Force of Habit: A Falcone & Driscoll Investigation

by Alice Loweecey

  “What? What for?”

  “To take pictures of your injuries. Gotta have ’em for when they catch the pig.”

  Giulia buried her head on her knees.

  “Don’t you worry, I’ll be in here the whole time. You want your friends in here, too?”

  Her head jerked up. “No!”

  “I didn’t think so. A woman’s gotta have some privacy.” She squeezed Giulia’s hands. “I’ll keep them out.”

  The doctor returned with two syringes, a color-capped vial, and more packaging. “The police photographer will be here shortly, Ms. Falcone. Did I understand you to say that you inflicted a bite on the attacker’s penis?”

  “Um, yes.”

  “I must assume you drew blood and thus put yourself at risk for various STDs and HIV. I have a combination Hepatitis A and B vaccine here. The complete Hep B requires two more vaccines from your primary physician within the next six months.” He frowned at Giulia. “The STD tests require a cervical swab. Nurse.”

  “Real quick, over in a minute.” The nurse rolled a lamp to the foot of the bed and switched it on.

  Giulia gripped the sides of the bed and opened her legs. A cold speculum touched her, then disappeared.

  “Done, honey.”

  Giulia clamped her legs together and sat up. The nurse wrapped the tourniquet around Giulia’s upper left arm and drew blood. Then she injected the vaccine into her right arm.

  The doctor closed the laptop. “Ms. Falcone, you are free to leave after the photographer finishes. Your primary physician’s office will notify you of the test results.” He held out his hand, and Giulia shook it. “You should be proud of your resourcefulness. Goodbye.”

  A new policeman came in as the doctor left, carrying a digital camera, a ruler, and Captain Hogarth’s laptop. He looked all of eighteen years old.

  Giulia leaned her arms on the bed to hold herself upright. It was clinical. Nothing more. She wanted Pot-Breath caught and thrown in jail. Therefore she had to let this kid take pictures of her torn breasts. Oh, God.

  “ ’Evening, ma’am. This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.” He opened a different form on the laptop.

  Noise from the hall crept in as the top of Frank’s head appeared around the door.

  “We’ll let you know when you can come in, gentlemen.” The nurse’s hand hit the door closed.

  The photographer pointed to the wall next to the bed. “All right, ma’am, if you’ll stand there and take the gown down to your waist, we’ll get the first set.”

  Giulia faced forward, left, and right. She didn’t think. She looked above his crew cut to the pain-indicator chart on the opposite wall and counted its smiley and frowny faces. She repeated all three positions a second time, holding the ruler beneath each breast.

  “To get the correct scale of the injuries, ma’am.” He snapped one more photo and took the ruler. “All done. I’ll fill in the rest of this form outside so you can get dressed. ’Night, ma’am.”

  Giulia pulled up the gown and sank onto the bed.

  “Betcha can’t wait to get home.”

  She smiled at the nurse. “You know it. Half of me wants to hang from the ceiling and scream, and the other half is so tired I could almost sleep here.”

  The nurse handed Giulia her underwear. “It’s three o’clock in the morning. I sure wish I was in my own bed.”

  When her bra and underpants were on, Giulia felt secure. Illogical, really. They were just a thin layer of cotton between her and anyone touching her. Despite logic, these might just become her favorite jeans and shirt. A security blanket for the paranoid adult.

  “Thank you for staying here with me.”

  “I’ve got three girls, honey. I just think of how I’d want someone holding them up if—the good Lord forbid—they landed in here.” She looked Giulia up and down. “You’ve got circles behind those fading shiners, but you look just fine otherwise.” She enveloped Giulia in a hug. “You ready to face the cops out there?”

  “One’s a cop, the other one’s my boss. He’s a PI.”

  The nurse patted her and stepped back. “He’ll get the pig for you, then. You’re gonna help him, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You go, girl.” She opened the door, and Giulia turned left into the hall and the nearly empty waiting room.

  Frank jumped up from a battered chair in the corner. “Hey, there. All done?”

  “Yes. Can I bum a ride home?”

  Frank fell into step beside her. “We have to give your ripped clothes to Jimmy before we go.”

