The < 100 Theory

1. 

“Aren’t a lot of guarantees in this world. Only death, constant irritation, and a glimpse of happiness a single blink can miss,” Vulpecula said, watching his feet stamp down into the snowy plains of white Urgway, “Daddy dearest said that.” 

“Bet he told the best bedtime stories,” Lacerta remarked, following him close behind. 

In the wintry weather, V’s scarf at last served more purpose other than a fashion statement. 

The holidays. Snow. The gift that kept on giving. “The Giving” was one more thing about Urgway Vulpecula didn’t understand. 

Celebrations. Those made sense to him. Though, they were unenjoyable for him. But a celebration commemorating the gift of life and a God of some sort. Celebrating “All this,” Vulpecula said beneath his breath, marveling at the vast arrays of nothingness and ever-immaculate depravity. 

“At least the snow hides the streets,” Vulpecula commented, without a sun in the gloomy sky, the tranquil dreariness matched The Fox Detective’s disposition. 

“A cynical silver lining,” Apus said, his feet traveled on a small way ahead of Vulpecula, who stared down at his owl-friend’s footprints. 

“The best kind,” Vulpecula replied, then added: “We’ve been called by the Head Detective of the Homicide division of Urgway’s Marybeth Police Department … to a cemetery. Hardly easy to carry oneself with utmost optimism in such grave settings.” 

“You’d think so, but you’ve been more uppity in the last hour than I’ve seen you since the Doppelganger incident last week.” 

Apus wore a thin jacket, specially made for an owl, the sleeves cut in such a way that freed the feathers of his wings. The color scheme resembled almost a rainbow and looked like something closer and more suited for a professional wrestler than someone’s winter clothes. Vulpecula often chose not to comment on such wardrobe decisions. 

Instead, he only smiled, and quipped: “I like a challenge, and for the Head Detective to ring me up, they must have something that’s suited more for me than their layman’s.” 

“You’ve spent the last five days looking nonstop in a math book, solving pointless algebraic equations,” Lacerta jested. 

“They’re like little mysteries,” Vulpecula mumbled self-consciously as they departed from the sidewalks, crossed the street, and neared the cemetery entrance. 

“Oh, look, at last!” Lacerta said, “People with less of a life than you.” He laughed, and in that moment, Vulpecula contemplated making his Lizard Friend a permanent resident in Alo Cemetery, but didn’t, because with the barbarism brought from Maharris’ ugliest city, they’d all be there soon enough. 

“But you’ll be around to solve his murder!” Vulpecula’s most recent example of psychosis whispered in his mind. 

Alo Cemetery was nothing extravagant. A large rusted gate with blood-red, chipped away paint stood before them, with a sign at the top in large-letters titling it. 

Between the bars of the gate, Vulpecula could see tombstone upon tombstone, epitaphs of all different sorts marking them. Before that, The Fox Detective looked on at the “Police Line Do Not Cross” yellow police barricade tape in-front of it. 

The only one he saw inside the cemetery was a parrot. Right at the beginning of the rather large cemetery. The Head Detective, Psitticus, he presumed. The parrot wore a heavy black jacket, one of those nylon jackets that said “Police” on it in white letters. 

In-front of him, Vulpecula saw at least three dead bodies, propped up and positioned in a vertical stance. He sighed. 

“Lucky you,” Lacerta said, “I don’t know what you’d do with yourself if you didn’t have another crime to solve.” 

“Lucky me,” Vulpecula said, a small, quiet chuckle, walking in-front of Apus. V climbed beneath the yellow-tape and began to open the gate, “What … indeed.” 

2. 

“You’ve become a very loyal customer in a very short time,” the Bartender of One Step Back commented, filling Vulpecula’s cup of alcohol for the second time in only minutes. 

Since his last visit, he’d since acquired a taste for it. And it was good. 

The bartender’s name was Red and in the few days they’d been acquainted, The Fox had come to enjoy the lizard’s friendship. If you could call it that, “friendship,” that is. 

Because, of course, Red only had a friendship with Vulpecula because an unwritten law that dictated bartenders befriend the drunk sad sacks they poured the drinks for. 

Vulpecula tried to make note of that in his blank chalkboard, but his blank chalkboard seemed these days more like a notebook scribbled with the paranoid ramblings of a madman lost it. 

His hands shook at the thought, his own morality blurred like a blood smeared mirror. Onto happier things, V took another chug of the cold alcohol in his glass. 

“You’ll end up barfing in the men’s room if you keep drinking with that tenacity, slugger,” Red said, a concerned look on his scaly face. 

“Long as I am not slicing my hand off in the bathroom,” Vulpecula countered, though, only to himself, as he felt, “I’ll be careful,” was a more civilized comment to say aloud. 

Bartender Red soon returned to Vulpecula with an interested smirk. If Red was feigning intrigue, he did it well. “What was on your agenda today, Detective?” Red asked on the opposite side of the counter, sitting atop a bar stool. 

“I solved a case,” V answered. “An important one, I think.” 

“That sounds like something worth celebrating then,” Red commended, cleaning an area on the counter where a man had spilled his food at an earlier time. “Where are your friends then, are they not feeling festive over your most recent success?” 

“They’re away with their families,” Vulpecula replied, fidgeting with the fur on his chin as he looked off to the side at one of the customers sitting a few chairs down from him. 

“Why aren’t you?” Red asked. 

“My father’s dead, my mother has been unaccounted for since his death,” Vulpecula replied. 

Red nodded, and uncomfortably said, “Well, I am happy to spend the holidays with you!” 

3. 

As Vulpecula walked further into the graveyard, he found himself readjusting his scarf and gawking at the names etched into each tombstone. It was all stalling and attempted obliviousness, a charade that wouldn’t be allowed for much longer, and in a way, V didn’t want to keep his head buried in the sand. 

The Fox Detective wished to look at the bodies. To begin. 

“You rang,” Vulpecula said, lifting his head to make contact with the parrot, but as he did, the bodies were what his eyes transfixed themselves on. 

