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Eddie raised her hand and knocked two times, hard, on the wooden door of the bungalow, before taking a step back to stand next to Collins.
“I’m telling you, speaking to this rando woman is gonna be an enormous waste of time,” she muttered. “We don’t have the time for this. She probably wasn’t even in town when Bushy was m– “
Her complaining was cut short by the door opening. Standing in the doorway was a woman with a warm, but confused smile on her face. She looked to be in her mid-forties, but didn’t have a single wrinkle. Unfair. She was, objectively speaking, fucking gorgeous.
“Hello, Miss Richards. I’m Detective Redcliffe and this is my partner, Detective Collins. Um, Police. We’d like to ask you a few questions about, um, a night last...” Eddie trailed off. What month had Bushy been murdered again? Her memory from that time was muddy. She should have studied the case file a bit more seriously before diving head-first into the first interrogation.
After a few awkward seconds, Collins took over. “We’d like to ask you a few questions about the night of February 9th. As you might remember, a shooting took place on this street at around eleven p.m. that evening. May we come in?”
While Collins was speaking, Eddie took a closer look at the woman – Eugenia Richards. She was wearing a patterned green wrap dress and red lipstick that complimented her dark skin perfectly. Her long, black hair was held back by a hairband made from the same fabric as her dress – who even had time for that kind of outfit coordination like they were some kind of fucking Barbie doll? Eddie suddenly felt very underdressed in her jean shorts, which she had thrown on in a hurry this morning simply because they were the only pants she owned that didn’t currently have ketchup stains on them. Or at least, the stains on these ones were less noticeable.
Eugenia Richards looked even more confused now, but kept smiling. “Of course, come in! The living room is just to the right. Sit down, I’ll make you a cup of tea.”
Eddie stepped inside the house after Collins. The first thing she noticed was the smell – vanilla, probably. Or at least definitely one of those fancy fucking ice-cream scents. The living room was, just like their host had said, to their right, and they sat down on the sofa and waited, a tense silence settling between her and Collins.
The sofa was very orange and very comfortable. Full of throw pillows, too. Eddie impulsively punched a pillow. It was soft.
She took a look around. This house was very cozy, its owner had clearly lived here for long enough to acquire a ton of little knickknacks that gave the room a very personal note. She seemed to be a fan of bright colours, patterns, and hanging art on the walls.
Eddie looked down at her legs and started scratching at a ketchup stain on her thigh, hoping it would come off. She should probably cut her fingernails soon. They were all black and disgusting around the edges.
This was getting boring. When was that fucking tea going to be ready? Eddie looked a bit closer at the art on the walls. Ha, all of it seemed to be drawings of naked women in various weird positions. She elbowed Collins in the side. “Looks like she’s a fan of the ladies. You two’ll get along.” Her stomach did that weird swoopy thing it always did whenever she made a joke about lesbians.
Collins scooted further away from her on the sofa. “You can’t just assume – “
But she was cut short by Eugenia Richards entering the room. Eddie didn’t want to waste any time. “So, Miss Richards, where were you this February 9th? The night of the… shooting?” Despite all the therapy sessions she’d gone to by now, talking about Bushy’s death was still hard for her.
The woman walked over to the sofa, balancing a tray with three steaming polka-dot mugs in her hands. “Oh, just call me Eugenia! And I’ll have to look in my phone’s camera roll and see if I have any pictures from that evening. Just to jog my memory – it’s awful, you know? That’s why I could never be a detective. Wouldn’t be able to connect all the dots.” She winked at Eddie. Eddie suddenly felt even more aware of the ketchup stain on her shorts. It was probably huge.
“Ah, yeah. Um, take your time. Just…“ Eugenia Richards set the tray down on the low coffee table in front of them. Oh, her dress was very low-cut. Probably very impractical if you needed to spontaneously sprint in order to catch the bus, or, um, anyways, it seemed to be very impractical. Suited her, though. Looking away from this sight was probably very difficult for a lesbian like Collins. This perfect décor… dekolty… Whatever that fancy French word for ‘great tits’ was. Eddie shook her head to pull herself back together. “Yeah, just look up those photos. No need to hurry, we’ve got time, um, ma’am.”
She felt Collins shoot her a confused look. Eddie chose to ignore her partner and picked up a cup of tea. It was the perfect temperature and tasted of peach or pineapple… or… cherry? Some kind of fruit.
