A little more from the Mountie perspective. Posting earlier than usual to make up for the last one being so short. ~Ray K.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Dinner With Friends

RayK didn't bring up his dream on Friday, so I didn't either. When I joined him, RayV and Francesca at the precinct after my short morning shift at the consulate, they had begun working on a new homicide investigation. After we ate together in the lunchroom, Constable Turnbull came to give me the message from the inspector, and then he presented the song he had found for Francesca.

I took a little interest in Huey's proposal that he could find a country song she liked. I was fond of the genre myself, so I wished them success.

From the way Turnbull turned red at Francesca's kissing his cheek, I guessed that for my colleague, their friendship was something he hoped might become something more. That worried me a bit, and my worry was reinforced by the looks I saw on my friends' faces. A relationship is a difficult enough thing to sort out without competition. Still, I knew there was nothing I could do at that juncture, so I resolved to put it from my mind until action was called for.

I had gotten up early that morning and prepared a meal to serve my friends, so toward the end of the work day I extended an invitation to both Rays and Francesca. All accepted, as I hoped they would. RayK drove me back to our apartment building and we split up to change clothes. I put the oven on to preheat and then went to the door to let Ray in.

"Ray and Franny not here yet?" he asked me.

I shook my head. "They probably stopped somewhere."

"Have you got real dishes yet?"

"Yes." I pulled a stack of plates from the cupboard and handed them to him. "Thank you. If I'd had more time, I would have set everything out before we left this morning."

"Don't sweat it. I hardly ever set the table at all, let alone plan ahead."

I thought it must be nice to be so carefree about certain things. Of course, during our trek in the Yukon, I made little attempt at true place settings for us, but wilderness living is different by far. One comes to expect certain standards from urban living.

Between the two of us, we had the table completely set by the time RayV and Francesca arrived ("You seriously got cloth napkins?" Ray asked when I gave them to him), though I still had only two dining chairs. As I had thought, the Vecchios had stopped along the way: Ray had a bottle of wine and one of sparkling grape juice with him.

He approached me as I was getting the lasagna out of the refrigerator and warned that serving them some of his favorite foods was a risk, but I knew he wouldn't be too harsh if it hadn't turned out well. I made sure to give Francesca credit for the lasagna recipe before we got the meal underway, and her brother seemed surprised to hear that she had any interest in cooking. He had apparently missed (or forgotten) a few details about his sister while he was away.

I apologized about the lack of adequate seating and we discussed the thrift store-bought table and chairs. When I said I had sanded the table down, RayK exclaimed that he had heard me working on it. I hadn't thought the sound would carry into his apartment, and I was a bit chagrined, but he didn't seem very bothered by it. Still, I made a mental note not to work on noisy projects until a later hour, especially on the weekends when I knew people would be sleeping in.

RayK suggested playing poker while we waited for the lasagna to cook, and the rest of us agreed. I confess, I'm not much for planning entertainment; planning the meal itself had occupied my thoughts at the expense of everything else about the evening, so I was grateful for the suggestion.

Once the matter of teams was decided, RayV dealt the cards. His skill at dealing them impressed RayK, and the game helped us all adjust from our working mindset to a more relaxed one. Every time I play cards with RayK, I learn a bit more about the game, or at least get a helpful review. I still wouldn't say I'm very accomplished at it, but RayK did say I was "starting to get it."

I couldn't help but admire the Rays as they tried to outwit each other in the round that seemed never to end. RayV remained inscrutable as he calmly raised the stakes over and over. RayK seemed more agitated, but determined not to give in. Even though RayK ultimately won the round, I wouldn't say he necessarily displayed more skill than RayV. They seemed evenly matched with their separate approaches.

When I returned to the table after getting the lasagna out of the oven, Francesca asked if I would like to sit down for a while. That triggered RayK to realize that he could have brought over some bar stools from his apartment. RayV offered to help him get them, and I was left alone with Francesca. I sat across from her to wait for the others.

"I like your place," she told me.

"Thank you," I answered. "It's still a bit spartan, but I'll soon remedy that."

"If you need help with anything—curtains, linens... anything—you just let me know."

"I'll do that." I searched for something to say as the silence stretched out. Then we started to speak at the same time, and I told her, "Please, go ahead."

"I was just gonna say that in all this time, I've never been in this building before. Ray was over at our place now and then, but we didn't come here."

"Why is that?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. Never really had a reason to come, I guess."

"Mightn't it have made his false identity more convincing if you had?"

"Maybe. But if my brother moves out, I don't know that I'll be at his place much. Maybe I'd help him move in, but we don't hang out a lot."

"Perhaps that's something you'd like to change?"

"I don't know." She fell silent a little while, thinking. Then she looked up at me. "What were you going to say before?"

I shook my head. "I've completely forgotten," I told her truthfully.

She smiled. "Oh, well." She looked past me toward the door. "What's taking them so long?"

It had been a couple of minutes since the Rays set out after the stools, and it was clear that something had distracted them.

"I don't know," I said. "Ray must have spotted something in Ray's apartment that interested him and started a conversation about it."

"Yeah, that's probably it. Probably something about cars. Those guys and their cars are like... new parents with their babies, you know?"

