2019-09-21 - GHPD All Hands Meeting

The meeting today is a little less formal than a roll call, but a little moreso than the usual Friday meet and greet over donuts. For one, someone's brought in the fancy stuff; a unicorn donut sits tantalizingly at the top of one of the open boxes - and there are a lot of boxes. Second, there's a projector set up, and a uniformed captain currently poking and prodding at his laptop to try to bring something up on the screen. Looks like the Chief had more important things to do than run this damned meeting, so guess who he delegated to?

Finally, the GHPD logo pops up, followed by some boring ass powerpoint presentation that Ruiz clearly had no hand in. Mostly because there aren't anywhere near enough f-bombs sprinkled through it. He shoves his hands in his pants pockets, and prowls over to one of the side tables to poke around for a donut while he waits for people to show.

Alexander is an (unfortunately, in many people's opinion) common sight at the police department, and tends to fade into the background unless he's actively haranguing someone, or someone happens to be keeping an eye out on him. He's dressed like he's always dressed, and just sort of...loitering as if he's waiting for someone. Actually, he's keeping an eye on the briefing room, and as cops start filing in, tries to pick a fairly large group of them that are chatting with each other and not paying attention, and just tries to file in with them like he totally belongs with them. Well. Not just. There's a stir of power as he just gently nudges them to be more interested in each other than to him. They're fascinating. The back of the room is also just a liiiitle more attractive than the front. Go stand back there, guys. Alexander'll just be right here. Lurking behind you.

The unicorn donut is only sitting on top of one of the boxes tantalizingly for approximately 2.8 seconds before Haven swoops by and scoops Her Precioussssssss up on a napkin and moves to stand off to the side. She's dressed in uniform pants and boots, no duty belt and a plain black t-shirt. The rings under her eyes say that sleep most likely did not happen this morning, probably because she cut it short to be here. Third shifter problems. But duty is duty and here she is, awake or not. At least she has the best of donuts. Like a good rook, she ignores the powerpoint presentation and instead as she grabs herself a cup of coffee, she finds herself near Ruiz.

"Good morning, sir." Except it isn't morning. Well, it is for her technically.

Unicorn Donuts. That's not okay. Detective Sarah Stevens stares holes into the evil thing, and it stares back into her soul. It's hard not to look at it. To touch it. That donut is her destiny. Her entire life has led up to it. And now it is here, within arm's reach, crying out for her. 'It's okay.' It whispers into her ear. 'It's only an extra half mile or so at the gym...'

She narrows her eyes. Closes them. ...And turns away.

Stevens jacket is somewhere over by her desk, probably. This leaves the GHPD cop in a dark-gray tanktop and a pair of jeans. Badge hangs from a chain around her neck, gun at her hip, a pair of 'well loved' sneakers that probably used to be white on her feet as she resists the siren's call of a donut and instead moves to stand in the back of the room, where she has this weird little desire to hang out instead of comfortably taking a seat.

The blonde groans with a thumb hooked into a beltloop at her hip, reaching up and rubbing the back of her neck as she rolls her head around on her shoulders. Nope, definitely not noticing the lurker. She's barely more than a muggle. Doesn't know enough about this new-fangled... Glimmerati business yet.

Rick steps into the room, moving to gind himself a place to place himself. There's a nod and a brief smile offered towards the others present, but he keeps quiet for now. Pulling out a good old notebook as he looks towards that presentation for now.

Ruiz is doing his best to ignore the powerpoint presentation, too. Maybe coffee will drown out the torment of having to get up there and talk about recent trends in B&Es, domestic assault and traffic violations. Here's the coles notes version: everything is fucking up. People are dropping like flies, and the GHPD's close rate on cases is rock bottom low. Way to energise the troops there, de la Vega. "Morning, Haven," is both incorrect (since it indeed isn't morning) and barely intelligible (since the captain's mouth is full of boston cream donut). But at least he smiles at the rookie with his eyes. Then something else pulls his attention away, and he glances right at Alexander for about five seconds before making a face like, why does this shit happen to me. "How was your shift?" That's to Haven, though both Sarah and Rick get a nod and another crinkling of his eyes in greeting while he digs into his donut.

But look! Alexander may not be hiding as well as he might like, but he's being very quiet and standing out of the way. When Ruiz stares at him, he kind of scuffs one of his workboots, and stares back, eyes dark and soulful. There's a glance towards the door, but no one's actually ordered him out, so he just hunches his shoulders and pretends he was totally not noticed.

