“Yes, very decent,” said Gran, though I didn’t think she meant it.
“It’s the stock,” Danny explained, offering a less roseate view of management. “It’s dropping like a rock. If this keeps up there won’t be any shareholders left.”
Natalie’s eyes widened. “Dropping like a rock because…”
“Because of what happened to Madison,” Danny confirmed. “You can’t have a CEO of a company jumping out of his office window and not expect an effect on the price of the company’s shares. People are unloading Advantage stock as fast as they can, and management is probably freaking out, wondering how they’re going to stop the bleed.” He cursed under his breath. “And to think we all got stock options. If this keeps up they’ll be completely worthless.”
“I don’t have stock options,” said Natalie.
“What do you mean? We all got them when we started. It’s in your contract.”
“It is?” said Natalie, who clearly wasn’tau courant with her compensation plan.
“You should talk to HR,” Danny advised. “Though now that the stock is in the toilet, maybe better don’t. It will only depress you.”
And so we found ourselves out on the street again.
“Well, it was great while it lasted,” said Gran as we sauntered in the direction of the car. I was still on the lookout for that badger, but I couldn’t see him.
“We’ll be back,” Scarlett assured her friend.
“You think? I’ll bet they’ll restructure the company, redesign the office, hire a new CEO, and this entire senior intern scheme will go right out the window.”
“Just like Madison,” said Dooley cheerfully, earning himself a grin from Gran.
“So how are we going to assist Odelia with her investigation now?” asked Scarlett.
“I don’t know, honey. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
And after directing a final glance at the building we got to call home for the past two days, we all got into Gran’s battered red Peugeot.
“Can you just hang on for a second?” I asked.
“Sure,” said Gran. “But make it fast, will you?”
“Where is he off to?” asked Scarlett.
“My guess is either wee-wee or doo-doo,” said Gran.
Dooley hurried to keep up with me.“So what is it, Max? Wee-wee or doo-doo?”
“Neither,” I said curtly. “I want to take one last shot at that badger.”
“You want to shoot the badger?” he asked, shocked. “But why?”
“I’m not going to shoot the badger, Dooley. I just want to talk to him.”
We arrived at that bush, and hunkered down at the edge of the burrow.“Hey, Mr. Badger!” Dooley cried. “Max has another question for you, sir!”
We waited for a moment, but when no response was forthcoming, I said,“Looks like we’ll have to do this the hard way.” And so I headed into the hole.
Before you draw the wrong conclusion, let me assure you that I’m no hero. I’m not some Dirty Harry or John Wayne who goes off to fight the good fight, guns blazing. But I needed to know about that ladder, and since the badger was the only witness we had, I saw no other recourse than to find him where he was hiding.
“Max! Come back!” Dooley cried.
But I just kept on burrowing down into that burrow.
If my calculations were correct, this was just a short pipe, which would end in a larger underground dug-out hollow, where Mr. Badger was taking a nap, since badgers hunt at night and sleep during the day, as Dooley had explained.
“Max!” Dooley yelled. “These tunnels can run thirty feet deep!”
Yikes! Now if I’d known that…
Unfortunately there was no way for me to turn around, so the only thing I could do was keep going!
Lucky for me, this particular badger must have been a lazy badger, for it only took me about ten feet to reach a larger cavern, and lo and behold: the badger was indeed taking a well-deserved nap… along with three more badgers!
To say my arrival was greeted with general confusion and upheaval is an understatement.
“Intruder!” one of the badgers screamed, causing the other badgers to wake up, and strike a defensive pose, which consisted of their forearms going up. And when you know that a badger has some very powerful and muscular forearms, you can imagine that I was having second thoughts about my rash initiative!
“I come in peace!” I quickly assured them. “Now which one of you is the badger I talked to before?”
“That would be me,” said the biggest badger in the room.
“Oh, hi,” I said, injecting as much warmth and reassurance into my voice as possible. “And is this Mrs. Badger and kids? So nice to meet you, one and all.”
“What do you want?” the badger grunted, clearly not one for small talk.
“Don’t be rude, Richard,” said the lady badger. “Is this how you welcome visitors into our home? Don’t mind my husband, sir,” she said. “He’s not usually this blunt. He’s got a toothache is all, and it’s affecting his mood.”
“You’ve got a toothache?” I said. “It’s just that I know a great veterinarian. She helped me get rid of a toothache not so long ago. If you want, I could introduce you.”
“Just ask the question,” the badger said.
But before I could, there was a sort of commotion behind me, and Dooley dropped in!
“Another intruder!” the same small badger yelled.
“It’s my friend Dooley,” I quickly explained.
“Oh, this is cozy,” said Dooley, dusting himself off.
“Well, hi there, Dooley,” said Mrs. Badger. “Welcome to our humble home. Richard?” she urged. “What do we say to our guests?”
“Welcome to our humble abode,” the badger grumbled unhappily.
“And now once again, but this time with feeling.”
“Look, this is wholly unnecessary,” I said. “All I want to know is whether you saw a ladder parked against the building last night. When the guy fell from that window?”
“Was pushed, you mean,” Richard grunted.
“Oh, that’s right. You saw a man getting pushed out of a window last night, didn’t you, darling?” said Mrs. Badger. “My name is Irene, by the way,” she said with a kindly smile in our direction. “And these two rascals are Bert and Ernie.”
“Bert and Ernie?” I asked. Somehow the names reminded me of something, though for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what. It’d come to me later.
“Say hi to the nice cats, children,” said Irene.
“Hi, cats!” said Bert and Ernie. The latter turned to his mom. “So they’re not intruders?”
“No, they’re guests.”
“Uninvited guests, but whatever,” Richard grumbled.
“Do you want a bite to eat?” asked Irene. “We’ve got some nice fat earthworms.”
“No, please,” I said when I spotted said worms, wriggling and squirming in a corner of the burrow. “We’ve already eaten. And anyway, we can’t stay.”
“And we’re vegetarians,” Dooley explained. “So we can’t eat worms.”
Richard rolled his eyes at this, and to avoid getting bogged down again in a discussion on what constitutes a real vegetarian, I repeated my earlier question:“So did you see a ladder planted against that building last night, Richard?”
“No, Max, I did not,” said Richard, as eager to get rid of us as I was to get out of there.
“No ladder?” I asked, not hiding my disappointment.
“What’s with the ladder?” asked Irene.
“No, it’s just that Michael Madison, the guy who runs Advantage Publishing, was killed last night, but the only person who was in the building, at least according to the security system, was the victim. So I figured the killer must have entered the building through one of the windows, and headed straight into Madison’s office, got into a fight with the guy, and shoved him out the window.”
“I told you, no ladder,” Richard said, fixing me with an intent look.
“Gotcha,” I said. “And no distinguishing features that could identify the killer?”