As she stared down at the red hand extended to her, Carmelita's mind was frozen from shock. She stood there, her head tilted down and her eyes wide, for at least a minute, until-
"Fox!" barked Commissioner Reeves. "Are you listening to me?!"
"...What?" Carmelita turned her head slightly towards the dog, still in a stupor until the words reached her brain. She snapped to attention, turning her whole body to face her boss. Quickly recovering her professionalism, she said, "Yes, sir. My apologies." She resisted the urge to turn back and look at the tiger, whose hand had been retracted.
Reeves growled. "As I was saying," he said, "the higher-ups have been concerned about your recent performance in the field. You've been on the Cooper case for no less than three years, and in spite of that you are still no closer to capturing him then you were at the start."
Carmelita forced down an objection, maintaining her professional stance.
"Adding the fact that you haven't done any active work on bringing down other criminals, they feel that your talents could best be made use of elsewhere. They want you off the Cooper case."
Carmelita couldn't stop herself. "What?!" she said. "They can't be-"
"I am not finished, Inspector," Reeves said, glaring at the fox. Carmelita folded her arms and silently fumed.
"Taking into account your impressive amount of high-profile arrests made while tracking down Cooper, such as the Fiendish Five and the Klaww gang, I was able to convince the council that you would be of better use if you were still allowed to follow him. But they're not sure that you can do it alone. The closest we ever got to getting Cooper was when you were working with Neyla, so they've decided to assign you a partner."
"Yo," the red tiger said.
Carmelita tried to protest. "This is-"
"The only way you'll be able to stay on the Cooper case."
"I don't need some chump getting underfoot and slowing me down!" Carmelita said as she glared at the relaxing tiger who was leaning next to the hatrack.
Reeves gaze hardened. "I personally selected Detective Stel as your partner. Are you calling my judgement into question?"
Carmelita opened her mouth to reply.
"The same judgement, might I remind you, that thinks you should be kept on the Cooper case?"
Carmelita closed her mouth, screwed up her eyes, and clenched her teeth. She took a deep breath. "No, sir," she said.
Reeves nodded his head. "Good. Here's his file." Reeves picked up a fairly thick folder out from his desk drawer. He held it out and waited for Carmelita to take it. When she did, he said, "Now get out of my office."
Carmelita exited the room, the red tiger coming out with her. Once the door slammed behind them, he tried extending a hand to her again, but caught her deathly glare as she clenched the folder, her fingernails digging into the cardboard.
Using his magnificent detective skills, Detective Stel decided that now was not a good time. "You know what," he said, holding his hands up as he took a step back. "I think I'll give you some time to look through that alone. I'll come talk to you in a couple hours, okay?"
Carmelita's glare did not lessen, but her teeth unclenched slightly. She realized that, like it or not, she was going to have to work with him. Still, she didn't want to risk opening her mouth for fear of what would come out. She just curtly nodded at him, spun around on her heels, and walked away, not even waiting for his response. She made a brief stopover to get some coffee, then went to her office.
Carmelita's office was a little small―not that she really minded, because she was almost never in it, usually spending her time tracking down Cooper―and quite barren. There was a comfy office chair, a desk to go along with it, a lamp, a pencil jar and sharpener, a desktop computer, a filing cabinet pressed up against the back wall, and a pair of clocks: one digital and resting on the desk, the other analog and hanging above the door. The whole place would have seemed like a showroom piece detailing a generic office if it weren't for two pictures on the desk. One was upright and proudly displaying its contents to whoever should stand behind the desk, but the other one was facedown, concealing whatever image lay within.
The Inspector sat down behind the desk, her coffee in one hand and the Detective's file in the other. She put them both down and hung her head, holding it up with her hands as her fingers massaged her temples. She caught sight of the upright picture, and after gazing at it briefly, Carmelita sighed and drank some of her coffee.
Okay Stripes, let's see what you've got, she thought as she cracked open the file, and began to learn about the person she would now be working with.
Let's see, Detective Bryce Stel. Born in the U.S.A., age 22, operational since- Wow. This guy's been working for Interpol since he was eighteen. Must have been recruited straight out of high school. How'd that happen? Carmelita was recruited by Interpol as well, but that was only after she graduated college, top of the class, natch. He's only been working for a year less than I have. Still, this was all just set dressing. Very impressive set dressing, true, but to see if he was worth anything Carmelita needed to get to the meat of the file. She turned the page and began going over his case records.
As she thumbed through his arrests, looking for any names that jumped out at her, she began to notice something a little strange. Why would the chief assign me a homicide detective? Carmelita looked back on the cases he had handled: a couple international serial killers, some murders that had taken place under circumstances that confused where jurisdiction of the matter fell, nothing that really said to her that this was someone who'd be a big help catching Cooper. Slightly confused, Carmelita continued her reading, looking for something that would tell her why the detective would be a help. It was then that she came across a name that not only jumped out at her, but slapped her across the chops.
He took down Nekuro Foguma? The sight of the name made Carmelita's mind go back through the years, to a time before she had ever laid eyes on Sly Cooper. Foguma was one of the most notorious contract killers in the world at the time; everyone in law enforcement had heard of him. Called him the 'Phantom Shadow', or some such nonsense. He was one of Interpol's most wanted. Was, until around three years ago.
Carmelita didn't even pay attention to the parts of Interpol that she didn't work in, and she still heard about it when he got brought in. It was all anyone could talk about for weeks. Carmelita's eyes went wide as she looked through the case report. Stel had chased him down over the course of a year, eventually cornering him in Brazil just before he could take down the Secretary of Commerce. Foguma tried to kill himself rather than be taken in, but Stel had managed to shoot him with a tranquilizer dart before he could bite down on his poison pill.
It was after this point in the file that she started to notice a new trend emerge. Still murders, but murders being perpetrated by international spies and gangsters. This guy's a manhunter, Carmelita thought. He had dismantled criminal gangs, mercenary bands, even disrupted illicit operations of nations, each of which they denied involvement with, to apprehend his target.
By the time she had reached the end of the file, Carmelita was quite impressed. She still wasn't sure that he had what it took to take down Cooper and his gang, considering that he mostly dealt with big, sedentary projects and Cooper's gang was small and capable of moving their entire operation to another side of the world within hours, but she saw that he would, at the very least, be a help rather than a hinderance.
Between the knowledge that her new partner was competent, her now having had her coffee, and the time that had passed, Carmelita was much calmer now than she had been when she left the commissioner's office. She looked at her desk clock and saw that it had been roughly an hour since then. She looked at her computer, her hands twitching at the knowledge that there were fresh reports on the activity of Sly Cooper just waiting to be read―maybe she could figure out where he was going this time and stop him before he could take so much as a break. But then her eyes came back to the file, reminding her of the fact that she now had a partner. Carmelita sighed. Might as well dive in headfirst, she thought. Besides, I need to apologize for how I acted.
Inspector Fox pushed her seat out, got up, and left her office to start searching for Detective Stel.