Patrick knocked on the door to the interrogation room that held Mr. Zucker and Lydon Quigton. He waited until Lydon Quigton announced 'Come in' in a rather haughty voice before he opened the door.

"Detective Martin, I'm still talking with my client."

"Okay." Patrick slid into a chair across from Mr. Zucker with one solitary slide that looked effortless. He dropped a file on the table in front of him and gave Mr. Zucker a slow smile. "Good to see you again." Mr. Zucker stayed silent. Patrick didn't let it deter him. "I know your lawyer has told you not to talk to me, not to answer any questions, not to acknowledge me in any way, and under any circumstances, not to give me any information that may make you look bad. I respect that, I really do. All that attorney/client privelege is your right under the laws of this great nation." Patrick shrugged. "But I don't particularly care about your fucking attorney right now. I want to know who the woman was."

Before Lydon Quigton could jump around the table and slap his hand over Mr. Zucker's mouth, Zucker asked his question. "What woman?"

"I'd love to tell you, but that would force me to ask questions about her, and since I'm sure your attorney has told you not to talk to me at all, I'd rather not open that can of worms. Just to much of a headache for me, knowing that I'll just basically be talking to a wall." Patrick shrugged again as if none of it really mattered to him. "I'd like to know, but since you can't talk to me, I guess we'll let it go."

Mr. Zucker looked between Lyndon Qungton and Patrick. "I-"

"Mr. Zucker, we agreed you wouldn't say anything." Lyndon Quigton looked pissed. He directed his anger at Patrick. "This run around method you're trying to get him to talk with won't work. My client is much to smart for that."

"Your client also has the right to talk if he wants." Patrick gave Lyndon Quigton a condesending smile and looked over at Mr. Zucker again. "If you want to talk to me, you can. If you want to take your lawyer's advice, you can. I'll walk out of the room if you don't want to deal with me." Patrick watched as Mr. Zucker mulled over what to do. He was hoping that the other man's obvious attraction to any woman at any time at any place would make him curious enough about the woman Patrick had mentioned to blow off the blowhard Lyndon Quigton.

Mr. Zucker looked at Lyndon Quigton. "I want to answer his questions."

"I would advise against that."

"If I want to stop answering questions, I can, right?"

Lyndon Quigton sighed. "Yes."

Mr. Zucker nodded. "Fine. Then I'll stop when I want." He looked back at Patrick. "What woman?"

"Who was the woman in the mask?" Patrick watched Mr. Zucker look like someone had knocked the breath out of him.

"The woman in the mask?"

"Yes." Patrick opened the file he had brought in with him. "We have a statement from Stacy Carter that while she and Esmerelda Lowenstein were performing sexual acts in front of you on the night of Esmerelda Lowenstein's death, there was a woman in a dog mask standing next to you observing." Patrick looked up from the file. "Who was that woman?"

"I don't know."

"Mr. Zucker, if you're going to talk to me, don't bullshit me. It just pisses me off and makes me more likely to not want to help you at all."

Mr. Zucker threw up his hands in defense. "I mean it. I don't know who she was."

Patrick leaned back in his chair. "You let a random woman you didn't know watch two of your employees have sex?"

"It's not like that." Mr. Zucker sighed. "I know her by sight. She comes into the club a couple of nights a week. I just don't know her name. I don't keep up with everyone."

"Just the big tippers, right?"

"If you're going to interrogate my client, you could at least be respectful." Lyndon Quigton almost sounded like he was whining from his spot in the corner behind Mr. Zucker's left shoulder.

Patrick didn't spare him a glance. "Your client have freely given me reign to ask him questions, and he has just told me he doesn't know who the woman was who stood next to him while two of his dancers, one of whom is now *dead*, were having sex. I'll talk as I wish." Lyndon Quigton pursed his lips in distaste, but Patrick didn't see. He was still watching Mr. Zucker. "Why was she wearing a mask?"

"She didn't want to be recognized."

"By whom?"

Mr. Zucker shrugged. "I don't know. She didn't say. I didn't ask."

"Bad for business?"

"To ask questions? Yeah. I've got married men, men with girlfriends, women with girlfriends, and women with husbands who *want* to have girlfriends coming in and paying to watch some piece of ass shake it on a stage with the understanding that what happens in the club stays there."

