Bombshell (Devlin Haskell 4)

by Faricy, Mike

  I checked Heidi. She was breathing deeply, sound asleep, just on the verge of snoring, again. There was a bright scarlet hand mark on her otherwise perfect right butt cheek. I pulled her skirt to cover her, but it didn’t really work.

  “Heidi, Heidi,” I shook her gently.

  She gave a disagreeable groan, rolled further away, “Catch you in the morning,” she slurred.

  Emma was regaining consciousness, she shook her head and began to strain, grunting with her arms tied behind her back.

  I took two of the drapery cords, quickly tied them together, making one long cord and then wrapped it around Emma, under her arms, securing her to the bedpost. I pulled the thing tight and knotted it behind her.

  “Piss off and get away from me you bastard. Let me go, let me fucking go, you wanker.”

  “Lady, the only place you’re going is to jail,” I said, and then speed dialed Aaron LaZelle from my cell.

  He picked up just after the third ring, it was clear he’d been sound asleep.

  “Lo,” he groaned out, and then cleared his throat, “hell, hello.”

  “Aaron.”

  “Yeah?” more clearing of his throat.

  “Dev.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s Dev, Jesus who else would call you at this hour?”

  “Did you get hauled in again?” he groaned.

  “No, I didn’t get hauled in, again. Look do you have Manning’s number? I have something here he might like.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  I went on to briefly explain to Aaron what had happened. While we talked I looked down at Emma, she was straining against the cords, but not getting very far. I walked over, kicked the bottom of her foot, none too gently.

  She glared up at me.

  I smiled, shook my head no, and then pressed the barrel of the pistol firmly against her forehead, pushing her head back against the bedpost.

  She glared, but didn’t do much beyond that.

  “Let me call Manning,” Aaron said. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate bringing her in, I’ll come down there, too. I’d like to see this.”

  “Sooner you guys get here the better,” I said.

  “I’ll get a squad dispatched right away, they’ll be there in about ten minutes,” Aaron said.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  The Squad arrived in six minutes. Two uniforms barged through the door of the penthouse suite, followed by two guys in dark green sport coats, hotel security.

  “You’re Haskell?” the smaller of the two uniforms asked.

  He was dark haired, brown eyes, lean. The name stitched on his shirt, just above the pocket, read Andretta, L. I pegged him for maybe twenty-five years old. His partner was ginger haired, with freckles and blue eyes, I couldn’t see his name. He looked to be not much more then fifteen.

  “Yeah, I’m Devlin Haskell, call me Dev, please. Here, careful it’s loaded,” I nodded, clicked the safety on the pistol and handed it to Officer Andretta. He quickly walked over and set the pistol on the table.

  “I took it away from her,” I turned and indicated Emma glaring up at us from the floor where I’d tied her to the bedpost. Her raincoat had gradually hiked up as she’d squirmed back and forth and the two cops plus the hotel security guys were studying her thighs, looking for weapons, no doubt.

  “I’m a citizen of the United Kingdom and I demand to speak to a representative from the British Embassy, now,” she growled.

  “Shhh-hhh, please, you’ll wake my date.” I said, indicating Heidi in the bed. I’d gotten her situated under the covers although she was still dressed. I’m not sure the two officers or the security guys noticed her until I said something.

  “Jesus, busy night,” one of the hotel guys said under his breath.

  “I called Detective Aaron LaZelle, he had you guys dispatched. I think he’s on his way down here, along with Detective Manning,” I was speaking to Officer Andretta.

  At the mention of Manning’s name the two officers exchanged a quick glance. They didn’t say anything although it was clear they’d passed information back and forth.

  “How about I call room service, have some coffee sent up, you guys hungry?” I asked.

  “I think they’re closed by now,” one of the hotel guys said, absently glancing at his watch. He was a bit paunchy, maybe an ex-jock a couple of decades back, grey around the temples, with a couple of chins hiding the better part of the knot on his tie.

