Joe Connell

Joe is a cop in homicide, struggling to keep the department making forward progress on cases, despite the incompetence of his partners and staff.

Joe started life growing up in a crowded Irish family, with a cop for a father and several siblings vying for attention. As the oldest, it was his job to keep them all in line, to be the respectable son. It was where he learned patience, and tolerance, and acceptance, and how to put someone in a very uncomfortable hold until they did what they were told. He followed in his father's footsteps. Starting out as a cop on the beat, picking up drunks and getting couples to stop screaming. And again, he made strong use of being calm and focused and not letting what people say distract him. And using uncomfortable holds to ensure compliance if negotiations broke down. Which they fortunately did not do too often. Joe was never the strongest nor fastest, and certainly not the most accurate with his firearms. But his calm demeanor and nothing-phase-him attitude got him noticed. He spent several years on the beat, but there wasn't any doubt that he was being pushed towards detective work. Getting his detective badge was one of the proudest days in his life. He remembers his dad sitting in the audience, stoic, unyeilding. And as clear as day unable to do anything else without tearing up. Joe's father Malcom told his son how proud he was, to see the family tradition being carried on.

Joe's hope of great times in homicide died swiftly. The division wasn't incompetent, crimes were still solved, but a lackadaisical attitude pervaded the entire department. And riding under that was a disturbing smell of corruption. Files going missing, contact information lost. Nothing overt, just... unacceptable. And Joe's calm demeanor and effort in making sure things got done right meant he ended up doing the majority of the paperwork (many of his more important stuff ended up with multiple copies, sometimes hidden in the most unusual of places). When they would push off a case for another day, Joe would stay late. And for this he was rewarded with more complicated cases, more paperwork, and several utterances of "you're working too hard." Joe always bit back his response, "you aren't working hard enough." It wouldn't help. But it did make him feel good. His isolation in the department meant that he was rotated partners quite frequently. No one wanted to be stuck with Hard-Ass O'Connel if they could avoid it.

Socially he was very fortunate. He enjoyed a good whisky, and bartenders are always happy to hear a great story, and he's always happy to return the favor. At one of the bars he met a lovely girl named Kimmi. They shared a similar interest in armchair physics and history, and he found her work with the community to be quite similar to his own efforts. Things got quite serious, enough that she sat him down and forced him to learn her families' language. "They won't respect you if you can't tell them to fuck off in their tongue." She quiped to him, and so he studied, and learned. He was introduced to the family, things were going great.

And then came the case that changed things.

He still doesn't know what the hell happened. It started with a murder, like it always does. And then there was a property owned by a nobody. Inside they found a guy who moved too fast, hit too hard, and just plain coudn't be human. Joe mentioned it just once, and was promptly and properly told that impossible things were just that, impossible. Joe didn't listen very well, and dogged the criminal. Eventually he stumbled into something too deep, too weird. He received a tip to meet in a warehouse, and a strange disembodied voice told him a lot, and yet nothing substantial. That same voice gave him a connection to a man. He still doesn't know his name, but that man took him to a rooftop. Inside he peered down, and together they saw the perpetrator. He was tied down in an arena of some kind, with dozens of people watching. And then they set the bastard on fire. His chaperon told him not to tell anyone of what he saw, and Joe couldn't argue. How could you argue? They just set a guy on Fire.

And so he showed up Monday. And things weren't quite the same. He drifted apart from Kimmi, and with her gone her family gently, but firmly, shut him out of their community. He had never been strongly religious, but now, he wasn't sure he even wanted to believe in God. But even though his social life fell into hell, he still does his job, and he does it well. Because it seems no one else will.