Page 30 of The System

“Oh. Miss Hart, hello,” Dylan said, looking up from her desk to see Kieran standing in the door.

“Kieran. And I’m sorry to just drop in on you, but I wanted to check in, and I couldn’t get a hold of Carina.”

“Carina?”

“The prosecutor.”

“Yes, I just didn’t expect you to call her Carina.”

“Oh. She told me it was okay,” Kieran replied. “Do I need to call you Lieutenant again now that my sister is here and officially under arrest?”

“No, Dylan is fine. Come in. Come in. Sorry, it’s a bit of a mess.” Dylan stood and began stacking file folders that littered her desk. “I’ve got a few officers who indirectly report to me from this and other stations, but I’m still the only full-time cold case detective, so my desk pretty much always looks like this.”

“How can they report to you indirectly?”

“Oh. Well, we have officers who are interested in working cold cases, but we can’t justify pulling them from the active ones to work the old crimes, so I only borrow them from time to time when I need them. We’ve got a few cases right now where I do.”

“Did I hear correctly out there?” Kieran walked into the office and sat down opposite Dylan’s desk. “Someone said you were about to be promoted when I walked in.”

“Oh,” Dylan said as she shook her head. “They won’t let me turn it down again.”

“You’ve done that before?” Kieran asked, surprised.

“Yeah, a couple of times. Captains don’t really work cases, though – they’re more administrators – and I like working cases.”

“And they’re making you take the promotion now?”

“It’s technically still my choice. I could decline it again, but the department is restructuring and, well, my boss is retiring, so they want me to replace him and put a detective in this office. He’s good. I’ve been working with him for the past several years. He’ll do a great job. With this restructure, though, it’s either I finally take the promotion and replace the captain, or they bring in someone else. And, in the past, it was fine because I knew the other lieutenants who were in the running, and they were good. I didn’t have an issue working for them. But, this time, I know the other person in the mix if I don’t take it, and I’m not a fan. He’s all about politics and wants to run for mayor one day. He thinks police work is a means to an end. He won’t put the other officers or the cases first, and that’s not the kind of person I want to work for.” Dylan finished moving the file folders around and stacked them all in one corner before sitting back down. “Besides, I think my wife wants me out of the field at this point. She would never admit it because she’s fiercely independent herself and wants that for me, too, but when I get a break in an old case, I need to go all sorts of places and at all times of the night. While it isn’t usually dangerous, you still never know, and she’s been putting up with this for a while. It should work out for both of us.”

“Well, congratulations, I guess. What happens with my sister’s case now that you’re moving on, though?”

“I’m not moving on just yet,” Dylan replied with a little laugh. “It’ll easily be a few months before anything becomes official. And I’m still the arresting officer and lead detective on her case, even when I’m promoted, so I’ll be handling the rest of the investigation and working with Carina.”

“You call her Carina, too?”

“We’re friends,” Dylan explained. “Years now. Occupational hazard. You become friends with lawyers.” She laughed. “Or, you marry one.” She shrugged.

“Your wife’s a lawyer, too?”

“Yup. Ada is a child advocate attorney.”

“That’s probably a difficult job.”

“It’s not easy, no, but she does the best she can to make sure kids get the support they need.”

“Would someone like Ada have been there for my sister?”

“Depends. It’s possible, but from what I’ve seen in the records, she had a social worker assigned to her case, and that was it.”

“So, no one advocating for her needs?” Kieran asked.

“The social worker would’ve done that.”

“They have a million cases. I’d know; my mom was one.”

“True,” Dylan said. “Well, not quite a million. If you want to talk to someone about what they would’ve done for your sister, a good friend of mine is a social worker. She also grew up in the system. You might only need to ask your mom, though.”

“Your friend grew up in the system and works in it now?”

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