“You’re letting me go?”
“This internship just isn’t working out for either of us, Lucy.” Bret at least looked me in the eye when he was firing me.
“Well…”
“You receive too many personal calls when on duty.”
“Bret—“
“…Which I could forgive—eventually—but the bottom line is that you play by your own rules and not mine. I need detectives who can take orders. Lucy, you want to give them. I can’t have that.”
He had a point and I hated working with Mark, the world’s worst detective. I glanced around Bret’s well-organized office. His massive wooden desk sat in front of a large window looking out on the city below. Papers, pens, staplers and books were in neat piles giving his workspace an orderly appearance. I flashed on the desk at the movie theater and the chaos living there. He really did have a point. I thrived on the chaos and took my cues from life as it came. I didn’t like taking orders; I didn’t like giving them. My style was pulling one thread at a time until I discovered the prize at the end of the trail. It wasn’t hard to explain.
Even though I was relieved to go, I felt like I’d let Mr. Warner down. After all, he’d gotten me the gig. Leaving Bret’s office, his secretary gave me a sympathetic smile and waved goodbye. Luckily, Mark was nowhere in sight. I didn’t need to say goodbye to him and wanted to even less.
Before reaching my car, my cell phone rang and I hoped to heaven that it wasn’t my dad. He was still out of town visiting my sister in England but the man had an uncanny ability to place his finger on my rapidly beating pulse. I glanced at the caller identification and relaxed.
“Mr. Warner. How are you?”
“Lucy. I’m glad I caught you. I just wanted to let you know that my neighbors and I are still your biggest fans and everyone wants to thank you again for the great work you did in finding our pets.”
I smiled. It felt good. “Thank you so much. Your call couldn’t have come at a better time.”
“Why’s that?”
Should I tell him? He’s going to find out anyway…Might as well be from me.
“Lucy?”
“Bret just fired me, Mr. Warner.”
A small gasp. “What? Are you kidding me? You just solved the disappearance of our dogs and the Alain LeBeau mystery!”
“…Neither of which was done for the Bret Holmes Detective Agency.”
“Well, sure but still, it was good work.”
“I think so too but Bret and I butted heads too much. I haven’t wanted to tell you, Mr. Warner, since you were nice enough to get me the job but it hasn’t been going well for some time.”
“What didn’t work?”
My father would have been yelling at me for not being able to commit to something. My university advisor, with a never-ending well of compassion, just wanted to hear my side of it. I tried not to sigh audibly.
“I had to job shadow a man with the credentials, but not with any common sense. I think he learned more from me than I did from him.” I paused, took another breath to tell him all of it. “But Bret fired me for taking personal calls and not being able to follow his orders.”
“Is that true, Lucy?”
“Yes.” I nodded vigorously. “Yes, it is.”
I could hear him chuckle on the other end. “Well, it’s nothing to be ashamed of and…”
“I’m not.”
“…And nothing to be embarrassed about either. You need to work for yourself, Lucy. You know that, don’t you?”
I shuffled my feet, shrugged half-heartedly. “Next time I come into some money, I’ll consider it. For now, it’s back to the movie theater.”
“Things will work out,” he encouraged, “just give it some time. Let it fall into place as it should.”
That sounded more Zen than practical, but he was a nice man and he was trying. I had to give him that much.
“Thanks, Mr. Warner.”
“Stop by my office soon, Lucy. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
I smiled. “Thanks. I’ll do that.”
Work at the movie theater that day was a relief. It was familiar, it was comfortable and it wasn’t a stakeout cooped up with a stinky guy. I puttered around making sure the fickle popcorn popper was working, the bathrooms were clean and the projectors were all rolling. It gave me a sense of accomplishment that Megan was handily working the candy counter and hadn’t had one fight yet with a movie patron. The day was young however.
Bobby was happily taking tickets without the slightest evidence of paint on his face. All was well when I went into the manager’s office and found Kevin going through the books.
“Another audit coming up?”
“Yes.” He raked a hand through thinning hair and ventured a half-smile in my direction. “I haven’t mentioned it to you since you’ve seemed so distracted lately.”
“I’m good. No worries.”
“Which means you’ve solved another puzzle.” He stuck up a hand when I opened my mouth. “No! Don’t tell me. I’ve got too much work to do to listen. And besides…”
“…Besides what?” I sat on the rickety chair in front of the desk. I moved forward to push off some flyers.
“You’re probably going to have new trouble on your hands.”
“What?”
He put down his pen and looked at me. “You haven’t noticed?”
“Noticed what?”
“For a detective-in-training, Lucy, you miss clues occasionally.”
I swallowed, twisted in my seat. “Missed what exactly?”
“Megan and Butch.”
“What about them?”
He placed his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “Butch moved in with her.”
My mouth dropped open in surprise. “When did that happen?”
“When you were caught up in that dog-napping caper. You wandered around here in a fog.”
“Well, it hit home when my dog was kidnapped too.”
“Understandable but I think it’s going to lead to problems.”
“What is?”
“You know Megan. Pink and yellow hair moves in with purple Mohawk guy. They’re going to come to blows or something and it’ll go down here. Probably in front of movie patrons. I see trouble with a capital T.”
I almost laughed. I envisioned staid Kevin breaking into a song from The Music Man like Professor Harold Hill. He pointed a finger my way.
“I expect you to keep them in line.”
“It’ll be fine, Kevin.”
I rose to get back to work.
“Oh, and one more thing.”
I took a step towards the door. “What’s that?”
“Talk to her today.”
“Megan?”
“Yes.” He buried his nose in his paperwork. “She wants that parrot you’re trying to unload.”
I brightened immediately. “She does? Excellent. I’ll go talk to her now.”
He shook his head and mumbled. “…She wants to take it to her poetry group. I work with a bunch of nuts.”
I left the office and shut the door softly with a big smile parked on my face. And it stayed there as I crossed the lobby to talk to Megan about Napoleon. There was a certain symmetry in how things were beginning to fall in place. Maybe Mr. Warner was right.
The universe was straightening itself out.
* * *