Eugenia sat down in an armchair on the other side of the table and started tapping away on her phone. After a few seconds, she turned the screen around to show Eddie and Collins a picture. It seemed to be a photo of two people, but it had been taken in a dark room; Eddie could barely make out anything. She squinted. “What exactly am I looking at here?”
“Oh, sorry, you probably can’t see it that well from over there! Here, look.” Eugenia leaned forward to get the phone screen closer to the detectives. This was obscene. Eddie could basically look all the way down to the underwire of her bra now. Which she, of course, didn’t do. She needed to look at that photo. But before she could, Collins already started to speak. “So, you were at a bar? Can anyone confirm that?”
Eugenia leaned back in her armchair and Eddie felt like she could breathe again. “I was there on a date with this woman. It didn’t work out between us, but I could still give you her contact info, if you need that? Her name was Jennifer.”
Eddie felt her face grow hot and elbowed Collins again, as a sort of See? I told you she was a lesbian.
Collins made a quiet, vaguely annoyed sound before replying, “Yes, if you could give us her contact info, that would be great, Miss Richards.”
“Sure, no problem!” She, oh, fucking hell, leaned forward again, and started copying a name and a number onto the page of a notepad that she already conveniently had lying on that table, like the organised person she probably was. This time, Eddie made an effort to look at the decorated walls instead of… her dress. Oh great, lots of tit art on the walls. She glanced at Collins – her partner was also very pointedly looking out the window to her right instead of at Eugenia. Ha, that lesbian.
--
Once they were back in the police car, a weirdly tense silence settled over them. After a few seconds, Collins turned to Eddie. “’No need to hurry, we’ve got time’? Who are you and what have you done to Eddie Redcliffe? What happened to ‘this woman is going to be a waste of time’?”
Was Collins making fun of her interrogation methods? “You always say I should be more friendly to the people we talk to!”
“Yes, that is true, but usually you don’t exactly take my advice.”
“Well, maybe you and your wife’s disgusting healthy communication methods are finally rubbing off on me.”
“It’s just a bit sudden, that’s all.”
Collins looked like she might want to say something else, but then she just started the car, which Eddie was very thankful for.
A few minutes into their drive, Eddie said “So, we should probably call her soon and get her to come to the station. To answer some more questions, I mean. Police work and all that.” Why was she so nervous to bring this up?
“But you heard her, she wasn’t even here the night of the mur- the incident. We’ll call her date, Jennifer, confirm her alibi and if it’s true, there’s no need to contact her again.”
That made perfect sense, so why was Eddie feeling disappointed? She was probably just hoping that Eugenia could be a valuable witness. Or not exactly a witness, just… someone who lived around here.
“But, Collins, she could definitely still help us with the case. She’s probably been living in this neighbourhood for ages, so she could tell us a bit about the people here. There’s probably some suss dudes living here, maybe there’s a local drug dealer – “
“Oh, Jesus, Eddie, don’t make up another drug dealer story – “
“– and anyways, you need some new friends here, and I think you two might get along, seeing as you’re both – “ Eddie mashed her fingers together in a scissoring motion, her face feeling hot all of a sudden.
“I am perfectly able to find friends on my own, thank you, and by the way, it would be nice if you stopped reducing people to their sexuality, Detective! This is a really inappropriate way to talk about a person you don’t know at all!”
Oh shit. She’d been detective’d. Never a good sign. And also, though it hurt to admit it, Collins had a point.
They spent the rest of the car ride in uncomfortable silence.
--
One week later
“Oh, Eddie, by the way, Eugenia Richards is coming by in five minutes. I’m going to ask her some questions about the weeks before the incident.” Collins looked back down at the files on her desk and continued to scribble something into her weirdly big notebook.
“What the fuck, why didn’t you tell me earlier?” It would have been nice to know this beforehand.
Collins looked back up, a confused look on her face. “I’m just going to ask her a few questions. Standard procedure.”
