Acquiring Suspect Records from the Archives

I walk over to the hallway by the room with the sergeant, and she gestures for Marty to come over. He nods, excuses himself for a moment, then heads over towards us waiting in the doorway. Unfortunately, this causes Keighlee to look up and notice me, and she glares in my direction in a way that I can tell means she has more she wants to say. But that’s a later problem. Marty gives me a nod saying flatly, “Stomach settled?” then without waiting for an answer, turned to the Sergeant. “Hey, boss, what’s up?”

Sergeant McMichaels says in a hushed tone, “So, I suspect this is someone copycatting the second kidnapping of the last streak, the successful one. Which gives us three avenues. The wife seems to be calm around you, so you’ll remain here with the unis, see what the demands are when they come in. That should tell us a bit about what they actually are looking to cause, and might help find the culprit.”

I chime in, adding, “And keep a recording for me to go over with a finetoothed comb this evening, just in case we don’t solve it before this evening.”

Marty nods, asking with a grin, “So what are you two going to be doing while I get the cushy babysitting gig?”

“I worked the beat back in those old days, still keep in touch with a CI or two,” Sergeant McMichaels says with her own smile, “They would know those involved directly in that kidnapping, on both ends. Might have a name or two of people that might know all the details and want to start stirring things up.” She always seems to enjoy an excuse to head back into the field.

“And I get the definitely not going to piss anyone off job of heading down into Archives and taking a little peek at the registry, maybe a dustup of some of the files, see who might have gotten the info from them.” With a chuckle I add, “Just in case whoever is behind this isn’t directly tied to it, and instead just put some green into the wrong pockets.”

Marty looks concerned at the boss. “Are you sure you want him on that gig?” he asks, only partially mockingly. I am about the most watched person on the force by those in the force. A good chunk because they think I’m dirty, another because they know I steal, or have stolen, case files from them, yet more because they think I can lead them to the interesting things that they could do something with. There is a reason that Marty’s the one who generally snoops around for the case files for me. And this might be a concern to me, if I were planning on doing much chat, or anything overtly illegal.

Sergeant McMichaels shakes her head. “Unfortunately for both of us, I don’t think leaving him here is wise, and my CIs barely will trust me, and certainly won’t trust another badge.”

Marty sighs, acknowledging that she is correct in this particular instance. I smile and use that opportunity to make a joke. “What’s the worst that could happen?” I ask as I begin to head towards the door.

As though on cue, while I turn around to actually face the door I’m walking towards, I feel a tug on my jacket and get spun around and shoved face first into the kitchen wall. Behind me, Keighlee’s voice hisses, “What did you do?”

The Sergeant and the Detective start to react, before seeing the person behind me is the victim’s wife and they suddenly assume I deserve it. Oddly enough, in this particular instance, I probably don’t, though I might just have forgotten what I did to them. I quietly respond, “Nothing,” before adding a quick, “Wait, BK isn’t getting involved with Narco dealing to Vice, right?”

“Not what I’m talking about,” she says, not nearly as good at keeping her voice low. “We both know you know things. You let this happen.”

Struggling a bit, trying to pull my arm out from her grip, I quickly say, “Hey, I wouldn’t do that. Unlike many, I believe in the Handshake Deal.”

Her grip starts to loosen. She’s scared, and dislikes me, so it only makes sense they’d conflate. But as she hears the truth in my words, she starts to falter in that fury. “I just don’t know if I could deal,” she begins breaking down.

I cut her off. More details would be less than helpful and might incriminate her. Or me. “Listen. You don’t need to worry. We’re on this. Mitchell will be back before you know it. And before any other people might do anything drastic, right?”

She lets go, and starts to breathe, walking back towards the living room. Marty shakes his head, approaching as Keighlee walks away. “You really shouldn’t say that kind of thing. If things go wrong, I’m the one who’s going to have to deal with her.”

I shrug him off. “Don’t worry so much,” I half joke with a wry smile, “If things go wrong, you won’t need to deal with much of anything, ‘cause we’ll all be a bit dead.”

“What did you do?” Marty hisses. He’s much better at keeping the volume low enough to be unintelligible from afar. Must be the extra practice.

I shrug, once more, adding in a shake of my head for good measure. “Could only buy us a few days. That’s why I’ll need that record sooner than later.”

He nods. “Got it. Don’t get me killed before I can get in my retirement letter,” he says, raising his voice as he spoke so people could hear the end and assume what this conversation has been about.

I give him a wide grin and reply at a normal volume, “Like you’re ever going to actually retire.” This causes one of the unis, who was clearly trying to eavesdrop, to chuckle. Officer Brun. Should probably look into who he’s on the take for. I talk far too much about far too little. No one would care about my conversations with my partner unless they were on the take. Or connected to one of the badges or ex-badges that I’d pissed off. I put the name in my mental rolodex, to reference in the future.

