The rest of Esmerelda's apartment turned up nothing of consequence. Emilie stood up from where she'd been searching under the bed and tried to wipe the dust off her latex gloves. "There's a shoebox filled with pictures and an empty suitcase. Did you find anything?"

Patrick had been rifling through the closet, and had found nothing more interesting than a pair of vinyl hot pants he assumed were probably work-related. "Nothing here." He closed the closet door. "Are we done here, then?"

Emilie looked around the apartment one more time like she expected some part of it to light up with a big neon sign that said, "EVIDENCE HERE", with a Wile E. Coyote arrow pointing the way. "I think so." She picked up the evidence bag that had the money in it. "Let's go."

Patrick had the evidence bag that held the fake book and its contents. Odds were, there would be nothing incriminating on either the money or the book, but they were going to try to pull a rabbit out of their hats anyway.

They left the apartment, making sure it was locked up tight, and started down the hall.

"Excuse me."

They turned in unison to face a sour-looking woman who was hovering outside her door at the end of the hall. Emilie spoke. "Yes, Ma'am?"

"Are you police officers?"

"Yes." Emilie's 'this is an annoying person with no actual problem' flag was waving high and proud. "What can we do for you?"

"That *girl*," the woman said it with disgust, "that was killed, do you know why, yet?"

"No, Ma'am."

"Do you know why she was killed, Ma'am?"

Emilie could have kicked Patrick in the shin for that. She knew this type of woman, had a few in her own building that were busy-body types that thrived to make other people feel miserable.

The woman pursed her lips unattractively and shook her head. "I didn't keep up with her. I don't associate with sinners."

"Then, we'd better be going. Wouldn't want to taint you." Emilie turned on her heel and started for the door again.

Patrick caught up with her on the sidewalk. "You know it's a bad idea to antagonize people while on duty, right?"

"And? So? Therefore? Ergo?"

"Therefore and ergo mean the same thing."

Emilie leaned against the car as Patrick unlocked the doors. "I'm not against speaking ill of the dead. If someone was a bastard in life, they shouldn't be immortalized as some poor, misunderstood soul after death, but this girl was pretty decent. The fact that she was a stripper doesn't make her a bad person, neither does the fact she was a lesbian. That woman needed her outrageously inflated head poked with a very sharp pin."

"Hey, I'm not disagreeing. I'm just saying that if you get busted by the Chief for mouthing off to a pissy old lady, don't say I didn't warn you."

"Duly noted."

They got into the car and sat there as it warmed up. Station issue cars were cantankerous at best, and downright bastards at worst. Emilie and Patrick had pulled a cantankerous one out of the lotto that night and had to give it its time to get settled before they could go anywhere. Past attempts to go before the car was ready usually resulted in the car dying in the middle of an intersection.

Patrick flexed his knee as best he could within the confines of his seat and watched as his breath misted in front of him. "People are going to freeze to death tonight, and no one's going to notice for days." He didn't sound morbid or depressed as he said it. He stated it as fact.

"By the time anyone realizes they're dead, their pockets will be picked clean, and they'll probably be missing their outer layer of clothing."

"Survival of the fittest. He who does not freeze to death on the street may glean what he needs from the person who does."

Emilie looked out the window and watched people walk by at the hurried, short-stepped pace of the cold and miserable. "The weather report said it was going to be down to negative ten tonight."

"Feels like that already." Patrick rubbed his knee some more. "You know, as much as I don't regret getting shot, it sucks sometimes."

Emilie dug around in her coat pocket and pulled out a bottle of Aspirin. She handed it to him. "How do you *not* regret getting shot?" She reached a little further into her pocket and pulled out two pens, a stick of gum, and a tube of chapstick.

"I just don't." Patrick tossed a couple of Aspirin in his mouth and followed it with a gulp from the styrofoam coffee cup that was in the cupholder. The coffee was just the disgusting side of cold and he grimaced. "I think I just always waited for it to happen."

"You *waited* to get shot?" Emilie was pulling items out of her left coat pocket now. There was a small compact, her notebook, a ponytail holder, forty-eight cents, and a small plastic bubble like you would get out of the quarter machine at the grocery store. There was a half-inch of slime in the bottom of the bubble.

"You don't ever just wonder when it's going to happen? You don't ever think, 'Hey, I'm a cop; today I may get shot."

"No, but I'm not morbid."

Patrick reached over and took the little bubble of slime from Emilie. He popped it open and watched it ooze onto his hand. "I haven't played with this stuff in ages. Where'd you get it?"

"One of my Grandma's neighbors, I think. It was a party favor at her birthday." Emilie was now digging into her pants pocket. Three rubber bands, a small toy police badge, another stick of gum, and her house keys ended up in her hand. "You thought about getting shot?"

"Sometimes. I think every cop thinks about it. I never planned what I would do if it happened, but I wondered what would happen if I ended up out on the street somewhere getting aimed at."

"And then the rampaging pimp shot you in the knee."

