Precinct 9
Summary: Det Elphaba Thropp is smart, confident and doing just fine as Precinct 9's ace detective - that is, until a series of mysterious abductions brought in the Emerald City Bureau of Investigation (aka Gale Force), and she is forced to partner with the insufferably cocky Agent Tiggular.
No.
They can't do this to her.
Nononononononono—
"Chief, you can't let them—"
"Ah, Thropp. I see you've heard the news." Chuffery exhaled deeply. He could already feel it in his bones – all hell was about to break loose. Every time Elphaba was in his office, she was either yelling at him or being deathly quiet. Either way, it's never good when she has to come find him at his desk.
A small crowd had gathered outside his office and he sighed again.
Elphaba may have hated the limelight portion of being the Detective with the highest case-solved rate, but she certainly commanded the attention even as she rejected it.
"We don't have a choice, Thropp. Abductions fall under Bureau jurisdiction – especially one that involves a high ranking officer from the Emerald City military."
"It's my case. The file came to me, it was assigned to me and if I have anything to say about it – it will be closed by me." She said through gritted teeth. If there was anything she hated more than religion, it was getting her cases re-assigned, or in this case – shared.
"The case is still ours. ECPD Precinct 9 will still be the lead in this case. It just so happens that an agent from the Gale Force would be partnering with you. He's just here to help, really. We could use the Gale Force's funding and expertise on this."
"I don't need their stinkin' help."
"De-tec-tive Thropp. There is nothing I can do about this." Chuffery shouted angrily. He hated having to come to this, but Elphaba's insubordination was getting ridiculous. "Now, Elphie. I respect you, and your work ethics, very deeply. As your friend, I'm going to have to tell you to deal with this professionally. As your Precinct Chief, I'm going to let you off with a warning. You don't get to come barging in and demanding things without consequences for your actions."
Elphaba frowned deeply – obviously still itching to snap back at him. But ultimately, she chose not to say anything and simply bit the inside of her cheeks, forcing herself not to burst into strings of profanity.
Finally, after a beat, Chuffery sighed.
"If there's nothing else, Detective, would you please return to your desk and brief your team. We need to find Dane Cherrystone before he turns up in a body bag."
"Hey, boss lady. What's this I hear about having to share our case notes with a Gale Force agent?"
Avaric Tenmeadews walked over to Elphaba's desk and folded his thick arms across his chest. Elphaba glanced up at him with narrowed eyes – still ticked off by her conversation with Chuffery.
"And where did you hear that?"
"Your beautiful screaming voice coming from Chuffery's office." Avaric remarked sarcastically. "So what's the deal? Does the GF agent have full reign? Are you still my boss?"
"Where's Boq? Don't you two come in a set?"
"He got a call from his friend in Vice who was running the hooker's deets we found in our victim's wallet." Avaric said off-handedly. "If we're lucky, she's could be the last person to see Dane Cherrystone and give us a description to work with."
Elphaba raised a brow, confused. "Couldn't he have done that over the phone? We do have these things on our desks for a reason, y'know."
Avaric scoffed, "Don't you know? Finnegan's got a crush on the new detective downstairs. He's hanging around vice every chance he's got – and really, I admire him for that. Their coffee tastes like ass–"
"—it's a lot better now. They replaced the old coffee machine - the new one's got 3 settings."
"Boq! Welcome back." Elphaba greeted sarcastically. "Remember what I said about the buddy system?"
"Yeah, yeah." Boq waved his hand dismissively. The stocky munchkin stepped over to Avaric's side and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. "So what's new? I heard that we should be expecting a visit from the Gale Force."
Elphaba furrowed her brows and shot a look at a snickering Avaric. "And where did you hear that?"
"Overheard it from Detective Cunningham's desk on my way here."
"How did he—"
All conversation ceased when a man in a crisp black suit appeared from the lift landing. Elphaba's eyes had easily spotted him as he glanced about and finally seemed to notice her in the sea of regular coloured people.
It was him.
It had to be.
He was a tall sort, with lightly tanned skin and short, russet hair that was combed back neatly. Judging from the double takes from the women and the irritated staring from the men, Elphaba assumed that he would be what most people considered 'good-looking'.
Not her though.
She thought he looked too smug to be attractive.
