Bombshell (Devlin Haskell 4) (15 page)

“And?”

“And, with any luck
they’ll finish up and
you can get back in there by the end of the day.”

“Fantastic.”

“Just keep your fingers crossed.”

When I retu
rned Heidi had progressed to one of the couches in her living room
. She
lay
curled up on her living room couch
wearing a pair of sunglasses
with a white terrycloth robe wrapped around her
.

“Did you remember my
Latte?” she groaned from the couch.

“Yeah, a double, and some caramel rolls.”

“Mmm-mmm give me,” she pleaded.

I set the Latte in front of her and went out to the kitchen for some plates,
nothing had changed
except a half glass of water sat on the counter next to the ice cream conta
iner and the open aspirin bottle.
Melted ice cream was still pooled on the floor.
Her thong from last night rested next to the toaster.
I put two caramel rolls on a plate and br
ought them out to her, then ventured
back into the kitchen and
started to clean
things up.

It took
the better part of
a
n
hou
r
,
but everything was pretty much
back to normal, well
,
except for the green blender spray across the kitchen wall. That would have to be repainted. I grabbed a shower, then peaked back into the living room. Heidi was asleep on the couch,
snoring softly still wearing her
sun
glasses.
Latte
was
dribbled
d
o
w
n
the front of
her robe
and only a few caramel crumbs remained
on her plate. I knew bet
ter than to disturb her and tip
toed out.

I drove past my
house taking
a round about way
to
the office
,
just to see if I could learn anything. I d
idn’t.
A few miles worth of yellow
crime scene
tape was
still
wrapped aro
und my house and gara
ge. The place looked like the si
t
e
of some
demented
high school prank.
There was a white Crime S
cene van parked in my driveway
with a c
ity logo on the door
,
but I didn’t see anyone outside. With any luck they
’d already finished and were relaxing
down the block having coffee at Nina’s. I figured it was the wise move to just keep heading to
ward
the office.

I
t was later that
afternoon, I
was eating a platter
of Bar-B-Q ribs at a place called Fat Daddy’s, right
around the corner
.
The tiny room had three small card tables and maybe a dozen folding chairs with ‘
First
Baptist
Church
’ stenciled across the back. There was an aged poster of Little Anthony and the Imperials held to
one of
the wall
s
with yellowed tape.
A more recent
Otis Redding
poster, maybe just thirty
years old,
was taped above the order counter
.
The air conditioner was either broken or turned off and the place smelled of
my sweat and
sweet, tangy
Bar-B-Q
grease.

With the exception of F
at Daddy
, all four-hundred-and–fifty-pounds of him
sweating
behind the cas
h register, I was the only
person in the place.
Fat Daddy was sipping something from a travel mug
, I guessed it wasn’t a
Diet-C
oke
. I could hear
the ice
cubes rattle whenever he sipped
. He ha
dn’t said much more than ‘What’ll you have?’
since I’d entered the place
twenty minutes earlier
.

My cell
phone rang.

“Haskell…”

“Where are you?” Louie
interrupted
.

“My o
ffice. You hear anything from Manning yet?”

“Where exactly are you?”

“Exactly?
Okay,
I’m
grabbing some ribs
just
around the corner
at Fat Daddy’
s
. Why is there a problem?”

“If they’re not there
yet
,
some of the city’
s finest are on their way to pay
you
a personal visit
.”

“Now what?”

“I haven’t been informed
. My guess
? T
hey found something during their search
of your place
.”

“There was nothing to find.”

“You sure?”

“
Yeah, Louie, honest there was
nothing. Look, they come up with drugs or something, it’s a plant. I’m not kidding.
They find any money they have to split it with me.
”

Louie didn’t react to my joke.

“Think you can get to your car?”

I looked out
through the second ‘B’ in Fat Daddy’s
three foot high,
hand painted B-B-Q
letters
running
across his front window
. M
y car sat
across the street,
parked at the curb, minding its own business
maybe thirty feet from the corner
.

“Yeah, I can see my car
from
here
.”

