Falling For Lucy

Epi 19 - The Checklist

We all exited the room in haste and I could tell Chen was tense. She had the biggest checklist by far, even I was slightly worried we wouldn't be able to get them all in 2 days, but I had a plan. We quickly grabbed our gear and hit the streets. I knew exactly where to go first.

...

We had been on the streets for about 10 minutes when I finally found who I was looking for walking down the sidewalk in his leather jacket. I flashed our lights and pulled over.

We got out and I instructed Chen to search Fred, a notorious meth addict, and she did. After a few seconds of patting him down, I could tell by the look on her face something was wrong.

"He's clean." She declared as she finished patting him down and stepped back. The street was empty and so were his pockets.

"I'm really sorry." Fred apologized with a shrug, but it wasn't necessary.

"You're always carrying Fred, what happened?" I asked him curiously. I was both proud of him and also disappointed that I couldn't give Chen this slam dunk.

"Oh, uh..." He picked up the token off the shop hood, "I got my 30-day chip." He explained, holding it up and showing it to us.

"Wow. Congratulations." I said, looking at it with a nod. I was genuinely happy for him that he was getting his life together.

"I feel bad. I let you down." Fred replied.

"It's all good. Say hi to Wilma for me. All right, you're free to go." I said to him, releasing him. Fred wandered off and I looked at Chen. She was dejected and I felt sympathetic.

"You said he was a sure checkmark for drug possession," Chen whined, clearly disappointed we didn't find him carrying.

"What can I say? He got clean." I shrugged. "It's inspiring actually." I added, waving my arm at him as he walked away down the street.

"Well, forgive me if I don't appreciate the human interest story. I mean, Jackson at least has a chance with only three calls, but seven?" she ranted in panic. She was already letting this challenge get to her.

"Okay, people win the lottery every day, with higher odds against them. There are 18 million people in the greater Los Angeles area. We just need 7 of them to break very specific laws." I explained frankly.

Dispatch came over the radio then, "7-adam-19 store owner reporting customer trying to pass counterfeit bills near your location. Hispanic male, brown hair, blue suit."

"7-adam-19, responding." I radioed back.

"I don't need a counterfeit case," Chen whined.

"Look on the bright side," I sighed at her pessisim, "you do need assaulting a police officer. Maybe he'll take a swing at you." I shrugged and we headed back to the shop.

She actually scoffed and smirked as we got back into the shop.

We had made it to lunch and still hadn't checked anything off of Chen's list. She handled all of our calls like a pro, but it wasn't anything we needed.

"The pressure is getting to them." Lopez was telling me about Jackson's calls and how poorly he was handling it. The kid had his problems, but he was also a bit cocky about the job.

"It's getting to me. Never had a rookie make it this far and not qualify for the exam," I replied, eating my food. I was known for being a tough training officer but I was never intentionally unfair to my rookies, and at this rate, if Chen didn't complete her checklist and got held back from the 6-month exam it would be all my fault.

"I think Nolan's over there giving them a pep talk," Bishop said. I glanced over and sure enough, Nolan had his dad hat on, trying to cheer the other two up.