S.V. Redkin – The Great Conductor (страница 8)
Now it was time for her to leave. The Great Conductor was right about it, but Sebastian would need some help with that.
Sebastian started practicing. Today he would play a movement from the most difficult Bach suite—Suite no. 6 in D major—and play his concerto from beginning to end to get in the right mood. This day was going to be special. The beginning of the rest of his life.
Chapter 7
“Good work on the Brown case, Christine,” said Lieutenant Douglas Whitehead, Christine’s supervisor.
He was in a good mood. He was a strong man—an ex-marine—in his mid-fifties with a balding head and inquisitive eyes. Word had it that one of his (and his wife’s) passions was breeding dogs, and there was nothing wrong with a hobby like that, except he liked . . . miniature poodles. You would not want to make any jokes about miniature poodles when Douglas was around unless you wanted to be on his blacklist. He could not wait to get to his retirement and “take the breeding business to the next level.” Someone could have said that they were trying to compensate for the children they never had, but that person would most likely want to be in a different city to say something like that.
Lieutenant Whitehead was going on vacation in a couple of days, and Christine knew that he didn’t like to see loose ends and unsolved cases on his desk before his annual fishing trips. The case he was referring to was the domestic homicide of a young woman, Tabitha Brown, twenty-seven years old, who was shot by her boyfriend’s shady debt collectors. They came to scare her into giving her boyfriend a message, but she apparently put up a fight and was mortally wounded. The boyfriend, whom Christine had arrested and interviewed, turned out to be a decent person if you didn’t count his criminal activity that led to his girlfriend’s death, and he testified against the gang involved in the case. The case was solved relatively quickly, and it helped to increase the clearance rate for the department.
“Keep up the good work while I’m away,” the lieutenant said and threw a new file on her desk, adding to the considerable pile of folders. “Take a look at this case. Hit-and-run.”
Christine’s special interest in such cases was known around the office, and it wasn’t treated as a form of favoritism. She knew that the lieutenant had a rather stoic way of thinking when it came to any type of mental obstacle. In his mind, the obstacle, whatever it was,
“Looks like it was intentional. The detective who was on it had to take a personal leave,” he added. Christine looked at Douglas—taking a leave during a case was quite unusual.
“Yeah, I know,” Douglas said as if reading her thoughts. “It was some family tragedy and, to be honest, he didn’t make much headway with it. Just . . . take a look at this, and there should be a list of people you should talk to first right in the case file.” Lieutenant Whitehead looked around the office and added, louder: “Listen up, everyone. I expect all your reports on my desk by nineteen hundred tonight, no exceptions.”
There was some unenthusiastic, agreeing group murmur, and all the detectives went back to their never-ending piles of cases. Douglas smiled and looked back at Christine: “How are the shrink’s sessions going?”
“I have one this afternoon,” she said, not answering the question.
“Listen, we all go through some tough times. You know, people here”—he pointed at the detectives in the office—“they get burned out and can’t wait to get back to patrol or get a desk job so they don’t have to deal with cold cases that are piling up.”
Christine kept silent. Whatever Lieutenant Whitehead had to say, it was better not to interrupt his train of thought.
“What I’m saying is . . . get your stuff sorted up here . . .” He pointed to his own temple. “Get it right, because there’s so much crazy shit on the streets that can’t wait to mess with your mind and drive you crazy. You get my point?”
“Yes, sir,” Christine said.
“All right. Keep your eyes on the prize and don’t get distracted by trivial stuff. Shrink’s appointment—be on time,” he said and slowly went toward his office, stopping at different detectives’ desks to check on the progress.
***
Today, Dr. Korpacheff wore a beige silk dress, a nice pair of golden earrings, and matching bracelets. Her engagement ring, with a big diamond, sparkled over her white-gold wedding band as she was taking notes in her leather-bound notebook.
“Do you want to tell me about this date?” she asked Christine right after the detective had shared a few updates in her life.
