Sherlock in Cheyenne: The Adventure of the Night Rain

Before I arrived here, I would have bouts of sleeplessness mostly due to life itself. But sleeplessness here comes from what was then (now) caused by, for example, test worries, a particularly intense argument with Duane, or how I could not always live up to my expectations for myself. I was (am) sorting out what I wanted to be from who I was becoming.

So I was awake one summer night when it continued to be hot and dry and all Sun during the day. In the basement, it was cool enough so that nothing but shorts was passable. If not, the sweat was on me. Mr. Holmes had to modify his usual wardrobe if out during the day. He gave up the cloak and coat topside. He made no modification below the belt.

As I could not sleep, I thought I heard mosquitos flying close to the pipes and wiring above us. Coming from the west side of the basement and passing overhead and out the eastern side. They were in formation, so it sounded. That last feature kept me awake.

Mr. Holmes? – I inquired.

Yes. (He was there in the armchair in the dark, as he now sometimes does.)

Do you hear it?

Yes.

Mosquitoes?  My tone was of disbelief.

I think not, planes.

Here? Above us?

To be sure, perhaps quite high in the sky.

Oh, sheepishly I said. (I might not have been as awake as I thought. Of course, not in the basement, whatever they might be.)

In the morning, I found myself alone. In the afternoon Mr. Holmes was in the armchair after I came downstairs from a visit to the bathroom the family shared.

Mr. Holmes said the Air Force officials at the Base had no knowledge of their aircraft doing W to E night formation flying. In addition, on our page in the newspaper was an article on how the prevailing winds had been carrying aloft insects of all kinds, - some more noisy than others. The Base story was, no doubt, true and the insects aloft was, no doubt, false.

I slept OK, for a few more nights. Then I was awake as the sound, seemingly from very far away, persisted again for perhaps a few minutes. So they could be very high and slow? An inquiry of Mr. Holmes got no result. He wasn’t in the armchair. He explained at daylight for me that he had been outside when they came “buzzing,” as I chose to call it. In succeeding nights, Mr. Holmes again was outside when they did their flyover.

I wasn’t thinking much of them any longer until Mr. Holmes read another article on our page about unexpected but appreciated rainfall on ranchland to the N and E of Cheyenne. Nothing out there but cattle, some on open range, and scruffy plants, dirt, dust, and narrow disheartening paths lacking connection to any significant landscape features. In other words, flat as flat could be. Easterly you could keep going to Pine Bluff and across the border to Kimball and veering more northerly you got to Scottsbluff. Mr. Holmes was proposing to head out at night to go as far as he need go.

Before he started out, I related to him what I had overheard at school in a conversation on the second floor above the gym in “the Cage” at one end of the gym. A guy (1) I didn’t know at all was relating to a guy (2) I sort of knew who was willing to take the place of (1) in the kill ball battle below. They would get a count soon to go down into the gym. Maybe a hundred on a side. Time was running out for our gym session. This would be the last consignment. So (1) in appreciation was telling (2) in a broad brag how he, the night before, had been in a car, smoking, and with a girl at a location East of town. He (1) didn’t have a driver’s license. He estimated he was due East of Cheyenne. Maybe half an hour from town. Rain got the windshield wet, enough so that he turned on the wipers. He heard something, maybe not very high, going along a line to the N and S of him. She heard it too, but only he saw what to him looked like model airplanes starting to ascend. The Moon, like in a different Universe, had its light to come thrown up before its rise and briefly some of them got caught in what the Moon was doing.

(The mention of model airplanes reminded me of my brief, but intense, infatuation with flying model airplanes. So expensive and not radio-controlled. It was a model of a single engine Piper Cub. It had wires attached to it and to handheld controls. It needed gas to fly. Also, a large open space was required. I misjudged how open it had to be on the maiden flight and slammed it into the ground as I dodged a high fence. I was bringing it down short of the fence and was then to go upward and onward, but I only got the downward part of it accomplished. That thing was so darn expensive! I had such limited funds that the smash-up was like a physical hit to me. It was representative of a failure to be able to have what was often so feverishly and fervently desired and unattainable because of cost. I wasn’t in an unheated basement with a card table for a desk for the heck of it.)