"So you're protecting your ass when you don't wonder why a woman wants to stand in a dog mask and watch two other women have sex for you?"

Mr. Zucker looked annoyed. "Look, I'm a voyeur. I fully admit that. Some people are voyeurs with masks on. I figured she was one of those type."

"And you don't know her name?"

"No."

Patrick scratched his neck idly. "Mr. Zucker, we need her name."

"I don't have it."

"But we need it."

Mr. Zucker placed his hands on the tabletop. "Why?"

"Because we're pretty sure Stacy Carter didn't do it, and you're talking to me and ignoring your lawyer, so we'll assume you aren't responsible for the murder of Esmerelda Lowenstein. What we need to know is who the woman in the mask was and why you didn't mention her before." Patrick looked at Mr. Zucker expectantly. "Help me out here, Sir. I don't give a shit that your like to watch women playing with women. I just want to find who killed this girl."

"I really don't know who she was. She never gave me her name, never said anything to me other than to ask who Esmerelda was one night."

"And you told her?"

Mr. Zucker shrugged. "Yeah. I gave her Esmerelda's stage name. It was Emerald. She just nodded and thanked me."

"And how did she end up in the backroom?"

"She paid."

Patrick wasn't particularly surprised. "How much?"

"Two thousand to watch. I made her pay an extra two hundred bucks to wear the mask."

"How well known is your backroom activity?"

Mr. Zucker looked confused for a minute. "You mean watching the girls?"

Patrick wanted to know what this guy had done on the night of Esmerelda's death. He decided not to wonder what *else* Zucker did in his back room for the moment. "Yes, Mr. Zucker. How many people know that you watch your girls?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

"Are you discreet?"

"I try to be."

~Doesn't mean you actually *are*.~ "But you assume that people know?" Patrick watched Mr. Zucker nod, looking slightly embarassed. "And do they know that they can see the show for a price?"

"Certain people do."

"Dennis Tyler knows."

Mr. Zucker looked shocked. "How did you know that?"

Patrick stretched lazily. "We're the police. It's our job to know." He heard Lyndon Quigton huff from his corner and ignored him again. "And it's not a big deal. It just leads into my next question. Does Dennis Tyler have a big mouth?"

Mr. Zucker snorted. "Just a little."

"He's been in the back a couple of times, right?"

"Yeah."

"He told us he's had sex with a couple of the dancers. How much does that cost?"

Mr. Zucker looked shocked again. He looked a bit like a fish out of water with the way his mouth was gaping open. He recovered quickly. "Any sexual conduct between the girls and the customers is strictly their buisness. I'd rather they not do it; it ruins the fantasy, but even if I say they can't, what they do on their own time is their own thing."

"You've never allowed any customer to have any sexual relations with any employee while you were present?"

"No!"

Patrick found it funny that of all the things they'd covered so far, Mr. Zucker found that one the most offensive. "All right. So what did the woman in the mask do?"

"She stood next to me and watched."

"Did she say anything?"

"No."

"When did she leave?"

"Right before me."

Patrick nodded. "Okay. Which door did she exit from?"

"She went out the front."

"And you went out the front a couple of minutes later?"

Mr. Zucker nodded. "That's right."

"And you're sure you don't know her name?"

"Positive."

Patrick thought for a moment. "Mr. Zucker, you saw this woman on a regular basis, correct?"

"Yeah."

"Would you be willing to describe her to a sketch artist? We'll take anything we can get in place of her name, and if you can give a good description of her to our sketch artist, we could have an easier time tracking her down."

Mr. Zucker shurgged. "Why not." He looked over his shoulder at Lyndon Quigton. "I'm clear to do it, right?"

Lyndon Quigton looked ready to spit in Mr. Zucker's face. "You can do whatever you want."

"Fine." Mr. Zucker turned back to Patrick. "Who do I talk to?"

"Wait right here. I'll go track down our sketch artist." Patrick stood up from the table, gave Lyndon Quigton his best smile, and left the room. As the door closed, he heard Lyndon Quigton start to tear into Mr. Zucker as much as he could considering he was on a three thousand dollar retainer. He walked to Nickolas's office, and seeing Emilie and Kendall getting an ass-chewing of massive porportions, turned on his heel and headed over to his desk to call the sketch artist in.

