Quintic (22 page)

She heaved a
sigh as her body sagged, her forehead to the door panel. Stand
still. She let go of the handle. They had been there before too,
different door, same respective positions. What followed would be
either a full-scale fight or foreplay. He wished for the second
while mentally prepared for the first.

She
surprised him with another,
“Christopher.
I
am
sorry.”

“
I know you
are, Darling of mine.” His face in her hair, he smiled. “But
enlighten me. Just so we’re clear. What exactly are you sorry for?”
Pause. “And just how sorry are you?” Smiling from ear to ear now,
he lowered his mouth to her neck and slid his arms slowly down the
door on each side of her.

“
Ah. I’m
sorry about
.” She exhaled sharply as his
hands left the door for her hips and started moving up. “I’m sorry
about, hum, I’m sorry about Lemieux.” His hands reached her belly.
“I’m sorry about not telling you about Lemieux’s car.” His hands
skated up, up to the underside of her breasts.

They
froze
before reaching their
targets.
Say what?
He forced her to turn and held her hard against
the door. Her chin pointed up. “What? Run that by me again. You’re
sorry about not telling me what?”

“
I’m sorry
about not telling you about his car. I should have remembered.
Perhaps not at the motel but at least later. When I wrote the
report.” Blue-green eyes implored him. “I’m sorry.”

What the
hell was she hinting at? “What about his car? You think Lemieux had
a car? He didn’t have one, Patricia; no car’s registered to
Lemieux.”

“
That big
car. At the motel. The one parked on the street. It was Lemieux’s.”
He gawked. What else could he do? “Christopher, don’t you remember
the car? At the motel. Parked on the street. That old car. The one
I looked at with Charles. It was Lemieux’s.”

“
What?
WHAT?” He was smart, intelligence above average, but sometimes,
like right fucking now, he had trouble keeping up with her. He took
a deep, steadying breath. Yes, he remembered that black vintage
car, mostly remembered her and Charles looking it over, her playing
a number on the rookie. Lemieux’s car? “OK. Explain to me again why
you’re sorry about Lemieux’s car at the motel. Slowly. With plenty
of details, please.”

“
Lemieux’s
car was parked on the street at the motel. I saw it that day we
found his body. I saw the car across the street,” she impatiently
enunciated as if he was particularly slow, and perhaps he was this
afternoon. “I went to look at the car. I guess, subconsciously, I
knew. But I didn’t consciously. But today I do. I was looking for a
car for my PI character. But now it’s gone. Stolen probably. Maybe
in a container somewhere overseas.”

First part
clear. She had seen Lemieux’s car. He hadn’t come to the motel with
the hooker then. It made sense; to Chris’s knowledge, hookers did
not chauffeur their johns. That explained why they had not
identified the vics’ mode of transportation, and why no cab company
had come forward. But the PI? The container overseas? “I got the
first part. You found Lemieux’s car. Excellent. No need to
apologise. We’ll−”

She cut him
short.
“No. No. It’s not excellent. The
damn car has vanished!”

“And you know this how?”

“
I went to
get it to the motel.”

“You went to the motel?! How?
Why?”

By now
she
was frowning, hands on hips. “You
know, Big guy, I can go places by myself. I took a cab; it cost me
a fortune. I had only enough loose change to take the bus
back.”

The motel
was all the way
to the suburbs. A
dangerous suburb at that. Imagining her alone, waiting at the bus
stop brought some of his anger back. “Let me get this straight. You
took a cab to the motel to get the car. The car wasn’t there. You
came back.” Not questioning, stating the facts.

“
Yes. I
looked everywhere. I must have walked at least a dozen streets
around the motel looking for it, but the damn car has
disappeared.”

