The Wax Buzzard Files: A Prologue

Table of Contents right here.

It was a cold, wet, miserable, and tentatively dangerous morning as I sprang from the nightmares of my slumber to greet the songbirds outside my window with an unwarranted aria (to show them once and for all how it feels). If there's one thing I've noticed about the outdoors, there's a lot of birds.

I straggled to the kitchen, collecting four cups of oatmeal, a half pint of milk, a tablespoon of olive oil and an egg. I mixed the concoction together, set it on the counter, and promptly forgot about it.

I was feeling both under and over the weather. When I say 'under' I'm of course referring to the fact that weather tends to occur in the skies above, while I remain an obedient servant of gravitational physics; and when I say 'over' it's because I'm lying.

I slept in the office that I have at home. It was a bedroom I'd converted into an office that looks suspiciously like a bedroom. Work's been slow lately, so I've really just been using it for sleep. Rain pelted the windows outside, and I was considering bringing them in to dry them off when I realized I wasn't alone, and not in the metaphysical sense.

She stood in the doorway. I wanted to offer her a chair, but unless she moved inside it would be a fire hazard. I'm a lot of things but I'm no vandal. At least not a very good one.

"Detective Guffey," she said in a way that merited no adverb. This woman's face was indescribable, like one of those things with the thing on it that wasn't too expensive.

I wanted to respond with 'speaking' which would have been true at that moment, but then it wouldn't have gone without saying, and I never miss that opportunity. Instead I gave her a huge grin with jazz hands. "How can I help you? Miss..."

"Nomer."

"Miss Nomer, if that is your real name." I put my feet up on my desk. A second later my back hit the floor. I forgot I'd left the chair out on the patio.

"I fear for my life, Mr. Guffey."

"Are you a stuntwoman?"

"No. I'm a professional thief." That explained how she'd broken into my house without my hearing it. It seemed her method was to carefully remove my front door from its hinges using nothing more than a high velocity off-road SUV.

She reached into her coin purse and produced a business card, in that order. She handed it to me (the card, not the coin purse unfortunately). "Everything you need to know is there. Names, addresses, accounting records, a summary of events with citations, an essay on morality; I write very small."

She abruptly turned and vanished from the doorway, returning a moment later to inform me that she needed to leave, and hadn't meant to be rude. I watched her slip into the SUV, which was very funny, and she backed out of the doorway, tearing down half the wall in the process without ever making a sound.

She was good. Really good.

Want Chapter One? It's on you, buddy.