Ophelia
Human
LAPD Detective: Vice
Run 'round the town singing your blues, I know you ain't going anywhere.
Posts: 39
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Post by Ophelia on Mar 7, 2007 3:36:45 GMT
The drive to the Precinct had been uneventful, traffic was average and Detective Ophelia Stone pulled into the station lot well in time to start her shift, even if to do so she had been eating her toast in the elevator ride to the parking garage at her apartment building. There had been no bike in the precinct lot so she assumed she'd beaten her partner into work, a look at their conjoined desks once she arrived at the upstairs offices told her she was right.
Exchanging 'good mornings' with team-mates here and there she crossed the Vice Division office floor, most of those who replied with a nod or vocal recognition looked either like they had just rolled out of bed or hadn't actually been to sleep yet. Not that either was unusual of course; she'd worked through the night on cases more than once over the years. Just because Vice was perceived as one of the 'less glamorous' departments of the LAPD didn't mean the Detectives worked any less hard then their colleagues in Homicide, Narc or any other branch.
She slipped out of her grey suit jacket and draped it over the back of her chair, as always, then sat down at her desk, the chair giving a light creak of age rather than a protest to the weight settling into it. Everything was filed away neatly, pens in their holder, keyboard tucked to the side with the monitor of her computer to give a free space when handwriting was either quicker or simply preferable to using the machine. Ophelia noticed instantly that her 'IN' tray was a lot fuller this morning than it had been when she'd left work last night.
She sat silently for a minute turning the cuffs of her blue shirt up until they were folded around her elbows and regarding the state of the papers she had to go through with a grim sense of inevitability. Willing them into non-existence didn't seem to be working.
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Glenn
Human
LAPD Detective: Vice
But it's like no matter what I do, I can't convince you to just believe this is real.
Posts: 41
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Post by Glenn on Mar 7, 2007 4:25:06 GMT
Early mornings weren’t all that unusual for the taller Vice Detective, but he still took a few people by surprise when he rolled in before the sun had even poked up over the horizon. That morning had been no exception; he’d rolled into the lot, catching two officers in the middle of a cigarette-break off guard, and he had smiled quietly to himself while walking past as they’d recognised his rank and stubbed out the butts on the wall behind them.
His partner hadn’t seen the bike because one of the SUVs the station sometimes employed the use of had been returned and parked beside it, obscuring the Harley from view. Had he known about it, he might have appreciated the chance to surprise the woman a little more than he already did. As it was, he’d merely assumed that she would get there a few minutes before their shift was actually scheduled to start, and as such, he’d been able to carry out his plan flawlessly all the same.
As the female detective got herself settled, he walked up behind her, and then, knowing he hadn’t attracted her attention, set a full mug down on her side of the desk, far enough away so that she wouldn’t jostle it if he actually startled her, and after freeing a hand, he reached up and pulled the half-apple out of his mouth, moving around into her line of sight, holding his own coffee.
Glenn Porter smiled down at her. “Morning, Phee.”
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Ophelia
Human
LAPD Detective: Vice
Run 'round the town singing your blues, I know you ain't going anywhere.
Posts: 39
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Post by Ophelia on Mar 7, 2007 4:47:18 GMT
Perhaps because she had been concentrating on trying to tap into the unused percentage of her brain matter in order to make some of the papers in the dowdy tray on her desk disappear, Ophelia had indeed not noticed her partner's approach. That wasn't to say she was startled too much though when a mug of coffee appeared in her line of sight. She looked up as he spoke, coffee in one hand and a green apple in the other.
Paper work. she thought automatically, picking up the coffee and holding it between both hands as she propped her elbows up on her desk.
"Thanks," she started, indicating the mug and its steaming contents, "I didn't think you were here yet," as she spoke her head tilted to the side slightly so she could effectively talk around her mug whilst she stifled a yawn against the back of her hand. It was no secret that out of the two of them Glenn was more a morning person, on average at least. She was never late because of her dislike of getting up, but she was always a little disgruntled first thing in the morning; especially if she'd had a late night, which on this occasion she had for nothing if not innocent reasons.
