The Medium Snooze - Chapter 9

Chapter 9 : The Clean-up.

3287 and the boys appeared with their usual speed. I swear some ant in the hill has fixed it so that 3287 gets all my cases, the only comfort I have is that it probably annoys him even more than me. 3287 took me to one side whilst his ants crawled around the place looking for clues, examining the body, taking out what was left of Bendelbee’s food from his larder (an ant perk it seems, still it isn’t like there won’t be a million forms to fill in to account for it all). It wasn’t until he started interviewing me that I noticed the number on his shoulder wasn’t 3287 any more, it was 3267.

“Promotion ?” I said nodding towards his new badge. I figured if I could at least start him off in a good mood things might go a bit smoother.

“Barely.” Apparently a twenty place move wasn’t entirely to his liking. Well it was worth a try.
“Fortunately I don’t just have to chase around after you, I do have other cases. Still enough of the chatter Pincher, who’s this sucker ? Don’t tell me you’ve lost another client.”

“Nope. This guy is one Lars Bendelbee aka Harold Cervus.” 3267 twitched, he’d obviously heard of at least one of the names. “It’s my belief that headless here was directly responsible for Spindler’s death and was mixed up in the assault on Turfside.”

“And just how do you know all this ?”

“Sources.”

“Sources ? These sources got names Pincher ?”

“Probably.”

“Do you want to tell me any of them then ?”

Decision time. How much was I going to tell the ants this time ? I was running out of leads and I couldn’t really afford to have these guys walking all over the few that I still had but 3267 needed to hear something or I was looking at a long time under the hill.

“Well I’d seen Bendelbee around Turfside..”

“You’d seen him at Turfside ? You didn’t happen to mention this in your last statement Pincher.”

“Yeah well I forgot, I got a real bad memory. Besides I saw a lot of bugs around Turfside. Still his name came up again when I visited Davy Clawson.”

It wasn’t the truth but it was close enough. I was sure Clawson was mixed up with Bendelbee somehow and if I’d banged his head on the stone a few more times I’m sure he’d have given me Bendelbee’s name. I decided I didn’t need to give Tony’s name to 3267 and I certainly wasn’t going to mention Unc.

“Clawson. Pincher I got a file a millimetre thick on this guy. He’s suspected of Mafia connections as, I may add, is this guy here.”

3267 waved a leg in the general direction of the corpse. “Now come on Pincher what the hell’s going on ?”

“I ain’t sure yet, but trust me you’ll be the first guy I call when I figure it out.”

“Not really good enough Pincher. Why were you talking to Clawson ?”

I briefly thought about lying and telling 3267 that we were buddies from way back, after all I had known Davy for a long time, we were about the same age, both ‘wigs etc. but my inbuilt reputation monitor wouldn’t let me do it. Hanging around with hit beetles and fraudster snails was one thing but claiming to be a buddy of Clawson was something else.

“I’d got word that he’d been involved with Sammy at Turfside so I went to see him to find out what the deal was.”

“And what was the deal ?”

“Well he denied everything of course but I got the impression he was working for some er... friends of Sammy’s.”

“What kind of friends ?”

“Striped ones. You know ones with big stings hanging outta their...”

“Yeah I get the picture, wasps. We suspected Clawson was involved with them but how do you know ?”

“They told me.”

“Who did ?”

“The wasps.” It was worth giving 3267 that information just to see the look on his face. The look was a mixture of shock, horror and utter amazement. It was a while before 3267 spoke again and I just waited, I wasn’t going to make this easy for him by offering an unasked for explanation.

“So what is this Pincher ? Some kind of confession ? Are you telling me you’re working for the hive now ?”

Poor 3267 looked so confused I actually felt sorry for him, with a bit of luck I could lace my explanation with enough of the truth for him to buy it but leave it vague enough to give me room to manoeuvre later.

“Nah. I just got an invite around to their place. They wanted to speak to me about Sammy’s death, I got the impression they weren’t too pleased about it.”

“So you reckon Maybrook was working for them.”

I’d decided by this point that getting 3267 on my side was probably not a bad thing. If I was going to sort all this mess out then I was going to need some ant help somewhere down the line. Never too early to start buttering up the law.

“Maybe not working for them but he was certainly working with them.”

A puzzled look crossed 3267’s face.

“What ?” he knew something I didn’t and I needed to find out what.

“Hmmm... Well I really shouldn’t tell you this Pincher but our investigations showed the Maybrook was linked to the pond, he got some financial help from the frogs when he originally bought Turfside.”

“Could be a pond hit then. Maybe the pond found out that Sammy had been working with the hive and wasn’t too pleased about it.”

“Could be Pincher. It’d fit with your friend over here, we have him down as one Harold Cervus, small time hood for the pond. Looks like he got taken out by his own stags though. Oh for cryin’ out loud Pincher how come when you show up my job gets about a thousand times more complicated ?”

