Bite Me (Devlin Haskell 3) (10 page)

I spent the night
in jail. Not the worst cell I’d ever been in, but not a luxury hotel suite, either. The pad I was supposed to sleep on was about a half inch thick. Not that it mattered since I couldn’t sleep. I stared into the dark for most of the night trying to make sense of everything. I never did make any sense of things.

The next morning, I still had a pounding headache, no recollection of anything that happened and a court appointed
Yale educated attorney by the name of Daphne Cochrane. She‘d been given a file, a fairly thick file, and was reviewing my case with me in another dingy, smelly room. At the moment she was giving me the cheery news, explaining what she saw as my best option.

“Look, Mister Haskell
…”

“Please, under the circumstances, call me Dev.”

“Quite honestly, I think under the circumstances, I would prefer to call you Mister Haskell.” She had a way of talking with her teeth clenched, mouth set in sort of a grimace speaking in an Ivy League accent even though she’d been St. Paul born and raised. She was clearly unhappy to be saddled with my case.

“
As I was saying, it would seem the best we can hope for is a plea of insanity due to chemical excess. That might help mitigate the kidnapping charge, since you claim you were invited over, at least initially. Thank God she hadn’t had a restraining order served on you, yet.”

“Restraining order?”

“Well, I’m sure after the spray paint incident she must have been thinking of it. That’s not a concern just now, she never got the chance before you raped her. But, I’d better check, just to be sure,” she said jotting down a note on the margin of a page in the file.

“I didn’t rape her.”

“Right.

“I did not rape
Kiki.”

“All right
, very well. But, let me be honest, the evidence seems to be more than a bit overwhelming. Don’t you agree? There are these photos.” She tossed a stack of enlarged color copies across the table to me. They half spilled to one side. Each image revealed Kiki tied up and taken from various angles. She looked frightened, vulnerable and with the black eye, beaten up.

“I don’t know where those came from. I sure as hell didn’t take them.” I said, glancing down at the
stack. I’d already gone through them and had no recollection of taking any of them.

“Yes
, well so you say. But, look at it from the jury’s point of view. A prosecutor is going to post each one of these as an exhibit. You’ll note in this one, for instance, the victim’s, or rather Misses Barkwell’s hands, are tightly fastened to the bed. The camera, your cell phone by the way, was between her legs. Her expression would suggest, well frankly, she’s frightened out of her wits. I believe that’s her leopard print thong stuffed into her mouth as a gag.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Now, unless we can prove she used her feet to take this photo, or you had an assistant, I’d say this is rather damning evidence. And there’s nine, no, ten of these photos, taken over the course of the night. You’ll note the digital clock on the bedside table. All taken using your cell phone.”

“But
, I can’t remember.”

“We’re due to get the toxicology reports sometime later today. They should help with our inebriation claim. If we can get that, you might be looking at twelve years,
just eight with time off for good behavior,” she seemed to cheer up at the prospect.

“Eight years,
but I didn’t do anything, I’m fucking innocent,” I screamed.

“Please watch the temper,
Mister Haskell. As distasteful as I find this, I’m still here to represent you.”

“She must have drugged me.”

“Oh, you mean sort of a date rape scenario, only in reverse? That it?”

“Exactly,” glad to see Daphne was coming around to my point of view.

“As your attorney I suggest you not go there. You see, the problem with that sort of defense is, well frankly, you weren’t raped. May I remind you that Misses Barkwell was raped repeatedly. Unfortunately for you, according to her statement and backed up by the Doctors reports from the Rape Crisis Center this was a six to eight hour ordeal for the poor woman. Now these cell phone photos of yours. Also, unfortunately, other than wounds consistent with those inflicted during her defensive struggle, you seem to be completely unharmed.”

“Look, I…”

“Missus Barkwell, on the other hand, remains bruised and bitten on her buttocks and breasts. A bit difficult for her to do under the best of circumstances let alone while tied up, don’t you think?” She nodded in the direction of the cell phone photos.

“
She exhibits signs of forceful vaginal, anal and oral entry. As I mentioned a good deal of her bruising appears to be defensive in nature. Of course, there’s the matter of her black eye. And, they scraped skin samples from under her fingernails that appear to be consistent with the efforts of an individual fighting off an attack, a rapist. Skin samples that at least under preliminary examination match you, Mister Haskell, match your DNA exactly.”

“But I didn’t do this.”

“Then we need to know who did because otherwise, you’re toast.”

“Look, she sort of likes it rough and…”

“That’s exactly the sort of statement I would strongly advise you stay away from.”

“I didn’t even know my phone could take pictures, honest.”

“And yet, we have these,” Daphne nodded disgustedly at the stack of images.

