Joanie amazed herself at how quickly she progressed with Patrick. Maybe it was just their natural chemistry, or maybe she was careening in this new direction so she could get as quickly away from Joe as she could, but they were already sleeping over at each other's places.
After their first coffee date a week ago, she already knew she liked him a lot, but they kept things chaste at the end of the evening with a closed-mouth kiss on the lips. The Saturday she went to Joe and Lauren's house to drop off Mrs. Mackenzie, Patrick was with his kids and she was on shift into the evening, and both of them agreed it wouldn't be a good idea for her to see him with his kids there, but she thought about him the entire night, and when Sunday came around and they were able to see each other again, they went out to dinner right after shift, making sure no one at the detachment, especially Fatima, saw them leaving together. Then it was straight back to Patrick's apartment, because she knew she couldn't wait any longer.
She knew it wasn't really healthy, that only part of it was because she wanted him, and a much bigger part of it was because she wanted to see how he measured up to Joe, but Patrick wasn't complaining. Pleasantly surprised, he let her take the lead, and when she had him out of his clothes she was relieved to see that he measured up to Joe very well.
He had condoms, and she wondered if they were leftovers from his days cheating on his wife (Agnes' words on Saturday still nibbled at the edges of her conscience, but they didn't stop her from going after what she wanted), or if he'd anticipated a night like this with her and gotten them recently, but it made no difference. They made use of all of them, and unlike with Joe, there was no time limit on their fun, and she was happy to sleep over, since there was no one waiting for her at home, and he was happy to have her there. The only caution they had to take was to drive separately and spaced apart back to the detachment for their shift so that nobody suspected they were dating.
That was the danger, and it both unnerved and thrilled her at the same time. Relations between officers were governed by the Interpersonal Workplace Relationship Policy, which required them to disclose to HR that they were dating, to mitigate the harms that might arise, especially due to a power imbalance; she was a sergeant and he was a constable, after all. She didn't want HR to know they were dating, though. For one thing, police were as prone to gossip as any other members of society, and this would get around like the flu, the two skyscrapers of the detachment getting together. For another, she didn't want Fatima to know she went and did what the other woman could only fantasize about; she liked the younger constable and felt a protectiveness toward her as the only other female officer in the detachment, and she didn't want Fatima to hate her.
Lastly, she didn't want the higher ups frowning at her out of some kind of moral obligation; Patrick wasn't officially divorced yet, and she didn't want his marital status to affect their view of her professional conduct, especially if she was going to be the face of the detachment. #hotcoplangley was still going strong, and she could just imagine the trolling that would occur if the Internet world knew she was carousing with a married man. She knew very well the double standard women faced when it came to this sort of thing, the names they were called, so she thought it would be simplest if this were just kept between the two of them.
To her relief, he felt the same way. "I don't want to hurt Fatima's feelings," he explained. "I'll keep her thinking she has a chance with me even if she'll never go for it."
It was kind of cruel to keep her thinking he was single, but Fatima was a good girl, and as she'd said before, her family wouldn't accept her dating a non-Muslim. What was the harm in a partnership filled with friendly flirtation?
"The biggest challenge will be telling my kids their mother and I are no longer together," he said that Thursday night as she lay in his arms on her bed. "I wouldn't want to introduce you until I knew for sure we were well into this relationship."
"How well is well?" she asked.
She felt him shrug beneath her. "It was challenging enough last Saturday to keep up the pretence that Agnes wasn't with us because she had to work that day, especially when they stayed overnight, the first night without her in the house. I had to lie in bed with Melissa just so she'd go to sleep."
"Oh, that's too bad," she said, feeling genuinely sorry for his kids. Divorce was hard. She saw that way too many times in her domestic calls. "Believe me, I'm in no hurry to have your kids see me as their step-mommy."
He chuckled. "I might not be ready for that, either. Maybe if we move in together, I'll tell them."
She rose up on her elbow and looked down at him. "Move in together, huh? Didn't you just buy a house?"
He grimaced and nodded. "I did. Don't worry, I won't ask you to move in with me."
"Good. I like my house."
"You know," he said, "When I was buying my house, my real estate agent revealed she was a friend of yours."
Joanie knew already, but she played dumb. "Oh, yeah? Who?"
"Her name's Tej?"
"Oh, yeah, of course! Huh. How'd you get to talking about me?"
"I mentioned where I worked, and she said she knew someone who worked there."
"Wow, what are the chances?"
He cleared his throat and said, "She said you were seeing someone else at the time, though, so I was surprised when you said yes to going out with me."
"And you didn't let that stop you, did you? Cocky bastard."
"Can't blame a guy for trying."
She sighed. "That relationship is over."
"Well, good for me, then."
"You're damn right it is," she said, then kissed him hard and, once again, they were at it.
