Disclaimer: Mary and Marshall belong to David Maples. If they hadn't been misused by others I wouldn't be writing this.
Provoked Too– Chapter 14 – Commendations and Condemnations
"Inspector Shannon, may I speak with you in my office?"
Mary had just settled at her desk and was going through a pile of yellow message slips. She hears Marshall and looks up. "Uh, okay. Be there in a minute Chief." She slowly levers herself out of her chair and shuffles to Marshall's office.
"Are you okay, Inspector? You're moving kind of slow today." Despite the changes in their friendship he still cares.
"If you mean a ruptured snail could beat me to the last doughnut, you're right," she groans. Marshall doesn't need to know about the bruising and sore muscles from the shootout and Abigail's rough treatment. Pasting a smile on her face she decides to head off any more questions. "Nothing to worry about Chief."
"Have a seat," Marshall offers then quickly backtracks. "Unless you're more comfortable standing?" She must have spent the night having sex with Lucas, celebrating his survival. Marshall is chagrined he'd even think that. It was inappropriate, even if true.
Mary sits gingerly. She's never felt comfortable in this office. Once seated she folds her hands demurely in her lap and waits. She knows her silence can fluster Marshall. Besides, he called this meeting.
"Uh," he begins nervously. "I want to apologize for assuming you chose to be late."
"You mean when I was 'unavoidably detained' by your fiancée?" She growls.
Marshall's frown is an admission of guilt. "Don't make this any harder than it has to be."
"Hard? Does this make it hard?" Mary says with a flutter of her eyelashes and a come-hither stare that will keep him from asking questions she doesn't want to answer.
"I mean the apology," he explains.
"Oh no," she asserts. "You're not getting out of this. I'm going to savor every moment. I wish we had bet so I could sing the song." She gets out her phone. "Now where is that video app?"
Marshall dips his head and chuckles. He'd missed this. He missed Mary. He gets the commendation out of his drawer and hands the padded folio to her. She takes it with her fingertips. "It won't explode will it?"
"Just open it Mary."
She reads it and her eyes bug out. "What the hell? Is this a joke? You've outdone yourself Chief." She runs her finger over the embossed seal and signature. "This looks like the Director's actual signature. When did you become a forger?"
Mary could handle insults with ease, but honors, not so much. "It's real Mare. The Director wants to thank you for busting the Boss's operation wide open. The timing of your intrusion allowed ATF and the FBI to capture him and most of his cronies. They have his shipment records and a list of serial numbers that were filed off the inventory they confiscated." He rises and extends his hand. "Good work Inspector."
Mary ignores him, so he sits down. "You're shittin' me. I was just doing my job, keeping Davey alive. I thought I was here so you could call me on the carpet. Instead I get a goddamn commendation?" She's looking at him not holding the folio so it starts to slip from her lap.
"Mare!" Marshall points.
"I got it, I got it." She stops the folio's downward slide, and studies the gilded calligraphy. "How many of the reprimands in my file does this cancel out?"
"None," Marshall smiles blithely. "They will cohabitate in your file forever, like the lion and the lamb they will lie down peacefully."
"So this goes in my file here?" She starts to hand it to him.
"No, that's yours."
She looks at him dumbfounded. "And what in the hell am I going to do with it? I can't hang it here, even if I had a wall to hang it on. The other Inspectors would shit bricks." She pauses for breath. "I know! I could have it framed and hang it over the fireplace at home. I can hear Jinx now. 'What's a WitSec Inspector?' What in the hell was the Marshal's office thinking?"
Marshall agrees wholeheartedly. The certificate is not only useless, in the wrong hands it could endanger Mary. "Just lock it in your drawer. You can take it out on bad days and use it to cheer yourself up."
"Or blind myself. I've never seen so much gold on a piece of paper." Mary's tilting the certificate back and forth.
"From what I've read, you deserve it."
Mary's smirks and closes the folio. "Yeah," she chuckles wryly. "You had to read about it since you're not allowed out of your fishbowl." She gloats, "I still get to do what real marshals do."
Marshall gives her a worried frown. "If you had told me what was going on I would have been there." His expression brightens. "You do realize you it took two guys to fill the void caused by my absence."
Mary opens her mouth then shuts it. "Oh hell. This is as good a time as any. Chief, there's something I want to talk to you about."
Knowing she's going to tell him she's leaving, doesn't make it any easier. "Of course, my door is always open."
She bites her lip and stares at the wall behind him. "Don't let this go to your head, but this job, it isn't, it doesn't, it's just not the same. I've got Norah now and I knew going in that being a marshal is dangerous, but Norah . . . . " She looks up imploringly. "God I wish you still rented a room in my head! Then I wouldn't have to say this."
He smiles sympathetically.
She sits up straight and pulls her scattered wits together. "I need a job with regular hours. Where I can be home every night – or almost every night. If I can find a job like that in the Marshal Service that would be great, but if not, maybe it's time for a change. Private security or something?" He'd gone that route years ago.
Even though he expected it he can't stop himself. "God, Mare no. The office wouldn't be the same without you."
Mary counters with a sad smile. "You say that like it would be a bad thing. What I'm trying to say is that the job isn't the same without my partner, Inspector Mann."
Mary never gives compliments, especially not to him. "Awww Mare. Did you accidently say something nice about me?"
She blinks, sniffs and turns her head. "Accidents happen. Norah's proof of that."
"Seriously Mary, if that's what you want, I'll see what available. There are positions that aren't posted. Like ours. Do I have your permission to talk to Stan?"
Mary shrugs. "Sure, why not?"
"Listen Mare. I don't want you to think you have anything less than my full support on this. But before you bail on WITSEC, we need to nail the bastard who tried to frame you."
"What! Who? What are you talking about? No one framed me."
She really didn't know? "Yeah well it wasn't for lack of trying. Have you read ABQPD's report? Why do you think Abigail arrested you?"
Mary shrugs. "Damn if I know. Because she hates my guts?"
"Even you'll concede that Abigail usually adheres to professional standards. She was fed misinformation implicating you and me, by the way, as minions of the Boss. You weren't supposed to make it out of that warehouse alive. If you'd come alone, without Lucas and the ATF you would be dead."
"I know" she says in a small voice. "That's why I'm thinking of leaving. I want to be at Norah's graduation from kindergarten. Hell, I want to see her graduate from college. I gotta stay alive to do that." Her mood goes from maudlin to mad. "Why would Albuquerque PD think you and I were working for the Boss?"
Marshall appreciates that Mary said ABQPD and not Abigail. Instead of answering Marshall asks "What do you think of Caldwell?"
Mary purses her lips working to connect the dots. "He may not have lost all his marbles but there's definitely a hole in the bag."
"I haven't been impressed either. Three of his witnesses have complained. He doesn't always answer his phone, and he refused a witness's reasonable request." The witness he turned down called his former Inspector, Marshall.
"I need you to stay to gather enough evidence to get Caldwell out of the Marshall Service."
"And into prison." She wishes she had pushed harder to get Caldwell formally reprimanded. He deserved more than a letter in his file for endangering a witness.
"I agree. He stalked you, he compromised your identity. Who knows who else he compromised or what information he leaked? He's the bad apple that's spoiling the entire barrel."
Mary studied Marshall. She knew that look. Her mouth curves up a little. "What kind of trap do you have in mind for this rat?"
A/N: Thanks Meg my faithful reviewer. Thanks to everyone reading this. I appreciate your patience with the weekly posting schedule.