Chapter One
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters on House, and I make no money from this.
Monika Alvarez's eyes were a light, cinnamon shade of brown. Her eyes didn't smile, instead, they constantly frowned, because she was in a thankless job. Being the Lieutenant for a wealthy area was a constant stress; whenever anyone important got pulled over, they would march into the police station and demand to talk to the "man" in charge – they would get Alvarez and then they would smirk at the fact that the "man in charge" was indeed a woman.
In Alvarez's eyes, that stopped being ironic about thirty years ago.
And now things were worse. The new case that was on her desk could set Princeton's corrections back ten years and shatter the PR job she had been working the last three years to build up. But she couldn't ignore it.
Princeton Area Prison really should have been a country club place. After all, the area that it pulled its population from was a pretty affluent area. People should have been able to walk in, do their time, and then leave and not bother everyone again. Alvarez wasn't sure where in the hell that concept that gone awry.
But here it was in the file on her desk – a man named Christopher Hall, a 25 year old snotty little car thief from a nice family.
Maybe it would be better for Alvarez to stop thinking of him as a snotty brat, though, because Christopher Hall was dead. In the ground. Beaten to death.
The prison had called it a fight between inmates, but the coroner had found tell-tale signs of what had to be prison abuse – taser marks and circular bruises that looked like they were from a nightstick.
She had to put her best guys on this – the problem was, being that Princeton's crime level was always rather low, that she only really had four "guys" at her disposal; the Detective Bureau consisted, specifically, of two men and two women.
Her favored detective was Lee Hamilton, a smart-dressing African-American in his mid-thirties who had a degree in Criminal Justice and a good head on his shoulders, if a tendency to flirt with every female who walked through the doors of the station.
The downside to putting Hamilton on the case, however, was that it was a case that required a strong partnership – and that was where Hamilton was currently having some trouble.
His partner was busty blonde Neely McVee, and she was a capable detective and a hard worker, but also had a host of personal problems that seemed to keep cropping up into her job. Alvarez was pretty sure that she was currently carrying on an illicit affair with some people in Internal Affairs, which was likely to become a problem for everybody sooner rather than later.
There was no way she wanted IA wrapped up in this unless there was no other choice.
Which left, quite tragically, Tritter and Bennett.
The Dream Team. The Odd Couple. Alvarez had given them more than one sarcastic nickname in the time she had been their boss. But this case had to be theirs, and she had to hope that they wouldn't screw it up.
"Detective Tritter," Alvarez began, tossing the file across her desk. "This is your new case. Chris Hall."
Detective Michael Tritter had 25 years on the force, and ten years as a detective. He had an ego the size of Miami and a general bad attitude, as well as a violent dislike of Alvarez.
He also had a very immediate bad feeling about the case file he was about to open.
Maybe if he just left it there, it would explode already and he wouldn't be forced to deal with the damn thing.
But as the time ticked by more and more, it didn't explode and Tritter opened it up, flipping lazily through the autopsy report.
"What are you thinking?" he inquired. "Police brutality?"
"Well, not police," Alvarez corrected quickly. "This is Corrections. Not our guys." Tritter nodded; he should have known better than to paint "Alvarez's guys" with this brush.
"Okay, well, prison brutality. How do we plan on getting to the bottom of this? I mean, the reason this stuff goes unreported is because it's so difficult to get inside a place like this."
"That's why they pay you the big bucks, isn't it, Detective?" Alvarez replied coolly. "You need a plan. You need to figure out who is doing this, whether it's one person or the whole damn prison that needs to be gutted, and you need to try and keep this quiet until we know who is responsible. The last thing Princeton needs is a goddamned American-grown Abu Gharib scandal."
"Well, my plan would be to try and infiltrate the prison with undercover operatives," Tritter said quickly. "Get some people, arrest them on fake charges and cycle them about, see what they find out. Maybe use some CI's who are already known within the prison system."
"Our CI's are engaged," Alvarez replied. Tritter's eyes went wide and the blues flared to red.
"Doing what? Busting high school kids selling pot? Tell me, Lieutenant, what are they off doing? What crime in Princeton is bigger than this?" Alvarez didn't answer.
"I need you to do it. I need Bennett on the ground and you in the prison once you get information we can use." Alvarez's words rang out, clear as day orders. "As soon as possible."
"Okay, then," Tritter said, holding his arms up in defeat. "Whatever you say. I really want to spend the next couple months running around Princeton Prison, so I'm thrilled." He sighed and shrugged. "Can you get me a list of inmates? People I can try and contact after they've been released, if they know anything?"
"Here's a list," Alvarez said as she pushed a stack of papers across to Tritter. "And you might want to direct yourself to page 66, line 4."
Tritter looked at his boss in annoyance, but proceeded to flip to the page indicated. He ran his finger over the bright white paper, wondering why they even bothered with such nice paper for such ridiculous documents, when his finger stopped at a name.
"House, Gregory."
