Captain Noonan, the “Bearded Holmes” of the Sandersonville Police Department, was barely conscious of the strange presence in his office until a high-pitched male voice said, “Excuse me.”

Noonan looked up — “up” being the operative word — and saw no one. He saw no one, the detective realized, until he noticed the pate of a bald head just at the foot of his field of view. Adjusting his gaze downward, he found himself looking at a perfect man, just downsized, whose head barely protruded above the level of the desk.

“May I help you?” Noonan asked, a bit nervous at looking at the man half his size, he, Noonan, seated, and the midget fully erect.

“Don’t let my size fool you,” said the little man. “I have a Ph. D. in mathematics and a black belt in Taekwondo. No, I don’t pick on mosquitoes, smoking did not stunt my growth, and my wife is not a giant, just full-size, the American average of five feet eight. And,” his eyes flashed, “We’ve been married for 12 years and have two children, both normal from your point of view.”

“We’re a little testy this morning, aren’t we?” Noonan asked with a wry smile.

“When you’re my size, you’ve heard all the small jokes,” the little man said. “So I try to get the derogatory statements out of the way quickly. Everyone thinks they’re a comic when it comes to midgets. I am a midget, by the way, not a dwarf. A dwarf is misshapen. A midget . . .”

“That I know,” said Noonan humorously. “A midget is a relative.”

“Sorry?”

“That’s a family joke,” Noonan said as he smiled. “My wife’s brother is married to a woman whose family name is Midyette. It’s French.”

“For midget?”

“Maybe. But they are a family of short people. Not midgets. Just short. So it’s a family joke, mixing up Midyette with midget.”

“I’ll bet they don’t think it’s funny.”

“Actually, they’re in real estate, so anything that helps the client remember their name is fine with them. Can you imagine that? A whole family of realtors in a town on the Outer Banks that is so small it doesn’t have mail delivery?”

“That’s keeping it in the family.”

“Everyone in the hamlet is family.” Noonan smiled. “Now that I know you don’t fight mosquitoes or have trouble with the mathematics puzzlers, may I be so bold as to ask why you’re here?”

“You won’t believe this but . . .”

“Let me tell you something before you start. The strangest cases in America come through that door,” Noonan said as he pointed at his office doorway. “I’ve had everything from kidnapped alligators to corpses making obscene phone calls. I don’t think you can surprise me.”

“OK. In that case, I need help in finding the Komodo dragon trousers from my duct tape tuxedo.”

“I spoke too soon,” Noonan said as he shook his head. “I’m not sure I do believe you.”

“I thought you might find it hard to believe, so I brought a photograph.” The midget handed Noonan a photograph that was the size of his, the midget’s, head. It was an 8-by-10 of the midget in a strange outfit that may very well have included Komodo dragon trousers. He was standing next to a woman whose head was out of the photograph. “This is a shot of me and my wife — or at least part of my wife — taken last year.”

“And these, I take it, are the Komodo dragon trousers?” Noonan pointed at the trousers in the photograph.

“Yes. But that is not the duct tape tuxedo.”

“My wife is Alaskan, so I know what duct tape is. Can I assume that a duct tape tuxedo is a tuxedo made of duct tape?”

“You can, but you’d be wrong. In this case, the tuxedo is made from duct tape fabric, but without the glue. I had the tuxedo specially made for novelty occasions. I have,” he smiled thinly, “quite an ability to raise money for charities. The audience expects something different, so I oblige them. A duct tape tuxedo is different and lasts longer than a normal suit.”

“I see. And the Komodo dragon trousers?”

“Actually, they are called Komodo trousers because they appear to be made from a Komodo dragon’s skin. In reality, they are green snake skin of some kind. From Mexico. I wear the Komodo trousers when there is no food involved. I’d hate to stain them.”

“What kind of charities do you attend?”

“Any kind that involves children, disabled people, or hospices. I don’t ‘attend’ them; I appear as a celebrity and help them raise money. I don’t charge for my services.”

“I see,” Noonan hesitated. “I hate to ask this, but is your celebrity because of your size or something else?”

