I'm getting a tooth extracted tomorrow so you get the new chapter a day early, cuz I know I'm not gonna feel like doing anything except cuddling with the cats. This won't be like the last extraction I had. Supposedly, it's trickier because of the relative proximity to my sinuses. The first one was in my lower jaw. This second one is in my upper and the wisdom tooth that didn't come in is also just floating around up there so that one might have to come out too.
Wish me luck!
Chapter Four: Carte Blanche
Metropolis's annual August drought broke very early Monday morning, first with a misty drizzle that seemed to drift in off the lake. The rain was steady and drumming by the time Captain Maggie Sawyer of the Special Crimes Unit and three of her Musketeers arrived at the scene of the crime at a little before five in the morning.
They were a little west of Metropolis proper, up the river where the houses became even more expensive and had river-side docks, and the grocers were organic and over-priced. It was a modern, luxurious side of town where everything was upscale and slightly snobbish. It was pretentiously known as the Glass Coast and it was no place for a grisly murder.
The eldest of the captain's Musketeers was Detective Jim Gordon, previously of the Major Crimes Unit with a wealth of experience in homicide and missing people. He didn't trail a step behind Maggie, as Turpin was wont to do, and he walked on her left rather than her right.
Properly trailing behind them were two of the SCU's rookies, still shiny and new enough that their badges were regularly polished. Once Chicago cadets, they and fourteen of their classmates had gotten wind of the business going down in the SCU and decided that they might find more excitement in the Big Apricot than the Windy City.
Oh, they would find excitement, all right.
Maggie knew in the back of her mind that the sixteen cadets had made their decision based on Superman. That they had come to Metropolis because the city had a superhero (of a sort) that a person could be proud of. But that wasn't the point. In the end, they had come to Metropolis and their numbers had bolstered the tiny SCU.
They were still absurdly small, but at least Maggie could count to thirty members now.
Several beat officers who had secured the scene ahead of time scowled at them as they passed. It wasn't a reaction that Maggie was unfamiliar with and she normally ignored it, but this time she stopped and turned to face the officers.
"Something wrong, gentlemen?" she asked mildly.
Of the five, three of them turned away and pretended that nothing was going on, clearly not looking to get into an argument with a captain. But two of them didn't; Officer Charlie Binghamton and his partner, Officer Anabella Petruzzelli. Maggie knew of them. They were not the most affable people and with the way the pair of them were scowling, they certainly didn't have anything nice that they wanted to say.
"I've got a problem with this, captain." Binghamton said, crossing his arms.
"Is that so? Please, do tell. Your opinion matters so much to me." Maggie said sarcastically. "Officers Binghamton and Petruzzelli, I know what you're going to say. And my answer is short and sweet. If it's meta, it's mine. Clear?"
They grunted in unison.
"And if you have any more complaints, please take them straight to Commander Friedland. It's his job to listen to them, not mine." she informed them. "I just take the cases as they come down the pipe. I don't control who does what to anyone in this city."
She flashed them a beatific smile and walked away.
"We're still getting that?" Jim questioned incredulously.
Maggie nodded. "Not as often anymore, but yes, it's still happening." she said with a groan.
'It' was a tapering number of people who had taken it rather personally that the SCU had actually gained a position of defineable authority within the department. Anything that involved or concerned metahumans now immediately fell under the SCU's jurisdiction, an automatic Code Veitch. It also meant that the Met P.D. could no longer make the SCU into the butt of many jokes, as upper management expected everyone to treat the unit with due respect and take their experience seriously. Some had felt this was taking cases away from the other units, but they couldn't exactly argue with the commissioner.
So they scowled and complained to Maggie instead like they were trying to bully her out of command.
It was ridiculous, but at least the opposing group had dwindled considerably in the last few months.
They ducked under the yellow tape and past the flood-lights that illuminated the scene. Maggie heard the sharp sucking breaths from her two rookies as they got a look at things. Four and a half months out from their training, the two were still somewhat fresh-faced and idealistic. Metropolis was not a rough city and the learning curve was gentle, so they hadn't been exposed to the levels of weirdness that Metropolis had the potential to consistently reach. The last four months had been relatively tame in comparison to how things could get. No giant insects or city-destroying calamities. Not yet. Just Superman, popping in and out during disasters and car accidents to save some lives.
