Love Notes Read online

  The one topic that could divert Mimi’s attention from her work, and Tyler’s signal that he’d rather they spent their rare time out of the office being friends instead of colleagues. He’d told her he was gay when they worked a story together a year and a half earlier that involved the murders of half a dozen closeted, married, and wealthy gay professionals. One of the victims had been a friend of Tyler’s closeted, married FBI-agent boyfriend, and Gianna had been the targeted sixth victim...targeted because her previous lover was a closeted, married woman. Mimi still shuddered at the thought of Gianna held captive and beaten by the madwoman released from a mental institution because she no longer was “a danger to herself or to others.”

  “She’ll be fine if the department doesn’t shut down the Hate Crimes Unit and stick her behind a desk, shuffling papers. Then we’d both be unemployed.”

  Mid-chew, Tyler switched from caring friend back to canny newspaper editor again. “Are you serious?”

  “Gianna’s seriously worried it could happen.”

  “That would be an incredibly stupid thing to do. You should write about it, Mimi.”

  “Are you crazy?” Mimi had raised her voice before she could stop herself, and now she looked self-consciously around the restaurant. Several of the closest diners were kindly pretending that her outburst hadn’t occurred. For almost the entirety of their relatively brief relationship, Mimi and Gianna had clashed over the extent to which their work got in the way of their lives. For Mimi to write about a confidence so rarely revealed would probably spell the end of them.

  Tyler grinned an apology. He had first hand experience with their personal life versus business life conflict. “I guess that’s not such a good idea, although it is a great story. I could assign it to that new reporter, the one from Albuquerque. He’s a really good writer.”

  “No, Tyler, you could not do that. And why couldn’t you? Because the only way you could know about any talk of disbanding the Hate Crimes Unit would be through me. So, unless you’d like to see me hanging from a cross in Judiciary Square, you’ll forget I said anything. Unless, of course, you can develop an independent source, say, in the Chief’s office. Then it wouldn’t have anything to do with me.”

  “You’re incorrigible, Patterson.”

  “That’s why I’m so good at my job.”

  “Yeah, it is. And speaking of which, what are you going to do about that?”

  Mimi shrugged, sighed, and shook her head. She didn’t know what she was going to do about her job or her current feelings about her job, or her feeling that she’d been betrayed by her boss and the company attorneys. “Maybe I will get away for a while. I’ll lie in the sun and read books. I don’t remember the last time I read a book all the way through.”

  Tyler leaned across the table and peered at her. “How do you read a book, Patterson, if not all the way through?”

  She laughed. “Three or four pages, five at the most, before I fall asleep. Then I have to read those same three or four or five pages the next night because I don’t remember what I read the night before. Takes me ages to finish anything,” she said, warming to the thought of spending a week or so sleeping and reading in the sun. Then she thought again about the reason she was even considering a vacation this time of year, and the warm feeling evaporated. “I better go tell the Weasel before I change my mind.”

  “Ask him, Patterson. You ask your editor for permission to take the time off, you don’t tell him. Especially that one.”

  Mimi crossed her right knee over the left one but otherwise didn’t move or speak. She watched her editor across the desk, wishing that she were British and living in that time when there would have been more appropriate language for conversation with him. What she wanted to do was to tell him to go fuck himself; to call him a spineless, dickless wonder; to tell him he was a jerk and an incompetent asshole. What would Dorothy L. Sayers or P.D. James say to him? Or Zora Neale Hurston, for that matter? What was a toady?

  “Don’t be such a frog.”

  He blushed and sputtered. She’d insulted him and he knew it, but she hadn’t profaned or disrespected him, and since she hadn’t actually called him a name, he couldn’t really take offense. “Why do you find it necessary to be so unpleasant?”

  “I’m unpleasant? You go out of your way to make my life miserable and I’m unpleasant? You block every effort I make to search out good stories. You block any attempt I make to work with other editors, which I do because you so clearly don’t want me working for you. You hang me out to dry in this Trimble business when you know full well that I am not at fault. And now, knowing that I’m in a shit position because you and your lawyer pals hung me out to dry, you want to prevent me from taking some time off. Why don’t you just fire me, Wea...ah...Wassily. Isn’t that what people like you do to people like me?”

