"She. Was a *sinner*." Miss Byrdson nodded, as though that was the beginning and end of the conversation. It was, in fact, the answer to the first question Kendall had asked.

"Did you know her at all?"

"I don't asssociate with sinners."

~You must not talk to anyone, then.~ Kendall nodded as if he understood. "Did you ever hear anything about her? I assume there was gossip, with her lifestyle and all." He hoped he actually sounded like he disapproved that Esmerelda had been a lesbian and a stripper. In actuality, he didn't particularly care one way or another.

"Gossip. Is a sin."

Kendall wondered if Miss Byrdson always talked in fragments when talking of things she didn't like. "It's a horrible habit people have, but if you heard anything while getting your mail or your paper, " ~or eavesdropping~, "it could tell me something to find out who murdered her."

"You actually care?"

"It's what they pay me for." ~You heartless old bitch.~

Miss Byrdson smoothed her hair and looked to be thinking for a moment. "I heard someone say that she was a dancer down at that awful club."

"*Tallywackers*?" Kendall watched Miss Byrdson flinch. "Sorry." He wasn't. "Did you hear anything else, Miss Byrdson?"

"I. Don't listen to gossip."

~Of course not.~ "You didn't overhear anything else?"

"No." Miss Byrdson was starting to look pissed.

Kendall nodded at her and took a step back from the door, fearing suddenly, of being smacked with a Bible. "Thank you, Miss Byrdson."

She shut the door without another word.

Kendall gave the door the finger.

*

Nickolas glared at his phone as three of the hold butttons blinked red at him in quick succession. Reporters had been calling since he'd gotten on shift, and he was doing everything he could to be annoying enough that they'd stop asking questions. So far, yelling, name-calling, and repeating 'no comment' a hundred and fifteen times had done nothing to sway them. Now, he was just leaving them on hold until they finally gave up. There was a knock on his office door. "Come in."

Tara, the administrative assistant for the shift, poked her head in the door. "Lieutenant, there's a woman here to see someone working the Esmerelda Lowenstein case. She gave her name as Leslie Dryer."

"Leslie Dryer?"

"Yes, Sir."

Nickolas blinked a couple of times. Emilie and Patrick had filled them in on Leslie Dryer's status in Esmerelda's life before they left for *Tallywackers*. "Bring her in here, please. I'll talk to her until Barker and Martin get back."

"Yes, Sir." Tara closed the office door. She reopened it a few moments later and ushered in a woman who looked near tears. "Leslie Dryer, this is Lieutenant Nickloas Caldwell."

Nickolas shook her hand. "Would you like a glass of water or something, Ms. Dryer?"

"No thank you." Leslie Dryer's voice was quiet, but rather audible, as if she'd been trained to project her voice without putting a lot of effort behind it.

Nickolas nodded at Tara. "Thank you. I'll holler if we need anything." Tara left the office, and Nickolas offered the chair in front of his desk. "Why don't you have a seat, Ms. Dryer?"

"Call me Leslie, please. I don't think I've ever been called Ms. Dryer." Leslie gave Nickolas a shaky smile. "Mrs. Lowenstein called me a little while ago and told me that Esmerelda had been killed this morning. I ended up here. I don't know how or why."

Nickolas patted her shoulder and moved around to sit in his desk chair. "It's actually helpful to have you here. We like to talk to everyone who knew the person who has died and see if we can't find some useful information from everyone."

"Okay." Leslie swallowed and hiccuped quietly. "Excuse me. I-I was crying earlier." Her voice wavered, and she sniffled.

"It's completely understandable. I can only imagine the kind of shock this is." Nickolas held up a box of tissues. Leslie took one and blew her nose. "How long did you know Esmerelda?"

"We met sophomore year of college. I joined the LGBT-that's the "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender" community on campus, and she was there." Leslie wiped her hand across her nose. "I was barely out of the closet, then, and she helped me with it. Helped me get comfortable with it."

Nickolas gave Leslie a small smile. "So, you were friends first?"

"Yeah. For nearly a year, and then she asked me out. We went to IHOP." Leslie gave a watery chuckle. "The service sucked, and I ended up with syrup all over my shirt. It was a mess."

"You broke up a few months ago, didn't you?"

"I called it off. Esmerelda was always at work, or studying. I barely saw her."

Nickolas stood up and walked around his desk, propping himself up on the edge. He slouched down a little bit and crossed his arms loosely. "Did you fight about it?"

"Esmerelda tried to tell me we saw each other enough, but it wasn't true. We talked it to death. She was good at that."

"Most law students are."

Leslie managed another shaky smile. "Yeah. That's what I told her." She took a deep breath. "We didn't talk for a couple of weeks, and then she called me. We went out for coffee, and it was really nice. We were trying to be friends again."

"Leslie, did Esmerelda ever mention a man named Dennis Tyler to you?"

"He's a sleaze, at least the way she told it. He felt her up, tried to get her to do stuff for money-"

"What kind of stuff?"

"Sexual stuff. He offered her a thousand dollars for a blow job one night."

