American Adventure: My Uncle is Don Quixote

Why am I still a cop? Noah asked himself for the thousandth time as he climbed the steps on his metal prosthesis. ’This damn ground is covered in snow. It’s so slick I almost fell.’

Senior Detective Noah Brennan walked with a steady rhythm. First, his right foot planted firmly on the ground, then he rotated his hip, swinging his left thigh and the prosthesis forward.

And with every step, a familiar, needle-like pain shot up from his non-existent left calf. ’Fack, it’s been gone for over a decade!’

Phantom limb pain. The doctors said it was his brain "remembering" a leg that no longer existed.

Noah Brennan found the explanation utterly absurd. It was like someone telling you, "Your ex-wife may have run off with someone else, but you still have to pay the bills she left behind." ’Yeah, thanks. That makes me feel so much better.’

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

Noah Brennan limped onto the loading dock. ’Damn it. Why does everyone here have two good legs?’

A group of people was already standing on the dock.

The warehouse supervisor, Dennis, dressed in gray work clothes, was squatting on the ground smoking. Koens, the regional operations director for Gatorade, paced back and forth, rubbing his red hands. The engineer hadn’t left yet; he was huddled behind a truck, playing on his phone.

Noah’s gaze passed over their heads and settled on an ajar side door above the dock. Near the entrance lay a section of a broken water pipe, its copper drain valve split open.

Then he simply stood there, motionless as a statue.

Koens was the first to notice the limping man.

He was in his forties, rail-thin, and looked as if he’d been soaked in ice water. His gray-green eyes were half-lidded, and he wore a nondescript teal jacket with an NYPD badge pinned to it.

He stopped at the entrance, looking like a cane forgotten in a corner.

Ten seconds.

Thirty seconds.

Koens glanced at his watch, then back at the motionless, crippled cop. His lips parted, as if he wanted to say something.

"Mr. Koens, please don’t disturb Detective Noah Brennan," the claims adjuster said. "This is how he works."

"What’s he doing?" Koens whispered. "He hasn’t even gone inside."

Noah hadn’t gone inside. He was standing at the entrance, carefully examining the marks on the doorframe.

’Aluminum alloy frame, industrial-grade side door, hinges on the left, latch on the right, electronic keycard lock. The most common model for warehouses in North America.’

’No pry marks on the lock.’

’But on the right side of the frame, opposite the latch, the aluminum is dented inward.’

Two voices started arguing in his head.

’See that? The doorframe was squeezed inward.’

’Could’ve been hit by a forklift.’

’If a forklift hit it, the dent would be lower. This one’s about four feet off the ground, right at an adult’s arm level.’

’You think someone bent an aluminum doorframe with their bare hands?’

’I didn’t say bare-handed. Maybe they used a tool, like a pipe wrench.’

’A pipe wrench would leave marks. There aren’t any here.’

’Shut up, Noah.’

’No, you shut up.’

He glanced again at the broken drain valve on the ground, the one the engineer had fished out of the water. As he stared at it, a faint smile touched his lips.

Noah stood at the entrance for a full three minutes before slowly turning to face the group of people, who were by now frozen stiff.

"This door—does it usually open inward or outward?"

Koens stared blankly for a second. "What?"

"The door," Noah said, pointing behind him with his chin. "In or out?" ’This idiot. Was I not speaking English?’

"Inward," Dennis answered, stubbing out his cigarette as he stood up.

Noah nodded. He walked over to the doorframe and squatted down, bending his right leg while his stiff prosthesis stuck out awkwardly to the side. ’Damn it. That whole crowd is over there, laughing at me. They must think I look absolutely pathetic. Poor Noah Brennan.’

He reached out, pressing his gloved fingers against the dent.

"Mr. Koens," he said without looking up, "what’s the actual production cost for these drinks?"

"What does that have to do with the investigation?"

"Answer my question."

"Around... four or five hundred thousand USD," Koens said reluctantly.

"Four to five hundred thousand," Noah repeated, struggling to his feet. "So why did you insure it for ten million?" ’Idiots. Another stupid insurance fraud case.’

The loading dock suddenly fell silent.

Koens frowned. "Look... Detective Noah Brennan, this is standard commercial insurance practice. We’re not just insuring the value of the goods, but also for indirect losses, like supply chain disruption and damage to our brand’s reputation—"

"I know what consequential loss coverage is," Noah cut him off. "But Mr. Koens, there’s something I’m afraid I have to tell you."

He pulled a grimy business card from his pocket and handed it to a very reluctant Koens.

"The doorframe was bent from the outside in, and the height and shape of the dent don’t match any known type of mechanical impact," he stated, delivering his judgment. "The fire suppression pipe broke at the valve joint. A copper valve’s thermal expansion coefficient is lower than iron’s, which means it’s actually *less* likely to crack from freezing."

"Add to that the fire alarm system malfunctioning on the same night, and your security guard happening to be unreachable... Mr. Koens, there are only so many coincidences in the world. Once you’ve used them all up, that’s it."

