Ting-A-Ling (27 page)

“Did someone plant them on him?”

“Sort of.”

“How much are we talking about?”

“They said five million, at least that’s the figure from the DEA, but I’m thinking they trumped it up. You know how they are.”

“Even so, five million? That’s not exactly an amount you can hide in your jacket pocket.”

Oliver began to fuss at this point, and I half wondered if he somehow understood the gravity of his father’s situation.

“Oh God, he can’t be hungry. I’ll tell you, all he does is eat,” Crickett said. She didn’t look all that thrilled as she lifted Oliver out of his stroller and onto her lap. Even I had to admit, for ten months he was a pretty big guy.

“Do you want to grab that booth in the back so you can have little more privacy?”

“Oh honestly, it’s completely natural, Dev, it’s why God gave them to us,” she said then pulled her top up, exposed her left breast and flashed a smile in my direction. It looked a lot larger than I remembered, and I stared while she took another healthy sip of her martini. Little Oliver clamped on the moment she set her glass down. Once attached, he turned his head and gave me a look as if to say,
‘See what I got and you can’t have any.’
The drinkers at the end of the bar suddenly looked a lot happier, stared for a long moment then ordered another round.

Chapter Two

Crickett went on to
explain her boyfriend’s predicament while little Oliver remained firmly attached. I suspected, given his male genes that he was just showing off, possession being nine-tenths of the law.

“So that’s pretty much it. He just thought he was helping out a friend, driving this van into the parking ramp. They have him on video the entire way.”

“The police?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I haven’t actually seen the thing. I guess the video is like fifteen minutes long, including his arrest. It’s just so obvious it was all a set up.”

“Well, yeah, but he was arrested in possession of the van and there was five-million dollars worth of drugs in the thing. I’m guessing you don’t hide that much in the glove compartment.”

“Apparently they were all stacked up on a pallet in the back. Actually, two pallets I guess, but there was a tarp over them so he didn’t really know. Anyway, we’re going to dispute the five-million figure. I think it sounds high.”

“Jesus. Who owns the van?”

“It was a rental.”

“Who rented it?”

“Well, I guess it was supposed to be rented, but actually it was sort of just taken.”

“You mean stolen?”

She gave a nonchalant nod then adjusted Oliver who seemed to be contentedly sleeping and still latched to mommy. The little glutton opened his eyes for a brief moment and shot me another glance that suggested
‘Don’t even think about it.’
Then he snuggled in closer and drifted back asleep.

“Did Daryl steal the van?” I asked.

“Well, that’s what the police are saying. It’s one of the charges against him. But the keys were under the floor mat so he just got in and drove off.”

“And he was going to deliver this van to a parking ramp?”

She nodded like this made perfect sense.

Daryl wasn’t sounding like the brightest bulb on the tree. His credibility was becoming an issue with me and I hadn’t even met the guy.

“So what about the friend he was helping? Was he arrested too?”

“Not exactly. See, that’s sort of the problem or at least one of the problems. We can’t seem to find him. No one knows where he is, and then Daryl got this warning not to cooperate with the police.” She leaned forward, glanced around cautiously, and whispered. “They said if he cooperated, Oliver and I would be killed.”

Little Oliver suddenly began to suck viciously.

“Who’s
‘they’
?”

“We don’t know. I’m guessing the drug people, but I don’t have any names.”

“The drug people.” I wasn’t sure where to begin. Every statement seemed to raise a half dozen common sense questions. Not the least of which was
‘Could Daryl really be this stupid?’

“Honestly, Crickett, I’m not sure what I can do here. Do you have a lawyer?”

She nodded. “We have a public defender, but she’s really busy. She’s the one who told Daryl to make a deal.”

“Was she aware of the threat on your life?”

“Yeah, Daryl told her about it, but she said it didn’t seem credible.”

“Not credible? How would she know? What’s her name?”

“Daphne…”

I waited for the bomb to drop, if it was Daphne Cochrane, I knew her as Daft, but had called her less charitable things. A few years back she had briefly been my court appointed public defender. I dropped her the moment she suggested I plead guilty to a murder charge. She was an eternally unhappy, impressed with herself, Ivy League, condescending witch who....

“Cochrane. Daphne Cochrane. She seems very smart.”

‘Yeah, and she’d be only too happy to tell you how very smart she is,’
I thought.

“Do you know her?” Crickett asked.

“Not really,” I said and let it go at that.

“I was wondering if maybe you could, you know, do some investigation or something so they drop the charges against Daryl.”

“Crickett, did you talk to your lawyer, Daphne about this? Clear it with her?”

“She’s sort of busy and well, like I said, she wants Daryl to cooperate with the police and hopefully he can get some kind of deal. You know a reduced sentence and stuff. I just don’t know.”

I did know and if the threat to harm Crickett and baby Oliver was even halfway credible there was a good chance they would be killed and then once Daryl knew they were dead whoever was behind their murder would have him killed, too.

“I think you should request protection for starters. Tell your lawyer, Daphne that these folks aren’t fooling around. If Daryl is going to cooperate, you two have to be safe. These drug folks aren’t kidding. That size of a drug bust, five million, you’ve most likely got some pretty angry bad guys out there right about now. She can’t just dismiss your concern. If she does then you should go straight to her boss.”

“Yeah. I don’t know it all seems so complicated.”

“Complicated? Crickett, these are serious charges. He could be looking at twenty years.”

“Daphne thought more like twenty-five, but she said he could get out in fifteen with good behavior.” She said sounding like that was a really positive development.

