Alphonse’s Scrapbook
by Matt Cowell
| Table of Contents, parts 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
It seems I’m having so much fun doing my job that the new boss thinks I’m not doing any real work. Now, she wants documentation of my client contacts, so now I’m putting any stuff I find about my people in scrapbooks, along with random comments to keep it interesting. Here’s an article from The Lone Star News, dated Monday, April 26, 2023 about one of them.
DINO DOC DISAPPEARS
by C. F. Caine
Epsom City — This quiet community was shaken today by the announcement that William J. Cooke, Ph.D., a well-known local paleontologist, was reported missing by Randall College officials. Foul play is suspected. Cooke, who was last seen at the school on the morning of April 23rd, has not contacted college officials nor given notice that he would not be available to teach his normal classes.
Horatio Waffleburn, Dean of Advanced Studies at Randall, said that he became concerned about Dr. Cooke’s absence because of his history of perfect attendance. Cooke taught his regular classes that morning but has not been heard from since. Waffleburn conducted a thorough investigation prior to alerting the authorities of the disappearance. “I checked all his usual haunts and could not find a trace of him. I even went out to his dig on R.L.’s (Johnson) ranch. I found some things: the clothes he was in that morning, including a plaid shirt he often wore; a watch and a pick ax, but nothing else. Cooke has been a model faculty member here at Randall, so for him to strip in the middle of a pasture and vanish is highly irregular.”
Other members of the Randall College community echoed Dean Waffleburn’s sentiments. “I’ve known Professor Cooke for over ten years, and I can count his unexplained absences heretofore on one hand,” said Ernst Schlagsmelter, Chair of the Geology Department.
The local police are already on the case. Sheriff F.E. Johnson confirmed that foul play was a possibility and promised the public a thorough investigation. “Well, Waffleburn said the man’s as regular as an Ex-Lax addict. Now I may have a plate in my head, but this disappearance is starting to look pretty suspicious. Since his clothes was sitting in a pile next to his hole in the ground, I guess we’ll have to poke around in the scrub before we start interviewing Mexicans.”
Cooke’s wife, the former Janet Randall, was understandably too distraught to comment on the situation.
I think I’ll head down to Epsom City to see what’s up with the good Professor.The Cookes are quite the trusting couple, leaving the key to their back door buried in a flowerpot. Here’s a note Dr. Cooke left his wife on the kitchen counter, written on the back of an envelope from Save the Children.
4/24/23
Dear Janet,
I hope you had fun playing cards. I’m sorry but it’s 3:30 a.m. and I can’t wait up any longer. A very unusual opportunity for fieldwork suddenly came up. I’ll try to explain everything, but I have to get off to an early start, so it might not be for a week when I get back. I think this could be the beginning of a new and better life for the two of us. By the way, I’m taking the leftover anti-malarial medicine from your trip to Kenya.
Love,
Bill
PS Have you seen my pickax? It’s not where I left it in the garage.
How sweet. This looks like her reply, written in the margin of a copy of an article in Modern Paleontology, titled “Where Are They Now? William J. Cooke, the man who couldn’t tell the head of a plesiosaur from its hind end.”
Bill,
Reggie from the Chemistry Department sent this to me. It’s good to know that you’re still so highly regarded. I was having so much fun last night with the girls that I lost all track of time. I’m sure whatever you dig up will set the world of dinosaurology on its ear. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be napping in the study. I hope you’re not going out in public in that ridiculous plaid shirt.
Janet
PS Why on earth would I know where you stuck your pickax?
That silly Billy, leaving his diary in a desk drawer with a faulty lock.
4/24/23, 1:45 a.m.
So, tomorrow I’m off to the Cretaceous. I’ve been up all night working on the details for the trip. I’ve got to unwind a little before I go to bed, not that I’ll fall asleep. Who could, knowing that this time tomorrow I’ll be scoping out 75 million years ago. Still, I have a busy week ahead of me. I wonder where Janet keeps her sleeping pills.
One problem remains; how do I explain my specimens when I get back? Considering my professional baggage, I’ve got to be careful. The pictures and videos will be tough to authenticate, since those can be faked. With a couple of Crays, some world-class software and a few million bucks. The heck with it. Let them come up with something to prove they’re not real.
The specimens will speak for themselves. Initially I planned on taking just water, soil, air and tissue, samples. I asked for the gun just in case, but, I just checked with Alphonse, and he said the size of the specimens didn’t matter, so Plan B is to do some BIG game hunting. I figure that I’ll spend the first five days collecting environmental samples and making field observations, and then the last two blasting anything that weighs over a couple of tons. I’ll just slap a specimen tag on its toe and drive around to pick it up once I’m back in the present.
I wonder where I could get a flatbed truck with a crane on short notice. I should have checked into that earlier. I’ll have to step lively when I get back, so none of the yokels makes off with one of my nodosaurs. Sitting out in the sun won’t do them any good either. I hope there’s a meat packing plant or something like that nearby, so I can get my specimens on ice right away. I guess that’s something else I should have looked into earlier.
I should have thought of asking Alphonse for a tranquilizer gun. Live dinosaurs. I can just imagine the look on old R.L.’s face if a triceratops suddenly materialized in the south pasture, staggering to its feet, still dopey from the tranquilizer.
Oh well, Alphonse was quite adamant on that point — no changes once I signed. That reminds me, I must remember to mark exactly where I materialize when I first get to the Mesozoic and return exactly there when I’m supposed to come home. Doing all this work and then ending up with half of me stuck in a cottonwood tree would be unacceptable.
