The Misplaced Detective ~6

A Story by JD Major

The Case of the Seven Secrets

Fiction: Short Story, Humor: 2100 words …

The Case of the Seven Secrets

Offices of McQuinn Investigations: 9:15 AM

“Director Dash of the U.S. FBS is not on the line for you, Boss,” Roni said, having buzzed me from her desk in the outer office. "Shall I put her through?”

“The Director of the Federal Bureau of Secrets is holding to speak to ...me?" I asked, lowering my feet off my desk. "But, she's not on the line?”

"She is and she isn’t. Pick up, McQ."

I punched line-2 and picked up.

“McQuinn,” I said. “What can I do for the FBS this morning, Director Dash?”

“Not a thing, Mr. McQuinn, the FBS does not exist and I have not called you.”

“ … Oooh-kay? What can I not do for you, ma'am?"

“As I’ve advised your office manager, our driver will not pick you up at your curb below in five minutes, sharp. Can you make that work?”

“No.”

“ … You can’t?”

“No means Yes … right?”

“Oh, yes. … No. Five minutes.”

I threw on my trench coat and fedora and stepped to the outer office.

Roni was leaning back against her desk, dangling my sport coat. “Lose the coat-of-many-pockets, McQ, and slip into this, we’ve a ride to catch.” She had on the little watermelon waist coat and tan skirt ensemble I like so much.

“You’re coming too?” I asked, shedding the coat I’d had on and donning the one I hadn’t.

She got on her tip toes to smooth my shoulders. “Yes, evidently I have to be processed, having spoken with the director of a nonexistent federal agency."

I adjusted my fedora, tilt-right. “They say the FBS has been America’s worst-kept secret since Roswell.”

“Ah … hmmm, that explains it.”

“Explains what, Roni?”

“Kathryn asking me if you discriminate against colored folks.”

“Of course I don’t, as I trust you told her. Why would she ask such a thing?”

“Our driver is a little green man.”

“Haha,very funny.” I opened the door for her. “Congrats, by the way.”

“For what?” She stepped into the hallway.

“On promoting yourself to Office Manager.”

“Partner, next.”

“Funny.”

“You think so, huh?”

In a Black Limousine: 9:20 AM

“We won’t be there in approximately forty minutes, folks,” our FBS driver said on microphone, “so make yourselves at home.”

Roni and I sat facing each other in the backseats of a window-blackened black SUV limousine, sipping freshly brewed limo coffee. We couldn’t see outside, nor could we see the front seat.

Our driver, as it turns out, was neither little nor green.

“What have I got that Elon Kazzler doesn’t, Roni?” I asked.

She raised her pretty eyebrows. “I’m impressed, McQ. You've come up with the right question.”

“Thank you. What’s the answer?”

We had worked a case for Elon Kazzler, the Enviro Gadget King*, a few days earlier, during which time he had asked Roni on a date for this coming Sunday, and to my chagrin she had accepted. I had assumed, in that way you do without thinking, that she and I were exclusive. And I’d subsequently asked her, “What does he have that I don’t?”

She had informed me that this was the wrong question, and challenged me to come up with the right one.

“For one thing, McQ, you’re dogged, and for another you’re--"”

“I’m dogged, as in, what … slump-shouldered and burnt-out by life?”

“No, dogged as in steadfast and resolute. Elon tends to be scattered, doesn’t always finish what he starts.”

I pulled up my shoulders. “And, the other thing?”

“Your looks are rugged, Elon’s are classic.”

“ … Rugged? Classic?”

“Harrison Ford, George Clooney. Younger versions.”

"So, you’re saying, in my own rugged way, I’m as good-looking as Elon?”

“No. Nobody’s that good looking. Not even Elon.”

“Huh?”

“ He’s a charmer. Charm enhances a person’s looks.”

“Am I not charming?”

"Sure you are, sweetie, in that blunt, not-always-thinking-a thing-completely-through way of yours.”

FBS HQ: Somewhere within 40 minutes of New York City: 10:00 AM

“You may remove your blindfolds now,” Director Kathryn Dash said.

We had been guided to her office and eased into visitor chairs by our driver. Roni and I blinked-in the sudden light and each other, and Director Dash.

