Have You Been Taking Your Meds?

Monday 29th June 2020
12:40

The female duo had returned from a break and were lulling in their seats as all the office fans buzzed humid air around. The place reeked of B.O, greasy food, and the cocktail which perfumed homeless and junkies like a volatile diffuser. The ill-informed home-remedies to aid said smells did nothing but make it worse and thanks to the recently-returned Rayez and Harding, car fluid were top-notes when they’d been had by a perp who caught them in a booby-trap inspired by Home Alone only an hour ago. No matter how many showers, uniform changes, or air fresheners were jammed into the ground floor of the precinct, it was still a communal office space chockablock with sweaty bodies, high tension, and an even higher temperature. The entire building was a glorified furnace of grossness and rage waiting to erupt.

Sitting down in her chair after handing out lunch orders for those unable to leave their work-stations for one reason or another, the blonde stretched her arms above her head with a repressed yawn which caused her to seem mid-stroke. She wasn’t physically tired, but her mind had been over-clocking like an abused Windows ‘95 for the past two weeks or so. Anything she could do to redirect her line of thought - even if it would dry out her mouth or cause yet another body-ache - was worth it at this point.

"How was your weekend?" A small smirk appeared on Kaiya’s lips as she leaned forward to see between the computers, her elbows on the scuffed standard desk while she waited for her long-time friend and partner to give up the nasty details she’d been waiting for. She already had a good idea of what had eventuated, but she enjoyed hearing her friend’s telling of events. Whether it was sordid personal deeds with a new conquest, or a funny anecdote of their earlier years told from her point of view, the way the younger woman narrated always brought her out of her own head and caused a belly-laugh from the blonde.

Slouching in the dodgy chair, Sheridan leaned her head back and closed her eyes as she recalled the 'eventful' evenings since they had last seen each other. "No candlelit dinner, but candles were definitely involved."

Sheridan and Canice had been 'seeing each other' for some time now - on and off for around a year at this point, Kaiya pinned it at. Despite it being office policy not to date known criminals, it was never really a secret after that one Christmas Gala. Even the Chief brushed it aside when he saw the decline in efficiency when the pair were forced to stop seeing each other. Not like they were ‘really’ dating to begin with. It was open-ended…like two bookends that you found at a thrift store that kinda went together but didn’t actually match. They were not the last two pieces of the 50,000 piece jigsaw puzzle you’d been trying to finish for three years, but they fit the theme, so why the hell not place them together in an attempt. If nothing else, most of the precinct found the pairing good gossip and wondered why they weren’t an official couple after so long. Sheridan said it was because they worked too much; Canice said he didn’t want to compromise her. Kaiya knew better than both of them.

"What about you and Calebrese?"

Sheridan never called the man in question by his first name; they didn't seem to get along too well regardless of her knowing said man as long as she had known Kaiya. Along with Sheridan’s cousin, Spencer and Kaiya's older brother, Theodore, the five of them used to live in the same neighbourhood and spent their childhood growing up together. Matteo Calabrese had been Spencer’s best friend for years prior but after the debacle with their Senior prom…Sheridan could never bring herself to trust the man who made her friend a worse version of herself. Besides, Sheridan had someone else in mind for her friend.

"Same as always: gone most of the time, unless there’s someone else in the running to foil him. I haven't seen him in a couple of months. Gladly."

“You’re seriously still waiting on him to sort himself out?”

“It’s not like that-”

“-Then what is it like? Because a good seven out of ten times you meet with him, one of you is having to be restrained and the other is preaching you’re sorry. No matter what, you’re both bleeding and I’m stuck trying to beg the local patrol cops to not call in the mess you both make.”

“He’s my crutch.”

“He was my cousin’s waster friend who manipulated you way back when. He’s not your crutch - I am.”

