“Morning.” I’m back from my apartment, freshened up and ready to get down to business. I have a rigid morning routine I don’t ever deviate from. I wake up at five, before the sun rises. Stretch in bed and think over my day. I drink one glass of lemon water, then spend twenty minutes meditating before I journal and drink my coffee. I get my workout in, make a to-do list for the day, then usually do my laundry, clean the bathroom, and mop my floors before I head into work.
I like things tidy, clean, and routinized. Let’s just say it works well for me.
Today, I had to modify things, of course, which always makes me feel a little off. I got home and changed, brushed my hair and cleaned up, put on the bare minimum in makeup and grabbed my work bag. I had the day off yesterday because of the funeral, but today things are back to normal.
I watered my plants and wiped down the fridge, and stripped my sheets because it’s Thursday. I tossed in a load of laundry and wiped down all the mirrors, then plucked some drooping flowers from the fresh bouquet I keep on my dining room table so it’ll look nice and fresh when I come home tonight. Satisfied things were as they should be, I tucked Mario’s wallet and phone into my bag. His name was plain as day on his license in the wallet. He doesn’t even have a fake I.D., which honestly doesn’t surprise me.
The Rossis don’t hide who they are. Last night, the game of anonymity was only him playing along with me.
I strapped on my sidearm, then headed to work in my unmarked car, a typical plain Hyundai people in our division often drive to avoid suspicion. No one ever suspects they sport a souped-up engine among other accommodations.
Because I work in the Criminal Investigations Division, otherwise known as the CID, I work a typical day shift with weekends off, unless I’m on call. This past weekend, before the wake and funeral, I had four more cases handed to me before the workweek started. I like to get as much done and solved, signed, sealed, and delivered as I can before the weekend begins and I get another fresh slew of cases. My boss won’t give me new cases if I have too many active ones, and we all know that detectives with cases open too long don’t get promoted.
It’s intense. But unlike the way TV depicts cases in a crime unit, the reality is, it often takes months, not hours or days, to find out vital information and close a case. The ones I close in a week are the ones that are usually open the shortest, but it’s an ongoing roster.
“Anything I need to know?” I ask Julia as I take the manila file folder she hands me.
She rolls her eyes, hangs up the phone, and beckons for me to come closer. “Grady brought in cannoli.” She winces, and I stifle a groan. We’re convinced my boss Lance Grady has some kinda multiple personality disorder. He brings in baked goods when he’s at the very precipice of what is sure to be a downward spiral. Next thing we know, he’ll be walking around here barking out orders and micromanaging the shit out of all of us. He usually starts with me.
“Gah-reat,” I say with a groan.
“Better get the good ones before everyone else does. The ones with the mini chocolate chips go first,” she says with a conspiratorial smile.
“Ha, I’m good thanks.”
I do not touch Grady’s ingratiating baked goods. Hell, I rarely touch any baked goods, but most especially the ones Grady brings in. I reason it’s like eating the gingerbread roof off Hansel and Gretel’s witch’s house. Before I know what’s happening, he’ll be trying to stuff me in his oven.
Shudder.
I wave goodbye and head to my office.
I scored a corner office last spring that overlooks the Boston waterfront. My one little slice of heaven in an otherwise very mundane office setting. I shut the door behind me, slide into the office chair behind my desk, and quickly scan the room to make sure everything’s as it should be.
This time, it isn’t just my perfectionist nature that makes me look for every paperclip and tissue out of place. My office contains many confidential files and paperwork I don’t like getting into the wrong hands. Everything’s clean as a whistle, though, as tidy as I left it two days ago.
I put my phone on speaker to check my voicemail while I open the file folder. I sigh.
You have twenty new messages. Twice as many as normal, since I haven’t been in the office in two days.
“Hello, it’s… it’s Bernadette Grazie. You told me to call this number with any leads or information. I know it’s only been a few days since we talked, and you promised me you’d call with any information, but I…” her voice cracks. “I’d love to… to speak with you when you have a minute. Please let me know if anything’s changed.”