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Post by Naomi Takeda on Aug 10, 2009 20:00:39 GMT -5
It wasn't that she was going to make any clever retorts toward Mrs. Yeoman, who simply glowed with a 'mother hen' attitude, but she was whisked away from the home quickly enough so that it didn't feel like she could say anything-- not that this mattered, since, if she spoke her mind subtly or not, it might have crossed over the line and taken away the moment's professionalism. Naomi 'got what she came for', all right, and, looking back at the home through the car's rear-view mirror, she hoped she didn't have to go back.
That idle hope she kept reflecting upon could only get her so far. There was no way Naomi could pull the strings of fate in her favor.
Before she could blank out entirely, pondering the day thus far, Cal sparked a conversation that made her turn toward her driver, looking to him attentively. Correct on some subjects, she thought, Mr. Avery seemed to share pretty much the same opinion of Marge that Naomi had picked up in the meantime, if only from that one statement alone. Well, if she considered it more, she could realize that a woman so motherly, in fact able to cultivate such a motherly front by caring for many children over time, would be just as protective as she was hospitable.
Although, realizing she was going off into deeper thought again, she blinked a few times and sighed. Cal was asking her now where she needed to be taken. "Well, I didn't take my own car," she said, "And my escort left, so you'll have to take me back to the police station."
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Callum Avery
Alpha Status[M:0]
I am a very important man.[A1i:2]
Posts: 11
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Post by Callum Avery on Aug 12, 2009 16:51:56 GMT -5
Naomi seemed to be drifting off into thought, which was fine by Cal, but he needed to know where she needed to go. Thankfully, she replied, and he took a left at the next light instead of a right to ferry her to her destination.
”Police station it is then,” he replied, then left her to her thoughts.
She seemed to have been deeply affected by the visit to Marge's, and he hoped the lady hadn't scared Naomi off. Marge meant well, but she definitely had a mean bark, which put many people off when they first met her. Plus, Naomi seemed to be the sort who either was easily intimidated or emoted so little that she seemed that way.
Cal let the rest of the ride pass in silence, making his way to the police station and not bothering Naomi with conversation. Pulling up in front of the station, he stopped and turned off the car, then turned to her, extending his hand.
”Well, Ms. Takeda, it's been nice meeting you. If you need anything else, please call.”
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Post by Naomi Takeda on Aug 16, 2009 23:43:32 GMT -5
Shaking Cal's hand, saying goodbye, and watching him drive away, Naomi walked back to the police station with a smile on her face. The more she thought on it, though, she slowly came to the realization that Callum was just an ordinary man and their encounter, like Cal himself, was fairly routine. A standard visit to a suspects home and gathering of genetic material, and...Mr. Avery hardly spoke to her, really. At the very least, he said nothing special at all. Oh, well. That must have been a signal for her to stop thinking about him-- which she promptly did. By the time she walked back into the station, headed down to the testing facility, and put on her labcoat, she had allowed more important things to crowd her mind-- and they most certainly had nothing to do with aliens! Since the case intrigued her (and she was sort of curious on whether or not the boy was innocent), she began the DNA sequence exam soon after her arrival. Using methods fairly new to her field, she could do it in a couple of hours, which was exactly what she needed. --- Later, examining the results, Naomi was baffled. The DNA certainly didn't match that found at the scene of the crime, but something about the genetic markers seemed pretty strange. Rubbing her chin, she walked over to her workmate, Ted-- a lanky, dark-haired man in his early thirties-- with curiosity in mind. "Ted, could you take a quick look at these for me?" Naomi handed the seated man her print-outs, a puzzled expression printed on her face. Taking them from her hand, Ted himself soon wore concern. He couldn't remember the last time, aside from her beginning as an intern, that he had seen Naomi so confused over test results. "Sure thing." After a few minutes of pacing around slowly, Ted stood from his seat and offered the papers back to Naomi. "Looks to me like someone tampered with the evidence." "That's," Naomi paused, shaking her head skeptically, "No. Sorry, that's impossible. I obtained the samples myself, and there's no way that could happen." Shrugging his shoulders, Ted's lips were scrunched in a sort of clueless and confused fashion. "But," Naomi scoffed. He might not have been able to explain the results either, but, as his silence protested, he had already given her his answer. Maybe it was the fact that he turned his back to her right as he took his seat that sent his point sailing home. No doubt he had more important things to do, but Naomi, tightening her jaw, felt rather annoyed. Clunking off without another word, wrinkling the papers with an angry grip, Naomi walked over to the telephone with one man on her mind-- and his offer would be taken up sooner than he probably thought. Finding his name in the phonebook, she called and was soon patched in by the secretary after making her request to talk with Mr. Avery. In no time, she listened to the phone on the other end ring, hoping she had caught him in time...