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Glenn
Human
LAPD Detective: Vice
But it's like no matter what I do, I can't convince you to just believe this is real.
Posts: 41
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Post by Glenn on Mar 7, 2007 5:01:04 GMT
Glenn was well aware of Phee’s dislike of early mornings, hence the coffee he’d made sure to whip up before her expected arrival. He had learned not long into their partnership that available caffeine seemed to ease her into the day, especially if it was shaping up to be a long one, and not that he anticipated any kind of irritations or dragging of hours, but he’d ensured there would be a mug of the somewhat bitter beverage she currently sipped at ready and waiting.
“Someone must’ve parked next to me,” he assumed, taking his place opposite her, setting down his own mug away from his keyboard but still to the right of his desk. It was a habit; drinks always went on the right, even though he was left-handed. He hadn’t been raised in a place that had been exactly strict on table settings, but it had still been engrained on him, perhaps from his time with the Thorpes. “The bike’s in the corner of the lot, under the tree.” He liked to park under that bit of shade whenever he could, if only because it kept unsavoury characters — not that they could easily access the lot as it was — from noticing the vehicle.
Taking a bite of the apple, he poked the mouse of his computer to kill the screensaver, and after swallowing, looked across at her. “I find it a little annoying that I’ve been here for almost three hours — don’t ask why — and my ‘IN’ tray still looks more padded than yours.”
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Ophelia
Human
LAPD Detective: Vice
Run 'round the town singing your blues, I know you ain't going anywhere.
Posts: 39
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Post by Ophelia on Mar 7, 2007 5:18:22 GMT
Coffee usually did just the trick in the mornings and the beverage she cradled was the first mug of the day thanks to her desire to stay in bed as long as was possible in order for her to be able to shower and dress and actually arrive on time. The whole morning routine had been honed long ago, right down to feeding Peaches while the bread was in the toaster and Phee was putting her shoes on. It was an art.
"SUV." She revealed, thinking back to the parking lot she'd skimmed with her eyes as she'd crossed it, she remembered the beast of a machine upon reflection. Ophelia had parked her MG in the sun but had left the black canvas hood up to at least stave off some of the midday LA heat that was already starting to get a hold on the atmosphere.
Glenn poked his mouse and, reminded, she looked at her own computer. Taking her left hand from her mug she stabbed the 'power' button to begin the start up cycle and then looked back across the desks, comparing the 'IN' trays. He was right; hers did look thinner by comparison, "Maybe it's an optical illusion? Or someone's playing a trick on you and stuffed some plain paper in there?" she offered, smiling lightly over the rim of her mug, "And can I ask why I'm not asking?"
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Glenn
Human
LAPD Detective: Vice
But it's like no matter what I do, I can't convince you to just believe this is real.
Posts: 41
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Post by Glenn on Mar 7, 2007 5:26:02 GMT
Glenn wasn’t one of those notorious early risers who liked to bound out of bed before the sun’s rays had penetrated the half-drawn drapes of his apartment, but he had developed the habit of at least tumbling out from under the covers at what he believed to be a decent hour. Then, of course, there were days like the current one, when something inexplicable and no doubt imagined would just… wake him up. And he’d spent about ten minutes in bed, staring at the glowing numbers on the face of his alarm clock as if the unbelievable time would help him drift back off… when experience told him that was unlikely.
He’d given a slow nod at the revelation of the SUV. He wasn’t fond of them, much preferring the smaller, more manoeuvrable police vehicles like the Fords or the Sedans, if they needed them. An SUV, while more powerful and more likely to hold up in a crash or scrape of some kind, at least according to hearsay, was just too cumbersome, and Glenn couldn’t get comfortable in them, which struck some people as odd, given his height. The extra leg room should have fit him to a tee.
“I’ll bet some crafty so-and-so’s slipped a book or something in here,” he commented, sitting forward in his chair, apple still in hand as he poked and nosed through the tray. His light eyes travelled across to Phee as she watched him over her mug. “And you’re not asking because I don’t have an answer.” Glenn smiled. “Simple, no?”
