Puzzle Cat and the Rainbow Shield
Spring 2015 and it was the week following the momentous Supreme Court decision to sanction gay marriages at the national level. Chicago saw celebrations all that next week, taking advantage of pleasant, unseasonably mild and dry weather during the weeks when in Chicago the temperature could be hot and the humidity stifling.
Yet, sadly, not everyone was happy with the decision, as the burgeoning joyous celebrations were interfered with by flare-ups of hate and intolerance that seemed never to go away. In a seventh-floor apartment in the building next to the one where Puzzle Cat and Kiki-Jian lived with Feed and Sing, Samuel Bikele, a gay male senior from Sierra Leone (an underdeveloped West African nation where homosexual acts can still get one life imprisonment) and an emerging voice in LGBT rights on the campus and in the city, was found badly beaten in his room. The attack occurred at about 8:30 p.m. on a rainy, very misty Sunday evening following that Friday the Supreme Court announced its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. Because of the attack's apparent status as a hate crime, University and city police had joined forces to prioritize the search for the culprit or culprits.
As an official in charge of the three Honors College floors in the residence hall near Samuel's building (and not incidentally as caretaker of the famous cat sleuths Puzzle Cat [Cutie] and Kiki-Jian [Yuki]) Dean Feed was asked to provide input (both human and feline) to hunt down the assailant. Early the next day, she arrived at Samuel's apartment with Puzzle Cat and Kiki to find her friend and one of her most talented former students, city detective Timothy Gutterson. They sat down, and Puzzle Cat jumped into Detective Gutterson's lap, hardly masking his desire to be petted and have his ears scratched, long their favorite activity together.
As he stroked Puzzle Cat's head, Gutterson laid out the facts. The attacker or attackers were likely drawn to (incensed by?) a large multi-panel tapestry covering almost the entire window of Samuel's room, under a banner inscribed with the words, "Protected by the Divine Rights of Liberty." The six hanging banners had—originally—displayed, in the order of the natural spectrum, the universally recognized rainbow colors of the LGBT movement, signifying life (apple-red); healing (orange); sunlight (yellow); nature (leaf-green); serenity and harmony (indigo/blue); and spirit (violet).
It appeared that, in the assailant's struggle with Samuel, the first four of the banners had been torn down from the window and scattered about, but they also appeared to have been clumsily re-attached before the attacker fled the scene. Something was wrong, though, because two of the banners had been switched: the leaf-green banner was placed at the far left (as viewed from outside the window), in the first position, and the red banner in the fourth position formerly occupied by the green banner.
Proteted by the Divine Rights of Liberty
City police were focused on three POIs (persons of interest), each of whom had shown public animosity to one or another aspect of the LGBT movement's agenda. The first was a transfer sophomore from Eden Prairie, Minnesota: Emmett Sorenson, from the "hard action" wing of eco-activism, suspected in more than half a dozen instances of vandalism to targeted corporate sites and also of breaking and entering animal testing facilities at the University in a failed effort to "liberate" animals used for medical research. Incensed that the LGBT organizations had gotten University funds promised to those planning Earth Day celebrations, Sorenson had been heard threatening LGBT activists in general and Samuel Bikele in particular.
The second person of interest was Karina Crenshaw, freshman enrollee from Maple Valley, Washington, and executive Vice-President of the Campus Youth for Jesus League. As a fundamentalist agent provocateur, Karina had been unstinting in her opposition to any and all aspects of the LGBT agenda, to gay marriage, and to Samuel, who had indiscreetly (and devastatingly) called her out by name on a popular campus blog. Though Karina had never been personally cited for violent activity, as a ten-year-old she had accompanied her mother and her fundamentalist minister father to a forcible sit-down protest at an abortion clinic in her hometown of Renton, Washington (on that occasion both her parents were restrained, dragged away and arrested).
As a third possibility they "liked" for the assailant, campus police in particular were considering Foster Limehouse, foreign exchange student from Surrey, England, and greatly feared "hard man" on the infamous Surrey soccer team, the Greenbriar Stampede. Renowned as rivaling even the dirtiest pro ballers, such as the notorious Vondie James, Limehouse held the dubious distinction of having been "booked" for more red cards than any collegiate player in Surrey club history. Despite his reputation (or perhaps because of it?) he was a prime recruit for the University's languishing soccer team, and true to form was cited his first week for insulting a teammate's hairstyle as "so bloody gay!" Limehouse's violent predilections were also overlooked due to his astronomically high GMAT scores, and what still stood, even in the University's top-tier business program, as the highest GPA in his area of specialization, financial management.
