Bombshell (Devlin Haskell 4) (9 page)

The guy in
St. Louis
spoke with a lisp, a Detective Sexton. He had the same story as the others
,
no results, he’d call me when the reports came back
,
but don’t wait by the phone.

“Look, I’ll
give
you
a call
when they come in
,
but you’re probably looking at months not weeks, budget cuts and all that shit.”

“Yeah, that’s what everyone seems to be fighting.”

“God, it’s getting worse than dealing
with
the bad guys. So you work with
some guy named
Manning up there?”

“Yeah,” I said,
immediately getting cautious,
sensing
I was being pushed out onto
thin ice.

“That guy as big a jerk as he sounds like
on the phone
?”

“No, bigger.”

“Figures, some things never change. Look, go
t a few hundred irons in the fir
e just a little hotter than this. I run into anything I’ll let you know, okay.”

“Appreciate your time.”

An afternoon wasted.

I was
sitting
in
The Spot
when
my phone rang.
I had
stopped in to check
for messages
and nurse
a Leinenkugel
befor
e I went home
.

“Haskell Investigations.”

I
had to step
out the side door
to hear
as I answered
my cell
, th
e juke box was blaring Bob Sege
r singing about Old Time Rock and Roll.

“Detective Dev Haskell?
” the voice
asked, not sounding too sure.

“That’s me,” trying not to sound too cautious.

“
King
Quinn
,
Denver
.
We spoke earlier
. This your office phone?”

“No, my cell,
I’m
out at
a crime scene right now.”

“Crime scene,” he said
,
not sounding too convinced.

“Did you find anything for me?”

“No, meaning yes. Nothing turned up in a DNA ma
tch, either someone’s not in the CODIS
data base or, well that’s just it,
they’re
not in the data base.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning whoever is missing that finger, they most likely aren’t or weren’t a sex offender o
r convicted of a violent felony in the past umpteen years.”

“Back to square one.”

“Yeah, I can tell you
this much, finger was from a
Caucasian male. Aged between twenty-five and
forty, and one other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“It was frozen, the finger.
”

“Frozen?”

“Yeah, not when we recovered it, but it had been frozen.”

“What sense does that make? Why?”

“
M
aybe this guy has a stash of them, on ice. Whe
n
he needs one
he grabs it out of the freezer and
mails it off.”

“Or tapes it to the door of a bus,” I added.

“That too,
”
he said.

“Of course, that still suggests someone who has access to them, the fingers.”

“Maybe a hospital worker, morgue,
undertaker, someone along those lines.”

“
Yeah, maybe.
Detective, thanks for the effort and the call back. You come across anything else please let me know.”

“Sure thing, Detective.” He said the last word like he wasn’t quite sure but played the party line just in case.
“Give my best to
all those English girls.”

“I will.”

“And Detective Manning.”

“I will.”

“Just kidding, don’t,
”
he said and hung up.

Actually, t
he smart thing to do would be to call Manning in homicide, give him the information I’d just received and let him follow
it up
. Instead
,
I called the guy in
St. Louis
with a lisp, Sexton. He didn’t speak too kindly about Manning and I hoped to maybe use that to my advantage. I left a message.

Next I phoned Jimmy McNaughton, just to touch base. I treaded carefully, he may be in touch with Manning, though I doubted it.

“What can I do for you?” Jimmy asked, he sounded preoccupied.

“Just keeping you up to date. So far no
ne
of th
os
e fingers match up to anyone in our data bases here.”

“
Your contact with the
police tell you this?”

“Manning? No, actually
he’s got a lot on his plate right now. I went ahead and contacted the other departments,
Denver
,
St. Louis
, Chicago and
Kansas City
. Wanted to see what I could learn from them.”

“And what’d you learn?”

“Just what I said
, they can’t get a
match to anyone here. I thought if we could find where the fingers came from it would help in finding out who sent them.”
I purposely didn’t tell Jimmy
about the finger in
Denver
having been frozen.

“Felicity was released this noon from your
Regions
Hospital
,” Jimmy said.

“Oh, I hope she’s okay.”

“Probably best for both of us not to comment at this stage. I did get a visit from three of the girls.”

“A visit?”

“Seems they wanted to withdraw their statements.”

“The statements about what happened between Emma and me, that bullshit about groping and attacking
her. Fantastic, they came to their
senses and said nothing like that happened, that it?”

