Work Text:
Hennies From Heaven
by Jamie Ritchey
Detective Jim Ellison stood on the side of the road, arms crossed across his chest, a disdainful scowl on his face as he watched the chaos around him. An unruly crowd of Cascade's good citizens were scrambling all over the pavement and the grassy median, scooping up their ill-gotten gains under the very nose of their city's finest, and there was nothing he could do to end it. If he dared try to stop this persistent pilferage, there would be such a huge public relations fiasco that the Cascade PD would forever have egg on its face.
His partner was no help, either. The anthropologist in Blair had risen to the fore and he was in total observer mode. Blair's eyes shined with the gleam of intense scientific curiosity, while his hands were twitching as if he were scribbling pages of imaginary notes on imaginary notepads. Snagging the back of Blair's jacket, he steered his oblivious partner back toward the overturned truck.
"C'mon, Sandburg. Let's question the driver one more time. Maybe he can give us an idea of how much has been stolen."
Blair bounced along beside him, shrugging his shoulders. "I wouldn't exactly say they were stolen."
Jim stopped abruptly and leaned into Blair's personal space. "What would you call it?"
"Look. I'm not condoning what happened out here." Blair gripped Jim's arm and started him walking back towards the truck again. "All I'm saying is some people might look at this situation and say, 'finders keepers,' you know."
Jim shook his head, wondering not for the first time how someone with such diametrically opposite views to his own as Blair Sandburg had become his best friend. He ruffled Blair's fuzzy head that was crammed with just this kind of fuzzy thinking and said, "I agree in theory, and it's an interesting moral dilemma but bottom line, you take what isn't yours, it's stealing."
Blair flattened his hair back down with a self-suffering groan. "No, Jim. What we have here is a fascinating experiment in social behavioral science."
Jim stopped again and sighed, closing his eyes. "Chief, It's chickens!"
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Article from The Houston Chronicle, Friday, March 16, 2001
OVERTURNED TRUCK RIG SPILLS CHICKENS ON I-10
A trucker, distracted by a dropped cigarette, inadvertently presented motorists along Interstate 10 with a bounty of frozen, if possibly contaminated, chickens early Thursday. Police said the driver swerved, causing the rig to turn over, spilling 46,000 pounds of chicken near Sjolander Road in east Harris County. Sheriff's Lt. Robert Van Pelt said it took a backhoe five hours to pick up the mess. However, there was some help from motorists, who grabbed boxes of chicken despite warnings that the fowl may be contaminated with mud, rainwater and diesel fuel. "Anytime you get anything free, it's got to be the work of God," passer-by Ray Hutcherson said after stuffing boxes of chicken into his car. "You know, times is hard now," he said. "You better take every break you can." The driver, who was not injured, was cited for failure to keep his truck in the proper lane.
~end~