Russian Roulette Read online

  The sky was cloudless. I really wasn’t aware of much. Kerri was saying something but I didn’t hear her. I did hear that voice again, in my head, telling me to shake hands like a gentleman and drop this case. When will I learn to listen?

  I think I heard the shot, but I’m not really sure. One minute I’m debating about dropping the case, the next I think I’m pushing Kerri out of the way, and then there was blood. Mine unfortunately.

  Chapter 12

  It certainly wasn’t the first time I woke up in a strange room with a woman next to me I didn’t know.

  “I’m sorry, did I wake you? Just gotta get this blood pressure checked. There,” the nurse said after a moment. “Almost good as new.” She patted me on the shoulder, wrote something on a clipboard, then looked beyond me across the room to the figure lounging in a chair.

  “I think he’ll live. Doctor will be by around noon or so. They’ll probably release him sometime this afternoon,” she said.

  “Good thing they went for his head. With that thick skull the bullet just bounced off,” Aaron said.

  “What the fuck?” I groaned.

  “That’s a service not covered under your insurance,” the nurse giggled at Aaron.

  “He wouldn’t be any good, anyway,” Aaron laughed as she left the room.

  “What the fuck?” I repeated, groggy.

  “Uh-oh, you’re repeating yourself, maybe there is some brain damage. Of course that would mean you had a brain to begin with, so that’s not it. You remember anything?”

  “Huh?”

  “The shooting, dipshit, the reason I’m wasting my time in this hospital with you. You remember what happened? Remember anything at all?”

  “Ahh, I remember it was really sunny. I couldn’t hear anything but there was all this blood, and I think I got Kerri out of the way. Pushed her. She okay?”

  “Kerri? Oh, you mean the woman you were going to tell me the next time you got together with, that Kerri? Who knows? Missing in action. Waitress in the restaurant said she ran away. Can’t say as I blame her. Lunch with you would do that to just about anyone.”

  “I was shot? Who? Why?”

  “Well, we don’t know why or by who. As to where you were shot? The bullet grazed your thick skull. Looks like it was probably a small caliber, maybe a .22 short. We couldn’t find the round or any impact point for that matter. Doc last night said you’d have a hell of a headache for a while but you should be okay. You heard what nurse Sweet Cheeks said. They’re kicking you out this afternoon. You’re just in overnight for observation. Hell, if you’re injured, the hospital is the worst place for you anyway. So it’ll be good to just get your worthless ass home.”

  “Well, I mean do you have any leads? Any idea who it was?”

  “Me? Hey look, pal, this deal is out of my hands, it’s an attempted homicide. Nothing I can do to help, well, except maybe offer to give the shooter some target practice so they don’t miss next time.”

  Chapter 13

  Later that morning I spent the better part of an hour being interviewed by a homicide investigator. Aaron had left by this time. Not that I could tell the investigator anything. Aside from her name the only thing I could provide on Kerri was her apparent business phone number. I didn’t even have an address. When he asked me what sort of business she was in I got pretty vague.

  “I’m not sure, it was some sort of service they provided.”

  “Service? You mean like cleaning or accounting?”

  “Well, not exactly. I’m just not sure. I wasn’t investigating Kerri Mathias, I was just trying to find her sister.”

  “And you didn’t find this arrangement unusual?”

  “No,” I answered beginning to sound a little defensive.

  “Really bright,” he said half to himself, making a quick note.

  “She came into my office and we discussed her sister. She paid me for a few days in advance. Nothing too unusual about that,” I failed to mention her hundred-dollar “professional consideration”.

  “She find your name in the yellow pages?”

  “I don’t really advertise.”

  “Don’t advertise. Interesting. Where’s your office Mr. Haskell?”

  “Well it’s not really an office, I mean, I was sort of joking there. I was in the Spot Bar, actually.”

  “The Spot? That joint down on Randolph?”

  “Yeah, you know it?”

  “Afraid so,” he said, not elaborating.

  For the last ten minutes he complained about the Twins pitching. I told him I was a St. Paul Saints fan.

