Flutter (11 page)

“Mom, this is Elvis. I told you about her.” Roger was a little embarrassed. “No worries ma, she’s asexual.” He bent over and kissed her on the head. 

“Asexual? Well, that’s special. Nice to finally meet you, Elvis,” Mrs. Atkins smiled.

Abigail rolled her eyes at Roger. “I’m Abigail. Abby is fine, too.” 

“Oh. Ok. I’ve heard your name a few times. Ms. Atkins will do. If I had known you were bringing company, Rog I would have put more food aside. Let me make you a plate.” She rose from her seat.

“No. It’s ok, Mom. We had burgers on the way. We will be fine. We’re just going to my room to play with my toys.”

“Hmm. Ok, well, I’m heading to bed. I have a long day of show case showdowns, big wheels and Court TV.” Ms. Atkins leaned over and kissed Roger goodnight. “Nice to meet you, Elvis. And Roger, please don’t set the house on fire.” She left.

Roger put the food in the container in the fridge, and then picked up his backpack. He headed to his room. Abigail followed and looked around. The house was very clean but old fashioned.
This woman is stuck in the ’70s.
In the corner of the living room was a shrine to Elvis. Abigail mumbled. “You gotta be kidding me.” She saw a few pictures of Roger and his mother when they were younger. Roger was a cute kid. 

They reached Roger’s room and entered. He closed the door behind them. Roger exposed another side of his life to Abigail. She never imagined his room to look like this, but she thought it was pretty cool. “Welcome to my lab. No work tomorrow. After a day like today, a day off is what we need.”

Abigail looked around and is fascinated with a gadget on the desk. “What is this?”

“Whoa, whoa.” Roger grabbed it from her hand. “Careful, Elvis. This here is my baby.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s ok. Maybe you can help me with this.” Roger pulled a roll from under his bed. He unrolled it as Abigail took off her hooded sweat shirt. Her shirt underneath got caught in the sweat shirt and went up too. A part of her midsection showed, exposing her muscular stomach and a small part of the bottom of her bra. Roger watched but looked away quickly. She didn’t notice.
Oh my God help me.
He turned away from her to stifle a certain erection. “I have the idea, but there is something missing here that I can’t figure out.”

Abigail smiled as she scanned the drawing. “You’re a creepy fella.”

“Don’t judge me.”

“Relax. I think I know what you are trying to do. It looks good. Ok, so. I think I have an idea how you can fix this. Look at this gear here…” Abigail gave Roger a few suggestions on his design. Roger hadn’t figured Abigail to be as smart as she was; he just wanted to spend time with her but as they talked out the design, he realized how much she was helping. Abigail was very bright; she just never had a reason to display her mental talents. She probably could have fixed the dishwasher months ago. She and Roger sat in the room studying his design for about an hour before they touched the machine again. Roger and Abigail completely reworked the drawing. Roger felt it was now time to make a model.

Roger played with a clay model of the new concept. Abigail helped. Roger couldn’t resist watching her from time to time. She moved her hair away from her face. Roger would sometimes get lost in her eyes. She caught him once in a while and he would brush it off with an Elvis joke. Eventually, they disassembled the initial machine. Piece by piece they rebuilt it, replacing gears and rewiring the entire unit. Abigail and Roger picked apart Roger’s experiment and reconstructed it into a working product. The wooden floor in his room was covered with burn marks, screws and wires. In the wee hours of the morning, Roger and Abigail’s remote controlled vehicle zipped across the floor.

The sky was dark purple from the suns approach. Roger finished brushing his teeth and returned to the room. Abigail had fallen asleep in his bed. Her headphones were in and her iPod was playing. Roger had given her a t–shirt and shorts to sleep in. He tucked her away for the night. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he watched her sleep for a moment and smiled. Here she was in his bed, and he had no intention of spoiling things by sneaking a kiss even though the thought had crossed his mind a thousand times. He laid out a pillow and blanket on the floor and fell asleep by the side of the bed.

Sydney Brown entered his apartment after a late run to the gym. He opened the door and closed it behind himself. He was exhausted. He tossed his jacket and towel on a chair and went into the kitchen. He checked his phone, hoping to have a message from Meghan; but there was only a message from Chief Downy. He checked the message.