So then Mr. Holmes resolved to go East in search of the rain. He started out at night. Before sunup he was into ranch country. With the Sun coming up, he then sat down, placed his cloak over his head, pulled his hat far down and put his hands into his pockets. He looked something like a cloth brown pear. There he sat all day. At night he began to walk. He walked three nights East and then three nights North, and then he walked the hypotenuse back.

All the land he traversed was the same. There were different stars in different parts of the sky. Without them you could have flipped the land for the sky and have just as well walked the sky – however disorienting that might have been had you known of the reversal. Otherwise, in reality the sameness was not endearing. Mr. Holmes walked less quietly than he could have to give his presence a referral for himself. Each of those nights the planes came, low and slow. Of course they didn’t have wires attached. And it rained. After that, they went up and seemed to rendezvous at the highest point in the sky. Naturally, Mr. Holmes collected samples of the rain.

Once back to the basement and our chemistry lab, Mr. Holmes checked out the what were ostensibly water samples. Not much exciting about the results. The samples were loaded with histidine. It is an amino acid we need but don’t have natively; we get it from outside our selves – in food. Well now, They are providing us with something we need? As Mr. Holmes and I well know, the question is, what else is involved here? Certainly Their SOP is that they are up to no good.

After his monumental trek, Mr. Holmes sat in his armchair for hour after hour. He didn’t want to be disturbed. I studied, went upstairs for family life, and out and about for astronomy club meetings, chess with Duane, sports, and girl-boy interaction at school. Mr. Holmes only sat. He was thinking, it was plain, and this could be sensed, that he wasn’t getting clear of dead ends. When he looked at me, if I stood in front of the armchair for an extended period, he had a look of frustration and restlessness. He clearly needed a purpose. Take his mind off. We didn’t know that more progress on the implications of the night rain, provided courtesy of Them, would have to await my singing and the appearance of “rancher’s disease.” In the meantime, I was looking through recent editions of the newspaper in a more or less idle manner, when I came across articles on a kidnap case right here in Cheyenne. A twelve-year-old had been taken. A suspect was in custody. Despite this, nothing was known about the whereabouts of the kidnapped person. I hesitated to mention the case to Mr. Holmes. I didn’t want to be seen as telling him what to do, but this could neutralize the impasse regarding small airplanes that delivered rain spiked with histidine.

Mr. Holmes are you aware… No, that was wrong, of course he knew about it. Even though it is not on “our page” in the Cheyenne newspaper, it has been the talk of the town and I have seen him at least purview the entire paper. So…

Mr. Holmes, would you consider being of assistance in the matter of the kidnapping the paper has referred to these last few days?

Perhaps, although my histidine analysis in the laboratory must continue apace. I will give it at least a brisk concern. Thank you for reminding me of the case. (Well, in truth he had been doing more putzing about the lab of late.)

I know you are reluctant to intervene, but this is really an unusual case for Cheyenne.

Yes, certainly. I will make inquiries. In due time, if you insist.

(Well that wasn’t hard. Mr. Holmes might even solve the case. What am I saying? Of course it is as good as done.)

It turned out that “unofficially” Mr. Holmes had surreptitiously examined the diary and two notes allegedly written by the suspect. The case against him mainly rested on these documents and the suspect, somewhat mentally challenged, could not recall his whereabouts at the time of the kidnapping. Anyway, the suspect said he had no diary. The diary showed planning for the kidnapping. The notes were drafts of what the suspect was purported to have sent to the victim’s parents. Also, Mr. Holmes entered the suspect’s residence without need of an invitation or a warrant and found a grocery list, greasy, under the kitchen stove. It was a lengthy list, maybe the suspect visited the store once a month. Mr. Holmes decided the handwriting of the notes and diary were by the same hand but not by the suspect’s efforts since the grocery list was not in a handwriting identical to the diary and notes – close, but no cigar. One item on the grocery list was circled, “kielbasa.” Mr. Holmes went to the grocery store nearest the suspect’s residence. That store had all the items on the grocery list except for kielbasa. Mr. Holmes inquired where it could be purchased in Cheyenne. Two stores (butcher shops) were the only possibilities. Mr. Holmes went to the one closest to the grocery store the suspect must have frequented.

