Force of Habit: A Falcone & Driscoll Investigation (7 page)

_____

Giulia fumbled her deadbolt into its slot and tossed her purse at the kitchen table. The ice had melted by 8:45, and the bells at St. Thomas were striking nine o’clock when she got off the bus. She aimed the water-filled bag at the sink, where it hit with a splat.

The bathroom mirror lights stabbed through her eyes into her brain. She peeled off her clothes and scrubbed them in the tub. When she wrung out the T-shirt, she pressed the cool, soft cloth to her face.

She pushed aside the aspirin; it’d just make her bleed more. There. Acetaminophen. She swallowed four and stuffed a new Kleenex plug into her left nostril. The soothing darkness when she switched off the light was a touch of paradise.

She felt her way around the corner from the bathroom to the bedroom. Without thinking, she flicked the bedroom wall switch and the standing lamp right above her eye slapped her with sixty watts of torture.

She pushed the switch down.
Ahh.
She could navigate her own room in the dark. Closet to her left, bed four steps straight ahead. She’d never been so grateful her nightstand was on the other side of the bed—nothing for her to trip over. Hooray for summer, too, because she didn’t need to leave the plant lights on for the herbs.

Her knee bumped the bed before her questing hands did. She pulled down the comforter and eased onto the sheets, spreading a hand towel from the bathroom over her pillow just in case. Pillows were never quite the same after washing and drying.

Oh, those cool sheets felt good.

More ice? Too tired
...
should say my nightly rosary
...

Giulia, I’m delivering subpoenas all morning
, read the note taped to the frosted glass, below the word
Investigations
.
The new admin will be here at 9. See you at lunch
.

“Nine? Where’s she—he—going to sit? Where am I going to sit?” Her key turned in the lock. “I thought he wasn’t going to hire someone till next week. At least I got the new PC configured.”

She flicked on the light and stopped one step in. Two desks now sat kitty-corner in the main office. Her chair backed against the dividing wall, and her desk faced the opposite wall instead of the door. The new desk beneath the window faced Frank’s door.

“Nice chair.” She ran a hand over the chair back and the desktop. Used but good.

A sticky note on the new desk’s monitor read
Giulia
. She squatted beneath the desk and booted the hard drive.

“Hello? Anybody here? I’m early.”

Giulia jerked up. “Hi.”

A stick bug stood in the doorway. Brown pants, brown shirt, brown hair, brown messenger bag, two brown Common Grounds coffee cups in her hands.

“I’m Sidney Thomas. Are you Ms. Falcone? You must be. Mr. Driscoll said you’d be training me.” She held out one cup. “The lady downstairs said you liked cinnamon syrup in your coffee.”

When Giulia got within three feet of the cups, Sidney nearly dropped them. “Whoa! What happened to your face?”

Giulia winced, which hurt, and winced again. “Karate chop.”

“Wow. On purpose? Do you have a first-aid kit here? Ice pack, you know?”

“It happened last night. Most of the swelling’s down already.”

“But your cheeks are purple and blue and—wow—your eyes have all these little red veins in them. Ice’ll help that. My trainers always nagged us to keep icing a day or two after an injury. Depends on what kind of injury, natch. But you want ice. Your nose looks like, looks like...” Sidney wagged a finger in the air like she was flipping through an air Rolodex. “An old movie actor. Hated kids. I thought he was nasty, but my dad watched him all the time.”

“W.C. Fields.” Giulia picked up her cup. “You didn’t have to bribe me with coffee. I’ll yell at Mingmei later for making you think you had to propitiate me.”

Sidney’s smile almost vanished. “I didn’t mean to get her into trouble. I was just trying to be friendly, you know? Our senior guidance counselors told us to smile when you meet new co-workers. That way they’ll think you’re on their team right from the start.”

And Giulia thought
she
was insecure. “I’m sure you’ll work out fine, Sidney. Let me check your desk. My stuff might still be in it.” She opened the side drawer. “Yup. It’ll just take me a minute to clean this out.”

“No prob. I need to use the bathroom anyway.” She looked left and right. “Which door?”

Giulia pointed. “Left. Right is Frank’s office.”

“Be right back.”

