Little Napoleon Part 2 (AU,CC,MATURE) COMPLETE - 1/19/13

Finished stories set in an alternate universe to that introduced in the show, or which alter events from the show significantly, but which include the Roswell characters. Aliens play a role in these fics. All complete stories on the main AU with Aliens board will eventually be moved here.

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ken_r
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Little Napoleon Part 2 (AU,CC,MATURE) COMPLETE - 1/19/13

Post by ken_r »

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Title: Little Napoleon The Thirteenth Victim

This is the second part of Little Napoleon. You should read the first part to understand all the references in this one.
Little Napoleon, part one

Author: ken_r AKA Kenneth Renouard
Disclaimer: Once again I am using the characters belonging to someone else to tell a story. The city, Metropolis is completely made up. I mixed the landscape around Albuquerque with rolling hills like you might see in the Ozarks. The West Mesa Murders are real and the Police Department of Albuquerque NM is working hard to solve them. There is nothing in my story that is like the real case. Liz found another set of remains that are in the same general location as the real ones, but they are completely separate and slightly alien.
Rating: Mature
Couples: CC
Summary: Another story of Little Napoleon and her squad of strange cases. Liz has to solidify her relationship with the king. The king has to better bring the different groups of aliens together. I don’t think this story stands alone very well. I highly recoment you read Little Napoleon, part one .


The Thirteenth Victim

Counselor Raymond Donald Richards had lost his son. His wife had died when Donnie was nine. Ray had found a second love, but Donnie never had another mother. It wasn’t that Kathy didn’t try with Donnie. Donnie never could accept her. Kathy tried with Ray and she succeeded in filling that emptiness that his wife had left. Ray now found happiness for himself. For Donnie, he tried to give him everything he wanted.

As Donnie grew into an adult, selfish and spoiled, Ray began to wonder if he had been on the right track. Donnie got a fixation on the police department. Deep down, Counselor Richards wondered at this. Richards believed as did many, that the police required a dedication and a selfless desire to serve. Ray was sure Donnie had been impressed by the uniform and the power, he perceived in the police. Deep down, Ray knew that this wasn’t right. Those impressed with power got into trouble sooner or later with the department. The department might embrace the skills of individuals, but those individuals all were part of a greater team. Anyone seeking celebrity could cause others to be put in danger. The grandstanding of Donnie, with that first hostage, could have easily caused the hostage to get killed and several other officers to be hurt besides.

Yes, Ray wasn’t totally clueless. Like any politician, he could be blinded by fame. Donnie, his son, was now a decorated officer. Donnie complained that he was still treated like a rookie. His action with Fred German, while observing Nicholas, showed that Donnie was not yet ready to accept that, maybe, he didn’t always have all the information available or all the answers. He had been commanded to watch, not attempt to arrest. Donnie thought there was nothing different here, than had been with his first hostage situation. He was wrong. He knew nothing about aliens and by the result of his action, he was not able to learn anything more, ever. All Ray could do was strike out against the police department, especially that woman, who didn’t have that many friends in the department anyway.

Don’t try to say that all towns have one. There was no one else like Simon Ortiz. No one knew how old Simon actually was. No one knew what his title actually was. There were a few who knew what Simon could do. Simon had an office in a dark corner of the top floor of the police building. He might even have similar offices in other cities. No one knew how far his power reached. It would be later that the department would learn that there were several, dark, mysterious organizations, much like the restaurant Max had taken Liz to, that answered to no public nor government.

Councilor Richards had heard that Simon was the man to get something done. No one knew how; they didn’t have the foggiest of an idea where his special grease came from. He wasn’t a cop or an ex-cop. As far as anyone could tell, he didn’t have some high placed rabbi to take care of him. He just was!

A few weeks into training and Donnie was in trouble. He had allowed an accidental discharge of his weapon on the practice range. No one was hurt, but the bullet had barely missed one of the training sergeants. This was a serious breach in discipline, even this early in training. This was the first time Ray faced Simon, but not the last.

Knowing that Donnie didn’t follow instructions very well, the sergeant held little hope for his improvement. For reasons unknown, Donny only faced in house discipline. Demands for leniency came from somewhere above.

Clean all the weapons in the armory under the watchful eye of a sergeant. Make no mistakes where the weapons were pointed. Make no mistakes in the assembly of each weapon. Donnie was given a weapons manual and told to get at it. Donnie cried to his father, but thankfully Ray held fast. Donnie wouldn’t accept how close he had been to being removed from the class. Little Napoleon had been removed at the start of her rookie class, but that was because she didn’t appear big and strong enough. Little Napoleon proved them all wrong. The sergeants still were worried about Donnie. He didn’t listen very well. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to be proving anyone wrong.

----------

Douglas Shellow was FBI. He had a background in anthropology, accounting and a few classes in law school. In the academy, he was said to be dedicated, capable and cold. That last label was what worried some of the instructors. He came out of the academy in the top ten percent. He was good. As rookie, those he was partnered with wrote him as very good at following instruction and when the plan fell apart, he was very good at improvising. They all voiced, in their own carefully coached comments, that he did not have deep emotions, dedication, yes, that difficult to describe human feeling, no. Some commented that Douglas was especially good at interrogating women. That comment was looked at as a plus and no one was inclined to follow it any deeper. If he had appeared before a shrink it would not have been found that he hated women. It would take a lot more probing for them to ever discover that Douglas just didn’t care about women or anyone else, as far as anyone would be able to tell. Many of the secretaries and some of the female agents could have testified that it wasn’t a matter of orientation. Douglas looked at the women he was with, as tools. He used them and then, walked away. That was okay, because he didn’t have any close emotions with anybody. Some might try to say he was a lot like Kyle. No one knew what Dong’s issues were with women. Kyle’s issues were mistrust because of his mother leaving. Kyle had deep emotions. Witness how he defended his men, even if they were wrong and then, to undertake their harsh discipline, personally. When Kyle learned to trust Tess, he became a new man. To date, Doug didn’t have any thing to change him.

Sitting before his superior, agent Shellow heard, “Doug, we have a report given by one of our older agents about an anomaly rising in the southwest. Agent Stevens, was exiled to New Mexico many years ago. At that time, he was believed to have a fixation on UFOs and aliens. He had been supported by agent Pierce. Pierce became rogue while working in this area. He seemed to contaminate all who worked with him. Pierce disappeared in the 90s. No one knows what happened to him. Time and politics let Agent Stevens be reinstated back in Washington. Recently, Stevens came across an old acquaintance from Roswell New Mexico, Jim Valenti. When Pierce was in Roswell, Valenti was mixed up to his neck with aliens. Pierce has disappeared, probably dead by now. Stevens has run across a story about Valenti who is now on the Metropolis Police Commissioner Board. When Stevens ran across him this time, Valenti was a deputy chief of the largest city in New Mexico’s police department. Stevens doesn’t want anything to do with Valenti or aliens ever again. He did make a report. There is a woman who was involved in several murders, which could have alien involvement. The director wants you to go down and sweet-talk her. Find out what you can and bring a report. She ain’t that bad looking and from what I can tell she is all cop. Charm her, boy. Let us see what you can do.” Doug’s boss had said.

----------

Max, Michael and the two Valenti’s made it clear, they wanted nothing to do with the Feds. Lieutenant Whitman met both shifts of detectives and warned them about his distrust of the Feds. To Liz, this smacked much of what she had always fought. The department had always discriminated against her as a woman and they were doing the same to this person sent by, what after all, was just another law enforcement agency. Unless they could prove civil rights violations, the feds had no interest in murder. Now, if this was a serial killer and there were incidents in other states, that might be another story. Liz felt that they should, at least, give the man a chance. Liz found herself alone in this. Maria, probably with the influence of Michael, had put her self on guard, against this intruder. When Counselor Richards heard about the fed, he thought, “How can I turn this against that woman and get revenge for Donnie?”

When Liz first met Agent Shellow, she saw his good looks, his suits coming only a close second to those of Max’s and his apparent sunny disposition. Liz was impressed. He reminded her a lot of Max, Max, without all-of-the-king-stuff. Doug read all the official reports. These were the ones, Liz had written without any of the alien things. Only Big Jim had a copy in a vault that was exactly what Little Napoleon had done with her squad of aliens. Actually, the aliens had been led by the then, Lieutenant Whitman and Captain Kyle Valenti.

After Max and Michael had returned to their former work for Alex, Liz had removed their two desks from her cramped office. Now, only she and Maria had desks there. Liz noticed that Maria made herself scarce, while Agent Shellow was there, so Liz allowed Doug to take over Maria’s desk.

---------

Maria was sitting on Max’s desk. Alex and Michael were standing nearby. “She is supposed to be your fiancée. Can’t you do anything about that!” Maria exclaimed.

Max shook his head, “The fiancée thing is only on my part. She has the sign of the queen, but she has to accept it without coercion,” Max stated.

Maria was still out-spoken. “Coercion, my ass! She is blabbing everything to that fed and we aren’t ever going to get them out of our hair,” Maria returned.

Max continued to shake his head. “Maria, Liz was chosen. She was chosen by a careful selection. Remember, I had nothing to do with it. The choice was made that Liz would be queen because she would do what was best for both alien and humans,” Max replied.

It was seen that Michael said nothing, but it was Alex who was frowning. “Max, perhaps we need to know more about how Liz was chosen,” he said.

This was inevitable. Max had put off talking about the selection of Liz because he didn’t understand or know enough about it. That excuse wasn’t going to work any longer. “Agent Shallow is probably going to ask Liz out to dinner tonight. Lets meet back here along with Tess and Kyle Valenti as well as Isabel. Maybe, we four can make sense out of this. It affects all of you. There is a lot more going on than just the selection of the queen,” Max explained.

----------

Doug put down the copy of Liz’s report. “This is a very well done report, but it doesn’t tell me enough. I need to know more about those mentioned. What about the civilians Valenti saw fit to deputize? What was the relationship between Detective Guerin and Sergeant DeLuca? What was your relationship with Detective Evans? I need to know these things to make the report clear. My boss wants to know if we can expect to have another occurrence of this type of murder. I need to be clear in my mind about how all of this went down,” Agent Shellow explained.

Liz started to reply, but Doug raised his hand. “Enough of the formal talk. How about supper and we talk over a quiet meal?” Doug asked. Then, he continued with a twinkle in his eye, “I also want to know how you got the moniker of Little Napoleon.”

Liz laughed. That was good. She hadn’t laughed like that in a long time. She had probably never laughed about her nickname before. “Okay, Agent Shellow, pick me up at eight tonight,” she said as she handed him a card with her address and phone numbers on it.

---------

The desk sergeant nodded as he saw Captain Valenti, the lieutenant, two detectives and several civilians take the elevator to the third floor. It was rumored that the captain was scheduled for promotion soon. Also, it had been said that Big Jim was going to play hardball with the police commission. The old sergeant chuckled; now they would see if Kyle’s papa, Big Jim, had enough grease to get past Councilor Richards. Richards came down on every thing the police did, now days. You have to feel for a father’s loss, but that little bastard, Donnie, was a problem and the police department more than gave him a chance.

No one else was on the third floor so, they all trooped into the lounge to see what Max had to say. “First of all, I need to address the humans in our company,” Max started. “Each of you has paired up with an alien. Are you happy far beyond your dreams?” he asked.

Max noticed that Kyle, Alex and Maria all looked at each other as they nodded in agreement. “I think that you all have heard from your lovers about us being cloned and sent ahead to prepare a place for alien refugees here on Earth. You, also, have figured out that many things went wrong.” Max took a deep breath because some of what he was saying was conjecture that he and Isabel had put together. “We were supposed to all be adults when the first ships arrived. We were supposed to be raised and educated to help the aliens join your Earth society or as some have said ‘to foment revolution to take over Earth.’ First, the crash caused our maturing from the pods to be delayed for some twenty years. Then the crash threw three very young children into your society without any supervision or guidance. The queen mother, miscalculated the rise of the despot. She never believed in the relocation of loyal Antarians, anyway. When we did become of age, the refugees had already found their way peacefully into their new world. They didn’t need us. They have though, accepted us as peaceful representatives between our two cultures. For most of the alien community, revolution was not their answer, witness those who helped us against, Nicholas.” Max looked around, everyone was listening, but they seemed bored with what he said so far. This had become common knowledge to those in this group. “There was something else in the ship containing the three incubation pods.” Max turned to Tess. “This addition might have been why the queen mother removed your pod. Maybe, she wasn’t discriminating against you. Maybe, she did intend to send you later. Maybe, it wasn’t even she who removed you. Max now addressed the whole group. “The granolith has power far greater than any of them realized. The granolith is a machine of unknown origin. For years, it governed the royals of Antar. It was after the last king became old, that his queen refuted its advice. She had not been raised in the courts of Antarian royalty.” Max was sorry that he hadn’t had this discussion when Liz was present. She would have had interesting questions about the origin of the machine. She might have asked questions that none of them had even thought of and of which they had no knowledge of, questions that needed to be researched. Max was sure that Liz would have pounced on what he said next.

“The machine is an artificial intelligence far beyond anything on Antar or Earth. We call it a machine because it appears to be made of metal. We have no idea of what it really is. It was believed in writings, that Isabel and I finally discovered in the pod chamber, that the machine would sample time futures and choose the best line. For years, those who governed Antar followed it. The worlds prospered. When the royals, led by the queen mother, turned from its advice, the despot rose up. The machine didn’t want to land in the hands of the despot. So it caused itself to be sent with us. It nurtured us and protected us until it deemed time to bring us forth. Does this sound like I believe the machine can think? At a level it does. It makes choices based on something we don’t understand. For reasons of its own, it paired us with each of you. You were gently moved to favorable acceptances of relationships with aliens. I hope you are not disappointed.” Max sat down.
Last edited by ken_r on Sat Jan 19, 2013 9:42 pm, edited 44 times in total.
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
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ken_r
Obsessed Roswellian
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Re: Little Napoleon AU,pt 2, mat,cc,4/21/12

Post by ken_r »

Natalie36

begonia9508

Keepsmiling7


Chapter 2

The agency rent-a-car drove up to Liz’s apartment. Liz could hear Doug’s steps as he walked up the walk to her door. Liz had dressed carefully. She wasn’t sure if they were going to discuss work or he intended to see more into this date. Max had told her that she was free to do anything she chose. It was in a little rebellion that she accepted the dinner date with Agent Douglas Shellow. Was Liz trying to show this rebellion to Max and the other aliens, or was she showing something to herself? “Liz, you are beautiful. I thought that there was a lot more in you than just a detective lieutenant,” Doug greeted.

“Thank you, Agent Shellow. We worked so hard on that last case that I haven’t had much opportunity to get out,” Liz responded.

“Tonight, it is Doug, Liz, just Doug,” he stated. “On the road so much, most of the people I meet are grizzled old cops who hate me and make it clear that they would prefer to shoot me than talk. I don’t have much social life either,” Doug informed her.

Liz thought, he really isn’t that much different from me. “Our jobs take a lot out of us,” Liz observed to herself.

“Liz, there is this place, someone in the agency told me about. I had them call and get me a reservation. It is supposed to be very unusual. I thought since neither of us gets out much, we might indulge,” Doug said as he drove east toward the mountains.

