Stanley Scott was not, strictly speaking, a detective.

He was more of a glorified janitor.

He noticed things that he didn't know he was seeing.

The department used to bring him in after the crime scene boyos had done their song and dance, but he kept threatening their budget by noticing things that they hadn't or noticing things that they had, done.

So, now they brought him in before the crime scene girlios and kicked the rest of the officers off the scene.

He wandered the scenes with a Walkman tucked to him, playing "Hotel California" over and over, with the only variation being who played it. Most of the cover versions were on the tape.

Once he had looked everything over, he went away.

Once he had slept a night or two, everything came to him that might be bothering him and he would type up a report for the department.

He was on the payroll as a maintenance supervisor. The mayor and the Feds wanted it that way.

He did not carry a weapon, per se, but his guardian did, and Stanley was allowed to go down to the range on a regular basis, to keep up, in case anything happened to his guardian.


Stanley was a little unique. He shot very well on the range. Against paper. In real life he had a phobia about firearms, particularly those carried by cops. He didn't trust cops. He'd cleaned up after them for too long and he knew that while some of them might have been multi-talented geniuses, most of them might as well have been working for Disneyland. They got up, put the costume on and went out and played the role. They got done, they took the costume off and they went limp.

Stanley didn't play role games very well. He was too busy paying attention.

He had to.

He couldn't get up out of bed and put on his pants without paying attention.

He had to look closely at everything he did.

Because he often forgot.

So, generally speaking, what many people took for granted, he had to think about and look at, every day.

This lead him to make many people's lives interesting because he was always noticing something that he probably shouldn't.

But he was a good janitor. He cleaned and he cleaned well. He noticed things that needed to be fixed and if he couldn't, he made sure someone did.

And then one day, he solved a crime.

Nothing was ever the same again.