Quintic (53 page)

The more she
thought of the women, the more nervous she got.
Her early morning start with Christopher had been perfect.
Making out on the kitchen counter! The Big guy sure knew his way
around the kitchen. Afterwards, they had chatted over breakfast and
smoothed things over, so why did she feel unsettled and
restless?

She arrived
for her lunch date two hours early; she had not written a single
line nor had she went for a walk. After Christopher had dropped her
off at the hotel, she had showered, packed her laptop and taken a
cab to Beatrice’s workplace. A new place might pull her out of her
moody funk, she had thought. It had not.

Her
uneasiness remained through her lunch with the ex-waitress. They
opted for a sandwich place in Beatrice’s office building. Patricia
ordered a plain tomatoes-and-lettuce sandwich, but her appetite
deserted her midway, and she couldn’t finish it.

Beatrice
was friendly enough,
cute in a drab and understated way. Dark suit, white blouse
buttoned up to the collar, lilac eyeshadow, pink lipsticks, black
pumps. The woman dressed to the nines like a technical accountant,
sharp and dull except for her purse, a worn-out, faded big
dark-green thing of a purse, too heavy from the way it made the
girl slumped to the side.

“
How can you
carry that around? I had a bag the size of yours once, but it gave
me a backache.”

“
You know
how it is; you need your phone, and your pad, and your makeup case,
and paper tissues, and a book, wallet, and so forth.”

Toothbrush, toothpaste, a bottle of water, oh no wait, I’m
still resigned.
Patricia asked politely
about Beatrice’s job before probing subtlety about the diner
girl.

“
We were
friends. We had a couple of classes together
, so we hung out sometimes. I had been working at the diner
for a couple of months already when I suggested Cindy came work
there too. One of the old waitresses wanted fewer hours, so we had
an opening.”

“You enjoyed working
together?”

“
Very much.
We became closer, not best friends but close friends. We went
shopping and did stuff together. We had similar tastes.”

Patricia checked down her list
of questions, and Beatrice answered in stride.

No, the girl
hadn’t had a boyfriend at the time. No, no male customer had shown
a particular interest in the girl, none that Beatrice knew of at
least. No, neither the cook nor his helper had made advances at the
girl. Yes, the cook had asked the girl out, but he had asked her
too, like colleagues; wasn’t the guy married anyway?

“
I
read about the murder in that diner a couple of
weeks ago. You think it’s related?” Beatrice asked Patricia. “Have
you ever been to that diner? The papers didn’t show pictures of the
victim, why was that?”

Why the questions, woman?
Morbid
curiosity was
not
Patricia’s thing, but maybe talking about that
murder might stir up forgotten memories. Unless it upset Beatrice?
“I don’t quite know, Beatrice, but−”

“
What did
the staff at my old place say about this recent kill?”

“
Not
much.”
Not wanting to think about it
herself, she gave a vague answer. “We haven’t discussed
it.”

“
I went
there a couple of times. It’s only three blocks from where I live
now. Call me crazy, I like diner food. I never went back to my old
place, though. What happened to Cindy, it’s still−”

“
That’s
quite understandable, I wouldn’t go back either had it been a
friend of mine.” Thankfully, she had not known any of the four
females, only Lemieux.
Moving
on
. “Look at the time! I’m sorry to have
kept you so late. I hope you won’t get into trouble at work. You
have my phone number, please if you remember anything else, don’t
hesitate to call. It was nice meeting you, Beatrice. Thanks again
for your time.”

“
I was nice
meeting you too, Patricia. Maybe we can do this again
sometime.”

On an
impulse, Patricia headed to the second diner. She intended to prove
to herself she could go back to the alley without company. And she
did. She walked the alley up and down once without going into the
diner. She felt uneasy, but her anxiety didn’t worsen contrary to
what she had expected. Strange.

So what now?
Christopher was at
work. She didn’t want to go back to her place. The damn library was
as
not
tempting as always. Coffee shop? The mood she was in, work
was out of the question.
I
may as well do something stupid
. She
walked to the local police station, asked for Ape and Not-so-dumb
and waited. As (bad) luck would have it, both were at the
precinct.

She put her
best smile on and turned on the charm.
“Hi, guys. Just thought I’d drop by and see how you were
doing.” Lie. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t have any other
problems because of my, well, you know, behaviour.” Lie again. “And
I figured you might like an update on the case.” Big fat lie,
Christopher had not told her anything about it, and she couldn’t
ask now, could she? “I hope your boss hasn’t given you guys trouble
because Central transferred the case.” Lie yet again. Boy was that
easy. And quite entertaining.

After half
an hour of chitchat and lies, she wasn’t feeling
that edgy anymore. The guys were off at four. They left the
station together. Cops being cops, they were acting full of
themselves.

“
How about
we take you out for coffee or something, babe?”

Why not, she
thought, I have time to kill. And with the two of them, the risks
of one hitting on her were minimal. The officers had been dense and
stupid during her interrogation; they were sort of obtuse and silly
still but in a sweet and funny way, at least Not-so-dumb
was.

Besides a
couple of rare exceptions (Christopher, his team, Joseph from the
small town), she didn’t like policemen. Those two, especially
Not-so-dumb, were starting to grow on her. Who would have thought?
“Sounds fun, officers. Lead the way.”

The police
had kept h
er, hum, collaboration with
Christopher and his team low profile. Nobody knew about her clerk
job except Central’s Human Resources department (but even them only
had a vague notion of what she did, or didn’t do). Lou,
Christopher’s precinct Captain, was in the confidence also, plus a
couple of chosen top Brass from Central because of the murder
charge thing. And despite their disastrous visit at her hotel, they
hadn’t figured out her relationship with Christopher yet. Hence,
the two officers escorting her were in the dark as to her access or
knowledge of the diner cases. Too bad for them.

