard. Noonan said he’d love to – right next to his wife’s lemon tree so the lobster could eat the lemons and he would not have to season the claws. The two had tried to engage in a pun battle of lobster but, as both discovered, there were not that many lobster jokes and those that were, were not funny. Only two were half-funny; lobsters don’t share because they are shellfish and the difference between a decrepit bus station and a lobster with breast implants was that one is a crusty bus station and the other is a busty crustacean.
Lone – with a silent “e” – had been waiting for Noonan for a month for her latest. When the captain came in she said, “You do want a red lobster tail for $5?”
This took the captain by surprise. “A red lobster tail for $5. OK, I’ll bite. Yeah.”
Lone leaned toward the captain and said, “Once upon a time there was this red lobster who . . .” and then burst into laughter.
“It doesn’t come with sauce?” Noonan asked innocently and they both laughed.
When they finished their monthly guffaw, Lone (with the silent “e”) pulled Noonan aside and said seriously, “We’ve had an issue here lately and, frankly, I’ve been waiting for you to show up.”
“An issue. Sounds serious.”
“Not for me. For Louie.”
Louie was Louie the Lobster, the namesake of the Pamlico Lobster Pit. Louie had been pulled from the briny deep and, at the time, was the largest lobster to come out of the Outer Banks lobster bed. He had since been surpassed in weight since then but he was still alive while the other large lobsters had become human bone and tissue. So he was Louie the Lobster, largest living crustacean between Virginia Beach and Ocracoke – and 100 miles inland because there were no lobsters coming out any part or tributary of Pamlico Sound.
“What’s Louie’s problem?”
“It’s not his problem. It’s mine.”
“What’s your problem with Louie?”
“He’s rich. He laid a $25,000 diamond ring.”
“That’s rich, I must say,” said Noonan.“In more ways than one. He laid a diamond ring?”
“Had to have laid it. He’s in a cage by himself and the top is locked down.”
“You mean the big salt water aquarium with the rocks and kelp where Louie lives?”
“Same one.”
“How did Louie say he got the ring?”
“That’s what I need you to find out. We clean the cage once a year or so, take Louie out and give the glass a sanitary scrub.Then Louie goes back in with fresh salt water.”
“Where’s the diamond ring come in?”
“We found it inside the aquarium. Among the rocks.”
“Someone probably dropped it in. Hid it maybe. You do feed Louie so the top has to come open once or twice a day.”
“True. But we keep the lid locked the rest of the time. We had someone try to steal Louie a few years ago and since then we keep the lid under lock and key. Louie has the lock and I have the key.”
“So the aquarium has been under guard the whole time. How do you know the ring is worth $25,000?”
“I took it to an appraiser. I also asked him if it had been stolen. He told me to see the fuzz.”
“Fuzz?”
“I’m an old hippy. He’s an old hippy. For us it’s the fuzz.”
“What did the fuzz say?”
“No reports of any such ring being stolen.He said I had to put an advertisement in the paper. I did. I got a zillion responses.”
“Let me guess, everyone was missing all kinds of jewelry but no request matched the ring.”
“Correct.”
“So what’s the problem? You found the ring. You did your due diligence. Enjoy your lost and found.”
“But how did the ring get into Louie the Lobster’s aquarium in the first place?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because if someone can put a ring in a locked aquarium they can put in poison. I’d lose Louie and he’s my Number One draw.”
“I thought it was your food.”
“That too. I just want to make sure Louie’s safe. Even more important I’m betting the ring is stolen and the person who owns it doesn’t know it’s missing yet. I’m also worried that whoever put the ring into the aquarium will be coming back for it. If he can’t get it out easily he’s likely to break the aquarium. Then there goes Louie.”
“Well, let me take a look at the aquarium.”
***
“This is your lock?” Noonan said in astonishment when he saw the salt water fish tank. “This is a padlock! A second-rate burglar could open this up with a pick as fast as you can open it with a key.”
“Well! It’s the best that I could do!”
Noonan tapped on the aquarium. “In our office lingo, this is a crackerjack box. Having that lock does not mean anything. Anybody could have jimmied it open.”
“OK. Maybe. But someone put the ring in the tank.”
***
Lt. Blakely was the best-looking man on the Sandersonville Police Force. He was a blend of ever ethnic group on the planet, stood a few inches over six feet, was a marathon runner, weight lifter, had an MBA from Stanford and lived in Sandersonville because his father had Alzheimer’s and his mother needed the extra income to take care of the ailing man. He was also single which made a very big difference to the women of Sandersonville, Harperville, Marvin City, Harrisonburg and every other community on the North Carolina coastline that he visited on official business.
“You wanted to see me, chief?” Blakely said to Noonan when he came in from his peripatetic duties.
“Like fish?” Noonan was never good on niceties.
