14 June 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2767: set the fire
Someone among the bigwigs of the Big Loft Police Department got up on yet another hot September morning, went to police headquarters, had all the meetings that were going to be had that morning, and then went to his office, did his morning work, and then ordered lunch and added a healthy dose of Irish cream – that is, whiskey – to his coffee, and sighed.
A friend at the same level of responsibility heard that sigh and looked in.
“You all right? A lot of stress this week.”
“Not as much as there would have been if I had my way, and I realize that,” the first bigwig said. “I've had enough to drink to be able to say what I'm about to say without throwing up. I loved Orton Thomas. He gave us the life we deserved for decades – in a world in which the unquestioned mastery of men like us has been discarded and discredited, he gave us the life that we deserved at the expense of the lesser people that have been given way too much at our expense. Yet if Orton Thomas were commissioner, all that we have would have vanished into smoke this week if not before. And yet, in the three roughest days for Lofton County since 1974, no one has been allowed to even set the fire.”
The second bigwig sighed.
“Who would have thought that quiet, sad, unobtrusive Army veteran who was content with an office we converted from a closet and with all those old files that were just getting to be a bit of an embarrassment would end up where he is now – it's only been 21 months, and he is literally running the place.”
“He literally killed Orton Thomas,” the first bigwig said. “How Orton at his age thought he was going to win a shootout with two police officers and didn't even think to lock his back door – just foolish. The man had lost it. I loved that man and I have to admit: he was gone before we knew it.”
“You can't smoke your own dope, and that was Orton's mistake,” the second bigwig said. “All of us were enjoying the ride, but he wasn't minding the store or locking doors behind him. You have to not be paying attention to think that you can shove Colonel Henry Fitzhugh Lee, late of Special Forces and Judge Advocate General, into a closet office and let him see what you have not been doing for 20 years. A man like that is going to figure out what you are doing, and after that, he's going to do you in.”
“And has replaced him in terms of being chief and is brilliant,” the first bigwig said. “Not-officially-Acting Chief Lee has the department humming like a well-oiled machine in this rough week and is restoring public confidence in the department and making Mr. Halleck's job as a conservator too easy.”
“Do you think Lee will accept an appointment as chief?” the second bigwig said.
“I think it has happened, my friend,” the first bigwig said. “I don't see how Mr. Halleck undoes this and makes things work.”
“Well,” the second bigwig said, “a piece of advice: let this be the last time you are drinking in the middle of the day.”
“I know,” the first bigwig said. “This was my goodbye to Orton Thomas, and all he gave us. I know it is over. I know that if we are going to regain some semblance of dignity as a department, and even have our retirements survive in a state worth having, Henry Fitzhugh Lee as chief is inevitable at least for some period of time. Hail and farewell to the former things.”
The second bigwig considered this.
“The thing about officially-still-Captain Lee,” he said, “is that I don't think he wants the chief job.”
“And that's why he will be able to get it done, and Mr. Halleck is a fool and so is the mayor if they don't see it,” the first bigwig said. “I hate the man, with my whole soul, but I recognize the job has nothing to do with it. It is like his ancestral uncle did not ask to be called Marse Robert, but R.E. Lee's mastery could not be taken from him even by defeat. Marse Henry is who he is, and has been master of this department since last July.”
The second bigwig considered this, and then went to his office and brought out a whole bottle of champagne.
“I was going to give this to Orton for his 67th birthday,” he said. “Let's drink it tonight, in his honor. It would have been his 68th birthday tomorrow.”
“We'll toast him at midnight,” the first bigwig said. “Hail and farewell.”