by V. P. Trick
Patience was not one of Patricia’s strongest qualities, not when she had her mind set on a book project. When she had the full sequence of a story, she wanted to work at it full on. During those times, she turned into an even worse workaholic than Christopher. It was one of those times now, especially since she had so much time on her hands, as she was not sidetracked by a job anymore. Ironic.
She wasn’t a cop; perhaps it was time she stopped acting like one. Instead of doing what she thought a PI or a cop would do, she should do what writers did. What she was good at. It had served her well in the past. No need to look for leads, she scolded herself, do what you do best and make them up. Let your imagination work and make it all up. She needed to stop being afraid of shadows, get her butt to the diners, sit down at one of the cheap tables and write the damn story. Simple as that. Let the story write itself. Her story. Her perfect dinner murder scenario. Solve both murders in one scenario. And then, do the same with Lemieux. Make it up and see where it goes. Maybe not write that one in a strip club, though, not enough lighting (except on the stage, and she was not going anywhere near that platform).
The bath water had turned cold by the time she finally got out. She dried herself with a large beach towel, her skin now soft and glittering thanks to the oil she had poured into the water. She smelled deliciously of flowers and lemons. She dried her hair into soft waves. She studied her body in the mirror. Had she gained weight at Ingrid’s? The woman had worked her like a dog, but they had eaten like, well, eaten way too much and drank even more. The fact that she hadn’t felt like throwing up since she had resigned might also have helped.
All that thinking and prepping up had her fully awake by now. Planning was good. Nine o’clock Sunday evening, it was a little too late to start writing now, though. Excuses. Tomorrow. Monday morning. This week. She had a full week ahead of her. She was happy, tired yet excited.
She turned on the television and flicked through the channels. Nothing on. She prepared her work bag: laptop, money, notepad, pen, Kleenex, lipstick, toothbrush, toothpaste. Nine-fifteen.
She picked her clothes for the next day, laying them out on a chair, listing each piece out loud. “Black skinny jeans. Low-heel black boots. Black V-neck sweater. Leather jacket.” Not Christopher’s old one but her black fitted one, a kit she secretly considered her kick-ass outfit.
Nine thirty-five. She still had a bit of energy to burn. She went through her underwear drawers, telling herself that she was going to do some sorting. Hum. She still had the big towel wrapped around her.
The sorting took exactly twelve minutes. She finally gave up and put on her camouflage-print bra, the one with the silky lace on one side, with its matching thong. She had no choice really; one had to wear a thong with leggings. If she dressed in her kiss-ass outfit, she wouldn’t need a suitcase with a change of clothes. She grabbed her work bag and was out the door by nine fifty-five.
The trip over took less time than usual. A good thing too, because she might have changed her mind. With the hair and all, maybe the outfit was a little too much. Should she have called first? What if the Big guy had an important meeting tomorrow and a reason to go to bed early? What if he was matching the sports game of the year?
Since she had the keys to the building, she made a discreet entry. Taking the stairs so he wouldn’t hear the elevator, she arrived at his door undetected. Her ear to the panel, she heard the television blaring; the Big guy was awake. She knocked twice, knock-knock, sharp bangs in case he had fallen asleep in front of the television. She didn’t hear him walk, but he opened the door almost right away.
The damn man just stood there, holding the door with his right hand, the left on the door frame, blocking the way. He had his dress pants on but had undone the top three buttons of his shirt, and the tie was off. Back from work not too long ago then. His hair was mussed; the Big guy rubbed his hair when he was tired or unsure of the next step. As it was late Sunday night, she went for tired. Damn, he looked sexy.
She gazed up at him, lips parted. She had missed him, damn him!
He smiled, the grin first lighting up his eyes, then curling his lips.
She took a step forward, then another until she was against him. She rose on tiptoes and kissed him, her tongue searching his.
“Hi, Big guy.”
“About time, Princess. What took you so long?”
Although he seemed to like the outfit, she undressed slowly on her way to the bedroom, leaving her clothes neatly folded as she went. He undressed too but dropped his clothes in a heap on the floor.
Since he also liked the underwear, she let him enjoy the view. Emboldened by his very noticeable appreciation, aroused by it, she turned slowly on herself. After their week apart, she yearned for him to be totally uncontrolled.
The growl he let out when she cupped her breasts, the instinctual step forward he took as she turned her back to him and rubbed her buttock, those oh so dark eyes of his when she glanced at him over her shoulder encouraged her.
“Viens, mon beau.” Come here, handsome.
She basked in the sharp breath that escaped him when she dropped her panties, wiggling her ass teasingly. The hoarse groan that escaped his throat as she unclipped her bra and turned back to face him, urged her on. She provocatively covered her breasts with her left arm, demurely shielded her pubis with her right hand.
“Montre-moi, mon chéri.” Show me, Darling.
The sharp clutch of his hand on his turgescent cock when she cupped her breasts with her hands, weighing them, spurred her to rub the erect nipples with her thumbs. He uttered a harsh gasp when she let one hand fall back to her pubis. Oui, mon amour.
