Zucker and Stacy Carter were officially locked up with their lawyers and could not be bothered. Patrick tapped Emilie on the shoulder and waited for her to stop staring at the door to Stacy Carter's interrogation room like she could see through it. "Dinner?"

Emilie nodded. "Sure. Where are you ordering from?"

"Marbury's." It was a deli down the street that made most of its money off the hungry cops in Quarter Town.

"Get me a Roast Beef with Colby and Swiss and a tall coffee."

Patrick nodded. "Okay. You want dessert?"

"Not from Marbury's." Marbury's made a killer sandwich, but their desserts left a lot to be desired. "I'll make a call to the bakery down on 48th and see if they've got time to run something over."

"Great. Get me a slice of choco-almond cheesecake, would you?"

"Sure." Emilie's head whipped back around at the sound of a door opening in the hallway. It was only Kendall coming out of Dennis Tyler's interrogation. "Anything?"

Kendall shook his head and looked disgusted. "Not a goddamned thing. Everything he said is going to check out as soon as I call a couple of the girls who work there. If he was in on this, he's a damned good liar. And since he's *not* a damned good liar, I don't think he did this." He sighed.

"We're getting dinner from Marbury's and dessert from the 48th street bakery. What do you want?"

"Triple cheese special with olives and tomatoes, a side of extra-crispy fries, and a tall tea."

"Tea?" Emilie smirked.

"Tea." Kendall smirked back.

"What do you want from the bakery?"

"Get me a slice of double-chocolate fudge cake. I'm going to need it after I talk to Nickolas." Emilie nodded and walked away. Kendall enjoyed watching her move for a moment before going to Nickolas's office. He let himself in without knocking. "I'm going to have to let Dennis Tyler go home. I've got no reason to keep him."

Nickolas looked up from his paperwork. "No reason at all?"

Kendall shook his head. "Nothing. He made bail on the assault from last night, and everything he's told me about the night before that can be easily corraborated. I'm going to do that now just to be safe, but after that there's nothing I can do."

Nickolas sighed. "Fine. Guess we'll have to see if the lawyers let the puppets talk."

"Sorry." Kendall backed out of the office carefully and closed the door. He made his calls, unfortunately confirmed Dennis's idea of events, and went to let the other man go. Dennis thanked him profusely and left. Kendall went and flopped into the chair by Emilie's desk, taking his sandwich from her with a small nod of thanks. "So much for that."

"At least yours didn't whine for his lawyer." Patrick sounded surly as he sipped his soda. "And not just a lawyer, but the one wanting to be the biggest shark in the pool."

"I have one word." Emilie bit into her sandwich. "Melina." The other two groaned. "Told you."

Patrick waved his sandwich like a ham-flavored surrender flag. "We're not going to talk about who has the worst person in the interrogation rooms. I want to be able to digest my meal."

"Then what do you suggest?" Emilie took another bite of her sandwich.

"What do you want for Christmas?"

"If you're going to badger me about that overpriced crock, could you at least call it what is it?"

Kendall looked between the two of them for a second then decided to ask Patrick. "What is it?"

Patrick rolled his eyes. "Little Miss Sunshine refers to it as an 'overcommercialized threat to society in its sheer vastness of bullshit and tinsel that the world community, whether Christian or not, must put up with for a longer and longer span of time every year."

"It's also gaudy, tacky, and disgustingly overpriced." Emilie shook her head. "I hate Christmas."

"But you still give gifts, right?" Kendall righted his chair just before Emilie could get her foot up to tip him over.

She gave him a look. "Yes, I give gifts, but they're tasteful and don't come with enough ribbon to choke a goat."

"Have you ever done that?"

"What?"

"Choked a goat?"

"No, but you could be my first."

Kendall grinned. "I know a guy that had sex with a bale of hay."

Patrick nearly choked on his sandwich. "You *what*?"

"I know a guy who had sex with a bale of hay."

"This," Emilie declared, "I *have* to hear."

"A guy I grew up with spent his summers at his grandparents. They live in the north part of the state on a good-sized farm. He was out there one day working, and he got horny, so he dug a hole into a hay bale with his pocket knife and stuck his dick in there."

Emilie smirked. "Let me guess, they're from butt fuck nowhere?"

"Nope."

"Bale of hay fuck nowhere?" Patrick made a face as he said it. "That had to hurt."

Kendall shrugged. "I didn't check him for welts or anything."

"I know a guy who got caught with his dick in a shampoo bottle."

Patrick and Kendall both turned to stare at Emilie. Patrick was brave enough to ask, "who?"

"No one you know. I went to a frat party at college-"

"Only one?"

Emilie ignored Kendall. "And there was a pledge there who got roaring drunk and decided he would not only streak around the house, but he'd protect his dick from the cold by putting a shampoo bottle over it. It stuck." Emilie grinned as Kendall and Patrick winced. "True story."

"I'm going to go over there and wince." Kendall jerked a thumb over his shoulder but didn't move. He finished off his sandwich and reached for his cake.

Patrick grinned. "I have no stories revolving around people I know and weird places that they've stuck their dicks. I'm comfortable with that."

"Wuss." Emilie sipped her coffee. "You must have weird stories of something disturbing."

"I do. I just don't care to go into it right now. I'd rather concentrate on the positive."

"Patrick, my suspect and your suspect are both sitting in interrogation rooms with their fucking lawyers. There is no positive."

"You are a black cloud of doom. You know that, right?"

Emilie shrugged. "Your point?"

Patrick wiped mustard from the edge of his mouth. "You. Are a downer."

