WHO:Carol Danvers & Leon Orcot WHEN: Last week WHERE: Irvine PD station WHAT: Getting back into crime writing, Carol looks to the station for some factual information. WARNINGS: Low/Crime talk STATUS: Complete
Largely, Carol appreciated the calm that came with Orange County -not the break from insanity, oh no, that was a little more prominent here actually. She’d never needed to worry about things like vivid reality warping dreams or people around her turning into raging monsters at each other. Least of all when people just seemed to accept all that.
No, Orange County was calm in the sense that there wasn’t a murder every twenty minutes. And Carol could appreciate the quality of that -no one really liked murder, just the depraved, and even writing about it, she wasn’t 100% supportive of the general cesspool of society keeping her in a job at the time. However, there was a certain thrill from that side of investigational writing. And that was something Carol missed.
It didn’t mean that the OC was without crime, not in the least, in fact she’d already found a few newspapers that offered slots on a crime journal, so to speak, which she could submit for. The real hard part was finding a source inside law enforcement to give her work credibility.
Which was why she was standing around a station like a spare part feeling like she was back in her first day of college all over again.
Work had been a little slow lately. Or maybe it was normal, and he had just gotten used to the craziness that was the Orange County. Either way, there hadn’t been a mass of vampire killings in months, no holes had opened in the sky to take people's things away, and mass hysteria seemed to be at an all-time low.
He’d been practising his free throw with some crumpled up papers and the garbage can that was a couple of desks away, when he noticed the blonde standing around. He didn’t recognize her, but she wasn’t bad looking. And she looked kind of lost. He checked his reflection quickly in the window by his desk, smoothed his hair back, and then got up and approached her. “Can I help you?” he asked.
Score, stand around long enough looking lost and someone invariably came to see just what the hell you were doing. “Hi there,” she offered the sweetest smile she could, since c’mon, she knew not all cops like reporters. “I’m Carol Danvers, I’m actually looking for some information on a case that this department closed a few weeks ago.” The best route to really go for starting out, would be closed cases.
“I’m writing a piece for a journal, I just need a few details about the investigation and results in apprehending the suspect.” In New York it was much easier, getting started out usually meant being the low rung on the pole, but once you got a good, solid police contact it was clear sailing -provided there was no back handers and you ended up dead. Carol tended to avoid that.
She’d just burned all her bridges when she’d left New York after Michael’s very suspicious death. “If you can help me out?” She even had her I.D at the ready.
Leon scowled as he realized she was a goddamn reporter. Of course she was. Leon really wasn’t a fan of reporters. They tended to stick their noses where they didn’t belong and mucked up investigations. But, well, if she was looking into a closed investigation then there really wasn’t much harm she could do, and he had been ranting at Peggy and Sharon lately about transparency, and about how the public had the right to know about some stuff. It’d be kind of hypocritical of him to shut out a journalist for no other reason than her being a journalist.
“Alright, let’s see some ID,” Leon said a little grudgingly, holding out his hand for it. “What exactly were you looking into?”
Carol fished her reporters I.D out of her pocket, handing it over and keeping the smile in place to hopefully off-set any potential displeasure. “About three weeks ago there were increased reports of break ins around Santa Ana and Irvine, it then escalated to three homicides in Irvine. I’m looking for anything you can give me regarding the work that culminated in the arrest of Mr Ross for the incidents and how it was tied back to the break in’s in Santa Ana.”
Carol tried not to make things difficult for law enforcement, she was greatly reliant on a good few men in New York who had not only made her job so much easier, but they’d given her a lot more information because she never presented a biased opinion. She wasn’t looking to stir up distrust.
“Certain things appear to go unnoticed here, because obviously there are bigger and more chaotic instances of destruction or worse,” like everyone turning on each other or giant spiders or black clouds of destruction. “I’m just looking to help inform people that the normal things are just as important.”
Leon scrutinized the ID, and once he was sure it was okay he handed it back. “I remember that case.” He turned to walk back to his desk. If she wanted to hear more she could follow him, but he wasn’t about to extend the invitation. “I didn’t work it, but I should be able to answer any questions you have.”
Once he got back to his desk, he turned to his computer, quickly exited the riveting game of solitaire he’d been playing (hopefully before she noticed it), and began the search for the casefile. He chuckled a little at her assessment of things. “Yeah, it’s pretty easy for things like the Ross case to go unnoticed around here,” he said. “People tend to get caught up with all the weird shit that happens around here, so they’re not aware of some of the more everyday crimes that only affect a small amount of people. They don’t sell as many headlines as the end of the world.”
