Quintic (12 page)

Lemieux has
no police records
; he was too good to get
caught! She kept her thoughts to herself.

The team
wasted o
ver an hour in a meeting to learn
a name but not much else. Hamilton traced their next steps very
succinctly.

“
We’ll
contact phone companies to see if, by chance, Lemieux had a
registered phone somewhere. We’ll go to the post office to see if
anyone might have seen the guy when he went to get his checks. And,
of course, we’ll try to find some of the hooker’s co-workers. We
might get lucky. Some of her girly friends might remember
Lemieux.”

Christopher’s boys
were going to
be busy. Hamilton concluded by giving the guys homework. Meeting
over.

She
desperately needed a coffee. Too bad she had a hangover and didn’t
like scotch, Christopher kept a bottle in his desk bottom drawer.
Perhaps if she had some in her coffee?

No coffee,
no scotch, Christopher grabbed her arm
before she reached the door. His touch felt nice. He
stopped Hamilton with a nod.

“
Ham, I
think Patricia should give a background report. Write down
everything she remembers about the guy. His tastes, his habits,
where he took her out and such. Guys our age, we have our habits;
might be the places he hung around then, he still went to these
days. What’d you think?”

Rhetorical
question. Hamilton
agreed, “Anything can
be useful at this stage.”

Infuriating.
Christopher gently
rubbed her inner arm with his thumb. She really should learn to
like scotch, straight, no ice. She needed something damn potent at
this instant. She intended to consume a large amount of alcohol to
survive writing Lemieux’s damn background report. Why hadn’t she
stayed in bed this morning?

The One Before
Him

C
hris reluctantly let go of her
arm and stomped to his office. He busied himself by pacing in front
of his window and returning phone calls. He observed as she
sauntered from desk to desk, talking to Bridget, and then Des,
Reid. She stepped out of the room for five minutes, toilet break
probably, before settling at her desk and shuffling papers around,
open and close her drawers randomly (or so it seemed from his
vantage point).

She
clicked the mouse a couple of times, but was up
again, back to talking to Bridget. She left again, longer this
time, to Fredrick’s basement most likely. She breezed in twenty
minutes later and headed to her desk
again
. She was clearly not
working.

It didn’t
take a genius to see she was upset, no fucking genius to know she
di
dn’t want to write the report on
Lemieux. The fuck if he desired to read it, and he sure didn’t want
to have the others read it either. But they had no clue on the guy,
and she had known him. If the amount of energy she was wasting
by
not
doing the thing was any indication, she had known the vic a
lot more than she let on.

Chris
sighed. They had ‘
d
ated a few
time
s’ she had said. Yah right. He had
been around; he was no fucking choir boy, not by a long shot. Yes,
he’d had more than his share of women. He had not discriminated on
types, backgrounds and sizes. He fucked a dancer (not ballet), a
doctor, all sorts in between, shy women, wild, sweet, bitchy, and
all shades in between. His youth had been reckless. Before becoming
a cop he had stood on the other side, angry at the world, and had
excelled at being bad.

Back then,
h
e didn’t have any physical preferences
as long as he fucked often enough, fast enough, and out the door he
left. Women he dated, women he fucked, women he hung around with,
even one he got engaged to, in a strictly business arrangement. His
early thirties had been a weird period. The only time he had aimed
to do what everyone expected of him and shut the MacLaren clan up.
He had settled for a woman he didn’t like. Simpler that way. The
engagement lasted less than a month. After that, he had passing
lady friends and mistresses; he frequented a few concurrently if
not assiduously. Simpler that way.

He was at a
loss to describe what Patricia was. His girlfriend assuredly, and
his lover. Simultaneously his mistress and girlfriend. A friend
too, his best friend. Someone he admired. He desired. He liked, as
his current unrelenting attention betrayed. And still, she was more
than that. It. Her.
The
woman. All of that and more.
Fucking corny. The woman of his life. Lemieux used prostitutes for
kinky fucks in cheap motels. The thought of her dating the loser
while the jerk could have had her pissed Chris off.
Mine
.

He had lunch
over at Central; an
interminable string
of meetings with the Brass followed. When he got back well past
three, Bridget was on the phone, the guys were out, and Patricia
was busy typing at her computer, her back to him. On her first day,
she had pushed her desk at the farther corner of the room, and
positioning it so she faced the wall. Her way of showing that,
unlike them cops, she was not afraid of sitting with her back to
the entrance.

Chris often
sneaked up behind her to peek over her shoulder at what she was
doing. She would make as if she had not seen him coming even though
that big shiny kettle pot decorating her desk was her mirror to the
room. This time, though, he didn’t sidle up to her; he fucking knew
what she was doing or, more precisely, what she was not
doing.

Words
filled her screen, not short lines of text or
columns but long sentences. The damn woman did not kiss and tell
(it had taken him weeks just to pry Joshua’s name out of her), so
whatever she was typing, it wasn’t the fucking report.
I don’t want to force you, Angel,
but I will if we don’t get a handle on your guy soon.

Hamilton and
Charles got back before Chris had decided if he was going to give
her extra time or start pushing. Or take her to dinner. Or straight
to his place. The guys motioned to him, and they locked themselves
in the conference room. Recap of their first day together? Nothing.
Plan for tonight? Push. Dinner. His place.

The
f
irst thing he noticed coming out was
Patricia’s empty desk.

“
Patricia
already left for the evening,” Bridget informed him.
Four-thirty, closer to an after-work
drink than coffee, Princess. You should have waited for
me
. “She mentioned a prior engagement and
said she wasn’t sure if she was going to be in
tomorrow.”

