Post by greenbeing on Aug 22, 2006 20:23:49 GMT -5
Quackum Leap
Starring:
Scott Quackula as Dr. Sam Bquackett
Duck Stockwell as Al Calamari
Ron Elduck as Jim Duckbar
Mallard Nichols as Karen Bettanquack
Frankly Grilled as the image of Marinated “Marty” Russo
Flytoreno Wilson as Tomturkey Selway
Michael Gastric as Gravy Fisk
The blue light faded with a tingle and Sam found himself somewhere he didn’t often end up—a room full of police officers. He shook his head, trying to get a grip. The officers weren’t after him, which was also a surprise. Quite often he leapt into a situation to find himself facing life and death, fighting other ducks off, any compromising position, which Time or Fate or God or Whoever was leaping him around obviously found funny. Well, Sam didn’t find it so funny.
Sam sat down in the nearest chair—it looked like that was where the duck he’d leapt into had been headed. Deep breaths. He reached into his double-duck-breasted suit pocket, searching surreptitiously for an ID. Until Al arrived, he’d have to play it smart, and quiet, learn what he could with some good old-fashioned detective work.
Detective Marty Russo. He had a badge. And that uncomfortable bulge at his side was a gun. For once, Sam found himself on the right side of the law.
“S’up with you?” a dark-feathered duck asked, hoisting himself into the chair across the desk from him. “You’re looking a little lost. Don’t you agree, Jim? Ain’t Marty looking a little lost?”
A duck being led by a dog waddled closer. “Right, Tom, thanks for asking,” the blind duck answered.
Sam stared between them, wondering if there was some hidden animosity he was catching—actually, it didn’t seem so hidden. This Tom didn’t seem to be best friends with the blind guy.
Jim settled into his chair behind Sam just as Al materialized. Al always found the most awkward times to show up, this time standing half-in and half-out of the desk between Tom and Sam. “Hey! Nice outfit,” Al quacked. “Love the tie, you pick it out yourself?”
“Ha ha,” Sam said.
“You didn’t like that one, Marty?” Tom asked.
“Uh…”
“You think you can rib him a little better?”
“Spare ribs are better with a little barbeque sauce,” Al drooled.
“Uh…” Sam said.
“Well?” Tom prompted.
“Go on, Marty,” Jim said, “not like I haven’t heard it before.”
“Well, Sam,” Al said, punching the handlink like a little violence would knock some sense into Ziggy, “you’re a duck.”
“I know that,” Sam said.
“That’s never stopped you before,” Tom said.
“Your name’s Marinated J. Russo, but all the other detectives—you’re a detective, Sam, how about that?”
“Get on with it,” Sam said quietly.
“With what? We’re waiting on you, ducky-boy,” Tom said.
“All the other detectives call you Marty.”
“I know that,” Sam hissed.
“Look on the bright side, Sam, you coulda leapt in as the mutt.” Al waved his cigar at the German shepherd lying at Jim’s feet.
“We’re waiting, Marty, get it over with,” Jim said. “Unless you’re finally at a loss for words.”
Sam raised his gaze from the dog up to the face of his fellow detective. One thing he’d never been good at was insulting people. “Uh…”
“Yeah, you said that one,” Jim cut in.
“Oh!” Al said. “I get it! They want you to make fun of him, right? ‘Cause you don’t like him.” Al’s face lit up like a B-52 bomber at Christmas.
“How am I supposed to not like him? I don’t even know him,” Sam whispered at Al, who appeared to be perched on the edge of Tom’s desk.
“Amnesia?” Tom sneered.
“I get it, Marty,” Jim said, “disavow all knowledge.”
“Tell him, uh, tell him—” Al cut off with a low whistle, whatever great insult lost as his gaze fell on the female duck waddling closer, wearing a close-cut leather jacket, feather’s highlighted. “Woo boy, Sam, I’m in love.”
“Karen? That you?” Jim asked.
“Yeah, Jim, what’s up?”
“Just wanted to know if you were ready to go re-canvass the park. See if we can find the High Heels.”
“What’d your mother buy you a new pair o’ shoes?” Sam asked, trying to get into the part of this hard-ass detective. “You lost ‘em already?”
“The High Heel Killer, Marty,” Jim said. “You forget already?”
