JP had the day off, so she and Max had spent the morning in the gym before having lunch together and then a quiet afternoon at his place. Max was working the evening shift and it was, after all, Valentine’s Day, so they were trying to maximize their time together before he had to get ready to go. She had spent the night at his place and they’d enjoyed a leisurely breakfast when they finally got out of bed. After the breakfast dishes were cleaned up, they dressed for the gym and headed out. Normally, for both of them, Sunday was either a rest day or an all cardio day, but they did a light strength training circuit together before doing about a half hour of cardio each and then headed back to Max’s place. The shower was a lot longer than it needed to be to get clean, but they took advantage of all the hot water Max’s hot water heater could provide. The shower was long, steamy, and involved more cardio. When they were cleaned up, lunch was healthy and then the afternoon was relaxing… until Max had to get ready for work. JP left to head back to her place as Max left to go to work. She told him she MIGHT be back waiting for him to get home later, but she’d text him and let him know for sure sometime through the evening.
Max was early getting to roll call and had settled into a seat before much more of the squad showed up. Sean was next in and he took the seat next to Max. They briefly discussed their day and how a Sunday evening shift on Valentine’s Day SHOULD go, and by the time they finished their brief chat, the rest of the squad was in and seated and Eddie came in with his usual handful of papers. The only item of real interest for the evening was the rave being held at the biggest church in the city, which happened to be in their patrol sector. The raves were usually overcrowded, often had some drugs being used or distributed, and occasionally attracted the attention of members of the local gang, The Breakers. It was not unusual, based on previous raves held in the same location, for fights to break out in the parking lot, but the church had helped alleviate any problems by including extra “security” (usually off-duty officers) as part of the rental agreement, so every rave had some officers on site. Eddie finished up his briefing and cut everyone loose. Max decided to let Sean drive and their evening shift was underway.
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Despain was getting pretty skilled at blending in to his surroundings; at least he thought so. There were still those times he’d catch people staring at him as if there was something wrong, but those times were few and far between and had seemed to be even less frequent of late. He typically was only out after twilight and before sunrise anyway. He made it a point not to be out during the day unless he needed to be for intel gathering or reconnaissance. When he was out, he stuck to traveling in places that weren’t heavily populated, but didn’t look suspicious either. He dressed to look completely unremarkable. For all that… there was still the rare person who looked at him and saw… something; something out of place; something disquieting; something that made the observer pay attention.
Despain took it in stride. He’d just lower his head or look away and keep on going as he had been. Sometimes he’d alter the direction he was going to put some distance between himself and the observer, just in case the person called the police for whatever reason. Despain didn’t want a run in with the local law enforcement folks. While he had no respect for them, because he felt they’d completely failed to catch who was responsible for his daughter’s murder, he also didn’t want to have to fight them or hurt any of them. He had accepted that they’d cleared his daughter’s murder case, but he wasn’t buying how they did it. He felt they’d cleared the books in an easy way without actually confirming proper connection and closure between the person they’d killed (The Banana Man) and his daughter. So, here he was… hunting The Breakers on the streets and in the back alleys of Oceanside, seeking his own form of vengeance and justice.
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Sgt. Saul Panadopolus was delighted with how his weekend was going. On Friday, before leaving work, he’d checked to see what the status was of the Request For Proposals (RFP) that the agency had issued in their search for a new system to store and manage their video files. Saul was of the opinion that only one company out there – Quantum – could really provide all the services the agency needed and at a price the agency would welcome. The Chief’s aid, who knew very little about such systems, but talked a good game based on all the articles he’d read in executive magazines about such, had persuaded the Chief against a sole source contract to Quantum. As a result, the agency was going through the RFP and Bid process. When Saul checked, he found that the RFP had gone out and that Quantum was on the list of recipients. It was further posted on several online sites that existed just for such. Now all he could do was sit back and wait. He was confident Quantum would come in and would eventually win the contract. In the meantime, Saul had little to do except manage their current outdated and nearly overwhelmed video file management system.
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Why was it, Max wondered, that people thought it was a good idea to cram as many as possible into a limited space, play music so loud that people could barely hear themselves think, much less talk to someone right next to them, and then – just in case that wasn’t confusing enough – interject all kinds of drugs into the situation? That’s essentially how he saw raves. One of the local churches regularly rented out their banquet hall to whoever ponied up the cash. At $1,000 for a six hour rental and $2,000 for ten hours, the church leveraged the space as a decent fundraising tool almost every Friday or Saturday night. This weekend, it seemed, since it was Valentine’s Day and Monday was a holiday, the hall had been rented for Sunday night. The squad was advised during roll call that there’d be extra officers working security at the event, but not all of them would be Oceanside PD; some would be from surrounding jurisdictions. The Fire Marshal might also be around because the raves held in the church hall frequently exceeded the maximum allowable number of occupants per the fire code.
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