This butcher shop had specialties of the house. It didn’t have a TV, must mind the cuts, so radio was preferred. They mostly read Polish sources for news. Nevertheless, Mr. Holmes showed a photo of the suspect to the proprietor and he recognized him. Turns out he was a regular customer for items only this shop had on hand. He arrived the day of the kidnapping slightly before noon. He was still in the shop when a local radio station put out the latest installment of “You Be the Detective” which had audience participation to the extent that clues were dropped to enable listeners to pick the villain from among the suspects. The current show could be one in a series involving a case with a persistent crook and the same suspects show to show. At some point, the announcer said enough evidence had built up to the point that listeners should mail in their cards and letters containing the ID of the bad guy. If more than one listener got it right, then one of those entries was drawn from a hat and that listener got ten dollars.

The butcher shop’s owner and employees were devotees of the show and often didn’t get orders out as fast as usual. So the suspect, not in a hurry if he got back to work in time, listened along with them. The suspect got caught up in the show. Then his kielbasa was ready. He had missed the 12:15 bus but as the show ended he hurried out at about 12:30 and caught the 12:45 bus as a woman remembered who also left the shop at the same time as the suspect. She rode the same bus.

Mr. Holmes – Now, now, this was most interesting since the crime was committed sometime between noon and 12:30 of the day the radio show aired. The victim had gone to study in a bedroom for a short time while at lunch and home from school. The mum checked on the victim at 12:30 since it was time to return to school. The victim could not be found.

Me- Well then, obviously the suspect is innocent. Why didn’t he tell them about the butcher shop visit to begin with?

He suffers from befuddlement of memory at times. Under stress he remembered going to the grocers but not that he had also gone to the butcher shop. His stress is understandable as the police can be quite positive that they have their man.

Then the diary and notes are bogus.

It would appear so.

Mr. Holmes presented the grocery list and what amounted to testimony of the butcher shop crowd to the police. He asked that the suspect be allowed to read the diary. (Well well, he hadn’t seen it yet?) After doing so, he said only one other person, dead a few years ago, knew of some events in the diary that put the suspect in a bad light. Mr. Holmes thought the death of the companion of the suspect had not occurred and the only support for his death was from a letter proclaiming to the suspect his soon to be realized demise due to cancer. The suspect wrote to the mother to mourn the passing of the buddy. The previously hostile mother did not respond directly. She alluded to the continued good health of her son and wanted no more to do with the suspect.

Mr. Holmes – I deduced that the former friend of the suspect had forged a diary and the notes, copying the handwriting from their correspondence that had a long history. The “friend” had formed an active dislike of the suspect because the suspect clung tenaciously and irrationally to their no longer existing friendship. The companion wanted to move on from what had become a mental burden that oppressed him. The mother was innocent enough, she had no knowledge of the deed. She gave out some locales where her son was apt to be. Her son and the victim were found. The police crudely entered the hiding place without an attempt at surprise. The kidnapper shot the victim five times – with an air gun. The kidnapper got one bullet in the shoulder.

OK, that diverted Mr. Holmes for a time. But it wasn’t long before he was in the lab again – investigating the degradative pathway of histidine that yielded biochemical facts of no use to Mr. Holmes in his present predicament. He was beside himself with frustration and not able to shape events to his liking. His “black dog” was cozying up to him. Maybe even this mood jumped up into his lap as he sat there again for hour after hour.

Meanwhile, out of the chair, Mr. Holmes had inched close to a desirable outcome. A critical mass was approaching. On “our page,” the newspaper related how a “rancher’s disease” was making itself known. Some cattle ranchers E and N of town were becoming ill. No one of them had the same symptoms despite it being called a disease. Mr. Holmes was certain They provided rains for plants that the cattle ate. The ranchers ate the cattle, as steaks. Well, at least most them had steak. One rancher Mr. Holmes had met here in town at a saloon had no illness. He was a vegetarian, pretty unusual, given the time and place. But there it was. And, too, another rancher, a steak-eater, was not ill either. He had a skin problem and covered up when outside so the Sun couldn’t worsen his condition. Skin vs. vegetarianism. Same side of a cognitive coin? Or two separate paths leading away from illness?