Giulia moved her iPod and her Godzilla coffee mug to her new desk. Sidney must’ve been on the swim team. She hadn’t seen her breathe between sentences yet. At least she’d have a human to talk to instead of her monitor. She grinned.

“I opened the window in there—it was really stuffy. Is that okay? I don’t want to overstep my bounds or trespass on your job description.”

Giulia grinned wider. “You work here too, Sidney.” She finally tried the coffee. “This is excellent. Thank you.”

“Oh, good. It was nothing, you know? I mean, it’s something because it’s kind of a gift, but it wasn’t like a real expensive gift. Mine’s green tea. You know about all the antioxidants in green tea, right? And detoxing? Coffee’s okay, but your body can get addicted to caffeine, just like a drug.” She gulped from the paper cup. “This is my first real job out of college, so I’m a little nervous.”

Giulia kept a perfectly straight face. “Just let me log in and I’ll set you up.” She dumped her things in the drawer. “Spell your first name.”

“S-i-d-n-e-y.”

“Not with two
Y
s?”

“No, spelled like the guy’s version. My parents expected me to be a boy. They planned to use me to suck up to a rich uncle. When I came out they named me after Uncle Sid anyway.”

“Did it make him happy?”

“Not when it counted. He left all his money to the PETA crazies. Mom had a major cow. Dad ended up talking her down instead of venting like they wanted to. It turned out okay, because I got into college on a swimming scholarship.” She unbuckled her bag and took out a bobblehead in a Penn State swimsuit and a swim cap.

“What do you want for a password? Letters and numbers.”

“I don’t know... How about
big10relay
, um, all lowercase? That was my senior team. We kicked major butt in the Big Ten championships.” Her face scrunched. “Um, sorry, everyone says I kinda babble when I’m nervous.”

Giulia smiled as she tapped several keys. “Don’t be nervous. You’ll do fine. There. You can boot up now. Your tower’s beneath the printer cart.”

Sidney opened each drawer and rifled the contents until her computer beeped. “What’s my username?”

“Your first name.”

A few taps on the keys. “It works. Oh, wow, a real job in a real office. I’ve been working full-time on the family alpaca farm since I graduated, but they’re like the only animals on the planet I don’t get along with. Plus spinning yarn from their wool throws my back out every year. You don’t know how much I look forward to my summer job—I coach swimming for the Y. No spinning, no straw, no bagging alpaca poop—if you’re a gardener, Ms. Falcone, I can tell you about that part later.” She tapped a few more keys. “This is so cool. What are you going to teach me first?”

“The C drive is your own. E is shared between all of us. Click on it, and you’ll see the correspondence folders.”

_____

Thump
.
Thump
.

Giulia looked up at the rattling door. “Sounds like a foot.”

“I’ll get it, it’s my job.” Sidney hopped up and opened it on Frank, arms piled with three foam containers and extra-large cups in a gray cardboard holder.

“Lunch. Told you I’d be back. Giulia, can you grab the pop before I lose my balance? What happened to your face?”

“Self-defense class.” She plucked the pop holder from the top of the tower and set it on Sidney’s desk.

“What? How? Hi, Sidney.”

“Hi, Mr. Driscoll. Let me take those.”

“Top one’s yours, middle one should be Giulia’s, bottom one mine. You’re vegetarian, right?”

“That’s right, wow, thanks for remembering that from the interview.” She headed into his office with the bottom container.

“No, leave it here. I’ll use the windowsill. I need to stretch after this morning.”

“Why?” Giulia handed out paper towels from the bathroom to use as napkins.

“My legs hate being cramped up in the car for hours. I drove all over town. The last subpoena was the worst. The guy hadn’t paid child support for more than a year, and he knew his ex was after him. I had to break out the old ‘Neighborhood Watch’ ploy. When he signed the fake petition, I pretended I couldn’t read his name. When he said it, I handed him a fake brochure. When he opened it and saw the subpoena, I was at the street before he had time to question my parentage.”

Giulia blushed, and hated herself for it. Sidney laughed through a mouthful of spinach and feta calzone.

“Why subpoenas, Mr. Driscoll? I thought you found missing persons and spied on cheating husbands and all that.”