  “The Saints, interesting,” he said, clearly not interested, then proceeded to repeat everything he’d complained about regarding the Twins. After I mentioned my splitting headache the third or fourth time he closed his notebook, handed me his card, and left.

  Chapter 14

  Later that afternoon, driving home, Aaron stopped and got two takeout pizzas, then ran into a liquor store and picked up a twelve-pack of Leinenkugel’s.

  “I don’t think I’m supposed to drink alcohol for a few days,” I said.

  “Exactly, but I’m not making a second trip, and as per usual I’m sure you won’t have enough beer for me at your place.”

  “Define enough?” I said.

  “How’s the head?” he asked ignoring my question.

  “Pounding.”

  “You better follow the doctor’s orders then and stay away from the beer. They give you some pain pills?”

  “Yeah, but you know I hate even taking aspirin. I’d just as soon not take any pain killers, if it’s all the same.”

  “Fine with me. We’ll see how you do.”

  Being trained to spot clues I had a suspicion someone had been in my place. I think the open front door as we pulled up was my first tipoff.

  “Shit. Wait here, man,” Aaron said hopping out of the car and pulling a very large, black, nine millimeter handgun from underneath his shirt. I followed him up the steps and across my front porch.

  He wasn’t kidding, with both arms extended, the pistol moving from side to side. He was moving forward, stepping ahead with his left foot, cautiously bringing his right foot along. He carefully poked his head into my living room, looked around the corner. I shuffled up behind him.

  “Police! Don’t move!” he suddenly yelled.

  “Oh, for Christ sake, Dev! You almost made me drop these damn flowers.”

  “Stay where you are!”

  “What the hell’s your problem?” a woman’s voice replied, the tone was familiar.

  “Put your hands up!” Aaron commanded.

  “Oh for God’s sake, where’s Dev?”

  I recognized the frizzy blonde hair and the lack of compliance.

  “Heidi?”

  “Dev? Hell of a way to treat a girl who brought you dinner and flowers? I see you finally got someone to keep you in line?” she nodded at Aaron.

  “It’s okay, Aaron. She’s a friend.”

  “Oh, just a friend?” Heidi replied.

  Aaron returned his pistol to the small of his back.

  Depending on the week Heidi was a blond or brunette, she tried being a redhead once and vowed never again. She carried a few extra pounds extremely well and had the sexual appetite of a professional athlete. She was smarter than just about everyone I knew, undergraduate degree from some big-name Ivy League school, a Masters in Finance from the University of Chicago, and she traded or sold bonds, stocks, derivatives, or some damn thing. To paraphrase Woody Guthrie, she stole more money with a fountain pen then any ten guys with a six shooter.

  “Sorry Heidi, we saw the door wide open. How’d you know?”

  “You kidding’, it’s been all over the news. ‘Course, once they said someone was shot in the head yesterday and going to be released today you came immediately to mind. I thought I’d bring you a little comfort food. I got in here and the joint reeked of stale perfume. You should try a different brand. I had to open the door just to air things out
.”

  “Heidi, Aaron LaZelle, my bodyguard. Aaron, Heidi Bauer, great friend.”

  “Yeah and one of the few exes who still talks to him. Actually, I figured I should get over here so you can eliminate my name from the list of the dozens of women who want to kill you,” Heidi said.

  “I think the list is a lot longer than that,” Aaron laughed.

  “I think I’ll take that pain medication,” I said.

  “Good idea, did you really bring dinner?” Aaron asked, missing my worried look, about the only thing Heidi did in the kitchen was make coffee.

  “Yeah, sort of, I got a tub of ice cream and a frozen pizza. Let me fire up the oven.”

  “No need, I got take out and beer in the car.” Aaron turned and walked out the front door.

  “Hey, your cop friend, he seeing anyone?” Heidi asked. I’d seen that spark in her eye before.

  “At least wait until after dinner, okay?” I suddenly had a pounding headache and swallowed two of the pain pills I swore I wouldn’t take.