“Oh. Her.”
“Him,” the girl duck said. “It’s a him, Marty. You feeling okay?”
“Yeah, um, ma’am, just go get uh, Jim, a new pair that’ll match his tie, okay?” Sam beckoned Al to follow him down the hall, shaking his head and muttering to himself as he went.
“Hey, Tom? Keep an eye on Marty, okay?” Jim said behind him. “I don’t think he’s quite himself.”
“So? Why am I here, Al?” Sam asked when they were safely in the locker room. Sam checked out the image in the mirror and found, not his own reflection, but that of the duck he’d leapt into. A dark feathers on top of his head, badly dressed.
“Sometime within the next twenty-four hours, the girl—Karen—and the blind guy—Jim—are found murdered.”
Sam swallowed hard. “Okay… Do you know who did it?”
“Autopsy blames the dog.”
“What, the guide dog?” Sam laughed.
“Three lives are at stake, Sam, don’t laugh,” Al reprimanded.
“Like you should talk. What’s up with you today?”
“I’ll be stuck to that Karen chick like glue if you need me.”
“Al—Al, she’s a duck, not a chick.” But Al had already punched some button on the handlink and disappeared.
* * *
“They’re detectives, Al, and if they can’t find this guy, how am I supposed to?” Sam hissed at the maple tree in the center of Tomkins Square Park.
“Luck, Sam, like you always do.”
Sam had spent the rest of the morning going through the case file on the High Heel Killer, but to no avail. And he didn’t feel like he could waste that much time in the squad room looking at notes. Whatever killed Jim and Karen, it wouldn’t be in the notes, or else they would have seen it, and they wouldn’t be dead. Right? Right.
Sam resumed pacing, ignoring the squawking coming from the maple as Al abused the handlink. Everytime the link acted up, Sam felt further and further from home. Luck, it had to be luck, just like Al said, because it certainly couldn’t be genius. An inexpert design of a link back to his real home in 1999 in New Mexico. A Swiss-cheesed memory—and being a duck, he wasn’t a big fan of Swiss cheese. And his only guide was an adolescent-minded, lascivious, cigar-smoking duck. That was three strikes against him before breakfast.
“Hey, Marty, ready for lunch?” Tom called. “You been staring at that tree for like, ten minutes now. You find something, or you just thinking?”
“Uh, just thinking,” Sam said quickly.
“Duckbar must be rubbing off on you.”
“Yeah…”
Tom snorted. “You say that like it’s not a bad thing.”
“It’s okay.”
“What’s up with you today? Staring at a tree? Being nice to Jim? And you haven’t once suggested we go back and interview that ass from Precinct 4 with the tattoo of your grandmother on his arm.”
“What?”
“You know, Billings, anti-crime? Motorcycle guy? You said his tattoo of his old lady reminded you of your grandmother and he threatened to hit you if you didn’t get out of there?”
“Oh, yeah, him.” Sam cleared his throat. “What about him?”
“You said for sure you’d nail his ass.”
“But he’s a cop… Right?”
“Right.”
“So that means…”
Tom laughed. “Right, Marty, all cops are saints. Since when d’you think like that?”
“So, uh, Billings? You think we should go have a quack with him?”
“Either that or rough him up a bit.”
Sam laughed nervously.
* * *
“Where’d you and Karen go this afternoon?” Sam asked, leaning back in his chair toward Duckbar.
“Went to the shoe store and the park again, why?” Jim asked.
“I’m just thinking we should pool our resources. Get this one figured out.”
Jim laughed. “It’s not your case, Marty, why do you care?”
“I care, Jim,” Sam said, hurt. “I care a lot.”
“You sound like one of those little bears with the pictures on their stomachs,” Tom said, wandering up.
“Why are you guys giving me a hard time for trying to find the High Heel Killer? Isn’t that my job?”
“Well, yeah,” Tom said. “But—”
“But nothing,” the lieutenant said, “I got an apartment for you to roost on, Tom, Marty.” Lieutenant Fisk handed Tom a sticky note, plastering it on his beak. “Go.”
“Look, a sticky beak,” Al said, materializing behind the lieutenant so the duck walked right through him when he turned.
“What’d you find out?” Sam asked Al, but looked at Tom.
