Ting-A-Ling (13 page)

Renee Paris. I didn’t know how, but he was mixed up in this somehow. He had to be. I returned to the online photo album of Danielle sipping champagne with all the right sorts of people at various charity events. I’d just focused on the lovely Danielle when I’d first looked at the images. Now I studied the faces around her.

It didn’t take too long. Short, balding, and with just a hint of the rodent on his face, Renee Paris was at the Friends of the Public Library fundraiser. There he was again, standing awfully close behind her and just off to the right at a toney get-together at the Town and Country Club. He was rubbing shoulders with the public radio crowd. Coincidence? Maybe, but a slim one at best. He was a good twenty years older than Danielle and the image of the two of them together looked more like a father-daughter dance photo.

Louie’s voice pulled me back to reality.

“Hey, what was that sour faced woman’s name yesterday?”

“The lawyer? With Manning? Sinn. Remember, she spelled it, S-I-N-N and then she missed the perfect opportunity for a joke.”

“I don’t think she was the joking type,” Louie said, then clicked his keyboard and waited a few moments.

“Yeah, I thought so. Come over here and check this out. She isn’t a lawyer.”

An official looking web page was displayed on Louie’s screen. It listed Police Department consultants in alphabetical order. The name Sinn, Theobelle ran across the top of Louie’s screen next to her less than flattering image. The bio listed her as a department psychologist and profiler.

“What the hell? I thought she was a lawyer. Didn’t Manning refer to her as counsel?” I asked.

“Not quite, he referred to her as a consultant. I was so focused on you not saying something stupid his comment just breezed past me.”

“That maybe explains the notes she was passing.”

“I’m sure she identified you as, well just name it, a pathological liar, a serial killer, a chronic ne’er-do-well, a…”

“I get your point, Louie.”

“This puts a little different spin on that damn Manning letting us come down and make a statement. Now I’m really glad we got out of there before he went any further in the direction of that kitchen sink. All the more important to get in touch with your client, that Danielle chick, now.”

“Speaking of which, look at what I’ve got up on my screen.”

Louie stepped away from his picnic table desk and over to my computer displaying the Ramsey County tax records.

“That’s her address, Danielle’s, and she’s been in arrears on her real estate taxes for the past eighteen months.”

“That’s almost to the point where they’ll start taking some serious action. They could go as far as seizing the property and selling the place off for back taxes. Eighteen months, hell she’s already accrued some pretty hefty fines. The fines might end up being more than the back taxes.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Is she that much of a space cadet? She’s worth millions. She’s got a damn trust fund for Christ’s sake. Why would she ignore this? It’s not like the tax people are ever going to go away.”

“How do you know she’s worth millions?”

“Well, that damn house for starters.”

“Which is inherited, right?”

“Yeah. But she’s got her trust fund?”

“And what do you really know about that? Nothing, except she’s the third or fourth generation descending from some robber baron and that’s just about the time trust funds start running on empty. She, and the generations before her may have just pissed it all away.”

“But she lent that money, fifty grand, to that jerk Renee Paris?”

“So she says. I don’t know, maybe it was more of an investment than she let on. Maybe he promised her some huge sort of return. Wouldn’t be the first time. Ever hear of Bernie Madoff?”

“You mean the ponzi scheme guy?”

“Yeah, he only dealt with the ‘swells’ you know the top one percent of the top one percent. The guy swindled all sorts of rich bastards who should have known better. Greed might have come into play with a lot of them. Maybe it’s the same thing with your lady friend here.”

“Or desperation.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I was thinking of
the online images of Danielle with that schmuck Renee Paris standing in the background. Were they together, a couple? Or was it just an unfortunate coincidence? I wasn’t holding too much stock in the coincidence option.

“I’ve been stuck having to go to a couple of those kind of gigs, most likely they’re together,” Louie had said when I showed him the images.

I pulled up in front of Danielle’s house and phoned her. I let it ring until the answering message kicked in and then hung up. I went through the same routine I’d done before. I climbed out of my car and rang the doorbell. Then I checked the side and rear doors, then the garage. I damn near froze to death again and I still came up with nothing. And, just like before it could be as simple as bad timing with her running out to the grocery store, or not.

I went back to the office and sensed something was wrong the moment I stepped in the door.

“You look like shit,” I said.

Louie had a couple of files spread out in front of him and he was clicking keys on his laptop.

“Just looking up a case here. I got a call a while ago from your close personal friend, Detective Manning.”

“Manning?”

“‘Fraid so. He’d like to see us.”

“Oh, shit. What’s he want?”

“Seems they’ve got a tape.”

“A tape?”

“Security camera footage, from Casey’s, that’s all he told me.”

I remembered seeing the camera above the back door at Casey’s. “About all they’re gonna have is me parking and getting out of my car, maybe leaving fifteen minutes later. Nothing I haven’t already told them about.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I saw the camera, it was above the backdoor. I pulled up, got out of my car, pushed a buzzer at the backdoor and Paris let me in. I left maybe fifteen-minutes later. Pretty boring stuff. I’m a little surprised that camera survived the fire. Everything else seemed to be destroyed.”

“It didn’t have to survive. Those things can be on a digital feed. Whatever they record is probably stored in a cloud or something.”

“That’s just great,” I said. “Okay, let’s just go down there and get it over with. I’m continuing to have a real bad feeling on this whole deal and this does nothing to change that.”

“If we’re gonna go, we should do it now, I’ve got a court appearance scheduled for three this afternoon.”