“I worked my way through college as a circus midget.” Noonan started to say something, but the man cut him off. “Everyone has had a part-time job. That was mine. It was kind of a natural. The money was good, I liked to travel, and I went to school during the cold months. It took me 15 years to get through college and graduate school. When I quit the circus, I swore I would never be in a freak show again. Then my oldest child got diabetes, and I started helping the American Diabetes Foundation raise money for research. It worked so well that I kept up the appearances.”

“Is your son all right now?”

“He’s holding his own, watching his diet. He’ll be OK. Thanks for asking.”

“OK. Tell me about the missing trousers.”

“I came all the way to meet you in person because I didn’t think you’d believe me over the phone. All evidence indicates that the trousers were stolen by a Bigfoot.”

“Big Foot? You mean like a Sasquatch? This is North Carolina, not the Pacific Northwest.”

“Yup. And the local police were laughing so hard they didn’t hear the rest of the story.”

“Where, might I ask, do you live?”

“Just outside of Charlotte. In a small town. You wouldn’t know the name.”

“Do you have a lot of Bigfoot robberies out there?”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“No. This is serious. If you are serious. Any other robberies that have been linked to this Sasquatch?”

“Can it be proven, no. Are there suspicious burglaries that are similar to mine, yes. About six.”

“Tell me about your robbery and then the other ones.”

“OK.” The midget reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card, which he handed up and across the desk top to Noonan.

“The Gnarly Gnome?” Noonan said and then looked up from the card.

The midget smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Everyone’s got to have a stage name. Actually, it’s the ‘Gnarly Gnome from Nome.’ The ‘from Nome’ part is not on the card. It was alliterative, and anyone will believe anything about Alaska in the Lower 48.”

“I know,” Noonan said. “My wife is Alaskan.”

“Which is why I’m here, frankly. I wanted this case to be taken seriously.”

“So far, all I know is that you suspect a Sasquatch of stealing a pair of green Mexican snakeskin pants that are part of a duct tape tuxedo you use when you make appearances as the Gnarly Gnome from Nome. Sounds like a simple case. You just find the Sasquatch, and you’ve got the pants.”

“Trousers. Pants are like jeans. Trousers are dressy. You throw your pants on a chair after wearing them all day. You wear your trousers for dress occasions and hang them up neatly when you get home.”

“I stand corrected. And, yes, I do take you seriously. Let’s talk about your robbery.”

“I’m glad someone is finally taking me seriously. Our family lives outside of Sydneyville about sixty miles from Charlotte. We’re in the forest in the sense that we don’t have nearby neighbors. Sydneyville is rural anyway, so being out of town means your next neighbors are five miles away. There’s not a lot of crime in Sydneyville; less and less the farther we get away from the town center. We’ve had some poaching on our land, and someone set a fire by accident, but that’s about it.”

“How much land do you own?”

“None. The bank owns all of it. We’re buying it.”

“OK. How many acres are you buying from the bank?”

“Ten acres, more or less. There’s a lot of national and state park land around us so we’re almost in-holders. All of our roads are in, so we aren’t having any trouble with regulators.”

“Do you work at home?”

“No. In Sydneyville. I’m a CPA.”

“With a Ph. D. in Mathematics?”

“I worked with NASA for a while. Got tired of Florida. Too many strange people. My wife’s from Charlotte, so we moved back to North Carolina.”

“Does your wife work in town?”

“With me. Yes. Both kids go to school in town. We all drive in together, so the house is empty all day.”

“And the robbery?”

“We came home three weeks ago and found the back door broken in. There was a lot of hair on the broken glass and frame, and muddy footprints on the rug. Big feet. They kind of wandered through the house, ended up in the bedroom where the trousers were on the bed. I was going to be doing a charity appearance for the Sydneyville Blue Ridge Hospice Tag Team Race the night the pants disappeared.”

“The pants were stolen?”

“Yeah.”

“Anything else?”

“I’m not sure. A lot of stuff was knocked over and scattered. Not like someone was dumping drawers looking for money or anything like that. More like the kitchen table overturned and the salt and pepper shakers bouncing all over the floor with napkin rings and a coffee cup full of spoons. There was damage to the home office and a bedroom, like someone was just rampaging through.”

