Inspector Zelda: The Return of Mouse in the House!

Inspector Zelda wrinkled her detective brow and rolled onto her side. Why was she awake? She frowned slightly and winked one eye open to stare at the digital clock across the room. 3:30 am. Her frown deepened. Inspector Zelda hated early awakenings and the majority of her consciousness was urging her to slip back down that soft pillowy slope into blissful sleep, but the wrinkle in her detective brow plucked at that notion - something had awakened her, and she should pay attention.

Inspector Zelda All Knotted Up

Previously in the Adventures of Inspector Zelda...

Inspector Zelda shook her head in frustration. She would probably have shaken other things in frustration - her hands, her cup of pens, the walls ... but she was too mad at them to pay them any heed.

The knocking, which had seemed so promising of adventure, had turned out to be a maintenance man, stuck on the other side of the freight elevator. With the push of a button he was freed.

Now she sat alert in her desk chair, barely moving, barely breathing, waiting for the whiff, the twitch, the quiet shuffling step of a scandal.

But then ye olde clock chime app tolled on her smartphone, signalling that it was now time for her lunch break. With a grim smile, she shoved on her sneakers and made for the elevator bank when - WHAM! Inspector Zelda found herself facedown on the hard shiny black floor. Carefully, she twisted her spine until she could spy the culprit - an untied shoelace!

Inspector Zelda pulled the laces taut and tied them with ferocity. Double knots. Double power.

On with her day ...

to be continued ...

Inspector Zelda's Loose Ends Become Looser

Previously in the Adventures of Inspector Zelda...

Inspector Zelda scowled at the horizon. That fog, that ghastly grotesque fog that had looked so promising in its sinister nature only the day before, now it was ... humdrum. Dull. Ordinary. She almost laughed to think that she had contrasted it not twenty-four hours earlier in her mind with the benign transparent blue-grey fog that now confounded her vision of Upper Manhattan in its banality. The clouds hung low over the upper limits of the fog, but even they were a cheerful puffy white - no threatening stormclouds.

Well, clearly the weather could look after itself.

Inspector Zelda once more prowled the hallways of her pristine district, sniffing out for any nefarious goings on. All seemed utterly lost, when ...

... was that a knocking?

Inspector Zelda quickened her pace, all senses alert.

To be continued ...

Inspector Zelda at Loose Ends

Inspector Zelda prowled the halls covertly. She was restless, at loose ends, uninspired. She had thought The Case of the Pen Bandit would be her big break, and that her door would be battered down with intriguing cases and clients vying for her services. She had thought the case would bring her the proper attention. Oh, it had brought her attention, all right. But not the sort she anticipated.

Inspector Zelda had been transferred from the dark-shadowed 28th floor full of questionable characters and lurking danger. She was now on one of the bright and shiny upper executive floors. Everything was bright. Everything was shiny. Too bright. Too shiny. It was like a street sweeper had been transferred to the pristine halls of a private hospital - there was nothing here for her to clean up.

Her covert prowlings brought her to one of the large picture windows gazing north onto the island of Manhattan. Even the view up here was cleaner than she was used to. But - wait - what was that looming haze? Inspector Zelda's unfocused glare sharpened as her mind cleared. A wide heavy haze was creeping down from the north of the island. Everything about it looked suspicious. It was an odd consistency, opaque and sickly yellow-green-grey; nothing like the clean translucent blue-grey fog that flavored the horizon preceeding or following a spring rain. No, this ... this fog was insidious. And it was approaching.

Inspector Zelda flung herself to the nearest detective station and logged on to the internets. There, she learned from the Book of Faces, as well as Bird Emissions, that this creepy sickly floating presence was making itself known not just in upper Manhattan, but as far off as Queens, Long Island, Westchester.

Inspector Zelda raised her eyes in horror. If it had spread to Westchester, who knew where else it might go?

To be continued ...

The Case of the Pen Bandit, part four: Conclusive Conclusions

Previously, on The Case of the Pen Bandit ...

Charlie "Cutpurse" Kline, the scourge of office supplies, stood before Inspector Zelda, a slight smirk of contempt and astonishment on his face. "You ask me here," he drawled, running his fingers lightly over Inspector Zelda's vulnerable reception desk, "to parlay ... and you bring no back up?"

Inspector Zelda did not respond, except to twirl a pen over and under the fingers of her left hand. She kept her eyes locked on Cutpurse's face.

"I must confess my respect for the ... nature ... of the invitation," Cutpurse continued. "Cut up letters from magazines, glued together like a ransom note. As if you were the one holding something of value I want. As if it were not I who already possess all your pens." He chuckled. "But perhaps that is why you had to resort to magazines ... no pens with which to write."

Cutpurse paused his leisurely pacing to see if that jab had roused Inspector Zelda's ire. But Inspector Zelda continued her pen-twirling, almost unconsciously so, as her eyes looked unflinchingly into Cutpurse's.  It was the thief who looked away first.

Cutpurse chewed his lips meditatively. "I could, very easily, relieve you of that pen as well," he offered ingenuously. "Oh so very easily, you would not even notice its absense. It would already be by the 10th floor freight elevator before you'd had time to--" The thief broke off as he heard a slight crackle, and a slipping echo of his last word.  He turned slowly at the sound of a lightly tapping foot.

Constable Supervisor stood at the door, a grim smile on her face. "Good work, Inspector Zelda. Hitting the PAGE-ALL button on your reception phone to broadcast Cutpurse's confession to the whole company. Now he'll never escape the swift hand of justice."
Inspector Zelda shrugged modestly. "I never expected him to give up the location of his hideout so easily. It didn't even take any prompting."

