Quintic (30 page)

The
three books the woman found were dry reading,
but they all basically said the same thing. Once a serial killer
started, he rarely stopped, and the time between killings grew
shorter the longer the killer remained on the loose. Maybe like her
serial female character, the diner killer was a traveller? After
prowling and killing elsewhere for a time, he had now returned to
his home turf. If so, the killer was a lucky bastard, for his
stomping ground was right smack into the land of the
31
^st
station’s finest, Dumb-ass and Not-so-dumb. Ape
territory.

Christopher
was a
great detective but diplomacy and
patience, with the obvious exception of her, weren’t his forte.
Those cops had pissed him off big time. Granted, the Big guy was
also mad at her. She had pushed them around, hadn’t she? And he was
also mad because she had not called him. Not to mention the fact
that she had taken him to that strip club and started a fight.
Hum.

Perhaps, as
a show of good faith, she should take the initiative and try to
smooth things over with the 31
^st
station? The beginning
of an apology of sort. She was pretty sure they wouldn’t visit
again but didn’t dare leave things to chance, or worse, to the two
apes.

Without the
biblithécaire batting an eye, the library’s old-fashioned cuckoo
clock chimed three times.
It’ll take me about half an hour to get to the station in a
cab. Half an hour of grovelling and apologising. Another half hour
to get back. And if traffic’s light, I’ll have half an hour to
spare or grab a coffee before Christopher’s punctual five o’clock
arrival
. She packed her things and headed
for the exit. She didn’t call Christopher. Of course not. He didn’t
need to hear about it yet, did he? For one, he might not agree.
Besides, the Big guy probably wasn’t in. If her visit went well,
the local station would become more cooperative, and no one needed
to be the wiser.

It took a
little less than the allot
ted half hour
to get to the station; the taxi guy drove like a maniac, almost ran
over two cars and an old lady with a grocery cart on the way over.
Concentrating on holding on for dear life and the door handle for
fear of being ejected through the windshield every damn time the
maniac hit the breaks, she didn’t have time to prepare her
pretended, sincere apologies for the detectives.

When
the maniac dropped her off in front of the
station, her heart was pounding, and her hair was a mess. She took
a few minutes to compose herself. She combed her hair with her
fingers and put lipstick on. She always carried an emergency tube,
bold red, and a mirror in her laptop bag for such occasions.
Apologising wasn’t new to her, particularly apologising to cops.
She had no intention of showing those cops the edge of her bra like
she would for Christopher, though. To be sure, she buttoned two
more buttons before walking into the precinct.

The guy at
the front desk was of the old ogle-and-drool type. He stared as she
walked in and stared as she talked, his eyes focused not her face
but lower. Damn, she should have closed her collar more. Maybe from
behind the thickness of his glasses her medium-size breasts looked
bigger. She smiled and leaned over to speed things up.

“
Good
afternoon, Officer. I would like to talk to the chief and his two
dumb− Ah. Officers. Hum. Detectives.” She suddenly realised she
didn’t know what their names were. Surely they had introduced
themselves, but for the life or her she couldn’t remember. “The two
detectives working the diner case.”

H
e let her through the metal
detector and, as she rounded the gate, explained where the two
detectives and their chief’s office were located. He even told her
their names but already on her way, she wasn’t listening. She felt
his stare as she walked by, but refrained from covering her breasts
with her hands. Refrained from covering her butt when he was at her
back. Perverts and apes, fauna in the wild.

She followed
Pervert’s instructions to a large room, which housed a cage (an
office), holding a
hairy man, an
elephantine desk and a mammoth chair. The chief, or so she assumed
since the man sat in the big chair frowning and yelling, and the
plate next to the office door spelled ‘
chief
’. A more thorough look
revealed a guy leaning against the left side of the cage. Another
step closer and said guy turned out to be Dumb-ape.

“
Help you,
Miss?” Came Not-so-dumb from a desk at the back of the large
room.

Focused on
the cage, she had missed the jungle of desks around her. It was a
very tame wilderness. All police departments looked the same from
the outside. Since this one was a local station, it was tiny. Big
yet small office for the chief, a big yet smaller bay window to
watch the men, a small meeting room next to the office, crowded
with file cabinets and two chairs, plus the required desks for the
officers.

The desks,
wood or metallic, were placed in rows if the chief was the army
type. They sat close together in squares of four, looking at each
other if the chief was more into the new collaboration and team
effort strategy. Or they were placed at random following the whims
and personal choices of his detectives if the king of the jungle
was called MacLaren and very self-confident about his leadership.
Patricia smiled to herself; this office might look like
Christopher’s, but it didn’t feel or smell the same.

She nodded
at Not-so-dumb before pointing at the chief’s office. He took the
hint and stood up. She kept walking and knocked on the chief’s
door. The door was already open, and the chief had watched her come
in. No doubt Pervert had called ahead.
Let’s be polite, and see how far it gets
me
.

It got her
pretty far. That and her smile and her apologies and maybe her
two
loose top buttons. Or maybe
Christopher had done a number on them after he had dropped her off
at the library. Or Central had called. Or the apes had evolved
since yesterday. Whatever.

She did her
thing. “
It’s all a big misunderstanding,
mostly my fault, of course.” Etc. Etc. Etc. They bought it, and why
wouldn’t they? They were cops, and she was proficient in the art of
make-believe.

She
la
y it thick as apes weren’t known for
their subtlety. “I felt so lost yesterday.” True. “All I wanted was
to help the girl.” True again. She went over all that was in her
report, exactly the same statement she had given the day
before.