“Yes, but – fuck, just – wait here.” Eddie threw her hands up in frustration and stood up from her own desk. She’d slept maybe four or five hours last night and consequently looked like a weasel that had been run over by a truck, and she needed to look presentable and serious if she wanted to be taken seriously as a detective, right? Couldn’t hurt to put a bit more effort into her appearance for once. She hurried to the bathroom, taking her hair tie out and shaking her hair out until it fell down her front. Huh. She hadn’t had her hair down while it was dry in, hm, probably several years. Well, it didn’t look too bad, just unfamiliar. She ran her fingers through it a few times. Oh shit, her lips looked all chewed up – wasn’t there some kind of… ah, there it was, the emergency lip balm that Cath had left at the station for some godforsaken reason (“It’s important to moisturise if you don’t want to look like a turtle by the time you’re fifty!”) still in the small cupboard next to the sink. Eddie uncapped it and ran the sticky fucking tube over her lips a few times in a circling motion. Oh, that shit was slightly tinted. Red. Well, a bit of colour couldn’t hurt. Maybe this would distract from the huge dark circles under her eyes.
When she stepped out of the bathroom again, Collins did a double-take that she probably thought was subtle. She didn’t even say anything, but Eddie still felt defensive. “No need to start drooling over me. Just thought I might take some more of your missus’s advice and look more, you know, ‘professional’.” Eddie did air quotes around that last word.
“I didn’t even say anything. But I have to say, I didn’t think your interpretation of a professional look would include red lipstick.” Collins lifted her eyebrows.
Eddie blushed furiously and shoved her hands in her pockets. “This isn’t even lipstick, it’s, what’s it fucking called, moisture. Thought you lesbians knew all about wetness – “
But she was cut off by a knock at the door. That was probably Eugenia. She smoothed her hair down one more time, then walked over and opened.
Yep, Eugenia was here. Today, she had her hair in a loose braid, falling over her shoulder. She was wearing a bright red button-down, tucked into a swishy skirt and unbuttoned at the top in a way that, once again, revealed the top of the curves of her breasts. Fuck, Eddie could never get her own ones to look like that. She cleared her throat.
“Hello, ma’am!” How did conversations work again? Why was she suddenly stealing vocabulary from Big Eyes? She could feel Collin’s gaze burning a hole into her back. “Um, come in, please. If you’d like.” She stepped to the side. She should probably be a bit more polite. “After you.” Ah, shit, that sentence probably only applied if you were entering a room together with the person you were saying it to, and not already standing in it. To distract from that, she waved her hands around in a vague gesture that hopefully looked polite and inviting.
Eugenia thankfully didn’t comment on the weird greeting, just smiled at Eddie with her very beautiful lips and stepped into the room. She was wearing red heels that made very satisfying clickety-clack sounds, she was at least one head taller than Eddie, and she smelled good.
While Eddie was still busy trying to decide whether to describe the scent as “sweet” or “flowery”, Collins started speaking. “Thanks for coming by, Miss Richards. As I stated on our phone call, I’d like to ask you a few more questions about last February. Would you like to sit down?”
“Whoa, Collins! Let’s make our guest feel more comfortable. Would you like a cup of co- um, a cup of tea?” Eddie felt very proud for remembering Eugenia’s drink of choice.
The woman smiled at Eddie, once again, which made her feel like she was being X-rayed. (Ugh, Ray-ed. That name just wouldn’t leave her alone.) “That’s very sweet of you. But no thanks, I’ve already had my tea today, and I’m very set in my habits.” Her brown eyes crinkled at the corners. How could somebody make a conversation about tea this beautiful? Maybe tea was just generally an enchanting subject and the English, those coloniser fucks, were truly onto something for once.
Eugenia sat down in a chair across from Collins, and Eddie hurried into the little kitchen next to the desk area. “I’ll just get you a – ah, fuck!” – she’d stubbed her toe on the doorframe – “– a glass of water!” She filled up a glass and returned, carefully setting down the glass in front of their guest, trying not to spill any of it.
“Oh, thank you, Detective Redcliffe.” She took a sip while Eddie’s cheeks started burning. She’d remembered her name! That was a sign that she took Eddie seriously as a detective. Her professional look must be working. Was it working? Did she look presentable enough? Her hair felt weird. Her lips were sticky. She mumbled a “No prob” and walked back to her own desk.
“So, Miss Richards, let’s start from the beginning. As you probably know, a shooting took place on your street at around 11 p.m. the night of…” Collins started listing all the facts about the night of Bushy’s murder, which was a subject Eddie always deliberately zoned out for, because it was too painful to hear these facts. Today, thinking about something else came easily to her. She had a perfect view of Eugenia’s side profile from here. Of course, she also had a beautiful jawline – sharp and defined, you could probably cut your finger on it. Unlike the rest of her body, which seemed… soft. Eddie wondered for a second if she was wearing a push-up bra – how did those even work? Surely if they mashed your tits together and remolded them up into a different shape, that would probably make them look weird in other places. But no, this woman’s breasts still looked perfectly round from the side. Fascinating.
