[SPEAKER_00]: The case of Noggle's house, an Aggie McPherson mystery, and a shorthand missile tail, by Matthew C. McLean.
[SPEAKER_00]: Chapter 2 Oliver Derby watched the strange pair from the window of his home, wishing he could hear whatever it was they were discussing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had hired Corbin Halverson at the suggestion of a university colleague, but had no idea the strange man would bring in another
[SPEAKER_00]: This unexpected addition made Oliver clutched the curtains until he saw them arm and arm walked towards the boarding house.
[SPEAKER_00]: He turned away then leaving a sweaty palm print on the curtain.
[SPEAKER_00]: A kitchen, the room furthest away from the window, offered him no soles.
[SPEAKER_00]: He made a cup of coffee and sat at the oak kitchen table contemplating his future.
[SPEAKER_00]: He found he was unable to concentrate the consequences of his actions, ricocheting off each other, bouncing against the walls of his conscience.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before he knew it, it was dark outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: He rose to return to the window, dreading would still be able to see the boarding house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before he parted the curtains, though, a husky voice spoke behind him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver Derby, I presume.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll ever jump to the sound, someone was sitting in his father-in-law's a story-a-grandchair.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dorf does the figure was, by the seat, Oliver still recoiled from the invader, squeaking with alarm.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lamp next to the chair flared to life, blinding him.
[SPEAKER_00]: As the burst faded from his eyes, he saw the small individual in the worsted gray suit it had been outside of Corbin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pale, with a button nose and a pixie haircut that hadn't been in style with his students for at least a decade, they didn't share the smile with the worst of his classes smart asses.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver Derby, I'm Aggie McPherson's pectoral analysis.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin brought me in as a consultant after your wife disappeared.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this isn't about her, is it Oliver?
[SPEAKER_00]: The invaders' 30 voice and settle Oliver further.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you doing in my house?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that really what we should be talking about Oliver?
[SPEAKER_00]: You've broken into my house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll call the police.
[SPEAKER_00]: The figure lifted one hand from the chair to gesture to an antique rotary phone on a short pedestal close by.
[SPEAKER_00]: repelled by the idea of moving closer to the stranger, all of a reached into a pocket for his smartphone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before he could dial, though, McPherson added, we can ask why you haven't filled out a missing person's report on your wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: That should make for an interesting conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Phone in hand, all of her stopped.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knew the tone of blackmail.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you want?
[SPEAKER_00]: To playfulness in the analyst's voice vanished.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want what I'm being paid for.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to know why, what was a lovely green space in your courtly neighborhood, suddenly sprouted in 19th century boarding house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver let the hand holding the phone fall.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I want, that's why I hired Corpon.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stranger arched and meticulously plucked eyebrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Aren't you worried about your wife?
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of her fumbled his words, pushing out... Of course I'm worried about Anne, I just meant... I know what you meant.
[SPEAKER_00]: The invader leaned forward, elbows on knees.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I'm worried about?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why would Oliver Durby, resident historian at Slachter Key's A-Saw at the University, not know his wife was related to one of its most infamous figures.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the dim light of the room, Oliver only babbled at this new heap of information, the stranger continued, answer his, of course, that you didn't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: you knew when you said you're in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would never, they cut him off.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I can't figure out is how a professor pays for house and south slope.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then what?
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got two, three kids in school.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice ones, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Schools that is not your kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Anne doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, unless you count making a nuisance of herself at H.O.A.
[SPEAKER_00]: P.T.A.
[SPEAKER_00]: in City Council meeting.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the dim light, the stranger made a show of looking around the finely furnished rooms, hardwood floors, Persian carpet, and antique clock.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you afford all?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver prepared the usual smoke screen for his shame.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we have done very well with some investments.
[SPEAKER_00]: A custom to people accepting this polite fiction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver was unprepared for the stranger's laughter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, Oliver.
[SPEAKER_00]: You realize no one buys that line, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've asked some of your nicer neighbors.
[SPEAKER_00]: They all know you're living off your wife's family portion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Slocked a key wouldn't be the Paris of the Pacific Northwest without the Clarks' involvement in Timber and Kettle.
