Quintic (27 page)

After
additional fruitless waiting, arguments and
power trips, the detective finally allowed them in the
diner.

“
You don’t
touch anything. You don’t talk to our witnesses.”

“
We look
like rookies to you, Officer?” Frankke.

The dick
ignored Frankke and went on,
“You have
questions, you come to me. Any connection between this shit and
that old case you haven’t been able to solve, you give me the
information to him.” The dick pointed at the plain-clothes inside
the diner.

Chris
repeated the sentenc
e in his mind.
‘
The old case they hadn’t been able to
solve
.’ Probably the jerk had meant it as
an insult, but Chris didn’t react outwardly. He just wanted to get
inside to see what the hell was going on.

The
detective finally granted them access, trailing
tightly behind them.

Patricia was
sitting on a chair, her back to the door. A cop and the
plain-clothes detective were interrogating her impatiently. The cop
had one hand on his hip and gestured with the other while he
thundered. The detective was leaning over the table, both palms
flat on its top. Patricia had her arms crossed. Defensive postures
all around. The damn woman sure knew how to make friends when she
wanted, and she was always fucking polite with cops, wasn’t she?
Politely insulting.

T
he two coppers didn’t look happy
with her answers. Undoubtedly, it had something to do with the fact
that she wasn’t uttering a single word.

“
You stay
put,” the diner detective told her as he looked up at his colleague
before turning his stare to Chris and Frankke.

Where
can she go,
asshole? I’m right here. I’ll catch her.

Cop stayed
with her;
Detective came to join his pal.
They weren’t introduced.

“
Those two
are from South. They need a quick review. They think they got a
similar,
unresolved
MO a couple of years back. They believe that we
might know more.”
Assholes
.

“
We got the
cook’s statement first, says the woman came knocking on the back
door, the vic at her feet.” The detective didn’t refer to Patricia
by name but as ‘the woman’ his face scrunched between a frown and a
smirk.

After
the cook’s recap, Patricia’s interview had gone
from bad to hell in about two hours. From the detective’s summary,
Chris got the impression the guy was eager to book her for murder.
Every fucking time the jerk said ‘the woman’, his eyebrows rose.
Yup, she had done a fucking great job of pissing the cops off. She
excelled at it too; when she was angry, cops were amongst her
favourite targets. Chris clenched his jaws. She had done the same
number on him on numerous occasions. It had not worked on him,
though.

A question
remained.
What on earth was she doing
here? Research? Hunch? How? She sure had a gift for finding stiffs.
Why had she moved the body? Why hadn’t she called him? OK, that
last one was easy. Anger. Pride. The rest of the answers would come
later when she calmed down. When his own rage had subsided. But
first, he had to get her out of here.

The
forensics crew was working around them, taking
samples from the kitchen, the back alley. Chris went back out
through the front door, walked down the side alley to take a look
at the back, the back doors, the garbage container. He retraced his
steps, entering the diner by the front door again. The body was
still hunched-sprawled on the kitchen floor. Patricia had not
moved; neither had the cops. He signalled the detective in charge
to come outside. He wanted to get Patricia out before the techs
removed the body.

“
Look,
Officer, I know the woman. Her name’s Patricia. She lives…” He gave
her address and phone number, gave his name, his precinct’s
coordinates and all his mobile, office and home phone
numbers.

“
I’m going
to t
ake the woman home to dry and change.
Her lips are fucking blue. I suggest you call Central if you
disagree and prefer to make a mess of things. I do hope she ain’t
going to sue your ass off if she gets sick. You can call her later
and make an appointment to complete your report.”

The
31
^st
dicks couldn’t say no without openly questioning his
authority and rank. They couldn’t do it, wouldn’t do it, not
without going through their chief first. They were local station
cops; he was a District detective chief, way higher up on the
police food chain.

“
Tell you
what, better yet, call
me
instead for an appointment.
I’ll have her come to the South District building for her
statement. Not today, though; today, she’s had enough. She gave a
declaration already, didn’t she? You question her according to
standard procedures? Good. I’m taking her.”
I’m taking her away before you assholes arrest
her.
And before she kicked one of the
fuckers and got charged with assault.

While
he
talked, he motioned to Frankke.
Frankke strode to Patricia, touched her arm gently before turning
her around. She frowned when her eyes glanced through the front
window and caught sight of Chris. She blinked, swallowed once
before slumping in her chair. The sight of him had taken the fight
out of her.

Frankke took
her
elbow, lifting her to her feet
quietly, and guided her to the door. She trudged out with her head
down, Frankke’s protective arm around her shoulders. She appeared
delicate with Frankke’s arm around her. Frankke held his other arm
up in front of them as if he went to shove whoever came in their
way. Protective. Chris followed them in silence to the
car.

PI Unlimited: Bad
Cop

T
he girl had been
cold. Someone handed her a blanket. The girl had been so cold. The
detectives interrogated her, such silly questions. She had shown
them her brand-new licence proudly. She especially liked the shiny
black lettering spelling
Private
Investigator
. The detectives
were not affected. Her skills rarely impressed men; her looks did,
though, but then not so much impressed as aroused them.

After harassing her with their stupid
queries, they left her alone for a while. She had answered as best
she could but had seen her responses were not registering. The
chain of events that had led her here was straightforward, but,
somehow, they had trouble grasping it. She felt as if she was
talking to apes. Now, that is harsh, she lectured herself. Not that
it was all that wrong.

The men came at her again.

“
We need legit ID.”

“
I only carry my licence.” Where did
they think it came from anyway, a cereal box?

