Who Killed Marv? Chapter 3

This is chapter 2 of my novella, Who Killed Marv? To see the first chapter and start at the beginning, please click here.

Hip and Poh dropped me off at my house. I could really get used to this new way of travel. No traffic. No traffic lights. I think the entire trip took less than 10 minutes and I didn't get car sick or whatever you call it nowadays. The only weird thing was I scared the bee-jeevies out of my neighbor. No one else can see me when I'm inside an imaginary vehicle, so when I stepped out of nowhere, old Mrs. Whitaker nearly fainted.

"My lord, Investigator Hughes, do I need to put a bell around your neck as I have on Hermes my cat?", she asked me.

"Sorry, Mrs. Whitaker! I was in a hurry so I ran over from the bus station before I have an accident in my pants.", I replied while I started doing my infamous pee-pee dance. I thought to myself I could have come up with a better excuse, but what's better when you're in a hurry and need to excuse yourself from a conversation without appearing rude than to say you really need to go to the bathroom?

"Investigator Hughes, you should slow down and plan properly before you leave your office or accidents will happen. You are not getting any younger and your bladder will tire more frequently. I can remember my dear old husband, Mr. Whitaker, having to...", I interrupted Mrs. Whitaker and told her that I really needed to get inside. She smiled and sent me on my way with a warning that if it happened again, she would get me a bell.

Once inside the safety and privacy of my own home, I took a deep breath, grabbed a bottled water from the fridge, and sat down on my sofa to watch a little television and catch up on the real-world news. It was the same old stuff, accidents, pandemics, lying politicians. But then something caught my attention that caused me to sit up and pay attention. A little girl was missing from her home. The little girl's name was Shiloh Vega. She never came home after school and her mother, Marie Vega, was worried sick about her. The authorities had been contacted and were currently working the case as a runaway child, but they believed she may not have left of her own volition.

I checked my messages on my cellphone to see if I had missed any calls from the office and the only one of any importance was from the desk sergeant earlier in the day who told me a little girl, named Shiloh, had stopped by the precinct to speak with me. Spongy told me that I should speak with a Shiloh tomorrow morning about Marv's murder. This all had to be related. There was no doubt the missing Shiloh was the same Shiloh that came by the precinct and was the same Shiloh that Spongy mentioned. I thought to myself I really am a great investigator. Now all I had to do was find her. Oh and solve two murders!

I called the precinct and asked the desk sergeant if he remembered the little girl that was looking for me earlier. He said he did and it didn't take long for him to connect her to the missing girl too. We were both really earning our money now! He described her as about 9 years old, dark-skinned with hazel eyes and brown curly hair. She was maybe 4' 5" tall and weighed maybe 80 lbs. Joe, the desk sergeant described her as wearing blue jeans with a purple top that had what looked like a hand-drawn picture of a cartoon monster on it and the name, Marv, written underneath.

Now it was obvious. The missing little girl was the same Shiloh that Spongy told me was supposed to meet me tomorrow at the precinct. Why had she gone today? Who had taken her? Where is she now? I went to my bedroom, opened my closet, and took down an old wooden box from the top shelf. Across the top of the box, in a child's handwriting, my handwriting, I had written "Spongy's Stuff". When I was a kid, I used to keep things in this box that Spongy would give me or things that Spongy asked me to take from the attic. Things like books that belonged to my Papaw.

I sat down on my bed and opened the box. It was the first time I had opened the box in years. The last time I had opened it, there was a pocket watch that belonged to Papaw, an old K-Bar knife, a couple of books, and a photo album. When I peered inside the box this time I was able to see things I had put in there as a child that I couldn't see as an adult. Things that Spongy had given me and that as I got older, I had forgotten about and could no longer see. I was shuffling through the box and suddenly stopped.

I stood up and ran back to my living room where I had laid the dagger that killed Spongy. I grabbed it and returned back to my room and the box. I reached inside the box and removed a jewel-encrusted sheath that matched the size and shape of the dagger and when I inserted the dagger into the sheath, they were an exact match. Then almost instantly, the dagger and sheath disappeared. I looked in the box to make sure I hadn't dropped it and there was a book laying open with a drawing of the dagger. It was the same dagger I had just held in my hands.