Kendall's storming, slamming rampage out of Nickolas's office did not go unnoticed, but no one tried to stop and figure out what the problem was. Kendall was on the other shift, he was taller than most everyone, and so he was left alone.

He stormed from the squadroom to the elevator to the front door and out into the street. He lookd around for a moment as if he weren't sure how he'd gotten outside, then he turned left and started walking, trying unsuccessfully not to think about Lauren. Or Angelica.

The first time he'd met Laruen, she'd been sitting on a park bench reading a thin paperback novel. She had been wearing jeans and a fuzzy gray sweater with black, low-heel boots. Her hair had been light brown and pulled off her face with a barette that rested against the back of her neck. She'd had a beautiful neck. Good for touching and stroking. And throttling if Kendall ever got his hands on her again.

He'd put on a charming smile, slid up beside her on the bench, and stuck out his hand. "I'm Kendall Layton." he knew he looked good that day in his old jeans and black turtleneck sweater. He looked like a model, or the Ken doll everyone joked he was.

She'd given him a tight once-over, seemed to think for a moment, and then shook his hand. "I'm Lauren Thomas." Her hand has been slightly cool, but her grip was firm, and the small, blushing smile she gave Kendall made his stomach twist. He promptly fell madly in lust.

And he almost as quickly fell in love. Laruen was smart. She was beautiful. She didn't swoon or gasp at any work-related stories Kendall told her. She was also very intesne, snapping through moods like people flipped through pictures of someone else's vaction they were bored by. It made Kendall fall harder. She was stubborn. She had her own beliefs. She would not drop at his feet and worhip him. She would stand her ground. It turned him on in the best way.

He wined and dined her for seven months until he took her to her favorite restaurant and presented her with a key to his post office box in a velvet box and an invitation to move in whenever she wanted.

She'd been in blue that night, an off-the-shoulder dres with matching high heels, and Kendall can't remember a thread of what he was wearing, but he remembers how that dress looked crumpled by his bed the next morning.

Lauren moved in two days later, and the partment quickly became theirs. She hung her hose on the shower rod and left ponytail holders scatterd about. Her trashy girl magazines laid on Kendall's 'Reader's Digest' and his fishing magzines. It was bliss.

Eight months after the move-in, Lauren had gotten pregnant. They hadn't planned on it, hadn't even really *talked* about it, but they were a strong, loving copule. What better way to show the world what they could do together if not in the form of their own child?

Kendall's walk from the sation had led him to a church four blocks down. He looked it up and down, like a man checking out a woman in a bar, like Lauren had looked at him that first day, deemed it worthy of him, and walked inside. The inside was quiet and hushed, a row of candles burning by the altar. Kendall walked voer to them and stared as they flickered. So many candles. More than Angelica would ever see. More than she'd ever probably seen in her whole life. He felt the tears start to come and stumbled backwards until he found a pew. He sat down heavily and cried silently. He'd cried before in his life a few times, but the crying he did for Angelica, for his little girl, it came up from the furthest edges of his soul and didn't stop for hours, sometimes. He knew he was proabably depressed, but he didn't care. Didn't really matter when his baby girl was dead.

"Excuse me, Sir, can I help you in some way?"

Kendall's head snapped up and he saw a priest standing a few feet away. "I'm not Catholic."

The priest smiled a little. "Most people aren't if it's not Sunday." He sat carefully on the steps leading up to the altar. "But I'm guessing you mean you're not Catholic any day of the week."

"Yeah."

"That's fine." The priest placed his hands on his knees, rubbing the palms back and forth a few times. "Do you have a home church?"

His church used to be his home. He would go home and worship his beautifiul, perfect daughter. "Not anymore."

"May I ask why that is?"

Kendall wondered why he wasn't getting angry at the man on the steps. He hated people asking him questions that somehow related back to Angelica. But this man, this man was keeping his distance, at least physically, and the way he was asking his qustions, he sounded like he cared. "Do you care?"

The priest smiled again. "Comes with the collar." He touched the object in question. "If you'd like, I could leave you alone with your thoughts."

