Chapter Text
There are things that Richard Poole finds very annoying like unexpected parties at Catherine's Bar and food with eyes and well…how Pierre Champlain, Saint Marie's apparent serial murderer of young women, has escaped to a completely different country and now him and Camille will have to cooperate with the local authorities in Detroit, Michigan of all places if they have any hope of bringing him back to Saint Marie. It's safe to say that Richard is less than thrilled by this.
It doesn't help that the detective the DPD has apparently designated as their spokesman is annoyingly loud-mouthed to the point that Richard is picturing whatever the American version of Doug Anderson would be.
"Detective, I assure you that my team used every available resource in our attempts to obstruct Pierre Champlain. We simply learned of his full identity far too late." This is true. He can see Camille, Dwayne and Fidel all sitting at their desks looking completely exhausted. One of the murdered women had even been a close friend of Fidel and his wife.
The Detroit detective, whom Richard has learned is named Louis Fitch, doesn't seem to have the least bit of empathy for this though. "Are you sure your team hasn't been enjoying a bit too much of that famous Caribbean Rum? Because I'm sure you don't have the crime rate of Detroit, a serial killer should not go unnoticed on a little bitty island unless you haven't been doing your jobs."
"The murders were made to look like accidents." Richard responds, trying to keep his composure in the face of everything.
"And you just took too long to figure out they weren't," the other man sneers.
Next to Richard, Camille involuntarily twitches, just seconds away from taking the phone away from him and chewing into Detective Fitch in a way that will probably be savagely unsurvivable.
However, something happens at the other end of the phone line as a woman's voice cuts in with a command. "Fitch, go cool off in the break room. You're getting a bit too heated on this." Fitch makes some sort of noise of frustrated protest before slamming the door on his way out and the woman whom Richard can only assume is his boss instructs someone else unseen, "Go with him."
Next to Richard, Camille doesn't completely relax her posture but apparently decides that as of right now this new speaker is unthreatening enough that she won't immediately take the phone and begin dressing the woman down.
The second speaker comes back to the phone line and states, "Detective Fitch is very passionate about his job."
Richard resists the urge to respond that passionate is not the word he would use, and instead through gritted teeth responds, "I understand. My Detective Sergeant and myself intend to fly to Detroit and rectify the mistake that was made when Pierre Champlain escaped."
"And my team will cooperate fully with your investigation and assist where needed."
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Louis's icy stare when he enters the breakroom causes a rookie officer to immediately turn to flee in terror. The young man manages to bump into the other person entering the break room and this only seems to make him more upset and he immediately stutters something before seeming to somehow be even more eager to leave.
At least this does give the other person a conversation opener. "He's not going to last long here if he can't handle two consenting adults having a relationship outside of work," Detective Ariana Sanchez states, crossing her arms over her chest as she speaks.
Louis turns immediately at the sound of her voice. "Or maybe you just don't realize you've ruined yourself by association with me." They both know that he isn't being serious with the comment. The list of people Louis doesn't want to distance himself from when he gets agitated contains exactly two names and one of them is hers.
"I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself." Ariana finally steps forward. "And Lt. Mason wanted me to make sure you were okay." What she leaves off is that the moment he'd stormed out, she would have insisted on following him anyway. When his gaze involuntarily falls to the ring that she let him put on her finger, he's reminded that she's even willing to broadcast this fact to everybody around her, and that still surprises him.
Louis sighs, "I just felt like the British inspector took more issue with the tone of voice I took than with the fact that there are six women who can't get their lives back, and now that his killer is here in Detroit there will probably be even more murders, and in a city this big it will probably be even easier for him to go unnoticed."
Ariana is silent for a moment and then she responds. "He's on our radar now."
"Yeah, but if he's making it all look like accidents…" Louis turns away for a moment to grab a mug out of the break room cabinet.
"We'll know to look for the pattern, and we don't know anything about the British inspector, maybe he actually is competent."
"Well whatever he is, he certainly isn't made for Detroit."