“I remember seeing it once when I went down to the river bar and grill to follow a client. It’s off to the left as you make the turn going to—I believe the name of it is The Landing—just off the highway, isn’t it?”
“You got it right. You can’t miss those twin silos!”
A waiter distributed salads for everyone at the table along with two bowls of dressing. Frank took the one nearest him and dipped what he wanted and sat it down to his left.
After everyone was served and munching on their salad, the young Fisher asked.
“Mr. Hawthorn, I see your name tag states that you are a private investigator. What’s the name of your agency?”
“The Hawthorn Detective Agency.”
“Seems like I’ve seen your place before; is it downtown near the courthouse?”
“I wish! No, I’m off the beaten path in an upstairs office several blocks from downtown. There is an agency down there where you’re talking about, but I think they only deal with cheating husbands or active wives. My work is mostly with crime situations. Although I’m in between cases at the moment. That’s the reason I was free for the visit here tonight.”
“Maybe we’ll learn something tonight . . . hopefully,” the elder Fisher said.
Frank was beginning to feel the program was a waste of time, however. The speaker was well dressed and proved the point of the advertised statement about the seminars by collecting the twenty-five dollars at the door. He was very plain in his approach. He said, “The first thing you have to do to make money . . . is to have some!”
After a few minutes of the presentation, Frank decided he had made a bad choice unless he could count the dinner, which wasn’t bad. He slipped quietly out the side door. True, he didn’t have a great deal of money at the present moment, but he knew why. When he and Lieutenant Troy Spiegel started out as police officers on their beat, they were dealing with public riff-raff in circumstances that included stealing money. Their superiors felt like they did a good job at the petty stuff and were boosted to detective positions in an unusual amount of time. Frank wouldn’t say that some of the other officers let some things slide—they had just been there and grown up with some of the small-time crooks and didn’t want to start anything that would upset the families who lived there.
He and Troy were both outstanding in their work. It didn’t matter to them if the kid was going to grow up to be a crook; he needed to change right then. Better to nip it in the bud. After Troy and Frank were made detective, they had the opportunity to mentally grow in their pursuit of criminals. They got the big guys, even some white-collar criminals. One such bust included many people involved in a crooked scheme to bilk people out of their money. They actually thought the police chief was a good guy, one of the best in blue! They wondered what made a man do that. Nobody liked the district attorney, not even the guys who were dealing with him in the scam of a lifetime. As far as they were concerned, the judges on the bench were a higher caliber of person and would never lie to anyone, let alone a victim of a crime. But then, the criminal was the victim. It took a long time getting all the dope on the guys. Frank and Troy didn’t dare let the scam out until they had all the “i”-s dotted, and the “t”-s crossed; too much of a chance they would be behind bars unless they had the goods on the schemers. When this happened, they were both brought into the limelight. Troy got promoted to precinct commander, and Frank decided to go into private detective investigation. Now he had to wait on someone who wanted the bad guy caught and would pay him for the job. He still liked the work. He just didn’t enjoy the irregular money as much as he did when the city was paying his salary on a regular basis. Thank goodness, he had taken on some cases that paid extremely well and had money stashed in the bank. He had thought of adding a receptionist, and moving to a better location, maybe even buying a house. He’d get to that later he figured!
~
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Genre - Crime Mystery
Rating – PG
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