"Martin! Get your ass in here!"

Patrick had made it a half a step. Nickolas was slipping. He turned back around and walked back into Nickolas's office. "Yeah?"

"You better have good news." If Nickolas had been one of those old-time villians from the melodramas, smoke would have been coming out of his nose to show his anger.

Patrick was very glad he was closest to the door. "Mr. Zucker doesn't know the name of the woman who watched Stacy Carter and Esmerelda Lowenstein. She paid a lot of money to stand in the back room and watch them. I was just going to call the sketch artist and get him in here."

The imagined smoke that was coming from Nickolas's nose disappated. "Okay. Do it. You two," he gave both Emilie and Kendall a severe look, "make sure Stacy Carter doesn't leave just yet. Until the identity of this woman can be confirmed, I don't want Stacy Carter out running around."

"Got it." Emilie started taking sliding steps towards the door. "Anything else?"

"No."

Emilie and Kendall scattered. Patrick left the office at a more sedate pace and walked to his desk, calling down to the sketch artist and asking him to come up and bring his supplies. The sketch artist was up there in a matter of minutes.

The artist's name was Tony, and he was actually a real live painter on his days off. He was moderately successful, enough so that he didn't actually *need* to draw faces from other people's memories to make his rent money, but he enjoyed it on a level he couldn't really explain to anyone. He liked to help people put their own idea of a person onto paper. It was fun for him. Needless to say, Tony and Kendall were pretty good friends.

"Hey, Tony. You're not swamped, are you?"

Tony shook his head, causing his dark brown hair to fall into even more disarray. "Nah. It's the time of year for the ski mask burglars and muggers. I've got plenty of time."

"Great. Come on." Patrick clapped Tony on the shoulder and led him down the hall. He opened the door to Mr. Zucker's interrogation room. "Mr. Zucker, this is Tony. He's one of our sketch artists. You'll be talking to him. Tony, this is Mr. Zucker. And that," Patrick made a vague motion in Lyndon Quigton's direction, "is Mr. Zucker's attorney."

Tony looked at Lyndon Quigton. "I know you. You tried to get one of my sketches thrown out of court." He gave Lyndon Quigton a smile that was all teeth. "Good to see you again." He sat at the table.

Patrick left them to their work with a patrolman in the room just in case Tony decided to start lobbing pencils at Lyndon Quigton and Lyndon Quigton needed to be restrained. He went back into the squadroom and leaned against the far wall, watching Kendall and Emilie from a safe distance for a few minutes. He had known for awhile that they were building up to something. He hadn't expected it to be so sudden, but it really was more Emilie's style to just take what was there if it was offered, so he supposed he shouldn't be surprised.

They weren't acting any differently around each other, which meant Nickolas would take it with a shrug and leave them to battle to the death if it came to that. Patrick was just content to keep out of it except for the teasing that was alloted to him as Emilie's partner. He pushed off the wall and walked to his desk. "Tony and Lyndon Quigton know each other."

Emilie slapped her hand onto her desk top. "That's who that is! I knew I knew that pompus asshole from somewhere."

Kendall looked up from browsing through Esmerelda Lowenstein's file again. "Didn't he hand you your ass in court about a month back?"

"Shut up, Doll."

Patrick glanced over at Kendall. Kendall grinned at him. Patrick grinned back. Time for a little 'gang up on the girl' time. "I remember that. He completely blew you out of the water during your testimony."

"And you can shut up too, Patrick." Emilie opened her top drawer and shuffled around momentarily for her cigarettes. "If I recall correctly, he kicked your ass on the McLennon case."

Patrick snorted and rolled his eyes. "The District Attorney kicked our own ass on that case by pushing for a trial when we didn't have enough evidence."

"What's this?" Kendall looked between Patrick and Emilie. "I don't think I've heard this story."

"You haven't heard the great tale of the day the whole fucking department got a mutual ass-kicking from the media, the fine people of this city, and the great and pompus Lyndon Quigton?"

"Sure, but that was last week. I'm talking about the McLennon case." Kendall moved his leg just before Emilie could kick him in the shin. "So, what happened?"

"About a year ago, Patrick and I get called to this massively bloody double murder down on forty-eighth street."

"Think "Carrie" with more pig's blood."

