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Where We Left Off:
Gus and Oliver delivered an unsub known as The Grey Man who was offered a deal to go into the relocation program.
Fool’s Gold:
It’s been a busy summer filled with the squeezes and releases of anxiety and worries. There’s been a lot going on in the neighborhood too. This case begins with one of our morning walks. Both Oliver and Gus were happy to get outside before the deer arrived and even before the bats came home so you know that’s early. Sounds of insects and frogs vibrated on the still air.
We went up a stone paver path and then up the incline of the private road where it’s the easiest to push Ollie’s buggy. I was grateful Gus chose that direction. Motion-activated lights popped on as we moved along. The cats certainly have better senses about what or who is around us at any given moment. The dark is especially a time and place where my mere human abilities could use a boost. My nightmares and imagination are far worse in strange places than in the familiar moonlit environment of home.
A clumsy figure walked in front of us. Gus stopped to let this bearded Mad Man give him a morning pet. File Under: Gus Approved.
The boys have learned that at the Gate of Doom cattle style swinging gate is a boundary. Ollie’s in his carriage so he’s never a problem. Gus will pause in front of the gate and think about his next move. Even when I’m there holding his leash, there are days when he wants to try and continue up the hill like we did for years before these neighbors moved in.
“Hey!” Oliver blurted out. He snapped Gus out of his daydream about walking up the mountain to climb trees and see the vistas we used to love. Ollie turned around in his space and laid down to look out the back window screen. I don’t know why. All he can see is my legs and my umbrella.
Gus silently turned at the end of his leash and headed passed the mobile command unit towards the hangar where he often hunts for intruders. The building’s front has the entrance and one of the enormous bay doors. More motion lights got brighter.
“Do you want to go to work?” I asked. Instead of putting a paw on the door, Gus stuck his nose in the weeds to find the specific bristle grass he loves to eat. A daddy-longlegs walked up the door jamb. They’re the most venomous spider, by the way, but their mouths are too tiny to harm humans.
“I hate to rush you along, Guster,” Ollie said, “But I think there’s something we need to investigate. There’s a patch of land over there that looks lighter than it should. Something doesn’t seem right.”
Gus moved closer to Ollie’s buggy. He stood up so they could sniff each other’s faces. I guess they telepathically agreed on what to do next because Gus led us across the wet grass towards that patch Ollie was talking about.
“Compared to humans, cats have much less clarity of vision. We can see at quite good distances, able to focus on objects up to 200 feet away from us. In cats, this acuity is much less, with their focus only able to extend to around 20 feet ahead. Cats have less need for good distance vision, as they tend to rely on stealth to get very close to their prey.”—Cats.com
“Visual acuity is how clear (or unclear) one can see. You’re probably familiar with the phrase “20/20 vision”; a cat’s can be anywhere from 20/100 to 20/200. That means what a human can see from 100 to 200 feet away a cat has to be 20 feet away to see clearly.”—Catster.com
Gathering Information:
The sun was coming up allowing us to see better. Whether it’s getting older, taking adventurers before I’m really awake, or adverse effects of other health stuff, it takes me a while to be observant. I’m simply the opposite of the world’s (and fiction’s) greatest detectives like Adrian Monk, Shawn Spencer, and Jessica Fletcher. I guess it’s possible that it’s also a personality trait that I keep my eyes down and think I’m invisibly walking through spaces. I’ve walked through the living room every single day and even if I can sense something was moved, I don’t figure out what it is and have to be told.
Gus and Ollie are observant detectives. When something new comes into the house or property, they want to check it out (even more so if there’s a box involved). Ollie was totally right—a section of the ground was disturbed that hadn’t been the day before. It took me more seconds than it should have, maybe 20, to realize the spanse of lilac bushes that reminded me of an island was gone. In its place, bumpy ground covered in long dead grass.
I saw our deer friends, Simona and her fawn Sheerlin, slowly walk in front of Fort Winchester at the far northern border of the property. They come at night sometimes and might have seen something. I had to be careful because if I simply let Gus go on his own, the creatures would run away. They could clobber-smash Gus, but he somehow manages to chase them off the land. He might be big for a cat, but he’s certainly not the size of a herding dog.
“Take me instead,” Oliver directed. I pushed Ollie’s buggy along the garden wall and engaged his parking brakes. I picked up Gus and moved us back to the haunted well house where I put him on the roof.
Gus watched his partner engage in conversation with the mother deer. Then he distracted himself by watching the birds and squirrels at Gnome Grove. We had two new gnomes on staff, Ninome and Raphael, who have adjusted well to their new roles here at the Winchester-Nabu Detective Agency. The whirlwind that is the eastern grey squirrel, Jessica Walnuts, had already attacked Ninome once.
The spunky spotted fawn jumped with amusement. She clearly loved to play and didn’t always have her cousins around. She popped around in a circle and went back into the woods. Simona didn’t rush off after her child. She knew where Sheelin would be. She politely ended her talk with Ollie before turning tail and crossing the treeline to the unseen space within the tangles of raspberry bushes and unkempt trees.
“Hey!” Ollie let out his typical shout to get attention.
“I’m coming.” I was already halfway to him.
“We have to get back to the office! This will require some extensive research,” Ollie ordered. I gathered Gus from the well house roof and put him on my shoulders. He jumped down which made it easier to push the buggy through the grass (which is never actually easy to do).
What We Discovered:
No need to bore you with how we did our internet sleuthing based upon Simona’s information. She told Ollie that there was a machine here digging in various parts of the property. That also explains why the missing lilacs weren’t the only spot that looked different. Strangely, it didn’t have new grass seeds like the other patches. Something made the lilac spot different.
Someone came during the night with an excavator. It’s unlikely this was the person’s first visit. All of us believed that there was more than one culprit and that they had been staking out our property for a while. They were looking for something—and it was important to them.
Typically, our research on this area only goes back as far as the early colonists. We didn’t need to dig deeper (pun intended). It was during the early days of the settlers choosing western New Jersey to invade and take for their own. Before the railroad came through, coaches/horse carriages were the more prevalent way to move items bigger than a saddlebag. Unlike cities where immigrants formed their own clustered neighborhoods to stick around their other misplaced countrymen, the countryside could be anyone after the Lenni Lenape were forced away with the Iroquois Nation.
By following clues from an old book which contained a poem, treasure hunters came to the conclusion that there was something buried deep below where those lilac bushes had been for probably 50+ years. This ground is difficult to dig! It’s all rock under a thin skin of soil. That explains why these treasure hunters brought in an excavator.
How Did They Get Away with It?
For a few days, The Butler and I were away at CrimeCon to study more psychology, criminology, and forensics. The elder humans don’t hear well. The Cook makes a habit of sleeping on her “good” ear so that she’s not disturbed. The blackout curtains were drawn closed.
Did these treasure hunters find anything? According to Simona, they left with nothing! The crate was wooden and in shambles. It was crushed with some evidence of the splintered wood in its place. They probably dug through the debris, water, roots, and rocks and came out with nothing of value to them. No gold, silver, or other metals. No arrowheads. No gems other than the chunks of quartz that make up some of the terrain here.
Case Findings:
Gus and Ollie made a discovery of a non-discovery! They found that the land had been disturbed like someone dug a massive grave. Ollie talked to Simona, one of the deer mothers, and learned that people had snuck onto the property during a night. It ended up where these treasure seekers didn’t uncover anything! We don’t believe there’s any buried treasure here or nearby. If there is something under the buildings, well…no one will be able to look for that!
Case Status: Closed