Cutpurse hung his head in defeat, astonished at how quickly his serial crime spree had come to an stumbling end.

"In this case, at least, the word is mightier than the pen."

And on that awful and forced attempted pun, Inspector Zelda closed The Case of the Pen Bandit.

The Case of the Pen Bandit, part three: Ambushed

Previously, on The Case of the Pen Bandit ...

Inspector Zelda shifted her weight forward onto her hands, trying to relieve the cramped muscles in her crouching knees. She felt her hip pop unhappily and froze - she knew from experience even the slightest noise could tip off all manner of ne'er-do-wells and cat burglars. As the pins and needles went skittering down her calves to her toes, Inspector Zelda groaned inwardly and puzzled once again how she had gotten herself into this pickle.

Of course it had seemed like a brilliant idea at the time - why try and bait the lowly cups of pens on various desks, when she could stake out the very source of the pens (besides, all the spare peanut butter had been used up capturing Feivel's cohorts Sneivel and Trifle)? After all, any good robber knows he can bundle more lettuce at a bank than by nipping wallets and handbags. So here was Inspector Zelda, gone rogue from her desk, squatting behind stacks of paper reams, waiting and waiting for a Pen Bandit who apparently hadn't gotten the memo.

After giving the devious Pen Bandit one more hour to show himself in the supply vault, Inspector Zelda was forced to acknowledge that perhaps her hunch had not paid off.  She straightened, and limped on numb legs back to her desk.

That's when she saw - the lowest blow of all - not only was her cup of pens entirely depleted, but ... the Pen Bandit had left a note!

Inspector Zelda sank back into her swank swivel chair in defeat. Sure, she finally had the name of the Pen Bandit, but she was no closer to actually catching the devil.

The Case of the Pen Bandit, part two: Narrowing Down The Suspects

Previously, on the Case of of the Pen Bandit ...

Inspector Zelda briefly ran her fingers through her hair, sprucing the curls, before flattening them beneath her signature deerstalker.  She'd recently had a big break in her most maddening unsolved crime, but now she had to determine just what this break meant.

The fact that the Pen Bandit had looted both her modest lower floor desk, as well as the desks of the executive floors, meant several things:

1. This dastardly fiend (or fiendish dastard) was highly skilled in transfering from one elevator bank to another;
2. It followed, then, that he must be both ambulatory and tall enough to reach the elevator buttons;
3. The biggest break by far! Inspector Zelda could now rule out several hiterto highly suspect suspects:

• The Mechanical Pencil, seldom used and wildly jealous;
• The Used Coffee Cup, a perfectly innocuous depository for secreting away numerous pens, unnoticed and unsuspected;
• The Trash Can, that simmering cesspit of sin and sedition, always waiting to lure innocent pens to doom and depravity;
• Lastly, Constable Supervisor. Surely she would not fake an attack against her own station, purely to deflect suspicion? Hmmm...

No! Inspector Zelda would not allow herself to impugn the integrity of anyone on her team, much less their noble leader Constable Supervisor.  Besides, she had a far more interesting lead just dropped on her plate - the rumor that Stickyfingers McCoy was out on bail. Could HE be the one responsible for all this mayhem?

The Inspector knew her only hope of cracking this case before the next pay period was by laying out an elaborate trap. Her mind flitted briefly to the leftover mousetraps from the caper of Mouse in the House, a tale curtailed by the timely death of young Feivel. But no - she did not seek the Pen Bandit's demise, merely his capture and capitulation. But perhaps - yes! There was still peanut butter remaining from that same venture.  A little of it left strategically on or near the baited pens could no doubt leave a trail leading directly to the Pen Bandit's secret lair where he was keeping all the nipped pens hostage.

Inspector Zelda rubbed her hands together in delight.  Soon she would have the scoundrel in her grasp!



The day Feivel was brought to justice



The Case of the Pen Bandit, part one: The First Strike

It was a day like any other day. A girl named Zelda was quietly opening up her reception desk. The phone rang - Security from downstairs - she reached for a pen to jot down the name of the guest.

GADZOOKS!  No pen to be had! She rooted through her bag for a pen of her own and took the call. She sent an email to Office Services requesting more pens. She smartly straighted a stack of papers, because that's what receptionists do. But inside, A girl named Zelda had already donned her deerstalker, taken a pull on her pipe, and begun pacing back and forth across the lobby. Inspector Zelda was hard on the case!

The Inspector's keen penetrating gaze bore into every unsuspecting passerby in the lobby. Could it be the fellow with the yellow tie? He looks suspiciously .... penless. Or what about she with the pencil skirt and green chunky heels? Look how easily a pen could be slipped into that loose bun at the nape of her neck! Alas, the day drew to a close with too many suspects and no clear leads. Everyone had a motive. After all ... everyone had need of a pen.

By the following week, Inspector Zelda had hung up her deerstalker in disgrace and given up the pipe completely ("Disgusting habit," she claimed). She had, after compiling a list of nearly 2,000 suspects, finally resigned herself to the fact that she might never solve The Case of the Pen Bandit.

Then out of the blue ... a new lead! Constable Supervisor sent out a bulletin to the whole investigative reception team - the Pen Bandit had struck again! And on one of the executive floors!

Inspector Zelda was simultaneously puzzled and put out - had she even told the rest of her team about the first strike of the Pen Bandit? Were there perhaps even more attacks yet undiscovered or unreported? How long indeed had the Pen Bandit been ransacking her fair corporate city? And if he was indeed making hits on the executive floors, was there a chance that people in power were involved? Just how deep did this conspiracy run?

Without even noticing it, Inspector Zelda was already puffing furiously at her pipe, back on the case again!

The only known likeness of the dreaded Pen Bandit

To Be Continued ...