Spirit Animals (Ritual Crime Unit Book 3) by E. E. Richardson

Author:E. E. Richardson [Richardson, E. E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: Abaddon Books
Published: 2016-07-12T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

PREDICTABLY, SUPERINTENDENT SNOW was not pleased. About anything, so far as Pierce could tell, up to and including her continued employment.

“Everything about the way you conducted this late-night meeting was reckless and irregular!” he said, as she stared fixedly at the wall of newspaper clippings just behind his head. He hadn’t offered her a seat, and despite her exhaustion she wasn’t about to ask.

Besides, he had a point—albeit one that was only apparent in hindsight. Following leads off the clock with no backup would be deemed reckless if it went wrong, but if she’d set up a full-scale police operation for a tip that hadn’t panned out, she’d be standing here on the same carpet hearing about how it had been wasteful and unnecessary.

Although in that case, no one would be dead.

“Agreeing to meet this man late at night without any police support or attempt at securing the scene—that’s not just cutting corners with procedure, it’s ignoring it entirely. Why wasn’t he brought into the station?” Snow demanded.

“Those were the source’s own conditions, sir,” Pierce said, since, ‘thought it was most likely bollocks, sir,’ wasn’t going to fly as a response, and probably wouldn’t have even back when she’d reported to Howard Palmer. “He was reluctant to speak to police, and I judged it better to accept his terms than risk not getting vital information.”

“Well, you judged wrong!” he said. “Do you appreciate why we have approved procedures for these matters, Pierce?”

There was an opening best not stepped in if ever she’d heard one.

“It’s not, as you seem to think, to ‘cramp your style,’” he said, pronouncing the words as if he’d read them in a magazine article about the youth slang of today, “or because anybody particularly delights in coming up with ways to make the job more difficult. It is so, in the event that anything does go wrong, we can know that everything was handled as well as it could have been. When police officers—or entire departments, for that matter—under my authority decide to ‘wing it’ and make up their own rules, it leaves me fielding questions about actions I neither approved nor received any notification about!”

“It was a judgement call, sir,” she repeated, too tired to find her way around a more conciliatory approach. All she could do was stick to her guns. “The RCU has limited resources to bring to bear, and without further information I didn’t see any justification to call in support from other parts of the force.”

“Yes.” Snow shuffled his stack of paperwork unhappily and tapped it on the desk to straighten the edges. “And speaking of the RCU’s limited resources, why were constables...”—he hesitated for a beat, but she gave him points for successfully pulling the names to mind—“Freeman and Taylor apparently tied up with a stakeout for another case entirely while this was going on? I told you to make the Valentine Vampire your top priority.”

“Time-limited opportunity, sir,” Pierce said, meeting his gaze now she was back on firmer ground with a case they hadn’t managed to fuck up yet.

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