One of the rookies was Detective Yumiko Hasegawa; small, Japanese descent, and deadly. The kind of person who was all of five feet tall, built like a stick figure, and was proficient in flying high-kicks. This was a young woman who could take down men twice her size. She had been the valedictorian of her class; top scores, superb marksmanship, splendid hand-to-hand. If the academy had tested them on it, Hasegawa had come out on top. Certainly, she had all the makings of a top-tier detective.
On the exact opposite end of the spectrum was the worst in class, Officer David Corporon. He was not terrible, but there was a lot of room for improvement. The good news was that he had the drive to improve. He had the relentless and steady work ethic that had characterized two of Maggie's deceased detectives, and sometimes, that was all one needed. But he didn't have their confidence. Corporon had scraped through the final stage of the Chicago police academy by the skin of his teeth and continued to be jittery and unsure of himself.
Detective Hasegawa was poised to excell, but it was Officer Corporon who needed every last boost they could give him.
"All right, kids." Maggie turned to face the rookies. "This is your first Code Veitch-- first confirmed one, at any rate. I want your thoughts. Wow me."
The Code Veitch (SCU short-hand for "There are no words to describe this" and more appropriate than "what the fuck") was quite the murder scene. A young woman, early twenties, half-Caucasian, half... maybe one quarter Mexican? -- was impaled on a narrow stone spike going right through her ribcage. Not 'impaled by', but 'impaled on', meaning the spike had come up from underneath her. She had been dead for several hours by this point. Forensics had already swept in to mark the important pieces of evidence and take their pictures and samples before the rain washed everything out. They had judged the lividity and rigor mortis and preformed a quick check of the liver temperature, and had concluded that the woman had died eight to nine hours earlier.
Detective Hasegawa's dark eyes flitted around the scene, soaking up information. "The young woman was killed by an earthbender." she said. "Are we calling them that?"
"As good a name as any." Maggie agreed. "But are you sure?"
"Of course." Hasegawa said, firm and confident. "The stalagmite erupted from underneath her. Her attacker pushed her down and put the spike through before she could get back up. Her body is flush to the ground and the ribs are shattered around the impact point."
She finished with a slightly triumphant expression that she quickly hid under a mask of humble-ness, but her eyes still gleamed with that light. She was sure of what she was seeing and confident that her assessment was correct. Maggie and Jim shared an amused look. The rookies were always so cute on their first rodeo.
"Officer Corporon, what do you think?" Maggie asked.
Corporon twitched. "What do I think? Well, uh..." His gaze darted over the scene, taking in the dead body and the chunks of rock and mud that littered the torn-up earth. "Uh, I think the lady was a metahuman too."
"That's an interesting assessment, Officer." Jim said. "What makes you think that?"
Corporon looked vaguely panicked, like he hadn't expected to get this far. "Uh, the rocks. They're pretty smashed up. It's like the victim was able to block the stone."
Maggie nodded. That was the first thing that she had noticed. Quite the fight had gone down. The amount of stone strewn about did indeed suggest that their victim had been able to block each projectile. They had already had some experience with a young girl able to generate force-fields. It was unlikely that she had been the only one with that power-set.
But the rookies had it backwards.
"Well spotted, Officer Corporon." she said, and the rookie officer fidgeted. "Detective Hasegawa, do you see anything else that might clue us in to last night's events?"
Hasegawa looked around. "She was out of her way."
"Well, anyone would have seen that." Corporon said grumpily. He crossed his arms.
"No fighting, kids." Maggie instructed. "What do you mean 'out of her way'?"
"She isn't dressed like she lives in this area." Hasegawa elaborated. "This is the fancy area. The mayor and her cabinet lives in this neighborhood. High rollers and deep pockets. She's in sweats and a hoodie."
"You'd be shocked how little that means." Maggie said dryly. "Detective Gordon, what would you like to add to this? What can our rookies learn from your expertise?"
