Force of Habit: A Falcone & Driscoll Investigation (14 page)

“Gross.”

“Well, if you like that candy, maybe, but as fertilizer it can’t be beat. You can use it on indoor plants, and your house won’t smell like the toilet overflowed.”

The weak basil.
“Does it work on herbs?”

“Anything. Do you have a garden?”

“Herbs and tomatoes in pots.”

“Tomatoes love our fertilizer. I’ll bring you a sample bag tomorrow. It’s not expensive at all, either.”

Frank appeared in his doorway.

“Am I losing my mind, or did I hear someone singing about alpaca poop?”

The photographs surrounded the Driscoll Investigations
lettering on the frosted window Wednesday morning. The hall light behind Giulia’s head reflected off them in different spots, obscuring a face here, an arm there.

Blake Parker stood naked in one, the bath towel at his feet. She lay on her bed in another, her knees propping a book. Except the book that should be there wasn’t. Instead, Blake’s head was buried between her legs.

Her on her knees, eyes closed, her open mouth filled with Blake’s very erect penis. She’d knelt on the bed and yawned. She remembered, because just then Blake had laughed out loud with the laugh track on the TV. But in the picture, she knelt on the floor.

Her bent over the bookshelf in her T-shirt, looking for a book. Only in this photo Blake stood behind her and even she would swear they’d spent an X-rated night together.

Clunk
. Her travel mug slipped to the hall floor.

“Giulia? You up there? I saw you get off the bus.” The street door slammed and Frank’s head appeared at the top of the stairs. “I got an idea about us doing surveillance in shifts, and I want you to work out a schedule—”

He stumbled on her coffee mug, his eyes following hers to the door display.

He stepped backward, looked at her, looked at them, stepped forward. The bookshelf photo, on top of the
D
in
Driscoll
, sat exactly at his eye level.

His head jerked left, right, up, down.

“Frank, I don’t know—”

He snatched the bookshelf photo and tore it in half. He ripped down the one where she should have had a book on her knees. Then he stopped, inhaled, and exhaled. With care, he pulled the remaining photos off the door, bending onto their backs the pieces of tape holding them.

Giulia reached out to help. Frank jerked his head
no
. She picked up her mug. A few drops had spilled. She hadn’t noticed the aroma of French-vanilla hazelnut filling the narrow hall until just now. Her fingers fumbled the key out of her purse, but she managed to unlock the door.

Frank shoved the door open ahead of her and strode into his office. Giulia leaped and caught the doorknob before the door crashed into the wall.

“Can you come in here, please?” Frank’s words snapped like karate students breaking boards.

He should be angry at the faked photos, not her. Maybe that was it—they were too nasty to keep, but they were evidence of the stalker’s willingness to pervert the truth.

She’d have to analyze them. With Frank. And discuss how cleverly their stalker made it look like she and Blake spent an... athletic night together.

He held the pieces of the torn photo in his hands. “Tape.”

She ran to her desk and back with the tape dispenser in her hand.

“Set it down. I’ll put them together.” When that one was repaired, he dealt the photos onto his desk like a game of solitaire. “A full-frontal shot of our client naked and wet. Did he take a shower?” Icicles edged his voice.

“Yes, when we got in.”

“My partner on her knees to our client.” He glanced sideways at her; his freckles made too sharp a contrast to his skin. “Did they teach you those prayers in the convent?”

Giulia shied but stood her ground. “Frank, you can’t possibly think these are actual pictures.” An irrelevant thought captured her attention: she was glad she’d worn her dowdiest gray skirt and shapeless slate-blue blouse today.

“Blake on the couch, looking—I see a pattern here—looking very happy. As though he’d just finished doing something pleasurable.”

Giulia pinched her lips between her teeth. When she could control her voice, she said, “He watched sitcoms because I don’t get cable.”

“I especially like this one. My partner’s double bed seems to be plenty big enough for one adult to inspect the other for... what? You’ll have to tell me.”

Icy fingers crawled down her back.

“And what book were you looking for so diligently? I’m glad Blake was able to help you.” He lined up the last one at the edge of his desk. “This might be my favorite. Not every PI can hold up her hips at just the right angle to accommodate the client’s cock.”

