The Good and the Bad

Call It Macaroni

Chapter Forty

*~*~*~*

One month.

It had been one month since Sheldon Jin had been found murdered on the outskirts of the city.

Six weeks.

It had been six weeks since Scout had rushed into the burning building to find Leslie Shay dead from being struck by debris during the explosion.

It felt strange to Scout as she sat at her desk in the bullpen, forcing herself to try and focus on finalizing some of the paperwork on recently closed cases. Though as she worked she couldn't help but find herself glancing towards the pictures on her desk. Amongst them was one that she had added to the collection almost two months earlier. It had been taken on the day she had graduated from the academy. She was dressed up and sporting a large smile on her face. Her arm linked with one of Jin's as he stood beside her, dressed in an identical uniform with a smile filling his lips as well.

"Hey," Olinsky cleared his throat to get her attention as he made his way over to her desk. He hadn't missed that she had stopped typing a couple of minutes before, having looked over to find her staring at her pictures. Something that had become a common occurrence over the last month.

"Huh?" Scout turned her gaze towards him, her jaw locking at the sympathetic look filling his eyes. A look that she had long since grown tired of receiving over the last six weeks.

"You good?" The older man didn't bother beating around the bush.

"Yeah," her answer was instantaneous.

"How'd it go?" Both of them quickly turned their attention towards the break room at the sound of Erin's voice. Finding the woman talking with Voight as he came up the back stairs, dressed in his blues from his meeting at the ivory tower that morning.

"It went," Voight muttered. "They asked some stupid questions. I left."

"Sounds like every conversation my father's involved in," Scout quipped-- well aware that Oliver Keltner was a part of the investigation into Jin's murder.

"Boss, where they at with Jin's murder?" Adam asked.

"Nowhere," Voight frowned when he spotted the empty desk beside Scout's. "Where's Antonio?"

"Meeting an informant," Scout supplied.

"He's got a tip on some armored van thing," Olinsky added.

"Sarge, why aren't we looking into Jin's murder on our own?" Jay asked the very question he'd been wondering for the last month-- that all of them had been wondering.

"For the same reason I told you last time you asked. They don't want us anywhere near it since he was in our unit, okay?" Voight reminded him. "He was a police officer. Area central is all over it."

"So they had no updates this morning?" Atwater spoke up, his words causing Voight to pause in the doorway of his office.

"The update..." Voight began as he backtracked his way towards the officer's desk. "The update is they're coming after my badge! So when there is another update I will convey it, okay? Until then, just do your jobs."

*~*~*~*

"How much you make an hour?" Olinsky questioned Adam as he got ready for his latest assignment-- going under as a guard for an armored truck company.

"Twelve fifty," Adam answered as he tied his shoes.

"How long you been with the company?" Scout offered the next question from where she sat beside Antonio.