“But nothing else was missing?”

“I have a list of suspected items that are missing, but I’m not absolutely sure that all are missing or that there are other small items missing that I don’t know about yet.”

“Let’s see the list.”

The Gnarly Gnome handed Noonan a list, which the detective poured over, tilting his head back to make the best use of his bifocals. He read the items off one at a time.

“Plastic handled bread knife.”

“I got it one summer in Paris, France. While I was with a circus. The lederhosen are from Germany. Same summer.”

Noonan looked down the list. “Lederhosen. Those are the short leather pants, right?”

“Yes. And very small and very worn. They are even too small for my boys.
 “Those would be hard to pawn,” Noonan smiled. “Were the lederhosen out or in a closet?”

“I don’t know. I just know they are gone. Like I said, the list is an odd one.”

“Where are the lederhosen usually?”

“On a shelf in the closet.”

“Do they smell?”

“N-o-o-o-o, not that I know of. I can’t smell them. Why?”

“Well, I find it hard to believe that Bigfoot would paw through a closet looking for something specific that didn’t have a smell.”

“There are leather jackets in that closet, so if the lederhosen smelled, so did the other leather jackets.”

“Humm. Noonan kept going down the list. “One sandal, opened bag of flour . . .

“Opened,” said the Gnome, “as in torn open. Not stolen, just torn open.”

“Any flour missing?”

“We don’t know. No way to know. It was spilled, and there were footprints in it. If any was actually stolen, as in taken out of the house, there’s no way to know.”

“I see.” Noonan kept reading. “Pair of reading glasses and a handful of grapes.”

“I’m pretty sure whoever was there was eating the grapes. I meant, why steal them?”

Noonan nodded. “You are right. It is an odd list. But these are the items that were stolen, right?”

“Well,” the Gnome paused, “it depends on what you mean by ‘stolen.’ If you mean spirited, away, yeah.”

“Do you have another definition?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call the flour stolen.”

Noonan thought for a moment. “That’s true. Damaged would be a better term. I guess I’d call the grapes damaged as well since they probably weren’t stolen in the traditional sense of the word.”

“That’s right,” said the Gnome.

“Well, what else was damaged but not stolen?”

That caught the Gnome by surprise. “That would be difficult to say. I mean, we filled out the Police Report with what was stolen. The damages for the insurance company were in the cumulative. That is, the insurance wanted to know how much damage was done in the dollar sense. The dollars weren’t high because there was no structural damage. So it was just the replacement of the stolen property, repair of the property that was damaged, and a generic list of the damaged property that was not repairable.”

Noonan rolled the list of stolen property into a tube. “OK. What was damaged that could not be repaired?”

“Well,” the Gnome scratched his head. “There was the flour, of course. Then there was some damage in the office. The desk mat was ripped apart, the desk calendar had its pages ripped out and tossed around, there were a handful of pens that were stepped on and broken, and a painting was jerked off a wall with its frame broken.” The small man scratched his head as he thought. “There was also a broken flashlight. I keep a flashlight on the shelf behind my desk just in case the electricity goes out,” the Gnome added. “In the bedroom, the sheets were pretty badly ripped, and the stuff was pulled down out of the closet. That’s all I can think of. That’s all the stuff, repairable and not repairable.”

“Humm,” Noonan thought for a moment. “You said there were other, similar robberies.”

“If you mean, do the police call them robberies, no. They call them pranks.”

“Same kind of damage?”

“Pretty much the same. Someone broke in, ran amuck, caused damage and left.”

“Was anything actually stolen in those incidents? 
 “Nothing big. Maybe some shiny things. Not much else.”

“But there was damage in other robberies — assuming we can call them robberies.”

“As far as I know. What the police said was that over the past six or seven weeks, there had been about six break-ins with nothing of value stolen. That’s what they said. I didn’t check it out.”

Noonan scratched his forehead with the paper tube he had made of the list of stolen items. He was silent for a moment, and then he re-examined the list. Finally, he said, “Can I assume that the bread knife was in the kitchen?”

