“Ronald Green? Hi, I'm Peter Gibbons.” Pete said closing on the lone occupant of the FBI’s central lobby waiting area.

“Yes,” Ronald said, nodding as he stood. Once Pete was close enough they shook hands. Pete was a big man. Not fat or muscular but somewhere in between. His height also seemed to give him a tendency to hunch. Rather graceful for a guy that size too Ronald thought to himself

“Welcome to the New York Office, please follow me.” Pete headed for a security door and swiped his badge before opening it. He held the door for Ronald who followed after, Pete's spiky bronze hair almost touching the door jam. The two made their way down a spartan hallway to a bank of elevators. Pete punched the call button and turned to Ronald. “Looking forward to working with you, we've been needing a forensics guy for a while now. Are you fresh out of college?”Just then the doors opened and the two stepped inside.

“Yes, I went to NYU.”

“Cool Cool. Working here isn't so bad, just keep your nose clean and do whatever Gwen says and you’ll do ok. “

“I heard she was crazy.” Ronald said, sounding a little worried. 

A smile blossomed on Pete's rounded face, “Heh, at times, yeah maybe”. Pete took a moment to study the other man. A young guy, Ronald was maybe 23, dark-skinned and had short cropped black hair. He was wearing a long grey mac over a brighter grey suit. The elevator doors opened and Pete led Ronald out to the left, down a hallway and through a door with an opaque glass window that said CCI Dept on it. 

The office was small, having only 4 desks, and looked well used. A tall man with coal black hair in his early 30s was sitting on the edge of a desk and stood as the two entered the room. He had been talking to an Indian man sitting in the next desk over. “Bobby, get your ass off my desk." Pete said. “Seriously, how many times I gotta tell ya.” “Sorry" he replied grinning. “Ronald Green, this is Bobby Shoemaker and  Rahm Patel, we call him Pops,” Pete said, waving a hand toward the two.  

The skinny Indian man had on round glasses, like John Lennon's. He stood and held out a hand. “You're our new forensics guy? It's about time too. Our old forensics guy kind of disappeared. It's good to have you. We haven't had a forensics expert in almost 3 months.” He said with a moderate Indian accent. 

“Why do they call you Pops? You look like you're younger than me.” Ronald asked the  wiry man.

“He's got five kids.” Pete said with a smile. 

“Wow.“

“Yeah, we gave him hell for it when he first joined the team. Just kinda stuck.” Pete said

“What can I say? My wife, she's very beautiful. “Pops said with a wink

Bobby was next to shake hands with Ronald. “Good to have you on board. I'm the team lead, Pops here is our IT and communications guru “ he motioned towards Rham ”and Pete does negotiations and profiling” he finished with another wave, this time in Pete's direction. 

“So, what is it, you DO exactly?” Pops asked Bobby, emphasizing the word do. “Seems between the 3 of us, we pretty much have everything covered. Why do we need to keep you around Bobby?”

Pete turned to Ronald and said “Bobby’s kinda Gwen's Bitch.”

“Hey” Bobby exclaimed incredulously. 

Pops exploded with laughter. Pointing at Bobby he said “He's right. You are Gwen's Bitch”. He continued laughing. “Whenever she's in one of her moods, and one of us needs to bend over and take it; it's always you.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Just then the phone on a desk in the corner buzzed and the no-nonsense voice of a woman said “Bobby get in here” Then hung up. 

Pete and Pops began laughing so hard they started turning red. Ronald couldn't help smiling to himself.

“Yeah Yeah ha ha. Very funny. Ronald, it’s nice to meet you. We're gonna put you right to work. I guess I sometimes have many roles. One of which is being the liaison between Gwen and the rest of you. I better go see what she wants.” Bobby said and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Bobby made straight for Gwen's office, knocked once and opened the door. Once inside he closed the door and said “What's up boss?”

Gwen had always liked his easy going manner, even if half the time she wanted nothing more than to slap that perpetual grin off his face. He had an ever present twinkle in his blue eyes that when combined with the corporate cut of his hair and any suit, made him look the part of a wealthy businessman, perfect for undercover work. His broad shoulders and straight jaw only sold the part further. 

