Page 43 of Bears Behaving Badly
She looked at him. Said, “Ah.” Pulled up a chair. Sat. Looked at him some more. “Can we talk about that? Because David and I would like to talk about that.”
“You’re a team now?”
“Of course.”
“Aw, thanks.”
“Shut up, David.” To Bob: “Why did you rescind permission? IPA caseworkers and investigators visit crime scenes all the time. If it’s going to be hairy, pardon the overused pun, we’ll bring a Shifter police officer, or two, or however many we need. That’s in our purview.”
“I know. Stop narrating.”
“Rude. In this case, we had a horrifying assault followed by a horrifying murder followed by the disappearance of our suspect-turned-victim by fair means or foul. We needed more information. Lund’s loft was the logical choice. And yet…”
She waited, but Bob had no comment. After a few seconds, he started in his chair. “I thought you were gonna say more after that.”
“Uh, no. I artfully paused to give you a chance to fill in the data.” Nothing. “Bob.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” he replied with a shrug. “Actually, I don’t know why I’m explaining anything.Youwork forme.”
“I work for the State of Minnesota and wards of said state asparens familia. You’re the man who handles the paperwork and keeps clear of the mess.”
“And who signs your paycheck.”
“No, HR has a stamp for that. And it’s not even of your name.”Easy. He’s still your boss. He lets you get away with loads of lip because your work makes him look good, but there’s a line.
There’salwaysa line.
“Look, what can I say?”
She sighed. “Something? Anything?”
“I got a call from a higher-up that the scene was to stay sealed and no one from IPA could go in without authorization. Whichalsohappens all the time. So I passed it down the line.”
“So you were instructed to pull us back, but not to make way for another team? Or department? Instead, nobody’s working it? How can you possibly reconcile that under the circumstances?”
“Should’ve known that you wouldn’t be able to figure out why someone would follow orders from their boss,” Bob said with a smirk. “And now you’re telling me you ignored it? And then went ‘off the grid’ for twenty minutes or whatever?”
“I think it was more like twelve hours,” David piped up.
Bob glared in his direction, and for half a second Annette wanted to see David’s grizzly take on Bob’s lynx. The concept of so much flying fur had never been so arousing.
“Annette, you know I’m not afraid to suspend you, right?”
“Oh, Bob, of course you are,” she replied pleasantly. “It makes you look bad, it increases your paperwork, and the children don’t like it. You’ll recall they often make their displeasure known in unsavory ways.” There was the break-room food riot last spring and the cafeteria sit-in, Benny Jurg throwing a tantrum of such proportion it caused lasting property damage (adolescent wererhinos didn’t always process stress as well as they should), and…
“My favorite is when they suspended you without pay for two days and Dev retaliated by stealing the lieutenant governor’s sedan. Which he refused to return until they agreed to fill the trunk with pudding cups you guys could snack on during the drive to juvie processing.”
“Chocolatepudding cups,” she corrected.
He grinned. “Yeah.”
“Good times.” Back to the boss. “My point, Bob, is that if you’re going to suspend me, then do it. But I want it on the record and I want to add my own addendum to the file. And I’ll discuss it with everyone throughout the agency, purely as a method of processing the stressful situation I have found myself in, and you know I can be loquacious.”
“If that means ‘pain in my ass,’ then yeah. You can be very goddamned loquacious.”
“Which I know you don’t care about, but I have friends here. And theywillcare. Well. Some of them will care. At least a third of them will care.”
Bob had passed beyond scowling into full-on pout mode. “M’not suspending you. Yet. Shouldn’t have to. You’re off the grid, right?”
