Bite Me (Devlin Haskell 3) (24 page)

I slept in and
left Louie’s around ten. I didn’t want to go home until I heard for certain everything was okay. He finally returned my calls late in the afternoon.

“Yeah, Dev, what can I do for you?
”

“Louie, I’m ready to blow what’s left of my brains out
, here. I’ve been wandering aimlessly around the damn Mall of America for hours waiting for you to call.”

“Then you sho
uld feel exactly like every other idiot out there. Are you in one of those bars?”

I was sitting
on a wooden bench in some brick sort of courtyard area next to a bunch of potted ferns. A player piano was automatically playing a version of ‘Stardust’, again, the keys moving up and down, the piano sound bouncing and echoing off three stories worth of shops and fast food joints I had no interest in. It was giving me a hell of a headache.

“Did they drop the charges? Can I go home?”

“Pretty much.”

“Pretty muc
h? What does that mean?”

“You’re free and clear on the hit and run with Farrell J Early. You’re free and clear on
the murder of Thompson Barkwell. On the kidnapping, sexual assault and rape charges they’re still out there, but only because they can’t locate the always charming Kiki. Give those another forty eight hours and they’ll disappear.”

“Even with those photos?
”

“They’re viewing them as a creative effort. Apparently
they found about a hundred similar shots of her when they went through Farrell’s place. He and your gal had some sort of ongoing kink thing happening. If you put him at the scene the night you were drugged, it all makes sense.”

“The black eye and the bite mark?”

“They’re guessing Farrell tied her up and did that shit, probably consensual, trying to frame you. They did the bite impression thing on him, it most likely will be inconclusive, but it creates enough doubt with the photos they found. It’ll be pretty much a dead issue, pardon the pun.”

“No p
roblem.” I could feel myself relaxing.

“
That just leaves one charge pending…”

“What’s that?”

An older woman sat down on the opposite end of the bench, she was dressed in a pink velour sweat suit with one of those fanny pack things around her waist and a red, white and blue visor that read John 3:16!

“The monitor bracelet you cut off, it’s actually a misdemeanor to remo
ve the thing.”

“A misdemeanor?”

“I can get it taken care of, I think.”

“
You think? Come on, I was facing two murder counts, a kidnapping and a rape. They tried to throw in the sexual assault…”

The woman at the end of the bench quickly got up and left.

“Dev, I told you all of that is going away, we just got this one little thing to take care of.”

“So can I go home?”

“Yes, Manning made a point of assuring me it was okay.”

I had been cleaning
since I got back home hours ago. It wasn’t the first time the police had searched my house, but it was the first time they’d ransacked and trashed the place. Furniture was turned over, books tossed off shelves. The contents of my file cabinet were heaped in a large mound in the middle of the floor. Some jackass had left the refrigerator door open, that wasn’t good. Fortunately they missed the freezer.

I wondered who I
could call and thought of a clean-freak friend, Kathy, it had been a few months since I’d seen her, but this was an emergency. I phoned, but she had apparently blocked my number.

I called Sunnie, though
t I might be able to entice her with the promise of returning her laptop, she didn’t answer so I left a message.

I phoned Heidi, almost as worthless as I was when it came to cleaning.

“Dev?”

“Heidi, how’s it going?”

“What do you want? And where the hell have you been?”

“Actually, kind of a long story, I wondered if you wanted to come over? I…”

“It’s almost ten.”

“
It is? I had no idea. I was doing some cleaning and …”

“
Call me tomorrow, bye.”

I went back
to repositioning furniture and getting my files back in a semblance of order. I had the living room pretty much put together, the refrigerator emptied and everything out in the trash when I heard a knock at my back door.

Maybe
Sunnie heard my message and was coming to the rescue.

I opened the back door,
a woman was there. I couldn’t tell who, because she had her top pulled up in front of her face exposing herself. I caught the top of her bleach blonde head before I focused on her flat tummy and the rather formidable pair of breasts she swayed from left to right.

“
Well, hello there,” I said and continued to stare.