“Brown, I’ve been checking the shared files and have a few questions. Tell Finch excellent work and thorough assessment thus far. I want a debriefing in the morning and I want more information on this window cleaner I’m reading about.” 

This was one of the many nights Frankie could not sleep. He and Larry had argued earlier about the club, and all the things he wanted to say were running though his head.
Larry has a point. If we go legit, will I be able to afford it?
Frankie punched his hanging punching bag ferociously. The sweat ran down his face and soaked his t–shirt. He punched until his arms were rubbery and tired. He finally stopped. His age was catching up to him. It was time for bed. Water would have been nice, but water wouldn’t do the job that he really needed done. He went over to the mini fridge and poured a glass of whiskey. He took a sip, swirled it around in his mouth and finally swallowed it down. He exhaled with relief. He took his time with the whiskey, enjoying every peaceful sip, and embraced the gentle burn as a reminder that he was still alive.

Finch was lying in the bed, but did not enjoy a solid hour of sleep the entire night. Her mind raced about Chapel and Case, Anthony, her mother in law, Sydney… The time was 6:13 am. The sun slowly slipped through the vertical blinds of her windows. She rolled over and got out of the bed. “UGH!” She wore short gray sweat pants and a white tank top. Her hair was in a ponytail. She walked into the kitchen, put on some coffee and went out onto the back porch. She took a few deep breaths of the chilly morning air before she reached down and took a joint out of a side board. She had a lighter on the floor next to the door frame; she lit the joint and began to smoke it. She liked to take one or two puffs of marijuana from time to time but never more than that. She just needed to get the edge off. A sleepless night always made her jittery and unfocused. She thought about the new case. It would be her last case as a trainee. Hopefully it didn’t carry on too long. 

Finch took a third and forth puff of the joint, which wasn’t very typical of her. She put the flame out and then she tucked the joint back into the side of the house. She went back into the house and went to the kitchen. She took a mug out of the cabinet and poured a cup of coffee. She wanted to let it cool, so she went to the front porch and grabbed the morning paper.

Back in the kitchen, Finch sat at the kitchen table. On the side she had two Morningstar veggie sausage patties and her coffee.

“GOOD MORNING, SUNSHINE!” Finch received a text from Brown. She ignored it.

Detective Finch continued to eat as she skimmed through the paper to see if anything had been leaked to the press. She didn’t see anything about the case. She did see one article about Chapel and Case:

She thought to herself, “Good. Nothing about Benson. Let’s keep it that way until we get more information.”

After her quick snack, she cleaned the kitchen and put everything away. She went into her bedroom and moved around the room quickly, looking for socks and shoes. She reached into her dresser drawer and pulled out an Adidas workout set comprised of a tank top and fitted Capri pants. It was 6:30. She laced up her sneakers, grabbed a jacket, and left the house. “Good morning,” she greeted a passing neighbor as she jumped into her car and headed to the gym. She worked out every other day for about one and a half hours beginning each workout with a 45 minute run on the elliptical machine and alternated upper and lower body workouts. 

She returned home just before eight, took a quick shower, dressed and left to meet up with Detective Brown.

It was 9:00 am when Finch and Brown arrived at Eddie Cons’ Apartment door. They had hoped to get in touch with him the previous day, but for one reason or another, he wasn’t home and didn’t return their calls until 11:00 pm that evening. He ranted about something to do with his mother and sister, but Brown was too tired to listen. Finch on the other hand would have asked Cons to slow down so she could shake off the sleepiness and get her computer ready to take notes. Finch and Brown knocked on the door. 

“Why are you so quiet this morning?” Brown sipped coffee from his thermos.

“Nothing to say,” Finch barely looked him in the eye. She sent out a text message. Brown tried to sneak a peek but was unsuccessful. Finch knocked again. They looked around inspecting the halls. The place seemed like a quiet building but it smelled like old people and fried chicken. Finch’s phone vibrated. She read the message and put her phone back in her pocket. “Where is this guy?”

“I called him before we got here. I don’t know what the hell is going on.” Brown knocked again. A short man with a bald head opened to the door. “Mr. Cons? Eddie Cons?”

