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Post by Sheriff John Thibodaux on Apr 27, 2014 1:53:53 GMT
Otero County Sheriff's Office.
Four years ago, March 5th, 2010.
The building of the Sheriff's Office looked like the scene out of an old western, except tossed into a modern day world. It was confused, and yet it still made sense in all its own. Aged hardwood floors acted as a proud foundation, and while it clean and even polished on the regular? Its age was still apparent and the way that the boots of countless generations of sheriffs and their deputies had traveled over it was starting to show in more than a few places. The doors were mostly new, retrofitted with better locks and sturdier frames and hinges, but the brass doorknobs had been left behind at the sheriff's request. It was a damn nice look, in his opinion. The desks that the deputies used were sturdy, functional, but not at all pretty, though they weren't ugly by any means. Big, wooden, and well finished with various knick knacks over there, with some of them unused from the sheriff's office being understaffed, something that was hopefully going to be changed, and soon, when the Sheriff actually got to see and interview Miss Fairweather. The lights were dim, but not dark, and over to the right hand corner, in the far right? A set of two, large, iron-barred cells with cots and toilets. Pretty much? A makeshift set of holding cells that were more than capable of holding people tight until a transfer happened. Three bathrooms were off to the side, one for women and and one for men, with a 'family' bathroom that was really a large bathroom with one toilet and a changing station for a baby, and its own personal sink.
Pullin' away from the utilities was an even larger desk next to the door to the Sheriff's office with an older lady with her hair up in a tight bun, with a rigid back and a strangely warm smile on her face for those who approached her. Mary, the secretary of the Sheriff's office who'd been there any numbers of years, longer than even the damn sheriff, was sitting behind that desk with her back to the office and her front facing off with everyone else, like a commander surveying her troops; everyone knew that the woman ran that office, she had for years! One didn't see the sheriff, or get a phonecall to him, without passing her.. Lucky for Miss Fairweather though, Ol' Mother Mary would have let her slip on through and to the office; the woman had been approved after all, why would the sweethearted dragon lady stop her? When Monica approached her, she would've just looked up and smiled, words pushin' from her lips in that southern twang of hers. "Sheriff's already 'spectin' ya, Sugar. Go on in." Pointing back with the cap of her pen before going back to her paper work. Oh, she always kept two types of paperwork after all, one for the file cabinet, and one for the computer files, she was a sucker for being thorough and meticulous after all, she had to be!
As for the Sheriff? As for that broad shoulder, broad backed man in the leather chair behind his desk? Well, he was a mix of all that. With a brown, beat up, leather jacket hangin' off the pole in the corner of his office, and the beige uniform shirt that was tucked into his wrangler jeans? The man was what you'd expect of a south western sheriff, of what you'd expect of the man that was sometimes called the Last Cowboy of New Mexico by those that knew him. He had an unused computer, to the side, on his desk with a stack of already filed paperwork in a tray to the side. Leather boots sheathed his feet, old cowboy boots in fact, the tops of them covered by those beat up wrangler jeans that hung to his waist because of a thick, brown, leather, belt. He was a throwback, an antique from a different age.. His hair was combed, but still messy because of how thick that graying blonde was. He had a hard, weathered, but still handsome face with arctic colored blue eyes. He had a stern-but-fatherly aura to him.. This was his office, his county, and his presence exuded that.. He was putting his book to the side, 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' by Ernest Hemingway, when she entered, closing it as he looked up and to her.. He moved up and to his feet, holding out one of those giant, broken in, overtly calloused hands towards her.
"Detective Fairweather, I'm assumin'?" He knew who she was, he'd seen her picture already, but it was best to at least let her announce herself.