Heading outside, Sergeant McMichaels is waiting for me, leaning on the BlackBullette. “So, what was that discussion about?” she asks.

I smile and reply facetiously, “Bowel issues.”

She shakes her head, but starts to stand up off the bike. “Any issues I’m going to need to worry about?” she asks.

Dang it. She knows I didn’t have a taco truck initiated bathroom break. Must have taken too long. Or done something that tipped her off since I got here. “Not assuming we solve the case,” I say. She gives me a serious look as I climb onto my bike, so I explain, “Just getting background, making sure we’re not going to be interrupted. As long as we get this solved fast, no interruptions will happen.”

She shakes her head, turning away and walking towards her car. I start the Bullette and begin to head around to the dingy, poorly maintained archives building. It’s only a pair of floors above ground, because most of the actual archives are kept in the several basements and subbasements. And because you have to swipe to activate the elevators and use the stairwell doors, there is a specific record of every person who visits any floor. Now, normally I wouldn’t be allowed to look at those records, it’s basically just Captains and up, and probably Internal Affairs when they’re on a relevant case, that get to look at the personnel badge location records. But I am a bit lucky. I know that in the second floor offices there is a glorified file clerk, Mister Kennith Lawson, who works a night shift, has access to the records, leaves their office unlocked, and keeps their password as KensLawIsThe1&OnlyLaw. And unlike the basement levels, the office levels don’t require a badge swipe to enter via the stairwell.

Leaving the BlackBullette parked on the alley beside the building, I head into the Archives via its side door. The janitors use it, and so it has a low tech key. One of the many keys on my keyring. I borrowed it and made a copy during a long evening, night, and possibly technically morning, out drinking with a few of them. Good company, though the one for whom the evening lasted until morning isn’t super happy with me. Fortunately, I’m fairly certain that shift is working in the Heavens’ Gate Precinct today, so I won’t have to worry about any awkward reunions. The side door gets me into the first floor offices, which is fine. If I wanted to just borrow a computer to do things unconnected to myself or chat with a clerk about various casefiles and evidentiary records, either are around almost all the time. But I’d only be able to log in as a guest, and guests don’t have permission to view the badge records.

Walking through the building, I do give polite nods and waves to the two clerks and the janitor that I recognize. I was right, she’s from a different shift. No one pushes, nor cares much. The clerks are both far too busy, and Stacey, as someone who grew up in Undermarket, knows better than to initiate the conversation when she doesn’t have anything to share. I head over to the stairwell past the breakroom and head inside. Normally, clerks would have swiped in to enter the building, and the two above ground floors are just offices, so no one cares much about who goes in and out. So there is no key pad on the stairwell doors, in either direction.

I head up the stairs, and no one passes me. Not abnormal, it’s after lunch and before people start getting off of work. Entering the second floor, there are a few fewer people up here. This is mostly for higher-up clerks, which in general means less employees of the city here. It also means they’re the ones who assign computers, so they frequently assign the other offices and cubicles up here to employees that they won’t have to see on a regular basis, like physical filers, night shift workers, and precinct go-betweens. One such office, a glorified broom closet with the signage ‘Kenneth Lawson, Vice Head of Security Records’, sits about seventeen paces around the corner from the stairwell. I take note of anyone on the floor that might take note of me, then slip into the currently empty office.

In the office, I saddle up beside his computer, taking care to put on my gloves before touching the keyboard. There aren’t any windows, so people might know I came in and left, but no one will be able to prove any details that aren’t me using a guest account. And that is key to the whole matter. Plenty of people know that I do things. I always make certain to ensure that proving whether I did anything is as tricky as possible. Carefully, I type in the username ‘ArchiveOffice_KLawson_civ’. Then his password, ‘KensLawIsThe1&OnlyLaw’. The circle spins as his computer logs in. Mister Lawson does not have much in terms of access to databases. But he does have access to the digital records of badge usage. His job every night is basically to print the records out and store them down on subbasement something-or-other. I normally just log in here to make sure my information remains ever copacetic. But today, I have to actually read other people’s information.

Sorting through the data by swipe location, I check the subbasement A7, where the files on almost all of our cases from that year are kept. I don’t know about those kidnappings in particular, but A7 was where a case being worked at the same time from Major Crimes that I took tabs on is, and generally the levels of the archives are based on precinct and time. And carefully, I write down in my notepad the badge numbers of every person who visited. And, once that’s done, I log out and shut down his computer. Now it’s time to head back to my apartment, and cross-reference these numbers with the files of who’s taking money from whom, so I can see which organization is behind this attempt at starting a gang war.