The Irishman at the End of the Bar

"No idea, and her cellphone is here too," I say, and have them complete prints before I even touch it. An older iphone, I think an eight, with a six-digit passcode or a fingerprint biometric lock.

"Imagine you're a coke snorting twenty-year-old girl. What's your passcode?" I ask The Kaiser.

"One through six or one six times," he replies, and one through six opened the phone. "I was fucking kidding."

"We'll bag this and look over the phone tonight, let's finish this place up and get out of here," I say, and we resume the search to find nothing else except for about twenty ounces of cocaine taped under the sink in the kitchen. "Check the bathroom sink too."

A tech lays on her back and shines the flashlight up into the underbelly of the sink. After a moment, she announces she found something else. Taped to the bottom of the bathroom sink was an even older cellphone. An ancient flip phone with a four-digit code, and neither one through four nor one four times worked.

We have plenty to work with now, so The Kaiser and I leave the condo to the techs who will have the spend the night literally digging through trash. I do not envy that job, and I also do not expect them to find anything of value. I request one of the techs leave with us to immediately begin an electronic examination of the phones. The flip phone is of greater interest to me because of where it was found and how out of place it is today.

It is nearly eight at night when we get back to the office, and I do not expect anything from the techs on the phones until early tomorrow morning. We do not have much records to search through anymore, so we have hit the wall until we can analyze the phones.

The Kaiser checks his phone as he sits down at his desk, and yawns before placing it into his pocket.

"Go ahead and head home. I'll see if anything from the techs comes in, and I got one more lead I want to check out," The Kaiser says to me.

"What lead?" I ask.

"You mentioned the tattoo is likely a gang marking, right?" He asks, and I did mention that when I filled him in on the drive to the condo. "Maybe violent crime has seen it before. I'll see if someone is working late as well."

That is a good idea. Running off the claim the tattoo marks her as a prostitute for a crime family, the department that handles prostitution might know it. Focusing on the McCoy family is our next logical step if those cellphones do not turn anything up. We could even do the gang database a favor by filling in the missing pieces.

"Alright, try to get some sleep though," I say, and he nods, informing me he will.

--

I am not too tired when I exit the elevator and move toward the door to my new apartment. Once the lease was up at the last place, I could not move fast enough. There was no way I could live in that place anymore, especially when Marlene moved so fast. She left nearly half of her belongings, which was mostly her nautical themed decorations I dumped immediately.

My new place has the same problem as my last one before Marlene moved in; It was too apparent a single man lived there. All I had in my living room was a coffee table -- a new one because I threw the last one - , a couch, a chair, and television stand and television -- also new, because the coffee table was thrown at it - , and a small bookshelf for my books.

The kitchen was a few pots and pans and enough dishes for four people at most. My bedroom was just the bed and dresser, but my closet had slowly been progressing. At least once every two pay cycles I get a new suit, and I had thrown away all but a few of my polos.

The second bedroom was the office, where I kept the rest of my books. I try to keep my desk as clean as possible by wiping down the top and the computer at least once a week. My Sunday is cleaning day usually, and I love how my entire apartment is hardwood floors because I hate how carpets hold odors.

It will be awesome to come home to a clean apartment after that condo I just walked through. I unlock my door, push it open, and turn on the light next to the door. Instead of silence, I am greeted with a loud, "Surprise!"

I jump back, as everyone in the apartment laughs at my reaction. Like every year, I forgot it was my birthday. The guests I immediately see is my brother Quentin and his wife Victoria, and never too far out of frame from him is Noelle, his assistant on her phone. Sergeant Nathan White, one of the SWAT team leaders is here, along with Leo who I only now realized was not at the office when I left. I guess Sergeant Hill from patrol left right after we did, because she is here in jeans and a boobalicious shirt. Jill Whitaker, the chief of the CSI lab is here, likely enjoying her first night off since she had her twins.

So much for a relaxing night in.

Leo immediately hands me a beer as I toss my keys into my key bowl and start mingling. My lieutenant, acting or otherwise, just handed me a beer during an investigation. That just happened.

"There is no way I was missing my little bro's dirty thirty," Quinten says and wraps me in a hug, and I hug Victoria a moment later.