“Yes. Come in.” They walk into the apartment. The man is a hoarder. The apartment is covered in clothes, papers and old Chinese food containers. “Just step wherever you can find a place to put your feet.”

“We’ll be quick. We just wanna know what you saw, and then we will be out of your way.” Finch was afraid to touch Cons’ belongings. She was disgusted and ready to leave.

Eddie asked, “Can I offer you two to some tea? Coffee?”

“No no. No thanks. We just wanna get started.” Brown wanted to speed this along as much as he could. He saw Meghan’s face and she gave him a signal with her eyes that she was uncomfortable.

“It’s no trouble, but yes, let’s get started. I’m sure you have better things to do than hang out with me. I don’t get much company here, you can probably see why but…”

Finch said, “Tell us a little about yourself.”

Eddie asked, “Like what? I’m an interesting fella. I can go on forever.”

“Well we don’t have forever,” Finch declared. She was getting frustrated. “How long have you worked at C&C?” 

“For three years. I was voted Window Washer of the month!”

“How many washers are there?” Finch asked.

“I think we have about 20, maybe 18 or so.”

Finch kept questioning, “Who was on shift when you found the arm?”

“There were five of us, Sally, Charles, Garcia, Clark and myself, but they weren’t anywhere near the arm.”

“Do you think anyone would have wanted
you
to find the arm?” Finch filled in her spreadsheet as she questioned.

“What? I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t have problems with anyone.” Eddie scratched his five o’clock shadow and chewed at his knuckles. “I don’t know anything about Mr. Benson.” 

“How do you know this is about Benson?” Finch listened carefully.

“Because the arm was outside of his office and the guard told me it was Benson’s arm. Are you trying to say I had something to do with this?” Eddie was nervous. He stood up straight pacing back and forth in front of his couch.

Brown interrupts, “No. We aren’t accusing you of anything. We’re just being thorough. Relax. So, tell us what happened yesterday at the office. Tell us what you saw, what you did, everything.” 

Meghan’s thumbs were clicking away as she took notes. She listened carefully and snapped pictures of the apartment in between the typing frenzy. She believed that the condition of his apartment may have implications about his personality and habits. There are some things that may seem irrelevant but Finch wasn’t sure that the irrelevant facts could be determined until after the case was solved.

Eddie moved a few things over before he sat on the couch. “Well, it started as a routine cleaning. We clean the whole building everyday but in sections. The building is so big; I don’t get back around to that window but once every two to three weeks or so. Sometimes four weeks depending upon weather conditions and bird shit emergencies.” Eddie takes a sip of his tea. He shakes his head and puts on his glasses. “It’s normal to see an occasional dead birdie on the ledge, no problem; but a human arm? You can tell the birds had been picking at it… the maggots, the smell. I just couldn’t keep my food down after that. I got hot and woozy and I threw up.”

Finch interjected, “Describe the location of the arm. Where was it when you found it?” She listened and took more notes in her phone.

EDDIE CONS:
WINDOW WASHER/3 YEARS

HOARDER

ANXIOUS

5 WORKERS ON SHIFT: Sally, Charles, Garcia, Clark, and Cons

Eddie fixed his glasses again, “I found the arm on the ledge! It was tied to a brick. I never touched the damn thing. I screamed like a bitch though.” He laughed. No one else found it funny.

Brown asked, “So, how did you alert others about the arm?” Brown propped his hands on his hips and listened carefully.

“I radioed in to dispatch. They called the guard over and I went back to the roof and I threw up there too. Everyone else was asked to leave the floor but they called me into the office. I threw up again! This time I made the bucket.” Eddie got up from the couch.

“Oh yeah. I uh, took a picture before I went back up to the roof.”

Finch was appalled, “You took pictures?! Where are the pictures?”

“On my cell.” Cons picked up his phone from the couch.

“Mr. Cons, this stuff is classified until…”

“I know I know. I promise I didn’t show anyone, and I won’t. Shit. I can’t anyway. The phone fell in the bucket after I threw up in it and now the damn phone isn’t working.” Eddie flipped open his cell phone showing it to Finch and Brown. Brown rolled his eyes and huffed in disgust. Brown snatched the phone opening up the back and removed the memory card. They headed towards the door. He tossed the phone on the couch.