In Stone Vol. 1-6: The First Six Travis Eldritch Problems (A Travis Eldritch Problem)

by Jennifer Vandenberg

  The shouts didn’t get louder, but the vibrations got stronger. Jet must have returned. I hoped he wasn’t trying to save me instead of capturing Manson. What was Jet thinking? All that mattered was stopping Manson. Before I could curse Jet in my head, I became the great flying statue. I didn’t mind the flying part, but was terrified of the landing. I braced for the pain and instead landed on something soft that emitted an ‘oomph’, and nothing else.

  I lay there and cursed whoever threw me, in my mind, of course. Was that really necessary? Hadn’t I been through enough today? I heard splashing and worried that more Battleboys were coming. Instead Jet hauled me up, grabbed the stickler by its grip, and pulled it out of my stiffened hand. I would have said thank you, but I was a statue. Well, better that than a corpse.

  ●●●

  So the plan worked perfectly even though I hardly did anything. Once we both became normal, and Jet got into his regular clothes, I showed Jet the recorder that held both Miss O’Neal’s recording and my recording of Manson admitting to ordering Grant’s murder. Jet smiled and led me down a tunnel so short I had to stoop. At the end, tied to a grate, sat Manson Hart. He was still out cold from being my landing pad. We hauled him out of the sewer and turned in both the recorder and a disoriented crime boss to the police.

  That same night, after a much-needed shower, I bought Jet a celebratory dinner at Spaniels. My bank account would be crying in the morning, but I felt that Spaniels was the only place to celebrate solving Grant’s murder. During the dessert course, I asked Jet to join my detective agency – he needed a friend and I needed someone smart to sit at Grant’s desk. Since we knew each other’s Problems it was bound to be a great partnership. And just my dumb luck – it was.

  ●●●

  We had just finished a case exposing the second set of accounting books that the mayor kept and were considering calling it an early day when the door opened and a beautiful brunette came into the room. She nodded to Jet and smiled brightly at me. This one was no gobblebird; she was a true beauty. I asked her to sit down and resisted asking her what her Problem was first off. Instead I asked her name.

  “Roslyn Green.”

  I glanced at Jet and he sighed loud and long. I grinned. She looked over at Jet and scowled.

  “What is your problem, young man?”

  “The more beautiful the woman, the bigger the lies.”

  “How insulting.” She turned to me. “Are you going to let him talk to me that way?”

  I laughed. “He can’t help it. It’s his Problem.” I leaned forward and enjoyed the view.

  Created In Stone

  (A Second Travis Eldritch Problem)

  By Jennifer Vandenberg

  All Rights Reserved © 2013 Jennifer Vandenberg

  This story is dedicated to Matt who gave me my first Amazon review.

  In a world where everyone has a Problem is it a problem if you have no Problem? I pondered this as I stood in a park, my exterior made of granite, my interior made of frustration, and a featherbeggar sitting on my head. If I could have moved my arm I would have knocked him off. Instead I just stood there pondering Problems.

  See, on Ausdine, the moon I unfortunately live on, we are each given a Problem at birth by our annoying creators, referred to as They, as in, “If They cared about me I wouldn’t have featherbeggar poop running down my face.”

  The Problems range from turning into a statue at random times, e.g. my Problem, to hopping instead of walking, the Problem my cousin Gina is cursed with. I often wonder if I would trade Problems with someone else, but I always think, no, I don’t want to sound like a bullcroaker, or grow whiskers like a meowmaker. Being a statue is awkward, but at least it isn’t permanent.

  Now, to have no Problem, that would be wonderful. I know I would have problems, but I would love it if They didn’t feel it necessary to hand them out like unwanted birthday presents. Perhaps if I had been born on another moon I wouldn’t have a Problem. Although I might have ended up like Jet, my business partner, who was born on Gregos where they receive multiple Problems. Except Jet calls them gifts. He may be brilliant, but I think he’s a little delusional.

  Anyway, if I were in charge I’d ditch the whole Problem-giving program and just let people create their own problems. Life might not be any better, but I for one wouldn’t have a featherbeggar family enjoying a reunion on my head.

  ●●●

  It wasn’t too long ago that I was living hand to mouth, so when a client comes my way, even a troublesome one, I don’t say no. Jet may be the smart partner in our P.I. firm, but he hasn’t been a detective long so he tends to follow my lead when it comes to accepting cases. He didn’t say anything to the men as they marched into the office and I couldn’t tell from his expression if he thought these men were trouble or not. I had no doubts; these men were trouble.

  First off, they were identical, down to their military haircut, but they claimed that while they were brothers, they were not quadruplets. Their clothes were not all the same, but everything was in some variation of brown so they might as well have been. However, they did have a case for us so I tried to pay attention. They wanted us to find their sister, who, judging by her picture, was identical to them. Weird. We did missing person jobs occasionally and it is my experience that the person is usually better off not found. But these men were insistent and agreed to our prices so I said we would try.

  Finding missing persons can sometimes be difficult if the person truly is hiding. We interviewed the men for a while, but they didn’t seem to know much about their sister, like where she worked or who her friends were. We had her picture and we assumed she hadn’t left town. For a couple of days we knocked on doors and asked around at bars and restaurants. Okay, we stopped to eat at these places, too, but hunting missing persons makes me hungry.