Three dead bodies. All of them. All of them, what? Positioned. Positioned with significance, with significance. With significance! Vulpecula felt the sudden need to vomit. 

The bodies were propped up and stood like lively beings, but their deteriorated and mangled appearances suggested only the opposite of that. It took Vulpecula only a moment to infer the bodies weren’t murdered. Or, at least, not today, or even yesterday, but rather, someone had brought them out of their plots. 

This was evidenced by the left one’s heavily decomposed disposition, more-or-less, a skeleton. 

The remainder had more meat on them than that and had faces intact. 

Vulpecula made eye-contact with one of them and felt the same vulnerability and fear he did when he first found sight of Comet Fowley’s hand. The Fox Detective looked away for a moment, looking in time to see Lacerta and Apus’ reaction to the findings. Terrified as well. This wasn’t a stolen sword at an Italinian museum. 

“Well,” a seasoned, but sparingly high-pitch voice called out, “That’s what we’re dealing with.” 

Vulpecula looked at Psitticus, who seemed unbothered by the whole ordeal and simply paced about with a mirthless expression. Vulpecula could hear the light footsteps of his boots stamping down on the snow. 

“What do you know so far?” Vulpecula asked, his muzzle down south, unable to look back at the corpses. 

“Not a whole lot, but what I do know doesn’t offer much assistance,” Detective Psitticus began, “A middle-aged woman came, feeling in the holiday season, looking to make amends with her abusive father for all those years of playing black and blue with each eye of hers, comes to find this. God, if that ain’t the world sendin’ signals…” Psitticus’ remarked, a sour-look on his face that never seemed to fade, and never waned, never changed, but always seemed the same curmudgeon-look. 

“Go on,” Vulpecula said, not amused by him, but not annoyed either, he was finding it hard to work up the nerve to inspect the bodies. 

“Isn’t much else, as you can see,” Psitticus stopped for a moment, “Or, as you would see if you stopped hiding in your scarf. Each corpse has been desecrated, for lack of a better term, and the one consistence between them all is they are each pointing toward their respective grave plots.” 

“Why did you ask for me? Of all, everyone, with the entire Urgway Police Department at your disposal, why me?” Vulpecula asked. A serious question. 

“Marybeth has been thinned down some in recent weeks, and frankly, besides Barks-a-lot, I don’t have anyone I really can put up with enough to help me on this,” the Parrot squawked. 

“Most detectives usually do their own detective work and don’t look for outside assistance.” 

“Look, kid, can I call you kid? I’m gonna call you kid. I don’t need your help with this, but Vivian Herms called me on the phone the other day and told me to throw a case or two your way and that’s what I did,” and at last, the truth was revealed. 

“How do you know Vivian Herms?” Vulpecula asked fast. 

“You think any of the Urgway higher ups would give someone like me a spot, even in a hole like Marybeth, without a gun to their head? Vivian Herms was the gun.” Detective Psitticus said, “You are Hensley Noel’s kid, and that instills name-value and semblance to what you do.” 

“I am not interested in working for Urgway’s Police Department.” 

“We’re not interested in having you. But, Vivian had a favor and I fulfilled it.” His voice was stern and matter-of-fact. “But if I knew you were too queasy to even look at the bodies, I might have told her she was asking a little too much.” 

Vulpecula chuckled nervously to himself and brought his chin up. Walking forward, in-front of Psitticus. Truth be told, he didn’t want the Detective to see how bloodshot his eyes had become. 

The comforting hand of Apus over his shoulder did little to reassure him of himself. He knew it was Apus, for Lacerta was never one for empathizing, they were alike in that way, Vulpecula supposed. 

The Fox Detective walked nearer to the corpses. This was a deliciously morbid scene, and one that was entirely meant for theatric value. The middle corpse’s mouth was exaggerated, pried open somehow, forced into the smile resembling a wonderland cat. The body was that of a fox, and upon closer inspection, Vulpecula unraveled that it wasn’t the mouth being pried open to show the deceased fox’s teeth, but rather, the perpetrator shoved a set of novelty dentures into the dead animal’s mouth. 

In a storybook, this same act might have drawn laughter from The Fox Detective but seeing the empty and lifeless stare of his own kind, desecrated and indignant, he only felt a mixed-matched conglomeration of depraved sorrow and nothingness. 

Vulpecula walked around him. The Fox wore a finely tailored suit, likely bought specially for his death. It, and his thinning red-fur, coated and caked with dry mud. The body was sat up using wooden stakes, hidden from view under the victims’ pant-legs, that stuck down into the dirt. His arms were adjusted with similar technique, and as Psitticus described, the fox was made to gesture toward his grave-site, only feet away from him. His other arm at his stomach. It created the aesthetic of a fox holding his side, pointing and laughing. 

“Welcome, welcome to the ride of a lifetime,” Vulpecula mumbled, circling the dead fox, “In the dead center of town, never livelier, … what are you trying to tell me?” He marveled at it, looking for a message to appear in-front of him. “Gesturing hands, go-lucky smiles.” The dead fox’s tombstone listed his name as Steven Fosbis, and on his epitaph read: 

Useless is it, a time without love, no sense planning or premeditating. 

Vulpecula walked off, venturing toward the body on the left. 

A decomposed canine skeleton. The dog wore a suit as well, though, it was much more decayed and battered. His body had been six feet under a considerable time longer than the fox. In his hand, a wooden cane with a shiny finish. His body was arched back slightly, and his jaw was open. The visual here was also meant to be perceived as laughter, and once more, the dead pointed at their grave site. This dead animal’s tombstone listed his name as Harris Woof, and his epitaph read: 

Living life without hesitance is the only worthwhile formula. 

“Have you called in for profiles of each of the, uh, cadavers?” Vulpecula asked, finally feeling secure enough to look in Psitticus’ general direction. “Someone doesn’t dig up three bodies and stage them up like this without a reason.” 

“I called it in an hour ago and am expecting a file for each at any moment.” 

“Do you think it is someone exposing himself, saying, I killed these men?” Lacerta suggested, if only because he needed to say something. 

