[Imprimatur] There are moments in life when we see disaster headed out way. Snapshots, where we open our eyes, take a picture, laminate it, shape it at the corners, tuck it into the dark corners of out soul, where memory breeds with fear in pintucked closeness. The last moment before the crash, brakelights smeared across the windshield, the drum of rain on the roof, a withheld expectancy –
– what next?
There’s none of that here. In this room.
Izzy cannot sense what they felt, the dead whose voices echo back to her, the living who murdered, who felt a life twisting into death beneath their hands. Maybe she doesn’t bother to imagine it: too much, too close, too immediate, too real for her.
She remembers inside.
She shouts something about the Photog and the uniform at the door just swings around, gives her a heavy look and a snort, says something about Protocol. It’s not, yet. Not for fucking junkies. Not for No Humans Involved.
His features – blunt and round with an extra chin and a shadow of whiskers underneath – are dull looking, but there’s a certain ferrety gleam in his eyes.
A knock on the door. Single. Singular. Sharp.
The creak of hinges; a man’s voice a moment later. “Joe.”
” – what the fuck do you want?” A harsh voice, an addict’s rasp. Nicotine there, roughened vocal cords.
“Checking on the patient. Let me in.”
“NO!”
A struggle, a cough, the slap of hands against wood, the crack of wood against bone. “Fuck, Jesus, my fucking kn- ”
“You need to be in treatment.”
“How the hell did you find me?”
” – shhh. You’re going to go into withdrawals, soon. Then you’ll be back – ”
“YOU ARE NOT PUTTING THAT SHIT IN – ”
“Shhh. Joe. Remember? We’re on the same team. We’re getting you off that shit. Getting you back to – ”
“I CAN FEEL IT IN ME. I AM SHITTING IT ALL OUT. I AM – ”
“Joe – ”
“HANDS OFF. GET OUT. I AM GONNA CALL ME A LAWYER. I AM GONNA – ”
“Court-ordered, Joe. I’m doing this the kind way, but if I need to call – ”
“You think I don’t know what’s going on. I know. I fucking know. I SEE you under –
Oh god. Oh god. OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, GET THEM – GET THEM AWAY FROM ME – GO GET – JESUS FUCK – WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU – “
The sound of someone choking; swallowing his skin. His tongue, or – like he was trying to breathe in and spit up at the same time. The drum of heels against the wooden floor.
A body collapsed, a creak of floorboards beneath moving weight. And, later, the click of a closing door.
[Izzy Montoya] The uniform spins back, and smirks, and she meets his look with a flat one of her own. It’s not protocol, of course. Not for junkies. Not for an open and shut case. Her brow creases briefly with irritation, but she turns her face from him and continues to take her pictures instead.
And listens.
She listens carefully, making sure that her face remains a mask, doing her best not to react, not to show that she knows, that there is something here that they aren’t seeing, or worse, something that they are, something they are hiding. She closes her eyes, briefly, as the door clicks in the memory of the wood itself, and she drags her fingers through her hair.
She takes a few more shots, and then grabs the needle in her gloved hand, and stands. A moment, and she slips the camera into her pocket, and digs in another to find an evidence bag. There is something wrong here. Something really wrong. And there are some things screamed that reverberate in her mind – things that make it far less simple than open shut case. And far worse than that – it may be better for her to look the other way.
Or to look as if she looks the other way. For now.
[…two can keep a secret if one of them is dead…]
To the Coroner, then. “Alright. I got what I need from him. Bag and tag.”
But she doesn’t leave the room just yet – she makes another sweep, to see if there’s anything else she missed, snapping pictures of anything she finds interesting, or distracting.
[Imprimatur] A body.
A bruise on the knee.
Faint bruises on the torso, fading, the blood drained down. A few drugs scattered around, nothing else. The room is otherwise clean and empty but for the cheap, tattered furniture. The scent of sorrow, of despair sharp in the air.
[Izzy Montoya] She captures the bruises – the knee – the torso – and then nods as she steps back and waves the coroner forward to do his part. She tucks the bagged needle into her pocket as she searches for her pack and lighter, as she watches him work. She locates the pack, and shakes out a cigarette, as she steps into the hall with the uniform.
“Got a light?” Casual. Yet not. He says yes, he says no – either way she’ll locate fire somewhere, and step outside for a smoke. He won’t see her hands shake. He won’t see the way her mouth tightens, the way the muscle in her jaw clenches, the way she has to push memory from her mind so that she can think clearly, dissect it, pick it apart.
He also won’t see this, what happens later: the research she does on the victim, searching for the court order she’d heard mentioned, hoping for the identification of the wearer of the heels, and those involved with the order. She digs as deep as she dares, on her own time to avoid the ever watchful eye of her temporary boss, her temporary co-workers.
Don’t mess this up, he said.
Too bad for him – she answers to another. And she won’t.
[Izzy Montoya] [intell +investigation – COME ON KAHSEENO!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Izzy Montoya] [wits +subterfuge – DONT BE A BITCH, KAHSEENO!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 4, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]
[Imprimatur] Joseph Matthews.
He has a record. A series of arrests for possession and other junkie lifestyle issues: stripping copper from a construction site, purse snatching, the usual. Stealing a prescription pad. Uttering a forged check. He did less than a year in Cook County jail, was released on probation. Testing positive for opiates, a probation violation, and given “Alternative Sentencing.”
Drug treatment.
That’s as far as she gets. Someone’s always glancing at her computer screen, the unit clerk gives her looks when she requisitions files. Frustratingly limited information.