Because he didn’t know where he was going, it took Doug a lot longer to get there than it had Max. Liz saw that some how, Doug was taking her to the same restaurant that she had visited with Max. When they pulled up to the entrance, Doug got out and held the right side door for her. He handed the keys to the valet and they walked up the steps. Doug whispered, “This is a very exclusive place. My friend back in the agency told me how we have to behave if we even want to get in.”

The receptionist took the credit card Doug handed her and handed him a blank receipt to sign. “This is going to cost a fortune, but I am told it is worth it,” Doug whispered again.

Liz looked at the receptionist and saw a woman of indeterminate age, dressed in a black flowing gown. She was a beautiful woman. The receptionist graciously said, “Welcome, Agent Shellow, and Lieutenant, it is good to see you again.”

Doug did a double take, but Liz didn’t know what to say to him. In a few minutes, a tall, formally dressed man came up to them, “Liz if you and your escort will follow me, I have your place ready,” he stated.

Liz said softly, “Thank you, Randolph.”

Much like her time with Max, they were seated at a table that appeared to be isolated. As soon as Randolph left, Doug leaned over. “You have been here before?” he asked incredulously.

Liz gave a little laugh, “Yes, once with Detective Evans. We came here when he said we were totally bumed out on that last case.”

Doug frowned, “Does Detective Evans, frequent places such as this?”

Now, Liz found herself frowning. How did one explain Max? “Detective Evans is an individual who really believes that being a policeman is a service. He comes from a wealthy family and, I guess, has plenty of money. Don’t miss understand, Max is an excellent detective. He just doesn’t do this as a job. It is a passion for him. I don’t know how many times he has been here. He brought me once.”

Doug did frown again at this. It wasn’t hard for him to understand dedication. He, like wise, only lived for that agency. But, rarely did he see his own dedication in others, or at least, he didn’t like to admit it.

Agent Shellow had correctly surmised that Liz was a dedicated police officer who had fought her way up to Lieutenant. Shellow had prepared well coming to Metropolis. With Big Jim moving to commissioner, Kyle would be in line to be deputy chief. That would probably mean that Whitman would be promoted to captain, leaving a vacancy for lieutenant of detectives. Yes, Liz was already a detective lieutenant. The word was that she was not in the running to take over the whole department. This might be just another disappointment for the lady. “I hear Evans was offered promotion to Lieutenant and to take over Whitman’s job,” He stated, carefully watching any expression on Liz’s face.

Liz had opened her menu and was toying with it, not actually ready to order. “He would be a good choice and he is a person I could probably work with, but I don’t think he will take it,” she stated.

“What about you?” Shellow asked.

“No chance in hell,” Liz replied. “I am the only one willing to take these unusual cases and I surely don’t want to give that up,” she explained.

Doug filed that statement away in his memory. He would study it later. He began to look at his menu. “Liz, they don’t list prices on this thing,” he remarked.

“Max said that people who eat here don’t worry about the price. The receptionist has your credit card. Everything will show up in the billing,” Liz stated.

Max, again. Max this, Evans that, Doug was going to have to figure out what her connection was to Detective Max Evans. For now he was going to have to throw a little weight around. Rich men like Evans might accept the autocracy of this place, but they were going to have to realize that customers could make demands and they had to cater to them. This was no way to run a restaurant and he was going to straighten them out. He raised his hand trying to signal a waiter, while remarking to Liz, “We will have to see about this. I am going to demand that they tell me the prices of everything on this menu. I am not going to let them shove a representative of the US government around, like they seem to want to do.”

“Doug, I wouldn’t do that. They will just make you leave. Remember, you were told that there were ways that you had to behave and they will enforce them. They probably wouldn’t make me go with you. I think I am under some sort of protection from Max,” Liz said quietly.

Doug quickly lowered his hand. Getting thrown out wouldn’t help him get to Lieutenant Parker. He had been ignored anyway. Liz, her wrist remaining on the table simply lifted her hand and a waiter was beside her immediately. Liz ordered a slight variation from what she had last time. Doug scowled as he said, “I will have the same and how about a double scotch to start,” Doug looked at Liz and she shook her head.

Liz saw that something had angered Doug. Maybe, it was the fact that he had been ignored and she, with so little effort had called a waiter to their table.

Doug was sipping his scotch. He had to get his emotions under control. There was power here and the lieutenant was part of it. What was her relationship to Max Evans? “I heard Lieutenant Whitman and Captain Valenti both got married recently. What is it with Sergeant DeLuca and Detective Guerin?” he asked.

Liz shrugged. “Maria says they are engaged. Supposedly he gave her a whopper ring, but he and Maria bought a simpler one to wear at work. I don’t know much more than that.” Liz thought, Maria’s private life is none of the agency’s business, anyway.

Doug kept pressing. “Kyle Valenti was always known as a womanizer. Is this marriage real or just a sham?” he asked.

“Kyle’s mother left him when he was young. He had to find someone who inspired trust. After that, everything was easy. Kyle wasn’t as much of a playboy as folks thought,” Liz explained. She thought, “Is this twenty questions about the private lives of the department or what?”

“Well, this brings us to you and Evans. What do you mean to each other? Are you a couple? Am I going to have to face Evans, mano a mano tomorrow because I took out his girl?” Doug asked her.

Liz was really frowning now. “Doug, Max and I are good friends. I think the relationship is stronger for him that it is for me at this time. No, we are not a couple. I am sure that he knows that you have taken me out for supper. Max is a very good detective. He probably knows everything going on around the department. Doug, where is this all going? You have mostly asked about the personal lives of my department. What are you seeking?” Liz asked.

“Liz, that report you wrote is not the whole story. When you saw that several men had been killed, why didn’t you notify the agency? We have much better resources than you ever do. Why didn’t you finally capture the man you named as Nicholas Crawford? Why did you order your uniformed officers to observe and not to apprehend? It is as if you didn’t trust the officers in your own department. Why did you and DeLuca allow officer Donnie Richards to be killed? The report says that you entered the bar with your guns drawn, is this true?” Douglas inquired. Before Liz could get her thoughts to reply, Doug added, “Why did Captain Valenti deputize a group of civilian vigilantes? Why not request help from the agency?”

“Doug, the agency had this case in 1947. There is a report about silver handprints in the military records. You had it again in 1990 when a civilian was killed in Roswell. You lost at least one and maybe more agents at the turn of the century. In the short time we worked this case, we found out more than you did in those many years. If J. Edgar couldn’t handle it, what makes the agency think it has improved that much? Nicholas got a way because our department was concerned with rescuing four hostages. Evans and I were two of them. The other two were civilians. Doug, I tried to give you a chance. The department doesn’t trust the agency and I am not sure that I do, either,” Liz concluded.

----------

The humans in the group were clearly disturbed. Maria spoke first. “Do you mean to tell us that some machine arranged our relationships? Are you trying to say that you aliens come in here and manipulate all of us poor humans for your own pleasure?” Maria was clearly mad.

Max shook his head. “No, Maria, I didn’t say that at all. I said that the granolith looked at several possible futures and chose the one where you and Michael eventually get married,” he replied.

“That is what I just said. Some damned machine says that things will be better if DeLuca and Guerin screw each other and produce a bunch of kids, so that is what is to happen. Max where is free choice?” She demanded. Tonight, talking to Max was like talking in a foreign language.

“Maria, you had free choice. You didn’t have to start dating Michael Guerin. You could have gone out with Donnie Richards for all the world could care,” Max started.

Before he could get all his thoughts out, Maria stormed, “Donnie Richards, that creep. He didn’t have the sense to dodge a bullet. If Nicholas hadn’t killed him, another perp would have.”

“True, Maria, you wouldn’t date or sleep with a creep named Donnie Richards. You wouldn’t sleep with any of the men you met while pole dancing. I am sure you had plenty of offers. You would date, you would sleep with and, eventually, you will marry a man named Michael Guerin. All the granolith says is that this is what will be best for every one,” Max explained.

Kyle chimed in. “You mean that this machine crammed that woman down my throat?” he shouted.

Max frowned. “Kyle, be careful. You were lusting after Tess from the minute you saw her. She gave you, what were impossible conditions for most men who played around as much as you did. You fulfilled them of your own will. You, who have slept with more women than I have ever known, were willing to give one woman your full attention. No one forced you. Admit it, you have been happier than you ever were before. Be careful saying that woman,” Max warned.

They all turned to Alex. Alex pulled Isabel closer. “The machine gave me a woman of beauty, grace and intelligence. All I can say is ‘God bless that machine.’” His enthusiasm lightened the mood and made them all laugh.

Max said, “That is about it. You had freedom of choice and you all made good choices. If you are happy, why care that the machine blesses those choices?”

Kyle knew that now he was in trouble. Tess only told him that to be with her, he had to give up all other women. She didn’t make him do anything. Well, the first time he saw her, he felt that he had to sleep with her, someway. She had let him know that she wasn’t like that; to be with her he had to give up all other women. Wasn’t that what made good marriages? She hadn’t forced him to do anything. It was his own desire to be with her that dictated what he was willing to give up. If his runaway tongue had now, angered Tess, he was going to have to do some serious kissing up to regain what he had been enjoying.

Maria wasn’t about to let Max go. “What about Liz? Isn’t that what you are supposed to explain?” she asked.

“Yes, Liz, Lieutenant Elizabeth Parker, because she has the most difficult task, her decision will take the longest. It is impossible to ignore the royal sign. It is in everyone’s best interest that she does accept. Tonight, she is on a dinner date with a FBI agent. We will have to see what will happen,” Max mused.

---------

Doug was quiet for several minutes. He slowly nursed his double scotch. He noticed that Liz had a glass of some sort of red wine, he hadn’t been paying that much attention when she ordered it. He raised his scotch so the candlelight shown through it. “What does Evans drink?” he asked. “You know that you can tell a lot about a man by his choice of drinks?”

“Max doesn’t drink any alcohol,” Liz stated. “He says that he knows he has a low tolerance for it and he avoids alcohol entirely.”

“Ahaaa… can’t trust a man who can’t hold his liquor,” Doug growled.

Their meals were served. Doug had his fourth double scotch, Liz was still on the original glass of wine, she had started with. Doug raised his scotch and frowned. As a waiter passed them, Doug reached out and caught his arm. “You are watering my scotch, aren’t you?” he asked.

Liz was surprised how candid the waiter was. “Of course, we are, sir. You are out with the queen. She can’t be allowed to become endangered,” the waiter replied.

Doug could only shake his head. The waiter’s words were not making any sense to him. Liz noticed that he started to talk louder. Several times, she put her hand on his arm and said, “Not so loud, Doug. They will throw you out.”

“They can’t throw me out. I am fucking FBI,” Doug almost shouted.

Liz was at her wit’s end. She felt responsible being with this man at a place where she was known as a friend of Max Evans. Suddenly, two large men appeared at Doug’s side. “Please follow us sir,” they stated.

Liz started to gather her things and go also. Randolph appeared, “Your highness, it is not necessary for you to go. The agent will be taken home in a private car and his rental car will be deposited at the police station. In his condition, we would prefer that you do not go home with him.”

She was surprised when Randolph sat down across from her in the seat formally occupied by Agent Shellow. “Your highness or would you prefer to be called lieutenant?” he queried.

Liz softly said, “I would prefer Liz, Randolph, if you please.”

“That is the answer I would expect from you,” Randolph replied. “You are still trying to get used to the fact that you were chosen as queen. We are all trying to be patient with you while you consider this honor. The granolith doesn’t make mistakes. Eventually, you will understand and we hope you will accept the responsibility,” he concluded.

Well, it was nice that he hoped she would accept the responsibility and not repeat that acceptance was inevitable. “Resistance is futile,” a command from Star Trek flashed through her mind. Then, Liz thought, “Who am I talking to? Randolph would make a life and death command sound like a gentle request.”
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
User avatar
ken_r
Obsessed Roswellian
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:34 pm
Location: New Mexico

Re: Little Napoleom pt 2, ch2, mat,cc,4/29/12

Post by ken_r »

begonia9508

Natalie36


Chapter 3

Lieutenant Parker had been called into the office of Captain Alex Whitman. They had worked together during the investigation of the Silver handprint murders. Like most of the other detectives, Alex had been critical of the lieutenant, known to the whole force as Little Napoleon. He had gained respect for her during the joint investigations. It had only been recently that he had received his promotion. Promotions were slow in police departments. That had been a sore spot about the lieutenant. She held rank over only one other person, Sergeant Maria DeLuca.

“Liz, I hope there are no hard feelings. I only got this position because Big Jim moved on to become a commissioner on the police board. Kyle went to deputy chief and that left me to get his job. I suggested you to take over the detective department, but the suggestion failed. It was strange, because I poled the commissioners after their meeting and I couldn’t find any who admitted they were against you,” Alex explained.

Liz shrugged. “Alex, I am not surprised. I am starting to believe what Max said about us not having full control of our lives. Maybe, something wants me to stay in charge of the department of strange cases,” Liz stated. “Even Agent Shellow knew that I would be passed over.”

“Maybe so, Liz, while we were so involved with Nicholas, there was another case that, on the surface, is just another serial murder case. On the west mesa, a construction crew turned up a skeleton. It is estimated that the bones had been in the earth for about twenty or so years. Now, in New Mexico, construction workers turn up human remains several times a year. We have always had habitation in this area and the dry climate makes the remains stay preserved for long times. When we get something that indicates the remains were only recent, say in the past twenty to fifty years, it becomes a case of interest. Construction was stopped and forensics took over. We now have 11 separate remains and indications that one of them was pregnant. The Anthropologists assure us that none of these are ancient. One of the women identified, so far, was a known prostitute. Her boyfriend/pimp was a hot-tempered bastard. He had been known to rough up any john who hurt his honey. He killed one man for hitting her. Screw her all you want for a price, but don’t hurt the merchandise. We don’t know why she died at some later date, but the man who was her pimp/boyfriend had already killed once. He would have been a person of interest. If he found out that there was a killer of all these women, including his girlfriend, he might have taken matters in his own hands. Unfortunately, he was killed a few years ago in a bar fight, so we can’t talk to him. The crime has to be solved, even if the killer has already been taken care of by the jealous boyfriend.” Alex stopped for several minutes to let Liz digest what he had just told her.

Liz finally replied, “Alex this is all interesting and sad, but I don’t see what it might have to do with me or the cases I usually handle. Wouldn’t Agent Shellow be more help than I could ever be?”

“I showed some of this to the agent and he expressed no interest. He is here on some agenda of his own. I am trying to find out if he even has the blessing of the agency.” Alex took a deep breath. Now, he had to tell Little Napoleon the one thing that probably kept her in the detective squad. “There was one other set of remains, that Shellow was not allowed to see. At the insistence of my wife, the thirteenth victim was not sent to the regular labs. We have it in a secure section and are allowing only selected technicians to work on it. Isabel is sure that this is an alien. It is an alien who didn’t turn to dust when they died.” Alex clearly had more to say. He was sure that Liz would agree, but that old fear of fighting Little Napoleon still held. “Liz, Evans and Guerin, have been brought up to speed on the 11 murders, I am going to hand that case off to another team. I am assigning them back to working with you.”

