Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

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.

Before we get started on this report, I need to clear the air.  My name is Deviled Yeggs.  My brother is Scrambled Yeggs.  Scrambled had two sons by a different woman other than Pink Lady, Rotten (now changed to Otto since Zuzka insisted the “R” and the “N” were silent anyway) and Poached Yeggs, who is now head of the Vice detectives.  A Yegg is a safe cracker.  Why did it take me a long time making the rank of lieutenant?  Captain Hart had to be sure that a Yegg in a long line of Yeggs had finally changed his spots.  Rotten went to prison for pulling a stupid prank that became deadly.  It could have been an accident, but he was a Yegg.  Scrambled never got caught, but I could crack safes better than he could.  Our father, Thousand-Year-Old Yeggs, nicknamed “Thou” by his wife, Maeve, who is between Otto and Poached in age…  Thou was released from prison, along with Rotten (Otto) because the prison was overcrowded.  My wife got him a job at the mission where he met Maeve or Dad would have robbed a bank just so he could go back to where he felt safe, in prison.  Thou, my Dad is okay these days, more than okay.  GrandPa, Millennium Yeggs gave Thou his name because he wanted no “juniors.”  GrandPa was caught leaving a Federal Reserve Bank after he had successfully robbed it – just unsuccessful on the getaway.  He was recruited by an alphabet organization just outside Washington DC to crack government safes around the world.  He put things into safes more often than stealing things from safes, but he prevented a few wars from happening and destabilized governments that were run by drug cartels or governments that were destabilizing a region.  But the bottom line here is that the Yeggs family has been cracking safes ever since the safe was invented.  It is a little-known story, but the inventor of the first safe was stupid enough to lock the key to the safe in the safe for safe keeping.  The first in my ancestry removed the key, made a copy of the key, and then returned the key to the original owner.

So, now, you will understand why I went into protection mode when Nick the Pick made his morning report.

Nick entered my office.  “Lieutenant, I have a report from Don Cahn, and I can’t figure out what to do with it.”

I sighed, “Nick, you know about robbery and burglary more than I do.  If Don was called out, it was a white-collar crime.”

Nick nodded, “But that’s it.  I have no idea if a crime has been committed.  The entire report, so far, is that the company’s safe was cracked and the only evidence of it being cracked is that there was a note in the safe saying three words, ‘I was here.’  No fingerprints.  The CEO says nothing is missing.  Don hung around to interview anyone who has access to the safe, and thus far, no one claims to have left the note.  Everyone is doing the old, ‘I see nothing.  I saw nothing.  I was not even here when it happened.’  Nobody denies knowing that there was a supposed break-in.  But the security cameras picked up nothing.  The alarm system was not disabled for any reason.  I think the CEO called us to maybe scare some internal person who cracked the safe and left the note.  But then, he thought twice after we were on our way, since the story they are telling seems more of a prank.”

I nodded, “Get a warrant, and return to the company to check their computer records.  They may have records of who was in the building at the time.  Check emails.  Interview everyone all over again.  Their story might change, or new information might have surfaced.  This looks fishy.  We have had break-ins in recent years that had ulterior motives.  I do not want to share those yet.  If one safe cracker matches the style of another, they might be trying to get to the old safe cracker.  And no one sends a message like that unless there have been threats beforehand or a follow up message afterwards.  Find the information trail before someone can delete it.  That follow-up is maybe the reason the CEO called us in, to make it harder to carry out the next phase of the caper.”

Nick nodded and left the office.  I started making phone calls.  I called in Polly and Ruthie and their new partners.  I needed to set up a meeting with family, and fast.

What was going through my mind was the caper that involved fingerprints that were supposedly GrandPa’s, but his employer outside DC had created fake prints to assist in GrandPa’s identity at the time.  Only one drug cartel would have those fingerprints.  There was the time that Mashie’s Hobbit Hole at the Hoity Toity club was rigged as a giant bomb to lure Hugh McAdoo (now Jacob Levy) in flying into Tracy where an ambush awaited.

So, since the Hobbit Hole at the Hoity Toity club was empty, I set up a family reunion.  We would have four generations of people who could crack safes in attendance.  We’d have some others who could do so.  And we’d have as many family members in attendance, for their own safety, as possible.  We needed to brainstorm and then feed that information to Nick if his present investigation might not be the best path.

There were two entrances to the underground home that Mashie and Pauline called home before building their house in the next cul-de-sac over from our home.  Both entrances were used at staggering times.  Jacob posted guards at both entrances, just in case.

GrandPa’s four children and Pink’s three youngest children were in a playroom that we quickly set up.  Greta Grunge acted as the babysitter.  Then the two Niblick children, Scarlet Ibis (Poached and Callie’s daughter), and Gigi were added as they arrived.

The safe crackers were GrandPa, Thou, Scrambled and me, Poached and Otto, Mashie and Pauline, Jacob and Dinah, and Elroy.  Maeve refused to leave the mission, but she allowed us to bring the twins to safety.  Ruthie and Dieter acted as guards for Maeve.  Jacob sent a couple of his people into the mission pretending to be homeless.  Pauline and my wife, Naomi, gave Randy a couple of classes and cancelled a couple of them.  Luckily, Callie, wife of Poached, was not teaching today.  Missy MacDougall and Norene Moore would take care of the operation of Lily the Pink, while Joseph Jones would take care of all counseling sessions.

