"Do you think one of her friends could have done this to her?"

"I sincerely hope not, Mrs. Lowenstein."

Mrs. Lowenstein gave Kendall a look of shaky but genuine determination. "All right. I-would you like me to write the list down or dictate it to you?"

"I think weriting it down would be best. That way, we can make sure everything gets spelled correctly." Kendall watched Mrs. Lowenstein rise a little shakily from the couch and walk toward the small dining area he could see from his chair. He jerked suddenly as his cell phone went off.

"Pardon me." He stood up from his chair and walked to the far end of the living rom. "This is Layton."

"It's Emilie. I've got two names for you."

Kendall tucked his phone between his ear and shoulder and got a tight grip on his notebook. "Go ahead."

"Leslie Dryer. D-R-Y-E-R. Dennis Tyler, with two Ns."

"Who do you know who spells it with one?"

"Denis Leary."

Kendall realized she was right. "Got them. You talked to them yet?"

"The numbers we pulled from the phone book didn't get us anywhere."

"Okay. Mrs. Lowenstein is making a list for me now. I'll double-check it."

"Good. See you later."

"Bye." Kendall clicked his phone shut and turned to face Mrs. Lowenstein again. "Do you know a Leslie Dryer or Dennis Tyler?"

"Leslie Dryer?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"That's-" Mrs. Lowenstein turned and picked up a picture that was sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter. She handed it to Kendall. "Leslie Dryer. She's an ex-girlfriend of Esmerelda's."

Kendall looked at the picture. Esmerelda stood with another girl, Leslie, he assumed, in front of the apartment building he was standing in. They had their arms linked and were smiling happily at the camera. Leslie was a nice-looking girl with light brown hair, round eys, and thin lips. "Ex-girlfriend?"

"They broke up three months ago. Leslie got tired of coming in second to Esmerelda's studies."

Kendall hadned the picture back to Mrs. Lowenstein. "Who told you that?"

"Leslie. She came here to tell us goodbye on her own. Michael and I were very fond of her."

"Was the break-up amicable?"

Mrs. Lowenstein nodded. "I think so. At least, I never heard any animosity when Esmerelda talked about her." Mrs. Lowenstein seemed to freeze in place for a moment. "I haven't told Leslie. I forgot to call her." She shuddered out a breath.

Kenadll pushed on, trying not to feel like a total bastard for making Mrs. Lowenstein more miserable than he was sure she already felt. He reminded himself bleakly that it was all part of working in Homicide. "Did Esmerelda ever mention someone named Dennis Tyler?"

"I don't think I've nver heard that name before." Mrs. Lowenstein looked down at the pad of paper she'd been writing names and numbers on. "It's not ringing a bell at all. Maybe it was someone she knew from work."

"Probably." Kendall took the list of names and numbers from Mrs. Lowenstein. He glanced over it. The list was about ten or twelve names long. "Had Esmerelda talked about anyone in particular in the last few weeks?"

"We haven't talked to her much in the last couple of weeks. She had winter finals coming up." Mrs. Lowentein's hand clenched hard on the dining table chair. "She had a three point eight average."

Kendall gave Mrs. Lowenstein a small smile. "Thank you for your hlep, Mrs. Lowenstein. If you come up with anymore names or anything you think may help, you can reach me at the same number as the one on Detective Barker's card."

"Okay." Mrs. Lowenstein walked with Kendall to the door. She put a hand on his arm for a moment. "Your daughter, how did she die?"

This was a woman mourning her daughter. This was a woman who had loved her daughter, been proud of her, supported her, respected her. This was not a woman who could even imagine hurting her own daughter in any way. This woman was a mother.

Kendall lied through his teeth. "Suden Infact Death Syndrome. She went quietly."

"And without pain."

~Not even close.~ Kendall touched her hand. "Yeah."

*

Emilie's phone rang as she started on her last report. She marked her place with her finger and reached for the reciever. "Detective Barker, Twelfth Precinct."

"It's Kendall. Leslie Dryer is Esmerelda's ex-girlfriend. I've got her number, but I didn't get her address."

"One of these days, we'll train you, Doll."

"Blow me."

"You wish."

Kendall made a non-commital noise over the line. "I've got nothing on Dennis Tyler. Mrs. Lowenstein didn't recognize the name. Maybe he's a customer."

"Patrick and I are going over there to ask around after Zucker tonight. We'll see if someone knows the name."

