3 The Case of Tiffany's Epiphany (24 page)

“Where’s the computers?” Jack asks.

“If you have a computer, you have records,” “No-No” answers. “If you have records, you have evidence.”

“And if you have evidence, you got problems,” Jack sums up.

“I’m telling you, they’re lifting a slew of money out of this place,” I say. It’s no wonder why Mr. D’Wayne DeWitt hasn’t quibbled about my hourly rate.

I open the middle drawer in Gibby’s desk, take one look, and ask. “Either of you got a pair of latex gloves handy?”

“No-No” dons her gloves as I pull the drawer all the way out. Jack joins us to see the array of evidence: a coil of thin wire, a blasting cap, and a small clock, all resting on a thin layer of black powder.

“This guy is either the dumbest criminal on the face of the earth or this is the worst job of implicating someone since Judas tried to blame everything on Mary Magdalene.”

Jack evidently never went to Sunday school. Years from now my daughters could be making the same types of comments. Heaven forbid.

“No, no. I don’t think so. No criminal is this stupid,” “No-No” says.

“I don’t know,” I say, “I’ve known some pretty stupid crooks.”

“What are you doing?” The voice comes from the other side of the room.

The three of us look up to see Gibby Fearn coming through the door.

“This your office?” “No-No” asks.

“Yes.”

“This your desk?”

“Yes.”

“This your stuff?”

Gibby joins us at his desk to see the contents of the drawer. “No,” he answers the question.

“Sure?”

“Positive.”

“You’re under arrest for attempted murder,” “No-No” tells him.

“What?”

Jack fumbles around searching for his handcuffs. He turns to the two of us. “I hope one of you thought to bring along a set of bracelets.”

“Don’t worry, honey,” “No-No” says giving him a sexy little smile as she pulls out a pair from behind her, “I always carry a pair.”

CHAPTER 16

“I’ve taken on my first attractively-challenged relationship charity case, Mr. Sherlock.”

“Good for you, Tiffany.”

“You want to know who it is?”

“Neula “No-No” Noonan.”

“How’d you know that?”

“I’m a detective, remember?”

“Wow, you’re awesome.

We arrive at the Cook County Jail, the biggest jail in the United States. If that doesn’t say something about Chicago, I don’t know what does.

“They have valet service?” Tiffany asks.

“No,” I answer. “This is the kind of place you want to lock your car and take your keys with you.”

“I hate that.”

There is really no dress code for visitors at the Cook County Jail, but if there were, Tiffany’s corduroy mini-skirt, hooker-hose, high heels, and form-fitting, black turtleneck sweater would be listed as
Riot Worthy
.

The first portal we pass through is similar to the security one at O’Hare. You place all your personals in a plastic container: shoes, belt, phone, money, etc. then, proceed to the scanner where you lift up both arms and the x-rays sweep across your body to determine if you’re concealing anything. One bored cop watches me, yawns, and waves me through, but the entire contingent of six officers come over to make sure Tiffany isn’t hiding anything underneath a sweater already so tight you could see the perforated edges of a postage stamp underneath. The officers argue about whether rank outweighs tenure in order to determine who is the most qualified to frisk Tiffany for hidden contraband. Before my assistant is asked to, “Put your hands on the counter and spread ‘em wide,” I intervene.

“Let’s not overdo our duties gentlemen, especially on someone with a daddy who has some very good friends in some very high places.”

One of the cops asks, “Who?”

I whisper to him.

“You’re good to go, Miss,” he says, as he waves Tiffany through. “And please enjoy your visit to the Cook County Jail.”

As we head for the next security checkpoint, Tiffany asks, “Does that scanner pick up tan lines, Mr. Sherlock?”

“On you, it probably does.”

“Hey, Sherlock,” Sergeant Dirk McKee remembers me from my days on the force. “Your hand ever heal up after you punched that idiot captain of yours in the nose?” he asks as we pass through the checkpoint. “You know I got that on disc and when I need an attitude pick-me-up I watch it over and over.”

“So happy you enjoy it, Dirk,” I tell my old buddy with a smirk on my face.

Wouldn’t you know it, the one time I get mad, not only do I punch my supervisor, but I do it on local television, which makes its way to the Internet, which becomes a
Most
Watched
on You Tube. Lucky me.

“You really cracked that jerk a good one, Sherlock,” Dirk says with an air of respect. “You shudda punched the DA too.”

