Thinly veiled mechanical exposition Pt 2

“Some things are the same… a DNR order filed by the victim still takes precedence, assuming a city magistrate doesn’t overturn it for some reason. But that’s not very common,” I added, which we both well knew because if it were at all common for magistrates to rescind a DNR, they would have done it for Inspector Lamb last year. “So long as they can identify the person, they can find out whether there’s an order on file, and it mostly follows to the basic guidelines then. Except that if there’s no order present either way, in a suspicious **** the Watch Guard has decision power instead of the family.”

“Which is because?”

“In case it was somebody in the family who killed them. They could say the person didn’t want recall but really be covering up for themselves so the victim never gets to contradict them.”

“Yes. Who pays for the recall?”

“The city. Since the family isn’t allowed to elect otherwise, it isn’t fair for them to bear the financial burden.”

“Correct again. So the Watch Guard decision tree is where you usually get mixed up and start to turn yourself around,” Curry said. “Start with the default, when the **** guards have the decision power.”

“Default is to recall.”

“Because?”

“Because, lots of reasons. But also it’s easier to solve a case if you wake the victim up and they tell you what happened. And it’s to the public good that people don’t walk around being terrified of getting murdered.”

“Good. What happens if that recall is unsuccessful?”

“Um…” I hemmed a bit, then remembered I still had the earless shortbread dog in my hand, and stuck it in my mouth.

“Sorry, in the real exam they’d be a bit more specific on any follow-ups,” he said. “What are the legal implications to the investigation and any charges brought?”

“Um, well, if the person had come back then typically their story is very hard to overturn so they do a standard limited verification interview with the victim and that mostly settles it unless there emerges some reason to doubt their accounting of things. So if they can’t come back the Watch has a bit more latitude in who they can ask be served with a court ordered verification. If charges are brought, they’re more serious because the person stayed dead.”

“Good. Let’s go through a few of the exception scenarios. Seems like you mostly stumble on the rules for the ones with identification difficulties.”

I groaned and collapsed dramatically onto the bed next to him. Before I landed Curry reached over quickly and moved the paper biscuit packet to the bed stand to protect it from my theatrics. “Mag, what are we going to do if I fail the detective examinations? And no bullshit or cheery talk stuff. Seriously. What do we do then? Half the detective candidates fail.”

“Sure, on their first try.” Curry shrugged. “And even if you don’t pass all four sections on this go, you’re probably going to be fine on the three written sections. If you have to retake any, it won’t be all of them. You still have time to keep your passing scores from the first round and you can focus your study energy more specifically.”

“Aren’t you sorry to be stuck with me right now?” I asked mournfully, knowing how ridiculous I was being, and wallowing enough in my own self-pity that I didn’t care.

“Fuck off with that, dummy,” he told me good-naturedly.

“What are you going to do, though, if you make detective, and I don’t?”

“Great question. What are you going to do, if it’s flipped?”

“It won’t be,” I said with dark certainty. “You know all this stuff cold whether it’s out loud or on paper or any other which way.”

“Isn’t it a good thing, for me, that I steered us into a career that plays to all my strengths and only your weaknesses?” Curry mused, then grinned teasingly when I responded by kicking him. “All I’m saying was, if you’d had the foresight to insist on financial crimes instead—you know how bad I am at maths courses. You’re the one who can look at a letter and make any fucking sense of the absurd fiction that it’s actually a number when it plainly isn’t.”

This did make me smile a bit, until I remembered how upsetting the end of this week was going to be when my partner advanced to detective and I didn’t, only because I wasn’t any good at things that weren’t written down or right in front of me.

“Let me offer a recommendation?” Curry asked after a moment. “In seriousness?”

“Yeah,” I said reluctantly, because I knew what a baby I was being, and what a good friend he was being to take all this time helping me study.

“I think you get stuck thinking the answer on these has to spring from your mouth immediately and in its final form. The reason you do better on paper is because you can get your thoughts in order and you don’t have this flustering perception that someone’s waiting on you to think.”

“So what do I do about that?”

“Try what I do for orals, and think aloud. It’s so obvious that you have a suitable understanding of recall policy, when you step through it logically. It’s when I throw an in-the-weeds sort of question at you, that you get rattled and think you have to dispense an answer without being able to do the pre-work that got you there.”

I turned over on my belly to look at him right side up. “How do you mean, exactly? Like in practice what does that sound like?”

“That first scenario. You know the answer to it. But since it’s asking, how is this specific thing handled, instead of asking, explain this concept methodically, you get stuck and don’t know how to get there when you can’t jot things down and step yourself through it at your own pace.”

“How would you have fielded that question, then?” I asked, twisting around and wriggling up to the top of the bed so I could listen better. I reached over and took the study sheet from him. “Victim’s body can’t be identified in the first twenty-four hours and description matches no missing persons alerts,” I said. “How would you answer?”

“First do your best to do in your head, everything you’d do on paper. Parse the scenario for what the pieces are really saying. I’d repeat it back to them aloud to make sure I had it fixed in my head, then break down each bit. Then I’d go through each bit and talk myself through what it means respective to recall decision policy.”