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Ophelia
Human
LAPD Detective: Vice
Run 'round the town singing your blues, I know you ain't going anywhere.
Posts: 39
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Post by Ophelia on Mar 7, 2007 5:40:58 GMT
"Very." Phee replied, nodding. It was as simple as that. She brushed blonde locks of hair across her forehead but the action did little to dislodge them and they promptly fell back into place; but the fringe wasn't an annoyance and the movement had become an absentminded tick more than anything.
Eyeing the 'IN' tray on her partner's desk her eyes narrowed and she set her mug down on it's coaster; a British racing green MG sitting on a round display pedestal. "If it is a book it better be a good one. Don't need another copy of Reader's Digest around here." Though technically she'd call the little A5 sized publications magazines rather than books the Precinct as a whole seemed to be subscribed to the damn things, couldn't go anywhere without a heart-warming front cover staring back at you. As if suspects or family members waiting for news or just... waiting wanted to read about how some guy in Florida lived off oranges for a year and a half.
"You know what I think?" the tone betrayed the fact he was going to find out and she continued as she finally peered into the paperwork that was awaiting her, "Someone's siphoning off their own tedium into our trays. I know mine couldn't have expanded this much over night; it's not natural."
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Glenn
Human
LAPD Detective: Vice
But it's like no matter what I do, I can't convince you to just believe this is real.
Posts: 41
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Post by Glenn on Mar 8, 2007 1:11:59 GMT
He pointed loosely at her with his free hand. “I’m glad you see the logic there.” If he’d had a reason for waking up so ridiculously early, not to mention getting to work at that god-awful hour, he would have shared it, but Ophelia seemed willing to let it drop, so he would too. He moved on as prompted.
Leaning back just long enough to find a safe place to prop his apple, he then went back to sifting through the ‘IN’ tray, trying to find the reason behind the mystery thickness of it. Glancing to Phee as she shared her theory, his eyes narrowed. “It’s a conspiracy…” he grumbled, looking around the office as if expecting to see some black-clad figure stalking in the non-existent shadows. “They’re trying to drive us mad by— aha.”
As he pulled his hand out of the tray, he laughed, and lightly tossed the magazine onto her desk. “Someone must’ve overheard you complaining about those things,” he said to her, and then furrowed his brow. “Wrong tray, though. That plan blew up in their faces, didn’t it?” Glenn picked up his apple, turning it before he added, “Kinda.”
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Ophelia
Human
LAPD Detective: Vice
Run 'round the town singing your blues, I know you ain't going anywhere.
Posts: 39
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Post by Ophelia on Mar 8, 2007 1:39:29 GMT
For a moment she looked down at the magazine with disgust, it had come to rest upside down and Phee righted it as if she didn't really want to touch it. A little girl in a sun hat with no front teeth stared back at the detective, standing alongside a slobbering, ugly dog that could quite honestly pick the kid up and carry her; in all her freckled, grass stained, toothless 'glory'. Dog Adopts Child was printed in huge letters across the bottom of the picture and someone had written To Stone, Enjoy.' in the upper right corner.
"Damn pulp fiction." Phee grumbled, whisking a pen out of the pot on her desk, and a pad of post-its from the same area. She stuck one over the message and leant over the magazine. She'd recognised the chicken scratch handwriting immediately, Vice was a pretty tight unit like many of the others in the precinct after all and she went about her revenge with a tiny smirk; apparently until she had finished her coffee at least, she was feeling vengeful. 'Metcalfe, Thanks for sharing, didn't know they'd put you on a cover.' It was childish, but in a department mostly populated by men, what could she really hope for? Better to join in and hold her own than do that 'aloof' female-cop crap she'd heard about.
"It's pathetic, really," she said, leaning back as a blue glow momentarily accented her features, the monitor to her left blinking to life, "I mean, my name's right on the desk, I haven't sat anywhere else in this office for how long, and Metcalfe can't take the time to make sure he gets it in my tray?" she shook her head, disappointed and scooted her chair in on its wheels a little more, "Lacklustre."
