CHAPTER 4: EVEN IF IT FREAKS ME OUT!
The very next morning Valerie woke up, feeling sweaty. She touched her forehead, swiping her hand over it, brushing the drops of sweat away. She didn't have a fever, her temperature was okay and there were no signs of any bodily malfunction. Yet, she felt sick.
Thinking back of the previous two days she realized she has had a lot to take in and deal with. There was Richard and his unfairness, then John and his betrayal, weirdly Dorian also managed to make Valerie feel uncomfortable. But then she found the best way to deal with them all without making a huge scandal out of it. Calm, collected and professional, those were the three basics in Valerie's life. Then again, if she was okay with how things unraveled, why was her heart beating abnormally? Why did she only sleep about two hours that night and the rest of the time she spent twisting and turning in bed, trying to shake the nightmares away?
Her phone went off, the alarm was a little too late to wake her up. There was a little memo line that popped up on her screen and she realized that was the source of her worries. Lazily she stood up and walked to the bathroom. Maybe a hot shower could help her relax. But it didn't.
Then she went to the kitchen, preparing herself some good coffee, but unfortunately that didn't refresh her either. Not even one of her favorite muffins could manage to calm her down. The heartbeat had a mind of its own and it was proving to be stubborn as well.
Opening her wardrobe Valerie realized two things. One, she only owned light-colored clothes. And two, she didn't want to deal with the events that would occur that day.
Her hands reached out for the only dark pair of trousers and a shirt before she slammed the door closed. For a second there she lost her temper. She was allowed to do so every now and then. But after that she was calm and collected, again…or at least on the surface.
The cell phone dared to distract her one more time. As she picked it up and put it on loudspeaker, she proceeded with throwing the clothes over her body in a very unenthusiastic manner.
"Valerie, how are you?" Sandra's voice was on the other side of the line.
"Hungry. And late for work." She replied calmly.
"You know what I mean…" Sandra was well aware of Valerie's habits. The girl would deny and pretend like something wasn't there if she didn't want to deal with it, at least in her personal life.
"Captain Maldonado, is there any reason for calling me this early in the morning?" Valerie insisted on hearing the reason why her morning routine had been interrupted.
"Actually, yes." Sandra sighed, hearing the girl call her by her surname. Too formal, she thought. "I would prefer you staying at home today. I already spoke to one of the detectives to cover up your shift and you will return him the favor on Thursday."
"Absolutely not!" Valerie grabbed the phone in her hand, her voice sounding powerful and loud now that her lips were speaking closer to the microphone. "Did you fail to notice how I felt when I got preferential treatment from Richard the other day? Come on, Sandra! Don't do this. I'm already dressed up, I'll be in the precinct in 15 minutes."
"But I thought today was the-…" Sandra got interrupted roughly.
"It is. I'm not going. I'm coming to work. End of discussion!" Valerie sounded headstrong and a little spoiled. None of those adjectives could ever apply to her character. So that meant that she was faking it, like it was some sort of a mechanism to cope with things.
"Do you remember the day we lost that young detective who had just joined our team two weeks before the accident…that guy who brought red roses for each of the female detectives on his first day of work? Yeah, when he got shot we were in the middle of a hard case and all of us were required to work overtime. This guy had no family, nobody that we were aware of. He didn't get to hear anyone's last goodbye, not even ours. He was just gone. Not necessarily forgotten, but just gone. Alone. He didn't deserve that. He had a beautiful ceremony, yet there was nobody to pay respect to him. A few agents came across after that, claiming they wished they could have gone to the ceremony instead of traveling abroad for our case. As a Captain I told them there was no way this could have been possible. As a human being, I felt bad and guilty for not being able to afford a day off, selfishly, for not being able to attend the goodbye ceremony myself." Sandra cleared her throat, giving Valerie a moment to soak the information in.
Apparently, it was working. Valerie stayed quiet.
"If I could turn back time and if I had the opportunity to steal myself a few hours that day, I would have paid my respect to him. I'm just saying! Not everyone is magically granted personal time off at the precinct. I just didn't expect you to be inappreciative of the gift that you could afford today. We have things under control here." Sandra made it a little personal. By making Valerie feel like she was being unappreciative she could get her point through much faster.
Valerie kept her silence for a while, realizing she would be ignorant not to take a hand that is being extended for her to hold when she needed it. And also, she realized how much she would regret not doing the thing that she didn't feel like doing that day. Sure, it would suck doing it. But if she refused, then in the long run she would feel just as guilty as Sandra did, about the officer they lost.
"Uh…Thursday sounds good." She said hesitantly, finally accepting the offer. Before Sandra could say another word Valerie had already cut the call short.
Valerie found herself driving in a different direction that morning. She knew that direction very well. A lot of her personal life was now stored in that direction. But that day she had to store one more thing there.
Arriving at the cemetery she took a deep breath before she walked out of the car. Everybody in the precinct knew how kind and generous Valerie was. They knew how much she cared about people. They had seen her help people out on more occasions than they could count. Apparently, Richard knew that Valerie hated the idea of someone close to her ending up dead. But nobody really knew why. And she would like to keep it that way. Because the truth was harder to fight than the constant battle of living in denial.
She walked down to the specific area that she had read earlier on her memo. She was right on time and it calmed her down to see that, unlike the officer that Sandra was speaking about earlier, this guy had people who actually turned up to pay their respect.
It was a closed casket kind of a funeral, given the specifics of the man's death. Valerie once again appreciated the fact that she didn't get to see him, cut down in parts and covered in blood during that case they had. Even just imagining what was inside the casket was enough to bring tears to her eyes.
