Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
The Investigators, Inc. The Painting. Chapter 4.
We sat down in the living room together after Jessica’s uncle and cousin had awakened from their “nap”. Before we start talking I put on my scrambler. “What is that for?”, asked Jessica. “It stops anyone from listening to our conversation, just in case the room has a listening device hidden somewhere,” I explained, “now we can safely talk.” “That’s a good little gadget,” said Jessica’s uncle, “oh, and by the way, my name’s Benjamin Carberry, and that’s my son Benjamin, but we always call him Ben so there’s no confusion when we’re together.”
“Do you know the name of the man that was using you?”, I ask Jessica. “Yes, his name is Gregory Hackett,” she answered, “he’s very tall and slim, and an amazing fighter of martial arts.” “A good thing to know if we meet him, and we shall,” I said confidently, “the only way to be free of someone like that is to eliminate him, one way or another.” “That’s very true,” Kat added, “those kind of people need to be stopped, and we’re definitely going to help you with this.” Kat is catching on, that’s good. “Is this place the safest or is the castle better?”, I ask Benjamin.
“The castle is the best place, there are so many hidden tunnels and passages, hidden rooms that no one knows about,” he said. “Uncle Benjamin is right,” said Jessica, “he knows his way around there perfectly. He has been going through all those hidden tunnels since he was a kid.” “That’s good,” I said, “it gives you a good advantage.” “I like to take Jessica to the castle when new people show up at the Inn, you know, curious types,” he explained, “like the 2 young men that are staying there right now. I don’t trust them at all.” “Neither do we,” I said, “they have been watching us too, so I plan to check them out a bit.”
“How can you do that Steve?”, asked Jessica. “That’s a PI’s secret,” I said. Jessica laughed, so did uncle Benjamin. Ben didn’t and hasn’t been talking at all, perhaps his pride was hurt more than he was. Then I said to the cats, “go over closer to Jessica and sniff her so you can see that she’s real, and not a ghost.” So they did and Jessica picked them up and gave them each a hug. “You see Muffin and M.C.?,” said Jessica, “I’m not a ghost, I’m real!” Meow,meow=Yep, she not ghost, she smell like human, ghost not have smell. Meow.=Yep, that true, she real for sure, feel better now.
“I’m glad we have that settled now,” I said, “but how do you know that ghosts have no smell? Wait, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.” “I want to know,” said Kat, “so you can tell me.” Meow,meow=We see it on “mewtube”, it all for cats and what we need to know, that where I learn languages. Then Muffin smiles. “When did she learn to smile?”, asked Jessica. “I’m not quite sure, but they can both smile, and giggle, and numerous other things,” I said, “now we need to be getting back to the Inn. Is there another road to the castle?” “Yes,” said uncle Benjamin, “just stay on the main road and it’s the second road past this one.”
“Good,” I said, “better to not use the same road all the time.” I sent the cats out to sniff the car before we left, just in case someone had left us a “present” that we didn’t want. Soon we were heading back to the Inn while Kat was busy taking pictures. We needed to show we were just tourists. Jessica had said the lady at the Inn was helping her too so she was someone we could trust. We just went straight to our room and after setting up the scrambler I called Baldwin. He was busy so I talked with Calanthe and asked her to check on Gregory Hackett and Benjamin Carberry and his son Ben, plus Brent Carson and Patrick Marlin, the 2 men from the Inn.
Then I asked her to check on Jessica Collins and her twin sister Candy. “Um, isn’t Jessica an old girlfriend?,” asked Calanthe, “you said she was dead.” “That’s right, she died about 18 months ago,” I said, “but now she has turned up, alive. So she claims, but it could be Candy instead. They were identical twins, no way to tell them apart by looking at them.” “Okay, I’ll try to get this info to you quickly,” she said. Meow.=Human Jessica call me M.C., but she only know my name as Mr. Cat. M.C. new name, Kat start that. “Very good M.C.,” said Kat, “none of us used his name, so how did she know?” “The same way she knew about that big blank wall,” I said, “she has been doing some checking around too.”
To Be Continued.
Previous chapters of this story, and more stories, can be found on my home page under “The Investigators, Inc.” Stories from last year can be found under “20/20 Investigations, Inc.”
