“Oh,” Nick said softly. “Oh.”
“So now I want you to just relax about all that,” Cally told him. “You can worry about it once we get back home and settled into the new place. No more shop talk until we do get back home! For right now, we’re on our wedding trip.”
And she kissed him, slowly and thoroughly, arching so that soft, naked breasts pressed against his bare chest.
When she finally broke the kiss, his arm tightened around her, and he grunted once.
“Mmph. Well, that changes things…” he muttered.
“Changes what? How you’re looking at the job?”
“No. I was gonna agree with you – enough shop talk, let’s get some sleep,” Nick explained. “But after that kiss, now I got other ideas…”
And he pulled her close, as she giggled.
Rebuilding
A week later, newly-minted IPD head Lee Carter and his wife, Imperial City Police Colonel Maia Peterson, Deputy Chief of Investigations, had joined IPD Investigations lead Detective Dominick Ashton and his bride, recently promoted ICPD Detective Cally Ames, at their new place for dinner.
“Wow,” Maia said, as Nick let the older couple in. “Nick, you have got a helluva tan, baby boy ours. You’re almost as dark as I am!” She laughed; unlike her husband, who was medium-skinned with brown hair going gray, Maia’s complexion was a rich mahogany, with eyes so dark they were almost black.
“Heh,” Nick chuckled. “You should see Cal. Talk about your blonde bombshells, I’m married to a golden girl.”
“And loving every minute of it, I bet,” Lee grinned.
“No argument there. C’mon, Cal’s in the kitchen.”
Cally, who was an amazing French chef in her off hours – thanks to her father’s passing on his heritage and the family recipes – was making dinner, while the others sat around the bar overlooking her workspace in the kitchen of their new home – which was not the apartment either of them had been living in during their courtship. Promotions, as Nick had noted, combined with double incomes and a temporarily-enhanced salary on his part, meant an upgrade was possible, and they were now the owners of a very nice middle-income, three-bedroom-suite condominium. This allowed for overnight visits from family and friends who lived farther away, and they were pleased to have gotten it for an excellent price.
“So how is the chieftainship going, Lee?” Ashton asked. “I can report in that Investigations is getting there, slowly but surely. I even talked my old roommate, Peter Stone, into coming back and signing on.”
“I dunno, Nick,” Carter said, shaking his head. “I’m thinking that there’s several things that need to be done…”
“Do you need a sounding board, Lee?” Cally wondered, as she sautéed a pan of mushrooms in olive oil with copious quantities of garlic; a delicious fragrance wafted through the room. “You have three more rather experienced police types sitting right here to provide advice and ideas, you know. Nick has been making use of The Team, as it is. You’re welcome to pick as many brains as you like.”
“Yeah,” Ashton agreed. “Everything Cal said. We’re more than happy to help you, if you need recommendations or suggestions, or whatever.”
“Eh, I dunno,” Carter sighed. “You guys have more than enough on your plates as it is. I hate to load you with my stuff, too…”
“Nuh-uh, Lee. That won’t do. We’re all here, and we’re all willing. Spill it, honey,” Peterson said, elbowing her husband.
“Okay, okay. Maybe you’re right; I do need to bounce the stuff off somebody. See, I’m just thinking that we need to distance ourselves, in an obvious fashion, from what came before,” Carter noted. “Both in nomenclature and in structure. And frankly, from what I can tell, Emperor Trajan agrees. Or at least likes the idea.”
“For instance?” Ashton asked.
“Okay, lessee. Well, in structure, I was thinking we needed a flatter hierarchy. It was the top-heavy big shots that were the main source of the problem, and it filtered down from there. If we have fewer management types and more get-out-there-and-do’ers, I think we stand less danger. Not none, but less.”
“I can see that,” Peterson said. “ICPD has a flatter structure, and always has had, and we do pretty well in that regard. Whenever somebody gets his snoot in the air, we take ‘im down a few pegs – or replace ‘em – and we move on.”