Jim looked up from his phone. "Well, the first lesson is that Lyle's sleep cycle doesn't match any of ours and he's very quick with a keyboard. Our database is already updated." he declared. "Meet Angela Morgan, twenty years old and a student of cultural anthropology at Metropolis U. Her address is just off the campus, parents live in Donken, south of here." He tucked his phone away. "Now you were both right, but you've got it backwards. Miss Morgan is our rock-thrower."
Both rookies stared and Hasegawa frowned.
"According to the photos, her footprints track in from over there." Jim pointed towards the riverfront where the foot-path wound along. "You can't see it anymore because the rain has been too heavy in the last half hour, but she passed over that grate when she left the path. But she didn't move around very much. She dug her feet in over there and stood her ground. Literally dug her feet in."
He pointed between the woman's bare and still slightly muddy feet, and then to a patch of ground some five or six feet away from where she currently. Her feet were oriented towards it, like she had been pushed backwards. The rain had wiped out any traces of her prints in the intervening time, but the evidence marker still remained as a frame of reference in the photos.
"And Detective Gordon, please illuminate our rookies as to how you determined that the late Miss Morgan was indeed the earthbender." Maggie requested, enjoying the vaguely dumbstruck expressions on their faces.
"The debris. It's scattered in a circle around that particular area." Jim explained. "She stood there and pulled up as much earth as she could to throw at her attacker who was sprinting all over the place trying to avoid whenever he couldn't block."
The rookies shared another look, this one downright incredulous. Jim smirked. They had a lot to learn about looking and finding the clues. The rain hadn't been coming down hard for long enough to completely wash the clues away. Between the faint traces that remained and the photos that Lyle had promptly uploaded into their database as soon as he had received them, drawing conclusions had been simple.
"We do have a database, kids. Learn to use it." he said.
"Thank you, Detective Gordon. I'm sure they will take that lesson to heart."
"You're welcome, Captain Sawyer."
"Now, Detective Hasegawa, Officer Corporon," Maggie addressed them. "There are many reasons that Miss Morgan could have come out this way. However, considering the location, her state of dress, and the time of night, what reason do you think is the most likely?"
"Oh!" Corporon put a hand up. "Evening run?"
"Are you asking me or telling me?"
"Er, telling." Corporon decided. "She's in sweats and a hoodie. And sneakers? She was attacked here at the river-front and there's a good running path that goes through this area. She's a college student, so nine o'clock at nine is the only time she can get out?" He shrugged like he didn't want to be too right.
"Keep going." Maggie prompted.
"Well... It could have just been an attack of opportunity. Someone was angry and took it out on the first person they saw. But the academy taught us that with the majority of murders, there's usually some connection between attacker and victim." Corporon went on. His voice got a little more steady the longer he spoke. "If- If Miss Morgan was a metahuman and her attacker was too, maybe they met in an online forum? And agreed to meet one day?"
"Or the attacker was not a metahuman." Hasegawa put in suddenly. Corporon visibly wilted.
Maggie swapped a quick look with Jim and they both nodded for the detective to continue.
"There has been anti-metahuman sentiment, Captain." Hasegawa said. "Mostly online. I haven't heard anything in person. Some of the forums that I'm a member of have been talking about the 'metahuman problem'. I'm Yonsei. My grandparents were Nisei. They talked a lot about the anti-Japanese sentiment during World War Two. The way these people online are talking, you could easily replace 'metahuman' with any minority group and it would sound the same."
"You're suggesting that this could have been a hate crime, in its own way." Jim realized.
Hasegawa nodded and the two veterans shared another look, this one more alarmed than the last.
"You both have good theories. We'll see how this pans out." Maggie said. "In the mean time, medical will take Miss Morgan to the morgue and Forensics will process the evidence. Both of you, your duty is to follow up the leads. Start with Miss Morgan's place of residence. Find out who her friends are, the people she interacted with, her online activities, etcetera. For the first half of this investigation, at least, your academy training won't let you down."
"Wait, wait!" Hasegawa suddenly looked mortified. "Do I have to work with Corprolite here?"
"Yes." Maggie smiled brightly. "Is that a problem?"
