Free Flutter by L. E. Green Page B

avoid the question. He rolled his eyes and walked to the second floor and into the staff lounge. It was empty for a change. Brown was relieved. He filled a mug with Folgers decaf. One of the rookies was usually on assignment to keep coffee hot and ready. After filling his cup and adding sugar, he headed back to his desk, hoping to avoid an argument about last night’s baseball game. Though he did everything in his power to quietly return to his desk, Detective Chris Duffy noticed Brown’s effort to slip by.
    “Oh Brownie. Where are you going?” Duffy teased.
    “Stuff it Duffy, I don’t wanna hear it.”
    “Just hand over the spoils, Brownie. This is the debt you pay for being a Yankee fan.” 
    “It’s not about winning the battle…” Brown insists. 
    The crowd of cops and detectives chime in, “It’s about winning the war.” They laugh.
    “No! It’s about winning the game! Shut up with that crap. Pay up you sore loser!” Duffy gloated. Brown handed over two fifty dollar bills. Duffy held the money up to the light, “I gotta check the authenticity of these bills. Can’t trust a New Yorker these days.”
    “Shut up or next time you’re getting your money in pennies and scratch offs. Enjoy your insignificant victory. They don’t happen very often, Duffy. So we know you have to soak it in when you can.” The crowd laughed as Brown bitterly walked away. FUCKING BASTARDS! Detective Brown sipped his coffee as walked back to his desk. Piles of papers were added to his desk since he had left yesterday evening. As he shuffled through some of the papers, he was interrupted by Meghan Finch.
    Meghan Finch was ready to work. “Good morning Detective Brown.”
    “Good morning, Detective Finch.” He barely made eye contact as he shuffled through some papers on his desk. “I can’t believe this.” He was upset about the amount of paperwork left for him to review.
    “I know you haven’t had much time at your desk, but we have to go. A call just came in from Tammy. There’s a new case that’s come in and Downy wants us over there now.”
    “Hope it’s a good one. Debrief me on the way.” Detective Brown and Detective Finch head out quickly.
     
    Meghan Finch was a new detective that had been assigned to shadow Sydney Brown for three months per order of her precinct. She was 5’4”, strong and red–headed with a few freckles on her nose and cheeks. Meghan had been a police officer at the precinct for about four years before she began their homicide detective training program. Finch was known to be pretty tough. She did, however, have to take a month off after being punched in the face at a Beanie Man concert. Her nose was broken, and when she passed out from the blow, her face hit the pavement and her cheek bone was fractured. This happened her second year on the force. The assailant was a drunken UMass student named Darcy Small who had just lost his mother that morning. His friends took him out to clear his mind, and things didn’t go very well. Meghan sympathized with the kid and convinced the judge to lighten the sentence if he promised to attend counseling for three months and volunteer at the Every Woman’s Center on campus. They sent biweekly reports of his progress and hour logs to Finch’s lawyer. 
     
    Finch had about a week left under Brown’s supervision. Things were going pretty well and she was ready to embark on her full–time career in the homicide unit. Brown trusted Meghan enough to let her take the lead on the last investigation, which she led successfully. In the last investigation, Finch ruffled a few feathers when she investigated a robbery that led to the arrest of Sean Pearson, the youngest son of Jackson Pearson, a real estate tycoon who was in the process of negotiating the purchase of a highly sought after site by the Boston Harbor. The case against his son was solid. There were four witnesses, 30 minutes of footage, matching serial numbers, and a snitch. The case got even