Archer Avery, Chief of Police (comethearchers) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2015-07-08 03:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2018 [07] july, archer avery, piper nolan |
Who: Archer and Piper
Where: Austin Police Department, The Capitol
What: Chief and Dispatch chat time
When: early Tuesday
They might be in the middle of the end of the world, where everything is completely FUBAR, but there’s a few things the Austin PD can typically count on. Some folks are gonna see cops as a convenient receptacle for dumping their frustration, even without the flurry of parking tickets and moving violations that memories will dredge up from the past. Some folks are gonna see them as having all the answers, or being able to find all of the answers, and they get let down pretty quick when it’s never that simple. Some folks are ready to hate; some are ready to love; some are ready to fear; some are ready to scoff. To each their own.
The men and women of the Austin PD can’t count, day to day, on how the public is going to react to them, but they can count on what will be expected of them in the line of duty ...and they can count on Archer Avery to lead by example. Even when he was a commander, Archer never asked another officer to do something that he wouldn’t do himself. The same is holding true as he fulfills his role as Chief of Police. There’s plenty about Archer you can set your watch to, so to speak. Constant as the northern star and all that shit. In an inconsistent world, Archer’s consistent traits and stoic mein play well with a number of members on the force. Archer can be counted on to use a few words when a great many might be expected, to square his shoulders off even if he’s practically staggering under the weight he’s carrying -- physical or metaphorical -- and the burden he’s bearing, and to find the right balance between dispensing with ceremony and keeping with tradition.
This morning’s shift change meeting hasn’t been any different. Though this is a job often delegated out, Archer took the floor and led it himself. There had been an idle hand motion after the expected call was made to stand at attention for the chief. His hand sliced through the air: a cut, a negation. An order to keep your seats, if you have them. Parade rest for the officers waiting to go out on patrol. He doesn’t have quite the lax air that, say, his partner -- now Deputy Chief -- Brannon O’Brien does, but Archer doesn’t stand on ceremony just to do it. There’s neither a commendation nor rebuke in the works; he doesn’t have another officer’s death to announce or anything else of gravitas to report today. Still, the small black band he has around the badge pinned to his shirt is a sign that Archer finds meaning in tradition. Five of their people dead, caltrops in their eyes, a transport picked clean. He hasn’t forgotten. Neither should anyone else.
The shift change meeting moves along quickly, carried by the swift current of a necessary time crunch and the choppy waves of Archer’s usual speech pattern. Assignments are doled out like playing cards, everyone hoping someone comes up aces, that a little hard work today will go a long way. The chief touches on the tip line, on forensics, on whatever witnesses they have, on history. This is striking a chord with that Servant Girl Annihilator shit. Dig into archives. If they’re coming up empty in the present, there’s no harm in looking to the past. Detectives: keep pegging at it. Again. And again. There is something to find here. There must be. Look at the suspects already in play, paying close attention to the ones that come up in all three murders. Trevor Nugent. Leo Chandless. Archer points to stuff on the boards he started after getting back from the hospital on June 18th, boards that have been added to by people in this room, people on other shifts.
They’ve already talked about the transport and a few other orders of business but this morning the bulk of his focus is on the Supply Scout Annihilator, dark blue eyes snagging on this cop or that when he makes a point. Many of them return his look as steady as he’s leveling it at them. Once, his eyes catch their dispatcher, Piper Nolan, and he gives her a small nod to see her there. Not that Archer is at all surprised. In his experience, Piper likes to know what’s going on, so she can be better prepared to help. It’s something Archer appreciates.
By the end, their chief’s standing front and center again. He doesn’t have to raise his voice above conversation level to be heard; his words are said with a sort of gravity but they certainly carry. “Look at all three young women together. Look at all three separately. Above all, don’t fucking forget that these are people. People that lived, and they lived through some shit. Same as all of us. Yeah, you gotta be objective. This is a case. But we’re speaking for them. So if you feel like we keep hitting our heads into the wall? We’re not getting anywhere. And you wanna give up. Remember we’re speaking for them: Andrea Salazar. Joselyn DePalma. Catherine Kennedy. You remind yourself of that. Then you come whine to me about giving the fuck up.”
With that, Archer gestures at the lieutenant who’d originally been set to lead the shift change, allowing him to dismiss the officers. They scatter, fish skittering away from a pebble dropped in a pond. Off to patrol, to investigate, to research. Soon enough, the normal traffic pattern for the main room is reestablished, with the people who have desks there working at them or away -- mostly away -- and everyone else gone.
Except Archer doesn’t immediately head for his office or a meeting. He’d turned back to the board and is now examining it. The bruise that had been on his jaw is nearly entirely gone, maybe a faint yellowish imprint the last hint it was ever there. It means Archer is completely cleanshaven again, without any nicks on his skin of trying to do it anyway and causing pain, though even after a shower and a shave, Archer still has the air of a man who possibly didn’t sleep through the night. Or at all. It’s a common enough sight since he put on the chief’s badge, though it hasn’t been nearly as bad lately, not as dire as it was around the time of the blob rain or while Brannon was sick. Everyone on the force was aware that there had been tension between their chief and his second-in-command, though no one had said anything to Archer’s face about it. They’re just glad it’s better now.
(Something else that can be counted upon: like most groups of people will, cops talk about other cops. There had also been some speculation that the bruise on the chief’s jaw came from a punch delivered by Brannon… but it was a rumor that didn’t get too far off the ground. No one really wanted to be caught talking about that one and for some it was just hard to believe. The ones that did believe it just smirked at each other and kept silent. There was also a theory that it was T.R. Lansing, Adelaide’s husband, that he tried to knock Archer out and only succeeded on the blow to the jaw, but officers got stuck on the ‘why.’ A few of the grumblers would vastly prefer it if Chief Avery punched Council President Lansing, but Mrs. Lansing and the chief were friends, and she was thought of pretty highly by at least the cops that had been under Archer’s immediate command before he was made chief. Archer was pretty clear on Adelaide Lansing being his friend and someone that should be respected, and it didn’t hurt that she could cook damned fine. Since no one could see Mayor Olinger, Graham Frost, or Dr. Sebastian Handsel have the reason or daring to land a punch on their chief, eventually the situation was chalked up to either a zombie kill Archer wasn’t talking about or a run in with a pound puppy over at the Dog Park. Maaaaybe a Ghoul. In any event, it was a mystery, and they would’ve put more investigative work into solving it if they didn’t have real jobs to do. Now that the bruise is pretty much gone, they’ve moved onto other things to speculate about over bad coffee and whatever food’s come out of the Capitol kitchen. Like that judge and the girl who should be in La Quinta. Or the people who write into the Dear Piper posts. Stuff like that.)
Archer stands looking over the board, arms crossed over his chest, as if he can just see the piece of information he needs to unlock a serial murder case if he stares hard enough. After a few moments, he reaches up to massage his eyes. “Fuck,” he mutters to himself. Or at least what he thinks is only to himself.