A short story in ten parts
Bzzt! Bzzt! That’s the telephone; I’ll answer it: “Hello?”
“Hello, I’m trying to reach Detective Brownstone.”
“Yes, this is Detective Brownstone speaking. What is the reason for your call — did you find any clues to help me solve a crime? . . . Oh, thanks for answering in such detail — OK, I’ll walk to Central Park when the sun goes down.”
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Now the sun goes down, so it’s dark outside. “Whoa,” I remark to myself, while looking around: “there seems to be some evidence right there — look at this clue: It’s a knife and a chair with a dead body tied down to it, with blood and slash marks all over. I’m guessing that this points to a mystery that needs to be solved. I will summon my sidekick, Floopy the Dolphin.”
So I use my water-whistle, and Floopy hops to my side.
“Come, Floopy,” I say, “let’s solve this crime. I’ll grab this evidence, and you follow me back to the lab. It’s a stroke of luck that we found all these clues, otherwise I might be still waiting for the phone to ring.”
“Hello, Mr. Brownstone! Welcome to the Crime Laboratory. Whoa, hey, wait — what is that!?”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I say, “that’s just Floopy; he’s my dolphin sidekick. We’re here to study these clues that we just found; scientifically analyze them, and whatnot. That’s why we came here, to your establishment. Hey, Floopy, come and take my hat. Thanks. Now let’s dust these clues for prints.”
We then begin to process the evidence.
“Oh my gosh, Floop!” I exclaim; “look at this: I was dusting the inside of this left hand, and I found these fingerprints, which happen to match the fingerprints on the chair! All these clues are adding up — it’s actually rather frightening. I need a smoke; let’s go outside. I’ll carry the evidence along, and you follow me.”
“Hello there, Mr. Brownstone. It looks like you found some real nice clues there.”
“Yes, Floopy and I are solving a crime. I’m a detective, and he’s my dolphin sidekick.”
“Well, well, Mr. Brownstone, that is great to hear. Oh, hey, I forgot to introduce myself: My name is Robert Franklyn Scott Henry Johnson. I happen to have witnessed the mystery that you are trying to solve. I can tell you exactly how the crime happened, because the whole event played out right in front of my face.”
“Oh, that’s grand!” I say; “Floopy, did you hear that? This man saw the original performance of our crime! Sir, will you please give us a detailed description of everything you beheld?”
“Sure — it was about 8 o’clock in the evening. All of a sudden, that cadaver that you found in the park was murdered to death and then tied to a chair.”
Now that we received the witness’s account, which was thankfully not too boring, Floopy and I go double-check its details to see if they match up with our factual evidence.
“Sure enough,” I say to my dolphin sidekick, “everything checks out. Man, that witness really helped us a lot. It’s too bad I forgot to get his contact info, otherwise I would phone him up and say: ‘Thank you so much for advancing our case; all the details of your story matched up perfectly with our evidence.”
Floopy the Dolphin seems to be happy about all this. Look: he’s hopping in place.
“Floop,” I say, “let’s go grab a cup of coffee and then head back labward and solve the mystery.” — I begin to walk away, and Floopy follows.
After visiting the diner, I was walking and sipping my coffee. Just then, my sidekick Floopy the Dolphin started barking and producing a doleful wailing sound. That’s when I knew there was something in the vicinity that deserved my attention. So I turned and looked up high and fixed my gaze on the telephone line that stretched overhead; and I noticed a pair of shoes hanging from the line, tied together by their laces.
“Good job, Floop,” I said; “you found another item of evidence. We’ll call this new exhibit ‘Clue Number Two.’ Sheesh! this crime is almost solved. Now I’m going to smoke another cigarette.”
Someone must have really wanted our stash of evidence, either that or they were high on suds, because, all of a sudden, I heard two gunshots, and my legs buckled in fear and gave out from under me.
“Floopy, did you hear that? — I almost died!” I said, lying on the ground. “Here, take these clues. Now listen: You’re my only hope. Go and bury all this evidence so that we can retrieve it later. Then fetch a small-town doctor to fix my legs. Hasten off, now: run like the waves!”
At this point, I fainted. My assumption was that I would certainly bleed to death. However, eventually, I was awakened by the scent of fresh fish, which turned out to be Floopy’s dolphin-breath. This made my heart rejoice, for it meant that I was alive and that the clues were safe.
In the previous chapter, I got shot at and presumed that I was dying of gangrene, so I fell into a swoon. Then, before waking up, I dreamt a prophetic vision — here are its contents:
First, I saw what I thought was a cat. But it was really my dolphin sidekick, Floopy. He was hopping in slow-motion like a filmstrip and trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t comprehend. It sorta looked like he was doing a dance. Just then, the realization struck me: He’s providing the solution to the crime we’re investigating! Then, using an airplane to leave white smoke trails in the blue air above the beach where we were standing, Floopy spelled out some words in skywriting — here’s the message that he wrote:
DUST THE NEW CLUE FOR FINGERPRINTS, AND YOU WILL FIND THAT THEY MATCH THE INITIAL CLUE’S PRINTS.