He let out a long guttural grunt as his hand tensed and fisted his cock, unsuccessfully trying to delay his orgasm as he watched her slowly rock her hips back and forth, teasing her clit with two fingers. He came in his hand.
“Your turn now, Pussycat.”
Grabbing her hips and pulling her to the bed, he joined his fingers to hers.
“Fuck, I’m going to take you all.”
She swallowed a whimper when his fingers, nudging hers aside, sunk in and out, his thumb teasing relentlessly.
“Let me hear you, Angel.”
His fingers kneaded and circled until she couldn’t bear it. Her thighs impulsively squeezed his hand.
“Now, Darling of mine.”
Biting down on her lower lip did not muffle her moans, neither did clamping her mouth around his nipple. He visibly liked her imaginary gain weight. Not that she asked, she didn’t talk much after. He missed the end of the game. They fell asleep together well before midnight.
PI Unlimited: Last Days
She had worked all weekend. Night shifts were the worst. Sunday nights, families ate early and it wasn’t unusual for the place to be full by five. Single mothers wanting a break from cooking came in for meatloaf with the kids. Older guys wanting a break from the loneliness of the weekend dropped by for a quick meal. They would return home in time to watch the game and turn in early; work was coming tomorrow. Some couples ventured in later, eating without really talking, barely looking at each other. She saw it all, without surprise, without emotion; it was just a job. She was going to college; this would not be her life.
It had rained all weekend. Weather during rain season was darn rain. She didn’t like walking in the rain; the weather made her feel homesick. Not that her home was all that far away. And she did talk with her parents every week and saw them every other week on Wednesdays.
On those Wednesdays, she rode the bus to her parents’ house in the suburb; she brought her dirty clothes along in a suitcase. She spent her Wednesdays with her mother. While they did the laundry together, they talked about her mischievous younger siblings and gossiped on what the neighbours were doing to their lawns.
Over a cup of tea, her mother described which of her old high school friends she had seen at the market, which was in trouble or jobless. So and so have dropped out of college. And tha
t one was pregnant.
Her mother helped her fold her clean clothes; she helped her mother tidy up the garage after her father had tried, yet again, to fix something during the weekend. That was the life she wanted, like her mother’s. Smooth. Orderly. Predictable.
College was wonderful. She liked the dorms. She liked feeling all grown-up. Now she talked with her parents as an adult; college had given her that. The waitress job had given her that.
She earned money now; she bought her own stuff. Of course, her parents paid for college, tuition, books, rent, that was a given. She would do the same for her kids when the time came. Her mother believed a girl needed to go away to become a woman. College had made her a woman. Emotionally. She was out of her mother skirt. Intellectually. She was learning things, becoming someone. Physically. She was pretty and sweet; boys liked that.
One boy in particular had wanted her. She had liked him too. She had loved him even perhaps.
“He is going to be my children’s father some days,” she had once told a friend.
It had not turned out that way. She was over him now; she had moved on. Her mother believed another man awaited her in a near future. Her mother had never been wrong, so until then, she continued her studies.
Wednesdays were pleasant. Before the kids got back from school in the late afternoon, before her father returned from work, she and her mother always went out for coffee, two women enjoying an afternoon break in companionable chatters over hot cups of coffee. At the end of the day, her parents drove her to the bus terminal for her ride back to the dorms.
Every other week, she spent the Wednesday studying, trying to keep up with her teachers ever-increasing assignments. Her job at the diner kept her motivated. Her mother had been a secretary before her marriage, but she aimed to be an accountant. It was the expected order of things for children to outgrow their parents. It was her parents’ job to lift her up to success; it would be her job too to make her children shine when the time came.
She liked accounting. Long columns of numbers neatly aligned. Precise work. Predictable. Her work at the diner was a little like that too. She had had trouble keeping up at the beginning; it was her first job after all. A friend had put in a good word for her with the cook, but, even if she had been warned how difficult waitressing was, her first week was a disaster.
Too many people ordered too many different meals and drinks and side orders! And the waitresses had to yell at the cook for him to overhear them over the clamours and voices of the customers. Yelling was not her thing. Her mother never yelled; neither did her father. It was very unbecoming, especially for a lady.
She had not yelled when the boy had said it was over.
He had never yelled at her before but he had yelled then. “You’re too linear.”
What did that mean? She still didn’t know. The boy was dating someone else now. That was fine with her; she had not liked him yelling at her. That had been a while ago. Luckily, she had good friends with whom to go out. She hated going to movie theatres alone.
She had been working at the diner for a couple of months now; she had got the hang of it now, even on a rainy Sunday night. When she didn’t have classes, she was always available to fill in for one of the waitresses, well, except on Wednesdays every other week. She might not yell as loud as the other waitresses, but she got by. And sometimes, when the restaurant grew too noisy, the other waitress would repeat her orders louder, so it all worked out. The staff and the customers all liked her. She was nice and she was sweet.
Excerpt from PI Unlimited, by Trica C. Line
Her at the Last Minutes
Patricia sat, once again, at the diner’s counter. Late in the day. Late in the week. Thursday already. She was to meet Reid for a drink later, on a well-deserved night out.
