12 Who is She?

Alice Green was not a person of interest, but rather an interesting person. It was a long time rumor that one of her parents was a politician which is why she gained popularity quickly in all her endeavors. To date though no one has ever discovered who her parents or relatives are.

She was a former model turned business woman who worked in cosmetics. She was fairly successful at what she did and climbed the ladder rather quickly with her sharp mind and ability to analyze what women were most interested in seeing changed and being added to the cosmetic industry.

Her total net worth amounted to near one hundred million. People speculated about her marriage status considering she had rarely been caught with any guy around who seemed like a potential suitor.

"I thought though that she had been involved in some scandal a few years back related to that company?" Ray asked as he grabbed one of the fried mushrooms out of the plastic red serving basket that had been placed at the table he and Harold were sharing. Popping the whole mushroom in his mouth he winced and hissed, quickly puffing the hot air out of his mouth as he attempted to cool off the overly hot mushroom before it completely burned his tongue. It had been a made decision to put the whole thing in his mouth.

"She had been. There was a report that she had been lying about her business and cheating customers over with fake products and services. However, some unnamed source cleared her reputation and revealed that it was actually a rival company who spun the false report because they didn't want to lose business to her." Harold replied. He took a deep drink of the glass of beer in front of him before he continued speaking.

"Her Business has been doing well since then, but she herself hasn't been spotted around as much recently as she used to be. Some rumors were actually cropping up that maybe she had disappeared because she got married to some common man and had been become pregnant but didn't want to risk another scandal. Others speculated that maybe the report hadn't been false and she didn't want to show her face in order to not risk anything leaking out that shouldn't come to light."

"Do you think her and Abel are engaged and maybe that's why he moved here?" Ray speculated causing Harold to almost choke on the fry that he had put in mouth. He coughed a few times before clearing his throat.

"That would be an interesting situation if such was the case. I don't know enough about this new detective Gray to say for certain what might be going on between them since much about his background hasn't been offered, but I doubt that by the look on his face as we drove by that if they were engaged, he is a willing party to that arrangement."

"I'm not so sure though that this facial expression is something to pay attention to as a good indicator as to his mood. From what I can tell today, he hardly smiles and most of the time he other looks flat face or annoyed when he's not busy focusing on the case." Ray commented as he considered what the older man had said.

"Well for now, we'll keep it between us. No sense in butting into something like that unless it organically comes up or there's a reason to question him about the affair. As long as it doesn't interfere with his ability to work, there's nothing to be said about it." Harold told his younger former subordinate before he waved the waiter over to ask for another beer.

"I thought that your doctor told you before that you need to be careful drinking so much for your health now that you're getting older?" Ray asked giving the other a critical eye as he began to pour the second bottle of beer into his glass.

"Doctors say a lot of things that patients think that they should under the guise that it's supposed to be for their health, doesn't mean that they're always right." Harold replied waving off the other's concern. He had given up a number of other things in declaration of deciding to choose a healthy lifestyle so that he could make it past retirement age, but the only that he wasn't going to give up was beer.

"Let us not focus on that type of stuff tonight though. Tonight we're here to celebrate your raise in rank. So unless you want to talk to me about this case, I don't want to be worrying about any of this other negative stuff until tomorrow." He clapped the younger man on the back when he said this causing him to wince slightly. He would never get used to that even though Harold had been doing it to him for years.

"Fine, fine. You're right. I don't really have anything to talk about with this case though. It's only the first day and there are still a lot of pieces that we're waiting on to figure out what the next right step to take is. I found someone who might be of interest and give us a direction to go into, but she didn't want to talk until tomorrow." Ray replied as he reflected everything that had gone on since that morning.

"Her only family is her mother who has dementia and they don't think she even remembers who her daughter is anymore. We can't tell if she had a lover of any type though there are two potential suspects that could fit that role. One is her personal assistant who seemed to be closer with her than he was willing to openly let on and the other would be her married boss who could've been forcing her into some type of relationship agreement in order for her to get a job working on at the publishing company that she was part of.

"Sounds like they have you a tough case for your first time around. Or perhaps they didn't expect it to be more than a murder as a result of a burglary gone wrong." Harold mused.

"I'm not so sure myself. Having a partner does kind of make it easier, but him and I also have very different ways of approaching the situation. Tomorrow though I guess we'll see what kind of progress we can make."

"Partners, especially strange ones can make things more difficult. It's good to keep an eye on him, but you both also need to learn to work on adapting your styles to make one another. It'll make it easier in the long run. Enough though since you don't have anything interesting to talk about and let's just focus on something else. You should order yourself a few drinks since this is your celebration." Ray smiled and shook his head when the other said this.

He probably was right that he should do something a little extra to celebrate the fact that he had gotten the position, but he also didn't want to accidentally drink too much and end up with a hangover that would make working harder for him. Thus, he decided to pass for tonight and just enjoy the food and conversation with the other. Plus, there was also the fact that he was going to be the designated driver to take into consideration.