  Finding an apparently invisible woman can be very frustrating. By day three we were running out of ideas so I let the police know about our missing person. If she came up against the law they would find her faster than I would. And they did—later that same day we got a call that a female, somewhat matching our girl, was found in an alley. I hoped that somewhat matching meant that there was a chance it wasn’t her. I assumed my clients wanted her alive. I know that I always preferred it.

  ●●●

  As we stood a few feet away and waited for the police photographer to finish, we looked down on the remains of Harriet Robarts. She had been mistreated either before or after death and we were going to have a problem proving this was our MP. Someone had taken a knife and thoroughly cut her up. Her clothes lay on her in strips, covering the worst of the destruction. Both wrists were slashed, as were the pads of her fingers. They also sliced up her face in order to make her unrecognizable. We got her name from her hip ID. Either the murderer hadn’t thought to check to see if she was imprinted or he had run out of time. I was guessing the first. Maybe he wanted her ID’d. Maybe the destruction of the face was a warning.

  “So, Jet. What do you think?”

  Jet had been staring at the wall of the alley as if the street art would tell us who did it. Now he glanced at the woman and back at me.

  “Should I have thoughts?”

  “Well, isn’t that your Problem?” Unlike Ausdinians, Gregosons could have multiple Problems. Jet had two, one of which I found infinitely more useful than his monthly habit of turning into a giant, although that did come in handy occasionally.

  “I cannot tell sincerity in dead women. They must be alive.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Is it important? We are going to find her murderer either way.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Jet frowned. He always saw things more pragmatically than I did. Oh look, a murdered woman, let’s find out who killed her.

  “Jet, we weren’t hired to find her killer. We were hired to find her. We have done that. Case closed.”

  “But, will not her brothers want to know who killed her?”

&n
bsp; “Sure. But that is why we have a police force.”

  “Travis. You always tell me the police are only good for harassing people.”

  I grunted. They especially like to harass statues minding their own business.

  “Harassing people? Couldn’t be us.”

  The gravelly voice came from behind me and I would have winced except that he always responded to me that way. I turned and shook hands with Inspector Young, who was young in name only.

  “You know, with an attitude like that I might think you didn’t like me.”

  Young poked me in the arm. “I don’t. I tip you off about dead women so you can contaminate my crime scene and insult my men.”

  Jet shook his head and stepped back. He had met Hector Young a few times and still did not understand him. I knew that Young’s Problem was unrelenting sarcasm so I didn’t take it personally. I also felt it was what made him a great cop, though not a great husband. Criminals confessed to him because they assumed he already knew they were guilty. His wives just divorced him, again and again.

  “So I assume a great private dick like you already figured out who did it,” Young mused dismissively. We watched the uniforms load the body into the ambulance. I hoped they cleaned it out before carting around live folks.

  “I assume it was one of the brothers.”

  Jet looked at me again. He was often in awe of my deductions, or it was skepticism. I couldn’t always tell.

  “One of the brothers. Why?”

  “Because there are four of them. One is all you need.”

  “I mean what was their motive,” Young said. “You’ve heard of motive?”

  “You’re the cop, Young. I’m just a lowly P.I.—I’ll leave the motive to you.”

  Young sighed. “Since you have my case wrapped up, you wouldn’t mind giving me the information on your clients?”

  “Sure. Let me send them an invoice first. I’d hate for you to arrest them before I get paid.”

  With that Jet and I left the scene. I had no urge to become a statue in that alley.

  ●●●

  I did send our clients an invoice, but wondered if we would get paid since we hardly gave them the results they wanted. Or so I thought. The day before we closed up shop so Jet could go deal with his monthly Problem, one of the brothers came to see us. He looked like the others; same red close-cropped hair and brown shirt and pants, but he lacked the military precision. It might have had something to do with black streaks on his face and the arm he had in a sling. I offered him our one chair and refrained from asking him about his Problem.

  “How are you?” I paused. I knew the names of the four men who had hired us, but I had no idea which one was sitting before me. Was this Henry, Hank, Harvey, or Harrison? I looked at Jet and he shrugged. Oh well, better I look dumb than him. I was better at it.

  “You’ll have to help me; which one are you?” I expected to get an eye roll and a name. I was not prepared for the man to jump out of the chair and huddle in the corner. He didn’t look like he was heading for the door so I stayed seated and waited for him to pull himself together. After a few minutes, he stood up and returned to the chair.

  “I knew coming here was dangerous, but I had no idea the others had been here first.” He looked up at me with wide eyes that reminded me of a brownrunner caught in my headlights. “They asked you to find Harriet, didn’t they?”

  Since I’d sent an invoice to the four men I nodded in agreement. Besides I was curious why there were now five of them. Six, if you counted the recently deceased Harriet.

  “Did you find her?” I nodded again. I wanted to know how much this man knew so I kept quiet.

  “She’s dead. They got to her before I could. We were going away together and now she is dead.”

