A/N: Yes, I know I haven't updated in a very long time… Sorry, guys! I will try to keep updating but I can't make any promises. Chances are good, however. I'm on Spring Break and we're coming up to a very cool part. So… sit back, relax, and enjoy the fic! Critique and reviews very much appreciated! Thanks so much to those who have read and reviewed! And, again, SO sorry for the long delay.
+SPECIAL THANKS TOEPHEMEREAL FOR BETAING+
A knock on the door. "Mr. Sherman?" Angela called through the door. She knocked again. "Mr. Sherman, this is the police. We need to ask you a few questions. Mr. Sherman!"
There was no answer, no faint, muffled footsteps. Nothing.
Frowning, Angela turned her face to Xavier, who was eyeing the door coolly. "This is starting to get suspicious," she said.
"Guy has secret girlfriend, doesn't want his secret to get out, kills secret girlfriend, skips town. Great relationship."
Angela shook her head slightly. "It's not enough for a warrant." She turned back to the door. "What are the chances that if I knock again, he'll answer?"
"Not real likely."
Angela turned away from apartment number 23 and began to walk down the cramped, white hallway. Xavier walked with her.
That morning, they'd finally gotten the autopsy results. Alicia Bennet had been killed by a butcher knife, and unluckily—or perhaps luckily—for her, the initial stab had severed a major artery. She'd bled to death quickly in some place that was not the alley, and then her body was dumped. It didn't seem that she had put up a struggle, for there were no defensive wounds and there didn't seem to be any castoff blood or skin under her fingernails, although definitive DNA results were not back yet. All they had were the tweed fibers, the blond hair, and the butcher knife.
"So where to now?" Angela asked as they made their way to the stairwell.
Weiss was about to answer when, behind them, the door to apartment number 23 creaked open. Instantly, the two detectives turned to look. A tall, heavyset man stood at the door, blond, in a stained white undershirt and jeans, probably pulled hastily on when the pounding on the door woke him up. His hair was a mess and he looked to be in desperate need of a shave and shower, half-dead even.
Hangover.
"You two-you two the ones knocking?" the man asked, putting his hand to his head and leaning against the doorframe.
"Are you Dan Sherman?" Weiss said.
"Depends," the man replied. "Who the hell are you?" Obviously, he hadn't heard them yell "police."
Both Weiss and Angela took out their badges. "We need to ask you some questions," Angela told him.
"This 'bout Alicia?" Weiss and Angela stayed silent. After the man thoroughly examined the two detectives, he stepped back and fully opened the door. "Come in," he called over his shoulder, already moving further into his apartment. Angela and Weiss exchanged glances before following and Weiss closed the door behind them.
It was a simple, three-room apartment, with a bathroom, kitchen, and living room/bedroom. But it wasn't the worst Angela and Weiss had ever seen. At least it had its own bathroom and seemed to be free of cockroaches, although for all the two detectives knew, it might well have been infested. Mr. Sherman went straight for the kitchen (a small room with chipped, dirty counters, ugly dark brown cabinets, and an antiquated fridge), grabbed a glass from beside the sink and filled it with cold tap water. He put it to his head, turning to face Angela and Weiss as he leaned against the countertop. "Well?"
"Did you know Alicia?" Angela asked.
"Yeah, I knew her. I was her boss, what the hell do ya think?" Mr. Sherman closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with the cool glass.
"What kind of relationship did you two have?"
He paused before he spoke. "A boss-employee relationship. What else do ya think?"
"Mr. Sherman, if you're not telling us something—"
"What something? I was her boss, she was my employee!" The simple act of raising his voice seemed to strain Mr. Sherman and he groaned and leaned into the glass.
"Do a lot of drinking last night?" Weiss asked, changing the subject so as to put the man more at ease.
"How'd you guess?"
"Mr. Sherman…" Angela began.
"All right, all right. I went out to a bar last night with some friends. It's not every night a girl at your job gets killed."
Angela wondered what it would be like to work under those circumstances but she said nothing. Her voice was gentler this time. "Did you know her well?"
"She was my employee, like I jus' said. Dontcha listen? But she was a sweet girl, I'll give her that."
Weiss and Angela both offered small smiles. "So we've heard," Angela said.
Weiss was about to ask Mr. Sherman where he'd been the night of Alicia's murder when the man spoke again. Apparently, even with his brute persona, it really didn't take that much to get him going. "Damn shame she wasn't single."
Weiss and Angela both froze, though in his hung-over state, Mr. Sherman didn't notice.
"She wasn't single?" Weiss asked.
"What, no! Pretty thing like her, she's taken." Although Mr. Sherman did not sound particularly innocent, Angela and Weiss nevertheless pounced on the new lead like cheetahs on elderly pray, even though it was very likely that Alicia had just told her pervy manager a fake story to get him off her back.
"Could you tell us who she was seeing?" Angela asked, her pen poised to take down the person's name in her small notebook.
