Voight and the Intelligence team walked into a place they never expected to be a crime scene...an art museum.
"Well this is a new one." Jay whispered over to Ruzek.
"I know. We're used to back allies and dingy motels. Maybe a bank on a good day. Had I known I would've worn something a lot nicer." Ruzek whispered back, looking down at his flannel shirt and worn out jeans.
Rojas rolled her eyes, pushing past the guys to catch up with the rest of the team who were already taking in the scene.
A young man walked up to Voight and shook his hand. "Thank you so much for coming so quickly."
The girl next to him also shook his hand. "And for keeping this under wraps as much as possible. We don't need the press having a field day with this."
Voight nodded. "Of course, we'll do what we can to keep this away from prying eyes. Can you tell us what happened?"
The two well-dressed young people looked at each other. The man sighed and shook his head. "Everything was here when we left yesterday. But when we came in this morning we noticed a few things were out of place."
The young girl continued. "We assumed it was just the cleaning crew when they did the floors, until we did our usual rounds through the galleries and noticed some of our most precious jewels were gone, as was a Jackson Pollock."
"Wait, so this just turned into a missing person case?" Jay asked.
Both Hailey and Rojas whipped their heads around to look at him. With the look they had on their face, Jay could tell he said something wrong.
Before either woman could utter a word, Kim spoke up. "No, Jay. Jackson Pollock is an artist. They mean one of his pieces was stolen."
Voight turned back to the young pair. "Ok, I'm assuming these cases are alarmed and that you have some kind of security footage you can show us?"
The pair looked at each other dumbfounded, like that had been the first time they had ever heard those words.
"Do you at least know who has access to different parts of the building? Anyone on the inside who seems a little off center? Maybe a visitor that comes in a little too often?" Voight was getting impatient with their sudden lack of communication. "ANYTHING?!"
"Detective Voight! Are you harassing my interns?" The whole group looked up to see another young woman standing in their presence. This one was slightly older. Early to mid-thirties rather than the 20-something of the others he was just questioning. She was dressed just as nicely, if not better. There was one more major difference that separated her from the interns...a difference that made everyone stare at Kim, who was staring blankly back at the woman.
Voight interrupted the slightly awkward moment. "So if they're interns...you are?"
The woman held out a hand to shake Voight's. "Claire Anderson. Curator. And those are my interns, Emily and Christian."
Claire used the handshake to pull Voight close enough so only he could hear her next sentence. "Sorry about them. Great at what they do, but they think the stolen art thing only happens in movies."
The two gave each other knowing looks. Even if Voight had only been in museums a few times in his life, he understood newbies not really knowing much about the real world. He had honestly thought that about every cop in that room with him when they first started in his unit.
"To answer your questions from before, Detective, yes we do have security cameras throughout the galleries that I can give your team access to whenever they need. Unfortunately, to answer your second question, with us being a non-profit institute, we cannot afford alarms on our cases or any of our other works of art. It's definitely on my bucket list once we get enough grant money. And finally, yes I can give you a list of who has access to what areas of the building and when."
"Great." Voight was happy to finally get some answers. He also noticed that a few more people had started coming into the building.
Claire continued, noticing Voight looking at the people. "It's just our usual staff. We don't open to the public until 11."
Adam interjected, very confused. "So you're going to have the public wandering in here while we're trying to work? Ma'am, I thought you wanted to keep this on the down low."
Claire took a few steps towards Adam, giving him the same look the girls gave Jay earlier. "Ok one, never ma'am me again. I'm not ninety. And two, my marketing team just walked in so I'm going to have them post it everywhere they can that we are closed for the day. Does that work for you, officer?"
Adam was too dumbstruck to even respond. He couldn't tell if she was being snarky because she felt higher class than him because of the whole museum thing, or if it was the hormones from her being clearly pregnant. What was with pregnant women and attitudes?
"Alright, listen up!" Voight took back the situation. "Hailey, you and Jay see if you can talk to some of the staff about what the day to day life is here. Kevin, you and Kim go take a look at that security footage and see what we can use. Ruzek, Rojas, you guys finish taking in the scene. I want pictures, prints...if they say something's moved I want to know where to and how! Got it!"
"Yes Sarge." They replied in unison, each going off to their designated area.
Voight shook Claire's hand one final time. "Miss Anderson..."
"Call me Claire." Claire smiled at him.
Voight nodded and smiled. "Claire. We are going to do everything we can to find who did this and try to get your stuff back. I'm going back to the twenty-first to see what I can do to keep this under wraps. If my team starts getting on your nerves just let me know and I'll reign them back in."
"Of course. And I could say the same of my team. I'll pull them back if they get in the way. Thank you Sargent."
"Please, call me Hank."
A/N = I know I shouldn't be starting a new story when I have a bunch of others that need to be finished. But I couldn't help it. After this last episode this was floating around in my head and it would let go until I wrote it. Let me know what you guys think. It's definitely going to be a multi-chapter, but I'll try to keep it as short as possible.