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Post by Detective Fairweather on Apr 27, 2014 3:09:34 GMT
The branches of vestige lines on the wooden floor of the Sheriff's Office that her eyes were fixated on had epitomized what culminated up until to this point: she was walking on creaking floorboards because of her past. Monique Fairweather's beady gaze could be interpreted as focus; she wanted it to be perceived that way. Others generalized as a way to make up for a certain shame. Her brain whirled a hurricane as her eyes fought back stimuli,while her mind's eye tried to remain as a calm of the storm. She knew she was potentially one interview away from seeking a new occupation. The " opportunistic promotion" was a down-play of words for a Police Department to suggest the reassignment of an officer. The signs of her reassignment were all-telling in the location alone. Otero County was more obscure with a heartland character, except the outlaw life of the west and the proximity to Mexican border preceded its taboo because the west was not a romantic fetish like most American frontiers, such as the deep south or colonial cities, or even the metropolitan sharp image of the large urban center and growth machine of a New York or Los Angeles. Usually one traveled to a major city to get lost in a crowd and find a new identity. In other cases, people left cities to be forgotten. It was poetic how they suggested to be in the desert, just to hang her out to dry.
As Monique would tread in the heart of the department, the racing flows of her conscience was interrupted by the familiar lulling southern drawl that drifted out the lips of the secretary that let her know the Sheriff was ready to interview her. Mindfully, her head bowed as she parted full, magenta colored, sleek lips to say in her stern though respectfully docile tone, "Thank you, Miss Mary." The Houston-Formality in her was not deferred, despite the rough couple months she had in during this transition. The clench of her magenta manicure was present as her hands tailored her charcoal gray blazer to her slender, athletic, feminine torso that was fitted to her magenta dress shirt underneath. From the waist down, her slacks corresponded to her the theme of her blazer. Her disciplined strut was defined by the dark brown wedge heeled loafers that carried her into the Sheriff's office while her ponytail sailed behind with each step. Upon entering his arrangement, her eyes shot to the cover of the book that was in the possession of the Sheriff. Also, the sight of the computer that appeared as if it just came with as part of a community block grant further added to man versus nature demeanor she found in him. The voluntary forward progress of his hand took her by surprise. Her mocha tone hand joined with his in metacarpal harmony for a handshake. Her posture was uniform as she stood in place and abruptly nodded - her tone lacking shape as she stated, "Yes sir. That would be I." Implying formal politics, she waited for him to sit first while her hands weighed at her side.
While she stood at attention, her mind betrayed her body, though she wouldn't fold just yet. She may not have quivered or show any form of hesitance, but she was more stiff than her demeanor appeared to be. Her eyes remained focused on his - a bit too concentrated, as if she tried to beat him before he could read her mind, but the resume and records would overpower her front. They both knew that.
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Post by Sheriff John Thibodaux on Apr 27, 2014 3:29:27 GMT
She was professional, she was formal, and she was rigid. In a way, he supposed, she was what they needed. "None of that." With the hint of what might have been a smile pushing across his mouth, across his lips as she called him sir. "Name's John Thibodaux. You can call me Sheriff, or you can me John, but I work for a living, so no sirrin' me." Playful, but gruff, he gestured for her to sit down in one of those overstuffed leather chairs at the side before he moved to ease into his chair once more. "Surprised you put in here, Detective Fairweather, Otero County isn't the big city, and it's a far cry from what you're used to at the Los Angeles Police Department, I imagine." He spoke as he reached for the manila folder that Mary had brought him earlier that day, only to pluck up his glasses with a sigh, pushin' them up proper on his nose as he opened it up. "Bachelor's in Criminal Justice from Austin, served with distinction without an official mark of corruption from a department notorious for making or breaking law officers." Speaking with a low tone in his voice as he read over it. He mulled over the resume and file in his head, letting a hint of a grin push over his lips as he read over her high school transcripts. Yeah, he'd even requisitioned those, and for good reason. He could read patterns with the best of them, and a lot of things started there, didn't they?
