"Please like he could lay me out"
Chapter Eight: This Isn't A Game
03x13 Hit Me

*Trigger warning*

For most of us, our past doesn't define who we are, but for Becklean West, her past was always brought up and shoved into her face. It doesnt help that she keeps doing reckless shit, currently she was at the casino.

"- Here you go, ma'am."

"- Thanks." she downs the drink as soon as the glass touches her hand. "Hit me."

"-21," the dealer says as she cheers. Just as Jay walks up, he rubs Becklean's shoulders.

" - Yes! Okay."

"Excuse me! Can I get another drink over here?" she yells behind them.

" This is unreal. Do you want to take it up to the room?"

Becklean smiles, swaying back and forth drunkenly. "Maybe later. I want to go out." She grips onto the side of the poker table to steady herself. "Gentlemen," she nods to the table patrons. "Lady," she nods, smiling at the dealer before handing her a few chips. "Thank you."

She laughs as she piles all of her chips in her shirt, using them to carry them from the table to the cash-out counter. It was a total of nine grand. She thanks the cashier, who hands her the last bit of the cash. As she tucks it into her purse, she turns to leave, stumbling into someone.

"Ma'am, You've had a nice night. I want to offer you a car home."

"Aw, that's so sweet. I'm okay to drive." she tucks a hundred in his pocket, patting it. "Thanks."

She stumbles down a hall towards the door, holding her keys in one hand and her purse tightly wrapped around her arm.

"Hey! Where are you going?" she turns, sees Jay, and smiles at him,

"The city. I want to spend some of this."

Jay makes a sour face. "You're going to drive? How many whiskeys did you have? Seven?"

" Oh, now you're counting?"

He nods. " Yeah, when I'm dealing with a drunk, I count drinks."

She slaps him in the face, causing a few people to stop and look at them." Find someone else who needs saving," she says, walking away.

"You know what? Knock yourself out," he calls from behind her.

The car ride back to the city is quiet. She lets out a breath, sitting up closer to the steering wheel. Her nervousness gets to her, and as her phone rings, she looks down at it and sees it is Jay. She just lets it ring. As police lights are seen behind her, she pulls off to the side of the road as a patrolman steps up to her window.

"You know why I pulled you over?"

She smiles. " I have no idea, Officer."

"You were swerving."

She continues to smile innocently. "Oh, um, I didn't realize that."

"Coming from the casino?"

she furrowed her brows, nodding. " - Yeah."

"- Where's the cash?"

She seems taken aback by his question. "Excuse me?- Why?"

" - Look, hand it over; we can forget the whole thing. Or I could throw you on top of the hood, throw the cuffs on you, take you in for drunk driving."

"No—" she says nothing else. She grabs her bag and hands him the money. He takes it from her as she scoffs. He goes to walk away, only to be surrounded.

"Drop the piece!" Becklean yells as she has her firearm aimed at the man.

The patrolman starts walking towards her with his gun as Antonio walks up with his gun aimed.

"Patrolman, drop the gun, or I'll drop you." he drops the gun, and Attwater comes and pats him down before snatching him up.

"Officer Watkins, huh? You're a disgrace to the uniform. And you're under arrest. Pretty sure you know the rest of the speech."

Becklean shivered as Jay placed his jacket on her arms. "- You good?"

"- Yeah. I guess I was hoping it wasn't true."

When they bring him back to the precinct, they find out the cop isn't actually a cop. His badge number was registered to someone completely different—a white man by the name of Sam. Things were different now. Ruzek was acting out because the engagement to Burgess was called off. Ruzek just wasn't the committed type, and he shouldn't have let it get this far.

This entire undercover op was about a string of robberies taking place after the casino a group of women had been robbed by officers; one recently came forward after she was badly beaten by the officer when she refused to give up her earnings at the casino. The fake officer they arrested didnt attack their vic, and they were willing to let him walk if he spilled about the entire operation; he said he knew about it from some guy named Bug; he also explained how out of Bug, bugs real name was Clayton Howard, he said that bug was the one in charge as far as he knew and that he got him the car, the badge, and the uniform and that he gave him a phone. The phone calls from some dude on the floor back at the casino who is watching people win.

The fake officer also says he never met the dude at the casino. Erin prints out a picture of Bug to see if Kristy, their victim Id, 's him, which she does, and they decide to send Roman and Burgess over to check out Bug's place. Only it turns into a full-blown shoot, leaving Roman injured and annoyed, and Kim is just irritated.

