Renee Oberman

Renee Oberman
Occupation	Lieutenant, Illegals Division, NYPSD
Gender	Female
Age	42 (as of 2060)
Hair	Blonde
Eyes	Blue
Height	5 feet, 4 inches (162.56 cm)
Weight	120 pounds

Introduction

Lieutenant Renee Oberman was a ranked officer. She ran a squad of the Illegals Division at Cop Central. Her illegal drug operation was dismantled by Homicide Lieutenant Eve Dallas and Detective Delia Peabody in Treachery in Death. She was mentioned in New York to Dallas, when Peabody received her medal for taking down her crooked squad, in Delusion in Death (October/November, 2060) as an example of somebody not to be used to smear the whole NYPSD with, and in Payback in Death, as an example of “a wrong cop”

Descriptions

• Attractive, with flawless ivory skin, a hint of roses on her cheeks, classic oval face with sharply defined eyebrows several shades darker than her hair.
• Long, straight blonde hair.
• A crisp white shirt under a fitted jacket with tiny black-and-white checks, the shining blond hair sleeked back into an intricately braided knot at the nape. Jet earrings dangled, and one of the pink and white flowers [from the vase on her desk] graced her lapel. When she skirted the desk to greet her, Eve noted Renee wore high black heels.
• She’d changed from her power suit into a little black number that showcased her body, left toned arms bare. She’d paired it with hot red heels so her toes, painted the same color, could play peekaboo, and left her rain of blonde hair loose. The complex series of sparkling links around her neck held a round red pendant. Her eyes were expertly shadowed and smudged. She liked knowing she caught attention, Eve thought, that men were checking her out and women were wondering who she was.

History

• The only child of Marcus and Violet Oberman, who’d been married forty-nine years. Father, police commander (retired) with fifty years on the job. Mother, a waitress, had taken six years as a professional mother after the daughter was born, then found employment as a sales manager in a women’s upscale boutique until retirement.
• She graduated from the Police Academy with a “shiny record.”
  • Feeney said he considered recruiting her for Homicide and being her trainer, but it “just didn’t seem the right fit.” Eve Dallas wondered how her life might be different if he had taken Oberman and therefore perhaps not later taken Eve.
• Married to Noel Wright for two years. Divorced no later than 2054.
• She had served in the NYPSD for “nearly eighteen years” as of 2060, so she joined around 2042.
• She had been decorated, although no details were given.
• She was not the cop her father was, but few were. Her record has, so far, been excellent, and her work perfectly acceptable.
• She headed up a 12-man squad in the Illegals Division of Cop Central.
  • “When she came on as boss she was the golden girl.”
  • She ran her squad with a firm hand and got results.
• She ran an illegal drug operation for six years, before the events in Treachery in Death (late summer 2060).
  • The operation used detectives in her Illegals squad, and at least one other Illegals cop outside her squad, cops from the Property department and Accounting department, a doctor in Testing, street dealers, “some lawyers she can flip if one of her crew gets squeezed, probably somebody in the PA’s office, at least one judge,” and “probably a couple of politicians.”
  • Her supervisors saw “no signs, no forewarnings, no leading indicators of this corruption.”
  • Dallas speculated that Oberman was able to fool almost everyone because they respected her father so much. “His name and his reputation, the awe he inspires, allowed her room, inclined some to turn a blind eye, influenced others to go along.”

Personality

• Vain.
• “Very intelligent.”
• Her strengths included a forceful personality, an ability to select the right person for the right job, and she was adept in accessing the details of a situation and streamlining them into a logical pattern.
• She preferred administrative and supervisory duties, and was better at them than on the street.
  • She had the temperament for “politics, for the grips and grins, for the paperwork and public relations.”
  • According to Mira, Oberman “understands thoroughly the workings, the politics, the pecking order of the NYPSD. She focused on Illegals, I believe, because it’s an area rife with the potential for corruption, for weaknesses, for backroom deals, all of which she can exploit.”
• However, “she lacks compassion, and she sees her men as tools, and the job as a means to an end.”
• Lieutenant Oberman was ambitious.
  • She structured her career to be a path to a captaincy, and is already making plans for when she got the bars.
  • Commander Whitney believed that she had a time line for assuming the Commander’s position, although she lacked the proper temperament and he would try to prevent that appointment.
• Commander Whitney disliked her.

Interesting Facts

• She used the name “Marcia Anbrome” for her hidden accounts (Anbrome being an anagram of Oberman, and Marcia instead of Marcus). Under that name, she owned a house in Sardinia and a flat in Rome, and had a Swiss passport. Roarke found properties and accounts worth upward of two hundred million, although he thought there was more tucked away here and there. She also kept a private shuttle under that name in Baltimore, flying over to Sardinia once or twice a month, plus an extended period of time in the winter and sometimes in the summer.

YANNI

• She was called “Oberon” in Calculated in Death and Leverage in Death