1 march 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2662: talented idiot

Image by Sammy-Sander from Pixabay

“Listen, I understand what I am up against. Please believe me that I understand it – I read everything my great-great-great-grandfather wrote down about dealing with Lees. They thought Robert E. Lee was some kind of mild-mannered and somewhat talented idiot at first, too, until he figured out what he was doing after Cheat Mountain in 1861. Henry Fitzhugh Lee, put into that situation, would have absolutely mopped the Union up – just like he mopped up his part of the Army and mopped up BLPD before I got here. Modern Lee is an even bigger problem once you rile him up because he knows what he is and doesn't have to figure it out. I do too.

“Col. Lee is a problem. But he's the old BLPD's problem. He does not have to be my problem or the new BLPD's problem, just like Chief Scott fell so head over heels about the man that he became a Christian! Col. Lee blessed him eternally, from that perspective! That Maggie M. Thornton who was Orton Thomas's only honest secretary? He blessed her with his last name and his cousin Hopkins Lee snatched up her cousin – and he snatched up her cousin's former abuser and put him back behind bars! Col. Lee is a problem, but not to everybody – and I am determined he will not be to me!”

Henry Halleck VII was talking with a colleague at the Virginia state capital about the previous day's work as state conservator of the Big Loft Police Department, in which Col. Lee served as captain of Blue Ridge Precinct and Special Investigations … and, from there, quietly …

“Yes, he basically is the chief at this point, like R.E. Lee was basically running the Confederacy at the end – it's what happens when people drop balls and act a fool around Lees. They will quietly take over and start cashing folks in. If you really read the Civil War, you see old Lee when put to it showing his utterly ruthless side, accruing power and knocking folks for a loop inside the Confederacy – to the point that he cashed it all in when he realized Virginia might not survive if he didn't. But again, he was someone who like my ancestor had to learn by doing … this was not the plan they had for their lives. But modern Lee? I am still trying to understand how Orton Thomas thought that was ever going to work.”

“Wait … I'm getting an email … hold on … wait, what? OK, I just got the answer to the question. Some people still want Lee out of here, because someone just forwarded me the answer to the question. He turned in all his required paperwork. Thomas never even bothered to run the usual checks. He just thought he could dominate a whole entire U.S. Army colonel. When you write your own death sentence … oh, this is bad.

“So, technically, Lee should never have been hired … not that he wouldn't have cleared the background checks, but the department broke its own rules here like on so many other things … yes, that is still a good question. How many other people are still in here that I can remove on the same grounds? They are trying to trap me with this … but I don't have a problem with a good double-cross, any day of the week. Put the research team on this question, and get back to me as soon as you can. Yes. Yes. I'll be back at police headquarters in two hours – have to do a visit before lunch, and then I'll be back, so have it run down then.”

Mr. Halleck hung up the phone, then pulled out of his parking spot and went where he was going – an hour from Big Loft, VA, in a Virginian cemetery. Indeed the Hallecks had been forgiven much, or at least General Henry Halleck III forgotten, for there lay Henry Halleck VI, buried by his wife Alicia. Their son always kept the graves in order, and this was his day to do that.

“I know you are not here, Mom and Dad,” he said as he trimmed the grass around the two graves, “but thank you again for making me study the history of the Civil War. I didn't know I was going to need it, but yeah, I need it. Lee is breathing down my neck and knows where I'm going to be in an hour. I need it. Thank you both!”

Meanwhile, back in Special Investigations … .

“Yep, they are researching the hiring practices – just got a call from our man in the state house,” Lieutenant Andrew Anderson said.

“It worked!” Officer Baxter of the Blue Ridge Precinct said.

“Of course it worked!” Lt. Anderson said. “His name is Halleck, not Grant – of course it worked on him!”

“Well, that,” Lt. Jonathan Jackcon said, “and Mr. Halleck not understanding what he thinks he does. I mean, who does this: you, pretending to be somebody trying to get you fired, exposing real deal spiel about why you should be fired in order to make your new boss feel threatened by the people actually trying to get you fired so he turns on them? Crazy like a fox!”

“Lt. Jackson, wash your mouth with soap immediately!” Lt. Anderson said as he started laughing.

“You meant, 'crazy like a Lee,'” Lt. Horatio Lightfoot said as Special Investigations and the Blue Ridge Precinct had their good laugh of the day.

Meanwhile, Capt. Lee was in his office, talking with his neighboring captain at the Western Precinct, Capt. Oriole.

“I'm not understanding what I'm hearing from you and MacMurray on this – we just saved everybody's job through fiscal year 2020-2021, and they are out here trying to live in fiscal year 2021-2022 like they have already been fired? What happened to everybody's matching investment IRA plan? I decided not to opt in because I didn't plan to accrue the seniority, but all of you should be good.

“Wait, what? That didn't exist any more even at the time I was hired? You mean to tell me Orton Thomas was not only lying to me, but to officers that are counting on that for their retirement? How long has this been going on? Who was the fund manager in 2009 – I need a name, now.”

Three hours later, former BLPD chief of police Winfred Scott called Mr. Halleck.

“Mr. Halleck, I love your seriousness and dedication to the job – I knew you would still be in the office like I was, but I learned I had to look out of the window often because the Ridgeline Fire was right there one evening. You have to learn to turn on the 5:00 news on the radio every day. Your conservatorship is on fire, sir.”

Two hours later, at the evening's hastily improvised press conference …

“Yes, the state of Virginia as represented by my conservatorship at BLPD is in full communication and cooperation with the FBI regarding the arrest of a former fund manager for BLPD who was apparently pilfering from the fund along with several other important government accounts in the city. This cooperation begins the process of justice and recovery of all purloined funds, securing the assurance BLPD's officers have in the department's commitment to their well-being.”

In between those hours, Mr. Halleck had driven home and sat down humbly for his wife to quickly do makeup for him, having had a brief breakdown upon hearing the news and having his team scramble the paperwork. The department was within nine months of an empty retirement fund – the books Mr. Halleck had been given had been cooked for a decade. The rank and file knew something about it – there had been fewer retirements than expected even with the threat of dismissal hanging over people's heads under the new conservatorship. The upper-ups knew all about it, and a good number of them were hoping to tag Mr. Halleck with it because of his presumed cost savings methods. Instead, the captured fund manager sang like a canary, not willing to face hard federal time alone … and political Big Loft started burning again, three months before the election.

But not BLPD, because Mr. Halleck put the implicated parties there still in position on unpaid leave quick, fast, and in a hurry, and changed all the passwords and systems overnight before they even got to work to be dismissed – and then, having been up for 28 hours straight, went home to rest.

“What even just happened here?” he said the next day to the colleague he had been talking to, two days before. “I'm asking you like you are sitting in Richmond and you know, because I'm in Big Loft, and I thought I had a clue, but I don't!”

Meanwhile, Winfred Scott enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with his wife Della.

“I almost want to call Mr. Halleck and thank him for booting me – I've been wanting to tell him that,” he said, “but, I figured he would figure it out!”