“I’ll drive,” I said.

Chapter Thirty

“Right, in here will
do just fine, gentlemen,” Manning said. I couldn’t recall Manning ever referring to me as a gentleman and it made me all the more suspicious.

He ushered us into an industrial sort of room with a flat screen TV mounted on the far wall. There was a low grade covering on the floor that looked to be a half step up from indoor-outdoor carpeting. Hard wooden chairs to squirm on uncomfortably were placed around a sort of industrial gray Formica table. The accommodations were nowhere near as nice as the room we were in yesterday, but it was still a step up from the usual hell-hole I found myself in when talking with Manning.

“Have a seat, fellas.” Manning smiled cheerily and I automatically knew I was in deep weeds. The moment we were seated he pressed a couple of buttons on a console and said, “Test one. Test two.” Then he played the thing back to make sure it was recording.

I shot a look at Louie who gave a slight wave of his hand, suggesting I shouldn’t be worried.

I worried anyway.

“Okay, this is Detective Norris Manning and it’s approximately one-thirty-seven…” Manning gave the usual time and place introductions around the room and then smiled.

Louie jumped in immediately. “I’d like to state for the record that Mr. Haskell has volunteered to come down here for a second interview and that we are cooperating fully with your investigation, Detective Manning.” Then he sat back with a look suggesting he was waiting to get blind sided.

“So noted,” Manning said, sounding just a little too happy for my taste.

“Thank you,” Louie said.

“Mr. Haskell, yesterday in our interview…”

“Actually, I’d like to point out that we contacted you and were down here to simply make a statement and participate in any way we could in an effort to further your ongoing investigation.” Louie interrupted.

“Of course,” Manning said and smiled again.

“Yesterday, during your
statement
, Mr. Haskell, you mentioned discussing with Mr. Renee Paris a matter of some funds believed owed to your client.”

Manning paused to look at me and waited until I answered.

“Correct.”

“And, you said that you in fact gave that information to Mr. Paris, ‘delivered the message’ I believe was the term you used. Does that sound correct?”

“Yeah, I’m not really sure on the exact words I may have used, but yes, basically that’s what I said.”

“You described the kitchen stove. Mr. Paris was apparently cooking on a stove. You mentioned he had a number of large containers bubbling. I think you presumed it was his Bar-B-Que sauce. You mentioned a table with spices, onion skins, garlic, empty tomato containers. Fair to say the usual sorts of things one might expect under the circumstances.”

I wasn’t sure where Manning was going, so I nodded as I cautiously answered, “Yes.”

“You didn’t go there to participate in food preparation in any way, did you?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t go there to participate in any sort of clean up, or packaging or delivery of any finished product, did you, Mr. Haskell?”

“No.” Manning had me confused and very wary.

“Of course, like any kitchen operation, you end up making a bit of a mess and I suppose it would have been left to Mr. Paris to clean up, correct? I mean, you certainly didn’t feel a need to clean up, did you, Mr. Haskell? You weren’t there to assist Mr. Paris in that aspect. Correct?”

“Yes, that is correct,” I said and thought
‘oh shit.’

“So, once you delivered your message, once you told Mr. Paris that he owed your client money your job was essentially done. I think that was how you stated it.”

Manning waited. I could feel the room getting warmer, the air getting heavier.

“Mr. Haskell? You just left once you delivered your message, as you put it. Correct?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“If you would please direct your attention to the screen. Is this you, Mr. Haskell, leaving Casey’s after speaking with Mr. Paris?” Manning pointed to the flat screen and dimed the light as a frozen black and white image projected onto the screen. It was the parking lot behind Casey’s. My Lincoln Continental was parked alongside the silver Mercedes, dwarfing the thing.

The image seemed to jump for a half second, the back door to Casey’s swung open, but in a jerky sort of way.

“I believe this is the security camera image of you departing, Mr. Haskell. The image is on a delayed feed, a shot taken every couple seconds. That is you, correct?”

“Yes, that’s me. And I figured that was Paris’ Mercedes. When I got there, pulled in I mean, there was only one set of tire tracks and one set of foot prints in the snow. And the back stoop appeared to have been recently shoveled.”

“The set of foot prints you mentioned, where were they?”

I was helping now, we were working together.

“You can’t make them out from this angle, but they were on the far side of the Mercedes, on the driver’s side. They exited the car and walked to the back door. You can’t see it here, but there was a snow shovel leaning against the wall of the building next to the back door and approximately under the security camera. I figured it was probably Paris who shoveled the snow by the back door.”

Manning nodded. “You didn’t see anyone else around?”

“Nope, no one.”

Manning pushed another button and a new image appeared. The Mercedes slowly pulled into view, cutting a path through a good foot of snow. With the sun’s reflection off the windshield it was impossible to make out a face. Whoever it was, once they stopped they sat there for a while. It looked like they might be talking on a cell phone. Eventually, the person climbed out of the car. The individual was short and wore a heavy jacket. He had a cap with fur lined ear flaps pulled down on his head. I couldn’t be one hundred percent positive, but it looked an awful lot like that rat Paris. He looked back and forth like he was checking the place out before he ventured any further.

“Is that the individual you spoke to?”

“I believe so. It looks like him, except he didn’t have that jacket or the fur cap on when I met him. Like I said yesterday, I never met Renee Paris before, but yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s the guy I spoke with. Is it actually him, Renee Paris?”

“Yes,” Manning said and we all watched as the figure made his jerky, delayed way into the building.