The Canes Files

by Nicholas McConnaughay

  He could have used the company.

  There wasn't anything in the world that he found to be more tedious than museums. If it wasn't a caffeine addiction that killed V, it would be disinterest and boredom. (or somebody choking him, ... V's vendettas were already becoming notorious in his long career.)

  He had a very severe case of attention defi....

  Vulpecula walked over to where a medallion laid comfortably inside of a glass case, below it was an excerpt explaining its historical relevance.

  Vulpecula did not read it.

  There was no challenge in history; it was a subject that had been studied repeatedly by historians. There was seldom something to discover for yourself, but you could certainly go where man has gone thousands of times before. (History: The Eternal Frontier)

  All the other subjects carried the same basic principle, but at least they were a challenge. Vulpecula was a private investigator and was a good enough detective, but the reasoning behind studying things which have already been thoroughly studied was lost on him. The only thing worth studying to him was the latest past, and that's what they paid him for.

  Italina's finest brought Vulpecula and his friends here because somebody broke into the Malane Palace at approximately two in the morning and stole a sword once belonging to Charles Tertius, not to lollygag and look at dumb necklaces.

  The cameras successfully filmed the happening as it occurred but because the incompetence of the security guards, the culprit was able to make the escape. The immediate deductive analysis is that it was a ruse conspired between the two security guards and an unnamed third-party, perhaps even a co-worker. This theory could be backed when you consider the amount of knowledge that the thief seemed to have. The thief easily dodged all the lasers while repelling down where the sword lay dormant.

  There was no part of Vulpecula that wanted the case to be solved so easily though.

  The idea of conspiring co-workers wasn't worth the vivacious Acerian adventurer, and quite frankly, it wasn't very original. Thankfully, Italina's head-honchos were friendly enough to send him a clip of the thievery as it took place, as well as give him access to all the faculty information. The camera fully captured video of somebody repelling down to the sword, however, didn't capture footage on the perpetrator's entry into the building. The wiry frame, feminine stature, and the way that the culprit's hair was hugged by the ski-mask did all but imply the culprit was female.

  There are only six security guards employed for the Malane Palace and not one of them is female. One other thing that may or may not be worth noting is that the thievery also fell on the "Night of the Dead," a Maharris holiday that is commonly celebrated by dressing up as a deceased figure in history. This, like most holidays, had lost its meaning, and had become merely an excuse for birds to defecate on vehicles as a "prank," chickens to egg houses, and for the heavy consumption of alcohol. After looking at both profiles for the fine, upstanding gentleman on-duty, V decided that it was reasonable to assume their negligence.

  He didn't have the evidence to fully support that, but he had learned not to go against his intuition.

  The only question is how the perpetrator could have known about the museum's short-comings.

  Once again, there was an immediate answer, and it's that the lady was in cahoots with one of the guards and was thereby enabled means to get the "scoop" on security. The thorough (albeit brief) research that was done on each of the two security guards on-duty revealed that only one of them was married. He was married to a waitress at Ollie's which is open at all-hours of the day, and she just so happened to work on that night. In other-words, the dame had an alibi. As far as other family-members go, the athleticism and acrobatics applied by the thief suggested a female of youth, and as far as siblings went, the only one that had a sister was also a turtle, and there was no sign whatsoever of the female having a shell or bulky exterior.

  These are the elements that are known about the case, and in that, with the attributes of the thief, there isn't too much to go on except that the perpetrator was a young, smaller-framed, and well-educated female. She'd need to be well-educated to pull off such a heist, even when considering the museum's short-comings.

  There were so many questions, and with such little answers, Vulpecula realized these questions were the only thing getting him out of the bed in the morning. There was nothing that he envied more than the eternal sunshine of a thoughtless mind because for the life of him, he couldn't stop his eccentricities.

