by V. P. Trick
She surreptitiously inched away as soon as he let go of her fist. He trailed behind her, closing the door and throwing the locks in case she decided to storm out. The locks would slow her down some.
She halted in the middle of the room, her back to his. He could almost hear her think. “Now, what,” she was thinking. He waited and admired. She looked beautiful. He liked her in a short skirt; she had such long, slim legs. Round hips. A narrow waist. Straight shoulders. Her hair fell in loose curls on her shoulders.
As if she felt the weight of his eyes on her back, she turned to face him, her head crooked to the side. The back of her was gorgeous; the front was stunning. What have you been up to, Angel, in that outfit?
“I quit. I resign.” This was new. “I’ve had it with cops.” Not so new.
Ever since she had tricked him into hiring her, he had been scheming to get her to quit. She did work other jobs, jobs he found more disquieting than having her near him at the office. Her quitting felt like a stand-still.
“You can’t quit the filing clerk job, Princess. It’s not a real job.”
She crooked an eyebrow. “Don’t play smart with me. You know what I mean.”
Yes, he did know exactly what she meant. She didn’t want to go to the precinct anymore. Hell, this might be good news after all. For once, she might stay out of trouble. He looked forward to driving her to the library every morning and picking her up every night. Bring her home, his home. His bed. He almost grinned, flashing barely a hint of the crooked smile he knew got to her (when she let him).
She caught it, though. “Christopher James MacLaren, are you listening to me?”
“Absolutely, Angel of mine.”
“I don’t wish to see those dumb officers again. I don’t want to talk about the girl in the alley. I don’t want any of this. Ever.” She knew she had to speak to those cops again. He knew she knew, but he read between the lines. She didn’t want one more dead stiff, known or unknown. “And I don’t need you to bail me out every time. I had the situation under control.”
“Yah right. Punching an officer is not exactly the smartest move, Princess.” He expected the ‘Princess’ would get her, and it sure did.
“He started it, he wanted me to come down to the station, but I remember you telling them to talk to you directly. Guess you didn’t impress them much, Big guy. And don’t call me Princess!”
Calling him ‘Big guy’ was her first step. She would argue some more; he would argue too. Then, she would talk back, and he would tease some. Easy to see how this was going to end. He smiled for real, a full-on crooked smile.
She stopped talking, her eyes widening. She too knew where their discussion was headed, but she might not make it easy. They didn’t argue that long. He was smiling and frowning at the same time. Damn woman.
At one point during their heated conversation, she said again, “Enough, Christopher. Listen to me. I quit. I. Quit. Really.”
She took a step forward. He feared she was aiming for the door, but she stopped right in front of him. Her hands on his shoulders, she rose on tiptoe and, taking him by surprise, kissed him hard, a hungry kiss, invading tongue and all. He liked her kisses. Immensely. The taste of her. Lemon, raspberries, maple, something else. Great kiss this one was. Yearning, pleading, demanding.
A soft, breathy whisper followed that kiss. “Please, Christopher. Let’s be gentle with each other.”
It was all he could take. He was indeed gentle, oh so very gentle when he lowered her to her bed. Tender when he undid that lovely silky blouse and scooped out a breast with one hand, straining a nipple out, teasing with the top hem of her bra. He might have been a bit hastier when he asked her to undo his pants and stroke his shaft, but her hands were oh so soft as she tortured his testicles.
Gently, his tongue teased one erect nipple. The other. He was careful rubbing the head of his cock against her clit. He was loving and tender with every working part of him rubbing, tasting, touching, rasping her.
She did implore him to stop, right before she gently pleaded him to go faster, harder. He didn’t. Gentle she had asked, gentle she was going to have, unrelentingly so, even if it killed him. She too was uncompromisingly tender.
They didn’t argue for the next hour.
When he dropped her off at the library, he was still grinning. His morning had not turned out so bad after all. “I’ll pick you up here around five, and we’ll go some place fancy to celebrate your freedom.”
Tonight they were going to talk. Drink wine to help with the talking. They wouldn’t argue for she was off the job permanently.
Patricia’s Try at Being Nice
Located in an ancient, turn-of-the-century building that had previously housed a bank, the library was a solemn place. Its many windows were high and narrow and its stone walls thick. If not for footsteps hitting the large square stone-tile floors, the revered silence shrouding the rooms would have been eerie.
Over the rim of her reading glasses, the head bibliothécaire frowned as Patricia crossed the room, the sound of her heels clicking on the tiles reverberating in the near-religious stillness. So perfect. Like in an old classic film. Already, she found the place inspiring.
She chose a table near a window. The windows were positioned high, their frame ensconced into the massive wall, all she saw through them when sitting was the sky. Bright blue today. Her mood had improved substantially since her démission.
She reviewed her notes on her PI investigation. Great start. Her heroine had an office, a sleek car, a cop boyfriend who was not an ape (and not too bad looking at that). Her girl even had her first case. An unknown killer had murdered a college girl in a back alley, of course, and the girl’s mother had hired her female PI to find the murderer since (big surprise here), the cops didn’t have a clue. Twisting reality into fiction was better than real life. For her books, she didn’t have to smell or touch anything rotting.
She wrote assiduously for hours. Early afternoon, she grabbed a sandwich from one of the vending machines. Not her first choice of food, but she didn’t dare go out for fear of losing her preferred spot in the library, or so she told herself. For sure, it had absolutely nothing to do with her lack of self-restraint when presented with opportunities to visit strange places where a dead body might be lurking.
Her writing led to some introspection. She regretted moving the college girl and hoped she had not screwed up any evidence. It had rained so much; perhaps the flood had long washed away the clues? Even so, she should have known better than to disturb a crime scene. Not that she knew the back alley to be a crime scene when she had stepped into it. Another stupid idea.
Still. The similarities between that killing and her cold case were obvious. Two young and pretty waitresses found on rainy days. Not-so-dumb and Ape had let slipped she had died of head trauma in their preliminary discussion. Had an unknown killer hit this girl too on the head with an unidentified blunt object? She had not seen blood, but the rain might have washed it away. The damn rain. Had Christopher run a check on killings on rainy nights? Hum. She wasn’t about to ask him; he might think she wanted back in. No way.
Did serial killers wait years between killings? It showed more restraint than she expected from those sickos. She had done extensive research on serial killer for her previous book, but her character had turned out atypically methodical, more invested in her teaching and collection than into her victims. Once done, her men were simple by-products. Leftovers. Nothing personal, boys.
“Sorry to bother you. I was wondering if you had any books on serial killers?” She ask-murmured to the head bibliothécaire woman. “Not books of a serial killer in particular, but information on their patterns, the way they worked.”
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 31st 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 31st 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 allotted 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.”
He 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 lay 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 really 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 compliment 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.