The women were mid-choice to rebuke each other when they realized where they were. Both taking a deep breath, the blonde opting to stand for a smoke-break, the redhead reached out with a huff. “He wasn’t good for you at prom, and he isn’t good for you now. And now it’s that time of year again, and I know how hard it is for you but-”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“Kaiya…”

Back to her friend, the blonde shrugged her outer shirt open. Black and mauve laced the majority of bared skin. Cleavage almost burying her collarbones, Kaiya held up her hand the same way she always did when they argued and one of them needed space. Most would have thought the gesture was a way to tell someone to fuck themselves, but what most of the station didn’t know was that they had grown up in houses side by side from being toddlers. Even amongst the rumours, even after being told by Sheridan herself; when they had shared beds before they knew what bras and boys meant, they had endured something horrific together. Taking a packet of cigarettes from her desk drawer and slinging her shirt over the back of her chair, Kaiya left out of the side door.

 

13:15

Neither woman had managed to say a word to each other when the blonde returned and a familiar female stopped halfway down the aisle and gave a demure cough to clear her throat. The newly appeared woman with dark brown locks slicked back into a sleek French twist was around thirty-five in age but looked twenty-three on one of her bad days. Hands clasped in front of her, the woman in the pale pink pencil skirt spoke sternly, yet barely loud enough for the addressed to hear.

"The Chief would like to see you in his office right away," she pushed the thin, metal-rimmed spectacles up her slim nose and turned around promptly before slinking back the way she came from.

As soon as the woman - who happened to be the Chief's personal secretary - had left the ground floor, talk amongst the men flared up. Of course, they talked about her. 'Millie' was pretty and liked to wear figure-hugging designer clothes to work every day without fail, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a time she wore the same thing twice in a six month period (Many would jest about how a secretary could afford such things on their wage, most of the jokes directed at the cliche topic of sleeping with one’s boss or a sugar daddy but the woman was incredibly clever - way above the pay-grade of simple secretary, even one for the Chief of Police). She would speak meekly to the men but never pretend to be some fragile angel that needed assistance carrying heavy things and reaching high places. She once out-cursed one of the cruder desk Sergeants when he called her ‘sweetheart’ sarcastically while trying to get a feel. That aside, she was downtown Irish-American and the only child of a businessman who beat the stock market within three years of emigrating to the States when she was a baby; it made the called-for women wonder how at least half of the station had put two and two together and got nine. Of course she was going to be a no-nonsense woman.

"I hate her, y'know?" Sheridan grumbled as she pushed herself up out of her seat, glaring at the door to the hallway which led to the stairway and elevator.

"I wouldn’t so much,” cracking her neck to the left, the blonde downed her cold coffee, put her outer shirt on, and followed her partner, “if she didn’t pretend she wasn’t Satan’s mistress. Girl’s ballin’ and got a bigger sack than most of the guys in here.”

“That’s partly why I hate her,” Sheridan picked up her paper cup and begrudgingly made for the little box foyer. “I wish I had the brains and patience to make hundreds while I slept just because I was good with number patterns.”

“You could always just bring out your Mistress A-Cute Payne, and Dom the boss into being your sugar daddy.”

“I told you to never bring that up that name again after college.”

Grinning into her paper cup, Kaiya sniggered at the clear flash of nostalgia mixed with nausea covering her partner’s face, “jealousy is an ugly sin…”

“Like you can talk. You should be glad men don't hunt women for having good intuition as a sign of witchcraft anymore or else you'd be burnt a hundred times over.”

"I think if we were back in times like that, then we'd both be tortured, burnt and drown for not having respectable marriages before the age of seventeen."

"Or respectable relations with men, full stop."

"Speak for yourself."

"Okay, what did you do during your time off?"

"Organized my files, took my car in for an M.O.T, helped Perkins research his ice cream van hijack case, and spent an inconsolable amount of time and money at the local dives."

"Cheating?"

"Just 'cause I'm better at lying doesn't mean I'm cheating; The entire aim of the game is to make people believe you in poker."

"Is that how you manage to fall asleep at night?"

"Tut-tut, what ya talking 'bout? I use a bottle of Jack, some niche porn and a Duracel-powered toy for that."

Making it to the second-to-last floor, the female duo passed Millie’s desk. The pair gave varying signs of acknowledgement to the seated woman behind a fancy set-up completely unlike anything downstairs bar the admin equipment and the secretary held her hand up in greeting with a warm smile. "Go straight through," she said as she rolled her eyes for the call she was taking.