So
fucking
grand! She had spent her fucking
day walking around that crummy neighbourhood. He looked her over.
She looked too damn young in jeans and a white V-neck t-shirt, the
tee too damn revealing for such an expedition. He could see flesh
down that collar, cleavage! “You went to the motel.
Alone
,” he
emphasised dumbfounded. “You sashayed about in those jeans alone in
the streets. Alone! Looking for the murder victim’s car. Fucking
alone! Lemieux’s the victim of a yet unknown, on the loose
murderer.” He paused to take a sharp lungful of air, nostrils
flaring. “The murder happened weeks ago. Probably the car was just
towed.” He gulped another deep breath before adding through
clenched teeth, “And it never occurred to you, at any time during
the whole process, to call anyone? To fucking call
me
?”

MacLaren’s Car
Talk

S
he stared at him, seemingly
surprised that he was mad again. “I told you already, Big guy! I
couldn’t call. I wanted to see the car first to make sure I was
right. What if I had called you, and it had turned out not to be
his car? Then what? You’re a chief officer. I’m sure you have
better things to do than take a ride to some old motel out in the
boonies for nothing.”

Deep, deep
breaths again, more growls than soothing inhalations, though, as
Chris thought of what he had done all day. A fucking day with the
Feds assholes. Taking a ride to the motel won no contest. Even
without a car in evidence. Even if the motel was shitty. Even if
there hadn’t been assholes.

“
Why
are you telling me now? Please, why not let me
be ignorant for a while longer while you went overseas looking for
the car in some container?”

“
Don’t be
silly,” she smirked back. “I didn’t have my passport with me.” Her
acting like a smart ass indicated she was getting impatient. Not so
sorry anymore, was she?

“The car. It’s not in the
report. Lemieux never gave you a ride in it.”

“
I only saw
it once. We, hum
, ah, we, well, we sat in
it. It was in his friend’s garage. Some old shack behind the
apartment complex. He wasn’t driving it; the wreck had no motor. He
must have had it fixed and repainted. It wasn’t as shiny back
then.”

He frowned.
Seeing how she was blushing, he figured they hadn’t just sat in the
fucking car. Great. “What makes you think the car was
stolen?”

“
Did
n’t you listen? The car is
gone, and nobody saw anything. Days it was there, and then one
day,
Pouf!
It wasn’t. Stolen.”

“
Nobody saw
anything?
Any witnesses to the
theft?”

“
No,
but−”

“Anybody said when it went
missing?”

“
Someone
remembers seeing it on Wednesday, because of the garbage
truck.”

“
Someone?
” Chris frowned at her.
“
Garbage truck?
Care to elaborate?”

“
Wednesday
is trash day. That
evening, when the truck arrived, it had trouble pulling next to Mr
Parson’s house because the punks who live next door were having
some sort of party. Pick-up trucks and cars were parked all over
the lawn. And Lemieux’s car was right in front of Mr Parson’s spot.
He painted a spot on his driveway for his waste cans, can you
imagine? Anyway. Lemieux’s car was right where it had been the week
before. And the week before. Understandably, he wasn’t happy.
Because of the punks and their cars, and Lemieux’s too although he
didn’t complain about it, Mr Parson had to move his cans all the
way down the street for an open spot. The next day, the street was
empty. No more big, black car.” She paused before adding in a
measured tone, “I checked with one of the people next door. He
confirmed seeing the car on Wednesday but not on
Thursday.”

Something in
her voice
told Chris her conversation
with Mr Parson’s neighbour might not have gone smoothly. Punks were
they, according to Mr Parson? He waited, hoping for
more.

“
Mind
you,
” she concluded after a beat, “that
man could have stolen Lemieux’s car himself. He was not the most,
ah, civilised man. He probably put a torch to it himself. Cut the
parts out and shipped them overseas to be sold at some flea market
in Germany or China.”

Meaning the
jerk
had screwed with her. And, of
course, she was not going to tell him about it. Fuck. Too bad the
Feds jerks had left, he would have enjoyed using them as punching
bags. After another fucking steadying breath, he suggested, “Surely
someone had it towed. Mr Parson perhaps?”

