"She's a sweet girl." Mrs. Lowenstein spoke to the ceramic haning that was on the wall by the kitchen sink. "She's going to help children when she gets out of law school." Mrs. Lowenstein's voice got softer at each sentence. "She was a mentor in her free time. She tutored kids at the community center."

Kendall was nearly certain he wouldn't be able to listen to much more of Mrs. Lowenstein's glowing comentary. "Were you aware of her job?" She said nothing. Kendall repeated his question to Mr. Lowenstein. "Were you aware of her job?"

Mr. Lowenstein seemed to be holding on by a slightly thicker thread than his wife. "We just knew she had one. She didn't go into detail, said it would bore us." Mr. Lowenstein's eyes were suddenly pleading for the barest scrap of new information he didn't know about his dead daughter. "What did she do?"

Kendall refused to answer the question. He gave Emilie a look. She looked ready to kick him in the shins for saddling her with all the bad news. She looked Mr. Lowenstein straight in the eye when she answered. "She worked at *Tallywackers* on the south end of the city. She danced."

There was a long moment of silence, then Mrs. Lowenstein crumpled to the floor in front of the sink, sobbing quietly. Mr. Lowenstein jumped up to go help her. "I think you'd better leave."

"We need to talk to you about your daughter's enemies." Emilie's voice was harsh at the edges. "The first forty-eight hours-"

"Esmerelda didn't *have* enemies. She was a good girl."

~Yeah, one that got naked for money.~ Kendall kept that thought to himself as Emilie handed them a business card and told them they'd come back later. She made mention of needing them to come down to the morgue to make an official, positive ID, and Mrs. Lowenstein went from crying to wailing. They beat a hasty retreat to the door.

They stood waiting for the elevator and not talking. Kendall reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet, flipping to a studio photo of an infant. He stared at it, lost in his own head, as the elevator pinged open.

"Who is that?" Emilie hit the button for the first floor.

~The black spot inside me.~ Kendall closed his wallet and shoved it back in his pocket. "No one."

Emilie was to drained from Mr. and Mrs. Lowenstein to ask further questions. She wanted to get back to the station and start the paperwork. It wasn't nearly as exhausting.

*

Before Mr. Zucker had left his beloved club to go home and sleep off another night of tits and ass, he had given a list of names and addressees to the man who had been rummaging in his office for that exact list. Altogether, Zucker had nine dancers, not counting Esmerelda, a wait stuff, not-surprisingly all-female, of six, and two bartenders He was also the proud employer of two bouncers and a security team of four large, burly, recently-out-of-prison men with buzz cuts, scars, and tattoos.

Patrick herded two detectives coming in early for the eight o'clock shift and offered them free coffee and donuts if they'd help him wtih his rather long list of people to question. The two mean, Jackson and Craig, agreed as long as the coffee didn't come from any pot in the station and followed Patrick to his car. They took turns asking the questions as all three of them stood in foyers, living rooms, and on stoops talking to tired, cranky, and pissy people, who were angry at being woken up at an ungodly hour of the moring.

Did you know Esmerelda Lowenstein?
Sure.
Not really.
Kind of.

How long did you work with her?
I've only been there a couple of months.
Whole time she was there. About three years.
Almost a year.

Did you ever notice anyone watching her?
It's a strip joint, man. That's what she's there for.
Well, sure, the customers watched her.
You mean in a creepy sort of way? I don't think so.

Did she get along with the other dancers?
Oh, yeah.
Sure.
As much as anyone else, I guess.

How about the rest of the staff?
I never saw any brawls.
They seemed to like her just fine.
We liked her, sure. She was nice.

Did she get along with Mr. Zucker?
I guess. I never really noticed.
Maybe. I don't know. I never really paid attention.

"Things were tense." The paydirt came from the eleventh person Patrick, Jackson, and Craig talked to. She was a dancer, her stage name was Cinnamon, but she told the detectives they could call her Kristen. "Zucker has us do some stuff that Esmerelda was never comfortalbe with."

"Like what?" Patrick gladly took the seat Kristen waved him to. His knee was throbbing from the cold and the walking. Jackson and Craig remained standing.

"Mr. Zucker has a higher-than-usual love of lesbianism. He likes to watch us go down on each other."

Patrick, Jackson, and Craig tried very hard not to imagine a couple of the dancers they'd already met doing those sorts of things to each other. Patrick moved on with his questioning. "Esmerelda didn't like doing that?"

"No. She said it was much to close to being a hooker for her taste."

"Does Mr. Zucker pay you to do this?"

Kristen shrugged. "Not exactly. He let's us keep our full night's tips if we do it. He usually gets fifteen percent of what we picked up in tips."

Patrick did some quick math in his head. "Esmerelda made about $230 last night. She'd have had to give Zucker about $35, correct?"

"Sounds right."

"Do you know if she stayed late to put on a show for Mr. Zucker?"

"I think so. She and Stacy were still back there when I left, and they didn't come out by the time my bus came."

"How long does Mr. Zucker usually watch?"

"It depends on the girls and how long they last, you know? I don't think it ever takes mor than an hour, though. You dance and grind all night in front of people, you get excited." Kristen stated it matter-of-factly, like she was calling bingo numbers.