She stood a little further from the friends and family. Her analytic side popped out when she started identifying the people. She saw the guy's uncle, the one who owned the bar where she liked to relax and drink something while watching the game, occasionally with her late friend. There was the guy's girlfriend near the casket, Valerie had seen a photo of her on his mobile screen before. The others were just people with no names, yet they were people with hearts.
Her eyes checked out the ones who started crying first. She assumed they were his college friends since all of them had the same hoodie on. Frat boys, maybe they were still close friends. The uncle and his wife seemed quite upset at first sight. Valerie knew that the guy had been brought up by them since he had lost his family at an early age. There was Baron too, sniffing the ground around the casket. It was an old Golden Retriever that this guy has had since he was a child. He had told Valerie stories about the dog jumping at the table and grabbing his food or refusing to stop barking in front of the door until the guy would let him sleep in his room when there were thunderstorms at night. Weirdly, even just a dog could feel and act like a human being. That gave a little insight to Valerie, on how Dorian might feel. He was an android, but that didn't mean he didn't need to be treated like a human being. There was no difference between the dog and Dorian at that moment. Both were alive and both were going through things and dealing with those things in their own weird way.
The one thing that Valerie was shocked to discover was that the last person to start crying was the girlfriend. Valerie had already shared a few tears by the time the girl's eyes watered. And it seemed forced, like she was annoyed that she had to cry. Valerie had encountered such behavior in the past, when someone would try to ignore the fact that they were sad, when they would distract themselves with anything else. But this felt different. The girl seemed genuinely uninterested in the surroundings.
"Haven't seen you before…" Someone stated, taking a few steps towards Valerie.
"What?" The sudden initiation of a conversation made her come back to reality. "Oh, yeah. I've only seen him a few times in his uncle's bar. He used to re-fill my glass for free and then we spoke a little bit. We like the same soccer team. And I guess that's pretty much all."
"I'm his college flatmate. We used to play soccer together, we both made the team. He was a cool guy, he wouldn't hurt a fly. I don't even know who would be cruel enough to shoot him like that." The guy looked Valerie in the eyes as he spoke.
One thing stood out to her. Shot? None of the three victims of the case had been shot. They had been stabbed and cut into pieces. But no guns were involved. "What happened?" She played stupid. Nobody there knew who she was. Even though the uncle had seen her at the bar, he had no idea she was a detective, let alone that she had direct access to the file of this case.
"He went out to get his girlfriend chocolate three days ago. He lives in a dangerous neighborhood so when he walked out of the 24/7 shop he got shot. All of his documents, money, cell phone, everything got stolen. I mean, is it really worth it to kill a guy for some cash!?" The guy sounded believable. It wasn't like he was the one lying. Clearly someone had fed him this lie.
"Three nights ago, huh?" Valerie asked for confirmation and the guy nodded. It was official, someone was trying to cover up what really happened. The guy died two days ago, in broad daylight, nowhere near the door of a 24/7 shop and nowhere near gun fire. Valerie's eyebrows rose up in confusion. "Will you, please, excuse me for a moment?" It was her most polite way to get rid of someone whom she had absolutely no intention of talking to any further. She would have stayed to chat a little more, but that would make her look suspicious. The unknown person at someone's funeral was a creepy cliché.
In fact, she had somewhere else to be instead. Walking by the uncle she noticed how he lowered his voice before he completely stopped speaking, acknowledging her presence. She finally reached the casket and saw the girlfriend standing there, still. For someone who had to force herself to cry she sure was keen on staying there and not moving an inch during the whole ceremony.
"Do you mind?" Valerie asked politely, wanting to say her goodbye. The girl nodded and found the best time to try and walk away, finally. "No, it's okay. You can stay. I'll be quick."
Valerie looked at the wooden thing in front of her. She had seen those before. Each time there was someone different inside, yet the pain inside of Valerie seemed to feel the same exact way. It really didn't matter how close the person had been to her. She would be depressed just the same. Tomorrow she could deny it at work, like she had done many times before. She would sit on her desk and casually flip files and papers left and right. But that day she was allowed to feel, to really feel the way she wanted to feel.
"Goodbye, my friend. You were a clever guy, smarter than you gave yourself credit for. Apparently you were a nice guy, too, seeing all those people gathered here for you today. It's sad to let you go, but I will keep the few memories I have with you. Thank you for the free drinks, I guess I drank twice as much as I'd paid for at that bar. And thanks for cheering me up when my favorite team lost miserably in Texas." She had nothing else to say so she continued with a little bit of a detective strategy. "It is ironic how you told me you've never been into a fist fight with anyone, yet here you are today, beat up to death, unfairly."
Half a second later the girlfriend had already bit the bait. "No, he wasn't beat up. He was shot. Outside the 24/7 shop. Three nights ago. He went there to buy me chocolate." The girl said quickly. For someone who was supposedly in shock, she sure was able to give a summarized description of what happened, stating shortly all the details, just like the ex-college flatmate had. The difference was that the guy had been clueless. But the girl sounded too quick, too organized, too neat in her words. It sounded…rehearsed.
Before the girlfriend could turn around to even look at Valerie's face, Valerie had already disappeared.
Meanwhile, in the precinct Valerie's presence was being missed.
"Where is Detective Stahl?" Richard walked by Dorian and John, casually throwing the question at either one of them who would happen to want to reply.
"Let me check…" Dorian ducked under John's desk, pretending to be looking around. "Uh, not here. Apparently."
Richard gave him a weird look before he turned to John. "I never thought I'd rather talk to you instead…" He started off, rolling his eyes at the way Dorian had replied. "But have you seen Detective Stahl? We are supposed to do something together and I can't find her."
"There's a first time for everything, Richard." John grinned. "Wait, what are you supposed to do with her?" He couldn't help the hostility that sounded in his voice.
"Play mini golf." Richard replied sarcastically.
