Force of Habit: A Falcone & Driscoll Investigation

by Alice Loweecey

  A poodle in the adjacent backyard yipped and tried to bounce over the fence when she rang the bell.

  Give it up, dog. My mother had cats bigger than you.

  The door opened. “Yes?”

  Audrey Hepburn would look drab next to tall, blonde, slim, manicured Sandra Falke. Giulia’s clothes instantly became frumpy and ill-fitting.

  “Uh... good morning.”

  “Thank you, but I don’t require a copy of The Watchtower.” She started to close the door.

  “Wait, Ms. Falke! I called earlier. I’m with Driscoll Investigations. We’re looking for information on Blake Parker.” She stifled her conscience and with a smile plunged into the lie. “His fiancée’s family is naturally concerned that Ms. van Alstyne makes the right choice for herself and the family name.” Her ears heated up. “They’ve asked us to make inquiries. Part of this investigation includes his treatment of women.”

  The delicately tinted eyebrows lifted.

  “May I come in?” Giulia’s armpits felt damp. Had she put on enough deodorant? Was any amount enough to cover this kind of flop sweat?

  Sandra opened the door. “As I said on the phone, I have an eleven o’clock appointment. I’ll only be able to give you fifteen minutes.”

  Giulia stepped carefully over the threshold—now would really be the wrong time to trip—and followed her through a cream-and-gold parlor into a small sewing room. Sandra sat in the only chair. To gain a moment, Giulia unzipped the Day-Timer.

  “Oh, no,” Sandra said. “I would prefer not to be quoted.”

  “Sure, uh, no problem.” The zipper stuck on the top corner. Leave it. When she looked up, Sandra hid a smirk a long second too late.

  “Would you like me to summarize, dear? You seem new at this.”

  Giulia stomped on her pride and attempted a sincere yet professional smile. “It’s my first time in the field.” Was that the right word? She’d heard it on TV. “I’m hoping to get promoted.” Lie number two. She could hear her former Superior General now.

  “How nice.” Sandra crossed her legs and ticked off points on her salon-perfect fingernails. “Blake will be on the Board of Directors of the company he works for before he’s forty. He’s sharp, ambitious, knows the right thing to say and the right time to say it. He’s building a network of business contacts. My guess is they’re using him exactly the way he’s using them.” She gave a half-smile. “Am I going too fast for you, dear?”

  “No, you’re fine.” Giulia cringed every time Sandra sneered. If she’d ever treated an erring student like this, karma was biting her in the butt.

  “Oh, good. I’m sure with a little practice you’ll be able to remember the important points.” Sandra straightened her silk cuffs. “Blake likes his women to look good and act submissive, yet to be cool and assured in a social setting.” She met Giulia’s eyes. “Did you require information on how he is in bed?”

  Dear Lord, get me out of here. “We, uh... no, no thank you.”

  “Blake always treated me with courtesy in public, but he liked complete control in public and private. I ended our relationship because of that. He also thought it was cute to call me ‘Sandy.’ He said I was his life-sized Barbie doll.” One hand clenched just for a moment. “You can see why the relationship failed. He focused only on the benefits he offered me. He refused to treat me as I deserved to be treated.” She glanced at her gold-rimmed watch and stood. “I’m afraid I have to end our interview. I hope it will help the future Mrs. Parker.”

  Giulia aimed hurry-up thoughts at Sandra as she preceded her through the living room. When Sandra opened the door, a tall young man stood there with a key poised to enter the lock.

  “Sandra. I didn’t know you had company.” The strength in his hard voice belied his tall, thin body.

  “Don, you’re five minutes early.”

  “You’re not dressed, Sandra.” He indicated his tight black T-shirt and black jeans.

  “I’m dressed for my ten-forty appointment.” Sandra looked from the young man to Giulia.

  Giulia took the cue and held out her hand. “Thank you for your time and trouble.”

  The Vision in Black took it. “My sister hasn’t introduced us. You are?”

  She swallowed. “Giulia Falcone.”

  “Ju-li-a.” He stretched out each syllable like he was tasting her name.

  Sandra turned on her mechanical smile. “I hope you get that promotion, dear. Are you ready, Don?”