“If all three of these deaths were a homicide, perhaps. But the likelihood of three victims of the same killer being buried adjacent to one another isn’t likely. Though, that isn’t to say the victims were random.” Vulpecula walked toward the fox again, he wore a wedding band on his ring finger. “Grave robbers wouldn’t have left a wedding ring, and of course, certainly wouldn’t broadcast themselves.” 

“Then, why do it? What’s the motive?” Lacerta inquired. 

Vulpecula smiled for a second, then readjusted to a frown. It wasn’t appropriate to smile in such a situation, whether he found himself compelled to or not. 

He walked over to the body on the right-hand side. A second dog, his body not completely decomposed, a Great Dane by V’s deduction. The smell is what V found himself taken by first. He didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed it prior, perhaps because his mind was lent elsewhere. The smell was of rotting flesh. The smell of death went inside Vulpecula’s nostrils; his sense of smell never more enhanced. 

Once more, the Great Dane was posed theatrically, his name was Benjamin Sexton, and his epitaph read: 

Honey, never EVER forget to feed and water the humans. 

Vulpecula chuckled, only some. The morbidity of a Great Dane in a suit with a denture smile made it less than a laughing matter. 

Behind him, The Fox Detective heard a rustic iron gate coming open. Instincts forcefully jerked his head in that direction. The individual was an officer of the Urgway Police Department, V was easily able to infer such. The Fox looked back at the corpses in all their splendor. 

“It looks like Benjamin Sexton and Steven Fosbis both died of natural causes. Harris Woof wasn’t as lucky, however, and died from a house fire.” Psitticus announced. 

Vulpecula looked back over and saw the other officer leaving, and that Detective Psitticus now held a manila folder in his hands. “That’s hardly a pattern,” V remarked quietly under his breath. 

“Benjamin Sexton was a well-esteemed lawyer but died six weeks ago from kidney failure, mid-forties. Steven Fosbis was a banker and died only a few days ago, well into his sixties. Then, at last, twenty-five-year-old Harris Woof,” Psitticus chuckled a second, “He was a firefighter.” 

“Two of the three are dogs,” Vulpecula began. 

“What about the middle-man?” Psitticus interrupted. 

“Cut the middle-man? He is a banker, after all. I know we cannot. Two of the three are dogs, the other a fox, which rules against the idea of a hate-crime. The coroner evidently suspected nothing out of the ordinary, and I don’t think this is something as meticulous as that.” Vulpecula investigated the six-foot holes that’d been dug out. “This is a message, this is meant to be legible as pertaining to something else.” 

“Oh, and what might that be?” Psitticus blurted out, his voice not sounding very impressed with V’s reasonings. 

Vulpecula, however, feigned being aghast by his interruption, offering the parrot a confused look. “I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to myself, and I find it rude for you to eavesdrop.” The Fox Detective looked back to the tombstones, mild amusement in his gift of inducing irritation. 

“I am gonna head back to the station,” Marybeth’s Head Detective stated. “I’ll leave the profile folder with your friends here and if you happen to find something significant, don’t hesitate to call me. You have my number, correct?” 

“No, what is it?” Vulpecula pondered, looking at the corpses like he expected them to whisper a clue at any moment. 

“716…” The parrot began before being waivered off by V. 

“Stop, I have it. I didn’t think I did. Thought I erased it. But I have it.” Vulpecula reassured. The Blank Chalkboard led assist on various details about cases, on numbers, and the occasional algebraic equation. And in time, all was erased, filed, and forgotten. Blank again. 

Psitticus said nothing, instead, Vulpecula simply his footsteps walking through the snow. Soon after, the iron gate was opened, and his character was written out for the time being. 

Vulpecula walked over to the skeleton canine and reached in his front-pocket. 

“Don’t you think you should buy him dinner first?” cracked Lacerta, and for the first time, perhaps more comfortable now that the Head Detective was out-of-sight, walked toward the bodies. 

Vulpecula didn’t laugh. He felt around in the skeleton’s pockets in hopes of finding something significant. But found nothing at all. No matter, he walked over to the decomposing fox and did the same. 

“At the very least, don’t you think you should be wearing gloves while tampering with a crime-scene?” Apus suggested. 

Vulpecula stopped for a moment, looking over to Apus, and smiled. “I’m not of the law, if Psitticus trusts us unsupervised in an investigation, that’s his problem.” 

Eureka! Or at least, a partial eureka. An “Eka” without the “Eur,” Vulpecula held the deceased fox’s pocket-watch in his hands. Pocket watches were such foolish contraptions. Why have a pocket watch when you can simply wear a watch on your wrist? Useless. (He thought, while knowing full-well he’d be checking his phone for the time in a matter of minutes.) Vulpecula held it in his hands. It had nothing peculiar about it. Nothing out of the ordinary. The watch was a yellowish gold color, but V’s detective skills couldn’t decipher whether it was metal or the real-thing. Either way, it was an item a grave-robber would have stolen. 

Vulpecula opened the watch and smiled big. Almost as big as the dead fox standing beside him. A clue. 

“What is it?” Lacerta asked. 

“Watch out!” Vulpecula said at once, tossing the watch at him as if it were a bomb that could detonate at any moment. 

Lacerta flinched like he was terrified, but Apus’ levelheadedness allotted him the means to catch it before it fell on the snowy ground. 

“That’s interesting,” Apus commented. 

Once realizing himself made a fool, Lacerta had an offended look on his face that lasted only seconds. “What is it?” The lizard asked. 

“Happy Givings,” Apus answered, turning the watch over, facing Lacerta, allowing him to see the sticky-note closed within the pocket-watch. Besides the early season’s greeting, a crudely drawn smiley-face was also visible, written in black permanent marker. 

“A playful message,” Vulpecula said. 

“Heavens, Vulpecula, we’ve contaminated the evidence! This could have had the man’s finger-prints on it and now we’ve smudged it up with these shenanigans!” Apus fired back, sounding legitimately bothered by the revelation. 

