A Dead Issue (15 page)

I raced to the edge of the porch. Stomp was stretched out on his back at the feet of Detective Frank Devereaux.

CHAPTER 27

Devereaux got down on one knee next to Stomp and peered into his face then hitched sideways to avoid the pool of blood spreading slowly from the back of his head. The detective snapped open his cell phone and I heard the words ‘ambulance' and ‘backup.' As he rose painfully to his feet, he pocketed his phone and cleared his jacket away from his body for easy access to the gun holstered far back on his right hip. He turned and looked up the stairs and his eyes met mine.

“What happened?” he demanded.

I descended as fast as I could, answering, “He fell off the porch.”

“No shit. Now tell me what happened?”

I swung my head back toward my apartment. The screen door was still attached by the last two feet of hinge and leaned over toward the edge of the porch, the screen hanging loose. I looked down at Stomp. I had to watch closely to see his chest rise and fall. For a terrible moment, I was sure he wasn't breathing. His arms were extended and my eyes traveled to his meaty hands. I expected them to flex as Jonah's had, but they were palm up in a relaxed curl. My initial impulse to lie gave way to the truth.

“I hit him,” I admitted softly.

Devereaux looked up the stairs to the screen door and then down at Stomp. He sized me up and down and glanced at the screen door again. “With what? A Buick?”

I smiled as best I could while Devereaux stared at my battered face.

“Did he do that to you?”

I shook my head. “Unrelated,” I said, dismissing it as something he need not worry about.

A siren sounded in the distance, saving me from having to explain further, and almost immediately an ambulance swung into the curb. It must have been around the corner returning from the hospital when the call came in. Devereaux ushered me to the side and I stood there as the paramedics took his vital signs, stabilized his neck, and strapped him on the gurney with his head packed in bandages. Another siren announced the arrival of a squad car. It blocked off the lane for the ambulance and Devereaux signaled the patrolman to direct traffic, which amounted to three cars that rubbernecked their way past the scene.

The street was back to normal within twenty minutes, and Devereaux had not said a word. We watched the whole procedure like curious bystanders. It gave me plenty of time to consider my situation, and it wasn't a pleasant one. If Stomp died I would be in trouble. If he lived I would really be in trouble. Then, with a casual salute to the patrolman, Devereaux turned to me. “Let's go upstairs.”

Once again, he lumbered up the stairs ahead of me. He paused once, as his eyes cleared the level of the floor, and I knew he was looking at the dead rat. When he reached the porch, he stood and examined the door until I caught up to him.

“What's this?” The toe of his polished shoe was tapping three inches from the flattened carcass.

“It's what I almost looked like.”

Devereaux gripped the screen door and swung it in a small arc. The hinge screeched painfully. He stepped into my kitchen halting me at the door with his palm. He stood surveying the room, his shrewd little eyes darting around taking in every detail. When he was finished, he motioned me inside. I entered and stood next to him eying the room critically as he had, trying to determine if the evidence told more of the story than I was willing to share.

“I've got two questions,” Devereaux began. “How do you know Stomp Jessup? And what's with the rat?”

Jessup? It made perfect sense for a cop to know a guy like Stomp, but Devereaux's use of his last name startled me. It was too familiar, too casual. Devereaux probably knew more about Stomp than he did about his own mother—and that meant that Devereaux also knew about Stemcell and was eager to find out how I fit into the picture. He smelled a rat and it wasn't the one posing as a doormat on my porch.

“Dusty and I went to some seedy little bar in Easton. That guy was playing pool. Dusty knew him.”

“The Belmont?”

“Yeah, on top of the hill.”

Devereaux looked back toward the door. “And the rat?”

“I think it was his calling card.”

“What did he want?”

“Money.”

Devereaux leaned over with great effort and picked up the four fifties that had popped out of Stomp's fingers when I whacked him.

“This your money? Looks like blood on it.”

“It's mine,” I explained and pointed to my nose. Devereaux scanned the purple skin around my nose and under my eyes. I explained how I quit McDonald's and how Cash delivered my pay. “We had a little disagreement. I took a punch.”

