Chapter 6

"What is that expression on your face?"

Sawyer didn't bother looking over at Kurt, keeping his focus on his phone. "What expression?"

"The one you're expressing right now. The one that's weird."

"What's weird?"

"It makes you look…happy."

Sawyer bit back a smile. "Should I not look happy?"

"You generally don't," Kurt replied. "Especially not when we're in the middle of two murder cases. Kind of doesn't fit the mood."

"It's not like the victim's family is sitting across from me right now." No, that had already happened, and it had sucked . It turned out that the person who'd found Christopher White was a friend of his parents, and had called them even before she called the cops. They'd gotten to the scene way too quickly and had, despite everyone's best efforts to stop them, seen their son in a state which…well, no parent should have to see that.

Sawyer had tried his damnedest to comfort them afterward, but for all he could read body language like a pro, for all he could pull his most empathetic self to the forefront at will, there was nothing anyone could do that would make a mother feel better about losing her son.

Especially to something like murder.

"Enemies?" Mrs. Calloway had whispered—she was divorced from the victim's father and had taken her new husband's name, but it was clear that the three of them had been close. "What do you mean?"

"Anyone who might want to harm Christopher," Kurt had explained.

"But…I thought he drowned."

"The preliminary autopsy suggests that he may have been poisoned."

" Oh God… "

"And even if he had died of drowning," Kurt went on with all the dogged persistence of a cop who'd been doing these interviews for too long, " someone had to drop his body off on the side of the road."

"His body , my baby's body, oh my God, oh my God…" Mrs. Calloway had just about collapsed, and her husband seemed about five seconds away from throwing a punch.

Sawyer had stepped in at that point—sent Kurt for bottles of water, which was code for "get the fuck out and don't come back," and taken over the interview.

"I know it's hard to think about," he said, careful to keep his voice gentle. Soft eyes will get you more callbacks than hard looks ever could, he remembered his mother saying. She was right, too…up to a point. "I know that this is probably the last place you want to be right now, and I'm sorry we have to ask you these questions. But we do have to, especially if we want to get justice for Christopher."

Mrs. Calloway had buried her face in her husband's shoulder, but she looked over at Sawyer then. Her eyes were blood-red—she'd burst capillaries from how hard she'd been crying. "Chris worked nights as a bartender," she whispered. "He was a good one, good at making conversation, good at putting people at ease. Like you."

Sawyer forced an encouraging smile. After a moment, she went on. "I don't know of anyone who would have wanted to hurt him, but you should talk to his girlfriend, Larissa. Honey, can you…"

"I'll give the detective her number," her husband promised.

"Does she know yet?" Mrs. Calloway asked. "Does Larissa know? Oh my God, we have to call her! We have to tell her! She's going to be broken— oh my God! "

The interview ended there. Sawyer had escorted them out, then headed back inside and called up the girlfriend, Larissa Smith. Five terrible minutes later, he'd been on the verge of calling in sick for the rest of the day when all of a sudden he got a text from Bashir.

How do you feel about Thai food?

Sawyer couldn't have stopped the smile that crossed his face even if he'd tried. It hadn't even been a day—not even half a day—and Bashir was texting him about dinner. I love Thai food, he sent back, then headed inside to prepare for the next interview and do some looking into the cause of death. Yellow oleander…

"Seriously, why are you so chipper?" Kurt's grating insistence brought Sawyer back to the moment, and he put his phone down with a sigh. Kurt was like a dog with a bone when he got curious about something; if he didn't tell him now, Kurt would hound him incessantly.

"I've got a date."

"A…date. "

"Yeah, it's a thing that people who aren't married get to do on a regular basis."

"Fuck you," Kurt snapped. "Married people go on dates. Molly and I used to go on dates every Friday night. Not lately, of course, but we still order in special and watch a movie together. Who are you supposed to be on a date with?"

"Forget about it." Yellow oleander…it doesn't grow wild here. Let's see if it's a botanical gardens kind of thing…shit. Sold as a common decorative indoor plant. "So, yellow oleander is—"

"Who is it?"

Sawyer sighed. "Can we talk about this later?" Kurt just stared at him. "Fine, no, you're right, now's perfect. I'm going on a date with Dr. Ramin." He glanced back down at his phone, silently counting down. Three…two…o—

"You've got to be fucking kidding me!"

"Right," Sawyer deadpanned. "Because I'm known for that, how I love to kid around."

"I'm serious! You want to go on a date with Dr. Death? Hey!" He shouted past Sawyer to the cooler, where another detective, Shenandoah Walker, was filling up her water bottle. "Hey Nan, you're not gonna believe this!"

"Believe what?" Nan was good people, a ten-year veteran on the force and the kind of multitasker and problem-solver who made you understand how she managed two sets of twins at home, but that didn't mean Sawyer wanted to make her a part of this discussion.