Nickolas watched Leslie shudder and felt like a heel, but to many years as a cop making people shudder made him carry on. "Did he ever get violent?"

Leslie nodded. "She came home with bruises on her arm one night. Down by her wrist, like someone had grabbed her. I told her to go talk to the cops, but she wouldn't do it. She didn't think anyone would listen to some stripper's whining about a mean customer. No offense."

Nickolas shrugged. "None taken. It's an understandable reaction." He ran a hand over his hair. "Did he ever do anything else?"

"He just repeated most of his actions as far as I ever heard. Grabbed her, groped her, offered her money for sex. She never came home bleeding or anything if that's what you're asking."

"It is. Can you think of anyone else who might have wanted to hurt her?"

"I don't think so." Leslie stared at her hands for a few seconds, obviously thinking. "I never saw anyone approach her like they wanted to hurt her. She was such a nice person. It's hard to believe that..." Leslie trailed off, obviously trying to keep herself composed.

Nickloas sneaked a glance at his watch. They'd been talking for fifteen minutes, longer than most people in the beginnings of the grieving process lasted. "Leslie, I think that's all I need right now. I'm going to tell my detectives what you told me, and if you'll write down your phone number and address, I'll give it to them in case they have any more questions."

"O-okay." Leslie quickly wrote down her address and phone number, grabbed another Kleenex when Nickolas held out the box, and left with the hurried stride of someone who was about to break down and didn't want to do it in front of people.

Nickolas sat back down at his desk and looked down at his phone. All the lines were clear. He couldn't help but smile. There was something nice about winning against a group of pairanas.

*

"You smell like a still." Emilie bit into her burger and made a face as she got another whiff of Patrick.

"I was going for smelling ridiculously drunk, but I think your description is more apt." Patrick squirted ketchup on his fries and smiled at the waitress who refilled his coffee cup. They were at a diner a half a block up from *Tallywackers* that was open all night and served coffee you could use to peel paint off a car. "So, Zucker's an even bigger skeeze than we thought?"

"He's a twelve-year-old boy living his fantasy. He doesn't give a damn about anyone around him as long as the money is coming in, and there are lesbians cumming."

"That's crude."

"But true." Emilie dumped a packet of sugar into her coffee. "He swears that Dennis Tyler is an excellent customer who has never been proven to be a groping asshole."

"I don't quite know how he got away with that. I was sitting next to the man and watched him blatantly feel up three women."

"Didn't Zucker feed us a line about a 'strictly enforced no groping policy'?"

Patrick shrugged. "And the police commisoner says he has a strict policy against discrimination. Saying it doesn't make it true."

"I know that. How big of an asshole is Tyler?"

"Remember that guy we arrested last year for feeling up fifteen year-old girls on the subway?"

"Yeah."

"This guy's his evil twin. He doesn't care about anything past booze and tits."

Emilie let out a hard breath. "He could be half the guys that get arrested at strip clubs for disorderly conduct."

"Except he's never been arrested."

Emilie's eyes flashed. "Not yet."

*

Kendall dragged himself into the squad and smiled at Tara. "Any messages?"

"None." She smiled back at him. "What'd you bring me?"

Kendall patted himself down with a bit of dramatic flair and came up with a box of Good 'n' Plenties. "M'lady." Tara took the candy with a small squeal.

"You rule."

"Don't let it get around."

"Promise." She opened the box and held them out. "Want one?"

"No. I don't eat tire rubber, thanks." Tara gave him an exasperated. Kendall executed a bit of a soft-shoe shuffle, and exited, stage left.

Nickolas met him at his desk. "Where'd you learn that little move?"

"Eight years of dance lessons my mother forced upon me when I was kid. She wanted to help my coordination."

"You ran into the doorjamb yesterday night coming in."

"She helped my coordination. Not my depth perception." Kendall dropped his hat, scarf, and gloves on his desk. "You need me for something? I was going to see if Leslie's Dryer's address has come up yet."

"Don't worry about it. She came in a little while ago and talked to me."

Kendall paused in taking off his coat. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"What'd she say?"

"Esmerelda was a good person. They were trying to be friends. The only name she ever heard come up in a bad way was Dennis Tyler. Apparently, he grabbed her a few times. She didn't report anything."

"Have we found Dennis Tyler, yet?"

"I'm waiting for Emilie and Patrick to get back to me." Nickolas stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "What'd you get from the neighbors?" Kendall made a rude sound. "That bad?"

"Apparently, our lesbian, law-studying stripper lived in one of the most conservative buildings in the city. I had to listen to four different people tell me what a sinner she was. Most of them ignored her because they thought she was beneath their high society standards."

Nickolas's brow furrowed. "How did so many of them know about Tyler and Leslie?"

"She had one neighbor, Mr. Carmen, nice guy in his fifties who seeemed to make a point to say hi and ask how she was doing when he ran into her by the mailbox and in the hall." Kendall shrugged. "I'm guessing that everyone listened in when Mr. Carmen talked to the resident sinner, tried to find more infractions to blame on her."

"Sounds like a good theory."

Kendall grinned. "Thanks."

