And it has PAID OFF.
GATOR and I re-evaluated the suspect list and determined that although they are all guilty of assholism, none of them are actually the villain involved in these specific burglaries. Once Katie Ryan-Snowman tipped me off to what was going on in Albuquerque it all started coming together.
Hollywood. Albuquerque. Malden. It all seems so simple now! The perpetrator was sending GATOR and I a very clear message: H.A.M.. It was the most substantive clue we had gotten yet. Once it was established that ham was somehow involved I was able to edit my list of suspects and narrow the search down to 2 people of interest.
Our first stop was to an abandoned McDonalds in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It serves as the headquarters to known thief and ham(burger) enthusiast The Hamburglar.
Wanted in 41 states for stealing hamburgers and women's underwear, the Hamburglar has been on the run for months. Using the latest technology, The InvestiGATOR and I set up a trap to catch him:
And of course we were successful. Once he was in our custody we interrogated him regarding the H.A.M. burglaries. Hours of questioning kept leading to dead ends. The night of the Malden burglary he was caught on camera robbing an airport. When I asked him about the Hollywood burglaries he claimed that he had spent that time in a detox clinic under the name "Spamburglar". It checked out. I was about to turn him in to the local police when he told us that we were looking for our villain in all the wrong places..."To find the monster you seek" he said while gagging on a veggie burger "you may want to start...smaller."
And of course we were successful. Once he was in our custody we interrogated him regarding the H.A.M. burglaries. Hours of questioning kept leading to dead ends. The night of the Malden burglary he was caught on camera robbing an airport. When I asked him about the Hollywood burglaries he claimed that he had spent that time in a detox clinic under the name "Spamburglar". It checked out. I was about to turn him in to the local police when he told us that we were looking for our villain in all the wrong places..."To find the monster you seek" he said while gagging on a veggie burger "you may want to start...smaller."Another clue. We had been on this case for weeks and it didn't seem to be going anywhere. Smaller? What could he mean? Was the Ham connection all wrong? Then it hit me. Over at Squints, Laura had said something that I overlooked during the initial investigation:
I got swine flu last week, and if that wasn't enough of a slap in the face, I came home
very grouchy from work on Monday to find someone had broken into our apartment
and robbed us.
Following my instincts, our next stop was to Sigourney Weaver's house. Now OBVIOUSLY it is well known that Sigourney is a national treasure and I didn't for a second think that she was stooping to common thievery (there's NOTHING common about Sigourney Weaver). However, I was told by a little birdy named Amy Greenhouse that Sigourney had been recently infected with Swine Flu. And where there's swine there's ham! After I explained the penalty for harboring a fugitive in her body Sigourney agreed to allow me and the InvestiGATOR to use Pym Particles to shrink ourselves down to microscopic size and enter her bloodstream so that we could confront the Swine Flu personally.
Sneaking into Sigourney's lungs, we managed to take the flu by surprise just as it finished adding the rings it had stolen from Meghan Fox and Laura's prized antique vase collection to eBay. Caught in the act, the Flu tried it's best to outrun us but GATOR and I were, of course, too much for it to handle. I slapped on the cuffs, exited Sigourney, and returned to normal size. Within ten minutes the Flu was in jail and the case was closed!
ohhhh, but one last thing...in all the excitement during and after the arrest I kiiiind of forgot to bring all the stolen stuff back. So...it's still in Sigourney Weaver's lungs...BUT she's very nice and you can write to her personally and request them back. 
