“Yes, I understand that to be the case,” replied Jack, “but that was over fifteen years ago. We do not deny that he has been invesigated over various charges of criminal damage arising from the destruction of two dwellings built by the younger pigs, nor that Mr. Wolff threatened to ‘eat them all up.’ But we saw this as an empty threat—we produced witnesses who swore that Mr. Wolff was a vegetarian of many years’ standing.”
“So what was your basis for a murder prosecution again?” asked Archie, scratching his head.
“We believed,” replied Jack in exasperation, as he had made the same point in the same room to the same two uninterested journalists many times before, “that boiling Mr. Wolff alive was quite outside the realm of ‘reasonable force’ and the fact that the large pan of water would have taken at least six hours to reach boiling point strongly indicated premeditation.”
Archibald said nothing, and Jack, eager to go home, wrapped up his report.
“Despite the not-guilty verdicts, we at the NCD feel we have put up a robust case and were fully justified in our actions. To this end we will not be looking to reexamine the case or interview anyone else in connection with Mr. Wolff’s death.”
Jack sighed and gazed down. He looked and felt drained.
“Personally,” said Briggs in an aside, “I didn’t think the jury would go for it. The problem is that small pigs elicit a strong sympathetic reaction and large wolves don’t. There was a good case for self-defense, too—Mr. Wolff was trespassing when he climbed down the chimney. It really all hinged on whether you believed that the pigs were boiling up a huge tureen of water to do their washing. And the jury did. In only eight minutes. Do you want me to introduce you?”
“I’d prefer tomorrow, once I am officially on duty,” said Mary quickly, thinking she might have to go outside and scream or something.
Briggs picked up on her reticence.
“Don’t underestimate the Nursery Crime Division, Mary. Spratt does some good work. Not high-profile, you understand, but important. His work on the Bluebeard serial wife killings case was… mostly good solid police work.”
“That was Spratt?” asked Mary, something vaguely stirring in her memory. It hadn’t been in Amazing Crime, of course, just one of those “also-ran” stories you usually find dwelling in the skim-read part of the dailies, along with city prices, dog horoscopes and “true-life” photo stories. It had been under the subheading “Colorfully hirsute gentleman kills nine wives; hidden room contained gruesome secret.”
“That’s him. Jack was onto Bluebeard and was well ahead of events.”
“If nine wives died, he couldn’t have been that good.”
“I said it was mostly good police work. More notably, he arrested Rumplestiltskin over that spinning-straw-into-gold scam and was part of the team that captured the violently dangerous psychopath the Gingerbreadman. You might have heard about Jack in connection with some giant killing, too.”
Something stirred in Mary’s memory again, and she raised an eyebrow. Police officers weren’t meant to kill people if they could help it—and giants were no exception.
“Don’t worry,” said Briggs, “it was self-defense. Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“The last one he ran over in a car.”
“The last one?” repeated Mary incredulously. “How many have there been?”
“Four. But don’t mention it; he’s a bit sensitive over the issue.”
Mary’s heart, which had already fallen fairly far, fell farther.
“Well, that’s all I have to say,” said Jack to the sparsely populated room. “Are there any more questions?”
Archibald Fatquack stirred, scribbled in his pad, but said nothing. The reporter from the Reading Daily Eyestrain had moved slowly forward during Jack’s report, until his head was resting on the seat back in front. He began to snore.
“Good. Well, thank you very much for your time. Don’t all rush to get out. You might wake Jim over there.”
“I wasn’t asleep,” said Jim, eyes tightly closed. “I heard every word.”
“Even the bit about the bears escaping into the Oracle Center and eating a balloon seller?”
“Of course,” he murmured, beginning to snore again.
Jack picked up his notes and disappeared through a side door.
“Are there usually this few people for his press conferences?” asked Mary, horrified at the prospect of the career black hole into which she was about to descend like a suicidal rabbit.
“Good Lord, no,” replied Briggs in a shocked tone. “Often he has no press at all.”
He looked at his watch. “Goodness, is that the time? Check in with me first thing tomorrow, and I’ll introduce you to Jack. You’ll like him. Not exactly charismatic, but diligent and generally correct in most… some of his assumptions.”
“Sir, I was wondering—”
Briggs stopped her midsentence, divining precisely what she was about to say. The reason was simple: All the detective sergeants he had ever allocated to Jack said the same thing.
“Look upon it as a baptism of fire. The NCD is good training.”
“For what?”
Briggs had to think for a moment. “Unconventional policing. Your time won’t be wasted. Oh, and one other thing.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Welcome to Reading.”
2. Jack Spratt
The Most Worshipful Guild of Detectives was founded by Holmes in 1896 to look after the best interests of Britain’s most influential and newsworthy detectives. Membership is strictly controlled but pays big dividends: the pick of the best inquiries in England and Wales, an opportunity to “brainstorm” tricky cases with one’s peers, and an exclusive deal with the notoriously choosy editors of Amazing Crime Stories. The Guild’s legal department frequently brokers TV, movie and merchandising deals, and membership usually sways juries in tricky cases. It seems to work well. The only people who don’t like the system are the officers who are non-Guild.
—Excerpt from Inside the Guild of Detectives
Jack drove home that evening with a feeling of frustration that would have been considerably worse had it been unexpected. He and the prosecution had tried to present the pig case as well as they could, but for some reason the jury didn’t buy it. Briggs hadn’t said anything to him yet, but mounting prosecutions such as The Crown v. Three Pigs was undeniably expensive, and after the failed conviction of the con men who perpetrated the celebrated emperor’s new-clothes scam the year before, Jack knew that the Nursery Crime Division would be under closer scrutiny by the bean counters. Not that the NCD was consistently racked with failure—far from it—but the fact was that few of his cases attracted much publicity. And in the all-important climate of increased public confidence, budget accountability and Amazing Crime circulation figures, Friedland’s crowd-pleasing antics were strides ahead of Jack’s misadventures—and hugely profitable for the Reading police force, too. But all of this was scant comfort to Mr. Wolff, who went to his casket unavenged and parboiled.