"Well, no--"
"Good. I strongly encourage teamwork among the SCU. It's the only way we can really make this work." the captain said. She didn't aim her gaze at either rookie in particular, but Hasegawa performed a visible squirm. "There is no room for competition in this department. Anyone who tries to upstage anyone else usually finds themselves at a loose end because they run off and try to be a hero and ended up in trouble that the rest of us are too late to rescue them from. I do not recommend learning that lesson the hard way. I'm not interested in losing anyone else. I made myself perfectly clear on day one and I will continue to make myself clear on day one hundred and one. We work together. We have each other's backs. We do not abandon our partners. We do not run off by ourselves. You can anagram 'me' out of 'team', but I'd prefer you forget that pronoun exists. Team is more than one person. Understood?"
"Yes ma'am." Corporon stood at attention with that academy graduate precision.
"Understood." Hasegawa said with a slight reluctance that she did her best to hide.
"Then dismissed. Hop to, I want a progress report before you clock out tonight." Maggie instructed.
The pair of them hurried away, leaving the two veterans standing inside the yellow tape.
"Making them work together will be good for them?" Jim guessed.
"That's the plan. Hasegawa could wind up with an ego problem otherwise. She'll probably terrorize Corporon into growing a spine and in turn, he'll snap at her spectacularly and she'll get over herself." Maggie predicted. "They might not be good for each other, but at least Hasegawa will learn herself to slow down."
"Or they'll kill each other."
"Or that."
Yumiko Hasegawa had been a last-minute addition to the original group of fifteen. Originally, Maggie had been told that none of the prospective graduates would be the valedictorian or even the salutorian. Just fairly average, somewhere around the fiftieth percentile. The ones that Chicago wouldn't mind passing along. But two days before graduation, Hasegawa had discovered her classmates' plan and had gone straight to her advisor to demand why she too hadn't been asked to transfer to Metropolis. The transfer had been requested by the cadets themselves almost a month ahead of graduation and they had all teamed up to present their case. Maggie had already approved them.
The twenty-year old was a bit full of herself; Maggie would freely admit it. The only child of her parents and somehow a bit spoiled despite her strict upbringing. She had written a long email to the captain explaining why she would be an asset to the SCU. It had included a lot of useless drivel about her spotless academic record, a thing that was mostly useless in practice. Academy training only went so far. At some point, it was seat-of-the-pants ingenuity and raw dumb luck that got an officer through a bad patch.
But Hasegawa had never been exposed to that. Her parents had always pushed her to be the best, but she had never been tested in a real world setting. She had entered the SCU anticipating... not preferential treatment, exactly, but certainly she had not expected to be slotted behind another desk to learn more procedure and conduct codes. She had expected to be treated differently, with acknowledgement of her supposed importance and maybe given a responsibility that her classmates wouldn't be privileged to.
But Maggie had put all of the rookies on the same level, regardless of what percentile they had graduated in. Four months of probation and further training until they had some kind of grasp on the basics of dealing with metahumans. John Jones and James Harper had been merciless.
"Still," Jim chuckled. "Corprolite. Not the worst I've heard, but still a bit cruel."
"I got lucky. 'Sawblade' is the closest I've gotten to an academy nickname." Maggie said, shrugging.
"Not me. First, I was Jim-Jam. Then Schmuckers Jam, the first time I face-planted in the obstacle course mud pit. By graduation, I was stressed out and pissing everyone off so I became Toe Jam." Jim said, rolling his eyes good naturedly. There hadn't been any point about getting angry with the nicknames (unless they were racistly offensive). It was just a natural part of spending way too much time around the same group of people.
"You had delightful classmates." Maggie commented.
"You had uninspired ones."
He glanced at the dead body again.
"Do we have a category for this? Meta on meta violence?"
"I supposed we'd treat it no differently than person on person. It's just the methods we've have to change." Maggie shrugged. They had adapted well enough, or at least that was what she thought. The SCU had come along with a little more kicking and screaming than she would have liked, but they had adapted and that was the most important part.
"Why? Second thoughts?" she asked.
Jim frowned, fingers rubbing his chin. "It's hard to say. Something about this feels wrong, but that might just be because this is the first instance where a metahuman was possibly killed by another metahuman."