At least he's not trying to steal donuts?

"Long. Busy. And I didn't sleep well. Dreamt of a dragon. Fought it with some soldiers. Stabbed it with a unicorn. Woke up." All of this is delivered with a deadpan face and neutral monotone by Haven as she pours herself a nice sized cup of coffee (black, naturally, because who wants anything to get in the way of the caffeine load?). She manages to not slosh it all over the place and bites into her sparkle-gel-filled unicorn donut.

Around a mouth full of unicorn, she asks, "You, sir?" Then she sips an obscene amount of coffee out of the cup.

Who wants to live forever anyway?

Swinging her gaze from the Captain, she spots Rick and gives the man a pinky finger wave with her donut supporting hand.

Like she can smell a gathering of donuts so large in this building. Sutton, on-duty by the dark cargoes and GHFD tee, leans against the door frame, surveying the cop shop's gathering. During some boring ass presentation, she slinks in to grab a donut in each hand. She's already got one in her mouth before anyone says anything. If anyone's going to. Powdered sugar poofs everywhere across her arm, her shirt, her hip. It's fine; the blonde takes another huge bite.

The blonde in the back lifts a hand, two fingers extended, next to her eyebrows before flicking them off and away from her temple in a mock salute as she catches Ruiz's gaze. Maybe she's saving all of her energy for cracking wise during the powerpoint presentation. It's her preferred method of staying awake through them.

Too many donuts in this room, and they are all staring at her. It's giving her hives, and the ex-junkie is pretty sure she's going to break. Her diet and exercise regimen was not built to withstand this kind of pressure! At least Alexander is fooling one cop in this room, so there's that going for him.

Sarah is standing right next to, and a little in front, of him and doesn't even glance his way, despite clearly not being an officer. Instead, she's tapping someone sitting in front of her, in the back row on the shoulder and leaning down to ask if they caught the game last night.

Offering a nod and a grin in return to Haven, Rick moves over to get himself some of that coffee as well. Always black coffee for him. He glances around the room again, as if looking for someone in particular, then back towards Ruiz and the presentation.

Carter is the newest member of the force, having only started in the last week after coming from SFPD in California. The rookie has been present, but quiet, having found himself a cup of coffee and a seat, but no donut (yet). He takes in all the new faces -- those he has met, and those he hasn't, as he situates himself, still completely unfamiliar with most, and the precinct, and the way that things are run, so erring on the side of just paying attention.

The captain is busy trying not to drip cream filling all over his fancy-ass uniform, and hasn't yet noticed the rogue agent (ie GHFD spy) here to steal their donuts. After narrowly averting disaster, he flashes Haven a sympathetic smile for her story. Something about the way he's watching her, like he's not too sure if it was a dream. Or a Dream. Not that he says a damned thing about it. "Still alive," is his contribution to how his day's going. Which probably says plenty. Then he's off to go start the damned presentation.

"Welcome, everyone. We've got a few items on the agenda to get through, and as you can see, the Chief couldn't be here today, so I'll try to make this as quick as I can so we can get back to work." A quick, dimpled smile from de la Vega before he starts flipping through slides. Mostly the usual crap: pretty graphs showing crime at an all-time high, and a depressingly low rate of cases being closed. The precinct is too small to really bother divvying things up by department, and violent crime seems to be dominating the charts right now, so most everything else is given lip service at best.

Finally, he makes it through the snoozeworthy charts and graphs and statistics, and gets to everyone's favourite slide: new hires! "First up is Officer Carter, who's joining us from the SFPD. Stand up and tell us a little about yourself, Officer."

Alexander does not find the charts and graphs snoozeworthy. He watches the presentation with a fixed and reptilian interest, like he's memorizing each and every one. He's not even distracted by donuts, or the bored chatter of the cops he's hiding behind, except to the point that he has to shift one direction or the other. When Carter is introduced, his eyes flick in that direction with the same interest.

"Jesus," mutters the paramedic. That's one boring powerpoint. Sutton watches it for like thirty seconds, eating her messy donut. By the time she finishes it, it looks like she's the worst cocaine snorter ever to attempt and fail to snort.

It's a one-woman Fire invasion of the PD's sanctum. And it thinks y'all shit is boring. Er, she does. Sutton does.