"Point guard, my girl played point guard in high school." Finding a point to relate to her with, he looked up from the file with a smile tugging from that grin as he closed the file, just sitting it down without a further word. "We're always lookin' for volunteers at the county recreational center too, if you'd ever like to get involved there, I believe they're actually trying to get together a proper girl's team. Not a big county, 'course." With a tilt of his head to the side, as if to gesture that it was, what it was. He hadn't gotten to what he planned to get to, not yet, the things not on the files that were in the wind. He wanted to read her, wanted to watch her speak on her own accord, to probably catch the consummate professional right off guard. "If I were to hire you, I want you to know that this is Los Angeles, and a lot of our work is with the community. Life's simpler out here in ways, and in ways it's more complicated. It's a different culture, and it calls for a different breed of cop." With an easy going tone that was devoid of patronization, letting the conversation flow as it went. He wanted her to speak, and he wanted to hear what she'd say without being led on.
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Post by Detective Fairweather on Apr 27, 2014 5:11:46 GMT
The shift from formal to informal roles caught her off guard. She stammered "Yes-s..Sheriff?" Then, as she attempted to temper her habit, she echoed after him , "None of that." Idly, her eyelids sealed and lifted. It characterized how her nerves would override her motor skills. No one liked a rote-learner because they didn't build on knowledge. They just repeated it. She had to eliminate her mental mistakes. Her neck rowed, punctuating that she would take heed of his gesture for her to center her backside within the cushioned dimensions of the chair. She lived in her head right now more than her body. Her gazes of uncertainty as she sat had led on that she was in shock from her own first impressions. The innate overachiever sometimes turned her advantages in to disadvantages. There was such a thing as over-preparation. Over-preparation was why she was here in the first place. Her attention meandered to take in the character of the room. The Southwestern ranch aesthetic did strike her appreciation that developed from her friends' homes that lived miles across from her in El Paso. His dulcet-tenor -outlaw tone drew her in immediately once he called to her attention on the spatial and moral difference between the LAPD and Otero County Sheriff. Once he retrieved the her resume and records from the folder, she felt the metaphysical force of her life in his hands. She wish she could adlib to his humor, but handshakes and hugs always had the potential to catch someone for a sleeper hold. Her head bobbed off-beat once he stated her curricular and career accolades. It felt as if her heart floated in her stomach when he referred to the LAPD and his pregnant pause gave a sensation of labor pains. However, the outcome she expected did not happen. Either the Sheriff had the wrong prescription of lenses or white out looked much more convincing these days. Nevertheless, she let him continue his content analysis of her records.
Her eyebrows that were a modest volume of dark brown ascended at the remark that his daughter also was play-caller on the court. At this point, the cordial manor felt too good to be true. As much as she wanted to ask where his daughter played, her curiosity bloomed. She had a strong neck because more solemn nods were delivered - enough her cerebral cortex to roll off axis. The moment of truth came; he create the scenario that placed her as an Otero County detective. The silence she maintained was broken in stride with her gaping lips "It's really a bi-national culture, Sheriff. Even though the metropolitan culture of L.A. starkly contrasts with Otero County, there parallels of bi-national governance in its relationship of flows drug traffic and violence between L.A. to San Diego and Tijuana, just as it it between here and Juarez, sir. I understand the BIA here is also very integral to the work of the Sheriff here. In Los Angeles, one of my critiques is that we could have done more to work with the Tongva tribes that were pushed further East of Los Angeles. Because of this spatial relationship, we must be as informal as we can with residents because they will never have the confidence to inform us. We need their eyes on the roads, so we can't afford to roll them." Her hands fingers were fastening gradually to cope with what she believed was an analytical answer, but needed more dimension. She continued, "We also would benefit from Geographical Information Systems because we are very isolated in space and would benefit in knowing how we are to collaborate with majority of the county and border cities, while at the same time of course maintaining the community-driven trust we need with everyday people...." Faintly, her words trailed as she zoned out in her mind, awaiting what she thought was to come next.