  “So we can check them for hair or saliva,” Hogarth said from her other elbow.

  Giulia shuddered as the automatic doors slid apart and they stepped into the night breeze. “Captain Hogarth, can you hit me in the head at just the right spot to induce temporary amnesia?”

  “So you can forget about agreeing to work for Frank? I have a better idea. First thing Monday come to the station and ask for me. I know I can find you a job working for us decent, honorable, ready-to-serve police officers.”

  “Jimmy, you are not taking Giulia into that cesspool of dirty jokes and hard-ass thugs. She’s different.”

  Giulia snorted. “Is that a compliment?”

  “Of course it is. Here’s the car.” Frank opened the trunk and handed Hogarth the grocery bag filled with Giulia’s torn shirt, underwear, and grass-stained jeans.

  “We’ll need to keep these for a while, Ms. Falcone.”

  “Giulia. And I never want to see them again, so don’t worry.” She shook his hand and didn’t wince when his large hand squeezed the healing thorn pricks. “Thank you.”

  “Glad to help. We’ll let Frank know if we get a hit on anything.” He unlocked his unmarked sedan. “That job offer still stands.”

  “Go away, Jimmy. Thanks for coming down.” Frank opened the door for Giulia and walked around to the driver’s side of his Camry. “I’ll call you Tuesday or Wednesday.”

  Giulia leaned back and closed her eyes. Frank was a careful driver. Some might call him boring. Her life could use a long stretch of boredom. Or, better yet, a permanent lifestyle change to cozy and domestic. House in the suburbs. No, the country. Close to State Route 66 but far enough away to be considered the sticks. A couple of dogs, a big vegetable garden, a good man. Like the good man next to her. As if he’d ever look at her as anything other than an employee.

  And an ex-nun. She could tell by the way he acted around her sometimes. As though he could see her only in habit when she really wanted him to see how hard she tried to be a regular woman. That maybe she’d absorbed a lesson or two from Cosmo and raised her allurement quotient.

  Except now. Two fading black eyes, a nose still not back to normal, and gouged breasts. Not only did she look like five miles of bad road from the neck up, but under her dowdy clothes the rest of her looked like, well, like a sexual-assault victim.

  And didn’t that sound all detached and professional.

  Frank kept quiet until they stopped in front of her apartment building.

  “Giulia, why didn’t you tell us about the marks on your breasts?” His voice held a little of Captain Hogarth’s fuzziness.

  “Because I didn’t think you needed to know.” Temporary amnesia looked better every minute.

  “Of course we needed to know. It’s evidence. You aren’t thinking.”

  She opened her eyes and turned her “disruptive student” glare on him. “On the contrary, Frank. I’ve been thinking about nothing else since it happened. I was hoping to keep a shred of privacy and not have my employer see photographs of my naked breasts covered with gouges from a disgusting, evil pervert’s attempt to use me as a sex toy.”

  “It’s not sex, Giulia, it’s power. Rape is always about power.”

  Before she screamed loud enough to shatter the safety glass, Giulia pulled at the door handle. “Thank you for the ride. Thank you for making me get this taken care of. I’ll see you Monday.”

  “Gi
ulia—”

  “Do you understand that I can’t talk about this any more tonight?”

  “If you don’t talk it’ll keep building till you go off like a shook-up pop can.”

  An edgy giggle escaped her. Before she disintegrated into hysterics, she opened the door. “Tell Captain Hogarth that he’s a big, fuzzy teddy bear, and I love him to death. Good night.”

  “Giulia, my office, please. Now.”

  Giulia and Sidney looked up from Sidney’s monitor. Frank marched past them without pausing. Giulia glanced at Sidney and followed him.

  When she closed the door, he was tapping his desk and muttering, “Hurry up” to the monitor.

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “Huh? No, of course not. Finally—” to the screen. He banged in his password. “She killed the lovebirds.”

  “The lovebirds... you mean the ones she dyed pink and blue? How?”