“About what?” Tom asked.
“The case?”
“Oh, right,” Al said and checked the handlink. “Looks like Jim and Karen bite the dust tonight.”
“Looks like we’re roosting over by the riverside,” Tom said.
“How?”
“In the car…” Tom said.
“Still no idea what really killed them. Looked like teeth marks, and since the dog was covered in blood…”
“Then they just assumed…” Sam said with a nod.
“Exactly,” Al said.
“Little tiny stab wounds?”
“Yeah, that’s how the DOA came in, Marty, you coming down with amnesia again?” Tom asked.
“Stabbed with the tiny heel of a stiletto,” Jim added.
“Then all we have to do is find the owner of the high heels and they won’t die, right?” Sam asked Al.
“Yeah, Marty,” Tom said. “Good idea. Wish I’d thought of it myself. You ready to go roost?”
“We’re not pigeons, Tom,” Sam said, but he grabbed his coat and followed the other bird.
“You at least gotta save the dog, Sam,” Al said, trailing behind.
“What?”
“I didn’t say anything,” Tom said.
“The dog, Sam, if he’s not with them, they can’t give him a one-way ticket to the gas chamber. A last dinner at the dog-food factory.”
“They don’t make dogs into dog food.”
“He’s dog meat if you don’t do something, Sam,” Al argued.
“I’m gonna go get the car,” Tom said, edging away.
“Tom,” Sam said, at a loss to make the other detective think he wasn’t talking to himself, “you think Duckbar will let us take the dog on surveillance?”
Tom laughed. “Take an aspirin, we’ll stop for dinner, and relax, duck, you’re starting to lose it.”
Sam nodded and watched the other duck walk away. “No problem.” When Tom was gone he turned back to Al. “What’s with you and the dog?”
“My second—no, my third wife—Maxine?—had a little dog, just like that one. Cutest thing, she always wore these little red pajamas with a—”
“The dog wore pajamas?”
“No, Maxine did. With this see-through red shawl.” Al started drooling on his cigar.
* * *
“What if the killer was dyslexic?” Jim asked Karen.
Karen paused in slipping her leather coat over her blue shirt to look down at her partner. “Meaning?”
Sam leaned back in his seat. So far, he and Al and Tom had dug up zilch, zip, nada, as Al continually reminded him. And time was slipping away fast. You’d think, with Sam leaping around in Time itself, that time would be one thing he’d have plenty of. But Fate or Whoever was a jokester, even more perverse than Al, leaving clues lying around, never making it easy, leaving it to Sam’s luck to win out in the last possible minute.
“What if he really meant to say something else? I’ve been running him moniker through my head over and over and the words start to blend together after a while.”
“So he had a speech impediment and his tongue was dyslexic when he called himself the High Heel Killer? What are you hearing?”
“Higheel—Heil—”
“Hail Kitler,” Al said, his voice materializing before he did.
“Kitler?” Sam asked.
“I was thinking Hitler,” Jim said.
“Yeah, Kitler,” Al said. “Those creepy cats who look like Hitler.”
“Cats?” Sam whispered.
“Cats?” Karen asked.
“Cats?” Jim asked.
“Uh…” Sam clarified.
“Cats!” Karen said. “Jim! Remember the first high heel? The murder weapon? Hank kept barking at it, right?”
“Yeah…” Jim said.
“We thought it was just hair of some kind, but what if it was fur?”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t feathers.”
“What if the killer wasn’t a duck? What if it was a cat?” Karen quickly slipped her coat the rest of the way on and practically grabbed Hank. “Jim! Come on! If you’re not coming, I’m taking your dog anyway. Maybe he can help sniff this cat out of the bag.”
“Bush, Karen. Out of the bush.” But Jim got up and quickly put on his own coat.
“Whatever.”
He took the harness from her as Sam leapt to his wide feet. “Hey, I’m coming, too.”
“Don’t you have a wife to go home to?” Jim asked snottily.
“Oh, uh—” Sam hadn’t made it home yet; he honestly didn’t know if he did have a wife to go home to. “She’s out tonight. Let’s go kick some butt, okay?” He waddled out of the squad room, but he could feel Karen staring after him.
“Did Marty just say what I think he said?” Jim asked, but the other two detectives were hot on his heels.
