Triptych

about John Shelley when Michael Ormewood was the latest jerk in her life. Will wondered if she was still seeing him. They had been standing pretty close together when he’d found them in the hallway yesterday. Though, last night, Angie had been brutal about Ormewood when Will had asked her about him. If she was still sleeping with him, Will was certain she would have said so then. Or maybe not. Two years had passed. This was the longest he and Angie had ever gone without talking to each other. Things might have changed.

No, nothing ever changed.

“Shit,” Will repeated. He put his hands on the roof of the car and pressed his forehead against them. What could he do? Go confront her? Demand she tell him what she’d been doing for the last two years?

Will dropped his hands and turned as the stair door banged open. Ormewood was walking across the parking lot, one hand in his pocket, a half-smile on his face. He didn’t look tired anymore. The man actually looked pleased. He’d probably dropped by Angie’s desk on his way to delivering the rape kit to the lab. He might have even grabbed a quickie in the supply closet for all Will knew.

“Sorry I took so long,” Michael said as he unlocked the car doors. “Had to see a man about a dog.”

“Right,” Will mumbled, sliding into the passenger’s seat. He looked out the window, waiting for Michael to get in and start the car. If he clenched his jaw any harder, his back teeth were going to break.

Michael put his arm along the back of Will’s seat as he reversed out of the parking space. He shifted into drive and headed out of the garage, saluting the guard at the gate as they passed.

“What a shitty day,” he said, slipping on a pair of dark sunglasses. “You got kids?”

“No,” Will said, thinking this was the second time Michael Orme-wood had asked him that question. Maybe Angie had told him Will wouldn’t have kids. He had a mental image of her and Ormewood splayed out in bed, postcoital bliss turning into a game of telling secrets. Would Angie do that? Would she betray Will like that?

“I can’t imagine what Phil’s thinking right now,” Michael said. “If something ever happened to Tim, I’d feel like my heart had been ripped out of my chest. He’s a part of me, you know?”

“I can see that.”

“What about a wife?” Michael asked. “You married?”

Will turned to look at him, trying to figure out where he was going with these questions. “No,” he said.

“Seeing somebody?”

Will bristled, but he tried to control it. “No.”

“Gina,” Michael said, oblivious. “She works at Piedmont in the ER. What’s that they always say about cops? They either marry nurses or hookers?”

Considering Michael had left his last assignment under such a dark cloud, Will thought it was pretty dangerous for him to be joking about prostitutes.

Will began, “That Polaski woman…” He tried to think of something an asshole would say about a woman. All he could come up with was, “She’s pretty attractive.”

Michael looked surprised, like he might not have considered Will had a penis. “Yeah,” he said. “Listen-man to man-I’d stay away from that one.”

“Why’s that?”

“She’s got a temper. Know what I mean? She looks real sweet, but inside, she’s a class-A ball-breaker.”

Will leaned his elbow on the door, stared out the side window.

So, he had slept with her.

Michael changed the subject. “I’m sorry I kind of lost my shit yesterday when I saw Cynthia. I’ve been doing Homicide for a while now, but you never expect something like that to happen, to actually know the person.”

Will counted the telephone poles, saw the billboards and street signs in a blur of letters that would never make sense at this speed. “Yeah.”

“I’ve gotta tell you, I’ll never be able to do this job the same way again. Notify people, I mean. Puts it in a whole new light when you know the person involved, know the victim and the parent and all.”

“I imagine so.”

“Did you get a chance to look at that Monroe file?”

“I skimmed through it,” Will lied, relying on what Angie had told him about the prostitute. “You arrested her a few times when you were in Vice.”

Michael finally seemed to feel the tension in the air. He gave Will a sideways glance. “Yeah,” he admitted. “Polaski told me that yesterday. I’d forgotten all about it. Those sweeps. You ever work Vice?” Will managed to shake his head. “You can go through a hundred of ‘em in a week. It’s all chasing your tail, no pun intended. You lock ’em up and they’re out on the street an hour later.”

“You never dealt with her pimp before? Baby G?”

Michael shrugged. “Not that I remember. These guys grow up so fast. One minute they’re a little kid skipping school, the next they’re toting a nine-mil and running everything from pussy to meth.” He shrugged again. Maybe that was where Angie picked up the gesture. “Baby G might know me from before, but he didn’t let on if he did. You think he’s got something to do with the murders? I never checked his alibi for Sunday night.”

“He was with us when Cynthia was killed,” Will reminded him.

“I’m sure he’s got plenty of soldiers to do his dirty work.”

Will nodded.

“I need to look through my Vice files. I’ll take them home tonight.”

Will felt the need to offer, “I can help, if you like.”

“No.” His tone had been sharp, but he softened it with an explanation. “You know how it is. You only put down half the information in the reports. The rest you keep in your head so they can’t trap you when you’re on the stand, say you wrote one thing when you meant another.”

“Right.” Will stole another glance at Michael Ormewood. He was not as tall as Will but he had the usual dark good looks and a solid build Angie was always attracted to. He obviously didn’t work out as much as Will, but he hadn’t gone to seed, either. Maybe he had played football in high school. Will had loved football, but he’d been too ashamed to join any team sports that would require him to strip down in the locker room. Ormewood had probably been some kind of all-star, the captain of the team, the one all the other guys looked up to.

Will took another deep breath and let it out slowly.

This was really great. One stray thought about Angie sleeping with Ormewood and suddenly Will was reliving his failed high school sports dreams. Will knew that Angie would never tell any man much about anything. Meeting new conquests was a game she played, a game where she got to reinvent herself. Telling them the truth about her past would spoil her fun. If she wanted to be with someone serious, someone who knew her inside and out, she would stay with Will.

Michael tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Greer told me I could take some personal time. I don’t know. Sitting on my hands isn’t something I’m good at. I’d never forgive myself if I missed something and this guy took another life. He could be out there right now looking for a new victim.”

“Yeah,” Will agreed, realizing that in his personal quest to emasculate himself he’d failed to notice that Michael was talking to him as an equal rather than an adversary.

Michael drove through the Homes, passing the same teenagers on their bikes that Will had noticed the day before.

“We should bust them up,” Michael said. “They should be in school.”

“Why wasn’t Cynthia in school?” Will questioned.

“I dunno. Maybe she wasn’t feeling well.”

“What’s her attendance record like?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Her father was out of town most of the time. She was alone a lot without parental supervision.”

“Gina and I did the best we could looking out for her.” He had taken Wills words as a condemnation.

“Did your mother-in-law often see her at home during the day?”

“You’d have to ask Barbara that,” Michael said, parking the car in front of building nine.

“Do you mind if I do?”

“Barbara and I are pretty close, and she never mentioned anything to me about Cynthia being home. I’ll ask her, okay? But I think that’s a dead end. Cyn was a good kid. She got great grades in school, never got in trouble. Phil always said she was an angel.”

“You seem to know a lot about her.”