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Post by Sheriff John Thibodaux on Apr 27, 2014 5:29:20 GMT
He listened to her talk, and he listened well. He didn't move his eyes off her face, off her own eyes.. He watched her, for every twitch of muscle. Everytime she looked away from him, every time she didn't, the little hesitant moments and the ones that never hit. Absences were just as important as the lack thereof in them and so he watched her just like a dog would watch a rabbit ready to run as she tried to correlate his little town with her big city and if he was a professor, he mused, he might have given her a passing grade on her attempt to do so. "That's a lot of phrasing, with a lot of words, and a lot of those words are exactly what I'd expect someone who was educated in a classroom to use, and it wasn't at all disappointing." Spoken as he tapped his middle finger down atop the desk. "...You had some particularly nice words about communities and race relations, 'bout what I figured you'd tell me." Said with a flat tone, his eyes focusing directly on hers, and just like that? His expression changed, it was subtle, just like the barometric pressure dropping before a storm came in. "It's what I reckon you think an employer, a chief of police, would want to hear. I suppose they would, and because they want to hear it, it's in your best interests to want to say it." Now, with that? He got up and to his feet. He was a tall man, not so much physically but by the presence he had, that cowboy's swagger to his step as he moved over to a nearby window, opening up the blinds just a little bit to let the sun in, to look down main street before leaning against the window frame.
"You're taught to see people out in Los Angeles, taught to read statistics, and look for anomalies. My deputies are taught to see those people as more than that, as a community, as individuals." He quietly nodded towards one of the older men walking down the street with a cane, a younger man walking next to them.. Both white, both looked and dressed like what you might expect a rancher to dress as. The older man.. He was looking frail, and sick, and a shadow of what he might have been. The other man? Was probably son, a beast of a man with long blonde hair tied back, had shoulders as big as any bull. "...Those two are the Morgans. Older fella, he's the head of that family. Good man, rough around the edges. The law dictates I should arrest him." Speaking as he looked back and towards her with those quiet eyes. "Because I know for a fact he has pot plants on his ranch.. So, by law, I could have him in a jail cell right now. ... But I also know he has stage three lung cancer, and he wouldn't last a month.. I also know he smokes it to keep the symptoms repressed. I know he's an honest man that's worked for everything he has, so arresting him wouldn't do a damn thing other than uphold a law that I don't see the point of." Quietly, he saunted back to that desk and leaned on it, watching her. "You didn't have a problem on quick firing regurgitated at me, Detective Fairweather, but I noticed you weren't forthcoming with anything personal, when I asked." With an almost bitter tone.
"So, now you've got me curious as to what you're gonna tell me when I ask about the rumors that your captain kept trying to press towards me like one of the barbers down in the shop on mainstreet."
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Post by Detective Fairweather on Apr 27, 2014 6:53:38 GMT
The way her jaw clenched caused the equilibrium of her visage to shift and appear one sided when he found holes in her argument on the perspective she could bring to Otero County. How his eyes continued to probe her own was taxing to her soul. In some ways, she appreciated the depth he was searching for. She was challenged every time she walked into the office back in Los Angeles. She was competent, but that's all she was to them "competent." She was exclusive to the spectrum between good cop and bad cop because she was too busy outlining her work to think about how she had been perceived. There was impulse she felt build in her the more he seemed to render her statements based on her academic logic. She felt angst though her face was blank in the process as of now and contradicted the clench of her jaw earlier. She watched him rise to his feet and introduce her to the lens the office looked at the community under, just right out the window with the anecdote on how institutions failed to protect those who served it in the long run. Even though she was at a much more ripe stage in her life in contrast to the Morgan elder, she knew what it was like to have her labor go ignored and then be shammed because she did not believe in cronyism. She went by the book, but unfortunately, some in her department threw them before reading. Their egos made them illiterate to emotional knowledge.