"Crime's moving along, Jim. It's our job to stay on top of it." Maggie said, shrugging as if to add 'what can you do'. With that, she ducked back under the yellow tape and left.
Jim didn't like it. He couldn't put his finger on exactly why, but vague details about the murder didn't sit well with him. He had been in Major Crimes for five years, fielding every case that came his way and listening to the rumors that made their rounds. When strange happenings came down the pipe, the department talked. They talked a lot.
But never in those five years had he heard so much as a whisper about any murders weird enough to be Veitch'd. Not before. Not until now.
Nine months out from Superman. Five months since Metropolis had been met the Hellgrammites, like being slapped in the face with a wriggling fish. Two months since metahumans had really started to become a presence in not just Metropolis, but other cities as well.
There was a list of things that Jim didn't believe in and 'coincidence' was in the top ten.
The captain was right in the sense that crime was moving along and acclimating to the new reality, but Jim felt that some great big wheel already in motion was beginning to pick up speed. It was a feeling that begat uncertainty and he didn't like it.
But as Maggie walked back to the car, she had similar thoughts. She had been a cop too long to ignore the possibility that there was something greater at work here.
And Hasegawa wasn't necessarily wrong either. Anti-metahuman sentiment had been on a low simmer for two decades, ever since the Scare had ended in late nineteen eighty-seven after a four year period of blood and violence that had wreaked havoc across both American coasts. That wasn't something that had gone away. It had just taken on a very low key tone.
The memory of the violence still lingered.
It was picking up again, albeit online in the form of long rants and no action, but with enough passion that people were pausing to listen. Metropolis and Central City were epicenters for the increasing resentment. Superman had done nothing to actively bring about any real emnity, but Central City had the much reviled speedster, Zoom the Saffron Streak, who caused more damage than he prevented. He had started out as a decent hero-type, but his true asshole colors had come out over time.
The Gem Cities wanted him gone.
In Central, it was understandable. Ninety percent of population either hated or were indifferent towards the speedster, and actual fans were few and far between. But in Metropolis, it didn't make very much sense for that same hatred to be simmering lowly. Indifference Maggie could understand, but hatred? Superman had not been a detrimental presence to the city or its internal workings. Five hundred people who might not have lived to see the lunch hour on Friday had gone home safe and sound with little more than a handful of scrapes and bruises.
That was something that should at least get an applause.
Not a bunch of ill-tempered mumbling about how Superman was dangerous.
They weren't necessarily wrong. Superman did have powers that they couldn't beat and if he decided that the hero-life wasn't for him and went rogue, they'd have no way of stopping him.
But the fact that he could use his powers for bad didn't even seem to occur to him.
It would pass, Maggie told herself optimistically. Even Superman continued to be what he was, the mumbling would go away and the old guard of anti-metahuman groups would turn their attention to the more prevalent problem of Zoom.
That was her hope, anyways.
It probably wouldn't turn out anything like that if the old guard had their say, but one could always hope.
The rain continued on through the morning, giving Metropolis a much-needed soaking. Somewhere along the hours, Maggie found just enough time to run back to her apartment, kiss her girlfriend, and accept breakfast in the form of a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich, and a fresh thermos of good coffee. She returned to the SCU building around eight-thirty.
"Morning gentlemen." Maggie called to the guards, waving her I.D. badge over the security reader. Frank and Hank, their Monday-Wednesday-Friday guards, waved back (Helen and Andrea were on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays).
"Mornin' Captain Sawyer." Frank said, pushing the clipboard towards her as she came through the turnstyle. "Gang's all here, far as I can tell. Brought a box of kittens with them."
"What? Why?"
Frank shrugged. "Found 'em out in the rain?" he guessed. "They're adorable, though. If they're up for adoption, I'll take two."
"I'll see what's going on." Maggie said, signing in with a flourish.
She took the elevator to the top floor, where it deposited her in the corridor just outside the bullpen and the break room. The sound of squeaking mews was audible and she followed that to the break room. Inside, Detective Jones and several of her Chicago rookies were on the floor with no less than seven black and white kittens. There was also a bag of kitten food and a filled litter box.
"All right, who's responsible for this invasion?" she asked, leaning on the door frame with her arms crossed. She could guess, though. This was not the first time she had come back to the office to find a stray or six.