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Callum Avery
Alpha Status[M:0]
I am a very important man.[A1i:2]
Posts: 11
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Post by Callum Avery on Aug 25, 2009 18:49:36 GMT -5
Cal had realized about an hour ago that his stack of paperwork was not decreasing significantly enough for him to get out of the office on time, and had resigned himself to a late night. About half an hour ago, he'd ordered Thai food, and now he was sitting at his desk, eating Pad Thai, and finishing reading a report on one of his newer cases when his phone rang.
Putting down the chopsticks, Cal hurriedly swallowed his last bite, and put the phone to his ear, holding it in place with his shoulder while wiping his fingers off on a napkin.
”Callum Avery, how can I help you?”
He hoped it wasn't something that would cause more paperwork, because he was already taking over for another social worker who was on maternity leave. Every time he got a phone call today, it seemed that his stack of files got a few inches taller, and every time he turned his back the stack grew as well.
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Post by Naomi Takeda on Aug 29, 2009 14:56:16 GMT -5
It was his voice, his name. Hearing his introduction over the phone, she suddenly found it easier to voice her concerns openly with him, for whatever reason. "Yes, Mr. Avery? Hello. This is Naomi Takeda, from the forensics department. We met earlier." she hoped he remembered, even though he seemed so busy during their earlier encounter. While frustrating, it would be understandable if he forgot. "I'm calling because I thought you should know..."
He should definitely know. If she found out that, in any way, the social worker had stuck his fingers where they didn't belong, cleverly adjusting the whole situation in his and the child's favor just to make things easier, she'd have him slapped with as many lawsuits as she could find. Her mind seemed to run a thousand miles in the blink of an eye, creating such theories out of thin air. She wouldn't give up till she got her answers, though, and she would make sure he heard her out before interjecting with his excuse.
Sighing at the whole problem, she continued, "There were a few highly unusual results brought back in Michael Maxwell's DNA test, and my colleague suggested the evidence might have been tampered with. You wouldn't happen to know why he'd say that, would you?" Sure, there was an accusatory tone to her voice, but she felt several strong feelings at the moment-- confusion and aggravation were only small slices of the pie.
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Callum Avery
Alpha Status[M:0]
I am a very important man.[A1i:2]
Posts: 11
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Post by Callum Avery on Aug 31, 2009 8:57:54 GMT -5
Cal was mildly surprised to be hearing back from Ms. Takeda so soon. He’d figured that her DNA report would eventually find its way to the stack of papers on his desk eventually, and that would be the last he heard from her. The concern in her voice worried him greatly, and the reason for her call…well, damn. He’d assumed that Mike was a “special,” knew that traces of that occasionally showed up in DNA tests, and had still let someone take a sample of Mike’s DNA. Cal could have kicked himself.
He wrote it off as a poor decision made because he was tired and rushed, deciding to delay the self-flagellation until it was completely warranted and he knew the extent of the situation. Maybe it really was an honest mistake. Maybe something else had gone wrong.
”I have no clue what could have happened,” he replied, a tone of worry in his voice, but a comforting worry that said that he was not sure what had happened, but he was in her boat to help bail if she needed it. ”I’m no geneticist, but what was wrong?”
For now, he would try to placate her—figuring out the extent of the damage. This was potentially a major breach, allowing knowledge of specials to fall into the hands of a government agency, and more dangerously, a government agent who would, if he read Ms. Takeda correctly, not let this drop until she got her answers.
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Post by Naomi Takeda on Sept 7, 2009 17:32:07 GMT -5
Naomi sighed. There was really no reason for her to feel even the faint level of annoyance she felt, but, having already gone over the evidence, 'reading between the lines' so to speak, things were more suspicious than before. Regardless of this, she was still wound pretty tightly, as her finger twirling and knotting the phone wire would tell.
"The results," Naomi paused, shaking her head, "...The results were like nothing I've ever seen before." Holding up the paper, phone cradled between her shoulder and neck, she pointed at the odd marker in the printout; not minding that Cal was on the other end of the phone line, and therefore unable to see. "There's a marker here on the list that..."
Almost fumbling the list, her composure slipping, she took the phone's receiver in her hand and switched it to her other ear rather quickly. "Well, I've already told you...and I don't want to repeat myself." She also probably wouldn't want to crumple the papers she printed out, but her anxious fingers were already halfway there.
"You definitely don't know what's wrong?" Naomi said, appealing to a sense of decency that Callum, as a social worker, simply had to uphold. "Because I may have to make a call to a higher authority." She meant, of course, a lab with better equipment that gave incredibly thorough results over a span of weeks, but she still didn't realize the full import of her words-- for obvious reasons, even.
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