Bulldog (Dev Haskell - Private Investigator Book 9) (13 page)

“I put some coffee on, you want some?”

“Yeah,” she said then gave a sigh. “I suppose I should get the spare keys out of his desk drawer and get that damn car,” she said not sounding at all thrilled with the proposition.

She’d joined a club no one wanted to be a member of; people who’d had their lover torn from them. Whether she realized it or not, she had a year of firsts ahead of her. The first time she was in his car without him. The first time she was at friends’ for dinner, the first 4
th
of July, Labor Day, Halloween on and on and always without him, forever.

“Why don’t you get the keys and I’ll go out there with you.”

She nodded and looked relieved for half a moment then took a deep breath and headed up the stairs to their bedroom.

“Well, here we go,” she said a couple minutes later and unlocked the side door of the garage. I was right behind her and pressed the button to raise the double door. “Come on I’ll give you a ride to the front,” she said then let out a sort of nervous little laugh.

It was vintage Dermot, the car, a dark blue Toyota Corolla, about six or seven years old. I walked around to the passenger side and noticed the Obama sticker on the rear bumper. I climbed in and buckled up then waited for about twenty minutes while Casey adjusted the seat.

“Am I being too fickle?” she asked and then moved the seat back again, maybe a quarter-of-an-inch.

“No, no take your time.”

She adjusted the rear view mirror, then the side mirrors maybe a half dozen times. “Okay, I think I’m ready.”

“God, are you sure?”

“Shut up,” she said, but smiled and that seemed to release some more of the pressure. She turned the ignition, then shifted and we jumped ahead into the garage wall.

“The other way might be faster.”

She shot me a look, but didn’t say anything then put the car in reverse and backed out very slowly. She came to a complete stop every two or three feet. We drove around the block and she parked on the street just behind my car.

“There mission accomplished,” she said and turned the car off.

“Good job, Casey. I’m gonna grab some things out of the house then get down to the office.”

“Dev, thanks so much, I didn’t mean to take up your entire morning, I’m really sorry.”

“You didn’t take up the entire morning and I was glad to help. Promise me, if you need anything or have any concerns you’ll call, okay?”

“I hate to be a pain? You’ve got a life.”

“Yeah, and you’re a part of it. You’ll call me, promise?”

“Okay, it would probably serve you right anyway,” she said then leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “You’re a good guy, Dev.”

“Let just keep that our secret,” I said and we got out of the car.

I noticed she sort of drifted toward the front of the car before she crossed the street, probably to check for damage after she’d banged into the garage wall. I couldn’t see any.

I grabbed a couple of things from the den, the guy from seven-thirty this morning was in there walking around on a pair of stilts touching up the ceiling plaster. He nodded a ‘hi’ and kept on working. About the only thing I accomplished for the rest of the day was I met Louie at The Spot around five-thirty. He’d apparently been there for a while.

“Good thing you showed up, man. I don’t have any cash.”

“There’s an ATM between the juke box and that pinball machine,” I reminded him.

“First of all, I’m not paying four and a half bucks to get my money from that ATM and second, well there might be a problem.”

“Don’t tell me your card’s declined, again.”

“Apparently.”

“Why?”

“Beats me, I just planned to keep running up a tab, I figured someone I knew was bound to come in sooner or later. And, if that didn’t work I’d most likely be drunk enough that it wouldn’t matter.”

I couldn’t fault his logic. We had three drinks total, my beer and two more of Louie’s bourbon’s. The news came on and Jimmy turned the station to Dancing with the Stars.

“Jimmy, let me settle up with you, I’m getting Louie’s, too.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Its not like we got a lot of dishes he could wash or something he could do to earn his keep.”

“Louie, why don’t you come home with me? I got beer and I think there’s cold pizza in the fridge.”

“How long has the pizza been there?” Louie asked.

“Would it make a difference?”

“Now that you mention it, not really.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I sipped another beer
as I half-watched the news with my feet up on the coffee table. The .38 was within easy reach on an end table. Louie was snoring in the chair next to me. I was scrolling through text messages and not really paying attention to what was on when they gave a quick report about a car fire.

To be correct it was a story about a car being set ablaze earlier that morning. They showed the burnt out hulk of the car and the fire crew that was on the scene extinguishing the thing. It had been burning in a seldom used parking area down along the river. It would be a pretty safe guess the car was most likely stolen and although the front end looked to have been involved in a fairly serious accident even as a burned out hulk, the body bore an awfully close resemblance to Fat Freddy’s ‘black beauty’ Camaro.

I phoned Aaron’s office number and left a message. Then I sent a text message to Casey telling her to call me when she got the text. Aaron returned my call around noon the following day.

“Haskell In…”

“You called?”

“Yeah, about sixteen hours ago.”

“My deepest apologies, I’m so sorry, but I might just have one or two other things hanging fire down here that take precedence. What the hell did you want?”

“Did you see last night’s news?”

“Dev, we all appreciate hearing from concerned citizens such as yourself, but unless someone shot one of the newscasters on the air and no one has reported it yet, what’s your point?”

“There was a report about a car set on fire down along the Lilydale road. I’m guessing it was stolen and….”

“And has an identification number that matches the 2014 Z-18 Camaro owned by Mr. Frederick Zimmerman. The license plates had been removed, to answer your next question and no, a quick search of the immediate area did not turn them up.”