Curry cleared his throat and then changed his tone to indicate this was him simulating the examination interview experience, addressing me as if I were the examiner panel. “Victim’s body—that tells me, case involves a suspicious ****. But unidentified after twenty-four hours—twenty-four hours on its own isn’t any meaningful time period respective to recall. It makes no difference whether the victim is unidentified after a day, when there’s no mention here of a delay in the body being found. The rules for unidentified persons don’t come into it until the six day threshold approaches. Description matches no missing persons alerts—I think this part might be a red herring—it just describes a method the guards might use in identification efforts. So in this case it’s too soon to judge whether the victim should be recalled. If they’re identified within the six day window, then we follow usual guidance for suspicious **** of identified parties. If they’re not, then we follow guidance for unidentified victims requiring provisional recall.”

“What the fuck—it was a trick question?” I demanded as soon as he was finished talking.

“Kind of,” he said. “All that to say, you would have gotten there on paper. I’ve seen you answer ones like this on paper. If you had a pencil in hand you would have thought through the same steps I just did, except you’d have underlined victim, circled the twenty-four hours bit as the tricky part, and struck out the stuff about missing persons as extra junk information with no bearing. So the thing is to train yourself how to do that process out loud. And it helps to show your work, anyway—if you don’t wind up giving them exactly everything they wanted, it at least shows you grasp the important concepts overall. It’ll improve your score on questions you feel shaky with.”

“I didn’t know they were allowed to give you ones where the answer is they didn’t give you enough to decide anything!” I complained, then added gloomily, “I guess that’s why you kept pestering me about the six days thing on that one.”

“Yeah, well,” Curry said with vast self-satisfaction. “Look who remembered the six days after all!”

“Hardy-har-har,” I told him.

“Do you want to try a couple more?” he asked. “Or do you want me to throw the study sheet in the fire and not talk to you till the end of the week when they post scores?”

I sat up reluctantly. “I’ll do one more and then I’m six enough of the whole thing that I’m reconciled to it if I flunk tomorrow.”

“Great.” He skimmed the sheet briefly, then read, “A stabbing victim is found an estimated three days after ****, during which period outside temperatures averaged below freezing. After another three days the victim remains unidentified. What decision is appropriate concerning recall at that time, and why?”

I chewed my lip as I chunked the description up into its component bits, then said slowly, “Stabbing victim—that cause of **** isn’t likely to interfere with recall survivability, but suspicious **** rules apply. Found after an estimated three days—means there would usually be three days remaining to complete the identification before a decision is required. But it was cold—probably means decomposition was hindered to some degree. Another three days, so that means it is now an estimated six days from point of ****. Putting it all together…”

I had to stop and think here through the part I was unsure about. “The six days must be up,” I decided after a moment, “because that timing guidance is related to the deteriorating spiritual state of the victim when not attached to their mortal form, and their declining receptibility to recall after a certain period of time—and not to the condition of the body. So a body found in substantially reparable condition, as long as it’s preserved in the interim, shouldn’t have any bearing on the recall decision. Body condition would only matter if it were the other way around, say hot weather that accelerated the decomposition process. So it sounds like the appropriate decision is to recall, because of suspected foul play, but to begin with a provisional recall in hope the victim can be identified before completion in case they do have a DNR order on file.”

“Very fucking well done,” Curry announced. “Tackle every question just like that tomorrow and you’ll get a round of standing applause from the examiners’ panel.”

I stretched back out on the bed. “Thanks for helping me, Mag.”

“Eh, what else was I going to do this time on a Sixthday night?” But he smiled.

“I promise if you ever have to take a maths examination again, I’ll do the same thing for you.”

“Oh, no,” he said, “you’ll never catch me doing the like. I’m a much more frail ego than you and I’m careful only to undertake ventures certain to succeed.”

I kicked him again. “Right, like reconstructing Lamb’s crazy map. Certain to succeed.” Lamb’s inscrutable maze of nails and crisscrossed strings was as inscrutable now as it was the day Curry reassembled it, which had been as inscrutable then as its original installation.

“We’re playing the long game,” he told me. “You know that.”

Lamb’s map and pub menu collection, which referenced what we supposed must be case files that we didn’t yet have access to as mere patrol constables or detective candidates, had languished unattended for over two seasons now while we struggled through the detective course and waited for the future assignment that would give us the clearance to look up the names in question and find out more about them.

“I know,” I said, even though I was pretty sure that Curry was much more devoted to this project than me, and harbored serious doubts whether it would actually go anywhere for us, when a veteran **** guard like Lamb hadn’t made any obvious progress.

He set the study sheet on the bed stand and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “You want the last biscuit?”

“No, I’m fine,” I decided, because the last thing I needed on top of all my nervousness for tomorrow was an upset belly.

He nodded and popped it in his mouth, then crumpled the empty paper packet in one hand. “Get some rest,” he told me. “I really do think you’re going to be fine tomorrow.”