Friday, they did their separate car thing, and neither of them even acknowledged each other when they got to work. She got to her desk after he did, though, and she only reached it in time to see Patrick being confronted by two plain clothes detectives, and she was pretty sure they were Internal Affairs when she saw Fatima trying to intervene and being sent away by Superintendent Baker.
Fatima rushed over to Joanie's desk and asked, "What the hell is going on? Why is Patrick being interviewed by Internal?"
Joanie decided to play dumb and shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Has he done anything sketchy while you've been out on patrol?"
"No, absolutely not, he's completely by the book. Anyway, if he did, wouldn't they be interviewing me, too? I am his partner."
"True."
They watched the detectives escort Patrick into an interview room, and Fatima paced back and forth in a daze. "What am I supposed to do?" she asked. "He's my partner. How can I go out there without him?"
"Maybe they'll be able to clear it up soon, and he'll be back out with you before you know it. Otherwise, there's still the morning briefing; you could get reassigned to another partner."
"Let's go then," Fatima said, offering her hand. "Maybe they'll pair us up."
Joanie stood and took it. "Maybe. You'd be okay with a cripple as a partner?"
Fatima barked a laugh. "Even crippled, you'd be able to take the perps down better than I could. I'd be happy to have you."
Joanie smiled at that as they entered the briefing room, where the watch captain was giving the morning orders. Sure enough, he paired them. "Sergeant Mara, stay close to the radio while you're out with al-Rashad," he said. "You may be called to perform your duties as the media relations officer." It was a good thing she'd been given more training since her first scrum last Tuesday, or she'd be feeling those butterflies eating away at her belly when she heard that.
In the cruiser, Fatima was as excited as a school girl. "Sisters on patrol!" she announced in a ringmaster's boom as she started the car.
"I don't know if it'll be that exciting," Joanie said as she buckled in.
"This is your first patrol work after coming back, isn't it?"
"Yup."
"Well, it's a cause for celebration, then!"
Joanie chuckled as Fatima put the cruiser into gear and pulled out of the parking lot. "You're cute, you know that?" she asked.
Fatima blushed a little. "You're not hitting on me, are you? I don't swing that way."
"Ha! No. I know you're hot for your partner."
Fatima sighed. "Alas, it'll never be. He's still married, and even if he divorces, there's no way my parents will let me date a divorced man."
Joanie felt guilty talking to her about this while having inside information. "Still, you are a grown woman, can't you make your own decisions about your love life?"
"Sure, in theory, if I were white and secular."
"Say no more, I'll stop tormenting you about it. It's probably for the best anyway. Office romances, they get messy."
Fatima turned to her and frowned. "Do you have experience in this area?"
Oh, shit. "Well, no," she lied. "You just hear the news stories, those poor women in the RCMP who were brave enough to report harassment only to have their careers ruined."
"Anyway, aren't you seeing that guy, that construction worker you met on a theft call?"
"Huh." Joanie was startled at the reminder, and she had to fight the surge of emotion that memory evoked to continue lying. "Well, oddly enough, did I tell you I'd first met him years ago at a wedding?" Joanie didn't tell her it was his own wedding, or that it was over between them.
"Really? And, what, you reunited and it was just that romantic?"
"Well, I wouldn't go that far."
Their first call was to make first contact with a shop owner whose front window was smashed the night before. It could have been simple vandalism, but they needed to attend in case there was burglary involved, to write up the report for his insurance.
While Joanie was scribbling in her notebook, listening to the owner lament the breakdown in society that would allow his store to be targeted for vandalism, she couldn't help noticing, out of the corner of her eye, someone further up the street holding a phone up. Normally she would have paid it no mind; citizen journalism was a growing enthusiasm, and some people felt it was their duty to get every interaction with police on camera in case they caught a sudden occurrence of police brutality. Now, though, she was aware that she was the face of the detachment, and felt she had to be her most professional every moment she was in public.
She caught Fatima's eye and beckoned her over. "Could you see if that guy saw anything regarding this incident? He seems inordinately interested in what's going on here."
Fatima returned after a few minutes and shook her head. "He didn't see anything. Just a shutterbug."
She didn't think any more about it over the course of their shift. She got no calls to attend media scrums, nor did she hear anything about how Patrick was doing. Fatima seemed happy to be driving with her today, and didn't once express concern about her partner. She drove the cruiser without complaint the whole day, stopping only at the side of the road to perform her prayers at the prescribed times of day, where possible when it didn't interfere with their duties. This was one aspect of working with the only other female officer at the detachment that she hadn't predicted, and wondered if Patrick ever grew impatient with his Muslim partner, and if that was the reason Patrick never considered dating her.
When they returned to her desk at the end of the day to file their reports, she noticed an alert on her computer that #hotcoplangley had another contribution. Fatima had showed her last week how to get notifications, and with dread she opened it and saw what was on the screen.