“You see this stack?” Gwen said, pointing to a mountainous stack of folders on her desk. 

“Sure boss”

“And this one?” Here she pointed to a second stack equally as large. 

“Sure boss”

“And the one on the floor there?”

He nodded his head

“These are all the unsolved cases for the past decade or two. I want you to take them all out of my office, open them and look for the name James Malaki and highlight it.” Gwen pointed to the name in the open folder before her. “In every folder you find it, set that folder aside.”

“Never heard of him. Who is this guy?

“I don't know” Gwen said shortly “ But he has been listed as an employee in at least a few of them. Start with the recent stuff and work your way back. I want to know how he fits into all of this.”

“Oh ho ho” Bobby pointed to Gwen. “You’ve got a lead.”

“More like a hunch. I think there is something here.”

“Boss, there are over three hundred cases here easy. To go through them all will take a long time.” 

“I know it'll chew into your day and I’m sorry about that but my nose is itching over this. There are a lot of similarities and I want to figure out why. Now get on with you, grab the others to help you.” Gwen said, closing the folder in front of her and putting it on top of a nearby stack.

“Sure boss, right away.”

Gwen followed the folder laden Bobby out and said “I've got a meeting with Goens in a few minutes.”

“What are you going to tell him? We haven't had a decent lead in nearly a month.”

“You let me worry about Goens.” She said as they came through the door into the CCI office. Gwen was a tall woman with short blonde hair that curled at the tips. She wore a blue blouse that mismatched the long skirt under it. Her manner was all business and impatience. 

“Gwen, this is Ronald Green. Ronald, Gwen Pierce.” Pete said 

Gwen didn't make a move to shake his hand so Ronald stayed where he was at. She looked at him very intently for a moment then said. “You specifically requested this unit. Why?”

Slightly stunned by the unexpected question he stared back at her for a moment with wide eyes before he began to answer. “When I was a kid my father owned an auto repair shop. He did a good business for years. Then one day some land developers had an “accident” in a nearby creek that polluted the local water supply. A lot of people got sick, including my mother. It drove the property value down and drove people out of the area. My father lost a lot of business and my mother's hospital bills were becoming a problem. Those same land developers started buying up all the land in the area and bulldozing it down. They offered my father almost half of what his shop would have been worth if they hadn't had their ‘accident’. My dad said no to them, the next day when he arrived at work he found the place had been broken into and most of the equipment had been looted or destroyed. He couldn't open without replacing the equipment. They showed up again the next day and offered him even less for the land. With my mother's hospital bills it was either her or the shop so my dad sold it. That same company bulldozed the entire area, cleaned up the pollution and turned it all into shopping malls, suburban housing and a resort complete with an amusement park. My mom died less than a year after we left because of the toxins they accidentally poured into that creek.

“That's why I joined. To prevent something like that from happening to someone else.” Ronald concluded, saying “When it happened to us, nobody did anything to try and stop it.”

“Ok.” Gwen said with a nod. “I'm going to go get you a badge.” Then she rolled her eyes adding “That and I've been summoned to my bosses office. The Dick wants a report on all of you and what you've accomplished. I'll be back in a few. In the meantime Bobby knows what I want all of you to do.” Gwen turned and left.

“Good luck with Goens” Bobby called after her. 

“Bobby” Pops said “you know very well what kind of mood she's likely to be in when she gets back.”

“Yeah I know.” Bobby said, rubbing his neck. 

“Would you like some lube? I think I have some here in my desk.” he began opening drawers as if he were looking for something 

Pete and Ronald began to crack up with laughter. Bobby turned to Ronald and said “Pops here is our resident comedian. He's the only person I've ever seen make Gwen laugh. Anyway, we're going to go through every one of these reports and highlight the name James Malaki wherever it rears its ugly head.”

“Bobby, some of these reports are from the early nineties, why are we doing this?” Pete asked while flipping through a folder he'd picked up at random

“Cause that's what the boss wants.” Bobby said matter-of-factly

“Are you sure you don't want any lube? I can imagine it'd be very painful to take it dry” Pops said