The city built on a broken baseplate

This is the story of one character, Bernard "Ace" Brickman. Who I am, where I came from and how I became the only private detective in Legoland.

To those that casually glance at this city, it probably seems sterile and innocent. But I’ve lived here my entire life and I know the truth about Legoland. Beneath those colorful interlocking bricks is a seedy undercurrent of crime.

It wasn’t always like this. I remember being a kid and you could ride your bike to the shop and not get bothered by anyone, even when the space patrol used to land in town, they always did it safely and respected the rule of law.

I grew up the son of Sergeant Darcy Brickman, he was a cop here in Legoland. The crimes that Dad had to deal with were the most minor ones. Occasionally someone might steal some mail from the Post Office, but Dad would know who was responsible and they never went to jail for it. Beyond that, Dad and his buddies often ended up doing lots of traffic direction for what seemed to be the endless roadworks around this town.

Dad was a good, old-school cop, he worked hard and treated everyone with respect. I was in love with his police cruiser; to a five-year-old, it was the coolest car ever. But I did a ride-along or two and that made up my mind that I wanted to walk the beat of Legoland just like my old man.

But stories like mine rarely start off without some form of loss. Mine was the greatest: one day Dad went to work, and he didn’t come home. I’ll never forget him leaving for his shift and the words he said:

“I’m just going to go check up on this garage sale”

The search went on for weeks, but there was no sign of him or his patrol car. I know that something happened, but I never got the answers that I needed.

I joined the academy as soon as I was old enough. I was determined to serve the community and live up to Darcy’s legacy. I also hoped that maybe, one day I’d find out what happened to Dad.

I earned the nickname Ace because I used to ace every test the instructors had for the recruits. I blitzed the record on the obstacle course, scored top of my class in all the exams, and when it came to the ladies, well let’s just say that I had inherited Darcy’s charm.

But in those years since Dad disappeared and I joined, things changed. Crime had changed, the criminals had changed, and sadly policing had changed too.

My Dad would never have imagined criminals that would break people out of jail, especially since Legoland had never had a jail. The ability to deal with crime was harder now. So much more attention, so much more criticism and so many more limitations. But the greatest limitation was the corruption.

I got disillusioned quickly, but I guess that’s because I was comparing the rest of them to my dad. I couldn’t understand why the police weren’t out chasing the crooks that were tearing Legoland apart. Why weren’t they using their superior construction skills to build a case against some of these criminals?

Don’t get me wrong, most of the cops were good people and were genuinely interested in doing something positive for the community. But it seemed as though there was something else, something bigger controlling things.

I persevered and got my Detective shield, I thought maybe then I could help drive some real change, but I was up against a system that didn’t want to change. Then I caught the case that changed it all for me.

Patrick O’Brick lived just down the road from me (it seemed like everyone in Legoland lived close to me). Patrick was a kid with an adventurous nature, but he never caused any real trouble. He’d sometimes ride his skateboard on the sidewalk and annoy the pedestrians, but I spoke to him a few times and he was always respectful.

I was on an evening shift when I got the call, Patrick’s body had been found just out of town. His drone was next to him. I arrived at the scene and was shocked. I won’t go into details but let’s just say you never forget the odor of burnt acrylonitrile butadiene styrene.

The community was shocked and wanted answers. But everywhere I turned was another dead end. Nobody was talking, there didn’t seem to be any witnesses. The only clue was that the memory card from the camera on Patrick’s drone had been removed. What had he captured on video that someone was willing to take those sorts of steps for? The more I dug, the more resistance I got.

Then the rumors started, whispers at first but they grew. Talk of a cover-up, talk that the Legoland Police knew more than they were saying. I started to ask questions myself. In a town so heavily policed how could not one officer have seen someone do that to Patrick? I decided to look at patrol logs and guess what? What I thought were patrol logs getting filled in every day were just blank tiles.

That was it, I couldn’t stay being a part of this machine anymore. When incompetence becomes corruption I can’t stick around, I had to get out. Sometimes it just feels like this whole city has been built on a broken base plate.

So here I am today, in my office above the pool hall, dealing with cases of who stole the barber’s scissors and where is my missing son? But still, I keep looking, I keep digging for answers on what really happened to Patrick O’Brick.

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More of Ace's adventures will be coming soon.

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