The Casebook of Justice in Dixon.

The Case of the Defective Detective, Part 1.

The name is Justice, Jack Justice.

There comes a time in any man's life when he comes to realize that his friends are now his family.

Or maybe that's just me.

Not everyone bears the justice family curse of the overweighty and under-illuminated family backstory it is true,

but I have observed that there comes a time when every newly-mented adult leaves behind the bucolic

and sometimes entirely metaphorical splendor of the family farm,

and sets out to make their mark in the Big Bad City.

That turns out badly often enough that it keeps private detectives the world over gainfully employed,

but for those whose fates do not stumble down such a dark and narrow path,

it almost always leads to the establishment of a new second family,

one that bakes fewer biscuits, to be sure, but family nonetheless.

And then the years go by and our temple's gray ever so slightly, and things change.

The comfortable supporting players of one's domestic comedy get pulled in their own directions,

and one day you stop and realize that,

well, they may always be like family, you have not seen their faces in longer than you can

quite recall, nor could you speculate as to just when you might again. I'm not complaining.

Fate has been kind to me, and no one knows better than I, just how little I deserve it.

But when your family of friends begins to drift away,

one becomes protective of the bit players,

even if one never really liked them very much.

...