Thirteen Authors With New Takes on Sherlock Holmes

by Michael A. Ventrella

  The diminutive woman who entered introduced herself as Zoë Rodowsky. She said that she taught elementary school reading, which won my respect. I, for one, would rather face Colonel Sanders than a room full of children. Deceptively sweet-faced, she could almost pass for an overgrown child herself with her large hazel eyes and an endearing head of brown curls. My intuition, however, led me to believe that she was not one to be trifled with.

  “I never imagined that someone with a job like mine would have to engage in a surreptitious investigation, but life is full of surprises,” she began briskly. “Something fishy is going on in my school, and I am not just gonna stand by and let it happen. I’m pretty darn rattled, but I think I’d better start at the beginning.”

  She sat and gathered her thoughts. “I think it all started when I noticed that all my kids’ essays had glaring content errors in certain topics: literature, Greek mythology, and American history. And although they were all the same mistakes, no two answers were identical, which rules out cheating. It seems that these ‘facts’ are being rewritten in some textbooks to make the concepts more sellable, and even the parents are going along with it. Pilgrims and Indians living side by side as friends forever? Come on! Hercules, Perseus, and Bellerophon are suddenly amalgamated into one big, jolly dude. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is alive and well at the end of the story. Being royalty means living happily ever after…haven’t they ever heard of Marie Antoinette? They even are insisting that dinosaurs never really existed. Where are they getting all of this?”

  She took out a handkerchief and wiped her face. “I brought this up at a faculty meeting last week and of course everyone appeared concerned. There was Roxanne Cramer, the social studies teacher. She’s having a hard time too; she moonlights with another job, but she doesn’t say what. I secretly suspect that she’s a stripper. Anyway, Miss Cramer was agitated by this information, but despite their outward concern, everyone else appeared blasé. A few faculty members told me that if everything was written and spelled correctly, then I was doing my job properly and not to interfere. There was a science textbook handy, so I pointed out a few false statements in it, and the science teacher simply said, ‘It’s in the book—it has to be right!’ I was too stunned for words. Had these people lost their marbles?”

  I stretched out a wing and tried to look as if I was not paying attention.

  “But the very next day, as soon as I had gotten to school I discovered that all of my textbooks had been stolen. Every last one. And we have state-issued Common Core testing coming up, even though I don’t like the methods of SLO.”

  “Slow?” murmured Watson.

  She gave him a dirty look. “S-L-O. It stands for Student Learning Objectives, and yes, I think the acronym is a little ironic.”

  Watson nodded.

  “There’s going to be another faculty meeting Monday to discuss funding for replacements. We have been instructed to leave all of our cell phones and purses in a certain area, to prevent any of us from taping what might go down. This only corroborates my suspicion that this was an inside job. There’s been a lot of pressure on us to switch textbooks to a more popular series called Rabbit’s Foot Books, but I have refused to adopt these cesspools of misinformation. It’s my duty to teach these little ones the real facts, and the popular textbooks sell like crazy and the information is easier to process, but they are full of erroneous information.”

  “History is written by the winners and rewritten by the entrepreneurs,” murmured Watson with a faraway look in his eyes. “I think I might know a way to briefly attend your meeting and compile some data in one fell swoop. My partner, Sherlock—she’s the gray one sitting on that perch over there—has a phonographic memory.”

  “Sherlock? Oh!” She approached my perch, eyes wide. “Who’s pretty? Who’s a pretty girl?”

  I growled like a dog.

  She stopped short. “I’m sorry, Sherlock. I didn’t mean to be condescending. I wouldn’t exactly greet a human that way, would I?”

  I wolf-whistled.

  “Point taken!” she laughed.

  I liked this woman. She was pretty smart for a human.

  She turned to Watson. “Don’t you mean she has a photographic memory?”

  “No, actually, I do mean phonographic in this case. She’s my personal stenographer, and luckily everyone underestimates her. She can remember and repeat anything she hears, which has proved to be a major embarrassment to me over the years, but may come in handy in this case. She’s also addicted to the TV, especially the History Channel. I think she analyzes mysteries.”

