Janet and Jane: The Case of the Rattled Witnesses - Part Three

      "Think about it. It makes perfect sense," Jane responded. "It would explain all the damage, why everyone who witnessed the crimes were so shaken up, and why there was no clues pointing to a Neopet."

      "My brother and I have seen a lot of monsters in our days, but we haven't seen one that would steal," Corbin chimed in.

      I gave Jane an "I told you so" look -- it was one of my favorite looks. She rolled her eyes and continued. "What about you guys? Have you been able to get to the places where it was?"

      "Not really. The mayor said not to, but we were able to sneak into the antique store not too long ago," Kell answered.

      Corbin nodded in agreement and said, "Security has gone up since--"

      "Security!" I interrupted.

      Jane looked at me, knowing what I meant. "How could we forget the security cameras?" she asked. She walked over to the window and opened it. "Janet, I'm going to go to Prigpants and Swolthy's to prove to you that my theory is right. I'll be back in a few minutes."

      With those as her parting words, she flew out of the window.

      It was quiet for a few minutes. Pretty awkward if you ask me. I didn't want to mention anything about our jobs without Jane here to help me out.

      "So, Janet, is it?" Corbin asked.

      Oh, we didn't tell them our names. "Yes, I'm Janet. My friend and partner's name is Jane. You were saying?"

      "You don't actually believe Jane's idea, do you?"

      I shook my head vigorously. "No. Jane's theories have a history of being crazy. I just think the cases finally got to her."

      The brothers didn't say a word. They looked confused. That meant I had to keep explaining.

      "Three shops have been robbed during the last week and we had no progress," I continued. "Priggies, the antique store, and the Neovian Printing Press. They were totally destroyed in the process and every witness are so rattled, they could barely say their name."

      "Those stores were the ones robbed?" Kell asked.

      I nodded. "Yeah. The mayor is super worried about this. So much vandalism and all the valuable stuff was taken. Urgh!" I stamped my foot on the floor. "If I ever meet the ones who did this, I swear, they won't live to see their court hearing."

      The yellow Wocky swallowed, then said, "Those were the places destroyed by the monster."

      My eyes widened. Now I knew why there was all that destruction, and it made sense the store owners were so rattled if they saw it. But the possibility of the monster committing the crimes... I highly doubted it.

      "We did have a couple suspects, too, but we found out they were innocent not too long ago," I continued the conversation.

      "Who were they?" Kell asked.

      Did I really let myself say that? Oh no, what do I do?

      "I'm sorry, but it's confidential," I answered.

      Nailed it.

      "You've been open about all the other stuff. Why don't you tell us this?" Corbin asked.

      Didn't nail it.

      "I shouldn't have even told you that stuff. I wouldn't want to get you in trouble." I got up, turned away from Corbin and Kell, and faced the vanity. I could see them in the mirror. "Just trust me. You wouldn't want to know, anyway."

      "But--" Corbin began.

      I held up a paw, signaling him to stop. "You wouldn't."

      They certainly stopped talking, but I knew their minds were buzzing with questions. If they mentioned anything about it to Jane, I'd be in so much trouble. Then they'd be in so much trouble.

      "Do you think our jobs are related?" I asked, both breaking the silence and breaking their train of thought.

      Both Kell and Corbin shrugged.

      "I honestly don't think it's true, but at this point, we don't know what to think," Corbin replied. The Ogrin got up and walked up to me. "You've seen some weird stuff on your cases, right?"

      The first thing I thought of was last month's case. Nobody knew Sheree would ever do that to a fellow Faerie.

      I nodded. "Yes, but I have never heard of--"

      Everyone could hear something coming towards the hotel room. It sounded like...

      "I told you! I told you! I told you!"

      Jane.

      She quickly flew back into the room through the same window that she flew out about twenty minutes ago. The first thing that she did was slam what I assumed was about ten pictures down on the desk.

      "I knew I was right! I called it!" she said in a mix of cheer, terror, and gloatiness. "Check these pictures out."

      Still with a hint of doubt, I went to the desk. What I saw was bewildering. It was what we needed to solve the case once and for all.

      It indeed was the monster that took the items (that appeared to have something on its neck). I put the pictures in chronological order (at least it was what I thought were chronological). From what I could infer, I could see Clarence spending a nice day at the store when the monster came in, destroyed some things, and made off with a few things in its mouth. After that, either a green and brown figure come in, or those are some serious smudges.

