Better Than A Snowglobe

Head Detective Carlton Lassiter glared down at his nemesis. He'd squared off against the most hardened of criminals, taken down a murderer while chloroformed, and won an old-west-style shoot out. And now he'd been defeated by a stupid piece of machinery.

"Let go of it!" he snarled, as if the printer would somehow be intimidated into releasing the jammed sheet of paper. He'd only barely resisted the urge to pull his gun on the offending machine.

At least the bullpen was empty — or mostly empty — so he didn't have to suffer this defeat publicly.

Being late on Christmas Eve, everyone else had gone home hours ago, leaving the station unnaturally quiet. There was a night shift manning the fort and enough officers and detectives to handle any situations that might come up overnight. But most of their personnel were currently at home, probably eating their holiday dinners and singing songs around the fireplace like some dumb Hallmark movie.

Lassiter had never been big on Christmas, especially since he hadn't had anyone to celebrate it with for quite a few years, so it never bothered him to work the holiday shift so his co-workers could be home with their families. He was so used to it at this point that he hardly gave it a second thought. Which is why he'd been quick to volunteer when Chief Vick was reassigning the Masterson case.

Two weeks ago, a young woman had been found murdered behind an art gallery. There was no identification on her body and their few suspects didn't appear to have any motive. It was a dead end. To make matters worse, the gallery belonged to the Masterson family - a very influential family with a lot of connections in city hall. They weren't happy with the publicity the gallery was getting and wanted the investigation closed as quickly as possible. The deputy commissioner, who happened to be golfing buddies with Mr Masterson, had given them a deadline - one which they knew they couldn't keep. The trail was going cold and they were out of options.

Lassiter knew whoever got stuck with this case was going to have to work through the holidays. They couldn't afford to take any breaks on this with all the pressure they were under to solve it. And, since he usually worked Christmas anyway, it seemed only natural for him to be the one who ended up working the case.

But that had been before Marlowe called him two days ago. One of his friends from the shooting range worked at the prison and had managed to arrange things with the warden so Lassiter could visit on Christmas Eve. He'd originally been told it was impossible, since Marlowe was on restricted privileges due to an incident in the woodshop. Now they actually had a chance to do their own gift exchange tonight, and he would have to miss out on it.

"Stupid case," he muttered, once again yanking on the uncooperative printout. "Stupid politics. Stupid Masterson family. And stupid, useless printers!"

He gave the machine a kick for good measure. It remained stubbornly jammed.

Lowering his head, Lassiter took a deep breath. This whole night sucked.

Sitting on the table at home was his carefully wrapped gift for Marlowe. Right now, he should be sitting across a metal table from her, celebrating the holiday with the person who'd made him look forward to Christmas for the first time in many years. Instead, he was wrestling with a defective machine while preparing for a long weekend of working on a dead-end case. So much for it being a time of joy.

Sighing, he let go of the paper. He was not in the mood to have a wrestling match with the printer tonight.

"Lassie!"

Eyes sliding shut for a brief moment, he braced himself before turning around. There, seated at his desk, was the annoying psychic he could never seem to escape from. Perfect. Just what this night needed.

"Spencer," he greeted flatly, offering a brief nod. "What are you doing here?"

There, that was mostly civil. O'Hara would be proud.

Spencer dropped his sneakers from their perch on the edge of his desk. He stood up, shrugging as he slid past Lassiter. "Not much. Just wanted to wish my favorite homicide detective a Merry Christmas."

"You've already done that. Multiple times today. Once with confetti."

"Aw, c'mon." Spencer dropped a hand on his shoulder, smiling far too cheerily to be innocent. "Where's your holiday spirit?"

Lassiter brushed the hand off and dropped into his desk chair. He was surprised to see that his desktop looked untouched. His eyes narrowed, checking for any sign of what Spencer might have been doing to it.

"Did you have something to actually say, Spencer?" he asked. "Unlike everyone else in this department, I actually have work to do."

Spencer's expression softened a bit. "Nah, just dropping in to deliver some cookies Jules baked for the night shift. They're on the food table if you get into a snacky mood."

Lassiter glanced that direction and was surprised to see a full plate of cookies sitting there. Apparently he had been telling the truth. About that, at least.

"Well, I'm sure they will be appreciated," he said. "Now, if that's everything, I'd like to get back to work so I can get out of here before New Year's. Don't you have other people to be annoying?"

Raising his hands in surrender, Spencer huffed. "Fine. I can take a hint." Tossing the detective a careless wave, he turned away. "See ya after the holidays, Lassie. Don't work too late. And remember not to feed the gremlins after midnight."

The psychic was out of the bullpen a moment later, and Lassiter breathed a sigh of relief. At least now he could actually get some work done in peace.

He set his coffee aside, leaning forward to check through his emails. The soft clicking of the mouse and a phone ringing near the front desk were the only sounds to break the silence. An officer strolled through the bullpen and Lassiter's gaze shot up to see what he wanted, but the officer was merely on his way through to the restrooms. The door swinging shut behind him echoed through the mostly empty room.

Grunting at the brief disturbance, he tried to refocus on his work.

Has the central air always been that loud? he wondered, glaring at the ceiling. It hummed back mockingly.

Lassiter glanced toward the doorway where Spencer had disappeared a short while before. Not that he'd ever be happy to talk to the conman... but he had to admit that at least he'd broken the monotony for a few minutes. Maybe he shouldn't have been so fast to shoo him away.

On the other hand, he'd be here all night with how much Spencer liked to drone on about completely ridiculous topics. And all he really wanted was to get home and forget this whole stupid night had ever happened.

On that thought, Lassiter unlocked his desk drawer to retrieve the casefile. Might as well get started.

To his surprise, the manila folder was thicker than it had been when he'd put it in the drawer only a few hours ago.

A frown settled over his face. "Spencer," he growled softly. Of course the psychic hadn't been here to only say hello. He'd done something to mess with Lassiter's file. If that idiot did anything to cause him even more work...

He flipped open the cover. A blue post-it note was stuck to the inside of the cover. Lassiter ignored it for now as he scanned through the rest of the file. The frown deepened as his frustration melted into confusion. Everything was still inside, but it had now been re-ordered, separated into groups based on location and date. Small notes in red pen had been scribbled onto several of the pages, pointing out connections between the different suspects and bits of evidence. New photos had been added which were definitely not a product of their own fruitless surveillance efforts.

It only took ten minutes of scanning the newly arranged file for the answer to leap out at him. He knew who had killed that woman, and he also knew the how and why.

Grabbing out his cellphone, Lassiter made some calls to get the process started on an arrest warrant. Once that was done, he called down to the squad room and asked for some officers to come with him while he went to pick up their suspect.

His eyes fell on the file one more time as he stood to retrieve his coat. The blue post-it note stared back at him.

Lassie,
The spirits tell me you may have other plans for tonight, so they wanted me to relay this info on your case. Should be enough for an arrest. Now go see your girl.
Merry Christmas!

(P.S. You're out of paperclips. Sorry.)

Shaking his head, Lassiter flipped the file shut and locked it in his drawer again. He checked the lock, but couldn't see any signs of tampering. He had no idea how Spencer got into the drawer, let alone had enough time to mess with the file. And when had he had enough time to go out and solve the case that had stumped their department's best detectives?

Lassiter checked his weapon one last time before grabbing his keys and heading out.

In the end, he decided, it really didn't matter.

He was going to arrest a murderer and then he was going to spend Christmas Eve with his girlfriend.

Best Christmas he'd had in a long time.

In his opinion, this more than made up for the snowglobes.

Thank you for reading! If you would like to contact the author, please visit my tumblr or dreamwidth.