The Sheriff dug deeper. It was a question that could bury her alive or even allow herself to pull herself out of the ditch that was prepared for her before she even came here. A swallow of her throat rolled and recoiled until she could testify "I was not forthcoming because you had not asked, sir. I clarify when asked. The question about rumors have many interpretations and you are allowed to believe them based on your sources and if you trust their judgment." Her neck slightly wavered to she anxiety she felt fume in her body - the cortisol that was the fatty body chemical related to stress as she provided the skinny of what happened. There was a tremor in her delivery, but the more sauntering side of her Houston dialect weighed into her tone as she spoke, staring past the Sheriff's head, "Detective Stabler was a partner of mine who often complimented me for my organization. However, Mr. Stabler found that to also be my disadvantage to his own pleasure - that I did not know how to socialize in the covert ways of a veteran. That I did not understand how fornication is recreation. And that the shield is just as fraternal as other fraternal institutions of powers that be - that the shield that is supposed to protect and serve also shields our contradictions and anyone that is against that? They're not good police? I guess I am not good police, Sheriff because they had to protect him from me because I chose not to serve him. At the end of the day it's your judgment based on your colleagues, and how you perceive me at face value because that's what they did. That's what most of us do." A sigh escape through her nostrils as she allowed the silence to filter the air for truths.
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Post by Sheriff John Thibodaux on Apr 27, 2014 15:17:15 GMT
Competency was important in the same way that breathing was important, it kept you alive, but it didn't do much more than that. He listened to her, and he listened to her without interrupting her, watching her with those intensely blue eyes of his, drinking in the way she'd responded to the fact that he was more interested in listening to her talk than talking at her. The recoil of her expression, the way she spat out that time honored bullshit of you didn't ask, it would have made him laugh or even crack a half assed smile. He'd raised children, he had deputies under his command, he understood how the whole thing worked, even as she spoke her piece, she seemed so damned defeated that he knitted his brows together only to relax them so that he could keep his poker face in check until she finished, as she let the silence speak for her after she was done talkin'. She didn't apologize to him, she didn't fumble over her words, and she didn't attack those that'd attacked her. She spoke what he saw as her truth, what she believed, and the eyes that melted the courage of many a man in this office didn't read a single lie across her mocha skinned face. The one thing that John Thibodaux hated more than anything else in this life was a cop that lied openly, an officer of the law with no credibility was worth less than the dirt wedged in the lines of his goddamned boots, and for all he cared? They could choke on the blood that Sarah Good promised the likes of them in Salem.
As for her though? As for Detective Fairweather?
"I don't ask for my ass to be kissed, Fairweather." Bluntly, and to the point, starting out of the gate as his eyes narrowed on her. "If I ask you a question from now on, I want the answer. I don't want, what you think I want to hear. If it's bad news? Good, it's better I get it straight away so it be fixed. I can handle not liking something better than I can not trusting the word of one of my deputies." He didn't accuse her of anything, his voice was as quiet as it had been before, he was just blunt. Sheriff John Thibodaux had never been a man who was good at beating around bushes, he told the truth as he saw it, and in a way it needed to be told. "I don't need a good cop, Fairweather; I need a good person. I can teach a person to be a good cop, being a good person is something else entirely.. So, here's my question to you, Detective Fairweather." Speaking as he leaned in, watchin' her as he would any other person. "If I make you into one of my deputies, are you going to treat these people like your family? Can you lay down your life for these people? Can you trust them to become?" Asking quietly, with that tone stronger than before. Adamantine, unyielding, those blue eyes locked with her dark ones.
"What I'm asking, Detective, is can you find it in your heart to become entrenched in a community of people that you don't even know and treat them like family?"
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Post by Detective Fairweather on Apr 27, 2014 18:05:43 GMT
The toe caps of her shoes inverted, touching together while she sat in that chair, which suddenly became a stand for her to testify at. What she knew was the LAPD did not send her here to have a second chance. She did not believe in second chances to begin with. She believed in how one's judgment changed over time or did not. Chances are created by those who looked for them. Maybe that was why they were having the concrete debate they were having right now. Was she even attempting to construct her own chance in the face of adversity? Her fingers further buckled within their fold as she followed his well-read eyes and found the moral in them. It was as if she were defending the low-post as a point guard. She had been told by the institution back in L.A. to not do so because it was not her position, but at the same time, Sheriff Thibodaux brought out of her that she could not just play her position in this field. The County was too small for that, so roles here not just roles they were ever-changing responsibilities to be be taken on. She understood now. This time she did not nod as compliant. She just answered precisely, "Yes, Sheriff. I understand the power subjectivity because it can be objective, especially if that answer comes from the heart." Her posture was much more upright again at her feet were parallel again.