  I may not be the smartest man on this moon, or even the smartest P.I., since that was probably Jet, but I was fairly sure he wasn’t saying that They, our beloved and annoying supreme beings, had killed Harriet. But since brains aren’t something I have a lot of I decided to be a detective and detect. I looked at Jet again, but he still had nothing to say. Typical of smart guys.

  “Let’s start over, please. What is your name?”

  “Harry.”

  Oh boy, no wonder I couldn’t keep them straight. “Who killed Harriet?”

  “They did.”

  “They who?”

  He shook his head. “Them. The four of them. You met them. They’re ruthless. No one ever escapes. Not alive.”

  Okay. So I was just getting more confused. I looked at Jet again. Did a meowmaker have his tongue? He just smiled and nodded. I guess he thought I was doing fine.

  “Harry, you’ll have to explain this with more detail. Are you related to the four who were here before?”

  Harry groaned. He swayed. Then he looked at me fiercely. “I was told you wouldn’t ask questions. I was told you would help me without prying.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Aughhh. More questions.”

  Okay, now I was getting mad. I had done what I was hired to do and now I was being told that the men who hired me had killed the woman I was supposed to find. Of course I had questions, who wouldn’t?

  “Look man, what is your problem?”

  At that he laughed. And laughed. I thought he was going to fall out of his chair laughing. I stood up to get a better view at this lunatic. It didn’t appear he was going to stop anytime soon so I did the only thing I could. Nothing. I wished I was a statue, at least then I would have an excuse not to talk to this guy. He was really getting on my nerves.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  The man stopped laughing and jumped up from his chair. I would have told him to sit down, but I couldn’t since I had just turned from a hot-headed man to a stone-cold statue. I may not have known what his Problem was, but I knew what my Problem was. I had statuism. I was grateful that this time I was safe in my office, but it had never happened when we had a visitor. I know I had wished I could be a statue, but I didn’t actually mean it. I wanted to tell Jet to continue the conversation, but all I could do was stand there with my hand pointing at the man and the chair. Needless to say, I was a very aggravated statue.

  Jet must have left his desk because I could see him standing by Harry and murmuring to him. He appeared to be explaining that this was perfectly normal and nothing to be alarmed by. His voice was very soft and reassuring so I could only get every other word. Once Harry sat down again Jet came over and leaned on my desk. Now I could hear him perfectly and I silently thanked him for keeping me involved in this perplexing case.

  “So Harry, how many of you are there?”

  Relief showed on his face, but I didn’t know why. Who cared how big his family was? “There were eight in our unit.”

  “Has anyone besides Harriet died?”

  “Not yet. But someone tried to run me down earlier today and I’ve lost contact with the others.”

  “Why are the other four after you?”

  Why wasn’t he biting Jet’s head off for asking questions? It’s true that he was phrasing his questions as if he already knew the answers, but that was Jet’s style. I decided that if it was getting us information than he should continue. I moved my arm to encourage him then remembered that I couldn’t.

  “We found out that we are to be sold to various organizations.”

  “Non-legal ones?”

  “Yes. You see we have no Problem. It makes us very valuable.”

  “Interesting. Does your parent have a Problem?”

  Harry nodded. If I could have moved I would have kicked Jet to get him to explain this to me. I was going crazy and couldn’t do a thing about it.

  “Yes. But it was minor. He never had bad breath.”

  Jet nodded. “Why did you come to us?”

  “We were planning to leave the city and hide from the others. If something went wrong we were to come to you. I was on my way to your office when I was run down. I guess if Harriet is dead than it�
��s too late to get help.”

  “What help would you want?”

  “I need protection until I can get out of the city. The Four, that’s what we call them, are ruthless. They are going to be sold to the Battleboys as a unit. They have been training for years.”

  I wasn’t surprised to hear that the Battleboys, our local crime syndicate, was involved in something illegal and deadly. They were the best. Or the worst, depending on your viewpoint.

  “All right. We will help you. Do you have a place to stay?” Jet asked.

  “I’m at the Hotel Buscal.”

  “Head there now. Go nowhere else. We will come by tonight.”

  Harry nodded. He looked relieved and concerned. Jet walked with him out the door and Harry glanced back at me. I wanted to glance back at me, too. Exactly how did Jet think we were going to guard this guy? I was a statue and tomorrow Jet would be a giant. He’s usually smarter than that.

  As suddenly as I had turned into a statue, I turned into flesh. I slumped into my chair and grabbed the armrests to stop from falling to the floor. One of the side effects of being stone for a while is that your muscles turn to jelly. Jet came back in and grinned at me. I would have punched him, but holding on to the chair was about all I could do right now.

  “Interesting,” Jet said.

  “Are you nuts? You’re supposed to be the smart one. How are we going to guard this guy on the day we are closed?”

  “Travis. Do not worry. It will all work out. This man needs us.”

  “Why does he need us?”

  “His life is in danger.”

  “Okay, but why?”

  Jet frowned at me. “Do you lose your hearing while you are a statue? He explained everything.”

  “I heard it all. I’m trying not to be insulted that he answered your questions and complained about mine, but I didn’t hear anything that sounded like an explanation. Why don’t you tell me again in really small words?”