Joe Avery’s Early Cases
by Charles C. Cole
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3, 4 |
Joe Avery Loses a Case
The afternoon was sunny, warm and calm with a blue sky. Like probably half the city’s teen-aged students, I was outdoors on a field trip.
I don’t know how long I stood there on the side of the man-made lake watching the athletic youth skip stones across the still surface, but it was like watching an Olympic-class sportsman in action. I was near-frozen in awe. I once counted 26 skips. Tease me for my sentiment, but this boy was clearly in his element.
From an ornate pedestrian bridge sixty feet away, two smiling young ladies in sleeveless summer dresses leaned far out over the railing, enthralled. How could he want for anything more?
“Boy,” shouted one of the girls, “my friend thinks you’re amazing! She thinks you can skip a stone all the way across the lake if you wanted. Can you?” He waved politely, wordlessly.
“You’re ruining his concentration,” hissed the other girl. “Come on; let’s go.”
As the girls turned to leave, he whispered, “They have no idea how much practice it took to make it look so easy.”
I took advantage of the pause in the action: “Prince Tighe, you sent for me?”
“I love this spot!” he gushed, though there was an undertone of profound sadness. “I want to spend every day of the rest of my life right here.”
“Even in the rain and snow?” I teased.
He shrugged, brushed his hands on his gray slacks and sniffed, like he could sense an approaching change in the weather. “Join me at the picnic table, Detective Avery. Let’s get acquainted.”
We sat opposite one another. He held his hands up close to his chest, examining them, front and back, as if he’d just noticed them for the first time. “Do you appreciate skin?” he asked. Before I could answer, he clarified: “I mean, human skin.”
“It holds the muscles and bones in place,” I confessed.
“I was a frog for more than half my life, and it wasn’t so bad. I could jump astounding distances! I could swim with the speed of a torpedo! I could climb trees effortlessly. I could sit in the sun on a lily pad for hours, and it was like floating on air!” His eyes looked inward to relive the events.
“Sounds like heaven,” I conceded.
“Then this crazy tomboy of a girl gets a thought in her head to catch me and kiss me! A frog! To practice for the real thing, I suppose. That day, I became a man, literally, and I’ve been unhappy ever since.”
He sighed. I sighed. I wouldn’t be surprised if the trees within earshot sighed as well.
“I suppose it was only a matter of time,” I reasoned.
“The butterfly gets all the attention, but the caterpillar does all the prep work, eats until it’s no longer a pleasure but a chore, builds a disposable chrysalis, sleeps for days in the height of the summer.”
“Do you see yourself as the butterfly or the caterpillar, in this analogy?” I asked.
“Neither,” he admitted, leaning forward for emphasis. “The point is: there’s more to life than pretty things. I had to be a frog to see that. I did not go willingly into that great adventure, but I took advantage of the opportunity and learned something about myself and about the world.”
Though I didn’t hear or see anything provocative, some activity clearly grabbed his attention: he paused and gazed toward the far shore. “Let’s rent a punt. I need to get out in the middle of that grand puddle.”
I rowed, my back to the bow, while Prince Tighe navigated. He lectured. He opined. He pointed. I learned more about the natural world that day than I ever had in public education. He dragged his fingers sensually through the water like feeling silk for the first time. His ability to appreciate simple pleasures was acute.
Something splashed nearby. A fish jumping after a bug? A startled sturgeon? An old acquaintance disapproving of the prince’s new human fashion?
The prince shushed me and my efforts. We drifted. He lowered his face down close to his own rippled reflection. “I’m still me,” he said quietly, “frog or human.”
“That’s true,” I agreed.
A group of silver-haired men in formal attire approached the nearest shore. One of them waved for our attention.
“Looks like your chaperones have arrived to escort you back to the castle,” I announced.
“You, of all people,” he began, “know there’s more to the world than the human kind. I must finish the journey I started.”
Before I knew it, he snatched a frog swimming alongside us with both hands and kissed it full on the mouth. His now-empty clothes fell at my feet, and there was a familiar PLOP! just beyond my reach.
“Your Highness! Your Highness!” I called. I kicked off my shoes and jumped in after him, but he was long gone.
On shore, a servant, whose buttons and buckles possessed more gold than I’d thus far seen in my entire life, handed me a large fluffy towel embroidered with the royal insignia: a crown-wearing frog.
An advisor, who’d probably seen all manner of closet-dwelling skeletons, clicked his tongue behind clenched teeth, ruminating on a course of action.
“I had no idea,” I protested, water still dripping in my eyes.
“He left a note. He hadn’t been adjusting well. Planned the whole thing. Must have thought you’d endorse his escape or at least sympathize.”
“He’s not gone,” I said. “We just don’t see him.”
“We’ll get more girls to kiss more frogs. It worked the last time. We’ll get him back.”
“The tomboy was no accident?” I asked.
“Not at all. She was paid quite handsomely. Had to be, to kiss a frog,” he said.
I looked back at the placid water and then at the furrowed brows on the faces of the advisors, worried and questioning. Though I doubted I would have made the same choice as the prince, I sympathized. The good news: I knew the courtroom corporate-types wouldn’t be blabbing about my case.
Then I made a vow: From that moment on, if at all possible, all cases would start within the familiar four walls of my office, where I at least had some control of circumstances. Sometimes it made a difference, sometimes not so much.
Copyright © 2026 by Charles C. Cole
