Mike Faricy - Devlin Haskell 07 - Ting-A-Ling

by Mike Faricy

  “Yeah, oh, man,” I said, crawling out of bed, “still a little tender on the fingers and toes.” I looked at my hands, the fingers looked sunburned.

  “Lucky you can even feel the damn things. Soaked like that, I wasn’t kidding, you were maybe good for just a couple of minutes out there. That field and with the snow that came in last night, they wouldn’t have found you till Memorial Day.”

  “Thank God you were following them.”

  “I wasn’t,” Jimmy said. “I was following you. I pulled into that scenic overlook just as you skied away. It was obvious where you were headed. I just watched and waited. You do what I’ve been doing the last seven years, you learn some patience. Anyway, you better get dressed, Sue’s back any minute,” he said then left the room.

  I climbed into the back seat of Sue’s car, a non-descript gray Toyota. She was driving, Jimmy buckled up next to her in the passenger seat.

  “Sue, you know you got a broken headlight? On your passenger side,” I said and reached for the seatbelt. I was sitting next to the empty car seat.

  They exchanged a quick glance that seemed to speak volumes.

  “Sorry I don’t have a jacket for you, Dev. Those boots okay?” Jimmy asked.

  “Yeah, not to worry, I can feel the heat back here.”

  “You got a way to get into your place?”

  “Yeah, spare key hidden by the porch.”

  I had a ton of questions to ask, but didn’t know where to begin. I wasn’t sure how much Sue knew or didn’t know. We were quiet driving down Robert Street. She cut over at the light on Concord, heading toward Wabasha. She drove across the Wabasha Bridge and into downtown, and then turned left on Kellogg to make her way up the hill. In the morning sun the dome of the Cathedral glowed imperiously from the top of the hill.

  Jimmy and Sue were making small talk about his flight, little Jimmy’s day care, what she was going to cook for dinner.

  “There some way I can get in touch with you?” I asked.

  They exchanged another one of those glances that spoke volumes. Then Jimmy turned half-way and looked at me in the back seat.

  “Probably not the best idea, Dev. Please don’t take it personal, but not now. Maybe give it thirty or forty years.”

  “That’s a long damn time. I’d like to see you before then. I have no idea what happened last night. I mean to Danielle and Paris.”

  “I think the less you know the better. It’s just best this way, Dev. Sue and I have seven years of living apart and getting back on our feet. Hope you won’t be offended, but we’ve got too much time and heartbreak invested to change course now.”

  I nodded. I didn’t like it, but I understood, sort of.

  Sue drove past the Cathedral then took a right on Selby. We waited while two women crossed at the intersection with Western Ave. no doubt making their way toward Nina’s and coffee.

  “I’m just up here in the next block, on the right hand side. Next to that white house, mine’s the one with the snow shovel on the front porch.”

  Sue pulled along the curb and stopped in front of my driveway. She didn’t put the car in park, just kept her foot on the brake signaling this was going to be a short goodbye.

  “Sue, thanks for taking care of me last night, and for taking care of this idiot.”

  Jimmy laughed, and held his hand out. We shook and I looked deep into his eyes.

  “It’s been too long, man. I’ll let you get in touch with me, but make it a little sooner than thirty years. I’ll get these boots back to Sue,” I said.

  “Don’t, just keep them.”

  I nodded, said a final, “Thanks,” and got out. I walked around the back of the car and up the three steps toward my porch.

  “I doubt you’ll hear anything more from Mr. Paris, Dev,” Jimmy called from the car.

  I turned to ask him something, but they were already pulling away.

  Chapter Fifty

  I put my fears aside and stepped into my own shower. It was warm, safe, I was the only one in the bathroom and I was still out of there in just under three minutes. I dressed in my own clothes. I called Louie to see if I could scam a ride down to the office. He didn’t answer. I phoned Heidi next and got the same result. So I called a taxi and waited.

  I still had my jacket on and was staring out the office window when Louie came in. I’d been doing pretty much the same thing for the better part of four hours. Nothing.

  “Well, look who finally…you okay, Dev?”

  “Yeah, just thinking.”

  “Well, that’s it then, that’s why I thought you looked so different, you were actually thinking,” he said, then threw his jacket on the picnic table. “You didn’t make any coffee?”

  “What? No, I guess not. I’ll take some if you’re making it.”

  “You sure you’re okay? Christ, you look like you just lost your best friend,” Louie said, then started scooping coffee into the paper filter.

  “Yeah, fine, don’t worry. I’m going to take your advice, by the way.”

  “You are?” He sounded shocked. Then followed with, “Which advice are we talking about?”

  “I put a call into Eddie Bendix, the guy at the insurance company. See if he’s got any research or checking on job references he needs done. I could go for some dull work right about now.”

  “Plus, it pays,” Louie said.

  “Oh, yeah, there is that.”

