A Holiday of Crows

“Well, allow me to explain first. Although, if I do miss any details, feel free to jump in afterwards.”

Pigeon cleared his throat.

“As Worm told us, the Crows have been looking forward to this vacation for months. And so, when it was suddenly cancelled due to Miss Crow's work conference, they were all deeply saddened. But that is when they hatched an idea. They would fake their own deaths. I'm not sure where they got the fake bodies from, but the bodies of Miss Crow and Colonel Crow were placed at home. The lack of marks on the corpses was not due to a poison being used, but because the “corpses” were never alive to begin with.”

“The cake was made to mislead us. Almond, trying to trick us into thinking that cyanide was used. Now, in the Professor's office. Worm noted that they had seen two black birds. I was correct in saying that one was the Professor. But, in a way, so was the other. The Professor stabbed his fake, covered the knife in ketchup and left it in a place we were sure to find. He likely also made a lot of noise in order to get Worm's attention, but also to make them to scared to get a proper look, giving us a potentially misleading statement. And it did almost mislead us. The detail that led to my conclusion was Worm mentioning that it only took a day for the Professor to get over his sadness at the holiday being cancelled. Surely, for something so exciting, that sadness would last. Throughout the planned duration of the holiday at least, as he thought about the fact that he was meant to be on the beach and wasn't…”

“But, if that hadn't tipped me off, the fact that the autopsy revealed three fake bodies definitely would have done. I suspected that the Crows had faked their own deaths to go on their holiday. And so, we went to your beach house, and then we came here. And then I explained the details of the case.”

And so, the Crows were arrested. One in the wings of Pigeon, one in the wings of Detective Bird, and one in the wings of Junoir Policebird. The case was solved.

Back in the police station, under the orders of Detective Bird, Pigeon and Junoir file away the evidence of the crimes the Crows committed. Typically many hands, or wings in this case, make light work, however there are cases where that doesn’t apply, and with Junoir around, this is no easy task. Pigeon tries to lead by example, deliberately and slowly showing the correct way to bag and label a piece of evidence, starting with the ketchup covered knife: gloves, label, bag. Junoir follows along like a duckling: gloves, label, bag, got it!

The yellow bird holds up a pair of human-designed gloves and cheeps “wow I didn’t know birds could even have wings this shape” before bagging them.

Once everything is bagged and labelled the two birds go about filing them away, placing everything in a box labelled ‘Case 3 – A Holiday of Crows’ and after noticing that Junoir had been staring at the piece of almond cake in evidence with a very hungry look, Pigeon proposes they finish up here and go eat those leftovers from the Crow’s meal.

The flock of Policebirds and Worm sit with their takeaway from the Fancy Restaurant.

“Thank you, Pigeon. I appreciate all you’ve done.” Detective Bird is the first to speak.

“Yeah, you were cool.” Junoir buts in, face full of Fancy Food.

“Anyway. I, I think you should have this.” Bird pulls a badge out from one of the drawers. “You solved the case, after all. You deserve this.”

Pigeon takes the badge from his superior. A Detective’s badge.

From now on, you will be Detective. Detective Pigeon.

Junoir claps. Worm cheers. Pigeon smiles. It's the promotion he'd been longing for.

The fate of the Crow family was to be determined at their trial; the courtroom was fuller than normal, perhaps helped by how well known the Crows were, the fact the trial had been delayed because of attempted bribery, and the families of the 4 red-herring suspects all being in attendance. Judge Goose brings her gavel down thrice – for the charge of wasting police time and framing to get innocent birds for murder, all three Crows will face three months' jail time and have their holiday property claimed by the police department.

There is a squawking uproar at the sentence but as Colonel Crow gives the two younger Crows a look, they realise at least this means they will be able to spend time with each other whilst in prison and not have work get in the way, so they are escorted out with Miss Crow making a comment “I suppose orange isn’t so bad with black”.

In the post-court proceedings Detective Bird shakes hands with Judge Goose and gives Pigeon and Junoir a pat on the back, “Excellent job with the case, you two have grown so much since you first joined the force, I'm proud.”

“Say, Worm and I will be taking advantage of the new holiday house, they’ve been saying how they always wanted to go. I don’t suppose you’d want to join?”

And as if to try and sweeten the deal, “The flowers near the beach are lovely this time of year.”

Junoir is excited at the idea, and Detective Pigeon says he’s happy to join, there’s just some paperwork that needs doing first…

Detective Pigeon opens the drawer in his desk.

“So, what’s that, ten cases now?” Worm chuckles.

Detective Pigeon laughs back at Worm as he moves to file the case away. But, as he puts the papers down, something silver catches his eye. He picks it up.

“There’s one more thing I need to check”, Detective Pigeon says as he looks down at a silver key in his foot. “Hey, partner. What do you think about a trip back to the Crow’s place?”

The house is exactly how they left it. Pigeon doesn't waste time, heading straight to the worm-sized door he had found all that time ago.

The door opens. Worm crawls through it slowly, into a small safehouse. It doesn't take long for him to find a keypad, and when she enters Professor Crow’s birthdate, the wall opens, leaving enough room for Pigeon to enter the safehouse too. The room is lined with plushies, of all shapes and sizes. Clearly, the Crow’s attempts to make fake bodies to get away with murder, all piled up neatly in a row.

But, in the centre of the room, lies something different.

It's a dead body. A real one, this time.

Detective Pigeon has a new case on his hands wings.