  “Opened Blake’s deck door, probably with a credit card. Idiot doesn’t have a deadbolt on it. I never thought of putting a camera on the back door. Broke their necks and left this.” He took a pink phone-message note from his inner pocket. “ ‘Love is as strong as death, its jealousy—’ ”

  “Unyielding as the grave.”

  “Giulia, what the hell is it with her and this Bible poem? I dragged Blake to the station and forced him to report the breaking and entering, but she didn’t take anything, so it’s a minor incident for them.”

  “Why did she use a message slip?”

  “She didn’t. The cops kept the original as evidence. I scribbled the verse on this while we waited. She wrote it inside a blank card in that floofy wedding-invitation writing. The photo on the front was two little kids in wedding dress-up.” He ran his hands through his hair till it stood up. “God, I’m tired. He called me at six a.m. again. Did you sleep in yesterday?”

  “Till eleven. I had to get up for Mass anyway.”

  “If ever you had a reason to skip—never mind. I have this discussion on a regular basis with my mother. I know how it ends.”

  Giulia would’ve loved to sleep the whole day. That meant not thinking. Or remembering.

  Frank’s stomach growled. “Do we have anything to eat around here? What time is it?”

  “Close to one. I’ll send Sidney across the street for subs.”

  “Did you two eat? No?” He dug out his wallet and handed her two twenties. “Get what you want and get me a foot-long turkey club, extra bacon. And a can of that stuff they named the New York MLS team for—Red Bull.”

  As she went out, he called after her, “Tell Sidney she’s on her own this afternoon—you and I have work to do in here.”

  _____

  Frank taped maps next to Giulia’s enlargement collage and they covered it with notes and questions.

  “I still think there’s a possibility the two attacks were coincidence. No, wait.” He held up a pickle slice before Giulia could interrupt. “How do we know he’s not just a plain old pervert who didn’t try and fail—or succeed—with one or more women in between Pamela and you? It’s possible.”

  “What about the ‘smart’ comment?”

  “Inadequate or angry man taking it out on easy targets.” He set the pickle next to five others on his sub wrapper. “Which reminds me. You’re not walking out alone at night anymore, right?”

  “I’m not walking anywhere. Bus to work, bus home. In for the night.” Giulia mashed her sub wrapper into a ball and tossed it at the trash can.

  “You don’t need to turn into a hermit. Just take basic precautions.” He tossed his wrapper and rejected pickles in the trash after hers. “Back to which ex is after Blake, and why she’s mixing the Bible with slutty dolls and dead birds.”

  “I have more on my theory of why she uses the Song of Songs.”

  Frank slugged the last of the Red Bull. “Try me.”

  “Because it’s the perfect love song, and she’s telling Blake he’s her perfect mate. For example, Groesbeck’s sister is having the perfect filthy-rich wedding. Groesbeck could be telling Blake that he belongs in her perfect storybook world.”

  “You said Moreton was too snooty to live, right? What if she thinks Pamela is too low for Blake... no, that won’t work. The van Alstynes are practically the top of the money and social pyramids here.” He drew a hot-pink X with a highlighter across the piece of paper headed Moreton.

  Giulia stuck a finger on Osborn’s name. “Solomon was one of the richest and smartest kings. Blake’s business career is taking off. Osborn’s the only one with a real job and a business head.”

  “So she could see it as a business transaction—marriage to the king? No, I got it—a hostile takeover.” He laughed.

  “Cute.”

  “Gotta find some lighter moments in between dead birds and rotten fruit.” He drew fluorescent question marks on Osborn’s and Groesbeck’s sheets. “Bischoff?”

  “I’m not sure. Nothing she said stuck out, not like the rude ones or the happy-happy ones.”

  “Question mark, then.” The highlighter squeaked on the paper. “Falke?”

  “She’s supposedly an interior designer. That might count as a job under the ‘business transaction’ reason to stalk. Did I tell you her nail polish matched her upholstery?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Giulia shook her head. “She also threatened to tell me about their sex life.”

  His eyes popped. “What?”

  “She wouldn’t have. She just wanted to humiliate me.” Giulia tapped the pencil on Falke’s sheet. “She acted calm and poised, but I get the feeling I missed something underneath, like the poise was a cheap paint job.”

