Maelstrom

Chapter 5: The New Kid

Monday morning

"Who?"

Bureau Chief Kowalczyk's secretary shot me an apologetic look before leaning back through the office door to answer her boss. "Officer Lärke Hellström. From Vice. You requested her transfer a couple of weeks ago."

I swallowed my surprise. A couple of weeks? But as I thought about it, I realized I shouldn't have been too shocked; no one wanted to work on Christmas, especially not freezing their asses off pretending to be a New York street corner prostitute. So since I'd volunteered to work that shift to give the other undercover Vice officers the holiday off with their families, Washington would have been an idiot to have let me go a moment earlier. Still, it might have been easier for me these final weeks if I'd known they were my last. Yet another reason to dislike my old lieutenant; I hoped my new one would be better.

There was a moment of silence from the Chief's office before he said something that sounded like "there are three airports in Fargo," which I decided probably wasn't right. His assistant nodded and smiled as she returned to her desk.

"You're to report to Lt DiMarco," she said. The older woman peered over her glasses at the clock hanging on the wall to her right. "If you hurry, you might catch him before he gets to the briefing room. It's down the hall, second door on the right."

I realized as I crossed the threshold into the hallway that I probably should have asked where Lt DiMarco would be coming from, in case he was running late, but if there was a briefing scheduled for this minute, I didn't want to miss it. Provided I would be allowed to attend.

I was calling up my mental picture of Lt ... what was it? – Edmund? No, Edgar ... Edgar DiMarco that I had found when researching OCCB – early 40s, short dark hair, brown eyes, dusky complexion with light acne scarring, wide nose that had been broken at least once, full lips, slightly crooked left upper incisor – when I almost ran into the very man I was looking for as he was stepping out of an office, looking down at the smartphone in his hand. I brought myself up on my toes to stop in time, momentarily rendering me a few inches taller than my new boss.

DiMarco glanced up and quickly gave me a once-over. "Officer Hellström. Nice timing. Follow me."

I briefly considered saying something – maybe a quick "thank you" for the transfer, a promise to prove myself worthy, a casual inquiry as to whether DiMarco might have had any recent calls from a certain influential corporate mogul named Tilda Hellström – but the quickness of his pace and the fact that he hadn't looked back once to see if I was still there made me decide to just keep my mouth shut and follow him. Anyway, people usually told me what I wanted to know without an interrogation, probably because I didn't interrogate them. I apparently just had one of those faces that inspired confidence. My questions would probably be answered sooner rather than later without me pushing.

It seemed we were the last to arrive in the briefing room. More than half of the chairs were filled with detectives in street clothes talking quietly to each other, checking their phones, or – rather disconcertingly – checking me out like a cut of beef at the butcher's counter. I suddenly felt ridiculously overdressed in my tailored officer's uniform with my long champagne-colored hair tidied neatly in a braided bun on the back of my head.

DiMarco waved me into a nearby seat next to a curly-haired Latina with the most elaborate manicure I had ever seen on the force.

The woman grinned sympathetically and extended a carefully painted hand out to me. "Detective Ramirez," she whispered, "but you can call me Amalia. I take care of the newbies, newbie."

"Officer Hellström. Lärke," I responded.

Amalia snorted. "And people think my name is ethnic." She scanned my uniform. "Been a while since we saw someone wearing blues in here."