Death And Donuts

Chapter 1 - Spontaneous Combustion, Pink Glazed Donuts, and a Snitch.

'Who the hell do they think they are?'

A vein bulged from the burly, old police sergeant's neck as he flung a manila folder across the desk, sending sheets of case evidence and suspect photos flying like leaves in autumn. Two of his idiotic officers had been lazing on the job again and now he had to deal with their mistakes. He attempted momentarily to compose himself and turned to the young assistant in the doorway, nervously clutching the morning paper. Her light brown hair had been messily thrown into a bun, and strands of it dangled out and framed her petite little face. She extended her hand and gestured for him to read it.

'Uh, well sir I think you'd like to-'

'Give it here.' He sighed, moving towards her and grabbing the paper from her hands. He opened the folded newspaper and ran his eyes down the page.

The local paper wasn't much of a credible source of information, but more of a way for the small town's collection of nosy journalists to spread gossip. The entire front page was dedicated to a snobbish article proclaiming how the small town's police department was unqualified and lazy, thanks to the actions of a certain two individuals who were probably about to lose their jobs.

The sergeant said nothing. His face was flushed red and it looked like he was on the verge of spontaneously combusting. The awkward silence of the room prompted the assistant, wide eyed and jittery, to pipe up.

'Ah, Mr Bentre, sir, would you like me to call them in?'

The two locked eyes.

'If they aren't here in five minutes, consider them fired.'

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'Hey Dan, do you think it's kinda cliché that we're eating pink glazed donuts when we're supposed to be on patrol? Like isn't that a police stereotype?'

The young police officer took another bite out of his third donut before replying.

'Well we don't have much else to do around here. The population here is like six hundred people,' he smirked, 'no one even needs the police.'

It was true, barely anything worth noting ever happened in their entire area; especially not during heavy snow in winter. The two officers had spent the last three boring hours parked in the lot of Doley's Donuts exchanging opinions on cat breeds, of all things.

Just as his co-worker was about to add more to the insightful conversation on stereotypes in media, the phone sitting on the dashboard buzzed.

'I vote to ignore it'

Daniel's lifelong friend grabbed the phone to answer the call. Putting it to his ear, he immediately recognized the quiet voice of Maureen, the assistant to the absolutely delightful Sergeant Bentre.

'Hello? Oliver? Ah, Serge needs you back at the station. Right now.'

Oliver looked over at Daniel, who was about to make a start on his forth donut, and silently mouthed 'It's Maureen'.

'Right now? Did he drop his keys in the toilet again? I keep telling him to get a lanyard.'

A faint wheeze escaped Daniel's lips. The two officers' sense of humor was no higher than that of a six year old's.

'Ah no, he uh, heard about you two lazing off while on patrol. He's not too happy about it.'

'Damn snitches, we'll be there in two.'

'I hope so.'

Daniel raised a brow and asked about the phone call, pulling the lid down on the box of donuts and putting it in the back seat as he did so.

'Who snitched?'

He flicked the ignition, bringing the patrol car to life. Oliver slid the phone into his pocket and turned up the radio, filling the air with some random pop song that was charting at the time.

'Dunno.' he grinned, 'But I bet the Serge is gonna kick our asses when we get back to the station.'

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'Look Serge, I'm not gonna say we didn't, but who really gives a toss?'

The Serge, to say the least, wasn't too happy when the two officers strolled into his office; partially because they were two hours late, and partially because they were just idiots.

'Well, Mr Creakly,' he replied nonchalantly, 'I'm afraid that many people "give a toss"- including myself.'

Oliver and Daniel casually slouched themselves into the two plastic chairs in front of the Serge's desk. Neither of them seemed too concerned about getting reprimanded, or even the possibility of losing their jobs. Oliver rolled his eyes and spoke.

'Come on, it isn't that bad. Nothing even happened.' he pointed to Daniel, 'Like I'm pretty sure Dan fell asleep in the first hour'

Daniel threw his hands up in a childish manner and faked a shocked expression.

'Jeeze, throwing me under the bus much!'

'Kepps, shut your trap. Something did actually happen yesterday Creakly, but you two were too busy doing who knows what to notice.'

Both Oliver and Daniel looked at each other with a bizarre expression. Slightly taken aback, Oliver sat up as the Serge placed an unmarked folder on the desk.

'I find that hard to believe.' His eyes ran over the folder, 'The last "exciting" thing that happened here was that time three months ago when Kate found that goose in her back seat of her car.'

The Serge sighed and shook his head. He was slowing coming to terms with the fact that both men had no intent on improving themselves, and that this was all utterly pointless. He coughed into a closed fist and cleared his throat.

'There was a robbery. Two streets away from where you were parked.'

A curse word rhyming with a sailing vessel silently escaped Daniel's lips. How could they have missed a robbery? Well he had fallen asleep, but still, how didn't either of them notice?

Oliver ran a hand through his blonde-white hair. His normal, bright smile and cocky personality had been replaced with a gaping mouth.

'Wait, what?! How? What got stolen?'

The Serge opened the folder on the desk and read from a sheet.

'A knife set, 6 of them, from the antique store.' replied the Serge, 'They weren't worth much, only about 20 dollars each, so we aren't sure why the thief choose them instead of something else.'

Daniel leaned in to take a look at the files. There wasn't much.

'Any idea who the thief is yet?'

'No. I've handed over all of the evidence found to Samuels. He doesn't have much to work with though.'

Oliver attempted to reason with the Serge, rambling on that he couldn't understand how he'd let this happen, or how on Earth he hadn't of heard anything while only two streets away.

'I don't want to hear it Creakly,' the Serge sighed, 'This is a final warning. If the press finds out about you repeating this, there will be more serious consequences.'