“God, you are so incredibly stupid,” Kiki
replied as she dropped her top, shoved a pistol in my face and pushed me into the house. She backed me up against the kitchen counter, I kept my hands raised over my head. The pistol wasn’t just big, it was huge, a Luger I think and she held it with both hands.

“
Great dye job, Kiki. Going for the dumb blonde look? I know you’re not Farrell’s sister and I…”

“Spare me.”

“I know he tied you up, bit you on the ass to set me up, put the…”

“Oh
gee, really? Right now that’s the least of your problems, Dev.”

“What do you think you’re doing here?”

“Actually, since I have this gun, just about anything I want to do. Jesus, you’re a pretty lousy housekeeper,” she said looking around.

“I had help.
You know, Kiki the cops are gonna be watching that post office box, you’re never gonna get those funds, so you might as well get out of here, now.”

“Let’s hope they do a little better job watching
that box than you and that fat guy, both of you asleep in the car yesterday.”

“They will.” I didn’t
sound very convincing, but couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Tell you what, you got any
gin?”

“In the freezer,” I said then nodded toward
the refrigerator.

“Sit do
wn on the floor,” she said, and motioned with the pistol.

I sat down in a corner, my back against the cabinet.

“You can put your hands down, Dev. God, you’re making me nervous.”

“Kiki, I
honestly thought you’d be long gone by now.”

“
What? And miss out on saying goodbye? I’ve got a few loose ends to tie up, then I’m on my way, someplace warm.”

“Hell?”

“Funny, real funny, you’re a funny guy, Dev.”

She pulled the g
in out of the freezer.

“This isn’t my brand.”

“Yeah, if I recall you were a Bombay Sapphire girl, right?”

“Good
boy. Suppose I’ll have to make do with this lower shelf crap.”

“Chilled glasses on the door of the freezer,” I said.

“Oh wow, that helps.” She placed two frosty stemmed glasses on the counter and filled them with gin. “I like mine dry. Something a little extra for yours,” she said, then pulled out a small packet from her pocket, powder wrapped in saran. She dumped it into one of glasses, stirred the gin with her finger, then handed the glass to me.

“Sweet dreams,” she smiled.

“I’m not drinking that shit.”

“Okay, whatever.” She
pointed the barrel of the pistol just about between my eyes. The barrel looked to be about six inches wide and I was pretty sure I could see the bullet just a finger squeeze away from my forehead.

“You know on second
thought,” I said and chugged the gin down, then shuddered. It burned and froze at the same time, a weird sensation. There was a heavy sludge residue from whatever the powder was along one side of the glass.

“Have some more,” she said, pouring gin into my glass with her left hand, keeping the pistol on me with her right.

“I should probably be a gentleman and share,” I said.

“Not to worry
, I’ll take care of myself, thanks all the same. Swirl that around for a bit, yeah that’s right. Good boy, now drink it down. All of it, come on, all of it. Good.”

“Now what, Kiki?”

“Now we just wait. You are getting sleepy, very, very sleepy,” she said, then laughed.

“Hate to disappoint
, but I don’t think it’s going to work. You’re not gonna pull this off, everyone’s looking for you,” I said.

“Oh darn, and all this time I had my heart set on a place in the sun.”

We talked about a few other things, I think. I mean we must have, I just can’t remember.

When I woke the sun was bright. I had no idea if it was morning or afternoon.
All that remained of Kiki was an apple core on my kitchen counter. I was groggy, my head felt like it was ready to explode. I was still on the floor with a white plastic trash bag twisted and knotted around my ankles. It took me the better part of five minutes to remove the damn thing.

I found my cell on the din
ing room table, phoned Louie and left a message. I phoned Manning and left another message. Louie phoned back about thirty minutes later, I’d moved as far as the living room couch by that time.

“You oka
y, you sounded like shit on the message, couldn’t understand a damn thing you said.”

“
Shit, Kiki,” I said.

“What are you worried about her for? If she hasn’t already blown her brains out she’s probably on the ledge of a skyscraper convinced she can fly. Hey, I…”

“No, she was here,” I said, then coughed and hacked into the phone.

“Jesus, you gonna make it? What do you m
ean she was there, where, your place?”

“Yeah, last night.”

