"Ugh." He groans as he grabs his phone, which had just gone off and is now ringing the most irritating tone possible. A moment later he looks towards the girl next to him. "I gotta go."
Her phone chimes and she reaches over and groggily picks it up off the floor. Checking the message she lets out a soft exhale. "Me too." There's a pregnant pause in conversation as she looks over at him. Her face is stern, no emotion is shown and she's in full focus; she speaks her words in her authoritative "detective" voice. "Peeta Mellark." Her eyes lock with his as he adjusts the collar on the jacket he'd just pulled over his shoulder. "When we get to this crime scene you don't look at me, you don't give me that little smile of yours and you don't even think of talking to me unless it's related to the case. Got it?"
As she spoke sternly, he made his way so that he's now towering over her small frame, which is still sitting on the bed. Her arms are crossed and resting on her knees, which are pulled up towards her chest. She takes this moment to examine his features, realizing that what she had gotten herself into with him could be a huge mistake. She doesn't ponder on the thought long because a moment later the blonde leans over and kisses her forehead; he gives no response to the question she'd asked but simply responds with his own
. "See you at the scene?" He questions, and she responds with a nod. As soon as he's gone, she finds a smile forming across her face; shaking her head slightly, she quickly pulls her brown locks back into a braid.
"Oh God." Madge forces the swallow of coffee down her throat, her hand inches from her mouth as she shakes her head slightly. "This is very possible the worst coffee I've ever tasted."
"Mhmm." The detective across from her mumbles his agreement. Now Madge realizes why Detective Hawthorne always stops for coffee before coming into his shifts.
Relaxing back into her chair after tossing the disposable cup in the trash next to her, she lets her gaze drift to the tall brunette who is currently lost in his paperwork. Her slender fingers twist around a section of her blonde hair in an attempt to cure her boredem. It doesn't work, and she ends up noting that she has more split ends then a high-class New Yorker should have.
"Don't you have a book coming out today or something?" Gale asks after a few moments with a hint of annoyance in his tone.
Madge shrugs. "Yeah, so?"
"Shouldn't you, I don't know, be promoting it?"
She shrugs again. "I like it here."
"So you have a book coming out today and you're sitting here watching me do paperwork."
Madge raises her brow, questioning the problem with the situation without actually speaking the words.
"It's creepy." Hawthorne elabortes, before realization hits him; and once it does a sly smile forms across his features. "You're hiding."
Scoffing, Madge shakes her head. He was right, but the writer wouldn't ever admit that. "I don't know what gave you that idea."
Gale, however, gives the impression that he isn't buying her story and continues to press her on the fact. "I thought you didn't care what people think?"
"I don't." Madge clarifies, and when she realizes that she'd just given herself up, her face falls. Sighing, she slouches back into the chair. "Most of the time. "
She doesn't get a reply from her partner, though, because his phone rings right then and he answers with the traditional "Hawthorne." Madge perks when she sees him reach over for a notepad and scribble it down. When he tells the person on the other side of the call that he'll be right there she questions if there's a body. His ignoring her and continuing to walk with keys in hand she smiles and exclaims to herself; "Yes."
"This the girl?" A uniform questions Hawthorne, who trails a few steps ahead of her.
"You heard?" He offers in reply.
"Everyone's heard, Detective." The officer then turns towards the writer. "Is it true you're basing your next book on Detective Hawthorne here?"
Madge smiles, stepping over the threshold of the apartment where the crime scene was. "Every artist needs a muse."
When she turns around so she's not walking backwards, the detective was standing a few steps in front of her. He narrows his gaze and looks her over once before pushing a piece of her hair behind her ear. "Call me a muse again and I'll break both of your legs, kay?"
The tone didn't even need to be threatening; which, Madge noted, it wasn't. The message came across clearly, so she gives him an innocent look and speaks the simple word "'Kay."
"So, what do we got?" Gale asks as he turns to Katniss Everdeen, another detective that Madge was going to have a character in her next novel based off of (she, however, had no idea that the author was doing this.)
"Rolled up rug in a dumpster." Katniss supplies, and Jones elaborates with "Two new renters decide that it's their lucky day and bring it up here. Unroll it and John Doe here decides to make a grand entrance."
They make their way over to the body, crouching down so they're now eye level with the ME, who begins giving the information he's discovered. "Close range shot, killed instantly. I'd put TOD to be about 12-24 hours ago."
Gale nods, his eyes not leaving the body. "ID?"
"Pockets were empty." Everdeen replies to which Hawthorne nods once.
Peeta rolls the body over as Gale asks if he would do what he could for an ID. Madge smiles.
"Don't bother." The confusion in everyone's eyes doesn't go unnoticed. "I know who he is."
"Carson Hampt." The detective says, pinning the headshot of him next to the crime scene photo on the whiteboard. He turns to the writer, raising a brow and a questioning tone ringing through his words. "He a friend of yours?"
She chuckles, ignoring the subtle hint in the word "friend" that Gale had spoken. "No," She makes sure to add stress on the word, not wanting to cause tension on the case. "I recognize him from the vast amount of bus benches through the city. State senate. Running for re-election this season."
"Great." She hears him mumble, reaching over and grabbing a manila file folder from a uniform officer. "Press is going to have a field day with this one."
"Gale?" Looking over to the source of the flat voice, Detective Everdeen motions towards the interview room. "Wife is here."
The go through the routine questions with the victims wife.
"Is there anyone who would want to hurt your husband?" "No, he devoted his life to trying to make a better place for the kids. Oh, what am I going to tell my girls?"
"When was the last time you saw him?" "Yesterday morning. With the re-election he's been working later and later and I've been working graves lately."
Madge didn't hide the disappointment in the lack of information they got from the interview during the car ride to Hampt's office. Her face wears a blank expression as she rests her elbow on the door, her window cracked slightly so her hair whips against her face.
"You know if this case is boring for you you can go home". The detective says, not hiding the fact that he wants her to leave. She stifles a chuckle at his words. If there was anything she didn't want to do it was go home and see the reviews for her book or listen to her Dad lecture her on how proud or disappointed in her he was (depending on the success or failure of the novel)
"Yeah, right."
"No, seriously. You're clearly not enjoying yourself, I think I've seen you do that thing where you twirl your hair through your fingers every other second."
She turns towards him, a shocked look on her face at the fact that he noticed and remembered that she picked at her hair when she was bored. With a shake of her head, she looks back out the windshield; "This case is going to be good. I mean it's a public figure who was murdered. I'm not missing anything."
This chapter was super hard to write so I to rely on blurredrealities quiet a bit, so thanks for that hun. Kind of boring but also important to the story. I've hinted a little bit at the Katniss/Peeta relationship at the beginning (like Laine and Espo in "Poof! You're Dead.") which will be added on to in the second part of this chapter series.