"See, she's just too good of a person; I'm jealous." Sheridan griped as she checked out the slender calf topped with what she knew to be an in-season Chanel skirt. "It makes me so mad but I just can't really hate her; 'girl's taking the bag and beating bitches with it."

Carrying on a little further down the corridor, the pair stopped a couple of steps in front of the heavy-duty office door between two sheets of glass on either side and the silver blinds shut. Sheridan nudged Kaiya, who in turn pushed her back. This inevitably led to a brief slap fight before the frazzled blonde gave up and used the side of her fist to blast the barrier like she was about to yell ‘FBI, OPEN UP!’.

"Come in," came the heavily accented droll from inside the room and both women swallowed hard.

Opening the barrier, Kaiya was first to step inside, shortly followed by her partner. The air was cool, almost magically so. It tickled their skin, nearly causing them to forget what should be inevitable. Peering up from a document he was reading, their boss sighed and pointed to the two leather seats on the other side of his desk. "Sit down."

He never told anyone to sit unless they were out-of-town officials, or if he was going to fire them. That command was always a terrible one; something bad was going to transpire.

The Branch Chief, Richard Harris, was a matured man faithfully well-suited with his almost completely grey hair always neatly combed off his face. The dual-national had moved over to America from his native England and his job in the military before the turn of the millennium. He began working as an American officer in the field and quickly rose through the managerial ranks thanks to his prior law enforcement experience. He had been placed where he remained just over twenty four years ago and due to the untimely deaths and retirement of his colleagues with similar accolades, well-known corruption of the branch, lack of experienced officers, and the lax leadership the place had endured for decades, he was unofficially placed in charge of the mess which was Sector 2 of Central eight years ago. It was only two and a half years ago that he was placed as a public figurehead due to the law stating each Chief of Police has a three-year tenure.

He was supposed to be the one to meld this branch back into functioning shape without any more internal scandals hitting the media and to bring up the success rate of cases. Lauded by the media and higher-ups in the same field for his way of dealing with both criminals and those under him who broke the law. Regardless of his somewhat controversial way of personnel management including the occasional time he broke a table between him and a slacking pawn due to his hair-trigger temper, the man was always just when it came down to serious internal struggles amongst his juniors facing unfair persecution.

Clearing his throat, Chief Harris clasped his hands and placed them on the leather writing mat on the glass desk in front of him as he watched the two females facing him. "I've got a job for you two. I hope you're not too busy."

It didn't really matter if they were busy or not: if the Chief directly gave anyone a job, they drop what they're doing and take up the new task, even if it was grabbing his trademark triple-black coffee in a pitcher-sized jug or picking up his dry-cleaning from the other side of the State. Everyone in the room knew that. Every law enforcer in Chicago knew that.

"Nope, not busy," the redhead flapped her hand playfully.

She wouldn’t usually jest with the man in charge, but she didn’t feel like trying to explain her way out of her friend flipping her shit for mundane debriefs. PMS and character imbalance didn’t really rank when under the scrutinizing eyes of the lawman in front of them.

"Good, it's a job only you two can do." Reaching to his left, the man dragged down to the common level of losing his expensive suit jacket and loosened tie to pick up two cardboard folders before chucking them in front of the female pair less than half his age. "The details are in there."

Sheridan flicked through the first couple of pages and then looked up with a puzzled expression. "This is past our pay-grade, Sir."

Still staring at the pair, Harris readjusted his position to rest his chin on his now up-propped interwoven fingers. Turning his attention to the scowling blonde, well-fixed teeth glimmered. "Don't worry Kane, you're getting a bonus for your trouble."

"Why are you giving this to us?"

"Do you not want it?" He shrugged and leaned forward to take the folders back. “Excuse me for offering a shot at redemption.”

Cutting in, Kaiya furrowed her brows. "A job that's above our grade, specifically for us..." The female locked eyes with their boss and tapped the edge of the glass worktop with her index fingernail. "Sounds suspicious - Like you're trying to get us killed."

"Well, Valentine, you're a suspicious person." Although it was an honest statement, the way he said it was an obvious jab at her nature.

