"And it happened afer her boss watched her have sex with another employee."

"Yeah." Patrick put a hand on the lid of his coffee as the train jerekd to a stop.

"We need to get a list of customers who favored Esmerelda."

"No strip joint that wants to keep customers remembers names."

"Bouncers and bartenders remember faces."

Patrick gave Emilie a look. "We're going bar-hopping tonight, aren't we?"

"Yeah." Emilie reached into Patrick's jacket pocket and pulled out his cell phone. She refused to carry one of principle. She dialed the station. "It's Barker. I need to talk to Caldwell....okay, thanks." She disconnected and dialed another number. "He went home for lunch," she explained to Patrick while she waited for someone to pick up at Nickolas and Danny's apartmenrt.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Danny."

"Well, Miss Gloom and Doom what can I do for you?"

"I need to talk to Nickolas for a minute."

"Hold on."

Emilie sipped her coffee as she listend to the muffled sounds of Danny getting Nickolas.

"Emilie?"

"Yeah. Look, Patrick and I have some very minor suspicions about Zucker. We want to go talk to him tonight."

"Fine. What'd you get from Stacy Carter?"

"Drugged ramblings. Nothing to help us, really. Patrick and I are going to get some sleep now, if you don't need us right now."

"Go ahead. I'll see at the start of shift tonight."

"Okay, bye." Emilie handed the phone back to Patrick. "We're cleared to get some sleep."

"Thank, God."

They got off at a stop two blocks from the station, putting Patrick nearly on his doorstep and Emlie two blocks off. They said quick goodbyes and went their seperate ways, sleep the only thing on both their minds.

*

Kendall's cell phone rang, pulling him out of his own thoughts and making him check his watch. He'd been sitting in the church for nearly two hours. "Shit." He didn't look for the lightening bolt aimed at him as he fumbled for his phone. "Hello?"

"It's Nickolas. Go home. Get some sleep."

"You don't need me?"

"Not right now. Emilie and Patrick both went home to sleep. I expect you to go, too."

"Yeah, okay."

"I mean it, Detective." Getting called 'detective' by Nickolas was like your mother using your middle name.

"I will. I will."

"Okay. See you at eight."

"Yeah." Kendall disconnected his cell and got up to leave the church. He paused to light a candle on the way.

*

Nickolas hung up the phone and gave Daniel a tired smile. "Guess I have time for that nap.."

"Then what are you standing here for? I've got my interview in half and hour, so you'll have a nice, quiet apartmernt."

"Good luck."

Danny grimaced. "I won't need much. It's ridiculously simple. Ask about the dog. Get a cute picture. Ta-da. I'm done."

Nickolas kissed him quickly. "Don't have to much fun. You might explode."

"Go to sleep." Daniel left.

Nickolas yawned, scratched the top of his head, and went to go burrow into bed.

*

Gromit met Patrick at the door, front paws doing doggy dance steps on his toes as he barked a hello.

Patrick leaned down and picked up the terrirer, scratching him behind the ears. "Hey, Gromit." He did a quick survey of the apartment, looking for chewed shoes and Gromit's verison of a welcome home present. There was a doggy door that led to the fenced-in courtyard behind Patrick's ground floor aparmtner, but he'd learned the hard way that sometimes Gromit perferred to stay indoors.

Not finding any signs of recent bad behavior by Gromit, Parick put him back down on the floor and went into the kitchen. He was opening the fridge when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Patrick, it's Miss Barnaby on the fourth floor."

Patrick wondered why she bothered announincing herself. He knew it was her as soon as the phone rang. She never failed to call after he came in from being out on a case. "Hello, Miss Barnaby. What can I do for you?"

"I just wanted to make sure you were all right, dear. I heard you leave this morning."

"And what were you doing up that late, young lady? A proper woman would have a curfew."

"Oh, piss off." Her tone was light. "I'm ninty-two. I"ll be up boozing if I wish."

Patrick chuckled. "I suppose so."

"Can I interest you in some coffee?"

"Not right now. I'm going to bed."

"What time will you be up?"

"Proabably about six-thity." Patrick pulled some milk from the fridge.

"Then come up then and have coffee."

You didn't argue with ninty-two-year-old women who told you to piss off and made jokes about boozing. "All right. I'll be up at seven."

"Good to hear it. Get some sleep." Miss Barnaby hung up the phone.

Patrick clicked off the cordless with a grin. He'd been neighbors with Miss Barnaby since he'd moved into his apartment eight years ago, and he hadn't gotten the last word once.

He poured a glass of milk, unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, and went to slump into the couch. Gromit jumped up next to him and walked onto his lap. "You're going to get my pants dirty."

Gromit proved his lack of caring by rolling onto his back and silently demanding a tummy rub.

