As soon as they walked into the station, the desk sergeant pointed in the direction of Lieutenant Nicholson’s office.
“Damn,” Vik complained as they walked down the corridor.
“Got that right,” Marti agreed. The cold cases they had been working on had not required too much face-to-face contact with the lieutenant, but every time they got a task force case, she couldn’t leave them alone. Vik thought it was curiosity, something he attributed to all females. Marti thought Nicholson was just being deliberately disruptive.
They stopped at the lieutenant’s closed door. As always, Vik knocked; then they waited the requisite three minutes for the lieutenant to respond.
Even after working with her for almost nine months, Marti had no idea why Nicholson did that. She liked to imagine the woman taking a quick shot of Jack Daniel’s, but her breath never smelled of alcohol or breath mints.
The lieutenant was a petite woman in her mid-forties. As always she was dressed in a conservative suit, gray today, with a white blouse and matching gray heels. She never wore slacks. Delicate features in a heart-shaped face were framed by short, naturally curly hair. Gail Nicholson could have passed for white if it wasn’t for her chestnut-brown skin.
According to Vik, the male officers Nicholson worked with would have considered her a real looker if she gave them even an occasional smile. Every time Marti saw her, her expression was stern. The frown lines around her eyes looked permanent. She came to work early and left late. Her secretary swore that the only personal calls she had received since she arrived last October involved finding and purchasing a town house.
“Just so there is no confusion,” Nicholson began, looking at Marti, “this new case changes nothing.”
Nicholson had not recommended them for the Regional Task Force assignment. She never made any direct reference to the fact that Marti and Vik were responsible for all regional homicide cases. She had never verbally acknowledged that those cases took precedence over hers.
“You are still working on my cases. I expect consistent, methodical progress and I want those cases solved, not filed again. I specifically want you to work on that case with the skeletal remains. Sixty years is much too long for a case to go unsolved.”
“Unless you’ve only known the case existed for nine months,” Marti reminded her. There was a complete skeleton in the morgue that was brought in ten years ago and still remained unidentified. Marti didn’t see any point in reminding Nicholson of that, or suggesting that might be the more logical case to work on.
“I understand your reluctance to take on a case this difficult, MacAlister. It does beg the question of whether a case is solved based on ability and intellect or luck and coincidence.”
Marti remained silent. In her opinion, all the lieutenant brought to the job was contempt and a lack of leadership ability.
“Lieutenant . . .” Vik began.
Marti added ego to that assessment when the lieutenant said, “Jessenovik, I suggest you look to the Emmett Till case. This case is our equivalent.”
“I also expect a daily online report by 10 a.m. on all activity completed the day before,” the lieutenant continued, “a complete schedule of all pending court cases, and a log indicating the amount of time you spend on the cold cases and this new one.”
“The task force case,” Marti said.
As soon as Marti said “task force,” Nicholson clenched her hand into a fist. Her mouth looked like she had just drank vinegar. “Let me put it this way, MacAlister, the time spent investigating the three cold cases will remain at its present level, but utilized to investigate the skeletal remains case. No overtime will be approved while you are working on anything else.”
Vik was gnawing on his lower lip to keep from smiling.
Marti didn’t say anything else. When Nicholson nodded toward the door, they left.
“Not bad,” Vik whispered as soon as the door closed behind them. “That crack about ability and luck was blatant sarcasm. Sounds to me like you’re really getting to her.”
Technically, Marti and Vik did not have to take any orders from Nicholson until the task force case was resolved. Until now, there hadn’t been any significant conflicts and those parameters remained untested.
“If she thinks I’m going to start working sixty-hour weeks because of her cold cases she can think again.”
“And the skeletal remains?” Vik asked.
“Intriguing, aren’t they?” she admitted.
They could smell the coffee brewing when they reached their office, but Slim and Cowboy, the vice cops who shared their space, weren’t there. Desks had been squeezed into the room to accommodate Lupe Torres and Brian Holmberg, the two uniforms the lieutenant had assigned to Marti and Vik on a time-available basis for homicide investigation training. Marti and Vik still referred to Lupe and Brian as their replacements, but the annual homicide rate rarely exceeded twenty and they hadn’t worked with either officer in almost a month.
Vik banged his empty mug on his desk. “She is a pain.” As he stood up he gave his chair enough of a shove to bang against the wall. “Emmett Till.” He stomped over to the coffeepot.
“Look at it this way, Vik. Sooner or later she is going to run up against Frank Winan. If she chooses to push it now, let her,” Marti said.
“But Emmett Till? What’s that case got to do with a bunch of old bones?”
“Nothing. This case is all about where our bones were found. She’s talking publicity.”
“Downtown renovation,” Vik scoffed. “If it’s headlines she’s after, the odds on getting any out of this are nonexistent. Unless one of us kills her.”
“Maybe she’s getting desperate,” Marti suggested. “And even though we don’t know how long the bones were there, Dr. Mehta did confirm that it was a male.”
“Right.” Vik threw up his hands. “We can’t even find a forensic scientist willing to take the time to tell us anything else. Nobody thinks it has any priority except Lieutenant Lemon.”
That was what everyone called Nicholson behind her back. The nickname had multiple connotations, everything from her facial expression to the size of her breasts to various sexual innuendoes.
Marti smiled. “She could be reaching the point where she can’t handle our working a case that she can’t control.” Still smiling, she put in a call to Dr. Mehta. Marti had not been happy when Dr. Cyprian, the former coroner, retired. But Dr. Mehta was just as conscientious and professional, and even better, he seemed more relaxed and had a sense of humor. “Tomorrow morning at the earliest,” he said when she asked about the autopsy on the victim retrieved from the river. “We still haven’t positively I.D.’d three of the victims from last night’s vehicular accident.”
“Great,” Vik said, when she told him. “Now we don’t have any excuse for not getting Lieutenant Lemon’s reports to her on time today.”
Marti felt a familiar lurch in her stomach, followed by the usual churning. “That does take care of today,” she echoed. There was always tomorrow, and another complaint, another demand, more criticism. There always was with Nicholson. She began checking missing person’s reports. They needed an I.D. on the dead woman ASAP. There was no way she wanted a task force case filed, but not closed.
Meanwhile, she needed to organize the little information that they did have on the three cold cases, and make copies of what they had on the skeletal remains so they could bring Lupe and Holmberg up to speed.
It was raining when Marti got home. Supper was ready, but she told everyone to eat without her while she took a shower and then filled the hot tub. Her stomach was alternately churning and taking acid baths since her encounter with Nicholson.
Ben came in while she was soaking.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Now that you’re here.”
“Nicholson?”
“Who else?” She opened her eyes, saw how tired he was, and said, “You look exhausted.”
“Ummm.” He undressed and sighed as the hot water covered his shoulders. “We need to talk later. Important,” he said, then, “Later. It’ll keep.” He dozed for a while, then dried off, got into bed nude, and fell asleep while she was massaging his shoulders.
Marti wanted to wake him to find out what he wanted to talk to her about and ask if he had eaten, but did not.