Joe Garland Investigates: The Case of The Missing Santa, Part 1

And now...a little Christmas in August. Back in 1988, my senior year of high school, I took yet another in a series of writing classes.

 I was a fan of the Mike Hammer TV show; based on the character from Mikey Spillane's novels, Stacy Keach's Hammer was a hard-boiled NYC private detective. So, with that inspiration, I came up with my own PD--Joe Garland.

Recently, I was going through some boxes and came across the original story, and thought it would be fun to serialize it here exactly as I wrote it for class. Here's part 1.

Joe Garland Investigates: The Case of the Missing Santa

I was sitting in my office on a lonely Thanksgiving Day, drinking old scotch and smoking new cigarettes. My name is Joe Garland, Private Eye. I'm six foot six, just over 200 pounds, and when I'm on a case, nobody better get in my way because I'm trigger happy. 

My office in New York City is dusty and dirty, with old, used coffee cups thrown all over my desk. You might not be impressed with my office, but to me it's home.

Anyway, I was sitting in my office when this guy came running in, out-of-breath and practically in tears. "Are you Joe Garland?", he sniffed. 

"Yeah, I am."

"Good, because I want to hire you."

"Calm down buddy," I said, putting out my cigarette."What's your name?"

"M--My name is John Macy" By this time he was hysterical. "I'm president of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and Santa is missing, float and all! The whole thing is gone!" 

"The parade is supposed to start in a few hours, " I said, looking at the clock on the wall. "What took you so long to come to me?"

"Does that matter now? Please, Mr. Garland, will you take the case?", Macy screamed. 

"Alright. I'll take the case."

......Stay tuned for part 2