I smiled at the comparison. "Something like that. I suppose we all have our particular attachments that aren't readily understandable to others."

"I guess. There is this one brand of clothes I really like... and my lipstick." She conscientiously got out a compact mirror and checked her lipstick.

"It looks very nice," I said.

"Thanks. This one's called 'Red Letter Day.' A classic stand-by for me." She put her mirror away. "So, what's your little attachment?"

I was suddenly aware of Diefenbaker staring pointedly at me. "There is Dief," I said. He wagged his tail. "I do like travel by dogsled. Rather than knowledge of engine repair, you just have to have the right supplies and presence to keep a sled team working for you."

"I'd like to see you dog-sledding sometime," she said, her eyes seeming to look through me, as if she were watching the proposed scene far away.

"You should try it sometime. Even Ray has been on the dogsled with me before."

"Ray, my brother?"

"Yes."

"That must have been something."

The Rays returned with the stools then.

Francesca greeted them by asking, "Where'd you go to get those stools, Canada?"

"Sorry," said RayK. "I was telling Ray about that dream catcher Fraser made for me, and then I decided to show it to him, and I couldn't find it at first." He put a stool on the kitchen side of the table, and RayV put the other on the opposite side.

"Ah, I wondered where it had gotten to," I said.

"I told Ray he could have it... since you really made it for him."

I didn't know what to say to that. I had been planning to tell him he should try hanging it near his bed to see if it made any difference about the nightmares—it certainly couldn't hurt to try. But he had a point: I had originally designed it for the other Ray. I looked at RayV and confirmed, "Well, yes. That is true."

I got up to bring the lasagna over to the table, since it had cooled down a bit by this time. I noticed Diefenbaker taking up a strategic position by Francesca's chair and warned him to behave himself. I got the surly reply to which I had become accustomed.

While I was serving the lasagna, RayV got a phone call from Lieutenant Welsh. I heard him ask quietly, "You couldn't have called ten minutes ago?" I didn't know what exactly it was that he would have liked to avoid, except perhaps helping RayK retrieve the stools, but that didn't seem likely. When he finished his call, he told us that Giuliano De Luca's associate, Antonio Passero, had been located and would be arriving in Chicago in time for De Luca's arraignment Monday. It was a matter of some priority to persuade Passero to testify against De Luca, since he had intimate knowledge of the man's crimes, and would certainly be able to ensure a more severe sentence for him.

The Rays discussed their strategy for interviewing Passero, while Francesca and I conferred on my slight deviation from her lasagna recipe. Everyone seemed happy with the way it had turned out, and I was pleased.

Then came the visit from Ms. Tate which momentarily derailed our relaxed evening. She was reluctant to talk in front of my guests, but led by RayK, they gradually conveyed enough goodwill to convince her to open up. I was the first to make the connection that the man named Tate who was in lockup downtown happened to be the landlady's son.

I invited Ms. Tate to sit down, and she began telling us more about her son.

"Andrew isn't a bad boy," she said tearfully. "But he and his father had a strained relationship, and he finally left home just to get away from him. I should have done more, but... well, I don't know what I could have done. After Tom left me, I hoped Andrew would come back, but by then he'd taken up with some bad friends. You know the type—smoking, cussing underachievers."

"A bad influence can do a lot of damage to a person's integrity," I said solemnly. I had seen it happen too many times before not to know exactly what she meant.

"Yes, you're right." She sniffed hard. "I tried to tell him, before we fell out of touch, that if he'd only give up some of his bad habits, he could come home and we'd try again, but... he wouldn't listen. And then I heard he was in jail—out of the blue, after I hadn't heard from him for six months!"

"Have you gone to see him?"

"His lawyer said... said he didn't want to see me!" she gasped out in a new round of tears.

RayV shook his head. "I'm sorry, but we can't make him see you if he doesn't want to. He's got rights... not many, but he's got 'em."

I patted Ms. Tate's hand. "But there must be something we can do. Perhaps I can try having a word with him."

"Oh, would you?" she asked. "That would mean so much to me... just to know why he won't see me. And to tell him that whatever happens, we can work it out."

"First, of course, he will have to agree to see me. But if he will, I'll do my best."

She squeezed my hand. "Thank you so much!"

"Not at all."

I invited her to stay for dinner, but she said she had already eaten.

"You are an angel, officer Fraser," she said.

"It's constable, ma'am. But you may call me Benton if you prefer."

She smiled. "All right. Tell me as soon as you've heard anything."

"I will." I walked her to the door. "Please don't worry," I said before closing it after her.

When I returned to the others at the table, the conversation was all on Andy Tate and whether the situation with his mother might encourage him to be more cooperative. Once the Rays determined their course of action, the serious mood gave way to our previous one of relaxation.

Over all, I felt the apartment warming had gone well, and I was pleased with the way my friends were getting along. RayV hadn't seemed very enthusiastic about having RayK for a partner when they first began, but now it seemed that they were developing a good working relationship. It bode well for the court proceedings and investigations to come.

I was pleasantly surprised when RayK stayed to help me clean up afterward. I knew he didn't enjoy household chores, which made his willingness to help all the more significant. He was shaping up to be a very good neighbor. Although, he did tell me not to get used to it.

Your support is greatly appreciated. ~B. Fraser