“I just don’t like seeing you guys get bored.”

3267 sighed from the bottom of his thorax “I could use a little boredom about now.”

3267 looked bewildered and beaten. I figured if I was going to try and sneak out of this then this would be my best shot.

“So am I free to go now ?”

“Hmmmm... What ?” I obviously distracted his line of thought. “Well... Hell why not, It’s pretty obvious you didn’t murder this guy and I can’t be bothered to come up with any charges right now, besides I’d only end up with that psychotic secretary of yours scaring the living crap outta my desk ants.”

“Always a pleasure Sgt.”

“Just get outta here Pincher, before I change my mind. I know you ain’t telling me everything but I don’t suppose time in a cell will change that either, just make damn sure you let me know if you get any real information or happen to remember anything else.”

“Whatever you say Sgt.”

I’d got as far as the front hole when 3267 appeared at the bottom of the passageway and called out to me.

“And Pincher.”

“Yeah.”

“For god sake be careful, the last thing the garden needs is a mafia war.”

Back in the office Alice was trying to look busy with some paperwork. Problem was with business being slow even Alice couldn’t keep herself busy forever, still she tried.

“Alice.”

“Yeah, Ernie ?”

“Get hold of Melissa at Turfside. Tell her that we’re coming over and that we want to see her husband’s papers and documents.”

“Today ?”

“Sure, why not ?”

“And by we, you mean you, or you and me ?”

I was glad I heard that and didn’t have to read it.

“Erm.. us. Unless you have something better to do this afternoon ?”

“No not really. She isn’t going to like this Ernie, she told you to stay away.”

“Too bad, I gotta see those papers. Maybe Sammy left some clue behind about what was going on. Damn Alice, I should have done this days ago. I must be losing it.”

“You never had it Ernie.”

“Thanks.”

Leaving Alice to get in touch with Melissa I headed into my office. I needed to get in touch with Unc I had a feeling I was going to need a bit more information than Sammy would have left us and I had an idea how to get it. I rang Wiggies, it was around noon and Unc should have been around getting things ready for that evening. It was Norman that answered the call.

“Wiggies.”

“Hi Norm, Unc about ?”

“Sure Mr. Pincher I’ll go and get him.”

I’d been relying on Unc quite a bit for this case but Unc was the ‘wig with the contacts up north and whenever there was any rough stuff going on you could be sure the spiders had a fair idea about it.

“Hi Ernie, How are things ?”

“They’ve been better Unc, Bendelbee is history. Taken out by his own stags by the looks of things and the hive have stopped answering my calls, apart from that things are just peachy.”

“You should have listened to your mother and become an accountant Ernie.”

“Nah, I’d never have been able to cope with the excitement. Listen Unc I need you to do something for me. I really need to get hold of those two orb weavers from Turfside.”

“Hey, I’ve been trying Ern but nobody is talking.”

“Yeah I know Unc but listen, I want you to let them know that the guy who turned over Turfside was the same guy who killed Spindler.”

“You sure you wanna do that Ern, it might work but it’s a bit risky ?”

“I gotta try Unc, I’m running outta leads here.”

I was banking on the way spiders think and how they view the garden in general. I’ve already mentioned that spiders come and go pretty much as they please, they see themselves as sort of lone killers, untouchables almost. They fight between themselves all the time but for someone else to turn over a spider is almost unheard of. I was banking on the fact that a couple of orb weavers were not going to be too happy about helping out Bendelbee if they thought he was a spider killer. Of course they may just decide that having some loud mouthed ‘wig wandering around spouting this stuff is just plain embarrassing and figure that ripping my head off to shut me up was the way to go. Still like I said to Unc I had to take a few chances if I was going to sort this one out.

“Ok Ernie, it’s your case, I’ll give it a go.”

“Thanks Unc”

Alice had managed to persuade Melissa through various means of charm, begging and what sounded through the wall to be downright threats that letting us see Sammy’s papers that afternoon was in everyone’s best interests. Melissa had said that she didn’t want to be connected with us so soon after the killing and true to her word when we arrived at Turfside she was nowhere to be seen. What was to be seen however were the two new bouncers on the front door. Melissa had gone out and hired herself a pair of Harvestmen. These guys are quite small but with their number of legs can often get confused for a small spider, not that they are anywhere near as psychotic. I supposed it was a step up from Harry and Gerry but even so I didn’t think either of them could give me much trouble if it came to it. The two of them led us to Sammy’s old office despite my protests that I knew the way, apparently Melissa wasn’t going to have us looking around the place too much. Finally they left me and Alice alone and we got to work.

“What exactly am I looking for here Ernie ?”

“I dunno kid, something. Anything. Just let me know if you find anything out of the ordinary.”

“Sure. Won’t 3287 have been through all this before us though ?”

“Yeah and he didn’t find anything. It’s 3267 now by the way. I’m hoping that with the little extra we know we might just come across something they missed.”