She was not the sixtyish, tight-haired, severe-featured, mannish creature I had seen with my mind’s eye. She was a pretty thirty-something brunette, her hair soft and silky, her eyes chestnut brown and long-lashed.

“Thank you both for coming in,” she said, folding her hands on her desk. "And, I must say, Mr. McQuinn, you're not at all what I expected."

"Oh?"

"I'd imagined a disheveled, trench coated Columbo, and I got Jack Ryan. The movie Ryan, Harrison Ford." She smoothed her hair on one side.

"Thanks, ma'am, I get that a lot. And, no need for the Mister."

"Nor for the ma'am, call me Kathryn."

"Call me eager to get started," Roni said. "How can we help you, Kathryn?"

She pulled a legal-looking form from a desk drawer and slid it toward us. “Before we get into the nitty-gritty, please each of you sign our standard No Tell Confidentiality agreement.

We signed it.

She said, “The Q-Secrets arriving in last week's shipments from our national branch depots have gone missing. An inside job, I suspect, motivated by partisan politics. Routinely, I would have brought in the FBI to investigate, as is standard procedure, but this matter is decidedly not routine.”

“How would you like us to proceed, Kathryn?” I asked

“Assuming you take the case, McQuinn, what, may I ask, are your rates?”

“Three hundred a day, plus expenses,” I said, giving myself a hundred-dollar raise.” This was a Federal Agency after all. If you don’t ask for billions, it’s petty cash.

"Then, it seems we have a problem,” she said, sitting back on a frown.

“On second thought, two’ll be fine, let’s get started.”

“No can do,” she said, shaking her head. “We budget this sort of thing at five hundred. If I pay you less, the OBM will likely reduce our next-year’s allotment.”

“Five will be fine, Kathryn,” I said, barely able to stymie my urge to dance a jig.

“Or, actually, if you’d prefer," she said, "I could write it up as a bid-contract--a predetermined amount to be paid upon successful completion, in this case for retrieval of all missing items.”

Roni leaned forward. “Perhaps you could suggest, off the record of course, Kathryn, what might be considered a reasonable bid.”

She wrote a number on a notepad and held it up.

“Thanks, Kathryn,” I said, “but, all things considered, I think it best that we--”

“Bid $10,000 on the contract,” Roni said, grabbing the pad and initialing it.

“Excellent!” Kathryn said, as I looked needles at Roni. “Let’s begin, shall we?”

“Excellent!” Roni said.

“ ... Yeah, excellent,” I added, half-heartedly.

"What’s a Q-Secret?" Roni asked, "and how many are missing?”

Kathryn said, “Q-Secrets, like all the Secrets we store alphabetically, are extremely sensitive to U.S. National Security and Socioeconomic Stability. Seven are missing--one relating to Quakers in Pennsylvania, three to Quakes and Hydraulic Fracking in Oklahoma, one to Quebec in Canada, and two to Quilting Circles in Omaha, Nebraska.”

I chuckled. I couldn’t help it. “What dastardly hijinks, pray tell, are our Pennsylvania Quakers and Nebraska quilting circle ladies up to?”

Kathryn smiled. “Good question, McQuinn, and it surely tickles the curiosity, doesn’t it? But, our Secrets arrive sealed, and remain so. Only the President and living former presidents, with one excepTion of course, are authorized to break the seal.”

Roni asked, “What happens to sealed Secrets once they arrive here?”

She stood up. “Follow me, folks, and I’ll show you.” She was tallish and slender, subtly curved, and dressed in a black skirt, burgundy blouse and matching pumps.
She led us into a bustling warehouse of ceiling-high shelving spreading further than the eye can see, of blue uniformed employees riding orange lift-jacks, delivering secrets to sliding-ladder jockeys, as roller skaters with clipboards and brown kraft envelopes whirred up and down aisles, others working nose-down at desks, and standing at tables and conveyor belts, sorting and tossing incoming packages into alphabet bins.

“An impressive operation,” I said.

Kathryn nodded, “Sealed secrets arrive via armored vehicles, complete with a manifest which our FBS Typist (she pointed to a glass-walled room where a gray-whiskered man wearing glasses and a green visor sat, hunting and pecking at a manual typewriter) uses to turn out Date-In, color-coded storage labels, which our Labelers (she gestured toward rows of manned and womanned tables) fasten to pre-sealed envelopes, which our Roller Filers, who you see all about you, meticulously file on countless shelves, A through Z.”

