Life Hacks/Answer honestly that you want to climb the fence
“Eh, a little keyd up still,” you say, “I kind of feel like I want to climb that fence there right now,” You tilt your chin in that direction, sparking a laugh from officer Thompsett.
“Hm?” Roni responds, looking over in that direction as well.
“Ah, I hear you,” the female police officer says, dropping her hand off your back and taking on a more relaxed and casual stance. “Probably not a good idea to say things like that out loud though, you might give the children some bad ideas.”
“Ehh… yeah,” you say, adjusting Roni in your grip, sliding your hands over her ass a little more in the process. “I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin though. I’ve got to do something with all this energy.”
“Tell you what,” the officer says, “you can pace back and forth while you give me your statement over here.”
At about this time, you hear the male officer starting give Billy’s dad his talking to and can’t help but listen in.
“So, I’ve herd more or less what happened,” the male officer says. “we’re going to collect statements now, I want you to head back to the station. Can I trust you to do that?”
“That fucktard was messing with my son!” the officer growls back, “you can’t be saying you are taking there side, are you?”
“Richards, you know the procedure,” he says. “you will have your chance to tell your side of the story. For now, I need you to get out of here while we collect their statements. Now, can I trust you on your own to leave without causing a scene?”
In response to this, you hear ‘Richards’ grumbling about white-knight mangina pussy loving something or other before erupting with “Sure!” And then he grumbles “see you at the god damn station,” as he slinks off.
You reach the other set of bleachers where Patricia has already herded the kids, and you can see a lot of other parents starting to gather as well asking what is going on. Patricia relays the story to the parents, and you get looks of admiration from a few of them as you approach, others seem to be looking at you with disapproval but that disapproval is mixed with a fair amount of respect none the less. Some kid’s father even clouts you on the back.
“Oi, heard what happened,” he says, “sounds like that guy was a real bastard. If I were you, he would be leaving the park in an ambulance.”
You chuckle to yourself and give a wry glance over to the officer who is with you. She gives a sigh, a sigh that you would have taken for unreadable before this morning. With your enhanced social skills combined with a bit of knowledge of the police proceedures you gained due to boosting your skills though, you are able to discern every single thought going through her mind with that one breath. She seems to be frustrated over the complete impossibility in this situation to prevent the witness stories from contaminating each other. Normally, you can get better statements by interviewing witnesses separately. In this case though, that approach has been completely shot, and it is actually kind of her fault for taking you in this direction. She seems to forgive herself a little though, figuring the situation here is pretty clear cut. Well, that’s good for you you suppose.
“Ok, I need to talk with these two,” officer Thompsett says, “could you all give us some room to talk?”
There are a few “yeah, sure” type statements from the crowd as they all move about 10 feet off to the side. They are no longer crowding you, but they do seem to all still be in ear shot. This is mostly fueled by curiosity, but you get the impression, especially from the guy who clouted you on the back, that they are going to start making the officer’s lives difficult if they take any action against you. Officer Thompsett seems to be eyeing your sister in your arms curiously, wondering if you are going to keep holding her like that and she seems to be hoping that the answer is no.
“Are you going to get Xander in trouble?” Roni asks, twisting herself to look at the officer. Officer Thompsett reacts almost as though she were slapped in the face by this comment as a jolt of electricity seems to go right through her body.
“No, no,” she says, “we just need to ask him a few questions about what happened.” Roni smiles at this and gives you a big tight hug before getting down out of your arms, but as soon as she is on the ground she immediately latches on to your hip and with how tight her hold is it does not seem like she is planning to go anywhere any time soon. This seems to disappoint officer Thompsett a little, but she shrugs her shoulders in resignation. “Now then, I just need you to tell me what happened and then we will get out of your hair.”
"Hey," the male officer says, "I just sent officer Richards back to the... oh for the love of...!" He trails off and looks over his shoulder right as the ass-hole in question is walking up behind him.
"Hey," officer woman-hater barks, getting the male officer's hand on his chest in an instant as he tries to push him back.
"Richards, back off!" He says in a strong and firm voice.
"I'm just gonna give my boy a lift back to my house," he says, "just let me get my god damn son!"
"Step back!" He says
"Daddy!" Billy says, running up to his dad and getting a sigh from the male officer.
"Ok, excuse me," the male officer says to his partner, "I'm gonna ride with officer Richards to the station," he says with a glare that you read to show a lot of contempt for the fact that his co-worker is at the park with his son, and probably on duty. "Can you get everyone's statements yourself?"
"I can get there myself" officer Richards growls.
"Yeah, but I'm going with you," the male officer says.
"I'll be fine Gary," Officer Thompset assures her partner. "Probably better that way." She mumbles so quietly, her lips aren't even really moving. You doubt anyone but you even picked up that grumbled remark. She watches as her partner escorts the derelict officer and his son out of the park toward where Richards had indicated when he was asked where his squad car was parked. She turns around with a sigh laced with absolute exasperation. "I'm sorry about all that," she says with absolute venom in her voice, "guys like that give all of us on the force a bad name." She mourns. "We'll be dealing with this," she practically spits the words. "anyway, if we could just get statements from you two, it will help us out in getting this whole thing dealt with.
Well, that removes all concern you may have had as to whether or not they had any shadow of suspicion you might have crossed some line you shouldn't have. Well, guess that means you don't have to worry about yourself while giving your side, the only thing you have to consider is how bad you want to paint this ass-hole to be.
How do you tell the story?
- Go for sympathy, talk about how he just attacked you
- Play it cool, that guy was a real bastard
- Ask if you can do this later for everyone’s sake