  He didn't even know the species of the thief because there was no sign of a tail or other characteristics on her body. The mannerisms demonstrated cat-like abilities, but that was intuition more than fact. V had to credit this as being a commendable tool, and one that he used often during his cases. Somebody once said that hunches mustn’t be allotted if they aren't fueled by logic. If an individual doesn't have the facts, then they'll find themselves distorting the initial truths in such a way that pieces together their theory. He took few inspirations from others, but those were examples of things that fitted into his self-implored guidelines.

  The way of solving a case isn't through theorizing but through comprehension of occurrences and finding a mistake in what would perhaps other-wise appear to be a utopia of antics. Vulpecula inspected the case which had once confined the sword, it once rested inside of a black case with red-fabric lining the bottom. There was also an impression in the fabric showing where the sword had been. The black-case laid upon a chrome-podium that stood at approximately five-feet, and much like the medallion that V had looked at earlier, there was a small excerpt explaining the sword's history.

  This time, Vulpecula admittedly skimmed through the paragraph, not because he needed to polish his knowledge over the famous sword, but because he deemed it as worthy to the case.

  Next, Vulpecula looked upon the glass-lid over the case, looking for any signs of smudging. He knew he wasn't going to find anything because the video showed that the thief wore gloves, but it was a habit. Also, it was a long-shot, but if he found a lot of finger-prints from another individual, maybe a security guard, (excessive prints not seen on the other cases) that could imply there was interest in the item. "Not to be," belched the cruel hand of reality as it almost always did.

  Wiped clean, but Vulpecula doubted it was done to erase evidence, more likely as something routine for the employees to do. Well, barnacles, thought V to himself, and not out-loud, because such harsh language wasn't to be spoken aloud!

  Even still, there was a strong smell that kept entering his nostrils. An aroma smelling very reminiscent of perfume, could it have somehow belonged to the woman of the hour or was it simply the residue of a past tourist?

  Click.

  There was the distinctive sound of a door-latching from afar in the museum, but V heard it, and unsurprisingly enough, he found it to be inexplicably disruptive to his thought-process. He anticipated hearing the loud and unsettling sound of the police-officer's voice. He knew it was him as he recognized the pitter-patter from his furry feet with every step. Officer Pends carried himself like a lurch and dragged his feet as if they were especially heavy for him. Truth be told, they probably were, it was uncharacteristic for a sheep to be put in such a physical job, and the uniform and boots that came with it couldn't have been lenient to his small-stature. V felt for him, for he too, as a fox, was forced to endure his inefficient strength for a considerable number of tasks, but, then again, he was a private investigator, and didn't often need much more than his brain.

  "Yes?"

  He tried to come off polite as to hide his admitted irritation. There was nothing he hated more profoundly than sounds while he was trying to think but didn't want him to take it personally. Other foot-steps soon followed, clearly not belonging to the uncharacteristically loud sheep. Vulpecula easily identified them as belonging to Apus and Lacerta. "Good evening," Vulpecula called out.

  "My friends! May I ask what kept you?"

  He turned around curi
ously, and sure-enough, his hypothesis stood ground and could now be deemed as fact, it was them!

  "It's raining cats and dogs out there," Lacerta answered at once which immediately drew a firm stare from Vulpecula. "Not literally," Lacerta assured.

  And so, Vulpecula went back to looking at the empty-case, doing hand gestures welcoming them to come and make their own inspection.

  "I haven't discovered any specific pieces of evidence. If we can't find anything to go on, we'll need to interview each of the employees to get a better read on them."

  Apus and Lacerta both walked over to where Vulpecula had been conducting his inspections, ducking beneath the red-velvet rope that kept civilians from getting too close.

  "Do you really think that any of the guards are actually capable of a heist of this magnitude?" Lacerta asked.

  Apus, Lacerta, and Vulpecula had all three divided the work-load of conducting information regarding the employees. Vulpecula had admittedly done less than his fair-share, hence why Lacerta and Apus were just arriving. Perhaps humorously, Lacerta had been the only one imploring the hunt and peck technique to his laptop. "Looks can be deceiving, if you decide a book on its cover, there are so many library books that are going to be ignored on the shelves, but that doesn't mean they're bad books. In all honesty, if the individual only took advantage of flaws and happenstance in the system, it wouldn't have required very much, which is reason enough to believe that the guards are a possible candidate."