“Did you search the river around there? You know in the water, some idiot could have just tossed them in there.”

“Right now we’re dealing with a stolen car that was torched. I’m not calling divers out to search the river bottom for a quarter of a mile in all directions to confirm what we already know.”

“I was just thinking.”

“Don’t, please don’t. You are forbidden to think, which shouldn’t be too hard for you. You are also forbidden to call me from here on in unless you, yourself have been murdered, in which case you wouldn’t be able to call anyway. Then that would allow me to get back to doing what they pay me to do. Goodbye,” he said and hung up.

I decided to spread more cheer and drove over to Regions Hospital. I didn’t bother to check at the information desk, I just went up to the third floor then navigated the jungle path back to Fat Freddy’s room. He was staring out the window when I walked in.

“Hey, Freddy, how’s it going?”

“How do you think?” he said. “You ever have to spend some time in this joint? God, I’d rather do a month in the workhouse.”

I nodded like I understood.

“By the way, great job on my flowers, look at them.”

The flowers I’d set on the windowsill yesterday were pretty much just a half dozen stems in brackish water. There was a pile of petals mounded around the base of the cheap glass vase.

“Didn’t exactly get my money’s worth, did I?”

“You got screwed is what you got,” he said and that thought seemed to cheer him up a little.

“I talked to one of my cop pals this morning.”

“Please tell me they shot Bulldog while he tried to escape.”

“No such luck. Actually, there was a car that got torched early yesterday morning down along the river. I caught it on the news last night.”

“Oh shit, you’re kidding me, don’t fucking tell me.”

“Yeah, it was your black beauty.”

“Did you hear what I just said? I said ‘don’t fucking tell me,’ dumb shit.”

“You were gonna find out sooner or later, I thought you should know.”

“They’re sure it’s mine?”

“Yeah, they got the vehicle number, I’m afraid it checks out.”

“They gonna arrest Bulldog?” he asked.

“No, they really can’t, Freddy. There’s really no way to even prove he was involved.”

“What about fingerprints?”

“The thing was torched and even if they could prove he was somehow in contact with the vehicle it could have been from when he was with you. Didn’t you tell me you drove him around once so he could pick up the cash from those little stores?”

“I drove his fat ass around a lot more than once. God, I can’t believe they did that, torched my damn car,” he said then tears begin to well up in his eyes. He blinked them back and cleared his throat a couple of times.

“Sorry to be the one to tell you, Freddy, but I thought you should know.”

He returned to staring out the window.

After a long moment I said, “Hey, I guess I’ll be taking off, leave you to your thoughts. I’ll see you ‘round, Freddy.” I turned and headed out the door.

“Haskell,” Freddy yelled just as I was about to step into the hallway.

“Yeah, Freddy.”

“I’m going to get those guys just as soon as I get out of here,” he said.

“You let me know if there’s anything I can do for you, Freddy.”

He gave me an almost imperceptible nod then went back to staring out the window at the freeway traffic.

Chapter Thirty

Casey called me back
just as I was getting lunch. “Hang on for a second, Casey,” I said, then placed my order. “I’ll have two McChickens.”

“Would you like anything to drink?”

“No thanks.”

“Did you want fries with that?”

“No.”

“Your total is two dollars and fourteen cents please pull around to the first window to pay.”

“You still there, Casey?”

“Hey sorry, I see you’re back on that health food kick. I just saw your text message a minute ago. What’s up?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at the house picking out room colors.”

“You gonna be there for a bit?”

“Yeah, I guess. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, no problems on this end, Casey. Just wanted to check in. I finished early and I’m heading up to your place. I’ll be at the house in the next half hour if you’re gonna still be there.”

“I’ll be looking for you,” she said and hung up.

On the drive over to Casey’s house I was practicing different ways to tell her that I thought the same guy who killed Dermot, namely Bulldog, was trying to kill her. I wasn’t coming up with a nice way to say it. On the way I stopped at Solo Vino and picked up a bottle of sparkling white wine thinking that couldn’t hurt. I arrived at Casey’s a lot sooner than I wanted.

She was talking to two guys in the front parlor while she held color swatches up against the wall. They were nodding in agreement to whatever she’d just said. She turned and gave me a smile as I came in the front door then said, “Give us a couple of minutes, Dev. I’ll see you in the kitchen.”

That was just fine with me. I walked back to the kitchen, set out two wine glasses, opened the bottle, filled the glasses and tried to practice my lines, it still wasn’t working. I heard the front door close and a moment later I heard Casey’s footsteps coming through the dining room.

“Oh, Dev, what a surprise, isn’t that sweet. You are just so nice. What’s the occasion?”

“I think someone’s trying to kill you,” I blurted out.

She stood there in shock for a long moment just staring at me.

“What?”

“I’ve been doing some checking, I don’t think it was an accident the other night, that guy that broadsided you.”

She sort of slumped onto a kitchen stool and just stared at her wine glass with a numb look on her face.

“Let me explain,” I said.

She looked at me, but I wasn’t sure she actually saw me, she seemed in shock.

“Casey?”

“Dev, if you’re trying to be funny that is the most awful thing anyone has ever done to me in my entire life.”

“Believe me, I’m not finding anything funny about this.”

She closed her eyes and slowly shook her head from side to side.

“You started me thinking when I drove you to your brother’s after the accident. You said something about a black car.”