Bombshell (Devlin Haskell 4) Read online

  “Are you mental? What the hell are you doing?” Jimmy screamed.

  Clearly I wasn’t thinking.

  “For God’s sake, let her go, you stupid bastard, let her go,” he screamed.

  I let go of Emma’s ankle and it dropped to the floor like a lead weight, eliciting another “Uff,” when it hit the concrete floor.

  One of the ladies hit me over the head with her helmet, someone else kicked me with her roller skate and suddenly things went black.

  Chapter Eleven

  “So let me get this straight, Miss Felicity Bard, all one-hundred-and-seven-pounds of her and on roller skates, asks you to please not bother her. And you decide it would be funny to fondle her? Squeeze her breasts? Then when she reacts, attempts to fend you off, you turn the thing into a full blown assault, that about right?”

  We were in the security office of the auditorium, a cinderblock room painted grey and devoid of any windows or personality. There was some sort of a hand written manning roster taped to the wall next to last year’s calendar.

  I was sitting on a desk chair with wheels, my hands handcuffed behind me. A fat guy in a matching grey uniform sat on the edge of the desk leaning over me. He was a sergeant named Wayne, according to his nametag, and he had been reading me the riot act. I knew he was a sergeant because his iron—on patch read Security Sergeant.

  Detective Norris Manning leaned against the wall behind him, arms folded, eyes sparkling, enjoying the show. He occasionally cracked his gum and never stopped smiling.

  “Look, with all due respect, Sergeant,” I emphasized the last word. “I don’t have to answer you. You’re the security guard at a now empty auditorium. You’re not the police.” I looked past him. “I haven’t been read my rights,” I called to Manning.

  “We’ll get to that soon enough, douche bag. Far as I can tell the sergeant here is just doing his job. He pursued and detained an abusive individual, you. That same individual, you, was involved in an assault on a young woman earlier tonight, one Felicity Bard, AKA Emma Babe.”

  “Come on, assault? It was self—defense, there were witnesses.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right, there were witnesses. Seven, Sergeant, is that correct?”

  “Seventeen,” Sergeant Wayne replied, he continued to stare down at me then rubbed his right fist into the palm of his left hand and glared some more.

  “And they were all witnesses? To an assault?”

  “You got it. They all signed statements saying this jerk attacked that little English girl down in the hallway outside the visiting women’s locker room.”

  “Lurking outside a woman’s locker room, sounds predatory,” Manning smiled.

  “I want my lawyer,” I said.

  “Lawyer? You’re not even in our custody, yet,” Manning grinned. “You know Sergeant, there’s been a bit of a history with someone stalking these English girls ever since they arrived in the US.”

  “Really?” Sergeant Wayne sat up, I could tell because his rolls of fat rearranged themselves, stretching the buttons of his shirt to the breaking point. He never took his eyes off me.

  “Yeah, seems someone has been mailing them body parts, following them around.”

  “Body parts?”

  “Yeah, to those little English girls, can you imagine? What sort of limp wristed bastard would do that?” Manning said, then smiled at me, eyes twinkling.

  Wayne nodded, glared down at me thinking he knew exactly the sort of bastard. I could sense the wheels inside his thick skull slowly begin to turn.

  “Knock this shit off, Manning. You’re going to get Sergeant Schultz here all excited. They were fingers Wayne, fingers.”

  Wayne’s eyes grew large and he turned to Manning.

  “There’s your confession, detective. Bastard just admitted it, didn’t take him too long.”

  “Wow, it sure sounded like it, good job,” Manning said, deadpan.

  “Manning, knock this shit off and get me out of here. You know I didn’t have anything to do with that shit. We talked about it on the phone yesterday.”

  “See Wayne, it’s not uncommon for your serial killers, stalkers and the like to crave publicity. They’re always trying to prove they’re smarter then the folks like you and me actually involved in law enforcement.”

  “Get me the hell out of here, come on, Manning,” I pleaded.

  “Okay, since he’s confessed I guess we’ll take it from here,” Manning said after a long moment.

  Wayne nodded, then yanked my arms up behind my back to unlock his handcuffs.

  “Ouch, Jesus, will you watch it. What the hell’s wrong with you, Wayne?”

  He pulled me close, hissed at me. From his breath I guessed he’d spent a good part of the night protecting the Bratwurst stand.

  “I better not see your worthless ass in my auditorium, ever again.”

  “Your auditorium? God, get me out of here, Manning, come on, please.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Look Dev, trust me on this, as your personal legal advisor I’m telling you it would be a really bad idea for me to get my fat ass down there tonight. I’ve had a couple of drinks.”

  Louie Laufen, my attorney, was slurring his words. Even over the noise from the jukebox in whatever bar he was in, I could hear that much.

  “Louie, can you call someone else to come down and get me out of here tonight? I don’t want to spend the night locked up in a jail cell.”

  “No, no what’s the score…” I guessed he was talking to whoever was seated next to him at the bar.

  “Louie!”

  “Hello, who’s this…”

  It was close to eleven the following morning before I was released.