“Actually, it was on the desk. I use it as a letter opener.”

“And the reading glasses?”

“On the desk as well.”

“Tell me about the layout of your house, starting with the door that was broken in.”

“The door that was broken in was the kitchen door,” said the Gnarly Gnome from Nome. “The intruder apparently went around in the kitchen and then went into the office. After trashing the office he, she, it, whatever went into the master bedroom that is off the office. That’s where the pants were stolen.”

“Is the living room off the master bedroom?”

“Yes. Under normal circumstances, you’d come in through the front door into what we call the ‘Great Room.’ There’s a bathroom off to one side and the other two bedrooms are upstairs.”

“But the intruder only went through kitchen, office and master bedroom.”

“That’s right.”

“What kind of damage was done in the master bedroom?”

“None. Just the stolen trousers.”

“Was there any sign that the intruder went into the Great Room or the other rooms?”

“No. Just the opposite. He, she, or it ripped open the floor so the footprints were visible and only in the kitchen, office, and bedroom. Then whatever it was went out the broken door.”

“I’m going to assume that the footprints were kind of random until they got to the master bedroom and then went straight out the back door.”

The Gnome shook his head in disbelief. “How did you know that?”

Noonan smiled. “Because sometimes I am a clever man. OK, here’s what I want you to do for me. First, look for the lederhosen in the house. They have not been stolen, just misplaced.”

“How do you know that?”

“For the moment, trust me.”

“OK.”

“I need a complete list of everything that was on the desk, no matter how trivial.”

“OK.”

“As far as the other robberies are concerned, I need to know what was stolen and what was missing at each of the other robberies. I also need to know whether flour or any other substance was involved and left footprints. You’ll have to call each one of the homes and ask them to give you a list of what was damaged and if there was anything else that missing no matter how trivial.”

“Is that all?”

“No, as a matter of fact. I will also need the location of each home in the sense that I want to know what is around them. Are they secluded or in neighborhoods? Are they clustered in one neighborhood or scattered around? What door was used by the intruder in each case? Were only kitchens, offices and bedrooms rummaged? What is the family make-up of each of the homes that were entered, where do the parents work, if there are children, where do they go to school, and when are the children supposed to be at their particular schools. . . .”

“Just a second,” said the Gnome. “I’m writing as fast as I can, and I’m way behind you.”

Noonan smiled and sat silently until the Gnome stopped writing. “Anything else?”

“Just one more thing. You said you were going to be wearing your pants the night they were stolen.”

“That’s correct.”

“What was the name of the nonprofit you were going to raise money for?”

“The Sydneyville Blue Ridge Hospice Tag Team Race.”

“OK. See if you can find a list of people who were supposed to be there that night.”

“Supposed to be or were there?”

“Supposed to be. I’m assuming that they sold tickets of some kind, but not everyone shows up for the event. Sometimes companies buy a block of tickets and then give them one at a time to clients or friends or donate them to another charitable cause, right?”

“We sold about 300 tickets and have about 100 people show up, but there is no way to tell who those people were.”

“I’m not concerned about who actually showed up, just who bought the tickets.”

“That’s going to be rough. A bank might buy ten tickets, so all you will know is that the bank bought ten tickets.”

“That’ll have to be good enough.”

The Gnome gave Noonan a pleasant look. “You are really taking this seriously.”

“Just get me that information, and then we’ll see about getting those trousers back.”

* * *

It took two days for the midget to get back to Noonan. But he was still not sure the detective had been serious.

“You were serious, right?”

“As serious as I can be. I can’t solve every matter that comes across my desk, but I try mightily for each one.”

“That’s good enough for me. In what order do you want the information?”

“Doesn’t matter. Go ahead.”

“All right,” and Noonan could hear papers being shuffled. “What was on my desk the day of the break-in was a cup of pens, a dictionary, blank pad of paper, small wooden bear, reading glasses, lamp, rolodex, desk calendar, desk blotter, scotch tape dispenser, a small scale to weigh letters, stamps in a small metal box, stapler, a pile of envelopes and a paperweight in the form of an apple.”