"Do me a favor and run the number I've got. See if we can get Leslie Dryer's address from the 911 database."

"Give it to me." Emilie scarawled the number he gave her. "I'll look. Where will you be?"

"On my way back."

"See you in a few."

"Yeah."

Emilie hung up the phone and checked the number Kendall had given her against the four Patrick had pulled from the phone book. It didn't match any of them. "Apparently, the Leslie Dryer we want has an unlisted number."

"That's not fair."

"And she's Esmerelda's ex-girlfriend."

Patrick looked up from the papers he was reading. "Oh?"

Emilie raised her eyebrows. "You sound surprised."

"You've read all your reports, haven't you?"

"Except for this last one." Emilie waved the report in question like a paper fan. " What about them?"

"Now that we know Leslie Dryer's role in Esmerelda's life, doesn't it seem odd that none of her neighbors seemed to know that Leslie was her girlfriend?"

"Maybe she was private about it. That's why they call it a private life."

"Like you would know anything abou that." Emilie gave him the finger. Patrick ignored it. "The woman works at a stirctly lesbian club and is out to her parents. How do her neighbors know the names of her friends, but not one of them is actually her girlfriend?"

Emilie tapped her pen on her desk. "We're going to be talking to neighbors soon."

"Or we could send The Doll."

"I thought you were against initiation rituals given to Homicide rookies."

"This isn't a hazing. It's basic police work." Patrick gave Emilie a look. "Besides, do you want to do it?"

"Not even if they paid me an actual salary."

"Then, The Doll."

"The Doll."

The Doll in question had actually made excellent time across town, helped immensely by the ability to speed like a maniac without the fear of getting pulled over. He took the stairs to the third floor, knowing from to many nights as a patrolman that drunks, usually mean ones, were the only people in the elevators right then. The cops were with them, of course, but when a three hundred pound gorilla lunged at you for some infraction you caused in his drunken mind, a couple of cops trying to hold him back didn't do shit.

He walked into the open doorway that opened into the squadroom and sauntered over to his desk, shedding his coat, gloves, hat and scarf and stuffing everything but the coat into his bottom desk drawer.

"How the hell did you get back so fast?"

Kendall grabbed the chair by Emilie's desk and turned it so he could sit and prop hsi feet up on her desk. "Sped."

"You could get a ticket for that."

"By who? There's not a rookie dumb enough to stop a car wtih police tags and an extra antennea."

Patrick quirked a grin and jerked a thumb towards the opposite side of the squadroom. "Pennington pulled over the police chief's daughter and gave her a ticket the other night."

Kendall's mouth dropped open. "You are shitting me."

"I shit you not."

Kendall turned in his chair and sought out where Pennington was in the room. "Hey, Pennington!"

Pennington was a good-natured short guy who'd been out of the academy for two months and out of the womb just shortly before that. He looked tweleve. "Yeah?"

"You pulled over the chief's daughter?"

"Yeah. So?"

"What the hell for?"

"She was speeding."

"From your ugly face, probably."

Pennington grinned. He was actually a good-looking guy. For someone who looked like he was going to hit puberty any day now. "Actually, she told me she was running from you. Said you two got in the middle of having a nice, hot round of sex and then you started shouting Detective Barker's name." Every jaw in the room dropped. No rookie getting shit had *ever* made a joke about Emilie. It wasn't done. She was a well-feared hard-ass.

From her desk, Emilie gave Penningtion a once over that could have shaved the hair off a hairless cat. "Eric?"

Pennington smiled winningly. "Yes, Detective?"

"Do you like your tiny, puny, microscopic, completely worthless nuts where they are?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Are you content with the placement of yuor scrotum?"

"Yeah."

"Then I suggest you shut the fuck up before I decide they need to be located elsewhere. Are we clear?"

"Absolutely." Pennington's grin had gone from winning to shit-eating. "May I leave now?"

"Yes." Emile watched him leave, then ducked her head for a moment. Only Patrick knew her well enough to know she was hiding a smile. Eric Pennington had won a protector for life. Anyone with the balls, or stupidty, depending on the view, to say something like that to Detective Barker had a guarenteed seal of approvel from her on their ass like a Cabbage Patch Doll tattoo.

"So," Kendall was still picking his jaw up off the ground. "Do we have an address for Leslie Dryer?"