  “Look Dev, what are you pissed off at me for? I came as soon as you called?” Louie said. We were standing on the sidewalk outside of the Ramsey County Jail, cars were backed up along Kellogg Boulevard in both directions due to the road construction.

  “You came as soon as I called? Louie, I called you last night.”

  “You did? When?”

  “After they brought me in, as soon as I could get to a phone.”

  “No shit, well why didn’t you leave a message?”

  “A message? I talked with you, man, but you said you couldn’t come down.”

  “Mmm-mmm, actually, that was probably a pretty good idea, me not coming down. No, I don’t think I would have helped last night. Well, no real harm done,” he said and slapped me on the shoulder.

  “No real… I spent the night in jail, Louie.”

  “Not the first time, Dev, can I drop you somewhere?”

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact, if it hasn’t been towed I have to pick up my car at the Veteran’s Auditorium.”

  “That’s not exactly on my way, I was…”

  “No real harm done,” I said, then slapped him on the shoulder and glared.

  “Okay, okay, come on, I’ll give you a lift.”

  My car hadn’t been towed, but only because they hadn’t gotten to it, yet. It was ticketed for a tow, parked in an overnight spot you weren’t supposed to park in overnight.

  “Damn it, a hundred-and-twenty-five bucks,” I said, tossing the ticket into my front seat.

  “Count your blessings, it would have been two-twenty-five if they towed you over to the impound lot,” Louie said, then waved and drove off, Mister Positive.

  I drove home to shower, change and use a bathroom where I could close the door. I was getting undressed and pulled my phone out of my pocket to set it on the dresser. I had four messages and a-half-dozen texts. All had come through while I had been in custody. The first text was from Jimmy short and to the point, ‘U’r fired’. The next five were from Justine, but I didn’t have the heart to read them. I deleted them all and moved onto the messages.

  They were all from Justine, too. I was about to learn she could be a woman of few words.

  “Dev, you okay?”

  “Dev, call me.”

  “Are you crazy?”
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  “Don’t call me.”

  I called her, and had to leave a message.

  “Hi Justine, Dev. Look there seems to be a slight misunderstanding about last night. I’d like to explain, please call. Thank you.”

  I took a long, hot shower. I hosed off the woman’s locker room, the assault, my interrogation, a night in the cell next to the drunk tank and the fifteen minute ride in Louie’s car. In the shower I discovered a knot on the top of my head where one of those reactionary English chicks had clubbed me with her helmet.

  Justine didn’t return my call. I got dressed and drove to the office. I stuffed two quarters in the slot and grabbed a copy of the morning paper from the box on the corner, climbed the stairs and made some coffee up in my office. I poured what amounted to barely half a cup then opened up the paper. There, in the bottom corner of the front page, Local Man Assaults English Girl, story page 3. Wonderful.

  The article, written by a James Tarbox, was three paragraphs long. I couldn’t recall talking with this hack. It was accompanied by a photo of Felicity Bard; AKA Emma Babe. In the photo she was bending down, resting her hands on the shoulders of three cherub-like children at a London Heart Hospital. In the photo Emma looked like an innocent fourteen-year—old with big boobs. The article gave all the pertinent details, she weighed one-hundred-and-seven pounds, stood five—feet-two-inches and was over here fundraising at her own expense so the hospital could purchase a CT scanner for children. She’d been hospitalized overnight for observation. Mercifully my name wasn’t mentioned. I was simply described as “a local man known to police”.

  My phone rang, dragging me out of the daydream where I was shoving Emma in her roller skates off a ramp and into the Grand Canyon.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m returning your call.”

  “Justine, thanks for calling.” I waited a very long moment for a response, there wasn’t one. “Hello?”

  “I’m returning your call.”

  “Thank you. Look, I just wanted to explain. I didn’t mean for things to get out of hand last night. God, it seems like everyone has just jumped to a conclusion and…”

  “Jumped to a conclusion? For your information there are about a million witnesses. We were all hauled in to talk to the head of security at the Veteran’s Auditorium…”

  “That lard ass Wayne guy?”

  “I don’t know, he’s the sergeant in charge, to tell you the truth we were all just a little too shocked to get his name.”

  “He’s not some sergeant, that’s just the name of the security company that…”

  “I don’t know that any of that is really important right now, we’re looking at a potential lawsuit here. I’ve spent the better part of last night and all of this morning doing damage control with the media.”

  “A lawsuit?”

  “We were stupid enough to hire you and put you in touch with the Hastings Hustlers. You said it wouldn’t be a problem, you’d just move us to the top of the list, thanks a bunch. You failed to mention it would be your shit list. I’ve been talking to lawyers all morning.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I, in fact we, have been advised not to have any contact with you. So that’s the only reason I’m calling, to tell you I’m not talking to you.”

  “Well, at least they’re in Chicago, so you can get back…”

  “Oh, haven’t you heard? They’re still here, the Hustler’s. Chicago cancelled. Seems what with the finger thing and now the assault from a local nut case up here, Chicago just doesn’t need the hassle. So they canceled. I’m sure the remaining cities on the tour will follow suit before the day is over. Nice job Dev, we’ve worked years to build up the image, do all sorts of good and you managed to destroy everything in about fifteen seconds.”

