Quintic (19 page)

Absentmindedly, as she was debating with herself, she had
slowed her brisk pace. Glancing around, she realised she was only a
couple of blocks away from the diner. One of life’s little
happenstances. Even if the Big guy did not believe in coincidences,
she did, when it was convenient at least. And the funny thing was,
they often were. She decided to have lunch at the diner.

A couple of
blocks turned out to be twelve, so she was famished when she
finally arrived. She had soup, a salad − If Christopher was a
coincidence disbeliever, she was a diet disbeliever. Her fondness
of salads and veggies came from personal tastes. Sometimes, she
thought of becoming a vegetarian, but then, what about
Osso Bucco
and
confit de
canard
? − French fries and a slice of
sugar pie.

None of the
staff from her previous visit was at work. The personnel today
looked inexperienced and very young. Hence, she forwent her
previous act and headed for the back alley right after her meal.
She moseyed without letting her imagination get the better of her.
She took pictures of the back door, the diner’s bland, windowless
back wall, the diner’s single back door again, the trash container
a door down, the next shop’s back door next to the
container.

The
fil
e said the left local had been empty
and empty it still was (she had noticed the ‘for lease’ sign
hanging in the front window on her way in). A second container
stood five or six doors down, nearer the end of the alley. She took
photos of that too. The diner was the fourth local in a row of
nine. From the back, its door looked smack in the middle of the
block. The murderer leaving in a hurry (as murderers often did, she
assumed) could have run either way. Unfortunately, nobody had seen
anything that night, and that included which way he had
gone.

According to
her own favourite
infuriating man of a
detective, murderers needed three things, namely motive, means and
opportunity. Knowing one helped to find the others; having the
three solved the case. She had none. Or perhaps, she did have one,
opportunity. Rainy night, a back alley shielded from the street
lamps.
Thin, very thin,
Sherlock.
If she wrote that in a book,
Ingrid might kill her at editing.

Even if the
waitress had been working there awhile, how
had the murderer known she was going to come out in the
back alley that night? Did he wait on other nights also? The two
trash containers were the only hiding places. Surely someone would
have noticed a stalker behind a dumpster. The diner had no back
windows, but some of the other shops did, giving them a direct view
of the container. If some guy had been lurking around before,
someone would have remembered him, and the police file would have
mentioned him.

She didn’t
like
cops, not in general, and certainly
not in particular. Which was ironic considering her affair with
Christopher and her work with the team. But the detectives who had
worked the case had been thorough, and Christopher said they were
solid. Over a hundred witnesses had been interrogated. Were
witnesses called witnesses even when they had witnessed zilch? Hum.
None of the
witnesses
reported seeing someone in the alley, not on
that night and not on any night before the murder.

“Even homeless guys don’t stay in that back
alley
,” a witness commented in her file.
“
It offers no shelter from
the rain. The alleys on both sides have balconies and staircases
and such. I know this guy, he owns the shoe repair place further
down. He complains how his alley’s too fucking
inviting
.”

She liked that witness. She might use the quote in a story
somewhere.
Inviting back
alleys
.

Th
e cops had questioned the
neighbourhood many times, interviewed the employees, boyfriends,
ex-boyfriends, families, suppliers, the container company. Very
thorough indeed, and yet they came up with nothing. No motives. The
murder had happened late on a rainy night after a rainy day and
before a rainy day. The rain had washed any incriminating evidence
that the killer might have left.

She replayed
the chain of events as summarised in her file. After closing time,
every night at eleven, the waitress took out the trash once the
cook had finished cleaning the kitchen and was mopping the diner’s
floor. They were alone, the two of them. It wasn’t part of her job
description to take out the trash, but the girls did sometimes if
the garbage bags weren’t too heavy, or if the cook asked for a bit
of help. According to the employees at the time, the help wasn’t a
regular thing, occurring once every five to six nights.

Thus, that
frightful evening, the waitress took out the trash, went back in,
waved to the cook and exited through the front door. The cook
locked up behind her, and ten minutes later, the floor done, he
left. His wife picked him up, and they went to some bar a couple of
blocks away. They had a beer each before going home. The cops
suspected the cook at first (easy assumption, he was the last to
see her alive), but no, with his wife and the bartender and
customers at the bar alibiing him, the police couldn’t make it
stick.

Patricia
hadn’t talked to the cook yet; she did intend to, though, even if
she doubt she would learn anything new. At first glance, the guy
didn’t make an interesting character, no tattoos, no criminal
record, married a couple of years to the same woman, a school
teacher, no kids. Normal. Although normal often made the best
abnormal.

The shop
owner
located on the street corner had
also been a person of interest because, although at first, he
hadn’t remembered anything, later, he recalled seeing her walk by
at around eleven-fifteen. He had two buddies over at his place that
night. Both men confirmed the guy stayed in his office; they didn’t
confirm seeing the girl, though. Again the whole thing rapidly
turned into a dead end.

Patricia’s
thoughts returned to
the murderer. Why was he there on that specific night? Just waiting
around, just in case? Maybe he saw the waitress when she took the
trash out and waited for her to come out again. But why was she
back in the alley? She came out the front door, not the back, so he
had gone from the back alley to the street to the back alley.
Complicated. The cops had covered both sides in their questioning
without success.

After
the corner shop owner had spotted the waitress,
nobody else laid eyes on her until she was found two days later in
the alley. And the rain, the damn rain that washed everything out!
The killer had knocked her out from behind with an unknown object.
At the scene, the search hadn’t turned up a single potential weapon
that matched the wound. No crust of blood had entrapped the
killer’s DNA.

