Bombshell (Devlin Haskell 4) (16 page)

Detectives Manning and Franco were
in the
room with us, sitting across from Louie and me
,
at a grey Formica table whose only feature was a couple of cigarette burns snaking their way toward the chipped edge.

There were
a dozen different photos
strewn across t
he table
in front of us
. Each one a slightly different image of a finger they’d found while
searching my garage. It was a
severed middle fin
ger, with the finger tip hacked off
.

The thing ha
d been wrapped in a plastic bag and
place
d
in a small refrigerator that stood in the back of my garage. Based on the p
hotos
I guessed the thing was decomposed. Substantially decomposed.

“Dev, do you mean you forgot you left that finger in your garage?” Franco asked. He’d been the good cop for the past hour, or was it two hours.

“No. I’m saying I’ve neve
r seen that thing before. I never put
it in my garage.”

“Why d
id you keep
the finger in that refrigerator?” Manning asked.

“So I could give you one, the finger that is.”

“Dev,” Louie cautioned.

“Look, I don’t know how the thing got there, okay. If I was storing a bunch of fingers would I put them in a refrigerator that hasn’t worked in over two years? If you guys bothered to check you would have noticed the thing was unplugged. It’s been unplugged for a couple of years. Someone is setting me up here.”

“So you admit you were storing a number of fingers. Was this the last one?”

“I don’t admit anything of the sort. I just told you, the refrigerator didn’t work. It’s been broken for a couple of years. If it did work I would have had beer in it.”

“Lets go back to the night you fire bombed the hotel
room
,” Manning said.

“I didn’t fire bomb anything.”

Manning
was walking b
ack and forth across the room, p
laying to the audience behind the mirrors. As he walked he
absently stretched and twisted the
rubber band
that had held the photos of the fingers.

“So you go to the hotel and…”

“I didn’t fire bomb any hotel room.”

“You stated you were intoxicated that night.”

“No,
as a matter of fact,
I said I was very intoxicated that night. So much so that I parked on the street
,
because I didn’t want to
attempt driving
down my narrow driveway
and
into my garage.”

“And you left The Spot bar sometime after two that morning.”

“That’s what I’m told.”

“So you drove to the hotel, fire bombed
the hotel room of
Feli
city Bard and Fiona Simmons
, then drove home and decided to park on the street?”

“No,
I left The Spot. I drove home. I
parked on t
he street and then went to bed
.”

“To sleep?”

“Okay, have it your way,
I decided to read for a few hours. No,
like I’ve been telling you,
I
more or less
passed out. And,
I did not fire bomb a
ny
hotel room.”

“You phoned
a number of differe
nt departments impersonating a p
olice officer from
Saint Paul
, didn’t you Mister Haskell?”

“No. I phoned a number of different police departments. When they asked me if you were as big an asshole as you seemed I said
,
yes. If that makes it sound like I’m a member of the
Saint Paul
department there really is
n’t much
I can do about that.”

Manning
had walked to the far end of the room and
snapped the
rubber band he’
d been stretching, turned and looked at me.

“You did call a number of different departments, did you not?”

“I did, four to be exact,
Denver
,
St. Louis
,
Chicago
and
Kansas City
. At no time did I tell anyone I was a member of the Saint Paul Police Department. If the individuals I spoke with arrived at that conclusion it was on their own.”

“Why did you call?”

“I’ve told you, Jimmy McNaughton had hired me to help with security.
I was attempting to learn anything we could about the fingers that had been sent to the Hastings Hustlers.
”

“He didn’t feel the police could give adequate protection so he thought he better go right to the top,
meaning
you. That right?”

“More like he had you
as his point of contact
with the department
, Manning.
I’m sure after your
standard
confidence—
building speech regarding budget cuts h
e figured even I didn’t sound half
bad.”

“What was it like doing the
security for that English team?
Did I hear right
, you were
in their locker room?
”
Franco playing good cop.

“Yeah, you know
,
it was just a job
, comes with the territory,
twenty or so gorgeous naked women
all
of them
trying to get my attention
, it was just
a
n average
day
’
s work.”

Manning flushed close to purple.

“That why you attacke
d the Bard woman
? What is she about five-one, hundred pounds?”

“I didn’t attack anyone.”

“We’ve sworn statements.”

