my novel has a character who is a police detective and I know basically nil about this job and her chain of command. I'm not planning on going into great detail and realize that some of what i am doing with her is probably borderline unrealistic, which I am okay with. The story is a paranormal mystery and it can be a little bit of a stretch.
I would like to make it as believable to most laymen as possible and back some of it up in fact!
Gist of story: She was married to a fellow cop whom she divorced for cheating on her with someone (perhaps in the station perhaps out, not clear on this yet) and drinking too much. He's recently been promoted and is now her boss. He's very popular in the precinct, although she's got a couple allies, and she isn't the best detective in the world.
His brother is pretty shady, which he is aware of, and deals drugs, which he kind of suspects but doesn't really know. When his brother's corpse turns up, he wants to find out whodunnit, but suspects it's probably got something to do with some kind of underbelly crime thing he wants to keep under the rug.
Brother's car is missing, so he calls in lady cop to check out crime scene and to see if she can trace the car, report to HIM ONLY, and maybe find the killer while keeping the crime hush.
QUESTIONS:
What sort of rank might I give to male cop?
What sort of address might I give to female cop?
What kind of department is feasible that they work in? Homicide, or could they be somewhere else and he is just trying to do something sneaky?
This crosses State lines, which normally would involve FBI, right? Would she be concerned about that?
I appreciate all the help. I am not looking for 100% perfection, like I said. This is one aspect to a very involved story, and none of these are my MC. I'd like to include what I can to be accurate, but I realize this probably would not occur in real life. The man does think it is something in city when he first asks her to look into it.
I would like to make it as believable to most laymen as possible and back some of it up in fact!
Gist of story: She was married to a fellow cop whom she divorced for cheating on her with someone (perhaps in the station perhaps out, not clear on this yet) and drinking too much. He's recently been promoted and is now her boss. He's very popular in the precinct, although she's got a couple allies, and she isn't the best detective in the world.
His brother is pretty shady, which he is aware of, and deals drugs, which he kind of suspects but doesn't really know. When his brother's corpse turns up, he wants to find out whodunnit, but suspects it's probably got something to do with some kind of underbelly crime thing he wants to keep under the rug.
Brother's car is missing, so he calls in lady cop to check out crime scene and to see if she can trace the car, report to HIM ONLY, and maybe find the killer while keeping the crime hush.
QUESTIONS:
What sort of rank might I give to male cop?
What sort of address might I give to female cop?
What kind of department is feasible that they work in? Homicide, or could they be somewhere else and he is just trying to do something sneaky?
This crosses State lines, which normally would involve FBI, right? Would she be concerned about that?
I appreciate all the help. I am not looking for 100% perfection, like I said. This is one aspect to a very involved story, and none of these are my MC. I'd like to include what I can to be accurate, but I realize this probably would not occur in real life. The man does think it is something in city when he first asks her to look into it.
