The Friends of Willy Wilkinson (Jackie)

[Kermit Palantine]

Garfield shifted in his seat, trying to adjust his view so that it was even with the private detective’s. But the more Garfield moved, the more he sunk into the beanbag chair. “Interesting choice,” he said sheepishly, his eyes flitting around the storage unit. Garfield had first met face to face with Kermit Palantine in a diner just a few blocks away from the Ministry of Magic. Kermit had made a big deal about using his alias, Hermit Palpatine, insisting that that he had enemies crawling all over the Ministry. Garfield had wondered then why Kermit would even choose to meet so close to the Ministry but now, sitting in Kermit’s cramped office, staring at the crooked “Hang in there, Kitty!” poster with the bent corner, the crusty waffle maker stuffed in a corner on top of a filing cabinet, it all made sense.

“Thank you,” Kermit said, producing a bottle of gin from his desk drawer. “Isn’t it awesome? I mean, I work in a storage unit, do you?”
“I work in an office with chairs,” Garfield replied.
“Pfft,” Kermit waved a dismissive hand as he poured generous portions of gin into two paper cups. Garfield took the moment to study the corkboard tacked up behind Kermit. On the board were pictures of Garfield’s own family with lines of red string weaving from picture to picture in an incomprehensible tangle of conspiracy. In the center of the board was a picture of Garfield’s own daughter Jackie, a strand of string extending out to a picture of himself labeled “Garf.” Another string trailing from Jackie’s photo in the center of the corkboard led to a print out of the Starship Enterprise. The trail from the Enterprise led to a newspaper clipping of former President George W. Bush, and from that a string extended to the edge of the corkboard where Kermit had written on a yellow Post-it note: 9/11? Call Joey.

Kermit slid one of the cups across the table to Garfield and said, “I worked at the Ministry once too, you know. Didn’t care much for it.”

“Right,” Garfield nodded. “Do you think maybe…are there other private detectives? I’m just thinking…someone with more experience might be a better choice for me?”

“Sure,” Kermit said, leaning back in his folding chair. “You could go to the Fawkes Agency. They have a stable of experienced detectives with long resumes in law enforcement. They have licenses too. They report their wages to the tax bureau and receive a pension and benefits and they’re all above board. But I can promise you one thing: none of them can kill a man if you ask them to.”

“Oh god no,” Garfield shook his head in horror. “I wouldn’t ask you to do that. You can’t do that.”
“Oh Mr. McKinley,” Kermit offered a mirthful chuckle as he popped the tab on a Redbull and drained the can into his gin. “I was a cop in America. That’s basically a license to kill.”

Garfield ran his hand nervously through his hair. Suddenly he didn’t feel so safe in this cramped storage space. “Okay, well…I’ve got to be getting home soon so…why don’t we just skip the small talk and you get into it.”

“I think you’ll want to take a drink for this, Mr. McKinley,” Kermit said solemnly.
“I’m okay,” Garfield replied. “Just tell me what you know about my daughter.

Kermit downed his drink, cleared his throat, then said, “Mr. McKinley. Your daughter is dead.”

The words failed to register at first. Garfield just sat there, sinking further into his beans. Then it came to him in a flash. “Jackie’s dead,” Garfield repeated.
“Yes,” Kermit nodded gravely. “Not living.”

A single sharp cry escaped from Garfield’s lips. He snapped his hand over his mouth to cover the sobs.

From his desk drawer, Kermit produced a thick file on the McKinley case, opening the folder and spreading the key pieces of information out over the chipped wood. “Of course that’s what the Ministry’s saying…” Kermit said, raising an eyebrow to emphasize the mystery.

“What?” Garfield looked up, eyes puffy now with tears. “You think she’s alive?”

“Well, here is her death certificate,” Kermit said, holding it up for Garfield to examine. “And this was the scene after the fire.” Garfield cringed as Kermit showed him a photo of three charred bodies. Kermit produced from his shirt pocket a pair of reading glasses and slipped them over the bridge of his nose. “Jackie married William Wilkinson at which time the pair changed their Christian names to McWilkinleyson. The official report says that the McWilkinleysons perished in a fire along with their young daughter.”

“I had a granddaughter I never knew about it?” Garfield asked.

Kermit looked a little annoyed by the interruption but said, “Yes, name of, um,” He flipped through his work for a moment then confirmed, “Jean.”

“Oh god!” Garfield choked.

Kermit held the photo of the burned bodies up for Garfield to see again. The man averted his gaze at the site of the corpses. “But Mr. McKinley, I have reason to suspect that this is not your daughter.”

Garfield turned back to Kermit and hopefully asked, “Why?”
“I dug up the graves…” Kermit began.
“You did what?”
“My forensic analysis of the body identified as Mr. McWilkinsleyson revealed that the bones weren’t burned in the fire.”
“Okay,” Garfield nodded though Kermit could tell that he wasn’t really following along. To be honest, he was still a little spooked about the grave robbing.