      "So she was right," Corbin said to himself.

      Turned out he and Kell were looking over my shoulders.

      "Why would a monster steal anything?" Jane asked the monster hunters.

      "It's most likely trained. This wouldn't be the first time someone trained something like that to do something," Kell answered.

      Wait, did I see that right? "Huh?" I grunted. I went to my bag and went through it, looking for tool I need.

      "Janet, what on Neopia are you doing?" Jane asked.

      I really didn't answer that. All I said was, "Got it," as I pulled out my magnifying glass.

      I made my way back to the pictures. I held the glass tool over the pictures with great care. There was definitely something on its neck. It appeared to be a collar. Something was on that collar. Something I could make out easily.

      "Whoever trained that thing is pretty stupid," I said to myself.

      "Why do you say that? What'd you find?" Corbin asked.

      I scribbled something on a sheet of paper and handed it to Jane. "An address."

***

      "You know you two really don't have to come. I don't mean to offend you, but this is sort of a case. We're really not to involve anyone," I informed them.

      "Hey, if this involves that monster, it involves us," Kell argued. "I'd like to see you try and take on that monster on your own." I could then hear him mutter, "A gentle Kacheek like you wouldn't last two minutes against it."

      My temper rose. "You want to see how gentle I am?"

      Jane quickly got in between us and said, "No, he does not. Janet, please don't be rude. They're nice enough to help us with something that we have never worked with before."

      "He started it." I pointed at the Wocky.

      "Well, I'm ending it." Jane walked back ahead of Kell and I and next to Corbin. "You two together would cause more trouble than the monster." From her "joke", Corbin laughed. Kell and I rolled our eyes.

      "You two are so lucky we have something to do," Kell muttered.

      "Are we almost there or not? We've been walking for like, what, an hour?" I asked.

      "We're almost there, Janet. Don't be impatient," Corbin answered.

      We came across a house that appeared to be the right address. Oh, what do we do? (I don't know if you noticed, but that was sarcasm.) I stood on my toes and swiped the top of the doorframe.

      "Are you sure about this? I think this would count as an unlawful search," Corbin nervously said.

      Jane pulled out a sheet of paper. I didn't even have to look to see that it was the search warrant. She explained, "We got this from Mr. Camden. He went to the highest court he could find to get this. It gives us permission to search in Neovia as long as we had a lead -- which we do."

      "I hope you two know what you're doing," Kell murmured.

      I grabbed a key from the top of the doorframe. "We know what we're doing," I informed him. "If we didn't, we wouldn't be doing this."

      I quickly unlocked the door and walked inside. Once the others were inside, I carefully closed the door and locked it. I led the three around the house.

      "Try not to leave any trace," Jane ordered. "We are allowed to search, but we're not supposed to cause a lot of damage."

      The four of us did our best to stay close. We didn't know what was in here. Truthfully, I kinda didn't want to find out. Still, this was a job. We needed to do this.

      Something caught my eye. Well, it hurt my eye. Something shot a beam of light into it. Did it-- Was that thing on other side of a door?

      "Yo Janet, you okay?" Jane asked.

      "Just fine," I replied. "I think I found something."

      I quickly ran to the door and opened it without any sign of care. I was right to check in there. All sorts of things were in there. Antiques, expensive jewelry, gems, gold, too many things to name. All of us walked into the room to examine it.

      "This is definitely the right place," Jane said.

      "How many things did the monster steal?" Kell muttered to himself.

      Jane and I went to examine a pile of gold coins. Kell was right -- how many things did the monster steal? There are things here that Neovia didn't own. How did they go as far as the Lost Desert and to here? Not to mention it was only a week since the first robberies happened, and it was only three stores. Either those stores had some really good items or they aren't from here.

      I noticed an old picture frame. It didn't have a picture in it, but a plan. It was very old, maybe dating back to Year 3. No, it couldn't be. It said it was the plan to steal Coltzan's Crown, but the only Neopets that even attempted that were...

      "Do you think this stuff was collected by Malkus Vile?" Jane asked everyone.

      "It's very likely. I wouldn't be surprised if Meerouladen and Heermeedjet gave him a hand in this," I replied.

      Something picked up Jane and I by the collars of our shirts. We yelped in surprise and flailed around to try and get free. We could see from the corner of our eyes two brown figures pointing something at Kell and Corbin.

      Then, a gruff voice said, "You would be correct."

To be continued...