“But the only things amiss were the missing reading glasses, the damaged desk blotter, and the torn apart desk calendar, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Was the desk calendar a book with a spine or a notebook, maybe with a spiral binding?”

“I have both. The book with a spine is for personal items, and I keep it in the desk. The day-to-day is loose-leaf, and that was the one that was on the desk and destroyed.”

“Were any pages missing?”

“No way to know. It was ripped up so badly that I just tossed it. I use it to log down appointments. That’s all it had in it.”

“OK,” said Noonan, “go on.”

“Do you want to tell you what was stolen robbery by robbery or just a list?”

“Let’s go with the list first.”

“Ok, but the list is long and strange.”

“I’ll bet. Go ahead.”

“Two letter openers, can of peas, half-filled bottle of ink, pile of empty cassette mailers, towel, six wooden hangers, package of peanuts, some porcelain figurines, two couch pillows, a plastic cup, a teddy bear, and a pair of headphones.”

“OK.”

“Are you writing these down?”

“No, I’m just listening for the moment. Go on.”

“I called all of the homes and asked if anything had been stolen that was not reported and what had been damaged. They all said they had discovered some smaller things missing afterward, but it had not been worth their time to call the police. Those items included an olive fork, a cardboard salt-and-pepper shaker set, the kind you can buy in the grocery store for about a dollar, three or four oranges, a can of anchovies, and a box of hair color for men.”

“How about the damage?”

“Pretty much the same as my house. Paintings or artwork had been pulled off the wall, desktops had been swept clear and paperwork scattered.”

“Were any of the areas that were attacked offices?”

“Yes and no. In two of the six homes, there were stand-alone offices, and they were ravaged. In the other four, the desk was in a bedroom or along a living room wall, so you could not call those rooms offices. But all of the desks had damage. Mostly it was scattering documents and ripping up papers.”

“What kinds of things were ripped apart on the desks?”

“It was hard to tell. Everyone had the same problem I did. They saved the important papers, and everything else got dumped. That included some desk calendars and date books, a college class notebook, a loose-leaf collection of poetry, some Manila file folders with bills, and some check stubs.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing that anyone can remember.”

“Ok. Go on.”

“As far as the location of the homes, they are all within the city limits and not that far from one another. But that’s not saying much because all of the homes in Sydneyville are fairly close to one another. It’s a small town. Two of them are in a traditional neighborhood and have fences. Whoever burgled those homes had to get over the fence. The other four do not have fences. Other than my house, only one is what I could call secluded. The intruder entered a back door in all homes. Five of six back doors actually went into a kitchen and the sixth went into a door that was next to a kitchen. All of the homes had the kitchen, office, or office areas and at least one bedroom ravaged. There is no evidence that any other rooms were entered. All of the homes have children, and all the children go to the same schools. But this is not uncommon because, . . .”

“I know,” said Noonan. “It’s a small town.”

“You are correct,” said the midget. “All children are at school by 8 am and home no earlier than 2:45 in the afternoon. Only my home had footprints, and no other home had any damage to the kitchen that would have led to footprints being found.”

“How about the people who owned the homes. Do you know any other them?”

“Actually, yes. But they again . . .”

“Sydneyville is a small place, right?”

“That’s right. Of the 12 husbands and wives, three are clients themselves, and another four worked for clients that my firm serves. The rest worked in businesses ranging from a grocery store to a gas station to a hair salon.”

“OK. Now, how about those charity tickets? Did you get a list of the people who bought them?”

“Yes, but I don’t know. . .”

“You never know what you will find. Did any of the people who were burgled buy tickets?”

“Two or three individually, yes. Then all my client companies bought tickets, but I don’t know to whom they gave the tickets.”

“Are any of your client companies in the top five ticket buyers?”

“One. It’s the Sydneyville Bank and Trust. They bought 30 tickets.”

“Was that a large sale?”

“Biggest. The next one down is 10 tickets.”

“Other than the couple that’s associated with the Bank and Trust, do any of the other homeowners have anything to do with the bank, other than they do business there?”

“Well, yes, because it’s the only bank in town. Everyone does business there. We have a large hotel and golf course going in, and some of the locals have been buying shares through the bank. It formed kind of an investment club to coordinate the dollars.”