"You know that by still calling it mini golf, you wouldn't appear to look any taller, right?" John smirked, yet he really wanted to know why Richard was so interested in Valerie's whereabouts.
"I don't have time for your attitude, Kennex. I need to find Stahl. If we're stuck on writing a report together, she might as well be here to do her half of the work." Richard waved his hand in the air as he walked away. He wasn't going to get a reply anyway.
So that's what it was about, a report. John exhaled contently.
"Is it just me or are all humans just as lazy as the two of you?" Dorian smiled creepily.
"What do you mean?" Walking towards his computer screen, John shot a glance at his work partner.
"The first thing I noticed this morning was the announcements screen. You know, the little thing that tells you important information…" Dorian pulled out an image of it on his hand, acting as if John had never seen it before.
"Cut it short. I have work to do and sadly I'm not assigned someone to help me with it. What's your point?" Irritation oozed from John's voice.
"I have two points. The first one being that I just understood what jealousy sounds like. Thank you, my mentor." Dorian stepped away, just in case. He had seen what John could do to non-humans when he was pissed off. "And my second point is that there was an announcement that Valerie is having the day off and someone else is taking her shift. But the good news is that Richard hates this guy and apparently they are stuck on doing the report together."
"The only thing I'm jealous of is that everyone else has a quiet and emotionless MX partner and I'm stuck with…you! Have you even fully charged today? You seem a little more off than usual." John rolled his eyes. "Your second point fails to amuse me. Richard hates everyone."
"I might have skipped the last installments of virtual life being poured into my system." Dorian put it in a way too complicated way, earning himself a confused look by John. "I mean I'm not up to my 100%. Deal with it!" He explained further.
John would rather do anything else, instead of dealing with Dorian's mood-swings. So he simply walked away to a place that was Dorian-free: the male rest-room. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and dialed Valerie's number. Three rings, she wasn't picking up. Four, no answer. Five, still nothing.
Six rings and there was her voice-mail. How was it possible that she sounded like she was flirting even on her stupid little voicemail message of five seconds?
"Val? Is everything okay? I saw on the announcements board that you're having the day off. I mean, uh, I was just calling to make sure you're alright. Call me if you need anything…" He trailed off, realizing he couldn't have possibly sounded like a bigger stalker, or a dork. Call me if you need anything…was he in the fifth grade? "It's uh, I'm John. Kennex. From, uh, from work. Yeah. Uh, bye." In his mind the part after the awkward silence was supposed to make up for the stupid way he used his words in the first one. But it didn't. He messed up even worse.
Worried, he returned to his desk and tried really hard to focus only on the files that were waiting for him. Soon he witnessed Richard finding out that he was supposed to work with this other guy and he didn't seem too happy about it. Dorian was right, it was good news, it felt great to see Richard struggle to cooperate with someone else.
Sandra walked down to the main hall, interrupting the current mission prep of some of the agents by letting them know the case with the three dead men was now closed. They had held in custody the owner of the company that occupied the floor where the bodies were found. The company dealt with wooden furniture. It sounded weird, it wasn't the typical venue for a triple homicide.
At the right time, Valerie barged into the precinct, running towards Sandra as she heard her concluding words that the case had been closed.
"NO!" Valerie said loudly, short of breath. She had fled the funeral and drove to work as fast as she could. "We were looking at it wrong. I have new suspects…oh God, is it hot in here or what?" She changed topic quickly, not giving anyone the time to realize what she was saying before she started pulling the black shirt off her body, remaining with a grey t-shirt. She hated the color black, plus, this shirt was going to be thrown out, possibly burned, after the use she made of it today. She didn't need another object to remind her of someone she had lost.
Dorian walked over to Valerie, pulling her hair aside and fixing the strap of her bra. He had no idea this was not okay, not to mention how inappropriate it was to do it in front of everyone.
"What? It was all twisted and turned…" Dorian noticed how everyone was staring at him. If John hadn't wanted to kill him earlier when Dorian mentioned jealousy, then it was now the moment to feel the need to hurt Dorian. Dare nobody touch Valerie…that was John's main concern. Why, he didn't exactly know…yet.
"It's alright, Dorian. Thank you." Valerie decided to make it a little less awkward for him before she continued with her theory. "Look, I just came back from the guy's funeral. I felt like something was off, I'm sure that it's worth it to at least check it out."
"Great. I guess we should dig a little deeper then." Richard hurried to make a completely idiotic joke. But seeing the subtle wince on Valerie's face when she was reminded of digging deeper, it made him regret even saying it out loud, at least not after she had attended a funeral.
"Valerie, we got a confession from the owner of the place. And it's your day off." Captain Maldonado tried to pull Valerie away, seeing as this new revelation was creating buzz and disorder around the work place.
"I don't care. How many times have we gotten fake confessions? What if he was forced to confess? What if we have the wrong guy?" Valerie was headstrong and she wouldn't let go until she would have checked out the new evidence she had.
"Okay, fine. Sit down with Detective Paul and figure it out. But please let my other agents work on their next case. We can't focus all of our energy into something that we have already figured out, even if the chances of being wrong about our conclusion are evident." Sandra murmured unhappily and retrieved herself back to her office. Sometimes she just didn't know how to deny Valerie anything. It wasn't that the girl was a brat who got everything for granted. No. In fact, she was sharp and brilliant and if she believed something was worth checking out then Sandra believed that too.
"Can I request working with Detective Kennex instead? I mean, only because I believe Dorian would be much more suitable for the case, given that we already would have one MX, my MX, we might need the help of a DRN as well." Valerie bat her eyelashes at Sandra and as much as it wasn't working as tactics, Sandra gave in. She was too busy to sit and argue with anyone. Plus, she didn't see any harm in Valerie's request.
