The Investigators, Inc. The Case of a Young Couple. Chapter 4. Listening.

After the encounter with Aari and his Black Wolves, the four men in Marcel’s flat went quickly back to their gang headquarters. Carine and Kitty were with Aari and the others, but invisible. Carine went inside with the guys, while Kitty went over to their car and put a tracker on it while staying invisible. She noticed that there was still one man in the car, likely to protect the car.

That doesn’t protect against a ghost though! Carine put trackers and listening devices on the men inside, after they were sitting moaning and groaning while being searched. We have new trackers for people now that are much harder to find, they almost look like a label, or sticker, which can be quickly put on the inside of a belt, wallet or purse.

With these trackers we can also hear conversations over quite a long distance. Kat, Carolyn and Melanie are doing great with their inventions. Sienna has even started producing some of them for government and military use. Anyway, it was very beneficial this time, and it is our first time using them, so now we know for certain how they work.

I mean, we did test them already ourselves, but that’s still not the same as real use testing. “Why are you back so soon?” the man asked, “And without the laptops and book. What happened?” “Some guys showed up,” said one of the men, “called the Black Wolves, a tough looking bunch and a couple of those guys were huge, and strong.

They claimed to be friends of Marcel and told us if we had anything to do with Marcel’s disappearance then we better run far away.” “Did they mention any names?” the first man asked. “Nope,” said another man, “but the head guy took pics of our ID, like driver’s license, cut up our cards and took our money and guns.” “Anyone go near the car?” he asked again. “No, I stayed in it the whole time,” said Francois, “no one else got out of their van.”

“Good, you did that right,” said Hubert, “now, get that girl in here, maybe she knows something.” In a few minutes they were talking with Clarisse. “Who are these Black Wolves that are friends with Marcel?” growled Hubert. “I, I, never heard of them,” she replied, “Marcel never mentioned them, just like he never mentioned you either. Please let me go home, my mother is not well and she needs me to look after her. Please!”

He then hit her a couple of times causing her to scream. Then he told one of the men to take her back to her room. “You should have killed her when you killed Marcel,” said Hubert, “she is certainly no good to us.” “I thought we could maybe sell her, or use her ourselves and make some money,” said Claud. “The problem is you didn’t think,” said Hubert, “hmm, where did you take Marcel’s body?”

“We stuck it under some fallen trees where guys go fishing all the time,” said Francois, “we figured someone would find it sooner or later and call the police.” “Good, take the girl to that spot and put her there too,” said Hubert, “but don’t kill her ahead of time, drown her. Hopefully the cops will think Marcel drowned her, then was so filled with remorse, he stabbed himself. A typical murder/suicide case.”

Meanwhile, back to us. “Cristy, find that popular fishing spot, in a hurry!” I told her, “Um, Jennifer wants you to do it.” “On it Jennifer,” said Cristy, just as Jennifer entered the library. “What did I tell her to do this time?” Jennifer asked me, so I filled her in. “Good for me,” she said smiling, “talk about thinking ahead of myself.” “You are getting good at that,” I said, giving her a hug.

Then Kat entered the library too and came over to Jennifer and I. “I have had it being Leader 1,” she said firmly, “I don’t get any time for doing things, like inventing, or relaxing, or anything else. Someone is always around asking about this or that or singing those whatever they are and I don’t have any time for myself anymore.” “I agree, it is rather time consuming,” said Jennifer.

“We hereby make you, Steve, Leader 1 from this moment of time,” they said together, and smiled. I smiled back. “That doesn’t work,” I told them. They stood there blinking at me. “And why not?” they said together. “You need to have a leaders meeting,” I said, “plus have all the ghosts and cats present, plus Cristy as recorder, and Galyna and Sienna. And it must be a 100% vote in favor.”

They stood there blinking some more, then arranged it, except Aari couldn’t be there, so he was excluded from the vote. “All those in favor of reinstating Steve as Leader 1, raise your hand, or tail,” they said together, but no one voted. “Since you didn’t vote, then pool time gets cut in half,” they said together, “anyone wish to change?” No one voted.

“I will double your pool time and add play structures 43 to 45 to the cats play room if you vote me back as Leader 1,” I said. Every hand and tail was raised with lots of cheering and meowing. Kat and Jennifer looked at me, then shrugged. “It worked,” they said, “but how do you plan on giving them all double pool time and still get all the work done around here?”

“Easy,” I said, “you just cut the pool time in half, then I doubled it, which brings it back to normal.” They stood there looking at me and blinking. “Someone will be in trouble tomorrow at pool time,” they said together, “don’t expect help from us either.” “You two were part of the trick,” I said, “I could not have done it without you.” They looked at each other and sighed. “Okay, but we get actual double pool time,” they said. “Deal,” I said.

Meanwhile, the gang was taking Clarisse to that pond where they had hidden Marcel’s body before. “There’s a couple guys fishing down there,” said one, “now what?” “Simple, we use our garde champetre ID to scare them off,” said Francois. So, two of them went down to the fishermen to have a talk. The other two stayed by the car, one outside and one inside with Clarisse, but the one inside was in the front, while she was in the back.

Suddenly the man outside the car was grabbed from behind and slammed against the car by Rock. “You again!” he growled, “You don’t listen good.” He then hit the man in the stomach, then hit his head against the car and he was out cold. This caused the man inside the car to turn and look, but then a gun was put against his head and he was told to get out of the car. He was about to yell, but he had his head smashed against the car too, knocking him out also.

As the other two got close to the pond, the fishermen put down their poles and quickly picked up guns. There was a brief gun battle and the gang members were dead. Clarisse was scared by all of this, but Carine was there too, and speaking French to Clarisse, let her know she was now safe and would be taken back to her mother now. But, back home. “I sense danger Steve,” said Jennifer, “it’s with Eloise!”

To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.