Follow the exploits of Det. Obvious, a satirical series of fictional stories about a detective's assistant who only points out the obvious.
Chapter 1: The Crab Pot Caper
Detective Obvious groaned. 6:33 AM. Saturday. No work today. It should be a time to relax, but crime never takes a day off.
They sat up woozily, still feeling the hours spent the night before researching the latest case. It hit their desk right at 5pm. Det. Obvious' superior, Captain Obvious had a bad habit of assigning cases to the rookie late in the day, just for fun. Fun. It's not like the agency had a choice when it came to the timing of cases, but it still felt like Det. Obvious was being targeted.
When your name is Detective, and your last name is Obvious, people make assumptions. Of course they were part of the most well-respected agency in the City: Obvious Investigations Inc.
Their older brother, Captain, led the way. He did the real investigating. Detective was left doing the grunt work, the hard thinking, the hours upon hours of toiling to find evidence. Captain got all the glory. But that's okay. Glory means nothing to Detective Obvious. Only solved cases. Being a detective's assistant sounded about right to Detective. It was obvious.
Something about the latest case didn't feel right. As their feet hit the cold floor, Detective recoiled. They ran their fingers through their hair, wincing as their toes adjusted to the new reality of the ground. First, coffee. Warm, delicious, life-giving coffee. Their trusted assistant. Or as one would say, assistant to the assistant.
Detective brewed a pot in their kitchen. As they waited for the holy brown liquid to escape into the pot, they thought about the case. Stolen crab. A mystery like no other.
Here is what they knew:
Citizens began reporting crab allegedly missing from their pots upon retrieval in the past few days.
In most cases, crab pots with the disappearing crustaceans were retrieved within 24-48 hours of being first dropped into the ocean.
The bait inside the pots was always eaten, with no signs of crabs remaining in the caged apparatuses.
All crab pots were dropped in the ocean.
The crabbing season had just begun on Thursday. Today was Saturday. The reports had been coming in for at least two days.
"Fuck!" yelled Detective, the coffee began overflowing out of the pot, creating a stream of liquid that scorched the investigator's hands as it dripped onto the linoleum. Detective got a towel to absorb the mess, then berated the source of the intrusion.
"Stupid coffee pot. Always overflowing when I try to make 10 cups of coffee all for myself. I'm gonna turn you off now, you good for nothing appliance," they muttered a little too loudly for how early it was in the morning .
As Detective watched the caffeinated substance absorb into the towel, they began to think, "Liquid. Ocean. There must be something that travels over liquid. That can navigate the ocean..."
The Sherlock's assistant-type quickly poured some coffee into their favorite mug, emblazoned with, "Isn't it Obvious? Obvious Investigations Inc." They ran to their thinking window, a beautiful pane of glass revealing the Pacific Ocean on the other side. Their coffee sloshed from side to side and overran the edges as their quick paces displaced their drug of choice from its muggy container.
They arrived at the window with arguably more coffee on their hands, shirt, and floor than in the mug. But that wasn't important.
Detective squinted through the window. The morning fog covered the bay, but revealed a tiny object floating on the water. Could it be?
They went to call Captain immediately. It was a breakthrough.
"Watson," he yelled into the receiver.
"Sib," a groggy voice answered from the other side. "I told you that I go by Captain now, get with the program."
"Uh sorry - no time for that. I have some mind-boggling evidence for you to consider in the crab pot caper!" they panted excitedly to their still weary sibling.
"THE CULPRIT MUST HAVE A BOAT!!" Detective exclaimed.
"Holy fucking shit -- you're right!" Detective's brother expelled from the other side of the phone. On his side of the cellular service, Captain hastily threw off his covers and proceeded to sift through the case file on his desk, phone cradled to ear.
"You've gone and done it again, little one!"
"Don't call me little," Detective retorted. "And anyways, I'm taller than you even if I'm younger."
Captain rolled his eyes. Ha, that comeback never seemed old. All of those things were obvious to Captain. Why would Detective need to keep restating the obvious?
Didn't matter. With the latest breakthrough about the culprit utilizing ocean-going crafts, the case had been cracked wide open. All thanks to Detective Obvious.