At that moment, I awoke to the aroma of saltwater and seafood, which, as I mentioned before, was Floopy’s breath.
So, now, Floopy and I take the sneakers that we found hanging on the phone line, and we bring this new clue back to the crime lab, to compare it to the initial clue, which you’ll recall was the cadaver tied to the chair, etc. This time, nobody tries to stop us; most likely because the sniper, who discharged those gunshots that we heard earlier, already fled away, believing that the assassination attempt was successful.
“C’mon, Floop,” I say, “let’s solve this mystery.”
Now my dolphin sidekick Floopy and I dust the new clue for fingerprints, and I hold these side-by-side with the prints that were found on the dead body . . . but they don’t match up.
“Whoa, this is bad, Floop,” I say, shaking my head. “Could it be that we are on the wrong track?”
Floopy the Dolphin stares at each of the two sets of fingerprints for a while and then looks up at me with an ambiguous expression.
“No!” I pound my fist down on the mortuary table: “How could we be on the wrong track, considering the prophetic vision that I was granted!?”
Poor Floopy is trembling in reaction to my outburst. So I pet his head to comfort him, while I remark: “Dang, this detective work is hard.”
I was ready to throw in the towel and quit working on this case, because it seemed obviously unsolvable — however, just then, I happened to notice that my loafers needed shining, so I knelt down and polished them. When finished, I stood back up, and, after looking around, I saw that my sidekick Floopy the Dolphin was stuck in a jam: while I was busy shining my loafers, he had strayed off and gotten his dorsal fin caught in a chain-link fence. So I walked over and helped to yank him loose — I had to pull pretty hard, so, when he popped free, we both fell over onto the ground. Then, as we were dusting ourselves off, an enormous nylon trap came and scooped us up: it caught us, just like a couple of fish in a net. But soon we heard thunder, and a bolt of lightning struck this trap and set us free. So we fell to the ground again. And, as we began to dust ourselves off a second time, we looked up and beheld something golden sitting on a mountaintop. “It’s the sky god, Zeus!” I whispered to Floopy; “Come, let us supplicate him.”
So we approached, and I wrapped my arms around his legs. Then, placing my hand beneath his chin, I addressed the deity face-to-face, saying: “I know that you are strong. You could throw us off your cloud-dark mountain this instant and make us fall for many days, until we land painfully on the dusty ground yet a third time. Even worse, you could thrust us down to the underworld. However, I beg you, hold back your anger. Remember how I returned my last secretary to your temple, rather than keep her on my payroll, when I found out that she had wound up at my office only on account of having gotten on the wrong bus. And I always save you the fat of any cattle I sacrifice.”
Zeus nodded, signifying that he would grant my request; then he said: “It is not the smell of burnt offerings that pleases me, but rather the kindness that you showed to that damsel, your secretary, when you discovered that she was a priestess of my temple. Since you returned her to me instead of keeping her in your employ, I will repent of my plan to set your office on fire. Also, I will cancel the evil curse that I cast over you, which caused your shoes to appear so dull that you had to shine them, and which made your dolphin get snagged on a fence, so that you both ended up in a fish-trap. I will also help you to solve your case: the murder mystery that you two have been working on.”
This was a most fortunate development. Floopy and I both made a joyful noise, because we were proud to have finally closed our case. Immediately, we collected our pay from the county; and we were pleasantly surprised to see that they included a severance bonus.
“Floopy, my squire,” I said to my dolphin sidekick, “I can’t thank you enough for all the support that you’ve shown me, throughout this adventure — I could never have solved the mystery without your help. Now, let’s go home and have lunch. I’m so hungry, I could eat a whole bucketful of crustaceans and invertebrates.”
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When my house finally came into view, as we were walking on the prairie, I remarked: “My wife sure will be surprised to see us home so early. I told her not to expect me back till the end of autumn, and it’s still midsummer! — Hmm, I wonder why there’s a white utility truck parked in our driveway which says ‘Burt the Plumber’ on its side. . . . Well, here we are, at the entryway; let’s go in!”
When we opened the front door and stepped inside, the sight that we saw caused us to gasp: My wife, looking dazzling in an evening dress, was locked in a loving embrace with a man wearing overalls. The two of them stopped kissing, once they noticed that I had entered the room with my dolphin.
“Detective Brownstone!” my wife exclaimed; “I didn’t expect you back till September, at the earliest! (Hi, there, Floopy!) This here is Burt — he’s a plumber; I called him over to take look at all the pipes. Um . . . How’s your case going — did you find any clues yet?”
“Actually, the case is closed: we finished early,” I said, and Floopy hopped a few times in nervous excitement.
“Oh, that’s great!” replied my wife. “You guys must be starving — would you like lunch? I have some snappy shrimp cocktails with limoncello sauce, for appetizers; and I was just about to make some vodka pasta.”
“That sounds wonderful,” I smiled.
So we dined together. Then we all lived happily ever after.
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