 “I am the daughter of a cop and a runaway junkie,” the blonde's right eyebrow flickered as she resisted a sneer, "tt can’t be helped."

"I can't argue with that." Harris shifted again, this time leaning forward with his arms folded across the edge of the desk. "Have you been taking your medication properly?"

Sheridan internally face-palmed at the known faux-par. She checked for signs of an eruption from her partner, but thankfully the blonde beside her didn't seem like she was going to slip into her Hulk mode any time soon.

"Of course I am."

Inhaling deeply, Harris rubbed the side of his face and sat back in the luxury leather chair. "Good. Take the rest of the day off to read over the case and then start tomorrow; there’s a lot to go over.”

The pair stood up from the stiff black seats and inclined their heads to their superior in polite gesture, one more sincere than the other but before they could reach the door, the Chief verbally snagged the blonde. “Make sure you go to your appointments, Kaiya. I told your father I’d keep an eye out for you; don’t make me look like a liar.”

“Yeah, sure. I have nothing better to do.”

“I should have left you two to the wolves after that last case. The pair of you should have lost your jobs but I’m giving you a chance to redeem yourselves. Try not to screw it up."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Boss."
 
Either the Chief didn't hear the redhead’s snark, or he just couldn't be bothered to repay the favour he was known for. Once the barrier had closed behind them and they had travelled a good few yards down the stuffy hallway lined with cheap carpet and magnolia walls from the early 2000’s, Kaiya broke the silence after leaving the Lair of Doom.

"I'm not taking the elevator."

Without even looking up from the ugly pattern beneath her feet, the slightly shorter woman furrowed her brows with a clenched jaw. Sheridan merely rolled her eyes at the nuance of one of her friend’s many discomforts. Taking a few extra steps a day due to Kaiya’s peculiarities was helping her lose a few pounds, if nothing else. However, the blatant exposé she caught seconds before left a bad taste in her mouth and she wouldn’t leave that tap open-ended, especially after how they had left the conversation before being called for.

"Why did you say that in there?"

"Say what?"

"That you were suspicious."

"Because I am."

The younger female scoffed as she hit her partner on the side of the arm with their next mission's details. "That doesn't mean you should say it."

Kaiya paused just before the door to the emergency stairs and peered up with a contorted expression. "Why are you giving me a hard time over it?"

Sheridan's brows knitted together, her shoulder pushed against the wall as not to let her friend get a face full of lip and tit. "I'm not."

Shrugging off the twinges in her brain, Kaiya jumped down the first of the concrete stairs. "Anyway, what's the job?"

"You have a file too, y'know?" The redhead followed close behind as she shook her head at the same old behaviour.

"Yeah, but you've already read the first couple of pages. I'm saving mine 'til I can sit down with dinner."

“It’s not ice cream.” Trying not to let her breasts bounce too much as she raced her friend, the redhead let out a huff of humid air as she finished the stairs. "It's pretty basic: bring in a well-connected sleazeball without causing a scene."

Making it to the ground floor, the blonde wheezed as she reached for the door, "I need a smoke."

"Kaiya?" Sheridan put her hand on her partner's shoulder before the slightly shorter female could open the electronic door to the office space.

The blonde stopped with her hand over the button you had to push down in order for the barrier to open and looked back expectantly. It was a touchy subject no matter how it was said, so Sheridan voted for just coming out with it. They had known each other long enough to be candid with each other, even when one of them wasn’t quite acting themselves and the topic had a 80-20 chance of making matters worse.

"You have been going to your appointments and taking your meds, haven’t you?"

"Do you even need to ask?"

Sheridan thought about it for a second. Yes, she did. She did have to ask. Sheridan had been Kaiya’s pre-school playmate, her neighbour, and high school best friend. She had seen and felt all of the horrible things that had happened to the Valentine family over the last twenty-five years.

"If nothing else, at least we get the rest of the day off." Hand still on her friend's shoulder, the taller female shuffled close behind the blonde. “We can have coffee before your appointment, and maybe I can get a bit of grocery shopping done for once.”