“Yes, there’s a one-and-a-million chance the perpetrator was stupid enough to leave fingerprints on the pocket-watch but smart enough to stage this whole spectacle,” Vulpecula agreed. “But where would the fun in that be?” 

“You have that look in your eyes,” Apus commented. 

Vulpecula waved him off and looked once more toward the corpses. He meant his comment. About not wanting to catch the perpetrator off such a lackluster detail. This was a display that was meant to be unraveled, and for some unknown reason, The Fox Detective anticipated the clue was already available to him. Glaring at him. Vulpecula let out a breath, easing his disposition, and like that, his stressful tension returned. 

“Hand me the folder,” Vulpecula barked, walking over to Apus and taking it from his hands. 

The folder’s confines held ten-pages in total. Photographs of all three victims, criminal records, medical reports, but none of it seemed significant. 

Vulpecula dropped his walking stick into the snow and perused the folder with both paws, skimming through the pages like an editor proofreading for typos. “All three of them are squeaky clean, neither of them with as little as a single parking ticket. Nobody would dig up three bodies and set them up like this, just for the sake of it!” 

4. 

“I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Every case I can remember, I had an idea of what to do next. Like a loose string from a fabric, I always had something to pluck and help unravel whatever it is I was stuck on. This was like trying to find a loose string on chain-mail.” Vulpecula vented, another sip of alcohol came and went. He hadn’t ever been fully drunk in his life, but there was a first time for everything. 

“You solved it though, how did you do it?” Red asked, only half of his attention offered to Vulpecula, the bar had become busier and more crowded. 

“I called Psitticus and admitted defeat, I didn’t want to do it. It was the last thing I wanted to do. My head ached so badly, I don’t know if it was the case or something else, but I couldn’t string anything together. I wasted an hour-and-a-half pacing around those three corpses, eventually more of the Police Department arrived, they took an album’s worth of photographs of the scene and brought the bodies into body-bags. You’d figure they’d knock the bodies back into their holes and bury them, but instead, they stretchered them out.” Vulpecula chuckled a second, adrenaline coursing through his veins just by the thought of it. The thought put his teeth on-edge. 

“What did Psitti…The Head Detective say?” 

“He laughed a little at my suffering but reassured me. Told me that he already investigated the whole scene and couldn’t find anything, said the only way they’d be able to find anything is if the perpetrator tries it again and makes mistakes.” 

“They don’t have surveillance cameras or security guards that look over the cemetery?” 

“This is Urgway,” Vulpecula replied. “The city can’t afford any of that, filled with greaseballs that would rather feed their own selfish agendas rather than something of worth.” 

“A bar filled with greaseballs, V.” Red reminded, feigning the look of someone scared. 

“Waiting,” Vulpecula continued. “Waiting isn’t something I can do. It isn’t how I am programmed. Lacerta, Apus and I soon arrived at a small diner called Beagle’s Bagels. To wait.” 

5. 

“I don’t think the other customers are fond of us, Vulpecula.” Apus commented quietly, looking around at the old dogs beaming at them. 

“Dogs from different times, I’m afraid, not the most tolerant,” Vulpecula quipped fast, “Anyways, why is it that Psitticus sent a crew of officers to take the crime scene away from me!?” 

“Maybe he thought you’d contaminate the crime scene.” Apus answered plainly. 

“That’s ridiculous,” cried the offended fox. 

“You contaminated the crime scene.” 

Vulpecula laid the manila folder atop the wooden table they all sat, brushing aside the menu and rolled napkin of eating utensils. 

“I really think we’re better off waiting and not obsessing about this one, V.” Lacerta said, then began looking through his menu with the same intensity Vulpecula offered the victims’ profiles. 

“You and I both know that won’t happen.” 

A waitress walked over to their table with a grumpy glare and a smell that wreaked of oldness. A stuffy smell that’s inherited when life’s expiration date’s coming up on the calendar, but not yet spoiled. Exhaust fumes, in a way. The somehow distinct odor of plainness. “Uh, fellas, we’re gonna have to ask you take your business elsewhere,” She began. Looks weren’t deceiving, her tone had the rasp of a long-time smoker and her disposition carried an entitled sass. 

“I can’t believe this,” Vulpecula mumbled. 

“This isn’t really an area for your kind,” the waitress answered. 

“Why would that stupid parrot ask me to be involved in a case that’s such a dead-end?” 

A sigh from the waitress as she walked away from their table. Vulpecula was well-aware of her annoyance, but he didn’t really care. He needed to solve the three bodies mystery but couldn’t. 

“Look, Vulpecula, I know you’re feeling irascible about this, but it isn’t worth obsessing over.” Lacerta answered, by now, he understood his chances at obtaining food were slim to none. Instead, he began playing the word search puzzle available on his menu, circling two across. 

Vulpecula ignored him. “This is what we know, … Three bodies have been dug out from their graves, stood up and positioned like mannequins. Their features made to look as though they are gesturing toward their own grave-sites and laughing at them. A woman discovered them in the Alo Cemetery as she was visiting her deceased father. None of the three victims have any known criminal records, no affiliation through work, no family ties. Inside the fox’s front-pocket, I discovered a watch with a holiday greeting inside written on a sticky note.” Vulpecula stopped, taking the pocket-watch out from his fur-pouch and inspecting it. 

“You kept it!?” Apus questioned. 

“What am I missing?” Vulpecula cried out, flipping the pocket-watch open and shut again and again like he thought he’d uncover a secret compartment or a second clue. 

“Vulpecula,” Lacerta said calmly. 

“Maybe there’s another message written on the inside of the dentures, I should call the Department and ask them.” 

“Vulpecula!” Lacerta shouted, his annoyance unable to contain itself, slamming his hands against the table. It’d have drawn eyes on them too, had all eyes in the diner not already been on them. 

V hesitated. Caught off-guard by his friend’s disturbance, but then reacted stoic. “I can’t stop, Lacerta. It isn’t a choice, I have to do this.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I am alone in my head when I don’t.” Vulpecula’s eyes ventured off to the floor, fidgeting uncomfortably with the fur on his chin. 