She sat in his client chair before her legs gave out.

“Did you need to get a closer look?” He offered her the last one.

“They’re faked.” Her voice wobbled.

“Your tomato plant is doing quite well. I can almost smell that broken stem on the far side.”

“I told you yesterday that nothing happened. We went to dinner, he slept on the couch, he drove me to work in the morning.”

“He took a shower, too.”

“Yes. So?”

“You omitted that detail in your report.” He brought that photo closer to his eyes. “You really should buy larger bath towels. How can our clients get ready for you to accommodate them if they have to use substandard bathroom supplies?”

“Frank!”

“It seems you omitted several details in your report yesterday. When were you planning to tell me about this new service you’re bringing to the firm?”

“Of course I didn’t tell you about the shower. Everyone takes showers. It wasn’t important.”

“What do you consider important?” He picked up the bookshelf photo. “Which book you needed?” The bed photo. “How adept he was at oral sex?” He slammed it down. “How many times you came for him?”

“Stop it!” Giulia swept the photos off the desk and they scattered over the floor. “Yes, he came out of the shower like that. He gave me that arrogant grin and said it was my choice whether he slept naked or not. I told him that we were professionals and that we expected the same of him, and to put on his clothes. I locked myself in my bedroom, he watched TV, and we both went to sleep.”

Frank’s teeth ground together, and he breathed in a too-steady rhythm.

Giulia searched the floor for the Blake-on-the-couch photo and the Blake-by-the-bookshelf photo. “Look.” She set them side by side on the desk. “Look at Blake’s smile. It’s identical in both photos. Head a little thrown back, the same number of teeth showing. Even his hair has the same curl on the side of his forehead. Whoever took them just flopped the photo to trick us.”

“You’re going to stand there and tell me that Blake Parker stood naked in front of you and you refused him? What runs through your veins? No woman’s ever said no to Blake.” He grimaced. “Including two of my girlfriends.”

“Yes, I refused him. Look at these.” She dived and came up with both bed photos. “I had a book on my knees here. I remember, because it was hot and I didn’t want the sheet.” What she wanted to show him wasn’t clear in the 4 x 6 print. “Do you have a magnifying glass?”

“I’m not Sherlock Holmes.”

“Yes, you do—in the fingerprint kit.” She squatted before the filing cabinets and opened a bottom drawer. Her still-shaking fingers needed two tries before she dislodged the jeweler’s loupe from its form-fitting plastic slot.

He had to believe her. He had to see that they were fakes. Clever and detailed, but all lies. She respected him. She was trying desperately not to fall in love with him, but she couldn’t think about that right now. She’d stumble over every word she wanted to say to him.

She moved the loupe up and down her thighs in the bed photo. It had to be there. A line, a blurry patch, something the eraser program missed. Nothing. She switched to the kneeling photo. There must be a stray fold of bedsheet. Under her toes, or between her knees— “There. Look.”

Frank bent over the loupe. “What am I supposed to see?”

“Behind my right knee. That’s not my area rug, it’s a piece of my sheet.”

“It’s blue. The rug is blue.”

“It’s a different texture. It’s wrinkled. Don’t you see?”

He flicked away the loupe and the photo. “You’re digging yourself a deeper hole.”

“I did not do anything wrong!” Giulia bit her lips to squelch the shrillness in her voice.

Frank leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs. “You lied so well yesterday that I can’t wait to hear what you’re about to say.”

“I didn’t lie to you yesterday.”
Don’t cry. Absolutely don’t cry. Reason with him. You’re both adults.
“Frank, you know me better than this. You know I would never compromise the company. I would never take advantage of your trust.”

“My oldest brother once told me never to trust a nun, because they were out of touch with reality.”

“I’m not a nun anymore.”

“And you’re certainly making up for lost time.”

Try another way. Explain it photo by photo. Forget that they’re nothing more than porn. You have to convince him.

“Where’s the towel one? Here.” Giulia pointed to the left side of the photo. “You were just in my apartment. Look at... aha. Look at the angle of the couch against the bookshelf on the far wall. When Blake pulled his studmuffin act, she must have crouched outside the window with the tomato shelf. That’s why you can see the tomato plant and why the TV doesn’t block him.”

