The opportunity to smuggle tomatoes

From The Everywhere Girl Diaries – a work of fiction

Third week of November, year one

Dear Diary,

So, I think I’m going to have to come up with a story.  I know that when I’m home for Thanksgiving, Mom and Dad will want to know just what kind of company I work for.  I don’t think I should tell them, especially after the conversation I had yesterday.

Mr. Mallard called while I was in the office and we ended up talking for a long time.  I’d taken a message for him from one of the detectives at the police station and when I told him he let it slip that they (the police) were his new big client.

According to him, there’s something big going down.  They’ve pretty much brought in every PI, retired cop, security guard, and detective wannabe in the city to try to stop whatever this thing is.

He didn’t want to tell me anything more, so I just kept asking questions.

He told me that this “situation” involves some small time criminal.  For years, the guy had been responsible for no end of illegal activity in the community, but the police could never prove it.  Finally, he’d gone to prison on false evidence.  He’d been in for seven years, and had just gotten out a couple of months ago.

He said the less I knew the better, so I told him I would just Google it.

He told me that the guy’s name was Spectrum. Considering all the bad things he’d done, Spectrum realized that he’d gotten off easy.  Still, he was cranky that he’d been sent away on planted evidence.  The day he was released he told the mayor that he was planning seven crimes.  He wanted to see if the police were actually smart enough to crack a case.  If they catch any of the perpetrators, Spectrum said he will retire to Florida.  If all seven crimes are successfully carried out, he will move his extended family and everyone of his low life friends into the area and they will wreak havoc. In comparison, Gotham City would look like Minneapolis.

He said that that was all I needed to know, so I asked him why he’d had the locks changed.

He told me that he’d done some volunteer work at the county jail, working with some of the prisoners to plant a garden.  It was part of their rehabilitation program.  When you work that closely with people, you get to know them pretty well.  He’d made some “friends”. Some of them had heard things and some of them were willing to share – for a price, like the opportunity to smuggle the best tomatoes back to their cell.  So, the reason I’ve been watching for pizza tweets? - a tip from some guy who loves his home grown tomatoes.

He said that that was absolutely, positively all that I needed to know.

I’m going to tell Mom and Dad that I work for a photographer.