Kaiya hummed and opened the security door only to step into madness. Unlike before when the office was filled with the light buzz of typing and general chatter, chaos had overtaken the space. People were dashing back and forth with paperwork as the phones were ringing off the hook. Uninterested by the commotion, the blonde veered for her desk to collect her belongings from the locked cupboard of her desk.

In the centre of the aisle, Sheridan caught sight of Cardinelli and flapped her hand over her head to gain his attention. "What's going on?"

The man that was significantly shorter jogged over, his chest heaving as he held a phone to his ear and shoulder. "There's-" he paused as he eyed the blonde digging through her desk drawer with her back to the pair. "There's been a double murder. They found the bodies down a back alley near the shopping district."

"And all this is because of that? This is Chicago; is there a day we don’t have a killing?"

Lowering his tone as he leaned in, Cardinelli whispered, "A pair of kids." He pulled back, tilting his head and quickly glancing away. “They think it’s the pair which went missing last week, but they can’t tell because animals have…” Features twisting, the shorter man shook his head. “It’s not easy to I.D them.”

Now, any kind of child-killing was sad and looked upon as sick, but to that branch in particular, everyone immediately thought the worst when it came as a pair. The entire precinct had placed the non-violent criminals in a single cell, while the other four were taken up by those who had committed violence to others, and then left to their own devices as all hands were on deck in the office.

"Don't say anything to her," Sheridan hissed and spun around to the reception desk. Reaching over, she picked up the sign-in sheet and began scribbling both hers and her partner’s name on the list. Just about to put the clipboard back, she was met by the desk Sergeant on duty.

“This is horrible, did you see the news?” Donna asked as she scanned the sign-in sheet, her eyes beginning to water.

“I haven’t, we’ve just come from the Boss’s office to this.”

“My daughter shops with her kids around that area.”

“Donna, we need a police siren; I have to get Kaiya out of here before she sees the news.” Undoing the buttons of her uniform shirt from her neck, Sheridan couldn’t keep herself from making sure her partner wasn’t looking at the tiny television screen hooked on the wall. “I’ll call by your daughters on the way out and make sure every thing’s fine.”

On the verge of weeping, Donna reached under the unit and handed over a magnetic-bottom cop-flasher. “Reyez had to hand his in after-”

“-I’m not trying to be rude but,” stuffing the light under her arm, she grabbed the pen to finish the sign-out only to be stopped.

“Don’t worry about it.” Donna took the sheet back and wafted her hands, hurrying the redhead along. “Go, before they lock the doors.”

“I will call you when I get to your daughter’s place.”

Holding her hand out, Sheridan practically scooped her partner up by her collar and dragged her through the ebb and flow of hysteria. Kicking open the main door, the pair were dowsed in the harsh afternoon sunlight and the rush of civilians going about their day. Meandering around the parked cars of the enclosed lot meant for personnel, the pair were as different as chalk and cheese.

Sheridan was twitching at every sound, while Kaiya was face deep into a packet of Oreos she was leaning on the roof of her car while blindly fumbling for her keys. Sheridan wanted to make a snide remark bout the scene only separated by two seats and a bit of metal, but the revelation from inside halted her.

"What time's your appointment?"

"3:30."

"You've got ages to kill..." Sheridan hummed as she took the bags off the blonde and dodged around the back of the car to put the stuff in the trunk. "What do you want to do?" She gestured her hand to the vehicle, trying to prompt her friend to unlock the trunk.

Doing as she was told, Kaiya clicked the immobilizer fob on her keys and then rolled around the outside of her prize possession. "I was going to drop you off at the store and then just drive around until it was time to go in."

Sheridan paused and gave a look showing she didn't believe that for a second. "If you're going drinking, I'm coming with you."

Glancing back over her shoulder with a pout, the blonde watched her partner slam the trunk shut and then march straight for her. "I just told you that I’m taking my meds.”

