Overseeing the skeleton's excavation from the sand dune, Sheriff Lucian watched as deputies worked to pull away the sand, revealing the skeletal remains, picked clean by the crabs, parts smoothed into nothing by the sand, quiet murmurs by the deputies as they're appalled at the sight.
Watching from afar as they stared at the skeletal remains, Theodore and Lila see the deputies carefully pull away caked on sand, seeing the deputies reactions, this is a shock to them, and Theodore noted it's genuine.
"The strolling method, eight of ten, it works," Lila commented that Theodore's parents weren't wrong when they took strolling around, they're bound finding an answer to their question.
Nodding as his wild hair bobbed underneath his suede fedora, Theodore mused, "It certainly helps move things along!"
Their conversation cut short when the sheriff came towards them, his dark eyes locking with theirs as he came towards them, his hands on his belt like a sheriff would do when they have something to say to someone, be it good or bad.
"A stroll around the town, ey?" Sheriff Lucian looked at them as they nodded in unison, affirming that they wanted a scenic stroll, didn't expect it turning into a crime documentary, but here they are.
Exhaling sharply, rubbing his eyes, Sheriff Lucian then said, "Well, consider this an end to that. You two able to find your way back?"
The pair nodded.
Pointing behind them, the sheriff ordered them to return to the boardwalk, but not before Saying if there's an identification of the skeletal remains, they'll be the first ones to know.
Without question, the pair did as they were told, returning to the boardwalk with Theodore alerting Al of their findings.
He mentioned how a body was found near a nursery and the nursery had to wait for the crabs to purge what they ate before the discovery, but given there's no nursery on the island, well, it's peculiar all-around.
"How long do you think it was buried there?" Lila asks Al as she shared the telepathic link with Theodore and Al said that given their prowess eating anything they can fit in their mouths, there's a good chance the skeleton's been there for a few months.
Which was the untold fate of Amelia Earhart, by the way, despite what people may say otherwise, Al has the facts, and coconut crabs were responsible for her disappearance.
No, they didn't outright kill her like a hive-mind led by a dominant coconut crab, but she was in a bad way when she crashed landed, the whole thing about losing the medical supplies in the burning rubble and all that, she was a goner, and those death seekers came running the moment she took her last breath the moment they caught a whiff, digging themselves out the sands.
Thankfully, coconut crabs don't stalk people like they're monsters in cheesy sci-fi movies, but they're none too picky what they eat, hence why they picked her body clean and ate her bones the moment she died.
As for her plane, that wrangled burning mess, stripped for parts by unscrupulous fishermen who stumbled upon the remains.
Unsurprisingly, they didn't fess up to the crime of pillaging or acknowledge what they witnessed, as they used the pieces of the plane that they tore out of the wreckage to buy themselves better boats and keep food on the table for a couple of weeks, by the time they came across the wreckage, Emilia Earhart's body was already eaten by the coconut crabs, and they moved on to eat other things.
"They wouldn't have buried the body in the dunes, would they?" Theodore asked about the possibility, but Al denied that crabs would have the capacity to work together and burying their quarry in sand for their spawn to consume in peace.
Mother crabs aren't exactly mothers of the year.
"So, the body was dumped and buried in the dunes, someone knew that nobody would go near them because of the crab spawning," Lila summed that this wasn't an accident, someone intentionally hid the body in the dunes, likely before crab spawning happened, to ensure the crabs had enough time eating the body without disturbances.
Al confirmed that crab spawning didn't start until late summer and end before fall, which is the current season they're at currently, at least what he sees, so someone had to done it before then.
Of course, everyone knows crabs eat anything they can fit in their mouths, even things they shouldn't like bodies, so it's not easily cut and dry identifying the perpetrator.
"Though, it doesn't make sense, if I killed someone, I'd row out to sea in the dead of night and dump the body tied to cinderblocks, burying them in the dunes seems like a good idea at the time, but that's risking people's health," Al noted that there's easier ways of dumping bodies than leaving them to the crabs, a lot less of a chance of causing health scares, considering.
Yeah, when someone's covering up potential murder, they're not thinking straight, but it's risky leaving the body to the crabs that fishermen are inclined harvesting just off the shores.
"Who do you think it is?" Lila wondered the identity of the victim, Al unsure until he ran through the recent missing persons cases tied directly to the island, and he found a potential match.
With the biggest grin, Al informed them that about six months ago, a taxman went missing.
Reportedly, he'd come to the island, but hadn't made it back, it was believed he ended up getting swept out to sea, as police found his waterlogged wallet underneath the wharf, likely he lost it in the waters, tried retrieving it, but the undercurrent got him.
Not the first time it's happened, as Al pointed out that there have been instances of people losing their personal items in the waters, and without thinking too much, tried retrieving them innocently, before the undercurrent violently dragged them under.
"What was he here for?" Theodore inquired why the taxman came to the island and Al responded that he dug out some interesting papers, courtesy of the bureau seeking answers, that they ought to see themselves, he'll meet them at their room, and Theodore felt him leave his mind.