  He leaned back in his chair, as if the expanse of his desk weren’t sufficient distance between them. “What does that mean, people like me and people like you?”

  Mimi leaned forward in her chair. “I’m sure I don’t need to explain the concept of power to you.” She stood up. “I’m taking some time off, a week or so, beginning, oh, say, Friday. I’ll put the request in writing, like I’m supposed to. And if you deny the request, I’ll expect a reason in writing. Like you’re supposed to.” She was half way out the door when a thought turned her around. “Trimble’s wife’s lawsuit is frivolous. Isn’t there a law against that?”

  “Tyler’s right, Mimi, you don’t tell your boss what you’re going to do.”

  “Spoken like a true boss, Lieutenant Maglione, Ma’am. But you didn’t answer my question.”

  Gianna pushed a gust of air through pursed lips and shook her head. “I can’t get away right now, Mimi, for even a day, to say nothing of a week. The chief walked all over me this morning, wearing combat boots it felt like. This is probably the last time I’ll be off this early until Christmas, so enjoy it while you can.”

  They were having drinks and dinner at The Bayou, where the excitement of the weekend’s grand opening party lingered. They’d had to sit at the bar until a table in the restaurant became available. And now, all the bar stools were occupied and the dance floor was filling and it was not yet nine o’clock on a Monday night.

  “What’d the chief do to upset—”

  “Hi, Pretty Lady. Can I get you a refill?” The bartender, tall, blond and leering, leaned in toward Gianna, resting her elbows on the bar and cutting off Mimi’s access. “And wouldn’t you like something with a little more punch than cranberry juice? I could splash a little vodka into that juice, what do ya think?” She grinned and winked. Gianna hadn’t moved or spoken.

  “I think you should go splash vodka for somebody who asks for it,” Mimi said. “We were talking. You interrupted.”

  The bartender stood up straight and looked at Mimi. Her pale blue eyes narrowed and she licked her lips. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  “And neither of us was talking to you. We were talking to each other. And we’re both old enough to know how to order drinks, so we’ll call you if we need you.”

  Before the bartender could reply Marianne was behind them. “Your table’s ready and you’d better hurry because the line is growing. And did I mention that you’ll have to eat fast?” She looked like a Swedish movie star with her long, straight blonde hair framing her face and her kohl-lined blue eyes. And then there was the way she enhanced the scarlet tee shirt with its Bayou logo.

  They stood up and Mimi reached into her pocket for money to pay for their drinks. Marianne waved it off. “On the house, Trudi. If I know these two, it’s nothing but juice or club soda anyway. Besides which, they’ll pay dearly when I get ‘em into the restaurant.” Marianne rubbed her hands together gleefully, laughed wickedly, and led them past the crowded dance floor into the restaurant and to their table. The place was as packed as it had been on Friday night.

  “This is amazing,” Mimi said, surveying the crowd.

  “Mimi,
I thought you were blowing smoke when you said you’d become a regular, but damn if you’re not making good on your word.”

  Mimi laid her right hand across her chest. “I am a woman of my word, if nothing else.”

  “And you’ve been a few other things in your time, the way I hear it,” Marianne said in a tone of voice that made Mimi wince. Jesus! How long did a reputation follow a person? And she hadn’t even known Marianne back then.

  Gianna raised her eyebrows. “You’ll have to tell me all about that, Mare. Some other time, though, when we can talk alone.” Then, to Mimi’s overwhelming relief, she changed the subject. “Do you have a menu I can take with me? I’m treating my team to a working dinner tomorrow night and since they’re not going to like what I have to say, I thought plying them with good food would make the bad news easier to take.”

  “What aren’t they going to like?” Mimi asked as Marianne left to get the menu, hoping to keep Gianna away from a discussion of her past reputation, which she didn’t even want to think about, to say nothing of discuss, especially with Gianna. She need not have worried. Her checkered reputation was the farthest thing from Gianna’s mind.

