I’m Lieutenant Deviled Yeggs.  I work homicide in the big city of Tracy.  Working for me are my old partners: Detective Sgt. Jim Wednesday and Detective Poached Yeggs, my nephew who is slowly becoming a good detective.  But then again, I have all the detectives in the big city of Tracy reporting to me.  Even so, I HELP them when they need help, but I WORK homicide.

I was doing my paperwork all day.  The squad room was empty.  We had so many reports of vandalism from before the workday began that we did not even have a morning meeting.  It did not matter what discipline of detective you were, everyone was out chasing vandalism calls.  So far, there was no acts of violence, but the vandalism was going to cost the businesses, or the insurance companies, a small fortune.  Every corner of the city was being affected.

Of course, the uniformed patrol personnel were also involved.  The sirens on the street seemed to be constantly wailing.  Hmmm.  Seemed like banshees shrieking and wailing.  But those female spirits only do that when someone was about to die.  As I mentioned, no violence that I knew of.

But other than the constant wail of police sirens, it was quiet in the squad room.  That helped me in my office since there was no soundproofing at all between my office and the squad room.  Captain Hart was probably taking a nap.  Don’t let Boaz know that he does that.  Captain Hart yelled at everyone, especially me, back a few years ago.  But after his wife died from a disease that slowly took her life over many years, Captain Al Hart mellowed.  And with him marrying the precinct secretary, Gisele, his nickname of “All Heart” almost fits, instead of being sarcastic.  It was so quiet, I could hear Gisele typing.

But then, near the end of the normal workday, the detectives came back into the precinct.  They were all in good spirits even though no vandals had been apprehended.  They were even laughing.

Captain Hart and I came out of our offices to see why a room full of detectives could be so full of mirth.

Being second in command of detectives under my leadership, Jim Wednesday spoke for the entire crew.  “Dev, we have been to every corner of the county.  Roughly one hundred Murphy Burger joints were vandalized today.  There large blue ‘M’ was turned one direction or another.  A ‘W’ here. An ‘E’ there. A ‘3’ somewhere else.  Not an ‘M’ in sight.  In each case, there was graffiti on the windows.  When it made any sense at all, the graffiti said, ‘Guilty!’”

“What else?” I asked.

Nick the Pick, head of Robbery/Burglary, said, “All the O’Brien Tire places had graffiti that said, ‘Imposter.’  And there was an ‘S’ painted over their logo on the signs in front of the stores.  Right on the little guy’s chest.”

Don Cahn, our white-collar crime expert, said, “I investigated an environmental disaster in the river.  I didn’t join in any of the vandalism chases.  Somebody poured something into the river that made the river turn green.  I tried to follow the source, but it went all the way into Stout County, so I called Undersheriff Tuesday Wednesday, Jim’s wife.  She traced the spill into the county north of Stout County.”

I asked, “This was happening in broad daylight.  Do we have any witnesses?”

Bones Rattler, our vice detective specializing in gambling, said, “Sure!  At practically every location except for the river thing, we have witnesses who claim to have seen a short guy with a green hat.  You’d think a short guy with short legs would be easy to catch, but he got away every time.”

Something was rolling around in my head.  There were bits of thoughts from all this that tied together, but what?

Poached said, “I took that last O’Brien complaint.  I found a note attached to the sign in front of the store.  It reads, ‘Imposter.  There is no proper blood in you to claim the name O’Brien.  And your mascot and logo that you’ve named Ewan.  I recognize that fellow anywhere.  Everybody knows that his name is Seamus.’”

Georges added, “And I found a note at one of the Murphy Burger restaurants.  It reads, ‘Manifesto to the Guilty.  I doubt if anyone named Murphy has ever worked here.  You are misappropriating a fine name to sell burgers.  And the burgers should be named something else.  There is hardly any beef in the things.  And the fries make the Irish eyes cry.  They are so full of that Genetically Modified Organism stuff that you should never refer to them as potatoes!  And if you really were Irish, you’d be a fish sandwich place.  Murphy means “Sea Warrior” if you didn’t know.’”

It finally clicked, “So, every detective in the big city of Tracy has been chasing leprechauns all day.  Do you realize how much money you have spent on the farce?”

Beau Junko, our guy in Bunco, said, “But the vandalism was real, sir!”

Then our new detective in Robbery/Burglary spoke up, young Paddy McCreary said, “But sir, if we could have just caught one and gotten his pot o’ gold, the Tracy police department would be well funded for decades!”

At that moment, I felt a sharp pain in my backside.

I turned around and Gisele leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, “Lieutenant Yeggs, Sweetie, next time look at the calendar.  And if you drop your pants and show me your green underwear, I will apologize for the pinch.”

HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY

Credits

My late wife’s sister, the one that was not in our wedding party, was in Okinawa at the time with her husband who worked there for a short time. They said that a local restaurant on the island, not a burger joint, misappropriated a particular “M” from a famous American Restaurant chain, but they turned it so that it looked like an “E”. And that memory from fifty years ago gave me the idea for this little story.

All the detectives have been mentioned in past episodes except for Paddy McCreary.  When putting this story together, I remembered an old man in Port Acres, Texas.  I hardly knew him, not being from the area, but everyone in town knew him and loved him.  He was just what Jesus told us all to be.  He loved everyone and he leant a hand to help everyone.  I don’t know that I ever learned his given name.  He was always mentioned, along with fond memories, as Mr. McCreary.  And so, I dedicate this story to him.