She didn’t really need an invitation, Carol had a habit of going places she might not always be wanted -sometimes she went even when she knew she wasn’t wanted, but it was enough that she wasn’t being escorted out of the building. “That’s exactly my point. You read the papers here and it’s all the crazy, abnormal things, and it’s important sure.” Carol did like to know why things were happening, like people on the street arguing or explosions everywhere. Those were the things you had to wonder if you needed to really worry about or if they’d go away in a week or two. “But this is the stuff that, anywhere else, it would be reported on in most news outlets.”
And Carol needed a bit of a break from her other work -really, she appreciated the information she could get out there, the views she could express, but she really couldn’t deny the investigator in her all the time.
“Really I’m looking for any names that can be given, I know some are sensitive, but names, the steps taken to solve both the break in’s and the homicides, and of course how the arrest was made.” She had enough to really start herself on, but it was always better having the factual police account of things.
Leon scrolled through the case file. “Well, the arresting officer was Detective Kimberly Roberson,” he said. “Good cop,” he added as an aside. They weren’t particularly close, but he enjoyed chatting with her when they ran into each other. “Perp’s name is Gregory Ross, though I guess you knew that already.”
Leon had never been the guy to talk to the reporters, and he felt a little awkward about it now, but he skimmed through the file and gave her the information he thought she’d like. How they had suspected the break-ins might be connected due to the method of breaking in and the items stolen. A bit how they had found the vic, and how it had clearly been a case of the guy being walked in on and panicking. The murder weapon had been the victims own hammer, found in the dumpster down the street, covered in the perps prints, and they’d also found some DNA on the scene where Ross had cut himself breaking through her window. Roberson had put out a call to many of the pawn shops in town for some of the stolen property, and they had found him trying to pawn off the stolen goods so he could buy a bus ticket. “Pretty open and shut, all in all.”
Carol nodded and gave positive noises as she scribbled out the information that he was giving her, enough that she could pad out the story more than just speculation about why the cps would take the steps that they had. With this she wouldn’t need to guess what led to an arrest.
“That’s absolutely fantastic,” realistically, it was a fairly simple case, but it was one that spread over a few locations, that affected almost a dozen people -and that wasn’t including the murder victim’s family in matters. So the fact that police had the perpetrator in what would be a slam-dunk case for prosecutors was a good thing. A comfort really.
“It seems like a really simple case and not all that interesting, I’m sure. But I’ve found that people like to hear about cases where it’s solved quickly and competently. Because it’s a comfort to know that law enforcement is on the ball.” There was nothing worse than a bungling department that screwed things up.
Leon preened a little, sitting a little straighter at his desk. The IPD were on the ball, weren’t they? For a journalist, he guessed Carol wasn’t that bad. “I’m glad I could help,” Leon said. “Anyway, a good writer can make even boring shit sound interesting. You’re uh… not planning on mentioning me in that article of yours, are you?” If he started getting his name published in the papers as some sort of source, there was no way he’d live it down among his coworkers.
“Of course not, unless you’re directly involved in the case, I never mention my sources by name. It can sometimes lead to some… Issues.” At least while she worked mob cases, she’d always been careful about naming people who spoke to her, because she refused to be a problem herself or get someone killed for writing the wrong thing.
“I try to be a very sensitive muckraker.” She was also good at poking fun at herself. “Especially since I worked the political circuit for a month and, oh boy, if I ever got that low, I’d probably need to turn myself in for being a soulless monster.” Yeah, even some journalists hated other journalists - political correspondents and paparazzi were the worst.
Leon let out a sigh of relief. He really hadn’t expected her to use his name - he’d definitely never read any news articles that started with ‘I was talking at so-and-so at the police station,’ but it was always better to be safe than sorry.
“Is the political circuit really that bad?” Leon asked, raising an eyebrow. He enjoyed keeping on top of politics, even if that fact might surprise even some of his closest friends. He read the paper every morning, though he also tried to keep himself informed of the goings on in office on his own, away from any biases that the papers might carry.
“The reporters in there are as bad as the politicians. Most of them follow the politics, but then you’ve got the ones that follow an agenda, it’s about ripping apart a person to bum up something else.” And politicians seemed to just give all the cannon fodder needed to bring them down. It was just ridiculous at times. “When it’s just about the politics, it’s fine, when it’s about the politicians and their lives, that’s just real muckraking.”