  “Hey, how was I supposed to know… Hello. Hello? Justine?”

  There was probably nothing positive to be gained by calling back and suggesting we’d been cut off.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I figured if I phoned Jimmy McNaughton he’d either refuse to see me or contact Justine and then refuse to see me, so instead I drove over to the Hustler’s hotel. Jimmy was in the dining room drinking a cup of tea, he is English after all. From what I could tell the Hustler’s were grazing on double cheeseburgers, double orders of fries and washing it all down with diet cokes.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing here? I’m about to call your police,” he said the moment he saw me.

  “Jimmy, I want to explain. I didn’t do anything last night, I was just protecting myself. I’m sorry things developed the way they did. It wasn’t my intention…”

  “Developed the way they did? You make it sound like you spilled a glass of wine on the carpet. Our tour is about to fall apart, the team enforcer has a sprained shoulder and a bone chip in her heel and you don’t like the way things developed? Bloody hell,” he was red faced, heading toward purple.

  “I was just trying to block her kick.”

  “You stupid little wanker, she kicked you because you grabbed her boobs.”

  “I didn’t grab her boobs. She spit on me, grabbed me by the throat, told me to piss off and pushed me against the wall. It was just my natural reaction to push back. That’s all I did. The next thing I know she came flying back with some sort of Karate kick, I just blocked her and down she went. If she hadn’t tried to kick me how in the hell do you think I got hold of her ankle?”

  He seemed to think about that for a moment.

  “She said piss off?”

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact she said, piss off, Yank. Not a reason to assault anyone, I agree, but put it all together, it’s just what happened. I’m the one who was attacked here, not her. Then they clubbed me over the head, knocked me out,” I said looking around the room. All the girls suddenly seemed to be making themselves scarce.

  “I’m not going to press charges or anything. I’m sorry if she’s injured, I just wanted to apologize and set the record straight. That’s all.”

  “Piss off, Yank,” he said absently. “Yeah, sounds a bit like her.”

  My relief must have been obvious; Jimmy seemed to be deep in thought.

  “Is there some way I can still help you?” I asked.

  “Well, I think for the time being, we better have you stay away from the team, they might want to cut off more than your finger.”

  Not the first time the thought had crossed my mind, staying away sounded like a good plan to me.

  “Have you had any other incidents, any notes, phone calls, any more fingers?”

  “No, as of last night most of our time has been taken up with the likes of you.”

  “Let me see what I can find out on the finger front, all right?” I said.

  Jimmy seemed to consider this for a moment, then nodded.

  “Just as long as you stay away from the team. They’ve enough on their plate right now with things going all to hell.”

  “You got it, thanks, Jimmy,” I said, then held out my hand.

  He took it, shook with a firm grip.

  “Now please, let me finish my tea in peace.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The logical place to start seemed to be The Spot bar. I strolled in for a late liquid lunch of Leinenkugel beer.

  “Dev, you fall down on the job last night,” Tommy asked as he poured my tap beer.

  “Hunh?”

  “Didn’t you tell us you were going to be hanging around that bunch of English girls, providing security? I read in the paper one of them was attacked by some nut case last night. Cute little thing, had her picture in the paper with some kids. You see it?”

  “The paper? No, haven’t had the chance, yet. I wasn’t at the auditorium last night.”

  “How’d you know it happened there if you didn’t see the paper?” he pushed my beer in front of me, waited for my reply.

  “Heard a couple of them talking about it when they got back to their hotel. That’s where I was all night. Just came from t
here as a matter of fact, planning strategy.”

  “Strategy?” he seemed to consider this, but didn’t add anything else.

  After lunch I went back to the office and started making phone calls. Over the course of the afternoon I spoke with the police in Denver, Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City. I decided it might be best to work backwards so I called Denver first and ended up speaking with a Detective named Kingston Quinn who sounded decidedly more black than Irish.

  “Detective Quinn, thanks for taking my call, I’m working with Detective Norris Manning up here, we’re looking into an incident involving an English roller derby team, the Hastings Hustlers, they…”

  “Bunch of fine looking ladies you ask me. You get to talk with any of ‘em?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I spoke with some of them as recently as last night, we’re interested…”

  “Bunch of little hotties and when they talk, like to take all of ‘em home, ‘cept the wife wouldn’t be too happy with that.”

  “Yeah, who could blame her, anyway, last night…”

  “Yeah, saw something about that come across here. You’re up there in St. Paul, right?”

  “That’s correct, see I wanted to ask a couple of questions regarding the envelope…”

  “Yeah, some head case up there attacked one of those hot little girls? Listen you need any help, couple of us be on the next plane get that action solved real quick. Then maybe spend a little time with the girls, you know just to…”

  “That’s very considerate of you, Detective, but I think the media sort of blew that story out of proportion, see the individual they…”

  “Little girl barely a hundred pounds gets herself attacked by some jackass, like to cut more than a finger off that dude, you catch my drift. See how tough he is after I get through with him.”

  “We’ll keep it in mind. Now about that envelope taped to the door of the bus.”

  Once we established he was available to spend time with a room full of sexy English girls Kingston Quinn didn’t have a lot more to offer.