Valerie and John found themselves having nothing to work with. Their best move was to go to the bar and start snooping for evidence there. John found himself tossing his car keys over to someone else, for the first time in his life he was doing it with a smile. Valerie insisted on driving. He had noticed how passionate she was behind the wheel many times before. Plus, it would give him the chance to look around without having to keep his eyes on the road all the time and that also meant that he could steal himself a few side-looks towards the brunette detective on the driver's seat.
Once they arrived at the bar Valerie handed John a pack of chewing gum and took him by surprise.
"Do I have bad breath or something?" John stared at her, seeing how she insisted on him taking a chewing gum.
"No, silly!" She laughed, it was soft and quiet. "Everyone in this bar is chewing. It's like a thing here. I know it sounds weird, I don't even know why they're doing it. Honestly, I never questioned it, I just take a chewing gum every time I walk in so I could fit in. But don't worry, this place is for junkies, I feel like everyone is high all the time. In fact, there were rumors that someone died here last month. People say he had overdosed."
"Remind me again, why do you even come to this place?" With a cringe on his face he took a gum.
"I've been here three, maximum four times. I came with that guy, my friend. It was cold outside and there was a game, plus, he offered free drinks from the bar. So yeah, that's pretty much it." Her shoulders shrugged a little. At work she was very strict, maybe even a little predictable since she always did the right thing, she thought ahead, she planned her moves. But apparently in life she sometimes liked to go with the flow and see where she would end up. Adventurous, John hadn't really considered that to be a word to describe Valerie, but apparently it was.
They both walked in and were instantly hit by the smell of cheap beer and melted cheese. The wall was covered in TV screens, all tuned in to different channels, playing and re-playing the games from the season.
Valerie was right, everyone looked a bit zoned out and weird. John almost got run over a dude who didn't even see him standing by the bar and it wasn't like John was tiny and invisible.
"It feels weird to be here as a Detective." Valerie said quietly. "I'm seeing this place with whole new eyes. It's so sketchy and weird."
"I'm glad you're the one to say it out loud. I was thinking the same thing." John kept on cringing. Even when he was chewing a gum, like everyone else, he felt like a complete outsider. Looking around he noticed something disturbing. "Why is all the furniture chopped out like this? And I'm pretty sure this guy over there is slicing off a part of that wooden chair he's sitting on."
"Oh, yeah. The furniture is quite crappy, it's old wooden stuff that is probably falling apart. I've noticed it too, people get drunk and they start chopping pieces of the furniture. I don't pay them attention. Like I said, the crowd around here is quite…ehm, particular." Valerie followed John's gaze and saw something even more disturbing. "Eww, did that guy just eat the piece of wood? Gross! Imagine how drunk he should be to do that?" She noticed one more thing, the man seemed to enjoy chewing on the piece of wood. Then she took her time to check out a few more tables, seeing people chipping off pieces as well and then secretly chewing on them.
"John…" Her voice came off worried. "Call Dorian in immediately. And my MX. I have a bad feeling about this weirdness." She mumbled, looking around like a criminal. She wanted to make sure the uncle or aunt weren't in the bar so she could investigate better, once their help would arrive.
"Please tell me your MX can drive a car? You don't want to know what happens when Dorian is behind the wheel." John whined while dialing Dorian's number.
Only ten minutes later their back-up had arrived. Valerie had chosen a table far away from the bar, in the angle, where they could all have some privacy. She took a knife out of her bag and chipped off a piece of the wooden sofa that she and John were sharing.
"Dorian, I need you to run a molecular scan on this." She gave him the piece and then gave instructions to her MX to record all data they would collect and to store it on a file on the office server, directly showing it to Captain Maldonado.
"It is 40% pure wood…" Dorian started narrating, the side of his face flashing in blue lights as he continued his scan. "60% pure Khat." He ended off, handing the piece back to Valerie.
"Who is Kat?" John asked curiously.
"Khat, John." Dorian took a breath before he poured out all of the information he could find on his servers, regarding Khat. "Khat, or also Catha edulis, is a green-leafed shrub that has been chewed for centuries by people who live in the Horn of Africa and Arabian peninsula. It has recently turned up in Europe, including the UK, particularly among emigrants and refugees from countries such as Somalia, Ethiopia and the Yemen."
"What are the effects of Khat?" Valerie inspected the piece of wood in her hands. It was soft, very soft. It had a particular smell, the kind of smell that she could never figure out the origins from, each time she had visited this bar. She squished the piece of wood easily between her fingers, it's formula made it the perfect chewing gum material: it wasn't too soft, but it was resistant enough to stay chewy for a while.
"Khat is a stimulant drug with effects similar to amphetamine. Chewing it makes people feel more alert and talkative and suppresses the appetite, though users describe an ensuing calming effect when used over a few hours. Regular use may lead to insomnia, anorexia and anxiety. In some cases it may make people feel more irritable and angry and possibly violent. Psychological dependence can result from regular use so that users feel depressed and low unless they keep taking it." Dorian's nerd side was adorable, Valerie loved the way he always spoke so fluently, so eloquently, so perfectly detailed.
"That would explain the lack of food on the menu. And the fact that people hang out here for hours. One time I saw a fight break out by the bar, it came out of nowhere, so there goes the violent side effect. And having the same crowd here every day would explain the dependence issues." Valerie summarized it from her own point of view. "MX, snap a few photos and send them to the Captain. Dorian, scan the surroundings, scan also the people and let me know their dependence levels. John, join me in the back-room, we need to find the uncle and to ask him a few questions." Valerie liked bossing around. She enjoyed being in charge and giving orders to others.
Walking to the office in the far back of the bar, Valerie noticed something else. "Hey, what was the name of the furniture company where we found the three guys dead?"