  “Tell me exactly what Cassandra Ali said to you the other night,” she said. “Tell me what she said and how she said it and how she seemed to you.”

  And as Mimi brought the image of Cassandra Ali into focus, she was wondering what was serious enough that Gianna would risk bringing the young cop back to work when she’d just said that she wasn’t ready.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Not even abundant good food succeeded in lifting the deflated spirits of the Hate Crimes team, though the presence of Cassandra Ali brought smiles all around. Hesitant, tentative smiles, since Cassie’s return was provisional; Gianna had made that fact quite clear. Cassie wanted to be back and Gianna, against her better judgment, was willing to allow the young officer to test herself. She’d had Cassie come in early so she could prepare her for the news that Alice Long would be detailed to the Unit to work with Bobby. They all knew Alice; she and Tony Watkins, both seasoned undercover cops, had worked a case with them several months ago. But what they didn’t know was that Alice had requested permanent assignment to Hate Crimes if Cassie’s injuries prevented her return, or that Alice was a lesbian and that she certainly would be Gianna’s choice to replace Cassie should that become necessary. Gianna watched Cassie closely as she processed what she was being told: Her return was provisional; her schedule was limited; another cop was being brought in to what would have been her job.

  She nodded her acceptance. “I’m just glad to be back, Boss, and I’ll do whatever you say.” And Gianna knew she would. But none of them would so readily or easily embrace the news that they were to be split up for their next assignment, and they were absolutely livid that the split was to be along racial lines. Here they were, the Hate Crimes Unit, and only the white members could work the Irish angle of the case and only the Black members could work the Jamaican angle.

  “Well, since I’m Black Irish, how about I become the swing member of the team?” Tim McCreedy was so upset and angry that he could find no energy for his “queen routine,” when he collapsed his six foot-plus weight lifter’s body into a prancing, mincing stereotype of a screaming queen.

  “I know how you feel,” Gianna said, standing and walking to the end of the table where they all sat, so that she could make eye contact with each of them, “and I share your feelings, but we’ve no choice in the matter. The assignment wasn’t a request, it was an order, and we follow orders. The smart thing would be to do it quickly and efficiently.”

  “If the IRA could be found quickly and efficiently, there wouldn’t have been four hundred years of bloodshed over there,” Tim said, still nasty and snarly, but he withered under the look he got from Gianna, and mumbled a “Sorry, Boss.”

  “What I meant,” Gianna continued equably, “was that we accept and embrace our new assignments efficiently and graciously. Without rancor. Let’s not waste time and energy being angry. Let’s find the guns so we can get on with our other duties.”

  “But why us?” asked Kenny Chang in a tone of voice that was, for him, borderline belligerent. “Isn’t that a job for the Feds?”

  “It’s our job if we’re ordered to do it,” Gianna replied curtly.

  “Are we about to get shit-canned?” asked Bobby Gilliam, cracking his knuckles, a very recent and extremely annoying habit, “‘cause if we are, I think that sucks! No other unit in the Department can match our case clearance rate!”

  “Enough, Bobby! Where do you get this stuff? I need your minds on the job at hand, all of you.”

  “That’s all everybody’s talking about, Boss. We were hoping you could clear things up for us.” Linda Lopez was trying for ‘the voice of reason’ tone, but the words came out a lament. “We’re a team. If something’s going to happen to us, we should know.”

  “I have no idea what you mean. What exactly is it that everybody’s talking about and what does it have to do with us?”

  “The budget cuts,” Bobby said. The word is that the City Council budget committee is swinging a wide axe and heads are rolling all over town,” Bobby said.

  “Well, our heads are still on,” Gianna snapped with more authority than she felt. Was that why the Chief handed her such a monster of a case? So she could prove her worth and guarantee her continued existence? “And I need the brains inside your heads focused on the task at hand.”

  “The task being to look for a bunch of Irish assholes with a cache of automatic weapons,” Tim said in a very reasonable, calm tone of voice, which also was borderline belligerent.