Meanwhile, the big three visit the officer to who the badge belonged.

"Officer Mularz?"

" - Hey."

He shakes Jay's hand.

"- Yeah. Detective Halstead. Detective West, I'm Detective Lindsay. We're with Intelligence. We got a couple of questions about your badge."

He nodded. "That. I reported it lost two weeks ago. It's embarrassing. I got my suspension days coming."

"How'd you lose it?"

He leans back in his chair. "I work security at a club. Strip club. A girl comes in and wants to see the girls dance. - Says she got a thing for cops."

"- Nice." Jay comments.

"Wanted to see my badge. And I came clean with this to my sergeant."

Jay nods. "Yeah. The problem is, someone used your badge for a robbery last night."

"Oh, man. I hate hearing that. Every cop's worst nightmare, right?"

Becklean leans forward, placing both hands on the table. " Especially when a lady almost gets her face bashed in."

"Fifteen minutes ago. Another person posing as a cop opened up on two of our own, and he's still out there."

Mulraz rolls his tongue around, jaw clenched. "Okay, I just reached the point where I don't know what this has to do with me."

"- Are you involved?"

"- In robbing people?" He asks.

" That's right." Jay nods, arms folded over his chest.

Sam stands. This guy was massive and super tall. "I ought to lay you out right where you stand."

Jay leans back onto the table against which he is sitting. "I'd advise against trying that."

"Sam?" Sam just stared Jay down, who had a smirk on his face. " Sam, come on. You're jammed up with the department. You need money. Your badge was used."

"You know how easy it is to get a duplicate?"

Erin nods, " Sure. But why dupe yours?"

" I don't know. Whoever's behind this may know I have open CR numbers on me, and I'm an easy target right now. Got you standing here in front of me, didn't it?"

" Sam, we're not buying it. Why don't you tell us what's going on here before somebody gets killed? This thing's going south real quick." Becklean says as Sam scoffs.

"You guys want to keep talking? It's going to be through my union rep. You all have a great day."

Becklean just smirked at Jay, raising a brow at him. "Your such an ass."

"Please, like he was gonna lay me out?"

Erin laughs as Becklean does, too.

Mouse finds their spotter, a cousin of Attwater and Ruszek, who found out about a guy who was watching the casino for his own personal reasons. Their spotter is Franklin Haynes, who knows Bug from being his former cellmate.

They find Haynes Dead in his bathtub, hands tied behind his back

"Here lies Franklin Haynes. Everything he knew about this crew died with him." Antonio says, tapping Haynes's picture up on the board.

"Yeah, we're still waiting on the ballistics, but the blood on Howard's shotgun is a match for Haynes."

Becklean rolls her eyes. "They're cleaning house. Whoever runs this crew knows we're closing in."

"- Officer Mularz?"

" - Lawyered up. We're going through those channels to set up another interview." Erin explains.

"You got nothing to connect him to the other guys?"

" Not yet." Becklean sighs.

"But you like him."

Erin nods. "- We do." Jay says as Becklean nods as well.

"Hmm. All right, where are we at locating Howard?" Everyone looks back at Adam, who is fumbling with his phone. " Ruzek?"

" Oh, we're still searching. Must've found a good hiding spot within the grid."

"The GPS units that were in the stolen squads are gone." Attwater enters the room with Mouse.

"And that's not easy to do. It's like a Russian doll down there. It's a box inside. a box."

"Inside a box." Attwater finishes.

"So we got nothing off the cars?"

Attwater shakes his head.

" They were from two districts, but both squads were sent to the same motor pond in Area South a month ago," O says.

"Clayton Howard's got a hookup inside the motor pool. You two." he points to Becklean and Jay, who grab their coats and leave.

At the car depot, they meet with the supervisor.

"You the shift supervisor?" He nods from behind his desk.

" I am. You got a problem with your vehicle?"

" Two of them, actually." She hands him the slip with the vehicle information on it. "We were wondering if you could tell us where we can find these cars."

"Give me a second. "He puts his burger to the side. "Do you want a French fry?"

Becklean smiles. " No, thanks." she shakes her head, " Maybe." she takes a fry, and the guy chuckles a bit.

"The cars were stolen off your lot."

"Nope. They were signed out, Detective."

"- Show me." Jay turns the computer screen.

"- Right there. Officer Sam Mularz. I remember her."

"Her?" Becklean asks.