  I woke in the middle of the night and used the bathroom, climbed back into bed. Heidi was there.

  “You okay?” she asked, on the verge of awake if my answer was in the negative.

  “Yeah fine, I think I’ll live. Heidi, thanks for being here. You’re a real friend.”

  “Yeah and real stupid, but glad you’re all right. You had me worried.” Then she snuggled closer, put her head on my shoulder and started to snore softly.

  I woke with the sort of headache that felt like someone was driving a rusty ten-penny nail into my forehead, slowly. It increased in ferocity the second I opened my eyes. Something was pounding on the nail in perfect rhythm to my heartbeat. A glass of water and my brown plastic prescription bottle sat on the table next to my bed. I could hear Heidi talking to someone out in the kitchen.

  “’Bout time you’re up. How you feeling, fathead?” Heidi was sitting on a stool at my kitchen counter, writing what looked like a doctoral dissertation on a yellow legal pad.

  “I’ll live, I think.”

  “Okay, I gotta run,” she said into her phone, then turned to me. “I was just gonna leave you a note. I made you some breakfast, well I mean there’s a jug of Minute Maid in the fridge and some yogurt. I walked up to the bakery and got some caramel rolls but I already ate mine. I did make some coffee. I think there’s a little left. You want a cup?”

  “No, you’ve done more than enough. Thanks, Heidi, really nice of you. I appreciate your help.”

  “Yeah, well I’m taking a rain check on last night, deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “Okay,” she said standing up and giving me a light kiss on the forehead. “You look a little the worse for wear. Take it easy for the next couple of days. I’ll call just to check in later on, okay?”

  “Thanks, yeah I’d appreciate the call.”

  “Okay, bye-bye.”

  She threw her purse over her shoulder and headed for the front door.

  She’d left me the better part of a cup of coffee, which I drank. I ate the caramel roll in about two bites and decided I could walk the block up to Bon Vie and see if my new favorite waitress was working today. Find out what she could tell me about yesterday’s events.

  Chapter 15

  Her nametag identified her as Madeline, like the little girl in Paris in the Ludwig Bemelmans books. At the moment I was the only customer in the place so I took a long moment to appraise her from head to toe. I didn’t recall her looking as attractive as she did today. When she saw me she glanced frantically from side to side, as if my sudden appearance had somehow cut off any escape.

  “I already told the police everything I know,” she stammered, backing up slightly as she spoke.

  “Yeah, I know, they told me. I just wanted to thank you and hope it wasn’t too traumatic. I didn’t mean to scare away any customers, that’s all,” I said, attempting to calm her down with a casual chuckle.

  “Maddie, is everything all… oh, you, we don’t want any trouble.” The heavyset hostess. She was wearing large glasses, and carried a stack of menus. She looked me up and down. The large black frames were severely pointed and emblazoned with rhinestones. The lenses were thick enough to magnify her eyes, which at the moment looked a decided icy blue.

  “Hello, I’m Devlin Haskell. I was in here yesterday,” I said extending my hand.

  “Humph, you certainly were. You absolutely ruined our lunch-hour trade. Not to mention the fact a table of three just up and left without paying. Couldn’t wait to get out of here. I doubt we’ll ever see them again. Then there’s the matter of the front sidewalk.”

  “The sidewalk?”

  “How could you miss it?” she motioned me to the front window, a gigantic pane of glass about ten feet tall. She stood facing the street and gestured with her chins.

  “We’ll never get the stain completely out of the sidewalk. I’ve had Arturo out there scrubbing for hours. He even used straight bleach. Nothing worked,” she frowned in my direction.

  “You know, I’m terribly sorry about that. Next time I have someone shoot me in the head I’ll make sure they do it on the lawn.”

  I think I caught a smile from Madeline out of the corner of my eye.

  “What? Well, you don’t look the worse for wear. Cup of coffee? I’m Amy by the way, I own this place,” she said, still not smiling. I’d have to work my magic to win her over.

