“Is Luke already here? I can’t see his car.” George looked around the parking lot.
“Yes. I think he’s parked in the back. The silverfish here don’t like his anti-fungus nail polish any more than the ones at home.” He opened the passenger door to step into the blaring sun.
George followed, carefully locking his Escalade. “Will it ever go away?”
Andi shrugged. “Not with the nail polish, no.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“I’m a bit torn. On the one hand, it makes him easy to discern. As if he’s walking around with a neon sign flashing over his head. Then again, I don’t want him to lose his nails. Or for the fungus to spread on his body.”
“Wait, that’s a possibility?” George shuddered.
Andi didn’t seem overly concerned. “It could. When it gets bad enough on his feet, he starts dragging particles up with his underwear and trousers. Typically, the fungus starts growing on the inside of the thighs, close to the crotch, next.”
“You need to tell him! Immediately!” The mere thought of fungus anywhere near his nether regions had George breaking out in a cold sweat. He was very meticulous about hygiene and proud of it.
“Well, the solution is for him to start pissing on his feet when he’s in the shower. I’m the first to admit that I’m no expert in social interactions, but I think that might cross a few lines.”
George didn’t know whether to laugh, huff, or cry. That was the thing with Andi. He appeared to be willfully ignorant of anything to do with interpersonal relationships, only to drop sentences like this one. All without so much as a twitching of his lips, indicating he was making fun of George.
“I’ll find a way to mention it.”
They reached the entrance and stepped into the chill of the reception area. This precinct was relatively new, not housed in some old building like their own precinct back in Charleston, with an outlay that resembled more of a company than a governmental institution. A young beat officer behind a high reception desk greeted them.
“Hello, and welcome to the Spartanburg Police Department. My name is Brent Miller. How can I help you?”
George smiled at the energetic young man while Andi subtly moved so he was standing slightly to the side and behind George, leaving him the pleasure of making a new acquaintance. The very good thing about their partnership was that this sentence was true for George without underlying sarcasm and true for Andi with the sarcasm dripping off every syllable. A win-win if George had ever seen one.
“Hello, I’m Detective George Donovan from the Charleston Police Department, and this is my partner, Detective Andrew Hayes. I believe Chief Savalle is expecting us?”
Officer Miller’s eyes widened in what George interpreted as relief. He didn’t go to the trouble of looking them up on his computer. Instead, his smile brightened, and he practically threw their visitors’ badges at them.
“It’s so nice to see you, detectives. Yes, Chief Savalle is expecting you. Agent Gelman is already with him. If you take the elevator to the second floor, his office is at the end of the bullpen. Everybody up there can help you!” He waved toward the elevators across from the entrance.
With a smile, George took the visitors’ badges and gave one to Andi. “Thank you, Officer Miller.”
“Always, it was my pleasure.”
As soon as the elevator doors closed behind them, George looked at Andi.
“He’s glad we’re here. Tensions are unbearably high, and he’s green enough to think the arrival of two detectives from another precinct, who his chief has asked to come, is enough for things to go back to normal.”
“Ah, to be young and innocent again.” George sighed. “We already knew it would be bad. Do you get anything we could use?”
Andi shrugged. “Assuming Gelman is with the chief and the FBI agent at the moment, I’d say tension would go down massively if Savalle and DeCapristo would have sex. Their adrenaline is definitely high enough to make it…probable.”
“They are a good match?”
“Their children would most probably be prime specimens. They would also be raised by only one of them.”
It was all George needed to know about the chief and agent. Always assuming they were the two people with Gelman, which was almost a given, their pheromones made them genetically compatible, but only in the field of procreation. They weren’t a good match in any field important for this case, which meant George had to be prepared to play peacemaker, and if that failed, take control.
Andi put his hand on George’s forearm, the touch light yet reassuring. “You’ve got this.”
George placed his hand over Andi’s. It was cooler than his own, despite the heat, reminding him that they both needed to eat and soon.
The elevator doors opened into a short hallway with open double glass doors at the end, leading into the bullpen, which was the same chaos of people, scents, shouts, and equipment as their own. There was a certain security in knowing that some things were the same everywhere. They got the usual stares reserved for strangers with badges—not to be confused with the stares strangers who weren’t perps got—when they made their way through the bullpen toward the only office in the space. The door was closed, and it didn’t take any detective work on George’s part to know this was the chief’s office.