Emilie nodded. "Yeah, that's about close. So, we get called, and we get there, and there's blood everywhere. And there are little bits of the insides of the two bodies everywhere, and on the wall was an address written in blood."

Kendall looked skeptical. "You're kidding."

"I'm not."

"This isn't like a Homicide snipe hunt, is it? You're not about to give me the address and then tell me to go find it?"

"No, we only do that to people we like." Emilie waved her hand. "Anyway, we write down the address, and through a quick game of rock, paper, scissors, it's decided that I'll stay and see if any of the blood stains form the face of Christ, and Patrick will go to the address."

Patrick picked up the story. "I go to the address, and it's an old townhouse that's got a big, orange condemmend sign on it. The front door is wide open, and I go in. The floor's practically rotted, and I'm walking around wishing that Emilie had *won* the damned game of rock, paper, scissors, because she's so much lighter than me and stood less of a chance of falling through the floor."

Kendall was looking distinctly engrossed. "Who was in the house?"

"A guy named Eddie McLennon. He was in the bathroom, in the tub, and he was coated in blood. He saw me come in, and he just started babbling like mad, going on about how he hadn't done it. He really hadn't done it. I called an ambulance because the kid was in shock, and he wouldn't let me get close enough to check him to see if any of the blood on his was his, so I just sat on the toilet and let him rattle on until the ambulance got there and coaxed him out of the house."

"Then, you opened your big mouth to the district attorney."

Patrick gave Emilie the bird. "You know I didn't. She was an overeager, ready to hang 'em all bitch at the time-"

"At the *time*?" Emilie looked like she was ready to burst out laughing.

"Bash her in a minute, would you? I'm telling a story here." Patrick put his attention back on Kendall. "She storms in here the next day and wants to know why no one has told her about Eddie McLennon. It was seven thirty-eight when she made her appearence. I wasn't through my first cup of coffee, and Emilie wasn't through her first cigarette."

"So, you weren't awake," Kendall supplied.

"Exactly. I tell her, as coherently as I can, what happened with Eddie McLennon, and she immediately starts blowing the horn to hang him in the town square with a mob watching and throwing tomatoes. It was all down hill from there."

Emilie broke in. "She yanked it into trial by the short hairs, and Patrick got fucked on cross examination because we hadn't finished going through all the evidence when the trial date came up. Eddie McLennon didn't do shit. He had walked in the front door of his aunt's house, slipped in the blood and fallen on his ass, and then seen his dead aunt and cousin on the floor. He freaked. He saw the address, and he ran to it."

Patrick picked up the story again. "And it turns out the townhouse was the house he'd grown up in. He'd ended up there because he'd recognized the address, and some part of his mind had recognized it as a safe place."

Kendall's brow was creased. "Why was the address on the wall, anyway?"

"Because the sick fuck that killed Eddie McLennon's aunt and cousin had lived in that house at one point and was convinced he could save it from being demolished if he made some publicity for it, so he started killing other people who had lived there."

Emilie blew smoke towards the ceiling. "And when the District Attorney finally let us *investigate* the murders, we linked the guy to six other murders of ex-residents of that house."

Kendall whistled under his breath. "Shit."

"Yeah."

"Patrick."

Patrick looked over his shoulder and saw Tony standing with a piece of sketchbook paper in one hand. "That was fast."

"He's a fast talker. Good with description. It helped a lot." Tony held the picture out to Patrick. "Anyone you know?"

Kendall and Emilie gathered around Patrick gathered around the sketch to get a good look. They stared in silence for a few seconds. Kendall was the first to get his voice back.

"This. Is unexpected."

*

"Who the fuck is Miss Brydson?" Nickolas looked at the sketch of a sour-faced woman with a mean glare and passed it back to Patrick.

"It's Esmerelda's neighbor from down the hall," Patrick told him.

"She's a bitch," Emilie interjected.

"And very fond of condemming sinners," Kendall finished off.

Nickolas looked between the three of them. "And why haven't we brought her in for questioning?" His gaze landed squarely on Kendall. "You talked to her last night. Why didn't you bring her in?"

"She came off as a pain in the ass religious freak. She didn't have 'also a murderer' stamped on her forehead."

"Are we sure this is the woman we're after?"

