Space Tails

Chapter 3: Brandon's Tail

          “Hey, you guys made it.  I was beginning to worry for Beth,” Clinton joked.

          Beth snapped, “Hey just because my aunt is the principal doesn’t mean that I wasn’t going to get detention because I had to board with Mama Addie!”

          Mama Addie would board the next day with the rest of the teachers.  She used to bring Felicia with her before Felicia died.  Why was my life surrounded by so much death?  Just then a tall guy dressed in all black passed by.  Of course!  It just had to be a MIB agent!

          “Hey, guys, how about we pass the time by telling stories about ourselves, but don’t use our actual names.  We can make it a contest and whoever wins we’ll let them pick the place for summer vacation, okay?”

          “Yeah, sure.  You know if you just wanted to pass the time, you could’ve just said so,” Taylor replied.

          I smiled and tucked my hair behind my ears.  “It’s not just that.”

          “What is it then?” he asked.

          I lowered my voice so that the passengers closest to us wouldn’t hear, “I think the Men in Black are trying to blow up this ship.”  I dug out the note and passed it around for them to read.

          “Alright,” Brandon nodded.  “I’ll go first.”

          “The slick city streets were paved with the morning rain as Detective Roberts walked into the police station.  It was a cold November morning and he had a cup of steaming coffee in his hand.

          “Good morning, Margo,” he greeted his second in command.

          She nodded with a grave look in her eyes.  Detective Roberts knew that her face would predict how each case went.  This grave look not only told him that it was a hard case, but that it was a sad case as well.  The smile faded from his face.

          “A family was murdered this morning,” she offered the information without having to be asked.  She held tightly to a manila folder even though she had already memorized the contents.

          Detective Roberts didn’t want to ask the question that was on his mind, but he knew he had to do it anyway.  “Whose family was murdered?”

          “Elliot West’s,” Margo replied.

          Elliot West was the Bruce Wayne of Fairfield, only he didn’t have to fight crime on the side.  Plus his parents were still alive and he didn’t normally hold a grudge.

          Roberts felt as though someone had punched him in the stomach.  “Elliot, Mariah, and little Nora?”

          Margo nodded, “And the babysitter, Elaine Charlotte.”

          Elaine was friends with Roberts’ daughter’s best friend.  It would be hard to break the news to Elaine’s parents.  Then another thought hit him.  It would be extremely hard to keep this case out of the press.

          “Not a word of this to the press,” he informed her.

          Margo nodded, this wasn’t her first high profile case.  “Their bodies are being inspected now by the Doc.”

          The Doc as he was fondly called was really Dr. Watson.  Ironically, he wasn’t anything like the same Dr. Watson who helped Sherlock solve cases.  However, he had helped out Fairfield finest for almost twenty years.