Kendall thought about it for a moment. Wondered if asking a priest to go away could send him to hell. "My daughter died last month. Her mother shook her to death and left her next to me on the bed with a note. 'You'll hurt now.' I just found out she's arguing Post-Partum Depression. It's a crock of-" He cut himself off abrubtly. "It's a lie."

"You don't think she was depressed?"

"She and I had been fighting on and off for a couple of weeks about some important stuff and some not particularly important stuff. She kept telling me that I'd pay for hurting her. I woke up one morning and my little girl was dead beside me." Kendall's hands flexed into tight fists.

"Did she cut you?"

"What?" Kendall looked at the priest, then down at his hands at the scar that ran diagnally across the back of his left hand. "No, that wasn't her. That was someone else." He tucked his hand into his pocket. "I'd like to be alone now."

The priest nodded, stood up, and walked away.

Kendall stared at the candles again.

*

Nickolas let himself into the apartment and hung his keys on the hook by the door. "Daniel?"

"In the kitchen." Daniel stuck his head around the corner that seperated the kitchen from the living room. "You look like shit."

"The romance is officially dead." Nickolas walked into the kitchen and took the coffee Daniel held out. "Thank you."

"You say that like a man who's spent the last nine hours drinking mud."

"No, mud wouldn't have tasted like motor oil laced with arsenic."

Daniel grinned. "I'm glad I don't drink the coffee you drink." He rubbed Nickolas's back. "You have time to catch a nap?"

"I don't think so. Emilie and Patrick are out talking to our one witnes, and Kendall stormed out of my office right before I came home. I got news about Lauren today."

"And?"

"She's pleading Post-Partum."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

Daniel hopped on the counter and pulled Nickolas close enough to kiss. "Not your fault she's a sociopath."

"She's not a sociopath. Sociopaths kill a lot of people for no reason."

"Then she's psychotic."

"Hopefully not so psychotic it'll keep her from rotting away in prision."

"Or frying in the electric chair."

Nickolas raised hish eyebrows. "You're supposed to be anti-dealth penatly, aren't you?"

"In certain cases, people should die. I think killing an infant falls into that category."

"If you editors ever hear that, you may never get to write another human interest piece."

Daniel made a face. "Gee. What a shame. God knows I love writing about puppies being rescued from trees. They'll remember my work in five minutes, I'm sure."

Nickolas ran his hands up Daniels' arms. "You having writer's block?"

"No. I'm writing fine. I just seem to be writing the same thing fine over and over. Woman survives cancer. Homeless man gets college degree. Cute, fuzzy kitten becomes best friend with man-eating, cat-snacking turtle All I seem to do is write fluffy, happy stories."

"You've doen it for twenty years."

"Exactly."

Nickolas got it. He'd done the same thing for twenty yers. Sometimes you wondered if you were capable of doing anything else. Or anything even vaguely different. Sometimes you wanted to be the one looting the stores in the black out. "What are you writing today?"

Daniel gave a short laugh. "Dog got hit by a car, got its back legs cut off. It rolls around with a little cart, now."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not." Daniel's tone let it be known he wished he was writing something else.

"Have you requested other stories?"

"A couple of times, but I get a lovely line of 'But, Mr. O'Neill, you're so good at human interest stories. You make it mean something to people to read about the people you talk to.'"

Nickolas gave Daniel a wry smile. "You do write great human interest stories."

"I can write other stuff, too."

"I know."

"Sure, you know, but every editor I shop to gives me the human interest line." Daniel sighed. "I'm about ready to start shopping some stuff to different editors."

"Why can't you?"

"It's a trust thing. They trust me to bring them whatever I write."

"Fuck that. They'reonly using ope part of your writing skill. You could find another editor to take your non-cute and fuzzy stories."

Daniel shrugged. "Maybe. I'm not quite anoyed enough to start looking, yet."

"All right." Nickolas broke into a yawn and scrubbed his eyes. "Fuck. I'm tired."

"Sure you can't get a nap?"

"Yeah."

