by V. P. Trick
Despite her mind’s lethargy, she was in a good mood, and the day was sunny. What to do now but take a walk and write? Her kind of day. But she had to change first. However comfortable they were, she couldn’t spend her day walking around in Christopher’s clothes. Not with heels in any case. And she needed a shower. Her thighs felt a tad, hum. Did she smell? Of him? She blushed belatedly, hoping LeRoy had not noticed.
Christopher had emptied drawers for her so she wouldn’t have to go back to her place on mornings like this, but she had yet to stock them up. She called a cab and went back to her hotel in his clothes and her heels (and stink).
Philip, ever the perfect doorman, was too classy to make a face at her appearance, but he did smile a little as he asked, “Is Mister Christopher well?” Cute.
She waved at the girls at the reception but didn’t slow down until she was under the shower. Her neck and shoulders were pinkish red, and so were her breasts even though he had barely kissed them. After the shower, she dabbed on a tick layer of cream over it all and put on a silk turtleneck shirt to hide everything. A pair of jeans, running shoes, baseball cap, oversized sunglasses, she was good to go. Off walking.
She passed a park, toward downtown, took a left, then a random right, without any precise destination at first. She was just strolling along, enjoying the fresh air, the sun, watching people rambling around, wondering what they were up to. She started getting hungry again and thought of calling Christopher for lunch but realised it was not eleven yet. Too soon for him to eat, and he was probably busy on some crime scene seeing as he had left so early.
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 file 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.
The 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
On 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.
They settled in the cigar lounge’s big leather armchairs surrounded by the lingering aroma of fine cigars. They talk about Patricia’s books. Drunk as he was, she figured he wouldn’t remember tomorrow; drunk as she was, she believed herself. They talked about her way of life at the hotel and Johnny’s life as an Italian safe-made man. She confessed to a weakness for Italian-made. He brushed his lips against hers, a caress more than a kiss. Like a friend’s kiss she had thought (feeling none of the butterflies she got from Christopher’s kissing), a sweet tongue-free butterfly-free kiss. So restful.
They had laughed and kept on drinking all the while. Johnny had asked for her hand, a drunk knee to the floor. “I could use a woman like you around,” he had said in his business proposal. “You will become my official woman for talk, sex and play. My most cherish.” He did not promise love, did not even mention it.
His offer had tempted her. It was an off-the-wall proposition, and she liked off the wall. She was very interested. If Christopher had not driven her crazy, or because he did, she was so very interested.
Why had she turned Johnny down? Simple. She had fallen asleep. She had skipped supper, and the fine wines, the smell of cigars, the warmth of the place, the softness of Johnny’s voice had pulled her under before she managed a coherent yes. When she woke, Johnny was still asleep (he had removed himself to his back office and was sprawled out on an old couch, from his dead mother’s place he told her sometimes later). She left without waking him and went back, sober, early the following evening, unsure if he was going to remember his offer. He did and made it again.
She had turned him down. They had been friends ever since. At the time, she had not told Johnny about Christopher, but maybe he had guessed some. At the time, she had not told Christopher about Johnny, but he too might have guessed some during previous visits with her to Johnny’s.
It had become a ritual for Johnny to offer her a different red wine on each of her visits, private import he thought she had not tasted before. He kept an eye out on the men, discouraging those he thought unworthy. Thus, their girls’ nights out went smoothly at Johnny’s bar, and they ritually drank a dash too much of the fine wines.
When Christopher showed up at nine sharp with LeRoy in tow, Reid was enjoying the company of some guy who already had a hand on her knee while Patricia was teasing Johnny about his new girlfriend sitting at the bar.
Johnny had a new girl every other week, usually a model, usually young, usually blonde. “Marketing mostly,” he told her. “Thus unimportant. Althoug
h I must say, they present certain advantages,” he confided with a wink. Middle-aged men, really.
No Harm Done, MacLaren
When Chris caught sight of Patricia, he knew right away she had had more than one drink. Without the men having to ask, Johnny brought a beer for LeRoy and a scotch, no ice, for Chris.
“Take a hike,” Reid told the knee-groping guy in her curt Reid-style.
LeRoy made most of the conversation, telling them about the murder scene they had gone to that morning. “Waste of our damn time,” he commented. “The case’s for the East Precinct. If they had checked a map, we could have slept in. That side of the street, the vic was clearly theirs.”
He went on to compliment Patricia and Reid on their outfits. “Pretty sleek, girls. You up the classy factor of the place, and that’s something considering the competition. Who’s the blond goddess, is she Johnny’s? How long before he dumps her, you think? Think she likes cops? Although I must say, she lacks that something special. A smile perhaps? If I had to pick a broad tonight, present company excluded, of course, I’d go for that brunette at the back, the one with the red skirt. She looks happy. Like you, babes. Always a turn-on, girls having fun. How about you, Boss? Which one would you sleep with?”
No comment.
“Like I don’t know, MacLaren.” LeRoy had the decency not to smirk at Patricia. “How about you, ladies? We have a great crowd this evening. Women like suits and ties, don’t they? Look at me, think I’m sexy? OK, Reid, you start. Who’s the lucky guy?”