Err on the Side of Violence: Terribly Acronymed Detective Club Series (Book 3)

Chapter Thirty: Rachel, Thursday

Rachel left Al to keep an eye on Emma and Naomi while she Skytrained to New Westminster. She suddenly had an urge to talk to the New Westminster Police about Jenna Davenport. She felt she owed it to Emma to find out the truth of what had happened to her; luckily Emma hadn't inquired into the specific cause of her mother's death, she'd been too overwhelmed by the very fact of it, but Rachel still felt she owed the girl something after she'd lost a mother who'd only ever failed her.

She got off at New Westminster Station and walked from there along Columbia Street to the police station on Sixth Street, remembering the last time she'd made this trek. Al had called her and told her her ex-husband, Mason, had just been in a terrible car accident, and she couldn't remain in her apartment wallowing in grief, feeling the urge to rush to Al's side at the scene of the accident. Thinking about it now, she figured that was the moment when she considered Al more than just a friend she'd reunited with after thirty years. Her need to see him had been almost visceral, and it had only been another week or two before they'd ventured beyond the platonic, finally exploring the possibilities that had eluded them when he'd moved away all those years ago.

Seeing the Sixth Street hill beside the police station now, with its steep downhill slope levelling to a plateau before dropping into another steep slope, she could see how a car speeding down the hill wouldn't be able to see the police cruiser U-turning until it was too late. It had to have been going screamingly fast, too, judging from how mangled both cars had been in the aftermath. The only mercy was that Mason wouldn't have seen it coming; he'd been dead on arrival at the hospital.

She entered the police station and approached the front desk. "Hi," she said to the Desk Sergeant. "I was wondering if either Detective Rhodes or Detective Tracey was working today."

"Detective Rhodes retired last year," he said. "Tracey's still around. Is he expecting you?"

"No, but I wanted to ask him if he's working a case that I have a connection with. There's a woman by the name of Jenna Davenport who died recently, and she was the mother of my foster daughter. I was just hoping to get some more information."

The Desk Sergeant stared at her for a second, processing this information. "Let me call him and see if he'll see you."

He picked up his phone and dialled internally, spoke a few words to the person on the other end, and then hung up. "Wait here a moment, someone will be by to get you."

Rachel waited about fifteen minutes. Finally, a door opened, and a woman in a pant suit approached her and stopped a few feet away from her, her eyes widening. "I know you, don't I?" she said.

The woman was olive-skinned and pretty, her hair a mess of dark curls. Rachel blinked at her for a second before she finally realized where she'd seen her before. "You're Constable Goncalves, right? Maria Goncalves?"

She nodded, smiling awkwardly. "Trainee Detective Goncalves now."

"You made detective?" Rachel asked incredulously. She felt a little ashamed at that, and for almost blurting, "They kept you on the job after what you did?"

"Yeah, I passed the exams, and after Rhodes retired, there was a vacancy when Tracey moved up. He's my senior partner. He sent me to get you, there was something you wanted to talk to him about?"

"Yeah."

"Come on, we'll talk in his office." She led her back through the door she came through, and as they walked, Goncalves said, "Where do I know you from?"

"You and Mason were the constables who responded down in Queensborough when my friend, well, husband now, Al and I discovered that mummified baby in that house."