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Glenn
Human
LAPD Detective: Vice
But it's like no matter what I do, I can't convince you to just believe this is real.
Posts: 41
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Post by Glenn on Mar 8, 2007 3:55:20 GMT
Glenn tried not to ‘snort’ at the cover. Quite honestly, it was one of the most ridiculous things he had ever seen in his life, and given his past, that was saying something. The fact that it was addressed, in a way, to his partner had slipped by the older detective, but now that he saw the little note, he smirked, trying not to look amused in case Phee hurled the magazine at him, and the woman had a pretty damn good aim if she was motivated.
Laughing openly at the message she wrote in return, upside-down though it was from where he was sitting, Glenn propped his elbows on the desk, having munched his way through most of the green fruit by now. He would toss the core soon, but until it started browning off, he would hang onto it, as he usually did. “Nice,” he commented, giving her a genuinely amused smile as he caught her gaze. Metcalfe would just toss the issue and pretend nothing had happened; he wouldn’t want his macho act sabotaged by a little revenge from one of the department’s only women, after all.
“Clearly,” he began, looking at the remains of the apple he held, “he needs to have his eyes examined, be shown around the offices again, or… well, he needs to learn how to tell left from right. We should speak to Doyle about maybe setting up an exercise where he shouts directions and we follow them; see how many Metcalfe gets wrong.”
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Ophelia
Human
LAPD Detective: Vice
Run 'round the town singing your blues, I know you ain't going anywhere.
Posts: 39
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Post by Ophelia on Mar 8, 2007 4:27:38 GMT
Drawing a line beneath her message, Phee gave a slightly fiendish smile; sometimes her dark sense of humour got the better of her and while this little 'game' with the Reader's Digest was innocuous on the whole there was still a hint of it in her expression. It was rarely cruel or distasteful of course, she knew her boundaries and she stuck to them, it was just who she was. Metcalfe would have to like it or lump it; she suspected, as unknowingly to her did her partner, that he would get over it quickly. He had a good sense of humour and his masculinity to protect.
Holding it up to display the cover to her partner she gestured to the figures on the front, "Why thank you. The question now being which one is he; the toothless kid or the truck sized dog?" she raised her eyebrows and then turned the magazine around, nodding to herself slightly, "I'll leave it to Met'."
She set the publication face down to her left, on the other side of the keyboard which she now pulled out from its tucked away position halfway under the monitor. "Aha, now there's and idea." She responded, pointing her pen harmlessly at Glenn before dropping it back into its rightful place and giving a small laugh at the mental image of the entire Vice Division on some kind of military inspired regime. "We should get one of those eye test charts with the letters on it too, just to be on the safe side. I wanna know he can at least read road signs or I'm taking a personal air bag next time I'm in a car with him."
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Glenn
Human
LAPD Detective: Vice
But it's like no matter what I do, I can't convince you to just believe this is real.
Posts: 41
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Post by Glenn on Mar 8, 2007 4:56:01 GMT
“Metcalfe’s the butt-ugly hound,” Glenn offered, almost indifferently, as he tossed the apple core in the trash can, hearing it rustle amidst the garbage already lining the bottom. “His partner’s the goofy kid.” His smirk was devious in a way; about as devious as Glenn Porter was likely to get, which, in all fairness, when the mood struck him, was pretty bad. But since those instances were thankfully rare, it usually wasn’t a concern that entered anybody’s mind.
Chuckling at her quip about the car — though her words made him think that maybe that wasn’t a bad idea — he shifted his weight in his chair, and pulled a fresh file from the stack in his tray, giving it a quick once-over. “Speaking of air bags,” he said to his partner, snagging a pen of his own and clicking the nib in and out twice in succession, “did you hear about the case Homicide worked last night?” True, it wasn’t his place to gossip, but he and Phee were both of the popular opinion, in the force, that the LAPD were like a family, and it just wouldn’t be a family if they didn’t discuss one another and keep up to date on things.