Mr. Sherman took his head. "Girl neva even told me she was seein' someone till I started teasin' her about the hickeys on her neck. She blushed and denied it, the little-" The guy broke off with a nervous smirk, rolled the cup across his forehead.
"Would you know of anyone who would know?"
Mr. Sherman scrunched up his brow and opened his mouth; both detectives were expecting a negative response. He paused, closed his mouth, then spoke. "Have you asked 'Licia's parents?"
Xavier and Angela were careful not to look at each other. "Is there anyone else, Mr. Sherman?" She was careful not to add an explanation for her inquiry; if anything, it would only serve to make the man suspicious, no matter how hung-over he was.
"Um… the girl's grandma, prolly. She came in sobbing one day until some old lady came in an' picked her up. Guessin' it was her grandma."
Well, Angela and Xavier hadn't heard of any of this before. "Do you have any idea what upset Alicia?" Xavier asked.
"No idea. The girl wouldn't talk. It wasn't too long after I spotted the hickeys so it could've been a fight with her boyfriend." He paused, and his eyes widened. His hand lowered the glass and placed it on the countertop. "You don't—"
"—When did you say this was?" Angela interrupted.
"What? Oh, um… dammit." He put a hand to his head, stretched his neck on both sides with shut eyes. "Two, three weeks ago? I'm sorry, I should have, I just didn't think—"
Xavier spoke, trying to comfort the man. "You couldn't have known." Mr. Sherman nodded and Angela asked the necessary question. "Mr. Sherman, where were you the night of April 11th?"
"You don't think I-"
"Mr. Sherman, it's a standard question. Please answer it."
"I don't remember, I was probably at home, vegging out in front of the TV."
"Can anyone verify your whereabouts?"
Angry, Mr. Sherman shook his head. "No, I was alone. Now I've answered your questions. Go find her real killer, would ya?" Sherman pointed towards the door, moving the glass around on his forehead.
Angela closed her small notebook. Typical reaction. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Sherman," Xavier said.
"Yeah, now go find her killer. Get out."
Mariah Stiller, Alicia Bennet's grandmother on her mother's side, was a real piece of work. Unwilling to appear frail like the rest of those old grannies, she dyed her hair chestnut brown every other month. She coated her face in makeup, and had she had enough money, she would have gotten more than just one facelift, though for an 80-something year old woman, she had a surprisingly small amount of wrinkles. Both kindly and eccentric, she was incredibly easy to get along with, and her small apartment was filled with all sorts of knick-knacks, from old tea sets to wooden Aztec statues, from pictures of kittens and flowers to woven Indian rugs. Only her furniture seemed to be uniform: plain and comfortable, the sort most elderly people seemed to have.
After a lifetime of hardship and happiness, despair and delight, collapse and creation, Alicia's death had finally defeated her.
The strong, aged woman was now a small and broken being, a creature unsure of herself and the world around her, like a terribly shy, abused child. She sat on the soft, mellow gray couch in her petite living room, a bright, multi-colored woven blanket wrapped around herself. Standing before here were two detectives, and she watched them demurely.
"Alicia? Fighting?" she asked in a tiny, brittle voice reminiscent of dry brown leaves crackling underfoot, crushed into silence and dust.
"Yes, with anyone, anyone at all that you can think of. Friends, family, people from her college. Was there anyone she didn't get along with?" Angela replied.
"Or got along with too well?" Weiss added.
"I-I don't…" The woman swiped a shuddering, wrinkled hand under each eye, getting rid of expected tears that were not yet there.
"I'm sorry, I know this must be very hard for you," Angela said. "But anything, anything at all that you can tell us might help us catch her killer."
Ms. Stiller said nothing for a minute, only examined her hands, the plain golden wedding band she still wore, the tan rug on her floor, the shoes of the detectives, the bottom of her small writing desk, her whitewashed walls… anything and everything that did not require bringing her head up or looking at the detectives' faces.
She was thinking and trying her best not to think all at once.
Angela and Weiss gave her the time she needed without comment. They'd seen this sort of thing all too many times before.
"No," she said at last, bringing her tired, cloudy blue eyes up. "No, Alica didn't fight, she didn't—didn't fight. Some people just didn't, they just didn't understand, but she never, he would never—" She broke off.
"Who didn't understand?" Angela pressed.
"People, I—her father, he never, never really got her and Cindy, but she was such a good girl, and it was just a phase… Just a phase… Her and Cindy, such sweet girls."
Weiss and Angela exchanged looks. The meaning behind these words was unmistakable.
"Were Cindy and Alicia romantically involved?" Weiss questioned and Angela watched the old woman intently.
Mariah Stiller was incapable of answering. Instead, she murmured one last thing, her eyes again fixed on the floor, but this time, she saw none of it. "Such sweet girls, but how Stu and Claire would scream…"
Alicia Bennet had been a lesbian, and Cindy hadn't just been her best friend; she'd been her girlfriend. And it seemed the parents had not been too pleased.