Once he leaned in, her eyes flickered briefly but adjusted focus when he posed the most important questions of their discussion. Often it was a public relations agenda when most institutions referred to giving back to the community. Based on her intuition, Sheriff Thibodaux, saw the community as a source of wisdom and spontaneous order. The example of the Morgan men and the means it took for them to survive was based on community knowledge. People did what they knew. Laws sometimes created barriers of what people did not know. Her eyes now fell the book on his desk "For Whom the Bell Tolls." It was a classic she often heard about, but something told her that his fit in his Cowboy swagger. It reminded her of the bell in "The Ecstasy of Gold" that was proverbial to time closing in on people as they chased what they thought was gold. That gold could be "The Good, Bad or Ugly." It resounded through her head as she uttered, "Sheriff, if I were to work her I would do my best, but 'my best' would be measured by what the best knowledge and judgment of the people and me working alongside the best. I understand that loyalty makes us family. What happened back at the LAPD was not family -- at least for me. It may have protected the motif of what appeared to be family for politics, but I come from family where the community was family. We didn't need a contract and gold to prove it either." At that moment, the fluid in her eyes were fluctuating, but she still sat in her seat - stiff as she had when she came in.
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Post by Sheriff John Thibodaux on Apr 28, 2014 2:21:55 GMT
He moved to pull that badge from his side, plucking it from its clip on his belt as he grasped it with his fingers. He let it lay along the inside of those rough, calloused, fingers of his. The badge was polished, but rough, scratched up, and had dents in it. It was worse for wear and rough around the edges, not horribly unlike the sheriff himself in a lot of ways. "I became a deputy shortly after my tours were up in the Army, followed a friend to Otero County, friend I served with, that I was very close to, when we got home." Why explain the story? Why not. He knew hers, he only thought it fair to let her know where he was coming from on that, the facts of the matter where what they were. He'd been here for ages, and he'd been the Sheriff for over ten years. "..I've gotten good, at reading people. Not just my people, but other people." Speaking cooly, calmly even.. He was picture of self control as he lowered that badge, extending his hand towards her.
"...I've worn this on my side for years, always in the open. Same as my deputies wear. Sheriff's badge is no different than what any of them wear." Letting her take it from him, if she wanted to. If not? He attached it back to his side. "..So, if you're interested. Give Mary a day to write up your paper work, and a few other things to come back in, and we'll get paperwork signed, and you sworn in properly." Pause. Beat. "..Welcome to the family."
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Post by Detective Fairweather on Apr 30, 2014 7:39:00 GMT
The glint from his manifestation of endured justice he detached from his belt brought an ephemeral sting to her eyes. Her vision was concealed briefly through closed eyelids until pupils could acclimate to the volume of colors in the room again. What he did with that badge at the moment was symbolic; it was voluntary submission of wisdom. The moment of silence they basked in was a mutual form of tact. It was evident in their intensity of his gaze and her vulnerable yet bold stare past his head before her attention descended to take in the sight of the badge again. His voice accompanied the character of the weather-beaten, blemished, though authentic shield. Seeing and hearing that evoked something in her, even though she was there, choking where she sat. The flaring of her nostrils and sharp inhalation that contributed to her case of sniffles were subsiding as she began to fathom the imagery through his oral narrative. Her chin dipped and rose arithmetically, as she became self-conscious of how compliant her nodding made her seem, but she knew. Someone like him had an inner-deity and it was why she was why she was zealous.
She never stared at something and calculated so much as she did with that badge. The distorted reflection of herself that was mirrored from the scuffed metal left her in daze. In this moment, she was reminded of why she took upon this profession in the first place: in order for those to have what other's didn't, they had to put in unrequited labor. That was in her. She never wanted anything. She just knew that the public has as much right as the private. There was another side to the shield and that was the heart behind it - if there wasn't it? It was nothing more than a hollow inside. An angst-driven hush of her words were delivered, "Thank you, Sheriff."
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