Smokey Mountain Breakdown

They arrived shortly after I had discovered the Christmas morning “ugliness”, clattering up my driveway in their GMC Yukon XL Denali - black Hummer – Red Claptrap of Death. I was just about to remove the body when they stopped me.

“Step away from the crime scene, Ma’am.”

“Uhhh,” I said as I was about to remove the mangled corpse from my backyard, “It’s a goose.”

“We’ll be the judge of that.” They said, swarming my yard carrying their black investigation bags – fingerprint kits – plucking equipment.

One of them sat down with me to go over the facts of the case and take my statement.

“Well, I let the dogs out early this morning and went back to bed. When I came back down, the goose was laying there, as you see him now. The trail of feathers shows that he was well into the yard when the attack occurred.”

The investigator took some notes and asked, “Do you have any idea who would do such a thing?”

I looked at him like he was crazy. The other members of the GF-CSI team were busily measuring the trail of feathers, stringing up crime scene tape and the coroner was treating the dead goose with way more respect than it deserved.

“Hell, yes!” I said, “The brown cocker spaniel with the feathers all over his mouth. He said he didn’t do it, but I know better.”

The investigator looked over at Max who was frantically signaling me with his topaz eyes. He tried to sneeze some goose down from his nose.

“You mean that one over there?” He asked.

“Uhhh…well yes…he’s the only chocolate cocker spaniel I have.”

“Why did he do it? Do you know?”

“Look, you can’t blame the dog,” I said in Max’s defense, “That goose has been torturing that dog for months! I gots pictures!”

“Alrighty then.” The investigator concluded. “Looks like we got us a case of justifiable goosicide.”

The investigators started to leave and the coroner started to walk away with the goose.

“Hey!” I hollered, “Where you going with that?”

“Oh,” the coroner said, shifting his eyes around, “I’m taking it to the Morgue – Volunteer Fire Department Kitchen.”

“Oh no you ain’t!” I said, taking the goose away from him. “We weren’t planning on no Christmas goose, but it looks like we got one just the same!.”

Max wagged his tail nub in anticipation.