The agent walked over to her desk as Avaric and Boq stood aside. Avaric didn't look very happy – but Elphaba had attributed that to the fact that all the female attention seemed to have been redirected to the tanned stranger instead of him. Boq simply looked disinterested.
"Detective Thropp?" He asked, and reached out with a hand. She assumed that he was waiting on her to stand for him, so she simply stayed seated. He raised a brow, but quickly shrugged away whatever comment he might've had.
He retracted his hand and simply turned to Avaric and Boq.
"I'm Special Agent Tiggular from the Emerald City Bureau of Investigation."
"Gale Force." Boq commented, shrugging. Avaric sniggered.
Agent Tiggular chose not to respond, and simply continued with what he had to say. His eyes were soley focused on Elphaba. "I'm here to assist with your investigation, Detectives. Not to steal your case, or to steamroll over your authority."
"We'll see about that." She said, stopping her work and looking up at him. Eyes, the colour of emeralds, stared right back at her. Pretty, she thought, but the rest of him gave off an air of cockiness. It was the way he stood, and that smug little smile – she figured that he was probably one of those men who had the world at his fingertips.
Elphaba stood, and she realized that she was only a little shorter than him. Pity. If he had been shorter, she could've easily intimidated him into submission.
"I've heard of you. Tiggular – as in Special Agent Fiyero Tiggular, the youngest Gale Force agent to have risen up to S.A this quickly in recent history. The last agent to have done that retired 5 years ago, as the Chief of the Emerald City Bureau of Investigations."
Fiyero let out a small laugh, and smiled. "Wow. You seem to know a lot about me, Detective. Are you a fan?"
Boq quickly pulled his lips shut tight as he attempted to keep himself from laughing, while Avaric rolled his eyes – again, annoyed that his place as the suave and cocky detective was taken over by Fiyero.
"Not really." Elphaba smiled, almost arrogantly. "Men like you are always lacking when it comes to things that are actually important." Her eyes quickly flicked down, and then up again to meet his. It was a fast motion, but she knew that he'd caught that.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Fiyero replied, his voice had an odd, husky tone that unsettled Elphaba. She frowned, but refused to step away even when he closed into her personal space.
The air between them was fraught with meaning, and neither would back down. It was this moment that both Detective and Agent knew that this partnership was going to end in a bloodbath. He was standing so close to her, that even as he exhaled, she could smell a hint of mint from his breath.
"The case notes, please?" He asked politely.
Elphaba stared him down, her lips tight. Her face betrayed nothing. She could almost start to see the little flashes of irritation in his emerald green eyes.
Avaric grumbled, and slapped the file against Fiyero's chest, forcing him to step away from Elphaba. "Here's your stinkin' case notes. Now if you'll excuse us, we actually do work here on the Homicide floor."
"Homicide? Who's the victim? I was only aware of the abduction of Colonel Cherrystone."
"What, did you screw the wrong person in the Bureau or something? It's like you don't even know what's happening." Avaric snickered, and folded his arms. "Dane Cherrystone was only discovered to have been taken when we found the body of a Jane Doe in the alleyway, between the Ruby Bar and Tuxan Lounge."
"The crime scene was riddled with bullet holes and a very distinct skid mark. We're running the tyre's make as we speak." Boq added helpfully.
"Maybe we should find a more private place to catch me up?"
Fiyero exhaled sharply, as if trying to calm himself. There was something about him that rubbed Elphaba the wrong way however. Despite his controlled exterior, there seemed to be something about the way he behaved that made her think that he might've been pretending to have his shit together.
"Meeting room B." Elphaba commanded. Avaric and Boq quickly grabbed their files off their desks and made their way towards the cluster of meeting rooms towards the back of the office. Their many years of working under Elphaba had imparted some important rules that they were – frankly – too scared to break. Boq even had them scribbled down on a piece of note paper in red ink.
One. If she told them to do something, they could complain all they want but they had to get right on it. Elphaba was the boss.
Two. Avaric is not to talk to any female witnesses or persons of interest without supervision from either Boq or Elphaba.
Three. Obligations to pay for 'vinkun take-away Mondays' rotates every week. Stop being a stingy ass, Avaric.