Patrick tried not picturing her dancing and grinding. "How much did putting on the show bother Esmerelda?"

"What do you mean?"

"What put her off the most? Being intimate with a woman or having someone watch?"

"Someone watching and basically paying for it. We're an all-lesbian revue. None of us mind being with women." Kristen grinned cheekily. Behind him, Patrick swore he heard Jackson and Craig exhaling like mad.

"Did anyone ever watch with Mr. Zucker?"

"Not that I know of. Nobody else was there when I was performing."

"Did Mr. Zucker know Esmerelda didn't like giving him the private shows?"

Kristen wrinkled her nose in thought. "I don't think so. Esmerelda really needed the extra money for law books and stuff. I know she didn't like it, but I don't think she ever brought it up wtih Mr. Zucker."

"Has anyone ever complained to Mr. Zucker?"

"I don't think so. Far as I know the only one ever realy bothered by it was Esmerelda. The rest of us don't mind. Easy lay, you know?"

Patrick did not know, and he was not going to picture it, either. He was going to have to scrub his brain with Catholic soap when he got back to the station. He stood up and handed his card to Kristen. "Thanks for you help, Kristen. Please call if you think of anything."

"Okay." She took the card and led them to the door.

Now, if hard-pressed, Patrick, Jackson, and Craig would all fully admit to being gentlemen. However, being a gentleman only got you so far when a beautiful woman talked about the things she did with othe women. As soon as they hit the street, Jackson sucked in a deep breath and looked at the other two men with wide eyes. "Fantasies, gentlemen?" They all three started laughing and continued to the next apartment to ask their list of questions. They finally finished up around eleven o'clock, and rather than donuts and coffee, Partrick bought them sandwisches and coffee and headed back to the station while Jackson and Craig called in to say they were at lunch. When he got to the squadroom, he motioned for Kendall and walked over to Emilie's desk. He propped himself up on the corner of it and waited for her to look up from her paperwork.

"What have you got?"

"Mr. Zucker had a small bit of backroom activiity going on. He let his girls keep all their tips if they performed for him."

"Performed?" Emilie set her pen down. "Define 'performed'."

"Had oral sex in front of him."

Kendall's eyebrows shot to his hairline. "He neglected to mention that."

"Easiest way to get rid of cops is to tell the truth, huh?" Emilie looked fairly superior as she smirked up at Kendall.

"He didn't lie."

"He didn't mention it."

"You're going to mention to a cop that you'd been watching a couple of your employees go at it?"

"If I were telling the truth."

"You two done, or do I need to declare a cage match?" Patrick watched them, not nearly as annoyed as he made himself sound, as they glared silently at each other. "I'm going to grab Nickolas and fill him in. You two get anything from the parents?"

"Hysteria." Emilie picked up her pen again.

Patrick gave her a quick pat on the shoulder before going to Nickolas's office. He knocked lightly and let himself in. Nickolas was on the phone.

"No coment means no *comment*. As does *no* *information*. If you want a statement, make one up. I'm sure you learned how to do that as well as any reporter." Nickolas gave the phone the finger. "Yeah. Nice day to you, too." He hung up the reciever over-carefully, obviously wanting to slam it down. "I am going to remove the spine of the asshole who told a reporter our annoymous dead stripper was a law student who loved kids by day."

"Could you de-spine the asshole in the thirteenth? We're kind of busy here."

Nickolas gave Patrick the barest edge of a smile. "What do you need?"

"Just giving up information." Patrick gave Nickolas the rundown of what Kristen had told him.

"Classy guy."

"Classy place with a classy name and a classy tip jar. He fits right in."

Nickolas snorted and nodded in agreement. "Sure, he and the other roaches must get along great." There was a knock on the door, and Nickolas straightened up in his chair. "Yeah?"

Kendall walked into the office, Emilie at his heels. "Hospital just called. Stacy Carter's awake again."

"About time." Nickolas pointed a finger at Kendall. "I need you here, so I'm sending Patrick and Emilie."

"Fine. Hope she's less hysterical with you two." Kendall waited for them to leave the office before turning back to Nickolas, his half-joking demeanor completely gone. "This about Lauren?"

"Yeah." Nickolas waited for Kendall to sit down. "I got a call from the prosecutor tdoay. She's going to argue Post-Partum Depresion."

"Post-Partum?"

"Yeah."

Kendall slammed his hand aginst the arm of the chair. "Post-*fucking*-Partum!"

"Kendall," but he was already to far into his own anger to repsond to NIckolas.

"She shook our baby to death! Shook her! In *front* of me! She wasn't depressed! She wasn't insane! She wasn't anything but a fucked over horrible person who wanted to hurt me!"

"KENDALL!" Nickolas raised his voice enough to grab Kendall's attention. "Calm down, or everyone out there will hear you." Kendall pressed his lips together, holding himself down. "If you want to yell about it, and I have no problem wtih you yelling about it, don't do it here."

Kendall practically vibrated in his seat. "I'm going to lunch." He was up and out of the office before Nickolas could stop him, his chair hitting the floor with a slam as he slammed the door.

Nickolas looked at his watch. It was nearly noon. Going home for lunch sounded like a good idea.