She does begin a tactical retreat to the rear of the room, so as to eavesdrop in a less obvious manner. Not that she's exactly the stealthiest person alive. She actually leans up against Alexander, sliding an arm around him. What fresh hell is this. "I don't know you. Are you narco?" He looks like a degenerate undercover to her? Did we say degenerate? Ahem.

At least the casual slide-and-lean is her intention. If Alexander screams like a girly man, the cops are definitely going to notice those interlopers are back there.

Carter stands up from his seat and offers a nod to those gathered, "Officer Carter Reid, recently out of San Francisco. My sister Claire and I inherited our father's old place here in Gray Harbor and just moved in a few weeks ago. She's an emergency operator. I'm learning way more than I ever wanted to know about home improvement. Nice to meet you all. Looking foward to working with you." He gives everyone a nod and a little lift of his coffee cup in salute.

After getting the updates from a fellow officer, Stevens straightens back up. Air blows from between her lips as she lets out an unabashed sigh of utter and complete boredom, cheeks puffing out with the effort like she's trying to blow up a balloon. That's when she spies her babysitting duty.

Angling a bit, the Detective slides between rows just enough to land a hand on Carter's shoulder and lean over to flash him her best Hollywood grin, dimples and all. She almost loses the sunglasses out of her hair in the process. "Heeeeeey, Rook. Your sister told me to make sure you had your juicebox and that you got your nappie time. You doing okay? You need some cheezy crackers? No donuts, you'll be up past your bed time."

She gives his shoulder a little squeeze before something catches her out of the corner of her eye, straightening up her spine with a frown as she eyeballs Sutton. "Well now, little lady. We don't take kindly to your kind 'round these parts." Is she joking? Is she!? The tone says no, the smirk says yes.

But then the meeting starts, and the blonde slides down in a seat next to Carter, pulling her sunglasses off of her head. "The trick is..." She whispers, sliding them on over her nose. "To always be wearing sunglasses. So people don't notice them much anymore. Then you can sleep through these things."

The slides, the graphs. Even with the sunglasses on, one can FEEL her baby blues glazing over from behind the mirrored lenses. She tilts her head as Carter stands up to give his introduction, and then pats him on the knee when he's done, bright, tight-lipped smile in place. "Good job. That'll do, Pig. That'll do."

Alexander is a little weird, so it stands to reason he'd not find the graphs boring. Ruiz, however, looks like he's about to suffer a narcoleptic fit and flatline right there on the spot. He could be doing any number of things more interesting than this, right now. Drinking, sleeping, sending someone dirty text messages. But he pretends to give a shit about introducing new folks, and leads a round of applause after Carter's told them a little about himself. "Next up, Officer Haven, a one of our newest rookies and a Gray Harbour native." He knows where she's standing, unfortunately, since he was chatting with her earlier. The blonde is given a glance and a smile to indicate it's her turn to stand up and talk about herself.

Sutton, meanwhile, is given some sideeye when he catches sight of her double-fisting donuts in the back. And.. apparently hassling Alexander. Hm. He'll leave that one to sort itself out.

Rick nods as he watches the slides and graphs, frowning momentarily as he watches them. When the time comes to Carter's introduction, he studies the man for a few moments, offering him a nod and a grin in greeting. Sipping his coffee a bit thoughtfully, he joins in the applaus as well, before he looks to Haven as she's the next one to be introduced.

Alexander does not scream like a girly man or flee from the room when Sutton slides up next to him and leans close. He can't really avoid the arm without darting out from behind his 'cover' - and even though he knows Ruiz knows he's there, plausible deniability needs to be maintained. Right? He seems trapped, then, and just goes stiff and cringy under the arm, his eyes widening with alarm. "I don't know you, either. I've heard your voice on the dispatch," he mutters, keeping his voice low. "But not for a while. Please stop touching me. My name is Alexander Clayton." He offers it like he hopes it is sufficient ransom to get back his personal bubble. No answer to whether he's a cop. Because he's sooooo not.

Mid-bite of donut, though she should have anticipated what was coming, is Haven when her name is called. She smiles a neon blue sparkly smile, a la her unicorn donut, but thankfully finishes chewing before she speaks up. "My name is Penelope Haven. Some of you might know the other Havens in town or perhaps have frequented our Bonsai Shop. Most of us like trees more than people. I like both. I'm thankful for the opportunity to work with you all and protect Gray Harbor." She leaves off the "serving" part. With that she takes another healthy drag off her large cup of black coffee.