* * *
The Cat Scratch Club. Sam couldn’t remember if he’d ever been to a strip joint before. Perils of his mind getting Swiss cheesed up after so many leaps. But he had to admit, this was a great place to find both cats and stilettos.
The Observation Room door swished open behind them, but Sam refused to turn around.
“Sam! Duck!”
He turned to glare at Al; he knew he was a duck; and narrowly missed being struck by a flying zucchini. A cat on a fence was caterwauling loudly; the rotten fruit—or was it a vegetable?—was probably meant for him.
Al looked relieved. “Why didn’t you duck?”
“I am a duck.”
“Good to know,” Karen said, ducking a tomato. “Tough crowd. Got us some bikers, some druggies…”
“Look! Kitler!” Al yelled, pointing at a cat just coming out of the Club wearing a trench coat and a fedora. Some cheap fie dolla’ knock-off.
Karen grabbed Jim and pulled him and Hank behind a tree as another barrage of fruit and veggies flew by. “If God meant fruit to fly, he wouldn’t have given ducks wings,” she grumbled.
Sam ducked behind a trash can on the street corner. “Al? What’d you find out?”
“Nothing.” A parsnip bunch sailed through Al’s stomach. “My advice is get the dog away from them.”
“I’m not going to steal a guide dog, Al,” Sam protested.
A rain of tuna chunks and tuna oil fell from the roof of a nearby building just as a steak sailed past.
“Steak? You think the dog’ll go after his own master if he’s covered in steak?” Sam crouched down and started to waddle toward Jim and Karen. Their bodies had been found, covered in tiny puncture wounds, dropped in the middle of a nearby park.
“No… Sam, no!” Al waved frantically as a new batch of tuna fell from the heavens.
Sam shuddered as a hissing sound grew louder around him. Hissing?
“Sam! It wasn’t the dog! It was a bunch of cats! Licking and biting and—tuna!”
“We gotta get out of here, now!” Sam yelled. He dashed over to Jim and Karen.
“What about the high heel killer?” Karen asked. “It’s just a little fruit.”
“It’s not the fruit I’m worried about.” He grabbed each of them by the wing and hauled them away.
“What’s your problem, Marty?” Jim demanded. He wrenched his arm away and took a wild swipe at Sam to push him away, which Sam narrowly avoided leaning away from.
Sam could feel a squishiness under his webbed feet, and it wasn’t water. The cats, they’d surely smell the tuna and follow their footsteps. “Forget the murderer. We’re about to have a riot.” He had to get them away, far enough away that the cats couldn’t follow the scent. He looked up and, like an oasis, the pond in the center of the park beckoned. They were ducks, after all; they could all swim. “Into the pond!” He took off running as an angry mob of cats, deprived of their catnip and their tuna during the Infamous Rioting of the Cats, headed their way. Jim and Karen were close behind.
* * *
“Good work, Sam,” Al said, seeming to float next to them in the pond. It had been an hour, yet they were still there, trapped by the cats that still wandered the bank.
“Why am I still here?” Sam asked.
“Because there’s cats waiting to take a bite out of crime?” Karen suggested.
Al checked the handlink. “Looks okay on our end.” He pushed a few buttons, shook the link, and then nodded. “Jim and Karen are fine. They catch the High Heel Killer next Tuesday at a pub down on Elizabeth. Hank is fine. The riot was never reported, which is why, originally, Jim and Karen’s deaths went unsolved. But they’re okay now.”
“You know, Marty, I’m curious. How’d you know those cats were going to chase us like that?”
“You know, cats, tuna. A light duck sauce…” Sam hedged.
“Thanks, Marty,” Jim said, obviously having trouble getting the words out.
“Wait—Marty, you can’t swim, can you?” Karen said. “I mean, I thought you couldn’t swim. Obviously you’re not doing too shabbily right now.”
“That’s it, Sam. Soon as you get this duck back on land, you’ll leap,” Al said.
Until then, Sam decided, he’d just enjoy the nice break in the cool pond. He didn’t get a chance to kick back very often. It was almost like vacation. Sam chuckled. “Whoever heard of a duck who couldn’t swim?”