Lacerta sighed, “Well, you’re going daft, mate.” 

“What am I missing, Lacerta?” Vulpecula said, and at that moment, out the corner of his eye, he watched a large dog step out from the men’s bathroom. 

He watched the door swivel about, and before it shut, his eyes could have sworn seeing Comet Fowley smiling at him devilishly as blood spurted out the hole made from his severed hand. 

The door shut, its momentum opening it one last time, Vulpecula saw the porcelain sinks and part of the bathroom stalls, but no Comet Fowley. “I am much crazier when I don’t occupy my mind.” 

Lacerta slid the manila folder away from Vulpecula and began thumbing through it. The folder now had, not only the profiles of the three victims, but photographs and details regarding the findings at the crime-scene. “Isn’t really a whole lot to talk about.” Lacerta stopped a moment, reading. “Honey, never EVER forget to feed the humans. That’s funny,” Lacerta said, a small laugh. 

Vulpecula stared at him blankly. “How is that helpful?” 

“Well,” Lacerta said, “I mean, Our Man seemed to like it. I mean, he has Benjamin Sexton pointing at it.” 

“He is pointing at the gravesite,” Vulpecula affirmed. 

“Don’t think so,” Lacerta argued, turning the photograph over to where V could see it. 

Vulpecula waved him off. It wasn’t like it mattered. “Anything else?” 

Lacerta squinted at the pages and shook his head, “I don’t understand why you’re so certain this person would leave a hint. Hasn’t the theory about serial-killers wanting to be captured been disproven?” 

“Yes, but this isn’t a serial-killer, this is a man committing a petty crime because he wants to scream something to the heavens. Wants everyone to see it. Wants them to know it. To reach out and bring them to his level. Nobody does something like this without reason,” Vulpecula reaffirmed, and at that moment, he could hear a voice in the inner-most of his psyche whisper to him, “Unless they do.” 

“You’re petty,” was Lacerta’s retort. “What would you do if you dug up bodies like this?” 

“Why would I do something like that?” Vulpecula asked, concerned. 

“You tell me?” 

“I wouldn’t.” 

“But, what if you did?” 

Vulpecula stopped. Closing his eyes, as if to imagine it. A second later, his eyes opened, looking at the photographs in the folder. “I’d taunt everyone in sight. A million intricately embroidered red herrings all leading to the same conclusion – Nothing.” 

“And why would you do that?” a voice asked The Fox Detective, but the voice was not Lacerta’s. 

Vulpecula lifted his head up and made eye-contact with a grey fox. But not a grey fox. Himself. Depleted of all enthuse and empathy. His teeth dripped blood. “If it were you. And we BOTH know it COULD be you. Why would you do it?” 

“I wouldn’t do it,” Vulpecula replied; bloodshot eyes, staring at his reflective monster. 

“You can lie to them, but you can’t lie to me.” The Grey Fox said, his teeth spread wide. It reminded Vulpecula of the deceased fox back at the cemetery. But somehow deader inside. The Grey Fox reached over the table and grabbed Vulpecula by his scarf, bringing him close. “WHY WOULD YOU DO IT!?” 

“Boredom,” Vulpecula calmly said. Lacerta’s face looked confused, asking Vulpecula to elaborate without having to say a word. “This isn’t a message, no rhyme or reason. This is a scream of suffering, ‘look at all I had to do to make you see,’ a normal man gone astray from convention in search for intellectual nourishment. Something of substance,” Vulpecula laughed a little to himself, though, nothing he said was funny in the least. 

“Vulpecula…?” Lacerta asked, snapping his fingers in-front of The Fox Detective with worried eyes. 

“I’d hide a puzzle,” Vulpecula answered. “An inside reference only I could understand. Nobody would find it because they’d have no reason to think it exists. A trick or riddle, perhaps,” he continued, digging his claw into Lacerta’s Beagle’s Bagels menu, spinning it to face toward him. 

“Right, but where, exactly? I know you want to solve this, but I don’t think grasping at straws is, …” Lacerta began, until being interrupted by V. 

“What if I told you our next clue has already been said, many times? A puzzle has already been said?” Vulpecula asked. 

“We would have found it by now, V. If he left anything we missed, surely the Department would have found it and said something,” his voice sounded depleted of enthuse, no longer enjoying his furry friend. 

“Benjamin Sexton, Steven Fosbis, and Harris Woof, not counting their predicament have one really significant thing in common, what is it?” 

“They’re smiling and pointing at where they were dug up?” 

“You were right the first time.” 

“The tombstones?” 

“The epitaphs all, do you recall? I do, but I look at them with new found eyes and open-minds, I look at them from left to right and discover a message from them. A small one; insignificant at first inspection. But first, let’s stop and look at each quote etched onto them. Each is a cliché, neither particularly clever nor particularly profound. The epitaphs offer no indication or hindsight of the carbon footprint left behind by each person. I am suggesting the etchings weren’t chosen by loved ones, supported by the profiles on each of them; unmarried, no real families. Nobody would notice a small alteration or completely unique epitaph.” 

“That seems a little far-fetched, don’t you think?” 

“Living life with hesitance is the only worthwhile formula. Useless is it, a time without love, no sense planning or premediating. Honey, never EVER forget to feed and water the humans.” Vulpecula read from his Blank Chalkboard. “Reading these, first and last letter of each sentence, a double acrostic, tombstones left to right, what do you find?” 

6. 

“Laughs,” Vulpecula answered, sounding unimpressed by the revelation. Too much had happened in too short a time, and his respect for such things had dwindled. “It was logical. The whole act was inspired by such an action. Each body, of course, adjusted to resemble laughter.” 

“Seems like a lot of planning must have went into it,” Bartender Red commented. 

Several hours had went by since Vulpecula first entered One Step Back, much of the customers there when he entered had been replaced by a new cast. The glass Vulpecula spun around in his hand was empty, as it would remain. Bartender Red having since cut him off. 

“What you must understand though, is that they weren’t methodical. They weren’t driven by anger or by frustration, or bitterness. They were driven by the entertainment-value of it all. That’s what’s heartbreaking about it.” Vulpecula explained, somehow with a complete knowingness of how the perpetrator’s thought. 

