Lieutenant Jack is back. (gardai) wrote in mnhttnprjct, @ 2010-06-14 01:48:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, eve peabody, jack mccarthy |
WHAT IS A TIMELY LOG IDK.
WHO: Lieutenant Jack McCarthy, Officer Neil Markovich [NPC], and Eve Peabody
WHAT: My backdated scene is showing. Anyway: view one of the meekest and mild-mannered NIC raids take place as Jack McCarthy and his trainee officer shadow come to look at the residency credentials of one Eve Peabody (and Ruby-to-be).
WHERE: The Peabody Residence, District 3 (North Brooklyn), New York
WHEN: Mid-morning-ish, Sunday, 16 May 2029. (BAAACKDATE)
RATING: I'm pretty sure this is PG, at the most.
By this point, his legs had memorized walking up stairwells. At first, it had been easy: one, two, three, four – up the stairwell, down the hallway, knocking politely on the door, asking to see a NIC, rinse and repeat. Some were sweet old ladies, others worried mothers trying to nurse colicky children, still more were quiet businessmen or countless others that were mere citizens doing what was required of them. But sometimes, there were a few that reminded Lieutenant McCarthy why he wasn’t a beat cop anymore, all angry and cross for doing his job, as if he was taking joy in limping around with some rookie that had just been out of the Academy for a week. The longer the evening (now the day?) went, the more frequent the latter occurred; now, Jack was nothing but a bundle of exhaustion and nerve-pinched limps up all these stairwells, a half-sleeping officer trailing behind him. The first apartment in this building was apparently inhabited by one PEABODY, but the scanbot had been a bit defective during this round to the point that he wasn’t entirely sure what was inside. And so he paused, held his breath, and hoped that whatever would answer the tinny knock on the other side would somehow be one of the former – or, at the least, a healthy medium between sweet and kind and swearing, violent cusses. At this point in the game, Jack McCarthy would welcome anything ranging from mild disdain to simple apathy. There’s something about sleep deprivation, after all, that doesn’t really make you too picky. Jack McCarthy had nothing to fear from little Eve Peabody who, at 5'0" even and with a very round, pregnant belly, was the very picture of innocence and feminine fragility. Currently, Eve rested on the Dane-Peabody family's lumpy sofa with a glass of cool water in one hand and the massive, intelligence-thwarting TV remote in the other. With it, she flicked through the channels before deciding on a rerun of last week's The Precinct, which detailed the highly dramatized accounts of a precinct's attempts to capture a serial murderer running around District 0. The program held the imaginative blonde at such rapt attention that, when the doorbell rang, she, wide-eyed, jumped visibly. Eve grumbled as she rose to her feet and rubbed her round belly with each shuffled step she took to the door. Her initial instinct to fling the door open wide and welcome whoever it was with equally open arms (as had been the custom back in Texas) was repressed by the past six months of careful living and safety precautions within the busy, overcrowded city. Eve peered through the peephole at the man standing before it. A police officer. Though some might be suspicious of a policeman at their door, Eve had no such misgivings. Her initial thought was that of immediate fear: something had happened to someone she knew; there was a robbery in the neighborhood; there was a hit-and-run nearby; someone had seen her litter in the park earlier today. She opened the door without regard and smiled at the policeman. Years of customer service had prepared her for this very moment and she did her supervisors proud. A wide, bright smile and a genial air accompanied her as she welcomed the officer into the vestibule of her small apartment. "Howdy!" She chirped at him, her thick Southern accent audible even in the first words she spoke. "Can I help you? C'mon in!" It seemed as if fate thought that Lieutenant McCarthy needed a bit of a break – at least, enough of one to ensure that the next few minutes would be spent in the general vicinity of a presumably sunny and even-tempered pregnant woman, if first impressions were to be believed. And so he walked in, rookie trailing behind, making sure to take off his hat in the process and not linger too far beyond the threshold unless otherwise invited. Every situation, Jack reasoned, had its protocol, even if this one hadn’t exactly been outlined by either the chief of police or the Pentagon proper. Hostility was outlined well enough within the training manuals, sure, but politesse? Well. This haunted his words a bit, at least at the beginning, along with the bits of exhaustion that already had crept into his gait and his eyes. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am. I’m Lieutenant Jack McCarthy and this is Officer—” “Neil Markovich, sir, I’m Officer Neil Markovich.” “Er, yeah, that’s Officer Markovich. Anyway, we’re only here to check about your National Identity Card, and—er, ma’am,” he coughed, apparently finding this point important enough to interrupt himself mid-spiel, “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but do you need to sit down? Get a foot rest?” "Oh!" The short blonde exclaimed as if the idea had not even occurred to her. And, if we're being honest, it hadn't. She made a soft humming sound as she splayed her hands around her round belly. "Oh, I'm fine. I promise," she replied with another warm smile and took several steps into the small apartment. She reached for her purse, which she had perched on the coffee table upon her return from the market, and she started talking as she rummaged around in it for her NIC card. "I know I look like I'm 'bout to tip over but I'm made of stronger stuff than that. Now you say you're checkin' the ID cards, I know I got mine in here..." Her voice trailed off as she withdrew it from the contents of her purse, a small laminated card with her stats and a picture of her. She made a small noise of distress as she observed the younger--and thinner--version of herself. "I look a bit different in it, but I swear on my daddy's life it's me," she smiled as she handed it off to Officer Neil Markovich. "Would you boys like a glass of water?" She clasped her hands in front of her, watching eagerly as the younger cop inspected her NIC with sudden intensity. If Jack McCarthy had learned anything from being married, it was that you generally shouldn’t push a pregnant woman to sit down unless she absolutely and clearly was exhausted beyond all reason. There was a fine line between concern and making a lady feel overprotected, it seemed, and although the Lieutenant never necessarily agreed with it half of the time, he sure as hell didn’t mess with the first warning. In retrospect, it wouldn’t be too surprising that he’d think on this whilst Markovich looked at the card and checked everything out. If it wasn’t pregnant ladies, then it was a throng of children running about or a crucifix on the door. Come to think of it, he was pretty sure he’d missed Mass and— “Water, ma’am?” It was only then that McCarthy had realized that half of what Ms. Peabody had said was presently making its neat exit out the other side of his ear like the L Train to Bedford. It was also at this juncture that he realized that his throat was, indeed, parched and that food had been something that both him and Officer Markovich hadn’t seen in more than a few hours. And so, with a bit of a sideways look to Neil: “That would be nice, ma’am, if you could be so obliged.” Eve nodded happily in response to the older officer gentleman's repeat of her offering. "Yes, water." And as he glanced over at his partner, she had retreated off to the cabinets so she could fetch two glasses. (Okay, fine, they were plastic cups, but if you come into her home and she offers you a drink, you better accept plastic cups.) It was only a minute's work as she fetched ice cubes from the freezer and filled each glass nearly to the top. Eve hummed again as she waltzed into the living room once more like a cheery-faced debutante at her coming-out ball. She passed one glass off to "Neil Markovich, Officer Neil Markovich" first, as he was the individual standing closest to her, and then she offered the remaining glass to the Lieutenant. With one recently-freed hand on her hip, Eve stared down--er, up--the two police officers with only a vague hint of authority and maternal attitude. "So, gentleman--are y'all checking everybody's cards this evening or am I just the lucky one?" For a few moments – alright, more than a few – Jack only paid attention to the water, how it soothed the cracks in his throat he didn’t know he had, how focusing on just drinking managed to slow an otherwise hectic blur of mish-mashed meetings into something resembling a moment in a day. He remembered his mama saying something about how it was easy to forget to drink from time to time when you were busy, along with his coach; for some reason, these little reprimands from the past floated up as the ice water went down the hatch. Ms. Peabody’s query was met with a couple of raised eyebrows and a bit of pause. “Um. Everyone’s, ma’am.” Another sip and he was getting a little close to just ice cubes. Jack tried not to frown but he was disappointed all the same, what with this sudden realization that he was thirsty in the first place and all that. The cubes rattled in the bottom of the glass. “Reckon the NYPD’s aiming to make us earn our keep this year, tell you that.” Markovich looked up, a telling if not small smile on his face. “Everything reads fine here.” And really, that was about what Jack was expecting in the first place. Eve smiled at the both of them, as cheerful as the moment she had opened the door for them. This was the queue that their task was done here and they would have to be on their way. Eve felt sorry for them, honestly. It was hot out, there were a lot of individuals in New York City and probably a good majority of them were not exactly welcoming to the men in blue. She flashed another sympathetic smile. "Well, I wish y'all luck with it. I can just imagine the kinda grief y'all are gettin' from people and I hope it don't get too nasty for you's." “It’s—” “—just fine, ma’am,” Jack said before the young man could even finish his sentence. He tipped his hat back on and placed the empty glass of water on an adjacent table (and on something that could at least service as a coaster, as being a guest that left a water ring was something his mother taught him to never do), nestling the officer’s glass on top of his in one fell swoop. “Although— I’ll concede that there hasn’t been a lot of hospitality in our visits.” “More curses than cups of water, really,” Markovich added in a presumably helpful manner. Jack’s five-second glance was withering. “Anyway, we’ll be going, ma’am. You have a good afternoon now.” And with a bit of shuffling and the click of Ms. Peabody’s door, the two were out. |