"Shut up, Kurt."

"No, I don't think I will," Kurt chortled, leaning over and getting into Sawyer's space. He smelled faintly…alcoholic. Shit, was he drinking on the job again? He only did th at when he'd had bad news about Molly. "Nan, get a load of this—Sawyer here is going on a date with Dr. Death!"

"Dr. Death?" Nan wrinkled her nose as she came over to join them. "Kurt, you better not be referring to Boyce, because that son of a bitch wouldn't know how to treat a man right if you laid it out in 3D. He backed into my car outside of Home Depot a month ago— backed into it—and you know what that man said to me?" Nan affected a low voice and a pugnacious, jutting jaw. "Are you blind, Walker? Didn't you see my Porsche?" She rolled her eyes. "And now that asshole has an Escalade, because I guess he couldn't do enough damage in a fucking Porsche."

"It's not Boyce," Sawyer said before Nan and Kurt could go off on what an asshole the guy was. He was , but that would just prolong this conversation. "It's Dr. Ramin."

"Really?" To his surprise, she smiled. "I thought Dr. Ramin never dated cops."

Sawyer shrugged. "Apparently I'm an exception." As long as he doesn't change his mind.

Please don't let him change his mind.

"Well, good! He deserves to go out with someone nice. He's a lovely guy. Damn good at his job, too." She smiled at Sawyer, showing all of her teeth. "I suggest you try not to fuck this up, hon. God don't make men like that very often."

"Nan!" Kurt groaned. "You're supposed to be on my side with this. A fuckin' death doc and a cop? It's a terrible idea."

"It's a great idea, and—" Nan sniffed, then sighed. "Kurt. Are you drunk?"

"I am not fucking drunk, how dare you—"

"Don't you swear at me," she warned, stepping forward and fixing Kurt with a glare. "You know the kind of trouble you're courting with this. Was one suspension not enough for you?"

Sawyer frowned. "You were suspended?"

"For drinking on the job," Nan said acidly. "And not responding to an emergency call that ended with his last partner in the hospital."

Kurt sagged into his chair, rubbing a hand over his ruddy face. "I'm not drunk." He refused to make eye contact with Sawyer. "I'm just…taking the edge off."

"The edge off what?"

"Off being told that my wife is gonna die and there's nothing anybody can do anymore!"

The three of them were silent for a long moment before Nan sighed. "I'm sorry." She sounded like she really meant it. "But if you can't handle that news without drinking, then you need to be at home."

"There's nothing I can do at home," Kurt mumbled. "Her sister is with her. My sister is flying in…I can't get a word in edgewise."

"But—"

"Detective Villeray?" That was the desk sergeant. "There's a Miss Smith here to see you. I put her in Room Three."

"Thanks." Sawyer got to his feet, feeling was as if he were leaping from one fire into another. He felt drained anew, his brief moment of internal sunshine clouded over by the fact that his partner was in pain.

He and Kurt weren't friends, not really; they weren't the sort of people who went to each other's houses on their off days and watched football, or whatever regular people enjoyed when they weren't working. But Sawyer liked Molly, who treated him with more care and affection than he knew what to do with, and few things were worse than watching someone you cared for go into a decline and knowing you couldn't help them back out of it.

He'd have to figure out what to do to help later. Right now, he couldn't keep Miss Smith waiting. Sawyer took a second to get into character, then headed for the interview room. He could hear Nan whispering vigorously at Kurt behind him, but he didn't try and listen in.

Focus. Stay on point. Hit your marks.

He knocked on the door, then entered. "Larissa Smith?" He stepped in and over to the young woman sitting on the couch. "Thank you so much for coming."

"You're welcome." Her fingers braided through the strap of her handbag, and it took her a moment to unwind them enough to shake hands. She was young, early twenties, with long brown hair and dark brown skin. Her eyes were puffy, but mostly she looked as though she was still in a state of shock. "I, um. You have some questions for me? About Chris?"

"Yes. But first…" Sawyer got through the basics of verifying her information—name, date of birth, and occupation—before moving on to the murder. "Was Chris having any trouble at work? Someone hassling him, maybe a patron who didn't want to take no for an answer?"

"There's always somebody like that." Larissa sounded a bit helpless. "Not the crew he works with—they're solid, but Mac's is the most popular sports bar in town. There's always going to be some asshole in there angry that their team is losing, you know?"

"Right." Sawyer had no idea because he would rather dip himself in boiling oil than spend time in a sports bar, but he was good at faking understanding. Fake it till you make it. "Can you think of anyone in particular he mentioned recently? Or anyone else who might have been having problems with him?"