  Vulpecula scratched at his nose. The scent of perfume felt aggravating and uncanny, but he couldn't seem to pinpoint its origins.

  "However," Vulpecula began again. "I assume that this is not the case, but still, that doesn't mean there isn't a possible lead. Maybe they were asked a lot of questions by one of the visitors, in-fact, doesn't the Malane Palace conduct tours over the museum?"

  Vulpecula's mind was racing with thoughts faster than a deer from a lion, but like the lion, until he caught his prey, he had nothing to sink his teeth into. (The heinousness of lions is also an unfair stereotype, but they are very proud animals, and gotta eat.)

  There were so many routine questions of making something out of nothing. Really, it was a process of throwing things at the wall and hoping that one of them sticks. "I will ask Pends about the employees, maybe you're right and there are interns or volunteers," Apus answered.

  There was always an uncanny metallic sound to Apus' voice that made him sound raspy and robotic. Vulpecula didn't know whether he liked or disliked that about him, but he was used to it. He was very intelligent, which Vulpecula knew was an asset, and was very computer-savvy. Apus just didn't much care for people, or the socialization that went along with it. That was the exact opposite of Lacerta, who was more of the loud-mouth and arrogant variety. He wasn't really the greatest fit for the mysterious incorporated style that they paid abidance to, but every once in a while, he provided a way to earn his keep.

  More importantly, they were Vulpecula's dearest friends; their company was one of the only things that kept his sanity intact.

  "That's a pretty aroma," Apus whispered beneath his breath, not particularly saying it to either of them, but Vulpecula heard it. Apus smelled it too, and at that realization, his eyes became transfixed on the multiple hairs to the left of where he was standing. They didn't need to be drenched in perfume for V to smell them, but Apus being able to smell them proved that they were. They were inside of the "No Trespassing" portion of the museum and too abundant to be coincidental.

  "This doesn't belong to the guards," Vulpecula said before dropping to one knee and picking up the strands of hair with his paws. Eventually, after breathing in the aroma of the scent, he had them placed into a zip-lock baggie for safe-keepings. "Seven strands, lavender, about fifteen inches in length, it's inside the red-rope barricading the sword." His eyes went up to Apus and Lacerta. "This hair most likely belongs to our girl."

  * * *

  It was night time, both Apus and Lacerta had since left the museum, but Vulecula remained. He wanted to solve it, plain and simple.

  A small couple of hairs could mean the difference between a criminal facing justice for their crime or getting away with it. Evildoers beware the fiendish claws of the tiniest detail with valid reasoning placed behind it! If they left behind even the smallest molecular trace pointing in their direction, then chances are that it would be found. Or at least, that's the mind-set that every good criminal should operate under.

  Even still, something about finding the hairs didn't feel right to Vulpecula.

  He watched the footage repeatedly, until it had become a file "Saved As" in his conscious-thought. It was a forced compulsion of his routine, but he was also looking for something.

  He just didn't know what that something was.

  The feeling of a case challenging him was the only thing that ever-kept Vulpecula's attention for long. It was the thrill of the chase, and there was something peculiar about this chase.

  The view from the camera was obscured in the beginning of her heist.

  Vulpecula didn't imagine that her methods of getting to the top of the Malane Palace were very elaborate; scaling the walls of the Malane Palace should have been easy enough. Even without the equipment that she undoubtedly had. (The footage showed that much.) The Malane Palace stood at around one-hundred and thirty-three feet in height, so it was doubtful that the dame would have taken the risk of climbing the building with her own wits alone. If she wanted to though, she probably could have.

  The building had plenty of ledges, ridges, and cliffs. If somebody would have wanted to climb it, they could have. Vulpecula knew that statement to be a fact because he tried to climb the building himself.

  He failed.