"Lork and Co. Why?" John stopped walking, joining Valerie by the wall of the bar.
"See? That's the business card of Lork and Co. Furniture Makers, right there, on the floor." She pointed at a dirty piece of paper, covered in oil stains. It seemed like it had been lying on the floor for a while.
"You think there's a connection?" John asked, picking up the paper and putting it in an evidence bag.
"Just making sure, Captain Maldonado gave us permission to turn this into an investigation, right?" Valerie squinted, thinking back of Sandra's words. All that she had said was that Valerie should go check out the bar.
"Uh, I wasn't listening. I came on board when she called me to her office, remember?" John's hand slid the new evidence in Valerie's handbag as she was holding it open for him.
"Let's pretend like she did, okay? If it turns out she didn't, then I'll just blame it on you." She giggled lightly, urging him to take another step forward, now looking over to a brand new and restructured side of the bar.
"This part here looks much better." He commented, seeing the new chairs, this time made of metal.
"Something isn't adding up…" Valerie thought out loud. "What if the uncle was working with Lork and Co, what if they made the furniture with this drug inside of it and then they split the money? I've never been given a receipt around here…but I've noticed people breaking big notes for paying just a beer. It's kind of genius, actually…he doesn't keep any drugs around, yet his whole furniture is the thing he's selling."
"What is that?" John's instincts made him look through the trash, finding a broken gadget.
"It's a drug-measuring detector." Dorian joined them, followed by Valerie's MX. "We're done. Maldonado just received the last bit of our evidence. What's going on around here?"
"Hmm. The bartender must have measured the drugs that each customer had consumed. That is how he knew how much each customer should pay. I've seen this gadget before, the larst time I came here. My friend, well, the one who died anyway, he told the bartender it won't be necessary to use it on me. I figured it was an alcohol test." Valerie continued speaking until her phone started to buzz.
"Detective Stahl?" Captain Maldonado sounded worried. "Update me!"
Valerie told her briefly all the conclusions she had come to. "Am I allowed to kick some ass now?" She asked cheerfully.
"Absolutely. Get the guy who killed your friend! I've just received information that the two other male victims were employees at Lork and Co." Sandra let her know.
"My friend must have figured out what was going on. My take is that he confronted his uncle and things went bad. The uncle warned the furniture company and they fired back, breaking the contract immediately. My friend must have overheard or maybe he figured out where the company was…or even he got those two other guys to cooperate, giving him information. That's why they all got killed…they were the good ones. I remember my friend told me, the last time we saw each other, that he had to take care of some important stuff. I joked, asking if the police would be involved, but then he just laughed." Valerie was on fire, her mind wouldn't stop even for a second.
"There is still something missing, Detective Stahl. Remember how this whole investigation started because you suspected the girlfriend?" Sandra sounded on the loudspeaker so everyone could hear.
"Yes. She was the most suspicious one of all. I just can't yet figure out how she fits in with the crime." Valerie felt someone shifting behind her. By the time she turned around and reached for her gun as a reflex, she saw another gun being pointed at her.
"Step back and hand me the phone." A girl said. Valerie nodded at John, as if to assure him the girl who had come out of nowhere and who was now in control, was indeed the girlfriend they were talking about.
"Relax. Put the gun down and we can talk calmly. I'm sure we can work something out for you as an accomplice, rather than making you the prime suspect. All we need is some more information on what is going on." Valerie put her hands in the air after throwing the phone to the floor. She was smart enough not to cut the call with Sandra, meaning that the Captain could still hear everything they were saying.
"Accomplice? You think I'm stupid, huh?" The girl laughed in Valerie's face, trying to juggle her attention between the two humans and the two synthetics in front of her. She knew she wouldn't have the power and control for too long.
"I just want to know about the drugs and who the uncle is working with." Valerie spoke again while John remained silent. He let her do the talking, she was much better in connecting to people and making them reveal their secrets. "We need to know who is behind this whole thing."
"Me." The girl replied coldly.
It was then that Valerie noticed a bump on the girl's stomach, making her feel uncomfortable as she tucked her shirt in so it wouldn't show.
"Talk to me. Why would you say you are behind this? What did he make you do?" Valerie could see a young girl in front of her, so her mind instantly assumed the girl was innocent and she had been forced to cooperate.
"You want to know what he did to me?" The girl started to get angry. She unfolded her top shirt, showing a tank top that was firmly wrapped around her stomach. "This! Her did this to me." Her hand pointed to the bump and her lips were quivering.
"Wait…you're talking about my friend…or his uncle?" Valerie's plan was working, she was melting the other girl and she would continue to do so until she got all the truth out of her.
"You wouldn't understand. Look at you, so perfect, so calm, so beautiful…" The girl held her gun with two hands now, her nerves were shaking and if the detectives did one wrong move they could end up getting shot. "I have nothing. I grew up in foster homes. I never had money to buy nice clothes or to go to a good school. Until I met him, your friend. He was so nice to me, he offered me a job here…but it wasn't paying for the education that I wanted to have. Then I met the uncle, the owner. He told me to suggest him a business plan and he said he might think about it. One night I was closing the bar and he was there too. He helped me put the old chairs in order. When I was just about to go home, he pulled me against him and he started telling me all those things, how he would take care of me, how I could get money and live the life I've always wanted. He told me to let my imagination flow, to figure out what young people need these days. And then one day I came up with the idea of the wooden furniture with drugs. He thought it was genius. We found the company who would produce them, he gave them a huge part of the profit so they would shut up about it if the police ever snooped around. It was supposed to be innocent, it started off like a game…but then the uncle kept on giving me cash, unlimited cash…and I could finally buy things for myself. I loved my boyfriend, but all he could give me was attention. And I wanted more. When the business took off and we gained loyal customers, the uncle decided he wanted something else…"
Valerie listened intently. The girl sounded like the victim, yet she was somehow the one pulling the strings, the one who came up with the idea, the one who chose to put love aside so she could have money. One thing wasn't adding up: the girl hadn't replied the question about the father of the baby.