In the end,
the chief did apologise too.
“It’s
understandable, little wisp of a thing like you. My men must have
scared yah.”
Wisp of a
thing
? How old was this guy? “All is well
now, don’t you worry your pretty head about it anymore, Missy.” So
that was where Dumb and his kinds had learned the Missy.

Not trusting herself to reply
politely, she smiled tightly.

“
You girl
need a lift home?” Dumb asked.

Not-so-dumb
didn’t say anything.
He had remained calm throughout. Both days, when she thought about
it. Now that she wasn’t on the team, Christopher could use a guy
like him. Although she did prefer when they pretended to fall for
her performance. This one wasn’t doing such a good job at indulging
her. She had caught him holding back an ironic smile once or twice.
Not-so-dumb to the end.

To show her
good faith, she accepted Dumb’s offer for a ride. “I’d love to,
thank you. I’ve had quite an emotional time these last few days,
and I’m a bit beat.”

Did guys
re
ally believe that kind of
crap?

Apparently so.

“
Give us a
minute to tie things up here, Doll, and we’ll be right with
you.”

She waited
for them to finish whatever they had to finish, chatting and
smiling while she waited
. It meant no
coffee but still, she was feeling good about herself. She had quit
the team and thus put, she was convinced, an end to the dead body
trail, and she had faced her enemies like a grown-up, in a
civilised manner (hardly flirting with any of them). Her day was
turning into a glowing success.

She charmed
the pants off
Dumb on the ride back to
the library. She smiled some more, laughed at some of his jokes,
well, more
at
him, but he didn’t see the difference. Perhaps
thinking his partner needed backup (or a chaperon), Not-so-dumb was
along for the ride. She got him talking a little.

“
Did your
friend MacLaren tell you we’re off the case? South requested the
case.”

“
Really?
That was quick. No, I didn’t know. Officer MacLaren and I don’t
discuss his job.” Or rather, he didn’t speak a word of it with her.
“How could that be?” Mister Control, of course. Well, too bad for
him. This time, he had moved too fast. “Does that happen a lot, the
Districts transferring cases I mean?”

Not-so-dumb
shrugged. “Better them than us. We got one less to
work
, and they’re stuck with an
unsolvable. Crime scene hasn’t turned up anything. Washed out
clean.”

“
Want to
know some of our
theories?” Dumb asked.
“Don’t go batshit now, but we thought, only for the briefest of
moments mind you, Doll, that you were involved. Lover’s quarrel is
often the way to go. The college chick might have replaced you in
your lover’s bed.” How original. “Or vice-versa,” Dumb quickly
added. “You’re hot enough for it.”

A
c
ompliment from an ape, could her day get
any better?

They got to
the library half an hour
early. But not
soon enough as it turned out, for Christopher was already there,
leaning on the hood of his car, observing as they drove into the
library’s parking lot. The detectives got out when she did,
everybody shook hands, and the three guys made small talk by
talking shop. Nothing new from forensics, nothing on the witness
front, all was well with their respective offices.

The
detectives took leave
. She watched them
drove off, Christopher silent at her side.

“
So
, Big guy, how was your day?”
He looked her over, his eyes asking if she truly thought she was
going to get away with it. Of course not, but it was worth a try.
She smiled and kissed him on the side of his neck, where the vein
was pulsing, grabbing his ass at the same time. “I’m thirsty. Let’s
celebrate my resignation,” she cooed, her lips softly brushing
against his skin. “I’ll tell you all about my day at the
library.”

Fair enough.
He smiled and leaned in to
return the
kiss. As she had left her top two buttons undone, he apparently
felt authorised to kiss the swell of her breast. She shivered and
retreated to his truck.

Waves in the
Past

“L
ooking good,
Pattycake.”

Just by the way she frowned, he could
tell she didn’t like the nickname. He for one, liked that name,
though, because she did taste like cake. Sweet, delicious, with a
kick of liquor like Black Forest chocolate cake. He could eat her
up any time of the day. He didn’t. Not yet. He didn’t want to scare
her away.

He liked the name and the frowning; she
had such an expressive face. He could spend his days looking at
her.

“
So do you, Rick,” she said
returning his smile. What a smile she had. What a face. Such a
beautiful face! Perfect oval. Surprisingly dark-blue eyes. Those
eyes were so fucking bright that they almost glowed. But she had a
darker edge to her. Luminous on the outside as a darkness whirled
inside. How dark, how deep, he didn’t know yet. As dark as him, he
hoped.

Wide blue eyes that could turn on you
in a second. Eyes that could start a fire burning just as fast.
Long, blue waves framed her face, snaked down her neck, her bosom
almost reaching her navel. Perfect tits, small, firm, sensitive.
Fuck me, not that tiny, but nevertheless smaller than what
strippers advertised in clubs. Smaller than what he usually bought
in clubs.

Her light ensnared him. She was sweet
and soft, so he tried to be. Yes, he was weary of women, those
cheap whores he fucked. Yes, he enjoyed her. Too early to call it
love. Too soon to call it friendship. Or was it?

So much light. So much lightness. Like
she wasn’t entirely there. She offered half of herself to him, to
the world, but kept the other half somewhere within. He liked where
their relationship was going. He was comfortable with her. Talking.
Laughing. Teasing. Yet, she seemed sad sometimes. Lost. He waited
and observed, intrigued, aroused by the mystery of her. Unsure of
what exactly she expected from him.

They had sex, more of few times, more
than he had had with the same woman in a long time, but he had yet
to feel her. Climaxed she had. The pleasure had loosened her body,
her smile, without reaching her eyes. He would have seen her
inclination in the darkness of the blues. She had not surrendered,
not even after. Lost she remained.

He showed her his car. Some old rusted
big boat of a car. Huge. Wide. Awaiting his handiwork on
blocks.