Chapter 2
Detective Robert Goren stood outside his apartment building watching the tide of humanity sweep past him. It was a pleasant night in the city and that meant a lot of people were out enjoying the night air. As they walked by, Bobby couldn't help but wonder who they were, where they were going. People watching, after all, was the great New York past time. It was always fun to practice his profiling skills on strangers.
The guy with the scraggly beginnings of a beard and a well worn tweed jacket was headed home to his cat. Probably a divorced English professor with an old typewriter he believed would give him the inspiration to write the great American novel. He had a kid he didn't talk to and a subscription to the New Yorker. Every year he'd get a new crop of freshmen for his 19th century literature course and every year he'd try to get one of the freshman girls.
Then there was the heavily pierced and overweight teenage girl. A chain smoker already, and desperate to fit in. She carried a paper bag, likely a bottle of cheap peach schnapps that she gave a bum twenty dollars to get for her. If she was lucky, she was on her way to hang out with some equally outcast girlfriends. If she was unlucky she had a date with a boyfriend who would get trashed and pressure her into any number of sexual acts that would leave her feeling dirty and unfulfilled and give him ample material when he met up later with his friends to dump on the cow.
Bobby sighed. Maybe he was too cynical. He watched a woman strut by with a well dressed, much older man on her arm. Judging by his hand firmly stuck to her ass, she probably wasn't his wife or his daughter for that matter. He would definitely have his hands full with her tonight. He watched them walk away and noticed the woman's extremely short, extremely tight black skirt. How on earth did she manage to walk around in that? The skirt and the stilettos she was teetering on might be attractive, but they couldn't be that comfortable walking around the city. Well if the man had his way, the skirt wouldn't stay on for much longer. Bobby glanced at his watch and wondered where his partner was. Alex only lived five minutes away. She should have been there by now.
It occurred to him that Alex used to wear a similar miniskirt, long before he met her. She had said that she looked good in it and he believed her. In fact, he'd bet that she'd still look great in it especially with a pair of black leather pumps and a tank top. Suddenly an image of his partner dressed in precisely those clothes flashed through his mind. Damn his overly vivid imagination. His partner was a very attractive woman even in the considerably more practical outfits she wore for work. But the Alex that now occupied his brain was a virtual sex kitten. He mentally chastised himself. Alex was his partner, a cop, and a really good one at that. He tried to force out the inappropriate image with those thoughts but only succeeded in adding handcuffs, badge and gun to the outfit. Bobby groaned. Somehow this was even worse. He rubbed his eyes and looked up when an ambulance wailed past him breaking his reverie. He looked at his watch again and forced his thoughts into safer territory. Some businessman had dropped dead in his vichyssoise tonight, and because the mayor had been at the next table he and Eames had been called in. They didn't even know if he'd been murdered yet. For all Bobby knew, the old man had simply had a heart attack. He hated these politically charged investigations, especially when they turned out to be nothing. He'd much rather challenge himself with an intelligent criminal and a cryptic crime scene. He loved the hunt. Finally, Alex pulled up and they sped off towards the restaurant. As they drove, Bobby surreptitiously glanced over at his partner. Indeed, she was a beautiful woman especially with her face flushed like that. In fact, she seemed to be breathing a little fast. He suddenly wished that he could do that to her, make her blood rush and take her breath away. That thought quickly fled when Alex looked over and caught him staring at her. "Eames. Are you okay? You seem a little flushed." There, he thought, that should cover me. She seemed to buy it. She probably thought he was just concerned for her. But oddly her blush seemed to deepen. She made some random excuse, but for once Bobby wasn't really paying attention. He was mentally cursing himself for letting his thoughts get the better of him. Tonight, for some reason the promise of a potential crime scene wasn't enough to occupy his overactive brain. Tonight his thoughts were running out of his control. And Bobby didn't like losing control. They arrived at the scene and Bobby hurried inside leaving his partner to deal with the crowd of annoyed patrons and one very flustered looking assistant to the mayor. She was better at dealing with people anyway. The restaurant was crowded with blue uniforms trampling everything they could find and practically drooling over the well stocked bar. He sighed, went over to the first uniform and told him to remove everyone from the dining room. When would these guys learn? The victim was literally faced down in his soup. He walked over and leaned over the table to get a better look.
"Waiter! There's a guy in my soup!" Bobby turned around to see Deakins headed his way.
"They dragged you out here too?"
