Mr. Softee (9 page)

She looked at me with a slight smile.

“He’s one of those people who figures that since he doesn’t owe you that much, you’ll only go so far in pursuing it. So if he just sits tight and doesn’t pay, he figures eventually you’ll just throw up your hands and write it off,” she said.

“That would be a mistake
. Look, let’s not ruin the evening talking about creeps. You mentioned you had something you wanted me to look into.”

“Well, yeah, the fire.”

“Okay.”

“See, I got this call from someone across the street
. A house full of college girls, they rent. Anyway they had a party, the thing begins to wind down about four in the morning, one of the girls goes to bed. She looks out the window, and there’s two guys outside of the Giant Scoop.”

“Yeah?” I said waiting for the real information.

“Well, then a little later the fire happened. At first she didn’t think much of it, but when she heard the news report saying arson was suspected, she phoned me.”

“Did she phone the cops?”

“I asked her to, I don’t know if she did or not.”

“I see,” I said
, thinking this is really slim, but I didn’t want to sound discouraging.

“So
, doesn’t that sound like a real clue or something?”

“Yes
, it does,” I said, thinking two guys at four in the morning. What were the odds they just stopped to take a piss.

“So
, now what do I say? Something like, will you take the case?”

“I’ll check it out for you, Jill
. But I can’t promise anything. Do you know this woman’s name?”

She reached into her purse
and handed me a slip of paper.

“Jennifer McCauley, she’s a student at the U
. That’s her address and phone number. I think she’s a waitress, works nights. But I told her someone might call her so she’s sort of expecting it, you know, your call.”

“I’ll check it out,” I said.

“What’s this gonna cost me?”

“How about you just let me check this out and we’ll see w
hat develops. Okay?”

“I don’t want to be a charity case,” she said with that sharp edge back in her voice.

“You’re not. Hey, don’t shoot me for trying to do you a favor. I can be a nice guy, once in a while. Look, let me check into this, see if anything turns up. If it looks like there’s something there, then we can start talking about my modest expenses. Fair?”

“Yeah,
sorry I snapped. That’s fair. As long as you let me buy dinner,” she said.

“No argument, I’ll start with another
Leinenkugel.”

Chapter Twenty

Jennifer McCauley was a
waitress at a place down on West Seventh called Shamrock’s, not far from The Spot. She had dark curly hair, big brown eyes, a nice figure, and a twenty-something sense about her that suggested she was completely unaware of how the world worked.

We sat at the bar and talked
once she finished her shift.

“Oh
, my, god! You really are, like, a private investigator? That is so awesome,” she said reading the business card I had just handed her, then looked up wide eyed.

Just to keep up the professional impression
I’d pulled on a relatively clean polo shirt, a sport coat, and pressed jeans.

“Like
, do you arrest creeps for murder, chase kidnappers, and things like that? You know, like the CSI guys and stuff.” She took a healthy sip of her Captain and Coke then stared.

“Not all the time,” I said.

“Awesome.”

“First of all, Jennifer, thanks for calling Jill Lydell about the guys you saw
in front of her place. Did you ever file a report with the police?”

“A report?”

“Yeah, it’s always a good idea to call them, let them know what you saw.”

“Oh, well, I guess I
sort of forgot to do that, kind of busy here and all, you know.”

“Yeah, I can imagine it gets pretty crazy waitressing from six til
l ten. Tell me what you told Jill.”

“W
ell, it really wasn’t that much, you know, least I didn’t think so at first, but then once I saw the news story about it being arson, I thought I should call her.”

I nodded like I was following.

“So you called her?”

“Yeah
,” she smiled a large smile, nodded enthusiastically, took another big gulp of her Captain and Coke.

“And
what did you tell her?” I prodded.

“Jill?”

“Yes, Jill. What did you tell her, when you called?” I was trying to cover all the bases.

“Just that I saw two g
uys out there in front. I don’t know how long they’d been there. I think I was getting ready for bed.”

“What time was this?” hoping to keep her thought process moving.

“It was probably a little after like four, I think. I can’t really be sure because, well you know, the party that night.”

“So a little after four, you see these guys in f
ront of the Giant Scoop. What were they doing?”

“Actually the
y were watching me. I don’t have air conditioning in my room so the windows are open, you know, and I guess they were watching me get undressed.” She stated it as a casual fact, like it didn’t seem to bother her.

“They were in a car?”

“Yeah. Well actually not in it. The car was parked in front of the Scoop. That’s what we call the place, the Scoop. Anyway it was parked, you know like it was going to drive into one of the parking places in front of the building. Only the doors were closed.”

“S
o they were pulled in front of the garage doors?”

She seemed to think for half a moment,
drained some more from her drink, and then nodded.

“
Yeah, yeah like they were ready to pull the door up and just drive in. Only they didn’t.”

“Can you describe them, what they looked like?”

“Well, they were both sort of big guys, you know. Not fat, exactly. More like muscle guys.”

“Would they be like basket
ball players or bodybuilders?”

“K
inda more the bodybuilder type, not skinny like I think of a basketball player.”

“Were they wearing anything special th
at might make them stand out? Maybe a certain baseball cap or possibly a shirt with something written on it?”

