Mr. Softee (13 page)

From somewhere
deep in my memory I heard Detective Manning’s voice say, ‘
I can tell you this much, it was big and damn vicious, tore a chunk of meat right out of your buddy’s ass
.’

I made it to the gate, pulled it open
, and slammed it closed behind me just as the front door flew open and Mr. Softee released his dogs. They shot out the door, ears back, barking and growling, full speed to the gate. In little more than a second or two they’d pulled up with their snouts thrust through the wrought iron fence, snarling and yelping at me as I hobbled across the sidewalk to my car.

“Are you okay?” someone asked out there on the periphery of my senses.

I was dazed and just wanted the safety of my Lincoln.

A woman’s voice asked,

“Excuse me sir, you’re bleeding. Did you fall? Are you all right?”

Some guy said,

“Better stay back, Marjorie. I’m calling 911.”

I t
urned to look at them, had the vague sense they were standing still but everything else was spinning.

“Yes
, I’d like to report some sort of burglar-type person. He’s bleeding and seems to be on drugs or something. He’s just…”

The male voice faded away as I climbed into my car and drove off
. There was the sharp chirp of tires from somewhere behind me, rubber on pavement, followed immediately by a very long blast from an angry car horn.

Chapter Thirty

It was the pounding
on my door that eventually woke me.

“Are you all right
, sir?” the officer asked.

I lowered the car window.

“Yeah, just closing my eyes for a moment.” I was parked in my driveway although I couldn’t remember how I got there.

The officer was polite, looked to be about fifteen
, and then asked one of those cop questions that really wasn’t a question.

“Would you mind turning off your vehicle and stepping outside, sir?”

I did as instructed.

“
Do you have any identification?”

I handed him my wallet
. Then, noticed for the first time another officer on the far side of the Lincoln. A second squad car had just pulled up and effectively blocked the driveway. I felt faint and leaned back against the Lincoln.

“
Have you been drinking, sir?”

“No.”

“Would you mind talking your license out of your wallet?”

I took the license out, handed it to him.

“So Mister Haskell,” he said, then proceeded to ask a few more questions that might best be summed up as, “What the hell is going on?”

I submitted to a breathalyzer test in the back of the squad car
and then was carted down to the police station for booking. I was charged with trespassing, attempted burglary and assault.

It was close to t
en that night when I phoned Heidi and asked her to come down and bail me out.

“What did you do this time?” she asked after hearing me explain.

“I just told you, nothing. Look, can you just come and get me out? Please?”

“I’m busy, right now,” she half whispered.

“Oh god, you’re involved in some damn orgy or something, aren’t you?”

“Well, that makes it easy
. I’ll see you in the morning, bye.”

“No, wait, wait, Heidi, Heidi, don’t…” but she’d already hung up her phone.

“That didn’t seem to go your way,” the desk sergeant chuckled. “Not to worry, you can call her again in the morning. Come on, time for sweet dreams,” he said as he led me back to my cell.

Heidi ba
iled me out about eleven the following morning. We were in her car before she said anything other than hello. I had the sense she wasn’t in the best of moods.

“What the hell did you do?” she said looking at my forehead
then cranked the key in her ignition.

I opened my mouth to speak.

“No, don’t say a word. You’re just damn lucky I’m even here. Please spare me whatever tale you have. I don’t want to hear it. By the way, you look like shit. You look like you got run over by a truck and what’s with Mount Everest there on your forehead? Oh and while we’re on the subject, a shower wouldn’t do you any harm, man,” she said, then lowered her window and drove off.

Despite the lecture, s
he was a good friend and unfortunately this was not the first time she’d bailed me out.

“All I’m going to say is
that what has been done to me is one great, big, giant mistake. That’s all.”

She glar
ed over at me then said,

“Done to you
. Who do you think you’re kidding? Hey butthead, Jesus, I just posted bail for you because one of your clients filed assault charges against you, Mister Softee. Seems now your pissing off the elite in town.”

“I told you it
’s not my fault.”

“No, you are forbidden to say one damn word.”

She was a redhead this week, auburn actually. It looked kind of nice and was decidedly better than some of the things she had done in the past with her hair. She’d gone through a sort of punk-rocker red, blue, pink phase that was really tough to take on an over-thirty-five, fairly wealthy, financial trader.

“I can’t believe they’
re jacking me around like this over a couple of bucks.”

“I thought yo
u weren’t going to say anything,” she snapped.

“Okay, okay, I’m t
hrough, I promise. So did you have a nice night?” I asked, then turned to stare out the car window.

She ignored my question for a block or two
before she launched into her next lecture.

“This is g
etting old. I’m sick and tired of always being your first call for help every time you screw up.”

We
’d just passed the Xcel center, heading up the hill toward the Cathedral. I felt resigned to my fate.

“Yeah.”

“No, not yeah. What is this three, four times I’ve had to post bail?”

“I already told you t
his isn’t my fault.”

“It never is, is it
? It must be my fault then. It’s my fault for not having anything better to do than take your idiot phone call. First call for help, apparently that’s all I’m good for.”

“Hey, they’re screwing me on my
invoice. They tried to run a young gal off the high bridge. They tied Bernie to the railroad tracks and let a train run over him. They fire-bombed the ice-cream place. And dipshit Softee tried to beat me to death yesterday afternoon before he attempted to feed me to his dogs.”