So fucking
t
ypical! Running off was an old habit of
hers. Whenever he was getting too close to her past, she took off.
His mistake, he should have seen it coming. Should have sat her
down in his office and locked the door. He sighed. Cursed.
Whatever. For sure she hadn’t left to go to her place. Or
his.

He stayed at
the office until seven. No point in rushing. He tried calling her a
couple of times but got no answer. Knowing he had guessed right did
not put him in a better mood. He reviewed the file, the photos,
everything Charles had found. So little. Everything Ham had found.
Not much more. He marked down the information on his blackboard,
organising the facts according to his own logic. He liked that part
of a case. Raw data to assemble, making sense and order out of
seemingly unrelated and disorganised facts. Modesty was a waste of
time; he knew how good he was at it. No preconceived ideas, no
judgements, a thorough search for motives, means, opportunity that
would explain the crime. He found it hard not to make assumptions
in this case.

His stomach
reminded him of the time (lunches at Central were never copious).
Not in the mood for a dinner for one at his place, not in the mood
to eat out, he drove to the piers. The heavy traffic slowed down
his drive across town but he was in no hurry. He let the ride
soothe him. The impatient drivers trapped in traffic with him
relaxed him. He for one had all the time in the world. He had
nothing particular to do tonight except stopping at Patricia’s
hotel later, much later.

Although he
hadn’t called
, it was like the A-team was
waiting for him when he showed up at their bar, no question asked.
Lonzo and MacCarmick owned a guys’ bar near the piers and each had
an apartment on the second floor. Fuck, he liked those
guys.

They hugged
bear-like
before Lonzo poured him a
drink. Lonz kept a bottle of scotch around even if he wasn’t an
amateur himself. Real friends. Over their twenty-five-year
friendship, they had done a lot of shit the three of them (mostly
wicked but not all wrong). They still did from time to time (only
when necessary or so they justified it). Chris thought about
telling them about the case but decided not to. Not yet. He had a
feeling Lemieux might turn out to be the type of guy Lonzo and
MacCarmick met on a regular basis.

His buddies
rented out their muscles in all kinds of places and did security
jobs in their spare times. The guys did not object to not-so-classy
places of employment or not quite legit work. Chris didn’t mind
them doing suck work. Sometimes being on the official side of the
law made getting things done more complicated. He had called to
them for help often, the murder trial being their latest
opus.

Lonzo
entertained him with a recap of their latest job at a private
party. “You should have seen us, Chris. We spend the entire weekend
on security detail, so some big shots making too much money− The
jerk sells counterfeit electronics. Would you buy a TV off-market?
You know me, I’ve got nothing against entrepreneurship, but no way
I’m going to risk the equipment breaking in the middle of a game.”
Lonz took a breath and a swallow of his beer. “Anyway. The jerk had
an all-weekend party for some foreigner clients, and he gave it his
all. Half-naked babes, poker games, and us.”

Worse
ways to spend a weekend. Chris’s shoulders were
slowly loosening up. MacCarmick made them seafood pasta. His friend
wasn’t much of a talker, but he was a great cook, which suited
Chris just fine. Besides, Lonzo was talking enough for the three of
them. Lonzo’s chatter was entertaining. The guy was worse than a
teenage girl when it came to gossips.

And
the guy liked women, any and all women, and
described every babe from his weekend in graphic details. He had
probably sampled a few of them too; after all, he did have a whole
weekend. Lonzo’s non-stop chatter was as soothing as driving.
MacCarmick listened and smiled low-key. The guy had probably seen
all the women Lonz was describing, been told all about them too,
and more than once.

Chris
couldn’t remember MacCarmick ever dating a woman. He did spend
nights with one every once in a while
,
but never a woman any of his close friends knew or had seen before,
or would see again for that matter.

Patricia had
asked Mac once if he considered himself lucky to have known a woman
such that no other could ever replace. Had she been teasing or had
she known something Chris didn’t? No other living soul dared
question MacCarmick on his love life. She didn’t get an answer that
night, but if anything, his bud grew more indulgent toward her. His
team was the same.

I
t wasn’t on his account they
were nice to her. No way in hell would he have tolerated any
disrespect toward her, but their actions went beyond simple
deference. Ham avoided touching her. Lonzo and Mac covered for her.
Reid and Bridget liked her. Their commitment to her had to do with
her specifically. The way she put herself on the line, thinking of
their happiness and safety before hers. They respected that. He did
too. It drove him crazy, made his life hell, but damn he enjoyed
every fucking minute of it. Of her.

“
Thanks,
guys. Great meal, Mac. It was good to see you guys
again.”

“
You mean
outside work? You got any job coming up? Can’t wait to see the
Puss.” Fucking funny.

He left
after midnight. The drive back was smooth; he had the streets to
himself. Hoping that she would be tucked in her bed naked, he
stopped by her hotel. He smiled in anticipation, but the damn woman
wasn’t in. His bad mood returned. He drove to his place.
You better be there,
Pussycat
. No lights on his floor when he
circled the building. He parked underground and took the stairs
(faster than waiting for the elevator). She didn’t hear him arrived
because she wasn’t there.

He tossed
and turned
and finally give up on sleep
around five. He shaved and showered quickly. After he had finished
dressing, he intended to grab a quick breakfast, maybe an espresso
then head to the office for an early start.

He noticed
the envelope on the floor next to the front door as he strolled to
his open-plan kitchen. The stark-white rectangle had not been on
the dark wood floor last night. It had not been there before his
shower. Only one word was written on it, ‘
Lemieux
.’ Damn
woman.

He took
his
fucking time preparing breakfast, a
dish of scrambled eggs, ham and toasts with a strong coffee. Double
espresso corto, black. He was going to look into the fucking
envelope after his relaxing breakfast, he decided, not fucking
fooling himself for one second. He did not want to wait but damn,
did not want to read it either.