"Excuse me, professor?" one of the students had finally plucked up the courage to speak up and question our disruption,
The professor turned quickly to his class, "We will be taking a break for the next few moments; please remain quite while I speak to these detectives," I could hear an excited murmur go through the class,
"Are you telling me that you suspect that…this woman was…," The professor stuttered,
"Murdered? Yes that is what we are saying; and it only took you one guess! No wonder you are a professor," CJ quipped
"How much do you know about the man who delivers these bodies?" I asked the professor, who was now eyeing the body suspiciously,
"Nothing at all, not even his name, he just brings the bodies and I pay him, he delivered quite a load this morning, and he said he had one more he was going to get, and then he did not come back for hours! By the time he brought this body in it had been outside so long I almost did not take it, but I did; at half price,"
"This morning…" I mused; that made sense, he was speeding along and the body fell out, then he realized it was missing when he delivered but by the time he came back for it Max Ghant had already found it.
"How often does he come by?" CJ asked quickly,
"Once every two weeks he goes to all the medical school around here," the professor said, "You think the delivery boy killed this woman?"
"Maybe, maybe not, but we need to find him," I said,
"Try the school down two blocks on the right; Ecole Normal, he goes there I think,"
We hurried back to the cab, but I knew it was very unlikely we would find the man we were looking for; he had probably finished his merry route hours ago and was now safely hiding. Still, I raced the cab down the streets, nearly killing several people, and reached the school in record time.
As expected, the man was not there, however one man, a shriveled little thing called Nib who was a janitor at the school said the deliver man had bragged to him about buying a little flat on Rue Cher, 'not a bad place for a deliver man to be' he had said.
I was beginning to wonder if this had been such a brilliant idea to pursue after all,
"I wonder what Harris is going to say when we come back," CJ mused lightly as the cab raced dangerously in the direction the old janitor had told us to go in,
"He will probably tell us to never come back," I really believed this could be our undoing, "Next time we think we should try something like this," I began
"Oh…I will not let it happen," CJ finished.
When the cab came to the Rue Cher, we found ourselves surrounded by decent looking houses; not the grand mansions of the rich nor the crumbling tenement buildings of the poor. However, we had no idea which apartment the man we were looking for occupied.
"Well, any suggestions on how we find this man?" CJ asked as I stopped the cab,
"I guess we will just have to wait and patrol the street until we find him," I got out of the cab and eyed a café which was mixed in with the apartment buildings, "Are you hungry?"
"Starving, but we don't have any money,"
"You are right, we don't, but I do and I suppose I would be willing to buy you something,"
"Oh bless your kind soul,"
After purchasing two éclairs and two steaming cups of coffee, we began our watch of the streets. I hoped that we found this man soon because the afternoon was fast wearing away and I was having a growing feeling that when we returned to the station, we would be dragged off to prison.
We did not find him right away, and I was becoming very nervous when we finally spotted him; he had just left one of the apartment buildings and was walking toward us,
I quickly strode forward and caught his attention, "Excuse me, I need to have a word…" But the moment he saw CJ and I he turned and ran. I sprinted after him, CJ running by my side. I had never run so fast in my life and I found, to my great relief, that either I was good at it or he was bad at in. In any case we closed the distance between ourselves and the run away man and with one last effort, I pulled him to the ground,
"I didn't do anything officer, I swear," the man pleaded,
"Then why did you run?" I asked as I pinned his arms behind is back,
"What is going on here?" An authoritative voice said, and I looked up to see two men in police uniforms walking toward us,
"I am detective Phann, this is Breadshaw," I said hurriedly, hoping he would believe us, "We need to talk to this man about a murder,"
"You two are detectives?" The man asked quizzically; he was tall with a rather enormous pot belly,
"It's our first day," CJ explained and the man nodded,
"I see…," the man said and I could tell he was thinking about if he believed us or not,
"How about this?" the man's partner, a young thin man with sandy hair, "We could take him down to our station house, it is not far, and they could question him there?"
"Don't see why not," the pot belly said, "I am Roberts, by the way, this is Johnson,"
The station house was not far away at all, only several blocks down. We let Roberts and Johnson transport the prisoner as they had handcuffs and a considerably larger cab. The station house itself was almost exactly like the one we had walked into that morning, only the doors were blue, not red.
