Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [39]
“Well,” the black guy said, “she’s not an officer anymore. I mean, she was suspended, and the city she was supposed to serve and protect’s a radioactive crater, know what I’m sayin’?”
The white guy nodded. “Fair point. Still, she’s a member of the community, y’know? Anyhow, Officer Valentine, I’m Special Agent Hicks, this is Special Agent Graves.”
“Fuck this,” Graves said. “I ain’t callin’ her Officer shit.”
Jill finally spoke. “If you prefer to call me Ms. Shit, I’m okay with that, Agent Graves.” She added a sweet smile.
“Oh, you’re funny.” Graves got up and started pacing. “This is bullshit. Let’s just toss the bitch in a cell and—”
“On what charge?” Jill asked.
Hicks smiled at her in as insincere a manner as possible. “Don’t tell me you don’t know, Officer Valentine.”
“Honestly, I don’t. I was placed under arrest, I’ve had my rights read to me, and I’ve filled out paperwork saying I waived my right to an attorney. By the way, you guys should look into streamlining, ’cause our paperwork takes maybe half the time. I mean, I know, the higher up the food chain you get, the paperwork metastasizes, but damn—it shouldn’t take twenty minutes of me doing my chicken scratch just to say, ‘I don’t want a lawyer.’”
Graves sat back down, folding his hands together. “We like to be extra careful with law-enforcement types. You know the system, so you’re more likely to try to fuck with it.”
“Now, why would I do that when I let you guys catch me?”
To their credit, they didn’t react at first. Then Hicks chuckled. “C’mon, Officer Valentine, you really expect us to believe that—”
“I made the guy in the fast-food joint, not to mention the signal car that had been driving past every fast-food joint in the area trying to find me or one of my alleged co-conspirators. You know, the guy wearing the black North Face coat big enough to hide his piece, the ball cap from a local minor-league team, and sunglasses—all newly bought, I might add.”
Hicks and Graves exchanged a glance. “Maybe you’re right,” Hicks said. “Maybe we should just toss her in a cell.”
Jill leaned back in her chair and tried not to smile. Hicks was trying to get Graves to agree so they could leave the room and regroup. Jill hadn’t been what they expected, and she hadn’t been following the script they laid out. These guys were pathetic—a good interrogator would be able to go with the flow if a perp went off-script, but these guys obviously weren’t the FBI’s finest. She was almost insulted.
“Hang on,” Graves said, modulating into Good Cop. “I’m curious—let’s say you did let yourself get caught. Why?”
“You play the tape?”
“What tape?”
“Oh, cut the shit, Agent Graves. I only had one thing on me when you guys slapped the bracelets on. The tape. The digital tape. The one that looks just like the ones that were on various West Coast news stations before Umbrella ‘exposed’ them as fakes.” Although it was an affectation that annoyed her when other people did it, Jill made little quote marks with her fingers when she said “exposed.”
“Funny you shoulda done that,” Hicks said. “See, that’s the main piece of evidence against you on the fraud charges. That’s what you’re being charged with: fraud.”
“Gawrsh,” Jill said with a smile. “In Raccoon, frauds are taken care of by the gomers—the test takers who managed to get a gold shield thanks to the written but aren’t really detectives, know what I mean? It’s the low priority shit.”
“Yeah, so?” Graves asked defensively.
“So I get flown across the country for just fraud? Cah-mon, Agent Hicks, Agent Graves—there’s gotta be more to it than that.”
“Oh, there is,” Graves said, leaning forward and grinning. “See, you pissed off some really important people. People who don’t take kindly to slander.”
“Slander?” Jill leaned back and put her hand over her heart, as if aghast. “Agent Graves, I am shocked. I have committed no acts of slander. If the tape I released to various news stations is false, then, yes, I admit to aiding in the perpetration of a fraud. But slander? That would require my bearing false