The soft melody of a distant flute was the last term one would use to describe the reaction of Mrs. Margherita Milano Bell, first cousin to Magdalena Milano Thornton, when she heard of Mrs. Thornton's sudden layoff.
“Those dirty rats!”
“Well, we kind of already knew that,” Mrs. Thornton said to her cousin.
“After all you've done for the police department, and for the commissioner – how could he just stand by and let this happen?”
“Actually, Margie, they've wanted to closeout all the holdovers from my first boss's time in office since July – Orton Thomas and his involvement in the Gilligan House Burning really was an embarrassment, and the fact that two of his three secretaries were hip-deep in the corruption didn't make me or my position as the third secretary look any better.”
“But you're not corrupt!”
“Doomed by association, Margie. Commissioner Thomas broke every rule in the book to have three non-officer secretaries. If I had known that, I would never have applied for that third position. Anyway, after all the police brutality in September, and all the lawsuits that sprang from that and cases past that came to light, and then the bungling of the Ridgeline Fire, Commissioner Scott had to fight to keep me week by week. He thought we had it settled to the first of the year – then it became the first of December – then it became today.”
“They can't just fire you because you had an accident and had to take time off! How are they going to clean up corruption corruptly!”
“Good question,” Mrs. Thornton said. “But, consider this, Maggie – it's not my problem any more! I served faithfully in my position to the very last day, and made Officer Brandt ready. I feel terrible for the commissioner because this was really done earlier to spite him, but Officer Brandt is going to do a fantastic job working with him. And, consider this: now that I'm not working with the police department, that means officers there who had wanted to date me but were sticklers for professional decorum now can date me openly.”
Mrs. Bell considered this, and then smiled.
“I can think of one police captain that, after he blows his reserve completely and has a fit of temper of the old Virginian vintage in his family over what has been done to you, might be glad to know that.”
“Yeah … getting through the first three hours might be a little rough for more than just us … .”
The soft melody of a flute would also not be the correct analogy for the reaction of Captain Henry Fitzhugh Lee, himself on the cusp of having his cold case division budgeted out of existence and himself being settled into his second role as divisional commander of the disgraced Blue Ridge precinct. He and Mrs. Thornton had met in the summer in the turbulent days around the fall of Commissioner Thomas, and had seen in each other a beacon of honesty and strength in the midst of it all. Between them, love had budded in the midst of the turmoil and struggle.
Yet police headquarters was no place for romance. Too much corruption, too many jealous spirits, too many vendettas against Commissioner Scott and also against Captain Lee because of the stands they were making – too many men like Bruce Deadwood, police lieutenant moonlighting as professional hitman turned mass murderer against those who refused to pay him for his work, who were interested in Mrs. Thornton. Captain Lee had his female admirers too among the relatively few female officers on the force, and the bulk of those were a gossipy and dangerous lot as well. Such was life in a corrupt environment.
So: Captain Lee had remained his coolly professional self, and Mrs. Thornton also. They interacted largely around Commissioner Scott's needs, and that was that. No one at work was the wiser … no one at work knew how the captain and the secretary lived in the same apartment building downtown, and how one had to only walk one flight of stairs to see the other … no one at work knew about the captain coming down for dinner and often bearing gifts, and often returning with a gift of food as well … no one at work knew how the secretary's cousin had met the captain's cousin and they too had fallen in love … no one at work knew about the double dates far from Big Loft … no one at work knew about the captain's private box at the symphony at distant-enough Roanoke, VA, and that he sent a car back to Big Loft to bring the secretary to share an evening of music with him from time to time.
No one at work would ever know. Mrs. Thornton and Captain Lee had talked about all of that. There was just too much wickedness still at play, so, when she left the force, no one would know where she left her last track. She hadn't made any friends there, really – hers was a lonely position from the beginning. The other secretaries hired before her for Commissioner Thomas thought she was naïve and boring (she refused to get involved with the corruption by pretending to not understand what she was being asked to do) and only good enough for the ordinary work a commissioner's secretary was actually supposed to do. They had fallen with him, however, and that had left Mrs. Thornton alone, for which she was glad. She had not sought to change that fact. It made things less complicated in such a corrupt environment.
