The Woman Hidden

by Lucas Mattias

  She seemed surprised to see a badge hanging on his belt when he moved the coat away to try to clean the sweater over his shirt, also struck by coffee. She smiled as someone who apologizes and offered her empty hand, after putting the phone inside the pocket of her pants.

  “Georgia Meade.” She waited for him to retribute the gesture.

  “Detective Gilles.” Unnecessary. “Anthon Gilles. And I’m really sorry for your coffee.”

  The handshake dissipated and she opened a smile, looking around, probably on the search of a trashcan to dispose of that messy cup and some way to clean her wet hand.

  “You can show me how sorry you are by buying me another one.”

  “It’s lunch time, not coffee.”

  “Caffeine helps me, mostly now after I left some other addictions behind.”

  He smiled at the irony. A day full of ironies. This one, at least, was comforting.

  “Ex-smoker, too?”

  She nodded and he enjoyed the few seconds of that smile to admire her a little more. Georgia. She was no young girl, sure, but she wasn’t so old either, probably a woman around his own age, maybe younger than him for a bit. On his pocket, his phone went back to vibrating, something that should remind him of his wife, but he ignored that sign again and shrugged, in surrender.

  “Only if you share your coffee with me.”

  She seemed surprised, although the years of experience told him there was a reciprocal desire under that crimson smile. She moved away suddenly, which made Anthon suspect it all had been a stupid game, but she returned the same way she went, after leaving the cup on a trashcan near a pole.

  “I know a great place near,” he said, indicating an opposite way with his head. “Better and cheaper than your overestimated Starbucks.”

  Anthon waited and started walking on the direction he previously indicated, feeling relieved when he noticed she was accompanying him. The cigarette, now, didn’t seem so urgent as before.

  “Isn’t it cold up there?” She asked and it was not because he was taller than the new stranger, it was because of his shaved head.

  “You get used to it. I assure you.”

  Her laugh was an unprecedented angelical sound. They kept on walking and, despite knowing on his heart that that coffee was a terrible idea, he was fully aware that he neither had the strength or the maturity to stop it from happening.

  After all, it was just a coffee.

  “And how long have you done it?”

  The question came at about the same time the two coffees were delivered to them, along a small plate with a croissant. She kept her eyes on him, showing her interest, while opening a sugar sachet.

  “Fifteen years. Fifteen years as a detective and you’d understand why I shaved my head.”

  “I thought it was just to conceal early baldness.”

  Anthon allowed himself to laugh, caught unarmed by the proximity they already had gotten by simply sharing a coffee – in an appropriate manner, this time.

  The café was not too crowded, probably due to the time they had chosen to be there, but it was a small, comfy place, away from all the mess of the precinct, although it offered a dozen benefits for the law enforcers. The waitress, Julia, the regular as usual, smiled at Anthon and moved away, already certain about the fat tip she would receive at the end of that service.

  “You still haven’t told me a thing about you.” He commented, slowly blowing his coffee.

  “It might sound conducive, but I’m a lawyer.”

  “Lawyer as in big corporative firms with millionaire deals and extremely important clients lawyer or as in really does their job defending people who really need a defense lawyer?”

  She laughed and lowered her head, facing the coffee. Had he been too rude and just made an inappropriate joke for the moment because, in the end, she was actually a corporate lawyer and possibly even the owner of one of those firms he so much hated?

  “Until last week, big corporative and bureaucratic and everything else you said lawyer.”

  “Dismissal?”

  “Leave. Years working over the same thing can drive you crazy.”

  He smiled, because not only he agreed, but he lived that nightmare, too.

  “Sabbatical year?”

  “Ah,” Georgia sighed and he admired it during the seconds that it lasted until she came back to face him, lifting the coffee and blowing it at times. “Vacation. With no further pretenses. A time to rest.”

  “So, it was by chance that I met you in front of my precinct?”

  The way she raised her brows and shook her head made him believe that it was possible she had just been caught in a lie. Nothing too serious, though. As much as he wanted to consider many things, the detective inside him went silent and let the man took charge.

  “An old client was in trouble. His son is being held at your precinct right now. I came by for some advice, but I don’t want to get involved.”

  “The Kenneth with a DUI?”

  She briefly lifted a shoulder and sipped her coffee.

  “It happens in the best of families – and frequently on those.” She seemed surprised by the coffee. “Oh, God.”

  “It is a good coffee, I told you. I strongly recommend their macchiato in a next stop by.”

  “You seem to spend hours here.”

  “Frequently. The owner – believe me - is called Antonio and since he finds amusing this name coincidence, Italian or not, ended up becoming a formidable friend. He keeps the place almost 24/7 for us.”

  “The wife must spend many nights awake, I suppose.”

  It was partially hidden by the big coffee mug, but he noticed when the woman’s eyes jumped to his hand and the ring he had in there. The game had changed and, now, he was the one caught in a lie by an amateur detective. She must be a wonderful lawyer.

