BTW when you are done reading this chapter. If you think thinking is fun; if you think philosophy should be for everyone try reading TheMapThinker.com
Police Chief Collars stared at the paper. What kind of crap was this. And he was supposed to send someone out to check? Regardless it looked like he had little choice. It was trivia, but on the off chance, if he didn’t handle it by the book it could bite him bad.
Collars had a habit of wearing a white shirt open at the neck and black pants held up with black suspenders. His black hair was showing specks of grey and his mouth was showing signs of permanent down turns at the corners of the lips. He was overweight but had plenty of natural muscle to compensate for any loss. He could still run and still tackle when he needed too, but fortunately the days when he needed to were falling behind him.
Collars snorted.
More incompetence. Total lack of understanding they were trying to run a police force here. Trying to get a job done.
Collars was sick of incompetence. Incompetence from the rule makers. Incompetence from above. Incompetence from his own staff. He was especially sick of Morgan. A candy rich kid who had way too many connections in all the wrong places.
Now his last partner had gotten hurt. Possibly permanently. Probably because of him.
Why had he become a cop in the first place? His mother had the money to send him to the top colleges anywhere. Yet he chose to become a cop. Not likely. That kid was after more than being the CEO of some big company. A lot more.
Collars became a cop because being raised in a marginally middle class neighborhood he saw crime and injustice first hand. Well, almost first hand. A few blocks away.
When it came time to choose a life for himself his parents couldn’t afford some fancy college but they could afford a decent trade school. A starry eyed kid at the time he didn’t want to be a diesel mechanic or phlebotomist so he chose cop. The choice had given him a good life and stood him well, although it took him years to adjust to the chomprimises and politics that dogged any attempt at real justice.
Not the Morgan kid though. He knew about politics. It still burned when Collars thought about the time he had taken Morgan with him and some others to do some routine patrol of an event the mayor was involved in.
Morgan was a raw recruit, barely on the job a week. Yet the mayor spotted him instantly, called him by his first name, shook hands with him, and congratulated him on doing a great job and on getting his new uniform — before he even recognized Collars existed. And then only with standard formal acknowledgement.
Collars tapped the paper. Yeah, he’d give it to him to do. Hopefully he would screw it up so bad Collars be rid of him.
After the mayor incident Collars did some serious checking.
Morgan, through his mother, knew every person in town “worth knowing.” For a while Collars was baffled. He treated it like a case to solve. And solve it he did.
If you thought of the police job as a stepping stone, one to more power through political maneuvering, then it was simple. Morgan was after his job. Once there he and his power friends in the city could run things as they wished. The very fact Morgan had run interference with, and for, the Langlins and their nanny showed what would happen if he ever got power.
“Well,” thought Collars, “if he wants to climb the latter he may as well start on the bottom rung.” It was a crap assignment, give it to the crap cop with no partner.
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The Homewrecker Series (tm) 
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