Her legs were mostly hidden by the big flowy skirt, but Eddie could guess from the way the soft fabric clung to her that she had big, soft thighs. They probably got twice as wide when she sat down. Gorgeous.
Something wet ran down the side of Eddie’s chin and she swiped at it with her hand, confused – was she drooling? What the fuck, was this a sign of early-onset dementia? She wiped her wet hand on her shirt. Today’s shirt was black, so the stain wouldn’t be that noticeable. Wait, since when did Eddie suddenly care whether her shirts had visible stains?
“Detective!” Only now did she notice Collin’s voice. Her colleague was looking at her with that trying-not-to-look-annoyed-but-actually looking-very-annoyed expression on her face that Eddie had gotten to know very well by now. “I asked you if you could quickly look that up for us.”
Eddie was confused. “Look what up?”
Dulcie looked back at her, then closed her eyes and dropped her head into her hands for a second until regaining her composure. “Nevermind. Since you clearly haven’t been listening, I’ll just do that later. Myself.” Her voice got louder towards the end, the way it always did when Collins was absolutely annoyed at somebody. Oh, how Eddie loved getting on this woman’s nerves.
“Well, Miss Richards, thank you so much for coming. I’ll be in touch if we need any more information from you,” Dulcie said. What?! They had clearly been in the middle of their conversation – Dulcie had just (apparently) asked Eddie to look something up that was relevant to the conversation – she couldn’t just make Eugenia leave already! What if she changed her mind and wanted some tea after all? What if she was currently in the middle of dying from dehydration and Eddie making her a cup of tea would save her life? Had Collins ever thought of that, hm?
But it was too late. Eugenia already stood up, her skirt’s fabric falling back into place around her gorgeous, perfect, pretty legs that Collins was probably super attracted to, and walked back to the door. Eddie quickly got up, knocked into her desk, and opened the door for their guest. “Thanks, Miss Eugenia, ma’am, for coming. Um, for helping us, I mean, not coming-coming, that would be inappropriate to say. Well. Nice day, um, it’s sunny outside, yeah, have a nice day.”
Eugenia walked past Eddie – nope, she stopped in front of her. And put her hand on Eddie’s upper arm for a moment. Um. Warm. Soft. “Thanks for having me, Detective Redcliffe.” Her hand was still there. What the fuck? Why was this hand so warm? Why was it transferring its heat directly into Eddie’s cheeks and other body parts that had no business being activated right now? Why did she say ‘thanks for having me’?!
How did you say good-bye to a shining goddess like her? Without really knowing what she was doing, Eddie lifted Eugenia’s other hand up to her face and lightly pressed her lips to its back.
After the longest split-second of her life, she dropped the hand again, her lips burning, and Eugenia just said a breathy “Oh, thanks,” slowly blinked, and walked out into the sunshine.
Eddie closed the door, slowly breathing out.
She turned around, only to find Collins standing next to her desk with a very, very strange look on her face. What was this?
“Eddie, I really can’t work with you while you’re like this.”
Eddie felt the warmth in her body be replaced by a far more familiar heat – anger. “Well, maybe the reason you aren’t getting your work done, Mrs. Perfect-Fucking-Lesbian-Sherlock, is because you keep ending conversations with important witnesses before you got all the information you need from them! Why did you send her away already?”
“That is true, Eddie, I do need some more information from her. But I felt like we weren’t getting anywhere with you in this… state.” She made an exasperated gesture.
“What ‘state’?”
“Oh, don’t do this.”
“Do what, Collins?”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to know what you’re talking about? I’m not a mind reader!”
Dulcie opened her mouth, then closed it again. Looked at Eddie. Narrowed her eyes. “Wait. Do you really not know what I’m talking about?”
Eddie felt even more furious now. “No! Spit it out or just shut your hole!”
Her colleague let herself fall back into her chair and put her head in her hands again. “Oh, Jesus. I don’t want to be the one to have this conversation with you. Well, here we go.” She turned to Eddie, looking her in the eyes. “You’re very clearly attracted to this woman, and frankly, your little crush is making you act even less professional than usual.”