  “And being that you are an Irish asshole, McCreedy,” Cassie retorted, sounding almost like her old self, “that should be a piece of cake for you.” She and Tim were best friends and her return to self returned him to self and he loosened his body and dropped his wrist and tilted his head in her direction; and while he didn’t speak, everybody heard what he would have said and the tension in the room evaporated. The air lightened, bodies relaxed, Bobby and Eric scooped more food onto their plates, and Linda opened another soda.

  “So, Boss, since we know what the white guys are doing, what’s the job for the queers and the Negroes?” Cassie asked.

  Gianna stifled a gasp; she’d been too long without Cassie’s very politically incorrect tendencies. But before she could respond, Kenny Chang, sounding wounded, offered that he wasn’t queer or a Negro.

  “For purposes of this assignment, Kenny, my brother, all those who ain’t white and Irish, are queers or Negroes,” Cassie intoned.

  The laughter and cat-calls that greeted this pronouncement were an even bigger release of tension than before, and Gianna let them go for another few moments, so relieved was she at their return to the irreverent, spirited, cynical, intelligent bantering that was their hallmark and which endeared them to her. She joined in the laughter, ate two more spiced shrimp and drank another glass of ginger beer, before restoring order. “All right, gentle persons of all persuasions, lend me your ears.” And as quickly as the silliness had descended, order prevailed, and Gianna outlined in detail what the chief had told her, and then she told them what Marianne had told her.

  “That’s it?” Cassie asked incredulously. “That’s all we’ve got to go on?”

  “That’s it,” Gianna said, “but if there’s something there, it’s enough. Kenny and Linda, you two start with female deaths in the forty-to-sixty age range, everything but natural causes, concentrating on Jane Does and out-of-towners and going back eighteen months...no, make it twenty-four. Cassie, you begin at The Bayou and spread out to every woman’s bar in the region. Talk to the bartenders and owners—”

  Kenny interrupted. “Are they the only ones who get to go to The Bayou?”

  “Let me be sure I understand: You’re not a Negro but you are a lesbian? Bit confused, are you, Dearie?” Tim was at full-tilt queen.

  “I only meant,” Kenny finally managed, when
he could stop laughing long enough to explain himself, “that I want to be where that food is. Do they let men in? Will they let me in?”

  Cassie got up and walked around the table to Kenny and hugged his head. “They let in Negroes and queers, so you’ll be all right. Just stick with me, pal.”

  “How’re we going to know who’s a lesbian?” Linda asked into the moment of silence that followed the silliness, and nobody was on the same page with her. “The Jane Does, the out-of-towners, the DBs,” she explained. “They don’t have red “Ls” glued on them. How’re we gonna know?”

  “Concentrate on women in the target age range, and on any dead body that wasn’t claimed immediately. Use your noses, people, we’re playing hunches here, and in the final analysis, there may be nothing to find. But if there is, we’re going to find it.”

  “Boss?” Bobby spoke quietly and a bit hesitantly and Gianna knew what he was going to say.

  “What is it, Bobby?”

  “I like Alice Long just fine. She’s a damn good cop. But if Cassie’s ready to be back on the job, then why can’t she work the case with me?”

  “Good question, Bobby. And the answer is that Cassie isn’t ready to be back on the job. Her return is provisional, and she understands that, and I thought you all did, too.” Gianna gave Cassie a steady look and the young cop nodded. “She’s working a light schedule and I’ll be keeping a very close watch on her.” Gianna stood up. “Whoever’s taking food home, wrap it up. Don’t leave anything in here.”

  The Think Tank, home of the Hate Crimes Unit, in its former life was a small conference room directly below Gianna’s office. Newly furnished—“new” being a relative term—it held four wooden desks and two metal ones, one conference table, two new four-drawer file cabinets that actually locked, two new computers that actually functioned more often that not, a television and a VCR, and a paper shredder. A blackboard ran the length of one wall, and a projection screen hung on the adjacent wall. And, since the arrival of the new furnishings, there were mice. Nobody had seen them, though they left evidence of their existence. And they ate any and everything, making it impossible to leave a candy bar or a bag of chips in a desk drawer. And since not a single one of them professed to be willing or able to deal with a trap with a mouse caught in it, their only recourse was to try and starve the critters into taking up residence elsewhere.