“In all probability
,” the experts
stated in an unofficial memo. “
The victim was stuck one fatal blow. She fell to the ground
on her left side. She was then turned on her back
−” The report didn’t specify who had flipped her. Cops were
a strange breed, weren’t they? “
−And dragged to the garbage container. No signs of a
struggle..
.”

If
the young waitress had yelled out for help, the
non-witnessing witnesses had not heard her.

As far as
Patricia was concerned, it took a damn coward to hit a girl from
behind. And yet the police had not caught the killer. No beating,
no rape, no theft, an utterly pointless murder. Why? She had
nothing. She cursed at the two hours she had wasted on thinking and
pacing up and down the damn alley. She would have to work the story
with what she had.

It
was what she always ended doing anyway, wasn’t
it? Make up the details, fabricate the opportunity, imagine a
suitable murder weapon, create the means, and give her imaginary
character a motive. She discontentedly sighed as she drew a blank.
No means, no motive, no opportunity as of yet came to her. She
needed to put the story on her backburner for a while. Letting
stories shimmer in the back of her mind led her brain to surprising
conclusions.

Patricia and the Burner
Effect

O
n the way back from the
restaurant, she got a call from Reid. “Hey, girlfriend! How about
we got out for a drink later? My treat.”

“
Sure, I’m
always up for a drink.” Especially considering the alternative was
to spend the evening talking about the damn thing again with
Christopher, or more accurately not talking about the damn
thing.

Being in a
good mood, she purposely called
Christopher’s office, not his mobile phone. His home
answering machine was her safest (thus usual) means of
communicating with him. Not that she didn’t like to talk to him for
she did. The Big guy was smart, patient and funny, what was not to
like? He was the one she most confided in but not about her
ex-boyfriends-lovers-and-Co. Them, she didn’t talk about,
period.

“
He’s in a
meeting,” Bridget said when she asked for him. “Do you want me to
get him?”

“
No.”
Absolutely not
. “Just let him know I’ll be having a drink with Reid
later. A girls’ night out if you will, and he can join us,
but
not
too early.”
Give me a
chance to get a bit tipsy first
.

She met Reid
in the hotel lobby at six. Both were wearing jeans, their
girls
’ night out uniform of choice.
Patricia wore hers with a silk dark-blue, same as her eyes,
turtleneck (another one) with an opening in the back (no rash marks
on her back). Reid had a sleeveless black V-neck top, her usual top
for girls’ nights. They both had black leather jackets they had
bought on one of their first shopping trips together, Reid’s a
biker-style and Patricia’s, an oversized aviator model. Makeup,
smiles and high heels on.

They
rode to Johnny’s Bar, their official girls’
night out hangout. Johnny, a good-looking Italian in his
mid-fifties and a cousin of Vitto, owned the place. The man treated
the women coming to his bar like princesses. Needless to say, the
place was very appreciated by the ladies thus making it popular
with the men.

The
place
offered a selection of the finest
wines and liquors and a small cigar room at the back, not so legit
under city rules, hence too, the high male attendance. Out of luck
on parking spots, the two women had to park two blocks down. By the
time they reached the bar’s entrance, both women sported rosy
cheeks from their brisk walk, big grins from their already cheerful
mood, and Patricia’s wavy hair had gone what Christopher called
bedroom-style, his favourite look on her.

Not only his
it seemed
for heads turned at their
entrance. The contrast between the two women only enhanced their
respective sex appeal. Reid eyed the men directly, making them look
away or look straight back. All part of her usual seduction style.
Patricia hardly noticed any of them, her usual non-flirty
technique, which men often perceived as a challenge. Unfortunately
for them, her attitude was not an act; she honestly wasn’t paying
attention.

Currently,
Patricia was looking for Johnny. She was very fond of Johnny. He
had proposed to her one night they were both drunk. It was some
time ago, when she had just met Christopher, and their relationship
(or lack thereof since they were
broken-up before not having dated. Dancing around and
hating each other’s guts is not dating!
)
was perplexedly confusing. She had successfully − Or so she had
thought at the time. Little had she known − managed to rid herself
of the Big guy. The thought of not seeing him ever again had left
her feeling a little lost. Confused perplexity.

That night,
her agent-slash-friend Ingrid, deceitfully claiming guy trouble,
had taken her to the bar. A ruse, of course, guys had trouble with
Ingrid, not the other way around.

“Time to start looking at other guys, Patricia sweetie.
You’ll see; Johnny’s place is perfect for you,
” Ingrid had said.

How could
the woman have known? Back then, Patricia had not yet talked about
Christopher to anyone. Anyway, men hit on them a lot that night.
They had drunk a lot that night. And Johnny had been a prince that
night (that night and all the other evenings since). He behaved
charmingly. With class. As the evening progressed, she almost found
him attractive. He was so very much older, one of her three
favourite male qualities. And he was so very...
Italian
. She had not
been with another man since meeting Christopher (to this day, she
still had not), and back then, she had hardly
been
with Christopher
as it was.

Seeing
how
she got along so well with Johnny,
Ingrid had left them around midnight, after making Johnny promise
he would bring Patricia home. The bar closed at one. At two, the
bartender and the two waiters had left them behind, a Johnny too
drunk to drive, and her too
tipsy
to care. They opted for
waiting it out instead of taking a cab.