[SPEAKER_00]: The invader crinkled their nose as if they could smell the old slaughterhouses by the river.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver felt as blushing my glow in the dim light.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you hear who's what I really can't figure out, the analyst interrupted again?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why would you endanger the goose with the golden wings?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if your wife disappears, you're the very first person the police are going to suspect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sweating, all of her didn't really think before answered, I didn't send her in.
[SPEAKER_00]: She insisted, and you couldn't stop her.
[SPEAKER_00]: The smokiness of the stranger's voice lifted into a little thing amusement, and made Oliver wish he could smash one of the room's
[SPEAKER_00]: So why is someone in the house at all?
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you talking about?
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson leaned back into the chair, steepling fingers together in front of their smile, white even in the amber glow of the lamp.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, according to a few neighbors, I spoke with Ann wears the pants in the family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not surprising considering the power and balance in your relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your students probably call you a cuck.
[SPEAKER_00]: But bringing back the house wouldn't do anything about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might get rid of Anne, but then, one where another, you lose access to her family's fortune.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you could keep that, not have to deal with Anne, I'd imagine you'd have done it years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you needed something the house could provide.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stranger paused, her shadowing their face in the dim light.
[SPEAKER_00]: You needed the same thing, Jeremiah Nockle wanted, gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Raising eyes to the ceiling they continued, or money, I guess, I, which is so much more boring than gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll never understand that change.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stranger brought their eyes back to Oliver, but why not use your wife's abundance?
[SPEAKER_00]: A shadow hand pointed at finger at Oliver.
[SPEAKER_00]: You needed money and you couldn't tell, and why.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fingers snapped before returning to a point.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're being blackmailed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't dry, Oliver was barely able to croak before the stranger to stood up and said, So which of your students have you been fucking?
[SPEAKER_00]: Blinking the sweat from his eyes, Oliver could only think to respond, how do you know all of this?
[SPEAKER_00]: The stranger laughed lightly as they stood from the chair and stepped closer, causing Oliver to back against the curtains.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh come now.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a short leap.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the most likely thing a college professor is going to get black mouth for?
[SPEAKER_00]: two feet from Oliver the Stranger's Violet Eyes wandered along with her words.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although you lot it as off you tend to get up to some strange things so maybe that's more of a leap than usual.
[SPEAKER_00]: The eyes snap back to Oliver, but you've already admitted as much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make sure you're some pokedum in the chest, out with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I Oliver stopped unwilling commit his sin into the air.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stranger fluttered their eyes in a fashion that was unsettling and how disharming it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: Boy or girl, girl, I'll ever quickly correct himself, but a young woman, Oliver, McPherson said his name is if they weren't strangers.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is going to take all night if I have to drag it out of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have a strange suspicion we're running out of time.
[SPEAKER_00]: At this stage,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's possible you may only get out of this with a divorce.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Oliver just still didn't speak, they continued, you know, instead of prison, her name was Attentia, the proposition of incarceration popped in the name out of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was, is she dead?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I just haven't seen her since she went into the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson crinkled her nose as if it particularly fouls Mel had crawled into the room and died.
[SPEAKER_00]: Though this is bigger than your sex tape.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would seem, you're not sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I don't blame you if you didn't watch it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you watched enough to know that she has the vintage of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: all of our slumped against the curtains, wishing their bellowing would swallow him whole.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tanya has been the only person to show real interest in my work, and I don't know how long.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sighed, hating with wine in his voice, so similar when he fruitlessly expressed unhappiness to his wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: We spent hours discussing Slotter Keith's history, prehistory to modern, going over everything
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought she was as fascinated by it as I was, so much so she took me to her bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Took you to her bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's skip to romanticism and catch up to modern times Oliver.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was one topic in particular that got her all hot and bother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver looked up from a shoes nearly towed a toe with a stranger's small, well-polished ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, the novel
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson's violet eyes pierced Oliver with this stain.
[SPEAKER_00]: A word too late, but perhaps in your future don't fuck people turned on by tales of bloodshed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver felt his face heat again.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I wanted to talk about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one else does.