“You’re going to tell me how she—and I do agree that our stalker is responsible for this entertainment—how she took these through closed curtains. You closed them when it got dark, of course, so no one could see in. Because you’re a... lady.”

If he’d slapped her across the face it couldn’t have stung more. “No, um, I was making up the couch. It was hot. I didn’t think about the curtains till I felt a breeze when he came right up close to me.”

“I see.”

“And this one.” She deliberately stared at herself lying on the bed. “I got a book from the shelf because him being on the other side of the wall distracted me.”

Frank emitted a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan.

“The last time I saw a naked male was when my little brother was a baby and I gave him baths. Blake offered himself to me, all naked and wet. He’s, he’s... ” Her tongue chose that moment to bond to the roof of her mouth.

“A walking magazine cover.” Frank’s jaw clenched.

“The image of him stuck in my mind and mixed up with the guy in the park. I needed to think about something else.” She dropped the bed photo and picked up the bookshelf one. “Compare him in this one to the one from the living room. He has the same expression on his face. His image is reversed.”

Frank raised his eyebrows.

“Look at it.”

“I got quite an eyeful in the hall, thank you.”

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”
Shut up! Stupid broad. Mouth like a scolapasta
.

His mouth curled into a sneer, slowly, like he wanted her to catch each muscle twisting into contempt. “You seem to have forgotten the boundaries of polite society. I must admire how quickly you learned to do whatever it takes to please the client. A lie here, an offer of service there. Should I have wished that you offered to please me first?”

He turned his face away a moment and inhaled sharp and deep. When he turned back, he’d adopted an aloof smile. “For example, I’m interested in hearing you try to explain how that’s not Blake Parker’s blonde and chiseled head shoved into your—” He cleared his throat. “Give it your best shot.”

Ten minutes ago, she would’ve sworn he trusted her implicitly. “I got a book and went back to bed. The curtains were closed, but the window was open and they blew in on the breeze. I spread the book on my knees. That’s why my legs are up and why she could make it look like, like...” In her mind, another image superimposed itself on the photo. “She made me look like the Barbie she sent me.”

Frank took the photo
from Giulia’s hand.

“Isn’t that nice of our stalker. Now I know what to get you for Christmas. Franciscans wear black, don’t they? I’m sure I’ll be able to figure out the right sizes from the photos. They’re so clear.”

The crotchless underwear and cut-out bra appeared in Giulia’s mind. The hot, airless office closed in on her the way her apartment walls had last Friday.

“Frank.” Her voice cracked. “I thought you trusted me.”

“I did.”

“How can you not believe me?”

“I believe what’s in front of my eyes. I believe that you lied to me about Monday night and you’re lying now to cover yourself.” His hand brushed the impossible oral-sex photos. “Cover yourself. I’m such a comedian.”

“I never touched him!” Her hand covered her mouth. If she took it away, would she scream at him?

“Of course not. You had nothing to do with Blake’s erection that you’re so attentive to.” He snatched that photo and pushed it into her face. “How fast you learned to prefer sucking to biting.”

She slapped him. Surprise filled his eyes. She hadn’t realized how empty they’d been.

“Oh, Frank, I’m sorry.” She rubbed her stinging hand. “I lost my temper.”

“Was it as easy as losing your virginity?” He steepled his fingers in a classic Sherlock Holmes pose. “That is, if you still had it to lose. One does hear stories about the goings-on in convents these days.” He smiled through his tented palms. “I wonder about the real reason you left.”

A ball of fire and ice filled Giulia’s stomach and boiled into her throat. She willed steadiness into her voice. “I swear on the Cross of Christ I am innocent of everything these photos imply.”

“Don’t blaspheme the Cross, Ms. Falcone. I might not be a good Catholic, but I do remember that Dante punishes blasphemers by eternity in a desert accompanied by a continual rain of fire. You might want to study up on that.”

He gathered all six photographs and slipped them into his jacket pocket. “Before all this excitement, I remember I had an idea about surveillance. Please make up a schedule that has you and I watching Blake’s condo and Pamela’s house in alternate shifts from four a.m. to six a.m.”

“All right.” She walked to her desk on rubber legs.

