Page 35 of After The Storm

Kate hadn’t seen enough episodes of Barney Miller to understand Roman’s explanation, so she didn’t bother asking him anything else and just clicked on the document to see what it was about. In it, she found nothing but numbers. Some looked like dates, while others made no sense at all. They didn’t appear to be dollar amounts, so what could they be?

She considered asking Roman for his help, but everything in his body language told her now was not the time, from the way he kept his arms crossed tightly across his chest to the way his shoulders turned away from her sharply. Making a mental note to ask him later once he looked more receptive, she moved on to the next folder named Hawaii Five-O.

Even before she clicked, she knew this would be about the New Orleans Police Department. Jonas hadn’t been very clever with this one. Opening the file, she saw two documents. Apartment Defects and Flics.

Jonas must have been in a hurry when he typed the second file name because he missed the k in Flicks. Not that she had any idea what the word flick referred to.

Her curiosity piqued, she opened that document and found a list of five sets of letters that appeared to be initials. Were they initials indicating people’s names or the names of other things, like towns or something else?

R.G.

H.H.

A.J.

K.S.

M.M.

Frustrated, Kate stretched her legs out in front of her under the laptop. What the hell did Jonas mean by naming this file flics and what did these letters mean? She’d been so sure she could figure out whatever he wrote in these notes, and now that she sat there staring at this second document, she had no idea what he meant.

The files hadn’t given her anything useful yet, but she wasn’t defeated by any means. Surely, the file named Apartment Defects would make more sense.

Kate clicked on it and sighed loudly as she read a partial address and a list of problems in someone’s home. Had Jonas mistakenly put a document about his home repairs in with his work files? No, that made no sense. The address had nothing to do with where he lived, and he didn’t own any other properties, as far as she knew.

Wherever this place was, it certainly wasn’t anywhere she’d ever want to live. 1073 Richmond Street had improperly installed windows that allowed water to seep into the residence and into the walls. In addition, Jonas had noted it had missing drag strips and hold downs. Kate had no idea what either of those were. Continuing on, she read the apartment had even more problems. Faulty electrical work, including wiring that hadn’t been completed to code, plagued the entire building. Even worse, a balcony on the third floor had been found to be structurally unsound due to a lack of proper supports.

Where was this horrible place? Kate scanned the document again and found no city or state mentioned.

“Find anything useful yet?” Roman asked, jarring her from her thoughts.

Kate sighed. “I don’t know. This folder has two documents in it. One doesn’t seem to make any sense at all, and the other just seems to be a list of things some poor homeowner has to deal with at their home.”

“Is this the Barney Miller folder?” he asked, turning in the chair to face her.

“No. Hawaii Five-O. Not that I have any idea why he would name it that,” she explained as a feeling of dejection began to come over her.

“Great show,” Roman said, as if that helped at all.

“Well, I’m happy that you and my boss share a love of old TV shows. Unfortunately, I have no idea what any of this means.”

Roman stood and walked over to stand next to the bed. “Here, let me see if I can make anything of it.”

Kate couldn’t help but feel disappointed that her big chance to prove she could offer something of use to their partnership had gone down in flames in such a short time. As much as she wanted to figure out just what was behind Jonas and Samuel’s murders, part of her hoped Roman wouldn’t be able to decipher what her boss meant in these notes because she didn’t want to feel completely useless.

He sat down next to her on the bed, forcing her to move in toward the center, and took the laptop from her hold without another world. God, he could be so bossy!

Settling in, he began scrolling through the Fish document as Kate mumbled, “Sure. Go ahead. Do your thing.”

Roman didn’t pay any attention to her, so as he began to read through the documents in both files, Kate sulked. So much for showing him she could handle herself.

So much for proving her innocence.

After nearly ten minutes of him saying nothing, she couldn’t stand the silence anymore and craned her neck to see what he was reading. Her eyes read down the page that contained the info about flics, whatever they were.

“I figured that file would be about the cops, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of what Jonas put in there.”

“Right church, wrong pew,” Roman said before turning to face her. “Hawaii Five-O wasn’t about cops.”

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