It's Locard's Principle in action, guys. Sutton transfers a goodly amount of powdered sugar to Alexander when she leans against him. She takes a bite of a second donut, watching Ruiz try to stay upright. It's funny. She didn't realize someone could both speak and look like they're about to lapse into a coma at the very same time. The back of the room keeps it quiet, voices likely not carrying (at least hers) much past the back of the gathering. "Oh, so you listen —" And then he's asking her to please not touch him. "I'm sorry, love. Get a bit handsy, me." She probably knew he wasn't a cop, and groped him because of it. "You're Clayton. Pleasure."

"Sutton," the blonde elaborates. Sort of. She has yet to let him go. Rude. "Have a donut and relax, love. You seem tense." She releases him then and offers a third donut she somehow spirited away from the boxes. It's a classic glazed, pillowy and sweet. Maybe if he takes it, she'll go away.

Sutton does a thumbs up for Haven, though she doesn't clap and direct any more attention to herself.

Sarah swings her gaze from Carter to Haven as the woman is indicated, for her to introduce herself. It's like the first day of school. Everyone turning in seats to stare at the new kid as they try to sum themselves and their lives up in one or two sentences that won't be too boring or too detailed.

Good times.

Poor Alexander is busy being accosted throughout, but this time there's no friendly former LAPD to come to his rescue and keep other officers from crowding and questioning him. He is very much on his own as she finds herself unable to do more than simply glance in Sutton's direction as she hassles... someone. Whoever that uninteresting non-person is in the back there.

After Haven's introduction, while everyone is busy clapping, the LA blonde looks back to Carter, leaning into him at the shoulder to whisper just above the cacophony. "She's kind of hot. You should ask her out. It'd be adorable. We could you call you guys Reiven. Good shipping name, right? Don't worry, I got this." Sarah waggles her eyebrows atrociously at the male rookie with a wicked smile, looking back towards Haven as if already plotting out her future matchmaking debacle, smiling at female rookie and giving a thumbs up after the applause.

More applause after Haven's said her bit, and then a couple of other transfers are intro'd: one from Detroit, and another a Canadian ex-pat from nearby Vancouver, and prior RCMP officer. Cue the mountie jokes (of which there are a few).

"Next item of business is our current caseload. We have, as you're all aware, a few ongoing investigations into a rash of suspicious deaths." The slide on the screen is flipped, and the title reads 'Sea View Suites Homicides'. "Officer Stevens, what's the current status of this investigation?" No gory pictures. Mostly just a list of the detectives involved, the name of the victim(s) and other pertinent information and notes about the crime itself.

Alexander blinks. He turns his attention to Sutton, staring at her. He keeps his voice low. "H. Everly Sutton. Irritating that the full name is rarely included. Paramedic. Partner to Bennie Oakes." A glance towards the front of the room, where Ruiz is, and then he's staring at Sutton again. "Ah." He takes the donut, in the hope that it will release him from her arm grip. He looks like he might ask something more, like what the 'H' stands for, but then Ruiz is talking about MURDERS. And that's the best thing ever, so his gaze flips back to the front of the room, flickering between the powerpoint and Sarah.

Carter seems to take Sarah's pattings and cajolings in stride, not even blinking as she pets his knee, taking another swig of his coffee as listens to Haven's introduction. He gives a smile and a nod to Haven, and then arches a brow and notes to Sarah quietly, "If you think she's hot, why don't /you/ ask her out? Or are you still holding out for my sister?" an amused little smile on his lips. But then he falls silent as they begin to move on toward the actual caseload, his interest focused there.

There's only one truly legit reason for showing up late to an important all hands meeting, and that's working on a pile of backed up paperwork the boss never has to deal with it. So when detective sergeant, wearing the finest suit one can get at Target, sans jacket and plus suspendies, Andy Géroux comes in from the back of the room, having luckily missed the riveting PowerPoint presentation, he grabs himself a glazed ring in passing and drops into a seat near the exit, like, hey, what? I've been here the whole time.