*

Emilie let herself into her apartment and immediately grabbed for her cigarettes on the coffee table. She hadn't bothered getting them when she left that morning because she'd figured she wouldn't be anyplace she could smoke. She lit one up and sucked in a drag as she toed off her shoes and tossed her coat on the back of the couch. She rubbed the back of her neck and checked her answering machine. A bright number two blinked at her. She punched the 'play' button as she untucked her shirt.

"Ms. Barker, this is Andrea at Dr. Marian's office; I'm just calilng to remind you of your six-month appointment to check you over since the pnemonia. Just call back when you have time."

Emilie took a defiant drag of her cigarette as the very perky-souding Andrea rattled off Dr. Marian's phone number and office hours. She and the good doctor had beeen butting heads on her smoking post-pnemonia for months.

"Emilie, it's Grandma. I'm just checking in. Grandpa and I haven't seen you in a couple of weeks. We've been reading the papers and it looks like Quarter Town is busy breaking the law. Give us a call, dear."

Emilie made a mental note to return the call as soon as she got some sleep, then went ino her bedroom, changed into her pajamas, and crawled into bed. She was exhausted.

*

Kendall let himself into his apartment and didn't bother turning on any lights as he half-stumbled for the ktichen. Now that he was allowed to be less than alert he felt like he was about to fall over from exhaustion. He drank orange juice straight from the carton and forced himself to make a sandwich so he would at least not wake up half-starved.

He dropped heavily into his recliner in the lving room and flipped on the television, flipping straight past the mid-day soaps and bad talks shows to land on the news. He listened with half an ear about car wrecks and grocery store hold-ups and drugs being sold on a playground by a seven-year-old as he ate his sandwich. He left the televison on as he walked back to the bedroom and started taking off his clothes. He went into the bathroom and started the shower, taking a quick look in the mirror.

"Layton, you look like shit." He had circles under his eyes, his face was pallid, and he was starting to look dangerously thin. ~I've got to start eating again. Nickolas will have my ass if I pass out on duty, and the Ice Queen will never let me live it down.~ Sighing, he stepped into the shower and stood under the spray, trying hard not to think at all.

*

At eight-thirteen that evening, Kendall, Patrick, and Emilie all gathered in Nickolas's office to decide the plan for the Esmerelda Lowenstein case. They looked considerably better than they had at three-thirty that morning. Kendall and Patrick both wore gray suits, Kendall with a blue shirt and tie while Patrick had on a white shirt with a dark red tie. Emilie was wearing a black suit with a green ribbed shirt and had her hair braided to keep it off her face. Nickolas was in a brown suit with a white shirt and no tie and looked considerably less shady now that he had shaved.

"Let's review what we know."

"Esmerelda Lowenstein, age twenty-three, was killed at *Tallywackers* strip club at approximately three o'clock this morning, " Patrick started the review off.

Kendall picked it up. "Death was caused by blunt-force trauma to the back of the head. Last two people to see her alive were her boss, Mr. Zucker, and another dancer, Stacy Carter."

Emilie joined in. "She and Stacy Carter had just finished having oral sex as Mr. Zucker watched. Stacy Carter went to lock up and when she came back, Esmerelda was dead."

Nickolas started the next round. "Do we suspect Stacy Carter?"

"No." Patrick double-checked to make sure Emilie had shaken her head also. "She would have told us if she'd done anything, considering the massive amount of sedatives that were in her system and how open she was to talking about *everything* because of them."

"What about Zucker?"

"We're iffy. He was the next to last person to see her alive." Emilie spared a glance at Kendall. "You still feel solid about this guy?"

Kendall shrugeed. "My inital impression stands. He seems okay. He's skeezy, sure, but no more than any other strip joint owner I've ever interviewed."

"You do a lot of those?" Emile had the barest smile on her face. She was usually in a pretty good mood after she'd gotten a few solid hours of sleep.

"A few." Kendall didn't smile. He just looked tired.

Nicklas steered the cnoversation back to the main topic. "Okay, we need to reinterview Zucker. We'll put it on the list. Now, has anyone talked to her neighbors, yet?"

"Matthews and McCormick made the rounds while I was interviewing fellow employess." Patrick scratched the side of his neck. "We haven't had a chance to check their notes, yet."

"Okay. You and Emilie do that. I want Kendall to go talk to Esmerelda's parents. I think they'll be a little more open if there's just one person there asking questions." Nickolas made a waving motion with his hand. "Get going."

