It’s a beautiful, calm day, just relaxing and waiting for a case to come along. Karin and I are on the deck enjoying the sunshine while the cats are, well, being cats. Meow!=Oh look this one! Old castle ruins nearby. Meow, meow!=Already say, NO castle! Rip, rip, tear, tear. Meow.=My brochure. Meow, meow!=Look this one, huge sand beach right by ocean! Meow!=Sand? NO sand! Already say no to sand, get too much in fur, not fun! Rip, rip, tear, tear. Meow, meow.=My brochure. This has been going on for days now. I haven’t told them about the new batch of brochures that just arrived. At least they’re having fun. I think. But what we need is a case, it’s been a whole month already since our vacation, and we didn’t get paid anything for that one.

Right then a man and woman come along. Are you the PI’s?, they ask. Yes indeed, I said, how can we help you? So they sat down and explained the situation. My parents decided to retire in this small village that they had been to once and thought it was just a perfect quiet spot. Her idea of a small village was a town of 8,000 people. They would send letters back to her regularly, they preferred the old way of doing things. The letters were written by her mom, except the last one, which was written by her dad. And he made no mention of her mom. That letter was dated nearly 6 months ago. So they went down to look for them but couldn’t find them or even find any information about them. Even the post office where the letter was mailed knew nothing of them, which is kind of strange. They even went to the police but were told that no one by that name had lived there and they didn’t recognize the people from photos. This is getting more intriguing. They just wanted to know what happened to them and would we go and look for them.

I said we get paid half up front, plus expenses. They said okay and paid in cash. I need to start charging more, which is what Karin told me afterwards as well. This should be a relatively easy case anyway, though obviously the people of that town won’t be of any help. And I really don’t think the parents were living there anyway and probably had someone else mail the letters for them, which is why no one recognized the photos of these people. But they couldn’t be too far away from the town. Meow, meow?=We got real case? No castle? No ghosts? Cool! Meow!=Good, we need case, give something new to do. Too bad no castle. Meow, meow.=We go pack. Meow.=Yep, not take long. Five minutes later they come out of the bedroom. Meow, meow.=All packed, let’s go. Hey, wait you two, we have to pack as well, said Karin. Then she rushed to her apartment to get started.

Meow, meow.=Your suitcase and backpack all packed and ready to go. How did you do that so fast? Meow.=We start packing when people show up. That figures. We left the next day bright and early, it took a couple days to drive to this town. We picked up a map of the area but there was only one other town close by. We stayed here overnight and left early for that other town, it took a couple of hours to get there. I asked at the service station about the couple we were looking for and showed the man the photo I had. But he had never seen them which is not a good sign. But he told us to ask a fellow named Earl. He’ll be at the coffee shop just down the street, he said, and he described the guy to us. If anyone knows that couple he will. Sounds hopeful.

Off to the coffee shop, a typical small town meeting place. I went in by myself and found Earl easily enough sitting by himself looking out the window. I went over and introduced myself, though I didn’t mention being a PI. I showed him a photo of the couple. Oh sure, I know Harvey and Alice, they’ve been here a couple years now. They live way back in the mountains and only come to town once a month. I take letters for folks down to the city and mail them every month and they keep me going in coffee money. It’s been a long time since they’ve come to town though, hope nothing’s happened to them. That’s why I’m here looking for them, their daughter asked to me check on them while we were our this way. They were an odd couple, said Earl, Alice hardly talked to anyone and Harvey only talked to me. The last time he came to town by himself and was sort of nervous like, Earl said rubbing his beard.

To Be Continued.

©2020 Steve McLeod.