Haven looks off to the side where Alexander and Sutton are, then eyes forward gain, before slowly looking back towards the EMT and her current object of attention. "DonutThief." She's about to march over that way when the slide changes to the Homicide and she stops abruptly. Even the last bite of her donut is forgotten in the wake of the current topic of the meeting. Her blue-eyed gaze moves through the crowd and land on Sarah, her full attention given to the Detective.

"Hey, you know Claire-bear's the only one for me." Sarah snorts, trying not to draw too much attention by laughing out loud. "She keeps playing hard to get, maybe I will. A girl can't wait forever, even for someone that loves the ocean."

Mounties. Eesh! Do they even have crime in Canada? Moose hunting?

"Ah shit." As soon as the words 'Sea View' pop up on screen, Sarah is groaning inwardly. A hand comes up to the back of the chair in front of her, using it to help her rise up to her feet. Her glasses are pushed up off her nose and into her yellow hairline. Big smile! Dimples! Hollywood!

"Chen, Morgan, and I are working the case. We got two vics, both dead from gunshot wounds to the head. Right now no clear motive. We know they owed money to Felix Monaghan, because who doesn't? But they were keeping up with the payments. No enemies uncovered, a few suspects."

Sarah's usual warm charm has evaporated into a more business like tone, like a grocer ringing up a total as she shoves her hands into her back pockets and shifts her weight to one foot.

"We have a few working theories. Daughter has a 'former', airquotes heavily implied, gangbanger of a boyfriend. Right now I'm liking him for it, daughter inherits everything. Right now we're treating her as a 'suspect lite'. Another idea is an out of town hit, someone looking to move in Monaghan's turf. Seems unlikely to me, but... Morgan is taking on Monaghan. Chen and I are trying to pin down the daughter and a few people who were staying at the motel at the time it happened."

"Oh, we've brought in an outside consultant who's helping with the case." Three guesses who THAT is!

Riveting powerpoint presentation is riveting. If you're a potted plant, maybe. Ruiz is probably secretly hoping that the laptop explodes, the FD has to be called in, and the PD gets the rest of the day off to go to the beac- wait. Outside consultant? The captain glances over to where Alexander's still (in)conspicuously lurking, and makes a face. Jaw tight, dark eyes slightly narrowed. A beat. Two. And then he shifts his gaze back to Sarah and gives her a curt nod. "Excellent. Thank you, Detective Stevens. Let me know if you need more resources." That is, flunkies to help her out. Next slide.

"Detective Quintanilla's working the Bayside Homicide case, and couldn't be here today. But, ah.. what we've turned up so far is that the body's been IDed as Michael Addington, whose sister, Susan Lewis, was murdered a few months ago. The investigation is currently pending an autopsy report." And some evidence that will stand up in court, somehow, to support the theory of a ghost of a serial killer as a perpetrator. But he's not holding his breath for that.

Sutton glances over at Alexander when he recites her name, job, and partner. "Dude, that's a little creepy." She doesn't sound overly creeped, though she does ask, "Do you have my social, too? I keep forgetting it, and my ss card is stuck in my apartment potentially behind a battalion of goblins." She takes a bite from her second donut, turning her attention forward. Sea View Suites homicides. She sighs a soft sound that sounds like frustration. "Assholes," is muttered under her breath, which is only loud enough for Alexander to hear. She remains standing near him, but doesn't touch him again, her attention on the meeting. She's scooped up her fair share of corpses in the last couple of months. The glam life of a Gray Harbor paramedic.

She takes out her phone and sends a text with her thumbs. At least her nails aren't long enough to tappy tap the screen. It's silently done.

Is it possible to hide even more when you're already hiding? Alexander tries when Sarah mentions an outsider consultant and Ruiz looks once again in his direction. He sort of folds in on himself. A flinch as Sutton says the 'creepy' word, and he shrugs. "I could probably find it," he admit, in a mutter. "If you want." He neglects to say whether he means the number itself, or the actual card, even if that mean breaking into her possibly-goblin-filled apartment. A sidelong look to her, before he tries to tune back into the VIB (Very Important Briefing).

'Outside consultant.' The Captain did not like the sound of that, and glared pretty hard at what appeared to be Sutton. Makes sense. Donut thieving freeloaders up in here cruising for free grub in between washing their pretty red truck and not doing anything. At least he didn't ask her any more about it.