“
Full name and address.”

“
Seriously? Can’t you read my
badge?” Shouldn’t that be enough? She did not tell them anything.
She could have, of course, but she wanted to talk to her lover
first. Her cop lover. “I want to make a phone call.”

“
Not yet, Dollface.”

Apes were like that. Packets of
hormones, little pea brains. Lucky her lover was not the same. All
hormones yes, but a brain also, and what a brain it was. Sometimes
she wished he had less. Of both.

Eventually, she lost patience. “Stop
bugging me with stupid questions.” She used short, simple words.
“Don’t you know how to do your jobs? If you were any good, you’d
have taken notes instead of having me repeat everything over and
over. Unless you think that I had something to do with the girl’s
death? I have told and retold the story of my day six times
already! I shall not make it a lucky seven. Please, try to come up
with pertinent questions, you’re wasting my life away here.
Besides, what’s the point of all this if you don’t listen.” Really.
If she had left it to the cops, the girl would still be in the
rain, alone and ignored.

The ape-cops did not appreciate her
lecturing. They started again with the useless probing. “We do this
here or down at the station, but we’re doing it, Missy.”

Did they believe they could scare her?
They truly were the dumbest.

The girl had looked so small, curled
up in that corner. And the rain, the damn rain, like in her file on
the murdered waitress.
Her
file.
She had not seen blood but perhaps,
surely
for she was dead, the girl had been wounded
in some way. Maybe raped. Her hair was a mess, her clothes dirty
under her unzipped coat. A hell of a day to die. A hell of a
way.

Shock, that was what the coldness was.
She was in shock. It suddenly occurred to her those idiots probably
thought she had killed that girl.

“
Am I under arrest? Because if I am,
I’m entitled to a phone call.”

That turned out not to be a good thing
to say. She had known, of course, had known even before speaking,
but she had said it nonetheless.

They searched her, roughly, or tried
to. The apes sat her down on a chair forcefully, in a mockery of
the bad cop-bad cop play. Amateurs.

Excerpt
from
PI
Unlimited
, by Trica C.
Line

Chris on Coffee
Break

W
here to now?
She looked like she could use some dry clothes.
Her hotel? He had a feeling if he took her home, she would crawl
into bed and stay there. Not good. His place? His territory, she
might get defensive. Not good either. The precinct? Some of the
guys might get involved and, considering the state she was in, that
might not go so well, not for him at least. Fuck, he wanted a
drink. Scotch, no ice, to sip as he focused and winded down. Not
only was he worried about her, but he was also angry. Pissed. Fuck,
what was it, the fourth day? Fifth?

He
sighed
as he studied her in the rearview
mirror. He had the heater on full blast, but her shivering hadn’t
eased. She sat pressed to the door, gripping the handle as if she
was about to jump out. Taking off, her defence mechanism of choice.
Not that she could escape right now, he had the car’s child safety
lock on. Her hussy act was one of her substitutes to flight.
Bring it on
,
Pussycat, I’m ready
for you.

“
I need a
drink,” she said staring out the window, her face turned away from
him.

Reading my thoughts, Princess
.
Although, her getting a drink might not be a good thing right now.
Drunkenness too was a form of escape.

“
Christopher, I really need a
drink.” She turned to plead with him. “So far, my day
hasn’t gone as I had planned.”
Neither has mine, Angel
. “I need
a drink. Something warm.”

Coffee at
Vitto’s place was a good place to start. Coffee to warm her and
Vitto to lend her a shirt or something. Dry. Warm. Talkative.
Maybe.

With the
late afternoon traffic, it took almost forty minutes to get to
Vitto’s. The ride was a silent one. He parked in front of the door,
in the no-parking zone right in beside the fire hydrant. She didn’t
comment. Not yet ready to talk then, it would seem.

Frankke
helped
her out of the car, a protective
arm around her shoulders. Chris had a feeling Frankke was mostly
protecting her from herself, and perhaps a little from him too. No
need. Fuck, he hated how lost she looked.

Vitto
himself directed them to a table in a quiet back
corner. At this hour, except for them, not an officer lingered in
the coffee shop. Good. Frankke directed her on the chair propped
against the wall. The two men sat on each side of her, turned
sideways so they could watch her and the door simultaneously. Old
habits. Afraid she would make a run for it. She stared at the door
briefly as if she was seriously considering it, but she sank back
into her chair with a resigned look.

Another dead
body. He couldn’t believe it. What were the odds? No way in hell
she could have planned going to that restaurant; she probably
hadn’t even known it existed before noticing it in one of her
fucking walks. He could think of a million better ways for her to
write books. Forget the files and make everything up, like for her
other books. Yah right. Like she hadn’t been doing the fucking
research thing from the very beginning.

Vitto
brought coffees they had yet to order: a double espresso, black, a
large, decaf Latte, and a coffee Americano for Frankke. Vitto was
an excellent barista and a good guy. The old Italian returned with
a plate of homemade oatmeal cookies and a sweater that he handed to
Patricia without saying a word (he waited for her to put it on
before retreating).

Chris, as
Frankke, studied her, his face expressionless. He waited. She
studied her cup in silence.
Are you
still
thinking of running, Princess, or
merely collecting your thoughts?
His cup
empty, Frankke headed to the counter for another coffee, then took
a seat sideways to them, blocking the way to their table yet giving
them some privacy. He kept an eye on her, an eye on the door, the
opposite of an ordinary guy enjoying a coffee on a rainy day. Good
guy that Frankke, giving them space but staying close. Protective
to the end.