There she was, talking to the store owner, looking sympathetic. She was in profile, just as she would have if she were photographed by someone down the street from her. It was a close-up though. The guy must have zoomed in.
"Fatima, did you get the name of that guy you talked to?" she asked. "The one this morning with the phone?"
"Yeah, I did, even though he didn't have anything to tell us." She flipped through her notebook and showed her.
Joanie looked at the name and address on the notepad. Something about it was familiar. "Fuck," she said, and typed in the address on Google.
The address was for a popular bar on Fraser Highway, the Kicking Horse Bar and Grill.
"He lied to you," Joanie said. "That's probably a fake name. I don't suppose you got his ID?"
"No," Fatima said with a grimace. "He really didn't know anything, he just said he was documenting petty crime in the area. Now that I think about it, that seems made-up, too."
"This could even be the guy who broke the window, did you consider that?"
"Returning to the scene of the crime and insinuating himself in the investigation?" Fatima frowned as she thought about it. "I don't know. It's not like he's a serial killer or an arsonist. He took off right after I talked to him."
Another notification chimed on Joanie's computer. #hotcoplangley had another posting.
There was Fatima's pretty face framed by her hijab and topped by her kepi. It must have been just as she was approaching him, and he'd zoomed in on her as well.
"Motherfucker," Fatima breathed. "That little shit."
"At least I have company now," Joanie muttered.
"My parents will be furious," Fatima whined.
"Do you really think they'll find out?"
She shrugged sullenly. "I bet a relative of mine will find it while they're scrolling on Instagram."
"Well, you've seen him once," Joanie said. "Maybe we'll see him again. This address might have been a lie, but sometimes the lie has a meaning behind it. Maybe he frequents this bar, and that's why he knows its address."
Fatima brightened. "Hey, that's an idea. Should we stake the place out and bust him when we see him?"
Joanie chuckled. "I don't think we can do that. Maybe we can have a chat with him, though, ask him why he feels the need to objectify us this way. Sometimes creeps need to be confronted by their victims to be convinced to stop being creeps."
"Maybe," Fatima said, but she didn't sound convinced.
"I'd tell Superintendent Baker about today and show him the notebook with the fake name and address. He wants to keep apprised of any further incidents like this."
"Okay, will do."
When Fatima returned from seeing Baker, she said, "Patrick's gone home; he's been put on paid leave while they finish their investigation. I don't know what's going on, but if it's paid leave it must be better than unpaid leave, right?"
"I suppose it is."
"I hope he's cleared. He's a good guy, and he makes me feel safe on the job."
"I hope so, too."
"Do you think I should go see him? Let him know I'm thinking of him?"
"Um..." Joanie was torn. She knew Fatima wanted to be a good partner, but she didn't want her to go there and get any ideas about consoling him, not when Joanie was planning on going there later. "Do you know where he lives?"
"No," she said sadly. "I bet HR won't tell me, either."
"Why don't you just call him? If he invites you over, he'll let you know his address." Joanie couldn't believe the words were coming out of her mouth.
Fatima brightened. "Okay. I do have this phone number, at least."
She went off to make her call while Joanie finished filing her reports. When she clocked out and changed back into her civilian wear, she said goodnight to Fatima and took her uniform in its hanger to her truck. Just as she climbed in and before she turned the ignition, her phone rang. It was Patrick.
She smiled and answered. "Hey."
"I got a call from Fatima. She's worried about me."
"Yeah, I told her to call. She doesn't know why you were interviewed by Internal."
"I couldn't tell her."
"So? Was I right?"
"You were. There were red light cameras. They got my plate number, and it corroborated the story of those guys in hospital. I probably shouldn't have run a red."
She had to be very careful with what she said next. "Those guys. You must have been evading them. That has to be the reason the accident happened."
"Yeah, well, maybe if I'd just let them run me off the road, they'd have left me alone from then on and I wouldn't be under suspicion right now."
She wondered if that were true. "Who are they? They're from Kelowna, right?"
He sighed. "Yeah. Hey, look, if we're going to have this conversation you might as well come over."
"Oh, you mean Fatima's not coming over?"
He chuckled ruefully. "She offered, but I convinced her I was all right."
"I hope you let her down easy."
"I did. I told her the wife was over to console me."
She burst out laughing as she started her truck. "I'll be over in a few minutes. And I want you to greet me at the door naked. We can talk about what's going on with you later."
Thanks for reading this far! If you liked what you read so far, hit "Vote" to send this title up the ranks. If anything doesn't ring true about police procedure, leave a comment and let me know; I strive for authenticity.
We're going to jump ahead a couple of months to that little arrangement the LSDC has been quietly making, leading up to a shocking event to get the plot moving. Click on "Continue reading" to see more.