Mr. Softee (14 page)

“Did he honk, or flash his lights or anything?”

Her hair was still curly and bounced back and forth as she shook her head no.

“Nothing, he
just raced across the bridge and plowed into me. He must have been really drunk, you know, didn’t stop or nothing. It was like he was aiming at me.”

“What kind of a car do you drive?”

“Totaled, as of now. Cops said I’m lucky to be alive.”

“What kind of car did you drive?”

“Blue”

“Do you know what make?”

“A Camry.”

“A
Toyota.”

“I think so.”

“Did you get a look at the car that hit you?”

She shook her head again.

“No, I saw the headlights, realized he was really going fast, and then boom. He kept right behind me. He kept pushing like I was just in the way or something, asshole. Oops, sorry La Tasha, that just slipped out.”

La Tasha looked up from her book for half a moment then returned to her page.

“Anyway, he sort of spun the whole car around, pushed me over the curb, and against the guardrail. I guess I was unconscious. I sort of don’t remember that part.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” I said.

She shrugged, nodded, took another spoonful of pink yogurt and glanced up at her soap opera.

“No idea what the
car looked like?”

“No
, sorry.”

“Any boyfriend problems or argument
s with someone? Anything that might cause somebody to go after you?”

“No, nothing
. The police asked me the same thing. I really can’t think of anything. I date a couple different guys, nothing serious. Play on the softball team. We’re really bad, but we have fun.”

“Anyone who might think you’re stealing a boyfriend or tips?”

“Nope, nothing like that, actually I’m pretty boring. Hey, are you thinking of taking my case? That would really be cool.”

“I tell you what, I’ll keep an ear to the ground, see if something
turns up, but no promises, okay?”

“Ye
ah okay, except if you find whoever it was, it’s okay with me if you shoot them.” She didn’t smile, or blink.

“
I’ll keep that in mind Jennifer. You rest up, get better, hear,” I said handing her another one of my cards. “Anything turns up, you call me. Promise?”

“Yeah, I promise,” she smiled.

Chapter
Thirty-Three

I phoned Jill after
chatting with Jennifer. She answered just as I stepped out of the air-conditioned hospital and into a wall of blistering heat and humidity. The hot sun felt like someone held a magnifying glass over the wound on my forehead.

“Guess who I just talked to?” I asked.

“A bartender?”

“Not a bad idea, but sadly
, no. Jennifer McCauley,” I said.

“Where’d you run into her?”

“I didn’t run into her, I went to visit her in the hospital. I’m just leaving now. She’s hoping to get out later today.”

“How is she?”

“How is she? Lucky to be alive, I’d say. She’s cut, scraped, black and blue all over, but nothing that won’t heal. Bottom line is she’s a very lucky young woman.”

“You still feeling paranoid?” she asked.

“I don’t know that I ever was. But I don’t think this was some random hit-and-run, if that’s what you mean. The way she described it to me, someone set out to nail her, and damn near succeeded. If it wasn’t for that railing on the High Bridge, her car would have dropped a hundred and sixty feet to the river below.”

“I don’t know
it all seems a little far-fetched to me, I…”

“Far-
fetched? Didn’t someone fire-bomb your business?”

“Yeah, I know
, but I’m only suggesting that to tie her accident into our fire still seems to be a stretch.”

“Well, I’ll keep my assumptions in the maybe range, but a strong maybe
. Look, I’m at my car, so I better go. I’ll call you if something develops.”

“I not
holding my breath, bye,” she said and hung up.

I had parked on the street since I didn’t ha
ve five bucks for the ramp. The Lincoln shimmered and baked in the afternoon heat. Even though I’d left the windows down it still felt like an oven inside. Some bird had crapped on the inside of the backseat. That same rotted-something odor was in the air and I wondered if maybe it wasn’t coming from the river. I opened the doors to try and get something like a breeze going through. That didn’t work, so I finally drove away hoping to get some air circulating.

I headed
down to the police impound lot, the one on Barge Channel Road. As one might expect by the street name, it was close to the Mississippi River. The smell that had been hanging in the air seemed even stronger down here, and I was convinced it had to be something in the river. Whatever it was, it was getting close to nauseating.

For a city that
spent a lot of time and effort over the years attempting to be more consumer friendly, the St. Paul Impound Lot had somehow missed the boat. Then again if you were down here to begin with you weren’t going to have a positive experience, so why bother? The entry path wove a fifty-yard zigzag pattern toward the front door. The path was enclosed along both sides with ten-foot-high Cyclone fencing that was topped off with rolls of concertina wire. Razor wire was strung back and forth over the path. It gave one pause, wondering who would ever want to break into the office to begin with.

I entered through the worn
, graffiti covered, industrial gray door and then climbed the grimy steps up to the lobby. More graffiti-covered grimy walls and a groaning noise oozing from an inefficient window air conditioner pumped heat into the tiny lobby. The office was really nothing more than a Government Issue desk sitting behind six layers of finger-printed, bullet-proof glass.

A couple
stood stooped over, arguing through a metal vent with the bland-faced civil servant on the far side of the grimy glass. They weren’t getting very far. They smelled of cigarette smoke and liquor. After about five minutes of restating their case multiple times they slid a debit card into the depression on the well worn counter. The clerk took his sweet time, examined both sides of the card, carefully entered the payment amount on some sort of device and then waited, and waited. After an hour or two he painstakingly tore the perforated edges off their receipt. He carefully aligned the corners and folded the receipt then ran a finger slowly along the fold to create the perfect crease. He cautiously slid the receipt out to them and flashed just the slightest hint of a smile.