  “We’ll maybe make an exception,” the other hotel guy said, “under the circumstances.” He was a black guy, maybe mid-forties. Not muscled in that ripped sort of way, but solid looking, like he’d been a farm kid or done heavy construction. His nose had that particular ‘S’ curve suggesting he’d been involved in animated discussions a couple of times. He seemed to have the assurance of an ex-cop or maybe a military type. Someone used to calling the shots and not having a lot of people present alternatives.

  The guy who said room service might be closed was already on the phone, getting coffee sent up. “How many you think?” he asked, like we were planning a party instead of arresting Emma Babe for kidnapping, waving a gun around town and probably the murder of Fiona Simmons.

  “Couple of pots, sounds like we’ve more coming,” he said into the phone, then looked over at me.

  I nodded in agreement.

  “Got some doughnuts, coffeecake, sweet rolls, something like that?” Then he nodded some more in response to whatever he heard. “That’ll do, sooner the better,” and hung up.

  “I want to speak to someone from the British Embassy,” Emma half shouted again from the floor, still tied up.

  “Ma’am, we’ll get to you in a moment. Probably the best advice I could give you for right now would be to just sit there, quietly,” Andretta said.

  She huffed, wiggled back and forth a couple of times, but didn’t say anything else. I noticed there was a puffy swelling along her jaw line and the beginnings of some discoloration where Heidi had clocked her.

  I was barely into my story before Manning appeared. I was giving the long version, playing for time, starting at the very beginning. I’d barely gotten to cooling my heels in the women’s locker room last week during the practice between the Hustlers and the Bombshells.

  Both uniformed officers suddenly appeared very cautious in front of Manning.

  He had arrived with a bit of an entourage, two more officers, one a sergeant, not Security Sergeant Wayne. The blonde, female detective that had been in the interview room a while back followed the two officers. I couldn’t remember her name, but Manning took care of that.

  “You’ve already met Detective Schumacher,” he said, by way of reintroduction while not giving away any details to the others. He didn’t bother to introduce the two uniformed officers who’d arrived with him. He busied himself taking a long time looking around my penthouse suite, since his department, compliments of the SWAT team, was picking up the tab I thought that seemed okay.

  Coffee arrived, along with a large tray of doughnuts and sweet rolls. Manning shot me a glance then went for the tray without missing a beat, he took a large bite from some sort of caramel affair and seemed to be lost in thought as he chewed.

  “We were still processing the scene over at the Veteran’s Auditorium, when I got LaZelle’s call,” he said once he swallowed. He wiped his hands on a cloth napkin, then glanced at Emma tied to the bedpost.

  She seemed to think better about demanding to see someone from the embassy.

  Manning studied her for a moment then turned back to the assembled group although he seemed to be talking for my benefit.

  “We were processing an incident in the locker room, the Hustler’s locker room,” he said and awaited my reaction.

  “Really?” I acted surprised, and got the distinct feeling Manning was in the process of reassessing the information he’d already compiled.

  Eventually he nodded at me and his blue eyes seemed to bore through my thick skull.


  “The girls beat up some other innocent in the hallway?” I asked, trying to move things from inside the locker room.

  “Something along those lines.” Manning didn’t go into any further detail. He set his coffee down, then looked me in the eye. “So what you got here?”

  I told him my story, starting with our walk over to the Veteran’s Auditorium and Heidi suddenly becoming the world’s biggest Lionel Richie fan. I left out the part about putting the tickets on the penthouse room charge. I forgot to mention my little trip down to the Hustler’s locker room or shooting a Taser into Sergeant Wayne’s fat ass. I didn’t see any point in mentioning I told Destiny to clear out the bar in the private box.

  I did mention Heidi drinking a little too much after a long, tiring day. Soft pedaled a little when it came to wheeling her out on the two wheeled dolly. Then I launched into Emma Bitch coming out of the dark and shoving a pistol in my ribs, threatening to kill both of us and appearing desperate to get away from the Veteran’s Auditorium. I told Manning that along the way Emma dropped her line about stuffing a finger “in with all those bits and pieces and paint cans”.