She had slaved on her book all week; her story was unfolding satisfactorily, up to the girl’s last living night at least. Her PI character had done the legwork and talked to the victim’s family and friends. Her fictional police force was clearly incompetent (weren’t they always?), and as a last resort, the girl’s mother had hired her PI to find her baby’s killer.
In her book, Princess Jane would solve the case alone, however long a time it took, without help from Jeremy, her police officer boyfriend. Christopher might read something into that storyline, but really, he would be wrong. It’s just a story, Big guy. The reference to an incompetent police force might make him twitch also, but hey, it was only fiction, right? And for once, she hadn’t hinted at a dirty cop lurking in the midst of the investigation (a recurrent theme in her previous books, no shrink needed to explain why).
Since she wrote the story in sequence, her character was now up to retracing the first victim’s last day. The second murder was to happen during the investigation hence ensuring a steady momentum in the action.
Her PI’s investigation spanned over years. The timeline had impaired Patricia’s writing at first, but her character was tough; resilient and damn stubborn, her PI sometimes got discouraged but in the end, she did not give up. The time lapse allowed in-between adventures for future books if she so desired. If she ever completed this one, though.
Okeydokey. To uncover clues the incompetent apes have overlooked, Jane needed to be near when the second murder occurred, but how? Her PI couldn’t conveniently show up at the second fictive diner as she had for real; it would appear too far-fetched.
Jane had a logical mind hence the second restaurant had to have something that the first one also had, apart from the damn rain − Note to myself: the damn rain is fast becoming a character in itself. She had to take it into account somehow − A staff member that worked at both diners? Too obvious, even for the apes. A friend? There again, a too-simple scenario, the two girls went to the same college after all. Then again, did the six degrees of separation applied to small colleges? Years apart? Hum. Apes would have checked it out (incompetents yes, but not unrealistically so). A customer? Perhaps. They were difficult to track, though, especially if they weren’t regulars. But there again, if they weren’t regulars, her character, as smart as she was, would have to be damn lucky to notice a customer at one restaurant and then the same at the other, days or weeks or years later. Hum.
Patricia kept on writing, confident that when she reached that scene, something would come up. For now, she let the idea simmer on her backburner, that subconscious part of her mind that computed and reflected and reckoned without consulting her conscious self. That innermost part was always working overtime anyway.
PI Unlimited: Rain
She had worked all weekend. Night shifts were the worst. It had rained all weekend. Rain season. It was late, and she was tired. I’m going to take a taxi back, she decided. She knew one of the cab drivers at the stand two blocks down. From time to time, the cabbie gave her rides back to the dorms. His daughter was in one of her classes, and as he lived close to her building on campus, and his shift ended at eleven-thirty, he gave her a cheap rate.
She helped the cook clean up the restaurant. Thankfully, the helper had left already; she found him strange. The man barely talked to her. Then again, she rarely spoke to him either.
She put her raincoat on to help the cook take the trash out. She loathed the rain; it was pouring, and it was cold. A couple of bags and they were back inside. The cook started mopping the kitchen floor.
“How about we go out for a beer after we’re done here?” He offered.
“No, thank you.” The man was married, and he smelled of grease.
She put the chairs up on the table and left him to his mopping. She had to hurry if she wanted to grab her taxi. Cabs ran all night from the station, but she wanted the cheap fare. She only had toilets left to do. The cook would mop the floors there after he finished the dining area. The waitresses helped with the kitchen and the garbage; he did the floors. That was the deal. Even on slow Sundays when one of the two girls left at nine and the helper at ten, the deal was the same.
The men’s and ladies�
� toilets were mirror-images. She filled the soap bottles, cleaned the sinks with disposable wipes, brushed the toilets, sanitising them with a copious amount of the blue cleaner. She cleaned the mirrors with the foamy pink cleaner. Her mother had taught her the routine, and, no more ten minutes later, the men’s and the ladies’ rooms were sparkling, and she had two trash bags to dispose of.
Bags in hand, she finger-waved her good night to the cook and made her way to the back exit on tiptoe. The cook growled at the waitresses when they left footprints on his freshly cleaned kitchen floor.
Patricia paused. The girl’s back door exit made simplified the murder. It explained why the killer had left her body in the back alley. Nobody had dragged her back there; she had let herself out that way to dump the toilet trash bags into the container before heading to the taxi stand.
Was that how it had happened? Had the cook lied about the girl leaving through the front door? The police had brought him up for questioning back then; he had an alibi. Was it possible his recollection of the girl’s last moments had been wrong? Without knowingly lying, maybe he had rearranged the events. He couldn’t tell his wife he had asked the girl out, now, could he?
Pie or no pie, she needed to talk to that cook again.
She dropped the trash in the container. She was already running little late.
“Hi.”
She jumped at the voice and turned to see who had spoken to her. The person was leaning on the wall next to the diner’s back door. “Oh, hi.”
Since the scene had betrayed no signs of a struggle, the police had assumed the girl had known her murderer.
“Lousy weather, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I hate rain,” she barely paused by her interlocutor’s side. Now, she truly was late. “The cook has not completed his chores; he’s doing the floors now. Just knock hard.”
“Actually, I came to see you. Do you want to go for coffee or something? My treat.”