Someone Else's Lady

About a week later, I woke up one morning and knew it wasn't going to be a very good day. It was just one of those feelings, that sense of knowing, that made me wish I could crawl back under the covers and stay there. But I had agreed to go into the department that morning to see if I could help locate a missing woman. I still wasn't quite working at the police department full-time, but it was enough to quit my office job since my expenses were lower thanks to having a couple of roommates. Every time I went to the department, I hoped I would see Angela. It was still nice to see her and enjoy some eye candy, even if she didn't come across as very friendly or seem to have much interest in having coffee with me. I realized it might not be me personally she was trying to avoid. Maybe she simply didn't have much free time. Or maybe she was taken. I wondered if she might have sensed my interest in her, and based on what I'd heard and what my own senses told me, Angela was bisexual, so it wasn't that she was anti-women. She was far from the butch type, which was something I never cared for personally, but it was definitely easier to picture her with another woman than with a man. Whichever gender she preferred most, she could've easily sensed my attraction to her and simply avoided me because she was spoken for. I met Duke when I arrived at the station, and that day my wish to see Angela was granted—just not until after I was led to a parking lot outside a convenience store where a woman named Beatrice McDaniel was last seen, to see if I could get a "feel" for what might've happened to her. "I can't usually make myself come up with things," I explained to Duke, "but you could say this place definitely gives me bad vibes." "What do you mean?" I did a slow turn, taking in my surroundings. The small convenience store rose up to meet a cloudy sky that threatened to dump rain on the city. There were a few other cars in the parking lot. I couldn't see what was behind the store, but there appeared to be some businesses across from it as well as to the left of it. To the right, I could see part of a small, dilapidated house poking through some thick oleander hedges. "Well, I can't force any feelings or images to come up. However, I do sense her getting into a sporty-looking car, but it doesn't seem like she was forced. I just don't get that feeling." "You think she got in the car willingly?" I nodded. "There's some kind of secret or mystery going on." "Meaning?" "Meaning that I don't think she was supposed to meet with whoever she met with, and I think that person knew this, too. Could Beatrice have been having an affair?" Duke's expression told me that he might have been thinking the same thing. My mind flashed back to the photo of the woman that Duke had shown me before taking me to the convenience store parking lot. She looked like a very ordinary-looking brown-eyed brunette. Nothing unusual had struck me about the woman visible from the chest up. The way her curly hair was layered and reached a few inches below the collarbone reminded me of hairstyles from the ’80s. If the woman had worn makeup, it wasn't enough to really appear in the picture, and I couldn't see enough of her outfit to tell much about that either. I did get the feeling that the woman was usually more on the conservative side, or at least tried to appear that way to others. "She has two kids," I had said to Duke when I was holding the picture. "Yup. Right on." "One of them is a boy of two, or just under." "Right on again. Can you sense the age of the other child? Boy? Girl? Younger? Older?" "Younger. Don't know the gender, though." "Wow," was all Duke said to that one. I figured I was right on again. In the parking lot, Duke asked, "Do you think she was harmed by the person she might've been having an affair with, if that was really the case?" "No clue," I said. "Could be that the husband harmed her instead, but I can't be sure about that." He scribbled something in his notes and then we stood there in silence another moment or two longer. "It's red." "What's that?" "The sporty-looking car was red. That's all I can really say. I'm sorry." "No, no, no. Don't be. You've given us a lot." I returned to the station with Duke. Duke would have brought me straight home, but my bike was at the station. Deciding to go inside for a drink before cycling home along some of the city's ungodly hills, I followed Duke into the station. And there was Angela. Angela, who didn't look too happy at all. "Hiya, Angela," I said cheerfully. Without returning the greeting, she got right to the point. "I don't know what the hell you were going through my desk for, but I really don't appreciate you going into unauthorized areas. That is not acceptable. Do you understand?" "Completely. I only wanted to put my hair in a ponytail." Angela looked confused, like she wondered if I was crazy or not. "I was tired of my hair being down and in the way, so I was looking for something to tie it back with." "And you thought I would have that?" "Don't most desks and offices have rubber bands somewhere around them?" Duke tried to hide his look of amusement. Without answering, Angela said more than sternly, "Do not, for any reason, touch anything on anyone's desk unless you're instructed to." "I'm sorry, Angela. You don't have to crucify me for it." "Just remember what I said." I'd gone from caught off guard to annoyed to slightly angry. "Mein Gott. Du bist eine Schlampe!" A stunned woman standing nearby clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh as I stormed off in search of a water fountain, leaving Angela staring at me with her own stunned expression, sprinkled with a hint of anger.