“Catching or eating?”
“Watching.”
Blakely was silent for a moment. “I can’t say I’ve ever watched fish. Is this some kind of a joke?”
“Maybe. I have a special assignment for you. It’s a casual assignment in the sense that it’s something you should be doing while you are out and around.”
“As in out and around on duty?”
“Whenever and wherever.”
“OK,” he paused for a moment and then said, “Is this a trick question?”
“Yes and no.”
“I don’t like answers like that.”
“I know how you feel. Here’s the problem. A valuable object appeared in a fish tank.No one knows how it got there. It could have been dropped in. It could have been left by aliens. I don’t know. But the one think I do know is that whoever did the dropping does not live in Sandersonville.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m psychic.”
“I can live with that. And you want me to . . .” Blakely let the sentence hang.
“While you are perambulating up and down the coastline, stop in at a few pet stores and see if anything strange has occurred. See what’s cooking in the fish business. Actually, cooking is not the right verb. How about what is happening in the fish business?”
“Yes, sir. And it’s a gerund.”
“What is?”
“Cooking.It’s a gerund, not a verb.”
Noonan chuckled. “Don’t you have something to do?”
“Yes, sir. I’m shuffling on out. That’s another . . .”
“Gerund. I know.”
***
Eight days later Noonan got a call back from Blakely.
“I know why you sent me on this assignment, chief.”
“Really,” Noonan feigned ignorance. “Why is that?”
“There’s a North Carolina Pet Association that is very active. And I mean very active. As a matter of fact it was having its annual convention in Harperville. But I guess you didn’t know that.”
“Really?”Noonan yawned. “Isn’t that interesting.”
“Yeah,” snapped Blakely over the electronic phone lines that did not exit. “I’ll also bet you didn’t know that pet store owners are about 99% female.”
“Really?” Noonan shook his head. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yes, Sir. When people told me you were devious I wasn’t sure what they meant. Now I know.”
“Really? How interesting. Did you find out anything of importance?”
“Of importance, I don’t know. But you asked for strange occurrences and robberies. Strange occurrences, yes. Every pet store owner has a dozen. Most of them involve exotic pets I have never heard of. Robberies, a few but hardly unusual. There was a rash of pet food hijackings. I had no idea pet food had that kind of a markup, by the way. A couple of cases of yet-to-be assembled aquariums were broken and about 20 pounds of the stuff you put in aquariums was smashed and scattered. There was an absolute rash of duck breast strip and chicken breast strip robberies.It was odd because the packages were opened. That meant the contents could not be sold so the strips were given to the local ASPCA. Other than that there was a lot of shoplifting of small stuff like fish food containers, flea powder and I know you will not believe this, ratsicles.”
“What’s a ratsicle?”
“It’s a frozen rat. The whole rat. Frozen solid.”
“What do you do with a ratsicle?”
“Apparently pet pythons love them.”
“Where were these robberies? Particularly the duck and chicken breast strip and the yet-to-be assembly aquariums.”
“Yaupon City.Just like the . . .”
“I know what Yauponis. When did the thefts occur?At the same time or months apart?”
“About a week apart. Last April. Let me see.” Noonan could hear what sounded like pages of a notebook being shuffled. Then Blakely was back on the line.“April 10th for the aquarium robbery. Eight months ago. It was discovered fairly quickly. The duck and chicken breast break-in was discovered on the 15th. It was discovered then so the actual damage would have been done earlier.”
“Good work, Blakely. Go get lucky.”
“Sir, what do aquarium parts and exposed duck strips have to do with anything in Sandersonville?”
“That, lieutenant, is a very interesting question.”
***
If there was any one thing Noonan knew to be true it was that history was a tool. The roots of the future are deeply rooted in the past and the present did not exist. Present was only a description of the instant when the past becomes the future. He knew that if he wanted a see into the future, he had to look backwards. And the best place to look backwards was in the microfilm room of the Sandersonville Public Library.
He went to the microfilm drawer and pulled out the month of April of the Yaupon City Gazette, a small local press that serviced all six dozen blocks of the hamlet, a community so minute mail delivery was only at the Post Office. Though Yaupon City was small it was important because it was at critical transportation crossroads. The largest industry in town wasn’t really a business. It was a warehouse. Cargo coming from ships along the seaboard was transported to the warehouse where it was parceled out to trucks moving inland. Cargo from across the country destined that had to be shipped by sea from North Carolina ports was bulked to Yaupon City where it was separated out by seaport and then trucked to that port. The warehouse was the largest employer in Yaupon City and the rest of the businesses in the city were support.
