Winchester-Nabu Detective Agency Year Three: Case File No. 42-146

AMBER LOVE 02-MAR-2020 Find out how all this began. Catch up on Year One and previous Year Two cases at the Winchester-Nabu Detective Agency. We are in the final stretch of YEAR THREE still because we started cataloging our criminal investigations in the spring.

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A story of intimate partner abuse, gaslighting, harassment, and attempted murder:

Where We Left Off:

The Winchester-Nabu Detective Agency made new acquisitions for our collection of specimens and oddities.

Cornered:

Recently I reported on the large mass of hair found at the Overlook which is at the end of the Boulevard Trail. It was set apart from other finds because there were no signs of struggle. No blood. No bones. In today’s case, we found something different. It was another spot of clumps of hair, but it had signs of assault other than the peculiarity of massive amounts of hair detached from the body.

Again, no bones were found, but as Gus led me off the Boulevard to a section of currently dead brush, I leaned down to see what he was detecting with his Super Smeller. I used a twig to move some of the dead, crunchy brown leaves out of the way and uncovered more of this fur discovery.

The coloring of these samples looked distinctly different from the last discovery. Their texture was different too. These were thinner and softer. There was more grey in them. I immediately realized it had to be a rodent given the length of hair. It was certainly not as cotton-soft as the wolpertinger specimen. Rodents matching these colors and length could only be squirrels or chupacabra if we’re going to consider magings of the neighborhood.

Gus has caught and killed a squirrel one time. It was a long time ago and it was a sad sight. A little baby that still had a lot of pink from baldness. I tried taking that one away from him and seeing if its mother would find it, but it perished. Since then, Gus has not been able to catch a squirrel. If he had, he would have brought it either home or away from me while I pursued. If I’m not after him to release something, he always brings his prizes to me to get his treats.

No, this murder was not committed by Gus. Of that, I’m certain. And it definitely had all the makings of a murder. There’s no such thing as squirrel-sheering season. That hair meant something.

Oliver has been getting carriage rides when the weather is more temperate. He usually goes passed the intersection of the Boulevard Trail and sometimes down it depending on how bumpy the trail is. He hadn’t reported seeing anything unusual to the butler.

No eyewitness and very little evidence found. This was going to be a tough case to crack. Oliver sent the hair samples for analysis and it was not a maging. It was one of our local squirrels. We don’t have the sort of labs to determine much more information than that.

We had to work the network, the grapevine of gossip on the streets. Gus started to ask around to see if anyone was missing. He went to the CIs who were big talkers like the members of the blue jay gang. The squirrels themselves are big talkers too, but usually not in the helpful way to Gus.  Squirrels tend to talk nicely to me but they know Gus has a history of brutality.

We found a break when blue jay underboss — and honestly one of their fiercest heavy guns — Silvia DeCitta was looking for a couple extra helpings of peanuts. We had just received a new shipment and were able to make the pay off. Let’s think of it less as bribe and more of a reward for a Crimestoppers tip.

It was not easy getting Silvia to behave around Gus. She has a heart of cold steel and could peck someone’s eyes right out. The fanciful assassin had the flare of any classic femme fatale. Silvia glanced over her wing, took a sideways look at Gus. I swear you could have heard her say, “Mm-mmm, that’s right. You need me right now.” She didn’t actually say it though. The look was enough.

We were able to get information out of Silvia that made a difference to our case. The victim was Theo Sciurus. A bit new to the neighborhood. The critter network didn’t have much information on him or his wife, Synthia Sciurus. They had minor criminal connections, but mostly stayed on the up and up. From what we could gather, Theo was jumped and it was unexpected. No signs from anyone that he and Synthia were in danger before this happened.

The next question wasn’t who did it, but where the hell was Synthia? Could she have had something to do with it? We needed more information.

Case Findings:

Oliver and Gus agreed that we needed to gather more facts before proceeding. Certainly, there was one murder. Victim Theo Sciurus could not have survived a skinning like that.

Case Status: Open

Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.