A few months before, this statement would not have meant any thing to Liz. A person died. A person was interred somewhere and remains were found. Once it was said by a professor of Anthropology that even though New Mexico looks like a barren land, it is impossible to think that a body can be hidden forever. All of New Mexico history has shown there are cowboys, Native Americans, geologists and plain wanderers who constantly cross the lands. You hide something; sooner or later, it will turn up.

After the first alien that Liz had shot blew away as it was collapsing, Liz learned of creatures, who lost all control of their molecules at death. The man Liz was supposed marry, the man who Maria was dating, the wives of both Captain Whitman and Deputy Chief Valenti were all alien hybrid clones. They had DNA of both aliens and humans. No one knew what would happen when they died. Isabel had told Liz that children were starting to appear of human/alien origin. This was a new world of biology. A study no one had any idea of what would happen. Now, the captain had laid evidence on Liz of possibly an alien who didn’t dissolve and blow away or maybe, it was some other form of alien mix that they didn’t know about. Little Napoleon, once again, had a full plate in her investigations.

“Hey Maria, get that hunk you are living with and make it to my office pronto. We have another strange case. This one is alien-like, but still different than the last one. I just hope there is not another Nicholas,” Liz called out over the phone.

Liz, Max, Maria and Michael were in the special crimes office. Liz and Maria, both had desks in the office, but the desks that Max and Michael had used before had been removed. Liz and Maria were both sitting at their respective desks, while Michael was sitting on the edge of Maria’s desk. Max was at the white board, where they outlined different crimes. “It has only been recently that we have learned how the shape shifters do their thing. For a while, we were not even sure that it wasn’t some sort of mind control. All the shape shifters we have met, so far, have had extreme mental powers. Maybe, they weren’t changing at all. They just made people think they were, like group hypnosis. Now, I believe that the aliens we know, those who make up half of our DNA, have strong control on whatever binds molecules together. We all have the ability to manipulate molecules to one extent or the other. We can change the color, the shape and many attributes of things. We can open up conduits of superconductivity. By directing these conduits, we create power blasts of tremendous energy. For aliens, this has a price. At death, the force holding their own molecules together, is released. At death, the alien will blow away as fine dust. Our people do not have remains after they die. Being hybrids, we don’t know what will happen to us,” Max stated.

----------

Alex was married to Isabel Evantide, also, known as Isabel Evans, the sister of Max. Max was the king and whom Liz had been told would eventually, be her mate. Isabel had made her life one of luxury. This luxury allowed her time to study her alien side, their history and biology. One of the remains found on the mesa had been different enough for her to warn that it had been alien, an alien who didn’t blow away.

The secret of aliens on Earth was no longer that well kept. It was just a conveniently ignored fact to most humans. The SWAT team going after Nicholas to rescue the king and queen saw some strange things. First, the rescue was propelled by the fact that Liz was a lieutenant and Max was a detective of the police force. When the action was over, it was seen that there had been two other persons who had been rescued, also. One of the women, eventually, married the captain. Now, Captain Valenti was the champion of the police SWAT team. He trained them, he formed them and he led them; even now, when he was a deputy chief. No one on SWAT was going to cause any rumors about his wife to spread. The other lady married the detective lieutenant, Whitman. Remember SWAT officers were cops first and in the Special Weapons and Tactics team second. Several of them worked with Alex in the detective division.

----------

Detective Evans was a stand up guy. True, he never drank with the boys, but maybe, that was some religions compulsion or something. Yes, Little Napoleon was a pain in the butt, but you had to admit, she was police through and through. No one could ever accused Parker and DeLuca of not doing their share in a show down. If anything, they were an example of what could be done, regardless of size or gender.

There had been a hell of a lot of shooting and when the smoke cleared there was an extreme shortage of bodies. Bodies always meant suspensions, investigations and a slight fear that some do-gooder would come down on them.

Valenti had moved up to his daddy’s position of deputy chief, but he was still captain of SWAT. If he said, “Ignore what we don’t have to clean up.” It was ignored.

With this sort of grease, a lot of things could happen. One of those was the moving of one set of remains to an undisclosed location. This is not as difficult as it might sound. The body count from the mesa had changed several times. One of the ladies had been pregnant. This brought up the two sides of Pro-Life and Pro Choice. Everyone agreed that killing a pregnant woman was an especially heinous crime. Even avid hunters many times drew the line at shooting pregnant animals and tried to schedule hunting seasons to allow the increase in the herd to occur. The difference was that the Pro Life people wanted to count the pregnancy as another murder, thus bringing the total up to 12. The Pro-Choice people feared anything that would give an unborn, human status. They wanted to just say there were 11 bodies and one of the murders was particularly heinous. Body counts switching back and forth, made it easy for SWAT to remove the 13th or was it the 12th set of remains with out fanfare.

-------------------------

Isabel Whitman was an introspective woman. In a lesser woman, it might even been thought of as insecure. Constantly examining her options and the possible outcomes gave her determination. Like at Christmas time. Isabel followed Alex’s faith and joined the Methodist church. She still studied carefully what Christmas meant to so many people. Some wise souls had placed Christmas at the pagan time of renewal. The winter Solstice, the time when the sun once again reverses its travels from the southern horizon and days once days become longer, is a time of hope. Yes, the ensuing months will be bitter, but spring and then, summer following were on their way. Isabel both embraced the religious aspects of the season with her husband, but she participated in all the charities of the season, also. Her dedication had earned her the nickname of the Christmas Nazi.

Many times, Isabel looked to her own history. As Isabel Evantide, she was a free spirit with beauty, money and a complete lack of either morality or responsibility. That last wasn’t exactly true. Isabel had always looked out for her people, the alien side, that is. It might be asked why would she give up her place as leader of the lover of the month club and toss everything for a Police Lieutenant? It was seen that she didn’t marry Alex for money. They lived on Alex’s salary, but Isabel had a fortune of her own that she only tapped occasionally, mostly for her special projects.

When Max, her brother, called her back to the southwest, she deliberately trashed her current love affair with a hottie named Grant Sorenson. She brain-walked him to get caught flagrante delicto (flaming offence) with a known call girl. The jilted Miss Eventide, quietly returned to the southwest of her birth, except she hadn’t been birthed here. She had been kept in an incubator to appear as a six-year-old child. Even while assisting her brother in gathering information about silver handprint murders, she was looking around. Something in her programing, commanded Isabel to change her life. She did and life with the lieutenant, now captain of the detective squad, became her choice. Her choice, even though she believed that freedom of choice wasn’t quite right. One did what they were supposed to and made the “right choices.” The machine was never wrong. The old queen mother had defied the machine and thus, brought down the empire.

----------

The 13th victim was examined by selected forensics anthropologists. First, they found, the silver appearance to the bones was a strange isotope of cadmium. Before this isotope had only been seen on wounds or healings caused by aliens or the hybrid clones. At those times, it had an extremely short life. The silver appearance disappeared quickly. They had no answer why it had lasted so long on these bones. Secondly, the length and shape of the bones were slightly out of the range of known human racial types. Yes, this could have been caused by some anomaly, but disease and deformation usually left some sign of what happened. Not so in this case. The aliens had been on earth for over 50 years. Their people had spread out into many various professions. Isabel had chosen the researchers from the pool of known professionals who happened to be alien or part alien.

“Max, Michael, I want you to go back to the alien communities. Talk with the leaders. Ask about someone, who was in some way a special person, who disappeared about 20 years ago. Talk to your sister. See if she is telling Alex everything she knows. This person should have stuck out someway. She was alien, but not like your people,” Liz commanded. Then, she turned to Maria, “Hey, girl, we are off to an alien morgue.”

It was only a few months ago when the southwest was having a record freeze. Now, the temperature by afternoon would be in the high nineties. Liz had stored her trench coat and was dressed in a wrap-around skirt with a sleeveless blouse. The blouse was topped by a light jacket, worn only to partially disguise her high-rise holster for her Glock. Liz had found that people got fixated on the fact that she was carrying a weapon and did not respond as well to her interrogation. Maria wore loose fitting slacks, another sleeveless blouse and light jacket for the same reason. On patrol or where they might get into some sort of action, both women wore clothes more fitting to any rough and tumble they might get into.

Liz drove to the address that Alex had given her. She noticed the note was in a feminine hand. She was sure that Isabel had scribbled the note, giving it to Alex. A captain has many duties. Liz wondered if Alex had had any time to see the alien morgue himself. Until his replacement arrived, Alex probably had his hands full with the administration of the detective squad, bunco (confidence games,) vice, and other items, which took men and women out of uniform. Liz had heard that Max had already taken his name off the list for becoming Lieutenant. She had told Agent Shellow that she didn’t think he would accept that responsibility. Rumor said they were bringing in somebody new. That could be either good or very bad; good if the person brought in new insights to fighting crime, bad if the person did not know how they all worked together and decided to change everything around. Liz would still have her rank, but when she was working with Alex, everything was so much better.
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
User avatar
ken_r
Obsessed Roswellian
Posts: 861
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Location: New Mexico

Re: Little Napoleom pt 2, ch3, mat,cc,5/6/12

Post by ken_r »

keepsmiling7

Natalie36

begonia9508


Chapter 4

The alien morgue was some distance from the down town police station. There was a substation down the street, but the alien morgue was in a small strip mall. There was no sign on the locked door. There was a buzzer button and apparently a intercom for requesting entrance. Driving up, Liz noticed that there was an ample alley for deliveries. Liz was to later learn that every movement in the parking lot and the back alley, was monitored with video. Liz rang the buzzer and after a delay, a small LED sign that she hadn’t noticed flashed, “Enter.”

They were met, by a lady, dressed in a white lab smock. She handed badges to each of them. Liz saw that Maria’s badge said Sergeant Maria DeLuca, while hers only said, Elizabeth Parker. Liz was slightly shocked when the lady opened the door and said, “Your majesty, please follow me.”

Liz and Maria were led down a hall to another door. The lady used a keycard to open the door, she then stepped back and bowing slightly held the door for Liz and Maria to enter. Once inside, Liz saw a half dozen men and women working, some at the autopsy table and others she assumed working at various stations about the room. She assumed this, as on her entrance they all stood and quietly said, “Good morning, your majesty,” Several people nodded at Maria, but they treated her much differently from the way they approached Liz.

“Please, everyone, it is just Liz,” she stated.

One person stepped forward. “Yes, your majes… I mean Liz. Let me show you what we are doing.”

Liz and Maria saw, laid out on a table, an almost complete collections of bones. The lady guiding them whose name was Mrs. Sally Winston, PhD, handed Liz a paper that was an analysis of the bones. From what Liz could remember of college classes, the calcium, phosphorus and few other minerals were not that much different from what could be expected. Liz did see that the bones contained a higher content of heavy metals than would be expected. Then, Liz saw the cadmium content was off the wall. That much cadmium in human bones would have made them weak and there would have been signs of arthritis in the joints. There had been at least two outbreaks of cadmium toxicity recently. One, that came to Liz’s memory was Miley Cyrus jewelry sold by Wal-mart and another in “Shrek Forever After,” glasses given out by McDonald’s restaurant. These both ended in recalls. Liz looked at the analysis and saw that the cadmium was of a previously unknown isotope. Apparently here it was stable, but Liz remembered that in the bodies they had found previously it quickly disappeared. These bones were definitely not normal.

“Are these readings normal for aliens?” Liz asked.

Sally Winston smiled and shrugged. “We have no way of knowing. If you were to kill or in some way take a bone from one of us, it would quickly blow away. We don’t know much about alien bones. The royal clones? Well, there were only four of them to our knowledge. We don’t know what will happened to them. The hybrids, whether they were made in a lab or by mixed families, are all long lived. We don’t have much knowledge about them either,” she lectured.

“Do you have any theories?” Liz asked.

Sally replied, “Not really. We believe this creature was a female in her middle thirties. This could have been some early experiment to stabilize alien skeletal structure, or maybe some alien that we have no knowledge of. Besides the Skins, who don’t take much to inquires about their physiology, there was Nicholas, who we know nothing about, this could be a whole new species or even kingdom,” Sally concluded.

Liz nodded, “I have two detectives talking to some of the older aliens about anyone who appeared different and maybe, disappeared about 20 years ago.” At Sally’s frown, Liz quickly added, “I sent Detective Evans and Detective Guerin,”

Sally nodded. “Good high blood clones. They ought to be respected and the people will talk to them.”

----------

Counselor Richards was sitting in a chair opposite the desk of the mysterious Simon Ortiz. “I just want to get back at that little bitch, Napoleon. If she hadn’t given the order to only observe, my Donnie would have had sufficient backup. Fred Garmin would have been right beside him when he tried to take that Nicholas Crawford down. She even let that criminal Crawford get away,” Richards proclaimed.

The mysterious Ortiz knew power. He knew that power comes sometimes from what people think rather than what they do. He knew fools also. Donnie Richards should never have been allowed to put on a uniform. He couldn’t follow orders. Ortiz knew that his power came from what people thought he could do. Richards wanted to get back at Liz Parker. There was a man in Dallas, who Ortiz owed a promise to. The department was not going to raise Little Napoleon to be lieutenant of the whole detective squad until she had been tried a lot more. Andrew Swartz was a captain in the Dallas Police Department. He had requested a favor he felt Ortiz owed him for something long ago. Andrew would accept a demotion to come to the Metropolis Police Department. At this time, he would do anything to get out of Texas. He had, finally, ruined his welcome from the place of his birth. New Mexico was a backward state. He could re-invent himself there. Andy would prove to be a thorn in Liz Parker’s side. Ortiz would watch how Little Napoleon faired under the Texas lieutenant,

----------

Chiefs of police might have secret lines of information, other officers did also. As soon as it was announced that Andrew Swartz had been hired to fill the vacant position of Lieutenant, Alex started his study. There was a Sergeant Francisco Lopez from Dallas, that Alex remembered from a training he had taken at the FBI school one summer. “Hey, Cisco, ¿que pasa? We are taking one of yours. What’s the dope on Andy Swartz?” Alex asked.

There were several seconds of silence. “Look, Alex, give me your cell phone number and I will call you right back,” Lopez requested.

When Cisco called back, Alex could hear street noises over the cell phone, “Hey Alex, the walls here, still have ears. Swartz will destroy your department. He is a control freak. He wants his mark on everything in the department. He will turn your men upside down. There are still some here who think he is God. The rest of us are glad he is gone, but I am sorry for you,” Cisco reported.

That was not the news that Alex wanted to hear. It was news that he needed. First thing he did was to call Liz into his office. Liz was surprised at the formality Alex had when she sat down. One of the things the last case did for her was allow her to work closer with some of the other detectives. Liz had hoped that she had broken down some of the barriers against her department. “Lieutenant, I am permanently transferring Evans and Guerin to your squad. We are getting a new lieutenant who is from Dallas. He has a reputation of messing with departments. I had hoped that Evans would take the lieutenant spot, but my wife says that as just a detective he can better help his people.” Alex seemed to mellow a bit, “Liz, this guy is a problem. No telling why he was hired. Watch your back. He has no knowledge about the aliens, so until we know him, I advise to tell him nothing.”

Liz informed Max and Michael that they had been transferred to her department permanently. Neither of them had any complaints. When Maria heard about the new lieutenant, she frowned. “Liz, this can’t help, but be bad,” she stated.