"Where are the boys?"

"With my mom, we're just here for the night so we knew they'd just be napping the entire time," Victoria replied. Could not bring his kids, but his side bitch -- pardon me, assistant -- gets to come for the ride. He really needs to figure that out.

"Chief gonna be here?" I ask Jill who shakes her head.

"Nope. He gets daddy daughters time," she says with a grin. I found the plural funny for some reason, and chuckle. "My first day off in months. Breast feeding and pumping is done so this is my first drink in over a year." She downs two back to back shots, shivers a little from the impact and exhales hard. "Number one mom!"

"You've earned it," I say and tap by bottle to hers, because of course she also has a bottle, and meet Nathan next.

Sergeant Nathan White is one of the SWAT team leaders, and also runs the departments combatives course, along with me and another detective from violent crime, Sergeant Detective Abigail Tor. If it was him in that room where I got stabbed, he would have torn them to pieces, and yet people think I handled it above average.

Nate is former Air Force, special parachute commando or something. I keep forgetting what he says. It does not role off the tongue the same way Special Forces or Rangers do. I am sure he will remind me when I mess it up again.

"My favorite paratrooper," I say as we bro hug. Bro hug, a small intimate hug where we barely touch with only a soft tap to the others back with a fist.

"Paratrooper is Army, I was Pararescue, for the fiftieth time," he says, though his tone his playful. I knew he would remind me.

I give thanks and pleasantries to everyone until I finally reach Patrol Sergeant Hill at the end. My greeting for her is a firm kiss she returns. We prefer this to not be well known, but we have been dating for a few months now. She was unsure if I would have a party at all, so she gave me my present in advance; the black leather-bound notebook.

"Happy birthday," she says, and we spend the night floating around the apartment entertaining together like a normal couple. She is not living with me yet, but that is more of a matter of formality at this junction.

"Any major developments?" Leo asks.

"Victim was not very well liked, had a drug problem that led to prostitution, but nothing as to why that ends with getting shot with a magnum in the back of the head," I say, and Leo digests that. "The Kaiser is running down one more lead before calling it a day."

"I'm sure the Captain will come by tomorrow to ask for an update, so be ready for that. Queen doesn't come in swinging a dick like Whitaker, but you know firsthand he can grill a guy when he wants to," Leo says, and sees Jill has heard her husband's name. "No offense on the swinging dick."

"None taken, it's a good dick," Jill says, and we all laugh. "I should check in, make sure he's not overwhelmed."

"I'm sure he's fine," Leo says, but Jill still steps away to make a call. I think she is masking how much she underestimated she would miss her babies. I am betting she will leave within the next ten minutes.

"Bro," Quin says, and gesturing to pull me aside to my bedroom.

"What's up?"

"Come here," he says, and I follow him into my bedroom where he has a garment bag on my bed. "It's your birthday present." He got me a suit? "I called your girl, ask her what you've been up to for a present, and she informed me you have been updating your thread game."

"I have," I say, handing him my beer so I can open the bag to see what he got me. I am glad I handed him my beer, because I would have dropped it. "Brioni?"

"Neiman Marcus actually, but I did look at the Brioni's as well. I figured if I spent too much you'd never wear it, and suits do not belong on hangers. It's less than a grand, but only just less."

That is about five hundred more I would have been willing to spend. He is right, I would never wear something over a grand I might have to run in later. As usual, Quin feels the need to win the birthday gift contest, and he is in the running. I love the notebook Lauren got me, and I will use that every day, so she wins. Hard to compete with a birthday blowjob. The Neiman Marcus, navy blue, three piece with the two button front, and made in Turkey suit is a pretty close second.

"From my donors, to you," Quin says.

"You know I'm a cop, right?" I ask.

"Joke, happy birthday bro," Quin says and I hug him again. "Let's drink."

"Not too much, I got a case right now," I say to temper his expectations of my threshold tonight. Quin, liquor and I, have a long and sorted history. Most of my worst drinking decisions were made with him.