“What an asshole,” the woman said under her breath as she marched back down the stairs.

I stepped into the space they had recently occupied, just a hint of cigarette and alcohol lingered in the air. I stared through the glass at the clerk, his name tag read Loren.

I’d first met Loren Baker
while bailing out a car about eighteen years ago. I bought him a beer a few nights later when he’d already had too many. He seemed just as dull now as he did back then. His nickname was “Forlorn”, not that he had many friends who used his nickname. For some reason he seemed to like me, and I’d always felt it could be helpful to have some pull at the impound lot.

“Hey there, Dev, how’s it going
? Don’t tell me they dragged another one of your horseshit cars in here?”

“Amazingly
, no they didn’t. Nice to see you, Loren. How’s life treating you?” I tried to sound sincere.

“Things are going good, Dev, thanks for asking. We should get together sometime, been awhile,” he said.

“Yeah, it has,” I said, thinking eighteen years wa
sn’t long enough.

“We could chase some tail,” he said, sounding hopeful.

Not a chance in hell.

“That would be fun
,” I smiled.

“So what do you need?”

“Actually Loren, I just wanted to look at a vehicle, or what’s left of it. Get a sense of the damage done. This was a hit-and-run from about three nights back over on the High Bridge. From what I hear there might not be much to look at.”

“
Name on the title?” he asked, unwilling to engage in any further small talk.

“McCauley, Jennifer”

“That with one or two L’s?” he asked bending over a laptop. As he typed, the white/blue screen reflected off the coke bottle lenses on his glasses.

“Just one,” I said the
n spelled Jennifer’s last name for him, got a nod in return. He turned round, pulled a sheet of paper off a printer, and pushed it out through the window well.

“
It’s in slot thirty-seven, just junk, not sure why we got it, ‘less they’re holding it for some ongoing investigation. ‘Course then it should be over at BCA. Anyone killed?”

“No, amazingly.”

“That’s why, then. Out the door, show that receipt to Jerry, have him point you in the right direction.”

I thanked “Forlorn”
, then thanked god I didn’t work in this miserable place and went out to the lot.

Jerry weighed in at about four hundred pounds and looked like he hadn’t gotten up from behind his desk in the past twenty years
. He made no effort to do so when I handed him the receipt. He looked up from his paperback, I noticed it was a romance. He sighed, then said,

“Out the door, first left, three rows
back, then left again. Metal tag IDs the slot. Not much left of that one,” he added, and then returned to his romance.

There was a part of me
that wanted to ask him when the last time was he had a date? Touched his toes? Hell, even saw his toes? Instead I smiled, said,

“Thank you for your help,” and walked back out into the oppressive heat.

Jennifer, “Forlorn”, and Jerry weren’t kidding, there wasn’t much left. Jennifer McCauley was a very lucky young lady and damn lucky to even be alive let alone not in critical condition. Her Camry had been assaulted from all angles, rammed and pounded into about a third of its original size. The damaged areas all had one thing in common, streaks and chips of a sort of cream-colored paint.

I reached in my back pocket
, took out the envelope from Mr. Softee, the one he had used to return my invoice. Using a thumbnail I managed to scrape some decent sized paint chips off the Camry and get them into the envelope. I had a sneaking suspicion the chips would match a certain Escalade. I decided to pay another visit to Mr. Softee.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The smell was even
stronger when I got back to my car. It just sort of hung in the air. I couldn’t understand how anyone could work down in this area. You’d never get the smell out of your clothes.

Based on the throbbing from my forehead, not to mention the charges I was facing, I
had second thoughts and figured it might make sense to stay away from Mr. Softee for the moment. Instead, I drove out I-94 to a Cadillac dealership for some in-depth evidence analysis.

The dealership sat in the middle of four acres of glea
ming automobiles. It was a one-story glass and white enamel building with large signs running the length of the windows proclaiming “Immediate Financing available!” I parked the Lincoln next to the entry and walked in.

I wasn’t more than three steps in
the door when an elegant, blond sales rep appeared out of nowhere and swooped down.

“Hi, help you?” she asked
. She was gorgeous and stared at my forehead, probably wondering why I was growing a second head.

Despite their signs there was no way in hell I would ever qualify for financing, immediate or otherwise
. Still, I guessed it wouldn’t hurt matters to toss some of my personal charm her way.

“Just wanted to take a look around,” I said.

She blinked her gorgeous green eyes away from my forehead.

“What did you have in mind?”

Like every other idiot I thought
nothing on the showroom floor
. She wore a small gold cross around her neck. Christ hanging there all day, just staring into her cleavage, lucky guy. I caught the subtle scent of her perfume, a pleasant change from the rotten river I’d been sniffing fifteen minutes earlier.

“Sir?”

“Oh, sorry, was just remembering a meeting I’ve got, but maybe, if you had a minute or two, you could show me around.” I glanced down at the cross for another brief moment.

She must have
been a fairly experienced salesperson. She smiled seductively, sized me up as a complete waste of time, then pointed around the showroom and said,

“
Tell you what, all of our models are out on the floor here, stickers on the windows will tell you the price. Feel free to look around and then let me know if you have any specific questions.” With that she turned on her heel and walked back to a small office probably thinking she’d have better luck calling random people out of the phone book than wasting time talking to me.