“Next time.”

“Who you wanta see?” Dirk asks.

“Gibby Fearn.”

“Oh, yeah, the new guy,” Dirk says. “Wait in there, I’ll bring him in.”

Tiffany and I enter a square box room. It’s decorated with a table, three chairs, and nothing else. Tiffany sits down and immediately notices her chair is bolted to the floor. “This room could use a lot of
feng shui
,” she remarks.

I sit.

“You know, Mr. Sherlock,” Tiffany says, “you always seem to know so many people no matter where we go. I can’t imagine a better person to visit disgusting places with than you.”

“Coming from you, Tiffany, that means so much.”

Dirk leads a shackled Gibby into the room and sits him in the chair across from us. “You want me to keep the bracelets on him?” Dirk asks.

“Not necessary,” I answer. “This one’s harmless.”

Dirk unshackles Gibby and stands in the back of the room, his Taser at the ready.

“Is this bullshit or what?” is Gibby’s first question.

“Agreed, but it might be good bullshit, if there is such a thing,” I say.

Gibby stares at me with very angry eyes.

“Hi, Mr. Fearn. Remember me? Tiffany Richmond?”

Gibby is the only male in the entire jail who will see Tiffany today and not salivate; well, at least the only straight male. He doesn’t answer my protégé’s question. “What are you doin' here?” he asks.

“We came to chat.”

“Why would I talk to you?” He asks, as is his custom. “The only person I’m talking to is my lawyer.”

“Don’t.”

“You got a better way of getting me out of here?”

“Not now.”

“What else do I got, except to blow the lid off the Zanadu scam?”

“That’s a bad choice of words, Gibby.”

“Who else knows what I know?”

“I don’t know,” I say emphatically. “But if I were you, I’d seriously consider the consequences of explaining how the laundry got dirty.”

“What, and rot away in this hellhole twenty-four-seven?”

“Gibby, it would be kind of dumb of you to spill the beans, and end up dead as a result.”

“Right,” Tiffany adds, “that would be totally dumb.”

“Take my advice, Gibby, don’t say a word to anyone, in here, out there, to a lawyer, to a cop, to anybody. Just sit tight and wait.”

Gibby peers up at the two of us. “I was only doing my job.”

“And that could be the worst thing you could say.” I’m as sincere as I can be. “Trust me, Gibby. Wait, please wait.”

Gibby doesn’t respond.

“Dirk,” I say to my old buddy, “we’re done here.”

Gibby is re-shackled and led out of the room. He doesn’t even say “goodbye.” You would think a guy in the hospitality industry would be a little more polite.

Tiffany turns to me and asks, “You think he’s going to keep his mouth shut, Mr. Sherlock?”

“I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“No one ever listens to me. Why should he?”

---

“Coming in for an upgrade, Sherlock?” Les asks as soon as he sees the two of us enter his store.

The Meaner Wiener board behind him lists a number of new phones that weren’t listed before. “Got some real beauties in this morning.”

I pull out the cooked phone I found in the remains of Mr. DeWitt’s office and hand it to Les.

“I don’t do trade-ins,” Les tells me.

“Can you get it to work?”

Les fondles the phone. “What did you do to it? Drop it in a barbecue pit?”

“Pretty close.”

As Les fiddles with the phone, Tiffany asks, “What’s the best plan you have?”

“Get rich and move to Costa Rica,” Les says without hesitation.

“I meant monthly cell phone plan?”

“I have a one-time only, flat rate, pay me, go away, and talk and text to your heart’s content plan.”

“How much does it cost?”

“How much you got?”

“I don’t know,” Tiffany says. “I wouldn’t know where to start counting my money.”

“Do you like older men?”

“Older or as old as you?” Tiffany asks.

I better get the conversation back on track. “Les, can you get the phone to work?”

Les quits finagling with it. “It’s roasted and toasted, dead as the Betamax, never to speak again,” he tells me, holding up the phone. “But for less than a buck and a half, I can replace it with a Samsung 4G with all the bells and whistles. I’ll even throw in an app for locating the North Star so you can find your way home no matter where you are on the face of the earth.”

“All I need to know is the last call made on it,” I say.

“Why didn’t you just ask me,” Tiffany takes the phone in hand, flips off the back panel, removes the SIM Card, and asks Les, “You got a phone that works?”

“Hopefully.” He hands her the fryer basket.