“Exactly,” Carter said. “So I’ve been thinking something more like that. In fact, that ability in ICPD is what gave me the idea in the first place. Even so, we’re gonna have a certain amount of people wearing multiple hats – like Nick, here – until we get fully staffed, but it’ll be faster to fill a flatter structure, anyway.”
“Yeah. That’d work,” Ashton agreed. “Maybe all we really need to do there is to work out what divisions we actually need, have one person over each division, and that one person reporting to you.”
“I like it,” Carter averred. “We’d need a section layer on top of that, but I don’t think much more than that. Plus, the section layer sort of comes ‘in addition to,’ and most of the Headquarters people wouldn’t be involved with most of the section leads. At all. And it sorta fits what the Emperor’s doing overall, too.”
“Yeah, it does, and they wouldn’t,” Ames decided. “If Nick and I can help you brainstorm what the divisions need to be, just yell. I think we can manage that, at least.”
“Yup,” Ashton agreed. “Is this gonna filter down through the other sectors an’ districts and planets an’ shit? We talked about that a couple times, but you didn’t have an answer to it yet…”
“Eventually, yes,” Carter decreed. “When I went in to interview with the Emperor and the Consul, they were interested in having the sector police chiefs report to me, ultimately. I mean, that’s one of the five sections – you know, planetary, provincial, sector, Empire, Imperial City. And most of those are already pretty well straight, not corrupt, and any that are corrupt are more likely to be at the planetary level, which is gonna be much easier to fix, in the long run. Honestly? It’s really Headquarters we’re most concerned with at this point, because that was the festering swamp of snakes that needed destroying.”
“Okay, so we have a team right here to help you lay out the divisions, and the division heads would report to you,” Peterson said. “What else, Lee?”
“Nomenclature,” Carter said. “We had a big ol’ talk about that, the Emperor, the Consul, and me. The old IPD was seriously deep into ranks, like military-style ranks. We want something much less militaristic for the ‘new, improved IPD.’ Otherwise people get to thinking they are a military, both inside the organization and out. And that goes in a direction we flatly don’t want.”
“Ooo,” Peterson hummed. “There’s a notion. But how are you gonna designate things like rank otherwise? I mean, Nick’s a detective, and the investigators report to him, and he’s the acting Investigations lead…”
“He’s not just the acting Investigations lead right now,” Ames noted. “He’s been having to help run the group of beat cops, too.”
“Shit,” Peterson grumbled.
“Oh? I hadn’t heard about that,” Carter said, raising an eyebrow in surprise. “I appreciate the effort, but don’t let yourself get overloaded, Nick.”
“Eh, it’s okay. I just advise a little, here and there,” Ashton murmured. “They don’t have an actual lead yet, and their most experienced ‘non-old-guard’ cop is still a little wet behind the ears. There’s a few cops in there with some rank on ‘em, but as a group, they seem kinda disorganized. The ranking guys are ‘old-guard,’ and they haven’t been beat cops in some few years, and they aren’t helping the beat cops figure things out. Those guys are a little too stand-offish, I think.” He shrugged. “All the really experienced street cops got taken out in the retaliation by the Emperor. And frankly, should have been, I think.”
“I have to agree with you on that, son,” Carter affirmed. “On all of it. But I didn’t know you were helping out with that,
too. I need to get on top of that.”
“Eh. Like I said, Lee, just advising. Take your time. It’s no big deal. I think we have it under control, at least for the time being. If you could concentrate on getting someone to transfer in that has some experience at organizing beat cops, it’d help, though. Some days, it feels like herding cats.”
Carter nodded. “Okeydoke. Hang on a sec; I’m making a note to myself in VR to do that very thing,” he said then. When he came up for air, the conversation resumed.
“Okay, so how are we gonna do this, then?” Peterson wondered.
