Application: Dani Reese from "Life"

[notsopowerless]

((Note: Dani is taken from after the events of "Fill it Up". The app is spoiler-free, but spoilers for all episodes of Life might pop up in the comments.))8:35 p.m. on LA’s Sunset Boulevard. For the past eleven hours and thirty-four minutes, Detective Dani Reese had been on the trail of a known felon, wanted in connection with two murders. The

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[fabernathy]

"Parking tickets?" Francis, despite being a millionaire himself, had about a thousand unpaid parking tickets, so this applicant officially had his attention. Wow, he really needed to start coming down here more often. The bribes weren't bad at all.

The one important question on his mind: "Do you have jurisdiction outside of Los Angeles?" He'd hate to waste his precious time and energy on someone who couldn't actually do anything for him.

[notsopowerless]

"Parking tickets," Dani affirmed. Hey - she appreciated directness. And if this really was a cracked-out school instead of a regular, old crack-house, it was probably best to go with the set agenda. So Dani felt no guilt offering up the following: "No official authority, but cops know cops. What state?"

[fabernathy]

Francis had only actually caught the last part of the application, and so he hadn't realized that the woman was an actual cop. He'd assumed... parking tickets. Parking tickets weren't that frightening (although he had once nearly had a heart attack from an unfortunately timed traffic problem), but detectives were a problem, and Francis immediately looked defensive.

"I was just wondering," he said breezily, fishing into his pockets for a cigarette. "Not important, really. You're not a traffic cop?"

[notsopowerless]

Hm. Little tense, for a guy who'd just been gearing up to request a few tickets waved. Interesting.

And reaching for a smoke, too.

"No." She flashed a smile that was friendly on the surface, but only used during interrogations. "I'm with the detective's division. Homicide branch."

[fabernathy]

Oh God. It couldn't possibly have been worse. Henry was going to kill him if he found out about this, and that was possibly literally.

At least Francis had had more practice with lying now than he had the last time he'd been confronted by detectives, thanks to years of playing straight and faking a marriage with the most boring, dreadful woman in the entire world. He quickly pulled out a cigarette and lit up, inhaling deeply, using the smoke to calm his completely shattered nerves.

"I see," he said after a moment, exhaling. "Isn't that nice." Christ almighty, he needed to get out of there, and fast, and without making this horrible woman any more suspicious. "Well, I don't think you can do much for me, then, can you?" He waved the cigarette vaguely. "Never mind, I suppose."

[notsopowerless]

Dani was one of the younger detectives on the force, but she had more than enough experience to tell the difference between people who were twitchy around cops because they were hiding something, and people who were just freaked by police in general.

This guy the was former, and she was very curious as to why.

"Is it?" Dani shifted up slightly, still smiling. "I wouldn't say that. See, cops tend to help each other out. Favors, that kind of thing. Wouldn't be any trouble to make a call or two." She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. "Got my office right on speed dial. All I have to do is give them a name."

Slipping the phone in her jacket, Dani held out a hand. "And that name would be?"

[fabernathy]

Shit. Oh, shit. Francis's nostrils flared nervously, but he managed to keep his voice steady. "Francis." He smiled thinly at her and switched his cigarette to his other hand so he could shake her hand, trying to keep his grip firm -- his hands wanted to shake. His mind raced: what was he going to do? He could feel his heart pounding practically through his chest -- he wondered if she could hear it, and then he wondered if this was actually the lead-up to a heart attack and he was going to die right here, which might or might not be better than Henry shooting him in the head

[notsopowerless]

"Nice to meet you, Francis," said Dani, drawing his name out. She couldn't help but look just that little bit predatory. It was that moment when the suspect knew you knew he was off, and it made the ends of Dani's lips tug upwards.

Still smiling, Dani shook Francis' hand easily. Some cops tried to pump a lot of agression into handshakes, thinking it asserted authority. Dani found that incredibly stupid. Force didn't get people nervous, it got them scared. When people were nervous, they slipped up. When they were scared, they shut down. The former was much more useful.

Like the fact that Francis brought up his wife, played the forgetful husband, but wasn't wearing a wedding ring. Nervous behavior. Dani didn't actually doubt that Francis was married. He looked like he came from money, and men his age that came from wealth usually needed to be married. But she couldn't help notice that his outfit color-coordinated just a little too perfectly.

"I notice you aren't wearing a ring," she said, pleasantly. "How's that sit with the missus

[fabernathy]

Ah; caught again. But this one was a little easier to deal with. It wasn't the first time he'd had to explain away his wife. "I don't think she knows, since she's still in New York," he replied grimly.