"What exactly are you trying to say?" Koens could feel a headache coming on.

"What I’m saying is," Noah said, turning and clacking his way toward the steps of the dock, "I suspect this was sabotage. And Atlantic United Insurance will refuse any payout until that possibility has been ruled out."

"Gatorade—the Pepsi Group—would commit insurance fraud?" Koens hurried after him. "Do you have any idea how much we donate to the police union every year—"

"If you want to file a complaint, my office number is on the card," Noah said, pausing at the top of the steps to look back. "But I’d suggest you call on a weekday between 10 a.m. and noon. I’m usually in a better mood then." ’These damn, slippery steps. Couldn’t they have made the incline a little more gradual?’

Right now, more than catching these insurance-scamming morons, he wanted to find the inventor of stairs and introduce them to a world of pain.

With that, he limped down from the dock and climbed into his Ford Taurus.

He started the old car, taking a sip from a cup of cold coffee.

The Ford Taurus shuddered with a cough, then started forward in fits and starts, much like Noah himself, and headed for the New York Police Department in Manhattan.

"He just left?" Koens turned back to stare at Dennis. "So, Mr. Dennis, care to tell me where your security guard is? I assume you’ve been able to reach him by now?"

Of course, Dennis couldn’t contact any security guard, because the guard was a ghost employee he’d invented to pad the payroll and inflate costs.

But he couldn’t back down now. Citing his perfect alibi and the principle of innocent until proven guilty, he started arguing with Koens on the spot.

...

It was nearly two in the afternoon by the time Noah got back to the Major Case Assessment Team’s office at the New York City Police Department.

The office was at the far end of the hall. The lettering on the doorplate was faded and one of the fluorescent lights was out, but no one ever came to fix them.

Noah Brennan was used to it. In the ecosystem of the New York Police Department, the Major Case Assessment Team existed somewhere between "useful tool" and "unsightly decoration." When they were needed, they were good dogs. When they weren’t, they were expected to stay quiet.

The cops at the local precincts didn’t like them, because their arrival always meant "you screwed up," and they were afraid the team would steal their credit.

The brass didn’t like them either, because they always dug too deep into matters that were supposed to be straightforward.

As for Noah’s so-called colleagues, they were, at best, a bunch of middle-aged men killing time in the same precinct. The closest of them only exchanged nods in passing, their only rule being to stay out of each other’s way.

Noah pushed the door open, couldn’t wait to drop his ass onto his chair’s cushion, and let out a comfortable groan.

At that moment, if the inventor of the chair had tried to pull an insurance scam on him, even for a hundred million USD, Noah might have just nodded and approved it.

"Hey, Limpy."

The detective at the desk across from him handed him a file without looking up.

"What is it now?" Noah asked, glancing languidly at the file. ’This moron comes to me with every dumbass question he has, but in front of the deputy chief, he acts like all the clever ideas were his. He has no idea that getting a transfer out of this department is next to impossible. What a fucking idiot.’

"You know that Onyx United Building case?" his moron colleague asked, finally looking up. "The two partners were extradited from Mexico the day before yesterday. Pleaded guilty this morning at the South District federal courthouse." ’What’s that got to do with me?’

Noah glanced at the file’s cover.

’Onyx United Building, real estate development firm. Partners Blake and Vincent, suspected of fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion, to the tune of nine figures or more. A few months ago, someone stole their ledgers and turned them in. The pair fled to Costa Rica before it all went down, but the FBI recently picked them up at a resort in Cancún, Mexico.’

"They’ve already pleaded guilty," Noah said, closing the file. "Isn’t this a job for the federal prosecutor now? What are you showing me this for?"

"The evidence," his colleague said, pointing to some photos clipped to the back of the file. "There’s something interesting. From their office. No one can explain it. The FBI’s analysis came up with nothing. Figured you’d get a kick out of it."

"What do you mean, ’something no one can explain’?" Noah asked, flipping to the last page. ’Did none of these guys go to the academy? Why do I have to look at everything?’

They were high-definition photographs of an evidence item.

The surface of a safe door was permanently twisted and warped, its metal hinges snapped. Along the edge of the door were several deep indentations.

Noah held the photo under his desk lamp and narrowed his eyes.

He instinctively held up his right hand, hovering his four fingers over the four indentations in the photograph to compare their size.

They were a near-perfect match.

"You see it too?" his colleague asked, clicking his tongue in wonder. "Some people say it was bent open by hand. What do you think?"

"Impossible," Noah said. "A human couldn’t do that. A silverback gorilla couldn’t even do that."

"Yeah," his colleague nodded. "That’s why the FBI is leaning toward the theory that the partners faked it in advance to mislead the investigation."

Noah nodded.

The two voices in his head started arguing again.

’It’s impossible.’

’But it’s right there.’

’It must be some new kind of tool used for the crime.’

’...You’re right, Noah.’