Chapter : One week later: Saturday
"What did this guy do for a living again?" Tara asked as they stepped into a luxurious house in an affluent neighborhood. She moved her sunglasses up onto her head to get a clearer look around.
"He was an investment banker," Julian replied flatly. "I don't get these people. How they justify spending an exponential amount of money on all this crap." He added, spreading out his arms in a gesture to the surrounding household items. The interior was furnished with high-priced modern furniture as well as priceless antiques.
"If I had money to blow, I'd buy expensive crap too." Tara pointed out.
They climbed the stairway up to the second floor where the body had been found inside the master bedroom by the maid. They entered the bedroom which was equally well-furnished as the rest of the house. As usual, investigators from the crime lab and evidence collection unit were looking around as they searched the home for evidence while a road officer questioned the maid.
The body lay stiff a few feet away from the king size bed, a pair of gray flannel boxers the only article of clothing on his body. White foam dribbled out from the corner of the victim's mouth, his arms and legs sprawled out while blood shot eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling. There was a gash on the male's forehead where a trail of dried blood had trickled down to his temple. Strewn about the room were various empty bottles of liquor and several condom wrappers. A white powder residue was also noticeable on the night stand as well as a rolled dollar bill and a credit card, all of which ECU was snapping several pictures of.
Walking across the cream colored shagged rug, the detectives crossed over to Willow who was thoroughly examining the body. Tara's heart fluttered at the sight of the slim medical examiner, a feeling that she was still trying to get used to.
Tara was approaching from behind when Willow suddenly stood up and turned around, bumping right into her. At the feeling of the slimmer woman pressed up against her chest, Tara jumped back a step instinctively.
"Oh God," Willow breathed out, placing a gloved-hand over her racing heart. She closed her eyes for a moment, taking in a deep breath to calm her nerves down. "I'm sorry," she apologized as she opened her eyes, finding Tara staring down at her. As soon as the words left her mouth, she braced herself for a much anticipated telling off.
"It's okay," Tara responded, shrugging the incident off. The casual response earned her a stunned look from both Willow and Julian.
"Ah … I left something I need back in the car. Excuse me," Willow said after blinking away her surprise. Tara simply nodded and pivoted, allowing the redhead to sidestep around her. Tara watched on as Willow walked out of the bedroom, her internal turmoil wagging war.
"It's okay?" Julian asked incredulously, his facial expression matching the disbelief in his voice.
"It's just a bump. No big deal," Tara replied nonchalantly, turning her back to the other detective.
"No big deal? The last time she bumped into you, you told her to grow a pair of eyes," Julian rejoined. He remembered how angry the comment made Willow, the redhead staring daggers through her prescription eyewear at the silky haired brunette. That eventually developed into one of the most heated encounters between them to date and to Julian's recollection, the last time he saw the pathologist with glasses.
"What?" Tara squealed. "I did not say that." She frowned in thought as she tried to recall that particular incident. Now that she had realized her feelings for Willow, she was finding it hard to even imagine all the hurtful things she had said to her before.
"Oh yes, you did," Julian nodded dramatically. Tara was about to respond but decided against it when she saw Willow walking back into the bedroom from the corner of her eye.
Willow took a glance at Tara as she walked past her. She could feel there was something very different about the other woman's behavior. The air around her seemed more relaxed and the way she looked at her appeared to have softened considerably. The random shift in behavior was definitely getting under Willow's skin.
She kneeled down next to the body and measured its core temperature with a special thermometer she had just retrieved from her vehicle.
"So, Dr. Rosenberg, you got anything for us?" Tara asked, her voice shaking slightly. She was feeling nervous just talking to the redhead.
"Well, body temperature and the state of rigor mortis indicate that the victim's been dead for at least five hours. That puts the time of death somewhere between two and four o'clock in the morning," Willow answered as she read the scale on the thermometer. "No visible physical trauma except for the laceration on his forehead. Probably hit his head on the nightstand as he collapsed." She gestured toward the red splodge on the edge of the nightstand in front of her. "Most likely cause of death is alcohol poisoning or overdose … or a combination of the two. I'll know more after I perform the autopsy."
"Thanks," Tara said, earning her another round of stunned stares from Willow and Julian. She turned her head away slightly from the attention, scratching the back of her neck with her left hand.
888
"Thanks?" Julian asked for the third time, mimicking the tone she had used earlier. He tried to keep his attention fixed on the road in front of them as he navigated their way back to the precinct, but his mind kept looping back to the bizarre encounter at the crime scene.
"Can you stop that?" Tara questioned annoyingly.
"Thanks? I mean, what's up with that? You've never said thanks to Dr. Rosenberg before. Ever," Julian continued, ignoring Tara completely. He was stumped by his partner's sudden niceness to the person she had claimed to detest the most. "Even when she helped us crack-"
"I thought you've always wanted me to be nice to her. Now that I actually am, you are all over me. And might I add, in a really annoying way." Tara interrupted, shooting Julian an irritated look. She couldn't possibly tell her best friend the truth that she was having a crush on his crush. That broke the bro-code in so many ways.
"I did! But now that you're actually doing it, it seems kinda … creepy." Julian replied sheepishly as he shrugged his shoulders. Tara gave him a smack to the side of his head in response, causing him to lose control of the car for a brief second.
"Oww!" He took one hand off the steering wheel after guiding the car back into the correct lane, placing it on the side of his head. "Do you want to get into a car accident?" Julian barked.
"Sorry," Tara mumbled. She pouted as she wondered if Willow had thought that she was creepy too.
She reached out her hand to Julian and he flinched immediately. "Relax, I'm not going to hit you," she assured, batting his hand away from his head. She replaced it with her own, rubbing the area on his skull that she had smacked. "So what, you don't want me to be nice to her?"
"Yeah," Julian answered. Tara ceased her hand movement, staring incredulously at him, causing the dark haired man to skirt away from the contact. "Okay, you need to get your hand away from me." He added, fearing a reoccurrence of the beating. He felt safe enough to continue when Tara retracted her hand. "It just seems to me that you are suppressing your feelings. I fear for humanity when the two of you finally go at each other and explode."
In her mind, Tara had an entirely different take on the scenario of an explosion with Willow. She could feel her cheeks starting to burn at the thought. She shook it off quickly before the images got even more explicit.
"I guess I'm just tired of the squabbling."
"Yeah, either that or your fall did more damage than we realized," he jested, a cheeky grin spreading across his lips as he tapped a finger against his temple.
Tara let out a forced laugh at her friend's ill-timed joke. "From now on, I'm just gonna take her as she comes." Tara paused after realizing what she had just implied.
This time, her mind was powerless to the onslaught of explicit images. She struggled to banish them from her head. Her body's temperature was rising significantly as her breathing became labored. She cranked the window open slightly, relishing in the cool air rushing into the car as she stared blankly ahead of her with her attention focused solely on her R-rated thoughts.
Julian nodded thoughtfully as he drove into an empty parking space outside of the precinct, oblivious to the mental 'distress' his partner was undergoing next to him.