“You should be on your feet and moving now, you got two, maybe three minutes tops. I want you to meet me downtown at the police station.”

“What?”

“We’re going to turn you in, do the upstanding citizen thing, answer whatever questions they have and
hopefully
move on. You’re sure there
’
s
nothing there, at your place?”

“
Yeah I’m sure,
there’
s absolutely
nothing
there
, unless they’re looking for laundry
.”

“Unregistered guns, drugs
,
kiddie porn?”

“No nothing,
honest,
maybe
some
vacation
photos of naked women, but…”

“Are they over eighteen?”

“
Yes, they’re
over eighteen.”

“Good, meet me
at the cop shop, you know that
parking
lot, across the street?
”

“Yeah.”

“
Don’t screw around, Dev. I’m talkin
g a couple of minutes here, that’s all you got
.”

I pushed back from the card table and walked out the door.

“Gotta run, Fatty,” I called over my shoulder

“You c
oming back
, Dev
?”
Fat D
ad
dy called
after me
as I
crossed the street to
my car. H
e never left
his stool behind the cash register.

I got in, turned the key in the ignition
and took a right at the corner.
I hadn’
t driven more than thirty seconds when
I saw
a
flashing light
turn onto
Randolph
maybe three blocks further down
coming toward me, fa
st. I pulled to the side, gave
the car plenty of room. It was a dark blue
Crown
Victoria
,
with
a removable
light
flashing on top, no siren,
just like on TV
.
Franco was driving, Manning sat in the passenger seat
,
I could tell he was chewing gum
. They shot past me and I watched them in my rear view mirror. A black and white came off a side street and pulled in behind them. They parked going against traffic, right in front of the stairs leading up to my office
. They jumped out of the
cars and
left the lights flashing
. That was enough for me, I pulled away from the curb and went to meet Louie.

I had been baking
in the
parking lot for close to an hour
, watching as the heat shimmered off the hood of my car. The lot was two acres of
weeds and
graveled
pot holes
completely devoid of shade
. Every time a car drove through
a
nother
layer of
choking
yellow dust
sifted down
on the
parked vehicle
s fading beneath the unrelenting sun
.

Louie
’s Sentra finally
scraped up the entry and across the sidewalk then
wheezed into a spot next to the
sign that warned drivers ‘Do not leave your vehicle unattended’. Not exactly a ringing endorsement
for
the
police station across the street.

“Where the hell have
you been?”
I asked
, drifting through
a cloud of blue e
xhaust.
Louie
had
shut his car off
but it continued to rattle and shudder for another fifteen seconds, before finally shutting down altogether in a mild explosion
.

“Trying to figure out what they’ve got cooked up for us,”
he
groaned as he climbed
out from behind the wheel.

He
wore what used to be a light
blue suit. The trousers
looked permanently wrinkled,
there was
some sort of
brownish
sauce dribbled
down the right hand side of his
coat. He attempted to straighten his tie, but only managed to
position it slightly more
off center.
The top button of his shirt was undone
,
but chins managed to hide the fact.
Darker sweat stains began to seep
through the underarms of his
suit coat.

“Might as well see what they’ve got on you,” he said, heading across the street in the
direction of the police station. He was wheezing heavily before he made it to the far curb.

I watched for a moment, then hurried to catch up
in the event he needed help crossing the street
.

“Maybe you should find out,
then let me know, rather than bring
ing
me
in there and
…”

“Let’s just go in there and let them know you’ve got nothing to hide. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for whatever it is they found.”

“
For the thousandth time
I’m telling you I h
ave n
o idea how in the hell
that
thing got in my garage.
I sure as hell didn’t put it there.
”

I was moving up in t
he world, this time we were in Interview Room N
umber One.
It
s décor remarkably similar to the previous interview room, charmless grey cinder block walls with a video camera hanging in one corner.
The green light was on, indicating I was being filmed.
The back wall had two—
way mirrors mounted the entire length, I
gathered
we were
playing to an audience.
There was a scent
in the room mixed
with the damp air co
nditioning and
most likely emanating from me.
Fear, desperation, panic?