Kendall suddenly started laughing. "Are you channeling Miss Byrdson?"

"Who?"

"She's an old woman who lives at the end of the hall that Esmerelda lived in. I noticed a pattern of speech that was interesting. She spoke like the first word of every sentence was a sentence unto itself, and then she said the rest of it."

"You. Mean like this?" Emilie tried it out.

Kendall nodded. "Exactly."

"What's she look like?"

"Old. Bitter. Looks like one of those whippet dogs."

Patrick looked over at Emilie. "The bitch at the end of the hall."

She nodded. "The bitch."

Kendall looked between them. "The bitch?"

"When we got done looking through Esmerelda's apartment, a woman stopped us and asked if we knew how Esmerelda had died." Patrick laughed a little. "Emilie took her out at the knees."

"The woman didn't want to be tainted. I didn't see why we needed to stick around if she wanted to stay pure." Emilie rolled her eyes. "I hope she slips on a bar of soap in the shower."

Kendall laughed so hard he knocked his chair over and fell on his ass. He straightened up with a little effort, laughing still, and pulling his chair upright.

"You kept ahold of your cake." Patrick looked slightly awed. "That's impressive."

"Practice." Kendall put his cake on the edge of Emilie's desk and sat down in his chair again. "I had no coordination as a teenager. I was gangly."

"What's your excuse now?"

"Now I'm just a clumsy fuck."

Emilie chuckled. "You won't hear a dispute from me. I watched you walk into a doorframe last week."

"It moved."

"My ass." Emilie pointed a finger at Kendall as he leered. "If you ever want to walk straight again you won't comment on that."

"Kill joy."

"Hmm." Patrick grinned at both of them when they looked at him. "Mating habits."

"Fuck off." Kendall and Emilie answered in unison.

*

Nickolas's phone rang as he took the first bite of his sandwich. He swallowed quickly, grimacing at the pain it caused in his chest, and grabbed the receiver. "Lieutenant Caldwell."

"Hey."

"Hey, Danny." Nickolas took a swig out of his water bottle to clear his throat. "You okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm blocked again."

"You're still talking in full sentences. You're not that blocked."

Danny laughed over the line. "True, but I'm getting there. I needed a distraction. Do you have time?"

Nickolas looked out of the front plate window of his office and watched as the squadroom settled into its mid-shift lull. Everyone was eating or getting ready to eat. "I've got time. What's going on?"

"I don't give a damn about the fuzzy puppy with wheels for his back legs. I just don't care." Danny sounded pissed. "I'm supposed to care. I'm supposed to somehow make people care about this story. How do I make people care about the fuzzy puppy with wheels for back legs when I don't care? I don't care at all."

"You have to find new editors."

"I want my editors now to see that I can write other stuff."

"I know."

Danny sighed. "I'm pissed off."

"I picked up on that." Nickolas switched the phone to his other ear and moved some papers to the edge of the desk so they wouldn't get covered with crumbs. "I can't do a damned thing about it."

"I know. I just need to talk some of this out."

"I'm sitting right here."

"I don't care about the dog. I don't think I've ever cared about the dog, or the kitten, or the fuzzy little duckling that someone adopted because they killed its mother during duck season. I've never cared. All this human interest shit was just the easy way out."

"That's bullshit. You know that. You're good at those stories because you're interested in people and whatever boring, adorable story they want to tell you. I've seen you have three-stop conversations with guys on the subway you've never met. You should have been a cop."

"Not a fucking chance."

Nickolas didn't take offense at the venom in Danny's voice. He knew Danny wasn't fond of cops in general. He knew that he was a special case. He knew that if the guy at the punch bowl at Ben's party eighteen years ago hadn't been involved with someone, and if Danny had found out he was a cop, he'd never had a chance. "Fine. Shoot down my hopes you'll change your mind someday."

There was a silence on the other end of the line, and after a moment, Daniel laughed. "You're an ass."

"You live with me."

"I'm an idiot."

"Yeah, but you've got talent." Nickolas heard Daniel shuffling things around on the other end of the phone. "What'd you lose?"

"I wrote down a couple of things to tell you, and I can't find my list now. You made the news."

Nickolas groaned. "I didn't."

"You did. They didn't have video or anything, but the anchor on channel six tried to make it sound like you were pushing the investigation because of the queer angle."

"Goddamnit. I hate the media."

"Gee, thanks."

"Oh, fuck off."

Daniel laughed again. "I hate your job. You hate mine. Is this the part where we break into a round of song about how our differences keep us together?"

"To quote you from this afternoon: 'I'm not feeling gay enough for that, today.'"

"That is not an exact quote."

Nickolas grinned. "You're in the media, you should be used to that."

"I'm getting off the phone now."

"All right. Get some sleep tonight. If you're up when I get up I'm knocking you unconsious."

"Yeah, whatever. Bye."

"Bye."

Nickolas hung up the phone and picked up his sandwich, feeling slightly better than he had a few minutes earlier.

*

"Detective Barker."

Emilie looked up from where she was playing a threeway game of squares with Kendall and Patrick and gave Melina an even look. "Yes?" Her voice was ice.

"My client wants to talk to you." Melina looked pained. "Against my insistence that she stay quiet."

"Shame for you." Emilie stood up and stuck her pen behind her ear. She looked between Patrick and Kendall. "Who wants to come with?"

Kendall and Patrick looked at Emilie then looked at Melina, then played a quick game of 'rock, paper, scissors'. Kendall threw scissors. Patrick threw paper and groaned. Melina and Emilie in a closed room was a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

Kendall jumped up, grinned, and followed Melina and Emilie to the interrogation room.