"Oh, don't worry about your sweat," Alex waved a hand from behind her walnut desk, "what's a few pheromones between friends? Now. What brings you back to the police station? Shouldn't you be teaching teenagers Planck’s constant?"
"Administrative leave with pay. One of the perks of being framed, I suppose." Harris nodded up to a disembodied elk. "I wouldn't have pegged you as outdoorsy."
"That's most people's mistake, assuming they know complete strangers. If you create an image of someone in your mind, you’ll only be disappointed or surprised. As a detective, it's not a luxury I can afford."
"Ah." Harris' manhood shriveled. "So that's part of it then? You like the hunt? You like chasing prey?"
Alex's eyes widened. She leaned forward smiling. "Do you like being chased? Is that why you're here?" In the low light, Harris could swear he saw rainbows dancing around her pupils. It felt like staring into comic book hypno-goggles. His breath skipped. He bit down on his lip to keep from word vomiting, to fight the urge to tell this woman whatever it was she wanted to hear.
"This crap was here when I moved into the office." Alex said. "I don't care for it personally, but it has its uses."
"Why don't you redecorate?"
"Let me ask you a question, Harris." Alex leaned forward, elbows to desk. "How many women did you see when you came in? From the time you walked into the Municipal Complex doors to when you sat here in my office, how many women did you see?"
"Beside you, or including you?"
"Either."
Harris screwed his eyes up to the ceiling. The squares of the coffered ceiling provided him a blank slate on which to think.
"Uh, well, there was the receptionist…"
"Exactly," Alex slapped her desk. "The national average for women in police departments is 12.5 percent."
Harris shrugged. "Well, I mean there's bone density and muscle mass—"
"In this department of 120 officers, there's only me and Officer Wilkins. Two. Two damn women in a city that's 53 percent female. Mayor Finnegan is coming up for election next fall. He promoted me to curry favor with women. I'm an affirmative action statistic. A PR move. Do I like this décor? No. But I want to get ahead, Harris. I know I can make a difference. So I'm playing the part until I don't need to anymore."
"You sound like Arthur."
"Forget he’s crazy and he has a point. We all play a character to some degree. Like you and this anarchist blowhard schtick."
"Not a schtick, I assure you." Harris shook his head. "Government must have strict limits to function."
"You're a softie is what you are. Come in here sweating, worried about how you look. My point is that if pretending to be a kick-butt, take-no-prisoners cop will get me enough capital to run for Mayor and finally make some changes…" Alex stood from her chair, circled the desk. She scooted to a seat on the edge of her desk and nodded to Kagan's sneakers. "You know your shoes are untied?"
"Of course they are. I've done an extensive scientific study." Harris had to sit on his hands to keep from fidgeting. Her floral perfume doped his brain. "I trip 92% less with my shoelaces untied. I've presented my findings to a few journals but I suspect the shoelace lobby, or Big Aglet, they, ah…" Harris pushed his glasses up his nose, suddenly forgetting every single word in the English language.
"Listen, if you're here angling for a date, Kagan, sorry, I don't date suspected criminals. Even the cute, sweaty ones. You're like an adorable pug, you know that?"
"The Brit's been lying about his whereabouts!" Harris leaned forward and retched the accusation, the reason for this little meeting, the card he hoped to offer in trade for freedom. "He's hiding something."
"What?" Alex bolted straight, her hands to Harris' knee. The pressure of her touch opened a nozzle of helium into Harris' brain. He became acutely aware of each twitch of her finger, each pulse of her heart. Harris' stomach jumped toward his mouth. It felt like cresting the first rise of an 800-foot roller coaster.
"H-h-he said he was going home after our bail hearing this morning…"
"Yes?" Alex nodded.
Harris swallowed a fist-sized knot bulging his throat. "I followed him. He didn't go home."
"Where did he go?"
Harris shrugged. "He shot through the light on Main in front of the Overlook apartments under red and I lost him."