Continuing to divert Mr. Holmes, I invited Mr. Holmes to accompany me to the Veterans Administration Hospital for a performance by my school’s choir. It was late in the school year and the music department wanted this annual, up to now, event to continue. We got out of school early to be bussed to the VA. There were girls. The boys wore black shoes, black pants and white short-sleeved shirts. Girls were in white tops and black dresses and black shoes. No uniforms, just get the colors right and sing loudly. (Mostly we shouted.) A choirmaster popped up occasionally and we went through the repertoire in a desultory way. Anyone listening was in a wheelchair. Maybe five. I felt good about doing it, though I knew I wasn’t going to do it again.

At the end, I needed a visit to a restroom pronto. I found one and then I got lost. They were battleship gray walls and unmarked corridors with recessed doorways. Confusing. After thinking this wandering had gone on for entirely too long, I heard a crash near an entryway that had “Laboratory” (handwritten in pencil) over the door. I knocked. No answer. I went in and found a very short man in the ubiquitous VA gray smock, with the name “Grady” on it, sweeping up a broken Erlenmeyer. Obviously some kind of biochemistry lab. Column chromatography, tabletop centrifuges, and a spectrophotometer on wooden shelves of a homebrew carpentry effort piled on the counter space proper. It was a large closet crammed, utterly crammed, with whatever Grady thought necessary.

His hair was straight back from the forehead and temples with streaks of gray. He had on goggles, steamed by the warmth of the close and confining space, over his very thick blue lenses that were in a huge black frame. There was also a tremendous drooping grayish moustache. Clean shaven otherwise but restless in the face from agitating thoughts. Not agitation of a rough sort but of a brilliant sort, as I came to surmise. Off came the goggles and he saw me.

Me – I heard the smash.

Grady – Forgot to get the goggles off. Had some acid somewhere here. But I couldn’t find it what with the steam. I found a flask, I don’t need it, I mean not now, may be in a few days and now I won’t have it so I have to find another – flask, I mean. So where is the acid? How’s Holmes?

What? Who? Uh, I…

Saw him lurking about in the shadows of the Visitors Gallery above the choir. I was passing by from the dining hall. (He was assistant manager of Dining Services).

He came on his own. He is my tutor.

Detective?

Why lie? Ah, I, er… well he is an amateur sleuth.

Awfully good for an amateur – solving that kidnapping.

Oh well sometimes he gets lucky. (And I saw, on a small blackboard propped up on a wooden shelf high up, the word “histidine” and then symbols.)

Me – histidine?

Holmes interested in that?

Why would he be interested?

The rains over the ranchland are full of it.

So?

So, doesn’t Holmes like a good mystery?

Well I suppose Mr. Holmes has as much interest as the next newspaper reader.

Oh come on. Mr. Holmes? I have seen him about town asking pointed questions about all sorts of things, including these rains. I’ve seen you two near the junior high more than once. I live in the area.

Well he is my tutor. (About here I was ready to give it up and confess a true Sherlock Holmes-like personage was known to me.)

Grady – Tell him about the degradative pathway of histidine. Especially about urocanase.

OK.

He turned his back to me, and he was repeatedly saying “acid” as I decided enough had been said.

I walked home. In the basement was Mr. Holmes with perfunctory congrats on the choir’s effort. He wanted to know where had I got to.

I got lost after a trip to the restroom.

Indeed? Then you must have walked home.

Yeah, and while lost in the VA I came across a lab and a guy named Grady in that lab. I tried to ward off his probing about your identity. I am sorry to say I got you down as an amateur.

Never mind and never fear. I can play ignorant if need be.

He knew what you did concerning the kidnapping. He is convinced we are more than student and tutor.

Hm, I may have to have a word with him.

By all means do so, his chalkboard was pertaining to histidine. He thought you are interested in the night rains and he said to tell you about Euro cane us.

Urocanase?

Isn’t that what I said?

With allowances, yes. Remarkable! A kindred spirit. I certainly must visit him.

I can’t help you find him. I don’t know where his lab is located. He has some association with Dining Services at the VA.

Mr. Holmes encountered Grady in the VA cafeteria as Grady was wiping down tables.

Grady – Ah, Mr. Holmes, I presume?

And you are no doubt Mr. Grady.

Ah, well it is Grady to one and all. I told your “student” what I believe to be the key to the rancher's disease as caused by the rains after the sun goes down.