“Come on Maria, give the fellow a chance. Alex said he had had trouble before, maybe, he wants a chance for a new start,” Liz was always trying to see the good in everybody. Much like with Doug Shellow, Liz had to get personally bitten before she condemned anyone.

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That afternoon, Max returned to Liz’s office. He was followed by Guerin smelling of Cheese burgers. Max shook his head. “They may be my people, but they have no concept of missing persons. They all say that when family dies, they all sense it. But missing in general, they don’t even understand. They all say that if a person dies, he blows away. If that person is not dead and no family senses them, they don’t know where they are. The older women promised they would look at some of the lists to see if they remember someone who stood out as different.” Max, clearly, had a difficult day talking to his people. He didn’t want to say anything, but the topic most of the aliens wanted to talk about was when he and Liz would get married.

Normally, moving furniture would be left to maintenance. Now with the changes coming, Liz asked Max and Michael to move their desks back into her office. This made the office very crowded, but Liz, even as she tried to be positive with Maria, sensed a storm coming soon.

----------

Andy arrived on the weekend. He did this by choice. He intended to hit the ground running and he wanted changes made before most of the squad returned. His first complaint was that he had keys for everything in the main office, but there was a corner office that he couldn’t open. He requested weekend maintenance to open it for him. “No sir, that is the office of Little Napoleon. She would kick my butt if I let you in,” Fredrico Chavez answered him.

Andy pointed to his new name plate on his desk. “Fredrico, or whatever your name is, do you see this plate? I am the new detective lieutenant. I am in charge of this whole department,” he shouted.

“Señor, I doubt that even the chief could allow you to enter Little Napoleon’s office,” Fredrico explained.

“You insolent mex….” Then, Andy caught himself. Hispanics were looked at differently here than they were in other places of the country. “We will see about that,” he stated as he dismissed Fredrico.

Monday and Liz still didn’t have any good answers from the alien community. She was studying her files when she heard a knock at her door. A fairly good looking man with curly hair was standing there waiting for an invitation. “What can I do for you?” Liz asked.

“Hi, I am Lieutenant Andrew Swartz. I need to move your office to the Fourth floor. I am the new lieutenant of Detectives and I want to make several changes.” Andy turned to go.

“No!” was all Liz said.

“What do you mean, no, girlie?” Andy responded, his demeanor completely changing. No slip of a girl was going to defy him. “I am the Lieutenant of Detectives. Technically, I am your boss. I need this office and I am ordering you to go elsewhere,” Andy demanded.

Liz stood up, all five foot three of her looked the other lieutenant in the eye. “You are misinformed about several things. I run my own squad and I need this office so I can share information with other detectives.” Liz stood her ground.

“Look, you sawed off little girl. I told you to move and move you are going to do, if I have to move you myself,” Andy growled.

Andy took several steps toward Liz. Shucks he could just toss her out her own door. The bottom drawer of Liz’s desk was slightly opened. One more step and she was going to reach for her baton. She hadn’t used it since when she was in uniform. Breaking it over this big lug’s head would be a pleasure. Andy felt a presence behind him. He felt himself gently moved aside. “Excuse me lieutenant, I need to get to my desk,” Michael Guerin stated.

“Who the hell are you?” Andy demanded.

Michael stood up. “Detective Michael Guerin, sir,” he replied.

“Well detective, if you don’t get your ass out of here and not stick you nose where it don’t belong, I will bust you back to crossing guard,” Lieutenant Swartz stated.

“You can’t do that, sir. I transferred into Lieutenant Parker’s squad yesterday,” Michael explained.

“We will see what the captain says about this,” Andy stormed.

“Why don’t you just go to Chief Valenti? That will save all of us time,” Liz calmly said.

As Andy stalked out of her office, Liz looked at Michael. “I must say that I didn’t expect that much reason from you,” she said.

“I wasn’t going to play his game. If he hadn’t backed down, we would have been left with a body full of holes from a Glock or a body covered with silver handprints as I boiled his liver,” Michael stated.

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Andy sat at his desk. That woman had been too sure of herself about Chief Valenti. Maybe he was sleeping with her on the side. She had serious grease from somewhere. Until he knew where all of the rabbi’s were, he had to be careful. Andy had his desk piled high with personnel folders. He had told everyone he intended to make some changes. Among those changes he intended to hurt that woman. What was she called, “Little Napoleon,” or something?

As he worked on his files, Andy stared across the large office, at the small corner office. He was thinking about how he could mess with that bitch. He found the transfers signed by Captain Whitman. Guerin and Evans were two top detectives. He would make his case that he couldn’t spare them from his squad. Then, he saw Sergeant DeLuca. Her file said she used to work vice. He would make a run at getting her back into vice.
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
User avatar
ken_r
Obsessed Roswellian
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:34 pm
Location: New Mexico

Re: Little Napoleom pt 2, pg2, ch4, mat,cc,5/12/12

Post by ken_r »

mary mary

begonia9508: The greatest fear in teaching was that every three years the principals were moved around. If you were a good principal, you were moved to a bad school and if you were a bad principal you were moved to a good school. The new Lieutenant sees himself as better than everyone else. Back under J. Edger Hoover, the FBI only wanted clean cut anglo men. Swartz would have fit there.

Keepsmiling7: Yeah, that makes me glad to be retired until the government tells me i am no longer wanted.


Chapter 5

An interoffice note was dropped off at Liz’s desk. It was addressed to Sergeant DeLuca. Inside was a request for Sergeant DeLuca to be transferred to head the Vice squad. Copies had been sent to Captain Whitman and to Chief Valenti. Lieutenant Swartz had also made an appointment to see Chief Valenti, along with Captain Whitman. He very carefully had failed to notify Lieutenant Parker of this meeting.

Lieutenant Swartz cut a good figure in his uniform. Both the chief and the captain were just dressed in sports suits. Alex had been trying to look more administrative, but when he was lieutenant, many, times he wore slacks, shirt and tie, dispensing with the jacket altogether.

Swartz made his pitch to the chief, snubbing the captain. “Chief, the former lieutenant transferred two of my best men before he left office. I intend to restructure the department completely. I need the return of these two men along with Sergeant DeLuca who I will appoint head of the vice squad. I really want to question Lieutenant Parker’s squad. What she actually does cannot warrant a completely separate squad. I don’t know why she was appointed to this position, but clearly she lost a major criminal through poor judgment and poor use of manpower. If there is some contractual problem, leave her in her office and make her request assistance through my office.” Then, Andy got braver. “I was brought in here at the loss of a pay grade to straighten out your mess. I can’t do this unless I have full authority concerning the detective department. I have the full assurance of Counselor Richards that he will back my demands,” Andy stated proudly. Now let them swallow that. It wasn’t completely true that the counselor would back him, but running a bluff was an art that Andy had perfected.

Both Kyle and Alex were now frowning. “What is it that you want to do with the detective squad?” Kyle asked him.

“I want to streamline the chain of command. All officers will report directly to me. I, in turn, will report to the captain, freeing him from duties of oversight to my squad. I want to remove the three detectives from Parker and put them to better use. I will decide when and if she is given some case because we can’t solve it. Personally, I doubt that will ever happen. A well run detective department can solve most cases in house. For those we can’t handle, we can contact the FBI for assistance.” Then looking directly at Alex, “If you had called the Feds earlier, it wouldn’t have been necessary for a decorated officer like Donnie Richards to have been killed.” Andy felt satisfied. From what he had learned, Whitman should have never been allowed to leave the rank of detective. He was just a “Geek” who managed to con his way up the ladder. Throwing the name of Richards around, showed these yokels that he had already established considerable grease.

In his study of the situation, Andrew Swartz had established that Chief Valenti had his father as his rabbi. Captain Whitman was hell on wheels with computers, but what did that have to do with police work? Swartz also, saw a lot of loyalty among the detectives to Whitman. If the department was ever to become his, this loyalty had to be transferred to himself. Swartz, in experience, had found that there always would be many suck-ups in a department. He would move these to positions of team leaders. Many of the older detectives he would move to retire. If they were still detectives, they should realize that they had no future in the department, having been passed over too many times for promotion.

Chief Valenti chose his words carefully. “Many of us felt that way about Little Napoleon’s department before we had the occasion to work with her. Through no fault of our own, we lost the felon, but we did identify him and we did put a stop to the silver handprint murders and that was more than the Feds ever could do. No one has ever successfully messed with Little Napoleon. She has serious grease from somewhere. We never knew if it was a political rabbi or someone else. No one in the department has ever been caught sleeping with her, so don’t go that direction.

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Maria was as angry as Liz had ever seen her. “Chica, if they try to move me back to vice, I will quit. I did my time seducing johns, working with whores and almost feeling that world was where I belonged. Since you brought me into this squad, I have investigated real crime. That is what I want to do!” Maria exclaimed.

Liz looked around her office. Michael was frowning, but Evans was looking as unreadable as ever. “I talked to Alex. He said that for the minute we don’t have to worry about Lieutenant Swartz. He also said something that has always bothered me. He advised me to make use of my rabbi and start collecting a lot of grease. Unfortunately, I don’t know what that means. I know I have had some unusually good luck in my career, but I never questioned why. Do I have some benefactor that I don’t know about?” Liz left what she had to say on that question.

Liz did notice that Guerin frowned as he looked over at Evans, but neither of them had anything to say. Maria did though. “Look Chica, when Kyle was mad at you, he spread every detail about your records as a rookie. You didn’t think something was strange when you were turned down one day and then, your name appeared on the next morning roster?” Maria asked.

“No, I had packed up and was heading home. I received a letter to be present the next morning without fail. The original reason I was turned down was that I was too small. There wasn’t much I could do about that,” Liz explained. Then, she continued. “I wasn’t on the streets a full five years as required, either. I found myself working about six months as a detective under Alex. I was paired with an old grizzled detective who taught me a lot of things. He retired shortly after I was moved up to sergeant. I think now, that I was the only rookie he ever trained. I was assigned a desk and not much came across it. One day, I was informed that my promotion to lieutenant had been approved and I was moved into this office. I was told to find an assistant. I didn’t want the grappling that working with a young male detective would require.” Liz indicated Maria. “I looked up your records and requested you be moved to my office. That is the whole story. From then on, I received cases that the regular squads were not making much headway with. I never knew the why of any of this,” Liz concluded.

After this discussion Max said, “Michael and I need to do some more interviews.”

“That is fine, Max. Maria, while your man is working, let’s take a look at the crime scene,” Liz stated.

----------

Lieutenant Parker had been out to the scene right after Alex had told her about it. She understood that there were now, two groups working there, one group of Forensic Anthropologists who worked for the state and a smaller group off to the side. When Liz and Maria arrived, the larger group was busy packing up. The yellow crime tape had been rerolled and most of their equipment was on their trucks. Liz showed her identification and asked, “What is going on?”

One lady stepped forward. Liz learned that she was Doctor Roslyn Smith. “Your lieutenant told us he had enough to make a case and to shut down and clear out. He told us to take down the tape and release the site. It is no more a crime scene,” she said.

Liz pointed to the half dozen people working north of what used to be a crime scene. “Who are they?” she asked.

“They are a private group. I don’t know who they work for. I checked their credentials and they all are highly recognized in forensics. They shared everything they found with us and we did the same. That may have been the reason we were shut down. Your lieutenant came out the other day and stormed around. He was complaining about civilians contaminating the scene. I explained that they had never worked in the official crime scene with us. He stomped over to them and they had a fancy lawyer there in a matter of minutes. Yesterday, we received word to close down our dig. It was official. I guess they can dig wherever they want now. The lieutenant, officially, declared that this wasn’t a crime scene any longer.” Whatever else Roslyn thought, she was keeping to herself.

Lieutenant Swartz was furious. First, he had ordered that bunch next to his crime scene to close down and get out of there. Then, he had been served with a restraining order to stay one hundred yards from any site they were working on. Try as hard as he could, he couldn’t find out who they were working for. Well, he would close the state forensics team and send them packing. They had turned up eleven bodies and that was enough. The only reason he supported the quest to identify the remains was that he wanted to close this case down as fast as possible. The more remains they brought forth, the more difficult it would become. He really didn’t want those other people stirring things up.

----------

New Mexico was the most backward state in the nation. He wondered what kind of degrees their universities even gave out. There was the comment on the news made by that actor or someone, “New Mexico is just a state full of drunks and criminals.” Andy didn’t note that this statement came around to bite the actor in the ass. Later, the actor tried to run for office like all the other out of work actors seemed to be doing. At the first political meeting, he found that the people of New Mexico had long memories. He quickly sold out and moved to some other location. Andy was finding these people very difficult to maneuver around.

Then, there was that other thing. Since his restructuring, arrest rates had plummeted. This week, that damned team of Little Napoleon’s had made a most public collar.

----------

Maria and Michael had been fighting all morning, probably because they had both been cooped up in the basement of the local newspaper looking for some disappearances between 30 and 20 years ago. “Maria, get carry out. I want three cheese burgers and that is that,” Michael said.

“Michael, don’t you know anything about cholesterol?” she returned.

“Maria, aliens don’t have cholesterol,” Michael stated smuggly.

“Michael, you are part human and I am sure the human part is your gut. I can’t believe aliens lasted for millions of years eating like you do,” she retorted.

They finally compromised and went to a fast food place that had chicken salad as well as cheese burgers that passed Michael’s criteria. She picked at her salad as Michael lifted his cheese burger, just dripping with fat. Maria didn’t want to think about what poisons were in that sandwich. Suddenly, two men entered wearing ski masks. “Everyone on the floor,” the first one demanded. Then, he shouted, “Everyone take out their wallets and place them in front of you.”

One man was cleaning out the register and arguing with the manager when he was told that the safe couldn’t be opened by anyone working there. The other man began to pick up wallets and was stuffing them into a canvas bag. Michael whispered, “If he sees our guns or our badges, we might be in trouble.”

The second man finally got to Maria. She was lying on her stomach as ordered, her wallet in front of her. If the crook just picked up the wallet and didn’t look at her identity, she might escape the trouble. She could smell his bad breath. Michael might smell of onions, but this guy had serious dental hygiene problems. He grabbed her ass as he said, “Sorry sweet cheeks, if we had more time I would show you a real party.”

That was enough to set Maria off. She rolled over kicking him in the groin, but not low enough to hit his balls. Her heels must have hit something valuable, because he seriously bent over coughing. Maria quickly stood and was swinging round houseblows at both sides of his face. The noise caused the other masked man to turn and Michael shot him in the shoulder. He spun around with the bullet and the manager took the opportunity to hit him with a plastic trey. The trey shattered, but the masked man collapsed.

Michael had to pull Maria off her perp before she killed him. They quickly handcuffed both men and called for uniforms. When the two uniformed officers arrived, Maria was standing over her handcuffed perp yelling. “When I was dancing, nobody touched by butt unless they were putting a hundred dollars in my g-string. I wouldn’t have let a smelly rat like you even up near the dancing pole.

----------

They were all crowded into Liz’s office. Kyle and Alex were standing in the door. Kyle spoke up, “Tell me Maria, if he had had a hundred dollars, would you have let him put it in your panties?”

Maria was grinning. “Not hardly, chief. He would have failed the smell test long before I let him get that close,” Maria answered.

As they left, Kyle said to Alex, “Whitman, remind me to bring the mouth wash if we ever decide to mug DeLuca.”

