Hidden in the Blood: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 5)

Chapter Forty-Nine: Joe, Sunday

For the second time in two months, Joe found himself acting as a moving service, but at least this time it was during his day off and he had more help.

Al booked the Modo van, and Joe and Joanie rode in Joanie's truck while Lauren and Rachel took the Versa. They visited a furniture store nearby to purchase a bed, mattress and box spring to bring to the townhouse, because Joanie had no desire to return to her home to get hers while the media were camped there, interviewing everybody on the street about the explosion and hoping to get the face of the "woman the victim was seeing" on camera; the story was already on the morning news, and when everybody heard that part they all gave Joanie a sympathetic look, while Joanie looked like she wanted to punch her fist through the TV. Joe had no doubt she could.

"Thank you for doing this, guys," Joanie said when they loaded everything into the van. "For the place and for the help."

Al, Rachel and Lauren shrugged awkwardly. "There's no way you can stay at your house right now," Lauren said. "And the way the media is portraying you is criminal. Why do they always make the woman the centre of a salacious story like this? Like it wasn't what Patrick did that got him killed. It's sexist to imply that it had something to do with you."

Joe was feeling oddly proud of his friends for sticking by her, for treating her as a friend even if she happened to be the other woman in his life, at least in the past.

Joanie nodded thoughtfully. "Although," she said, "I guess at the very centre of what happened to Patrick there is a woman, the one he had an affair with in Kelowna."

They met Sunny and Agnes at the townhouse, because they needed to talk about their next steps. Sunny, in his suit and tie, understandably didn't offer to help them move the parts of the bed inside, nor did he offer to help them assemble it. He'd done enough this morning, anyway, accompanying Agnes to the police detachment to get the notification and be interviewed.

Agnes, for her part, was busy talking on the phone to her kids, reassuring them that she was fine and that she'd be home soon, that she had one more thing to take care of before she returned. Joe could only imagine what those kids were feeling. Far from the only home they'd ever known, in a strange house with grandparents they apparently didn't know very well, having lost their father, they were probably terrified that something would happen to their mother, now, and would be clinging to her every chance they got.

By the time they'd finished assembling the bed in one of the upper bedrooms, and Joanie had deposited the overnight bag she'd taken from her house, which contained among other things her uniform and gun locker (Joe had been nervous the whole time it had been in the house with the kids around,) Agnes had gotten off the phone. Somebody had purchased some groceries, Joe never found out who, and Sunny and Agnes were preparing a makeshift lunch. Once they'd all assembled sandwiches and plates of salads, drinks in hand, they sat or stood where they could in the living room. Joe felt a little sweaty after assembling the bed, and he was uncomfortably reminded that downstairs was the large walk-in shower where he and Rachel had that lovely, back breaking sexual episode two months ago. He took a drink to cool himself down.

As if Sunny was having similar memories about last night, his eyes kept flitting back to Rachel when he thought she wasn't looking. Joe was relieved Tej wasn't here to see this, and wondered how she was feeling about last night. Sometimes events gained new clarity in the light of day, and he hoped she wasn't feeling weird about their friendship now. What he really hoped was that she wasn't serious about not being satisfied with Sunny after she'd had him, because he didn't want Sunny to feel bad about something he had no control over -- biology -- even if the complement made Joe feel quite proud of himself. It amazed him that for most of his life he'd had only one sexual partner, and within a span of a few years that number had grown to four. What he needed to do now was make sure those experiences didn't blind him to what was really important: his marriage, and making sure his friends stayed his friends.