“
No. I asked
the neighbours and none−” She stopped and frowned. “I did ask Mr
Parson why he didn’t have the cars towed if they were such
nuisance. He said that wouldn’t do; he was a gentleman, although he
did mention complaining to the garbage truck driver. Seems they
said it wasn’t their problem.”

“Perhaps the driver figured it
was his problem after all and had it towed. Let’s make some
calls.”

He took her
firmly by the elbow, and back to the office they went. Reid and Ham
were waiting, not even hiding their spying. Leaving the sitting in
the car part out, Chris filled them in on Lemieux’s car and put
them to good use. Reid was to type up Patricia’s story while Ham
helped him make some calls.

Chris’s
f
irst call was to the Parson’s guy, who,
of course, remembered Patricia vividly. The old geezer mustn’t have
women knocking on his door often.

“
No, I
haven’t called the towing company. I would never.” Yah,
right.

Chris got
the punk’s number from
Mr Parson and
called him next.

W
hen Chris identified himself and
asked if he was the one who had talked with Patricia, the first
thing out of the guy’s mouth was, “The bitch came on to me, man. I
invited her in so she doesn’t cook under the sun, and how does she
thank me? The broad put her hand on my crotch.”

More like the
other
way around, asshole
. Chris slammed the
phone down.
Really mature,
MacLaren
. Chris knew Patricia wasn’t
above flirting when she wanted something, but her way of dallying
was to hold a man’s arm, just above the elbow, her touch so light
her fingers brushed the clothing but not the skin underneath. That
did it for most. That feather-light graze was her hard limit; she
disliked touching strangers. No way in hell would she put her hand
on a guy’s crotch, however much she wanted something, not even on a
guy’s thigh, not even on a guy’s fucking knee. Except his, but he
was no stranger, and him she didn’t only caress his
knee.

He felt
Ham’s eyes on him. He stood and walked the anger off. A
little.
I’m getting too
fucking old for the job
. He had to call
the scum back, of course. He was going to send Ham over, Ham and
Charles. If Chris ever found out that there had been more than
knee-grabbing, he might have to go too. Alone.

When the guy
answered the second time, Chris said, “Me again. Officer MacLaren.
Did you have the car towed?” Silence. “The car she asked you about,
did you have it towed?”

“
Nope. Did
the bitch−”

Chris cut
him off,
his anger level too high to
listen to what more the punk had to say about her. “A police
officer will come by for a visit next Monday if necessary. Don’t
leave town.”

Ham had
better luck with the garbage company. “The driver has not yet
started his shift, and he was lingering at the drop point when I
called. Says they didn’t have it towed. Your Mr Parson’s an
annoying customer. Complains all the time they said. Driver says
they don’t take the old geezer seriously anymore.”

“What else?”

“
Since the
Puss seems sure about the car, I checked towing companies. Only one
covers that neighbourhood. They were closed for the day, but the
night guard says he has a car that fits Patricia’s description. The
place’s fenced; the guy doesn’t have the keys, can’t reach the
owner and blah-blah. Says they open at seven, and he’ll let us have
a look in the morning.”

Since it was
easier
just to show up in the morning
than to run after a search warrant on a Friday night, Ham offered
to come pick him up and go have a look in the morning.

“
Sound
s like a plan.”

By
then,
Reid and Patricia had completed the
report, and all he wanted now was a drink and a quiet evening with
French appetisers. Many servings. A buffet.

“
Everything’
s OK then? Great. And
again, I’m sincerely sorry. I wish I had remembered before. But
come the morning, we’ll go see the car, and the case will be back
on track. Great. I’m glad all is well.”

All was
well?
All is not well,
Pussycat
. She had tried so hard not to
remember her past with Lemieux that she had succeeded. She had
spent the day walking around in a way-too-sexy outfit in a bad
neighbourhood, had skipped lunch, and from what he had gathered,
some sonofabitch had harassed her.
Not even close to being well, Angel
. He cursed under his breath. And what was that fucking
‘
we
’ business. He didn’t want her near Lemieux’s car. He
smiled, wolf-like. He had the evening to tire her out.