They left his office, Kendall heading for the door to the squadroom while Emilie and Patrick went to their desks. They were set up closed-side to closed-side, with Emilie's chair facing away from the door. A desk can tell a story like a witness. Emilie's desk, wtih its rigid piles of files and neatly labeled drawers told the story of someone who liked her work very organized and within easy reach. There was a five-by-seven photograph of Emilie sitting with her grandparents in front of a Christmas tree. A wallet-sized photo of a young couple in clothes a few decades old was turcked into a corner fo the frame. Emile's chair was dark blue and was raised high so she could write at her desk comfortably. It caused her feet to be off the floor. She kept a small box under her desk to prop her feet on.

Patrick's desk, while organized,didn't have quite the same rigidity as Emilie's. His piles of files were slightly askew, his drawers weren't labeled, and the pictures he had, one of Gromit, one of his parents, and one of Miss Barnaby, were tacked to the small corkboard that seperated his desk from Emile's. Being so tall, he barely had his chair raised at all and was usually complaining about the lack of space for his legs under the desk.

The patrolmen's reports were stacked and labeled with a post-it on Emilie's chair. She picked up the stack, halved it, and handed the bottom half to Patrick. "Five bucks says we won't find a damned thing to help us."

"Have you ever considered that you may have a gambling problem?"

Emilie shrugged and shook a cigarette from its pack. "Better than smoking." She lit her cigarette.

Patrick chuckled and flipped open the first report. They read in silence for half and hour, occasionally pausing to make notes of their own in their own notebooks. "Have you seen mention of a Leslie Dryer?"

Emilie looked up from the reprot she was reading. "Yeah. You seeing anything about a Dennis Tyler?"

"Yeah."

"We have addresses somewhere in this mess?"

Patrick shook his head. "Not that I've seen here. Bet we can find them, though." He reached into his top left drawer and pulled out a phone book. He flipped through it quickly. "I've got four Dryers. Two under L. One a Leslie, and the other a Lester." He rattled off all four numbers to Emilie then flipped to the Ts. "And one Dennis Tyler." He read that number off, also. "Which do you want?"

"I'll take the two L. Dryers."

"All right." Patrick reached across the desk and took the other numbers from Emilie.

*

Kendall stood outside the Lowenstein's apartment and took a deep breath, silently reminding himself that they'd already gotten the worst news of their lives. ~They already know she's dead. They know she was stripper. They can't be shocked by anything now.~ It was only after Mrs. Lowenstein was opening the door to his knock that Kendall realized they may not know their daughter had been a lesbian. ~Shit.~

Mrs. Lowenstein gave Kendall a cool glare. "Yes?" Her voice was polite in a way that let it be known she'd rather kick Kendall in the ass than speak with him.

"Mrs. Lowenstein, I'm Detective Layton-"

"I am aware." Her tone went from politce to icy. She was obviously the type of person to get very angry about death once she'd cried. Kendall couldn't blame her.

"Mrs. Lowenstein, I know I seem very rude and insensitive, but the first forty-eight hours after a murder at the most important. I want to find the person who took your daughter from you and make sure she or he never takes anyone else's daughter, again."

"Why do you care? My daugher was, according to you and that woman who was with you, a stripper. Shouldn't you be writing her off as sleeze and going home?"

Kendall knew the usual 'every case is treated equally' party line was not going to fly with Mrs. Lowenstein. He decided to go the road that would get her to talk. "Mrs. Lowenstien, my daughter died a month agao. She was only six weeks old. I don't like anyone getting away with murder, but I'm especially pissed at people who go after soemone's daughter right now." He felt his stomach roll at using Angelica to get someone to open up, but he supposed he'd have to get used to it. Knowing what if felt like to lose someone so personally could only help when you worked Homicide.

Mrs. Lowenstein's face softened the smallest bit, and she finally opened the apartment door all the way. She gestured Kendall inside somewhat awkwardly. "My husband is at his mother's. He wanted to give her the news personally. Esmerelda was her only grandchild." Mrs. Lowenstein sat on the sofa. "I assume you have questions."

Kendall sat on the edge of an over-stuffed chair that was perpendicular to the sofa. "Yes, Ma'am. I need a list of Esmerelda's friends and people who may not have liked her for some reason."

"Do you," Mrs. Lowenstein paused and swallowed hard. "Could this have been a hate crime?" Apparently, she was very aware of her daughter's sexual preference. Kendall didn't feel guilty in being grateful that it was one less thing he had to tell her.

He thought about the question seriously for a moment, turning over all the information he knew in his head. "In my experience, I would say it wasn't. Hate crimes are much more violent than what happend to your daughter. They usually happen in an open area where the body can be easily found and the damage done to the body would be much more extensive."

"If it wasn't a hate crime, then why was she killed?"

Kendall felt his gut twist hard. He had to use every ounce of professionalism in his body to keep from thinking of Angelica and how often he'd asked a similar question. "I don't know, Mrs. Lowenstein. That's why I need your help. You know her friends. You probably know her enemies. Those people could help this investigation tremendously."