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Where We Left Off:
The cat detectives investigated an artifact that Gus found in the woods. It gave the Winchester-Nabu Detective Agency a chance to learn about a unique period in local history.
The Maize Runner:
The Cook was stepping out the hobbit-sized door on the morning of a Full Moon. She didn’t expect to find a disastrous scene on the other side of the door. The carnage covered the porch floor.
“What is all this?” The Cook said to The Grumpy Old Man who was right behind her.
She took a photo of the scene and stepped around the mess for him to get a closer look.
“I’ll clean this up when we get back,” he said as they left to run errands.
The Grumpy Old Man was referring to the porch covered in deer corn. The large and now mostly empty bag was left on one of the metal chairs. A Grainiac brick still sat on the other chair, but the plastic wrap was significantly chewed.
Oliver watched from one of his favorite spots, the ledge against a wall of windows. Gus and I ended up in the same room to get on our gear for an outdoor patrol of the grounds.
“It looks as though the Full Moon brought out some lunacy before the sunrise,” Ollie said. “You should go to Gnome Grove and look for clues and try to find anyone with information about this vandalism.”
Gus used unnecessary volume to tell his feline partner that he didn’t need to be told how to do his job. “Of course we’ll go to Gnome Grove. I can’t remember a day when we didn’t pass through there.”
It took me ten minutes to put on my boots, a hat, and my overstuffed adventure bag; fill three containers with bird seed and peanuts; get Gus dressed in his harness and a collar; grab my parasol; and then finally get to the hobbit-size door.
Gnome Grove, like the Moretti rock fortress, is a regular pit stop for us to distribute snacks for the critters. The gnomes and fairies weren’t there since they’re transitioning to their winter stations. Squirrels climbed and ran as we approached to put distance between us. Gus followed one of the 2024 baby red squirrels to the old haunted well house.
While Gus talked to the red squirrels through the front door of the well house—where I could keep my eyes on him—I distributed snacks. My companion trotted in my direction with a bounce in his step and his fangs showing. It was warm for mid-November in New Jersey that I was outdoors in a tank top! Gus was excited to be out in the fresh air filled with scents I couldn’t detect.
“Human!” Gus raised his voice as we met halfway across the grass which was littered with tree bark due to the fierce winds we’ve had around here. We talked as we made our way to the farther snack bars.
“Gus, did the red squirrels have anything to say about the spilled corn all over the porch?” I watched Gus walk under a trailer used for transporting lawn mowers.
“They said it wasn’t them.” Gus walked far enough under the trailer so that only his orange leash was visible to me.
“I didn’t think so. They’re strong for their size, but I think if the unsub was a red squirrel, it would more likely be a whole team of red squirrels working together. What about the grey squirrels? Did you get any gossip about them?” I had let go of his leash so that I could pour out the snack mix roughly every five feet along the new (still not finished) rock wall by the private road.
Just then, we were interrupted by Hugh Jackmunk poking out from between rocks making up the top surface of the wall.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Were you talking about a cache of corn so large that it resembled a hoard of dragon gold?” The baritone voice from the chipmunk was contrary to the high-pitched and squeaky chipmunks in the pop culture zeitgeist.
“I’d call that a bit exaggerated, wouldn’t you?” Gus showed himself between the tires of the trailer.
I agreed that Hugh’s hearsay wasn’t completely accurate, but confirmed that we were investigating the crime as a case of vandalism that occurred during an attempted heist. Gus and I pressed on with questioning the chipmunk. Hugh told us that he heard a Jersey devil-deer was behind the incident. That wasn’t all. Jackmunk said another rumor claimed a vampuirrel—also called squirrelpyres—was to blame. However, that didn’t make any sense to us, because any creature with vampirism would not go after corn to this degree. Vampuirrels could still eat non-bloody meals, but it wouldn’t be enticing enough to drive one into the kind of frenzy that caused the mess.
Gus had to be carried home because he did not want to end his outside time. While we were gone, Oliver had time to analyze the bite marks on the Grainiac brick and the plastic wrap around it. The Grainiac brick was on the other chair next to the one that had the spilled bag of corn. It too, was part of the evidence. While plastic wrap is terrible for the environment, it provided us with critical clues.
“It wasn’t a devil-deer,” Ollie said with utmost confidence.
Gus and I had a chance to look at the evidence Oliver examined. We sat around my desk and compared photos and dental impressions in our archives to the bite marks. The marks were definitely too small for the rumors about devil-deer nor mundane white-tailed deer to be entertained.
“Were the security cameras on last night?” Gus asked me.
“I didn’t set them,” I confessed. The task was divided up between me and the Grumpy Old Man. I checked my phone to see if there were any clips of the previous night. “I don’t think the old man set them either. There aren’t any clips. Unless he deleted them thinking there wasn’t anything suspicious recorded.”
Case Findings:
A bag of deer corn was dumped over on the back porch. On another chair, a block of grains, fruit, and vitamins had been nibbled including the plastic wrap around it. The detective team split up assignments and couldn’t come up with any reliable witnesses. We deduced that the unsub was an Eastern grey squirrel based on the only physical evidence left behind: a bag of deer corn which was left empty and the corn scattered on the porch; also the Grainiac block itself and the plastic wrap that remained around it. While we were able to narrow the suspect list, we don’t have the true identity of the culprit.
Case Status: Open