So Sarah is free to ooze back into her seat without a care in the world. To keep on living the dream. "Will do, Cap." The blonde shoots a finger-gun at Ruiz on the topic of additional resources/peons to do work for her. The thought does have an appeal, and she casts quick sideglances at the pair of rookies in the room. A plan begins to come together... One can see it written aaaaaall over her face. She's not subtle with her expressions.

"Is it me, or are Addingtons getting a raw deal in this town?" The Detective scoffs. "I don't get why they don't all move." She places her hands in front of her and to the left. "Like, when your family is being hunted by a great white shark bent on revenge." She moves her hands to the other side of her. "You move away from the ocean."

Andi comes in late of course, she'd just got back into town after speaking with one of the deceased's ex-wife. Fucking waste of time. She carries herself with the air of overworked, underpaid and tired. Sinking down into a chair she asks anyone who feels like answering, "Rick been around yet to fill anyone in on our guy in the harbor?"

Shut up, Alexander, this briefing is super important. See? Ruiz is totally engrossed in.. his phone. When it promptly buzzes. He surreptitiously slides it out of his pants pocket, glances at the message on the screen, and quickly replies while Sarah's soapboxing about Addingtons, yadda yadda. "Great, well. Detective Johnson isn't here yet to provide her update." A glance at his watch, and the look on his face suggests that Detective Johnson may be getting reamed out later for that little transgression. "So we'll break for now, and reconvene in about thirty with an update on firearms qualifications and a couple of minor changes being brought in to use of force guidelines." Does he notice Andi walking in the door? Not yet. But he will. Oh, he will.

Andy just sits and enjoys his donut. Showing up late means not having to do an introduction. It's a win in so many ways. The paperwork wasn't great? But the other stuff, A+. In response to Sarah's comment he says, "They're the Addingtons of Gray Harbor. They go to New York or LA or something then they're just people who used to be the richest family in a town no one has ever heard of." He finishes off his donut, then adds, "Or maybe it's hometown pride. Gotta get that GHHS football."

Her obligatory pop culture cameo accomplished, Sarah stands up at the mention of a break. At least talking about movies keeps the cinephile awake, and this time she wasn't making a Hot Fuzz or Bad Boys reference. Because those are her jam. And Die Hard. But everyone loves Die Hard. Especially the Stevens'.

Now Detective Hollywood just needs to do some legwork and find literally anything to do that will get her out of the update on firearms qualifications and guidelines course. If she has to sit through that, she is going to eat her gun. Just one more statistic of Law Enforcement.

"Yyyyyyyeah." Sarah asides to Andy, doing her best not to roll her eyes TOO hard. "The plight of rich people, am I right? Such a hard knock life."

Sarah raises a hand as she nears the sidelines, near where all the donuts are. "Rookies! Rooks! Come to me, Rooks. Gather around me all... both of you. Reid. Reid! I see you avoiding eye contact, young man. Haven, I require you. You both. You... two. Yes. Come."

The blonde is gesturing at each one of them with her hands, one for each of them, palms up, all four fingers bending to gather them both to her through the power of the Come Hither Four Fingered Curl.

Carter takes another swig of his coffee and good-naturedly rolls his eyes at Sarah before pulling himself up and wandering over to where her little come-hither act is going on. He waits, patiently, to see what it is exactly that she wants.

Andi is a lifer in this town and she looks amused at what Andy has to say. Her older brother was once a star on the football team in his time, now he sat on the city council. "Guess it doesn't much matter when you become a has been, just as long as at some point you are a once was. Someone will remember you." Since it was break time she plops her folder on the desk. "Looks like this one was the real deal. Not a copycat after all." A light shrug, watching Sarah with a single raised brow.

For her part, Haven pays attention to the slides and the reports on the homicides. The final bite of donut is absently finished and she takes a sip of coffee to polish it off. When she hears the call for the rookies, her eyes drift slowly Sarah's way and blink. Much like Carter, she doesn't seem the type to just hop to. Instead, she turns back towards the donut table and claims a plain glaze donut before she moves in the Detective's direction. She halts just shy of the woman and says, "Hi," before looking at Carter.

"Hey California. You look like you actually slept recently. I may need a Plainclothes to Third Shifter interpreter. You game?" A side eye is given to Sarah.

Sutton goes mercifully silent, respectfully listening in on the meeting, which fills in a few blanks between the rumors she's heard, the bodies she's seen, and some shop talk around the water cooler. She does thumbs-up to Alexander, though, then goes back to typing silently into her phone. Her radio is turned down very low, no doubt accompanying a few chirping radios on the uniforms.