"He found out you're pregnant from his nephew?" Valerie assumed, just to get the girl to continue speaking. There had been a moment of weakness when Valerie could have jumped and disarmed her, but she decided to play smart and to get the confession out of her first.
"Not quite." The girl's hands kept on shaking, the aim of the gun was somewhere between Valerie and John. "He, the uncle, wanted me. He made me feel safe, he gave me everything and then he took what he wanted. It started with flirting, but then he became rough and uncontrollable each time I pushed him away. I knew I did a bad thing about the drugs, I kept it a secret from my boyfriend for months. And then the more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that I'm a bad person. At one point I just stopped caring. One day his wife was on a trip with friends and he invited me home. He gave me wine and we spoke. I wouldn't have gone there if I hadn't been so depressed that day, I chewed a little bit of the drug after work and it took over me. The uncle made advances and I tried to stop him, but he was too strong. He tied me to his bed and…he…" The girl trailed off, taking a moment to herself, but clearly she was about to continue speaking.
"She's bluffing." John chose the worst moment to interfere. He saw her vulnerability and he took two steps forward, hitting her hand so the gun would fly away.
"NO!" Valerie shouted. Dorian and the MX were on standby.
The girl remained completely quiet.
"What did he do to you?" Valerie asked her, but she got no response. It infuriated her, how dare John interfere with something that Valerie was handling so well. "You're an idiot! Without a confession we can't touch the uncle, let alone have him as a suspect. Congratulations, you just ruined my case and her chances of seeing daylight until her baby turns 80." Valerie hissed at John, proceeding into handcuffing the girl.
"If I may interrupt your married couple argument, I'd like to point out that her heartbeat and her reactions while speaking indicate that she was telling the truth." Dorian held the handcuffed girl against him, ready to take her outside, to the car.
"Affirmative." Valerie's MX nodded.
As they all got in the car, Valerie stayed quiet. By the time they reached the precinct Sandra had already assigned a second team to go grab the uncle from his home, assuming that was where he went straight after the funeral earlier that day. The girl and the uncle found themselves in separate rooms, handcuffed to a table and ready for interrogation. Sandra had found out incriminating phone calls and e-mails from the uncle to the furniture agency, which were enough to have him as a second suspect.
Valerie insisted on being the one to interrogate the girl. She walked in the room with a soft, comforting smile. "My colleague has no idea how to handle these things. I apologize for his harshness. Now, why don't we take it from the part where you said the uncle tied you to the bed…"
The girl looked away, ashamed.
"I know how hard it is to come out and say such a thing. But this is the only way we could fight for your rights in jail…" Valerie kept her voice neutral.
"Jail!?" Panic took over the girl.
"Well, I'm not going to lie…you are going to jail, no matter if you confess about his actions or you take all the blame yourself. But think about your baby…do you want to give life to someone as a criminal or as a girl who had been forced to cooperate in an illegal action?" Valerie knew just how to speak, just where to hit.
"I hated the baby when I learned that I was pregnant. But then I realized it's not the baby's fault. It's all my fault. I wanted to make it right, but then things kept repeating and I couldn't even look at my boyfriend anymore. I thought one day I might be able to make up for the bad things I've done. I kept the baby, I wanted it to have the life I never had." The girl once again started to open up.
"Damn it, Stahl is good!" Captain Maldonado was watching the interrogation on a little screen, in a separate room. She was constantly being reminded of how good Valerie was at her job and how valuable she was at the precinct.
"You still haven't told me how it happened. You have to say it. The only way you could have a clean conscious is to give this baby a good example. Tell me the truth. What happened after the uncle tied you up? You have to say it, we need it for evidence." Valerie pushed one more time.
"You have no idea how it feels to say that!" The girl burst in tears, but weirdly she saw Valerie was about to have the same reaction. "Wait…do you?" She asked out of the blue.
Valerie gulped, looking away.
"Oh my God! You know what I've been through. Are you trying to save a piece of yourself by saving me? Is that why you said that you know how hard it is to admit such a thing? Have you ever admitted it to anyone?" The girl had previously warned them, she wasn't stupid.
"Crap!" Maldonado cursed underneath her breath, her eyes glued to the screen. "Hold on, Val! You can do it. Focus! Put your feelings aside. Remember, no emotional connection neither to the victims, nor to the criminals. Be strong, Valerie. Keep pushing!" Sandra kept on mumbling, appreciating the fact that she was the only one watching the live stream of the interrogation. Some things better stay a secret. And she had been keeping a few of Valerie's secrets for a long time now.
Valerie opened her mouth. It felt dry, her tongue stuck to her upper lip as she tried to lick it. Her throat felt blocked, like she couldn't breathe in or breathe out. Weirdly, contrary to all the dryness in her mouth, there was enough moisture in her eyes. She blinked a few times, taking a deep breath to steady herself. "Uh…You have one minute left. If you don't admit then we'll proceed building a case against you and the uncle will continue living with the money he made from your idea and with the wife that, I suppose, knows nothing about this."
The girl weighted her options. She could stay quiet and be miserable in jail while her child would get to live a miserable and sad life, haunted by the things she did. Or she could come clean. The second option sounded much better, given that Valerie obviously already knew what had happened.
"He forced me, okay!?" The girl said in between hiccups from all the crying. "He did it that night and the night after that and then again and again and again. He told me he loved me and that if I ever refused to sleep with him he would cut me out completely and send me to the street where I belonged. So I let him do this to me. That's why I couldn't even cry honest tears at my boyfriend's funeral. After a while I didn't know who I was anymore. When I found out I was pregnant my boyfriend offered me to move in with him. Then a month later he was found dead and it is all my fault!"
