2012-07-09 Hours Before Sunrise

The morning - early morning, to be precise - is no doubt a busy affair for Janet van Dorn, Gotham District Attorney. A phone call from the police started the day, the detective on the line stating that there was an 'incident' at the office, with her office possibly burglarized. It would be best if Janet were there ten minutes ago, he had said shortly before the electronic parting of ways.
Upon your arrival, there's already a group of squad cars, lights flashing and everything already corded off until the scene can be fully processed for possible evidence.
"Detective Johns is inside," is what you would be told by officers who had been instructed to keep watch for you. "He's got a couple questions. Your office." At which point he radios ahead to indicate that the D.A. has arrived to be let through the buzzing security.
She's usually up early in the mornings, but scrabbling for her phone while she's in the shower is no way to get a Janet van Dorn in a good mood. When she arrives, she is still damp, dressed neatly, pre-caffeinated, and assuredly not in a good mood.
Janet strides into the building quickly and angrily -- oh so angrily. She nods sharply to the officers, stalking through their lines and jabbing the up button on the elevator to be taken to her office. Lesser men might well flee from what appears to be a small land shark darting through the water on the way to a particularly irksome feast.
It is truly like a hive of angry bees. Officers standing watch at regular locations, an paramedic checking on the condition of a man who is easily recognized as security. Witness statements are being taken, a sketch artist is already at work, and every last person that is a member of the judicial system or law enforcement no doubt is wondering not only what happened, but /how/.
Even with your office door wide open, it's not in shambles. It almost looks... neat, except for the fact that there are a few GCPD and their overseer standing in there, frowning.
"Ms. van Dorn, Detective Erik Johns," the obviously dressed-as-such man in charge says, turning to face you fully when he catches sight from the corner of his eye. "Thanks for the promptness. Near as we can tell, someone came snooping around four, gave security man out there an early vacation - he placed the call when he came to - and here we are. Got the boys looking for prints, but so far it doesn't even look like someone forced entry or anything. The workmen over night don't recall seeing anyone strange, so either your security guard had something to drink and passed out by staggering into something, or someone in the construction crew had a little too much time on their hands last night, ya follow?
"So I need to ask you the obvious questions - you know the drill, I'm sure. Any reason you can think of, off the top of your head, for someone to come a calling out here to your place?"
Janet's eyes are already dancing across the room, looking past the detective and the other officers to scan the place from floor to ceiling. Her hands are clenched at her sides and it seems like it's a moment before she actually notices the detective. But she's heard everything he says, processing it, nodding once.
The first question actually makes her laugh. One 'hah', brief and loud. "Let's see. I put a lot of people in jail, Detective Johns. They and their confederates sometimes take a dim view of that. I'm also not exactly boon companions with any organized crime families or gangs, including the alleged Batman gang. Police enforcement should be left to the police."
She clicks her tongue thoughtfully: "Even I'm not usually here at four. If you'd said midnight, I'd think they might expect to find me here. Maybe I could take a look to see what might be missing? Has anyone checked the file cabinets?"
"Already did that," Detective Johns replies. "And yeah, silly question, I know, but you'd be surprised how much being silly can suddenly lead to being serious, if only because of jogging a memory. Doesn't look like anyone's forced the cabinets open, or the like. If they were after that, they did a good job covering their tracks. We didn't even see a scrape that was out of place. Doesn't mean they weren't messed with, though.
"So that means my next point of business is making sure no one did lift anything. You got any backups, or an index of them to reference, see if anything about anyone's missing?"
"Electronic copies of everything from the last year," Janet replies promptly, "stored locally on my laptop -- which was not here -- and an external hard drive as well as on a remote server. Anything older than that is in the process of being scanned; I think we're back five or six years. You'd have to ask Williamson. He also has an index of the cases, so if there is anything missing we should be able to find it. Anything more than five or six years old is in offsite storage unless we've had to pull it recently for a related case, and anything like that that we've pulled is going to have a receipt down there. I can't think of anything off the top of my head. One or two cases, maybe. We're working on the digital archiving process, but it's one of those things that takes time."
There's a 'hrm' sound from the Detective as he scribbles down a note or two, that small little pad getting a brief bit of action with the English language as he jots down a line or two of what you said. "Guess we'll have to have a talk with your tech guys, too," he says with a hint of a sigh, the resignation of more work to come. "Make sure no one's accessed that when they weren't s'posed to.
"So," Johns says, flipping the pad closed and holding it, and the pencil in one hand, "here's what I'm going to need from you. My boys need to process the scene here, still, but I'll need you to cooperate with a couple of them at verifying all your files are intact and accounted for. They'll call me if you find anything. I'm also going to need to keep you under watch, just in case you were the target, since you just said you stay late. Just a precaution until the storm blows through. I'd rather not take chances, and that's straight from the Captain's mouth. You need anything, those boys are there to come if you hollar at them, k?"
"Suits me," Janet says with a faint sigh. "I'm going to be going out tonight, but I wouldn't say no to having extra security here when I work late. Which is most of the time. If you could throw an off-duty cop at me now and again I'd be grateful. Thanks for keeping it quick, Detective. When Williamson gets in, we can get started on crossreferencing what we've got. Poor kid," she continues with a dry grin. "Maybe we can get an intern or two in to help him."
"I like my interrogations over quickly too, Madam D.A.," the detective replies with a faint grin, showing off a little bit of white teeth - he's an avid brusher. "Saves me a lot of paperwork." Pocketing the notepad and the mechanical pencil to which it is married, Johns provides a copy of his card: a direct line, name, the usual details needed to get a hold of him. He doesn't think he needs explain that action. "Anything at all comes to mind, give a call. Or one of my guys will. Thanks for coming, now for the next five witnesses." A faintly resigned smile, the detective is going to take his leave there, to bury himself further in his work.
Yet while all this is happening, one man in an officer's uniform pretending to stand guard elsewhere is holding up his fingers to his ears. He's one of three placed in the building, monitoring one of the three bugs that were planted over the night. This particular "officer" is busy monitoring the one assigned to your office, the one that is currently mimicing part of your desk, the same desk that they had extracted a small piece from, drilled a hole at that site, planted their bug, repaired the wound, verified that one could hear normal talk, and then departed once all three were operational. In other words: the whole breaking-and-entering was meant to draw forensics and investigators with questions in. They needed information, and now they have more than they got snooping around last night:
"Laptop off-site has records of the last year," the false cop is murmuring quietly. "Check her house?" The answer that comes back has the man leaving, and quickly. The police won't know about the man the uniform was taken from until he fails to show up to work tomorrow.
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