  We drank some coffee. Louie was sitting on the edge of my desk, I was in my chair. We were both staring out the window when something caught our eye. We looked across the street, up on the third floor a figure strolled in front of the window and stopped to look down on the traffic. One of the sisters clad in a very small thong. She looked to be attaching the back of an earring.

  “God, I wish she’d get that thing in and put her arms down,” Louie said.

  At which point she did exactly that. She continued to look down on the street a second or two longer before she drifted back into some darkened area of the apartment.

  “Hopefully that was a sign of spring,” Louie said.

  “It’s still January, Louie. We got a ways to go.”

  “One can always hope.”

  “Yeah.”

  I picked up a stack of a hundred files from Eddie Bendix the following day. “More of those when you’re finished, Dev. We’re gearing up a new section to deal with all the Affordable Care Act bullshit.”

  “I’ll have these back to you in a couple of days,” I said.

  I did, as a matter of fact. I picked up another hundred files, and then another after that. When I dropped the third batch off Eddie called me into his office.

  “Dev, not a reflection on your work, it’s really helped, but we’ve put someone on staff who can handle this now, the reference checking. Hope you understand.”

  “To tell the truth, I was kind of wondering why you weren’t doing it internally.”

  “We’ll stay in touch,” Eddie said. “Something’s always coming up. Check is in the mail to you on Friday.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  It was Valentine’s Day. Actually, it was the seventeenth of February, three days later when I phoned Heidi.

  “Hello.”

  “Heidi, its Dev.”

  “I’m just between things, can I call you back?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Thanks, bye, bye, bye.”

  My phone rang a few minutes later. I answered it without looking and kept the binoculars up. Both sisters were strolling around the third floor across the street in various states of undress. A night of Heidi would serve as the perfect Grande Finale.

  “That was fast. Is baby in need of some special attention tonight?” I said, then sat back and waited for Heidi to invite me over f
or a night of uncontrolled passion.

  I heard the gum crack just before he yelled, “Haskell.”

  “Yes?” I tried to hide my disappointment by sounding overly sweet. I snapped my fingers a couple of times to get Louie’s attention. He looked up from his laptop on the picnic table.

  “Am I interrupting?” Manning sounded hopeful.

  “Who is this?” I asked.

  He ignored my question and said, “I wonder if you’d have time later this afternoon to stop in and see me.”

  “Is this just for a friendly chat or should I have my attorney present?” I asked.

  Louie pointed at himself, nodded, raised his hand and gave me the okay sign.

  “This is just a friendly little chat, no need for legal counsel.”

  “I’ll bring him anyway. You name a time.”

  “I’d like nothing better than to see your smiling face at the end of today. Say four o’clock?”

  “Four o’clock today?” I said in Louie’s direction, he nodded back. “We’ll be there.”

  Manning hung up.

  “Any ideas?” Louie asked.

  “No, nothing, unless those two sisters across the street reported us.”

  “In which case, Manning would probably be over here to view the scene of the crime.”

  “I know one thing, I’m giving Heidi’s number a ring tone. I don’t need Manning screwing up my social life.”

  We were five minutes early when Manning ushered us into the conference room.

  “Damn it, forgot a file, give me just a minute, gentlemen,” Manning said, then dashed down a hall.

  “Not like him to forget something,” Louie half whispered.

  “You recognize this place?” I asked. It was the same room where we’d met with Manning last December along with that humorless, bitchy psychologist Theobelle Sinn.

  “Kind of hard to forget. I wonder where she’s hiding?” Louie said then looked under the table.

  “Here we go, have a seat, gentlemen. Please,” Manning said then closed the door behind him. Louie and I sat down next to one another. Manning pulled a chair out directly across from us.

  “Can I offer either of you some coffee?” he asked, standing behind his chair. He was definitely in his ‘good cop’ mode.

  “No thanks,” Louie said.

  I shook my head ‘no’.

  “Very well, then. Let’s get started. Shall we?” he said, then pulled his chair a little further back and sat down. He casually opened a fairly thick file. On the top of the file sat a black and white image, a head shot of some guy. As per Manning, the thing was upside down and I couldn’t recognize who it was. And as per Manning I was sure he was gauging my reaction to the image.

  Manning went through his usual introductory routine, the time, date, our location. He introduced me first, then Louie, adding that Louie was there, “In the capacity of legal representative.”

  “Now then, Mr. Haskell.” Manning smiled at me. “I wonder if you would be able to identify this individual for me?” he said, then slid the black and white image out of his file and across the conference table toward me. The image was a copy from a printer, not a photograph and if I had to guess I’d say it had been enlarged from whatever the original had been. It was slightly blurry and not a booking mug shot.

  The guy could have been in his late forties or he could have been sixty. It was a full face, not what I’d call fat, but he could stand to lose a few pounds. Although it was a black and white copy the eyes looked pale, I guessed they were blue. His hair was close cropped, grayed at the temples and thinning on top. The nose had a prominent bump and I figured it had been broken at least once. There were puffy bags under the eyes. I studied the image for a few moments and then shook my head. “I don’t have any idea who that is.”

