The door opened and a middle-aged, graying, detective with a hangover of a waistline walked in, pen and pad already in his hands. I didn't have to ask for identification to know who he was.
"Collings," I said, giving him a jerk of my head as his younger partner walked in behind him.
"Paine," he said back, giving me a nod. "We have a couple questions for you, Miss. Bay," he said, addressing Elsie, his face softening.
"Sure," she said, giving him a small smile and avoiding looking at me.
"Can you describe the man who attacked you today?" he asked.
I felt myself tense. If she described him too well and he showed up in the hospital later and Collings clocked the cuts on my knuckles, yeah, things wouldn't go too well for me. But that was a problem for later. I sure as fuck wasn't going to ask her to lie to the police.
Elsie shrugged a little. "Tall, but not super tall. A couple inches taller than me. I'm five-nine," she clarified as Collings nodded and wrote in his notepad. "Really built. Like... he had to have been using steroids to get muscles like that. He had on basketball shorts and a wifebeater. Nothing really distinctive about his features. Sorry..."
She was being evasive. She wasn't outright lying, but she wasn't giving the full truth either.
"Ethnicity?" Collings asked.
"African American," she supplied.
"Can you give us a plate number or partial plate number? Make or model of the car?"
"I didn't get a plate number. My back was to the car and then I was... unconscious. And I'm great with new cars, but I don't know anything about older cars. It was older. Very squared, tan or gold... old enough that there was no release hatch in the trunk."
"Okay," Collings said and I could see him mentally writing off the case. There wasn't enough to go on and we all knew it. True, Shane's security footage might eventually surface and then maybe D would be caught and sent away. But it was a long shot. It was something I needed to discuss with Elsie when she had a chance to process things; what did she want to do with the information? Did she want D in jail? Did she just want to let things stand? He wasn't a threat to her anymore, but if she needed him behind bars to feel safe, I would make that happen for her.
"Put your hand on me one more time!" I heard a loud, booming, commanding voice outside the door demand.
Don't tell me how I knew for sure who it was. Maybe it was the way Elsie stiffened, looking at once relieved, worried, and angry. Maybe it was the authoritative way he spoke, as if he wasn't used to anyone telling him what to do. Maybe it was just the most obvious explanation.
Edward Bay had somehow gotten wind of his daughter being in the hospital.
Not more than a couple seconds later, the door burst open, making the rookie cop stiffen and put his hand over his weapon. Collings simply slowly put away his notebook and pen and nodded at Elsie. "We'll be in contact, Miss. Bay, if we hear anything." He nodded his head at Edward Bay as he passed. As he turned out the door, he caught my eye and gave me a look that I swear to fuck said he understood the situation and was leaving it up to me. Such was the way Collings, a twenty-something year member of the NBPD, handled business: let the streets handle their own shit until he absolutely needed to step in. He was clean. He didn't take bribes, but he understood the power balance in our town and he had no intentions of fucking with it.
"How the fuck did this happen?" Edward Bay asked as he closed the door. There wasn't an ounce of softness in his form, not literally or figuratively. Meaning he kept himself in shape underneath his five-thousand dollar gray suit and had a personality that would make a fucking ice cube shiver.
"Nice to see you too, Dad," Elsie said, her voice sounding suddenly exhausted, like the night's events had drained every last drop of energy from her. "This is Paine," she said, waving a bandaged hand in my direction. My head tilted at the guardedness of her tone, wondering where it came from, if she was reconsidering us as a couple because of all the shit that went down. Even if that was the case, it wasn't something we could talk about in front of her father so I let it drop, but it stayed as a clawing feeling in my stomach.
"Paine?" he repeated, turning to look at me.
"Mr. Bay," I greeted him, tucking my hands behind my back, making it clear I had no intention of shaking his hand. I knew it was a slight and if the fire in his eyes was anything to go by, he took it as such.