“I can’t help noticing your typist’s typewriter,” Roni said. “How is it that such a function is not computerized?”

“Computers can be hacked,” she said, “and secret data stolen, happens all the time, just turn on the News. As such, there is not a computerized device or smartphone in the entire FBS operation. Everything is manual and hard copy, just as it has been since our founding fathers rented space in Thomas Jefferson’s barn.”

The gray-whiskered old FBS typist who Kathryn had pointed out, walked toward us.

Kathryn said, “McQuinn, Roni, meet Keys, our longest-serving employee, started at seventeen during the Kennedy administration, and never made a typo, with but one exception, in all these years, right Keys?”

“Right ma’am, just that first day on the job, which some say kinda sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Keys said, handing her an envelope. He shook my hand and grinned, crush-struck as a schoolboy, at Roni.

“Nice to meet you Keys,” Roni said and took his hand.

“You’re a dead ringer for my favorite old-time movie actress, Veronica Lake, Roni," he said. "I've always fantasized what she might look like in technicolor. Now I know. Breathtaking!”

Roni smiled. “You’re sweet, Keys.”

He cheeks flushing, Keys nodded to Kathryn and returned to his office.

Katherine laughed. “I’ve never seen old stalwart Keys blush like that.” She took a couple of typed name cards from the envelope he had given her and handed us each one. They had been laminated and bore the seal of the FBS. “Please pin these on so you can freely conduct your investigative activities as I escort you about.”

Roni had hers on in a tick, and observing me fumbling with mine, took it from me and adeptly pinned it to my lapel, hesitating a moment, seemingly studying it, before pressing it snug.

“What is it?” I asked.

Replying, as if more for Kathryn’s ears than mine, she said, “Further investigation won’t be necessary, we’ve cracked the case.”

“ … We have?” I asked.

“ ... Say again?” Kathryn questioned.

“The misplaced Q’s are misfiled with your last dated-in O’s, Kathryn.”

Kathryn spiked her sculpted eyebrows. “How could you possibly know that, young lady, not having as yet made a single inquiry?”

Roni unpinned me and handed my tag to Kathryn. “Tell me what you see, Director Dash.”

Kathryn donned a pair of pointy eyeglasses. “McOuinn. ... Oh - my - God, an O instead of a Q! … But how is this possible? The Q and O are eight keys apart, and Keys hasn’t made a typo since 1962!”

“Keys’s record still stands, Kathryn,” Roni said. “It’s not a typo, it’s a break.”

“ … A break?” Kathryn and I said in unison.

“How long has Keys had his current typewriter?” Roni asked.

“Legend has it, since he began here,” Kathryn said. “Why?”

“Check out the barely perceptible break in the base of the O.”

Kathryn brought my name tag tight to her specs. “Yes, I see it, a blank spec on the O’s bottom ...which means that--”

“The tail broke off Keys’s Q key,” Roni said.

Kathryn blew on her whistle, one short burst.

A Roller Filer rolled up.

Katherine said, “Janice, please check the last dated-in O’s against Keys’s Manifest, and signal me how many, if any, unaccounted-for extras there are.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Janice rolled off.

"My God!” Kathryn said, “Who knows how long it would have taken to spot this if I’d not brought you folks in. If Janice turns up seven extra O’s, you’ve saved my job. No director since the Bush-2 administration has misplaced Secrets. Thirteen I's, still missing.”

A whistle sounded. One burst, followed by six more.

“Seven!” Kathryn exclaimed. “I’m off the hook!”

Director Kathryn Dash’s Office: 10:25 AM

Kathryn slid a check requisition form across her desk. It was made out to Quinn Investigations for $10,000. “Which one of you would care to sign as recipient?”

I picked it up and offered it to Roni. “How about you do the honors, partner?”

Roni smiled me a dazzler, and signed.

“I’ll be in the city tomorrow, McQuinn,” Kathryn said. “What say I bring your check with me and meet you in La Tavalino, on Park at 19th, for a quiet lunch?”

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*The Misplaced Detective ~4 …The Case of the Adspin Throcket-149

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