  Actually, I did more than that, but there was no way that this slow-brained hominid could ever know that. I fancied myself something of a cryptographer. My formative years living with the telegrapher had sparked my interest in codes, and I considered myself to be well versed in several. I was still trying to crack the Enigma Code, which was tough because my primate roommate did not have a machine.

  “We will meet you in your classroom after school tomorrow to discuss this case,” promised Watson, flicking his dark hair out of his eyes. “After all, it isn’t every day that we get a call from a high school teacher.”

  “Elementary!” I corrected him.

  “An elementary teacher with the minds of youth at stake. Don’t worry, Miss Rodowsky, we will find a way!”

  • • •

  Watson and I were still trying to think of a possible scenario early the next morning when the phone rang. A panicked Miss Rodowsky said, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you!”

  We didn’t have time to ask what had just transpired, but we headed over to the school as fast as Watson’s ancient vehicle would allow.

  Most of our questions were answered upon sight of the flashing lights and assortment of fire trucks and ambulances. We arrived too late to help and in the clearing smoke could only make out the sooty pile of ash on the asphalt of the playground’s basketball court. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had become of the missing books.

  Miss Rodowsky’s eyes glittered, her jaw set with determination. “This was clearly intended to intimidate me into submission, but it’s only confirmed my convictions. Libricide is a heinous enough crime, but someone could have died from smoke inhalation.”

  But it turned out that someone had died, as was apparent to us when the last of the smoke had cleared.

  The emaciated man lying facedown on the pavement sported a few burns to his skin and clothing, but displayed a great deal of unhygienic life with his greasy hair and unwashed skin. His facial features were obfuscated by a grizzled beard, and what remained of his clothing was in tatters. I watched the police closely and saw that they could find no wallet nor any other means of immediate identification. Bystanders were murmuring among themselves that he was perhaps homeless.

  A human would not have been able to step over the crime scene tape, but I saw no harm in launching myself off of Watson’s shoulder and snooping a bit. I felt no more empathy for the dead man than a human would a roasted chicken. I had seen on TV how sometimes homeless people will set fires in garbage cans to stay warm overnight, but it was springtime, which didn’t warrant such desperation. In fact, the man’s coat was off and he was still clutching it in his stiff fist, as if he had attempted to put out the flames with it.

  Long skid marks in the ash obscured any footprints that might have been made, as if someone had fled the crime scuffling in long strides on snowshoes. There were smears of red and white around the ashes, so I scraped them up with my bill, flew back to Watson’s shoulder, and wiped it on the shoulder of his good sport coat.

  “Sherlock!” he loudly complained.

  I cocked my head in deference and fixed him with a look. My pet had figured out that I had collected evidence to analyze and was publicly playing along with my apparent misbehavior. Either that, or he was merely clueless and annoyed. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but wasn’t going to hold my breath.

  “I can’t freak ou
t over this right now,” Miss Rodowsky murmured through clenched teeth. “Children will be arriving within a couple of hours, and I have to remain calm and not alarm them. Not only that, I now have to draw up a new lesson plan from scratch, and the school fair is tomorrow. It’s at the park next to Lake Greg, and I have to act like nothing is bothering me.”

  “We will be there,” Watson promised. “We can not only search for more clues but also give you some moral support.” He took her hand and kissed it.

  It was a shame that I had no hatchlings to feed, because I could have made a statement by spontaneously regurgitating.

  • • •

  The fair was innocuous enough. It was held in a huge section of park cordoned off to allow enough space for myriad tiny booths, each hosted by a homeroom class. Since Miss Rodowsky taught many grade levels, she was not tied down to any booth. After doing several hours’ duty manning the cotton candy machine (“These parents have no idea how bad that stuff is for kids!”), we three perused the site, trying to put our heads together and look for more clues.