“Well, for starters, I’m not Chief Carter, I’m not General Carter, I’m the Director,” Carter said. “Director Carter now heads up the IPD. And that’ll make a big difference, right there. What I need now is to come up with the seniority levels – we’re not even gonna call ‘em ranks – for everybody else. Hopefully some of the rest of it will fall out in the process.” He paused, then glanced at Maia. “And I think you had some of it right there, honey. Investigator, detective, inspector. If we need to subdivide any of those, we add numbers. Investigator level 1, level 2, level 3. Those denote experience, not rank. The bigger the number, the greater the seniority. I guess we could do that with detective and inspector too, if it turns out we need to. And that should be transferable to other divisions, as well; we’d just need to figure out the appropriate titles. Then the person who runs a division is a lead, and the division is effectively a team of sorts. So they’re team leads, or division leads. Investigations Lead Ashton, stuff like that.” He glanced at Ashton. “How does that sound? Nick, are you good with being called the Investigations Lead?”
“Sure, Lee,” Ashton said. “We could even denote the new guys by the year they start with us. You know, like ‘Class of whatever.’ And that, as a formal designation, will denote who has seniority over who.”
“It’s an idea,” Peterson said, “but what about somebody like you or Cally, who comes in already head and shoulders above their class? If we’re just using Academy graduation years, then there’s a problem with the overachievers and the fast-trackers. If we use some other designation, then we at least have the option of skipping a level or something.”
They fell silent for some moments. Finally Carter commented.
“Well, I think maybe we need to drop back to that ‘level 1, level 2’ concept after all. I kind of like it, to tell the truth. It’s like grades in school or something.” He paused. “Okay, so let’s get to work on the flattened hierarchy. How–”
“I thought the Emperor pretty much did that already, Lee,” Ames quipped, and they all laughed.
“Very funny, Cally,” Carter said, grinning despite himself. “I’d just as soon not have him do it again, so let’s get serious for a minute. How can we subdivide the org chart in the simplest fashion…?”
“Okay, serious. I think maybe a better thing to do,” Ames offered, as she plated dinner, which would be served in a casual, homestyle fashion, “is to scrap the old org chart completely and just start over from scratch. What groups or teams do you actually need…?”
Carter raised an eyebrow.
When Carter finally pulled out a notepad in VR, shared it with them, and began to scribble, they knew they were onto something. It took several hours, which meant most of the evening – even straight through dinner – but by the time they were finished with after-dinner drinks, Lee felt they had it pretty much nailed down. And everyone was enjoying the brainstorming, given they were all in the same business.
The foursome had finally settled in the den with mugs of after-dinner coffee – some were alcoholically-fortified – with Cally and Nick lounged on the sofa, and Lee and Maia in the two-person recliner facing them. There, they finalized their work.
“…And so we only have five levels,” Carter said. “The Director is at the top, and reports straight to the Emperor. Then there are the five section directors, and the Imperial City section director can be my deputy director. And then he has two deputies, one over Administration, the other over Field work. Hell, in a personnel pinch – which we sure as hell got right now – the deputy director could be one of those operational leads, depending on his or her personal expertise and work load – which reduces the management load even further. Beneath those two operations assistants are three divisions each. Admin has Maintenance, Bookkeeping, and Dispatch, with all the keeping-up-with-shit stuff, like payroll, procurement, evidence cataloguing, and all that kinda stuff lumped into Bookkeeping…”
“Yeah,” Ashton jumped in. “And then the Field assistant has the actual Field Officer division, plus Investigations, and then there’s Special Teams, like forensics.”
“Right. And there’s a Division Lead over each of those six divisions, though early on, some folks may wear multiple hats,” Carter confirmed. “And then the rank and file personnel – which comprises most of the whole damn department, empire-wide – are under those. I can see some people maybe being under two or more different divisions, like maybe somebody is both an investigator and a forensics expert, so we can matrix them if we need to.” He paused, then added ruefully, “I know, before I retired, there were something like a billion people in the Imperial Police, and there’s probably more now. That’s gonna get interesting to run. I hope I’m not biting off more than I can chew.”
“Wow,” Peterson said, mostly ignoring her husband’s sudden uncertainty, though she did give him an affectionate nudge by way of encouragement. “That looks really good, guys. You got the entire structure down to only needing around fourteen managers, total max. At least here on Sintar. I guess there’s a lot more through all the various sections and sectors. But that’s a helluva lot flatter than the old Headquarters was.”