----------

Andy Swartz was furious. Not only had DeLuca and Guerin made an arrest, but, they made the evening news. The talking head was in the restaurant. “We want to report a failed attempt at robbery this afternoon. It seems that a lady police sergeant and a detective were in a restaurant trying to have a quiet meal.”

The manager at the restaurant, watching the news, wondered to himself what part of the two detectives arguing with each other constituted a quiet meal.

The head continued, “Two men wearing ski masks stormed into the restaurant. One man began to clean out the cash register and the other commanded all the customers to lie on the floor and give up their wallets. When the man came to our sergeant, instead of just picking up her wallet he groped her intimately. That upset our sergeant enough to disarm the man and subdue him. Her partner shot the second man who was cleaning out the cash register. Both men are now in custody and we understand they have a long list of crimes to answer for. This is WWXN, your roving reporter.”

Swartz didn’t know if he was madder that they got all this attention or that they had accepted it so humbly. Swartz would have captured the media for several more minutes, describing in detail all that he did and singing his praise along with that of the department. If you didn’t toot your own horn, who would do it for you?
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
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ken_r
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Re: Little Napoleom pt 2, pg2, ch5, mat,cc,5/19/12

Post by ken_r »

Natalie36

keepsmiling7

mary mary: we put up with this all time. Our two main state universities are among the top academically. At one time we had more PhDs than any other state. Our Hispanic population is related to the patrician families of Spain. We also employ many brilliant people from all over the country as professors and executives. We had a school superentendant from back east who treated all people in New Mexico like they were illegal aliens.

Fortunantly none of these people last long. We are a poor state financially, but what we do with what we have is great


Chapter 6

Lieutenant Swartz had tried the police commission. Trouble was that Big Jim Valenti, Kyle’s dad, was on the commission. At first, Andy saw that Big Jim didn’t say anything and he felt, maybe, he could make headway. They all listened stoically until Andy explained he wanted to close down Lieutenant Parker. Suddenly, the commissioners started shuffling papers and looking anywhere but at Andy. Andy saw that he was loosing control. What was it about little Napoleon that scared everyone? That bitty slip of a woman, hardly three inches over five feet, inspired abject fear when administrators were concerned.

“Doug, what is it with Little Napoleon?” Lieutenant Swartz asked of the young FBI agent on the other side of the small table in the coffee shop. Andy admired the FBI and, at one time, he had placed his resume with them. He had been requested to withdraw it, shortly thereafter, by a friend. In the old days, Andy could have been a poster boy for J. Edgar’s organization. In these days of multi-racial and cultural designs, what J. Edgar would have approved was no longer kosher by new agency standards. Andy had that one mark against him. When it happened, he had laughed and no one took it seriously. Now, the accusation of being a racist, was doom for any application with the feds. No matter, wherever Andy worked, he tried to pattern his department after his cherished agency.

“I don’t know, lieutenant. I did manage to go on a dinner date with her.” Doug looked down at the table. This had never happened to him before. “I am afraid I got drunk and I can’t remember anything about how it ended,” he related.

“Do you think, by any chance, you made it to bed, with her?” Andy asked.

Agent Doug Shellow shook his head. “How the date ended, I just don’t remember. The first part is crystal clear, mainly because it was very strange. Some buddies of mine set me up with a very exclusive place. It is so exclusive, you leave a signed credit slip and they fill it in after you leave. I had a hell of a time convincing the agency that I was working on an informant and I needed to impress her. I was sure that with her background, Lieutenant Parker would be amazed at the place. A poor little hick girl, all starry eyed, I figured would be a sure thing. Not only did they know her personally, they proceeded to treat her like a queen, almost ignoring me. I guess this is what led me to drinking too much. I don’t know how she got home afterward. Hell, I don’t have the foggiest idea how I got home. I woke up in my bed with a note that said my rental car was parked at the PD station.” Shellow still had questions about that date.

“She must have someone important by the balls. I accused her of sleeping with someone in the department and Chief Valenti told me not to go there. By his reputation, I thought it might be him. I understand now that he is completely pussy whipped. He doesn’t mess around with anyone except that blonde wife of his,” Andy stated.

“Have you seen her?” Doug Shellow started. “She is a bomb shell. She and that wife of the captain are reported to be related or sorority sisters or something. Whitman got married about the same time as Valenti. I tried to flirt with the chief’s wife, one time, while she was waiting for him. I could swear that I had visions of lightning striking from her eyes. I had nightmares, that night of being reduced to a pile of ashes,” Doug said.

“You know who Whitman married, don’t you? Andy asked.

“Is she someone I should know?” Doug asked.

“Isabel Evantide, don’t you ever read the tabloids?” Andy asked.

“Isabel Evantide? No, you get caught reading, ‘The father of my children is an alien,’ by the agency and the place in Nebraska where J. Edgar used to send people looks downtown, compared to where the agency sends you now. I don’t want to investigate stolen salmon in the Aleutians, for the rest of my days,” Doug explained, not even knowing if they caught salmon in the Aleutians.

“Well, the woman, Isabel Evantide was the darling of the tabloids for years. They can’t even list the number of men she has screwed. For no known reason, she dumps her lover in Florida and moves to New Mexico. Next thing, she and the then lieutenant are in bed. Now, you tell me how a geek like him landed someone like her? She was mixed up in that affair where they lost that perp, Crawford. All of that landed in Little Napoleon’s lap. Certain people were very disappointed that that episode wasn’t enough to get rid of that damned woman. Parker came out smelling like a lamb and the case was hushed up. I was drinking with one of the SWAT team, one night. He started telling me things they saw that night. Before he could finish, two of his buddies came over and carried him off. That whole case has a stench that can’t be hidden forever,” Andy stated.

----------

Max and Michael were back with their report. “The old women don’t know anyone that they can’t account for. It seems when you don’t have remains to inter, records take on a whole different importance,” Max related. They all four were sitting at their respective desks in the cramped office.

Just as he was explaining about what he had learned talking to the sages of the alien community there was a noise at the doorway of the main office. They all looked up and they saw Lieutenant Swartz blocking the way for a very angry Isabel Whitman. Max stood up and walked over to see what was the trouble. “What’s wrong, Isabel,” Max called out.

Andy spun around. “Butt out, detective, this doesn’t concern you,” he declared angrily.

Max, who usually was unflappable, retorted, “It does, lieutenant, when it concerns my sister,” Max answered.

“Well, if it’s your sister, then tell her to wait with the desk sergeant until someone is free to escort her. I don’t want civilians running around my office without escorts,” Andy said emphatically.

“Maybe, lieutenant, she was planning to stop by the captain’s office and just saw that he wasn’t in,” Max stated.

“If she had made a proper appointment, I am sure the captain would have been available to escort her,” Swartz answered.

Liz stepped out of her office. “Back off Swartz. Mrs. Whitman is a consultant who works for me. You didn’t even ask if she had a visitor’s pass,” Lieutenant Parker stated.

It took several seconds for the name, Mrs. Whitman to register on Swartz’s mind. He turned and went back to his desk. He was thinking, “I might have made a major mistake.” Now that Parker said her name, he could see some resemblance to the pictures he remembered in the tabloids. Truthfully when he was reading the tabloids, her face wasn’t what he was seeing.

Max gave up his chair to Isabel. She was still angry. “Who the hell is that guy?” she asked.

“You met our new lieutenant. He took Alex’s job and he is trying to expand his kingdom,” Liz stated.

Isabel ruffled her shoulders like some big bird saying, “Well, if he doesn’t learn some manners, he is going to need a bunch of Viagra to make it long enough to pee.”

Both Maria and Liz had to smile. Then, Liz interrupted the moment. “Do you have any news for us?” she asked.

Isabel composed her self. “Yes, I do. Max and I have long wondered about the background of cloning back on Antar. Was this a well established procedure or were we some kind of experiment? The history of cloning, at the moment, is still unknown. We weren’t the first clones. Many years ago, the old lady cloned her self.

Even Max could not hide his interest in this news. Liz asked, “Do you suppose she was the woman we have in storage?”

Maria frowned. “From what you keep saying, the queen mother was an older woman. The forensic team says that the remains we have are of a woman between 30 and 40,” Maria stated.

Max had now regained his composure. “From what we know, at her death from Nicholas, the old lady could have been well over one hundred of your years old. Clones all start out as infants. Their growth can be accelerated or slowed down by machines. Either back on Antar or after she arrived, her clone would have had to mature. At some time she had to have been a young woman. It is important for us to see what she had been doing before her death. Then, we need to see who killed her and why,” Max stated.

There was a noise at the door. “Computers are something I understand; do you think you could teach me how to approach the granolith? Maybe, we aren’t asking the right questions,” Alex stated. They all looked up. Isabel stood and he caught her in his arms.

“Alex, that new lieutenant wouldn’t let me in while ago. It wasn’t until Liz came out and explained things to him that he backed off,” Isabel told her husband.

“I will talk to Swartz. That isn’t the only complaint we have with him,” Alex explained.

----------

“Look, captain, I can explain,” Swartz started. “This is why I want that Napoleon woman out of here. How can I run a department unless I have complete control of this office? What is your wife doing consulting with Parker, anyhow? I didn’t know that Parker had any cases on going. She should report to me, what ever it is she is doing.” Swartz felt he was making a good case for himself.

“If Parker hasn’t told you anything about what she is doing, maybe, she doesn’t think it is any of your business. Parker answers to me, not you. There are some other problems I need to talk to you about. The department arrest numbers are way down. Do you have any reason for that?” Alex asked.

“Hey, it ain’t my fault. Theses Bozos are the laziest bunch I have ever seen. I need to fire about half of them. I am making a list of those I want to demote back to uniform. I still want Evans and Guerin back. It ain’t fair that Little Napoleon has my best officers. Put them back with me and put DeLuca back in vice. Let me run with the department and we will see what the arrest numbers look like,” Swartz angrily shouted.

“Lieutenant, I ran the detective department for three years. I know what they can do. As for cutting Little Napoleon down, I recommend you be careful. Nobody knows where her grease comes from. I don’t even think she knows. You attack her and you might find some rabbi mighty mad at you. Even Big Jim never successfully attacked her. You haven’t even thought where does Evans come from. You know his family is very powerful. Do you think you are up to taking them on?” Alex asked.

In Swartz’s mind, departments should be crystal clear, at least to the lieutenant in charge. Every time he turned around, he was reminded of his limitations. Councilmen Richards had sought him out the first thing when he learned he could come to this department. Now, Swartz was faced with whipping this lazy department in “New Mexico,” into action. He didn’t care what they did under Whitman, he was the lieutenant and they better learn it fast. He had to get rid of that damned woman.

Working in Dallas, Andy had heard of mysterious political powers. He was still surprised when Simon Ortiz approached him. The, then, Detective Swartz was on his first major case. Andy was playing his evidence close to his chest. This case had the appearance of turning into a very high profile case. If it broke like he wanted, Andy had visions of himself interviewed on morning shows, late night talk shows and his picture being flashed on the national news for several weeks. Swartz had almost enough evidence to link a Yankee US senator (Remember at the time, Swartz considered himself as a son of the south in Texas,) to the murder of a Dallas call girl. Since he had been very careful with the evidence, it would make his name when he made the arrest. He was approached by a quiet Hispanic man of indeterminable age. Now, Swartz didn’t like Hispanics. His family had that incorrect culture of “Remember the Alamo.” Swartz had never thought of checking the list in San Antonio for how many Hispanics had fought beside the Texans inside the Alamo. Santa Anna was not a hero to Mexicans living in northern Mexico or in what became Texas proper.

Before he could snub the man before him, he heard, “I am here to offer you a deal that you can’t afford to miss.”

All Swartz had to do was lose some of the evidence. Swartz complied, the senator’s name never came up and the first time Swartz applied for sergeant, he made it. Promotions came fast. Swartz felt he was invincible. Restructuring every thing below him became a habit. As captain, he completely redid the department. Under his command, these lazy Texans became lazier and lazier. Swartz even forgot that he, himself was a natural born Texan. Swartz knew what he wanted his men to do, but it wasn’t working. He had to get out of Texas and start over. That was when Simon Ortiz met with him again.

----------

On the books, it was registered as personal time. In reality, Alex was trying to study that mysterious machine that his wife talked about. It was noon by the time they reached Roswell. After lunch and another drive down an “unimproved road,” they stopped at some sandstone cliffs. Alex had forgotten that when New Mexico called them unimproved, they meant what they said. To Alex, the trail up the side of the cliff looked like it had been made by centuries of very agile goats. As they approached the top of the cliff, Alex saw a spot of silver. As Isabel approached, the spot resolved into a handprint. When she placed her hand on the handprint, it resized to the same size of her hand. Then Alex saw that a door had opened beside the print.
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
User avatar
ken_r
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Re: Little Napoleom pt 2, pg2, ch6, mat,cc,5/20/12

Post by ken_r »

begonia9508

keepsmiling7

Last week i posted twice. between the pain and the meds to try to control the pain, i didn't know what i was doing.


Chapter 7

Michael and Maria were back in the basement of the library. Maria was so bored she almost thought of returning to vice. Jacking johns looking for nookie might even be better than sitting and reading pages and pages of the society columns and local news. They had strained through the obituaries the day they made the arrest at the fast food place. The trouble was that if she had been murdered and the body hidden, there might not be any evidence of her death. Now, they were looking for something that would jump out at them. Maybe, it would be some local woman who had started a political movement at about the right time. It was thought that the clone of the queen mother would have been sent to Earth sometime before 1947. Maria and Liz had thought that maybe the clone would be involved in resettlement of returning soldiers and their families. That would have been a good front to settle aliens as they arrived. She could have even been sent before WWI, the great war to end all wars. Aliens didn’t drink so they had to check the prohibition leaders. If she had been sent after WWI, she would have to have been murdered sometime in the 40s. That messed with the estimate that the bodies on the west mesa had been buried approximately 20 years ago. Then, there was that problem they had no reference as to how hybrid clone bones would have decomposed. After all, the bones were found nearby, but not necessarily part of the west mesa murders. It had been the other murders that had attracted anthropologist to find the hybrid bones. Liz thought about the machine that seemed to control the world. She might accept that the serial killer had been influenced to place his victims here. Liz was not willing to consider that any intelligence, real or artificial, would be so cruel to cause the murders to bring attention to what it considered more important.

---------

What if they faced the problem that the remains were of some poor lonesome alien soul who had been stranded on this strange planet and never had any connection to Antar. With everyone else occupied, something Alex had said was teasing the back of Liz’s mind. Michael and Max had talked to the elder aliens, “maybe, they hadn’t asked the right questions.” Max warned Liz that the first question every alien would ask, was when the royal wedding would take place.

North and east of Metropolis, there was an artsy-craftsy community. Liz had know about that community all her life. Maria’s mother had lived there at one time. Maria didn’t often talk about it, but Liz thought that this had been the place where Maria’s mother and father first got together. Liz laughed to her self, did that mean that Maria was part alien? When she asked Max, he laughed. “No, I don’t think so. There are many humans living there also. If Maria had of had any alien blood I think we would have sensed it. I think your sidekick is pure human, or as human as the hippies ever got,” Max chuckled.