“No, no
, nothing like that, I think just jeans and you know, T-shirts, I think, but it was sort of too dark to really see them. I think one of the guys was bald, I remember that. Oh yeah, and the other one wore glasses, now that I think about it.”

“The guy with glasses, did he have long hair?”

“Oh wow, I’m sorry, I just can’t remember.”

“What sort of vehicle did they have?”

The bartender arrived, automatically stiffening her drink with a healthy pour from the Captain Morgan bottle.

“It was big,
some kind of like SUV. I think it was sort of white, shiny. I sort of can’t really remember, I mean I wasn’t paying that close attention. They were looking at me and I didn’t have anything on so I stared back, then just turned out the light and climbed into bed. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.”

“Okay, so then did you wake up with the explosion?”

“Well, no, not really. I guess I sort of slept through all that.”

“
Then, did you wake up with the fire trucks? You know the sirens, lights, and all the smoke and flames?”

“Yeah,
see, I guess I sort of missed that part, too,” she said looking like she was trying very hard to think.

“So
, when did you learn about the fire?”

“
Oh, when I got to work that evening, here. I mean I leave home out the back door, so I never saw all the junk out in front of the Scoop. You know all the burnt shit piled up. It was on the news, and I was watching, thinking that place sure looks familiar and all. I mean you know, we’d had that party the night before.”

“Actually,
not surprisingly, I do know how that works when you’ve had a party. So two guys, bodybuilder types, one bald, one with glasses and a white SUV. Anything else?”

“Not
hing I can really remember. Oh one thing, the lights were really bright.”

“The lights?”

“Yeah, you know on their car. Those really bright kind of headlights, sort of almost look blue, they were shining against the windows in the garage doors. On the Scoop building, you know, reflecting like.”

I nodded.

“Hey, can I hang onto this card and show my friends? They’ll think it’s really cool.”

“Yeah sure, y
ou bet, here, pass these around,” I said, pulling a half dozen out of my wallet and handing them to her.

“Oh wow, thanks, th
ey are gonna freak.”

We parted
. Jennifer was getting another rum top-up on her Captain and Coke as I left. I fled to the sanity of The Spot. Thinking on the way, two muscle-bound guys, a white SUV. It sounded an awful lot like the charmers I met trying to place a bet at 2:30 in the morning. Had those guys grabbed Bernie Sneen, then fire-bombed the Giant Scoop? Busy night.

Chapter Twenty-One

The next morning I
called Aaron LaZelle, my vice-squad pal. I left a message. He phoned me back before I was through with my second cup of coffee.

“You’re up early,” he said.

I glanced at the clock on my microwave, ten thirty-seven.

“Yeah, well
, you know the early worm gets the bird.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Willard Sneen,” I said.

“You mean Bernie?”

“Yeah, tell that to your homicide pal, Manning.”

“What about him
, Bernie, I mean?”

“Other than being hit by a train, was there anything else unusual?”

“Since you remain a person of interest I would tell you that you are skittering around the edges of privileged information right about now. However, your question suggests that, despite your lackadaisical nature, you have managed to stumble across some tidbit of information that could be of interest to us. At which point, I would advise you to contact Detective Norris Manning, directly. Then you can relay whatever modest fact you might have.”

“So you don’t know anything?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t. In case you haven’t heard we are still in the throes of massive budget cuts due to the great recession. Prostitution and gambling, two things near and dear to my heart, have ‘F’ing skyrocketed, and we have zero resources just now. So, unless your pal Bernie was with a call girl and placing a bet when the freight train took him out, I got other fish to fry. Call Manning.”

“I’m not sure he likes me.”

“Of course he doesn’t. Who can blame him? No one likes you. Look, give him a call, like all of us he’s got a full plate. Any help you can offer would be appreciated.”

“Well
, I wonder if you could just find out if…”

“No
. I don’t have time to screw around with your bullshit. Anything else?”

“Yeah, it’s your turn to buy dinner.”

“I’ll get back to you on that one. Bye.”

I phoned Jill
next.

“Hi, Dev
. What’s up?”

“Did you ev
er get a report from your arson-investigator pals?”

“
Yeah, almost immediately, as a matter of fact. I sent it off to the insurance company. I’ve got a copy here in my office.”

“Your office
? I thought everything was destroyed.”

“It was, it’s
my dining room table. I could let you see it if you think it would help, but I don’t want it going too far out of my hands. It’s about all we’ve got right now.”

“Could I swing by later today
?”

“Anytime,
not like I’m busy or anything. I gotta run some errands in a bit. Look, could you make it for dinner?”

“Tha
nks, but I don’t want to impose,” sounding disingenuous.

“I’ll see you at
seven, bring a bottle of wine, white. You’re having chicken tonight.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

I thought about my
conversation with Aaron. I had the feeling there was more to Bernie Sneen’s death than some drunk staggering along the railroad tracks. The little bit of information from Jennifer McCauley was nagging in the back of my mind. Eventually I placed a call to Detective Manning and left a message.

Manning
returned my call maybe forty-five minutes later. I was asleep on the couch when the phone rang.