  Manning nodded and slid two more images over to me. Once again they looked to be enlarged copies from some sort of digital original. If I had to guess I’d say all three images were of the same individual and maybe taken over a span of ten or twenty years. Looking left to right the hair grew shorter, a little more gray and the face became a little heavier. Deeper lines ran along either side of the guy’s face from his nose down to below his mouth. The bags under his eyes became more obvious. The nose was the same on all the images. I shook my head again. “I still don’t have any idea who that is.”

  Manning nodded and reached back across the table. He gathered up the images and returned them to his file. “Let’s talk about Renee Paris, shall we?”

  “I don’t know that I can tell you anything new,” I said.

  “Have you spoken with Mr. Paris since the afternoon you assaulted him in the kitchen of Casey’s?”

  “I have not had a meaningful conversation with Renee Paris since the afternoon I met with him at Casey’s,” I said, hoping that would satisfy Manning.

  It didn’t.

  “You’ve not spoken to him since?”

  “I have not,” I lied.

  Manning studied me for a very long moment. Like he knew my game and was just thinking of the best way to catch me in the act.

  “What about Danielle Roxbury?”

  “I think I drove past her home twice since our last conversation. I can’t be sure of the dates, but it was sometime last December. On one of those occasions I got out of my car and rang her doorbell. No one answered. I have not phoned her. She has not phoned me.”

  Manning studied me again. “So you’ve not met with her.”

  “No.”

  “Nor contacted her.”

  “Correct.”

  “Has she contacted you, Dev?”

  It was the first time I could remember that Manning called me Dev. I was more than a little worried.

  “No, she has not contacted me and I have not tried to contact her, well except like I said, I drove past her house, twice.”

  “And rang her doorbell,” he reminded me.

  “Yes, and except for ringing her doorbell, the one she never answered.”

  “Do you have her phone number, have you called her?”

  “The phone number I have for her is the same one I gave you last December. I presume it’s still good, but I don’t know that for sure. I have not called her. Here, you can check my phone if you want,” I said. I pulled my cell phone out and set it on the table.

  “We’ve already done that.” Manning smiled. “Of course, you could have used another phone, maybe a pay phone or even Mr. Laufen’s phone.”

  “Detective.” Louie sounded genuinely annoyed. “I can assure you Mr. Haskell has not made any calls using my phone.”

  Manning smiled like maybe he had already checked Louie’s number too.

  “I didn’t use Mr. Laufen’s phone. I didn’t attempt to call Danielle Roxbury on a pay phone. I didn’t send her a telegram, an email, a text message or a carrier pigeon. I have not been in contact with the woman in any way, shape or form. The last phone conversation I had with Danielle Roxbury was sometime in December. I told her she should hire an attorney and she informed me that she was no longer in need of my services.”

  “Convenient,” Manning muttered, but didn’t say anything else.

  My phone on the table suddenly rang. It played a few bars from the Blondie tune, ‘Call Me’.

  “You kidding? I love Blondie.” Manning seemed to step out of his cop role for a moment and gave a genuine smile.

  The tune was at the ‘designer sheets,’ point when it replayed.

  “Go ahead and answer it.” Manning nodded, curious. “We’re pretty much finished here.”

  “Hi, Heidi. Look, I’m sort of busy, can I call you back?”

  “No rush, I’m seeing someone, Denton.”

  “Okay, thanks, I’ll call you later.”

  “Don�
�t you even want to know?” she half screamed.

  “Later,” I said and hung up. “Just a lady friend.” I smiled across the table at Manning.

  “She didn’t sound all that friendly just now,” he said.

  “Is there anything else, Detective?”

  “No, thank you for your time, gentlemen. You’re free to go. I’m sure you’ll let me know should anything develop on your end,” Manning said, sounding like he didn’t mean a word of it.

  “You’ll be the first we call,” I said.

  “Thank you,” Louie and I said in unison then we stood up and fled the scene.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  “Is it your turn or my turn?” Louie asked and pushed his glass toward Mike standing on the other side of the bar.

  “God, I can’t stand it, the two of you are like a couple of little old ladies. Just shut up, this round’s on me,” Mike said and left to refill our glasses.

  It was a little before nine. We were seated at the end of the bar near the front door. There were maybe five other guys in The Spot. We were the only two talking.

  “I knew the moment Manning sat down and opened the file with that image that it was Dick Head’s picture. I hadn’t seen the bastard for a few years, but it was him,” Louie said, then followed up with a sip from his fresh drink.

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  He looked at me like I’d lost what was left of my mind. “Because the man didn’t ask me, Dev. You don’t go into those situations with the idea that you’re going to volunteer information. It’s painfully obvious you haven’t learned that lesson.”

  “What are you talking about? What’d I do wrong this time?”

  “You always want to play it too close to the edge. Say just one more thing to make your point and convince Manning. Only he’s not going to be convinced, and that’s where you always seem to get tripped up.”