As I predicted Jill leaves within ten minutes, followed by Nate and Leo. Soon it is only Quin, Victoria, Noelle, and Lauren at the apartment with me. Victoria and Lauren are gossiping on the couch, Noelle is doing political assistant things in the corner, while Quin and I step out to my balcony to share a cigar.

"You gonna figure some shit out with your assistant?" I ask, and he shrugs. "Dude, you are one October surprise away from losing next year after you've jumped this far. Granted if your constituents knew you don't believe half the shit you say nowadays."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Quin asks.

"You know what I mean. You don't believe in gun control, you think climate change is overblown, you're more hawkish on foreign policy than even dad. You're not a Democrat man. Not saying that's a bad thing."

"Maybe congress needs another moderate," he suggests.

"Then be honest about your policies," I reply.

"Bro, this nation was founded to be a democratically elected Representative Republic. Ideally, I should have no opinion other than those I represent. Pandering to the base is kind of the point."

"My issue is, the you I see on the news, is not the person sharing this cigar with me," I say, take a few puffs and hand it back to him

"Thanks for the picture by the way. I jumped eight points after that and got the endorsement of the police union. You may have single handedly given me the primary," he says. I let him take a picture of him being a normal dude checking in on his working-class police officer brother wounded on duty.

"Noelle could collapse that lead," I say, and he sighs.

"Victoria knows," he says.

"What?"

"She's being really Jackie Kennedy about it. She just keeps smiling and waving, while I sleep in the guest room," Quin says, and offers me another puff which I do not take. He dabs the cigar on the side of my building and leaves it on the table next to my chair on the balcony. I like to read out there with coffee some weekends.

"We need to be heading out," Victoria says to Quin as we come in. He checks his watch and nods, agreeing it is time for them to go. Noelle stands up from the seat and follows them out after I hug to see them off. Now it is just Lauren and I finally.

Under normal circumstances this would be the best part of my night, however, I am currently on a case. I can tell it annoys Lauren I do not have sex when I am on an investigation. Not anymore.

"It meant a lot to see you using the book," Lauren says after we curl up in the bed, her naked and me still in my boxers.

"It's a good book, of course I am going to use it. Really ups the professional look ante," I explain, and she smiles and burrows her head into my shoulder. "What would your first department pick be?" She must have received the results from the detective's exam by now.

"What picks do people who failed get?" Lauren asked, and her voice tells me she is not joking. When I tilt my head to look down at her, she digs her head deeper.

"You failed?" I ask, and she nods into the pocket of my shoulder.

"I know the information, but I am a bad test taker. Always have been," she says, and a memory flashes past my mind, and I do not want to share. In college I always busted my friend's nuts when they did bad on tests. He told me he thought he was smart, but always struggled when it was time to find out what he knew. The thing is though, Lauren is smart.

"I feel so stupid. You know what I mean?" The lowest test score I ever received in my academic career was a ninety-three. No, I do not know what you mean.

"When can you take it again?" I deflect.

"Next quarter. The test is hard, right?" I do not have the heart to tell her I received one of the only two perfect scores in the history of the precinct. In twenty minutes. For a test scheduled for an hour and a half. No, the test is not hard.

"It can be challenging in some parts," I clarify with intentional vagueness.

"Do you ever feel like, if five answers in a row were B, then one of them is wrong?" She asks. No.

"It feels weird I guess, but they might just be trying to trick you." They are. The test intentionally does that to see if testers will have their instincts override their intelligence and clear evidence to the contrary. The last four answers being B, has no bearing on the next answer being B.

"Would you change your answer if that happens?" Why would I change a correct answer because of other unrelated questions?

"Probably not," I say, uncommitted to my true answer of 'fuck no'.

"I hope I do better next time. I would have liked to have some fun to get my mind off things, but my boyfriend doesn't have sex during an investigation," Lauren complains, and begins rubbing her hand over my boxers. "Don't want the distraction?"

"It's not that," I say.

"Then what?"

"I just don't anymore," I say, not wanting to talk about it. I do not want to ever talk about Marlene again.

"Anymore?" She asks. Shit. "So you used to?"

"Then something happened, and now I don't," I say, hoping to drop it finally.