I started to speak, and Gigi broke into the room and ran to hug me.  “Hug, Daddy!”

I softly replied after wrapping my arms around her, “Gigi, you need to stay with Nurse Greta.  I am at work right now.”

Gigi looked serious, “Who you putting the cups on, Daddy?  They look like family!”

I smiled, “They are family.”

Dinah jumped up and raised her hands.  “I volunteer.  Dev can put the cuffs on me!”

After the laughter died down, Gigi was still laughing, “Aunt Dinah is funny!”

I said, “No cuffs today, at least not here.  Part of my job is to protect.”

Gigi ran back to the other room.  Naomi wanted to go with her, but I thought some non-safe crackers might have ideas.  I told everyone about how GrandPa was implicated in more than one safe cracking in the Tracy area to flush him out of hiding, but now, he did not hide.  GrandPa is now back on oxygen.  He will be ninety-nine later this year, but I am sure he could still open a safe easily.  I explained how the room that we were in had once been a gigantic bomb, just missing a few critical elements to get Jacob Levy into the crosshairs of a sniper.  I explained that we had a lot of people who had been trained as safe crackers in the room.

Dinah again raised her hand, “I took the training, but these fingers are skilled at finding an erogenous zone, but I flunked safe cracking.”

I then gave all I knew from Nick’s report, actually from Don Cahn’s report.  I explained what Nick and his team were doing.  And I opened the floor for brainstorming.

GrandPa said, “I have three drug cartels that would love to see me dead, but unless Jacob has recent information, I doubt if they are actively trying to kill a man who hasn’t got a lot of time left.”  Jacob admitted that he had no information on anyone in the room that might cause someone to heighten police interest toward known safe crackers.  GrandPa continued, “But we don’t know if this was a safe cracking or not.  If not, someone placed a note in the safe to make the CEO a little jittery.  The report is that nothing was taken.”

Thou added, “Yeah, like we can trust this CEO.  What if someone took something to blackmail or frame the CEO for something we don’t know about.  Is this CEO a likable guy?  Maybe someone is targeting him, and these aggressors that are presently unknown have no idea that there are a number of safe crackers in town.  How many people know that a Yegg is a safe cracker?”

Jemima said, “I don’t have any ideas, but do you have eyes and ears on Easy?  He’s on a storm chase.”

I nodded, “Yes, Jacob pulled some strings and there is a loose tail, people in plain clothes, and they are at the moment looking at a debris field, so the guards will pretend to be passing motorists who are helping the victims.  Easy is well guarded, with drones in the air, pretending to be photographing the damage.”

Jacob smiled, “They are photographing the damage and if this is all for naught, they will share their video with B.B.  I think this is a good training exercise, even if this is an inside job like Millennium and Thou think it might be.”

Poached said, “But if it is blackmail or a frame, we should be getting some follow-up report from Nick soon.”

I said, “My latest text is that the CEO is bent out of shape that we are freezing the computer records and emails.  He really did not like the fact that Nick showed up with a warrant.”

Otto laughed, “I think people do not like this guy.  But other than Granddad or GrandPa, I do not think that anyone even knows us.  What kind of safe was it?”

I shrugged, “I have seen a couple of photos.  It seems one of these digital locks.”

Thou smiled, “My guess is that the CEO’s password has been compromised.  You said before the meeting that the CEO is a stickler for memorizing your passwords, but there are so many passwords and they change often.  I think the CEO is a big ‘do as I say, not as I do.’  I’m thinking the safe wasn’t broken, so that leaves us with the password.”

GrandPa chuckled, “The older digital keypads can give away the password.  It’s the numbers that are more worn than the others.  Then you check the important dates in the CEO’s life: wedding day, birthday, day he made CEO, things like that.  If he isn’t arrogant, but I think he is, it could be a birthday of a favorite relative.  That gives you the order of the worn keys.  But I knew one guy who did his grandmother’s birthday backwards.  I still got into his safe.”

Jacob said, “I like what you did here, Dev.  If one of us is the bad guy, you would sniff us out.  But if the prank is a lure to get us into the open, we are now warned, and for the moment safe.  I think you and Elroy need to set up some kind of communication chain so that we know to get under cover.  As for Dinah and I, we have a large panic room, about a third of the house.  But going there provides us with safety, and if I had pulled this prank, you would not have eyes on me.  And I would not be here to work on the brainstorming.  I agree with GrandPa and Thou though.  It all depends on the next communication from the prankster, and the CEO involving the police at the onset nay have scrambled the entire caper.  Sorry, Scrambled, no offense.”

Scrambled laughed.  “No offense taken.  I am enjoying this.  Being a baker, you rarely get a day off.  This forced me to sit back and relax.  It is doubly enjoyable watching my brother over there running around like a chicken with his head cut off.  He means well, but until we get more information, this could all be a waste of time.  But knowing that I have a brother like that is a powerful gift.”