"But just because I might not be crazy about her doesn't mean I want to upset her, you understand." This part was far from a lie -- Priscilla had an unfortunate amount of power, or he wouldn't have married her in the first place. Keeping his grandfather happy meant at least pretending to make an effort with Priscilla, and he very much needed to keep his grandfather happy.

"And she'd be terribly cross with me if she knew I was asking for favors, especially from the police. It's not really in our..." his eyes flickered over Dani's outfit; his lips twitched, "...nature."

[notsopowerless]

And there was the part when the perp realizes the loving-spouse routine isn't working. Dani always liked this part. "Must be a nice break you for you, huh?" she said, all buddy-buddy. "So then you live in New York when you're not studying?"

"Oh, I understand." She was very much not talking about the lovely missus, and not at all trying to hide it. "Completely. Police tend to make people very uneasy. Am I making you uneasy, Francis? Because I feel just horrible if I have."

[fabernathy]

"My wife lives in New York," he replied coolly. "As does my car, at the moment." He transferred his cigarette back to its original place and inhaled. "I try to keep them both in check," he added snidely. "But things do sometimes go awry, when one is so far away."

He felt he was starting to regain control of the situation, now that the initial shock was past. Oh, he wasn't happy to be talking to her, but she was asking all these questions about Priscilla, and those were easy. It wasn't as though he was the only unhappily married gay man in the world. He wasn't even the only unhappily married gay man in New York.

"I wasn't talking about your job, I was talking about your outfit." He chuckled in a sort of faux-good natured way, as though he were pretending to include her in the joke, which he clearly wasn't. His smile was a little too mean for that.

"And I wouldn't say uneasy, Detective Reese. I don't like talking about my private life, for reasons that might be obvious." He raised a brow meaningfully and tapped the ash from his

[notsopowerless]

If Francis had been interested in taking care of his tickets, Dani really did have a few friends working in New York offices of the DMV. At the moment, she was considering contacting them and using said tickets to learn a little bit more about Francis.

Once she found out what his damn last name was. But that could be figured out easily enough, if she asked around.

Dani smiled back, more amused by the insult than anything else. Because she had him, and anything he said or did to try and deter her was almost entertainment. "Work clothes. What can you do?"

"Your reasons are extremely obvious, yeah," she replied, pulling a notepad from her pocket and jotting down the details she'd collected so far. She then snapped it shut, and looked up at Francis. "Still, I apologize if I've made you uncomfortable. That was not my intention."

To start with, at any rate.

[fabernathy]

Francis stared coldly at the notepad, freshly unnerved. "What are you writing down?" he demanded. "This isn't an interrogation, Detective. Are you allowed to do that?" Her and her ugly shoes. Who the hell did she think she was?

"Besides which, I'm the one who's supposed to be asking the questions," he added sharply, his voice a little shrill. "You're the one who's being Sorted."

[notsopowerless]

Well, if there were any possible doubts that Francis wasn't respolsible for something he didn't want the police to know about, any possbility that Dani was just irritated and going after an easy mark, those were all now null and void.

She looked down at the notebook, and then up at Francis, and spoke slowly, as if confused. "Am I...allowed to write things down in a notebook?" Giving a little half-smile, she put the book back in the inner pocket of her jacket. "Yes. I'm allowed to do that. Not that I really need to. I've got a good head for information. It's a cop thing."

Clapping her hands together, as if that ended the matter, Dani nodded. "Good point. Ask away, Francis. I'm an open book."

[fabernathy]

"My point is," Francis retorted, "there's no reason to be asking me for any information about anything except this school, and you haven't asked me a single question about that. Instead it's all this nonsense about my personal life."

He dragged on his cigarette, looking pale and angry. "Is that what you do, you police? You pursue other people's business in lieu of your own?"

God, this wasn't going well again. She was writing things down, she was writing things down, and she was trying to aggravate him and it was working. Calm down, Francis. He closed his eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry," he said tightly, "if I seem abrupt. I have health problems. They've got me a little on edge. My heart."

[notsopowerless]

To Francis' retorts, Dani gave the same kind of blank PR-smile that she wore for press conferences, interviews, and AA meetings. Honestly, digging further into him was unnecessary at this point. He'd shown her all he could, without an interrogation room and high-priced lawyer present.

"Your heart," she repeated, sounding genuinely concerned. The abrupt change in demeanor likely gave away that Dani was anything but, but she wanted to mocksee what humoring Francis would get her. "Is it serious?"