The Chicago rookies looked up with nothing short of terror, their hands stilling and their faces blanching white. But they looked at Jones who had two kittens dozing in his lap.
"I have made some new friends." Jones declared, without looking up.
"I see that. Why did you bring them back here?" Maggie asked mildly.
"The shelter was too far." Jones replied. "They will find good homes. Frank is interested in adopting two of them. Colletta knows others who would also like to adopt. This is Dejah." He pointed to the kitten sleepily kneading his left knee. "This is Tarkas." He stroked the second kitten who was snuggled up to his belly. "I have named them. I am keeping them."
"You know the drill, Jones. You're responsible for them until they all find homes." Maggie reminded him. She glanced at the rookies, whose expressions were fading from terror to bafflement. "It's not the first time he's done this. He's very sympathetic to strays."
Empathetic, more like. Jones was telepathic, and while he didn't sense animal emotions as keenly as he sensed human emotions, he was still very much aware of them.
He was a stray himself, once upon a time.
"Morning meeting in fifteen, folks." Maggie said. "We've got another long week ahead of us and we need to make sure everything's sorted ahead of time."
Leaving the rookies to unclench their sphincters, the captain went across the hall to the bullpen and did a headcount. It took her longer now that they had more people and they were more spread out. Mitch and Lyle were usually holed up in the Forensics labs along with rookie Reginald Deboer who had done a minor in forensics. Lupe had the entire dispatch room to herself. Turpin had his own office, as did their supervising commander. Today, as always, everyone was accounted for.
Across the room, Turpin spotted her and started to make his way over. The detective had been her right-hand man for nearly the entire time Maggie had been in charge of the SCU, so about four years this past May. He had weirdly black-gray hair and wild eyebrows that made him look very stern and severe. He had the personality of an ill-tempered bulldog, but all the loyalty too.
"G'morning, Dan." she said.
"Mornin' Mags. How'd the kids do this morning?" Turpin asked.
"Corporon and Hasegawa will either kill each other or become best friends." Maggie commented. "It was a murder. Nothing real unusual, even as far as metahumans go. It just looks a bit more gruesome than usual."
"Speaking of gruesome," Turpin started with a pronounced scowl. "Commander Friedland wanted to talk to you as soon as you came in."
"What about?"
"Don't know, but he showed up with someone so nerdy the kid makes Lyle look well-socialized."
Maggie scowled herself. "New hire. Probably records. He's got a bug up his ass about that." she grunted. Their records were a mess, but they were getting them straightened out and they already had a clerk. They didn't need any of Commander Friedland's recommendations.
"I'll be in with the commander. Herd this lot into the conference room and get them started if I'm not back in fifteen minutes." Maggie instructed.
"Sure thing, Capt'n."
A second corridor just off the bullpen led to the offices. Commander Gray Friedland, their supervisor, had the first door on the right. His name and position occupied a shiny brass plate on the door. It was standing open and Maggie could hear his distinctive rumbling voice speaking to someone. He was quieter on the phone, so the person was definitely in the room with him.
She rapped her knuckles on the door and stepped onto the threshold.
"Captain Sawyer!" Commander Friedland greeted her with a jovialness that was a bit false. "Come in, there's someone you should meet. This is Tyler Jones. I've hired him to manage Records."
He gestured to the boy seated in front of his desk. Young man, actually, but he really looked like a boy even from Maggie's lofty age of thirty-three. Tyler Jones looked like the kind of nerd that would have been shut in a locker even at Maggie's conservative Catholic high school. He had the pocket protector, the glasses with the thick frames, a large beaky nose, the severely parted hair, and pocked acne scars. He was prim and proper-looking, very neat and put together. Like he still starched his shirt collars and ironed his slacks to a sharp crease. His shoes were as shiny as his face.
Quite honestly, he resembled a sourpuss version of her younger brother, but that did nothing to endear him to her. It was the opposite; Maggie resented the resemblance.
"Good morning, Captain Sawyer." Mr. Jones said in a slightly nasal voice like his sinuses were perpetually clogged. He stood up from the chair and strode over to her with a hand outstretched. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I look forward to working with you in the future."
