So Sweet a Changeling: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 6)

Chapter Four: Rachel, Saturday

The private banquet room was already filling up by the time the extended Mackenzie-DiTomaso-Marinville Clan arrived with the woman of honour, driving her so she could drink if she wanted to and not worry about driving home.

Sunny and Tej Parhar, and their children Harpreet and Ajit, had already claimed a corner of the long table. Sunny, a family lawyer and city councillor, was dressed formally in a suit with a tie the same sky blue as his turban. Tej was in a dress Rachel had never seen before; maybe she'd just bought it. It was a champagne colour that made her chocolate skin look good enough to eat, with shoulder straps thin enough to show off her rather nice shoulders. 

The two of them always made the rest of them feel underdressed. Lauren was in the leather jacket and jeans she always wore, while Rachel just had on gray slacks and a lavender blouse. Al, as was typical in summer, never let anything but shorts touch his legs because anything else was too hot, but at least she'd made him pair them with smart sneakers rather than running shoes, and instead of a polo she'd convinced him to wear a blue button-down with short sleeves.

Agnes, to Rachel's irritation, was in a grey skirt that was rather high for a woman her age but, damn it, her legs looked good enough to pull it off, especially in heels that made her nearly as tall as Rachel in her flats. She didn't have to try anymore, so Rachel had no idea why she bothered, unless she was on the hunt for someone other than Al (Rachel could always hope). She paired the skirt with a sleeveless white blouse, and had her hair up in a bun to show off her lovely neck.

Joanie, for whom this dinner was being put on, had opted for casual herself, knowing she was going to a family restaurant , and Rachel liked her a little better for that. In her long sleeved black t-shirt and blue jeans, though, she still looked formidable.

The Parhars weren't the only ones who'd opted to meet them at the restaurant. To Rachel's surprise and delight, four other detectives sat on the other side of the table, closest to the door, probably because it would be easiest for them to leave if they had to run. Ian Tracey and Maria Goncalves of the New Westminster Police, through some miracle that had them both off duty at the same time, were here, as were Pak and Marsden from the Burnaby RCMP detachment. Both pairs had helped them at different times on different cases, and had come to a kind of cross-force camaraderie among themselves. They were dressed as they always were, in business casual, Tracey in his leather jacket, Goncalves in a blouse that always looked too tight in Rachel's opinion, with the sleeves rolled up to accommodate a chunky sports watch.

The detectives, upon seeing Joanie, rose and applauded her, Marsden giving a piercing whistle with her fingers, which surprised everybody. "C.I.D.! C.I.D.!" Pak chanted, and the other three joined him after a second.

Joanie looked like a deer in the headlights for a moment. Then she blushed furiously. Then her face crumpled and she had to fan herself to keep from crying. Gladys, still at her side, wrapped an arm around her tenderly. The four contemporaries came over and clapped her on the back, still chanting that acronym, making her laugh, and then they all settled down.

"C.I.D.?" Rachel asked when they'd taken their seats again.

"Criminal Investigation Department," Tracey explained. "Basically a designation only for detectives. Joanie's graduated from patrol to C.I.D."

"Oh, like a Detective Club. Like ours!" Rachel added with a smirk. She liked Tracey and liked to make him uncomfortable with their amateur sleuthing.

"Yeah, but we get paid to be in our club," Goncalves added snarkily. Rachel and Goncalves had a love-hate/ hate-hate relationship whose origins could be traced to the death of Rachel's ex-husband, Mason, a constable who'd been Goncalves' partner before he'd died in a horrible car accident in which she'd been behind the wheel. Rachel still held the woman partly responsible for his death, and the two had never warmed to each other since.