The Kaito Went Down to Georgia
(He Was Looking for a Jewel to Steal)
Part 4
It's 10 AM on a Thursday and there's a mighty big crowd in front of the town hall. Did Tax Day come early this year?
A cluster of people were gathered around the exterior of the town hall. Daisy Duke had gone into town to run some errands, but the crowd had grabbed her attention. She leaned into the crowd in her red high heels, trying to get a better view. I wonder what all this is about?
A few minutes later, a white Cadillac pulled up to the curb, and a short, fat man in a white suit and a white Stetson climbed out.
"Boss Hogg, you've gotta see this!" A man in the crowd cried out.
"What's going on around here?" Boss Hogg demanded. Once out of his white Cadillac, he thrust his way through the crowd until he was at the door of the town hall.
"Look down at your feet," someone near the door replied.
Boss Hogg bent down and picked up a small note with a rose taped to one corner of it.
"Tonight, 180 past the General's birth, I will visit the Boar's Nest and take him from his metal barracks," Boss read aloud. "What the heck is that supposed to mean? Hold on a moment. I have General Stonewall Jackson's watch in my safe there…someone's coming to steal it? Tonight?!"
That antique Boss keeps in his safe at the Boar's Nest? Daisy had seen it once or twice; occasionally Boss Hogg would put it on display in a glass case, but most of the time he kept it in his safe. It seemed odd to her that the letter would only mention the intention to steal the watch specifically, but the whole situation seemed odd. Who would leave a warning note before committing a crime?
"And this person had the nerve to tell you in advance," a woman in the crowd interjected.
"The note is signed 'Kaito Kid'," Enos peered over Boss' short shoulders to look at the note. "Sounds like an alias."
"Yes, dipstick, but who is it? What kind of thief tells their victims that they're going to be robbed?"
"I bet it's just a prank," Cooter put in. Daisy hadn't noticed him until then, standing in his torn overalls and a baseball cap. She waved, and inched her way through the crowd until he was nearby.
"How long have you been here?" Daisy asked. "I just arrived a few minutes ago."
"You didn't miss anything," Cooter replied. "Mostly people have been standing around, discussing this here note."
"So who do you think left it?" Daisy couldn't think of any suspects off the top of her head. As far as she knew, nothing like this had ever happened in Hazzard. This is a strange crime, even for Hazzard County. That's saying something.
"Who do I think left it? Why, I bet it was those no-good Duke boys. They're always causing trouble for me." Boss Hogg announced.
They're only 'causing trouble' for you because you're causing trouble for us and everyone else. Daisy knew Boss Hogg would use any excuse he could to try and frame her cousins for whatever he could. They were on probation for running moonshine; after they had been caught, Uncle Jesse had agreed to stop making moonshine in exchange for the Duke boys not being imprisoned. However, if they violated their probation, they would get sent to jail. As the crowd murmured, Daisy interjected, "That's impossible. Bo and Luke were helping Uncle Jesse fix the goat pen this morning. They couldn't have left the note."
"They could have left it last night, after the town hall closed," Boss Hogg retorted.
"Let me see that handwriting." Before Boss Hogg could object, Daisy inched her way through the crowd and twisted to see the letter. She knew very well that this note wasn't written by Bo or Luke, and she knew Boss knew this, too. Still, she had to stick up for her cousins. "I'm not sure who wrote this, but it wasn't Bo or Luke. That's definitely not their handwriting."
"What wasn't us?" Luke asked. Daisy turned around to see Luke and Bo at the edge of the crowd. Their orange race car, the General Lee, was parked at the curb, in the nearest space that wasn't occupied by the crowd.
Daisy rolled her gray eyes. "Boss Hogg found a note saying that some thief who calls himself 'Kaito Kid' will steal Stonewall Jackson's watch from the Boar's Nest tonight, and he's trying to pin it on you."
"So someone warned Boss that he's going to steal his watch?" Bo sounded surprised.
"That, and they left a riddle. 'Tonight, 180 past the General's birth, I will visit the Boar's Nest and take him from his metal barracks.'"
"Well, we should get to figuring that out," Bo replied. "We still have plenty of time until tonight. What do you think of it, Luke?"
"I'm not sure. Bo and I will tell Uncle Jesse about this, and we'll think it over."
"I'll try to think more about it while I'm at the Boar's Nest," Daisy added. "I'll also keep an eye out for anyone or anything suspicious."
A voice rose above the crowd. "Boss Hogg, what are you going to do about this?"
Boss Hogg laughed. "If I could, I'd send this 'Kaito Kid' fellow a letter of my own. As long as I'm around, he isn't going to get a tiny glimpse of that watch."
I wouldn't count on that. If I had to guess, I'd say he's one step closer already.
...
...
A clock on the front of a nearby building read 11:43 as Bo and Luke walked out of Rhuebottom's General Store. Luke carried a newly-purchased shovel, to replace the one that had broken this morning when the handle snapped. That's what I get for pressing so hard into the ground. I should've figured there was a large rock under the spade, and that's why I couldn't break through. As they walked back to the General Lee, a middle-aged woman with long braided light brown hair waved to them.