I looked down at the table, shook my head and slumped, defeated.

“Misses Barkwell…”

“Y
eah, that’s another thing. Where did that come from? Misses Barkwell? I knew she was the sister of Farrell Early, but I never heard them refer to her as Misses Barkwell.”

“It seems
she and her husband, Thompson Barkwell, are experiencing a bit of a rough patch in their relationship and Misses Barkwell needed some time…”

“She was screwing everything that moved.”

“Not helpful, Mister Haskell, not helpful at all. Now, I have my office attempting to locate Thompson Barkwell. We’ll need a statement from him.”

“A statement?
”

“For the record,” she sighed,
and then looked up at the ceiling as if to ask God to give her strength.

“Look, to tell you the truth, Daphne…”

“Miss Cochrane.”

“I’m not so sure
you’ve got the balls for the job, here. You already have me convicted and serving eight years with good behavior for something I didn’t even do.”

“So you say.”

“Don’t take it personal, or do for that matter, I don’t care. But you’re fired.”

Again with the sigh and the grimace.

“You do that again, Cochrane, I’m gonna wipe it off your face.”

“Thus far, all your attitude has do
ne is convince me I’ve an uphill fight on my hands not to have the death penalty administered.”

“The death penalty? This is
Minnesota, even I know we don’t have the death penalty.”

“There are always exceptions, Mister Haskell, always exceptions,” she said. The
n stood the thick file on end, banged it on the table three or four times to straighten the contents and looked me in the eye.

“If you wish me off the case,
and another attorney appointed, that is your prerogative, sir. I would caution and advise otherwise, however. You may find my attitude mild in relation to the other attorneys from the public defenders office. I’ll await a final decision from you by noon today. Part of the beauty of the legal system in this country is that one is allowed to make as many mistakes as one would wish. Good day.” With that she pushed back her orange plastic chair, picked up her file and waddled her rather large ass out of the interview room.

He smelled
slightly of
the bourbons he’d had for lunch. At two in the afternoon he needed a shave. His grey suit looked like he’d slept in it and as he leered over each provocative photo of Kiki naked, tied to the bed, and lewdly exposed he raised his eyebrows and gave a quick smirk. My new court appointed attorney, Louis Laufen, Louie the Lout.

“Wow, busy night,
man. She’s a real looker, I’ll give you that much,” he said setting the stack of photos down.

“Y
eah, Mister Laufen, your colleague, Daphne Cochrane, had me convicted based on those,” I said.

We were in the same
interrogation room where I’d met with my former, death penalty, court appointed public defender, yesterday morning. The room was still dingy and still smelled bad.

“
Call me Louie. No doubt Daft can have an edge to her. In her defense, she deals with a lot of shit, a lot of jerks, and you can’t really blame her for ending up getting a little jaded. She’s smart, though.”

“Well the reason you’re here is she had me convicted before we even went to trial. I didn’t do this shit
, any of it.”

“Yeah,
well pretty strong evidence, here. I’m still waiting on the toxicology report, already a day late. Tell me your version, again.”

I was already f
urther in the game with Louie on my side after only thirty minutes. He may have smelled like bourbon and looked like shit, but maybe that made us kindred spirits. At least he displayed a passing interest in my explanation. The only problem was I didn’t have much of an explanation.

I start
ed in anyway, told him about Kiki and the knife. I told him about getting hired by K-R-A-Z, based on her passing comment to her brother. Then I told him about the press conference shooting. I continued on, including the spray paint and my ill advised hiring of Gary Hobson, how he passed out after drinking a fifth of Kiki’s gin. I finished up with me painting the wall and then going back to her house with bottles of Blue Sapphire and Jameson. He nodded, made the occasional note on a legal pad and glanced from time to time at the top photo, Kiki naked, tied, gagged, and sporting that black eye. I finished up my love story with getting tasered, cuffed and arrested by the cops in her bathroom.

“And you don’t have any recollection of the night, nothing?”

“Not a thing, other than Kiki continually keeping my glass full, I think she poured a total of three drinks for me, at least that I remember, Jameson.”

“Water?”

“No, just a couple of ice cubes.”

“That’s how I’d take it,” Louie said absently, then pushed the top photo over and stared at the next one.

“Anyway,” I continued, “it was going to be a long night, we had sex, skipped dinner, more sex. Next thing I know, I wake up tied to the bed with the mother of all hangovers. I’m still trying to shake the headache.”

“Still?’

“Yeah.”

“That typical?”

“No, I’ve had some bad hangovers, but forty-eight hours later and still suffering? No, never.”

He made a note, then drummed his pen on the legal pad and seemed to be in deep thought.

“Big black space where the night should be?” he asked.

“Yeah, literally, no recollection.”

