haolehothead | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Danny's taken Kate's gift as a sign from the island not only to her, but as a message to him as well; step it up. He'd been happy to leave her to her classes and procedure books, but there were practical lessons that never hurt to have. There were also a lot of them and Danny was only one person (with only so many hours in the day). It meant that he wanted to get started. "So, we'll do a crime scene mock-up next week," he's telling Kate as he guides her to their hut. "But I figured we'd start today's lesson with some interrogation techniques," he says. "I even hauled in a perp."

He gestures to the door, knowing Steve's probably ready in the spare room. "Now, this guy's been charged with being a public menace by dangling a tourist off a hotel roof. Your job," he says, "is to try and get information out of him first, a confession second. You ready for this?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kate doesn't want to admit it, but she's pretty psyched about this whole thing. First, she's pretty sure she knows exactly who the 'perp' is. Second, she wants to start using the word perp like, all the time. And third, she's also pretty sure that she'll get to get in Steve's face and yell at him. Which isn't something she'd normally do. She likes Steve. He's nice to Danny.

But this is a lesson. And if Danny tells her to do something, she'll do it.

"Totally ready," she said, trying not to smile too widely. "Ugh, wait, I have to get over being excited, otherwise I'll look like the good cop. Or the high cop, I guess."

Steve's mostly spent the afternoon focusing on turning their spare room into less of a bedroom and more of an interrogation room, pushing the bed to one side of the room and setting up a chair in the middle, a chair on either side.

He's sitting in one of them, the one that faces the door, and he can already hear voices on the other side. Danny's told him how to play this, and he's not exactly going to make it easy for Kate. Danny would probably be pissed if he pretended to break under the pressure. He leans back slowly, crossing his arms over his chest.

Danny leads Kate in, one hand on her shoulder as he opens the main door. "Remember, I'm gonna be there the whole time, so if you want to take an aside and ask for advice, I'm right there," he says, stopping just outside the guest room door. "And before we even go in, actual violence with a suspect could get brought up in court and a case could fall apart. So, none of that."

"I promise not to rough up the suspect," she promises dutifully before pushing open the door to the room and stepping inside. There's Steve, sure enough, and Kate knows she's supposed to be learning, but she can't help the brief quirk of her mouth as she sees him sitting there, arms crossed, looking like... well, sort of like a guy who's been arrested.

"Hi," she says, then pauses. "Wait, am I supposed to do that? Like, say hi or whatever?"

He's not really supposed to be helping, so he doesn't offer up any clues. If anything, he's supposed to be someone on the receiving end of an interrogation, and though he doesn't imagine Danny's given her free rein to do the kind of things he was trained to withstand, he's not going to be an open book either.

Instead, he remains silent, waiting to respond until he's directly spoken to, glancing from Kate to Danny with a hint of a smirk.

"It really depends on the kind of interrogator you want to be," Danny explains. "Some people, they go for the whole cheer-thing because it can set a bad-guy off." He settles down in one of the other chair, watching Steve carefully, mouthing 'be good' to him. "Start with a listing of the crimes. It's never a bad idea to remind the perp what he's in for and what he could be facing, charges-wise."

"So I could start with something like wipe that smirk off your face," she snaps, whirling on Steve quickly and it's amazing how much fun that really is. But smiling won't help matters and so she squashes that desire as soon as it begins. That's totally not what Danny meant, she thinks, but she doesn't think she's ever going to be the cheerful kind of cop.

"You're being charged with being a public menace," she recites, remembering what Danny said to her just outside. "Dangling a tourist off a roof is a serious offense. We could put you away for years. Even here. A blank slate means nothing to me."

It takes a lot of inner strength not to openly break out in a smile, but he quells the urge, arms still loosely crossed as he pulls his gaze back from Danny to turn it on Kate, letting her take the brunt of the staredown at this point.

So he shrugs, playing the lackadaisical approach. "I don't know what you've heard, but he wasn't some tourist."

Danny keeps a straight face, but to say that he's brimming with pride is an understatement. He couldn't have even dreamed she'd be so good with a couple of well-placed words. "Don't let them lead you away from your point," he coaches Kate. "You don't want the interrogation to fall apart because you're arguing over something else. Stick to the facts."

"I thought I wanted information, too," Kate hisses back, confused for a second. Does she actually know whether or not the guy who was dangled in a tourist? Maybe he's a terrorist. Maybe that's what Steve means.

"So you admit you dangled him off a roof, then," she says to Steve, hands on her hips. "Whoever he is isn't important right now."

"Maybe I did, maybe I didn't," Steve replies, being about as unhelpful as a perp can be - granted, this is the point where either he or Danny would resort to some unorthodox tactics to get the answers they want, but there's nothing like a good shove in the deep end to teach a newbie how to swim.

