"Why, if it has to be so neat, do we have to write it by hand in triplicate?" Jo hissed to Hanson as they sat in on an afternoon of training on paperwork.
"Maybe because you have the worst handwriting in the history of the department?" Hanson said. "You're the girl. You're supposed to have pretty and flowery handwriting."
"You mean like you, Michelle?" Jo said pointedly.
At the front of the room the sergeant acting as a staff instructor yelled back at them. "Hanson! Martinez! Stop trying to interrupt the class."
"It would be easier if I wasn't bored of writing everything in triplicate," Jo murmured down to her paper.
Mike Hanson got the giggles and tried stealth laughing. He was the kind of man who looked stoic most times, but if you ever really got him laughing at the right time, there was just no stopping him. He snickered. He did not guffaw. He was almost to a chortle. He was most definitely laughing.
Jo pursed her lips and sat up taller, like the prissiest girl in the high school. She looked at Mike, but raised her hand in the air.
"Sergeant, you need to separate that detective from me. He's bothering me," she said.
"What are you? Four?" the sergeant asked them.
"I'm five," Hanson said pompously. Then he explained. "I have better handwriting than she does."
One of the other detectives in a row ahead of them turned around and shot Martinez and Hanson a Look. The kind of look that was shorthand for "You're the worst" and a few other less polite things to say while on the job.
"Shut up, and do it right," Sergeant Bealls said. "We want to get all the clerical errors down to zero so we won't have any more walks on a technicality."
"We've never had that one one of our cases," Hanson said.
"It's true," Martinez agreed. "Best record in our precinct."
If they would have been the kind of detectives who gave each other high fives, that would have been their high five moment. Instead of doing that, Jo went on with an explanation, "Hanson does all the paperwork, and everything is beautiful."
"Martinez, what happens when Hanson breaks his hand because there was an accident at one of his son's Little League games? What then?"
Sergeant Bealls put his knuckles down on the table and leaned over her dominantly. "Pick up the pen, and fill out the form. Correctly and in triplicate."
She shot Hanson a dirty look but picked up the pen muttering a falsely docile, "Yes, Sergeant."