Last Shot (Dev Haskell - Private Investigator, Book 6) (5 page)

“Help me out here,”
Louie said, then took another sip of Jameson and threw his dart. He missed the board by a good foot. The dart lodged in the oak trim around the office window with a loud crack.

The late afternoon heat in the offic
e had left the two of us drowsy. Or was that from the Jameson? It didn’t really matter. Louie had opened the window a half hour ago, but I thought it only served to increase the room temperature and add a heavy dose of bus exhaust to the immediate atmosphere.

“I think you should stop trying to multitask and eit
her drink whiskey or throw darts. Together it just doesn’t seem like it’s the best combination,” I said, then pulled Louie’s dart out of the woodwork.

He nodded in agreement and
dropped the remaining three darts onto his picnic table, then refilled his glass from the Jameson bottle. He took a sip, settled back into his office chair, put his feet up on the picnic table and proceeded to pontificate.

“
Now, help me out here. This Karla woman writes you a check for five grand, and suggests there’s more where that came from, should you need it. So, tell me exactly…why this isn’t a good thing?”

“It’s not the money.”

“Problem number one,” Louie said and sipped.

“The
investigation Desi wanted me to do may have nothing to do with Desi’s murder.”

“You
really believe that?” Louie said and sipped again.

“Maybe. What I do know is that if what Desi told me is true, and I stress the word
if
, then this Gaston Driscoll guy is far too clever to march over to her apartment and shoot her twice.”

“But what if he was behind it? What if he felt she was going to find something out and
he just sent someone, paid someone to make the hit?”

“Yeah,
but where do you find a good hit man when you need him?”

“I don’t thi
nk it’s that far fetched, buddy.” Louie drained his glass and looked longingly to the Jameson bottle resting on the far end of the picnic table.

“Make you another?” I asked.

“No, you don’t have to,” he said, pushing the empty glass in my direction and getting a little more comfortable in his chair. “It just strikes me as a major coincidence that this woman meets with you, tells you her tale, tells you she has a feeling and she’s found dead a couple of days later.”

“The problem with all that is I didn’t t
alk to anyone about our meeting. Well, except for Karla, but that was this morning, three days after the fact. Karla didn’t even know I’d met with Desi, so she didn’t tell anyone. That just leaves Desi. I can’t believe she went around town boasting I didn’t take her case.”

“Possibly,” Louie said
, then gave me the nod as I handed him another drink. “Thanks.”

“
Possibly? Now you’re on even thinner ice. You think that after Desi met with me over the course of the next couple days she ran around telling people I wasn’t going to take her case? No doubt she talked to every one of the guys she washed cars with and then she mentioned it to all the customers at Nasty’s since they decided they wanted to go to a strip joint and talk to the bartender more than they wanted to watch all the strippers. Come on, man, that can’t be what went down.”

“Not exactly,” Louie said.

“You think? Then according to your theory, one of these losers has a direct link to Gaston Driscoll and calls him. Gaston gives his hit man a ring and sends the guy to Desi’s. She likes the look of this hit man. So she suggests wouldn’t it be a good idea if she got all comfortable on the bed before he blows her brains out? That about it?”

“Are you through?”

“You tell me?” I asked.

“Jesus, and I’
m the one drinking,” Louie said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Look, Dev, what if someone knew she was going to talk to you or maybe just knew she wanted to pursue an investigation? Maybe that was enough to set things in motion and it was merely a coincidence that she spoke with you. I mean, you said she told you she had a feeling. What caused that? Did she get a phone call or maybe a note? Was some idiot following her?”

“I don’t know.”

“And you may never know. I’m just saying it might be interesting to check into it. And, well, as long as you got that five grand sitting in your back pocket, maybe it could be worth your while, too.”

“I suppose it c
ouldn’t hurt to at least Google the news articles. See what happened seven years ago.”

“While you
’re Googling maybe you could make me a refill,” Louie said and drained his glass.

Chapter Nine

I had a legal
pad next to my laptop and was making notes as I read a number of articles. I began with the discovery of the robbery at the Ninth District Federal Reserve Bank over in Minneapolis. That led to articles on the elaborate security measures which led to the architectural firm Touchier and Touchier which led to the death of Little Jimmy Fennell prostrate on the steps of the St. Paul Cathedral. When Little Jimmy died he had nine consecutively numbered one hundred dollar bills stuffed in the athletic sock on his right foot. That in turn, somehow led to Desi and her purported stealing of the security plans.

One of the first things that struck me was that it
seemed amazing there wasn’t the slightest mention of Desi’s purported lover, senior partner Gaston Driscoll. Well accept for his one comment.

“We
at Touchier and Touchier do our very best to vet and run substantial security checks on all our employees. Despite our best efforts, as well as those of the Federal government, it would seem an individual such as Miss Quinn, who apparently lacked basic moral fiber, somehow managed to find a way to sneak through the cracks in the system. Sadly, Miss Quinn’s shortcomings reflect poorly on all of us who constantly strive to do our best. We are cooperating at every level with Federal, State and local authorities to bring this sordid affair to a logical and speedy conclusion.”

Not exactly the sort of ringing endorsement
one would hope to hear from a lover. I had to give old Gaston this much. He was pretty good at denying.

By this time
, Louie was snoring contentedly in his office chair and I called Aaron to see if I could have a look at the Little Jimmy Fennell file.

“Which one?” he said. There was background noise that sounded like a bar or maybe a restaurant.