“Classic symptoms of date rape. Sounds like someone fed you Roofies, or some kind of shit, a pretty healthy serving. You take anything, ecstasy, whites, CFM’s?”

“I hardly even know what the hell you’re talking about. I don’t do drugs, at all.”

“I guess we’ll see when that toxicology report gets in. Tell me about this,” he said flicking through the photos and pushing one my way. It was Kiki, wrists tied to the bed and half rolled over on her side, clearly displaying a large reddish-purple bite mark on her ass. Along with her wrists tied, she had the leopard print gag stuffed in her mouth and a wild-eyed look on her face.

“Not
much to tell. I don’t recall taking the photo or anything. I told that attorney, Daphne, all this yesterday, in fact I didn’t even know my phone took photos. Christ, I just make phone calls on the damn thing. Hey, I’m a guy, I even hate to text, not that I’m any good at it.”

“Tell me about it,”
Louie said absently. “So, you’ve never taken photos with it before, your phone?”

“Never.
I didn’t know the thing could do that.”

“The bite
mark, that a usual or sometimes deal you’re into?”

“Yo
u mean bite her on the ass?”

“Yeah, her or any other partners
for that matter.”

“No
, not that I recall. I gotta be honest, I’m not into the whole pain thing. I’ve met some kinky gals in my day. But none of that, the pain deal never really turned my crank, you know?”

“And you state
you didn’t know she was married to Thompson Barkwell over at K-R-A-Z the same fellow who hired and then fired you?” He asked flipping to another sheet of paper.

“Hired, fired and stiffed me on a part of my fee. No
, I had no idea. I knew she was Farrell’s sister. In fact, she sort of gave them my name. They hired me for a couple of days, then got these idiotic, overweight, right wing nit-wits working for them and let me go.”

“So you were
screwing the boss’s wife, right?”

“I never
knew she was married to the guy. In fact I had been with her before I ever knew her brother or Thompson Barkwell even existed. I saw her in the office once or twice, K-R-A-Z. She never mentioned she was married, never did or said anything that I picked up on. First I heard of it was when one of the cops referred to her as Misses Barkwell, then that attorney Daphne mentioned it yesterday.”

“Yeah, Daft,” he said absently and drummed his pen some more on the legal pad.

“So?” I asked.

“So, let me be honest, right now it looks like you’re in pretty deep shit. But, things change. I don’t want you talking to anyone, unless I’m at your side. No one in the cell, no one in here, no one
, anywhere. Got it?”

I nodded.

“Someone asks you how you want your eggs for breakfast you don’t answer unless I tell you. Okay?”

I nodded.

“I mean it, the least little thing you say, can and will be used against you. Sound familiar?”

I nodded.

“I’d say you were drugged. It’s got all the symptoms. I don’t know why? If it’s a set up, why? It’s not like you got funds they can blackmail you for, right?”

“Right,
I don’t have any funds.”

“No Swiss bank accounts anything like that?”

“You kidding? I got three ex-wives who bleed me dry, a car that is in constant need of repair, a house I’m always late with the mortgage payment, and…”

“I get it. T
hree ex-wives, you’re a glutton for punishment.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Okay, toxicology report is our next step. Oh, I want to get a dental impression from you, too. I’ll send someone over later today.”

“A dental impression?”

He slid the image over of a bound and gagged Kiki with the bite mark on her ass.

“I got a funny feeling we blow that up, get some forensic geek to look at it and compare it to yo
ur dental impression we might just find it ain’t you.”

“But then who did it?”

“Well, we know she didn’t, you don’t think you did it. Who? That’s kind of the sixty thousand dollar question. That, and why in the hell you’re being set up? You involved in any other work? Another client that’s snakey or would rub this K-R-A-Z bunch the wrong way?”

“No, no one, and even if I was
, I don’t know how they would possibly know about it.”

“
Okay, well, as long as nothing else goes wrong, lets look at this as rock bottom and we’ll begin to climb our way out of the hole. Deal?”

“Yeah, Louie
, thanks for believing me.”

There was a k
nock on the door, followed immediately by Detective Norris Manning, red faced, tie undone, striding in and looking very business like. My favorite arresting officer, Dixon Heller, the detective sergeant who wore the ill fitting brown suit at Kiki’s house followed behind him. This afternoon he wore an ill fitting light blue suit. My friend Aaron LaZelle, brought up the rear and looked very tired.

Manning stared at me with ice cold
, blue eyes and attacked a piece of gum with his front teeth.

“Devlin Haskell, I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Mister Thompson Barkwell. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will…”

I’d heard it all before, or most of it, the reading me my rights part. But, the Thompson Barkwell murder charge came out of left field.

“Don’t say a thing,”
Louie commanded.