Bombshell (Devlin Haskell 4) (13 page)

“So tell me again,” he said, burping
more bourbon fumes.
He looked
down at the
half page of notes he’d scribbled
on the yellow legal pad.

“It was the halftime, the girls
came into the locker room all pissed off
,
swearing, the
n
Emma…”

“Real name Felicity Bard, correct?”

“Yeah
, correct
. The
n Emma begins
slamming her helmet against one of the lockers, again and again. She seems to be the most pissed off, s
ays something about kicking a
redheaded American bitch’s ass.”

“Typical locker room stuff,” Louie said.

“Pretty much, she, Emma
that is
, just seems the most pissed of
f,
is my point.”

“Then what happens?”

“Jimmy, their security guy, calls me out into the h
all, the girls come out maybe ten minutes
later, Emma goes nuts on me. I defend myself, they keep her overnight for observation in
Regions
Hospital
. At the request of my contact…”

“This Justine
woman
?”

“Yeah. She asks me to
call Jimmy McNaughton, arrange to meet and try and smooth things over with Emma.”

“Now as far as you know
,
at this point all the statements regarding the incident in the hallway have been withdrawn?”

“Yeah, well accept for Emma’s.
So,
I apologize
to her,
then as I’m leaving
she yells she still might file charges, and here I am.”

“Sounds like the proverbial slam dunk,” Louie said.

“I can only hope.”

With that the door opened. At no surprise Detective Norris Manning came in, bald head shining pink. He attacked the proverbial piece of gum
with his front teeth
, cracking it as he approached.
There were two other people
behind him. One I sort of recognized, guy about forty,
curly salt and pepper hair, wearing
a sport coat and
loose
tie. He had one of those five-o’clock shadows some gu
ys permanently have
and
dark
bags beneath his eyes.
I couldn’t put a name to him.

The
other
individual was a woman,
attractive in a
tough looking
way
, n
ot beat up, but
more
sort of
,
no nonsense.
She wore black slacks and an off white blouse.
She was
blonde
, with a tig
ht jaw line, a nice figure. She had very dark eyebrows and
brown eyes that
seemed to
bo
re into me
.
I guess it was a nervous sort of reaction
,
but I couldn’t help but think the drapes didn’t match the rug.

“Mister
Haskell, Mister Laufen,” Manning said sitting down, laying a file on the table in front of him.

I nodded.

“Detective
Manning
,” Louie answered.

“This is Detective Franco, Detective Schumacher,” Manning introduced his accomplices.

Franco rang a bell,
that was the name.
I’d worked with him on a lottery scam a couple y
ears back
, met for all of twenty minutes
. Schumacher, the woman
, I’d never seen before. B
oth nodded as Manning said their
name
but remained leaning against the wall.

“Where to begin, where to begin,” Manning said, making a dramatic act out of o
pening the file and then giving
a long sigh.

“Maybe you could begin with the charge against my client,” Louie said.

“Or the withdrawal of seventeen sworn statements,” I added.

Louie gave me a look suggesting I should just be quiet, but I
knew better and
decided I was going to enjoy this.

“You know as well as I do that this is bullshit, Manning.
”

“Dev,” Louie cautioned.

“
Ask any of those English girls.
”

“Dev.”

“
Ask their security guy Jimmy McNaughton.
Ask any of the B
ombshells.
”

“Dev stop it.”

“
Go ahead,
a
sk Fiona
Simmons
, the
one they call Harlotte Davidson, she’ll tell
you that I…
”

“God damn it, Dev, shut up,” Louie yelled.

“Yeah, if I could get a word in edgewise here. I mean we’re all interested in what you have to say
Mister
Haskell. No really we are, it’s just that, well, in order to check with Miss Simmons, well I’d love to, but
someone fire bombed her hotel room and
she’s in the hospital
right now
.”

“Hospital
?” Louie and I said in unison
, then stared wide eyed at Manning
.

“
Well hard as it
may seem to believe this, I’m still having a problem with your story.” Manning said to me.

We’d been
a number of
hours in the
interview
room
, but it felt like weeks. Franco and Schumacher hadn’t done so much as blink. In fact they’d done nothing other than lean against the wall and occasionally adjust positions.

That was okay
with me
, Manning had been pi
li
ng it on just fine without
help
from anyone
.