Valerie's eyes snapped wide open at the last confession. "What do you mean it was your fault!?" She asked quickly.
"I had some papers with the formula of the wood and the drugs. He studied physics in college, so one day I just let it lay around in his uncle's office. My boyfriend found them and then I pretended not to notice that he was staying up every night, trying to figure out what it meant. When he knew what the scheme was, I led him to the next clue: I put a business card of the furniture company in the trash can. He found that too and I heard him call them and make an appointment. I wanted him to solve this thing, for us…I thought maybe if the business stopped then I could have a chance of being with him and getting rid of the uncle." She kept on crying as she spoke.
"Did you tell the uncle when your boyfriend was going to meet the people at the furniture company office?" Valerie looked down. After all those emotions if the girl in front of her turned out to be a villain then Valerie would feel like a failure as a Detective.
"No. Of course not. I wouldn't do that. All the pregnancy emotions and hormones helped me realize that I wanted to be with him and that I had to try and make things right. When I saw the bar being renovated with metal chairs I figured out the furniture company had backed out of the deal already. It was the perfect time for my boyfriend to get involved and to help out. I thought he was just going to talk to the guys and get them to give him some useful information on the uncle so then he could go to the police. But the people from the office called the uncle and warned him about his nephew's sudden interest. All I know is that the next day I went to the storage room of the bar and I heard the uncle telling someone to "handle it". I thought he was placing an order, he's very aggressive with the guys who deliver the alcohol for the bar. He likes to speak like this, quite often. But the next day I heard my boyfriend was dead. That's all I know!" The girl concluded, exhaling and feeling relieved she wouldn't have to speak about it anymore.
"Okay. Just a few technical things. I need straight answers now. I see you keep avoiding the question, but is the uncle the father of the baby?" Valerie was writing notes on a tablet in front of her as they spoke. The girl only nodded, but it wasn't enough. "You have to say it out loud so it count as evidence in the courtroom."
"Yes. The uncle is the father of the baby. I'm sure of it." The girl replied.
"So, you changed your mind and you wanted to help out, indirectly, incriminating the uncle for the drug system in his bar?" Valerie tried hard to twist the questions in a way that she could use later on, to help her get some steam off of the pregnant girl.
"Yes. I wanted him to pay for everything he did." The girl yawned, clearly she has had a long day and she was tired.
"You fully realize that what you did was wrong and you are willing to take responsibility for your part of the scheme?" Valerie looked at the girl who seemed much more destroyed than she was at the funeral.
"Yes. Can I go home now?" She asked hopefully.
"Not really. I will see if I can get you to be under home arrest immediately. If we follow protocol we would have to keep you here for 24 hours. But I guess we can work out an ankle bracelet right away." Valerie shrugged. The girl wasn't pleased, but she knew she deserved it and this was progress enough. She had been quiet for too long.
"Thank you for your cooperation. I will see you again tomorrow, we will assign you a lawyer. Don't worry, you wouldn't need to pay. We will take care of that. Just relax a little now and I will be back with you shortly, hopefully with the ankle bracelet, meaning you would get to go home again." Valerie stood up, finding it hard to balance. The conversation had influenced her in ways she didn't expect after such a long time.
"Don't blame yourself." The girl whispered very quietly right before Valerie would touch the handle of the door.
Valerie turned around, wishing she didn't know what the girl meant.
"It wasn't your fault." The girl sounded genuine and it broke Valerie's heart. "You didn't deserve that. No girl does. Just remember he was the bad one and stop thinking you did something wrong."
Those words hit Valerie like a sword. For a moment she thought about the meaning. In this girl's case there was no innocent one. She was a criminal, although surely she didn't deserve what she got from the man. But making her thoughts more personal, Valerie wasn't sure it was always the man who was the bad one. She hated feeling regret and this was all that she felt at that moment.
Without gracing the girl with a reply, Valerie walked out. She commanded one of the officers to handle the ankle bracelet situation and she focused on finding the shortest way to the ladies room.
"Detective Stahl?" Sandra called out from behind her, but Valerie didn't turn around. She knew what the woman was going to say and she didn't want to hear it.
"Valerie!? Stop. Valerie!" Sandra caught up with Valerie just when she was pushing the door of the bathroom open.
"Don't say it!" Valerie finally let the tears flow. "I don't want to hear it one more time. Please, just give me five minutes and I'll be okay!"
"Shh!" Sandra walked in with her, holding Valerie close to her chest. "Calm down, Val. Please, just relax, try to breathe."
"I thought I was over it. I guess I'm not. I don't think I ever will be." Valerie's mouth felt dry again. The past was harder to handle than she thought.
"Look at me!" Sandra put her hand on Valerie's chin and softly pulled it up a bit until their eyes met. "To me you are the most amazing woman I've ever met. You're smart, funny, loyal, compassionate…" Her words sounded weirdly reassuring, yet Valerie couldn't stop trembling. "Someday you will meet a man who makes you feel secure. It takes time, but it will happen. You're going to have someone who worships you and who loves you for who you really are. And if he is the one for you, then he would accept you with all the things you've done. He wouldn't care about the details. I promise you, Valerie. I believe in you."
Valerie exhaled sharply and found it hard to inhale again. "Nobody is ever going to love someone like me. I know it. I'll just keep getting my heart broken over and over again. I hate men. Can't we have sex bots that are men? Or something like that, just not actual human men, please!?" Suddenly a smile crept on Valerie's face. One of the things about her was that whenever she got this emotional it only lasted a few minutes until she calmed down and started joking.
