When our tiny band reached the second floor of Force Headquarters out at the Police College and entered the chief’s outer office, DC al-Fasi simply led us past the chief’s secretary and a couple of higher-ups patiently waiting in the outer office for their audiences. Milburn followed al-Fasi, Parker followed Milburn, and Shad followed Parker, his internal camera providing real time action to stations across the planet. I brought up the rear in time to see the chief constable rise from his desk to his full two hundred uniformed centimeters, an old fashioned telephone receiver in his hand, mouthing the word “What,” his attention on Fatima al-Fasi. She was cautioning him as his face began growing a most unhealthful shade of bluish-red.
“Raymond Crowe,” said DC al-Fasi in a clear voice, “you are under arrest. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something you may later rely on in court—”
“You!” Crowe growled as he saw Parker standing to al-Fasi’s right. “You! Bloody you!” With one massive hand he pulled his entire telephone free from its old-fashioned cord and threw it at Parker, who caught it in his right hand and just as quickly flung it back, bouncing it off the chief’s head. Chief Crowe teetered on his heels for a split second, then dropped behind his desk.
“What did you see, DS Shad?” I asked immediately.
“I saw DC Parker physically assaulted by the suspect and forced to defend himself, inspector,” Shad came back as he flew up onto the desk to get a down shot of the chief out colder than January lager, as the lads used to say back in old Puss in Boots Flight, wot, wot?
PC Milburn put in a call for paramedics, Shad put in a call for Matheson, and I put in a call for Val.
Three final notes on the Parliament Street inquiry. First, once Raymond Crowe was convicted of premeditated murder, DC Fatima al-Fasi and PC Duke Milburn applied for ABCD Interpol, Exeter. London sent it up to Baghdad and Baghdad sent it down to London who sent it down to Exeter. The two of them would, in the opinion of Baghdad, be most valuable in ABCD Exeter and were assigned to that office.
Second, Shad decided to stay on. Agent Stanky worked a deal in which Shad would take a few weeks off from crime busting and spend that time training his replacement while a clone of his famous duck suit matured. When the first of the new adverts was on the telly all the reviewers said they couldn’t tell the difference. Val and I could. There never could be another Guy Shad.
Finally, there was another award ceremony, and among the Devon & Cornwall law enforcement recipients was recently promoted Detective Sergeant Ralph Parker, ABCD Interpol, Exeter. HRH Princess Mehitabel insisted on presenting the awards herself, which had all of us in Matheson’s office sweating beanbags—all of us but Shad and Parker. Shad said, “I said it’s been taken care of. During the arrest of CC Crowe, did Parker disgrace himself and the office in front of the camera?”
We had to admit that he had not. Save for a bit of blood dribbled on the chief’s carpet by the chief’s own head, the carpet was as clean when we accompanied the chief on his stretcher out the tower entrance as when we entered his office. We had thousands of subsequent media camera shots as evidence, many of them showing DC Parker in rather conservative heroic poses.
Neither Shad nor Parker told Matheson what had changed. At the award ceremony in the Royal Diane Museum auditorium the next spring, as Princess Mehitabel pinned the gong—King’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service—to Parker’s green sash, I looked down at my green-sashed duck partner and whispered to him, “Give. What did you do to Parker?”
“Madame Fifi’s,” he whispered back. “The amdroid stylist place on Parliament Street?”
“Yes?”
“Fake fur covered gorilla diapers, Jaggs. The fake fur blends right in with his coat. On special. Check it out. You should see the really cool stuff they have in there for cats, too. Fawkesmas Day comes but once a year.”
Gorilla nappies.
I’m afraid the road to the future will be more trying for the lord bishop of Exeter than even he imagines.
Copyright (c) 2007 Barry B. Longyear
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Jaggers and Shad appeared earlier in “The Good Kill” [November 2006] and “The Hangingstone Rat” [October 2007].)