She looked over at me wide eyed.

“Are you nuts? Did you go to the cops?”

“Where did we just come from?”

“Who’s doing all this?”

“Mister
Softee, he’s…”

“
He’s your client, for god’s sake. Now he’s trying to kill you?”

“Yeah, haven’t you been listening?”

“I don’t want to hear anymore, you are delusional. Get out,” she said, screeching to a stop in front of my place.

My car was still sitting in the driveway
. I looked over at her and asked,

“You w
ant to come in for a drink?”

“Get the hell out of my car!” she screamed. She waited just a fraction of a second after I got out, then sped off as the door slammed.

Chapter Thirty-One

I took some painkillers
I found in the medicine cabinet. Then went to bed. It felt good to sleep in my bed as opposed to on the couch or in a cell. I rolled out of bed at the crack of eleven the following morning. I gulped down four, Tylenol Extra Strength and stared at myself in the mirror.

It looked like a mountain range had erupted across the top
of my forehead where Softee clubbed me with his cane. It was raw, tender to the touch, and throbbed. I had one hell of a headache and not so much as a drop of alcohol consumption to blame for it.

I was drinking coffee while
holding an ice pack gingerly against my head when the phone rang.

“Hello.”

“I see you’ve been a busy boy.” It was Manning, obviously taking some degree of enjoyment from my plight.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, hoping it might be something else.

“Don’t play cute, Haskell. I’ve seen the list of charges your so-called client filed against you. Half the force has already volunteered to bring you in.”

“It’s all a bunch
of bullshit. I didn’t do anything except suggest that my invoice should be paid.”

“So you say,” he laughed.

I thought I might have said too much already. After a long pause Manning said,

“You should fit in real well with all your pals already serving in
Stillwater. I’ll enjoy visiting.”

“Other than harassment, was there a purpose to this call?”

“Not really, except I just wanted to let you know we’re all thinking of you. Bye.”

Bad news travels fast.

I phoned Heidi, groveled my thanks as I left a message. Then sat over another cup of coffee, a fresh ice pack and came to the conclusion I was going after Mr. Softee. If anyone was going to be serving time, it was him. I showered, dressed, and decided to go talk to Jennifer McCauley in the hospital.

It was approaching one in the afternoon
. Another hot, muggy, cloudless day. I’d kill for this weather come winter, but right now snow and minus ten was sounding pretty good.

I tried to pull a baseball cap over my head wound
, but the bump was too large and painful. So I went bareheaded.

My car sat
in the driveway, all closed up and baking in the relentless sun. It was about one hundred and thirty in there when I opened the door. Since my air conditioner was broken I had to wait for a minute or two while the interior cooled down. Eventually I backed out of the driveway, already drowning in sweat. The shocks on the Lincoln creaked as I bounced into the street. There was something slightly unpleasant in the air. It just hung there with the humidity. I guessed the restaurant across the street had some garbage rotting in a dumpster.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Jennifer McCauley was sharing
a hospital room with a little girl I guessed to be about ten. Her name was La Tasha. She was in the far bed next to the window and had a leg in a cast suspended in traction. She wore large red-framed glasses and was hidden behind a thick Harry Potter book. As she read she moved her lips. The room was overflowing with flowers and stuffed animals, all of which seemed to be addressed to Jennifer.

Jennifer looked awfully black and blue
. She sported a number of scrapes and cuts on her arms and face, both eyes were black, her nose had obviously been broken. But she wasn’t hooked up to any monitors. She had one IV in the back of her left hand, a bag of clear solution hung on a wheeled stand next to the bed. She was sitting up in bed, eating a pink yogurt, and watching a soap opera.

“Hi
, Jennifer, how are you doing?” I asked her from the doorway.

“Oh wow, Declan,” she said.

“Devlin, but call me Dev, please. Hey, I was down at Shamrock’s and heard your news. You okay?”

“No
, I’m bored silly. Supposed to get out of here this afternoon. My mom will be down about three. I’m gonna stay at my folks’ for a while, till I get back to normal. Whatever that is,” she joked.

“Probably a good idea,” I agreed.

“You’re not looking so hot,” she inclined her head a fraction of an inch to indicate the throbbing knot on my forehead.

“Yeah, comes with the business,” I said.

“Man, what, arresting some major criminal? Beating up some gangsters?” she asked, deadly serious.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her some half crippled geriatric
blind-sided me and then kicked the shit out of me on his doorstep. So, I borrowed a line from Manning.

“Yeah,
it’s still an ongoing investigation, I can’t really comment.”

“C
ool,” she said, then grinned from ear to ear.

“Tell me about your deal, what happened?”
I asked.

“Oh, my,
god! It was so scary. I finished my shift, had a couple of drinks with Jeff and Tommy. I think Georgie was there, too. Anyway, I drove home, it’s like maybe one-fifteen, one-thirty. I’m not blotto or anything. I’m going over the High Bridge. No cars around. No one coming toward me, no one behind me. I get about halfway across the bridge, I see some headlights in my rearview mirror. And they’re like getting closer, really fast. I’m thinking, oh, my, god, that asshole is really speeding and then the next thing I know he’s coming up right behind me.”