Bombshell (Devlin Haskell 4) (18 page)

“
From two different individuals?”

“Most likely,
”
I said.

“Sort of eliminates the usual suspects.
”

“Meaning?”

“
M
eaning the
usual suspects, criminals, someone who has
be
en convicted
of a felony
, sex offenders. Y
ou mentioned a bunch of cities
, right?
”

“Yeah four,
plus here
,
so that’s actually five
,
now.
”

“
Okay, the set up
varies from state to state
,
but in general it’s criminals,
your
violent offenders
, guys guilty of sex crimes
. I think in a couple of states
they may have extended it to guys who have been
charged
,
but not convicted. Anyway, individuals in that area of the criminal justice system. Based on what you’ve told me one would think it’s that
sort of individual involved
. But, the results, at least initially don’t seem to confirm your supposition
.
”

“
Yeah, all CODIS, I get that part.
Okay
, despite your use of big college words
even I get it
.
What about other countries?
”

“A lot of them have a similar system.”

“What about
England
?”

“The
UK
? Yeah
they have a database
,
actually, I think their system predates ours and is a little more thorough. I suppose you could theoretically check their system or
Interpol
or something like that
,
nab
some major
international villain
.
But you’d have to be dealing with a major crime, murders, plural. Multiple tons of drugs. I mean this deal is weird, the women are good looking, but it’s not
even a blip on the screen of
international law enfor
cement
.”

I spent the rest of the night online, looking at illicit dating sites.

I checked my bedroom
clock
as I reached
for
my
cell phone,
seven
-ten in glowing green numbers
.

“Hask
,” I had to clear my throat, “Haskell Investigations.”

“Gee, sor
ry
,
hope I’m not disturbing that
much needed beauty sleep
of yours
,
”
the voice sounded way t
o
o cheery and
not at all sorry,
I heard the gum cracking.

“
Detective
Manning?”

“
I suppose you’re already
at your desk.”

I
laid back, let out a long sigh
, this couldn’t possibly go my way.

“What can I do for you, Detective?”

“Wonder if we might chat, I…”

“Let me get in touch with my attorney.”

“I got a better idea, how about I send a car around
, say
fifteen minutes?”

“Are you going to
arrest
me
, again?”

“No, actually H
askell
, much as that would
make my day
, the answer is no, you will not be put under arrest. In fact
, we’ll be chatting in my office
.”

“Chatting?”

“Just a few informal questions.”

“In your office?”

“Yes, how do you take your coffee.”

“Actually, I’m into double Latte’s now-a-days,
”
I said, hoping to be difficult.

“I’ll have a
driver there
for you
in fifteen minutes.”

I stumbled downstairs to the kitchen, put some coffee on, then went back up to shower.
I
had just stepped out of the shower and
was toweling off when my doorbell rang. I wrapped the towel around my waist and went downstairs to open the door
figuring
Manning had probably sent some more wei
ghtlifters bent on intimidation and they’d break the door in just for practice.

The bell rang a
secon
d time just as I got to the entryway
. I saw the back of a blue uniform shirt through the window and opened the door. Th
e officer turned to face me just as I opened door
.

“You didn’t have do that for me,”
she smiled, nodding at the
towel
wrapped around my waist
.

I missed a couple of beats as I stared into the
dark
brown eyes and
gorgeous
face of an
Asian female
officer
.
Her eyes held a definite sparkle.
I glanced down from her face and stared at
the
embroidered in gold
thread
over her
breast
pocket
, Trang, L
.

“You are Mister Devlin Haskell, right?”
she smiled.

“What?”

“Are you Mister Devlin Haskell?” As she asked she stepped back and double checked the address numbers next to my front door.

“Yes, yes I’m sorry officer I, well you caught me off guard. Look I’ll be ready in just a minute. I just got the phone call a few min
utes ago. Please, please come in
?
”
I
stepped back to let her in but
decided against asking her upstairs to help me get dressed.

She seemed to consider for a moment, then nodded.

“I guess that would be okay.”

“Can I get you a cup of coffee? I just
put some
on.”