[SPEAKER_00]: My wife doesn't even allow me to teach it in class.
[SPEAKER_00]: The subject is verboten.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that, you know, she was as excited as I was about the legends.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, they're a pocketful, but how could you not find it fascinating?
[SPEAKER_00]: A tale that your town is founded by a homicidal maniac who made a deal with the devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: The devil, McPherson's increased skepticism sent Oliver to staring at his shoes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jeremiah Nagel didn't have Congress with the devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, he found something worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stranger cocked in a snooted Oliver.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't know much about the devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson grabbed Oliver by the front of a shirt and pulled him out of the curtains.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or you wouldn't be in this mess.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think I'm missing some pertinent details.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was it about Jeremiah Nagel that got your attenial worked up?
[SPEAKER_00]: Specifically.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that he had created the South Slope, his neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had once been a cliff of softer earth, the Jeremiah Nagel had mind-using hushing.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stranger released Oliver.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hushing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I, I, hydraulic mining, a technique he had brought with him in California.
[SPEAKER_00]: He used hoses with high pressure nozzles to pull water from the river and blast the cliff, stripping away the soil to search for gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: not an environmentalist then.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think the concept existed for noggle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only as gold is flooding of the St.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wilhelm River with sediment was noticed by the indigenous people who began to tax on Slopter Key, something they had never done before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Indigenous people, you mean the exclamationists circling all over urging him on.
[SPEAKER_00]: The exclamationists are more of a confederation of tribes that united after the genocide but yes, the move wasn't popular with settlers either though.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their trade in furs and pelts depended on the river and access to the Pacific.
[SPEAKER_00]: Others had already prospected the area for gold and found nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they thought Noggle was usefully mudding up the river.
[SPEAKER_00]: He convinced some of the settlers though that gold moved what he termed upstream, flowing from the south pole to the north pole, and one such stream ran through slotter key.
[SPEAKER_00]: Naturally, most of the sellers already considered him insane, but the goal he spent from his California claim caused most to encourage him to stay and spend more.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of her gave a rise, smile, something his students often enjoyed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I suspect they may have been taking advantage of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: As McPherson passed in front of him, I smiled like the man in the moon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Slocked her key does love its suckers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver stood rigid his eyes tracking McPherson each time she passed in front of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would have surprised the settlers as much as Nagel finding as gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: But fine Goldie did, not by fifting through the blasted soil, but after he went underground.
[SPEAKER_00]: It said that it's hushing uncovered cave entrance and he disappeared into it for weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone assumed he died in there until he came out, carrying gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: He reinforced the cave entrance and stopped hushing, focusing on his mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the settlers even began to help them, even after Noggle had stopped filling the St.ville home river with silt though, the excomish continued their attacks.
[SPEAKER_00]: If anything, they increased in veracity, so Noggle built this house on top of his mind, made of stone to protect it from firearms or fire, huge for its time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three stories, a slap on his ass cost all over to jump.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen the house Oliver, on with it, lover boy, stuttering Oliver turned to facemak fearsome, rotating to keep her in front of him as he continued.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever the truth was, it was there that no-go convinced the men of Slotterkey to slaughter the ex-Komish.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jeremiah Handpicked a group of men and led them out of the house at midnight to attack the ex-Komish seat as a little settlement.
[SPEAKER_00]: They killed every man, woman, and child, they could lay their hands on, then they set everything ablaze.
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson stopped pacing, a dark silhouette, and Oliver's peripheral vision.
[SPEAKER_00]: Humans never ceased to impress with their ability to murder one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and Noggle's massacre was up there with the worst of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only one man spoke out against the treatment of the ex-Komish, a Spanish priest named Franko Del Castilio, Castilio had been in Slotchiki longer than Noggle, and his...
[SPEAKER_00]: preaching on tolerance and overtures the outcome as should largely held the peace until the other man's rival.
