The Capital / Chapter 5

5

As predictable, the following morning Lauren’s phone doubled as Collette’s alarm in the living room. She had decided to take it away from its owner just in case. Her hand moved blindly seeking the device since she hadn’t drank as much as her friend. Eventually, she found it on the coffee table, rubbed her eyes and picked it up.
“Hello?” Pete Zanetti’s voice said on the other end. He was the editor at the Beltway Gazette...and Lauren’s boss.
“Pete? Hi, this is Collette Shapiro, Lauren’s friend”
“Collette, hi. Where’s Lauren?”
“Well...she had a little too much to drink last night”
“That’s strange. She’s always so responsible” Pete asks, confused. But then one of the receptionists brought a paper with the police seal among a tower of newspapers.
“Did she just press charges for assault against Joshua Werner?!” Zanetti exclaimed, now locked inside his office.
“Do you understand why she’s wasted now?”
“And how do YOU know?”
“She told me” Collette replies. Pete had nothing more to do than breathe a sigh.
“Let me talk to her” he insists.
“One second” she says, moving silently towards the bedroom. Slightly opening the door, she saw Lauren sleeping like a child. She felt bad for doing it, but she started to shake Casenave until she woke up with a moan.
“Lauren? Good morning, it’s me. Pete is on the phone” she whispered as Lauren tried hard to open her eyes.
“Here” she continued and put the device to the reporter’s ear.
“Yeah?” Lauren said with a raspy voice.
“Sweetheart, it’s me. Your editor...Listen to me: I just got a memo from the police. When you feel better, and before you come here, you need to pass to make your statement”
“Statement? What have I done wrong?”. Casenave felt as if the last 24 hours had been wiped off her records.
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“Guess who broke into my apartment last night: That jackass of Werner”
“Oh my god! You’ve got your own story on this! What did he have to say to his favor?”
“Oh, the darts I’ll throw at him for this one...threatening freedom of the press!” she starts explaining. Zanetti couldn’t believe what his star was saying, confirming the claims.
“He WHAT? He should be arrested for that, and you should have the exclusive on that”
“I called the police after he left. The charge is assault” she says, some of that rum doing the talk for her as Shapiro collected the clean clothes from her overnight bag.
“How did he assault you?”
“He saw me nude, for starters”
“Did he hurt you?” he asks, concerned.
“Nothing that I know of”
“Okay, listen: Go down to the station for an interview with the cops and then straight to me. Okay? We need to have a talk about this”
“Fine” she says and hangs up. Collette had brought breakfast and some pills to cure the headache along with the clothes.
“Take two of these, you’ll feel brand new in a while. And into the shower to put on these”
“Thanks. You’ve already done more than enough for me” Lauren says, swallowing the capsules with orange juice.
“Okay, less talk and more action”. As Lauren was showering, Collette opened the curtains to let the sun in, and half an hour later, the reporter was aboard a cab and on her way to the station.