Nickolas took a quick look around the room, glad to see it mostly empty. He dropped his voice to a near-whisper. "You okay from this afternoon?"

"I'll survive."

"Kendall, seriously."

Kendall popped his neck and stared up at the ceiling. "I don't know. I went to a church today. I had a priest try and talk to me."

"You're not Catholic."

"I told him some stuff anyway. It was interesting to tell him what happened. I haven't told a lot of people. Just you. My parents. That's it."

Nickolas pressed his lips together for a moment. "Have you seen anyone about this professionally?"

"I can't spend an hour a week on a couch talking about my dead daughter."

"What's the word around here?"

"I've got it going she that she died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Makes people not ask about it." Kendall glanced at Nickolas. "Can we change the subject now?" His hands were twitching nervously against his desk.

"Yeah. Sure." Nickolas clapped him on the back. "Just think about seeing someone, okay?"

"Sure." Kendall shrugged again, this one more tense then the one of a few minutes before. "Couldn't possibly be anymore painful than now."

Nickolas walked away without another word, suddenly happier than ever that he was past the fathering point in his life. He and Daniel had never adopted any kids, mostly because they'd discussed it and decided it wasn't for them, and to know that he'd never suffer the pain Kendall was going through was a kind of relief he'd never felt before. He was a step away from his office when he heard someone yell his name. He turned and saw Emilie and Patrick coming in the door. "What have you got?" They walked over, and Nickolas was assaulted with the smell of booze. He gave Patrick a look. "Did you *bathe* in gin?"

"I got a couple of drinks spilled on me."

Kendall sidled over from his desk. "You smell like a wino."

"And you're a little ray of sunshine."

"What have you got?" Nickolas looked between Emilie and Patrick expectantly.

"Zucker is officially a skeeze. He watched the lesbian proceedings, let himself out, and left the front door and the back fire exit unlocked. Apparently, the back fire exit lock was busted sometime last night." Emilie's face let it be known she smelled something funny. "He is supposedly getting it fixed tomorrow."

"Dennis Tyler," Patrick was stripping off his shirt and tie and walking over to his desk, "is also a skeeze. I sat next to him and got to watch his hands-on approach to strippers. They're not fond of him, but he tips insanely well." Patrick pulled a shirt from the bottom drawer of his desk and slipped it on. It was slightly wrinkled, and smelled like stale peanuts, but it beat smelling like a guy on a bender. "As of now, I'd say the odds are even that either one of them could have done it."

"Did you see anything that could have been used to bludgeon her?"

Emilie shook her head. "Not in his office. It was all naked women, but most of it looked pretty light and easily breakable. And none of it was four inches wide."

"I didn't see anything out on the stages or the main floor. The glassware was to small and cheap to inflict any damage." Patrick couldn't find an extra tie in his desk. Kendall walked over to his, pulled out one of his extras and passed it over. "Thanks. How'd it go with the nieghbors?"

Kendall chuckled darkly. "They're mostly content that she'll burn in hell for her sins. I talked to one person who didn't think she was the ring of scum around the kitchen drain."

"You think any of them killed her?"

"Nah. To many Bible thumpers reciting Commandments to forget 'Thou Shalt Not Kill'."

Nickolas grinned lopsidedly. "Guess they forgot 'Thou Shalt Not Judge', though."

Tara walked over and tapped Nickolas on the arm. "You've got reporters on two, three, and five. I've had them on hold for fifteen minutes, but they're not giving up.

Nickolas sighed. "Fuck me."

"I don't think I'm your type." Tara grinned. "You want to take them or leave them to rot?"

"I'll deal with them. Better to do it now. Thanks, Tara." Nickolas looked back at Emilie, Patrick, and Kendall. "Figure out your next steps, let me know. I have to go bust some heads." He walked back to his office, grumbling all the way.

They all looked at each other for a moment, then Patrick and Kendall looked at Emilie. She was going to hand out the orders whether or not one of them stepped up, anyway. She thought for a moment. "Have you talked to Leslie Dryer?"

Kendall shook his head. "Don't have to at the moment. She came in and talked to Nickolas earlier. She gave us the same 'good girl' line as everyone else. Oh, and she said that Esmerelda had specifically mentioned Dennis Tyler as a problem."

"Okay." Emilie took the information in. "Did you go take a look around her apartment while you were there?"

"No. I just concentrated on the neighbors."

"That's fine. Patrick and I will check it out, then."

Kendall made a dismissive motion with his hand. "Go ahead. What do you want me to do?"

"Go over the neighbors' statements again, make sure everything adds up with what they told you tonight."

"Okay." Kendall reached over and grabbed the reports off Emilie's desks. "Anything else?"

"Yeah." Emilie picked up the sheaf of papers that was the badly-written novel she'd barely read earlier. "Check this for procedural errors, and," she reached into her bottom desk drawer and pulled out a large flashlight, "use this and both hands, find your ass, and type up a report for me."

Kendall took the flashlight with no expression, gave a small salute as best he could with both hands fulll, and walked to his desk.

Patrick gave Emilie a look. "You know he's *actually* going to type that report, right?"

"Yeah. It's fun to screw with him sometimes."