Crimes in suburbia

Something bad happened at my place sometime between the hours of 3 pm Tuesday and 7 am today.

My sweet little garden rabbit got his head bashed in. 

I sure hope it wasn’t a hate crime.

Who could hate this guy?

Someone apparently did, because they roughed him up good.

Poor rabbit. 

His ears were sheared right off his head. And there’s no recovering from that kind of head wound.

No one is talking. I guess they’re afraid of recrimination.

This guy stands sentry at the front door, and has been quite attentive for years to the goings-on in our little patch of the neighborhood.

He is getting old, though, and perhaps he dozed off.  Or maybe he didn’t cry out for fear of dropping his basket of flowers. I’m sure his hearing isn’t what it used to be, so perhaps he snoozed right through the incident and didn’t even awaken when the poor rabbit got whacked.

The frog couple who live in front of the sentry dog were too busy canoodling to notice any wrong-doing. 

The pink bird of happiness had a birds-eye view of the incident, yet claims she didn’t see a thing. Not sure how she could have missed her fallen comrade, but birds are fickle creatures, and she is a bit of a birdbrain. Good thing she’s so pretty, because she’s definitely not long on brains.

I sure wish someone had let me know that the rabbit was in trouble. He’s had a few run-ins with the neighbor’s cat who likes to creep through the flower beds, but nothing this serious; usually the cat just knocks him off his feet, and Garden Rabbit typically manages to collect himself. I’m always temped to let Harry loose when I see that mangy old cat sneaking around my flowers, but I try to be the bigger person.

Garden Rabbit’s friend, Sir Lops A Lot, was shocked and saddened to hear the bad news. 

As you can see, Loppy has suffered a similar injury, albeit not fatal. Thankfully, through the marvels of Super Glue, Loppy’s ears were saved and reattached, and he made a full recovery. There’s no such happy ending for Garden Rabbit, unfortunately.

I had high hopes that perhaps Angel Dog might have seen or heard something, but clues are scarce. A.D. stands in remembrance of our dogs who’ve gone to the great dog park in the sky and has always been very quiet. I suppose it comes with the territory in that business. Solemn and silent. And a little rusty.

The third rabbit in our warren had nothing to say about the crime, either. Always a little shy and usually half-covered in flowers, I shouldn’t have expected much from her. 

Maybe she was jealous of Garden Rabbit’s height and gleaming white hide. She is pretty dingy and diminutive. Sometimes it’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for the most.

Crackle Frog is way too out of it to be relied upon for any useful information. He’s spent his entire life sniffing pool chemicals, so no one believes a word he says anyway. 

Not even Ellie the Water Girl had any information, and she’s usually the source of the best gossip. You know what they say about elephants. 

The last remaining hope for some insight into this brutal crime rested with the piggies. With the most smarts in the animal kingdom, I knew I could count on these two little pigs to solve the mystery of the Garden Rabbit attack. 

The Winged Thing promised to confer with Black Betty.

Surely with the brainy girls on the case, we’d catch a break and find the killer, restoring peace & order among the yard art.

The brainy girls studied the clues and meticulously retraced the steps of the assaulter in hopes of cracking the case. Working mostly unassisted and with free range of the front and back yard, the brainy girls identified a suspect.

Here’s his mug shot:

I never quite trusted that shifty-eyed, booze-swilling flamingo. He always seemed like a bad seed.