“What?! I don’t have a – a crush on her! I don’t have crushes! I’m not in the fuckin’ fourth grade anymore, Collins! Plus, I think you’re getting something confused here, mate, you’re the lesbian. I know you were probably looking at her amazing thighs and her glossy hair the whole time, or whatever, but there’s no reason to project that shit on me!”
Collins sighed. “I was definitely not looking at her thighs. Just like I was also not looking at her cleavage two weeks ago at her house with my eyes nearly falling out of my head, unlike you. It was very noticeable, and it was highly unprofessional.”
“I – “ Eddie didn’t know how to reply. Yes, sure, she’d been looking at her boobs for maybe a second or two, but they were just on display like that, so – “It was unfair! They were practically hanging out, it would have been impossible not to stare! Just because she chooses to push her tits so far up that they practically touch the ceiling, that doesn’t mean I want to rip her dress open with my teeth. Or whatever.” She shook her head to get rid of that mental image, which felt like it had just been waiting just under the surface to pop up at just the right – no, the wrong – moment.
“So what you’re saying, detective, is that if a woman chooses to wear a revealing dress, it’s okay to rudely stare at her and make her feel uncomfortable?”
Eddie, for once, was speechless – not only had she been detective’d once again, but Collins was right. If she had caught a man saying the kind of shit she herself had just said, she’d punch his teeth in and call him a misogynist prick who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. In fact, she was pretty sure she’d already done that exact thing once or twice. Eddie knew she was rude and honest to the point of being really fucking annoying, sure, but she wasn’t a misogynist. She had always made really fucking sure to support, or at least respect, the women around her, which always sounded like cliché bullshit, but she knew how hard it was in this shitty world run by old white men.
She looked down at her shoes, avoiding Collins’s gaze. “Shit, mate. Hate to admit it, but that’s true. I’m… you know. Sorry. That was a shit thing to say.”
When Eddie looked back up, Collins’s face had softened, which was almost scarier. “Don’t you think it’s possible that you’re just – attracted to her? And that you don’t know how to deal with that?”
“Mate, I…” – she had no clue what to say.
“Which would not excuse your staring, by the way. That was bad. But if you’re feeling, um, confused about – “ Collins looked as pained as Eddie felt; they never talked about emotional stuff and they both liked it that way – “navigating… certain feelings… related to women, I could… well, you can talk to me about these kind of things. My own coming-out process was two decades ago, but I still remember the confusion. It was bad. So.” She started fiddling with a piece of her hair, which was how you could tell Collins was feeling really uncomfortable if you knew her well enough. But she kept talking. “And not that it’s any of my business, but I know how to tell when a woman is attracted to another woman, and you were honest-to-God salivating over her. So I don’t want to assume anything about you, and again, it’s none of my business, but no matter what this is, you need to act more appropriately around Miss Richards.”
That was lot to take in. Eddie cleared her throat and spoke, quietly for once. “Yeah, thanks. Honestly, I don’t know what the fuck I’m feeling. Never thought I could be attracted to a woman, I’m definitely not one of your lot, y’know, I’ve always just been with men, but… what you just said, it kinda makes sense.”
“I’m not saying you need to stick a label to it. Just… you know what I said to you, after we found Ray at that waterfall? Everyone should give women a try at least once? I might have been close to fainting at that point, but I stand by that. Not that I’m saying you should seduce our witness the next time she comes by. But, if you want to explore this… option of dating women, there are… possibilities.”
Eddie grinned at her. “Are you saying I should download one of those hook-up apps and go finger some random women around town?” She raised her hand in front of her face and wiggled her fingers around suggestively.
Collins turned bright red. “That is not what I’m saying, but you’re an adult – more or less – and you can make your own decisions. And by the way – I’m happy to talk to you about this stuff, but I’m definitely not giving you advice about anything sexual. That is a line I absolutely never want to cross with you. My birthday party back in Deadloch was bad enough.”
Eddie shivered at the memory of Cath accusing her of wanting to fuck her colleague. “No worries, mate, I’ll just ask your wife if I ever want to know any of your amazing sex techniques. I heard your ‘finger thing’ gets rave reviews.”
Collins gave her a disgusted look, but Eddie could tell she was fighting a smile beneath the surface.
Without another word, they both sat down at their desks and went back to work. There was a killer to catch, after all.
And a few apps to download beneath the desk, where Collins couldn’t see it – maybe Eddie could find Eugenia on one of them.