Getting On Board

Monday, the 2nd of May.

08:13am.

The New York police department on 16, Ericsson place, Tribeca, was her dream work place and it had been so even before she had started working there, and so far she had been living that dream and loving it. It excited her to carry out her official duties, it excited her every time she had on that shield, every time she flashed that metal power in someone's face and every time she said, "Tia Sparrow, NYPD detective", it all excited her. 

The shield was her ticket to barge in to any where, screaming at the top of her voice, "NYPD! Freeze!", guns out and pointing, fingers on the trigger, but she does not get to do that often since she was a detective. The sheild was her power to silence criminals, to tell them to speak less or face the court with what ever words they decide to use at that time. The shield was her power to ask questions and demand answers but you never could use force with someone whose house you're in, but put them in cuffs and bring them to the station, to the interrogation room and she would slam her badge down on the table where you would be able to see it clearly and she would ask questions, she would demand answers.

Tia did not believe in the "good cop, bad cop" method of interrogation, but when her colleagues decide to play that, she was always the bad cop. It really excited her, but Tia was not harsh in reality, she was the softest person you could ever come across but in situations where being tough was necessary, Tia would give the extra.

The cab came to stop right in front of the building and Tia alighted, she pulled out a dollar note from her pockets and stretched it to the man from the passenger side window, thanking him before turning and running into the building.

The Manhattan New York police department was usually a busy place when ever you walked into the building but today it was less busy, Tia checked the time on her brown leather strap wrist watch, it read 08:16am. It was a Monday, and Mondays were usually the busiest with a handful of people coming in to lay some kind of complaints, from the least important to the most absurd, once an elderly woman had come in here to make a complaint that the plants in her back garden were changing color from its natural green color to a kind of wine, brown. She had said that the growth chemical that had been sold to her were defective and poisonous to the plants.

The police man on duty attending to her had been left speechless. 

"Ma'am, these kind of complaints should be made to the company that sold the item to you." He had tried to calmly explain but she would hear none of it.

"This is a crime officer. My plants are being poisoned and slowly being murdered. This is a crime against the plants and myself."

"Yes I understand ma'am but..."

"What if I had drank it? Huh?" She suddenly asked and the officer froze, he looked around at the other officers who had heard her and they had paused what ever they were doing to look at the granny. Who in their right senses would drink a plant growth chemical?

Never the less, they took the case. "Ok ma'am, here is what I will do. I will have an officer assigned to you and you will take him to your plants and then file a complaint against the company, how does that sound?"

"Much better officer." She smiled and the officer smiled too then he called a rookie for her.

Surely they did help her out and it turned out that the plant she had in her garden was not actually a green plant but one that changed colour and the wine color of it was natural. She did apologize to the officer and they laughed about it. That event had taken half a day.

"Het Tia!" Some one called her out of her thinking and Tia looked up to Mark who was waving a hand in the air, a coffee cup in the other hand. She walked up to him.

"Hey Mark. Less work than usually I can see."

Mark chuckled. "Well, what can I say?" He took a sip of the coffee. "Life should be easier." The both laughed.

"Where is Aiden?" She asked.

"Yes!" Mark replied, rushing the liquid in his mouth down his throat when he remembered why he had called her in the first place. He struggled to cough.

"Sorry. Take it easy Mark." Tia said.

He waved a hand in the air, telling her that he was alright but he did not quite seem so. "Aiden said to direct you to the office immediately you step in." He coughed some more. The dark liquid coming out from his nose.

"Are you alright, Mark?" She asked, reaching over to pat his back.

Mark exhaled hard, his eyes reddened from the coughing fit and he calmed down, placing the cup gently back on the table. 

"I am fine now." He assured her, taking in a deep breath.

"You should not talk and eat." She looked at the cup. "Or drink."

"Well, forgive me for trying to pass out some important information." He teased and Tia laughed. "Tia, there is some big work for you though." He whispered.

Tia leaned in closer and whispered back. "What work?"

"I do not know." He shrugged and leaned back on the chair, Tia straightened up. "You know how Aiden gets when he is excited, he never just tells until you know about it."

"Ohh..." Tia said disappointed but still very eager to know.

"But it is some what of a cold case I think. It is a murder case." He winked.

Tia eyes widened. "Ohhh..." She said, more enthusiastically. "I better get going then."

"Yea you should." Mark waved her away and went back to his work as Tia made for the stairs, going up to the second floor.

•  •  •  •  •  •

Aiden spun around on his seat, a pen in his mouth and his eyes fixed to the file in his hands intensely. He shook the file like he wanted something to drop out of it before he turned and slammed the bundle of paper down on the table, hissing out his frustration. The door suddenly opened and Tia stepped in.

"Tia! Oh my God, Tia!" Aiden said and stood up, running forward to embrace her. He lifted her up effortlessly and spun around once with her wedged in his arms.