"Bang-bots? Did you seriously just ask me that?" Sandra laughed, finally letting go of Valerie when she felt her heartbeat steadying again. "I hate to be the one to break it to you, but substitutions for men have existed for years. You just haven't been to the right shops, my dear." Sandra couldn't help teasing Valerie about it. At the very least, the weird topic took some tension off of Valerie.
"Ha! I might have." Valerie blushed profoundly. "Now, can we forget about this whole thing? I don't want anyone knowing stuff about me, let alone that kind of things from my past. It's over and done and there's nothing I can do about it."
"Your secrets are safe with me. Always!" Sandra let Valerie have a couple of minutes alone in the ladies room. When she saw her back on her work desk, Valerie seemed composed and calm, as usual. Sandra knew the strength it took to fake this composure after a case that hit so close to a painful memory. It was one more reason why Sandra worshiped Valerie: her determination to be professional, no matter what.
The case got officially closed by the end of the day. The girl was sent back home with the ankle monitor, the uncle was in custody and his wife learned about all of his shady actions. Sandra publicly thanked Valerie for her contribution to the case when she was supposed to be having the day off. Valerie didn't like being praised in front of everyone. In fact, she hated hearing how good she was at things. She felt like it was a given that she would be perfect. And she had a very good reason to believe that.
After changing into her ordinary clothes, Valerie walked by the water cooler. The dryness in her mouth was the only thing left that showed she was still emotional about the whole thing.
"Good job, Stahl." John interrupted her train of thought, holding a plastic cup in his hands, waiting to refill it with water.
Valerie didn't thank him. She was quiet.
"You know…I have something for you." This time she didn't sound too joyful. He blamed it on the fact that she had a long and awful day.
"I have something for you, too. An apology. I shouldn't have disarmed her when you were trying to get her to speak. But hey, in the end you managed to get the confession anyway." He ended off happily, trying to make it sound like it wasn't a big deal that he messed up, hoping it would work.
"It's okay. We all make mistakes. In our job there's nothing perfect…" She gulped. "We are not perfect either. We all have our flaws. We do things we're not proud of and even when we think we've outgrown them, they keep reminding us of who we really are…" Valerie suddenly went into a weird state of thinking out loud.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, but just so you know, there is absolutely nothing that you could have done that might make me look at you any differently." Once again, he spoke up too fast. Apparently, John Kennex could be quite the charmer when he failed to connect his words to his brain before he would say them out loud.
"You have no idea how good it feels to hear that." Valerie smiled. For a moment she remembered Sandra's words, that one day a man would love her for who she really was and he would accept everything about her. John just said the same thing. However, he didn't know quite a few things about her. "Here, I got you this, in case you run out of chewing gums." She smirked, giving him a piece of paper, wrapped around a tiny piece of the drugged wood.
"Very funny. I'd rather have a chewing gum. Or an energy chew." He didn't know if his eyes were checking out Valerie's back pocket for an energy chew or maybe because her jeans were too tight and they made her shape look flawless.
"Here, have that chew then." She pulled an energy chew out of her bag this time.
"I have something for you too." He pulled out a purple paper and gave it to her as he had written its content earlier that day. "Read it when you get back home, okay?"
"Okay. Bye. I'll see you tomorrow." Valerie waved and quickly prepared to go home.
After a hot shower and some light dinner, she was finally in bed. The darkness around her felt creepy, but she needed her eyes to rest for a bit as all day long she felt like they were on fire, threatening to burst into tears a couple of times and then once finally completely losing control of the teardrops that were hiding behind the eyelids.
She opened the note and read it in the little ray of light that her scented candle was providing.
"If you need a friend to talk to, call me…anytime. John"
A smile graced her face, for the first time that day it was a genuine smile. She grabbed her phone and dialed John's number.
"Hey, Val." He picked up quickly, even though he had just fallen asleep.
"John…" He could hear her breathing deeply on the other side of the phone. He saw it on her face all day long, she was being strong, but on the inside she was really upset. He wanted to be the one to help her with it.
"Yes?" He gave her all of his attention.
"Would you change your mind if one day you learn something shocking about me and you don't know how to handle it? Would you stop talking to me? Or would you maybe give me a chance to explain?" By the tone of her voice he already knew that she wasn't going to confess anything. But he also realized that she didn't want to lose him, in the long run.
He thought for a moment. Valerie took his silence as a good sign. The faster he would have replied, the more dishonest his reply would have been. "You said, we all make mistakes. No matter what you've done, I can assure you the least I could do is give you a chance to explain, even if it freaks me out."
His words were honest, a little too honest. But Valerie preferred it that way.
"Promise?" She shifted in her bed, finding a comfortable position, lying on her back.
"Promise!" He said, this time quite quickly. Everything he did and said was perfect. She was once again mentally replaying Sandra's words from earlier.
"Okay. Goodnight, John." She heard exactly what she needed to hear. It was time to leave the man to his bed and his pillow.
"Goodnight, Val." He said shortly, happy that the next day he would get to see her, knowing that in a moment of weakness it had been him that she had called.
Valerie read the note a few more times before she blew off the candle. She fell asleep immediately. At one point a certain event from her past came to haunt her in her dreams, but the nightmare was interrupted when she woke up suddenly, holding on to something. With her left hand she rubbed her eyes until she was able to see the clock on the night stand. It was already half past three at night. Then her attention got drawn to the thing that she was holding tightly with her right hand. Unfolding her fingers she realized it was John's note. She was quite sure she left it on the side of the night stand, next to her mobile phone, right before she fell asleep. How did it end up in her hands? In a way, John had just saved her from a nightmare, his note interrupted it in the right moment, just when she was about to re-live a painful memory. In a way, John was there for her, indirectly, just when she needed him.
In a way, John and his notes couldn't be any more perfect!