Chapter 8
J UST AS I DID EVERY MORNING, I drove Maria to her job in the Potomac Gardens housing project. It was only about fifteen or twenty minutes from Fourth Street anyway, and it gave us some alone time.
We rode in the black Porsche, the last evidence of some money I’d made during three years of private practice as a psychologist, before I switched full-time into the DC police department. Maria had a white Toyota Corolla, which I didn’t much like, but she did.
It seemed as though she was someplace else as we rode along G Street that morning.
“You okay?” I asked.
She laughed and gave me that wink of hers.
“Little tired. I’m feeling pretty good, considering. I was just thinking about a case I consulted on yesterday, favor to Maria Pugatch. It involves a college girl from GW University. She was raped in a men’s bathroom in a bar on M Street.”
I frowned and shook my head. “Another college kid involved?”
“She says no, but she won’t say much else.”
My eyebrows arched. “So she probably knew the rapist? Maybe a professor?”
“The girl definitely says no, Alex. She swears it’s no one she knows.”
“You believe her?”
“I think I do. Of course, I’m trusting and gullible anyway. She seems like such a sweet kid.”
I didn’t want to stick my nose too far into Maria’s business. We didn’t do that to each other ? at least we tried hard not to.
“Anything you want me to do?” I asked.
Maria shook her head. “You’re busy. I’m going to talk to the girl ? Marianne ? again today. Hopefully I can get her to open up a little.”
A couple minutes later, I pulled up in front of the Potomac Gardens housing project on G, between Thirteenth and Penn. Maria had volunteered to come here, left a much cushier and secure job in Georgetown . I think she volunteered because she lived in the Gardens until she was eighteen, when she went off to Villanova.
“Kiss,” Maria said. “I need a kiss. Good one. No pecks on the cheek. On the lips.”
I leaned over and kissed her ? and then I kissed her again. We made out a little in the front seat, and I couldn’t help thinking about how much I loved her, about how lucky I was to have her. What made it even better: I knew that Maria felt the same way about me.
“Gotta go,” she finally said, and wriggled out of the car.
But then she leaned back inside. “I may not look it, but I’m happy. I’m so happy.”
Then that little wink of hers again.
I watched Maria walk all the way up the steep stone stairs of the apartment building where she worked. I hated to see her go, and it was the same thing just about every morning.
I wondered if she’d turn and see if I’d left yet. Then she did ? saw me still there, smiled and waved like a crazy person, or at least somebody crazy in love. Then she disappeared inside.
We did the same thing almost every morning, but I couldn’t get enough of it. Especially that wink of Maria’s. No one will ever love you the way I do.
I didn’t doubt it for a minute.