It was why Carol tended to stay in more factual based reporting, when she had things in front of her to state and use as proof, rather than speculate on the state of affairs with personal lives. “I prefer to follow things that can be solved, and the state of Washington DC is not something I’ll be around to see solved.” Carol gave a shrug, mostly amused at the disaster some people just fell head first into and made their career from.
“Oh man, it’s fucking ridiculous how much some reporters seem to care about the personal lives of politicians. Back in the day no one even knew Roosevelt was in a wheelchair, and now it’s all about who teabagged Miss Piggy in college.” He understood if the politicians private lives were in exact opposition to things they were voting for or against, but the rest of it really wasn’t anyone’s business. It was a moment after the words had left his mouth that Leon uneasily cleared his throat and tried to check her face for any signs of being offended. He was on the clock talking to a journalist in the middle of the office, and it was kind of a bad time for his professional filter to turn off.
“I can see your point about not really wanting to rub shoulders with people like that. And hell, you’re probably dealing with less scumbags when you’re reporting on murderers instead of politicians.”
Carol just laughed, highly amused at the comparison, regardless of how accurate it might be. She didn’t get the point of rehashing what these people did in their college days, or what their private lives were like. She doubted she’d have lasted long in the DC circuit at all. She was definitely better suited for the New York scene. “I followed a few of the made families, keeping tabs on who was fighting with who and just when the streets would be lined with bodies,” which was tiring and exhausting at times, but she’d found that her career benefited from the lack of massive competition -most people wouldn’t touch the mafia. “And these guys probably had better morals than political reporters.”
Especially since most of them were hypocritical assholes.
“Most of us aren’t terrible though. Least of all us crime-reporters.” And yes, that was Carol tooting her own horn.
“No shit?” Leon asked, genuinely interested. If he hadn’t already started warming up to the journalist in front of him, that little tidbit certainly would have won him over. He’d tried a couple of times to go after some of the mafia families, but he tended to be blocked every time he tried. It was frustrating as all hell, but his hands were kind of tied in the matter. He could logically understand it. A lot of the mafia bosses did a lot better at keeping their men in line than any cops ever could, and a lot of cops who went toe to toe with the mafia ended up dead, but it was still damn frustrating the things that they managed to get away with. “How’s that for you? Get into much trouble?”
Leon snorted. “Tell that to the crime-reporters who report on high-profile cases and fuck everything up for us.”
“A few times.” Changing her address nearly three times in one year due to acquiring stalkers was a little bit of a terrifying experience, especially when she knew just how these men took care of their business, but Carol was nothing if not stubborn, she wouldn’t let mobsters intimidate her out of her job. “I almost got shot once.” And that was her big war story too, almost getting shot. The near heart-attack that followed was almost as bad.
“Oh, well, that’s less than stellar.” There were of course the occasional sorts who jumped the gun, or just screwed up the facts with poor fact checking. “I never said we were all infallible.” Hopefully something she could prove herself.
“I recommend against getting shot. It kind of blows,” Leon said, as if that wouldn’t be immediately apparent to anyone. He, luckily, had never been shot while he was awake. But he had been shot in his Dreams and that was, to date, the most disorienting thing that had ever happened to him.
“Well, you seem alright as far as journalists go,” he said, and grabbed one of his business cards from the corner of his desk. “I’m Detective Leon Orcot. If you wanted to give me a shout again, I might be willing to chat.” There was no guarantee that he’d talk about certain cases, but Carol had won him over.
She’d take that warning to heart, Carol doubted it would be anything other than a total suckfest.
Were she a lesser woman, she might’ve punched the air in victory at the declaration of being ‘okay’, considering she knew the impression some of her colleagues could make, that was a resounding victory for her. She took the card, slipping it into her notes before pulling out her own. “Thank you again, it was great talking to you, and here. If anything comes up that you need help with or… just a potential case that could be helped with some publicity, give me a call.” At the very least it was a contact in the station, plus one for Carol. That was one station down, she just needed to network a little more.
“I’m also really good at digging up dirt on people that don’t like dirt being dug up, if you catch my meaning.” So far, she had no dealings with anyone in organised crime here, but that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. “Just keep me in mind.” At the very least, she’d be willing to help.