"Then grab a shower. I'll get you if the phone rings."

"That sounds like a good idea, yeah. Thanks." Nickolas kissed him.

"You're welcome. Go shower. You smell like a strip joint."

"How would you know?"

"You're gone all day fighting crime. You don't know where I go."

*

Stacy Carter was calm when Patrick and Emilie showed up. She had a healthy dose of sedatives still working through her system to thank for it. She beamed at the detectives. "Hi." Her smile was wavy at the edges.

Patrick half-smiled, having a quick memory of his own trip down painkiller la-la road when he'd been shot. "Hi. I'm Detective Martin. This is Detective Barker. We want to ask you a few questions."

"About Esmerelda."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Didn't someone else do that already?"

"Detective Layton was here earlier, but you were still a little hysterical." Emilie opened her notebook. "How do you feel now, Ms. Carter?"

"*Really* good." Stacy rasied her arms and wiggled her fingers. "I'm all loose."

~I bet.~ "Ms. Carter, do you remember what you saw tonight?"

Stacy blinked over-rapidly at Emilie. "Sure." She giggled. Emilie gave Patrick a look that clearly read, 'I am not awake enough for legally stoned witnesses.'

Patrick took over the questioning. "Ms. Carter, what did you see tonight before you stopped the police car?"

"Esmerelda was dead." Stacy nodded. "Definitely dead. I saw her in the back room."

"The dressing room/"

"Yeah."

"What was she doing before you found her dead?"

"We were having sex. We're Lesbians. Dykes. Carpet-lickers. Clam Lovers. Lesbos-"

"We get the picture." Emilie had to fight the urge to roll her eyes. "Was anyone watching you?"

"Mr. Zucker. He likes to watch. He's a dirty bastard."

"Where was he when you found Esmerelda?" Patrick picked up the questioning again. Emilie could only handle a few seconds at a time with a drugged witness.

"He was gone. Went bye-bye. I went to lock the door after him, then I went back to Esmerelda to see if she wanted a ride home. She doesn't have a car." Neither detective bothered correcting Stacy's 'doesn't' to 'didn't'. Most people who talked about someone recently dead used the present tense. "When I got back there, she was dead. I didn't think she was at first, but I got down and tried to shake her awake, but she didn't move except if I pushed her." Stacy shook her head back and forth drunkedly. "She didn't move at al."

"Could there have been anyone else in the club?"

"No." More drunken head-shaking. "Mr. Zucker always makes sure everyone's out before he whips it out." She giggled again.

"Did you ever have sex with Mr. Zucker?"

Stacy's jaw dropped open in indignation, and she poked herself in the chest with her index finger. "Lesbian!"

Behind him, Patick heard Emilie mutter, "annoyed". He kicked her in the ankle. "Ms. Carter, do you know anyone who wanted to hurt Esmerelda?"

"No way. Esmerelda had great breasts."

"Can't kill a stripper with great breasts."

Patrick kicked Emilie in the ankle again. "You can't think of anyone at all?"

"Uh-uh. Everyone liked Esmerelda. She had great breasts. Really great breasts." Stacy was losing the battle with the drugs in her system. "Fantas-*tic* ta-tas. Boobs. Knockers. Hooters. Tits. Melons. Mangoes. Fun bags-"

"She's off the sedative deep end. Can we get out of here before the stuff leaking out of her pores makes us flunk our next drug test?"

Patrick pocketed his notebook. "Yeah. Let's go." They left the hospital room, Stacy still coming up with synomyms for breasts behind them, and got in the elevator. "She didn't have anything to do with it."

"If she had, we certianly would have heard about it." Emilie propped herself up against the wall of the elevator. "I need a damned nap."

"I noticed. Good thing she was drugged, or you might have offended her. Could you have been any snarkier?"

"If I'd had a full night's sleep, I could have. As it is, you'll have to take my sleep-deprived act and live with it."

"Your sleep-deprived act is shit."

"So's yours, asshole."

"Trollop."

"Man-whore."