  Don looked Giulia up and down. “You’re not staying? Too bad.”

  His eyes gave Giulia shivers—they were compelling and eerie at the same time. She pulled back on her hand and was not at all disappointed when he released it.

  The door closed behind them as she stepped carefully onto the sidewalk.

  They’re not watching you. Don’t turn around. Use the nun walk—smooth and controlled. Like you’re gliding.

  Safe inside the car, she yanked the stuck zipper and the pen flew onto the dashboard.

  “Argh!” She grabbed it and scribbled Sandra’s list of Blake’s qualities. As she wrote, an image of Sandra’s dusty-rose nails superimposed itself on Giulia’s short, practical, unpainted ones. Her pen stopped as she wrote a description of the house. Her nails matched the roses on her couch. Good Lord.

  What would the other four be like? If Frank thought he was out of their social league, she was no more than a kitchen maid.

  She reread the three pages of notes she’d just written. Had she forgotten anything important? This taking-notes idea wasn’t going to work. What if the others were worse? She punched the radio’s ON button and surfed till she found a New Agey station. Lutes and ocean waves filled the car, and she leaned her head on the steering wheel.

  A tape recorder. Her high school students sometimes brought them to final-exam reviews. No. She understood their open use, but she’d have to hide it in the Day-Timer. If Sandra hadn’t wanted her to write verbatim responses, guaranteed the others wouldn’t want to be taped.

  How else was she going to do this job? It wasn’t like she’d post the transcripts on the Web.

  No. She remembered reading an official-type printout in one of the filing cabinets. Something about two-party consent to record a phone call. It probably applied to face-to-face conversations, too. Anyway, she couldn’t do it. Not after living through ten years of her mail being read and her phone calls being monitored. She was not about to turn into Sister Mary Hezekiah. The way that woman used to sneak around corners...

  But someone was sending Blake Parker and Pamela van Alstyne borderline-psycho letters and packages. She didn’t know which was worse—the clinging vows of passion or the veiled threats of scandal. All the signs pointed to an ex-lover on the edge. Most likely one of the five on her list. What if Ms. Scorned decided to prove the truism of Hell and fury?

  A mellow DJ announced the next song, and birdsongs with harp arpeggios began.

  Giulia banged her hand on the dashboard. Suck it up. You have a good memory. Focus on what they say and ignore the attitude.

  Her mouth twisted. She would ignore it. Fourteen nuns and one priest couldn’t beat her into submission with attitude her last year in the convent. Half-hour interviews with five society queens were nothing.

  She worked the zipper around the sticky corner and back again. She certainly wouldn’t try to exploit this snippet of authority like Father Mitchell did.

  The zipper jerked too hard and stuck again. Get over it, Giulia. It happened more than a year ago. You’re past it.

  She eased the zipper pull over the bent tooth. And she was over it. Really. Until the memory surfaced and she’d see herself weeping in the face-to-face side of the claustrophobic Confessional, trying to explain why she thought doubting her vocation was a sin. Father Mitchell scooted his cushioned chair closer to her uncushioned one and rubbed her back. Then he crowded both of them onto the wooden floor and held her. So comforting. So kind. Until he pushed her against the wall and her veil slid sideways and h
is mouth crushed hers so hard that her lips were swollen for three days.

  She sneered at her reflection in the windshield. She’d bitten through his bottom lip and escaped, but she hadn’t even tried to report him. Everyone loved Father Mitchell. He was on the fast track to Monsignor. They’d say substitute-teaching censored Sex Ed classes had warped her.

  If the snide notes in her mail slot were any indication, no one missed her after she walked out of Queen of Martyrs Convent, released from vows and still a virgin. Thank God.

  A commercial for Super Summer School replaced the harp-and-bird song.

  Of course. Mnemonics. She’d taught them to review classes every June. They were just what she needed for the rest of the exes.

  11:10. Twenty minutes to the second interview. She popped the glove compartment, found the keys, and started the car. The mall was only five miles south, and her third interview wasn’t till 12:30. The five dollars in her wallet would cover a cheap lunch at the food court.

