The Investigators, Inc. Mountain Cabin Mystery. Chapter 1. Hermit Pete.

Well, here we are in the library waiting for the cats to bring their little wagons full of brochures for possible vacation spots. Of course now we have 3 wagons full of brochures since Storm decided to join the fun. I am surprised they never seem to run out of these brochures, but they do come from all over the world. Still, every time a lot of them get ripped up and burned in the fireplace.

Oh well, they do seem to have fun doing this. And it is fun watching them. There is MC still wanting to explore some old castles, Storm wants to explore some jungle locations, which makes sense since he is from the jungle. And Muffin, well, she has varied tastes and has the most trouble figuring out exactly what she wants, though she does seem to favor places with beaches.

MC hates beaches because the sand gets in his fur and then needs to have a bath. Storm hates beaches because the sand reminds him of being in the desert, which is where we found him. After about 2 hours of looking and tearing up brochures I spotted one from Muffin’s pile and picked it up. “Hey, this one looks interesting,” I said. Suddenly all 3 cats were on my lap looking at the brochure. Kat would have been too but she was too slow and there was no room left for her.

“Hmm, that does look interesting,” said Kat. “Well, are you going to let us in on it too?”, asked Galyna. “It is a mountain resort with beautiful log cabins,” said Kat. Now everyone was all around us trying to get a look. Annelie just looked at the name and found the website for the resort. So most everyone went over to her laptop to look at the pics. Everyone, including all the cats, said it sounded perfect. Baldwin was too busy to join us, Mriya wanted to stay behind and help Chung, Annelie was not well again so her and Rock would also be staying behind.

So we booked 2 cabins for the rest of us and we were soon on our way. We were all really looking forward to this vacation after all the stress of our last case. Our jet landed briefly to refuel in New York and then we were on our way across the continent to this secluded mountain resort. They were not joking when they said “secluded”. Someone from the resort met us at the airport and drove us to the resort. That drive took another 6 hours.

Once we finally got there we were quite tired and after eating dinner went straight to bed. The two cabins were side by side and just a short walk from the main lodge. They were indeed very beautiful, and large, log cabins. All of us were soon asleep and awoke to a very beautiful, sunny morning. Everything seemed like it was going to be a perfect, relaxing time for us. One thing I must learn, however, is to never tell people what we do for a living.

At least not if we want to enjoy our vacation. So this time I was very careful not to say anything. But at breakfast the girls from Cabin 2 told us about some odd things that happened during the night, like someone staring in a window, so 3 of them went outside to check and no one was there. There are 5 of us in each cabin, plus the cats.

Jennifer said the same thing happened at our cabin, but she did not want to say anything because when she went to check, no one was there. I reminded her that 3 are supposed to check anything suspicious. She did not want to wake anyone, besides, MC went with her. Meow,meow!=Ghosts! We go back home, pack right after breakfast.

“No Muffin,” I said, “it was probably one of the workers checking on things.” The owner overheard us. “That was probably hermit Pete,” he said, “he lives way back in the mountains somewhere, no one knows for sure where, and he comes here for supplies. He was here last night after dark, always seems to come after dark. He is kind of a strange man, but harmless.”

“I am glad he thinks so,” said Kat, “but I do not like the idea of someone looking in our window at night.” There are two families with 3 young children each in cabins 3 and 4, plus 4 seniors in cabin 5 and 4 young men in cabin 6. One of the little girls said something that caused the cats ears to go straight up! Then the owners, Paul and Beth Strand, both 25, said they would like to talk with me…

To Be Continued.

©2022 Steve McLeod.