Anyone who stopped by the Oatsford Police Station on April eleventh, 2012, would have thought that the man with the double-diamond earrings throwing flecks of light onto his dark skin as he lounged in one of the hard, blue, plastic chairs was a common criminal. But Alexander Jacobs was not some petty mugger. Alexander Jacobs was one of the finest- and youngest- detectives that Oatsford had ever seen. As he swept his hand quickly across his smartphone, one of the police officers walked briskly out of his office, presumably on the way to the coffee shop across the street. But as his eyes fell on Jacobs, he immediately rushed over and began muttering hurried thanks.

“Don’t know where we’d be if you hadn’t stepped in on the Samuel brothers case, Jacobs- really a splendid piece of deductive reasoning right there-”

“Hey, just doing my job, officer.”

“And doing a really splendid job of it, too! Say, can I take you out for coffee sometime?”

“Y’know, that sounds really swell, but I’m a little busy right now. You go on, now, I’ll catch up with you later”

“Yes- yes, of course. Goodbye, Jacobs.”

“ ‘bye.”

And without a further word, the officer strode out the door, looking slightly abashed. Alexander followed him with his eyes to the door, then went back to sliding his fingers across his phone. He saw what was happening in the New York Times today, texted a little while with his wife, played a quick round of angry birds, then stretched and decided that he actually needed to get some work done. He strode down the neatly polished hallway, took a sharp left turn at the water fountain, and strode into his office. He paused at the door, surveying the room. An oak table was in the very center, with a comfy swivel office chair, and a window in the back. On the desk was a small laptop, a Newton's cradle, and various papers strewn about. His eyes rested momentarily on the Newton’s cradle. He had always been interested in physics and the like, but this particular Newton’s cradle was special. It was more, for him, than just a tool with which one avoided doing work, this cradle had helped him solve many mysteries, and now, when he was in a funk, he would set the balls snapping, one against the other, and suddenly it would come to him.

He smiled to himself for a moment, plucked the silver ball furthest to the left, and sent all five balls clicking back and forth. He stared at it contentedly for a moment before settling down at his large oak desk and picking up the paper at the very top. He had not read five lines before he realized how very hungry he was, and went to go grab a bagel at the starbucks across the street.

While it may sound to you as though Jacobs was avoiding work, it had in fact turned out that there was not much work for him to do today. That was the trouble with being one of the juniors on the force, he thought to himself morosely as he rubbed the little stubble which had begun, yet again, to creep its way up his chin. Jacobs was very bad at keeping his facial hair under control, and this was the subject of many office controversies. The Chief of Police would not “tolerate such scruffiness in his office”, but Allana, a short, stocky woman who had been trying(unsuccessfully) to worm her way into his heart, thought that it looked “tough... how a real man should look!”. Jacobs groaned to himself at the memory, wishing that Allana would just leave him alone.