“Well, his name is Victor and he’s in the real estate business with his father. He’s forty-five, Caucasian, tall, healthy, and has blue eyes.”
“That’s an interesting description, don’t you think?”
“Why?”
“It sounds like you’re describing a suspect.” Dr. Korpacheff smiled.
Christine pondered for a second and nodded. It did sound like a police description. “Occupational hazard?” she asked.
“Perhaps,” Dr. Korpacheff agreed. “How did going on this date make you feel?”
“I was . . . a bit nervous if I’m completely honest, but he seemed . . . nice and clean.”
“Clean?” Another note went down in the notebook.
“Is it a strange way to describe one’s date?”
“If that’s what comes to your mind, then . . . clean is good.”
“Anyway, he told me about his life. He’s single. He had girlfriends but it didn’t work out, obviously. He travels a lot . . . for his work, which is . . .” Christine was thinking about the correct way to finish the sentence. “I guess it’s fine, but . . .”
“Could be a problem if . . . ?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, I’m also busy . . . with my work here.”
“So you’re thinking about the possibility of developing this relationship?” It sounded as if it was more of a question than an affirmative statement.
Christine shrugged.
Dr. Korpacheff took her glasses off and put them on her notebook. “What did you tell him about yourself?”
“He knows about my parents, if that’s what you mean. Like I said before, his parents are friends with my grandparents, so he might’ve heard some things about me . . . might’ve asked something before going on the date.”
“I see.”
Christine waited for another question and when none came, continued: “Anyway, we had a nice chat, he insisted on paying for dinner, and saw me off to my cab.”
“Are you going to see him again?”
Christine gave it a thought and nodded. “I think I might.”
Dr. Korpacheff put her glasses back on and took another note. “How are things at work?”
“Busy. New cases come every other day.”
“Relationship with coworkers?”
“No screaming this week.”
Dr. Korpacheff nodded. “Things at home?”
“Well, apart from the blind date, nothing to write home about.”
“How are your hobbies going?”
During their first session, Christine had told Dr. Korpacheff about her obsession with stones and shooting, which helped her to relax and get her mind off some of the gruesome details of her job.
Christine believed that stones had energy that could cleanse her mind and protect her from negative energy from the outside world. Her mother, Connie, used to wear some beautiful beads, and little Christine used to like to touch them on her mother’s wrist. One day Connie showed her how to make a bracelet, and it slowly transitioned to amateur lapidary after finding some interesting stones—turquoise, agate, mother-of-pearl, tiger’s eye, and black onyx—that belonged to her mother. Back in the day, it was the only thing Christine liked to do whenever she had a break from her music.
The other hobby that helped Christine forget about the criminal world, to her grandparents’ surprise, was target shooting. “Don’t you get enough of that at your work?” her grandma would ask her every time Christine returned from practice. It was a sport that did not allow distractions from outside the shooting range, requiring total focus and calmness if one wanted to be good at it. If Christine was thinking about other things, it would show in her performance, and she would receive a quick reprimand from her coach. She was almost expecting Dr. Korpacheff to talk about the sensual aspect of shooting—Dr. Sigmund Freud definitely had something to say on that subject.
“Well, I don’t know what to say.” Christine shrugged. “I still make gemstone bead bracelets and target shoot regularly.”
“What do you do with the bracelets?” Dr. Korpacheff asked.
Christine showed her the beads she was wearing today—turquoise stones with a couple of silver beads. “I wear them, give them to people I care about, and sell them online sometimes.”
“Is there good money in it?”
“Not really. It’s just, they give people energy. I like to think that someone is wearing something I made.”
“What kind of energy would that be?”
“I don’t know. They promote healing and protection from negative energies, I guess.”
“Is that why you wear them?”
“I don’t know.” Christine looked at and played with her bracelet. “I think they’re pretty. I enjoy making them and . . . they remind me of my mother.”