  She sniffed her armpits. More deodorant wouldn’t hurt, either.

  “Good afternoon. I’m Giulia Falcone, and—”

  “Oh, yes. You called this morning.” Isabel Groesbeck—another tall, slim blonde—pulled her inside and shut the door to the pillared veranda. “Please don’t look at the mess. My sister is getting married in August, and the seamstress is fitting us for bridesmaid gowns today.”

  She led Giulia past a formal sitting room. Four girls stood on ottomans while two women with measuring tapes crawled around them.

  “Would you mind terribly if we talked in the breakfast nook? The maid just started to clean the lunch things from the dining-room table.”

  “That’d be fine.” She followed Isabel through a twisting hall covered with carpet so thick her heels turned with every other step. What would happen if she kicked off her shoes and let her hot, pinched feet sink into the rug?

  “Here we are.” Isabel pushed a swinging door and they entered a room as big as Giulia’s entire apartment. A bow window gave her a clear view of the pool, hot tub, and tennis courts beyond. The table could seat twenty—forty if they were all dieting. The chair she sat in could practically hold her and Isabel side by side.

  Nook. Right.

  Giulia set her purse on the table and unzipped the Day-Timer. “Would you rather I didn’t take notes?”

  The geniality left Isabel’s smile. “I’d certainly prefer it. I don’t wish to feel that I’m being interrogated.”

  Giulia smiled and zipped it back up. “Not a problem.”

  Isabel rested her hands on the blue linen tablecloth. “Would you like a cup of coffee or tea?”

  “Thank you, no.” Mnemonics worked best with no distractions.

  She settled her hands in her lap. Before her conscience launched another enraged sermon, she began, “The van Alstynes are anxious that their daughter makes the right marriage decision for herself and the family...”

  _____

  Four down, one to go. She finished the Groesbeck notes and tucked them in the glove compartment with the rest. Keeping all the interviews under half an hour hadn’t overloaded her brain yet.

  Unzipping the Day-Timer before the first question had worked every time. The tall blonde sophisticates had shuddered at its newspaper-reporter image and then became almost confidential when she zipped it closed. Not quite, though. Giulia might have been wearing a neon sign on her lapel: Social Inferior.

  So she worked for a living. Life was rough. She looked in the rearview mirror. Hair and makeup still passable; lipstick could use a retouch. And she needed a bathroom.

  Pittsburgh next. She opened Frank’s directions. Half an hour from the office... that’d make it forty minutes from her current location. The library was on the way; she could use their bathrooms. The appointment wasn’t till 5:30. Plenty of time.

  Her conscience poked and pinched her. Sister Mary Hypocrite! What a Confession you’ll have this Saturday!

  She turned on the radio. More waves crashing on some shore accompanied by mellow guitars. She pressed SEEK and found “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Cranking the volume, she rolled down the window and headed north, singing as loud as possible.

  It didn’t drown out her conscience.

  _____

  “I apologize for squeezing us both into my car, Ms. Falcone, but AtlanticEdge has one of those open office floor plans. Not a door in sight.” Camille Osborn smiled at Giulia.

  Giulia wasn’t taken in. Camille’s weekly paycheck wouldn’t cover the price of her suit, let alone her shoes. Giulia lusted after those shoes.

  This is about stalking, not Jimmy Choos. Wake up.

  “So Blake’s charmed another one? Let me guess: she’s dripping with both money and status.” Camille drummed her fingers on the gearshift. “I’ll bet he’s still using the organizational charts I created for him. He only got that promotion because I taught him efficiency.”

  “I see.”

  “If he’d stayed with me, he’d be climbing higher, faster.” The smile grew brittle. “I’m different from his other women: I work for a living. They’re living off their family’s money.”

  Giulia glanced at those shoes again. She couldn’t help it.

  “Gifts from one’s family are another thing completely.” Camille crossed her ankles. “I hope his fiancée is Martha Stewart and Stephen Covey and Jenna Jameson all rolled into one. She’ll need to be.”

  This is the best one yet. All I have to do is listen.

  _____

  Common Grounds, the coffee shop below Driscoll Investigations, opened at six. Giulia met Mingmei, the barista, at the door the next morning.