“Heartbreaking?” Bartender Red said, his full-attention on Vulpecula, now that the bar had died down. 

“Give me a man who does bad things because he’s bad, I’ll find you one who does good things because he’s good. But a man, weighted down in neither spectrum, driven by a want, nay, a need for mental stimulation.” 

“Sure we’re still talking about the Cemetery Man?” asked Red, a raised eyebrow and a half-smile. Vulpecula offered no quips or comment. “Alright, well, now you know the epitaphs spell out this acrostic, how exactly does that help with finding him?” 

“Them. And do you know who etches in all those tombstones for Alo Cemetery?” 

“No?” 

“Neither did I.” 

7. 

Cascade provided all the supplies needed for funeral preparation. Once a family owned operation, the business became corporate when a couple suits bought the company with a deal the original owners couldn’t refuse. That’s what the trusty old internet said. Rumor has it Cascade was on the brink of bankruptcy and all this and that, but Vulpecula chose not to concern himself with such trivial details. 

The important matter is Cascade stood larger than ever as one of the primary funeral parlors in all Urgway. For convenience, practically all funerals in the Alo Cemetery were conducted by the neighboring business. 

Vulpecula chose to not bother calling Psitticus with the little unraveling, after all, his involvement would be more bothersome than helpful. 

Instead, The Fox Detective, Lacerta, and Apus arrived near Cascade with well-groomed suits and attempted watery eyes. 

They walked up concrete steps, V’s left-paw wrapped around a metal rail that reminded him more of a pipe than what it was meant as. Vulpecula flinched at first, the gelid winter made the rail cold to the touch, and the frosty snow hid most of the painted white concrete stairs, like flakes of dandruff on an albino’s head. 

The whole building reminded Vulpecula of a cross between a church and a retirement home. Likely, Water Lily churchgoers were the target demographic. Though, individuals in retirement homes were equally valuable, albeit, in a separate way. 

A stained-glass door at the front-entrance depicted nothing descript, a repeating circle pattern with an array of colors outlining each. 

As Vulpecula walked inside, the smell of distinguishable plainness, the smell of that waitress at Beagle’s Bagels, that smell lingered and encumbered the room. Reminded Vulpecula of a hospital in that respect. 

The floors were carpeted, dark-red, complimented by the decoration of orange flowers spread about in a tiled fashion. In-front of them, the first thing visible was not a service desk, but two large wooden chairs, each with arm-rests and dark-red cushions, same color as the floor. 

Between them, a bouquet of flowers filled up a long, narrow vase. The flowers were tightly packed, with no room to breathe, in that melancholy funeral-esque style, a plain white and red that looks so bleak Vulpecula thought he was looking at a photograph from a grainy film in the sixties. Depressing tackiness rubbed down on every crevice, nook and cranny, like ointment on a wide-spread rash. 

Vulpecula walked forward. For a strange reason, he didn’t feel uncomfortable with it. 

Hospitals had always bothered him, the smell of ammonia and urine, and the knowledge that someone most likely died in the small interval of his visit. In Cascade, he reaped a great benefit from knowing the deed was already finished. To the left of the chairs, Vulpecula walked up the spiraling staircase, but not before taking a moment to adjust his collar; haphazardly. The suit was all a part of the act. 

The wooden steps creaked with each stamp down onto them, and Vulpecula made note of the homeliness of Cascade. Hardly a corporate professionalism, The Fox Detective pondered whether they’d made any modification to the abode’s confines and aesthetic. 

“Excuse me,” a voice called out, “Excuse me, yes?” 

Vulpecula’s head peeked over the staircase’s rails and made eye-contact with a small brown feline, the top of his head encroached with hair-gel; fur slicked back. “Oh, hello, maybe you’ll be able to offer us an assist, we’re looking for Akil Somali, can you help us?” 

“I’m Ajou Somali, his younger brother. This is both our establishment, what can I do for you?” Akil spoke with proud-stature and waivered poise, a cat of class, and yet, the crowded and cramp funeral parlor suggested neither. 

“You and your brother run this, by yourselves? We read it’s owned by Cascade Corporations.” Vulpecula said, a speculative tone that waned once he realized his ‘sister had just died’. “My sister recently, most unfortunately, expired, and my friends and I, both of them very close to her, were looking at a smooth and hassle-free burial. I believe you recently buried my half-cousin, Steven Fosbis?” The Fox Detective’s act was far from extraordinary, and he knew it. His voice spoke rapid-fast and without delay, unable to enunciate the proper inflection. 

Still, Ajou Somali seemed calm and unabashed, a man who ran a funeral parlor was used to all varieties of grievance, a stuttering buffoon in shock was one of them. “Ah, yes, where do I begin with that? Let’s see,” Ajou said, his hand-gestures miming as if he was skimming his finger through a paragraph in the air. “First, my brother and I own Cascade Corporations, yes, that is very accurate, yes, indeed. And, while I certainly recall the name Steven Fosbis, I can’t with complete confidence recall us working on him. All of our work is kept on a database, however, and for chances’ sake, let’s say my brother Akil worked on that one.” His words were faster than The Fox Detective’s, but with so much more comfort. “And finally, I am most sad to hear about your sister’s death.” Ajou finished, adding a final “Awh” cry that couldn’t have sounded faker. 

“I think about her sometimes,” Vulpecula said, “What I’d say if I could, if I knew,” He stopped, with his best attempts at squeezing crocodile tears. 

“But we mustn’t dwell on if’s and could’s, my friend, I know exactly what you’re feeling and in-fact, it isn’t uncommon. You know,” Ajou said, stopping for a brief second, “If you’d step inside our office, I’d be more than happy to square you away and make this, as you said, a smooth and hassle-free burial.” The cat smiled, bowing his head as he made small glances to Lacerta and Apus. 

Vulpecula nodded his head graciously and followed as Ajou led them to a door, opposite the staircase, a wooden one with a mahogany finish. 