She glances up once, when Sarah makes an observation about the Addingtons. She shifts, sucking in a short breath, then clears her throat lightly. Nothing to see here. Then Sarah says when your family is being hunted by a great white shark bent on revenge. Sutton shoves the rest of her donut into her mouth. She really looks like she wants another one too.

"Okay, so." The Come Hither Finger Summoning Technique evaporates as Sarah slaps her hands together in front of her, rubbing them together briefly before separating them, looking first at Carter, then Haven, as they approach. Once she's got them in close enough, a hand goes to each of their shoulders.

"How would you two like to get some Big Girl Work? And Big Boy Work. We don't discriminate here." Her hands retract, motioning between them. "I have a laundry list of people that need questioning, and not nearly enough people to get it done. So if you want to earn some brownie points and look like heroes who go above and beyond, I can give you a list and the pair of you can start hitting the streets. Together."

She flicks a finger to Reid, then to Haven, eyeballing them both. "That's important. Get each other's backs. If either of you is too busy, let me know, got other cases you're working on, let me know. I'll find someone else. You'd be assisting Chen, Morgan, and, of course, Yours Truly." Sarah gestures at herself while bending her knees in what might be charitably called a modest curtsey.

"We have some potential witnesses we haven't hit up yet, and we got some gangbangers whose skulls we need to cr- Ahem." She places a fist to her mouth and politely coughs into it, resetting herself. "Whom we need to diligently, yet politely, question." A glance at either of the lucky contestants. "You game?"

It's Alexander's turn to lean. He can't possibly be nosy enough to try and read a near-stranger's text messages, CAN HE?

Yes. He can. He absolutely can. He tries! But when he's noticed, he breaks off, and starts to sidle away, more towards Sarah and her huddle of rookies, and Andi Johnson. To the latter, he sort of eels his way towards her. "Detective Johnson," he murmurs. "What tells you it's not a copy cat? If I can ask?" If he can ask in the briefing he's totally not supposed to be in.

Captain de la Vega, meanwhile, excuses himself to go and deal with something. He'll be back in time for the update on use of force regulations, surely. Sutton gets a long look on his way by, and Alexander a grumbled, "If you start any shit whatsoever, you'll be spending a night in the cell block," before the cop in full gear and shiny pins prowls on out. The two Andies, presumably, he'll deal with later.

"Yeah, sure," Carter says. "I'll help out." He doesn't seem particularly concerned about being a hero, or scoring brownie points, however. "Barring orders to the contrary," he says with a nod in the general direction of the Captain, indicating whoever is above his pay level who might countermand the use of his time. "Send over the list and any priorities you've got as to who should be questioned first." He glances over to Haven, checking to see how she feels about it and says, "I'm happy to work with Officer Haven on it."

"As long as the boss okays it, I'm happy to help," is Haven's reply, lifting her chin and nodding over in Carter's direction with a smile. Her teeth are slightly blue and her lips are sparkling. The innards of a unicorn donut endure for quite a long while.

Since she's 'all-in', she looks back to Sarah and says, "Thank you for the opportunity to be of assistance, Detective," before biting into the glazed donut in her hand. It looks rather delicious, incidentally. "When do we start?" she asks around a mouthful of sugar bread.

"At least you won't be alone in the cell block my friend." Andi mentions to Alexander. "We've got a live one in there, all full of quips and queries." A nod towards the holding cell area. "I'm not absolutely sure but from the looks of things it all rings true to the traditional version of William Gohl's MO in past reports." (CAUSE STAFF SAID SO! 😛)

"I'm not gonna start shit," Alexander mutters to Ruiz as he passes by. Then, more quietly, barely audible even when the man's at his closest, "Thank you."

Sutton's texts, or what he can see of them, get a raised eyebrow and a brief flicker of a smile, but he doesn't say anything. Just stares at her for a moment, clearly amused, before making his way towards Andi. "Oh? Well. The holding cell is boring. Gotta keep busy somehow." He hums thoughtfully at the confirmation. "Good," he says, at last. "Copy cats are assholes." A pause. "How are you doing?"

"That's my boy!" Sarah soft-slugs Carter in the shoulder with a grin. "Babysitting you is easier than I thought it'd be. Hey, don't tell your sister I'm sending you to talk to thugs, okay?"