There was a back room used for interrogation, and our man was led there by Roberts and Johnson, and we followed. In the room, the suspect was made to sit on one side of a table, while CJ and I sat on the other,
"I did not do anything," the man stated for the millionth time,
"What is your name?" CJ asked him
"Why are you asking, darling?" He said, and CJ smiled, then she stood and walked over to the man, then she hit him hard in the side of the head,
"You bitch!" He shrieked, "Can she do that?" he looked at me,
"Do what?" I said with raised eyebrows, "I did not see her do anything, now what the hell is your name?"
"Robert Richardson, and I did not do anything,"
"You know, Robert, I am not inclined to believe you because everything else you have said has been a lie," I said in a harsh tone,
"I never lied!" Richardson yelled, and his eyes darted about the room
"Oh yes you did," CJ said, she was still right behind him and now she leaned over and whispered in his ear, "That story you told us about being a part of a government program, we know it was a lie, so tell us something else,"
"So I lied about that, it is not a crime to sell bodies to medical schools!" He was frantic now,
"It is a crime if you kill the bodies before you sell them!" I shouted back,
"I told you! I did not kill anyone, I don't know how that woman was suffocated!"
I sat back in my chair, eyes triumphant, "How did you know she was suffocated?" I asked evenly, and Richardson's face became pale,
"I was just…it was a guess,"
"I don't think so, you knew she was suffocated because you killed her!" CJ shouted from behind him, causing him to whip around,
"No, I didn't!"
"Alright, enough," a new voice said, and the door opened. A man who looked as though he was the Captain walked in and I guessed he had been listening and watching us through the two way mirror of the interrogation room.
"That will convict him," the captain said, "I will give you two credit for the arrest, but I can have two of my men bring him to jail, if you would rather go back to your own station house?"
I nodded, "Thank you Captain…?"
"Morgan," he said shaking my hand and then CJ's,
"Well, Captain Morgan," CJ said politely, "Do you think you could tell us how to get back to Etrange?"
Several minutes later we were headed back to the station house. We road silently, to tired to say anything. By the time we reached the station on Etrange, it was nearly dark outside.
"Where…the hell…HAVE YOU BEEN!" Harris shouted at us as we walked through the door,
"Solving a murder," I said lightly, and I stared back into his angry black eyes,
"WHAT?" He yelled, "You two take a cab, with out telling me where you are going,"
"We did not want to interrupt your lunch break," CJ said icily, and I noticed that several policemen around us dropped their eyes to the ground.
"That is not an excuse," he barked,
"What is all this about?" Dumas had come out of his office and was looking back and forth between CJ and I and Harris,
"They disappeared!" Harris shouted,
"Where did you go?" Dumas asked us calmly,
"We saw a body this morning," I began, "This afternoon we realized it was a murder and we found the killer and he is being taken to prison, you can ask Captain Morgan,"
"I will," Dumas said grimly, "But for today, get out of here, your shift is over,"
CJ and I trudged outside the station house, listening to the voices of Harris and Dumas as they argued. We caught a cab which took us all the way to our crumbling home. I remember I had never asked Dumas about a key as we entered the house. Exhausted, we climbed the stairs to our room. We dropped into the same bed and CJ threw her arm over my chest and hooked one of her legs around mine.
"CJ, I need to talk to you…" I began unsteadily; I needed to tell her something which had been growing on my mind. I enjoyed her very much, but I was still not free of Christine. I wanted to be; I knew CJ was good for me, she understood me and she cared for me, but I was still under the power of Christine's memory. I still could not love CJ…
"What?" She muttered,
"I…I just wanted to warn you, don't expect too much from me in the…the way of a relationship; I am still trying to forget Christine, and I can't…"
"You can't love me," CJ finished, and her voice had a definite sad tone in it, "Don't worry so much Erik," she tried very hard to sound nonchalant, and had I not known her the way that I did I would have been fooled, "I am not the kind of girl who sleeps with a man and then expects him to marry her," As hard as she tried to mask it, I could tell she was hurt,
"I don't mean to…" I began,
"Relax Erik, I don't love your either," with this she rolled away from me, I wanted to move to her and hold her; but I knew that would do more harm than good and that it was a selfish thing to entice her to give me her body if I was going to reject her heart.
I stared up at the darkened ceiling and cursed Christine for having a face which was literally feminine perfection; I cursed her sparkling eyes and perfect skin; and especially I cursed her angel voice. Compared to this vision of beauty, who else could stand a chance? Even though she had left me and shattered my heart; she had not finished the job well enough for a piece of my heart still beat; and it loved only her.