Starring:
Scott Quackula as Dr. Sam Bquackett
Duck Stockwell as Al Calamari
Ron Elduck as Jim Duckbar
Mallard Nichols as Karen Bettanquack
Frankly Grilled as the image of Marinated “Marty” Russo
Flytoreno Wilson as Tomturkey Selway
Michael Gastric as Gravy Fisk
The blue light faded with a tingle and Sam found himself somewhere he didn’t often end up—a room full of police officers. He shook his head, trying to get a grip. The officers weren’t after him, which was also a surprise. Quite often he leapt into a situation to find himself facing life and death, fighting other ducks off, any compromising position, which Time or Fate or God or Whoever was leaping him around obviously found funny. Well, Sam didn’t find it so funny.
Sam sat down in the nearest chair—it looked like that was where the duck he’d leapt into had been headed. Deep breaths. He reached into his double-duck-breasted suit pocket, searching surreptitiously for an ID. Until Al arrived, he’d have to play it smart, and quiet, learn what he could with some good old-fashioned detective work.
Detective Marty Russo. He had a badge. And that uncomfortable bulge at his side was a gun. For once, Sam found himself on the right side of the law.
“S’up with you?” a dark-feathered duck asked, hoisting himself into the chair across the desk from him. “You’re looking a little lost. Don’t you agree, Jim? Ain’t Marty looking a little lost?”
A duck being led by a dog waddled closer. “Right, Tom, thanks for asking,” the blind duck answered.
Sam stared between them, wondering if there was some hidden animosity he was catching—actually, it didn’t seem so hidden. This Tom didn’t seem to be best friends with the blind guy.
Jim settled into his chair behind Sam just as Al materialized. Al always found the most awkward times to show up, this time standing half-in and half-out of the desk between Tom and Sam. “Hey! Nice outfit,” Al quacked. “Love the tie, you pick it out yourself?”
“Ha ha,” Sam said.
“You didn’t like that one, Marty?” Tom asked.
“Uh…”
“You think you can rib him a little better?”
“Spare ribs are better with a little barbeque sauce,” Al drooled.
“Uh…” Sam said.
“Well?” Tom prompted.
“Go on, Marty,” Jim said, “not like I haven’t heard it before.”
“Well, Sam,” Al said, punching the handlink like a little violence would knock some sense into Ziggy, “you’re a duck.”
“I know that,” Sam said.
“That’s never stopped you before,” Tom said.
“Your name’s Marinated J. Russo, but all the other detectives—you’re a detective, Sam, how about that?”
“Get on with it,” Sam said quietly.
“With what? We’re waiting on you, ducky-boy,” Tom said.
“All the other detectives call you Marty.”
“I know that,” Sam hissed.
“Look on the bright side, Sam, you coulda leapt in as the mutt.” Al waved his cigar at the German shepherd lying at Jim’s feet.
“We’re waiting, Marty, get it over with,” Jim said. “Unless you’re finally at a loss for words.”
Sam raised his gaze from the dog up to the face of his fellow detective. One thing he’d never been good at was insulting people. “Uh…”
“Yeah, you said that one,” Jim cut in.
“Oh!” Al said. “I get it! They want you to make fun of him, right? ‘Cause you don’t like him.” Al’s face lit up like a B-52 bomber at Christmas.
“How am I supposed to not like him? I don’t even know him,” Sam whispered at Al, who appeared to be perched on the edge of Tom’s desk.
“Amnesia?” Tom sneered.
“I get it, Marty,” Jim said, “disavow all knowledge.”
“Tell him, uh, tell him—” Al cut off with a low whistle, whatever great insult lost as his gaze fell on the female duck waddling closer, wearing a close-cut leather jacket, feather’s highlighted. “Woo boy, Sam, I’m in love.”
“Karen? That you?” Jim asked.
“Yeah, Jim, what’s up?”
“Just wanted to know if you were ready to go re-canvass the park. See if we can find the High Heels.”
“What’d your mother buy you a new pair o’ shoes?” Sam asked, trying to get into the part of this hard-ass detective. “You lost ‘em already?”
“The High Heel Killer, Marty,” Jim said. “You forget already?”
“Oh. Her.”
“Him,” the girl duck said. “It’s a him, Marty. You feeling okay?”
