Saturday, June 7, 2008

Suppositions, Continued iii

He turned back to his papers and shuffled them around a little. They had nothing to do with the current case, but the urge had struck him suddenly. He slowly put them back into the order that they had been in before he had decided to look at things "backwards." That hadn't helped either. They would have to wait now. Again. It was a shame. She had been waiting for too long.

He pressed the giant four point paper clips back onto each edge of the papers and photos, placed them in turn into the file folder marked Cain, Terresa, and then slipped the whole bulky package into an oversized manila envelope with a white three by five file registry and a red string tie on the flap. He rubbed the date on the file registry gently, almost wistfully, before placing it back with its twelve brothers and sisters. Each file register stared up at him like the pleading faces of abused children.

He shut that thought out of his mind. No matter how much he did, it would never be enough.

He cleared a little spot in the center of his desk and taking a yellow legal pad began to write down, in small, mechanically concise print, everything that he had seen in the alley off of Production St.

He was on his fourth page when they began to arrive.

The two girls were first. Flipping the completed page over and placing his pen precisely at the top of the pad, he swiveled his head up, in recognition of the women's entrance and also to observe their behavior.

Fellcitous Tidings, as he thought of her, came clipping crisping into the room. She had removed her leggings and exchanged her oft questioned boots for sleak, black, closed toed pumps. Designer, if he knew her. And he did. Her handbag was over her left shoulder and she held it in place with her left hand, her right swinging at her hip, wrist bent out slightly. He was certain that she was unaware of this posture. Or perhaps she wasn't. The thought entered his mind for the first time and he looked at her face intently.

"Mr. Gerald, good evening," she beamed at him a perfectly strait, brilliantly white smile. It was infectious. He had to return it as best he could: the corners of his mouth turned up.

Moments behind her, Isabele came schlepping in, like a marionette in the hands of an exhausted amateur. Her face was haggard, limp, like a wax bust that had been placed to close to a candle. Her eyes where deep pools of charcoal, like void sockets in a high-school science teacher's desk skull. She sagged into her chair and smiled wanly at the sleeping screen saver, wistfully touching the animated puppy.

"Lab boys call, Boss?" she asked Gerald without looking in his dirrection as she disturbed the screen saver and brought her system alive (He could see the reluctance in her action).

"No," he looked at his watch. The boy must have had some success, he then thought as he looked at the office door. "But we knew that."

"Yes, we did," Isabele answered as she closed her top desk drawer and successfully lit her first cigarette in fifteen hours and blew smoke towards the atmo-recycler at the center of the ceiling. She leaned back in her chair and hung her hands limply off the arm rests, her head dangling back. Gerald leaned forward slightly, fingers on the frayed edge of his desk, preparing to speak, preparing to send this vital memember of his family home.

"Must you do that?" Felicity snapped.

Gerald leaned back, scarcely an inch, to his previous position and cleared his throat, softly, in a fashion that would not make it past Felicity's desk, what with the soft wirring of computers coming to life and chairs creaking and groaning.

The young woman's head snapped around, her face instant, soft attention.

Gerald shook his head slightly, almost imperceptibly. The young woman took the hint, drew a deep breath and, he could tell, thought twice about sighing. She turned back to her system, drawing out a docking station from a side drawer of her desk, and connected her digital camera and borrowed gpsloc.

Isabele didn't respond; immediately. She reached up with her left hand and undid the sloppy knot on the top of her head and with a combination of combing fingers and small shakes of the head, sent the tresses flowing to the floor.

Gerald had never seen a more beautiful head of black hair. It came from her mother's side. As did her name. But he noted, with detached curiosity, that the gray was getting more pronounced at her temples. It had only just began to shift in the last six months. That was the first time that he had noted a few silver strands. That was when she had started smoking again. But now, small, localized cells of five or six silver strands were marching across her scalp line, begining to make an inroad assault down the center of her skull.

Has it been that long? He wondered to himself. Yes. Six years. And she wasn't a rookie when she asked to join.

"Don't worry, Van Hollen," Isabele interrupted his thoughts "it won't get on your clothes," and she puffed another cloud at the recycler which quickly sucked it into the purger's scrubbing chamber. "If only it were that easy," the woman mumbled to herself. It wasn't that he heard Isabele say these last words, most definitely Felicity had not or she would have rejoined, but he read her lips.

He picked up his pen and continued recording his data.

Three packed pages later he set his pen back down and looked back upon his two subordinates.

"There was new evidence discovered in the alley," he spoke softly.

Both women quickly turned to him: Van Hollen's expression was eager surprise; Smith's was desensitized overload, as she lit a new cancer stick from her first before crushing the stub out in a plastic cup.

"Gun shot impacts," he said in response to their expectancy.

"Where?" Smith coughed in her refreshingly blunt fashion.

"I'm confused, Sir," Felicitous Tidings volunteered "We search every square inch of that alley, didn't we?"

"Yes" he raised the corners of his mouth "and no."

2 comments:

Rebecca said...

oh? really?? where didn't they search? how intriguing.

Felicity's oft questioned boots. HA!
;)

I hold to my first statement concerning Felicity that she's got way more brains than anyone imagines. even the rest of the team. Along the way somebody is going to have to take her seriously and I'm thinking it should be Isabele. Unless that's too cliche, in that case, make it Calvin. It would be way too fatherly for Fletcher to do.

LOL!! Fletcher is so DCS Foyle!

Incomplete said...

Okay. We'll have to work that in then. An idea comes mind. We'll have to see if it works out. And no, I not going to say what it is. That would ruin the whole surprise.