"You're saying I did it? Must have some damn good proof, then," he adds, trying to look skeptical.

Danny gestures elaborately with a hand, feeling like he can participate now since he's the one who came up with this scenario. "Witnesses," he says with a smirk. "Three in the elevator witnessing a gun-toting man with a disturbing look on his face heading for the roof and several people on the ground witnessing the man dangling. Keep going," he says, to Kate.

"And the man you dangled off the roof himself," Kate adds, hands still planted firmly on her hips, doing her best to keep her face straight. "He got a pretty good look at your face, my friend, before you hung him over the edge."

And, she figured, between that many witnesses, they would totally have him identified. That's proof.

"He's still alive," Steve points out, offering little more than the smirk he continues to wear, taking the nonchalant approach to this fictional threat of being charged with a crime.

"That's got to count for something, right?"

Danny's pleased with how this is going. "Remember," he says to Kate. "He's not suspected for murder. Grievous bodily and psychological harm is bad enough. Don't get swayed."

"Yeah, alive enough to identify you at the person who caused him grievous bodily and psychological harm," Kate answers. "Which he's totally willing to do, for the record, wait, can I say that?" she asks, turning back to Danny.

She figures this is sort of a time-out, at least for a few seconds while she gets her answer to this question. "Or is that like, some sort of breach of privacy or whatever?"

Steve takes the opportunity while Kate's back is turned to relax his expression somewhat, putting on more of an amused look than an openly contemptuous one.

She's doing well, unquestionably, but he's not going to bring up that kind of positive reinforcement until the interrogation is under her belt - so he leans back, leaving the floor to Danny to answer her question.

Danny flashes a giddy and private smile to Steve, practically mouthing 'isn't she amazing?' as he gestures wildly to Kate before turning back to her. "You don't want to put your people in danger, no. There are all sorts of technicalities this guy can get out on. Do you really want to give him ammo for revenge?"

"Right, okay," Kate says and it takes her a second to find her place again, but she does find it. She turns back to Steve and her hands find their way to her hips again as she looks at him, one eyebrow arched. "Just because he's alive doesn't mean you won't be charged and put away," she reminds him. "So it's in your best interest to start talking to us now, before we have to..." Do something really tough, is what she wants to say, but that's not quite right. "Before we have to see what our witnesses have to say about you."

"Fine," Steve replies, after leaving a long pause beforehand for a bit of dramatic effect. He doesn't exactly change his posture, but his shoulders relax slightly, releasing some of their tension, and he exhales softly.

"Maybe we can come to some sort of deal. You give me what I want, and I'll give you what you want."

"Good," Danny says, clapping his hands together. "Good, this is always where you want to get to. Criminals, as a rule, will sell each other out if they can only cut a deal. So, what you have to do, now, is make sure that the deal you offer is worth the information you get. So, no promises until you get what he has."

This is the part Kate is less sure about. Threats are fun and she can bluster up a bunch of over the top emotions with the best of them, but she has no idea what sorts of deals she might offer. Still, she has to try and so she leans forward a little, appraising Steve.

"Fine," she echoes after a long wait. If he can do it, so can see. But that's all she says. Instead of offering anything, instead of making any promises, she just waits.

"Fine," Steve echoes, leaning back a little more in the chair, clasping his hands in front of him as though he's got them in a pair of handcuffs.

"There's this guy. Said he'd pay me to get info that your so-called tourist knew. He also said that he didn't care what I had to do to get it, as long as I left him talking afterwards."

Danny raises a brow at Steve, wondering if this is his cutesy little way of stretching the actual truth. If it is, they're going to have words later. "Oh, so not good enough," he retorts, shaking his head and making an 'uh uh' gesture with a shake of his head. "No names, no proof. This could be nothing more than an elaborate yarn. Better make sure he's being honest."

"How do I do that?" Kate asks, looking back at Danny. The whole waiting thing is easy. All she has to do is look bored and she's pretty sure that's good enough, but trying to find out whether or not Steve is telling the truth is something else entirely.

"Lie detector?" she asks, although she knows that's probably not how they do it. She just has no idea what the next step would be.

Danny glances to Steve, then back to Kate. "What you need to do is go for something that'd hurt. If you're bringing in someone who's already served, you want to talk about parole violations. I know it can be seen as manipulative, but if there's family connections, you want to suggest what might happen if his cronies found out about him possibly rolling over. We offer to protect them, but only if the truth comes out. All deals fall apart if the information isn't sound."

Kate thinks about asking what she should do here, but then decides to just go for it on her own. She taps her fingers against her arm and looks at Steve. "Well, I have a little file on you pulled here. I can see a little time spent in jail already and I think that this stunt might just qualify as a parole violation."

She looks at Danny, as if he's the good cop to her slightly-bad-but-not-really cop. "Isn't that right?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only