Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and roger)

I know what you’re thinking. ‘If Bogie’s mug is on the post, that can mean only one thing. Another installment(-ette) of ‘The Case of the Missing Starr’. alright!’

Yep. Standing in the gauze-bright cone of a street-light, outside the office of ‘Six, Sentence, Story & Muse LLC’ I’m totally getting into character. Trench coat collar up, cigarette smoke escaping cupped fingers and a head full of regrets. Where’s that keyboard… I gotta tale that’ll make you glad you married the safe one.

Denise (over at Girlieontheedge) is providing the prompt word. All we* have to do is fashion, make-up or otherwise concoct a story that is precisely six sentences in length. How hard can that be? Ok…well, how much fun should that be? Damn straight, a whole bunch of fun.

This week the prompt word is:

Track

I heard my receptionist Hazel get as far as, “…do you have an appoint…” when my office door opened and was immediately filled with a very, very large man; my hand went to the upper right-hand drawer as I put on my best, ‘can’t-you-see-I’m-busy’ expression and said, “Lt. Cardoso, always time for the State Police, you have your choice of client chairs or were you hoping just to loom over my desk in a threatening manner?”

He laughed, “I read the file on you, Devereaux,” one of my eyebrows had a weak moment and abandoned my bored-professional expression for a ‘oh, yeah!?’ move, “you’re smarter than you need to be in this business and I gotta tell you, I’m not a fan of things not making sense.”

Sitting, he slid a manila folder that had my name on the tab and red border along the top edge and watched my face as he continued, “The Feds called and asked politely if I’d come by and find out if you knew anything about whoever broke into your house last night.”

“Nope, not a thing, Lieutenant,” I held out my half-empty pack of Camels and his look of revulsion restored some of my confidence, “probably some junkie with too big a jones and not enough smack; I’m surprised that the State Police give a shit.”

Just as his face began to go rigid into tough-state-cop mode, Hazel stepped into the office with a cup of coffee and some weekend cleavage; game-set-match to my underpaid admin.

“Back in the day, the shit would hit the fan when the Bureau took an interest, but they were regular guys; nowadays, we got Homeland Security and God-knows how many other three-letter outfits run by kids in bespoke suits, too much ambition and a childhood spent killing video bad guys and they never get tired of tracking every move their target makes; trust me, you don’t want them on your case and, unfortunately for you, shamus, that’s exactly what you got.”

*  by ‘we’ I mean me and anyone else with the cojones (or alternative, gender-correct metaphorically-suited to reckless-daring, internal body part), which I guess means you.