Jake brought my coffee downstairs and found me struggling with my bra.
I had been prepared enough to bring some day clothes with me in case I stayed over. The denim joggers were a bit casual for day wear, but I just had to pull them on. The tunic was loose and flowing and dressed the outfit up a bit, but I couldn’t put it on until I untangled my bra.
“Can you help me out?”
This was a two handed-operation and I was down a hand.
He sighed and set down the coffee. I almost told him that he didn’t have to if I was too much trouble. Once again, the pain meds kept me from jumping to the wrong conclusion.
“I’m just one of the guys to you, aren’t I?”
“Huh?”
He turned me so he could get at the back of my bra where it had rolled up into an uncomfortable twist. He undid the back, smoothed out the stretch fabric and hooked me up again. A hundred years of progress and bras still did up with a hook and eye fasteners.
“What do you mean, ‘One of the guys.’?” I asked.
He eased the sleeve of my tunic over my bandaged hand. Then I pushed my other arm through before Jake pulled the garment over my head.
“I mean, you don’t see me as a man.”
“Actually, sometimes you remind me of my mother.”
With something between a laugh and huff, he sat heavily on the bed. I sat down beside him.
“I’m trying to treat you like my partner, like I treat Valerio and Mohr—who only saw me first thing in the morning because I fell asleep on the bullpen couch. How would you like me to treat you?”
“Like that, but…”
I didn’t find out what the “but” was. The Chief bellowed down the stairs that Mort and Nelly had arrived.
I called dibs on the Mort-mobile. Mort could only take one non-canine passenger in his customized HUV. That meant I could avoid lectures or questions for ten minutes. That was all the time it took reach the area where Stinktown bordered on the corridor of naturalized greenspace that divided it from one of the University’s fields. By any other name, it was a hedgerow. Industrial farming had eliminated most of them. Eco-farming brought them back.
Stinktown was one of the sanctioned shanty towns that ringed the city. Its name came from the odor emitted by the City’s Recycling Centre’s methane plant. No one wanted to live there except the people who had nowhere else to live.
Snow hadn’t accumulated in the city core, but out here there was a thin layer of white over everything. The odd assortment of temporary and semi-permanent buildings never looked better. The deeper snow near the hedgerow showed signs of rabbits and deer passing through. It made me wish I had taller boots with me.
Mort let Nelly out of the back and introduced her to me. She was a slightly shaggier, canine version of her partner, who looked like a human golden retriever. She gave me her paw and let me make a fuss of her for a couple of minutes. Then it was time for her to work.
“Crabbe says there are a couple of clearings in the hedgerow,” said Mohr. “Collins grew up in Stinktown and knew the area well. As teens, they’d party in there until the Stinktowners found them and kicked them out.”
“I need to give Nelly space,” said Mort. “You need to give me space. Kate, Nelly’s met you so you can stay with me. The rest of you hang back.”
“Kate’s injured,” said Jake.
“That’s okay. Nelly won’t mind.” Mort pulled a walking stick out of his HUV and handed it to me. “That’ll help you keep your balance.”
On the whole, despite the cold, wet and rough terrain, staying with Mort was probably the softer option. The Chief was angry at me. Jake was confusing me. And less of Mohr would probably be a good thing right now.
There was a clear area close enough to the road that I could see the black HUVs through the bare branches. Mort signalled me to stop while Nelly traversed the area, back and forth, sometimes stopping, but never lying down to indicate she found something. Periodically, Nelly would look back at Mort, Mort would look back at me and I’d look back at Jake following at a distance.
After a while the dull ache in my hand grew sharper. My painkillers were wearing off. On the upside, the effects of the opiates on my brain were wearing off too.
Crabbe said he witnessed Blake and Irene Collins get into a car with Therese Marten. Why? He didn’t live near the Collins’s at the time. What was he doing at the apartment complex?
If, as I deduced, Marten was the one under duress, would Collins have been able to force her into the car on his own? Maybe. Would he be able to do it without Crabbe figuring out what was going on? Less likely. Would he have gotten help from Crabbe? More likely.
Nelly looked back at Mort. Mort looked back at me. I nodded. I don’t know if he was looking for my permission to continue, but he had it.
However he may have aided Collins, Crabbe didn’t go along for the drive. He didn’t know what had happened to his friend. Irene probably knew and was burdened with that knowledge.
What did Koehne know? How did Koehne know Crabbe and Collins? Would they have gone to the same high school? How did the daughter of a prominent businessman marry a guy from Stinktown? Mr. Koehne Sr. was a good tenant and always treated me with courtesy, but he was a snob. Had Irene been a rebel before her spirit was broken?
What was Koehne Jr. afraid of?
I stubbed my toe on something under the snow and silently swore a blue streak. How the hell did Collins persuade Marten to walk this far?
Nelly looked back at Mort. Mort looked back at me. I looked through bare branches to my right on a field, lightly sprinkled with snow, and a dirt road, wide enough for a tractor.
Not long after, Nelly lay down. She’d found something. It was near a fallen tree that might have created an open space under its canopy when it was alive. Now it made a great bench.