Morris grunted as the desk sergeant turned him away. He knew the guy. From back in the day, and now that he thought about it, he hadn't treated the schmuck very well at the time. Back when he'd been a detective and the uniforms had had to jump when he said so.

No. Now that the details swam back into focus, through a very smeary lens of too much booze and what seemed like ten years of unsullied rage, he had not treated the guy well at all. He'd actually knocked him down and called him some pretty bad names. That had all been smoothed over and no charges pressed. But it was definitely one of the milestones on his trail from champ to chump.

It had all been so easy when he joined the force. he hadn't been the best student in college or the academy, but he'd scraped by in the academics and done better than most in the hands-on, meet and greet, especially the skills to tell a lie from the truth. That alone had got him promoted almost as fast as you can be these days, out of a uniform and into plains clothes.

Add to that a couple of high-profile cases that broke his way. Got his name in the paper with a picture alongside the commissioner. They'd ignored the fact that he'd had to apply a little pressure to get the location of the missing girls. Back then results were what mattered. No one cared what the perp whined about in court.

But then they hired a new commissioner. A pantywaist who focused on whether people liked you or not, rather than how well you solved crimes. And he had to admit, the booze had not helped. There's been a few years there where he lived at the bottom of a bourbon bottle. And while those memories might be foggy, he knew for certain that he'd stepped on a lot of toes. Pissed a lot of guys off. And more importantly, started to make mistakes.

The Scooper had been his undoing. A serial murderer. Twenty victims in three years. And Jake had caught him. But he'd done it using illegal methods, and unlike those other douches, the Scooper had turned out to be rich with good lawyers. They got the evidence suppressed, and with not enough evidence, the scumbag had walked. Then set his lawers on Jake.

He managed to avoid doing time, but his career at least was in the can. Dishonorable discharge, they called it. And half the force rooting for him to go upstate on an all-expenses-paid state-sponsored vacation for five years.

Screw them!

He was a good cop. Well, halfway decent at it anyway. And he was taking care of the problem with the booze. And the cocaine. Well, mostly having no money was taking care of those problems, but he'd been six weeks now without a drink or a snort, and his hands might be a bit shakey, but he could still pick out a lie, stinking like fresh dogshit in a field of clover, no matter how well it had been told.

Jake Morris: Private Detective

Age: 35
Nationality: American