5 Tutti Frutti (18 page)

“I’m gonna look for your pu
rse while you finish that drink. You just sit here and do what you’re doing.”

“Find that lip stick case.
I really need that,” she pleaded.

I didn’t fi
nd her purse or her damn lipstick case. I stopped looking when she slid off her stool to go around the bar and make herself a new drink.

“Swindle, come on, let’s
get you out of here,” I said.

“Is Tommy okay with that
?”

“Tommy?”

“He doesn’t like me doing anything unless I check with him first.”

That probably explained the shiny Mercedes in the parking lot.
I had about a hundred different lectures and responses on the tip of my tongue, none of which would have been worth the effort.

“Yeah, Tom
my said it was okay, he sent me,” I lied.

“Did you find my lipstick case?”

“I’m thinking you left it in my car, come on.”

That got her moving and she rushed out to the rear parking lot ahead of me. By the time I got out to the parking lot she was frantically pulling on the
locked door of the Mercedes. She’d set the alarm off on the thing but seemed oblivious to the noise.

“I can’t open the fucking door,” she screamed
then took a half step back and attempted to kick the side of the car. She fell over in the process and bounced her head off the pavement. That either calmed her down or left her only semi-conscious. Either way I was able to shepherd her into the front seat of my Fleetwood, buckle her seatbelt, and leave before Tommy D’Angelo or some other thug responded to the car alarm blaring from the Mercedes.

Chapter Thirty-Six

“I only have one
thing to say. Are you fucking crazy! Dev, I love you, but this is not a good idea.”

“Keep your voice down, Louie
, you’ll wake her.” We were arguing in my kitchen, I was standing, Louie was seated on a kitchen stool, and Swindle was asleep out on my front couch.

“
Let me spell it out for you, dumb-shit. You are most likely the main suspect in one and possibly two murder cases. You are hiding the other potential suspect in your fucking house. She is a drunken, drug addled, nut case slut and opportunistic hooker who has filed rape charges against you. At the very least she should probably be up on the psych wing of Regions Hospital occupying a padded cell and wearing a straight jacket. But of course you thought your living room couch made more sense.”

“Louie, some
one beat the shit out of her. You saw what she looks like.”

“Dev, hard lesson here. It’s most likely not the first time. God, this is really going to screw things up with Cazzo and the
D’Angelos if they find out.”

“Cazzo and t
he D’Angelos? Are you kidding me? They’re probably the ones who beat her up.”

“You don’t know that, Dev.”

“Well, someone did it. She’s rarely out of their sight. You heard the way that jack-ass Tommy talked to her at the court house the other day.”

“That was a high stress moment for everyone. Yeah, she’s rarely out of their sight except when she ends up with you for a twenty-four hour period
, or apparently goes off on a bender and sleeps till noon in the back booth of a bar. Come on, she was probably drunk out of her mind, all coked up or both, and she got in a battle with the street curb or a sidewalk,” Louie said.

“I don’t know…”

“That’s about the only sensible thing you’ve said so far. Did you ask her what happened?”

“Yeah, she sort of isn’t sure.”

“Sort of isn’t sure? Damn it, Dev, you better get rid of her. I’m telling you, the cops get wind of this you might as well lock yourself up and throw away the key.”

“Louie, I can’t do that
. She’s, I don’t know, vulnerable.”

“She’s nuts is what she is. Look
, Dev, I’m speaking as a friend and as your attorney, bad idea, very, very bad idea.”

From the kitchen we
could look out through the dining room to the living room window and the couch where Swindle was passed out. Much as I hated to admit it, Louie had a point.

Just then h
is phone rang. He stared at me for a long moment then pulled the cell out of his pocket.

“Oh
, great, God damned perfect timing,” he said, looking at the number.

“What?”

He waved me off with a glare then answered the phone. “Hello. Oh, Detective Manning, how are things going?”

I felt the color drain from my face.

“Yes. Yes. All right, I’ll have to try and locate Mister Haskell. Can I phone you back in say a half hour or forty-five minutes?” Louie shot me another glare.

I mouthed the word Manning. Not so much a comment as it
was an acknowledgement of my lousy luck.

“Thanks
, Detective, be back to you just as soon as I locate my client, Mister Haskell,” he said then hung up.

“Well?”

“I’m trying to think what else can go wrong,” Louie said then stared out into my living room at passed out Swindle. “Manning would like to chat, his words. I don’t know what, but he’s got something I can just feel it.”

“I don’t have anything to hide, Louie.”

“Jesus, Dev, except your new best friend Swindle passed out on your couch, the restraining order murdered Dudley Rockett filed and your love connection with that hit-and-run Gary something’s wife.”

“
Ruggles.”

“
Did I leave anything out, miss anything?”

“Swindle’s car?”

“Shit. I don’t know Dev, we need a break here.”

Louie’
s phone suddenly went off playing the theme from “Jaws” again. That meant Joey Cazzo.

“Christ, not the
break I was hoping for.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

It was late in
the afternoon. Hours since Manning had called Louie. We were sitting in my favorite interrogation room. Manning had been asking a few thousand questions about my whereabouts over the past few days. Louie was seated next to me. Manning sat across from me with crabby, unsmiling Clara Gutnacht sitting statute-like next to him.

I was damned uncomfortable. It was
bad enough being interrogated, “just chatting” as Manning liked to refer to it. But the love taps Candi had delivered with a riding crop last night were still sore as hell, and sitting on a hard plastic chair being cross examined was doing nothing to improve my disposition.