Patrick shrugged. "At the worst, it's a woman who looks remarkably like her. It's enough to bring her in to answer some questions, though."

Nickolas cracked his knuckles. "Get her in here, but if there's so much as a tiny speck of dirt on her wrinkled face, it's your asses."

"Got it." Patrick, Kendall, and Emilie made for the door like their heels were on fire. They each grabbed their coats, and Emilie, being the most reckless driver of the three of them, grabbed the car keys and led the way to the garage.

They were halfway there when Kendall suddenly had a thought. "Are we going to need an arrest warrent?"

Patrick shook his head. "We're bringing her in for questioning. We're allowed to hold anyone for no reason for up to seventy-two hours. I don't think we'll need that long."

"Strikes you as a righteous bragger, too, huh?"

"Yeah." Patrick got into the front passenger side of the car and buckled his seat belt as Kendall clambored into the back, and Emilie adjusted the seat. "Who wants the honors of waking the old bat up?"

Emilie grinned and turned the key in the ignition, gunning the engine for a second to warm it up. "Allow me. I'll pay you back in horrendously overpriced coffee."

Kendall and Patrick spoke in unison. "Done."

The ride to Esmerelda's apartment was a quick one, courtesy mostly of Emilie completely ignoring any and all traffic laws and the siren they had blaring on the dash. She double-parked at the curb to the apartment building and led the way into the building, slamming the front door wide open and making her way quickly down the hall with Kendall and Patrick on her heels. She pounded the side of her fist against Miss Byrdson's door four times.

~Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.~

She counted to ten in her head, then pounded again.

~Thud. Thud.~

She followed it by annoucing herself. "Miss Byrdson, this is the police. We need to speak with you." If her voice was slightly louder than necessary, Kendall and Patrick didn't make comment.

The door opened three inches, just enough for the chain to tighten. Miss Byrdson's pinched face looked through the crack. "What?"

"Miss Byrdson, I'm Detective Barker. You met myself and Detective Martin this afternoon. You met Detective Layton yesterday when he came to ask you some questions about Esmerelda Lowenstein."

"So?"

Emilie resisted the urge to just kick the damned door in. "We need you to come with us right now and answer some questions."

"It's one in the morning!"

"And you can either come quietly, or we could make a big production." Emilie grinned. "And I'm more than willing to make this a production. It's been awhile."


Miss Byrdson glared daggers at Emilie. She stepped back from the door and closed it momentarily, releasing the chain. When she opened the door again, she had one hand clenched tightly at the top of her robe, keeping it closed. "I need to put on some proper clothes."

Emilie pushed her way inside, followed by Patrick and Kendall. "Fine." They stood in the living room and looked around while Miss Byrdson stepped into a door to the left and shut the door.

"Hey," Patrick kept his voice low and pointed to a small table that held a Bible, a small nativity scene, and had a two-foot tall stone cross hanging over it. He raised his eyebrows. "Does the cross look a little used to you?"

Kendall and Emilie stepped closer for a good look. There were faint red streaks on the bottom of the cross. Kendall eyed the edge of the cross. "That's about four inches."

Emilie glanced at the bedroom door. It was still closed. "The woman's got a hell of a set, cleaning the weapon and hanging it back up." The door to the bedroom started to open, and they all took three steps in opposite directions.

Miss Byrdson reached for her coat that was lying on the back of a chair. "I'm ready."

The three of them herded her out of the apartment and down the hall. Mr. Carmen was standing in his doorway unabashedly staring at Miss Byrdson's apartment, and then at the small crowd that came out of it. He tipped an imaginary hat at Miss Byrdson. "Ma'am." She glared. He smiled.

Emilie helped Miss Byrdson into the back of the car and stopped Kendall and Patrick from getting in by rapping her knuckles lightly on the top of the car. She mouthed the words 'search warrant' and watched them nod and back off. They would call the District Attorney and wait at the apartment until a search warrent was hand delivered. And then they would bag the cross and toss the rest of the apartment to see if they could find the mask. Esmerelda's murder was as god as solved.

As if Emilie needed further proof, as she got into the car, Miss Byrdson looked at her in the rearview and lifted her chin defiantly. "That girl. Was a sinner."

Emilie started the car. "Sure, but for all the things she may have done wrong, she won't burn in any form of hell for them. Hope you like warm weather."