"What happened? Did fucking during a case let a murderer walk or something?" I ask. As a matter of fact, kind of.

"The last person I slept with during an investigation, ended up being a suspect," I say, and she pushes up to look at me more directly.

"You're serious?"

"Wish I wasn't. In fact, the last two. My ex slept with me the night before a murder, and another slept with me during..."

"Wait a second, another? Two suspects?" I might as well.

"So long story short, I believe my ex conspired with two other people to kill someone. I found the two other people, the fucker who stabbed me as a matter of fact and shot his ass. The accomplice found and fucked me for information a week later while I was on drugs and recovering. Afterwards I am ninety-percent certain my ex then strangled her to death, put her neck in a noose and then threw her off a hotel balcony to stage a suicide. She got off Scott Free because she was careful and fucking me the night of the initial murder turned me into a walking alibi."

That is why I do not have sex during an investigation.

"Forget I asked," is all Lauren can reply with.

--

Friday -- December 12, 2025

-William Kaiser-

I receive a text message as I sit down at my desk when Chase and I return from the condo. Lauren is letting me know everything is set up at the apartment for his birthday party. It is a little off putting to have it right at the beginning of the investigation, but his family bought plane tickets and I would hate to screw them like that. Not like his brother can't afford it, but it's the principle. Knowing Chase, he'll drink two beers and call it a night by eleven. I let Lauren know he is on his way after he leaves.

Before I do anything else, I call my ex-wife to let her know I probably can't take Ursula for the weekend. As much as I would like to, and believe me I want nothing more than that, I can't. This case isn't straight forward and will likely take the entire weekend to identify a suspect, if we even get that far. It's amazing how hard finding a suspect can be sometimes. Unfortunately, we often don't. Becky does not take it well, because she had plans.

"Of course, you do this when I actually had plans," Becky says in frustration. Sorry I disrupted your plans without your daughter, maybe this wouldn't be such an issue if I could see her without your fucking permission. I totally meant to have a woman murdered this morning. Sorry for not running that by you first. Apply sarcasm.

"I don't decide when people get killed," I say in my defense, not like I should have to defend myself.

"Whatever, but you better take her for Christmas," she says. I will make sure your daughter doesn't ruin your vacation with your boyfriend. I can never hang up on her fast enough.

Time to get back to work. I send another text message, but this time to my contact in violent crime. My phone chimes a minute later, and she lets me know she is still in the office. It is a little past eight thirty when I board the elevator and select the sixth floor after scanning my security card. It arrives in seconds and I follow the sign to Violent Crime. I don't need the signs, since I have been here often enough.

The only detective working late tonight is the Sergeant for Violent Crime, Abigail Tor. A few years older than me in her mid-thirties, but damn is it a good look on her. Shiny brown hair cut to a bob which does not curl inward. It hangs like a curtain over her ears with straight cut bangs, forming a near perfect square to frame her freckled face. I met her during a combatives training she taught with Chase and Sergeant White from SWAT several months ago, which is why her body is stupid tone and thin as a rail.

Similar to our office area, only the Lieutenant has their own private office. The desk for the sergeant is amongst the open floor plan, though freer floating than the other desks that are pressed together. I keep hearing Narcotics is where you want to be a Sergeant for. The office feels lived in, not dirty or crowded. Case files fill inboxes, there is some clutter on desks, but mostly just office supplies. There is a whiteboard keeping track of all the running cases and who is running them in the back near the Lieutenant's door. What stands out here is that they have their own conference room, but they happily share it with Narcotics down the hall.

Sitting at the slightly isolated Sergeant's desk is Abigail Tor, typically the only one here this late. She tends to take cases personally and gets more invested in their resolution than even Chase does with his cases. I don't think he ever fully rebounded from the Hopkins murder. Especially after Marlene. That would have been the nail in the coffin for a lesser detective. Thankfully Chase isn't lesser in any regard.

Abigail hears me come in and smiles as I approach. She places her open case file on her desk and closes it, letting me know she is putting it away for a moment to talk to me. I want to jump straight into the Goldberg case, but it is evident she has other plans as she looks down the hall and quickly moves to the conference room. I suppose I am not in too much of a hurry.