  Miss Rodowsky’s brow furrowed in concern. “I don’t see Roxanne. Perhaps she had a late night. I hope she doesn’t get caught someday.” I didn’t know one teacher from the next, so I just focused on the details of the fair.

  It was all geared toward activities that small children could enjoy: a balloon pop, a rubber duckie pond, pony rides, and so forth. The only thing that seemed out of place was the garishly attired clown playing a pair of shockingly loud horns. The makeup was all wrong for a kids’ fair, too. I had seen on TV that the more flamboyant clown makeup was originally intended for the big top, in which facial features had to be exaggerated so that the clowns could be seen from a distance. Up close, however, the distorted-looking visages were terrifying to most children, and quite frankly a bit unsettling to me as well. This buffoon was no exception.

  Honk. Eek. Eek-honk, honk-honk. The sound was annoying, but there was a deliberation in it. I decided that this was worth heeding, and cocked my head to focus.

  “Is she all right?” asked our pint-sized companion.

  “Just let Sherlock do her work. She’s got a mind like a computer.”

  Mind like a computer. That was it. Computer! That cursed clown was playing a binary code. Each obnoxious horn was either a one or a zero, and eight clusters of ones and zeros at a time could represent a letter of the alphabet. I listened carefully, tracking each annoying honk and squeak. Once I was certain that the pattern was repeating itself, I pecked Watson on the head.

  Watson knew the cue. “Are you ready to come back to the office for some light refreshment, Miss Rodowsky?”

  But I wasn’t quite finished. There was something awfully familiar in that greasepaint. The colors matched the paint found at the crime scene. I looked at the oversized shoes, and something else clicked. The skid marks near the dead man hadn’t been just skid marks. They were the footprints of a gigantic clown! But how did a clown factor into a book burning and a homicide?

  The humans were almost ready to go, but Miss Rodowsky stopped to purchase a cupcake at the baked goods sale. It looked almost as tasty as a sunflower seed, but just as she finished the delicacy and was about to throw away the little paper cup, she suddenly blanched.

  I cocked my head for a better look. Through the remaining crumbs I could see that written on the bottom of the cup was JUST DO YOUR JOB.

  • • •

  Back in our kitchen, Watson made tea for himself and ran his fingers through his dark hair in frustration. I began idly plucking at my breast feathers. I had an answer, and no way to convey it. How could I explain it to these humans? I had to have some sort of auditory cue. I decided I could at least instigate conversation by agitating my peers.

  “Just do your job!” I said in Miss Rodowsky’s voice.

  Miss Rodowsky’s patience was wearing thin. “I have zero tolerance for this, and if one more person tells me to just do my job, I’ll—”

  That was all I needed to hear. “Zero!” I mimicked. “One! One! Zero! Zero…” And then I parroted off the honks I had committed to memory.

  The humans froze. “It’s binary code!” the teacher squeaked. “Sherlock, you’re a genius!”

  Duh.

  They pounced on Watson’s laptop computer in a frenzy and searched the internet for binary translators. They found a binary-to-ASCII text converter and summoned me. I replayed every one of those colossal honks and squawks, wishing that it was more conventional for a clown to have played the flute instead. With a click of the “convert” button, the message was clear: Books arrive Monday. SLO sends checks Tuesday.

  Miss Rodowsky frowned. “I don’t understand. Why don’t they just call or text each other?”

  “Several reasons,” supplied Watson. “Calls and texts are easily traced. Plus, this leads me to believe that this operation is so covert, no one knows who else is in on it. So no one knows how many people are involved, or who is friend or foe.”

  “Except for me.” Miss Rodowsky looked glum. “I’ve already blown the whistle and outed myself.”

  • • •

  We had Sunday to ponder the details. I managed to convince Watson to examine the paint on his coat, by calling, “Watson! Crick-Watson DNA model!” But we couldn’t make heads or tails of it. We tried every hardware store in town, trying to pinpoint specific colors and analyze chemical composition. It turned out to be some sort of airbrush body paint. This gave Watson an excuse to phone our lady client, informing her of our new discovery. I tried calling, “Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match…honk, honk!” but I couldn’t make him understand that this paint matched the color that I’d seen on the clown.

