Mellow Side of FHH (Part 1)

I called my sister Beth one evening while I was on vacation in FHH. Tapp said she was still at work. I dropped by the FHH Utilities office and found her at her desk. All the guys were long gone home. However, Kenda was there, working late too, in the lab.

"Hey, what you were doing here?" Beth said as I strolled in from the hallway.

“Oh, just messing around. Why here so late?”

"We have a lab audit on our wastewater treatment plant. Kenda's working on it now with the latest samples. I'm having to finish up the paperwork."

I wandered into the lab and couldn't help looking over Kenda’s shoulder. Kenda looked a little annoyed. I'd be cranky too working with cleaned-up stool samples.

Beth was busy, head in her paperwork and Kenda looked like she'd rather be at home watching Boston Legal. I couldn't help playing with the equipment in the lab. Some of it looked very much like Crime Lab forensic equipment. One was obviously a Spectral Analyzer. Another was centreffical sample seperator. The computer was set up for sub-microscopic comparative analysis. I could do a homicide investigation from there!

Long story short, (yeah, right) somebody was looking at DNA for some reason. Who'd thunk? Right here in da' Harbor.

"Why are ya'll looking at DNA samples?" I asked Kenda just out of curiosity.

"What makes you think that!" she jumped down my throat.

"Hey. Hey! I'm just asking."

"That's not what we're doing!"

"Who is we?"

"Look, I'm busy and you're not supposed to be here. I didn't say anything because of your sister. You need to leave."

"Tough night, eh?" I said as I backed out the door with my pointer fingers forming the sign of the cross.

"What was that about, brother?" my sister asked.

"Got me. I just asked about why she was looking at DNA samples."

"We have some kind of government grant to analyze wastewater that is going into the Corp of Engineers lake. I guess to make sure Freers Gerry is kept clean."

"But, DNA? Seems overkill."

"I don't know but, everyone does seem kind of sensitive about it. I'm not supposed to talk about it outside the office. All I know is it's a lot of paperwork, charts, graphs, spreadsheets - a big headache. I could be at home watching Boston Legal."

I went home and watched the last half hour of Boston Legal. Denny Crane!

The next day I met mom, Beth and Tapp at Badman and Sons for lunch.

"How'd you like Boston Legal last night? Denny Crane cracks me up!"

"I didn't see it. I was in the office until eleven," said Beth.

"I never though William Shatner would shake the Captain Kirk image," said Tapp.

Mom said, "I never watch Baltimore Legal, it comes on during Law and Order."

"Law and Order is on all-the-time on different channels, and it's Boston Legal mom. It's like Fresh Prince, its on somewhere 24 hours a day. Captain Kirk is now Denny Crane."

"Who's Captain Kirk? Is he on Special Victims Unit or Criminal Intent?" remarked mom. I'm not sure if she was kidding or not.

"It's awful slow around here lately. No shootings, no house fires, no Meth labs - what's up?" I asked, only half kidding. Even Officer Tool wasn't at our table, mooching fries. He was in the back booth sound asleep, back to the wall, sitting there with two fingers through the handle of his FHH Marina coffee mug.

"It has been pretty quiet around here for a while but, you haven't been around since last summer," said my mom, like it was some established, generally known fact that things only went haywire when I was around. I like to think that its just that I happen to notice.

"You know, it has been more sedate than usual lately," Beth threw in.

"All I feel like doing is sleeping," said Tapp, "but it could be that I'm recovering from my shoulder surgery."

"Now that you mention it - police calls are down. So are ambulance calls. Must just be one of those years. It's sure helped the city budget though. We thought we were going to have a huge shortfall and now it looks like we'll have a little surplus at the end of the year. Go figure."

"Good Karma." Said Tapp.

"Not likely, the way the mayor and council are acting. They're grouchy all the time and practically jump anyone who comes in and asks a routine question. Very defensive," said Beth.

I was about to nod off myself, "Maybe its just a coincidence. Wait a minute! I don't believe in coincidences."

"What do you think's going on?"

"I don't know. I think I'll go home and take a nap."