The only other information the police held (and were concealing from the public) was a grainy black-and-white surveillance video from approximately the presumed time of the assault, showing a slender figure of indeterminate sex walking rapidly into the deep evening mist from what appeared to be the area of Bikele's dorm to the intersection of Lambeth and Blue Island. Suspiciously, even though there was little traffic on a Sunday evening, the vague, blurred figure, constantly looking over the shoulder back at the dorm, crossed the intersection against the light and was nearly struck by an eastbound Salerno delivery truck.
"We've checked out alibis for our three suspects," said Detective Gutterson, "and they seem fairly strong, except for a few minor but critical flaws. Karina Crenshaw was leading her Sunday evening bible study group, but left early enough for her to have gotten to Samuel's place. Foster Limehouse was presenting an upcoming academic conference paper to his undergraduate Honors College support group, but he arrived late, 'due to car trouble,' he said. And Emmett Sorenson was supposedly with a couple dozen friends at the Dry Gulch Student pub on Taylor. But you know how that goes: everyone had one—or more!—tied on, and no one can say for sure that Sorenson was there the entire time."
"So why are you interested in them?" asked Feed.
"'Cause we got nothing else?" Gutterson shrugged. "Even with defective alibis, these should be prime POIs."
"What about Hoodie from the video?"
"Ahh, now you've asked the pertinent question, Professor. From the physical image, it doesn't seem likely that Hoodie was one of our three persons of interest, but aside from that we really don't know if Hoodie was the perp, was involved marginally, like as reluctant accomplice, or was just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. If we could find something to rule out the others we could concentrate just on Hoodie."
Feed frowned. "Well, what about those banners?"
Gutterson, stroking Puzzle Cat's head and scratching his ears, laughed. "On point, as always, Professor. That's the second highly relevant item: why move the green banner to the first position and the red to the fourth position? You know my interest in profiling? Right now, I'm guessing that's either the perp taunting us with a clue—college kids, right?—or something left by someone who came after the attack and was trying to tell us something...wait, what is it, my tiny little gumshoe?"
While Detective Gutterson had been talking, Puzzle Cat's head had abruptly twisted from under his hand and turned to stare at Feed, who said, "Yes, baby, what is it?"
Puzzle Cat leaped over to the banners and singing in Cat, signaled Kiki-Jian to join him.
"Whatever," Feed sighed, turning back to Gutterson. "And what does your keen profiler's mind tell you is that green symbolic of?"
Gutterson's ears turned a little red, as he knew his flights of imagination would have made him an object of fun at his precinct, if he had not also been such an effective hard-nosed investigator. "Well, I was thinking that it's interesting that green means something important to each of our POIs. Limehouse is in finance, so...money, right? Crenshaw is big on right to life, so that could mean growth and fertility, universally known by the color green. And Sorenson, that's the most obvious, 'ecology,' 'green,' natural fit, right?"
Feed considered each seriously. "That's not bad and frankly not as far-fetched as it might see—yes, what is it?"
The cop and the professor turned to look at Puzzle Cat and Kiki, who had pulled down the red banner and the green banner, Kiki dragging the red one over to cover the green banner at right angles, forming a cross. Gutterson and Feed stared in astonishment and confusion over the cat sleuths' antics.
Then Gutterson's face cracked open in a broad grin. "Well, I'll...be...darned! How could I have missed that?"
"I don't und—" Feed started, but Gutterson silenced her with a raised hand, whipping out his cell phone and pressing a single key. "Rachel, this is me. Take the surveillance teams and background investigators off Sorenson, Crenshaw, and Limehouse and put all our people on the Hoodie UnSub. Yep," Gutterson said, winking at Puzzle Cat. "I have it on excellent authority that that's our perp."
Gutterson turned to Feed as he strode out the door. "Gotta run—I'll try to call you this evening."
At about 9:30 that evening, Detective Gutterson did call, telling Feed, "Well, your cats' intuition was right. Hoodie guy was James McMurphy, a former romantic interest of Samuel's, but who he'd rejected for some very nasty comments James made about LGBT activism. He and Sammie split after only two dates and Sammie was heard complaining to his dorm-mates about the guy stalking him." Gutterson paused for a long time.
"Okay," Feed laughed. "I know what you're doing! You're going to make me ask, aren't you?"
"Of course, oh favorite teacher of mine—you've had me puzzled so many times in class, and this time I've got you. It's always some other poor soul who asks that question that always has to be asked..."
"All right," Feed sighed. "I'll ask it, but just this once, okay?..."
How did Puzzle Cat know?