“Yeah, um, ma’am, just go get uh, Jim, a new pair that’ll match his tie, okay?” Sam beckoned Al to follow him down the hall, shaking his head and muttering to himself as he went.
“Hey, Tom? Keep an eye on Marty, okay?” Jim said behind him. “I don’t think he’s quite himself.”
“So? Why am I here, Al?” Sam asked when they were safely in the locker room. Sam checked out the image in the mirror and found, not his own reflection, but that of the duck he’d leapt into. A dark feathers on top of his head, badly dressed.
“Sometime within the next twenty-four hours, the girl—Karen—and the blind guy—Jim—are found murdered.”
Sam swallowed hard. “Okay… Do you know who did it?”
“Autopsy blames the dog.”
“What, the guide dog?” Sam laughed.
“Three lives are at stake, Sam, don’t laugh,” Al reprimanded.
“Like you should talk. What’s up with you today?”
“I’ll be stuck to that Karen chick like glue if you need me.”
“Al—Al, she’s a duck, not a chick.” But Al had already punched some button on the handlink and disappeared.
* * *
“They’re detectives, Al, and if they can’t find this guy, how am I supposed to?” Sam hissed at the maple tree in the center of Tomkins Square Park.
“Luck, Sam, like you always do.”
Sam had spent the rest of the morning going through the case file on the High Heel Killer, but to no avail. And he didn’t feel like he could waste that much time in the squad room looking at notes. Whatever killed Jim and Karen, it wouldn’t be in the notes, or else they would have seen it, and they wouldn’t be dead. Right? Right.
Sam resumed pacing, ignoring the squawking coming from the maple as Al abused the handlink. Everytime the link acted up, Sam felt further and further from home. Luck, it had to be luck, just like Al said, because it certainly couldn’t be genius. An inexpert design of a link back to his real home in 1999 in New Mexico. A Swiss-cheesed memory—and being a duck, he wasn’t a big fan of Swiss cheese. And his only guide was an adolescent-minded, lascivious, cigar-smoking duck. That was three strikes against him before breakfast.
“Hey, Marty, ready for lunch?” Tom called. “You been staring at that tree for like, ten minutes now. You find something, or you just thinking?”
“Uh, just thinking,” Sam said quickly.
“Duckbar must be rubbing off on you.”
“Yeah…”
Tom snorted. “You say that like it’s not a bad thing.”
“It’s okay.”
“What’s up with you today? Staring at a tree? Being nice to Jim? And you haven’t once suggested we go back and interview that ass from Precinct 4 with the tattoo of your grandmother on his arm.”
“What?”
“You know, Billings, anti-crime? Motorcycle guy? You said his tattoo of his old lady reminded you of your grandmother and he threatened to hit you if you didn’t get out of there?”
“Oh, yeah, him.” Sam cleared his throat. “What about him?”
“You said for sure you’d nail his ass.”
“But he’s a cop… Right?”
“Right.”
“So that means…”
Tom laughed. “Right, Marty, all cops are saints. Since when d’you think like that?”
“So, uh, Billings? You think we should go have a quack with him?”
“Either that or rough him up a bit.”
Sam laughed nervously.
* * *
“Where’d you and Karen go this afternoon?” Sam asked, leaning back in his chair toward Duckbar.
“Went to the shoe store and the park again, why?” Jim asked.
“I’m just thinking we should pool our resources. Get this one figured out.”
Jim laughed. “It’s not your case, Marty, why do you care?”
“I care, Jim,” Sam said, hurt. “I care a lot.”
“You sound like one of those little bears with the pictures on their stomachs,” Tom said, wandering up.
“Why are you guys giving me a hard time for trying to find the High Heel Killer? Isn’t that my job?”
“Well, yeah,” Tom said. “But—”
“But nothing,” the lieutenant said, “I got an apartment for you to roost on, Tom, Marty.” Lieutenant Fisk handed Tom a sticky note, plastering it on his beak. “Go.”
“Look, a sticky beak,” Al said, materializing behind the lieutenant so the duck walked right through him when he turned.
“What’d you find out?” Sam asked Al, but looked at Tom.
“About what?” Tom asked.
“The case?”
“Oh, right,” Al said and checked the handlink. “Looks like Jim and Karen bite the dust tonight.”
