The Investigators, Inc. The Mysterious Letter. Chapter 10. Foot Slipped.

They were all still in the jets, but everyone was up early, including Dawn who had just looked out one of the windows. “Karen, come here,” said Dawn, “look at those people over there.” “What is special about them?” asked Karen. “Those men come to our little town every month carrying that big case,” she said, “that older man is always with them, but the others keep changing.

There is always a woman along too, but this is the first time I have seen her, she looks a lot like that other Chloe with Ohio, the one that had been my friend for so long.” “Ah, now we are getting somewhere,” said Mandar. He startled the girls a bit since they did not hear him approach. He chuckled a bit. “I can be very quiet when I want to be,” he said, “that young woman is the real Chloe, I have seen her picture that Annelie found and supplied to us.”

He then called Aari to make sure they were awake and told him about the people outside. “We need to stop them before their transportation arrives,” he told Aari, “Dawn says they always use a Limousine.” So both teams went out quickly and surrounded those people, but Dawn noticed the limousine approaching quickly and alerted everyone.

Fortunately it was not a bullet proof car, guess they did not think it was necessary out here, so it was easy to stop it by shooting at it. “You people are very careless,” said Aari, “and you will pay for that carelessness in prison.” “You cannot prove anything against me!” exclaimed Chloe, “I am here against my will, so too bad for you!” Then I appeared.

“Hi Chloe,” I said, “you will end up in prison for kidnapping and murder, and I will prove both.” “You are still alive?!” she exclaimed, gasping. “Yes, I am Chloe,” I said, “thanks to my guardian angel, Dawn.” “That thing??” exclaimed Chloe again, “Her, a guardian angel? You obviously do not know her very well, she is a dirty, rotten, lying pig! I can tell you about her, like…”

That was as far as she got when, “Thwock!”, and she fell to the ground, dead. I look at Muffin. Meow,meow.=Oops, foot slip. She got back on her feet. Meow,meow!=But she hurting guardian angel Dawn in bad way. Human Chloe very bad people and, and, foot maybe could slip. Poor Dawn was standing there with her head down, but Karen went and gave her a hug.

“That was plain murder, my friend,” said the older man, “and I will make sure you are held accountable.” “No one here laid a hand on this young woman,” said Mandar, “perhaps she suffered from a stroke or some other thing. That will have to be determined by an autopsy. Now, as for you, perhaps we should look in that case you have.” Aari went to the man holding it while others took the guns from the men.

“Carrying illegal guns will not help you,” said Aari, then he opened the case. It was full of drugs. “For our small town?” questioned Dawn. “Likely for distribution for a wide area,” I said, “and your little town was a safe place to keep them. That is why the townspeople were making so much money.” The police were called and the men arrested.

The police already knew why we were here and had stayed out of the way so we could work. Now, for our next plan, which would require Mandar and Aari, the perfect pair for this next part. We had our own limousine but we put the license plates of the other one on it, just in case they used that for ID purposes. Dawn had told us that only the older man came each time, so that helped a lot.

But with our plan, having a new person in charge would be easy to explain. Mandar, Aari, Tracy, Aasta and two men from Mandar’s team went into town. The rest of us followed, but from a safe distance so we would not be spotted and we also stayed far from the town, but close enough to get there quickly if needed. Samson and his team were already there anyway and could intervene if necessary too.

They pulled up to the town office and went inside. Dawn had described how things went every time, making it easier for them to follow the pattern. “Where is Clyde?” asked Matt, the mayor. “He was detained for the time being, my good man,” said Mandar, “we were sent here because of some, shall we say, discrepancies.”

“What?” exclaimed Matt, “we have always done our part.” “Not last month,” said Aari, “it seems shipments were short in some areas. I am here to find out why.” And he slammed the case on the mayor’s desk. “I am very thorough in my work,” he continued, “I will find out what happened, we do not like people dipping their hands in our shipments.”

“Hey, we never do that!” exclaimed the banker, “why would we?” “That is what I want to know,” said Aari, “so perhaps you can tell me, it is much easier that way, and less painful for you people…”

To Be Continued.

©2023 Steve McLeod.