“Fifteen years is still a lot, particularly if he’s innocent.”

“I suppose. But if you did some investigating then you could tell the police he’s innocent, they’d let him go, he wouldn’t have to cooperate and we would be safe,” she said then half pulled little Oliver off the feed bag.

He quickly reattached himself.

“Crickett, I can look into some basics, maybe talk to the police, but your best bet is getting some protection and like I said, if your attorney doesn’t want to do that maybe call her boss or ask for someone else to represent you.”

“So you won’t check? You won’t investigate?”

“No, I mean, yes. I’ll at least check on some of the basics. But let me be honest, based on what you’ve told me, this is what’s referred to as an open and shut case. Even if we can prove Daryl is innocent…”

“Oh, I guess he most likely is, maybe.”

Not the sort of ringing endorsement I would have hoped for. “Well, we still have an uphill fight on our hands, not only to prove he’s innocent, but to get the charges against him dropped. And, look I’m willing to help, I’ll do some initial checking, but at some point I’ll have to charge you and this could get expensive very quickly.”

She nodded like it was no big thing then said, “Okay, how soon before you can start your investigation?”

An image flashed across my mind. Crickett lying on her couch in that dreadful blue terri-cloth robe while I worked at mission impossible, attempting to shampoo two bottles worth of pink champagne out of her living-room carpet.

“I’ll see if I can interview Daryl tomorrow. Let me get some general information from you first,” I said and pulled one of the envelopes out of my back pocket so I could write some notes on the thing.

Chapter Three

“Yeah, and that’s not
the worst of it. The van was stolen,” I said to Louie. He’s my attorney. We share an office along with a number of wasted nights and some pretty vicious hangovers.

Louie leaned back in his office chair and put his feet up on the picnic table that served as his desk.

I continued to look through my binoculars into the third-floor apartment across the street hoping to spot one of the women who lived there. I wasn’t having much luck.

“The van was stolen?”

“Yeah, like I said it get’s worse. His pal told him the keys were under the floor mat. Innocent idiot Daryl Bergstrom drives off in the thing with two pallets of cocaine bricks sitting in the back under a tarp. He drives to a downtown parking ramp and apparently never questions any of this. Crickett said some pal paid him a hundred bucks to leave the van in the parking ramp. The cops have him on tape from the moment he gets in the van until his arrest in the parking ramp. I talked to someone down there and I’ll see the tape tomorrow, but they’ve got this jackass nailed a hundred ways to Sunday.”

“And someone is threatening your ex and her baby?”

“Ex is maybe too strong a term, we weren’t together long enough to rate that title.”

“She dumped you?”

“More like a mutual lack of interest. Although doing the math she must have been seeing this Daryl character at the same time. To tell you the truth, I’m guessing I was the dalliance or maybe a brief interruption and he was the steady boyfriend.”

“When are you going to see this guy?”

“Tomorrow, right after I watch the surveillance video of him taking the van and then driving it into the parking ramp.”

“It sure sounds like a setup. The cops are there filming, just waiting for someone to show up and drive off in the thing,” Louie shook his head in disbelief.

“I’m guessing whoever the pal was with the hundred bucks, he knew what was going down or had some awfully strong suspicions. The cops weren’t just filming, apparently they had a tracking device planted on the van, as well. Of course they’ve also got this numbskull on the parking ramp security cameras. Oh, and one of their undercover officers follows him into the ramp and parks about four spaces away on the same level.”

“And he’s clueless?”

“Apparently. Yeah, it’s a setup, I think there’s a good chance my guy is innocent of any drug offense along with guilty of being really stupid. But, that doesn’t alter the facts and the facts are not in his favor, at least from what I can see.”

Louie shook his head, then drained his glass and pushed it across the picnic table toward me. “After all that, I could use a little more to soothe my nerves.”

I put the binoculars down on the window sill, poured a good inch into his glass and capped the fifth of Jameson.

“Not having any?”

“I gotta go to some fundraiser tonight with Heidi and be on my best behavior.”

“Fundraiser?”

“I don’t know, some political thing. Anyway, it usually works in my favor. I’ll be her designated driver while she hob knobs with the
‘Swells’
. Oh, get this, just in case things aren’t bad enough for this Daryl dude, guess who’s representing him?”

Louie took a sip and shrugged.

“Daft.”

“Cochrane? Daphne Cochrane? God, poor bastard doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. I hope you advised your lady friend to get another lawyer.”

“Yeah, I did, but I think it just went in one ear and out the other.”

“Mind if I make a suggestion?” Louie said then drained his glass. “He needs to cooperate, give his pal’s name to the cops, hell, they probably already know who it is. Then he needs to get away from Daft. She’ll get him sentenced to twenty years, killed, or both. I’ll represent him pro bono if need be, but get him away from her, she shouldn’t even be practicing.”

“That’s big of you.”

“The M.O. fits in with my usual band of idiots. I can use the publicity and it won’t cost me anything more than a little of my time.”

“I’ll pass it on,” I said, then picked up the binoculars to resume my futile quest.

Chapter Four

I was seated at
Heidi’s kitchen counter paging through some dreadfully trashy magazine full of makeup tips and an expose on a Hollywood star I’d never, ever heard of. I’d been sitting there for the past half hour while Heidi tried on a dozen different outfits. All the while she was racing back and forth between her walk-in closet and the full length mirror in her bedroom she called to me. “I’ll just be another minute.”