The Dream Job

“Mr. Farnsworth, we have a problem.”

I opened one eye. The left one. The right one was still drunk from the night before.

“Tell the problem to go wait outside with the other problems,” I mumbled. “I’m full.”

“You’re lying on a desk in the Mayor’s office.”

Now that woke up the right eye.

I sat up too fast and instantly regretted it. The room tilted like it had too many martinis and not enough olives.

Sure enough, I was splayed across a mahogany desk large enough to host a tennis match. Around the desk stood two cops, a secretary with a tight bun and tighter expression, and a man in a sash that said “MAYOR” like he’d won a beauty pageant for corrupt officials.

“Explain yourself,” the mayor barked.

I looked down. I was wearing a bathrobe. No pants. Fuzzy slippers. One was pink. One had a face.

“Hard to explain myself when I don’t know what self I’m explaining,” I said. “Did anyone check if I’m actually me?”

“This is not a joke,” the secretary said, in the tone of someone who’d never laughed once, not even at her own birthday.

I stood, adjusted the bathrobe for modesty (futile), and tried to piece together the night. Last thing I remembered was a card game, a man with a toupee named Reggie, and something involving a duck.

Oh, and there was the small matter of me maybe promising to solve a murder.

“Detective Farnsworth,” I said, trying to summon authority from the deep recesses of my hangover. “You called me because someone died. Now unless that someone was me, I suggest you start from the top.”

Apparently, someone had broken into the mayor’s office the night before, stolen a mysterious briefcase full of something classified (read: incriminating), and left behind one dead man and a half-eaten churro.

“The victim?” I asked.

“City auditor,” the mayor said. “Name was Clarence Wumpel.”

“Cause of death?”

The secretary held up a very official-looking report. “Asphyxiation. He choked on a jelly donut.”

I blinked.

“So it was an accidental murder?” I asked. “Dead by dessert?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the mayor snapped. “You’re the detective. You tell us.”

“Fine.” I tapped my chin with the serious expression of a man who’s bluffing. “Have forensics test the donut. Maybe it was filled with something more sinister than jelly. Cyanide. Arsenic. Mayonnaise.”

The mayor paled.

“I want this solved, Farnsworth,” he said. “Quietly. If word gets out that my office is a crime scene and a bakery, it’ll ruin me.”

“Understood,” I said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need pants.”

Back at my office, which doubles as a janitor’s closet with more sarcasm, I was greeted by my assistant, Lola.

Lola types 200 words per minute, mostly insults. She also brews coffee strong enough to power a submarine.

“You smell like regret and pancakes,” she said, not looking up.

“Pancakes weren’t involved,” I muttered. “We’ve got a dead auditor, a missing briefcase, and a donut of death.”

She stopped typing.

“So, Tuesday?”

“Yup.”

I recounted the situation, leaving out the part where I woke up pantsless in a government building. Mostly because I was still hoping it hadn’t actually happened.

Lola rolled her eyes. “Clarence Wumpel was allergic to strawberries.”

“And?”

“And jelly donuts are full of strawberry.”

“Maybe he didn’t know.”

“Clarence wore a medical alert bracelet the size of a dinner plate. If someone handed him that donut, they knew what they were doing.”

“Dead by donut. What a way to glaze into the afterlife.”

She ignored me. “Also, the mayor’s briefcase is rumored to contain files on every dirty deal he’s ever done. If someone has it, they’ve got leverage over the whole city.”

I leaned back in my chair, which immediately broke.

My first stop was the crime scene, now cleaned up and replaced with a motivational poster about integrity. That was ironic.

The janitor, a man named Lou with a limp and a mop that looked like it had seen war, was surprisingly helpful.

“Saw a guy leave the office around midnight,” Lou said, wringing out the mop like it owed him money. “Carried a briefcase. Wore gloves. Smelled like lilacs.”

“Lilacs?”

“I know my floral notes,” Lou said. “My ex-wife was a florist. Poisonous woman.”

“Describe him.”

“Average height, average face, average everything. So average it was suspicious.”

I thanked him and left with more questions than I came with. I hated that. It was like going to a buffet and leaving hungry.

Back in the office, Lola had done her usual magic.

“Got a name,” she said. “Man seen hanging around city hall all week. Goes by the name Johnny Lilac.”

“Of course he does.”

“He’s a fixer. Blackmail, bribes, scandal management. Like a janitor for dirty secrets.”

“Where do I find him?”

She handed me an address scribbled on a cocktail napkin.

“Strip club,” she said. “Classy place. They serve shrimp.”

Johnny Lilac was not what I expected. For one, he wore a three-piece suit made of something that looked like velvet and poor decisions. For another, he spoke in a British accent that sounded rented.

“You’ve found me,” he said, as if I’d just solved a riddle instead of followed a napkin. “Brilliant.”

“Cut the crap, Johnny,” I said. “Where’s the briefcase?”

He leaned back, sipping a neon cocktail with a tiny umbrella. “What makes you think I have it?”

“Because you smell like lilacs and crime.”

He chuckled. “You flatter me.”

I grabbed his drink and dumped it in a nearby potted plant. The plant immediately died.

“Listen,” I said, “either you talk, or I start making up lies about you. I’m a creative man when I’m cranky.”

Johnny sighed. “Fine. I stole the briefcase. But only because Clarence was going to sell the contents to a rival mayoral candidate. I needed leverage.”

“Then why is Clarence dead?”

Johnny looked genuinely surprised. “He’s what?”

I blinked. “You didn’t know?”

He shook his head. “I handed him the donut as a joke. I didn’t know he was allergic. I thought he was on a diet.”

“Congratulations. You weaponized breakfast.”

The story was coming together like a jigsaw puzzle missing several pieces and possibly set on fire.

Johnny had the briefcase. Clarence had the appetite. And somewhere in the middle, someone was playing both sides.

Back in my office, I relayed all this to Lola, who was finishing a crossword titled Criminal Confessions.

“So what now?” she asked.

“Now we bait the real killer.”

I held up a jelly donut.

We staged it at the mayor’s next press conference. I was disguised as a reporter. Lola had a camera. Johnny posed as a concerned citizen wearing a “Save the Ferrets” T-shirt.

As the mayor began his speech about civic responsibility and pothole repair, I stepped forward.

“Mr. Mayor, care to comment on this jelly donut?”

He froze.

His eyes locked on the pastry like it had called him a liar. Then he bolted.

We chased him three blocks before he tripped over a Girl Scout and faceplanted into a recycling bin.

The crowd gasped.

Lola got it all on camera.

Turns out, the mayor had found out about Clarence’s plan to sell the briefcase. He had given him the donut. He knew about the allergy. The sash wasn’t the only thing that made him dirty.

Johnny got a slap on the wrist and community service at a botanical garden.

The mayor got a resignation and a new cellmate named Big Larry.

As for me, I got my pants back.

A week later, I sat in my office, sipping Lola’s battery-acid coffee and admiring a jelly donut I no longer trusted.

“You know,” I said, “I still don’t remember how I ended up in the mayor’s office that morning.”

Lola raised an eyebrow. “You sure it even happened?”

I stared into space.

What if it didn’t?

What if the donut, the mayor, the murder… all of it...

I dropped the donut.

“It was all just a dream,” I whispered.

Lola rolled her eyes. “Then why is the mayor’s sash on your coat rack?”

I looked.

There it was, glittering and accusing.

“Right,” I said, picking up the donut. “Back to work.”