“I think we’ll start running this as a business, not a chat room. Please knock on my door only for situations that can’t be handled by my staff. If our current client drops in, Sidney will interface with him. She’s new, but she seems to know the appropriate employee-client boundaries.” He closed the door between them.

Giulia sat without moving in front of her monitor. She was going to lose this job. The photos were practically seamless. She could see the errors—but that was because she knew where to look. How could Frank believe she’d knelt on the floor in front of Blake or invited him into her bed? She thought she understood Frank, a little. Apparently someone should also sell her the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge.

She would’ve smiled if her muscles remembered how.

Would Frank use the photos as an object lesson for Sidney? What look would fill Sidney’s eyes after Frank showed them to her?

The door opened and a waft of kiwi shampoo scent preceded Sidney’s boisterous alto. “Fight on, on, on, on, on, fight on, on Penn State!” She tossed a “Green Tea-Green Planet” satchel on her desk. “Good morning, Ms. Falcone. Wow, it’s dim in here. And hot. How come you didn’t open the windows? Never mind, I’ll do it.”

The yank and rattle of the venetian blinds woke Giulia. She booted her computer and sipped her tepid coffee. She didn’t want it. Or the carrot muffin in her bag.

Sidney looked like a Creamsicle in a bright orange shirt and white pants. “You look tired, Ms. Falcone. Bad night? Warm milk with nutmeg works for me. Puts me out like a light in ten minutes.”

A thump and unintelligible words from Frank’s office.

“Mr. Driscoll’s early. Did you guys get a break in the stalker case? Hey.” She grinned. “I’m learning the lingo.”

Giulia unfroze her numb lips. “No, no breaks. We’re going to start early-morning surveillance.”

“Ugh, better you than me. I’m so not a morning person.” She uncapped a bottle of green tea and drank. “Have you tried the whole-wheat bagels downstairs? I’m so glad they offer healthy stuff. Oh, here.” She unzipped a side pocket and handed Giulia a double-bagged bunch of what looked like chocolate-covered coffee beans.

“Um, thank you. These look delicious. Does your mother make the chocolate with milk from your goats?”

Sidney giggled. “This isn’t chocolate, Ms. Falcone. It’s our fertilizer. You can’t eat it.” Her phone buzzed and she hit the speaker button. “Yes, Mr. Driscoll?”

“Good morning, Sidney. Would you please tell Ms. Falcone I expect the surveillance schedules by noon? Thanks.”

She turned off the speaker function. “You heard that, right, Ms. Falcone?”

Giulia nodded. Frank’s voice sounded the same as always. Of course it would when talking to Sidney. She was a sweet, innocent puppy. Giulia’d been innocent once. Still was, technically. Technically. Like that mattered anymore.

Sidney set her bag on the floor beneath her desk and booted her computer. “Surveillance sounds so
CSI
. I know I have lots of work and stuff to learn, but can I help somehow?” She glopped all-fruit spread on the bagel and took a large bite. “Will you need anything done late at night? Like, I don’t know, digital photos to upload?”

Giulia clenched her teeth.
Wrong example to use this morning, Sidney.
“I don’t know. I’ll ask Mr. Driscoll.”

Frank might promote Sidney after he fired her. Sidney had zero experience, but neither had she when Frank hired her. Sidney’s enthusiasm should make up for it, with plenty left over.

When Giulia labeled tabs in the surveillance spreadsheet, the flaw jumped out. It didn’t take anywhere near long enough to cross the room and knock on Frank’s door.

“Come in.”

She closed the door. He didn’t look up. Today he hadn’t chosen to imitate any of the classic detectives. His khakis and rugby-striped shirt made him more boyish and attractive than ever.

“Frank, surveillance won’t work at both houses.”

He continued typing. “Did your extensive field experience tell you this?”

Because she’d sat through innumerable sermons from her Superiors with a neutral countenance, she didn’t react to his rudeness. A little imp on her shoulder suggested she write them thank-you notes.

“Pamela’s street is too exclusive. Your car or a rental would be spotted before an hour passed. The same if you or I dressed in all black and walked up and down the street or loitered or hid behind a hedge.”

