The Girl With the Chocolatey Hair (Part 1)

The next day was remarkably uneventful. That is, until mid-afternoon. Alistair had just finished cleaning off a particularly nice coffee table dating from the 1870’s when he heard the jingle of the doorbell. “Can I help you?” Alistair asked, as he inspected his new arrivals. The two teens, a boy and a girl looked up when he spoke. The girl stepped forward. She introduced herself as Xiu Li Zheng. She told Alistair that her friend Jane Patterson, also known as Annalisa, decided one day to live in to live in tunnels under the city. Eventually, the police found out about her hiding spot and took her away. While there was no doubt that Xiu’s story contained something tragic, Alistair couldn’t help but let his amusement show in his expression. Xiu turned red, “What are you smiling at? I need help!” “Sorry, I was just thinking to myself,” replied Alistair calmly. The story was absurd and it sounded as if the police had taken away the orphan with just cause. However, he had not gotten a chance at a case like this in a long time. After a minute of consideration, Alistair turned to Xiu, “I’ll help you. The first thing I must do is question any people that may know where the police took this Annalisa.” Xiu Li jumped a foot in the air and hugged the other kid, whom Alistair assumed to be her boyfriend. “Thank you so much, I didn’t know what I would do if you wouldn’t help me!” Alistair picked up his bag of detective supplies, and walked to the door. He looked over his shoulder, gave Xiu a wink, and was of. The rest of the day was spent thinking about his next move. He would begin tomorrow.

The next morning he woke at 6:20 and began his case. His first stop, the orphanage where Annalisa had lived, and then underneath. As he walked across town, Alistair realized how still the sky was. It seemed quite obvious to Alistair that the eerie weather could mean only one thing, a huge storm was headed towards the little city. As the orphanage came into view, he realized that not one airplane had flown overhead during his whole walk. Strange, he thought, as the airport ten miles south of the city was generally quite busy. Although Alistair did not know why, he felt that the lack of any flight around him did not bode well for his rescue operation today. He shrugged and entered the orphanage.

Alistair walked through the halls of the orphanage, peering in offices, looking for the man known as “Christophe Moreau.” Xiu Li told him that Mr. Moreau may have an idea of where the police took Annalisa. Eventually, he came to an office with a plaque that read “C. Moreau.” Alistair knocked on the door. When no one came to the door, he let himself in. Inside the room, a light flickered from the fixture attached to the still ceiling fan. The air inside the office had a dead feeling about it. Alistair hit the switch to turn on the fan. No luck, it was broken. He scanned the rest of the dimly lit room. There were a number of papers scattered across the desk. Upon examination, Alistair found that many of them were pictures of what he assumed to be family of Mr. Moreau. One of the drawers of the desk was slightly open. when Alistair opened it, he found it empty, except for as note that read, “Gone to investigate sewers.” Moreau must have been in a hurry to run to the sewers seeing as he didn’t even bother to put the note on his desk or to use correct grammar.

Alistair quickly located the entrance to the sewers in the girl’s bathroom. Armed only with a flashlight, some trusty equipment, and his wits, he descended into the claustrophobic darkness, wondering all the time why he couldn’t be satisfied with another line of work.