2021-12-04 - Better News

Cassidy sits on her couch in her living room in a house too big for just her. Well, rent is cheap and she refuses to stay in an apartment. She's tried the roommate thing at least twice but people always move away before they can settle in. Can't say she wouldn't like to do that herself.

"Hey Siri, call Officer Numbnuts..."

The short statured blonde has her hair tied straight up in a mess but at least it's out of her face. She's wearing pink and purple unicorn pajamas. There's a glass of wine on the coffee table and also the heel of her foot. Her hands are occupied by a bottle of red nail polish and its brush.

Soon after Siri bleeps her acknowledgement the phone starts ringing. Cassidy focuses on her big toe and leans forward to paint it red, waiting for Ruiz to answer his phone.

The call connects on the fourth ring, a hair's breadth before it's about to go to voicemail. There's a click like it briefly thought about trying it, and then a rustle and a loud thump that's probably something in the background tumbling off the nightstand.

Then, after a pause of perhaps two and a half seconds, "The fuck do you want?"

Cassidy sits back and admires her handiwork. The profanity caused her to smirk. "Hello to you too, grandpa."

Cassidy bends forward to apply polish to the next toe. "How are you holding up?"

Maybe she woke him up. He sleeps funny hours, because his schedule's a mess. Shift work'll do that to you, and so will waking up in a cold sweat thinking you're back in Afghanistan, being shot at by insurgents. The grandpa gets a snort out of him, and he swings his feet down and pads to the stairs. "Well, you're insulting me, so you must be in a good mood. You finally get laid? Or you have something else you want to get to the fucking point about?"

"Well are you sitting down?" Cassidy winces as she gets a little sloppy on the polish application. "Shit," she murmurs.

She puts the brush in the container, sets the paint aside, then starts waving her hand over her toes like a fan.

"Nope," comes the gruff answer, followed by the blip of him putting her on speaker phone, and setting the thing down so he can go rummage in the cupboard for a glass.

"Anyway -" Cassidy rolls her eyes. She sits back in the couch and gets her foot off the coffee table. "Your old, senile, forgetful ass forgot to turn in your service revolver when you put yourself on leave..."

There's more to say lingering in the silence but she wants to make sure he understands he's old and senile before she goes on. Evident by the smirk on her face. She reaches for her glass of wine.

No immediate answer. Just the clatter of glasses, followed by the sound of the faucet being switched on, then switched off. Hey, at least it's not the sound of a bottle of liquor being opened.

Then, "Do you have a point you're getting to, or did you call me up to talk about my ass?"

Cassidy puts her other foot on the coffee table and leans forward. She grabs the polish again and gets to work. She says almost dully, "Well you can imagine our confusion when Benjamin McNeely's ballistics report came back identifying a gun that wasn't at hand to be tested."

There's a loud snort from the cop as he nearly chokes on his water. "Oh, for fuck's sake, Bennet," he manages, once he's swallowed it down the correct pipe, "don't act like you're actually fucking surprised. You knew I had nothing to do with this bullshit from day one."

"We were confused, not surprised." Cassidy says very slowly for him.

She rolls her eyes and sets back on the task of painting toe nails. "Anyway - looks like someone is out to get you. The ballistics expert didn't seem to realize how or why his report didn't make any sense until we explained it to him very very exactly." She pauses for a moment. "Then he said someone in the lab must've swiped the gun."

Yeah she's confused.

"Potato fucking potah-to," mutters de la Vega over the rim of his glass. Maybe audible, maybe not. He goes to collect his phone, and pads over to the couch, where he sinks in bonelessly with a heavy sigh. "Okay, so.. someone in the lab must've swiped the gun." He repeats this precisely, trying to imitate her way of speaking. Which sounds fairly ridiculous with his accent. "You'd almost think there are dirty cops in this town."

He thinks for a moment. "I've been wondering if we didn't manage to root out all the guys loyal to Reyes, a few months back. And that little sting in Spokane, maybe it ruffled a few feathers."

Cassidy huffs in exasperation. "I don't know Javier. I'm just telling you what the guy said. Obviously he didn't test your gun if he never had it to test in the first place. He's either a fucking nutcase or the best liar I ever seen. He /swore/ by his report and almost broke down into a shivering mess when we pointed out to him it was impossible. Poor fucking guy felt he was going crazy."

Cassidy looks up to the wall in front of her. "Look...just get back to work, okay? I'll take care of the City Council."

She hangs up and goes back to finishing her nails.

He chortles as she hangs up on him, studies his phone for a moment, then tosses it onto the couch cushions. "Fuck," he mutters into the hand scrubbed over his face.