Kermit sighed and produced a second, thicker file from his desk drawer. He plopped the folder down on the desk with a heavy thud. Kermit pointed to the file as he spoke, “These are Mr. McWilkinleyson’s medical records, dating back to his years at Hogwarts. I was able to confirm at least forty-six trips to the Hogwarts hospital wing, and these were only after the medical transparency act of 2002.”

“They really ought to appeal that law,” Garfield mumbled.

“I agree,” Kermit said, then added with a shrug, “But Enron changed everything.”
“What does this have to do with the fire?” Garfield asked.
“Mr. McKinley, it has everything to do with the fire. You see, I believe that your son-in-law has the most exceptionally fragile bones in the world. Do you believe they could survive a fire?”
“Well, I suppose not.” Garfield said.

“So I did some more digging,” Kermit continued. “And I found this.” He pulled another document from the McKinley file and slid it across the desk. “A change of name request filed with the Bureau of Magical Businesses. This was submitted three months after the file, legally changing the name of your son-in-law’s business from Willy McWilkinleyson’s Prosthetics to Billy McBilkinson’s Prosthetics.”

“I don’t understand,” Garfield wiped his eyes. “All this proves is that Willy is still alive.”
“Of course,” Kermit nodded. “But then, who is this?” He held up a photo of a young, aggressively Jackie-looking woman happily exiting Florean Fortescue's, double fisting ice cream. Her eyes were obscured by her designer sunglasses, but it was unmistakably Jackie. “I took this just two weeks ago in Diagon Alley.”

“I don’t understand,” Garfield shook his head. “What does any of this mean?”

“If I may posit a theory,” Kermit said, leaning back as far as he could in his folding chair without tipping over. “I believe that your daughter and son-in-law are trapped deep in a criminal enterprise. They likely needed to make a quick escape, hence the fire, and rather sloppily faked new credentials under the assumed name the McBilkinsons. I mean, they left a paper trail everywhere. I have a copy of a check in my file that your daughter signed, I quote, ‘Not Jackie Wilkinleyson.’ And everywhere I go I hear stories of this Billy McBilkinson. They say he brokered a peace between two centaur herds. The Brighthoof and Moonrevelers.”

“But they’ve been warring for decades!” Garfield blinked.
“And he introduced his good friend the Duke of Cambridge to Kate Middleton. They play Pictionary on the third Saturday of every night.”

“So it is true,” Garfield whispered. “Jackie really did fake her death?”
Kermit locked his fingers together thoughtfully and placed his folded hands down onto his desk. “It’s true, Mr. McKinley, and now they’re in grave danger.”

He placed one final picture in front of Garfield.

“This was taken just last weekend.”

Garfield had to bend his knees to see over the desk. Sitting before him was a photo of Willy flanked on both sides by two large, leather jacketed men. They were leading Garfield’s young son-in-law into a dark, stone building. The kind of establishment of ill repute he’d imagine he would find in Knockturn Alley if Garfield had ever ventured into those neck of the woods. Both men had patches on their backs that read: Hell’s Satans Est. 1972: You Gonna Die.

“Those two men are members of Knockturn Alley’s most notorious biker gang. I believe they’ve taken your son-in-law captive.”

It was The Case of the Not Dead Daughter.
    
    Jacqueline McWilkinleyson

[Jacqueline McWilkinleyson]

Jackie woke up at 5am, as she did every day, heated up a nutritious tray of cinnamon-spiced liver-and-beet casserole for her dear husband to take to work (the liver was for his anemia, swoon, but that there was a tray of it was for sharing with his fellow bikers). Then, when the babies woke up, she fed them leftover beets and read to them their specially-designed affirmations:

1. I am an Empress from the Stars.
2. I will endure life on earth until I return.
3. When Mummy asks me to do something, I will do it without screaming. Yes I will, yes I will.

Toddler Jean III was old enough that she ought to be able to recite the affirmations back, but Jackie had never heard her speak. She didn’t think much of it. She was sure Jean was a perfectly normal child who would speak when she wished to, and she was more correct about this than she knew. Well, Jean wasn’t normal. But not repeating the affirmations was her conscious choice.

Then Willy was up and off to work with the casserole. Well. Work, kind of. The motorcycle gang! Jackie thought this whole thing was adorable, though she didn’t know exactly why he was doing it. Probably he missed the camaraderie, like what he would have had on the space pirate ship. Oh, and being out of the law. Jackie felt tears of pride well up in her eyes every time Willy left. They weren’t accidentally caught up in anything over their heads (well, in that arena at least), it was just a fun extracurricular activity. Wow, Kermit was so off about what he thought was going on. What a dumb dumb.

Jackie read from a copy of Beedle the Bard to her children, changing all the names to space-names and all the creatures to space-creatures and all the occupations to space-occupations (you get it) so that they felt that their heritage was being acknowledged and honored.