As they were driving a strong wind was noticed blowing out of the south. The road to the community was up hill and down. It twisted between hills and passes. As it went between two lines of hills suddenly a gust of wind hit their car. It was almost blown off the road. Max had to fight to keep the moving vehicle under control. Then, they pulled off the road and Liz saw that a green shield had grown up around the car. She looked up and the windshield was completely smashed. Max was slightly shaking. What ever had happened had gotten past his normally perfect control. “Liz, someone just took a shot at us,” he stated.

“Max, what was that gust of wind?” Liz asked.

Max’s voice was still shaking. “Liz, I know you don’t completely believe, yet, but killing the queen is not that easy. Look outside. There is no wind at all, now,” he stated.

The fact that Max was saying that a gust of wind was what had saved them or at least her, was still too deep for Liz. There had to be some reason for the wind and now, the air was completely still.

----------

As Alex and Isabel entered the door in the cliff, a light began to get brighter and brighter. At the doorway, there was a large machine. Except for a slight hum and a faint glow it looked like it was turned off. In front there were three doors open and looking inside, Alex could see a slightly slimy chamber with tubes lying loose within. Looking, in turn into each door way, Alex saw three identical chambers. He was looking at the birth pods where his wife and the other two had been nurtured until they were ready to be set forth.

There was noise from another part of the cave. Alex and Isabel entered and there was another machine, at least Alex thought it was a machine. He had never seen the like before. There were two very comfortable chairs in front of it. A very deep voice commanded, “Please be seated.”

They sat and the machine purred for several minutes. “I will be with you shortly,” Alex heard. “I have a slight weather problem to control at the moment,” it said.

Alex heard in his head, “You are the consort of the king’s sister. You were chosen for this moment. You are best at understanding. Your mind says you consider me artificial intelligence. To me, both words are highly subjective. This is the first of many sessions I intend for us to have. Our communication will get better later, for the moment, ask your questions.”

Alex looked over at Isabel sitting in the chair beside him. Her eyes were closed and to all intents she was either asleep or in some trance that was separate from him. “Is Isabel hearing what I am?” Alex asked.

“No, I have many things to communicate to the sister of the king. What we think is to be private. I would suggest that you discuss everything with Isabel later. Marriages do not take kindly to secrets,” the thoughts entered Alex’s mind.

“I want to know the history of human cloning,” Alex asked.

There was a hum for several minutes. Then in his mind, thoughts were formed. “No viable human cloning has been successful.” Cell cultures have been caused to multiply. No viable creature has been created.”

That wasn’t what Alex was looking for. He tried again. “History of cloning on Antar.”

“Cloning on Antar covers several hundreds of Earth years. Do you require detail?”

Alex thought, this isn’t getting us anywhere so he, again, asked, “What about cloning people on Antar with other species?”

“The use of the concept, ‘people’ shall be the dominate, intelligent species. The history is over one hundred of your years. Do you require details?”

Alex sighed, “No, give me history of cloning the people of Antar with humans of Earth.”

Again the hum, Alex had to be careful not to anthropomorphize what the machine was doing. After all, it was just a highly sophisticated machine. Alex could almost relate to the machine scratching its head and compiling what it was next going to say. You just couldn’t go around giving human characteristics to a piece of metal. While the machine was doing its soul searching, Alex took the time to study it. The metal of the machine looked like a casting. Whatever it was made of, Alex was not familiar with the material. It was cool to the touch. As the machine hummed and whirred, Alex could see a flickering violet light in a room behind it. He would check that out later. Finally in his head Alex heard, “Cloning was known generations before. It wasn’t until the discovery of gandurium with a sample brought back from deep space that the Antarians had any ability to clone hybrids. The queen mother finally asked me about creatures that would have the DNA of two different star systems. The only time she showed any interest in what I knew and it was for the most dangerous experiment know to the Antarians. She was middle aged, that is about one hundred of Earth years, when the first success was made. It was a hybrid of herself and a human who had been a very powerful political person in your history. Who this person was is not recorded in my memory. This clone was sent to Earth. I have no record what the clone would look like or what name it had been given. By this time, the king was old and sickly. The queen mother did not consult me much after that.”

As the voice in his head went silent, Alex again began to notice his surroundings. Isabel had opened her eyes and was beginning to stir. “Did the machine answer you?” Isabel asked Alex.

“Yes, but I had to find the right questions. I don’t think I learned every thing, but neither the machine nor I want to go further today. Was the machine talking to you?” he asked.

“Yes, I want to think about what it said. I will tell all of you together when we have a chance. This time, we must include Liz. The machine made it clear that a considerable amount of energy is going into her protection. All of our lives are now tied up like puppet strings with what she does,” Isabel stated.

We need to tell Liz that I am now, sure that the alien remains are of the clone of the queen mother. The clone’s death will be told in who she was and what she had been doing.

----------

Fortunately, Max and Liz had only a short way to drive. They pulled into a shop labeled, “Auto Repair.” A tall lanky man approached them. On his coveralls, Liz saw the name of Caleb. “You folks been fighting somebody?” he asked, as he indicated the blown out windshield and poked his finger in the bullet holes in the hood.

Liz showed her badge and asked, “Is there anyone who could fix our car enough to get back to the city?”

“No ma’am,” Caleb shook his head. Your car don’t need no fixing, it needs new parts. We keep a small supply of parts here for the locals, but you need parts from the city. “A… take us several days to get them here. It will cost a fortune, but what you needs now is a wrecker and a taxi.”

About that time a lady came out of the house nearest to the shop. “Whats these folks want, Caleb?” she asked.

“They wants a miracle, ma. Coppers from the city and they done pissed someone off royally. Some fellow done shot them to hell,” Caleb answered.

“Course they pissed someone off royally. Don’t you never listen to the meetings?” she asked.

“Ma, you knows that I been concentrating on Lem’s tractor this last few weeks. They ain’t hardly made those parts in 40 years. I been studying it so’s I can work on it,” Caleb responded.

“Well these coppers you want to dismiss so lightly are Max Evans and Liz Parker,” the older lady said.

The man’s language and his manner changed dramatically. “I am sorry; I will have your car fixed when you are ready to leave,” he said in perfectly unaccented English.

The lady turned to Max and Liz. “If your majesties will come in, I will fix some tea,” she said. As they sat and she was busying her self in her kitchen, Liz heard her continue. “Caleb doesn’t listen much at the meetings. He is better with machines than he is with people. Might be as good fixing them as you are at healing people. We started out with out much capital when we arrived and what we had we used to buy land. The people bought up old farm equipment and older cars. Men like Caleb all over the world fix them up. We stayed away from collectibles. Humans are so curious when they find old stuff in good condition. Here we repair machineries for the locals. Many of the Hispanics, nearby, bring their older cars and tractors here for Caleb to fix, same with the Native Americans. We have members of the people who live other places in the world that do likewise. Back home, Caleb was what you might call a materials engineer. Others of the people all try to use their powers and abilities in some safe ways to get by. We are assimilating ourselves into human culture, but doing it slowly,” she related.

Liz recognized that like many societies and cultures, the lady called the aliens ‘the people’ to distinguish them from humans. Max had told her that the aliens settled in many different places in the world as to not attract attention to themselves. “We have some questions about some of the oldest settlers. Mainly someone who might have arrived before 1947 when the three clones crashed,” Liz asked.

“Caleb and I arrived in what you call ’45. It was a good time to leave Antar. The old queen mother was fighting with the granolith, Antar was falling and she couldn’t see it. There was one ship leaving early and we made sure we were on it. Here we found that humans were just ending a war. Atomic power had just been released and there were many human soldiers returning and moving about. We all knew about the crash in ’47. Thought it was funny that by the time they had gotten the crash remains to Roswell, it did resemble what you call plastic. It was understandable that they think it was a weather balloon. It was only those who saw it first after the wreck happened who didn’t swallow that one. With out people, the vehicle couldn’t hold together any more than our dead bodies. The royal daughter, seen in the tabloids, let us know that the clones had survived.” She smiled at the incredulous looks Max gave her. “Hey, we have a news stand at the local store and many of us do get to the city, from time to time. Isabel Evantide was wowing the humans every week. We also know that when humans took charge of the wreck, the most important thing of all had been hidden, the granolith.” She turned to Liz. “We also know that the granolith has chosen you to be the kings mate.”

For several minutes, Liz didn’t know what to say. Max had warned her. The “people” were going to be patient, but they all expected her to do the right thing. It was Max who took up the conversation. “Isabel has dug up evidence that there was a clone way before 1947. The queen mother cloned her self and sent the clone to Earth way before the despot rose up. Even Nicholas didn’t know about this. We are trying to find out what the queen mother’s intentions were for the clone and to find out if anyone knew about her.” Max felt comfortable talking to the woman. He had been around aliens many times, but this was the first time he felt the almost warmth he would have found back on Antar. Later, Max would decide that it wasn’t the warmth of Antar, rather it was the country style that impressed him about this whole community. He still had a little connection with the old planet.

The old lady thought for several minutes. “This is going to take time. We need to talk about this in the town meetings across the world. That takes time. Someone will notice and give us a reply,” she stated.

Liz noticed that the old lady had never given them her name unless she had done so some way to Max. Liz spoke up again. “Do you have any idea of who would want to shoot us?” Liz asked.

“No, honey, even Nicholas was too frightened to kill the queen directly. Whoever shot at you was human, not one of the people,” she concluded.
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
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Re: Little Napoleon pt 2, mature, pg3, ch7, cc,5/26/12

Post by ken_r »

keepsmiling7

begonia9508

Natalia36



Chapter 8

“Margret Herrera Olson, Michael, I think I have got it. Look in 1946; she was working on relocating families of returning soldiers. She was instrumental in getting affordable mortgages for service men. She founded this organization to help families relocate. What better cover could she have? In 1948 when the organization was running on its own, she disappeared. Here is even a report made to the police in 1948. Nothing was ever made of it. I don’t think the police had the resources then as they have today. Look! Here is a picture. It looks a little bit like Isabel. Maybe, the queen mother used the same human DNA for her own clone as later she used for Isabel. Look, again in 1938. You have a Margret Herrera married to Captain Richard Olson, of the New Mexico National Guard. You have the New Mexico National Guard converting into the 200th coastal artillery. And here is where they were sent to the Philippines in 1941 just before Pearl Harbor. I think Olson was killed on the Bataan Death March. That would have left Margret alone as the only hybrid alien in a world of humans. I wonder if she had some sealed orders which she opened after the war which told her what she was supposed to do?” Maria mused.

Maria saw Michael looking at her. “I wonder if he was human, alien or hybrid. If they had kids, it might serve as a guide to many of the rest of us,” Michael said thoughtfully.

Maria looked up. Was that what kept holding Michael back from marrying her? Maria thought that if she insisted, Michael would come around. In their own way, they were in the same position as Max and Liz. Well, not quite. The last time she had talked to her aunt, Sean was still having a lot of erectile dysfunction. Liz had told Maria one day when they both needed girl talk, what Max had said. Maria knew about the tapes Sean had made and she hadn’t missed a time telling Sean what she thought of him. Of course, Maria hadn’t said anything to her aunt. Sean was still her baby, limp dick and all. Maria knew that her aunt had sent Sean to every specialist she could find. Max had told Liz that when they married, Sean would be released from the curse. In Maria’s mind, that meant that if Max and Liz were sleeping together, then that old machine should be satisfied. Sleeping together wasn’t her problem with Michael. Now maybe, Michael needed assurance that she would do all she could to help him start a family. Maybe, that was what was scaring him from marriage?” On the other hand, if they found some other hybrid, who themselves had kids, then, he might be relaxed and make it happen.

---------

Alex talked continually as they drove back from Roswell. “The granolith said that cross species cloning was the result of a deep space discovery called gandurium. It allowed different chromosome strings to match up. What was absent from one string would be made up by the gandurium. It stressed that gandurium was one of the most dangerous materials in the universe. One mistake and it would take over the world, assimilating everything in its own make up. Incorporating this stuff in one being, allows that being to have children with other species. Of course, the species has to have other characteristics or the off spring will be sterile or even not viable.” Isabel hadn’t seen Alex this excited since she first told him he was her chosen one.

Isabel politely listened. Everything Alex learned was important both to her people and to the small collections of hybrids, who wanted someday to start families. Finally, Isabel could contain her self no longer. “The machine wants to talk to Liz,” Isabel stated.

“What?” was Alex’s response. Alex had forgotten that all the time he had been learning about the history of cloning on Antar, the machine had also been talking to Isabel.

“I said, the machine wants to talk to Liz,” Isabel repeated. “It also, said that of all the coupling, hers with Max must be the one entered into with the least coercion. You, Kyle and Maria, are asked to make the least change. Being a couple with us will make little difference in how you run your life. Liz will become a reining queen. I am not sure what that means, but I am sure it will turn Liz’s life upside down.”

“You don’t suppose that the machine will require Liz to make some sacrifice of her life, do you?” Alex asked.

“What do you mean?” Isabel asked.

“Well, some tribes make a member, the queen or king; then, they are required to do something like give up their lives for the gods or something,” Alex informed her.

“Alex, don’t be so uncivilized. I am sure she will have to just involve herself in the day-to-day things between our two people. I imagine I will be required to work closely with her as I have been about things concerning our people. It may alter her career plans,” Isabel stated.

----------

In a certain hotel room a phone message had arrived. Doug Shellow took out a small box and plugged the phone line into it. Anyone listening on either side would only hear “Muzak.” The black box would filter out the elevator music and allow the conversation to come through. “Yeah, I did what you said. I had her right in my sights. It should have taken her head right off, with the shot I took. Yes, I followed it with several more shots. The car went off the road and when I looked at it, there was a green glow about the thing, even in daylight. They finally limped back into that village you told me about. I couldn’t keep them in sight all the time, because they went into this home. The car was pushed into an auto shop and the funniest thing, a few hours later they got back in one just like it and drove off. It couldn’t be the same car. I damaged it too badly for it to get back on the road. Do you want me to try again? Okay, I will let you know how things are doing.” Doug hung up the phone, disconnected his scramble box and put it away. Originally, Doug had been told to sweet talk the woman. He didn’t guess killing her would be in the same category.

It didn’t matter that Doug had dated this woman and even allowed himself a few romantic dreams about her. If they wanted her dead, he would do his best. Doug had no feelings about his relationship in the past.

----------

Lieutenant Andrew Swartz was angry at the captain. The captain’s wife was seen only as a beautiful woman. How was he supposed to know who she was? Andy had no eye for any beautiful woman unless she was naked in his bed. Andy had made a pass at the chief’s wife, a… Teresa or something like that. Something had scared the crap out of Andy. Visions of lightning striking him from her eyes and later, nightmares of her doing terrible things to his manhood. Andy hadn’t, yet, figured that out. That Federal agent had said something like that had happened when he was just innocently flirting with that blonde. Then, the captain dressing him down because his lazy men were falling down in arrests, angered him. Unfortunately, these were the same men the captain had commanded when he ran the department. All Andy could think was give him back Evans and Guerin. He would split them up and form two effective units. Get that damned DeLuca back on vice where she belonged. How was Andy supposed to run a department if it had been crippled before he even got it?

