Chicago Fire: Strike a Match

Out of the Frying Pan

Chapter 1 Out of the Frying Pan...

"Callahan, you're up. Crispy critter down on Marshfield, think you can handle that?" Lieutenant Belden gave his recent transfer detective a look that said he was pretty sure she couldn't. CPD didn't even normally do lateral transfers, but somebody had called in a favor and now here he was stuck with this co-ed looking blondie. It was bad enough he had already lost Dawson to Voight, without even mentioning that snake of a cop should be behind bars, not carrying a badge.

Detective Cailin Callahan resist the urge to roll her eyes at her new boss, having already clashed with him more than once in the month she had been here. She hadn't realized how good she had it back in New York, but that had been before everything went sideways. "I'll be fine, sir," she replied, clenching her jaw to avoid saying anything she would later regret. She was pretty sure she was already on thin ice and she didn't want to get booted back to patrol after nine years on the force with the NYPD, over half of that with a gold shield and working much larger operations than anything she had been handed so far. At least he wasn't making her take anyone with her this time, part of the reason she had agreed to work in this unit was they were short-staffed enough that she wouldn't get a partner and that was fine by her, considering...

Cailin pulled up to the scene, a truck still there with plenty of guys still milling about, though most had stripped off their bunker jackets. The battalion was already gone and a couple of uniforms were already stringing yellow tape around the burned out car in the middle of the abandoned lot. She went to duck under the tape when one of them put a meaty paw out to stop her. "Jesus Christ, you media people are like vultures, do anything for a scoop, huh? Behind the tape, toots."

Cailin narrowed her eyes, practically hissing as she read his name plate. "Excuse me Officer Martin," she shot back, pulling back her jacket to reveal her shield, "but that's Detective Toots to you." She ducked under the tape and strode to the car, fighting back the urge to empty her lunch in the weeds at the acrid smell of burnt flesh and accelerate. "Damn," she said, peering into the car and seeing what little remained of both the body and the vehicle.

"I know, not a chance in hell of getting any evidence," came a voice from the other side of the car.

She jumped back, startled, before realizing she recognized the voice as one of the few detectives that had actually been welcoming in the precinct, even if he worked upstairs in the super secret intelligence unit with the Lieutenant that practically had 'bad cop' tattooed on his forehead. "Detective Dawson, I didn't know this was Intel's case."

She wondered for a brief moment if Belden had sent someone to check up on her when he replied, "Antonio, you can call me Antonio, really. And it isn't, officially, but Voight wanted me to check things out, plates came back to a known associate of someone we're tracking."

She just nodded, not wanting to square off with one of the few people she thought might actually end up being an ally in the CPD. Instead she pulled on the gloves she had brought from the car and leaned in closer to the body, her focus narrowing in on the corpse. She reached out to shift the body, forcing herself to not visibly shudder when the melted flesh stuck to her glove, there was something about the odd angle of the head that called to her. Yep, right there in the back of the skull. "Looks like a .22, entrance, not seeing an exit," she looked up through the windshield that had shattered in the heat, "I'm betting this was a dump. Know who called it in?"

Antonio watched her, taking note of her methodical approach, relieved that she didn't wince at getting her hands dirty. He had an old boxing buddy in the NYPD, had heard good things about the detective, though her reasons for leaving town were a bit fuzzy. All he had gotten was that an op had gone bad and she had been on leave for a while. "I don't know, Voight just heard Belden getting the case and told me to book it down here. Check with Truck 51, they were first on scene, put the fire out."