Glenn didn’t like to spread rumours; the only thing that ‘contented’ him about the particular topic was the fact that he knew it hadn’t been blown out of proportion. He had heard it from a few different sources since getting to the station earlier that morning, and they all fit together perfectly.
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Ophelia
Human
LAPD Detective: Vice
Run 'round the town singing your blues, I know you ain't going anywhere.
Posts: 39
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Post by Ophelia on Mar 8, 2007 19:14:26 GMT
With a laugh Phee nodded at the repartee over the magazine's cover and their colleagues, taking a swig of her coffee when she was done and setting the mug back to its rightful place afterwards. One of the many aspects of 'family life' with the LAPD, everyone usually got to be the butt of a joke sooner or later. She knew she had been in that position a few times. It came with the turf.
Rapidly the female detective tapped her password into the keyboard she'd pulled in front of her and hit enter, giving the machine time to verify it as throughout the station cops were logging on at the start of their respective shifts. She looked up as the conversation moved on, "Yeah I caught it on the news. Some priest murdered in his own church and something about a car crash?"
She'd only been at the station all of ten minutes so really, she hadn't had much chance to catch up on the story behind what she had seen on the news and what she was fairly certain had already been sensationalised. Still, there would undoubtedly be rumours flying every which way around the station but the chances of getting a somewhat accurate description of events were greatly improved over taking what the media said at face value.
"You heard anything through the 'vine?" she asked, rapt attention focussed over the joined desks as her right hand found its way into the 'IN' tray to extract the first file.
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Glenn
Human
LAPD Detective: Vice
But it's like no matter what I do, I can't convince you to just believe this is real.
Posts: 41
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Post by Glenn on Mar 8, 2007 23:08:16 GMT
Having flipped open the light brown file, Glenn turned his gaze upon his partner. He hadn’t yet taken note of what the paperwork centred around, but he would get to it. It had just been one piece after another since he had come in that morning, and right then, given the chance to just have a conversation with his partner, he was going to take it.
“Been sitting here three hours, Phee… I’ve heard a lot,” he ‘teased’, smiling lightly before his expression became suitably more serious. “Word has it, some woman tore out the guy’s throat; would’ve done more damage if a few of the Homicide guys hadn’t shown up. They were bringing the witnesses back here when someone — some people suspect it was the woman from the church — rammed the unmarked car right off the road.” He spun his pen deftly in his hand as he spoke, continuing after a small pause, “One of the witnesses vanished from the scene, and two of the detectives ended up in the hospital; as far as anybody knows, they’re still there now.”
Glenn shrugged, but it wasn’t an indifferent motion; more puzzled really. “Never a dull day, huh?”
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Ophelia
Human
LAPD Detective: Vice
Run 'round the town singing your blues, I know you ain't going anywhere.
Posts: 39
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Post by Ophelia on Mar 9, 2007 2:05:17 GMT
"Jesus." She responded, blinking as she took in the information. It must have been one hell of a crime scene. She didn't envy the Homicide guys that was for sure; as strong a stomach as she had, there was no desire to step into their shoes. She let the 'teasing' slide after the information he'd given her following it propelled them in a slightly more serious route, which as was likely took a slight deviation when she spoke again, flipping open the file she'd pulled from the tray. "You're telling me... Guess Homicide's up to their eyes, huh? Make me feel kind of bad complaining about my paperwork, but at least that's another of those god awful Sedan's off the road."
If a couple of Homicide Detectives had been, heaven forbid, killed last night or really seriously injured Phee knew that even if it hadn't been released to the media, she'd have been able to feel it in the filtered air of the building. Like any unit, Homicide was a tight-knit gang and she hadn't heard any snarling when she'd passed their offices earlier, so she felt it was safe to assume their colleagues were breathing. With that in mind she felt comfortable applying her brand of dark sarcasm to the situation.
"Lucky them, dealing with the crazies of LA; I'll take the pimps and bookies any day..." she mused as she looked down at the printed pages in the file she'd opened up.
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