" Yeah. Yeah, she's really pretty. Came in with her partner. Big guy. Black guy. He signed out a car two weeks before that."

Becklean makes a shocked face. "That's not her name. That's a stolen badge."

" Black officer, is this him?"

" Yep. The same."

"Do you have cameras in here? We need anything you have on the partner," Jay asks as the man nods.

The woman going by Sam was a redhead who was named Elizabeth Mckenney.

She's got priors. Shoplifting and resisting arrest. they track down Bug only for him to tell Voight that he was happy to rat on the person behind everything, which just so happens to be Martin Watts, the detective working the case with them or he was supposed to be. Bug explains how he gave him the idea and the resources to pull off the job. Watts arrested both Howard and Haynes on burglary charges. Instead of pushing their cases, he put them to work. Watts turned out Howard, and he must've brought in his friend. Watts was the catching detective for anything out of the casino. He could've buried anything he wanted, But they can't stitch up a cop on a tip from a repeat offender.

This was when they had to tread lightly; they went to Watts's house. Only his wife is inside,

His wife explains how he left, saying he had an active case and took his shotgun. He was asked where their daughter was, but she said Jenni was out with friends. The case was starting to unravel in a weird way. They found his stash of cash upstairs. It was hidden in a panel in the bedroom. Meaning he knows they are closing in. They ask his wife where he might go, the RV and boat park near the lake. They sent Trudy to talk with Watts since they worked for the same district for 11 years, and she closed the RV door behind her.

"Look, all I know is if Trudy gets shot, I'll fuck a bitch up." Becklean was lying on the roof of another RV, trying to see if she could get a clear view of what was happening. She watches as the door opens, and Trudy walks out, holding Watts in cuffs.

Becklean finds herself in the locker room. She wakes up trying to get past Kim, who was standing with the locker door open.

"- Hey."

"Hey," Kim replies.

"Can I?"

"Yeah, sorry." she moves out of the way for Becklean to get to her locker.

"Certainly earned your paycheck today, huh?"

"- I'll say." Kim murmurs. She sniffles, shutting her locker.

"- You all right?"

"Yeah, I'm good".

"Yeah?" Becklean raisies her brow,

" Yeah. Uh Anyway, I'll see you."

"Kim?" Kim stops in her tracks. "You know, Sergeant Platt and I are pretty close. She's—"

" She loves you."

Becklean laughs. "Yeah, we'll call it a mutual admiration society."

"She and I were talking, and I don't have to be coy here. She told me that you're transferring out."

"Kim nods. "Yeah, that's right."

"Because it's that difficult to see him at work every day? "

"Because- Because I feel guilty about calling it off. But it needed to be called off. So there's plenty of other places I can work, Bexs."

Becklean nods. "Yeah, no, I hear you. But you know that when Platt signs off on that paperwork and takes it to the commander, she's going to want to know why."

"You know how hard it is already to be a female cop. And this will follow you around. You. Not him. For the rest of your career. And I'm telling you, you have a bright one ahead of you. Just think about it."

"Yeah." Kim nods.

Becklean pulls her into a hug. "I'm sorry. I got to go."

Becklean meets Tony at the bar. They walk over to Gabby, who is hanging with Herman and others, and their newbie, Jimmy. "Tony! Bexs, Hey, I heard your middleweight got injured today. You're going to have to forfeit, huh?"

"Actually, I was thinking I might offer other services." Tony tilts his head toward Becklean, who smiles.

"No. No, no way."

"Why not? I trained for this," Jimmy says, as Gabby gives him a worried glance.

"You trained for Roman."

"Right. I'm looking at you out of peer pressure, just to be clear," Herman says, as Becklean smiles.

"- Screw it. I'm in. Let's box." He holds up his glass to Becklean, who takes Gabby's glass and clinks it with his,

"- There, you all heard it. That was binding."

"Okay. - You're going to be needing this." Herman throws a towel at Gabby, who laughs sarcastically,

"I mean, she can't be that tough, right?"

Gabby gives Jimmy a look. "See, now I want her to punch your face in."

Tony laughs as Becklean chuckles. "I will try my best not to hurt that pretty face,"

Jimmu smirks playfully. "You think I am pretty."

Becklean nods, smiling, "Oh yeah," she winks, causing him to laugh, and the two spend their night flirting. even though deep down she would've rather be flirting with Jay but let's be real he didnt know what he wanted, and she didnt have time to wait around.

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