  “I… well, she…”

  He couldn’t put the words together in a sentence, let alone knowing what to say. He wouldn’t lie to himself, that was indeed heavy flirting, one in which he could feel the tension between them raise and lift simultaneous to the coffee steam. Georgia landed her mug on the table and was, apparently, enjoying his mental confusion.

  “You don’t have to explain yourself.” She let him go, delicately placing her hand on top of his. “I understand.”

  “We have jobs that, often enough, prevent us from having this kind of life.”

  “I don’t think our jobs are the problem. We are. Surgeons get married and have a stable life, and so do lawyers, detectives and the list goes… some people are just not meant for that.”

  He narrowed his eyes and observed her better. Beneath that skin he so much would love to touch and her perfectly outlined and stunningly green eyes, there was a bruised person, someone who wanted to hide away their pain and cuts from the past in a positive attitude, accepting coffee from a stranger as an apology for a stupid accident.

  “I assume you are also married.”

  “Until last week.”

  “Amicable divorce, I presume.”

  Her tightened lips and her focus on the coffee foam made the detective change his perspective. In an interrogation room, he would say the suspect was withholding information. In an interrogation room, he wouldn’t bend forward, nor would he try to use a smoother voice to get inside the suspects inner secrets. And so he did, for he knew it was not an interrogatory, she was not a suspect, but a charming and attractive stranger. Besides, leaning forward would give him a nice view to the delicate cleavage she wore so well under all those coats.

  “I’m sorry.” He said, “I had no intentions to pry or be so invasive that way. It’s just a coffee.”

  “Do not… apologize. The divorce was my idea and I feel relieved. It’s surprising how free you can feel after freeing yourself from a relationship that was quite… oppressive, I would say. I’m also aware I shouldn’t take this conversation to a darker and heavier level, my letting it out is good, sometimes.”

  “Difficult, though, is to fin
d someone to whom you can let it out without judgements.”

  “Maybe that’s the real reason behind our meeting, Detective Gilles.”

  Maybe it was. In his head, he could picture many directions they could reach from that conversation. As incredible as it could sound, all the ways predicted by Anthon led up to a king size bed in one of the near hotels. Those directions, they were good.

  “Children?”

  “No. I didn’t allow myself to give that luxury to such a pitiful and abusive man. You?”

  “Wow. You cannot ricochet a question after such heavy answer.”

  She tilted her head and stared at him, pinching the pastry without knowing if she should eat it or not.

  “It may sound heavy, detective, but the truth is even worse.” She smiled, as if she had just shared a pretty memory. “It just doesn’t affect me anymore.”

  “And you never… I don’t know. Called the cops?”

  She laughed loudly and then prevented herself from talking by putting a small piece of the croissant in her own mouth. After a few seconds of chewing and swallowing and sipping, she softly wiped her lips, in that way women do without removing their lipstick or staining the napkin, and spoke again:

  “It’s a little difficult to have the police support being a woman. Better said, being the wife of a man who’s influent and has deep pockets and who has never laid a finger on you, but made your life hell for the fifteen years you were together.”

  The parsimony in which she spoke was impressive, and much more impressive was the youthful and joyful way she delivered him those Stories, as if nothing really affected her anymore. Regardless of what she could have been using to overcome such traumas in that nice way, he would love to give it a bite.

  “Must be liberating.”

  “Ha,” a giggle joined her words. “Who needs pre-nuptial agreements when you can threaten a public scandal and market stocks?”

  Anthon laughed with Georgia, stealing a piece from that croissant that, now, looked attractive too.

  “If it makes you feel better, if the pile of cases I have here weren’t enough, my services were summoned by the Sheriff of a nearby town to solve a case that… how can I put that? It’s a television case.”

  She shrugged again while drinking her coffee.

  “Nobody cares. About television. If you say it’s a Netflix case, you sound updated, current.”

  Something in her comic humor sounded disturbing. Particularly because he would expect, in his point of view, such attitude from an abused and traumatized woman, least of all with a stranger. And Anthon, well, he had his own ghosts to deal with and he wasn’t, per se, the best example of a husband. The phone vibrating for the tenth time was a good evidence to that.

  “But what happened?” She amended, interested.

  “Murder. Suicide. Maybe a serial killer, I don’t know. The Sheriff doesn’t even have the competence to give details and, by now, I don’t even know if it’s a real case anymore.”

  “I’m better at discussing evidences than at finding them, but I have good experience with investigations, it’s part of the game.”

  “I’m well aware of the headaches you provide us with when you decide to battle prosecutors for fun. I’m the one who gets crap when you win over them at the courts, did you know that?”

  Georgia chuckled again, agreeing. Yes, she knew that. It was very possible that, over the years, she must have confronted a couple of detectives, cross-examined many of them in front of dozens of people, humiliating some even just to try and get a whole jury convinced that the justice defenders were, in reality, wrong. However bothersome that could be for his ego, it also made him admire her even more, denying most of his mottos and jokes he used to crack amongst his workmates about them damned lawyers, Devil’s loyal servants.

  “Anyway. Nobody knows anything, exactly, but it seems that someone killed husband, wife and son, set fire to the house and disappeared. Seems, because only the son’s body was found so far. Now there are talks that the couple was not even married to begin with and I have no idea whatsoever about it.”