Sheridan stumbled over her thoughts, and then her tongue. She didn’t want to seem like she’d ignored the answer to her question, but she didn’t want to pretend that she hadn’t noticed the signs either. “I know you’ve been drinking.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t expect to fool you with a fifteen-minute, low-pressure shower after thirty-seven hours of hard white cider, several bottles of JD, and two hundred packs of smokes I’d consumed over the weekend.” Sniffling her nose because of allergies, the blonde stared at the security gates surrounding the police parking lot: The yobs, and whores, and bums, and hapless looking for fortune in a city like Chicago; them half-starved to death staggering past, her vision jittering and a knot in her gut. “I saw the way they looked at me when we came back down.”

“They’re just assholes.”

Shaking her head at the reply, the blonde rolled around the side of her car, the back of her shoulders searing against the heated metal. Snorting, she got inside with a shrug. “Whatever you say.” Starting the ignition, the rumbling low causing the cherry seats to vibrate, the driver sparked the end of a cigarette. “I just want to know why you’re trying to baby me when we’ve been through so much shit together.” Keeping her eyes on where she was going, the driver sniffed sharply as they approached the electronic gate.

“It’s that time of year - forgive me for taking precautions.”

Sheridan watched the rash of men in blue and black scatter in the rear-view mirror as they left the car lot. She thought about telling the truth, but this was the 0.001% that ignoring the fact was probably the better option - her friend was set to see a professional in less than an hour

It was now Kaiya's turn to give a disbelieving glare. "What do you know that I don't?"

"What?" The redhead opened her window, hoping for her friend to give up even more than for a random breeze to ease her chafing. "I'm just saying we should go for a quick drink before you have to go in. Plus, I really want Ben & Jerries Baked Alaska. Like, right now.

Elbow resting on the door frame, Kaiya glanced to the redhead who seemed to have lost her mind in the last ten minutes. "I think you're full of shit." The driver revved the engine and raced the change in lights, her expression slowly turning brighter as she did so. "But if it gets me a free drink, I'm in; you’ve got first round, and I want some chilli-cheese fries with my triple shot."

Sheridan clicked her seatbelt over her torso and instantly changed the radio station to the CD which was already in the vintage player. ‘Car Wash’ by Rose Royce played and Sheridan’s mind shot back to being blasted with high-pressure jets after the last case. Verging traumatized, her jittering finger skipped two. ‘Fat Bottom Girls,’  gave an early twanging intro and the female snuck sly looks to each other.

They had been women of their own missions, but within sixty seconds, they had become a pair again as they belted the words to one of Queen’s biggest hit. Windows down, Upper uniforms sacked for tank tops, the pair sung their lungs out as the State went to hell yet again.

 

13:55

Pulling around the back of a block of rough-looking buildings, the female pair entered yet another establishment through the back door. As soon as the tender had laid eyes on the blonde, his arm raised in a point.

“I told you not to come back! You cleaned me out and fucked off the wrong people, Valentine. Find somewhere else to scam,” a small Eastern European lady swept at their feet with an old fashioned broom.

“I guess we’re not welcome here…”

“What the Hell did you do in your time off? It was two weeks, and this is the third place refusing to serve you.”

“‘Had a good time, apparently…”

Swiping stray hairs of her face, Sheridan tried to refrain from throttling her partner. All she wanted to do was keep her from finding out about the recent news - and possibly stop her from being shot by mobsters for cheating at cards again - but the slightly older woman was clearly Hell-bent on making her life difficult. At this point, if she herself didn’t get a shot of something strong in her, she was the one going to turn murderous.

Brought back from her thoughts by her phone buzzing in her pocket, Sheridan retrieved the device and checked the newest message.

‘Hey Cuz, I’m back in town. Let’s get a bite when you’re free.’

Reading and rereading the message, the redhead expelled a curse at the timing. Knuckles white under the grip on her cell, she glanced between her partner provoking the bartender and said tender threatening the grinning blonde with the stick-end of her broom.

“Come on, Kaiya.” Shoving her phone back in her pocket, she snagged the older female’s bra strap and plucked it to get her attention. “Let’s go and find somewhere you haven't offended everyone.”

Clicking her tongue off her teeth, the blonde gave in antagonizing the bartender and made for the door they’d come in through. Holding her hand up with a look of grimaced apology, Sheridan shadowed her friend out of the dingy pub.

Updated: 20th April 2020 - 19:04