Returning to the inn, having a quick chat with the innkeeper about the disturbing find, Theodore and Lila went upstairs to their room, where Al's waiting for them, a grin on his face.
"What'd you find?" Lila asked him as Al pointed to documents he managed to obtain with relative ease from the bureau.
Turned out that they had some inquiries of their own, Al managed to smooth talk them into working with him, and they gave him copies of the files that the taxman, Douglas Fern, had on him when he came to the island.
The original documentations's safely stowed away, preventing headaches later, but moving along, Al informed the pair that Douglas Fern came to the island due to some discrepancies with the taxes of the winery and vineyard, and some concerns about the quality of their wine.
Shocking, he knows, trust him, nearly made him faint at the thought!
Joking aside, as Al watched Theodore and Lila looked through the documentations, before telling them that there's suspicion of fraud.
Cooking books, of course, one of the pastimes for unscrupulous individuals and organizations since the dawn of time, everywhere from taking off one jar of olive oil to a quarter of a million pounds, it comes in all shapes and sizes, and edibility, too.
Reading off the documentations as his icy blue eyes scanned the text, Theodore sees that the bureau flagged the winery part due to a customer becoming sick after consuming one of the vintage bottles given away.
Details are sparse in the documents, not surprising, but it seemed as though he wasn't the only customer that gotten sick by the vintage wine.
They believe the two were related, so hence why Douglas Fern was sent to the island to investigate.
"Still, it's possible for wine going bad," Lila pointed out that the Declan Family could easily give an excuse on why the wine made their customers sick.
One bad season's enough to spoil the wine, after all.
Raising his finger, Al responded with, "Oh, trust me, they did, first thing they said to the bureau. Of course, one or two incidents of bad wine are par course when you're dealing with vintage, but I'm getting roughly twenty hits over the span of years from people who won a vintage and reportedly gotten sick the moment they drank it."
It wasn't anything serious that would warrant a strong response from the bureau, but people gone to the hospital to pump their stomachs because of how the wine made them vomit.
Blinking, Lila asks Al, "What was wrong with the wine to make them go Regan?"
Al replied, "Not Pazuzu or gone-off pea soup, if that's what you're thinking. All I can find from the report's that the victims reported a strong mineral smell coming from the bottles after they opened them and let the bottles breathe for thirty-minutes, initially the wine tasted fine, then the strong coppery irony taste just hit them like a bag of bricks."
In his usual fashion, Al described the reports he found on the wine bottles and the contents getting twenty people sick enough it warranted pumped stomachs.
Declan Family claimed no wrong-doing, of course, but there's talks of lawsuits.
"Oh! And I found out something else, the Declan Family took some loans," Al pointed to the documentations as Theodore and Lila thumbed pages to find the page that Al talked about.
Turned out that the Declan Family borrowed money to keep their business afloat, they used their most expensive vintage wine as collateral.
"If the raffled wine is bunk, the bank's going to get antsy about the vintage wine used as collateral," Lila summarized the motive in silencing Douglas Fern.
There are remaining questions.
"You're assuming that this is our man, could be anyone else," Theodore brought up that Al's making a strong assumption that the skeleton found today belonged to the missing taxman, causing Al to scoff as he assured Theodore, "Since you finally fixed me, my accuracy's higher than a Stormtrooper's aim!"
Causing Lila to snark, "That's not saying a lot, Al!"
Rolling his walnut eyes, Al gestures as he insisted that the skeleton belonged to Douglas Fern.
He even has serial numbers from the bureau for the pins in Douglas Fern's shins.
"Why would they know that?" Lila blinked as she stared up at Al with confusion before Al elaborated further: Douglas Fern got hurt on the bureau's dime, they paid for the pins, ergo they know the serial numbers.
Don't ask Al, not important right now.
Point is, if they can examine the body and find the pins, they'll have their answers.
And if the body turns out not to be Douglas Fern, hey, things happen, or the crabs ate the pins.
"There'll be signs on the shin bone of fracturing and healing," Al summed their best-case scenario if Theodore and Lila don't find the pins in the shin.
Thumbing through the documentations until they read enough, handing it back to Al in the way of throwing at his avatar, the documentations never hitting the ground.
Perks of being a world wonder.
"What do you think?" Lila asked Theodore's opinion on what they should do, seeing how they presented themselves as investigators to the sheriff, and Theodore replied that they better not make their way to the morgue until tomorrow.
Nodding, Lila accepted his opinion, then Al disappeared from their room, hoping to find any more threads linking the Declan Family.
"Makes sense to kill a man who'd blow the whistle on fraud, but why leave the body on the island?" Lila questioned the thought as she sat on the edge of the bed.
Sitting beside her, deep in thought, Theodore gave his thoughts as he wiggled his foot as he rested on leg over the other, "They didn't expect anyone to find it."