“Not exactly, they said they were too far away and maybe just joined up in the heat of the moment.
Thought better of it and as much as they’d like to see you brought to justice
, upon further reflection
they didn’t see enough to sign a statement.”

“It’s a start, I’ll take it. Listen Jimmy, I’m going to check back with the other departments I spoke with today. I hear anything else, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks, I’d appreciate that.”

I went back inside, finished my beer and went home.

I was on my
laptop, supposedly doing a search on frozen fingers and anything that might point to a copycat situation. In actuality I was
drinking beer and
watching a porn video titled No Boys Allowed, hoping to learn something about women’s sports teams. Thus far I’d learned a lot, none of which could be applied to
women sport teams in general or
the Hastings Hustlers
specifically
.
The
cell phone broke my concentration.

“Haskell Investigations.”

“
Hello Dev, Justine.”

I
deleted the sound to hide the nonstop moaning and
tore myself away from the computer screen.

“I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?”

“Justine, hi, hello, than
ks for calling. Everything okay?
”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, a lot better than yesterday. I just got off the line with our manager, she got a call from the Hustlers, and Emma Babe, her name
’
s actua
lly Felicity Bard, anyway, she’s
been released from the hospital.”

This wasn’t news to me.

“Well good, I hope she’s doing well,” I said, trying to sound sincere all the while visualizing me tripping the little bitch and pushing her down the front steps of the Saint Paul Cathedral.

“Oh
yeah, I guess she’ll be fine. But
,
the reason I called is s
ome of the girls over there have changed their
story
.”

“Changed their story?”

“
Yeah, you know swearing to things they
said they saw you do.”

“Things they saw me do, like assault Emma Babe and grab her b
y her boobs, that sort of thing?
”

“Well y
eah.”

“
I’m glad to hear that. Any help I can get in not becoming public enemy number one is always appreciated.”

“I guess fourteen of the girls have said they really didn’t see anything.”

“
Fourteen, that’s great. Didn’t see anything? Y
ou mean they weren’t watching or that it didn’t happen the way your pal Emma said it did?”

“They said they were too far away, but at least the
y’ve withdrawn their statements,
that’s the important thing. And, she’s not my pal.”

“
There were
seventeen
signed
statements, so just Emma
and two others
still
have
statements out there
.
Right?
”

“Yeah, I’m guessing she’ll stick to what she said, but it has to be encouraging.”

“It’s very encouraging
, now if we could just get things b
ack on track and find out who i
s stalking Harlotte Davidson.”

There was a long pause.

“Look
,
Dev, sorry if maybe I sort of jumped to a little conclusion,
you know about you grabb
ing Emma and all.”

Sexual assault, stalking, predatory behavior, battery, a
little conclusion
,
I thought.

“I understand, Justine. I think under the circumsta
nces I may have done the same. The g
ood news
is
its working out and people are coming to their senses.”

Another long pause.

“Well, I just wanted to
be the one to let you know
. Hopefully we can dodge the legal bullet.
”

“That would be nice.”

I
thought about asking her over for a half dozen beers, maybe try out my shower in the morning, but decided it might not be the best move right now. Besides I’d already downloaded No B
oys Allowed
.

I heard back from
the cops in
St. Louis
and
Kansas City
the following afternoon
. I told them about the frozen finger and no DNA match out of
Denver
. Neither one seemed
parti
cularly interested. Amazing
they had bigger fish to fry than worrying about what some idiot did to a traveling team who had
already
come
and gone
.

I searched on
line for anything remotely looking like a copycat incident
and found absolutely nothing
. Justine phoned me late in the afternoon.

I was staring out my office window
watching women get off the bus across the s
treet. Thirty—
something girls, city or state workers I guessed
, finished at four and able to bus to and from
work. Perhaps wisely
,
not a one of them ventured into The Spot. My cell phone pulled me back to reality.

“Haskell Investigations.”

“Hi Dev, Justine.”

“
Justine, what’s up?”

“Just got a call from our manager, the last two girls have withdrawn their statements, so it’s just
Emma holding out.”

“
She’ll stick to her story, but
s
he’s standing all alone
if it
ever
goes to court. M
y guess is it’s not going
anywhere
at this stage. If they went to
all the trouble of withdrawing
their statements, they aren’t going to switch back again in a courtroom. I’m guessing they won’t charge me.”