And he sounded like he had swallowed a copy of some motivational "Job Interviews for Idiots" type book. His handshake was a little too squeezing -- overcompensating for an otherwise weak grip. He looked bland, expressionless, and his movements were robotic.
"Mr. Jones, I need to have a word with the commander. Could you wait in the hallway?" Maggie requested.
"Yes." Mr. Jones acqueiseced without a flicker in his neutral expression. He retrieved his briefcase from beside the chair and left the office in short measured strides. Maggie shut the door behind him and then approached the desk with a parade stride.
Commander Friedland drew back just a little, masking the movement as simply leaning back, but the retreat was in his eyes. The look in them changed slightly, from sort of satisfied to a bit worried.
"Captain, is there a problem?"
"Yes. We've discussed this before. At least twice. All new hires and termination go through me first. They need my approval or nothing happens." Maggie reminded him. "You do not actually have the authority to hire anyone. Or fire them, for that matter."
The commander had already demonstrated a knack for ignoring the fact that Maggie essentially made up their Human Resources desk. He had already tried to remove Sergeant Kesel from her post, on the account that her narcotics speciality didn't have much bearing on the SCU. He had also tried to oust Colletta -- because she was black and bisexual. He had dressed it up as a lack of professionality on her part, but it was clear that his attempt had been rooted in racism and biphobia. Commander Friedland was very old and stuck in his biases and took offense at Colletta's coiled hair.
"In any case, we already have someone in Records."
"She's very pregnant. She won't be here much longer."
"She'll be on maternity leave and she'll still have her job when she comes back." Maggie said firmly. "I have no issue with hiring a second clerk, but with all due respect, you do not actually out-rank me here."
"Captain, I hate to remind you--"
"You are the supervisor, but I'm the commander. At the end of the day, I'm the one who makes the final decisions around here. Including the hiring and firing. If you keep trying to undermine me-"
"I'm not undermining you--"
"You're going behind my back trying to hire people I've never seen a resumé from."
"You say that like I've done it a dozen times."
"Once is too many. Andrea gives me the shivers whenever she's on shift."
For all Maggie knew about Andrea Diné, Commander Friedland could have found her wasted in a back alley in the Suicide Slums. She had the look of a former junkie who had only just gotten clean. Dark circles under her eyes. Straggly brown hair just this side of scrubbed. A pale, washed-out appearance. Someone who had been living rough for a long time. But no resumé. The only thing on file for Ms. Diné was a clean drug test and a criminal background check.
"And now Tyler Jones? Where's his resumé? Why haven't I seen it? Where's his drug test, his background check? Why am I just now learning of his existence?" Maggie demanded.
"Captain Sawyer, I was transferred to bring the SCU into line." Commander Friedland started in a weary, long-suffering kind of way.
"No you weren't. You were transferred because there's a system of accountability in place and the SCU needed a new supervisor." Maggie corrected.
"And I'm still talking!" Commander Friedland snapped. His voice echoed sharply in the confined office, making the captain wince. "We've got metahumans being attacked by other metahumans and that's a disaster in the making we can't have. The city will turn to us to solve these crimes and do something to prevent them from running around so freely. We need people on the team who can keep up with the changing tides. No offense to Miss Blunt, but she is seven going on eight months pregnant and she will be on maternity leave for five months. We need a man in Records who isn't going to be distracted by outside commitments. This is one instance where I'm overriding your authority on the matter, Captain Sawyer. Mr. Jones stays."
"Commander Friedland--" Maggie said, but that was all she got out.
"Mr. Jones. Stays."
He said it in such a firm and angry voice that it was abundantly clear he was not about to hear an argument against it and Maggie was almost too taken aback to try and start one. Commander Friedland did have the authority to override her, but the circumstances in which he could do so were very limited. She had to be emotionally compromised by the case(s), and so much so that she was clearly endangering the health and safety of the department.
Pulling rank on her in the case of hiring decisions was a blatant abuse of his override power.
And it wasn't just him throwing that card in her face, but another thing he had said. Another thing he couldn't possibly already know about. Jim, Hasegawa, and Corporon had arrived only five minutes ahead of her.