  Frank waited, and finally Giulia shrugged it off.

  “Chalk it up to nerves. She was my first interview. Here, look at one thing she said: ‘He maintained public and private control, and he liked submissive women.’ I can’t picture her strangling birds and dressing up dolls to get Blake to marry her. She’s going to marry someone who wants to be dominated.”

  “Agreed.” Another X. “Matching nail polish. Picture that anal-retentive sex.”

  “Frank—”

  “Sorry. I’ll behave.” He capped the highlighter. “I don’t want to rule any of them out altogether, but this makes Groesbeck and Osborn our best bets, with Bischoff an iffy third.”

  Giulia leaned on the windowsill. “We should find out what religion they are. I’d be willing to rule out anyone not Christian or Jewish.”

  “Right, the Bible.”

  “She’d have to know it well enough to twist the passages from the Prophets. Paging through a Strong’s Concordance wouldn’t be enough.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Sidney knocked and poked her head around the door. “Mr. Driscoll, I’m pretty much stuck without Ms. Falcone, so would it be all right if I left early to get my car out of the shop? They said it’d be done by four.”

  Frank checked his watch. “It’s four-twenty already? Sure, go ahead. Do you need a ride?”

  “My boyfriend’s picking me up. See you tomorrow.”

  The outer door closed a minute later.

  “Giulia, can you lock up? I’m meeting Yvonne at five for a drink.” Frank dropped the highlighter in his center drawer. “I’m going to break it off face to face.”

  “You can tell me how right I am tomorrow morning.”

  “Only if she doesn’t toss a sloe gin fizz in my face.”

  _____

  The breeze died just before Giulia finished cleaning the floors. She tossed the disposable mop pad into the bathroom trash and stuck her head out the window. She wanted iced coffee.

  Why not? Her day finished an hour ago. The next bus came at 6:20. Plenty of time to lock up and splurge on an extra-large. She knew she worked late to avoid staring at the apartment walls. And she knew that the 6:20 bus would get her home well before dark. It wasn’t fear. Of course not. Just common sense.

  She pulled in her head at two sharp raps on the outer doo
r. Blake Parker flung it open before she had taken a single step.

  “Where’s Frank?”

  “Mr. Parker, what happened? Can I do anything?”

  He dropped a black leather gym bag by Sidney’s desk and pushed her aside. “Frank!” He stopped in Frank’s empty office. “Where is he?”

  How she wanted to slap this man. “Mr. Driscoll’s out. I am also working on your case, Mr. Parker.”

  “Sugar, I need a professional with experience. Dammit, why isn’t he here when I need him?”

  Didn’t they teach common courtesy in business school? “Mr. Parker, if you’ll sit down, we’ll assess the situation.”

  Blake flung up his hands. “Fine. I doubt you can do anything, but what the hell.”

  If ever someone needed a ruler across the knuckles...

  He rolled Sidney’s chair next to Giulia’s desk. “That bag was locked in my car all day. Whoever she is, she knows my keypad combination.”

  “To your car?”

  He rolled his eyes and shoved back in the chair. “Of course, my car. You don’t open a Lexus with a key.”

  “I see.” Count to ten. Keep counting.

  “I play in the Businessman’s FC—football club. That’s soccer, not American football. Tonight when I hit the gym to change for our game, I found this in the side pocket.”

  He pulled out a square jewelry-type box and thrust it at Giulia. Inside, a gold-painted padlock gleamed on a wad of silver tissue paper. It reeked, but not with “Passion.”

  “Was there a note? Oh, I see.” She pried it out of the lid. “ ‘I arose to open for my lover, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with flowing myrrh, on the handles of the lock.’ ” She inhaled a combination of sweetness and spice. “So that’s what myrrh smells like.”

  “Who cares?” He slammed a hand on her desk. “I’m paying good money to this company and I want results. When is Frank going to pin down the right one? I’ve had it with this psycho bitch and her obsessions. Thank God Pamela knows what’s expected of my future wife.”

  Someday Giulia would be sending Pamela a sympathy card. “Mr. Parker, I’ll give this to Mr. Driscoll first thing tomorrow. How early may he call you at home?”