“When was that?”

“Last night.”

Devereaux looked around the kitchen, reviewing the scene before asking, “So what happened here?”

I took a deep breath and launched into my tale starting with the slow, deliberate footfalls clomping up to my door and the sound of something large landing on my porch. I told him about the smashed rat and how boots appeared into my field of vision, and all the while Devereaux remained silent.
But when I mentioned Stomp entering my apartment, he interrupted.

“Did he knock?”

I thought about it and shook my head.

“Did you open the door for him?”

I shook my head again. Devereaux gave a rolling hand gesture for me to continue. His eyes followed the footprints in rat blood into the kitchen as I described his approach, and he seemed to note the splash of butter on the stove when I told him I was pushed into the stove. He ran a fat finger through it and tested it with thumb and forefinger. He held his hand flat over the burner, then reached over and turned it off.

“This money he asked for,” Devereaux said thoughtfully. “Tell me about that? You borrow money from him or something?”

It was the “or someth
ing,” I'm sure that Devereaux wanted to hear about.

“Not from him,” I said. “Cash gave me a loan so I could get my car fixed.”

That piece of fiction exploded into the conversation and seemed to open the door to a relatively reasonable explanation for Stomp's visit. I let it flow.

“Since I quit on him, Cash was afraid he wouldn't get his money—that's why he delivered it personally.” I pointed to the bloody bill in Devereaux's fingers. “He had money in an envelope so he could cash my check. He wasn't taking any chances.”

“Tell me more.”

“The thing is,” I continued, “I already paid him. He said I didn't—still owed him two hundred. It was all bullshit. He was just pissed because I quit. That's the way it is between us. He pisses me off. Then I piss him off.”

“That's why he beat the crap out of you?”

“Wouldn't doubt it.”

Devereaux held up the fifties. “Why didn't he take the money?”

I paused, knowing my story had taken me to shaky ground. “He tried to,” I said.

Devereaux scanned my face. “You got in a lucky punch?”

“I kicked him in the balls. End of fight.” We looked at each other for a moment and then I capped off my tale. “I think he sent Stomp over to collect and settle the score.”

Devereaux's mouth tightened as he weighed my story. He traced the arc of sprayed butter around my kitchen and his eyes fell on the cast iron frying pan in the corner. “So you clocked him with a frying pan?”

“Yeah, me and Osama bin Laden.”

I told Devereaux about the phony money story, and his mouth spread into that weird smile that seemed so out of place on his face. He held the fifty-dollar bill up to the light to inspect the clouds. I confessed that I had hit him as hard as I could and that he staggered through the screen door to the porch railing where Devereaux saw the rest.

He paused and then he asked, “Are you going to press charges?”

I stood in stunned silence. I was expecting to go off to jail in handcuffs.

“I don't know,” I said softly, trying to think my way through the tangle of implications of getting more involved with Stomp. I was hoping he'd simply go away.

“I was you,” Devereaux said frankly, “I'd be screaming home invasion.”

He let his words hang there as the tangle unwound to reveal “self-defense” in large screaming letters. Stomp had bulldozed his way into my home, physically assaulted me, and helped himself to two hundred dollars of hard-earned cash.

Devereaux watched until the light bulb above my head popped on and then he grabbed my hand and rolled it palm up, exposing a small blister in the web between my thumb and forefinger. “You ought to have that looked at,” he suggested meaningfully. “I'd stop at the emergency room.”

I was fully in tune to his thinking now. The doctors might laugh at my wound in their break room, but they'd write a report of an injury just the same. If Stomp died, I'd be covered. The filed charges of home invasion, a medical report indicating that I was injured defending myself by grabbing a hot frying pan—barehanded—all added up to an innocent homeowner acting in self-defense.

“I want you to come downtown. Make a formal complaint. Sign a statement.”

I tried to convince myself that I was doing the right thing.