Frank’s hands hovered over the keys, then came down hard on the desk. “Damn. You’re right. Blake’s condo is one neighborhood over from the exclusive area he’d like to live in. Actual poor people can be seen there. Just passing through, of course.” He started to grin.

It switched off. “All right. Revise the schedule. I will take into account any suggestions you have for Pamela’s surveillance.” He clicked the mouse. “Please close the door behind you.”

She stared through her screen, not really listening to Sidney’s chatter. Maybe a rosary on her knees would clear her mind, even though she wasn’t guilty of anything but lustful thoughts. Over an unworthy object.

The schedule for Blake’s condo took her all of twenty minutes. One column for time, one for day, one for location. Assuming it didn’t rain, she could hide behind the porch swing or the woodpile. Even if it did rain, she supposed. The light rail stopped a quarter-mile from his street. She could incorporate it into her exercise routine. Frank could sit in his car every other morning.

Her ideas ran out at Pamela’s worksheet.

“Sidney, how would you stake out a house in one of those super-rich neighborhoods? The kind where the lawns could double as putt-
ing greens and the nanny is paid more than both of us combined. Early morning, four to six a.m.”

“That sounds like the house my boyfriend lived in. Two boyfriends ago, I mean. My current sweetie works for a landscaping company while he gets his MSW. He’s so sexy when he picks me up, all sweaty and smelling like fresh grass. I’m going to miss that when he graduates and sets up in private practice.” She kept going when Giulia didn’t smile. “Um, well, you couldn’t just hang out on the corner or across the street, because the servants would be up by five to start laundry and breakfast—no joke. They’d open the curtains and see you and call the cops, and the cops would rush right over.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Oh! I know! You could dress up like a landscaper and write down stuff on a clipboard—make it look like you’re comparing colors of flowers, eyeballing the topiary, stuff like that. The people next door to my old boyfriend had a huge one right in the middle of their lawn. Two swans touching beaks, or bills, or whatever. So they formed a heart, you know? Ew.”

“I’d still be a stranger lurking at an odd hour.”

“That’s okay, because you’d be a hired-help stranger. It probably wouldn’t work more than once or twice, because the regular landscapers come around a couple times a week and they all know each other.”

Giulia searched used-clothing stores on the Web and typed their information and Sidney’s idea below the schedule.

The mail arrived at eleven. Sidney gave Giulia brochures for spy equipment and a flyer soliciting donations for the Children with Cancer auction. She looked over her shoulder and leaned into Giulia’s ear. “Did you and Mr. Driscoll have a fight or something? It kind of feels like an ice-skating rink in here today and I don’t have skates. I’m not being rude or anything by asking, am I? I don’t want to butt in where I don’t belong. It’s just that you two are always so cute, making jokes and teaming up to brainstorm ideas and stuff, but this morning it’s like, well, you know. Do you?”

Ice. Appropriate. The atmosphere after what they’d said to each other could freeze three circles of Hell. Poor Sidney, getting sideswiped by this train wreck.

“Just a disagreement, Sidney. It’ll pass.” What was one more lie? “I’ll be sure to give you credit for the landscaper-disguise idea.”

“Wow, thanks, you’re really going to use it? That’s so cool.”

Giulia set the spreadsheet on Frank’s desk.

“A phony landscaping company? Good work, Ms. Falcone.”

“It wasn’t my idea. Sidney came up with it.”

“Then I’m glad to see that one of my employees has justified my choice in hiring her.”

Giulia bit the inside of her cheek.
Don’t say anything. Keep a neutral front. He’ll get over this when you prove the photos are faked. Or he’ll fire you and it won’t matter.

The phone rang and a moment later Sidney yelled, “Mr. Parker on one!”

Giulia and Frank smiled, and for an instant the rapport returned. Then the ice formed again as he glanced at her, then the door.

“Sidney,” Giulia said after she closed it, “always use the intercom.”

“But his door was open.”

Giulia smiled at the genuine puzzlement on her face. “This is an office. What if a client walked in? Professionals modulate their voices. If you remember always to make the professional choice, it’ll become habit.”

Frank stepped out of his office and over to Sidney’s desk. “Ms. Falcone and I are meeting Mr. Parker. Go ahead and take lunch; the machine can get the calls for an hour.”