“Not bad,” Ames agreed.
“Yeah, and three of those really aren’t managers, quite, they’re just my assistants,” Carter noted. “And I can squish some positions together if I need to, to accommodate staffing.”
“And you’ll do fine, Lee,” Ames added. “You know what you’re doing, you’re honest, and you know enough to delegate.”
“Listen to the lady,” Peterson remarked. “She may be younger than us, but she knows what she’s talkin’ about.”
“Okay,” Carter said, only mildly grudging.
“Yeah. I think we got something here,” Ashton concluded, studying the VR notes. “And we got a good team, and a great leader, to put it all together. But Lee? I thought of something else.”
“What, son?”
“Like it or not, we do have some ‘old guard’ coming back. And we have no idea if they’re gonna deal well with this or not… or even wanna try…”
“Yeah. So?”
“I’m thinking we need to do some stuff to make damn sure that everybody under you is actually loyal to the Throne.”
“Such as?”
“I dunno. Really in-depth background checks, for starters. Hell, I’m not averse to the notion that they all have to sit in that lie-detector chair like the Imperial Guard used on the perps who assassinated Vash Medved, when they swear oath to the Throne…”
“The IPD Headquarters didn’t even have one… for obvious reasons, I guess,” Carter noted.
“We did and do, and we use it when needed,” Maia Peterson said. “Meaning us in ICPD. But I think that maybe our usual aftermath isn’t quite what Stefan Gorski told me about, from that case.”
“Uh, no, ma’am,” Ashton affirmed, vehement. “Not hardly.”
“Should I ask?” Ames wondered, concerned.
Ashton paused, staring at the floor. Finally he nodded and drew a deep breath.
“Since one of the perps they had dead to rights with DNA evidence,” he said, “when she balked at answering the interrogation questions, the Empress – who was sitting with us, watching – ordered the answers drugged out of her.” He sighed. “The perp fought it the whole way. They had to keep using stronger and stronger stuff on her until it broke her. And about the time they got all their answers, she�
��” He broke off. “I was looking at her eyes when she lost it. She just went… insane.”
“She was angry?” Ames wondered, while Carter and Peterson exchanged private, knowing glances.
“No. I mean the drugs pushed her over the edge. She went from rational, sane human to losing her mind – as in, no longer sane – in a split-second. The lights were on, but she wasn’t home anymore.” Ashton paused, shaking his head at the memory. “I’ve never seen anybody… die… before they died, until that. But that’s the best way I know how to describe what I saw in her eyes, when it happened. Then they executed her body by lethal injection.”
“But… but that’s… not legal,” Ames protested, horrified.
“It is, for the Throne,” Carter said quietly, and Peterson nodded. “In the lower courts, no. But when treason has been committed, it can be tried in the highest court in the Empire – which is why the Empress was there. In effect, she was the court. The perp was given a chance to cooperate, right, Nick?”
“Every chance, Lee. But instead of cooperating, that bitch – remember, Cal, the one that fought me an’ Johnny, and raked his face with her fingernails so bad he needed stitches? – that bitch spouted some of the foulest language I’ve ever heard, right at Empress Ilithyia II. Hell, she was using some words I’ve never even heard of.” He shook his head. “And after she lost her mind from the psychotropic drugs they had to use on her, she shit herself and pissed herself all at once… and then barfed all over herself to finish it off.” He met his wife’s eyes, his gaze somber. “They had to clean up and sterilize the room after. The body was dripping shit – literal shit, like diarrhea, plus urine and vomit – everywhere.”
“Sounds like her bowels released,” Carter said, reserved but matter-of-fact. “Bladder, too. That happens, sometimes. Especially in brain injuries, whether induced or not. She might have been about to go without even needing the final, lethal injection. That last injection might have just been a mercy; otherwise, it could have been a slow, gruesome death as her brain failed and the rest of her organs gradually figured it out and followed suit.”
EMPIRE: Imperial Detective Page 4