Frequent Flyer

Chapter 11

Steve was approaching the restaurant to meet Laura zig zagging through the cars that were parked at angles because of the limited space left behind from the snowfall. The plows had been by earlier by evidence of the pushed up snow against the remaining cars. Owners would have to dig themselves out again before the city crews would be out to clear the snow.

After dealing with the guys at the impound lot to retrieve his car, he wasn't about to park on the street with the possibility of either digging himself out after dinner or finding that his car was towed again. So he pulled up to the restaurant and opted for the valet parking instead. Plus with the cold winds blowing this evening, he wasn't in the mood to walk. He walked into the warm busy restaurant, approached the hostess and gave his name for the reservation.

"Welcome to Gibby's Mr. Aragon. I have a reservation for two. Is that correct?" She said in her bubbly hostess manner.

"Yes, but I am assuming I am the first to arrive?" He smiled back.

"Yes you are. Let me show you to your table and when your guest arrives I will bring her over"

He followed her through the maze of a restaurant is was and he noticed how full the place was tonight. He thought most people would have stayed in tonight but he was wrong.

"Looks like everyone needed a change of scenery after the snow storm?" He said to the hostess as he looked around.

"Yes. We had quite a few last minute reservations. Guess no one felt like cooking after shovelling out today." She giggled.

She showed him to his table where he sat down and waited for the waiter to come over so he could order a drink and to his surprise, Laura was already walking towards him. The hostess pointed him out and she knew the place well enough to find him.

"Well well, didn't expect to find you hear before me." She smiled as she gave him a hello kiss. "I am famished so I am really excited we are here. Can't wait to eat!" Just as she said that a warm basket of bread and butter landed on the table as one of the waiters stopped to take their order. Laura did not wait to be asked and grabbed a piece of bread and began to butter it while they ordered their drinks. She munched away as she skimmed through the menu. It was when she grabbed a second that Steve lowered her menu to see her face.

"You're gonna eat the whole basket at this rate and leave no room for dinner." He chuckled.

"Oh don't you worry about that. I am starving today. Hours on my feet for that autopsy and I was so concentrated on work, time just flew by and I forgot to have lunch. So I need to make up for it." She smiled as she popped another piece of bread into her mouth.

"So on that note. I hear that you have been officially dedicated to the case and are now working for me?"

"Hold your horses cowboy. I don't work for you. I am working with you. Partners. So get that through your thick head before you get ahead of yourself. And on that, it wasn't what I was expecting. I'm a little worried what my colleagues will think." Looking at him with concern.

"What do you mean? What would they think? You're on a case."

"It's just that this is unprecedented. We usually work on a case with the detectives but not to the extent that I was mandated to. We don't usually work alongside a detective out in the field to this degree. I feel like I am on foreign territory." Little did Laura know that soon those words would come back to haunt her.

"Look. I don't see anything wrong with it. We're dealing with an unusual case so we need to deal with it with an unusual approach. An approach the departments have been talking about introducing for a couple of years now. Plus you teach the subjects, you've been trained for field work and are weapons certified to carry. What better way to put all those years of study into the field alongside your pathology experience. You have to admit, your colleagues are good at what they do, but they are only experienced in pathology. So that not only sets you aside from the rest, but makes you the perfect choice for the job"

Said that way, Laura felt better about the mandate. Because they were dealing with something out of the norm, they wanted experts in the field working together on the case. It was a new method they started looking into and decided this was the case was the one to test it on. And now she better understood why it was so important to George that he be kept updated at all times. He had skin in the game and wasn't about to lose face on this one.

"Look. Two different perspectives in the field with our experiences combined, it's the perfect team. So forget about your colleagues and let's concentrate on the case at hand. OK?" He grabbed her hand and kissed it gently as he looked in her eyes.

"Well when you say it that way" She said with a slight sarcasm.

"Good. Ok. So anything else from the autopsy?"

Just then, the waiter arrived with their drinks and to take their dinner order. He had noticed that the bread basket was empty before approaching them, so he placed another full basket on the table. Laura blushed as she smiled at him and gave a shy Thank you as he walked away with their orders.

"How embarrassing. But I can't help it. If I have this drink on an empty stomach you'll be carrying me out of here." She grabbed her drink and took a generous gulp, gave a sigh of relief and continued, "The lab work came back on the hair and no match. The good news is that we have a database of all employees on file in case of contamination, so we are able to rule that out. Therefore, since it didn't match anyone on file, it means we have an unknown"

Steve moved forward. "Well that's great then. We have something of his."

"Hang on there. We have an unknown. Doesn't mean it's his. Could belong to anyone that's been in that flat. If he strikes again, and we find a match at the new scene with any other DNA, then the probability is high that we have his DNA. Until then. It's just an unknown."

Steve was still positive they had the killers DNA. The perp was so careful to clean up that he probably left something of his own behind in the rush to get out. But like Laura mentioned. They would need a match to something if he strikes again. And Steve was confident he would strike again.

"Plus, if it is his?" Laura said taking a sip of her cocktail, "Think about it. Means he's not in our database. We can match him to twenty scenes but it means nothing if we don't have a match on our database."

"I know what you are saying. But it's still positive news in my books."

"Also, there were fingerprints left behind but they were all partials. He cleaned up well enough—Not great—But well enough. So if he strikes again, there is a chance something will slip by him. I really thought, from preliminaries, that this guy was really good. But after some of the results coming in, I am confident he'll make a mistake." She looked at him nod his head. "What about you? Anything?"

"I entered the details into both the local database and that of interpol but no match to anything similar on the MO. In the meantime it's registered so if anything similar pops up we'll be the first to know. Plus, I headed down to the McGill University Hospital Centre this afternoon to interview her neighbour but she was still out of it. I'm hoping she knew someone that Lisa was seeing or even saw someone near the place that night. I'll take anything I can get at this point. And since we are now officially working together, we can head to the MUHC tomorrow and try her again. If she's still out maybe they can explain what's going on with her to you Doctor. See how this partnership is making sense now?"

" Alright. Alright. What about all the other neighbours?"

"Nothing. The guys went door to door and spoke with everyone but nothing was heard or seen. We have to remember that this took place fairly late in the evening so chances are that most people were already in bed."

"Well we still have the neighbour. Hopefully she knows something."

"Speaking of neighbours, I'd like to head back to the condo tomorrow with the crime scene pictures and take a second look now that the place is empty of people. It's something I usually do alone, but it'll be nice to have you there."

Just then their dinner arrived and Laura wasn't talking much after that. She was too busy enjoying her long awaited meal and just in time. The little alcohol she had was already causing a slight dizziness.

They finished dinner and Steve drove Laura back home where he stayed for a night cap and watched an on-demand movie they've been waiting to see before they headed to bed. He had back up clothes and toiletries at her place so he decided to stay the night.