Shad and I exchanged additional confused glances.
“It’s symbolic, sir,” continued Parker. “See, if Flanagan was purposefully dumped on Parliament Street, it may well hearken back to the original reform act that led to that little passage being named after Parliament. A possibility?”
Mallards don’t have eyebrows, but I swear Shad’s went up. “Parker, I bet you could tell me what the original act of Parliament was that lead to the naming of Parliament Street.”
“Yes, sergeant. It was the Reform Act of 1832. The act changed a number of laws in Britain, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales regarding representation in Parliament, but the main thing it did was to increase the number of males who could vote by approximately thirty percent.”
“Fair to say it extended suffrage to the less worthy?” Shad inquired.
“That was certainly how the Exeter city fathers regarded it at the time. As we are all aware, that’s how the archbishop and the rest of the anti-AB crowd today currently regard the Act of 2132.”
I pondered that in silence for a moment. I glanced at Shad. He was looking at the tabletop. Once he had concluded shaking out his feathers from his head to his tail, he looked at me and said, “Well, gang, this nothing case fairly reeks with significant coincidence.”
“If DC Parker is correct in his facts,” I cautioned.
“He is. Checked it all out on Ferdie’s Freepaedia,” Shad explained. “Parker—” he began but stopped short. “Autopsy report coming in,” he said, his eyes focused at an invisible point between the toilet door and myself. “Flanagan’s human meat suit likely died as a result of a heart attack induced by the violent death of his pigeon bio. Death in the pigeon bio was caused by a broken rib through the heart as the result of blunt force trauma, the weapon being circular, approximately seven centimeters in diameter, convex in shape, fabric enclosed, flexible—”
“Shad,” I interrupted, “doesn’t that sound like one of those old beanbag loads for a what-do-you-call-it?”
A brief pause as Shad consulted Ferdie’s, then he said, “Gas gun. They were miscreant-safe weapons for use in riot control. The thirty-seven millimeter gas gun fired a 7.5 centimeter fabric-covered flexible baton filled with a 150 grams of lead shot.”
“Sounds like one of those could do a dandy job of mangling a pigeon,” said Parker.
Shad faced the toilet. “They’re antiques, Parker. We’ve got greasefoot, flashnet, and stunspray now. Gas guns haven’t been used anywhere for anything in over a century.”
Before I could suggest Parker put in a search for gas guns in Devon, he mentioned it himself. “Research will keep me out of public view,” he offered contritely as a wistful note came into his voice. “That’s what I used to do, you know. Research.”
Shad looked at me and held out his wings questioningly as the voice from the loo fell silent.
“Parker was once a police historian,” I explained. “Oxford, wasn’t it, Parker?”
“Yes,” he replied gloomily. “‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!’”
I glanced at Shad.
“Wordsworth,” Shad muttered back at me. Facing the door to the toilet he began to ask a question—probably concerning just how a police historian in Oxford wound up as a gorilla bio—when another call came in on Shad’s interface. “Tox screen on Flanagan.” He stood and faced me, nonexistent eyebrows arched. “Alcohol. In Flanagan’s blood. Enough to pickle a pigeon.”
We all thought on that for a moment. It was a case wrinkle with which none of us knew what to do just then. Shad’s tail resumed twitching, signifying another incoming call.
“The person who reported finding the body, Parker,” I said, “did he or she ever show?”
“Yes. Sharissa Thule. She’s a thirty-one year old woman—human natural—from Dawlish. She was in the city shopping and visiting relatives and was on her way from the Guildhall Shopping Centre to have tea at the Milkmaid on Catherine. She found the body on Parliament and reported it to a constable.”
“Why would a nat report a dead bird to the police unless she knew it was a bio?” I asked.
“She could tell it was a bio. I gather Ms. Thule carries a marker detector.”
“Really. Why?”
“The way she put it, sir, ‘I want to know whether to pet a cute little doggie on the head or send the bloody pervert packing.’ A bit anti-amdroid. Said something about a wolfhound in Lympstone two summers ago. The creature rubbed against her leg rather passionately. Turned out to be an amdroid.”
Shad’s tail stopped twitching; he spread his wings and faced me, his bill hanging open. He froze that way for almost a minute, and then said, “They want me back!”
“Sorry?”
“They want me back!” He lowered his wings and began pacing rapidly in a circle. “That was my New York agent. Barton Stanky? The duck stockholders somehow regained control of the insurance conglomerate over the lizard people—I don’t know the details, but Barton baby says the corporation stock has been diving for the bottom ever since their advertising firm dumped the duck! The clients have been demanding the return of the duck! Aa-flak!” he cried “Aa-flak! They want me back!”
“I swear, Val, I have the karma of Tantalus,” I said later at home as I poked at the shepherd’s pie Val had Walter prepare for me. Walter, the mech who did our cooking and housework, had even made spotted dick for dessert, but I could only pick at it.
“I finally get a partner I can work with—that I like—and bleeding Madison Avenue wants to make Shad a flipping billionaire clowning around and falling on his pratt to sell insurance.”
“How nice for Guy. He was so unhappy to be let go,” she said, her aqua eyes focused on mine. She sat across from me on the table, her tail wrapped around her legs. “Aren’t you happy for him?”
“Oh,” I let out my breath and turned my scowl toward my dinner. “Of course I am, dear. I am being quite selfish.”
“A tad.”
I took a breath, let it out, and tried a bit of pie. “This is rather good, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Walter said he was trying a new recipe.”
“Excellent.” I leaned back in my chair, took a sip of tea, replaced the cup on the table, and smiled at her. “I suppose if I got a call from Metro to go back to London the sonic boom of my run back to the Yard would uproot half the trees in southern England. Thanks for being patient with me, dear.”
“Cats are nothing if not patient, Harry.”
“I’ll miss Shad, though. He saved my life in that stable out at Hound Tor Hunts. We’ve talked old films for hours, and he tells the most outlandish stories. His rather disrespectful comments of certain political and police personalities from time to time have kept me in stitches, not to mention his terrible puns. Did I tell you—”
“Murder most fowl,” she interrupted.
“Yes. Sorry. I forget at times.” Val walked the length of the table and seated herself next to my left shoulder. “Looks as though this might be my last case with Shad,” I said to her.
“If that’s so, Harry, make it a good one.”
“Of course. We’ll make it a good one—if we can. Parker’s career—ABCD’s existence—may well depend upon it.”
“What’s on for tomorrow?”
“Parker will be tracking down antique beanbag guns while Shad and I question Flanagan’s coworkers. We’ll see if we can piece together Darcy Flanagan’s movements prior to his demise.”
“Do you know yet what to do about Ralph Parker leading the case? I’ll never forget the horror of that ceremony at the Royal Diane Museum when I saw it on the telly.”
“Many of us have been having rather fearsome flashbacks this evening on that account. After we briefed Parker, I prepared and read a brief statement to the reporters and took no questions. They didn’t like that at all. Hardly any of the questions they tried to ask were about the murder.”