  However, he had the sheepish Officer Pends do it, and he succeeded just fine after falling only three times.

  And so, she scaled up the Malane Palace with relative ease.

  The rooftop didn't have anything too particular about it; there wasn't a foot-print or any dandruff. Vulpecula insisted on recreating the thievery at night because that was when the thievery had taken place. He wanted to know everything that was going through her head. He wanted to feel the cool air blowing through her fur, or for her, the sweat-shirt and the ski-mask. There was the look of the dwindling traffic reinforced by the lit lamp-posts. Once climbing the building, there were only two clear ways of getting to the down-floor.

  There was a door on the north-west side of the building, it probably would have been locked, in-which case, she would have had to pick the lock. Afterward, she'd go to the rafters of the building, look down at the Sword of Tertius, and use a rope to repel herself down. This way seemed like a distinct possibility; however, there was an alarm-system that would have sounded at the very minute the door was opened.

  Even still, Vulpecula made certain to inspect the route for evidence, and found nothing.

  After climbing to the building, there were five windows on each side of the Malane's walls; she selected the one closest to the sword. There wasn't an alarm-system to the windows, but they were old, and therefore, they were difficult to get open. She didn't want to take the risk of scratching or clawing at it as she had worn gloves to lessen the possibilities of leaving finger-prints. She used a knife, or some other sharp-object, and pried the door open. Vulpecula hung vicariously off the ledge of the building by his cane. (It was dark-brown except for the end which curved like a scythe with a dull blade. It was a cane that had once belonged to his father.) He began eye-balling the window, making a mental-note of the slits and cuts at the center of the window where it had been opened.

  She opened the window, made her way to the rafters; descended, got the sword, and then she left the same way that she entered.

  Vulpecula arose back to the top of the roof, and at last, acknowledged the vibration from the pocket of his leggings. "V," he answered simply.

  "It's Lacerta, they found a match for the hair found at the Malane Palace, where are you?" Vulpecula's ea
rs pricked at hearing Lacerta's words.

  "I'm at the Malane Palace, who did the hairs belong to?"

  Static on the other end, Vulpecula suspected that Lacerta wrote the name down somewhere, and was now looking for the paper.

  "Harriet Collins," Lacerta answered.

  "What is her address, or contact information? I need to set up a meeting with her. I will need Officer Pends and preferably both you and Apus for when I go talk to her. I don't have a full-handle on how dangerous she is, but David taught more than Goliath about underestimating others, if you catch my drift." Another long silence befell them, and before long, Vulpecula was starting to wonder whether he had been hung up on. (or worse, that he hadn’t caught his drift.)

  “I never do, but I’ll work on getting the address,” Lacerta responded.

  The next morning, Lacerta had been courteous enough to do just as he said he would, and Officer Pends even arranged for a meeting with her. She lived only a couple of blocks away from the Malane Palace, and so, while Officer Pends offered to drive his cop-car out-there, Vulpecula assured him that it'd be less hassle simply to walk. He liked the cooling air on his fur, and the sheer simplicity of it all. It was one of the few times where he felt as if the world's loud disturbances weren't so bothersome to his conscious. As he, his friends, and Pends walked down the sidewalk, Vulpecula spent little time looking at the cars going by.

  He watched the sidewalk, a blank and solid gray-color, which could act as a projector for all his thoughts to illustrate themselves. There wasn't very much information on file about Harriet Collins. She didn't have a criminal-record, and she didn't have anything else of regard.

  "I know that you don't want it to be solved this easy, but you have to admit that it makes sense, right?" Lacerta said while he trekked behind Vulpecula, trying to keep up.

  "Why wouldn't he want it to be solved easy, isn't that less work?" Officer Pends chimed in.

  "He doesn't like it whenever a case is solved too easily, it bores him."

  Officer Pends looked at Lacerta as if he couldn't grasp the thought that somebody might enjoy using their intellect for something other than twiddling their thumbs, Vulpecula thought, while walking, and ... twiddling his thumbs.