  “What’re you doing here, Giulia?” Mingmei flicked on the lights and headed behind the counter. “I thought you worked human hours now.”

  Giulia yawned. “I have a ton of transcribing.”

  “Hope you’re getting OT.” She opened a vacuum-sealed bag an inch from Giulia’s nose. “Crème brulée flavor. You know you want it.”

  “Of course I do. Extra-large, please. And no, I’m not getting OT.”

  Mingmei shook her long black hair. “Come on, you know better. You can’t make rent by giving your time away. That job at the Marquee pays only ten bucks a show.”

  Giulia inhaled the rich, sweet scent as the coffee started brewing. “Twenty, and I met Frank in that pretentious orchestra pit, so it has its perks.” Her eyes focused on the trays of baked goods. “May I have a cinnamon-apple muffin, too?”

  “Good choice. You remember what’s worth eating from your servitude to the cappuccino gods.”

  “It wasn’t that bad here. I like early hours.”

  “Strange woman. I thought you met Frank here over coffee, not there over your flute and his cello.”

  “That was just serendipity. He took the office upstairs, and lo and behold, here I was behind the counter.”

  “And the rest is history.” Mingmei’s hand hovered over the paper cups and plucked an extra-large when Giulia nodded.

  _____

  Armed with her coffee and two muffins, she booted the office computer and pulled out the notes and her new iPod.

  She waved hello when Frank walked in, but stayed at her keyboard.

  “How’d it go yesterday?” he asked, peering at the screen.

  “Fine. Go away. I’m transcribing.” She paused Classic Reels and Jigs and pulled out one earbud. “I’ll get the phone when it rings.”

  _____

  At 4:30 she spread a stack of manila folders on his desk.

  “In alphabetical order, Margaret Bischoff, Sandra Falke, Isabel Groesbeck, Elaine Moreton, Camille Osborn. All blonde, slim, and tall. Not all as polite as they could be.”

  He opened the top folder. “Wow.” He opened the second. “Iontach.”

  Giulia gave him her “mouthy student” glare.

  Frank laughed. “That was just G-rated Irish. It slipped out. We had cousins from Galway visit last month, and I decided to dredge up all the Irish my grandmother taught me
when I was a kid. My cousins taught me some interesting new expressions.” He grinned. “Which I will keep from your proper ears, ma’am. Now, about these reports. What made you think of folders?”

  “They’re the most efficient way to collate the information. Look.” She opened all the folders and set them in a row. “Personal characteristics. Neighborhood. Description of home. Family members I happened to see. For Osborn, the inside of her car. She’s the only one who has a real job.”

  “Wow.” He shook his head. “Let me think. Anyone stick out?”

  “My clothes weren’t good enough to touch Falke’s furniture, and she showed it. Bischoff and Groesbeck almost treated me like a regular human being. Osborn was all business, an android from a sci-fi movie. Moreton acted like I’d stepped in dog poop and was dragging it through her house.”

  She pointed to a column in the middle of the Osborn report. “Blake has one habit they all hated. He gave them nicknames. Cammy. Ellie. Mags. Every one of them boiled when they told me that.”

  Frank picked up two folders like a kid who couldn’t choose which candy bar to try first. “How did you remember all this?”

  “Mnemonics.”

  “Huh?”

  “Mental tricks to help remember details.”

  “Sure. Good thing you didn’t tape them. It’s illegal in Pennsylvania. We couldn’t have used any of this in court, if it ever came to that.” He jogged the folders into a neat stack. “You did good. You did great, actually. These women would never have told me about their cutesy nicknames. I wouldn’t have gotten one-tenth the information you did.” He smiled at her. “Above and beyond the assistant’s call of duty. Super-nun!”

  Shut up, conscience. Little lies that might save the client were a good thing. I didn’t hurt the exes. I didn’t invade their privacy.

  She attempted to return his smile. “Ex-nun.”

  “And glad I am for it.” He looked at the clock over the filing cabinets. “It’s nearly five. Let’s call it a day. I’ll take these home tonight and pretend they’re as interesting as Yvonne.”