Tiffany picks out a cell phone, opens its back, exchanges the SIM card, turns the phone on, waits, punches a few keys, and points the screen towards me. “It’s not a number, Tiffany says. “It’s a password.”

“I hate those things,” Les says.

The screen shows a 2, 4, @, S, and a W. “It’s not a password,” I tell them.

“How would you know, Mr. Sherlock?” Tiffany asks. “You’re so tech-challenged, you’re like behind Edison before he invented the telephone.”

“It’s a remote code.”

“So, the last time he used it, he was ordering up a movie?” Tiffany asks.

“You know,” Les tells Tiffany. “If you’re interested in a cheap Netflix package, I can do that.”

“No thanks,” Tiffany says. “I’m already well bundled.”

“You certainly are,” he says.

I place Mr. D’Wayne DeWitt’s SIM card in my wallet for safekeeping. “So long, Les.”

“Call me if you’d like to chat,” Les says to Tiffany.

“By the way, do you need any relationship advice?” she asks him.

“I might. Why do you ask?”

“I’m doing a non-profit relationship service for a certain type of people and you look exactly like one of them,” Tiffany explains.

“For you, I’m always available.”

As we leave the former hot dog stand, I conjure up
The Original Carlo
in my head and plug in my new bits of information. Wide-open spaces are finally starting to fill in.

Back in her Lexus, Tiffany asks, “Where to next?”

“The IRS.”

“Are you getting audited?”

“Tiffany, the only reason I would ever get audited is because they can’t figure out how I can exist making next to nothing.”

“My Daddy says IRS stands for Irrational Recovery Service.”

“For most people it stands for I Regret Swindling.”

---

The appointment is for 1:30. When we enter the conference room on the 59th floor of the Kluczynski Building, we hear, “Wait.”

“What?”

“Remember that problem I was having with my feet?” “Wait” Jack Wayt asks me.

“You had your shoes tied too tight.”

“It might have been a touch of gout.”

“Try wearing loafers, Jack.”

Tiffany jumps into the conversation with, “Detective Wayt, don’t you think Neula’s looking good since she went on her new diet?”

“Neula’s been on more diets than Oprah, Kirstie Alley, and all the Biggest Loser contestants combined.”

“She’s already lost four pounds,” Tiffany informs Jack.

“Neula losing four pounds is like a suitcase falling out of a 747.”

“She’s doing it for you,” Tiffany snaps back at Jack. “The least you can do is show some appreciation for what she’s going through.”

I can only hope and pray “No-No” hasn’t received a free stomach pump.

“Yeah,” Jack reluctantly tells Tiffany. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The door opens and a man who looks a frail seventy, moves slower than a cripple at eighty, and has the demeanor of a curmudgeon at ninety, enters the room. “I’m Holler.”

Jack and I both stand and offer our hands to shake.

“Lloyd Holler,” he says. “That’s two L’s in Lloyd and two L’s in Holler. Lloyd Holler.”

“I’m Jack.”

“I’m Sherlock.”

“I’m Tiffany, and that’s two F’s in Tiffany.”

“Who are you?”

“Detective in training,” Tiffany proudly tells him.

“Stick around, little lady, I’ve been around these blocks more than a mailman,” Lloyd informs her.

Lloyd sits at the head of the far end of the table, four or five chairs from us. He exchanges one pair of coke-bottle glasses for an even thicker pair of the same, and coughs up some phlegm. He wipes the disgusting liquid into an already multi-stained handkerchief. “One of you got paper and pen?”

Jack hands over a pad and cheap pen, but only after putting on a pair of latex gloves.

“The cheat, who is he?” Lloyd asks, spewing a spray of spittle in our direction. “I’ll break him in two.”

“D’Wayne DeWitt,” I answer.

“Spell it.”

“It has two D’s, just like your name,” Tiffany makes the connection.

I spell the name slowly, voicing the apostrophe and giving a slight melody in my rendition. My efforts are not appreciated.

“Got a Social Security Number?” Lloyd barks.

“No.”

“I got to do everything?” Lloyd Holler hollers at us.

“He works at the Zanadu,” I tell Agent Codger.

“What the hell’s a Zanadu?”

“It’s like only the hottest club in the city,” Tiffany, with two F’s, energetically informs him.

“A disco?”

“Kinda,” Tiffany explains.

“I used to disco,” Lloyd admits.

I try not to imagine what Mr. Holler did on a dance floor with that handkerchief.