Bombshell (Devlin Haskell 4) (10 page)

“That’s a relief,” she said, then waited.

“What’s next?”

“They’re still trying to put together some semblance of a schedule. We might be having a bout in the next few nights just to help them out. I don’t
k
now, seems like everything just sort of up and fizzled.”

“Well, no offense
,
but I think I’ll watch the next bout from the stands. Keep me posted whe
n it’s happening
.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that, well look
, I
better run.
” She waited a moment, giving me time to say something.
“
See ya,” she said
finally
and hung up.

I
wasn’t ready to ask Justine over and I wasn’t sure I ever would be.
I looked absently out the window and debated about getting an early start over at The Spot when my cell phone rang. No doub
t Justine calling with some sort of sweet
offer.

“Haskell Investigations,” I said, sounding busy, too busy.

“Hey, have you even started looki
ng through those applications I
sent you?”

“Andy?”

“Yes Andy,
who else gave you a stack of job applications to verify? D
on’t tell me you
’
r
e
screwing up two companies owned by some poor guy with the same name as me.”

“Actually I’ve got them finished, I can get them over to you tonight, if you like.”

“
I like.
W
e can’t get anything done
over here
until we have them. T
he phone has
been ringing off the hook with well intentioned
,
desperate folks calling to see if they’re getting a second interview.”

“I’ll
have them to you in an hour.”

“That would be nice. Any surprises?”

“Actually, no
, nothing out of the ordinary. Couple of dates maybe extended but I’d put them down as honest mistakes. No one listed themselves as CEO when in fact they were the receptionist, if that’s what you mean.”

“See you in an hour,” Andy said and hung up.

It didn’t sound like
much
fun. Andy
was the third generation to run what was still a family business. C. Lindbergh Memor
ials had been
founde
d by Andy’s grandfather, Carlyle
, a stone mason.
Carlyle Lindbergh,
had the good fortune
to start his
business in 1926. One year before Charles
Lindbergh
, ‘Lucky Lindy’ (no relation) set off on his epic flight across the
Atlantic
. In 1928 Carlyle cleverly added the logo of a plane rising up into the clouds.

C
.
Lindbergh Memorials
started o
ut
carving
tombstones. Andy’s father expanded the line to include
wooden
coffins. Andy took the operation
big time
,
handling everything from
toe t
ags and body bags
to
embalming supplies and mortuary makeup.

I was standing at the receptionist counter when Andy sa
w me from his office.

“Send that idiot in here
,
”
he yelled.

“He’ll see you now, sir,” the receptionist said.
She was a middle aged woman with large front teeth and broad hips that seemed out of proportion to the rest of her body.
It was just after five and she stuffed two Tupperware containers into a gigantic purse, then
shut down her computer and waved goodbye.

“Any
surprises?” Andy said, watching me pull three stacks of applications from a briefcase and place them on his desk.

“No,
like I said on the phone,
very straightforward. I’ve noted
any discrepancy with a Post-It-N
ote but it was all
very
minor
sort of stuff.”

“Sounds like it was pretty easy on your end.”

“I still had to make the calls. Still had to call back when someone was busy. You’
ve got
over three hundred applications, three hundred and seven to be exact.”

“Sign of the times,
God I’
d like to hire
dozens,
they all interviewed well,
but
it’ll only be one or two,
”
he said shaking his head
, then looked at his watch
. “It’
s after five, want
a bump?”

“Maybe just one.”

Andy’s expansive office was
what I guessed any
CEO’s would be like, well, if you discounted the huge painting of tombstones over the couch against the far wall
and the oak panels sporting various coffin handles
arrayed along the window sill
. I always thought it would be funny i
f Andy’s
phone played T
aps or Amazing Grace
,
but kept that suggestion to myself
.
His desk was covered with files, reports and pictures of his family.
I settled into the comfortable leather chair opposite his desk and waited.

He reached aro
und to a
wood box sitting on the
credenza. The thing was polished b
urled wood, inlaid with mother of pearl
and fancy veneer designs
, a
gorgeous
little bit of craftsmanship
. There
was a brass plaque on the
top of the
box
with Andy’s name
exquisitely engraved
. He opened the hinged top
and pulled out a bottle of Jameson, then
two
cut
crystal glasses.

“Gee, and to think I knew you when you used to drink beer right out of the tap.”