  Manning nodded, said, “That would explain the finger from her purse, tonight in the locker room,” but didn’t go into any further detail.

  “Finger? From her purse?” I asked.

  “That the dolly there?” Manning said, ignoring my question and pointing toward the red, two wheeled dolly next to the bed. The words ‘Veteran’s Auditorium’ were stenciled in black letters across the back.

  “The red two wheeled one, yeah. The other dolly, the one in bed, is Heidi,” I joked. Manning looked at me, but didn’t smile, blue eyes back to lasers. Schumacher never even blinked she just stood in the background, I couldn’t tell if she was even breathing.

  Manning finally nodded, glanced over at Emma, and then said to the uniformed sergeant, “Place her under arrest, read her, her rights, and then put her in a holding cell. We’ll move her to an interview room once we get down there.”

  Aaron walked in just as Manning went over and stood in front of Emma.

  “Miss Bard, we’re going to place you under arrest. For the moment we’re charging you with kidnapping and I’m also tacking on use of a fire arm in the commission of a crime which makes everything a bit more serious in this state. There most likely will be more charges to follow,” he said.

  Emma looked as if she was going to say something, but Manning’s bald head started to go crimson and he held his hand up like he was stopping traffic.

  “I’m aware you’re a British citizen, we’ll get in touch with the Consulate down in Chicago in the morning. Okay, Sergeant,” he said, and then returned to the rest of us as the uniforms moved.

  The four uniforms surrounded Emma, Andretta was on his knees, handcuffing her before he untied her. In short order she was pulled up on her feet and led out of the room. The Sergeant was reading her rights as they walked past. Her head was bowed, shoulders slumped and she appeared a substantially paler shade than just a few moments earlier. An officer walked ahead of her, one each held her arms, the Sergeant followed behind. The hotel security guys walked out behind them.

  “So,” Aaron asked, looking from Manning to me and then back to Manning.

  Manning gave a shrug of his shoulders. “Look’s like she might well be responsible for the death of Fiona Simmons. I just want to keep everything contained until we’ve an airtight case,” he said.

  Aaron nodded.

  Manning turned to me. “We’ll need a statement from you and Miss,” he glanced toward the four poster bed where Heidi was snoring softly.

  “Miss Bauer, Heidi Bauer. In all honesty, she’s been passed out the entire time.”

  “But yet she somehow managed to knock Miss Bard unconscious?” Manning asked.

  “Yeah, it was a reaction to being slapped on the ass.”

  “Slapped on the ass?” Aaron said.

  “Come here,” I said and they followed me over to the bed where Heidi snored. I pulled the covers back. She seemed to react somewhat, snorted once or twice, and then went back to her rhythmic snoring. Her rear was more exposed than not and there was the unmistakable deeper red shape of a hand, with maybe just the beginnings of purple along the edge.

  “Enlightening,” Manning said, then looked up at me and smiled, genuinely.

  “I’m still going to need a statement from you, and Miss Bauer, possibly a photograph from her as well.”

  “Photograph?”

  “Of her bruise,” Manning smiled. “You can cover her up now, by the way, thank you,” he said.

  I pulled the bed covers back over Heidi.

  “Alright, it’s late, after two,” Manning said, checking his watch. “Why don’t you plan on showing up at nine-thirty tomorrow morning with Miss Bauer. We’ll take your statements at that time. I’d better get down there and begin processing Miss Bard. For the record, Haskell, I appreciate your help. Nice digs,” he said looking around the suite.

  “Glad I was able to help, detective,” I said, and extended my hand. He took it and gave me a firm shake, then thanked Aaron for the earlier call and left with Detective Schumacher in tow.

  “She ever do anything like smile or suggest she was alive and breathing,” I said, once they left.

  “Who, Schuey? She’s okay, she can be a lot of fun.”

  “Yeah, sure she can.”