"Yeah."

Emilie produced a dollar in quarters, her wallet, yet another stick of gum, a small rock, her lighter, and three yellow buttons.

Patrick had given up on being amused by the slime and was now watching Emilie's scavenger hunt. "You change pockets with a six-year-old?"

She pulled out her cigarette case. "I hope not. The courts would have my ass."

Patrick's cell phone went off. He manuvered to unhook it from his belt. "This is Martin."

"It's Kendall."

"What have you got, Doll?" Patrick jerked in surprise as Emilie yanked the phone out of his hand. "Hey!"

Emilie waved him off and directed her attention to the phone. "Have you finished finding all those procedural errors, Doll?"

"Still working. Guess who just got dragged in for drunk and disorderly?"

"I don't know."

There was a smile in Kendall's voice. "One Dennis Tyler, pulled straight up from the gutter at *Tallywackers*. He tried to feel up one of the girls as she was leaving the club, and she told him to back off, and when he tried to get more aggresive, she tasered him in the nuts and called the cops."

"I like this girl."

"Thought you might." Kendall made an uncomfortable noise. "You'll forgive me if I don't."

"Wuss."

"I'm okay with that. You'll be in soon?"

"We'll be there as soon as The Beast decides it's ready to go."

"He'll be here awhile. He's also getting a charge for resisting arrest."

"Excellent. See you in a few minutes." Emilie clicked off the phone and handed it back to Patrick.

"Why don't you get your own phone?"

"I don't like cell phones."

Patrick rolled his eyes and put the car into drive. He pulled into traffic carefully and started towards the station. He watched Emilie out of the corner of his eye as she put everything back into her pockets. "You're going to get shorter will all that shit dragging you down."

"I'll deal. I can't get much shorter."

He chuckled and turned left at the light. "If you're not careful, you're going to be short enough to give-"

"Do not finish that sentence."

"-to the rest of the squad."

"I will kill you."

Patrick pulled into the underground parking garage and got out of the car. He waited while Emilie did the same and locked the door. "You want a shot at Dennis Tyler?"

"You can have him. I want to go over my conversation with Zucker again."

"All right."

They took the elevator up to the squadroom, managing to avoid the usual angry drunks by pure luck. Kendall met them at the door, grinning like an idiot. "Dennis Tyler is fermenting in a cell. He's a little cranky. The woman he attacked is at your desk, Patrick. Says she knows you." Kendall waggled his eyebrows.

Patrick looked around Kendall and saw a very attractive blonde girl with perky breasts and legs that seemed to *actually* end somewhere around her neck. "That'd be Kristen. Her stage name is Cinnamon."

"I'm going to assume you know that because you interviewed her this morning."

Patrick gave Emilie a cheeky grin. "And she pulled me up on stage tonight." He walked over to her. "Kristen, hi."

She looked up from where she was intently staring at the floor and gave a watery smile. "Hi. How are you?"

"Can't complain. You look a little shaken."

"Dennis attacked me on my way out of the club tonight. I tasered him, and I yelled until the cops showed up."

Patrick nodded his head at her. "That's the best thing to do, in my opinion." He glanced over his shoulder where Emilie and Kendall were watching from the edge of the squadroom. "Kristen, I want to have a few words with Dennis Tyler. Would you mind giving your statement to another detective while I do that?"

Kristen shrugged. "That's fine."

"Great." Patrick turned around and motioned to Kendall. He walked over and Patrick clapped him on the shoulder. "This is Detective Kendall Layton, but we call him Doll. I'm going to have him take your statement while my partner and I talk to Dennis Tyler."

Kristen's gaze shifted from Patrick to Kendall. She gave him a slightly stronger smile than she'd given Patrick a minute earlier. "Hi."

Kendall smiled. "Hi. Do you mind if we take this over to my desk? I can't find a thing on Patrick's." Kristen stood up and allowed Kendall to lead her to his desk.

Emilie sidled up. "Isn't he a lady killer?"

"You've got nothing to worry about. She's paid to be charming."

"And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

Patrick shruged. "Look, you want to bed him, bed him."

"I do not." It was said in a completely even tonet that could have passed as total uncaring if it hadn't been Patrick listening.

"Ready to deal with Dennis Tyler?"

Emilie made a small, grand gesture. "Lead on, MacDuff."

*

Kristen sat on the chair by Kendall's desk and crossed her legs. She as wearing a red sweater, dark jeans, and sneakers. With her makeup off and her breasts contained within a bra, she looked like a college student coming to report some dumbass who'd groped her in a bar.

Kendall grabbed one of his wayward pens and a clean incident form from the shelf above his computer, and gave his attention to Kristen. "Tell me what happened."

"I was coming out of the club, going to my car. Mr. Zucker gave me half the night off because I have a doctor's appointment in the morning, and I didn't want to go there and be half-asleep. I had just gotten to the middle of the lot where I was parked, and Dennis kind of stumbled out from around this big van that was parked next to me."

"What happened then?"