“As said, I am very saddened to hear about the loss of your sister, was she ill?” The Cat inquired, leading into the office-space and motioning toward the two chairs sitting in-front of the desk. “I can fetch a third chair if you’d like?” He asked, turning his attention back over to the three. 

Vulpecula had no doubts Ajou could fetch a third chair for them. That wasn’t much up for discussion, but rather, looking at the stuffy encumbered room, he wondered whether a third chair could even be wedged in. A hyperbole, but not too outlandish of one. The room was a tinsie tiny space eight-by-eight at most, with a desk that more-or-less engulfed it all. In-front of that desk, was a chair for Ajou, a window peeking outside, and a bulletin board with various nondescript dates and addresses that meant nothing significant to Vulpecula. 

The Fox Detective shook his head at Ajou, allowing Lacerta and Apus to take the two vacant chairs while he stood. 

Ajou smiled politely before walking over to his desk, which was, almost every bit as wide as the room. In-fact, a small metal trash-bin sat beside it, and Ajou had to step over it in-order to reach the front-side of the desk. 

“Ah, yes, and so, was your sister ill prior?” The suavely dressed cat asked again, curious wide-eyes directed at them, sitting in his desk, his hands together like a man delivering a prayer. 

“She was run-over by a drunk driver,” Vulpecula responded. 

Ajou cringed, “That sounds like a tough one, closed-casket then? Either that, or my brother and I do offer restoration services and will do our best to bring her back to a pleasant light.” 

“Do you offer a lot of services like that, restoration services, do you conduct the ceremony and offer other items as well? Caskets, and the like?” Vulpecula asked. 

“Cascade offers all funeral arrangement services. My brother and I inquired the funeral parlor with that fullest intent. The Cascade website features all our different caskets, the type, the size, so on and so forth. Other-wise, we offer restoration services, tombstones, and the decoration for the ceremony. It is also your choice whether your sister’s ceremony will be upstairs or in an outside tent at Alo Cemetery, which is where the bodies are oftentimes buried.” Ajou didn’t have the empathetic stare of a man attuned with conventional emotion, he seemed like an actor offering an audition, like Vulpecula claiming the loss of his sister. Only difference is Ajou was a good actor. 

“Do you also etch in the epitaphs?” Lacerta interjected, not abruptly, calmly, but unwanted by The Fox Detective. 

Vulpecula resisted the urge to glare at his lizard acquaintance, if only because his eyes knew to glue themselves to Ajou’s reaction. The reaction didn’t disappoint. And while, Vulpecula would’ve most certainly preferred to keep such a specific question out of Ajou’s mind, the look on the cat’s face told all he needed to see. A soft-smile, a smile that wasn’t just or reasonable in such a situation, but still very real. Even a knowing look to Vulpecula from Ajou told him he understood the connection they were making, but instead of confronting them, the younger Somali sibling said plainly: “Yes, epitaphs are included with our work on the tombstones.” 

8. 

“We had them,” Vulpecula announced firmly, “But it doesn’t really matter whether somebody did something or not, now does it?” 

“Not really,” Bartender Red admitted. 

One Step Back might as well have been closed by this juncture. Nobody frequented it. A ghost-town, aside from Vulpecula and Red, of course. It had been a long time since Vulpecula first entered it, and by now, his light buzz of intoxication had left him. 

“What you really need is evidence that someone did something, and that’s fair, I mean, it wouldn’t be fair if a prosecutor’s basis was a smile and a stare, but at that moment, I knew Ajou at least, was responsible for what happened at Alo Cemetery.” 

“Yeah, I understand,” Red said, pouring himself a drink of his own, and Vulpecula found himself wondering how much of a nuisance he was being to him, “How did you find a way to prove it?” 

“Those nondescript notes on their bulletin board? Those weren’t as nondescript as I originally thought. But, luckily, my mind made a mental note of them. Turns out they were circled names of deceased that’d been worked on by Cascade. I knew the dates were intended for a continuation of their magnum opus.” Vulpecula lied, his acting having improved so much in such a short-time, but at least this had sprinklings of the truth. 

In truth, Vulpecula considered himself above the law in that respect. Choosing against an aimless plea to Detective Psitticus of his suspicions, instead, Vulpecula did what he had done only sometime earlier with Comet Fowley, and broke into Cascade after-hours, under the nose of his friends. 

Upstairs, beyond the ceremonial room with aisles and rows for seating, through the curtains of the altar, he discovered a second staircase descending. A chill overtook when he made discovery he was walking toward their morgue. 

The Fox Detective yearned very much not to run into the vision of a lifeless corpse, and instead, had the benefit of finding a small desk first. A computer sat on top of it. On it, no passwords or barricades, in-theory, nothing worth hiding was on the laptop. Still, Vulpecula easily discovered the database equipped with all the Somali family’s previous efforts. This included Harris Woof, Stephen Fosbis, and Benjamin Sexton. 

Evidence was much easier to obtain when one didn’t have to play with unfair limitations. By the book, Urgway’s Police Department would ask about this, and would most certainly come up with nothing. 

The story of circled dates wasn’t an entire lie, but it wasn’t on the bulletin board. A calendar beside the desk had them. Marked with smiley-faces. The next date circled was the day of The Giving. 

9. 

Days later, Vulpecula found himself invited back to the Alo Cemetery by a phone-call from Psitticus. The day of The Giving as one would have it. 

The Fox Detective had informed Psitticus of the same lie he’d feed Bartender Red later on in the day. That Akil and Ajou Somali had intentions to act again on the night of Urgway’s big-holiday while everyone was nestled into their beds commemorating the winter solstice. 

Lacerta and Apus had since gone off to their respective families for the holiday-season, whereas Vulpecula had opted to stay in Urgway for the time. And in that time, Vulpecula only delved deeper into his stupor of befuddled principles and shattered will. Like an alarm-clock going off in someone’s brain, but instead of turning it off in the morning, Vulpecula simply decided to go on about his day with it on. 