Andy ran over his reports. The best team he had were two officers, Fred Modak and Al Selenas. Modak, Selenas, what kind of names were those anyway? They surely didn’t sound American. Would old J. Eger have tolerated people like these? Anyway, they had the best arrest record this week. Andy would call them in and split them up. That would give him two good teams. He was sure that these two would drag their partners to better records. True, most of those Andy put in charge were the suck-ups. They hadn’t ever done anything.

Fred Modak and Al Selenas appeared to be in their mid-thirties. They weren’t body builders, but they did consider themselves in good shape. Working together, they used their good memories and perceptive talents to fight crime. That they weren’t human, helped also. After Nicholas, many of the aliens availed themselves to law enforcement. The captain, then Lieutenant knew all about them. Whitman had been right beside Little Napoleon when she interviewed selected aliens to be included in the department. They were careful to not say anything to the new lieutenant. He couldn’t even get along with Hispanic or African American officers, what might he do if he suspected he had aliens working for him?

George Johnson had been barely tolerated when Whitman was the lieutenant. He worked the evidence room, plodded through files in the office and did much of the grunt work field officers hate. George didn’t kid himself, nor did he care. He had learned to suck up to officers when asked to do office duties and he had felt secure in what he did. He had been one of the first to welcome Lieutenant Swartz when he arrived. Before he knew it, he was in charge of a detective team partnered with Fred Modek.

In the field, rank isn’t nearly as important as trust. This was where military and police most differ. In the military, rank is god. This is changing as the soldiers become more educated and sophisticated. A non-conscript military does a lot to change this, also. In police work, officers are free to quit and look for other jobs anytime they please. Promotion within the ranks is very important. A ranking police officer is the mother superior, whom the officers call upon when they have problems they can’t solve. In a detective pair, leadership should be shown to the one with experience. Johnson had been on the force forever, although he had little field experience. Fred learned what he had the first day on the streets. Fred spotted a perp whom narcotics had been searching, for days. As team leader, George was driving, all the time dreading when he would be called out to turn to the streets. Fred pointed to a no parking zone and shouted, “Pull over there, George. That son-of-a-bitch Rodriguez has been dodging narcotics for weeks. We catch him before he can dump his stash, we can have their case all tied up for them.”

By reflex, George pulled into the no parking zone. Before the car had stopped, Fred was out and tackling the indicated dealer. Fred smashed him to the ground and pinned his arms. Fred cuffed the felon and looking up at his partner, he saw that George was still struggling to get out of his seatbelt. That taught Fred a long lesson. Gone were the days when he made a collar and could reach behind him to get another set of cuffs from his ready and close partner. Unless Fred wanted to work solo, he would have to follow George. Al Selenas had a very similar experience.

As if things couldn’t get worse for Andy Swartz, today Little Napoleon had a meeting behind closed doors. When Andy had seen them all gathering, he had drifted over to see what was going on. He was politely shoved out of the room. “Sorry Lieutenant, this is confidential. Need to know only and all of that,” someone said to him. Andy got even more pissed off, when he saw the captain and his wife, along with Chief Valenti welcomed at the door. Without being obvious, there was no way Andy could get close enough to hear.

----------

Liz spoke first, “Captain, chief, we want to bring you up to speed. Guerin and DeLuca have brought up a possible name, which for the time being, we are going to use. Margret Herrera Olson disappeared sometime in 1948. That puts her out of our time frame, but forensics, even though the technicians are mostly alien, can’t date alien remains as close as they might human remains. She was active in resettling returning soldiers. She also appears to have been active in resettling aliens who landed here from about 1945 on. She bought and donated the land where the hippy community, north of town, now lies. When Evans and I were visiting the community, we asked the elders to search their records for a possible match for what we have. At that time, we didn’t have the name. Evans will make sure that the elders are given this information. On our way to the village, we were assaulted by gunfire. No one was hurt, but the car was repaired by alien technology.” Turning to the captain, Liz asked, “Could you assign that car to me permanently?”

The captain nodded and then said, “I saw the machine that is talked about. It is an amazing piece of artificial intelligence. The machine made it clear that one session wasn’t going to be enough. I roughly learned about cloning with alien-human DNA. The science is very technical and I am going to have to study up to better understand next time. One thing puzzled me. The machine, at first, made me wait. It said it had a weather problem to solve, up north.”

A look passed between Max and Liz. “Max, weather is one of the most complex natural phenomena. You don’t suppose the machine could have caused that windblast that blew us almost off the road when we were shot at? Liz asked.

Max was shaking his head. “Liz, I told you that you were under protection. Even I have no idea of the scope of this protection.”

Isabel spoke up. “Liz, the machine made it clear that it wants to talk to you, personally, pretty soon,” she informed.

“I am sure that the shooting was human not alien. It would take a lot for an alien to attempt to kill the queen. Even Nicholas was hesitant, when he had us captured. At the end, he had all his men surrounding him to take part of the blame for what he was about to do,” Max stated.

Maria spoke up. “Then does that mean that we have human enemies, along with alien ones, to worry about?” she asked.

Now Liz was all little Napoleon. “Maria, Michael, I think you two better start hitting the streets looking for news. Run down any informants you can. I will be open to any reasonable deals you can make. Captain,” Liz said as she turned to Alex. “I need for you to keep Swartz off our backs.”

“Yeah, chief, you gotta do something about that guy. Two more good detectives quit and went to work for the county. The pay isn’t that much worse and they don’t have to deal with him,” Michael stated.

Kyle leaned back thinking. “Swartz is still supported by councilman Richards. Unless he does something really wrong, he is going to be tough to get rid of. Liz, there is something my dad said once. It was right after you started your squad. We were all mad that you took money from the regular detective squad for what we thought was unimportant. Dad told me that someone was really backing you. He warned me that you were probably tamper proof. There is some rabbi that always comes to your aide. Maybe, we should just sit back and let Swartz tackle someone who is too untouchable for him to go against,” Kyle stated.

“Kyle, if there is someone backing me, I don’t know anything about it. I hope we still have a regular detective force when we finally do run Schultz off,” Liz said.
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
User avatar
ken_r
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Re: Little Napoleon pt 2, mature, pg3, ch8, cc,6/3/12

Post by ken_r »

Begonia9508

keepsmiling7

Natalie36


Chapter 9

The name of Margret Herrera-Olson, was given to the elders of one of the alien communities by Isabel. Isabel couldn’t be sure, the name seemed to mean something to the elder she talked to. The communities were scattered all over the world. They all had once a week meetings and Isabel understood they had some sort of communication with each other. Isabel considered herself one of the people, but to them she was one of the royal clones. They accepted her as one of the persons to act as a emissary between humans and the people, but she didn’t have the problems of the people nor did she completely understand their flight from Antar. Isabel and the other clones had been transported as infants. They knew nothing about the history from Antar except for what had been given them. When she finally accepted the position, the queen would be closer to the people than the clones would ever be. That was strange, but the people didn’t question the machine.

The first place that Maria and Michael hit was her old friend José at the Brass Pole. It was early afternoon and José was interviewing several new girls. The lights were bright when Maria and Michael entered. They saw several young women all dressed in sweats lined up and a boom box blaring as they moved and gyrated to the music. One woman about Maria’s age was standing, holding a clipboard and shouting orders over the noise. Maria recognized her as one of the strippers working when she had been there.

“Maria, ba-bee, the police department has failed you and you are coming back to your old job,” Jose said in a pleading tone.

“No José, I am still with the police and I am not working vice anymore. Besides, you want an old lady to compete with all this fresh flesh you have here?” Maria asked mockingly.

“Aw they are so young, so fresh, so unimaginative. Michelle has to write their choreographies. None of them can do as good a ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ or a ‘French Maid,’ as you. By the way that reminds me that you ripped off several of my costumes when you left here. What did you do with them? Sell them on e-bay or something? José asked.

“No, José, I put them to good use, still,” Maria declared.

“Oh I see,” Jose stated looking at Michael who turned very red.

Then José got very serious. “Chica, I heard that you were in some bad gunfights with that pendejo, Nicholas. Did you kill him or something?” José inquired as held held Maria’s hand.

“No, ‘fraid not, José. We did send him to a galaxy far, far away,” Maria said.

José was still holding Maria’s hand as he shouted, “Hey Michelle, write that one down. Hans Solo and Princess Leah stranded on an asteroid. Get some male strippers and we can advertise a family night.”

Maria retrieved her hand and got serious. “José, what do you know about a professional hit man?” she asked.

José drew back. “Maria, you know I don’t run that kind of business. What would a business man like me know about people such as that?” José declared.

“Yeah, José, we know. Give you a baldhead and an ear ring and you are Mr. Clean. You or your family know about everything that goes on in this town. Some one tried to kill the lieutenant and her partner the other day. It had all the marks of being a professional hit,” Maria stated.

José raised his right hand. “Maria, honest to God. I don’t know anything about that kind of guy in town at the moment. I can try to see what I can find out. That is the best I can promise,” José said.

Maria leaned back. José turned to Michael. “Ain’t she a peach though. You should have seen her at 19. She could just make your heart flutter. You fell in love with her every time she approached the pole, know what I mean?”

Michael nodded, “Yeah, I do. Those costumes do wonders for the soul.”

They left the Brass Pole, but at the door Maria turned. “José, does the name Margret Herrera Olson, mean anything to you?” she asked.

“Margret Olson, it has been years since I heard that name. She screwed my grandfather out of his land north of the city. Well, the price she offered him was better than fair in those days and the old man had a real fling with the money, but he could have willed it to us and now, it would be worth a fortune,” José stated.

Their next stop was Jimmy the Nose. Jimmy was still highly addicted to inhalants. There had been times when Michael gave Jimmy a can of acetone as a reward for information. Maria was furious about this. “Michael, you are just feeding his addiction. You should offer him help not contribute to his problem,” she had said.

----------

Lieutenant Andy Swartz was angry. Being a smooth talker from Dallas, Andy thought that these New Mexicans would be a push over. What he needed was a really big bust; a bust that would capture headlines, one that would insulate him from the complaints of the captain. He was going to have to beat these lazy detectives to go out on the streets and find something big, something he could personally lead and thus get national press coverage. In his arrogance it never occurred to him that he had crippled the teams, which could have easily done this. Most of the hard working dedicated detectives were all waiting for an “Act of God,” not trusting the administration to correct itself.

As much as he disliked Hispanics, Andy Swartz found himself sitting at a desk across from Simon Ortiz in a small office located somewhere on the top floor of the police department. “I need something that will shock the department. I need something that will show these lazy detectives that following me will be the way to advancement, something that will silence that geeky captain for good. If I could advance to captain, someway bump him out of his job, I could get rid of that Little Napoleon,” Andy declared.

Simon knew that Swartz was a racist, but Simon was far above racial slurs either direct or implied. Now, he had to decide how deeply he wanted to continue supporting Swartz. Councilman Richards had asked Simon to bring Swartz to the department to harass one Lieutenant Liz Parker, AKA, Little Napoleon.

Harassing Liz Parker was one thing, but now, Swartz thought he had enough grease to actually destroy Little Napoleon. Simon was considering, carefully, what if anything, he owed Swartz. The politician, Swartz had cleared by omission of key evidence had retired. Simon Ortiz had learned long ago that tilting at windmills made out of brick was not wise. Don Quixote, did not get where he did by actually doing the impossible. He only tried. Simon did not want to only try anything. Attacking Liz Parker, with as little knowledge as Swartz had about her, would be the height of foolishness. This ass wanted a big bust, well give him a big bust and see if he is man enough to handle it. Simon knew that Swartz had dismantled a well-running department. “Let’s see what is left,” Simon thought as he handed Swartz a folder.

----------

Max was driving the car now, officially signed out to Lieutenant Parker. Liz, was sitting beside him, the windows all rolled up. The air conditioner had never worked so well. It was a good thing, because Max insisted on keeping all the windows closed. “Liz when Caleb fixed this car, he changed much of the structure. The windows might not stop all bullets, but few of them would be deadly after having passed through. The metal of the body is impervious to anything, except for anti-tank weapons,” Max stated.

“Yeah, I heard that Swartz raised a stink to the captain. He took it all the way to the commission. I heard that Richards even testified that it was not good use of tax payer money to allow a field officer to have their own car and not just check one out of the pool,” Liz replied.

Max chuckled. “Yeah, I heard that Big Jim Valenti whispered something in Richards ear and he went running out of the meeting. Leave it to Big Jim to know where the bodies are buried along with other mistakes the councilman has made,” Max said, still laughing at the thought of Richards being reminded of something from his past.

“Where exactly are we going, Max?” Liz asked.

“There is a little place about an hour’s drive on the other side of the mountain. The people there are not happy being here on Earth. They were all leaning toward Nicholas and returning to Kivar. The land they settled on was not part of Margret Olson’s trust land. They might know something about what happened to her. They are are going to be difficult to interview, but we might learn something new,” Max stated.

The town was similar to the one back on the other side of the mountain. It was more modern and the equipment and cars were more modern. It still was principally agricultural. Liz was sure that with training many of the aliens had moved to the city and were holding good paying jobs in technology. If they were like that other town, they still were holding on to their connection to the old world. They plowed a lot of the money they earned back into the community. It would be the children or maybe the grandchildren who would finally leave to join Earth society. They stopped in front of a place labeled “Town Hall.” There was a small group of men waiting for them. “Your highness,” one of them said. “You can just keep on going. You took Nicholas and his promises away from us. There ain’t hardly anything left for you to destroy.”

Liz noticed that the aliens tended to talk broken or even low class English when they were not willing to acknowledge outsiders. “Yeah,” one of the other men gathered in front of the building said. “and take that so called queen with you. We never had any truck with that infernal machine back home and don’t have none here.”

“And, yet you are here. Because, of your species, you are under the people’s administration of Earth law. If one of you gets stripped of your powers and then gets hauled into court, we will see how independent you are. Your choice, answer what we ask or I call the state police and have a bunch of you hauled in. Of course after I take away your power. Fighting the king ain’t all it is stacked up to be. You have no idea what power the queen has, either,” Max stated.

This was a Royal monarch. Liz had never seen this side of Max. She knew what it was like to fight beside him. She had done this the night Max was informed that the sign of the queen had been given. Max would use the power blast of his people, but that took a lot of energy. When he tired, Max stood right beside her and traded 40 cal from the Glock ever bit as accurately as did Liz. Now this was something different. Max was facing his people. They were alien and out in the open. Max was threatening them with pure alien magic, cooperate with Max the detective or suffer the rage of Max the king. If that wasn’t enough, Max promised that she, the queen to be, had powers she had no idea of.

Liz saw them all whisper together, then, they turned and walked back into the building. Liz saw that they didn’t close the doors behind themselves. When Liz and Max had entered the room, the men were all sitting on one side of a large table. Liz saw that two chairs had been arranged on the other side. All that stuff outside must have been posturing. They were not willing to defend their dislikes very hard. Liz could not help but wonder how safe they were.

On sitting down, Max immediately started his questions. “You all chose to break with those living under the Margret Olson’s trust. Remember, I will know if you are lying. Give me a hard time, I will bring in the queen mother’s choice for the royal consort. I believe some of you once called her a witch, especially after she broke with Nicholas. She had superior powers to anyone on Antar. She wasn’t chosen as my consort, but I am sure you will find she is every bit as powerful as it was rumored.