“Looks like we’re roosting over by the riverside,” Tom said.
“How?”
“In the car…” Tom said.
“Still no idea what really killed them. Looked like teeth marks, and since the dog was covered in blood…”
“Then they just assumed…” Sam said with a nod.
“Exactly,” Al said.
“Little tiny stab wounds?”
“Yeah, that’s how the DOA came in, Marty, you coming down with amnesia again?” Tom asked.
“Stabbed with the tiny heel of a stiletto,” Jim added.
“Then all we have to do is find the owner of the high heels and they won’t die, right?” Sam asked Al.
“Yeah, Marty,” Tom said. “Good idea. Wish I’d thought of it myself. You ready to go roost?”
“We’re not pigeons, Tom,” Sam said, but he grabbed his coat and followed the other bird.
“You at least gotta save the dog, Sam,” Al said, trailing behind.
“What?”
“I didn’t say anything,” Tom said.
“The dog, Sam, if he’s not with them, they can’t give him a one-way ticket to the gas chamber. A last dinner at the dog-food factory.”
“They don’t make dogs into dog food.”
“He’s dog meat if you don’t do something, Sam,” Al argued.
“I’m gonna go get the car,” Tom said, edging away.
“Tom,” Sam said, at a loss to make the other detective think he wasn’t talking to himself, “you think Duckbar will let us take the dog on surveillance?”
Tom laughed. “Take an aspirin, we’ll stop for dinner, and relax, duck, you’re starting to lose it.”
Sam nodded and watched the other duck walk away. “No problem.” When Tom was gone he turned back to Al. “What’s with you and the dog?”
“My second—no, my third wife—Maxine?—had a little dog, just like that one. Cutest thing, she always wore these little red pajamas with a—”
“The dog wore pajamas?”
“No, Maxine did. With this see-through red shawl.” Al started drooling on his cigar.
* * *
“What if the killer was dyslexic?” Jim asked Karen.
Karen paused in slipping her leather coat over her blue shirt to look down at her partner. “Meaning?”
Sam leaned back in his seat. So far, he and Al and Tom had dug up zilch, zip, nada, as Al continually reminded him. And time was slipping away fast. You’d think, with Sam leaping around in Time itself, that time would be one thing he’d have plenty of. But Fate or Whoever was a jokester, even more perverse than Al, leaving clues lying around, never making it easy, leaving it to Sam’s luck to win out in the last possible minute.
“What if he really meant to say something else? I’ve been running him moniker through my head over and over and the words start to blend together after a while.”
“So he had a speech impediment and his tongue was dyslexic when he called himself the High Heel Killer? What are you hearing?”
“Higheel—Heil—”
“Hail Kitler,” Al said, his voice materializing before he did.
“Kitler?” Sam asked.
“I was thinking Hitler,” Jim said.
“Yeah, Kitler,” Al said. “Those creepy cats who look like Hitler.”
“Cats?” Sam whispered.
“Cats?” Karen asked.
“Cats?” Jim asked.
“Uh…” Sam clarified.
“Cats!” Karen said. “Jim! Remember the first high heel? The murder weapon? Hank kept barking at it, right?”
“Yeah…” Jim said.
“We thought it was just hair of some kind, but what if it was fur?”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t feathers.”
“What if the killer wasn’t a duck? What if it was a cat?” Karen quickly slipped her coat the rest of the way on and practically grabbed Hank. “Jim! Come on! If you’re not coming, I’m taking your dog anyway. Maybe he can help sniff this cat out of the bag.”
“Bush, Karen. Out of the bush.” But Jim got up and quickly put on his own coat.
“Whatever.”
He took the harness from her as Sam leapt to his wide feet. “Hey, I’m coming, too.”
“Don’t you have a wife to go home to?” Jim asked snottily.
“Oh, uh—” Sam hadn’t made it home yet; he honestly didn’t know if he did have a wife to go home to. “She’s out tonight. Let’s go kick some butt, okay?” He waddled out of the squad room, but he could feel Karen staring after him.
“Did Marty just say what I think he said?” Jim asked, but the other two detectives were hot on his heels.
* * *
The Cat Scratch Club. Sam couldn’t remember if he’d ever been to a strip joint before. Perils of his mind getting Swiss cheesed up after so many leaps. But he had to admit, this was a great place to find both cats and stilettos.
