“I think Gran called it,” said Brutus. “The guy must have hit his head on the asphalt when he tumbled from the truck. So it’s not murder, Dooley. It’s an accident.”
We looked on as the paramedics muscled a path to the dead man, the throng of rubberneckers splitting like the Red Sea. But since there was nothing the medical boys and girls could do, they quickly gave way to the police officers, who proceeded to cordon off the area. And by the time the coroner arrived, and started doing his thing, Gran took us back to her car, and soon we were once again homeward bound—without potatoes.
Chapter 4
Suppo Bonikowski was busy soldering a small piece of hardware in place. Under his magnifying glass the watch he’d selected for this delicate operation lay gleaming. The tip of Suppo’s tongue was sticking out of his mouth in sheer concentration, and he was so focused on the delicate operation he was conducting that he hadn’t even noticed the door to the hotel room had opened and closed.
“Almost finished?” suddenly a voice rang out behind him.
He almost dropped the soldering iron, which was producing strange-smelling fumes. Lucky for Suppo the most vital part of the procedure had already been concluded and so he quickly put down the instrument and raised his head to direct an irate look at the new arrival.
“How many times do I have to tell you, Wim? Don’t talk to me when I’m working.”
“All right, all right,” said Wim, who was a thickset individual who hadn’t been blessed with a neck to speak of. He was also the proud owner of a white-blond buzz cut which had earned him the nickname Whitey Wim early in life. “So is it done?” he asked, gesturing with his head to the watch.
“It is done,” said Suppo proudly. Contrary to his cousin Wim he was reedy and tall, though a little thin on top, which he compensated for with a black beard that covered the lower strata of his face.
“So when are we going to deliver this little beaut?” asked Wim, admiring the object under discussion.
“Soon,” said Suppo. “You do realize that if we pull this off we’re home free?”
“You think it’ll work?” asked Wim, freely expressing his reluctance to embrace the scheme. The only reason he was on board, in fact, was that he was the son of Wim’s mother’s brother. Which didn’t stop him from pointing out the obvious and many flaws in Suppo’s scheme. Not that that, in turn, stopped the latter from pursuing it anyway.
“Look, if I didn’t believe we could pull it off I wouldn’t be here,” said Suppo as he picked up the watch and slid it on his wrist. It looked pretty cool, he thought. Cool enough to make sure its wearer would very rarely take it off—which was the point.
The sudden sound of a police siren had both men look up in alarm and move over to the window. They watched on as a police car passed by the hotel where they were currently holed up, then breathed a sigh of relief as it simply zoomed past and soon rounded a corner and disappeared out of sight.
“If this scheme of yours lands my ass in prison…” Wim said, wagging a finger in his cousin’s face.
“It won’t,” Suppo assured him.
“But if it does…”
“But it won’t!” he said laughingly.
“Well, if it does, the police will be the last of your problems,” Wim finished the sentence.
Suppo gulped a little. He knew exactly what his cousin was referring to—or rather, who. Wim’s blushing bride Sandy, a recent addition to the Bojanowsky family, was one of those women who took the expression ‘stand by your man’ very literally indeed. If Wim ever got sentenced to prison because of something Suppo got him involved in, Sandy would personally make sure Suppo suffered the consequences of his rash actions. And since Sandy’s most treasured possession in the world, aside from Wim himself, was a small menagerie of tigers, there was every chance in the world Suppo’s body would never be found—or what was left of it after she’d fed him to her private zoo.
“So what was that man doing hiding between those potatoes, Max?”
“I don’t know, Dooley. But I’m sure Uncle Alec will find out.”
Dooley gave me a pensive look. He’d clearly been brooding on this vexing problem ever since Gran had ushered us back into her car and had driven us home.
“I think he was hungry,” my friend said finally. “So hungry he didn’t notice the truck was moving and before he knew what was happening he was crushed to death by all of those potatoes.”
“I very much doubt whether a person who’s hungry would try and find nourishment in a truck full of potatoes,” I said. “Those potatoes are raw potatoes, Dooley. In the sense that they haven’t been baked or cooked or fried or whatever people do with potatoes.”
He merely stared at me, clearly not comprehending why this would negate his theory.
“People don’t eat raw potatoes,” I explained. “They’re not tasty, and also, they can be poisonous, especially when—”
“That’s it!” Dooley cried. “You solved the case, Max! You and me both.”
“Um…”
“Don’t you see? I solved the part on how he got onto that truck, and you solved the part where he ate a bad potato and died! We have to tell Odelia. She’ll be thrilled.” And before I could stop him, he’d wandered off in search of our human.
I could have told him that Odelia was at the office, busily writing her articles, but Dooley had already disappeared from view, and so I decided not to bother. I’d picked a nice spot in the backyard, the grass was tickling my belly, and frankly I was feeling very comfortable, thank you very much. Too comfortable to bother about some stranger who met an untimely death surrounded by a large collection of potatoes. Dooley might think there was a case to be solved, but I wasn’t convinced. Not every person who dies ends up that way through malice, do they? And I was pretty sure this particular death was an accidental one.
And so I rolled over onto my back and allowed a few precious rays to tickle my tummy. And I’d just started dozing off when a pshh-ing sound told me someone desired speech with me. I opened one eye and saw that a small snail had crawled all the way up to my face and was eyeing me with a distinct sense of curiosity.
“Are you Max?” asked the snail.
He or she was one of those snails that like to carry their own home on their backs. I yawned then said, “Yep, that’s me.”
The snail looked left, then it looked right, and finally it lowered its voice and said, “There’s something very important I need to tell you, Max.”
“Yeah? And what’s that?” I said with an indulgent smile.
“A truckload of potatoes was left lying on the tarmac of the main road into town this morning,” he announced, as if conveying some world-shattering news.
“I know,” I said. “I was there when it happened.” I yawned again.
“Oh,” said the snail. “Well, it may interest you to know that a man was found dead amongst those very same potatoes.”
“Old news, I’m afraid, Mr. or Mrs…”
“Mr. Ed,” said the snail. He seemed to relax a little. “I was told you were a smart kitty, Max. And I can see they weren’t lying. You are exceptionally well-informed.”
“Just a coincidence,” I said. “Gran—that’s my human’s grandmother—just happened to be in the neighborhood.” I decided not to mention she’d been on a potato-hunting expedition at the time. No sense in washing the Poole family’s dirty laundry in public.
“The thing is, Max,” said Mr. Ed, “that the man was a crook. And not just any crook either. He’s the crook that ripped off my human to the tune of no less than seventy-five thousand smackeroos last week.”
Now this was news to me, and I stared at the snail, trying to figure out where his eyes were. “Your human? What do you mean, your human? You’re a snail. Snails don’t have humans. You guys roam wild and free, not a care in the world except where to find some delicious leaves to munch on.”