She fed the chickens.

She looked disapprovingly at the immense, realistic, gorgeous portrait Willy had painted of her that was hanging over the fireplace. So fancy. Didn’t look anything like her. No character. She wished he still drew her in the same style as his school days. But it was sweet he was trying.

Jackie believed in letting children experience unadulterated nature, so around lunchtime, she gave both girls an apple and set them outside. Akmena was just one, but Jackie thoroughly believed that if Jean III was not able or willing to protect her, it was best if everyone found that out soon.

She sat at her desk to write a letter to her sister Jean (II). As always, making sure the Check Spell was properly cast on her quill, she wrote:

Dear Big Jeanie,

Gosh, do I ever miss you! Being legally dead sucks diricawl butt. Want to come visit sometime? I know Portugal or Panama or wherever is far but it’s SO BORING only having a few friends know what’s going on and they’re not as cool as you. I mean being shut up with Willy is kind of nice in some ways, IF you know what I mean, but he’s gone with the Satans so often now. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to go to the Hogwarts Reunion Ball because Jackie McBilkinson isn’t a Hogwarts alum but I’m gonna try anyway I think, what are they gonna do?

Have you heard from Dad? I will Not reach out to him until he apologises but I think he doesn’t know about the name change. Gosh it’s been years.

Thanks a bunch for the chocolate!!! Sorry about your divorce,

Jackie McW—whoops!!! McBilkinson

She shuffled through the questions for her column. There were a couple of promising ones. One was a sort of extreme one which was written with cut-out letters (looked like the font Witch Weekly was printed in, which Jackie thought was delightfully meta) and the other was the following:

Deer Mummy Deerest,

I’m a Mummy. I was so mean to my Kid the other day. I told him he cood not have three chocolate frogs and he sed yes he could and then I sed no and throo them away like a mean Mummy. Do you agree I was mean. What shood I do to fix it.

—Not a Kid

PS You seem like such a nice good Mum keep it up!!

Jackie liked the overt flattery of this one, so she decided to save the cut-out-letters one (with its interestingly bloodthirsty content) for another day. She had been getting the bloodthirsty cut-out-letters letters for years anyway. Mr. Blood Will Run In The Streets could wait his turn.

She wrote,

Dear Not a Kid,

It is as important to teach children agency as it is to teach them good healthy habits. Frankly and fundamentally, if your child is demanding three chocolate frogs and you refuse them, you have failed in both tasks! But it’s not too late to fix things.

Children especially need the nutrition found exclusively in seafood (sympathetically supporting their wild oceanic natures) and organ meats (because wizards are naturally carnivorous apes). What I did with my children is present them with a choice: crab puree or kidney. Nothing else. The child feels empowered to choose one or the other after they begin to feel hungry enough. Soon enough they do not even complain, and you can introduce other foods such as root vegetables, oysters, butter, et cetera. A little junk food is fine in moderation, but only after this level of willing obedience has been achieved. Adults of course are done growing and can eat anything they please, preferably a varied diet based on these ideal childhood habits.

Thank you for your compliment! It is true!

Yours, anonymously as ever,

Mummy Dearest

She then went to collect her children from the outdoors. They were by the creek, trying to catch fish with their teeny weeny bare hands. Jackie decided to show them how it was done, reached in, and plucked out a giant eel.

The three of them gawked at it.

It had three heads.

“Hmm,” said Jackie. “That’s an omen. Couldn’t tell you what for.”

“Someone’s coming,” said Jean. Her first spoken words.

“I’m so proud of you, baby,” Jackie said, and scooped her up. Jean immediately regretted breaking her silence. “What prescient first words. Let’s write them down in the Book.”

She forgot all about the omen in the excitement of Updating The Baby Book.

Later that night, when Willy had returned home in his adorable leather jacket, smelling alluringly like chemicals, they bathed the children and put them to sleep, then had a supper of ramen noodles with chocolate melted on top. Then, we fade to black momentarily.

As they ate some postcoital peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (they kept a cooler full of them in their bedroom and also the bathroom and also the attic), Jackie thought to mention Jean’s first words. “Imagine what Akmena is going to say! Or the next ones, when we have next ones…”

Willy was very much excited to have next ones.

“Why did she say that, though?” he asked. “Who’s Someone? Why are they Coming?”

“You’ll have to ask her,” said Jackie. She took a messy bite “Aww, gosh, now that she’s talking now, how cute!! What if she tells me she loves me sometime soon. That’d be nice.”

“Right, but what happened before?”

“Oh, I fished a three-headed eel out of the river. It’s in the fridge now, it’s going in your casserole for tomorrow.”

“Hmmm,” said Willy. He rubbed some gooseberry jelly off his wife's chin. “Someone’s coming…”

Kermit Palantine