The Fox Detective made his way back to Alo Cemetery again, a big cemetery, one of the biggest in Urgway, it took him some feet before he ran into Officer Psitticus. Psitticus glanced at him only for a second, standing in-front of a tombstone with somber eyes and a downward beak. 

Vulpecula walked beside him, once more awkwardly fidgeting with the fur on his chin. As the fox arrived as the parrot’s side, he stared down at the tombstone: 

Lucky Prescott 

“A friend of yours?” Vulpecula asked, plain-face. He felt his body shivering within his fur with every minute. 

“Hardly such,” the parrot answered, still wearing his big black-coat, “He always hated his last name, hated it. Got a lot of comments at his expense for it, so he demanded to be called Officer Lucky.” 

“How’d he die?” Vulpecula asked. 

“Ironically,” Psitticus replied, and continued: “He lived from 1992 until 2016. Or, not until, that isn’t what the big-rock says. It says 1992 dash 2016, and it’s strange, the smallest detail of a tombstone is the one with the most significance. That little dash is his life, his existence in Urgway, in Maharris, … in this world, and now it’s over. That little dash is everything, until inevitably it’s nothing.” 

“Was he a good man?” 

“Good is subjective,” Psitticus smiled, walking away from Officer Lucky’s grave, “But yes, I’d say he was one. So many on the force, so many are here for the wrong reason. They take on this job because they want the respect that comes with the badge. They want money or power or anything else. And when they discover how little respect is given, how little wealth, and how oftentimes they’ll feel powerful, they become corrupt. But I can say, at least for the most part, Lucky really did want to make a difference.” 

“I wonder if I am in it for the wrong reason or not.” Vulpecula said, following where Psitticus led. 

“I can smell the alcohol on your breath every time I am within a couple feet of you,” Psitticus said, a small chuckle, “That tells me it gets to you. Tells me you care.” 

“I am not so certain,” Vulpecula admitted. 

“I can also smell doubt and fear, negative thoughts, always the worst of yourself. Vivian Herms made the same deduction.” 

“I don’t think negatively about myself,” Vulpecula said, defensively. He wondered if it sounded as weak and desperate to Psitticus as it did to him. 

“You don’t have to. Those thoughts are already there, etched into your subconscious. Like chalk drawings inside a cave.” 

“The blank chalkboard,” Vulpecula mumbled to himself beneath his breath, but Psitticus eavesdropped. 

“Either that chalkboard isn’t as blank as you thought, or there’s a suicidal whiteboard a few rooms down from it,” jested the parrot, who laughed at his own joke. 

After a silence, Psitticus sighed, “In this world, you have a limited amount of time, all of us, a limited amount of days, a limited amount of years. Most of us, less than one-hundred. Ask yourself if this is who you are, if you believe in it, and if you can live with it. Because that alcohol I smell on your breath, that’s the beginning of something. Decide for yourself if it’s worth it, decide for yourself if the reason you do it is worth it. The real reason you do it, not the reason you wish you did it.” 

Vulpecula made a mental note of Psitticus’ words in the blank chalkboard, and smiled, “Why did you call me down here? Did Akil and Ajou Somali show up last night?” 

“They did,” Psitticus answered. “In the dark, I had some of my men wait around for them. Sure enough, your evidence ended up being accurate,” Psitticus walked further out into Alo Cemetery, until, at last, Vulpecula saw a pile of wooden planks and a zipped-up bag lying indented in the snow. 

Several members of the Urgway Police Department stood by the scene with dejected looks. One in-particular, a dog whose face seemed oddly amused, who adjusted his collar every once in a while, like some sort-of compulsive twitch. Vulpecula stared at him for only a moment, fidgeting with the fur on his chin. 

“Akil and Ajou were taken aghast but managed to escape. At least now we can identify them as the perpetrators and we have their bags and equipment as evidence.” 

“They’ll be on the run,” Vulpecula commented. 

“Indeed.” Psitticus said, shrugging his shoulders, though, The Fox didn’t have to also be a Detective to sense how dissatisfied he was with the results, “Can’t understand why they’d even bother doing something like this anyways.” 

“Some do the right thing for the wrong reasons, some do the wrong thing for the right reasons, and others do the wrong thing because they’re bored.” 

10. 

“At least you solved the case,” Bartender Red assured. “They’ll be snatched up in a day or so’s time.” 

“Maybe,” Vulpecula admitted, turning the glass of alcohol upside down for no reason in-particular, “But maybe I don’t want them to. Because I’m like them.” 

“No, you aren’t,” Bartender Red assured a second time. Vulpecula knew for certain the bar was meant to be closed by now, which meant for certain that Red allowed him to stay entirely for his sake. 

“I don’t do the bad thing, but I cheer the bad thing on, because it’s the only thing I have. Only thing I wake up for, only thing I must live for. Apus and Lacerta, they don’t have the same stake in this.” Vulpecula said, his eyes making contact with Bartender Red. A rarity for him. “Aren’t a lot of guarantees in this world. Only death, constant irritation, and a glimpse of happiness a single blink can miss.” 

“Your father’s a smart man,” Red said. 

“My father didn’t say that. I did,” Vulpecula confessed dryly, “My father gave nothing to me. My father wanted to save the world and he let it kill him, at the expense of everyone else in his wake. And I always liked to tell myself he did it to make the world safer for me, because it was a sacrifice that needed to be made. But if sons become their fathers, I know Hensley Noel did what he did because he wanted to run away from responsibility and escape reality.” 

“What are you saying?” 

“I am saying I won’t become my father. I won’t escape reality. And that I’ll live, in the world as we know it, without distractions. I think it’s time I move on from this. To live.” Vulpecula arose to his feet, though, watched as Bartender Red poured him a final drink. The coup de grace to a wounded detective. And as Vulpecula looked in his eyes, he felt a loving affection he had never left for another individual. It was so nice of him to pour more alcohol. 

“To The Giving!” Bartender Red said, holding his own glass of alcohol in his hands. 

  Vulpecula bowed his head, the curtain call, the show has finished. The Fox Civilian clinked his glass of alcohol against Red’s, “To The Gave.”