While the city was small, it was large enough – and rich enough – to attract traveling shows. These shows were not as large as circuses but was on the Chautauqua circuit, one-man magician shows, small concerts, an occasional hypnotist, singers on tour for one-night stands and it did have a repertory theater building. Noonan had been through Yaupon City quite a few times and, like most residents of Sandersonville, was aware of the slur “Kinnakeeters, Yaupon Eaters!” He was also well aware of the consequences of drinking Yaupon tea; there was a very good reason its Latin name was Ilex vomitoria. Yaupon tea, like alcohol, is fine in small doses. VERY small doses.
Rolling forward to April 9th he started reading the paper. The high school production of Hamlet was in its third and final week. There was a magician with a trained chimpanzee in town, a trio of mimes and a Civil War historian discussing the Battle of Gettysburg with a 3D presentation that using both modern and historic photographs. There were the usual deaths, births, social events and a couple of references to local award ceremonies and the weather reports.
Next Noonan placed a call to the Yaupon City Police Department, a force of three, one of them being the office manager. She was a pleasant woman and the first thing she said when Noonan said he was from Sandersonville was “Yaupon is a fine tea no matter what they say in Kinnakeet.”
“I know,” Noonan replied. “I have had Yaupon tea. Just not a lot of it.”
The woman laughed. “I’m Shirley Hargreaves. What can I do for you, Captain?”
“I’m not sure. Just some fishing.”
“Fishing better in Sandersonville than here – particularly if you are after ocean fish.”
“No Red Drum today. I’m calling to see if anything in particular happened in mid-April in Yaupon City. You know, thefts, burglaries, robberies. Anything out of the ordinary.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary happens in Yaupon City. Last April, eh? Let me think. We haven’t had a robbery in about a year and most of the burglaries are related to drugs and we catch the perps fairly quickly. We have the usual: parking tickets, drunk drivers, drunk jay walkers, some petty theft.The only unusual thing that happened was a magician’s chimpanzee got loose for a night.He wasn’t gone long, let me tell you.The officers found him in a yaupon grove the next day and that chimp was sick, sick, sick. Other than that, nothing important.
“Do you have a pet store in town?”
“Two, actually.”
“Do they sell fish?”
“Sure.”
“How about fish tanks, aquariums.”
“Salt and fresh water. Everything from goldfish to Arowana. I’m a fish person.My husband likes dogs.”
“The pet stores sell dog food?”
“They sell everything. Yaupon City may be small but we are sophisticated.”
***
Later that night Noonan – wearing a tie – came for dinner at the Pamlico Lobster Pit with his wife Lorelei. Both took Lone by surprise: first, that Noonan was wearing a tie and, second, he was with his wife. Lorelei, an Alaskan who believed the only venerable crustacean was a King Crab caught in Alaskan waters, was leery of any creature from warm salt water.
“A surprise I must say,” Lone said to Noonan.
“Yes, I know.”He said. “Lorelei made me wear it.”
“No, a surprise to see you more than once in a month. And with your wife.”
“Well, duty calls. I have some more question for you but when I mentioned the Lobster Pit, well, here we are.”
“And here you should be! I’ll be along in a while.When there’s a lull, we can talk.”
Lorelei ordered crab cakes – commenting that she knew they would not be King Crab cakes – and Noonan ordered lobster – but not Louie. When they were through with their dinner, Lone came over for a chat.
“Did you find who got into my aquarium?”
“No one did. But I think I discovered how the ring got there.”
“Do tell.”
Noonan handed her a photocopy of an advertisement for Frank Blankenship, Magician extraordinaire and his trained chimp Speckles. Lone read the advertisement and then looked at Noonan questioningly.
“Last April Blankenship was in Yaupon City. He had a three-day run and the night of Day Two, Speckles made a break for freedom. He was gone most of the night and the next morning the police found him in a Yaupon grove.”
“In a yaupon grove? I’ll bet that was one sick monkey.”
“You are correct.”
“What does this have to do with the ring in Louie’s tank?”
“Here’s what I think happened. I don’t know for a fact but I’ll bet part of the magician’s act involves a ring, the ring you found in Louie’s aquarium. The chimp saw his chance for freedom and he beat feet into the Yaupon City warehouse. He probably got into a number of duck strip and chicken strip packages because they were found opened a few days later and the contents had to be given to the ASPCA. He also rustled through the aquarium supplies because they were found disturbed. I’m betting Speckles had a ring the magician uses in his act and dropped it in the aquarium supplies. While the warehouse could not sell the open duck and chicken strip bags, it could scoop up the aquarium supplies that were no damaged . . .”
“. . . like the rocks,” Lone said. “So the ring wasn’t dropped in from the top of Louie’s aquarium! It came in with the stones I used in the bottom of the salt water tank.”
“That’s what I think too.”
“I’ll bet that magician extraordinaire has been looking high and low for that ring!”
“I think that too.”
“I think I’ll give him a call. I’ll tell him I’ve got a magic trick he can’t match!”
