Ting-A-Ling (24 page)

“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 clearly 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.”

“Did I get tripped up this afternoon?”

“No,” Louie said then took a small sip before he added, “for a change.”

We closed The Spot. I took the back roads home and avoided any patrolling squad cars. After my Lincoln got totaled in that hit and run I had to buy a new car, at least it was new to me. A dark-green, 1997 Mercury Mountaineer, almost, but not quite old enough to be a classic. Probably quite a car in its day, back when ‘W’ had been in the White House. It got me where I wanted to go and at least the heater worked. That was an improvement.

The following morning I made my way down to the office around eleven. I was the first one in and put on a pot of coffee, then sipped and looked out the window. This was one of those February days where the sun was shining, the temperature was about two degrees above freezing and you had just a sliver of hope that spring wasn’t too far behind. Of course, the temperature was bound to fall by the end of the week and bring ten to twelve inches of fresh snow along with it. But still, there was the beginning of hope.

I watched two women walking across the street. They looked to be dressed for exercise with fleece jackets, mittens, sort of tight sweatpants, walking shoes of a sort that looked pretty new. More hope for spring.

They were moving at a pretty good clip up Randolph in the direction of the hill. One of them made a disgusted face as they passed by The Spot, then she launched into some animated harangue, waving her arms around and had the other woman laughing. They passed my building without so much as a glance and kept moving.

I phoned Heidi, but she didn’t answer. I figured she was still probably mad at me for not being interested in the latest details of whoever she was dating. I debated leaving a message and in the end just said, “Heidi, Dev, returning your call, give me a ring,” and then hung up.

Louie’s car suddenly pulled up against the curb across the street. He parked so his car was still part way into the bus stop area, even though the street was empty for at least a hundred feet in front of him. He quickly climbed out and rushed across the street, dodging traffic like he was in a desperate hurry to get to the bathroom.

It looked like he was wearing his blue suit again. Even from this distance and through the dirty window the suit appeared tired and wrinkled. I heard him clomping up the staircase and a moment later he burst into the office.

“You hear it on the news this morning?” he asked, then pulled a folded newspaper from his jacket pocket and tossed it onto my desk along with a couple of letters.

I glanced at the headline and looked up. “You’re kidding me, there’s already a budget overrun with the new ballpark?”

“Not that, you idiot, below the fold, bottom right. Recognize him?”

I flipped the paper over and looked at the image staring back at me. It was the same shot of Richard Hedstrom that Manning had shown us yesterday. The headline read, ‘
Remains Identified
.’

“Shit.” I went on to read the three brief paragraphs below Hedstrom’s photo. They said it had taken dental charts to identify what remained
of ‘local St. Paul attorney and investor, Richard Hedstrom.’
They made it sound like just his teeth had been found in the fire rubble at Casey’s with no further speculation beyond that. No mention was made of Paris or Danielle. The article ended with the standard, ‘
Police are asking that anyone with information contact them at’
and then it gave a phone number and an email address.

I glanced up at Louie. “Is there anything else?”

“Not in the paper. I went through the thing twice, nothing. I caught a couple of seconds on public radio, but they didn’t offer any more information.”

“This is probably why Manning had us down there yesterday. He knew this was going to be in the paper today.”

“Wow, you really are an investigator,” Louie said. He sat down behind the picnic table, but kept his jacket on. “Figured you would want to see that right away.”

“I don’t know that it helps anything except that it drops a few more questions onto my plate.”

“Such as?”

“I guess the same thing Manning’s asking. What was Hedstrom doing there? Where the hell is Paris? And why the fire at Casey’s in the first place?”

“Well, while you’re pondering those basics you might want to check your mail there.” He nodded at the envelopes he’d tossed on my desk.

“What the hell’s this?” I asked.

“I’m guessing bills.”

“What?” I asked, tearing open the envelopes. “You’re kidding, I’m getting billed for them towing my car after that hit and run? Someone tried to kill me for God’s sake.” I said, looking up from the city invoice.

“I’m guessing that other one…”

“Metro Transit?” I asked, reading the return address. “Four hundred and fifty eight dollars to clean up that bus bench? They’re billing me? I don’t believe this.” I yelled a moment later.

“I think they have a number to call if you want to dispute the charges,” Louie said.

Chapter Fifty-Three

I was at my
desk with the binoculars up. The bird watching had been exceptionally good every morning this week with the sisters strutting their stuff across the way. It was almost Easter, the snow was more gone than not. Even at night when the temperature dropped back down it still remained above freezing. People were beginning to smile again. Cars were getting washed. Trees threatened to bud and tulips were beginning to push toward the surface. You could just feel the positive vibe returning to the saintly city.