There were now three fresh suspects: Cindy—a lover's spat, perhaps?—and Alicia's parents—had the disappointment of a lesbian daughter finally gotten to one of them? If neither of these leads panned out, they would try Cindy's parents.
To Angela, the father was starting to look good for the murder. He was an older man, he had a tweed coat. Not only that, but Angela was beginning to allow herself to feel it, feel where the vibrations of influence led her.
It was time to do some return visits, it was time to consciously use her psychic abilities.
And if things panned out, it was time to get a warrant.
They visited Cinderella first but they didn't need a glass slipper to find her after the Ball, didn't have to get past an evil stepmother and stepsisters to speak to her. All they needed was her apartment number, which they had.
"What do you want now?" she demanded the moment she opened the door. It seemed she had finally gotten dressed and was wearing a ruffled, jasmine tube-top with faded blue jeans. Her eyes were no longer bloodshot. Cindy didn't have it in her to cry anymore; her body and soul wouldn't allow her any more tears, not for a while, at least. She couldn't handle it.
Angela didn't sense any traces of the Fallen on the girl and felt a pang of sympathy as she answered. "I'm sorry, Cindy, but can we come in?"
The college student looked at them both for a moment, but although she seemed as worn out as the grandmother had been, there was the strength of youth in her, an inner core of titanium holding her up and together, permanent super glue of the psyche.
"Whatever." She turned and walked to the left of the door, towards the edge of the miniature entrance hallway. She wouldn't take them into the living room this time; this interview would be quick. They'd talk here, and since the detectives would be right beside the door, they'd be able to leave quickly. She could not endure a long interrogation.
Once they were in, the door shut behind them and Cindy turned, her arms crossed.
"Cindy, I need to ask you something, something that's probably going to be very difficult for you. I need you to answer truthfully."
Why did she have a feeling that she knew where this was going?
Unlike in the fairy tale, Cinderella was resigned to her fate. Her Princess Charming was gone and dead, after all. She wasn't going to be swept off her feet.
"Were you and Alicia Bennet romantically involved?"
It took Cindy a moment to answer but she did, forcing herself to look straight at Angela as she did so. "Yeah, yeah we were."
"Your parents, what did they think of that?"
Cindy smirked. "My parents? Are you crazy? They didn't know."
"And Alicia's parents?"
Cindy paused, unsure if she liked where this question and answer session was going. She looked away, examined the scuffed hardwood floor underneath her bare feet, examined the black molding at the bottom of the skin-colored wall.
Cindy looked back up at the detectives, Angela especially, willing to answer. "Her mother was in denial, complete denial. Her father, he was too, but not so much. 'Licia didn't want to admit it, but he was pissed."
"I thought we told you everything you needed," Alicia's father said and Angela and Weiss noticed how badly his pants and tweed coat were wrinkled, as if he did not even have the strength to change clothes.
"We just have a few follow-up questions," Weiss told him.
"Did you have any problems with your daughter, Mister Bennet?" Angela asked, watching the man carefully.
He was strongly taken aback and looked as if he had just been told his home and life's savings were being given to the latest lottery winner. "What? No, of course not."
"Where's your wife, Mr. Bennet?" Weiss asked, also observing him closely.
"She's asleep. The poor woman has hardly been able to close her eyes without sobbing since Alicia's death. What does that have to do with anything?"
"We need to talk to her again."
"Why? What is this about?"
"Just a routine follow-up. Nothing more."
"Well I'm not going to wake my wife." The man crossed his arms, looking at the two of them fiercely through half-moon spectacles. "You can come back when she's awake."
Angela said, "We'd like to ask you a few questions, then, if that'd be okay."
"Hey, while you're here questioning me like some sort of criminal, my daughter's killer is out there!" Mr. Bennet exclaimed, fiercely brandishing his arm and pointing to the door. "Are the police so incapable of apprehending him? Are you all so impotent?"
Neither Angela nor Weiss said a thing at first. They did not even look at each other. They had seen such outbursts so many times before. However, Weiss spoke first.
"Mr. Bennet, the sooner you cooperate with us, the sooner we can find your daughter's killer."
The man stood before them, just about shaking with rage. They could see the sweat running down the side of his face.
"Get out," he said at last.
"Mr. Bennet, please," Angela said, but she was interrupted by the man himself.
"Get the hell out. Get the hell out!"
What could they do? They got the hell out, but when they left, they were also a hell of a lot more suspicious than they had been when they'd entered.
"If you think of anything, you know where to find us," Angela said before they left, and with that, they were gone, although as promised, they would be back to talk to Mrs. Bennet.
"What do you think?" Angela asked once they were on the street, walking over to his car, a nice looking, gold Ford Taurus.
"I think we should get a warrant."
"Sounds good to me."