Now this was a new turn. Liz knew a little about Tess. She was a clone just like Max, Michael and Isabel. Apparently, Max had learned more about her donor. The truth was that Max had learned more than even the queen mother ever knew. When the queen mother purchased Ava, she assumed that she was purchasing a simple consort who she would rule and thus, control her sometimes obstinate son. It wasn’t until Tess broke the final conditioning of the queen mother and also, the conditioning of Kivar through Nicholas, that it was learned how powerful in her own right Tess actually was. The machine didn’t want her as queen, but the machine welcomed her to the royal clones. The machine awarded Tess with a strong relationship and placed her in a place of power with her influence on Kyle, the deputy chief.

“If you were supposed to go with the queen mother’s choice, why did the machine choose this human?” one man said indicating Liz.

“The queen mother not following the machine is what brought Kivar, the despot and Nicholas down on us in the first place. You all wish to estrange yourselves from the machine, remember the queen mother and all that happened to her,” Max said. Liz noticed that no one spat at the name of Kivar as they did other places.

There was much whispering among themselves. Finally one man spoke up. “Ask your damn questions. We will embrace truth.”

“What happened to Margret Olson?” was Max’s question.

“She was executed,” the apparent leader said.

“What happened to those who killed her?” Max asked.

“Damned Olson was the queen mother’s clone. They took her life force and she wouldn’t blow away. Her body just lay there going rotten. We heard that the craft baring the royal clones had crashed and that the clones had been safeguarded. That was all we needed. We ran the group who executed her off. We weren’t going with that damn queen again, but we weren’t ready to start the wars over. All we needed was for you and the other clones to find her remains at our village. We made them take her remains with them. Damn Earth DNA, I suppose all of us or at least our children will die and leave stinky remains for others to clean up,” the man said.

“What happened to those who left? I am sure that they have relatives here who maintained their connections,” Max inquired.

“You, the alien vigilantes and those cursed Earthmen going after Nicholas messed up most of the connections. We can ask around, but if we do, will you promise to leave us alone? We want nothing to do with your assimilation into a mongrel society,” the man replied.

As Max and Liz were driving off, Max said, “Swartz would fit right in with that bunch. Goes to show that racist asses are not limited to Earthmen only.”
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
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ken_r
Obsessed Roswellian
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:34 pm
Location: New Mexico

Re: Little Napoleon pt 2, mature, pg4, ch9, cc,6/12/12

Post by ken_r »

keepsmiling7: Remember the dances Maria did for Michael. They are described in part one.


Chapter 10

Swartz was reading the folder he had gotten from Ortiz. “Damned Mexican, but he has all the power,” Swartz thought. The folder made a good case for taking down a principal drug dealer. It didn’t do all the work for Swartz, but it gave him a start and a direction. It informed him of persons of interest. He, at least, wanted his two best teams back on the streets. Johnson and Fred Modak along with Jerry Sanchez and Al Selenas were given edited parts of the folder that Ortiz had produced. “Go verify this,” was Swartz’s orders.

If Johnson and Sanchez had been paired together, it would have taken them at least six hours to even get out of the office. Both Modek and Selenas had to suffer the attitude of their partners. Johnson had been thoroughly chewed out from Modek’s arrest of Rodriguez, the drug dealer. Before Johnson could assert himself, Modek had called narcotics and turned the collar over to them. The lieutenant was furious. “Look Johnson, I gave you a chance. No one else would have ever let you out of some back office. I put you on the road to advancement. You make a collar. You bring them in. You are the team leader. Narcotics can do their own leg work. We make it. We count it.”

“We count it.” That was all that police work was to Swartz. Under Alex the detectives had all tried to work together. Many times, Modek had called a narcotics officer to verify if a substance was illegal. Modek knew that narcotics had been searching for Rodriguez for a long time. They had a solid case against him. Modek had been lucky enough to spot him and tackle him. Anyway, he would prefer that narcotics got credit than that lazy SOB Johnson. Over beers or the non-alcoholic equivalent just for aliens, every night, both Modek and Selenas moaned about the old days when they were right up there with Evans and Guerin. Now, they just drove the main streets. The few times they spotted a perp, the team leaders had carefully been so slow to stop that the perp was long gone in the crowd. Johnson was determined that he wasn’t going to lose another collar. His way was to not make any.

Now, contrary to what he said about Little Napoleon, Swartz had given orders to observe and not apprehend. When Lieutenant Parker had given this order it was because Max felt that normal police tactics would fail against Nicholas. Max didn’t want more cops to be hurt. When Andy gave this order, he could care less about his officers. He didn’t want anything to go down that he wasn’t credited for. When they sewed this case up, Swartz intended to be in the lead and have cameras rolling.

Johnson wasn’t going to get out of this one. The address that he had been given by the lieutenant led to darker and darker alleys. If Johnson had had any perception at all, he would have seen that the darker the ally the brighter Modek’s eyes got. This was his element. Given backup, he could have arrested everyone in the alley for something. Then, the orders from the lieutenant and the fact that his backup was the very slow Johnson, Modek filed this location back for future investigation. They had specific subjects to find and follow. They walked up to the bar of an establishment. Modek wondered if the bar was even legally licensed. He grabbed Johnson’s hand just as Johnson was about to pull his badge and lay it on the bar to request a policeman’s discount. “Not here, Johnson,” Modek growled.

Johnson was about to complain that he was team leader, not Modek, when looking at Modek’s face he was assured that, leader or not, he could easily get his ass kicked, but good. They quietly stood at the bar sipping what Johnson felt was very expensive beer. He had never paid full price since he had been given a badge. Modek looked about the room. He could have made a dozen collars. The lieutenant wanted to know the location of specific subjects. Modek finally spotted them. Johnson looked about the room and was about to suggest that this lead was turning up dry. He certainly didn’t see any suspects.

Suddenly Modek grabbed his arm and was dragging him out the door. “Hey, I ain’t ready to leave. I still have half of my beer that I had to pay for, to finish,” Johnson whined.

Modek whipped Johnson out the door and slammed him against the wall. “Damn it, Johnson. Move your fat ass or I am going to shoot you and tell the lieutenant I have no idea of what happened to you. The men we are supposed to tail just got in that car in front of us,” Modek growled as he grabbed the keys out of Johnson’s pocket.

Johnson was still crying that he was team leader and he should be driving as Modek slid behind the wheel of their car. As they took off, Johnson started crying, “Modek, go easy on this car. It is checked out in my name. If you scratch it, it is my ass.”

Modek, still driving hell bent for leather, passed the car in question making a right turn. Modek went up one more cross street and likewise made a right turn. He doubled back and finally, found him self on the same road as he imagined the perp had taken. It was heading out of the city toward a warehouse district. As they passed one warehouse Modek saw their car parked in front of a warehouse. He sped by like he had no interest at all. They hurried back to the station house. Modek tossed the keys to Johnson. “Here, go check out a different car for tomorrow. Make sure it doesn’t look anything like this one,” he ordered.

Modek left Johnson still whining that it was going to be his ass that was in the wringer over how Modek drove.

----------

Michael was holding Jimmy the Nose by the arm. He dragged him into an all night diner and with Maria following he slammed Jimmy into a booth some distance from the front door. There was a door just behind them and Michael opened it so the stench of acetone would go outside. “Jimmy, I need information,” Michael said with a scary look on his face. Michael didn’t raise his voice, but in Jimmy’s imagination that look Michael had was shouting loud and clear.

“Someone is trying to kill Dr. Strangelove,” Michael stated.

“And, I am supposed to feel bad about that?” Jimmy asked.

Michael reached across the table and pulled Jimmy’s face to within six inches of his face. “Look, you walking paint store. Max Evans, known to you as Dr. Strangelove, is my friend. I find out that you know anything about who is after him and didn’t tell me, I will put you into solitary with no chance of ever seeing a paint can,” Michael said with venom dripping from every word.

Maria put her hand on Michael’s arm. “Jimmy, they are also trying to kill that nice lady lieutenant. You remember her. She was so nice to you. We, desperately, need you help,” she purred.

Michael had released Jimmy and he slid back into his seat in the booth. About that time the girl waiting on the tables brought coffee for everyone. Michael spoke up, “Two cheeseburgers, please.”

They were all quiet until the lady brought the burgers and Jimmy busied himself scarfing them down like he hadn’t eaten for a week. Well, he really hadn’t had a good meal for a long time. As soon as he had licked up the last crumb, Jimmy looked at Michael and after a nod from the detective, he scrambled out. Maria watched as he went out the door she said, “Do you think he will find out anything?”

Michael shrugged. You tried your best and hoped that something would pan out. There were two sides to Jimmy. One side hated and feared Dr. Strangelove or the name he knew Max by, but the other rational side wanted safety on the streets for himself and his friends. A cop killing wouldn’t make that happen. Dead copper means that everyone would be given a shake down. Jimmy knew that the police tended to over extend themselves at the death of one of their own.

When Liz and Max got back to the station there was a phone message waiting for them. Doctor Smith of forensics, had an important find. Listed on the message was a cell phone number.

“Doctor Smith, this is Lieutenant Parker,” Liz stated in the phone.

“Lieutenant, is this a secure line?” The good doctor asked.

“Not really, doctor. I am calling from my office phone,” Liz answered.

“I need to see you and… I am sorry, I don’t know his name. He is the king. Is there a safe place we can meet tonight?” she asked.

“Doctor, there is a little Italian place called Luigi’s. He is a personal friend and I think he will let us use a back room. Doctor Smith, didn’t Lieutenant Swartz close you down?” Liz asked.

“Lieutenant, I wasn’t exactly canded with you the other day. I do know who the other forensic group works for and I am, also, a member of that group,” Roslyn stated. “I was overseeing both teams.”

With that decided, Liz phoned her friend. “Hey, Luigi, I need to use your back room. What do you say?” she asked.

“Ah… my favorite Lieutenant. Maybe you are planning the assassination of that ass, Swartz?” he asked.

“Not this time Luigi, but I will keep it in mind. Has he been giving you trouble?” she asked.

“Most of the plain clothes detectives are very nice. They understand and help me so I can continue showing my appreciation. Swartz comes in and tells me he understands that I give coppers free food. Then he proceeds to order the most expensive things on the menu. Lieutenant, I don’t want to hurt the rest of you, but this guy is trying to bankrupt me,” Luigi informs Liz.

“Luigi, you can’t let the police hurt you financially. Maybe, Swartz will leave sometime. You might spread the word that due to economic times, you are going to have to quit the gratuities. I am sure most of the officers will understand,” Liz stated.

“Well lieutenant, that is for the future. Now, you and your conspirators are welcome in my back room.

That afternoon when Michael and Maria came off the streets, Liz called Alex and Kyle and once again they had a meeting on the third floor. All Swartz could think of was that, this just chapped his ass. They had to be plotting against him. Swartz had complained to the commission. Valenti told him that officers had the right to protect their sources. If Swartz hadn’t been invited, it probably wasn’t any of his business. Swartz was thinking that he bet that Agent Shellow could find a small bug. Swartz was determined that he was going to bug Little Napoleon’s office. He did have to promise to share what ever he found with the agent. Shellow, even though he intended to assassinate Lieutenant Parker, wanted any intel he could get for his controller. This was something much bigger than just FBI investigations. Way back in his mind, he did wonder why this woman was so hated by someone that they had ordered a hit on her? She must have pissed someone off, royally. Maybe, she was tied in with some terrorist group.

“The name Margret Herrera Olson is looking better all the time for the name of our skeleton. She was suppose to be the clone of the queen mother. She had similar human DNA to Isabel. She was buying land from some of the Hispanic farmers. José was pissed, but he admitted that was mostly because he wasn’t allowed to inherit the land and sell it at today’s prices,” Maria stated.

“What Max and I found enforces that. Margret Olson was executed at a Nicholas longer than anyone else around here. They may have been under the spell of Nicholas longer than anyone else around here. Why Margret Olson was executed and exactly who did it, they are not willing to give up, yet. The village leaders said that they made the rebels take the body and leave. After the ’47 crash, they feared a royal takeover. It was the royal clones, who scared them. Most of the village has a hatred for humanity. Part of the reason they didn’t defend Margret Olson was that she was part human. They call those that do not fall apart and turn into dust at death, the ‘stinkies,’” Liz related.

“It is almost impossible to understand why they emigrated from Antar. I felt it and I am sure that Liz felt it stronger that they purely hate Humans. If aliens ever cause trouble and start an alien witchhunt, it will be because of villages like that one. Isabel has told me that she thinks several rebel villages are scattered around the world. Maybe, they are a plant. We know that Nicholas was planning a revolution here on Earth. Maybe, these villages were sent with the refugees to support this revolution by Kivar,” Max stated.

“We have an appointment with Roslyn Smith, one of the forensics specialist who turns out to be alien. She has something for us. She didn’t want to bring it to the station, so I arranged a back room at Luigi’s. I will tell you all what it is tomorrow,” Liz said.

As they opened the door, Swartz heard Alex say, “Lieutenant, we will meet tomorrow and you can tell us what you learned tonight.”

Swartz immediately went to his phone. “Hey, Agent Shellow, Lieutenant Parker and probably her partner, Detective Evans are going out some where tonight. They made it sound important. You said call if I heard them doing anything unusual and I think meeting someone outside instead of in the office is unusual,” Swartz whispered to the phone.

Doug Shellow was sitting in his hotel room. After the call from Lieutenant Swartz, he pulled out a locked case about 40 inches long. He opened it and inside there was a target grade .22 rifle. It was not semi automatic as most hunters would use and the outer diameter of the barrel was somewhat over an inch. The outside of the barrel was 24 inches long, but Doug knew that the actual barrel was only about nine inches. The rest of the barrel was made up of carefully milled spacers and baffles. Being a bolt action, the only noise the weapon made was the click of the trigger. The telescopic sight cost more than did most high power rifles. This was a weapon made for one reason, close up assassination.

It is very difficult to follow someone if they know they are being tailed. It is very difficult to ever get anything done if you are constantly paranoid about being followed. Max and Liz stayed late at the station and ordered Chinese delivery. About 7:30 that evening they left for Luigi’s place. There was no hurry and Max checked several times in his rear view mirror for any obvious signs of being followed. Agent Shellows was too well trained to be obvious. He pulled over when he saw the lieutenant and detective enter the restaurant. Shellows sat in his car and watched. Of course they could be just going for a late supper. Shellows did note the deference the detective showed to Little Napoleon. If they didn’t have something going on, it surely wasn’t Evans fault. His whole demeanor towards her was almost domestic. Evans was in love with her, that was clear. Again, Doug wondered what she felt about Evans. Oh well, in a few minutes, it wouldn’t matter. The unit said he could target Evans, only if Little Napoleon was down. The streets were empty, so Doug wouldn’t have any trouble getting away. As he was watching the front door, he saw a tall slender lady, her hair pulled back, wearing Levies and boots. What gave her away was that peeking from under her short jacket was the handle of a trowel. That was a sure sign of an archeologist or in this case a forensic anthropologist. She was carrying a heavy shoulder bag. She must be the one meeting the lieutenant and detective.

Doug drove into a dark alley and parked behind a dark building across from the restaurant. Like a black monkey in his dark coverings, Doug went up the fire escape to the roof. He found a place where he could get a good view of the entrance across the street.
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
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