That also meant that no one but Commissioner and Mrs. Scott, who had the trust and admiration of both Mrs. Thornton and Captain Lee, needed to know from the police force about their plans for the future. From the rest, Mrs. Thornton would simply disappear … no one from work would know how her honest labor was truly being rewarded!
(Not even Mrs. Thornton knew just yet … Captain Lee had been born heir to a great fortune, but he hadn't shared that yet).
However: just because the plan was in place didn't mean Captain Lee appreciated having to put it into effect a month early. Like his ancestral uncle and body double, the infamous Confederate general Robert E. Lee (in his middle forties), he was meticulous and liked precision – and got exceedingly dangerous when he felt someone he loved had been wronged.
Captain Lee was also Colonel Lee, U.S. Army Reserve, in his own right – as a cadet he had gotten the nickname “Surgical Steel” and in his careers in Special Forces and Judge Advocate General he had gotten the nickname “the Angel of Death.” Mrs. Thornton already knew why the latter name had carried over to his police career – corrupt officers had this habit of underestimating the quiet, mild-mannered master of cold cases and data until they ended up stone cold dead, either from the steel of his bullet or just from his mere presence. Criminals wilted in that presence like lettuce in a steamer.
All the deadliness wrapped up in that name and lineage of Lee was in the modern marble model, with some further dangerous elements from the Madisons and Slocum-Loftons in his mother's side of his family. Genius? Absolutely? Of the type that had no problem leaving a few ten thousands dead in defense of loved ones? Just as certainly. This was the man infuriated at the way his beloved Maggie had been summarily dismissed by the police force he still worked for. Mrs. Thornton could hear it all in that cold, steely tone. It sounded like certain death.
“So that's how they want to play, eh?” he said, and Mrs. Thornton's soul shivered at the coldness.
“Apparently, Harry,” she answered. “But you know, it's all about getting the department through the storm we've been sailing against – and honestly, I'm less upset than relieved to be out of it. I did my duty to the last, and now it is done. They're paying me the next two weeks as severance.”
“They owe you a month, Maggie – right down to November 29. You would have had three paychecks. They are cheating you to save their own skins, but it will not stand. It will not. Human Resources will have to reconsider. We are not going to move forward as a police force mistreating and cheating our finest staffers. No. Absolutely not. Excuse me while I make do some research and make a few phone calls.”
Mrs. Thornton refrained from asking him what he could do when the commissioner also holding the office of chief couldn't do any more. It would have been not only a stupid question, but one she really didn't want the answer to.
The Fear of Lee was a big thing in Big Loft, VA, and across Lofton County in general. Captain Lee had snatched some of the city and county's biggest men out of their high places, broken them like toys in his grip, and made them glad to plead out just never to have to deal with him again. While he had repudiated a lot of what would have been his natural “family-style” connections with said elite men, he had cultivated friends among the relatively few but passionately honest movers and shakers of the city and county. Several of his relatives – including the interim mayor, Donald Lee Garner Jr. – were also in authority in the city and county. Captain Lee moved quietly, as befitting his Special Forces background, but every reason he was undefeated in the field was still operational in his police life.
But still, Mrs. Thornton knew Captain Lee wanted her help in transitioning from being a man of war to a man of peace … this was a good time.
“Harry,” she said gently as she stood in the doorway to block his exit, “what if I told you I felt the two paychecks were a small price to pay, so that I can be Mrs. Maggie M.T. Lee, just that much sooner, in peace? In peace, my love, in peace … .”
The mighty Lee warrior considered this for a long moment, the two parts of his nature warring with one another … she had spoken to that side of him that had been buried for 27 years after the tragic death of his first wife until the day he had opened up his heart to love Mrs. Thornton … that side of him that loved beauty, and music, and tenderness, and peace, and a woman who wanted all those things at his side.
“Is that what you are telling me?” he said. “I do not care for you ever being mistreated, Maggie – no woman who will ever be called mine will be put down in this world, so long as I am breathing.”
“What if this is the path the Lord has laid out so I can be called yours, by your name, all the sooner, and what He wants is for us to submit to the indignity of man in order to be exalted to the higher calling we have together in Him, without difficulty?”