  “Wouldn’t it be interesting if the wife killed husband and son in a Greek tragedy scenery and fled to another country?”

  “Now we have a… Netflix? Netflix case.”

  “You are a quick learner.” She gently enounced, while pointing the coffee spoon at him and bearing a stunning smile on her face.

  “Yep. But there’s no clue about anything and they are now requesting my presence there. I said I didn’t know what good I can do visiting a house turned coal mine in the middle of the woods unless there were bodies and then they told me they need help on finding the bodies and I still don’t know what good I can do, I train no dogs.”

  This time her laughter rumbled inside the small café. As much as it could be considered something stupid and mundane, he felt pleased by it. It’d been a long time since he told a woman tales about his job – his own wife. Except from the fellas at work, the ones who actually lived the cases with him so they were not tales, merely procedure. With Georgia, it was different and, again, he could feel that pleasure and the feeling of when he used to tell those stories to his wife, years and years ago, when he was a rookie, a young man trying to find himself in the middle of piles of folders and cold cases; a yester time in which there still was a flame of obstinacy and motivation to be the best, the be acknowledged, the drive to solve a case closed years ago without a solution. With that simple and small gesture, Georgia made him feel young again and full of life.

  “And now I have no idea of what to do, because I still have a boss to report to and I don’t want to deliver the case on a silver platter to the suited-up feds.”

  She cleared her throat and switched into a more serious posture now that the croissant didn’t exist anymore.

  “Where did this alleged crime happened?”

  “Mountains. About two hundred miles from here.”

  “Derby?” Her question was somehow shocked, maybe embedded in weirdness.

  “Yes. Have you heard anything?”

  “No… but that’s where rich families go on winter. The ex-hubby has estate over there. Had, now it is mine and I’ll sell it soon. I have zero aptitude for hunting or skiing. They have a beautiful lake over there. But besides the burned house, are there any information regarding the family, criminal records, anything?”

  “Same old. Wealthy folks. I would say vandalism, but that’s a calm place. There was a witness, a woman who was found near the area, hurt and apparently running away from something, but it looks like the hospital lost her.”

  “Fugitive wife. By this time, she’s probably sipping mojitos while enjoying a new hairstyle at some Caribbean beach.”

  “Not always Greek tragedies.” He said, although having fun. What he meant was that not all women suffer the abuse and turn to a divorce – or killing husband and son.

  “You’d scream at how many Greek tragedies there are out there without news coverage or complaints.”

  “So, you think that the real suspect, the real criminal here is the woman that couldn’t even be held by the hospital?”

  “No, but…” She made herself comfortable in the chair, observing him from the other side of the table while leaning backwards. “Want to hear an idea?”

  Yes, he was open to anything. Specially something that could take him away from that unfounded case in a town where he would like to go, mostly under the threats of heavy snow. Mountains and heavy snow? Pass.

  “Please.”

  Georgia leaned forward, over the table, reaching for him in a light manner.

  “I’ll excuse myself, saying I have to freshen up, just so you can pay for the coffee as promised and flirt a little with the waitress - who has a mild crush on you -, but you already know that. Then I’ll come back, grab my purse and you’ll follow me while ridding yourself from all commitments you might have for the rest of the day.”

  “And why would I do that?”

  “Well…
maybe because I know a great place near”, she said, paraphrasing what he had said before to her, on the streets, which got him smiling. “Better, but not cheaper, than your overestimated café. Funnier, for sure.”

  Before he could refute or question any of that, she had already stood up and was now requesting directions from Julia, the waitress. Anthon felt something vibrate within his body, that flame burning once more and spreading across his body again. He knew he’d been planning to do it, he wanted to take her to a hotel and give that woman a night to compensate for all those years of suffering. An afternoon, whatever. The only thing he hadn’t been planning was seeing the initiative coming directly from her and in such straight words. He got some bills from his wallet and tossed them on the table, already calling Julia, ready to do that thing he always did and, of course, ready to follow Georgia’s plan as she desired him to.

  In some other times, the idea of being falling in love to a woman whom he literally had just met could frighten him. He wasn’t frightened, among other reasons because he knew he wasn’t actually in love. She was intelligent, stunning and brought him feelings he had already forgotten the tastes of, but it was not love. It was attraction. Not a risk, not a mistake. Just a moment of freedom lost among the wars he battled inside, with himself.

  As soon as she returned and grabbed her purse, Anthon hurried to follow her, making sure he hadn’t forgotten anything behind.

  “You know I’m married.”

  “If it were a good marriage, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “You are one particularly rare woman.”

  They had already hit the streets, now they only had to define where to go. Georgia waved for a passing cab, which ignored her, but she already could see another one coming.

  “Just because I know how to deal with adultery? It is not my conscience at play, pleasure is what I’m after. What are you after, Detective Gilles?”

  As the taxi cab stopped, she reached the door and opened it, ready to get in. Fuck the world. He didn’t know what he was after, but he knew that, in that moment, she was his goal.