Moreover,
since Christopher had no power over their job, she could do with
them as she pleased. Had they still been on the case, she would
have milked them for information. One case leading to the other,
without realising it, she started asking about Lemieux’s
investigation, not specifically about Lemieux, but about the
victims.

“
Do you have
a lot of stripper clubs in your district? Do patrons attack the
strippers often? Do they murder them?” Not very subtle but then
again, she was chatting with apes. “I’m doing research for a book.”
She smiled from the back seat. “I could use your input. After all,
you guys are the experts.” She smiled some more and talked and
flattered. “Perhaps you could help me with the clubs, perhaps
introduce me to some of the dancers. Strictly for research
purposes, of course.” Lies, lies, lies.

They bought
it all. Those guys weren’t about to be invited on Christopher’s
team anytime soon. “How about now, babe? Beer instead of coffee?”
The two detectives exchanged a glance. “There’s this place we’ve
busted often. You could say we’re well known there now.” An ape
clearly proud of his work.

“
Famous.”
Not-so-dumb didn’t talk much, but he had a lot of apropos. Or so he
thought.

“
I can
guarantee you, babe, you won’t have any trouble there. Not when
we’re around.” Arrogant as only cops were, weren’t they? “How about
it? Or we stop for a bite first and go after. They have a
buffet.”

“
No!” She
was not eating stripper club food. “Ah, hum, how about coffee now
and the club later tonight? So you guys can go home or to the gym
or whatever.” What did apes do after their shift? “We could hook up
later if you’re not too tired.” Suggesting cops could get tired was
a sure way to ensure they didn’t change their mind.

“
Good
thinking, we’ll see more girls later.” As if a single dancer was
not already one too many for her. “You want, we’ll pick you up at
your place.”

“
No need. I
have a few errands to run.” As in go home, eat, and change into
strip club appropriate attire. Hum, man or female? “Easier if I
meet you guys at the station.”

The
c
offee break was surprisingly pleasant.
From there, she took a cab to her hotel. Her apprehensions were
gone, her excitement level on the raise but coupled with a queasy
stomach. Hum. Eager but uneasy then. What she was looking for, she
didn’t know. Had she thought it over, she might have realised
bypassing Christopher’s order contributed to her exhilaration. As
it was, she didn’t ponder the usefulness of her upcoming evening
research. Research was research.

S
he wanted to be in top shape for
her evening at the club, so her supper consisted of a bowl of
cereal without an alcoholic beverage. Because milk, cereals and
wine did not mix well together, but cereals and milk certainly did.
Thinking she would be back early enough, less than two hours out
she figured (half an hour to and from and an hour inside), she
postponed her call to Christopher.

She’d be
safe enough
in any case; she had two cops
accompanying her. A pair of apes was safer. Going to a stripper
joint with only one would be awkward, worse even than with Lemieux,
Christopher or even Charles. Her third stopover in less than a
month! She was going to those clubs a lot. Perhaps she needed a new
hobby.

The place
they dragged her to was a dump even by strip club standards. Had
Lemieux ever been to this place? The motel was in the suburb, but
the hooker found there with Lemieux had worked on another side of
town, the same quarter as the buried girl. The Lemieux she knew had
prowled around, though, so he might have stopped by this hole at
one time or another. He might have been to every damn strip club in
the city for all she knew. Like a city tour for perverts with a
brunette fetishism.

It
suddenly dawned on her that the only reason she
had suggested this stupid visit was to check for tallish, slim
brunettes at work. How many establishments like this one did the
city offer? Dozens surely. In how many of them were brunettes
dancing? A couple in each surely, wasn’t half the female population
dark-haired? Unless the typical dancer was a bleached blond booby
doll like the one strutting in front of her now.

She made a
fast approximation. A hundred to two hundred potential victims for
the killer. Dreadful odds if she wanted to predict which one would
be the next victim hence setting a trap would be nearly impossible.
She wondered yet again how Christopher did it, always going
forward, never getting discouraged, angry yes but not dispirited.
Had she been a police chief, she would have hired personal
bodyguards for each one of those brunettes.

Were her
new
ape-friends up for the task?
Not-so-dumb and Ape appeared at ease as they glanced around, talked
about nonsense, their eyes going from her to the dancer to the
crowd and back to her, all damn casually. Maybe they were looking
at the naked woman a little more than they were looking at the
crowd? More at her? Hard to tell.

They were
more assertive than Charles had been. He had
stared at the floor until she had told him to look up.
Then, he had looked at the wall until she remarked he was supposed
to look at the dancer. Only then had he looked somewhere between
the woman’s shoulder and ear.

Those two
were looking
directly at the stripper,
breasts and crotch and ass, their stares never once shying down to
the floor. Back to the crowd. To her. Stripper’s breasts, ass,
crotch. People and around again. And they weren’t in synch, one
with an eye on the crowd, one with an eye on her, then a pair of
eyes on her and one on the dancer. Patrons and her. Dancer and her
and people around. In action, they suddenly didn’t appear that
dumb.

They were
quite fascinating to look at, an old pair working well together,
clearly enjoying the show but working even on their night off.
Cops. She was at no risk of creating another incident. She enjoyed
studying them as they did the eye thing because she had no
emotional involvement tonight, nothing like when she had been at
the club with Christopher or Lemieux.

Lemieux had
tested her, wanting to see how far she
was willing to go. In retrospect, maybe she, in turn, had
tested Christopher. The results were difficult to evaluate in
either case. No such uncertainty here. She watched them watch the
dancer, observed them observing the crowd, studied them studying
her. Perhaps they were testing her tonight.
Easy enough, dummies, I’ve done this
before
.