Warhead On Legs

Title: Baby Be Brave
Subset: Pen Bryton
Prompt: Brave
Word Count: 1,854
Rating: PG-13 for language
Summary: Sometimes the job requires you to be brave.

Ordinary people. Ordinary crimes. Shit like this happens every day.

This was starting to be my bread and butter. Domestic violence cases, gathering the evidence to bring spouse abusers and child abusers to justice. Real cops couldn't get warrants, and real abuse victims were too afraid to let police into their home, but a woman was safe. A woman, not connected to Child and Family Services or the police, was safe. She might be a new friend from the Laundromat, someone else who came over who had kids of her own.

No, I didn't have kids of my own. But I played well with other people's kids. And the presents I brought home had hidden cameras. It was evidence if they got divorces, if they testified against their spouses. It was evidence against the people who used their kids as punching bags. A couple of times, as sex toys.

And the best part about it, since I had to pay for my own health insurance and everything, was that by the time the abusers got violent I was out of there. The police were involved at that point and I didn't have to do anything. Or at least, that was the plan.

Most of the time, the plan worked. Sometimes, though, the family rat-dog decided the stuffed teddy bear with the nanny-cam made a nice chew toy. It was always a different stuffed animal, the surgery was easy, but this time I didn't know what happened. Maybe I'd sewn a chocolate in there by mistake.

"Can you come over…" She was whispering. And sobbing at the same time, it made it hard to hear. I got the gist of it. "He-he's been drinking, h-he found, th-th-the camera…"

( Read more... )

Title: Untitled
Setting: Penelope Bryton mysteries
Characters: Pen Bryton
Word Count: ~350

Morgues were always ten degrees colder than the rest of the building, at least. I used to think that morgue techs should be issued lab coats made out of white wool or something. I wanted my jacket when I walked in. Mostly because of the chill.

"I told you, I'll have the cause of death when… oh."

"Hi." I smiled. "I'm not looking for a cause of death. Not yet, I have a missing person I'm checking on. Detective…" I had to look at the business card. "Scott Bradley said that you might have a Jane Doe that matches my girl?"

He took a look at the photo I held out for him and before he could open his mouth his face said it all. Even if he wasn't sure he thought it was the missing girl.

"We do have a Jane Doe, came in this morning, she looks a lot like your missing girl."

That wasn't the answer I wanted to hear, in two ways. "A lot like?" I watched him go over to a drawer, check the number, and slide out the body.

There's a trick to checking the identity of a body. First of all, make sure it's no one you know. Doing a body identification of someone you know, well. There's nothing like it, and it's not something you can ever be prepared for. If it's someone you don't know, if you're in the line of work where you have to run around with a photograph and a strong stomach, don't breathe. Take as shallow breaths as you can and concentrate on the physical.

A human body is made up of parts. Bones, skin, teeth, hair, eyes, all parts of a whole that makes a person when you add in a personality, a soul. Take away the soul and it's just parts again, and if you can match the parts in the right order to the picture or information that you have, then you win. If you try to put the soul in and match it up with an empty place where the soul was, you lose.