Chapter 2                 

Skye

 

The long days in the Evidence dungeon of the New York Police Department started to fly by since I discovered the recorded interrogations conducted by detective Nicholas Woods. As a teenager, I was used to enjoying obscure TV shows that none of my friends ever heard of, and now I had that feeling of excited discovery all over again. Woods and Robinson were legendary for their arrest record and the staggering amount of difficult cases they closed, so I decided to make lemonade with the sour lemons of being stuck behind a desk in Evidence and a lingering pain from my gunshot wound. I didn’t have to see archiving as a curse. It was more like having at my disposal the NYPD’s equivalent of a library of rare books. So, I started reading. Well, watching.

I was a play by the rules kind of cop, trying to offset my hippy upbringing by following every rule and regulation I ever read. Five years after graduating from Police Academy and two months after my first undercover mission, I was still the most tightly wound and rule following cop I knew. Watching Woods’ interrogatories kept me in a constant state of shock. The man followed all the rules but he did it in such outlandish manner he seemed insane. He switched between seeming intimidating, caring, threatening, vulgar, empathetic, weak, dominating, stupid, brilliant, careless, careful, unprofessional, rude, polite, single minded, open minded, forgetful, insightful with such ease it left me gasping. I had never seen or heard of anyone who tailored their interrogation technique so profoundly to each subject.

The first interrogation I watched was one of their most high profile cases, a cop killer they arrested. I watched mesmerized how they got him to confess just by talking to him. On the screen there were four people sitting at a table in an empty room. Woods, Robinson, the killer and his lawyer. The recording was twenty-three minutes long and I kept staring at the screen once it faded to black. I decided to watch them chronologically so I started digging for the earliest cases I could find.

Woods and Robinson seemed to be a few years older than me in the oldest recording I found. They looked like early thirties, so considering the date of that case, they’d be in their mid-forties now. That meant I had over ten years worth of material to get me through my dreary days.

Sometimes I went back and reviewed earlier interrogations to compare the subtle changes in technique. The evolution was so gradual I could barely see the changes. Nicholas Woods was a superstar. If he was this crazy brilliant in his thirties, I eagerly anticipated to see how awesome he got to be in later years. There was no way I’d be disappointed because I already knew that the team’s reputation increased to mythical proportion in the present day.

I was still in their first three "seasons" when I met Katherine Robinson at the gym. I dropped the gym bag on my foot to see her there, dressed in training gear, like she was a regular person and not half of the most kick ass team of cops ever. She caught me staring at her.

"You're Detective Robinson," I said.

She raised an eyebrow as she measured me up and down. She was a good five inches shorter than me, but she carried herself with such poise I was left feeling like a child.

"I haven't seen you before," she said. 

"I transferred from LAPD. Detective Walker." I offered her my hand and she shook it briefly as if she expected me to fangirl some more.

"Do you have a sparring partner yet?"

My face fell a little. I didn't even have a favorite coffee place let alone a sparring partner. I tried not to sound as pathetic as I felt.

"I mostly do cardio."

Her eyebrow shot up again. She looked pointedly at my gym bag. When it fell on my foot it had overturned and my hand wraps were half unrolled on the floor.

"Oh," I said and knelt to pick them up. "No, I don't have a partner."

"Come on, spar with me," she started to wrap her hands.

For the first time in five months, I went through the ritual of wrapping my hands for a fight. I used the time to think of a game plan. I respected her and I wanted her to like me and to keep talking to me. That was hardly going to happen if I used my height and reach advantage to defeat her to fast.

"What do you practice?" I asked.

"Krav Maga. You?"

"Mixed. I started with Tai Chi, some basic wrestling, but I mostly train in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai."

"Sounds like fun," she said.

An hour later I was limping back to the locker room. I hadn't realized just how much the break in training and my injury limited my range of movements. I hadn't been able to use my striking properly and all my takedown attempts failed, so I didn't even get a chance to brush up my BJJ skills. She was nice enough not to try to break any of my limbs although I gave her plenty of chances.

"You were rusty, and it didn't feel like it was just the lack of practicing."

I shrugged, not volunteering any information if she didn't ask a question. It turned out that Katherine Robinson liked clarity and didn't like mind games.

"If you want us to do this again, tell me what's wrong with you."

I sighed. I did want to keep sparring with her. I'd want that even if I had anyone else to train with because she was freaking Katherine Robinson, but telling her the truth might mean she might take back her offer. There was no point in lying to her.

"I'm recovering from a wound. My doctor sort of threatened me that if I go back to my training regimen too soon he won't clear me for active duty."

"Then it was very stupid of you to spar today."

Her tone was even and lacking condescension. She hadn't meant it as an insult.

"Oh, come on," I protested. "For one thing, he's still in LA and the doctor here didn't say anything about not sparring. For another, it was you offering to spar with me. I mean come on! You're Robinson of Robinson and Woods."

"Of Robinson and Woods?"

I couldn't quite read her tone. Was she amused? Offended? Flattered? I looked around to make sure no one was listening and I leaned in to tell her about my new found secret hobby.

"I've been looking over your old cases. Don't freak out, but I'm a huge fan of your work. You guys rock! I'd do anything to be around you."

I heard how it sounded as soon as it came out and I blushed.

"I didn't mean it to sound so creepy," I said, flustered.

"And yet it did." The smile that played on her lips put me at ease. Sort of. "Let's get changed. I have to get back to work."

That had been three weeks earlier. She probably didn't find me all that creepy because our sparring sessions became a regular thing and our casual acquaintance turned into a tentative friendship. She asked about my career in LA and how I dealt with my current position. I asked her about old cases and what was it like to work with Nicholas Woods.