  We were smartly dressed for school Monday, ready to attend the faculty meeting. Watson was dressed in a suit, but sported a red bow tie; he had told me that it was to make him appear professional but also kid-friendly. I personally thought that the accessory made him look like a sociopath. I find television to be quite educational in the realms of pop culture and bizarre human nature, and according to the shows, Watson would never have an eye for fashion.

  We didn’t really intend to put on a kids’ show, in spite of our front. Like I may have mentioned before, I hate children, and I was fully prepared to sabotage our act if they actually liked our routine, Horus forbid.

  There were twelve of them in all, seated around an oblong table. They were paying attention to my beauty, of course, and although I pretended to eat it up, I observed everything.

  Only two people were giving each other furtive glances. A rat-faced woman drummed on the table in a display of impatience. The other person of interest, an overdressed man with a barrel chest, rapped back a quick response. The exchange went into my steel-trap memory.

  “What kind is of parrot is he?” someone asked.

  “She is an African gray. She’s gray, and um, she’s from Africa,” Watson weakly tried to elucidate. “Her name is, um, Cuddles.”

  Cuddles? I understood why Watson had to change my name if we were undergoing a secret mission, but…Cuddles? I grumbled, “Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman.”

  They all exploded into laughter at that. Watson tensed. “Come on, Sherlock,” he pleaded nervously. “Let’s sing them a song. You remember your part, don’t you? ‘Where is thumbkin, where is thumbkin…’”

  I was still sore that he told them my name was Cuddles, and decided I would substitute my response with a different line. “I’m Rick James, bitch!” I replied on cue. To show my appreciation for my colleague’s excellent stage persona, I lifted my tail and voided my bowels on his shoulder. Much to my delight, I could see his face reddening. Because he was in front of a committee of schoolteachers in a professional setting, protocol prevented him from rebuking me with his usual quip: “No shit, Sherlock!”

  We were politely thanked for our time, and assured that we would be contacted should the need arise. Meaning, of course, that we mercifully didn’t get the gig. But by the time we left the room I
had a good profile on everyone and every tiny exchange.

  • • •

  We met Miss Rodowsky at her classroom after school. We birds are not known for our keen olfactory senses, but the charming old building smelled clean to me. Colorful artwork made by students and teachers alike festooned the halls at every turn, and much of it was themed on the values of kindness and cooperation. Perched on Watson’s shoulder as he walked up to the second floor, I could see how teachers like our client took such pride in shaping the minds of the next generation.

  She was just finishing up some one-on-one tutoring with a young man, a rather uncommon sort. He was far too large to be in elementary school, and the way he turned and looked at me led me to believe that there was something different about this child. “Thank you both for coming,” she addressed us warmly. “I’m just wrapping it up with Jerome here. He’s trying to adjust to the Spanish teacher who comes once a week.”

  “Wrong words, wrong words!” the kid protested.

  “Yes, I know, Jerome, they are wrong words for English class, but this is a whole new language,” she replied with infinite patience. The boy turned to see me and suddenly froze, keeping his eyes on me. I bobbed up and down once, and he laughed. Miss Rodowsky beamed. “Animals certainly have a way of reaching autistic people.”

  Of course we do, I thought. So Jerome was autistic. I could relate to this kid quite well. No one really knew what was going on in his head, just like no one really knew what’s going on in mine. This was quite possibly the only child I actually liked.

  “Well, Jerome is smiling for once, so at least something good came out of this day,” Miss Rodowsky sighed. She crumpled up a piece of scratch paper and threw it in the trash.

  “Q, L, Y, T, R!” he exclaimed.

  She cleared some papers and made a space for Watson to sit down, accidentally knocking a can full of pencils off of her desk.

  “S, S, A, M, T!”