"So. Ruby Bar and Tuxan Lounge. They're located in the lower Ruby District, isn't it?" Fiyero asked as the team settled inside the meeting room. "Are we sure that this isn't just a gang hit?"
Elphaba motioned at Boq to close the door as she sat directly opposite to Fiyero.
"Ballistics don't come back until tomorrow, but our on-scene techs told us that based on the autopsy report, the locations of the casings and the blood splatter analysis, every shot on the Jane Doe was intentional and calculated – Not exactly the M.O for the gangs in the lower Ruby District. The bullet holes littering the crime scene were from a previous incident in that alleyway… It's a rough neighbourhood."
She pulled out the crime scene photos where the body was found and slid with over to Fiyero. He reached over the scratched up pinewood table and frowned thinly at the sight of the gore.
"Knees, thigh, shoulder, jugular." He muttered as his eyes scanned across the photo of the Jane's autopsy. "You can tell the order by the haemorrhaging and blood pooling… He wanted her to suffer. She was tortured before she was killed."
"At this point, it's safe to assume that Cherrystone was either restrained or knocked out." She pulled out another series of crime scene photos with markings on the photocopies, indicating the potential scenario. "The vehicle was there, facing outwards for a fast getaway. Based on the width of the skids, we can assume that it's at least the size of a van. From the looks of it, the vehicle was probably already parked there when Cherrystone had come out to meet the Jane."
"How did the ECPD come to the conclusion that the Colonel was present in this crime scene?"
Elphaba gave a look, irritated by the implication behind Fiyero's question. He seemed a little taken aback by her – which only meant that he hadn't actually meant any harm.
Avaric was the one to reply.
"His wallet was found chucked in a puddle of vomit, behind that dumpster, over there." He pointed at the green monstrosity that leaned against the red bricked wall, towards the dead-end in the alleyway. "The wallet was clean, except for the vomit on the bottom. We're certain that Cherrystone had been snatched here."
"That," Elphaba added, "and because we found specks of blood that didn't belong to our Jane. When CSI found the wallet, we ran the blood against the sample data the Colonel had in the system, and of course, it came back positive."
"So Cherrystone was attacked, and then abducted, while the Jane stood there and watched? This must've been a team then. There's no way that a single man or woman could attack a man as large as the Colonel while handling the Jane." Fiyero frowned thinly as he tried to fill in the blanks.
"Our theory is that they were hiding in the van, heard the Colonel and the Jane, popped out, one of them attacks Cherrystone, the other handles the Jane. Maybe shoots her in the knees to prevent her from running off."Avaric walked over to the water dispenser and poured one for himself. The sound of water in this tense environment was foreign to their ears.
"Have you guys looked into why the Colonel was meeting the Jane in the first place? You have confirmation that she's a street walker?" Fiyero glanced over to Elphaba, who simply nodded towards Boq.
"I just came back from a visit with vice this morning." He said with a shrug. "The girl has no name, but she's been spotted around the circuit. She only seem to work occasionally, and she never talks to the other girls working the same street."
"No friends, no family. Transient." Avaric made a popping noise with his lips, which seemed to unsettle Fiyero.
Nobody spoke for a little while and Elphaba sighed. It would take the agent some time to process all that information, and she didn't have time to sit around, babysitting the Bureau's favorite boy toy.
"Boq and Avaric would be working to track the make and model of the vehicle. And I'll be headed out to speak to the Colonel's family." She leaned over the table and collected all the case notes into the file.
Fiyero stood from his seat and reached over to help her. Elphaba coiled away from his presence.
"Did I do something to offend you, Detective?" He raised a brow at her reaction.
"Just, stay out of my way." She grunted and quickly swept the files into her arms and left.
Fiyero watched her walk away, utterly confused and curious. He turned to Boq and Avaric. "Does she hate the agency or something?"
Avaric scoffed and walked away, ignoring Fiyero, and Boq was the one to reply him. "No sir, I think she just hates you."
A/N I'm still currently working on Building Bridges but something popped into my head while watching the latest episode of Criminal Minds - a modern Detective AU with our favorite charmed circle :) Building Bridges take priority, of course, but I've been itching to write something a little more action/adventure orientated :P
It probably wouldn't be a super long series, and I would probably keep the chapters to a 3k average.
Let me know how this first chapter sits with you guys!