"Hello, Mrs. Anderson. How are things going at the Hazzard Hotel?" Bo asked.
"Very nicely. We don't get too much business, but that's why we only have six rooms. However, we had a guest stop by yesterday. He's only staying for a couple days, then he's leaving tomorrow morning." A thoughtful expression crossed her face. "That reminds me. Did you ever meet a boy named Kyle Kurtz?"
Luke and Bo both thought for a moment, then Luke replied, "The name doesn't ring a bell."
Bo nodded in agreement. "I haven't heard of him, either. What did he look like?"
"Not bad looking; average height, slim, with feathery dark brown, almost black hair. He was around your age, probably a little younger. I thought maybe you met him in your school years. He was very polite, though. I bet he gets that from his aunt."
Even with the description, this boy didn't sound familiar to Luke. "Who's his aunt?"
"Esther Cryan. Funny thing is, I thought that she was an only child. How could she have a nephew? He said he was in Hazzard to sort out some inheritance dispute. I didn't know there was still anything going on since Esther died six months ago."
Luke and Bo exchanged glances. It was clear from the expression on his cousin's face that he had reached the exact same conclusion. "Do you think this has anything to do with the note that was found at the door of the town hall?"
Bo's blue eyes glinted. "I don't think it's a coincidence. An unusual visitor shows up, then that there note pops up a day later. Mrs. Anderson, do you think we could find this Kyle Kurtz guy?"
"Sure, you can talk to him. It's not too late in the day, so he might still be in his room." Mrs. Anderson led the way to the Hazzard Hotel. Once the trio was through the white-painted porch, she disappeared behind her desk. Once she had emerged with a key, she pushed open a door in the lobby and headed down the left hall. The trio stopped at Room 5 and Mrs. Anderson knocked. After a moment passed, she knocked again.
Bo shrugged. "Maybe it's for the best that he's not in there. Would you mind if we took a look inside?"
"Go ahead. I trust you boys not to do anything bad. Be sure to tell me how it goes. I'm curious what secrets he's hiding, too."
With a click, Mrs. Anderson inserted the key into the doorknob and unlocked the door. The room had the same décor as the rest of the hotel, unpretentious, but pleasing in a homey way. The bed was made, with two plain pillows neatly arranged on top of the folded white sheets. A wicker chair with a stuffed seat cushion along with a matching basket and table rested in the corner. Beneath the window, partially hidden by the floral patterned curtains, the soft corners of a suitcase stuck out.
"I bet we can get some answers from that," Luke observed, pointing at the suitcase. He didn't like the idea of snooping through some one else's belongings, but he knew the key to the mystery laid within the suitcase.
Bo shrugged. "I guess there's no other way of knowing." He knelt down beside the suitcase, pulled it from underneath the curtains and zipped it open. Folded clothes contained in small air-tight containers lay at the bottom of the suitcase, along with a toothbrush and toothpaste, a packet of tissues, and other basic traveling items.
"Look at all these here costumes." Bo had a brown wig on his head, and held up a wallet-sized square in his hands. "They're packaged in some kind of air-tight containers. I guess that makes it easy to fit more of them in this suitcase. What do you think the costumes are for? And what about this stuff?" He emptied out a bag onto the floor, containing pulleys and piano wire. There was some other equipment in the mix that Bo and Luke didn't recognize, like a bag of black marble-like balls.
They say you can tell a lot about a person by the contents of their bags. Bo and Luke have just proven that right.
"Maybe he's an actor? There could be a good reason for all of this." Luke suggested. "Still, it's weird that someone would take a small travel suitcase with them, and have most of it filled with costumes, disguise kits and what I'm guessing is stage equipment."
The corner of a piece of paper caught Luke's eye. "Hold on a moment." He reached behind one of the costumes and pulled out a printed slip a little larger than a check. The writing was in an unfamiliar alphabet, and it had an airplane-shaped logo in the bottom left-corner.
"If this is Kyle's plane ticket, we might be able to figure out what he came from and maybe where he's going next. That could be useful," Luke mused. "Thing is, I can't read the writing on it. What language is this? It looks like Japanese or Chinese."
"There's a notebook and a pen, too." Bo pulled out a notebook from the bottom of the suitcase and flipped through it before putting it back. "Too bad it's not written in English, or we might find another lead."
"It looks like a lot of things are missing from the suitcase," Luke commented. "Don't you find it weird that he wouldn't have any money on him, or a passport?"
"He must've taken those things with him, wherever he is," Bo replied. "Now all we need to do is find that place."
Author's Comments
I have decided to rename "The Heisei Hoods" as "The Kaito Went Down to Georgia (He Was Looking for a Jewel to Steal)". I still plan to work in a line about the Duke boys are known as the "modern-day Robin Hoods" similar to how Kid is known as the "modern-day Arsène Lupin".
I always found it fun to write riddles in my stories. It's also fun to try and decode them in other's stories. There are quite a lot of riddles in my original fiction, such as Eternity and Le Bonhomme du Minuit as well. I miss the days where Kaito Kid would leave riddles for the police in his announcements instead of just saying, "I'm going to steal (insert valuable) at (insert time and place)" like in the more recent stories.