“Excuse me? Good morning, my name’s Lauren Casenave. I was called earlier” the reporter told an officer when she arrived. Lauren was trying to look as decent as possible. The jeans and sweater, even though they were her own, were uncomfortable and mixed with the same jacket and shoes from last night.
“Yes, ma’am. Good morning. Detective Harris is expecting you. This way, please” he briefly explained. She just nodded and followed the guy into a standard office where an older man with a suit and a friendly face awaited her.
“Please have a seat...And you, bring us some water” he says, dispatching the kid in uniform and offering her a seat.
“Detective Harris. Nice to meet you” he says, shaking her hand.
“Lauren Casenave”
“Ma’am. We needed to speak to you privately regarding the claims you filed against Senator Werner” he starts. After drinking all the water in one sip, Lauren took a more serious posture.
“I’m all ears, detective”
“Well, we’ve already spoken with him and his team this morning. He claims that the front door to your apartment was open” Harris explains to Lauren.
“The powerful think that they can get away with everything. He’s probably got them bribed” she thought to herself at a moment of flying low as Harris went on with his findings.
“Well...we did some background checking, and not only you, but other residents have had previous complaints listed about the faulty locks on your doors. Is that true?” Harris questions as he slides a report onto her end. Lauren took off the sunglasses (that was odd enough for a January day) and felt like she couldn’t read.
“I can’t speak about others, but yes. I have”
“Since it is not likely that he broke into your apartment, we can’t charge him with that. Nor we can charge him with assault, because, according to his statement, he did not physically touch you at any time”
“Alright...it’s my word against his” she thinks to herself again. Harris was right about the no physical contact between them, but about the break-in there were two different versions. It was then when her phone rang. The caller was Pete, and that meant she had to hurry things up and go to work. But for now, she chose not to answer.
“Then have him pair for my repair, detective”
“What exactly has he damaged, miss Caseneve?”. When Harris misspelled her last name, she didn’t seem to happy.
“The door. That he pays for it, and that it allows me to change the locks”
“Did he break your door, miss Caseneve?”
“There he goes again” she thinks again before having to correct Harris.
“First, the name is CASENAVE. You wrote it bad in your report”
“I’m sorry, ma’am”
“And about the door thing...I may look innocent, but I’m not stupid. HE DID!”
“Well, Mr. Werner claims it was unlocked, so are you still going to press charges?”
“I will drop them as long as he does that...”. In mid sentence, the phone didn’t stop ringing. For her editor to be calling so repeatedly it had to mean something important was going on, and she couldn’t ignore it.
“Detective, if I may...Can we finish this on some other occasion? I have a work emergency” she excuses herself.
“You know what? Here’s my card. Call me if you have any doubts or new developments” Harris offers, handing her a slip of paper that she keeps on her wallet.
“Thank you, and I’m so sorry” she says and walks out to grab another taxi and head to the paper as fast as she could.

“What on earth is going on?” Lauren asks Pete as she bumps into him as soon as she set foot at the paper.
“Guess who just happened to be ‘passing by’ the neighborhood”
“Where is he?”
“Your office. I’ve already set up everything so you can talk to him in private”
“Pete?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Stay close. Just in case he wants to use force. I’m a big girl, but...just to be on the safe side”
“Of course” he says and lets her go the rest of the way by herself. The door handle moved and she found the Senator sitting there as if it were his own...behind a bouquet of flowers.
“You!” she exclaims, closing the door behind her.
“Hi. I’m glad I caught you” he says, smiling and standing up to greet her with a kiss on the cheek.
“And I’m not interested. Let me pass”
“Look, Lauren...I’m here in the best intentions. I even brought you these flowers as a peace offering to hopefully, try to start salvaging our differences”
“Excuse me, but who said this truce was permanent?”
“I also wanted to talk to you about the lead I gave you yesterday”
“Let go of me”
“I haven’t touched you”
“Yeah, right...You can take back your flowers too. I have a lot of delayed work as well” she says, trying to move to her desk and leave her belongings there as well. Werner is starting to lose his patience, and is even considering extreme measures to slap some sense into her. But after her recent allegations with the police, he knows he has to keep his cool to avoid a bigger scandal.
“Did you follow it?”
“NO! I told you that I have a lot of work. I’m late, and my editor is, most likely, going to kill me. Plus, this isn’t the best place to talk about that kind of things” she insisted. Werner had moved to allow her a seat and the use of her laptop. It this wasn’t going to work, he’d have to work his charm on his public enemy.
“I bet you’re hungry. Why don’t we go grab a bite in a much better place than that box you call home?”
“Please quit your pretty boy ways. Part of the dirt I have is that you have violent behavior behind that perfect image” she says, not even looking at him. As that happened, outside the locked office, a wave of rumors started to spread around the building. People were asking Zanetti why Lauren was locked inside her office for such a long while. He tried hard to not hear those, but Casenave’s absence was felt. So the editor had to make up an excuse that she had summoned some people to her office for an emergency meeting. But he didn’t know for how long he could do that, because, in a few hours, it would be the time to call it a day’s work.