"Yeah. I'm supposed to meet up with the mayor's assistant and then coordinate the investigation back at the office. Please tell me this was a heart attack." "I can't tell yet. No obvious wounds but of course he could have been drugged." "Solve it quickly. The sooner we can get the mayor out of our hair the better. By the way, where's Eames?" Goren chuckled. "She's outside running interference and organizing witnesses. I'm sure she can't wait for you to take the mayor's man off her hands." "Well, I never was one to leave a lady waiting. I'll see you in the morning. Early." Bobby watched Deakins leave and then continued to stare at the body. Nothing shocking there. He lifted the man's head out of the soup and noticed some white foam around his mouth. He reached for a pen to start taking notes when he realized he didn't have his portfolio with him. Bobby jogged back out to the car. He never forgot little stuff like that. It's my own fault, he thought. If I hadn't been so distracted before. He hated the interruption to his thought processes and hurried to the car so he could turn his attention back to the possible crime scene. He opened the car door expecting to see his case waiting for him. Instead, it was nowhere to be seen. It wasn't on the floor or next to the seat. He reached under the seat. He pulled out first a plastic shopping bag, and then his portfolio that had somehow slid under there. He went to replace the bag when a box of pasta fell out. So that's why Alex had been late, Bobby thought. She must have been grocery shopping. He picked up the box and suddenly realized that she probably hadn't been at the local Foodtown. Bobby quickly glanced around to make sure no one was looking for him. His reputation would certainly not be helped if he was caught staring at a box of penis shaped pasta. And Alex would definitely not want him to see her unusual purchase. Replacing the box, he noticed that she'd bought more. His innate curiosity couldn't be ignored at this point, so he pulled out a thin package. Well this explains it, he thought. Alex must have a party to go to or something. I doubt she'd play "Pin the Macho on the Man" by herself. He smiled and put the game back in the bag when he noticed another purchase. This one turned out to be a video. "Hmmm. Ivy Manor." Bobby turned the box over to read the back. The video seemed to be a compilation of three vignettes centered around an 18th century manor house rented by three girlfriends. The first involved a garden romp with a Cockney groundskeeper. The second turned out to be a rather loose interpretation of a fox hunt. But the third.. Damn. Bobby shook his head to clear yet another extremely inappropriate image of his partner and shoved everything back under the seat. The entire world seemed intent on distracting him tonight. He ran into the restaurant this time, trying to shock his mind and body back to the task at hand. Bobby circled the table where the victim now sat slumped with his head against the chair and his face covered in potato soup. He bagged some silverware, handing it to the young CSU tech nearby. Finally, his survey of the table complete, he dropped to his hands and knees to look under the table. The tech chuckled as Goren's bizarre routine at crime scenes was by now a department legend. There was nothing of interest on the floor except for what appeared to be a black handkerchief under one of the chairs. Bobby whipped out his ever present if slightly illegal switchblade. Well it wasn't totally illegal. The police had a little leeway when it came to possessing weapons. He picked up the fabric on the end of the blade and then held it out blindly to the CSU guy. Bobby was about to get up, when a sudden, unexpected voice caused him to slam his head on the underside of the table. "A black thong by Cossabella! Someone's going to be missing a $125 pair of panties."
.TBC
Detective Robert Goren stood outside his apartment building watching the tide of humanity sweep past him. It was a pleasant night in the city and that meant a lot of people were out enjoying the night air. As they walked by, Bobby couldn't help but wonder who they were, where they were going. People watching, after all, was the great New York past time. It was always fun to practice his profiling skills on strangers.
The guy with the scraggly beginnings of a beard and a well worn tweed jacket was headed home to his cat. Probably a divorced English professor with an old typewriter he believed would give him the inspiration to write the great American novel. He had a kid he didn't talk to and a subscription to the New Yorker. Every year he'd get a new crop of freshmen for his 19th century literature course and every year he'd try to get one of the freshman girls.
Then there was the heavily pierced and overweight teenage girl. A chain smoker already, and desperate to fit in. She carried a paper bag, likely a bottle of cheap peach schnapps that she gave a bum twenty dollars to get for her. If she was lucky, she was on her way to hang out with some equally outcast girlfriends. If she was unlucky she had a date with a boyfriend who would get trashed and pressure her into any number of sexual acts that would leave her feeling dirty and unfulfilled and give him ample material when he met up later with his friends to dump on the cow.
Bobby sighed. Maybe he was too cynical. He watched a woman strut by with a well dressed, much older man on her arm. Judging by his hand firmly stuck to her ass, she probably wasn't his wife or his daughter for that matter. He would definitely have his hands full with her tonight. He watched them walk away and noticed the woman's extremely short, extremely tight black skirt. How on earth did she manage to walk around in that? The skirt and the stilettos she was teetering on might be attractive, but they couldn't be that comfortable walking around the city. Well if the man had his way, the skirt wouldn't stay on for much longer. Bobby glanced at his watch and wondered where his partner was. Alex only lived five minutes away. She should have been there by now.
