A busy morning ensued, putting many of the previous days' issues on the back corner, as Mike and Steve, along with Simone's help navigated their way through the personal information trickling in from the half dozen or so members of McPhearson's dojo.
So far, despite their best efforts of looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack, the search for a fitting suspect came up empty. None of the ladies working out at the dojo had priors, not even a history of domestic abuse.
A return to the sweaty mats seemed ever so painfully inevitable.
By midmorning, morale was understandably low with Steve working on his third cup of coffee, nervously pulling on his phone cord as the talked to a stoolie, Simone playing with a loose strand of her otherwise immaculate hair in a nervous frenzy, as she stared at the mountain of paperwork lying on her desk.
Mike had arrived in the twilight zone, his eyes still scanning over the text ahead for the second time, his mind wandering back to Harrison's apartment at the night of the murder; the handful of smeared and indiscernible finger prints; the quick and concise method of murder; and the complete lack of forcible entry and defensive wounds.
A quiet knock on the door pulled the Lieutenant out of his deep state of mind and he glanced over the black frames of his reading glasses in time to see Olsen enter, his face stern with tension, the wrinkles on his forehead deep, hands subconsciously reaching for a cigar in his breast pocket, as he closed the door behind him.
"Thought I'd check in and see how things are going with you, Michael. I noticed that Boris put a nice report together the other day. The Chief loved it and expressed his gratitude for your help on all this. It was great, really well put together."
Shrugging indifferently at the pointless news report he never even cared to watch, Mike pulled the glasses off his face, then sighed in unmasked frustration.
"Are you here to check on the case…or our new…team member?"
A slight twitch ran through Olsen's body, the Captain clearly unprepared for the undercurrent of hostility thrown his way in light of the present situation.
Carefully tucking the cigar back into his coat pocket, Rudy billowed his cheeks as if wanting to say something, then thought different of it and released his breath, before nervously reaching for a pen in the holder.
As a tense silence befell the two men, it was Mike who cleared his throat, hoping to move on from the awkwardness of the situation and get back to work.
"Staff Sergeant Kammers is fitting in well so far, if that's what you are concerned about, Rudy. My question is what's going to happen next? Are you going to fill my entire bullpen with female detectives to prove some sort of point? To appease the media? To fill a quota?"
"No…no…of course not.", the Captain answered too fast, then shook his head, "Nothing like that in the near future. I mean, recruiting will change the landscape of these offices over time, but I don't expect that to create huge change anytime soon. Look around if you're worried about quotas; I think you've got every last one of them covered in this bullpen."
Gesturing wildly, Olsen huffed in frustration, the pressure of change and handed-down policies of a questionable nature taking a toll on him as well.
"Listen Mike, you know I can't stand this whole thing either… but it is what it is. We're Oldtimers, set in our way. When we were young, I bet the Oldtimers of then would have put up just as much of a fight bringing somebody like Keller or Tanner into the squad. Times change. And we must do the same."
"Give me a break, Rudy.", Mike growled and rose from his desk, unable to keep his temper in check any longer, "And don't bring Steve or Bill into this whole mess. This has nothing to do with age. It has nothing to do with skin color. It has everything to do with this women's lib agenda being pushed down our throats under the guise of equality. And the ones paying the ultimate price for all this nonsense will be these women being promoted because of their gender, not because they're the best of the best and have the experience to go with it. They will be the ones unprepared to face a public that won't take kindly to this agenda. People aren't used to seeing women working murder scenes, chasing gun-slinging lunatics or going undercover to bust drug dealers. That's rough work, both on the body and the mind, a man's work. They shouldn't have to go through what we go through in this job. They should be protected and cared for, cherished for sure. They should be home, nurturing children, helping to raise a family, turning a house into a home, while we are out there walking around as moving targets."
Fidgeting with the cigar in his coat pocket once, and running a hand across his balding head with the other, Olsen spun around as if to consider pacing the small confines of the office. When it was obvious that he couldn't push off the inevitable confrontation any longer, he sighed deeply, then dropped his head to his chest.
Several tense seconds passed without another word being said, the commotion causing a slew of curious eyes in the bullpen to drift their way. When the Captain glanced back up, an angry Mike stood there frozen in place, breathing heavy, jaws clenched and ready to defend his argument further if needed.
With the confidence of any leader stuck between a rock and a hard spot, Olsen swallowed hard, managing a faint smile and nodded.
"Like I said, Mike, we're both on the same page. Unfortunately, none of us were involved in the decision making process when it came to these…policy changes. So yeah, I came here to make sure things were going well with Staff Sergeant Kammers. Because if they're not, I'll be the first one to pull the plug on this…this experiment and defend my decision in front of the Chief."
With his heart racing, lip quivering from the angry outburst, Mike cocked his head in silent appreciation, his eyes wandering over to Simone who was in the middle of a phone conversation, her small desk tucked into the corner a visual representation of being an outcast, thrown into a well-oiled machine and grinding it to a halt.
It was a sad fact that the circumstances of her promotion would reverberate throughout her entire career, to no fault of her own.
"Mike, there's something else I wanted to talk to you about.", Olsen then said, a distinct change of cadence in his voice; the change that typically indicated more unwanted news.
Again, he only graced the remark with a faint nod and crossed his arms over his chest, dreading what would come next.
"You see, the Chief noticed on Boris' report that that you mentioned informants, your stoolies…"
Visibly confused, Mike shrugged, then frowned.
"I wasn't giving out any information; I was just making a blanket statement that we all work with stoolies to help us solve crimes from time to time."
"Oh absolutely, that goes without a question.", Olsen quickly interrupted, then ran a hand across his head again as he licked his lips in agitation, "It's just that Conden would prefer it if from now on, you would refer to them as Confidential Informants, CI for short. It's a more appropriate term to him than stoolie pigeon."