“I'll drive,” he offered and took a step toward the door and stopped. He still had my fifty-dollar bill in his hand, and he waved it as if he was thinking of something. “Osama bin Laden,” he grunted. “That's a good one. I can't believe Stomp swallowed that.”

I shook my head, too embarrassed to admit my own gullibility. Cash was right—I'm too damned easy.

“Have to tell my wife that one,” Devereaux continued. He paused, looking troubled, and it was one of the phoniest acts I ever saw. “Trouble is, you don't see many fifties. Mostly twenties or hundreds.” He waved it in my
face. “Could I keep this?” he asked, reaching for his wallet. “I've got change.” I caught a glimpse of his gun as he pulled out his wallet. He didn't give me a chance to refuse. He simply handed me two twenties and a ten and tucked the fifty into his wallet. Evidence.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You might want one of these, too.” I plucked a hair out of my head and held it out to him. Even without a magnifying lens, I could see the pulpy follicle filled with DNA on the raw end.

He stared at me long and hard, stone-faced and grim.

“The trouble with you is you think too much.” Then he reached out and took the hair.

CHAPTER 28

Devereaux drove me to the police station and walked me through the process of filing a complaint against Jason Jessup, AKA “Stomp,” for home invasion—serious shit that would keep the police off my ass if Stomp died from the fall from my porch. It would also keep Stomp off my ass if he should live. At least that was the theory. Stomp gets arrested in the hospital and is held without bail until his trial where he is sentenced to jail. While in his cell, he learns the error of his ways, finds the Lord, and forgives me for cracking his skull open with a frying pan and we live happily ever after.

I refused Devereaux's offer to drive me to the hospital to have my second degree burn checked out. The three-block walk gave me a chance clear my head and review the story I told about Stomp and Cash. Everything fit together—the car repair loan, my quitting, and Cash wanting his money. Even my face verified the fight. The only thing I didn't like was that Devereaux knew Stomp.

The emergency room was quiet, and I was able to walk right up to the registration desk manned by a beefy receptionist with Greta on her ID badge.

“What does the other guy look like?” she asked in what was an unfortunate attempt at humor. An instant image of Stomp snapped into focus and I pushed it aside.

“I didn't come here for this,” I said, pointing at my face. “I burned my hand.”

When I showed it to her, she stared at me over the tops of her glasses.

“Maybe we should Med-Evac you to the burn unit in Philadelphia.”

“You can do that?” I asked.

“Yeah, but first I'd have to set you on fire.” She shook her head and tapped at her keyboard to pull up a fresh screen. She peered over the counter at my hand. “What'd you do? Stand too close to the deep fryer?” She rolled her eyes and I wondered if the smell of McDonald's was still in my clothes.

“I grabbed a hot frying pan . . . look, before we start trading punches, let me tell you something.” She locked onto my bruises again, and a look of uncertainty and maybe a touch fear of flashed in her eyes. “I don't like wasting your time with this. I'd rather not be here, but the fact is, I was just the victim of a crime—a home invasion. I defended myself with a hot frying pan. The guy I hit is probably with his lawyer right now planning how to clean me out. The police said I should have this looked at—this little blister may be the only thing preventing the wrong guy from going to jail.”

I watched her face soften.

“Sign in.” She swung out of her chair. “I'll be right back.”

She disappeared around a partition that separated her from a room filled with filing drawers. I picked up the clipboard in front of me, and the name Dustin Bates, Jr. hooked my full attention. A quick scan of the date and times told me that Dusty had been at this desk last night.

Greta came back with a warm smile. Evidently serving on the side of justice was something she enjoyed.

“You're lucky,” she began, “we're extremely light today, so we have time to do this right.”

With Greta playing pulling guard, we did a nifty end run around the hospital bureaucracy. Three doctors with little to do at that moment took turns examining my head and hand. They asked leading questions designed to lay the groundwork for a medical report that would make it appear that I had barely survived my ordeal, which obviously left me deeply traumatized. My blister, the size of a pea, was lanced, cleansed, and wrapped in a gauze bandage, and I was sent on my way.