Athanasius Finch: Private Dick | ONC 2020

A Conspiracy Of Dunces

I felt like I was trying to construct a jigsaw puzzle of a Jackson Pollock painting - wondering what I was doing with my life on a Saturday night.

Sure, all the pieces were there, but they were like a white American rapper, which means with no rhyme or reason, and just about as controversial. I knew the tattoos had something to do with all of this, and that Mr. McAbre's death was most likely someone trying to tie loose ends. But what did Mrs. Fatone hat to do with all this? And what about both deaths having to do with electric appliances?

And the most pressing question of all - were we getting paid for all this?

"Don't worry about it!" said Athanasius after asking him that same question over and over again. "Don't worry about it" is perhaps the most oppressive phrase in the English language, right beside "relax," and "it's not you, it's me," simply because they obviously mean the complete opposite of what they mean.

"I will worry!" I said, worrying. "I seem to be the one doing all the heavy lifting here! Literally!"

If you guessed that I was once again pulling the porcine-powered vehicle, then you have more deductive skills than Athanasius.

"Well, I am the brains of this operation of ours!" said Athanasius as he scratched the belly of his lucky pig, Monsignor Porco, "and you are the brawn. Your job is to sidekick and write my musings. Good job kicking the door of that suicidal fiend!"

"Again, not a suicide," I said, questioning if wearing high-heels today was a good idea or not, which, as a fun fact, is never a good idea, even if it made my butt look like you can bounce a quarter on - an activity Athanasius seemed to greatly enjoy. "Someone is tying loose ends here."

'He did tie loose ends. Around his own neck, in fact!" said Athanasius. I swear he had wasted like 4 dollars on my butt already. "Poor chap probably was relieving himself of his manly miasma when something went wrong, if you perchamp my insinuations."

"Please, stop."

"I happen to believe that it was just a victimization of auto-erotic asph-"

"No, I mean, hush!" I said, driving us behind some bushes next to the Fatone household.

Row after row of moving trucks were parked on the driveway as burly women loaded them with furniture and clothes. The trucks read "Closet Queens: Our Only Straight Thing Is Our Driving!"

"Suspicious," I said. "Your husband died less than a day ago, and you move out of the house?"

"To be fair, Miss Cagliostro-"

"Not a miss-"

"-I wouldn't like to live in a place that my significant other was murdered/suicided/accidented, either."

That, unlike the cheap heels I borrowed from Wilhelm the Cat Eater, was a good point. But just like how the heels had a strangely squishy animal print pattern, it just didn't feel right.

"Well, no use sitting around like a plant unless we need watering," said Athanasius, jumping from the vehicle, but not before giving Monsignor Porco a tender kiss on the snout. "We should make like a tree and leave."

There were no butlers to lead us in, and no pomp and circumstance. No even Doctor Cuddles was there to greet us. There was nothing but empty halls. Whatever items remained were quickly swept away by the movers, and we mean everything. Lightbulbs, lamps, wallpaper, floorboards, and even the dust were carefully removed and stored in the trucks. I saw someone try to roll a spider web into a Manila envelope. It was wild.

Even the trees in the backyard were being uprooted and shoved into the trucks, which was the place where we found Mrs. Fatone. In the backyard, not in the trees. She was sitting in the hot tub, looking both incredibly relaxed and absolutely jittery, with a mud facemask on, which was being scraped up by one of the movers and placed on a mason jar.