Both Mrs. Thornton and Captain Lee were devout Christians, but Captain Lee, like a number of his Virginian forebears, was one of those Christians that could leave the enemies of his household dead or ruined by the dozens if not the thousands and sleep like a baby ever after. However, because he was a devout Christian, the inclination toward humility and meekness was well-grooved in him, and, even in the extremity of his protective anger, he listened to the Spirit of God on such matters.
Captain Lee, when he was very angry, flushed deeply in his face – he had done so even as his voice had stayed even as he described what had been done to Mrs. Thornton, and had been plum-colored by the time he had stood up, his dark eyes flashing like lightning. Yet Mrs. Thornton's soft words had reached his heart … that melody of peace that she had within her was now in the ears of his soul as well, calming him.
Seeing that Captain Lee's face turned back toward rose as the flush was ending, Mrs. Thornton rushed toward him and he opened his arms for her.
“I don't need those checks – I have you,” she murmured as he looked down at her. “We can start our life together now, in the quiet peace we planned all along – that's all I want.”
“It is not fair, what has been done to you,” he said, “but if you are willing to let it go, I will too.”
“I am, Harry – I already have what is best for me, right here.”
Captain Lee went on and melted and gave in … the Angel of Death stood down in Big Loft on this occasion, and several people kept their jobs who would have lost them. His natural protective instincts turned into another channel.
“How are you getting your things from the office back home?”
“I'm just going to walk over in the morning and get them and walk back – won't be much of a box to carry.”
“It would serve them right if you roll up in the Lexus and get your stuff.”
Captain Lee had given Mrs. Thornton the keys to his Lexus and his Ford pickup truck since her car had been wrecked. They both lived within walking distance to police headquarters, but Mrs. Thornton's community life sometimes took her farther afield, and, unlike Captain Lee, she couldn't just requisition a police car.
Mrs. Thornton laughed about the captain's comment.
“You're still itching for a fight, Harry.”
“You bet I am. How dare they? However, if you are letting it go, I'll figure out how to let it go.”
“How about this?” Mrs. Thornton said. “Let that go, because you've got something better to hold on to, just like I do.”
At last, Captain Lee showed his smile, like spring sunshine melting the deadly cold of winter, and he tightened his grip on Mrs. Thornton.
“Right. Why fight when you have already won?”
“Exactly, Harry.”
“What about your budget? You weren't expecting to go until December.”
“Yeah, but I've known I was going to go since I came. I came into the job with what I had saved from selling my old house, and kept a high savings rate all the way until Margie showed up – but she works too, and she and I have made all kinds of side money, doing cooking classes online. We pay rent and the Church in the Midst of Life reimburses us for the money we spend cooking for their ministry, and after that, she and I invest in our business and put the rest up. We already paid our rent for this month and our refrigerator and freezer and pantry stay stocked, so we're fine.
“Besides, Harry, you just gave me $500 for gas and such on Thursday night – Margie and I went on and gassed up the truck this morning after taking the lasagna to the church, because it was at half a tank, and the Lexus hasn't moved, so it's still full. I've got $480 left. I'm full, fine, and satisfied with how you're already taking care of me!”
“Oh, not as much as you are going to be in the future, Mrs. Maggie M.T. Lee-to-be … the nearer future, now.”
Mrs. Thornton's two snatched paychecks, and the way she had handled that matter, had just locked down the equivalent of ten thousand times her month's pay, even more than she had already locked it down. Not that she could read the details in the change in Captain Lee's manner and presence … but she didn't need to.
“You don't need to spoil me, Harry,” she said. “I really am content.”
“Which is why I'm going to spoil you anyway,” he said, and she laughed, not knowing that he meant what he said … .
Wonderful stuff. I’ve been away a while and just catching up.
Glad to see the course of true love running smoothly….living in the same apartment building…brilliant.
It’s the promptest of prompt delivery teams here with the word for today:
https://hive.blog/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-894-5-minute-freewrite-wednesday-prompt-scratchy
I've been away also and just taken my time getting back... but I am back!