“Extra money, Sidney. The rent’s not high here, but now that I have two employees, I have to make payroll.” He winked at Giulia. “How’s the spaghetti parm?”

Giulia sucked the mouthful off her fork and swallowed. “Not bad. The sauce is homemade.”

“And you would know.”

“My grandmother would spin in her grave if I let bottled sauce pass my lips.”

“I figured. Mine is that way about soda bread. Now tell me about that double shiner. You know you look like a psychedelic raccoon.”

“Your sympathy is overwhelming. At least the guy who did this had the grace to apologize. More than once.” She took a long drink of lemonade. “As a preface, I’ll remind a certain person in this room that he required me to take the class to—ahem—protect myself.”

Frank laughed so hard when Giulia reached the “You don’t have AIDS, do you?” part of the story that he slipped off the windowsill and stamped like a horse. Sidney looked from one to the other and, like a student, raised her hand just to shoulder level.

“Ms. Falcone, why is that so funny? Everyone’s at risk for AIDS once you’ve slept with someone. You know you’re sleeping with everyone they’ve ever slept with—”

Frank pounded the wall and clutched his stomach. Giulia held up a hand to stop Sidney.

“You—you’re such a fast mover, right, Giulia?” Frank wiped streaming eyes with a paper towel. “You’ve racked up half a dozen conquests since last summer, right? Oh, my stomach.”

Giulia stuck the tip of her tongue out at Frank and smiled at Sidney.

“Up until last August, I was a Sister of Saint Francis for ten years.”

Sidney’s eyes got big. “You used to be a nun? Wow. I’ve never known a real nun before. Did you wear that long black dress and the headscarf? No, wait, that’s a different religion. Was it anything like
The Sound of Music
? Julie Andrews is so cute. Did you sing that ‘Dominique’ song? No, wait, isn’t that another movie?”

Giulia sighed. “Why does everyone ask that? No and no.” She smiled at Sidney’s embarrassment. “Although I do play guitar.”

Frank hiccupped and tossed his trash into Sidney’s basket. “Never laugh like that while drinking pop. Sidney, I have a stack of papers for you to sign. Giulia, now that we’ve established your HIV-negative status, what are you up to?”

“I need to run over to Quinn’s, but it’ll only take about half an hour.”

_____

Quinn refilled the 11 x 17 paper tray while Giulia waited. When he inserted her copy counter, he said, “Giulia, ask me how my day started.”

“Only if you turn your back so you don’t see what I’m enlarging. It’s confidential.”

“Deal.” His left arm’s elaborate tattoo of the Headless Horseman galloping after Ichabod Crane hovered just at her eye level.

“How did your day start, Quinn?” She hit the
Start
button.

“Discussing vaginal pH with my teenage brother.”

“What?”

“I drive him to school because it’s on my way here and I open at seven-thirty. I asked him about Homecoming, and he informed me that the expectation at school is that there’ll be one pregnancy after the Homecoming dance, one after the junior prom, and one after the senior prom.”

“Good heavens.”

“You know it. As I’m
argh
ing at him, he said, ‘Yeah, I know, use a condom.’ I said, ‘No—keep it in your pants!’ Trouble is, what with our father getting his chippie pregnant, I’m pretty much the only discipline he has now.”

“What about your mother?”

“She’s still dealing with dad’s affair and the divorce. That’s why I drive Wes, so he gets some male role model time.”

“But vaginal pH?” Giulia jogged her copies into a neat stack.

“Then he came out with, ‘But they say there’s a pretty safe time to have sex.’ Of course I told him there isn’t.”

“He thinks it’s right after a woman finished her period, I bet.”

“Yeah. Dope.”

“Italian grandmothers used to tell women to eat broccoli if they wanted to have a boy.”

“Can I turn around now?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve covered everything up.”

He pulled out the copy counter. “Come to the register, and I’ll cash you out. I used that exact same example—my wife’s Italian. Then I explained how broccoli alters a woman’s vaginal pH, how some women are naturally more acid or more basic...” He keyed the totals into the cash register. “Or more hostile or receptive to sperm. I topped that off with the tidbit that some women have very receptive fluids and the sperm can wait in there until ovulation, and then, even if they haven’t just had sex, wham! Fertilization.”