[SPEAKER_00]: But gold was more powerful than the pre-swords and very few listening to him even when the fighting began.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then Castillo returned from town, having witnessed novels massacre, saying he had seen the murderers dancing in the fires at the burning village with foul
[SPEAKER_00]: He kept this up until he disappeared, no one inslocked or keys seemed to mind that much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Noggle, celebrated by taking a bride out of the darkness, all of her heard the name of his wife's ancestor, Lily and Clark.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: A powerful family in Slotker Key, the Clarks worked with Noggle to expand the river docks to bring in more goods and equipment, eventually using the new infrastructure to begin shipping out timber, using the clear land to go grain and raise cattle, pulp boats became barges which brought in more money which in turn you're losing the thread professor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, with Noggle's help, the Clarks continued to grow the town, until Castillo returned.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did so without his clerical collar, and in the company of Excomesh Warriors that have been on a long distance coastal raid, they had returned in their ocean canoes to find their people slaughtered and Castillo ready to lay the blame at Noggle's feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unlike the settlers, the Excomesh believed him.
[SPEAKER_00]: the presence of the creatures he described was the reason for the tribes attacks on the mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: They called them the ogrew dem, which is interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a word with roots in the exclamation dialect.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it isn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson floated into the room's dim light.
[SPEAKER_00]: I rose drawn
[SPEAKER_00]: In the beginning, the ex-commercial born darkness under the earth created his slaves.
[SPEAKER_00]: They escaped and climbed to the surface emerging on the surface where the sun meets the sea.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've battled the augroom den since the first people emerged to live under the sky.
[SPEAKER_00]: The auger dem fight to drag them and all people back down.
[SPEAKER_00]: You believe all of that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not the one who has a ghost house on my block all of her.
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson's tone changed his name into a synonym for idiot.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happened next?
[SPEAKER_00]: The excumage warriors in Castillo attacked Nautilus House.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was said that the fighting could be heard all the way from the river.
[SPEAKER_00]: And whatever it was, it brought Noggle's house crashing down, literally.
[SPEAKER_00]: A count state that Castileo carried around stone in Noggle's house, and shortly after, the house collapsed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some say the stone was a seal of Xcomus tribal magic, others speak of Castileo evicting evil spirits.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whichever it was, the tale say the house was swallowed by the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make fearsome blinked face without expression, which Oliver was more unsettling than all of the games in clever banter.
[SPEAKER_00]: with an equally flat tone, they replied.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it stayed until you and fucked with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver began to stutter or response until I'm a fearsome, more forcefully repeated the question.
[SPEAKER_00]: He continued, shortly after I told the tenure of the story, she began or blackmailing the man's.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to put some cash together, but it wasn't enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told her I couldn't get it from Ann without her knowing, and if I get divorced, I wouldn't be able to get any.
[SPEAKER_00]: She told me to get the gold from under the park where no one else house wants to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told her that was insane that there was no gold and she said she would be satisfied if I brought her this stone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you went and dug this stone out of the park.
[SPEAKER_00]: all of her sputtered like a drowning man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have any reason to believe that the stories were real.
[SPEAKER_00]: The park was made a designated historical site, although nothing commemorates why.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yes, I borrowed some equipment from the archaeology department and located the stone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I waited until Anne was out of town and spent a night digging it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the next day, the house was there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: What became a botanian, her blackmailed man, all of her felt shame, sealed his mouth, shut until my fears and stare became so heated as skin began to burn.
[SPEAKER_00]: She went into the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: When did this happen?
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw the house when I looked at the window the next day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Atenu was already standing in the park.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stranger's tone became harder, pushing it all over.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your shirt was her, all of her clothes is eyes and not it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She turned and looked right at me before she went in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her raven hair and golden eyes are quite distinctive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then your wife arrived home, she was furious about the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite everything I tried, she insisted on going in and speaking with the owner.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mick Fierce and scratched the space between the eyebrows of a manicured finger.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you now have a house in your neighborhood that was built by a dead man who made a deal with the auger of death and you let your wife and your mistress go in.
[SPEAKER_00]: You thought this was a good idea?
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't let them go, it couldn't stop them.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stranger side,
[SPEAKER_00]: Mysterious is another word for Master Oliver, so you had a wife and a master.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you've broken both relationships on the altar of Novel's house.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Inspector looked at Oliver again this time with something like pity.
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you do with the stone you mourn on?