“Tell me about that investment club.”

“It was started by the Sydneyville Bank and Trust to help an out-of-state company fund a hotel and golf course. Land is cheap in Sydneyville and we are just close enough to Charlotte to attract some big city golfers who’d rather spend the weekend golfing in Sydneyville that fight for start time in the bigger city.”

“And take their secretaries with them,” said Noonan slyly.

“I’d say so,” replied the midget. “As long as it’s good for business.”

“How have investments been going?”

“Pretty good. We formed a corporation and bought up the land that the hotel and golf course would need and transferred it to the out-of-state company in exchange for stock shares. Now we are waiting for the OK from the SEC or whoever approves stuff like that.”

“Well,” said Noonan sadly, “I hate to tell you this, but you’ve been snookered. That hotel and golf course have been a scam to get the land at no cost. Here’s what I think happened. Someone approached the Sydneyville Bank and Trust to help with this so-called hotel and golf course. The bank bent over backward and used its good name to get investors. But the bank did not do its homework until too late. Only then did it realize that the out-of-state company was a front. Once the title to the land was transferred to the front, it would collapse. Ownership of the land would then be an asset of a deceased company and could be bought for pennies on the dollar. Some large company was going to end up with the land, and the investors would get nothing.”

“You’re kidding! A lot of money went into that project!”

“I’ll bet it did. Too late, someone from the bank figured out what was going to happen. The only way it could prevent itself from getting sued was to remove all evidence of its involvement as anything other than a facilitator. Jiggling the records they had was not hard . . .”

“They had a fire in their offices about ten days ago.”

“Well,” said Noonan sadly. “I’ll bet you will find that the fire was in the records room. That will make suing the bank hard. The other records they had to get rid of were the people with whom they had made personal contact. I’m sure you will find that there were six couples, you included. There were no robberies. Everything that was taken was simply to throw the police off the scent. What the burglars really wanted was to destroy all of the calendars, the proof that those six couples had actually met with bank officials. With no proof that any meetings had taken place there could be no law suit. The burglars ravaged the homes, stole a few trinkets and then made sure to tear out the pages in the desk diaries and calendars that related to the meetings. Then they ripped the diaries and calendars apart so well that everyone just dumped them. No one knew they were dumping evidence. They figured it was just kids gone wild.”

“We’ve been snookered? Are you sure?”

“I can only guess based on the evidence. But, yes, I think the burglaries were all part of a cover-up scheme by the bank. And I think the bank bought the 30 tickets to the charity event and passed them out as widely as possible to dispel any suspicion that they were involved.”

“But why steal my Komodo pants?”

“You were the most important person to mislead. You’re a numbers man. Of all people in town — and it is a small town — you would have smelled something wrong. But you would have only been on the scent if you weren’t being distracted by something else. That ‘something else’ was the pair of trousers. They are your trademark, am I right?”

“That’s correct. I’ve been stewing about those pants for weeks.”

“Then the burglar did his job well. You’ve been so angry about the pants, you have not been 100% at work.”

“Unfortunately, that is correct.”

“I’ll bet you will find the trousers and all of the other stuff that was stolen somewhere in the bank. Whoever took the items can’t afford to throw them away in town, so he — or she — is keeping them for when he — or she — leaves. I’ll bet you will find that someone high on the food chain in the bank is planning a trip or a retirement vacation.”

“As a matter of fact . . .”

“Well, get to their office before they go. That’s where your trousers are. But I’m afraid your money is long gone.”

There was a long moment of silence. Finally, the midget said, “Unfortunately, you may be correct. I’ll get right on this. Thank you for your help and do I owe. . . “

“I’m a public servant. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Well, at the very least, thanks,” and that’s all the midget said. But an hour later, he called back, “Just one more quick question.”

“The lederhosen, right?”

“How did you know that?”

“I’m only half as dumb as I look. Your wife threw them out. She can’t stand them. Never could. When the robbery came up, it was her moment to give them the deep six. They’re probably at the bottom of the Sydneyville land fill under a few tons of garbage.”

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