Mr. Holmes – Yes, urocanase. And in its cis form brought on by exposure to sunlight. Isomerization.

Grady – From the UV of the Sun. Photoactivation.

Mr. Holmes – Of course! The urocanase resides in the stratum corneum epidermidis, a part of what is otherwise known imprecisely as the skin, then it must subsequently adversely affect a rancher. This happens in the plant to steak to rancher scheme when the histidine (too much in the rain) is broken down enroute and sunlight is brought into it.

Grady – Yeah, immunity gets out of whack.

Mr. Holmes – May I ask what is your source for the urocanase?

Grady - Pseudomonas putida. Not here in this lab. In my lab at home. I have also been checking on bacteria of the skin.

As he talked, Grady was still wiping as he went from table to table, and looked this way and that with a swift motion of his head.

Grady – Have to do it at home, can’t get permission for biological growth from the VA, budget too strict. No proper lab here.

Mr. Holmes followed Grady’s glances and saw a person, arms folded, watching Grady.

Mr. Holmes – You dare not stop?

Right. While on duty, no “malingering” is tolerated.

Mr. Holmes – Should we meet elsewhere?

This is OK, I really haven’t got much more to say. The data and analysis are done. The best of the rest is synthesis or, in this case, action. To stop the rain.

Mr. Holmes, in his full regalia, all tweed, had been standing ramrod straight with his umbrella hooked over an arm that was in a pocket. His other arm he held across his waist. He was bemused by the ad hoc conference they were having. Certainly Grady was his kind of person. Grady was moving in jerky sweeps of tables, he moved his body in large exaggerated sweeps to demonstrate what was being done could obviously be seen by the one watching him. He appeared to be half the height of Mr. Holmes and as he spoke he literally barked out the words, making his body jump like a little dog that would put its body into jumping with each bark so the front legs left the ground. Grady’s head went up for as long as words were said. Grady had no need of his blue lenses for table wiping. The ubiquitous smock was extra large today. He was watching whoever was watching him and glancing at Mr. Holmes. So it was visual contact with the supervisor and auditory contact with Mr. Holmes.

Mr. Holmes mostly watched Grady but he occasionally looked over at the supervisor. Once Mr. Holmes made penetrating eye contact even from that distance and the supervisor moved back and rubbed his eyes.

Mr. Holmes – Yes, the rain is the culprit. It will be stopped, I promise you. Do you have other projects to research?

Grady gave a swift look of annoyance at Mr. Holmes.

Mr. Holmes – Oh, of course, and I wish you all the best and thank you for your time.

Yea bye, said Grady.

Me – So, OK, Mr. Holmes, this Grady knows his stuff, right?

Indeed. A researcher needing to accomplish more and so he shall.

Are you to talk to the VA research committee?

I have done so. Grady’s efforts will be greatly enhanced to such an extent that he need no longer have Dining Service duties.

Ah, Mr. Holmes, you don’t only thwart Them you further others’ work here.

This furtherance may not be intended, but it certainly is not harmful.

Collateral fallout.

I must add, we, are so involved.

Thanks.

The Air Base was put on notice by Mr. Holmes through Dr. Kipowitz. In four nights time, they would act against Them. It would take that long to bring in the proper “agent” as they put it. So Mr. Holmes departed that night for parts E and N. He traversed the country as he had before -  an immobile “pear” by day and at a walk by night. On the fourth night, the planes had come over him. They rose to the great zenith. Mr. Holmes stood facing West in the direction of the Air Base. At the horizon, there was a vague grumble though it had to be a blast and a roar at the origin. A hurtful flash of light came next. Then this light elongated into a straw of destruction and, as it zoomed upward toward the zenith and its planes, the thin shaft of light became foreshortened and as a stub it closed in on the top of the sky. It disappeared and then Mr. Holmes had to wince repeatedly as jumps of light were propelled across the uppermost Zone like firecrackers in a zig-zag, hundreds of them. There was no crash nor ash, the sky had no sounds nor remnants to offer. Mr. Holmes blinked away the afterimages and immediately set out for Cheyenne.

Once Mr. Holmes returned, I decided to try some kielbasa and I won ten bucks by listening to the radio. The creek just north of us became wet for a time and I swear I swatted mosquitos every night for a week.

The End