“Actually no you don’t
,
Detective. I believe all
,
but one of those statements have
been withdrawn. The one remaining statement is from Miss Bard
herself
, hardly credible in the face of sixteen statements being withdrawn,” Louie said.

“You scare off all those little English girls, Haskell?”

“Don’t answer that, Dev,” Louie said. “I wonder if I might have a moment with my client
, Detective
?”

Manning and Franco nodded almost in unison. Franco got up from his chair.

“Ten minutes enough time?” Manning asked,
suddenly
the voice of reason.

“Ten minutes will be perfect,”
Louie said, then watched
the two
of them depart
the interview room.

Louie turned to me, then moved his eyes to indicate the mirrored wall, reminding m
e we were not
entirely
alone.

After ten or twenty
thousand hours of questioning I felt
completely drained. I was
definitely
in need of a serious shower. Louie on the other hand had arrived in that state, as a matter of fact
,
but
right now
he seemed to look better than me, a lot better.
I couldn’t recall what, exactly, we had been discussing
and suddenly came back to reality
.

“…seems to be
finally
going
our
way,” Louie said.

“
Hunh? Going our way, y
ou’re delusional,
you
gotta be
kidding?”

“In my opinion, you’ve been set up. God knows why.”

There was a knock on the door, Manning poked his head in.

“Ready to continue? Need a coffee or anything?”
again
sounding the voice of reason.

Louie waved him in, “L
et’s just get this finished
up
as quickly as possible.”

Manning went over the same ground all over again, and again, and again.

Finally I couldn’t stand any more.

“You know what you should do Manning, check my place out for DNA related to the fingers that were mailed to those other cities.
I’d haul
that refrigerator of mine
from my garage into your
lab, see if you can find anything. Maybe c
heck the post mark on th
os
e envelopes
.
Run the things for a DNA comparison with me.
Something
’s bound to
come together for you guys.”

“We’re already doing that,” he smiled.

“You’re catching on,” I said.

“Detective, is there any new ground you wanted to cover?” Louie asked.
“
Because if there isn’t, I really think Mister Haskell has been more than cooperative, woul
d
n’t you agree?”

“I agree we’ve most likely covered enough ground for today, Mister Laufen.” Manning said to Louie, but he continued to stare at me.

“Then I take it
you are about to charge Mister Haskell? Or are
we’re free
to go?”
Louie asked.

Charge me? I looked at Louie, wide-eyed.

“For the time being,
you are free to go,
” Manning said.

The crime scene tape
was still keeping me out of my place. I didn’t think I possessed the stamina to spend a second night at Heidi’s.
I was
sitting in my car
wondering who I could
possibly
call
and scam an overnight from
when my cell phone rang.

“Haskell Investigations.”

“Hello Dev,
it’s
Carol
,
”
she said,
sound
ing
sultry.

Well, s
urprise, surprise
if it wasn’t
little Miss
P
epe le Pew
.

“Hi Carol, nice to hear from you,
wow,
I’
m little surprised
.”

“Surprised?”

“Yeah, the last time we spoke, yesterday I think, you told me never to call you aga
in. I
t
’
s
really
nice to hear your voice. How have you been?” I figured I’d better soft peddle it since
I needed a place to stay
. Carol and her
implanted
attributes
w
ould be just the thing the doctor ordered.

“Dev
, you’re so sweet
, things have been positively wonderful. I can’t thank you enough for introducing Nicholas to me.”

“Introducing
Nicholas? Carol, I didn’t introduce you two, we were out on a date, you and me.
I was attempting to ply you with Cosmopolitans if you’ll recall.
Th
en th
at
Nicholas
guy showed up and took my stool and
the next thing I know
you’re speaking French
.”

“Oh, don’t be sil
ly
.
It’
s just that he i
s so
different, so
interesting, so,
so,
romantic. He’s,
oh I do
n’t know, so really different than you
.
I mean in a good way, I guess,
”
she added.

That
didn’t really help me.

“And, he’s
been such a little gentleman.”

I didn’t want t
o touch the ‘little’ line. I was hoping
maybe Pepe le Pew was out of town and Carol was
fishing for
a little ungentlemanly behavior on my part
.

“
What can I do for
you?
Maybe we should get
to
…
”

“Just a
tiny favor I’d like to ask.
”

I quickly ran
the list of
her particular perversions through my mind.