  “Yeah, I’d love one. Actually, I’m trying to piece together what happened. I really don’t remember anything other than leaving the restaurant, squinting into the sun, and the next thing I know I’m in the hospital.”

  “Oh for God’s sake,” Amy grunted, then took three steaming mugs in one hand and waddled back to a table close to the open kitchen. A large black man, sporting dreadlocks and dressed in kitchen whites was rapidly preparing items on a tray. The chair seemed to groan beneath her weight as she oozed into it.

  “Did you see anything?” I asked, nodding thanks as she pushed a coffee mug in my direction.

  Madeline sat down across from me. I noticed she had dark brown eyes and a nose that wasn’t petite, but was somehow sexy with her high cheekbones. There was a tiny scar on the left side of her chin, maybe a stitch or two as a child. Her skin color was what could be called Mediterranean, with thick eyebrows and long eyelashes that…

  “… down on the sidewalk. Hey, yoo-hoo, are you even listening to me?”

  “Yeah, of course, but tell me that again,” I said, back in reality.

  Amy’s frown was back, followed by a sigh of frustration. “As I just said, one of our customers screeched something like oh God. The next thing I know you’re down on the sidewalk. That little honey of yours hightailed it up the street and around the corner. I haven’t seen someone move that fast in a long time. Maddie, you saw everything, didn’t you?”

  Madeline nodded then sipped her coffee so she wouldn’t have to speak.

  “Tell him,” Amy grunted.

  Madeline turned to face me, looked down at her hands a moment as if collecting her thoughts, then raised her head and focused her gorgeous brown eyes on me.

  “Well, you were standing right out front, with your back to the street. Your girlfriend was…”

  “She’s a business associate, a client actually.”

  Amy harrumphed.

  Madeline nodded, then continued.

  “Anyway, your back was sort of halfway to the street. I was clearing a table, actually that one up there,” she pointed to a table set for four directly in front of the window overlooking the blood-stained sidewalk.

  “I remember watching this car, it was going real slow, and I thought the person was on a cell phone, talking, not paying attention to their driving. Then you kinda turn toward the car, there’s this sort of commotion, and all of a sudden you’re on the sidewalk, not moving. Your, ahh, client took off running up the block. I remember she held her purse like it was a football.”

  “Did you hear a shot?”


  “No, nothing,” Madeline said, then sipped some more coffee.

  “Triple-pane window, thank god it wasn’t damaged, cost me a small fortune,” Amy interjected.

  “Which way was the car going?”

  “This side of the street, toward downtown.”

  “Did you see the driver?”

  “Sort of, I mean, just a person. I wasn’t paying that kind of attention. I’m not even sure if it was a man or a woman.”

  “Was there a passenger?”

  “I don’t think so, but I really can’t be sure.”

  “Do you remember what the car looked like?”

  “Not really. I don’t know cars, maybe it was black, seemed nice, newer.”

  “Could it have been dark blue?” I asked.

  “Well yeah, I guess, maybe, I can’t say for sure. I just wasn’t really watching. Don’t you remember anything?”

  “No, at least I don’t remember much. I was squinting into the sun, and then I guess I was pushing Kerri out of the way or turning or something. As you’re telling me this I sort of have a hazy vision of her going wide-eyed, I just can’t remember. I honestly don’t know except that all of a sudden there was blood everywhere. Next thing I know I’m waking up in the hospital.”

  “Pushing her out of the way? Well no, actually now that you mention it, she sort of jumped and pulled you. In fact for half a second I thought she maybe hit you or something but she pulled you, yeah definitely. She sort of pulled you in front of her.”

  “You mean I didn’t push her out of the way? Save her?”

  “Well, how could you? I mean your back was to the street, you had no idea anything was going to happen, then you turn around, right? Now, she’s behind you. No, she sort of pulled you in front of her, maybe, sort of like a shield or something, you know?” She shrugged her shoulders as if she was sorry to give me the bad news. I wasn’t a noble hero, just some dunce who essentially got thrown under the bus.