"What's out there, past Main, past the bowling alley, on the edge of town?"
"Lots of vices thrive in those dingy strip malls," Harris said.
"God, I love being a woman." Alex stood, hands to hips. "Men are so easy. Show a little boob and everyone starts talking."
The sweat beading Harris brow went cold and prickly. "In the interrogation room, you said you wanted to be my friend."
"If you're going to ask me out, Harris, let me save you the time—"
"Oh trust me," Harris said. "Once I prove I'm innocent, I'm taking you out for some Burrito Euphoria and then back to my place for some old-school Nintendo."
Alex tilted her head, considering the offer. "You sure know the way to a woman's heart, don't you?"
"I want to see your case notes. The witness reports. The forensics."
Alex stood. Her smile faded. The games were over. Arms crossed, she stared down to Harris, chewing her lip. White silence crashed over the room. Outside, a cardinal chirped for his wife.
"That will all come out in discovery." Alex said. "Your lawyer, will get it all in due—"
Harris stood, put his hand to Alex's arm. "Milo is hopeless and we both know it. I'm innocent, Alex. I didn't rob anyone."
"I don't know that."
"You do. You just need it proved. Give me copies of the case files."
Alex shook her head. "Why would I do that? Do you know how many regulations I'd be breaking?"
Harris smiled. "You don't give a shit about regulations. You just told me you don't even want to be here. This is just a steppingstone to the mayor's office. You want to be the only goddamn decent bureaucrat in 250 years of American history. Give me the case files. I'll help you solve this case, find the real criminals."
"It could still be you."
"It could." Harris nodded. "But I'm a teacher, so, like I say to my students, let's think scientifically. If I'm guilty, the facts will damn me whether I have them nor not. But if I'm innocent, if I help close this case quickly, you get enough capital to challenge Finnegan next fall."
Two floors above them, Mayor Finnegan sat in his office, pinching his secretary's ass, practically begging every big-box retail store to suck infrastructure away from the town's withering heart. Alex closed her eyes, imagined herself in that office, in that chair. She wasn't alone.
In moments such as these, time shuffles like a deck of cards. The air thickens to plaster, setting an impression of the moment forever. Alex leaned forward, her lips to Harris'. Her fingers circled his wrists. A slight moan floated into the air, but perhaps that happened first. Her nose pressed hard into the hollow under Harris' eye, jolting him backward. Harris reeled back, unsteady like a punch-drunk boxer, and fell back to the visitor's chair.
"Crap." Alex released her grip, shot back to the window.
Not exactly the performance review a Cyrano wants to hear.
Backlit, dust motes danced a halo around her. The red of her cheeks practically lit the office in neon. "That was stupid… oh goshgosh" Alex put a hand to her chest, forced a few deep breaths. She regained her posture, tugged straight the rumple of her skirt.
"Okay, that's not happening again. If Chief Hardcastle were to find out…"
"I won't say a word. Not even to Kavi and Arthur."
"I was trying to flirt information from you. And then. And you…"
"Just let me prove my innocence." Harris' head threatened to float free of his neck. Time had stopped for just a moment and now it zoomed past too fast for him to grasp. "You won't have to worry about breaking protocol, and we—"
"Just shut up." Alex put out a hand. She pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes. The next moment, Alex was marching across the room, hands balled to fists. "Stay here and don't make a kitten-petting peep, you hear me? I'm going to lock the door. If anyone knocks just stay quiet. I'll be back in ten minutes."
Harris twisted in his seat, watched Alex slide out her office door with a butterfly fluttering in his heart. "What?"
"The case files. I promised to be your friend." Alex peeked her head in the door from the hallway. "Don't make me regret this, Kagan."
Harris relaxed back into the visitor chair as the door clicked shut behind him. He looked up to the deer and elk staring down from the walls. For the first time in nearly two days, he felt not like the hunted, but the hunter.
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