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 
The mystery continues ! So Jessica is really the twin sister Candy…interesting…still something is not right…think carefully about your next move ! ☕️☕️🕵️♂️👩😼😼☕️☕️💙
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Well, we don’t know for sure if it really is Jessica or Candy. Jessica was supposedly killed and Candy got away in that one case last year. But perhaps Jessica wasn’t really killed and maybe Candy works with this Gregory Hackett guy. Hard to know what’s going on just yet. We’ll know more when Calanthe gets in touch with us.🤔👱♀️😾😾🕵️♂️
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Ohhhhh…. this is getting really interesting!!😲😲
And nobody has gotten killed yet! 😁😁
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Amazing, isn’t it? But that may not last. Good thing I remembered that Jessica had a twin sister who got away in that case where Jessica was killed, or not.
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Exactly!! I remembered asking you back then if it really was here or not! You said it was!! So that means this is her twin!!😁
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But I could have been wrong, maybe it was her twin that was killed and not Jessica! Or maybe Jessica is right and they just drugged her so it looked like she was dead and she wasn’t. So many possibilities!😬
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But who was buried then? You had the whole under observation and you watched the seal the casket!
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Um, you’re thinking of a different case. You have to go waaaaayyyy back to last year to the case of the Country Estate.
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Oh! Okay… so I’m mixing two different cases together?
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Yep, you’re thinking of the “Treasure Hunt” case which was earlier this year. The “Country Estate” was last year and that’s when M.C. joined us and my first girlfriend Jessica was supposedly killed. But I decided to bring her back again, or did I?
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Ahhhh… Now I remember!😉😁
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I knew you would. It’s easy to mix up these stories when characters keep coming back and go away, sometimes leave and sometimes stay.😛😂😹
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That’s for sure!! Especially for me!!😳😳
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I have a hard time too!😬
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Ya but you have notes to refer to!
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I just look up the stories and chapters, you could do that too, everything is right there on my home page.😁🙄
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That’s right!!!😉😁
I’ll need to remember that!😊
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It’s very helpful. All you need to remember is which case you want and which chapter it’s in, otherwise you’ll be looking for days.🤔😳😳
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Huh… that could increase your number of visits…🤔🤔😉
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Yep, that’s true! It’s a plus all around!😁😁
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Yep, that’s it.
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But who did you use the mirror on to make sure they were dead?🤔
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If they’re dead, why would they want a mirror?🤔🙄
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Yeah…😛😛😛
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Finished the bird feeder, just need to put up the new pole for it tomorrow.
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That’s great!
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Thanks! It’s taking so long, I do things so slow now it’s terrible.😬😲
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You’ll get there! It’s not a race!😉😁
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Good thing, I would have lost before I started.😳
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Tortoise 🐢 and the Hare 🐇 you’re the turtle!😄😉😁
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No, no, I’m the hare, he loses, the turtle wins, remember?
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That’s not what you called me the other day!😛😛😛
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Really?🤔 Maybe it has something to do with inflation.🙄🙄
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Leave the economy out of this!! I’m confused enough Mr. Turtle 🐢 🤨
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Speaking of the economy, we had an election yesterday but nothing changed, nothing at all. All the political parties are in the same place they were, which is nowhere. But that’s not important, back to the turtle, which is what confuses me too. Well, okay, the other is more confusing to me, but that’s just me. I am sweating buckets right now.
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Ouch!! That must hurt!! You must have big pores!😳😳😳😲😲😲😲
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Now I feel cold again.
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Your thermostat needs some tinkering😉😉
🤭🤭
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I don’t think they have tinkers anymore. However, I don’t know what a tinker was anyway, I just know they had them at one time.🤔🙄
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Is that right? Sounds like your Internal regulator is running out of regulator…
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Hmm, does that mean I need to drink more coffee?🤔😁😁😁😁😁☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕
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I don’t think there’s that much coffee!!😂😂 But you can sure try it and see if it helps!😂😂😂
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As they say in the old country, “if it’s broke, drink coffee, if it’s not broke, drink coffee.” Although I think they were referring to covered wagons.
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I hear tea had more caffeine than coffee has! Is that true??🤔🤔 You know… since I stopped drinking coffee my stomach and gut problems have gone away!😁😁 I have been very pleasantly surprised!😁😁
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Now this is getting interestig A twin sister is never a goog thing. It all sounds suspicious. There are surprises coming I bet 🤔🤔
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Have a laugh on me
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Yep, now to figure out if I’m talking to the real Jessica or her twin, Candy. It really does seem to be Jessica, but the cats are not quite sure what to think. Why doesn’t she refer to Ben as her cousin? That’s curious. And why doesn’t Ben talk? That’s very curious.
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Like Alice said “Curioser and curioser “🤣😂🤣
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And the plot thickens! Will the real Jessica stand up! 👻😼💅
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I hope she wasn’t triplets. I still think there is something wrong here and I have a hard time believing it is Jessica.🤔👱♀️😾😾🕵️♂️
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