“You stated earlier that you had never been inside Dudley Rockett’s home, is that correct
, Mister Haskell?”

“That is correct.”

“And you continue to maintain you have never been inside Mister Rockett’s home?”

“That is correct.”

“I believe you mentioned you had knocked on his front door once or twice.”

“That’s correct.
”

“A
nd on one of those occasions you placed your business card in the door, correct?”

I nodded.

“I’m sorry, as I mentioned this is all being recorded, would you be kind enough to reply with an audible response.”

“Yes
, that’s correct.”

“Any other contact
at Mister Rockett’s home?”

“I spoke to the young man w
ho started his car and backed it out of the garage.”

“David
Kenney,” Manning added without looking at the file. He took a swig from his Maalox bottle, swallowed, and sort of grimaced.

“Yeah,
that’s the kid. I think I actually spoke to him on the sidewalk in front of the neighbor’s house, but it may have been in front of Rockett’s house. I can’t really be sure. Then one morning I pulled my vehicle in front of Rockett’s driveway in the hopes of preventing him from driving away.”

“And were you successful?”

“Maybe. I sat there for a couple of hours. His car remained in the driveway. At no time did I see him. I finally concluded I was wasting my time and decided to return to my office.”

“What
time would that have been?”

“I believe I returned to my
office sometime after midmorning.”

“So again, just for the record, other than sitting in your vehicle, a red
, nineteen ninety five Fleetwood Cadillac, knocking on his front door, and possibly chatting with David Kenney on the sidewalk you were not in or around Mister Rockett’s house.”

“That is correct.”

“Detective, my client has been very clear on this matter, is there a point here?” Louie finally asked.

“I’m not sure,” Manning said
then directed an open hand toward crabby Clara. She handed him a manila file, which Manning dramatically placed on the table, turned round toward us and opened so both Louie and I could view the contents together. We stared at a grainy eight by ten photo.

“Is this you
, Mister Haskell?”

It was a picture of me peeing against the corner of Rockett’s house.

“Well, yes, I guess I sort of forgot about this, but I can explain.”

“Please do,” Manning s
miled, but his eyes remained icy blue.

“See
, I was sitting in my car a long time and drinking lots of coffee.” I looked over at crabby Clara. “A real lot of coffee,” hoping to play to her sympathetic side. “I probably drank at least five or six cups, large cups. Anyway, I knocked on Rockett’s door to see if I could use his bathroom.”

“Really?
” Manning said, sounding surprised like he genuinely couldn’t believe the sheer stupidity.

“Yeah, and when he didn’t answer I sort of went around the corner to relieve myself. You know how it is,” I said in Clara’s direction. I
’m not sure she did based on her total lack of reaction.

“I’ll admit perhaps not the mo
st proper thing to do, but other than drinking too much coffee and finding himself in an unfortunate situation is there anything else here?” Louie asked.

Manning smiled coldly
and this time crabby Clara had a manila file which she placed in front of him before he could even ask for it.

“A bit of a delicate situation here, but I wonder if you might care to explain these?” Manning asked then once again dramatically turned the manila file around
on the table to face us. He waited a very long moment then slowly opened the file.

Crabby Clara suddenly had a slight gleam in her eye.

“I believe this is you, Mister Haskell. We’d be interested in any comment you may have.”

“Where
in the hell did you get these?” I asked, stunned. The images, there were five, were me alright. I was handcuffed to a headboard with what looked like a strip of duct tape over my mouth while someone holding a riding crop issued punishment. If I was uncomfortable before, I was really beginning to feel the pain now. There was something else. While it was clearly me, the images appeared to have been doctored. The bed wasn’t Candi’s nor was the room, and it was impossible to tell who was on the business end of the riding crop. The images were blurry and grainy like they’d been shot through a cloud of fog.

I wa
s confused to say the least.

Lou
ie slowly pawed through the photos exhaling loudly each time he turned over an eight by ten and viewed the next one.

“
Jesus,” he said, giving me a side glance. “This would seem to indicate nothing other than that this is my client,” Louie stuttered. “These could have been taken anywhere at anytime.”

“True, I grant you to a point, councilor. But they were found on a
pay-as-you-go cell phone in Mister Rockett’s possession at the time of his death. The bed seems to be Mister Rockett’s or at least amazingly similar. We recovered a riding crop as well as a pair of handcuffs in Rockett’s house.”

I was speechless.

“These two photos were found on the same phone,” Manning said as Clara placed another manila file in front of him. He went through his dramatic routine once again, slowly opening the file and revealing two eight by ten images. He was beginning to get on my nerves.

“Would you happen to know this
woman, Mister Haskell?”

“I
’m not sure that I do, she looks vaguely familiar, but…”

“Maybe focus a bit more on the face, Haskell,” Manning growled. He was in his element, enjoying himself.

“The photos were crisp, sharp and looked studio perfect. It seemed obvious to me that the naked blonde with the glassy-eyed stare was completely out of it. She was seated on the edge of a bed holding a riding crop and giving the thumbs up. She had one of those intoxicated stares on her face that suggested she couldn’t remember her own name. The surgical implants and the sunburst tattoo around her navel eliminated any question. Drunk, coked up, or both it was none other than my worst nightmare, Swindle Lawless. Her upper lip looked swollen but there was no hint of the bloody nose or the black eye that would follow.