Larissa smiled tremulously. "Usually the problem was that he was getting hit on too much. At work, at the gym, at the pool…Chris is a good-looking guy, you know? He's constantly being…" She stopped speaking, one hand going to her mouth. "I mean, he was…he…"

"I understand what you meant," Sawyer assured her. "The pool, huh?"

"Yeah, that's…" Larissa took a deep breath. "That was his other job. He was a swim instructor at the country club. He was really good in high school, and he had a swimming scholarship in college. We actually met at the Y, where I work, when…" She began to cry. Sawyer handed her a tissue and tried not to look as useless as he felt. "Sorry."

"It's okay," he said. Soft, soft. After a few minutes, she calmed down enough that he felt he could ask some more questions. "So he worked at the country club too?"

"Yeah. Um, he did kids' classes and a few water aerobics things."

"No private clients?"

"I don't think so." She shrugged miserably. "I'm sorry I'm not more helpful."

"This has been helpful," he promised her. "We think he might have been in a pool around the time of his death, so this is very helpful."

Larissa's breath hitched. "Did he drown?"

"No." Sawyer waited for the inevitable follow-up question, but it didn't come. She just nodded and stared down at her hands. He pulled his phone out and turned it to face her. "One last thing. Have you ever seen a plant like this before?" He'd chosen a photo of a yellow oleander in full bloom. The flowers were gorgeous, like the sort of thing you'd see tucked into a lei or behind an ear. Too bad that every single part of them was deadly if you consumed it or breathed in its pollen. Even touching it could cause serious problems.

She looked at the picture without so much as a flicker of incriminating nervousness. After a moment, she shook her head. "No, I don't think so. I'm not really much of a plant person, though, so…um, no." She glanced up at him. "Is it important?"

"I'm not sure yet," Sawyer said. "If you do see a plant like this in the places you and Chris went to, or something else strikes you as notable or out of the ordinary, please let me know." She already had his number, but he handed over his card. "This has both my phone numbers and my email address."

"Thanks." She held the card so tight that for a moment Sawyer thought she was going to accidentally rip it in half. "And you'll let me know? If you figure out who killed him?"

"Yeah, I will," he promised her. If we can figure it out. Right now this wasn't looking any more solvable than the last murder despite how elaborate it had turned out, which…was weird. It reminded him of something, what was it…well, he'd come up with it.

He said his goodbyes and escorted Larissa outside, then took a few minutes to stand in the shade of the maple tree where the station's designated smoking area had been set up. No one else was there, but it still stank of cigarettes. Too bad it was the only place around the entire building that had any—

His phone buzzed. Great. Sawyer pulled it out and checked his messages. A second later he smiled, an almost dizzying sense of relief filling him as he read it.

There's a great Thai place downtown. You have time for dinner?

Tonight? That was even faster than Sawyer had hoped for. Despite both of them being knee deep in a murder investigation—something that demanded round-the-clock attention until the killer was caught—they were at a serendipitous lull. Bashir was waiting on results from tox screens and other tests. Sawyer had Nan and several officers chasing down some incredibly flimsy leads. There were wheels turning and people making things happen, which meant Sawyer (and apparently Bashir) could slip away to grab a meal, however brief. It would be good for clearing both of their heads anyway. Unless some new information dropped out of the sky in the next hour or so, he could get away with escaping to eat. He just had to wrap up the paperwork for the day…and talk to Kurt. The thought of that was almost enough to derail his enthusiasm, but he wrestled it back into the forefront of his mind.

For you? Absolutely.

It took another minute to get a reply, just a smiley face and the address of the restaurant. Sawyer grinned. If there was anything that could make today less than a trainwreck, it was a date with Bashir, even if it was a brief dinner that was as likely as not to be interrupted.

He put his phone away and headed back inside to his desk, only to find that Kurt was gone. Nan was still there, though, flipping through a file. She looked up as Sawyer got close. "Kurt's gone home for the rest of the day."

"That's probably for the best."

"He'll be back tomorrow, though." She shook her head. "Never mind that he's going to be next to useless while he comes to terms with things. You know I've been riding a desk for a while now, but if you need backup and Kurt is having issues, you call me, all right? It's not okay for him to leave you hanging, but if we get the brass involved they might just fire him this time." It went without saying that that would destroy any remnant of stability in the guy's life.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Sawyer said, "but I appreciate the offer."

"I expect you to take me up on it." She closed the file and pointed it at him. "Got it?"

There was no way he was going to be pulling Nan into the field when she had four kids to tuck into bed every night, but he knew that wasn't the answer she wanted. "Got it," he said, projecting earnestness.

"Good." She smiled at him. "Say hi to Dr. Ramin for me when you see him. Or don't, if you don't want to bring work into your date. "

Oh, hell yeah. He had a date tonight. "Thanks."

You probably have once chance to impress him.

Don't mess it up.