Tia was taken aback by his actions and laughed, his hug had her hands pinned to the side of her body. 

"Aiden, what..." She began to speak but Aiden broke away from the hug and dragged her by her hand to the seat he had been in, pushing her into it and then slamming a palm on the file which laid on the table.

"Miss Tia Sparrow," he grinned. "Get ready for the busiest case of your life!" Then he handed over the file to Tia.

Tia held the file in her hands and looked up to Aiden. "What is this?" She asked, her fingers already working on the transparent blue plastic covering.

"Do not ask me, just you open it first." He grinned and plopped himself down on another seat, wheeling it closer to Tia.

Tia went over the first page and her eyes popped, her senses tingled and the corner of her lips twitched in a small smile, now she could understand the excitement that Aiden had felt, cases like this always had their adrenaline rushing through their blood streams faster than usual.

"A homicide murder case!" The last time she had to handle a case like this was almost over a year ago. Cases like these always had her on high alert.

"It was assigned to us?" She asked Aiden, the wide grin on his face told her his answer.

"Yes darling, but..!" He leaned in closer a placed a hand on one side of his mouth and whispered. "Not after some convincing." He beamed and relaxed back on the chair.

"Aiden you sneaky..." She made to slap him with the file.

Aiden laughed. "The chief is not that bad of a man, although I had to slander some names, still... It was worth it!"

Tia laughed and opened the file again, placing it on the desk and going over the information.

• • • • • •

VICTIM'S NAME: Pamela Neil. 

CASE NO: 17-2345

AGED: 26. 

ADDRESS: 52, stone street, Tribeca, Manhattan. New York.  

SEX: Female. 

DESCRIPTION: White. 

HEIGHT: 

WEUGHT: 

OCCUPATION: waitress at Skyline club.

NEAREST RELATIVE: Miss Trisha Neil - victim's sister. Mrs. Moira Neil - victim's mother.

LOCATION OF OCCURRENCE: South cove park.

TIME AND DATE OF OCCURRENCE: Tuesday, 19th of April.

TIME AND DATE REPORTED: Monday, 2nd of May. 04:23am

• • • • • •

Tia paused here and looked at Aiden in surprise. "She has been dead for three weeks?!"

"According to the forensic team, yes she has. Sad is it not?"

Tia nodded her head and went back to reading more information from the file. "This was reported this morning. Very early this morning, by who?"

Aiden wheeled the chair closer. "It is recorded there, along with his signed statement."

Tia found it.

• • • • • •

SOURCE OF CALL: 911 incident call reported by Benjamin Brown. South cove grounds keeper.

AGED: 52.

Body was found in a shallow grave, covered by dirt and dried leaves, located in a secluded part of the park.

• • • • • •

Tia flipped the pages. "All the information needed on this file has not been fully documented here."

"No."

"Why is that?" She asked him, closing the fike.

"Well, it is still a new case that had come in only this morning. More tests and investigations would still have to be carried out to determine all that, but this..." He picked up the file and waved it in the air. "Is for us to know what we are doing."

"And the family? Has any one been contacted? I see here that she has a mother and a sister." She faced Aiden

Aiden grinned at her. Tia's face fell. "They have not been contacted, have they?" She sighed, and although she knew the answers, she asked any way. "Who is going to have to do that?"

Again, Aiden replied her with an even wider grin. Tia tilted her head back and let out a long breath. "This is always the hardest part of tangling yourself up in a homicide case. Can we not get someone else to break the news to them?"

Aiden chuckled. "Relax Tia. I will handle that part."

The door suddenly burst open and detective Bernard waltzed in, holding several cups of coffee and a bag they all knew would be containing doughnuts.

"Well," Aiden started. "Someone seems cheerful on a Monday morning."

Bernard shot him a wide grin and walked over, setting two cups of coffee on Tia's desk. He caught a glimpse of the file and half laughed. "Looks like you two love birds would be busy for a really long time."

Tia picked up a cup. "Yeah, looks like. I wonder if it is already on the news though."

"Naaaaah.." Aiden said and picked up the TV remote to turn it on. "I doubt that. It happened waaaaay too early for the news crew to get there and the information has not been given out to the public yet."

Aiden was right, there was nothing about a homicide on the news, just business talks about some major group of companies leading in the fore front in the New York business world.

"Now just look at that." Bernard said, pointing to the TV with a doughnut in his hand. "These are the businesses taking all the money, and how do they do that? By luring victims to their dooms."

Tia and Aiden laughed hard. "Now now Bernard, when you say it like that..."

"But it is true! Take a look at that! How could you be charged that much for a room in a hotel?! Skyline hotels and clubs are really sucking on a lot of deep pockets." 

"Let who so ever can afford it..." Aiden took a bite out of a doughnut. "...afford it."