Poached had been in the corner, working on the internet.  “Lieutenant, ummm, Uncle Dev, ummm.  There are not many police in the room, mostly family, but this is a police matter.  What do I call you?”

I groaned, “Poached, you have my attention.  Just tell me.”

Poached nodded, “Don Cahn gave me access to the CEO’s laptop.  I examined deleted emails.  When you delete files, you don’t delete the information.  You are deleting the registry of where the information is.  So, if you have not replaced that space with new information, then you can recreate the documents.  Sometimes, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle, the bigger the document, the more fragments it might be in.  That’s what those software packages that improve computer efficiency do, at least in part.  They rewrite the information so that it is in one block rather than several blocks scattered here and there.  You get that when you create and delete a lot of stuff.  You know, misshaped holes here and there.”

Scrambled laughed, “I know what you mean, Dev.  He talks a lot, but so far he hasn’t said anything.”

Poached reddened, “Okay, I found a deleted email from the head of project management to the CEO saying that he will return the photos of the CEO and his girlfriend when everyone who worked on a recently completed project, two or three of those, will get paid back pay and a free day off, staggered so that not everyone is off at one time.  They worked Christmas day and New Years Day without pay to get the projects complete.  They do not want to jump ship and go to the competition, but they will and then the photographs will become public.  This manager, maybe a VP, knows that the real money is from his wife’s family.”

Elroy asked, “Does he say how he broke into the safe?”

Poached snickered, “He’s not going to do that in case he has to do it again.”

My text chimed.  It was from Nick the Pick.  I read it to the crowd.  “Not much of a safe crack, Lt.  I was on the floor looking at the bottom of the desk.  Don needed something out of the center drawer, so he leaned over me and opened the drawer.  That’s when I saw it.  Whoever the safe cracker is, he must have stumbled over the CEO’s note to himself.  You need a mirror to read it correctly, but I can do that without a mirror.  The CEO has written the passkey for the safe, and his major passwords.  Whoever stumbled over this can bleed the CEO’s bank accounts dry while maxing out his credit cards.  But who is this guy?”

I added, “Poached, send Nick the person’s name, not a report.  We need this wrapped up as soon as possible.”  I turned to the crowd, “I guess everyone can go back to what they were doing.”

Naomi stood up and raised a hand, “Not on your life, Big Fella.  We are all hungry.”  She smiled and winked.

Dinah said, “I’ll call the kitchen staff, and they can prepare a catered meal and deliver it to the tractor shed entrance to the hobbit hole.  How many do we have in here?”

Elroy was already on the phone with the guards at the entrances to our hiding place.  They could relax and when the food arrived, they would get to eat also. The guards that Jacob had used were the men that worked at the mysterious hanger at the airport.  They did not usually get a free meal.

The next day, Captain Hart called me into his office.  “Yeggs!  I know what you did yesterday.  You involved police assets to protect your family when it turned out they didn’t need protection.  I should take the cost of this escapade out of your hide and put you back to walking a patrol.”

I said, “You said ‘should’, Captain, Oh, Captain.  Was that just a slip of the tongue?”

Captain Hart shook his head, “Naw, I would do the same if it were my family.  And you are a good guy for reading people.  You also had Pauline Niblick there and someone whispered to me that she is a walking, talking lie detector.  If someone in the room was hiding something, you would know.  But maybe a third of them yahoos were Feds.  The next time, it’s on their ticket.  Got it?!”

“Oh, Captain, My Captain, I hear you loud and clear.”

Gisele leaned over and kissed her husband.  I would say she was kissing the boss, but she seemed to run the precinct.  She suggested, “Lieutenant, turn the light off when you leave.  When my man flexes his muscles like this, I get the feeling he needs some personal attention.”

As I reached for the light switches, I glanced back.  Gisele had curled up in Al’s lap and he was kissing her.  In the past, they had protested that they had never had any “afternoon delight” while on the job.  Was this a change in their personal moral code?  Then it hit me, I am a detective, and I should have thought of this a long time ago.

It could not be afternoon delight.  It was still morning.

Credits

Here is the Starland Vocal Band singing Afternoon Delight

And there are people who have built Hobbit Holes.  You can find videos of them online.

I had a boss who made a floppy disk backup of his files.  One floppy was fine, since he barked orders rather than doing much work.  He hid the floppy disk on the bottom of his desk, held there by a giant magnet.  If you don’t know how floppy discs worked, they contained information on a magnetic disc.  Using a magnet to hold it to a metal surface erased the disc, or jumbled things sufficiently that nothing could be read.

I have been in organizations that required multiple passwords and writing down the passwords could get you fired, but that never stopped the boss writing his passwords.  I cheated.  I wrote a cryptic message, a series of numbers.  No one knew that the six numbers were page numbers in a thesaurus, followed by the number down the page of words.  And then my password was the first four letters of each of those words.  These days, you need letters, numbers, and specialty characters.

And “Oh Captain, My Captain” is a poem by Walt Whitman, an elegy mourning the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  It is also a well-repeated line from the movie, Dead Poet’s Society.