"Mr. Jones stays." Maggie repeated, but because it was the only words she could get past the shock.
Commander Friedland smiled his broad smile. "I'm pleased you agree. He'll be a valuable asset to this department, Captain Sawyer. You have nothing to worry about. I'll deal with his orientation, get him settled in, and all the minutia. He'll have a good feel for things by the end of the week. He won't let us down."
"Of course..." the captain said vaguely.
"Go on." Friedland made a shooing motion. "Your morning meeting is soon. I won't be in this one; I'll be helping our new records clerk."
Maggie nodded for lack of anything to say and walked out of the office. Mr. Jones was still there in the hallway, neat and unruffled and thoroughly bored-looking.
"Hello Captain Sawyer." he said politely, like he hadn't just seen her five minutes ago. "Is there a problem?"
"No, no problem." Maggie shook her head. "Go back in. He's not done with you yet."
Mr. Jones strode past her with the same measured pace and shut the office door behind him. Maggie got two steps away before she had to put a hand on the wall to steady herself.
The problem with Gray Friedland was simple: she already knew he was Fuck-face McGee. She just didn't know how to prove it to the right people.
He was old, biased, and he spoke too often like he used to be a member of the old anti-metahuman factions back in the day. He treated the SCU less like it was a control department, but more like a hunter-killer group. He acted like their job was to suppress and kill every metahuman they encountered, no matter how harmless the person was.
The SCU was a police department. Their job was to deal with the lawbreakers, not indiscriminately kill a person just because they could move things with their mind.
If the commander was overriding her on the matter of hiring a person, how long would it be before he moved on to things like overriding her on things like arrest and detainment? How long would it be before he took things too far?
She hurried back into the slowly clearing bullpen and grabbed Jim Gordon by the shoulder before he could stand up from his desk.
"Did you tell Friedland about the murder this morning? Angela Morgan?"
"No, initial reports aren't even in the system yet and the kids just sat down." Jim gestured to the computer screen and the half-filled report. "Why?"
"He already knows."
"What do you mean?"
"Just that, he already knows about the murder. 'We've got metahumans attacking metahumans', he said to me." Maggie explained.
Jim frowned harder. "Do you think we have a leak in the department?"
"That's one hell of an accusation, Gordon, but at this point, it's a possibility I'm willing to entertain."
Folks like Officers Binghamton and Petruzzelli might have indeed let spill about the murder if they had actually called up the commander to complain about her. She would have to check the call log, but it wasn't outside the realm of possibility. Otherwise, there was a leak within the department and it would have to be either with the security guards or the Chicago rookies. Hasegawa might have complained about the case to fellow detective Leon Gillian; they were amiable with each other. Corporon only really talked to Officer Chatmon, but it was in that awkward, stuttering "can't talk to girls" way and the small talk was painful to behold. But really, any one of them could have overheard and reported back to Commander Friedland.
"I'll find out." Jim offered. The commander has always rubbed him the wrong way. It would be good to see whether or not his suspicions were unfounded.
"Keep it discreet." Maggie instructed. "If it's any of the rookies, they may have no idea that this isn't acceptable. If it's someone on the outside, then it's probably someone who still thinks we've gotten too big for our britches. If Friedland is up to no good, the easiest way to catch him is to let him incriminate himself."
"I know how to investigate on the sly, Capt'n." the detective assured her, smiling. "And I know how to rumble a perp. I wouldn't make it as a cop if I didn't."
"I know, I'm just saying 'be careful'. Friedland's full of shit and oozing bigotry." Maggie said, something the detective already knew.
Jim nodded and smiled one more time just to reassure her that he knew what to do and how to do it. Inside, he was seething with... glee, perhaps? Some sort of giddy, self-satisfied emotion that he would finally get to do the thing he had wanted to do for a while now: Figure out if Commander Gray Friedland was a dirty cop.
He wasn't sure when the suspicion had developed. Sometimes Commander Friedland had made remarks that were a tad... off color. Complained a little too pointedly for Jim's liking. Made oddly specific references that had nothing to do with the conversation at hand. Things that were just out of place enough to send Jim's instincts into a wild tail spin.
And now he had a blank check to really start investigating.
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