“Nice, isn’t it?
It’s
one of our better sellers
, gorgeous little thing
.”

“You’re selling liquor cabinets now?”

“
No, you kidding? I
t’s an urn.”

“An urn?”

“For ashes, you know, after a cremation. Holds a fifth and a couple of glasses rather nicely, don’t you think?”

“That’s your name on the thing?”

“A little industry humor,” he said, pouring.

We chatted on a bit, catching up on
various
guys one
or the other had lost track of over time.
Then I asked Andy,
“You follow the news
about som
eone stalking that
English Wome
n’s Roller Derby Team?”

Andy took a sip, looked thoughtful for half a moment.

“Just that I think they
finally
got t
he guy
,
didn’t they? Some idiot
attacked them down at the Veteran’s Auditorium. Guess he’d followed them all across the country or something. What a
n absolute
whack job.
Where do they come from?
”

“Well, that’s not exactly right. I think the incident you’re referring to was more of a misunderstanding, some poor innocent actually harangued by on
e of the women. I don’t think that particular situation
was the stalker as much as it was one of the women
flipping out and
going off the deep end.”

“Going off the deep end? The story I read said some nut case started grabbing and groping those women and they
eventually
beat the shit out of him. Not enough if you ask me. Someone did that to one of my daughters I’d have him lined up to sample a number of our products.” He followed up with a healthy sip, then reached around for the
bottle.

“You weren’t involved in that, were you?” He eyed me suspiciously, held the bottle out ready to pour into my
extended glass,
waiting for the correct answer before he commenced.

“No, I wasn’t involved,” I lied. “I’ve been working with them, the English team, trying to get a handle
on
what sort of individual would be doing this.”

“That’s easy, like I said
,
some whack job.”

“Yeah, of course. But
,
part of the stalking has been someone mailing severed fingers to one of the girls.
”

“Fingers?”

“Yeah,
always the middle finger, minus the finger
tip
, by-the-way
.
Mailed the things to a couple of different cities where they were. Then in
Chicago
, he slipped one under the door of the hotel room.”

“No shit?”

“
So far
,
none of the fingers correspond to
any DNA in the
data base
. Well,
actually we
’
ve only
been able to get results back on
one. B
y the way,
it had been frozen
. I mean
frozen
at some point, not after
the thing was delivered.”

Andy nodded like this made sense, then took a sip.

“God, and people kid
me about my business,” he said, gazing at the ceiling.

“Andy, how hard would it be for someone in your line of work to acquire fingers?”

“Harder than you think,” he said
,
not blinking. “You’re dealing with families. Now-a -days, it wouldn’t be uncommon to have an open casket prior to the actual funeral service whether at a mortuary or a church. From there you’re on your way to the cemetery
for the graveside service
, the casket’s
locked,
lowered, cover
ed then and there. It’s pretty traditional
for hands to be exposed while the deceased lies in repose. There’s family hovering
around
at all time
. It would be very
risky for someone to try what you’re suggesting
, not to mention
absolutely
crazy on about a dozen different levels
.”

“What about a morgue?”

“Same
sort of
process,
think of
the
morgue as more like a holding facility, but the body is almost always
turned over to a mortuary at some point.”

“How
the hell
could someone have access to a steady supply of fingers?” I asked.

“I really can’t see it from our industry
, any
thing
’
s possible
,
but there are so many checks and balances. So much scrutiny and
it’s very common for
people
to be
putting a last minute something into the coffin, a letter, a photo, it just, it would be really difficult. What about some industrial circumstance?”

“Yeah sure, I can just imagine OSHA going easy on some place where guys routinely lose fingers.”

“Yeah, I get your point.”

Andy seemed to think for a long
time, staring at his liquor
urn, he sipped
some more
.

“You know, there is one way, maybe?”

“Oh?”

“A crematorium.”

“How does that work, the body is reduced to ashes, or in your case a fifth of Jameson.”

“Actually
, it’s reduced to dried bits of bone fragments. They gri
nd
those
up in what’s called a cremulator
, then
…”

“Okay, okay, too much information.”

“It’s extremely rare that a family would watch the actual
cremation
. Perhaps, you know, just before that process begins, you could get in there, harvest what you wanted and
any telltale sign
would be
almost
immediately
destroyed.”

“Harvest?” I asked.

“Yeah, harvest.”

Maybe
,
I thought
, then
held out my glass for another refill.