"Not yet." Emilie shook her hair off her face and braided it quickly. She'd undone it early on in reading her reports. "Patrick and I have a little something for you."

"I'm going to hate it, aren't I?"

"Probably." Patrick didn't seem paticularly affected by whether or not Kendall hated it. "Emile and I have to go scour *Tallywackers* for Dennis Tyler and ask a few supplemental question of Mr. Zucker. We need someone to go ask a few supplemental questions of Esmerlda's neighbors."

"Like what?"

"How did everyone know Leslie Dryer's name but not seem to know Leslie was Esmerelada's girlfriend? Five or six people mentioned her when the patrolmen were asking questions, but no one once dropped the 'g' word."

Kendall's eyebrows went up. He dropped his feet from Emile's desk so all four chair legs were on the floor, and leaned into Patrick's desk. "That's odd."

"Yeah."

"No one made reference to knowing the nature of their relationship?"

"Nope."

Kendall's eyes had a gleam to them that one usually only found on hunting dogs picking up a scent. "Where's the list of people the patrolmen talked to?"

Patrick put it into Kendall's outstrechted hand. "Thanks."

"Yeah. See you later." Kendall went back to his desk for his outdoor things."

Emilie gave Patrick an exasperated look. " If you're going to convince me you're going to send him out on some hideous errand, could you actually *do* it?"

Patrick smiled. "He's still interesedted in the why. Why don't they know who Lesile Dryer was to Esmerelda? Why didn't Esmerelda tell her neighbors she was a lesbian?"

"Fuck the why. The why gets a murder investigation nowhere."

"But the why's the whole reason for the investigation in the first place. It's a valid part of the process."

After taking a careful survey of her desk, Emilie picked up a paperclip and flicked it at Patrick's head. "Enough of this Zen, shit. Be a gritty policeman, would you?"

"Gritty?" Patrick rubbed his forehead with his fingers. The paperclip had gotten him pretty good. "What? you want me to talk in monosyllabic sentences, hitch my pants up when I walk, and guzzle gin?"

"Private detectives guzzle gin. You'd be guzzling whiskey."

"You want me to talk in monosyllabic sentences, hitch my pants up when I walk, and guzzle *whiskey*?"

"Yeah."

"Want me to start now?"

Emilie smirked. "If you'd like."

Patrick puffed out his chest and hitched his pants. "Fine."

"You comfortable?"

"Yeah."

"You sure?"

"Would you back off?" Patrick slapped his hand on the desk. "I told you I was *fine*. Why can't you take my damned word for it? I'll *tell* you when I'm *not* fine. You got that?"

Emilie put her hands up in a placating gesture. "I've got it. I've got it. It's just, I'm your partner, and we've got to *trust* each other, man. I've got to trust that you'll tell me when shit's going down, but you haven't been doing that. I've gotta ask, man."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Thanks, man; you're a real friend."

Nickolas had walked out of his office when he'd heard Patrick slam his hand on his desk and had caught the majority of the conversation. "What the fuck are you two doing?" He asked it mildly, like asking the price of peaches.

"We're being gritty." Patrick slammed his hand down again.

"You're wasitng time."

"That, too."

"Shouldn't you be somewhere?"

Emilie checked her watch. "It's only 9:15. *Tallywackers* just opened. We want to go when the customers are there."

"And you have nothing to do?"

"Nothing we're admitting to."

Nickolas grinned. "Good." He dropped a sheaf of papers onto Emilie's desk and one onto Patrick's desk. "Remember that woman who came in about a month and a half ago and watched us work for a few days?"

"The one about to do that weird writing project?" Patrick fanned the pages in front of him. "NaMo-something?"

"Yes, her. You are holding her first fifteen thousand words."

Emilie looked at the papers dubiously. "Dare I ask why she sent them?"

Nickolas sat in the chair Kendall had recently vacated. "She just wanted us to see what she'd come up with so far."

Patrick picked up his copy. "Well, I'm game." He started reading.

Emilie picked hers up with a little less enthusiasm and flipped to the middle. She read four sentences and tossed it back on her desk. "She's got procedure wrong."

"Yeah." Patrick put his copy down, too. He looked at Nickolas. "Have you read this thing?"

"Most of it. If we cover it with a blanket and smash it with a bat, it may get slightly worse, but I doubt it." He stood from the chair, "and now that you've been scarred, get off your asses and get some work done."