“That would be fine
”
she said and
followed me into my kitchen. I sensed her looking around checking things out as we walked toward the rear of the house. She
star
ed for a moment at the
open
space
my refrigerator used to inhabit. M
aybe
she
noticed the three or four years
worth
of dust
balls
th
at had accumulated.
Maybe it was
the three or four tops to old beer bottles or
the unset, empty mouse trap. If she did
notice
she was gracious enough not to say anything.

I
pulled a mug out of the cabinet, poured some
coffee
and handed it to her.

“Thanks.”

“Milk?” I asked, then remembered I didn’t have any.

“No, black is fine.”

“I’ll just get changed upstairs and be
back down,” I said, pouring a
mug
for me
.

“Take your time, no rush
, I’m on the clock,”
she smiled and sipped
.

I had another thought
about asking her upstairs to h
elp me pick out the right outfit
,
on second thought
decided that might not be the best idea and left to get dressed.

I was back downstairs in under
eight minutes. Officer L. Trang
was leaning against my kitchen counter, next to her empty coffee cup, smiling. She looked me up and down, if she’d been one of my ex’s I think she might have said something like ‘You’re not going ou
t dressed like that, are you?’ Instead s
he
just leaned against the counter and
continued to smile.

“You know the last time a police officer was here I was handcuffed
up in my
bedroom.”

“Really?
Interesting,
” she said, sounding
not at all surprised. “Ready to
go?”

We were outside walking down my front steps. The same large woman
from
the other day was waddling past with her little
white, curly haired
dog.

“Humpf,” she sneered then
shook her head in disgust
and stopped to watch us
.

“Same day different shit,” I said
,
nodding at the bag she carried.

“Mister Haskel
l,” Officer Trang
smiled and stood next to the open rear door of the black and white.

“Shouldn’t he be handcuffed?
He’s a menace an
d a detriment to the entire neighborhood,
” Fatty said
.

“We did that upstairs,
used the hand cuffs,
” I said
,
and winked at her.

“Well, hopefully you’ll loose the key when you lock him up this time.”

“Yes
ma-am.” Officer Trang
said, then closed the door behind me and walked around to the driver
’
s side.
She was smiling when she got in behind the wheel.

“I’ve already been told I have that affect on women
.”

“Menace and detriment?” She said and started the squad car.

We were maybe ten minutes f
rom the police station. Not
far in terms of distance, but the start and stop of rush hour on streets in a permanent state of construction did nothing to get you where you wanted to go. We hadn’t said an
ything since she pulled away from the front of my house
.

“What’s the ‘L’ stand for?”
I asked.

“The
’L’?”

“Your first name, it’s on your uniform.”

Oh,
sorry, it stands of
Linh, L-I-N-H,” she spelled it out for me.

“Pretty,
” I said
.

“It means gentle spirit
,” she said.

I waited for her to expo
und, but nothing else followed. I caught her glancing at me in the rear view mirror a couple of times, probably wracking her brain for ‘Wanted’ posters
.

“My instructio
ns are to escort you up to four,” s
he said
,
fifteen minutes later
. S
he opened
the rear door for me
and smiled. We were
parked in front of the
brick building that served as
the police statio
n. We were
directly across the street from the dusty, pot holed lot
where
I’d waited
for Louie
the other day.

“Do you want to cuff me?” I asked, then held up my writs and smiled.

“
You’d like that, wouldn’t you? No,
but
I was thinking of
usi
ng the Taser,” she replied, gave me a quick laugh and
headed for the front door.

Manning was
in a burgundy and beige cubicle
, seated behind his desk
. The
cubicle looked ten years old,
the
scuffed wooden
desk closer to fifty. He was
half hidden behind four stacks of thick manila files. The to
p o
f his head was a shinny pink
out
lined by his close cropped red fringe. When he looked up his blue eyes were like lasers beaming in on me.

“Any problems Offi
cer Trang
?”
he asked,
sounding hopeful,
then cracked his ever present gum.

“No, he was a
n absolute
model citizen,” she said.

“
Surprising.
I’ll call you when we
’re finished. Sit down, Haskell.
” Mann
ing directed
, and
indicated a chair
for me
.
Th
e chair was tarnished chrome with
olive drab
highlights
and looked to be army surplus.