“The file where he ends up on the steps of the Cathedral for starters, then maybe whatever else you have just to give me some background on the guy.”

“Actually
, it’s a bit sketchy. You’re right, that’s where he was found dead, but that was ruled natural causes. If I recall specifically, he died of a cardiac arrest. It’s entirely possible he just dropped dead there, not that it would really matter all that much anymore. This wouldn’t have anything to do with the Desi Quinn murder, would it?”

“
I just want to make damn sure I’m doing the right thing by not getting involved.”

“Oh, believe me
you’re doing the right thing, Dev. You’ve never been more right in your life. Here, hold on half a second, someone wants to talk to you.”

I heard a voice ask, “
Who is it?”

Then
Aaron said “Dev Haskell. Give him your honest opinion and maybe some additional incentive to stay away from our investigation.”

“Haskell?”

The gum snapping across the phone line identified Detective Manning. I visualized him sitting wherever they were with his bald head gleaming in some sort of bar light, then his face suddenly changing from pink to an explosive crimson when Aaron told him I was on the line. He spoke slowly, but with an edge to his voice, like he was explaining something to a wayward child and on the verge of completely wigging out.

“Haskell
, I want you to listen carefully. I’m going to reserve our worst cell for you down in the holding unit. There might be one or two other serial rapists, probably a deranged butcher in there as well, but you know birds of a feather and all. Course they won’t like the interruption caused by your arrival, but that shouldn’t worry a top investigator such as yourself. You just keep on screwing up our work. After all, that’s what counts, right? Oh, and one other thing, listen to this,” he said and then hung up.

I was tempted to phone back and tell him
we’d been disconnected, but thought better of it. I wasn’t ready to go after Gaston Driscoll, yet. But my interest had been peaked to the point where I wanted to have a look at the case files for both Little Jimmy Fennell and Desi Quinn.

Chapter Ten

Madeline
Siedschlag had worked
in records at the police department for at least as long as I could remember. I thought she’d been hired during the Roosevelt’s New Deal. I was told she was a pretty hot number at one time, but a hundred years of sitting on a chair and working in the lower dungeon of the police department seemed to have a way of changing that.

The records room was actually a s
eries of rooms replete with a musty, damp basement smell that seemed to permeate everything. Concrete walls painted an Igloo white and lowest bid beige carpet, lacking a pad beneath did nothing to enhance the charm of the place. Madeline’s office furniture, such as it was resembled remnants from a time prior to computers or even touch-tone phones. I figured the file room was most likely the final resting place for outdated office equipment before it simply got tossed in a dumpster.

I
had been standing in front of Madeline’s empty desk for close to fifteen minutes, waiting for her to return. I’d had more than enough time to examine the four framed photos of her holding five different cats. The photos sat on a government issue green desk with a grey linoleum top and a bead of chrome trim running round the edge. Her faded purple office chair was pushed in against the desk with a note folded over the top that read, ‘Back in 3 minutes’.

“May I help you?” A
smoker’s voice rasped from behind me.

Madeline lumbered
back behind the counter and set a thermos on her desk. She took me by surprise, first because she’d been behind me and secondly because she didn’t resemble the woman I remembered. She’d put on weight, a lot of weight and there were purplish double bags under both eyes that stood out from her pasty white skin.

The woman I remember
ed as fastidiously unattractive looked to have not brushed her hair in awhile. Maybe she was going for the dreadlocks look. She certainly had the ‘dread’ part down. Her dress was wrinkled and spotted with food stains. She’d become a female version of Louie, only about ten times his age.

“May I help
you?” she asked again, then moved behind the counter to steady herself and stared across at me.

“Hi
, Madeline, I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Dev Haskell.”

“Dev Haskell,” she said
, obviously thinking about it for a long moment.

I caug
ht the tell-tale whiff of alcohol and wondered about the thermos she’d set on her desk. It wasn’t quite eleven in the morning.

“Dev Haskell,
” she repeated before a light suddenly went on. “Oh, well, yes, of course. Dev, how are you?”

“
Fine, Madeline, just fine. You look, well, you don’t seem to have changed one bit,” I lied.

“Oh
, you, stop.” She giggled, then waited for me to tell her more.

“Madeline, I was wondering if I could look a
t a couple of closed case files. They go back…well, almost ten years and I was hoping…”

“Are you with the department now, Dev?”

“Not exactly. See, I’m looking into the…”

“Well
, then unless you have express permission from one of our investigators…”

“Actually, Lieutenant LaZelle in homicide suggested I come down and review
a couple of these files.”

“He didn’t happen to give you a
review card, did he? They’re supposed to fill one out.”

“Gee,
no, he didn’t. But I know he was busy. He was just rushing off to somewhere as a matter of fact. I bet he just forgot, Madeline.”

As she picked up the phone on her desk
and started pushing buttons she said, “Let me just call up there and see. He’s usually so good. He…Oh, Lieutenant, glad I was able to catch you before you dashed out the door. Madeline, down in records. Mr. Haskell is down here and it appears you forgot to sign off on our review card. Department policy.” She chuckled. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to send him back up.”

“I’ll just go,” I half whispered.

Madeline signaled me to wait a moment.

“Oh
, Lieutenant, you don’t have to do that. I’m sure Mr. Haskell wouldn’t mind.” She smiled, nodded at me and held up an index finger. I noticed there was dirt under her nail.

“Oh.” S
he shrugged. “You’re so kind,” she said and then hung up.