It occurred to him that Alex used to wear a similar miniskirt, long before he met her. She had said that she looked good in it and he believed her. In fact, he'd bet that she'd still look great in it especially with a pair of black leather pumps and a tank top. Suddenly an image of his partner dressed in precisely those clothes flashed through his mind. Damn his overly vivid imagination. His partner was a very attractive woman even in the considerably more practical outfits she wore for work. But the Alex that now occupied his brain was a virtual sex kitten. He mentally chastised himself. Alex was his partner, a cop, and a really good one at that. He tried to force out the inappropriate image with those thoughts but only succeeded in adding handcuffs, badge and gun to the outfit. Bobby groaned. Somehow this was even worse. He rubbed his eyes and looked up when an ambulance wailed past him breaking his reverie. He looked at his watch again and forced his thoughts into safer territory. Some businessman had dropped dead in his vichyssoise tonight, and because the mayor had been at the next table he and Eames had been called in. They didn't even know if he'd been murdered yet. For all Bobby knew, the old man had simply had a heart attack. He hated these politically charged investigations, especially when they turned out to be nothing. He'd much rather challenge himself with an intelligent criminal and a cryptic crime scene. He loved the hunt. Finally, Alex pulled up and they sped off towards the restaurant. As they drove, Bobby surreptitiously glanced over at his partner. Indeed, she was a beautiful woman especially with her face flushed like that. In fact, she seemed to be breathing a little fast. He suddenly wished that he could do that to her, make her blood rush and take her breath away. That thought quickly fled when Alex looked over and caught him staring at her. "Eames. Are you okay? You seem a little flushed." There, he thought, that should cover me. She seemed to buy it. She probably thought he was just concerned for her. But oddly her blush seemed to deepen. She made some random excuse, but for once Bobby wasn't really paying attention. He was mentally cursing himself for letting his thoughts get the better of him. Tonight, for some reason the promise of a potential crime scene wasn't enough to occupy his overactive brain. Tonight his thoughts were running out of his control. And Bobby didn't like losing control. They arrived at the scene and Bobby hurried inside leaving his partner to deal with the crowd of annoyed patrons and one very flustered looking assistant to the mayor. She was better at dealing with people anyway. The restaurant was crowded with blue uniforms trampling everything they could find and practically drooling over the well stocked bar. He sighed, went over to the first uniform and told him to remove everyone from the dining room. When would these guys learn? The victim was literally faced down in his soup. He walked over and leaned over the table to get a better look.
"Waiter! There's a guy in my soup!" Bobby turned around to see Deakins headed his way.
"They dragged you out here too?"
"Yeah. I'm supposed to meet up with the mayor's assistant and then coordinate the investigation back at the office. Please tell me this was a heart attack." "I can't tell yet. No obvious wounds but of course he could have been drugged." "Solve it quickly. The sooner we can get the mayor out of our hair the better. By the way, where's Eames?" Goren chuckled. "She's outside running interference and organizing witnesses. I'm sure she can't wait for you to take the mayor's man off her hands." "Well, I never was one to leave a lady waiting. I'll see you in the morning. Early." Bobby watched Deakins leave and then continued to stare at the body. Nothing shocking there. He lifted the man's head out of the soup and noticed some white foam around his mouth. He reached for a pen to start taking notes when he realized he didn't have his portfolio with him. Bobby jogged back out to the car. He never forgot little stuff like that. It's my own fault, he thought. If I hadn't been so distracted before. He hated the interruption to his thought processes and hurried to the car so he could turn his attention back to the possible crime scene. He opened the car door expecting to see his case waiting for him. Instead, it was nowhere to be seen. It wasn't on the floor or next to the seat. He reached under the seat. He pulled out first a plastic shopping bag, and then his portfolio that had somehow slid under there. He went to replace the bag when a box of pasta fell out. So that's why Alex had been late, Bobby thought. She must have been grocery shopping. He picked up the box and suddenly realized that she probably hadn't been at the local Foodtown. Bobby quickly glanced around to make sure no one was looking for him. His reputation would certainly not be helped if he was caught staring at a box of penis shaped pasta. And Alex would definitely not want him to see her unusual purchase. Replacing the box, he noticed that she'd bought more. His innate curiosity couldn't be ignored at this point, so he pulled out a thin package. Well this explains it, he thought. Alex must have a party to go to or something. I doubt she'd play "Pin the Macho on the Man" by herself. He smiled and put the game back in the bag when he noticed another purchase. This one turned out to be a video. "Hmmm. Ivy Manor." Bobby turned the box over to read the back. The video seemed to be a compilation of three vignettes centered around an 18th century manor house rented by three girlfriends. The first involved a garden romp with a Cockney groundskeeper. The second turned out to be a rather loose interpretation of a fox hunt. But the third.. Damn. Bobby shook his head to clear yet another extremely inappropriate image of his partner and shoved everything back under the seat. The entire world seemed intent on distracting him tonight. He ran into the restaurant this time, trying to shock his mind and body back to the task at hand. Bobby circled the table where the victim now sat slumped with his head against the chair and his face covered in potato soup. He bagged some silverware, handing it to the young CSU tech nearby. Finally, his survey of the table complete, he dropped to his hands and knees to look under the table. The tech chuckled as Goren's bizarre routine at crime scenes was by now a department legend. There was nothing of interest on the floor except for what appeared to be a black handkerchief under one of the chairs. Bobby whipped out his ever present if slightly illegal switchblade. Well it wasn't totally illegal. The police had a little leeway when it came to possessing weapons. He picked up the fabric on the end of the blade and then held it out blindly to the CSU guy. Bobby was about to get up, when a sudden, unexpected voice caused him to slam his head on the underside of the table. "A black thong by Cossabella! Someone's going to be missing a $125 pair of panties."
.TBC