The Observation Room door swished open behind them, but Sam refused to turn around.
“Sam! Duck!”
He turned to glare at Al; he knew he was a duck; and narrowly missed being struck by a flying zucchini. A cat on a fence was caterwauling loudly; the rotten fruit—or was it a vegetable?—was probably meant for him.
Al looked relieved. “Why didn’t you duck?”
“I am a duck.”
“Good to know,” Karen said, ducking a tomato. “Tough crowd. Got us some bikers, some druggies…”
“Look! Kitler!” Al yelled, pointing at a cat just coming out of the Club wearing a trench coat and a fedora. Some cheap fie dolla’ knock-off.
Karen grabbed Jim and pulled him and Hank behind a tree as another barrage of fruit and veggies flew by. “If God meant fruit to fly, he wouldn’t have given ducks wings,” she grumbled.
Sam ducked behind a trash can on the street corner. “Al? What’d you find out?”
“Nothing.” A parsnip bunch sailed through Al’s stomach. “My advice is get the dog away from them.”
“I’m not going to steal a guide dog, Al,” Sam protested.
A rain of tuna chunks and tuna oil fell from the roof of a nearby building just as a steak sailed past.
“Steak? You think the dog’ll go after his own master if he’s covered in steak?” Sam crouched down and started to waddle toward Jim and Karen. Their bodies had been found, covered in tiny puncture wounds, dropped in the middle of a nearby park.
“No… Sam, no!” Al waved frantically as a new batch of tuna fell from the heavens.
Sam shuddered as a hissing sound grew louder around him. Hissing?
“Sam! It wasn’t the dog! It was a bunch of cats! Licking and biting and—tuna!”
“We gotta get out of here, now!” Sam yelled. He dashed over to Jim and Karen.
“What about the high heel killer?” Karen asked. “It’s just a little fruit.”
“It’s not the fruit I’m worried about.” He grabbed each of them by the wing and hauled them away.
“What’s your problem, Marty?” Jim demanded. He wrenched his arm away and took a wild swipe at Sam to push him away, which Sam narrowly avoided leaning away from.
Sam could feel a squishiness under his webbed feet, and it wasn’t water. The cats, they’d surely smell the tuna and follow their footsteps. “Forget the murderer. We’re about to have a riot.” He had to get them away, far enough away that the cats couldn’t follow the scent. He looked up and, like an oasis, the pond in the center of the park beckoned. They were ducks, after all; they could all swim. “Into the pond!” He took off running as an angry mob of cats, deprived of their catnip and their tuna during the Infamous Rioting of the Cats, headed their way. Jim and Karen were close behind.
* * *
“Good work, Sam,” Al said, seeming to float next to them in the pond. It had been an hour, yet they were still there, trapped by the cats that still wandered the bank.
“Why am I still here?” Sam asked.
“Because there’s cats waiting to take a bite out of crime?” Karen suggested.
Al checked the handlink. “Looks okay on our end.” He pushed a few buttons, shook the link, and then nodded. “Jim and Karen are fine. They catch the High Heel Killer next Tuesday at a pub down on Elizabeth. Hank is fine. The riot was never reported, which is why, originally, Jim and Karen’s deaths went unsolved. But they’re okay now.”
“You know, Marty, I’m curious. How’d you know those cats were going to chase us like that?”
“You know, cats, tuna. A light duck sauce…” Sam hedged.
“Thanks, Marty,” Jim said, obviously having trouble getting the words out.
“Wait—Marty, you can’t swim, can you?” Karen said. “I mean, I thought you couldn’t swim. Obviously you’re not doing too shabbily right now.”
“That’s it, Sam. Soon as you get this duck back on land, you’ll leap,” Al said.
Until then, Sam decided, he’d just enjoy the nice break in the cool pond. He didn’t get a chance to kick back very often. It was almost like vacation. Sam chuckled. “Whoever heard of a duck who couldn’t swim?”
Hee hee, Dr. Sam Beckett was probably my first love. When I was younger, I really wanted to write one of the QL tie-in novels, sadly, they stopped publishing them when I was about 17... I was very sad! Lost my job before I even started! 
And that is why they make crying smilies...