"He started this whole drunken ramble about my dance and my legs and my breasts, and he just stood there and swayed." Kristen shuddered, obviously still off-center from the whole thing. "I'm used to dealing with drunks trying to play grab ass. It's part of my job, but they've never followed me into the parking lot." She cleared her throat. "I went to yell for Brad to come over and help me; he's one of our bouncers, and Dennis lurched forward and put his hand over my mouth."

Kendall waited for a moment while Kristen paused to pull herself together. "He put his hand over your mouth?"

"Yeah. And he asked me not to yell. He wanted to talk to me. Just talk. That's how he said it. 'I just want to talk. Just talk.' And then he started trying to get his hand up my shirt. I shoved him off me, told him to go back to the bar and hit on one of the girls who were actually *on* the clock and leave me alone." Kristen made a face of disgust. "He came at me again, and tried to get his hand down my pants. That's when I got my stun gun and shoved it against him."

"Where do you keep your stun gun?"

"In my purse." Kristen pulled her purse off her shoulder and opened it. "It's a small one, so I keep it in the cell phone pocket." She pulled the stun gun out. "It's off."

Kendall held out his hand. "May I see it?" She handed it to him and turned it over in his hands. It was small, but even a small stun gun packed a nice jolt. He handed it back to her. "Where do you place that on his body?"

"Below the waist. Crotch level." Kristen put the stun gun back in her purse. "I wasn't going to take the chance of having to aim again."

"That's the best way to do it." Kendall was proud of himself for not grimacing. He was impressed with Kristen. He'd handled quite a few attempted muggings and rapes, and it seemed that the majority of the people who were attacked had some form of protection, pepper spray or a stun gun, but they lost the frame of mind to use it. He had respect for Kristen just because she'd remembered. It was harder than people thought. "What happened after you got him with the stun gun?"

"He fell to the ground and twitched."

This time, Kendall grimaced.

*

Dennis Tyler sat sullenly in the interrogation room with a cup of coffee by his hand and an ice pack pressed against his groin. He was, for the most part, sober. A few thousand volts to the scrotum could do that to a guy. "I think I've got some serious burns down here."

Emilie gave him a quick look, blatantly staring where the ice pack lay. "If that ice pack is any indication, I'd say there's nothing big enough to burn."

"Fuck you, lady."

"Big words from a guy who just got his nuts toasted. She sprinkle a little salt on them while she did it?" Dennis Tyler glared at her. "Did she sing a carol? It is that time of year."

Dennis Tyler glared harder. "You're a goddamned bitch."

"And you're a goddamned drunk that tried to get a grope on a girl who slammed you into your place." Emilie leaned back in her chair. "The gutter."

"Fuck you."

"You've used that one already."

"Have I called you a cunt yet?"

"No, that one's new." Emilie leaned forward again and placed her hand very close to Dennis Tyler's. "And it's best you don't use it again. A taser to the balls is fixable. A bullet through them is not."

From the next room where they stood watching, both Nickolas and Patrick winced. "Wow. She's a bitch."

Nickolas gave Patrick a sidelong look. "You've worked with her for three years, and you're just figuring it out?"

"Oh, I've known it, but there's knowing it and there's *knowing* it."

In the room, Emilie was still rolling.

"So, you get drunk off your ass like a good gutter rat, stumble into the parking lot, find a place to prop yourself up, and wait for Kristen?"

"I don't remember."

"Oh, you're a black out gutter rat, then?"

Dennis Tyler was getting pissed again. His face was reddening, and when he reached for his coffee, he made the styrofoam creak from the pressure he was putting on it.

"Careful, Dennis, anymore hot shit on your nuts, and you may never get off again." Emilie paused for a moment. "If you ever got off in the first place."

"You fucking bitch. I want to talk to someone else."

"Fine with me. You're starting to smell." Emilie stood up from the table and walked out of the room. A moment later, she was in the room next to Patrick and Nickolas.

Patrick gave her a look. "Why do you always insult their manhood?"

"It's the easiest target." Emilie shrugged. "Are you going in there?"

"Can't. I'm supposed to be a lowly businessman." Patrick looked over at Nickolas. "You want to go in?"

"I am not risking the wrath of the higher powers who think I'm taking a personal interest in this case because the girl who died was a lesbian. Let him sit for a little while. We'll let The Doll after him when he's finished talking to Kristen.

Out at his desk, Kendall was still walking Kristen through the events that had led to Dennis Tyler camping out in the interrogation room. "Who did you yell for when he fell to the ground."

"Brad, our bouncer. I knew he'd be by the door. He came over, and he saw Dennis on the ground, and I told him what happened, and he called the police."

"Did Dennis say anything to you that seemed especially odd?"

Kristen thought about it for a few seconds, obviously playing the scene over in her head again. "He was saying a bunch of stuff..." She trailed off. "He did start saying Esmerelda's name, though."

Kendall had to work very hard to keep his eyebrows from jumping off his forehead.