“So let me
get this straight, you told
Miss
Justine
Dahl that you intended to light a fire under that bitch’s ass, referring to Miss Bard.
Is that correct?
Are those your words? Light a fire under that bitch’s ass?
”

“Well, yeah, I may have said something like that, sort of, but it was just a phrase.”

“And during the same phone conversation you suggested to Justine Dahl that Felicity
Bard was in your words
a
real bitch? Is that correct?
”

“No
, no
t exactly, see Miss Bard’s roller
Derby
name is Emma Babe, E-M-M-A,” I spelled it out. “I was just doing a little play on words suggesting it should be Emma Bitch, se
e? Sort of making a little joke
.”

“A
little
joke?” Manning asked.

“Well, maybe more to make a point,” I said
,
before Louie could stop me.

I think I was the only one in the room who got the play on words.

“So then to add to the
joke, to make your point,
you fi
re bombed the hotel room of
Fiona
Simmons and
Felicity
Bard.
”

“No.”

“
Miss Sim
mons is hospitalized
and Miss
Bard has been released and is recovering
, a
gain. A
hun
dred and fifty hotel guests were
evacuated, j
ust t
o make your
point, as you say.”

“Look, I
said the things you have there in your file
. But it’s a huge jump to go from that,” I nodded at his file, “to fire bomb
ing
a hotel room. Don’t you think?”

“No
, no
t really Mister Haskell, not really.”

“I didn’t do this,” I said.

“And you commented to Mister
James McNaughton that
you noticed
there was
no security prese
nt at the hotel room, is that correct
?”

“Yes, yeah I said that. But
,
only because Jimmy
had
told me they were going to hire hotel staff to remain round the clock outside that hotel room. When I saw no one was posted outside the room I questioned it.
I didn’t think that was a good idea.
”

“Questioned it in order to see
just how that might work for
your benefit?”

“No,
I questioned it because he had
told
me
differently, that’s all.
I felt they should have security posted outside the room.
”

“Did you view that as a lost business opportunity, Mister Haskell?”

“Lost business opportunity?”

“That’s what I said.
Guarding
the room, wasn’t that a lost opportunity for you
. Work you
apparently
missed out on.
”

“No, no, I didn’t think anything like that.”

“
You weren’t upset
they hadn’t hired you to provide security at the hotel?”

“No, I
just
told you
, I wondered
why they had removed
their
security. Jimmy said it was because of budgetary cutbacks.”

“Yeah, their
budget sort of went to hell after
you assaulted Miss Bard, didn’t it?”

“Sharp observation,
except I didn’t assault her. But, their budget was getting pret
ty tight, I gathered, so anyway
it was an expense they apparently decided to do without.”

“Yeah, apparently, too bad, i
sn’t it?”

I was prepared to
spend the night in a cell. But, s
omehow Louie
convinced them I was
n’t a flight risk and besides, Manning didn’t charge me
.
It was after seven when we got out of the
interview
room
. We were standing outside on
Kellogg Boulevard
,
which,
even after rush hour traffic was s
till backed up, déjà vu all over again
.

“Let me drop you off at home,” Louie said.

“Thank
s,
I could use a shower and
I’d just like to forget the day.”

“Yeah, you aren’t kidding.”

“Hey, you’re getting paid
to be in there
, how tough can it be?” I asked.

“No, I meant you could use a shower.”

Louie gave me a lift home
in his rust accented blue Nissan Sentra
. In case I thought the holding cell and the
interview
room had been bad, Louie’s car put all that to shame.
I had my window down
in an attempt
to get
some air moving over the trash
and debris fluttering around the inside of his car
.

“No offense, Louie, but your car could use a shoveling out
and then a pretty aggressive
decontamination
.”

“Hunh?”

“You kidding? You’ve got
Big Mac wrappers
back there with
Christmas
wreaths printed on them
and it
s summer
. I’m sure I wouldn’t have to search very hard to find a cou
ple of empty bottles under the seat
.
I see at least three
D
omino’s boxes, I didn’t know they
even
delivered to cars.
All the
unopened mail back there,
this
one
’s
from the power company.
”

I pulled a brown envelope edged in red
fro
m a random pile. R
ed
block
letters
above the address window
read ‘Open Immediately’.

“What’s that?” Louie asked.

“
I’
ve gotten these
myself from time to time
, it’s a shut off notice
form Xcel Energy
.”