Barton Henning
Oct 19th, 2003, 06:10:11 AM
I’ve had some pretty awful days since loosing my job, but this was the first time I’d woken up in a morgue. It all started a couple of months ago. I was working as your regular detective under the command of Zemil Vymes. The Watch had been my only home for a couple of years and I had settled in with the boys nicely.
That is, until one fateful evening. I worked crime scene with one of the Corporals, a blundering vet who’d probably been in the force longer than I’d been alive. We had been called out to the latest in the monumental string of break-ins that had been plaguing Coruscant lately. So far there didn’t seem like there was any real connection, but I wasn’t convinced. Nobei and I headed out to a little diner after we’d made a small sweep of the scene, vowing to return in the morning to make a more comprehensive search. It would be the last night I would spend as a Watch officer.
In the morning I arrived to find a missed call from the Commander and headed down to his office to see what was going on and why I was getting all of those pitiful post-funeral side glances. He sat me down and told me straight that another officer, on beat, had witnessed me taking a bribe. There was a wallet of photographs of me and Shifty Jim Twofingers laid out on his desk, and his hand lay open waiting for my badge.
There were no questions asked as to the validity of my expulsion. Shifty Jim was one of the prime suspects in the break-ins and from these pictures; it really did look like we were up to something. Zemil said I would just be off the Watch until things cleared up, but I never did get that call.
So there I was, back in that diner. Someway, somehow, I figured that if I could just piece together this case I could flush out the real story and relinquish my fall-guy title. So far pickings had been slim – I couldn’t find any clues, any connections. All of my sources were tapped out, or refusing to help me. The barrel was well and truly scraped.
“Refill, Mister?”
I looked down into the dregs of my caff, “Yeah, make it a double.”
I looked back down into the newspaper in front of me and sighed. There was one last contact I had to meet, and they were going to turn up soon. It wasn’t anyone I knew particularly well, but they seemed to know me. Maybe it was a rookie from the Watch, or some con looking to polish up his halo. Either way, the clock said it was ten minutes until they walked through the door, and for me those ten minutes couldn’t pass any slower.
That is, until one fateful evening. I worked crime scene with one of the Corporals, a blundering vet who’d probably been in the force longer than I’d been alive. We had been called out to the latest in the monumental string of break-ins that had been plaguing Coruscant lately. So far there didn’t seem like there was any real connection, but I wasn’t convinced. Nobei and I headed out to a little diner after we’d made a small sweep of the scene, vowing to return in the morning to make a more comprehensive search. It would be the last night I would spend as a Watch officer.
In the morning I arrived to find a missed call from the Commander and headed down to his office to see what was going on and why I was getting all of those pitiful post-funeral side glances. He sat me down and told me straight that another officer, on beat, had witnessed me taking a bribe. There was a wallet of photographs of me and Shifty Jim Twofingers laid out on his desk, and his hand lay open waiting for my badge.
There were no questions asked as to the validity of my expulsion. Shifty Jim was one of the prime suspects in the break-ins and from these pictures; it really did look like we were up to something. Zemil said I would just be off the Watch until things cleared up, but I never did get that call.
So there I was, back in that diner. Someway, somehow, I figured that if I could just piece together this case I could flush out the real story and relinquish my fall-guy title. So far pickings had been slim – I couldn’t find any clues, any connections. All of my sources were tapped out, or refusing to help me. The barrel was well and truly scraped.
“Refill, Mister?”
I looked down into the dregs of my caff, “Yeah, make it a double.”
I looked back down into the newspaper in front of me and sighed. There was one last contact I had to meet, and they were going to turn up soon. It wasn’t anyone I knew particularly well, but they seemed to know me. Maybe it was a rookie from the Watch, or some con looking to polish up his halo. Either way, the clock said it was ten minutes until they walked through the door, and for me those ten minutes couldn’t pass any slower.