Still, I’ll have to come up with a really good story. Nobody would believe the truth, even if I could tell it. Even here I’m dancing around that issue, in case some inquisitive person decides to take a peek at this diary. I wonder where Janet is, anyway? She told me she was going to play bridge. Sometimes I wonder. It seems awfully late to be playing cards, and she was more familiar with that insurance agent, Humphreys, at that party last week than I would have expected. I shouldn’t be suspicious, but... Then again, Janet could never leave me. Her father would have a stroke if I became ex number 4.
I shouldn’t be too hard on her, she introduced me to Alphonse at the same party where I had the ‘pleasure’ of meeting Humphreys. She’s been after me to get a $1,000,000.00 life insurance policy from him. I wonder how much one would cost. Maybe I’ll stop by Humphreys’ office tomorrow morning before I set out for the ranch.
Alphonse certainly didn’t look like much at the party; a little neat man with a neat little beard in a dark suit. Janet said he was her personal organizer or something like that — I’ve never had time to keep her people straight. I don’t know why her father puts up with them, but as long as he’s footing the bill.
What a great opportunity. In a little over twelve hours, I shall set forth on the first field expedition into the Mesozoic, to observe, record and take specimens. I’ve been so busy preparing that I haven’t had a chance to appreciate the enormous importance of what I am about to do. To study actual living dinosaurs in situ, recording their behaviors. I hope it’s mating season. Nests, I must bring back a nest. With eggs.
I’ll be able to definitively answer hundreds of questions that could only be previously addressed through inference and hypothesis. All of those peddlers of paleontological theories with their precious theses deduced from fossils will have to recognize the facts. Facts from my specimens, facts from my photographs, facts from my field notes. Facts published in books and articles by me. I shall be universally acknowledged as the single, authoritative source on all matters of the Cretaceous.
Of course there will be fame; appearances on the Tonight Show and the View, interview requests from around the world. And riches. Who wouldn’t want to buy a book with real pictures of real dinosaurs. I could knock off a lay book that would make me so rich that Janet wouldn’t be able to hold her father endowing my chair over my head anymore. Any university in the world would be happy to set me up for life. Alphonse certainly convinced me that he could do what he promised, “To give you the opportunity to get everything you so richly deserve.”
I better lock this up for safekeeping while I’m gone.
Here’s another message the good Doctor left for his beloved bride, written on more Post Its on the door of the study.
Hey J,
I tried to wake you, but couldn’t. That must have been one HECK of a card game. Anyway, goodbye for now. I’m off to the field — bound for glory. I know you’ll be impressed with the specimens I bring back. This time there will be money. Enough to even buy a new plaid shirt (ha ha). See you next week.
Love, B.
PS Never mind about the pickax, I found it.
My goodness, do these two lovebirds ever talk face to face? Janet left this one tucked into the mirror by the front door.
Dear William,
I hope you have a lovely time, with or without your beloved pickax. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be a good girl. I think I’ll visit Daddy for a few days. He keeps dropping hints that he misses me. The poor man’s all alone without Mama.
And don’t worry about money, just take care of yourself. Use sunscreen.
Janet
Actually, the best part of this note is that it was written on the back of a receipt from the Hilton Hotel in Dilworth, Texas, double occupancy, $144.78. Check in at 9:52 pm, Checkout at 4:05 am.Here’s the latest from the Lone Star News, dated Monday, May 3, 2023. My new favorite journalist Caine seems to be making the best of this situation.
DINO DOC DEAD
By C. F. Caine
Epsom City — This rural community was stunned today as a gruesome discovery late yesterday has been identified as being parts of the body of William J. Cooke, Ph.D., who was recently reported missing by Randall College officials. Many questions remain unanswered about the fate of the Assistant Professor.
Epsom County Coroner Elmer Johnson identified the remains discovered near Cooke’s paleontological excavation at R.L. Johnson’s ranch using dental records, blood tests and fingerprints from a severed hand. An upper torso, including the left arm, a badly damaged head and severed right hand were discovered yesterday at about 5:00 p.m. by the rancher.
Johnson made the grisly discovery yesterday while quail hunting. He sent one of his dogs into the brush after a bird, and it came back with Cooke’s right hand. “I can’t say as I’m proud of that dog,” said the rancher. “Eight years old and it can’t tell a dead quail from that egghead’s hand.”
Sheriff F.E. Johnson said deputies were combing the area this morning for additional remains. A garbage bag containing what is believed to be a leg and several feet of small intestines was delivered to the coroner’s office just before press time. “We’re going to keep looking around here until we recover every last bit of that poor feller,” said Sheriff Johnson.
Although there were no signs of violence near where the body was found, the Sheriff would not rule out the possibility of foul play. “I may have a plate in my head, but I know we went through those bushes with the dogs less than a week ago and didn’t turn up a trace of Dr. Cooke except those things Waffleburn found. It looks to me like somebody stripped him, then hacked him up somewhere else, then they brought him back and scattered him around to make it look like some animal got to him.”
Coroner Johnson would not release an official statement as to the cause of death, but speaking unofficially, he shared Sheriff Johnson’s opinion that the killer was not an animal, “I can’t think of any creature on God’s good earth that could do something like that.” He described the recovered remains as being extremely damaged, “I haven’t seen anything like that since Earl Wilcox got his foot caught in a manure spreader and sprayed himself all over his pasture.”
The body’s state of decay also drew Sheriff Johnson’s attention “It looks like he’s kind of spoilt. That’s suspicious. People around here tend to dry up pretty quick if they’re just allowed to sit around, lest it rains, and I don’t recall any rain in the past two weeks.”
Janet Randall Cooke, Cooke’s wife, was out of town and not available for comment.
Copyright © 2026 by Matt Cowell