“You serious, did you…”

“Knocked at the back door, came in at gun point, drugged me with something, I don’t know what. But she was here.”

“Did you call the cops?”

“I, I left a message, I think.”

“Jesus, stay put, I’m calling nine-one-one. Then I’m calling you back, okay. Dev okay?”

My phone was ringing
, annoying the hell out of me.

“Hello,” more coughing
and groaning.

“Dev, stay put buddy, cops are on the way.”

“Louie?”

They kept me
in
the hospital overnight for observation. Then released me the next day and Louie gave me a lift home.

“I don’t know if you’re really lucky or really an idiot, Dev?”

“That’s always the question, isn’t it?”

“Why did you let her in
, in the first place?”

“Who
, Kiki? She had me distracted, a sort of disguise, then before I knew what was happening she had a gun in my face. Things sort of went downhill from there.”

“Jesus, I suppose she could have just shot you.”

“We discussed that option.”

Louie lo
oked over at me, shook his head then said, “Manning thought it was pretty funny.”

“Yeah, nice sense of humor.”

“Well, at least they found her car.” Louie said.

“Where?”

“The airport.”

“T
he airport, God, she could be anywhere.”

“O
r even still here in town.”

“Don’t eve
n think like that,” I said and shuddered.

“
Manning said they got her key ring, he thinks your house and car keys are on it. That’s good for you.”

“I don’t know, what a nut case.” I said.

“Well, if she had your car keys, access to your car, your house, it sort of ties everything together.”

“I suppose, in some bizarre way,
” I said.

He dropped me off in front of my place. I was ready for s
ome aspirin and a nap. My house was still a mess, but I could live with that for a few days. I clicked the remote on, stretched out on the couch in front of the television and promptly fell asleep.

Sunnie’
s phone call woke me late in the afternoon.

“Dev, sorry I missed your call last night, I was out to dinner with the kids.”

“The kids?”

“Josh and Mandy, we were celebrating, they both made the deans list, I’m so proud. All their hard work is paying off.”

“So you’re changing your tune?”

“You mentioned the laptop,” she said, changing the subject.

“Hunh? Oh yeah, I wanted to get that back to you and wondered if you could help me with a computer thing.”

“Probably.
Do you have dinner plans? All I’ve got is leftovers, but there’s plenty.”

I was at Sunnie’s door with a bottle of wine and her laptop later that evening.

“Don’t take it personal,” she said after dinner, “but let me make sure this laptop is still working. What did you do, spill coffee or something on top of this?” she said, wiping her hand across the top of the laptop.

“It was working okay, but it seemed to be getting slower and slower as I was doing my research. Maybe you need a new set of batteries.”

She gave me a look of disbelief as she turned the thing on.

“Oh my,” she said after clicking a couple of different places. “What were you doing, this thing is loaded with viruses. I’m not sure I even want it in the house.”

“Just some research.”

“Research? W
here? I’d better wipe this whole thing. Oh my God, what is Girls Gone Wild? Double D and Disorderly? That was your research?”

“It’s sort of a complex
issue that…”

“Complex, you were watching porn, oh icky.”

“I may have glanced at something, you know by mistake.”

“I’ll bet. God, Sex C
raved…”

”They all just sort of popped up.”

She sprayed a cloth with some sort of disinfectant, they wiped the laptop down.

“This is going to take a while to cleanup. How could you do this on my laptop?”

“It’s not like you have to watch…

“
Don’t even answer, creepy, you’re just perverted.”

“Your point?”

“You mentioned something else you need, perv!”

“Yeah, can you do a color scan on my drivers license?”

“Yes, but why?”

“Case I’m working on, I want to see if the
holograms pick up.”

“They won’t”

“Yeah, but I need a sample.”

“And it’s your license?”

“Yeah, what you don’t trust me?”

She didn’t say anything but
glanced at the laptop, a growing list of things in red letters were displayed on the screen, the porn sites I’d visited over the past month, it didn’t look good.

When I got home I cut
out the image from my driver’s license Sunnie had scanned. I taped it in place over the image on Farrell’s license, trimmed the excess and slipped it into my wallet next to the fake police badge.