Even if they're wrong and this wasn't Douglas Fern, whoever killed the person didn't expect two investigators finding it by chance.
"You think others are buried out in the dunes?" Lila wondered as she turned her head as Theodore crossed his arms, cogs turning in his head.
Shrugging his wide shoulders, Theodore replied they can't be certain, but they don't have enough pull to force an excavation of that size, they don't have adequate evidence proving otherwise.
Seeing how they're unable to visit either winery or morgue until tomorrow, Theodore furrowed his brow as he tells Al to check the winery in depth, everyone who works there, the history, everything he can dig out of a dusty website with the huge letterboxes and basic programming that's been abandoned since the '90s.
For now, Theodore and Lila will do what they can, tomorrow they're ramping up this investigation, but until then, as Theodore heard a rumble in the distance, thus further limiting their choices for today.
Before the storm hits, they took a quick stroll to Crabby Annie, hoping to grab some dinners, but ended up staying due to the allure of drinks doled out by the barmaid.
It was someone's birthday, a fisherman named Dobson, so everyone corralled together celebrating, with alcohol aplenty, but the fun had to stop sooner than they expected, there's a loud crash of thunder outside that rattled the hardwood tables, and the older fishermen took it as an omen of a bad storm coming.
Everyone paid their dues, collected their things, left quickly as the rain started pouring from the black skies above.
"I know you're part alien, but did you really have to drink him under the table like that?" Lila accosted Theodore for using his bizarre genetics to gain an edge over the birthday man by out drinking him by 3:1.
Yawning, Theodore replied with, "He betted me! And look, we didn't have to pay a thing!"
Snorting, Lila pointed out, "Only because you goaded him into over betting more than he could afford, now he owes the place his soul!"
Hadn't Lila been the voice of reason, yes that's unheard, but she had to be, they'd be swimming with the fishes wearing cement shoes.
"He took it well, and look, we found out more about the winery without even Spock'ing them!" Theodore pointed out that even though his antics almost got them into trouble with the locals, they found out that majority of the islanders worked for the winery.
That's a good reason to kill someone, he thinks.
If Douglas Fern blew the whistle on the truth, a lot of people would lose their jobs, a lot of angry people, pretty good motive for wanting the taxman dead.
Other than the usual reasons, of course.
"Still, you'd think they'd throw him overboard in the middle of the ocean… and the fact they had to know someone would eventually come looking," Lila pointed out that it didn't explain why the perpetrator buried the body in dunes instead of the logical choice of disposing it out in the sea.
Even then, they'd known that killing the man would elicit a response, especially if he was supposed to come back from the island within a timeframe, and the bureau would've known something wrong happened if their agent didn't return like he should.
Again, they could've panicked, but still.
"If the town's in on it, they'd have more reasons keeping it a secret," Theodore also pointed out that if this turned out to be a conspiracy, which is their bread for most of the week, the entire town's going to drop their friendly façade (if you can call it that, the "friendly" comments of Theodore being a mainlander and Lila a yankee) like bricks.
Cue mob of angry townspeople wanting to silence them.
"Hm, I don't believe it," Lila shook her head, disagreeing with Theodore's summations, saying that had it been the truth, the town would find ways of getting rid of them before that point, they're a tourist trap four months out of the year, they know how to put on the fake smiles and compliments. They'll work their spiel and get the two around the island and off it before that point.
Unless they find the skeletal remains, but if the town's in on the conspiracy, they'd know where it is, and known better to leave evidence on the island.
Returning to the inn, stomachs filled, their minds latent with alcohol, the pair returned to their room, where they found the bed more comfortable than preparing for bed.
His face buried in the plump pillow, Theodore felt the alcohol overtake him, and he's out cold.
Lila's beside him, her mind swirling, and she saw a figure beside their bed, looking down on them.
He wore a navy-blue suit with a red tie and a white dress shirt.
Lila couldn't focus on his face as her mind swirled until her heavy eyes closed on their own.
Everything became foggy in her mind, Lila vaguely remembered how she kept herself from over drinking, well, Theodore can handle his drinks, but there's still a point where he bumbles until his body naturally disperses the alcohol from it.
When her senses finally returned, Lila slowly opened her eyes, groggily her chestnut eyes moved around, when they barely focused, until she noticed that they weren't in their room.
Couldn't focus her eyes worth a damn, like the projector at a cheap movie theater, when they finally did, Lila sees that they're in a basement, but it wasn't the basement of the inn, this was somewhere else.
Her limbs barely moving, it took violently moving them before she felt the tingling sensation, and feelings in her limbs returning to her, as she tried moving around.
Blinking, Lila continued to struggle as she worked to gather her senses, when she noticed Theodore nowhere nearby.
"Ah… Lila… Ann… Watson… in… the… flesh," she heard a man suddenly speak out in the darkness, his unusual speech, like he's trying to speak normally, but seemingly can't.
TO BE CONTINUED…
"The Family"