  “Alright, let me echo what Manning said, thanks for the call. Looks like this might well get a headache or two off everyone’s plate.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  I attempted to gently wake Heidi by shaking her ankle around eight-thirty the following morning.

  “Ughhh, don’t touch me,” she groaned.

  “Come on, I’ve got vodka and orange juice all set up for your breakfast screwdriver,” I said.

  It was like waiting for a fuse delay on an explosive charge. She laid there, twitched her nose once or twice then seemed to levitate and fly into the bathroom all in one fluid motion. I pulled the door closed as she began to retch into the toilet bowl. It was a good fifteen minutes before she exited the bathroom and started to crawl back into bed, to tell the truth she wasn’t looking all that hot.

  “Feeling better? Heidi, come on, don’t go back to bed, we’ve got a nine-thirty appointment.”

  “You know what you can do with your nine-thirty appointment,” she said, crawling across the bed.

  “I’ve already done that, thank you. Come on, I’m not kidding, we have to be down at the police station at nine-thirty.”

  “The police, now what did you do? And why do I have to go? Forget it, you’re on your own,” she was in the process of pulling the covers over her head. I came alongside and began to pull the covers back down.

  “Get away from me and let me go back to sleep. I think I’ve got food poisoning or something, I feel like shit, my heads killing me and I hurt my hand, somehow. God, what did you do to me?”

  “Yeah, that’s right Heidi, I did something to you. Oh wait, I forgot, its food poisoning. Must have been the five-star—meal room service brought up last night. Come on, get up, you have to get dressed so we can go down there and make a statement, both of us.”

  “I. Don’t. Want to.” She said, and then kicked her feet and thrashed about before she slapped my hand away, pulling the covers back over her head.

  “We have to go down to the police station, come on,” I said a bit more forcefully.

  “Why me?” she groaned from under the covers.

  “Because, that woman with the gun, the one that kidnapped us, the woman who slapped you on the ass. The woman you punched and knocked out. The police arrested her. They’re going to charge her and they need our statements.”

  “What?” she said, and slowly pulled the covers down from over her head.

  I gave her the three minute synopsis, dwelling on her Lionel Richie rant for a moment or two.

  “I can’t go down there like this, God, I slept in this outfit. I need a
shower, and I feel like shit. Do we have to? Why do you do these things?”

  “What did I do? You’re the hero here, or the heroine, and don’t yell at me, Miss ‘She’s so Damn Hot’.”

  “What?”

  I phoned Manning’s office, but didn’t have to talk with him. Mercifully, I was able to leave a message that we were running an hour late and we’d be down there at ten-thirty.

  It was now ten-forty and I called to Heidi from behind the newspaper as I sat on her living room couch.

  “Heidi, come on, we were supposed to be there ten minutes ago.”

  “You want me to go there looking like shit?” she yelled from her bedroom.

  “No, you’re supposed to go there on time and sign a statement. The individual they’re going to charge, your hot little friend, Emma, has some rights, too, and one of them is you have to be there on time. Besides, they don’t really care what you look like.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” she said walking into the living room and looking decidedly better than the woman I’d seen with her head in the toilet bowl two hours ago.

  “Wow, amazing what a shower and a couple of aspirin can do for you, you look great.”

  “I feel like shit, butthead. Did you kick me last night, you creep? I’ve got this enormous purple bruise on my ass. What the hell did you do? Oh, do my eyes look okay, I used some drops?”

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “You didn’t even look, Dev. God, here, help me on with these, will you? I can’t do it my hand is killing me, no thanks to you,” she said, then handed me a string of pearls and turned round with her back to me.

  “What do you mean, no thanks to me? Yeah, that’s right, like I sat on you, pinned you to the ground with a funnel and poured a fifth of vodka into you last night.”

  At the mention of vodka she shuddered visibly, and then stepped away as soon as I’d clasped her pearls.

  “Okay, let me get a water, then let’s get this over with so I can go back to bed.”