"Martha Stewart-wannabe." Patrick dodged the punch Emilie lazingly aimed at his arm. "You hit like a girl."

"You walk like a gimp."

Patrick grinned and patted his left kene. "Only becuase I've been shot. What's your excuse?"

"You're a disgusting infulence."

"You know, I treasure our time together."

The elevator opened, and they both stepped out, Emilie heading for the front door and the coffee cart she could see beyond. "Shut up and come get actual coffee. I think I've got an extra ulcer next to the one you gave me form all the shit I've been drinking today."

Patrick followed her to the coffee cart and put in an order for plain black whiel Emilie got a latte. "You're going to be up for days if you drink that."

"I will be anyway."

He couldn't disagree. He could practically feel the case getting more and more press-worthy. A dead stripper was no big deal. Most "good decent people" claimed them good riddance and tossed the corpse on the trash heap. But now they wre dealing with a lesbian, law student, children's advocate stripper.

"Nickolas is fucked."

Emilie nodded, understanding. "He usually is when there's a gay murder. The perils of beign the lone queer Lieutenant in the whole city."

"Sometimes I wonder if they gave him the job so that the press would have someone to harass that wasn't the brass."

"I've never doubted that for a second. What better way to hide your bigotry than to promote someone you despise? The department gets showered with accolades for being so gloriously open-minded, and they'll never hear another question about queer murders or queer bashings."

"Why bother harassing the guys upstairs when there's a queer in charge at the Twelfth? Surely, he *must* know every other queer in the city."

Emilie nudged Patrick in the ribs. "Careful. You're starting to sound like me."

"That's possibly the worst thing anyone's ever said to me."

"I keep telling you to work on your listening skills."

Patrick gave her a nudge and got back to the important topic. "Are we ruling out Stacy Carter?"

"Yeah."

"What about Zucker?"

"I don't know." Emilie pushed hair off her forehead. "I want to go with the Doll's first instinct about him being okay, but if he was the only other one there, and then he left, and then she died..."

"Something's rotten, you think?"

"If no one was there, then Zucker either came back and did it, or there's a third guy we don't know about yet."

"There's no grassy knoll in front of *Tallywackers*, is there?"

"No."

"Just checking."

Emilie paused in the middle of the sidewalk, handed Patrick her coffee, and quickly pulled her hair off her neck and into a ponytail. "Uniforms are canvassing her neighbors, right?"

"Yeah."

"What's the Doll doing?"

"I have no idea. I didn't seem him come out of Nickolas's office when we left."

"I wonder what they talked about."

Patrick handed Emilie her coffee. "If we were supposed to know, we'd know."

"You're very complacent on the whole Kendall issue."

"There's a Kendall issue?"

"He's hiding something."

Patrick patted Emilie on the back. "Let it go."

"I'm a detective. I have to know."

"You don't."

Emilie gave him a sideways glance. "You're not curious at all?"

Patrick shrugged. "It's not my life to poke around in. Kendall's issues are Kendall's issues, whether he tells us or not is his business and choice."

"You know, you get disturbingly Zen when you haven't had a full night's sleep."

"At least I'm not a surly bitch."

"No, you're just an overthinking, pompus jackass with allusions of valor."

"Have you been studying your vocabulary words?"

Emilie finally cracked a smile. "Just trying to keep up." Tey took the steps down to the subway. "Did anybody seem off to you when you made the rounds this morning?"

"Nope. Everyone was pissy and cranky but answered all our questions." Patrick slid his subway card through the slot and waited for Emilie to do the same. "We need to start looking at customers."

"We need to find the murder weapon."

Emilie sat on a bench on the train and moved over so Kendall could sit. "Maybe a trophy?"

"Paperweight?"

"What about a heavy glass or something?"

Patrick shook his haed. "Not possible. Everything they have is thick plastic. It wouldn't hurt a kitten."

"Do they serve wine? Maybe it was a wine bottle."

"It's a place called *Tallywackers*."

"Should have guessed that one." Emilie sighed. "What *do* we know?"

"She's dead from blunt-force trauma."