The Investigators, Inc. The Secret Estate Case. Chapter 2. Bad Place.

Sky and the cats looked around for a way to open that door. Meow.=Look like button thing on wall light. Sky looked. “You are right MC,” she said, “I do not know how I missed that. Storm, you have the longest legs, so come here.” She held him as high as she could, but it was not quite high enough. So she jumped, and Storm was able to push the button opening the door.

They all went inside, slightly against the rules, but Sky is rather curious at times, and so are the cats. It was not a large room, but through those mirrors on each side, she could see the whole of the bedrooms. “I wonder how many guests he had in here,” said Sky, “and if they were allowed to leave.” There was a loose board on the end wall and when Sky moved it a small door opened revealing a wall safe. “Okay MC,” she said, “let us see if you can open this one.”

Muffin secretly pressed her microphone. Soon we all appeared at this little room. “How did you find me?” she asked. “Just a wild guess,” I said, “you should have called for support anyway.” “Yes, I know, but sometimes I just kind of keep moving ahead when I find something,” she acknowledged, “but I did find another safe.” Meow.=Talk so much, not able to hear, you finished now? “Yes MC,” I said.

He did get it open after a couple of tries. But it was empty, like the larger safe downstairs. “That does not make sense,” I said. I started tapping the sides of the safe. Aha, the side wall under the shelf sounded hollow. It was a simple sliding door and inside was a small envelope. “Rats, that is not very exciting,” said Sky. However, it was exciting. Inside were papers with a picture of an estate, plus floor plans of the rather large house. “Now, if only we knew where this place is located,” said Sky.

“Austria,” said Astrid, “I went to this place over here to ski a couple of times.” “You recognize that from the picture?” I asked. “Certainly, this mountain is a well known place,” she said, “very easy to recognize.” “What are these red spots on the floor plan?” asked Sky. “Most likely locations of safes,” said Tracy. “Okay, Tracy and Kristina, I want you both to memorize as much as you can from these papers and that photo,” I said, “just in case we lose these papers somehow.

I have a feeling that perhaps more people than Marven might want to look for the jewels that M had stolen over the years. And whoever broke in here likely found some papers mentioning exactly where that estate is located. So he has a big head start, therefore we need to work a little faster.” And that is something we did. We immediately flew to the closest airport to where we wanted to go. Macey and Marlene met us there.

I had called and asked them to join us, we just might need some extra help, and Marlene is one of our nurses, so it might be a good thing to have her along. That still left enough behind to look after each other. Soon Rock, Sky, Astrid, Tracy, Kristina and myself were in a helicopter looking for that estate. It really did not take long to find it and there was a pad to land the helicopter. That was good since there was no road into that estate.

I just hope this place belonged to M, or we could be in trouble for trespassing. Rock dropped us off and went back for the others. We also had Muffin and MC with us, but Storm wanted to stay with Angel. The house, which was very large, was locked, not a problem for us, but we looked around outside until the others arrived. If anyone else is out here they must have been dropped off by helicopter. Our helicopter belongs to Mandar, so we can keep it here.

Although the place looks deserted, I had an uneasy feeling that we were not alone. I told everyone to stay alert, just in case. Sky, the cats, and I wandered off to look at some small buildings behind the main house. Meow,meow.=Me think danger somewhere near in house. Have strange feeling, not good, something very bad. Meow.=Yep, me too have danger feeling. It bad danger, not good place to be.

To Be Continued.

©2023 Steve McLeod.

Wednesday Words. #6 Winter Color.

Good morning to all of you! What a beautiful morning it is too! The temp is 23F (-5C) and it is cloudy. Yesterday the high was the same temp it is now and today it is supposed to reach 34F (1C), like it did on Monday. Might be a nice day for a walk, hopefully a bit longer than what I have been doing lately. Perhaps all the way to the river again. It was a bit slippery yesterday, so I kept my walk short.

This is certainly an odd winter all around. Not much walking due to the snow and other weather conditions. And not many birds. That continues for yesterday and today. It was daylight for an hour before the first chickadees showed up. One flock of chickadees went right past my place and continued up the hill. So, someone else is feeding birds close by. Though it is odd that birds would pass by a closer feeder to go to one farther away.

Winter color, in birds at the feeders, like these male Evening Grosbeaks.

That is opposite to what they would normally do. But maybe that shrike had something to do with it. The birds probably did not feel safe here anymore, so they went elsewhere. It is a thought anyway. There were 2 pine grosbeaks here this morning, both females, but they were only here less than 10 minutes, then they flew off somewhere else. Pine grosbeaks will be heading back north soon. Last year they were gone by the end of February, but some years they will stay until mid March.

And this male Pine Grosbeak, with a couple of Common Redpolls in the foreground.

They breed much further north, close to where trees end and tundra begins. Do any of you have RLS? I do, and it has been terrible lately. All day and all night. It will keep me awake until after midnight when it finally settles down enough that I can fall asleep. But then it will wake me up and hour later worse than ever. I do have medication that helps with it or I would not be sleeping at all lately. Still, I am not getting much sleep. It is bothering me a lot right now, which is making it hard to sit and do this post.

That is what made me think of asking. Oh well, I am not complaining, just wondering if anyone else has it. My tube bird feeders are at it again, just like every winter. It will be hanging perfectly still, like the others, but then it begins to swing, just a little, until it is finally swinging quite wildly. Then it slows down and stops. Then in a couple minutes it begins to swing again, then stops.

And, of course, our Blue Jays, like Baxter above.

The other hanging feeders do not move at all. There is no wind, nothing at all that would cause those tube feeders to move like that. But it happens. Very unusual really. There must be a reason, but I cannot figure it out. Oh well, one of those mysteries that take place. I hope you have a wonderful day everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2023 Steve McLeod.