Detectives Blanchard and Skiggs

Concept: Lazy Homicide Dicks

AKA: Blanchard’s first name is “Ray” Skiggs’s first name is “Richard” but everyone calls him “Dick”.

Desc: Ray is shorter and ruddy. His hair is still dark and his mustache is straight out of 70’s porn. He’s barrel-chested and thick wristed. He’s held the inter-precinct boxing championship more than one time. He’s overweight, but he’s very solid.  Dick is taller and his hair has gone snowy white. He’s sallow and overweight. He may not look like much but he’s the better shot. Dick’s eyes are a little droopy. While both fellas are two-fisted drinkers, Dick’s coloration means that the broken capillaries across the bridge of his nose are a bit more prominent. Both men are pushing 50.

History:  Maybe there’s something to it. That whole idea of “Live long enough to become the villain.”  Both of these guys were cops. Patrol officers and then eventually working their way up to wearing the gold shield.  They became friends...They became partners.

And you know, It would be fairly easy to dog these guys out.  It’s not that they’re bad detectives. They certainly aren’t incapable or incompetent. They’re not by any stretch of the imagination corrupt. As a matter of fact, Skiggs got caught up in a corruption investigation. He was cleared, but he walked around butt-hurt for a good seven weeks, that anyone would even think he ever took a dime that wasn’t his.

  Nah. These two. These two aren’t necessarily bad guys. But they aren’t good guys either.  They ARE lazy. It’s been years since they’ve gone full court press on a case. A man comes home to find his wife murdered and these two will naturally assume the husband did it. After all, it’s usually the husband anyway. right?  Guess whose day just went from bad to worse.

   This is not to say that if you could convince them that they’d missed something, that they couldn’t turn around and make it right.  But if that involves more work and paperwork on top of that...Yeah. It’s going to be an uphill struggle.

Ray’s the volatile one.  He’s a decorated officer but he’s also got some serious stuff in his jacket about getting busy with his fists on suspects.  He’s your typical bad-verging-on-psychotic cop. Socially, he’s the more adept one, but he tends to get hotheaded.   Dick is the smarter one and more level headed. In an interrogation, he’ll vacillate between pulling Blanchard off of someone, and/or dryly asking emotionless questions.  When they double team a suspect, there IS no “good cop”.

Attitude: “C’mon Dick. I been reading up on this way of working a guy over that won’t even leave a mark on him. I mean the little shitbird might bleed out internally, But I hardly see how that’s a fucking problem. Man decides not to talk, he’s got to take what’s coming.”

“Well. If you think that’s best.”

Skills:  Dick is the better marksman, having a couple of dots in combat marksman. Mentally, he’s also got a dot or two on Ray. Ray balances this by being a bit more physically aspected and having dots of boxing. Both have hella good manipulation scores and decent dots in subterfuge,intimidation, and streetwise.  Being interrogated by them is no picnic. Each has about 4 or 5 specialties in Investigation, pretty standard for detectives really if they’ve been at it awhile.

Gear: Ray prefers a solid 45. Plenty of stopping power if you can hit with it at all. Which he can, usually. Dick prefers Glock 9. Dick keeps a Spyderco clipit on his belt at all times.  Ray has sap gloves. Both have Smart Phones. They have a gray Crown Vic that Ray bought at auction one year and then called in a marker with a guy in the motor pool to rehab it.  It’s still in fairly good shape and runs better than an old cruiser has a right to. In the trunk, there are two shotguns, A small box of random pistols with serials filled off. (Because you NEVER know.) and a baseball bat. Blanchard threw in a catcher’s mitt too just because a DA once told him that it would make his life easier.

Home: Dick has a depressing little apartment that he tries to spend as little time in as possible.  Many times, he’ll just go over to Blanchard’s house and nod off on the couch. He’ll stop in in the morning to change clothes and shower.

Blanchard’s home is a cute little place in the burbs. They have a pool table set up in the garage and big old inflatable pool out back.

Circle: To these guys, there are three classes of people; Cops, Fucking Civilians, and Scum. This limits one’s personal interactions a bit.  Ray is married to a woman named Deirdre and has been so for 22 years. Deirdre thinks the world of Ray and considers him her personal hero. Dick thinks she must either be very much in love with him or terribly stupid. He suspects it’s the latter, but he’d eat his weapon before saying that out loud to Ray. And as far as that goes, he can't help but adore her too. Ray knows how lucky he is, and while he might make extremely creative commentary about a female in his immediate field of vision, he’d die before cheating on her.

Dick, for his part, has been married 4 times. He has a bad habit of choosing emotionally unavailable women who are perhaps, too highly strung. The flameouts are impressive. During his first marriage, he got a vasectomy without telling his wife. That ought to tell you something right there.

Story Uses:

“Oh really? Would you like to make a little wager on who cracks the case first?”

These guys come from an old game where one of the players was also a homicide detective. Blanchard and Skiggs were the movie buddy cop rivals that you always see. In fact, the running gag was that if you played it just right, you might actually trick them into doing their fucking job.

“Wudn’t me?” “That’s all he’s got?" "Shit. I don’t even think he WANTS us to look at anyone else." "What kind of alibi is that?"

It’s guys like these that can be the worst nightmare for any character who isn’t able to flee the scene after the shit went down. Maybe you’ll come to, and they’ll be right up in your grill. Or maybe you’ll turn yourself in and tell your story only to have them decide that not only did you do the thing, but they like you for 8 other things now.

“Dude. Stay with me!”

These men, are not good men. But they are partners and have shared a lot. They have put their lives in one another hands.  So if one of them falls in the line of duty. You had best believe that the other one will come for you and all hell will be trailing in his wake.

Connections:

* Detective Dana Crowley While most conversations with her usually end up with a certain amount of dwelling on her tits and ass, If you asked either one separately what they thought about her, each would admit that she was a pretty good homicide dick, and as far as IAB goes, she's still pretty decent. This qualifies as high praise actually.

* They were part of the team that collared William Lee Travis They did a lot of leg-work mostly.

* They'd like to hate Detective Bob Greider but they just can't seem to manage it. Bob's too nice a guy. Even when he's making them look dumb.

* They are both faithful listeners of Alex Mahoney

* Nearly ended up being charged with perjury after being cross-examined by Christine Horowitz The DA ended up yelling at the pair of them for a solid half hour.

* Officer Wesley Ullman  "He's a good kid. Make a fine officer someday, he just needs to learn how to relax...And maybe switch to beer."

* Both, in their secret hearts, miss being able to talk to Miss Virgie Hawkins. 

* Ezekiel Stubbs tried to resist arrest once quite strenuously. He broke Blanchard's instep. Hurt like a sonofabitch for weeks. Bothers him every time the weather gets cold.

* Once busted Big Dan Tarleton after one of his fighters was found face down in the river, but they had nothing that would stick. Dan was actually innocent for once.

* Detective Bela Janofski is considered by both cops to be a pretty decent detective. He has a natural gift for criminal psychology. Course, that doesn't mean that "Digger" isn't going to get his ball busted from time to time.