As Bryant stood by and openly gawked at the detective -- flinching every time the dark-haired man banged the AC unit -- Archer brushed past the anxious coroner, a silent tread that brought him very close to where O'Brien had dropped to all fours to fiddle with the air-conditioning unit. Fucking hell. His partner had seen fit to treat a hotel AC like that slow-as-molasses printer back in the squad room. Archer felt a headache coming on. He'd deny to the death that a long night of paperwork had anything to do with that. No, this was an O'Brien Special, the one that inevitably started up when his partner took initiative on things that in no way required O'Brien's particular brand of initiative.
He stood silently waiting for a second or two before slowly, deliberately, crouching next to where O'Brien was fidgeting. "May I see you in the hall for a minute?" he asked in a very, very quiet voice.
O'Brien wasn't really given a chance to answer in either the affirmative or the negative before Archer had hold of his elbow and was hauling him abruptly upright as he himself stood fluidly. And then Archer was piloting them both around the much bewildered Bryant -- "Excuse us for a minute, Doc?" -- who nodded slightly and watched the cops traverse into the hallway.
Archer marched O'Brien half a dozen paces down the hall before he stopped and released O'Brien to move under his own power. "What was that? Yeah, the guy's physical state bears acknowledgement but he's not gonna keel over any minute. So it's pretty damned safe to say that crawling all over the floor and trying to knock some sense into a piece of machinery was not the way to inspire his confidence in us."
His hand twitched at his side, nearly made the motion to reach for his temple. Discipline kept Archer from acknowledging both discomfort and irritation. He didn't require a deep breath to make his voice crisp and even. "Don't think we're gonna get much more here anyway," Archer admitted lowly. "A corroborating witness but ultimately circumstantial. I'll take care of getting pertinent details from the doctor and making sure he doesn't just sit in that room." Archer scribbled in the back of his notebook, tore the page and handed it to O'Brien. "We need to split up the legwork anyway. I'll take care of the radio call. You? You follow up with our first caller, the one that was urged to deal with hotel security." The torn page, with a hastier version of Archer's typically neat printing, carried all the information O'Brien would need to find her. "See if she gives you anything solid. If not, take a look around. Meet up around the lobby when we're both done. Ringers on," added the captain, in reference to their cell phones and audible ring tones. Didn't know how useful it'd be with the storm but it was better than nothing. Neither he nor O'Brien were exactly inconspicuous; if one needed to find the other, it would probably be accomplished readily enough.
Archer waited to see if O'Brien had anything to say about his instructions before turning to head back into the room they'd just vacated. "And fix your fucking tie," was his quiet parting shot just before he stalked back toward 315.