Survival Of The Fittest

27

Once they were gone, Daniel locked the house, activated the alarm, and went to his bedroom, where he sat on the edge of the mattress.

He indulged himself in a few minutes of loneliness before pushing away thoughts of Laura and the children and assessing how it had gone.

Sturgis didn't trust him one bit, but still the situation was not bad, considering his own stupidity.

The psychologist. Those active eyes…

He'd had to notify Zev about being found out, but Zev had been decent about it. Bigger things on his mind. Since Irit's murder everyone said he was a different man.

Daniel understood the difference: craving only one thing.

What was the chance of delivering?

Listening in on Sturgis and Delaware had produced one good outcome: He'd learned that Sturgis was bright and focused, exactly the type of detective he enjoyed working with. He'd known a few guys like that. One with a brilliant future but he'd died horribly for no good reason…

Sturgis's history- his LAPD file full of complaints, striking out at the superior- had prepared Daniel for an outburst. But no fireworks tonight.

Delaware had remained very quiet, the eyes going constantly.

The quintessential psychologist. Though he had spoken up from time to time.

Asking about Daniel's accent, wanting to know about Daniel's family.

Like an intake at a therapy session. In the Rehab Center, after his first injuries, he'd spent time with psychologists and hated it less than he'd expected. Years later, on the job, he'd consulted them. On the Butcher case, Dr. Ben David had proved of some usefulness.

It had been a while since he'd been analyzed, though.

Those active, blue eyes, pale, appraising, yet not as cold as they might have been.

Sturgis's were green, almost unhealthily bright. What effect would they have on a suspect, so much intensity?

The two of them, so different, and yet they had a history of working together efficiently.

Friends, too, according to reports.

A homosexual and a heterosexual.

Interesting.

Daniel knew only one gay policeman, and not well. A sergeant major working out of Central Region. Nothing effeminate or overt about the man but he'd never married, never dated women, and people who knew him from the Army said he'd been spotted one night going onto the beach in Herzliyya with another man.

Not a brilliant policeman, that one, but competent. No one bothered him, but the other officers shunned him and Daniel was certain he'd never advance.

Sturgis was shunned, too.

For Daniel, the issue was a religious one, and that made it an abstraction.

For Daniel, religion was personal- his relationship to God. He cared nothing about what others did, if their habits didn't infringe upon his liberties or those of his family.

His family… in Jerusalem it was morning, but too early to call Laura. Like many artists, she was a nocturnal creature, stifling her internal clock for years to raise babies and coddle her husband. Now that the kids were older, she'd permitted herself to revert: staying up late sketching and painting and reading, sleeping in until eight or nine.

Feeling guilty about it, too; sometimes Daniel still had to reassure her he was fine making his own coffee.

He drew his knees up, closed his eyes, and thought about her soft blond hair and beautiful face, swaddled in topsheet, puffy with sleep, as he stopped to kiss her before leaving for headquarters.

Oh… I feel like such a bum, honey. I should be up cooking your breakfast.

I never eat breakfast.

Still… or I should give you other things.

Tugging him down for a kiss, then stopping herself.

My breath stinks.

No, it's sweet.

Pressing his lips upon hers, feeling her mouth parting, the wedding of tongue with tongue.

He opened his eyes, looked around the bare room.

In his Talbieh apartment, the walls were alive with color. Laura's paintings and batiks and the creations of her friends.

Her artsy friends, whom he seldom spoke to.

Painting with blood…

What would Laura say about that kind of art?

He never told her anything beyond the most general facts.

For twenty years of marriage, that had worked fine.

Twenty years. By today's standards, longevity.

Not mazal. Or the result of some amulet or chant or blessing from a Hakham.

God's grace and hard work.

Submerging your ego to be half of a pair.

Doing the right thing.

He wished he knew what that meant in this case.