She next pats Haven on the shoulder. "And that's my girl. Relax you both, he said whatever resources I need, right?" A glance at the blue sparkle-lips on the woman, before pressing her own together and trying to hold in the smile. She fails, because Stevens wears every bit of her heart on her sleeve when not in Detectiving Mode.

"You have to tell me where you get that lovely shade of lipstick, Penelope. I'll text you both the shorthand, and I'll show you guys the files after all this," She waves a hand at the rest of the room. "Is over. Right now I have to get out of here or I am going to paint the walls a lovely shade of Sarah's Brains if I have to sit through any more of it."

The former LA cop turns to leave, pauses, places a hand on Haven's bicep and leans in towards her ear, lowering her voice. But not nearly enough that Carter won't here. "Reid said you're crazy hot. Should get on that."

Releasing the poor, unfortunate souls who have fallen into her latest case, the Detective saunters her way out of the door to go pretend to be doing anything that will get her out of a meeting.

Andy raises an eyebrow as Sarah starts assigning duties, but doesn't make a comment just yet. There's a time and a place for that sort of thing. Instead he flips open a notebook, scratches something down and then pushes himself to his feet. The donuts are perused again until he finds something with an only mildly diabetes-inducing amount of frosting on it. The donut is paired with a lukewarm cup of coffee and then he completes the picture of cop-dom post 30 by fishing out a nicoderm patch from his pocket and sticking it to his arm, halfway between the wrist and the inner-elbow. "Well. Time to go make the world safer from inter-departmental fs-21 forms."

Sutton glances over at Alexander. Did she notice him checking out her texts? If she did, she just smiles, tucks her phone away, and goes back for another donut. She chooses a chocolate cake, taking a bite before she slinks out. The cops are making cop plans, and she has what she came for. "Cheers, love." And off she goes, like she never was here, except a fine trail of powdered sugar across the floor.

"Tired. Just got back from Portland and talking to my victim's ex-wife. Pointless trip. She knows exactly jack about it. He was a slob, we all know that much, but couldn't trace anything between him and Addington OR Baxter." She was one who trusted Alexander, he'd helped her out a few times. The Unsung Detective.

Vince arrives late, which isn't unusual for the detective. He tends to work on his own schedule, for better or worse. As he slips into the room he's already checking his watching wondering how much longer the meeting might be going on for. He smiles at anyone who looks his way as he slips into the back of the room and leans up against the wall. Folding his arms over his chest he looks out over the room taking stock of who is and isn't here and what might be going on.

"Blue is my color," Haven fires back at Sarah without missing a beat. She takes another bite of donut, because she's a freaking champ at that, then gets that earful from Sarah as she departs. Of course, her eyes are on Carter as the words are spoken.

There's a beat of silence and then she says, "I am feeling a little hot. I don't know if I would call it crazy hot. I think I'm coming down with something."

Alexander grimaces at Andi. "Shame. But good to eliminate that, at least. And it might just be...poor bastard got in the way or something?" He shrugs. "Saw something he shouldn't have. I'm sorry." He offers a faint smile to Andi, and then another one to Vince as he comes in. His shoulders sort of hunch as people start filing out and his (completely useless) cover begins to diminish. "I should go. Don't actually want to end up in the holding cells." But Haven gets a curious, sidelong look as she mentions coming down with something. He peers at the rookie for a long moment, then starts to sidle away. Last thing he needs is a cold.

"Pfft. No such thing as a wasted trip to Portland, detective." Andy eyes Andi dubiously at her dismissal of his home turf. Rude! "I hope you at least stopped by Apizza Scholls while you were there. Best pizza in the PNY. Or get some breakfast at Fried Egg I'm In Love? That parks right outside of Portland PD HQ." Shit, he's gotta get back to Portland. Bring back a big box of takeout. It's only, what, two and a half hours away?

Andi nods to Alexander as he walks off to some others and she collects her file folder she'd been prepared to share. Fate had it she didn't have to after all. From left field over there she glances over at the voice and notices the Sergeant. Adopting a lazy drawl she murmurs. "Now before I left here no one told me the place to go in Portland. I consider this omission to be intentional on your part and will have to hold you to supplying me with said pizza at any given point between now and ... breakfast too? There, you book it, we're going. I'll take nothing less than a personal tour now."