“It’s not for you, stupid, it’s for me.”
“Three bottles?”
“I’d say I’ve earned it, don’t you think? Besides, I’m staying the night.”
Next to making bail, that was about the best thing that happened to me in over a week.
We were at my kitchen counter the next day eating breakfast. It was close to one in the afternoon. I’d walked down the street to Nina’s Coffee shop, gotten a newspaper and four caramel rolls. Heidi was wearing one of my T-shirts and cramming a third caramel roll into her mouth.
“What I don’t get is why?” she said, a giant wedge of caramel roll shoved into the right side of her mouth.
“Why?”
“Yeah,” she licked her fingers, oblivious to how sexy she was just now. Or, maybe she did know.
“I guess to set me up.”
“Okay, but why? I mean it seems like a lot of extra work. You know?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Whoever wanted to kill this Barkley guy, did.”
“Barkwell. Thompson Barkwell.”
“Whatever. But he’s dead, right? So why go to all the trouble of setting you up? See what I mean?”
“No.”
“Look, the guy is dead. If I was this Kiki person, her alibi would have been she was with you, all night. Not that you could remember, but that sounds pretty solid.”
I nodded, slowly.
“If it was someone else, a burglar or business partner or someone, they got away with it. Why call the cops? Seems to me it would be better if they didn’t say a thing, he might not have been missed for a day or two. That makes their chances of pulling the whole thing off even better.”
I nodded again, deep in thought.
“You gonna eat the rest of your caramel roll?” she asked.
“What? No, you go ahead.” I pushed my plate toward her.
“You should have gotten more of these, I’m really hungry and they’re kind of little.”
“Well, if I recall, you worked up quite an appetite.”
“That a complaint?” She asked then returned to licking her fingers. I was pretty sure this time she knew exactly what she was doing.
“Not a complaint, just an observation.”
“Let’s go observe some more in the bedroom,” she smiled. Then got off her stool and slinked out of the kitchen.
I was staring at the bedroom ceiling forty minutes later, deep in thought.
Heidi was curled up against me, with her head on my chest and sound asleep. Snoring.
Her “why call the cops?” question had been bouncing around the interior of my thick skull ever since she rolled over and went to sleep. She was right it just didn’t make any sense. Unless, it was all a ploy to get me.
But, if that was the case, why not just kill me after I’d been drugged? Or save the Roofies and kill me before? Nothing seemed to add up.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I was standing on my front porch, barefoot and feeling very laid back toward the end of the afternoon. I was giving a friendly goodbye wave to Heidi. There had been a light rain for most of the day. The rain made for the perfect sort of afternoon that an accused murderer like me could just lie around and have sex.
Heidi waved, blew me a kiss and slid into her car, some dark blue foreign thing that cost more than I wanted to know. As she drove away from the curb a sheriff’s car pulled into the parking place she’d just left. A uniformed officer climbed out, pulled his hat on as I watched from the porch.
He was dressed in a tan uniform shirt with epaulets, a gold badge on his chest and a beer belly hanging over his belt. He held an envelope in his hand and marched up my front sidewalk with a purpose.
“Mister Devlin Haskell?” he said, sizing me up.
“Yes.”
“This is for you,” he said and slapped the envelope into my outstretched hand.
“Gee, thanks.”
“You have been served, this is a restraining order, sir.”
“Wonderful,” I said.
“The pleasure’s all mine,” he smiled, seemed to be sincere in his remark, then turned, marched back to his car and drove off.
My phone rang as I walked in the house.
“Haskell Investigations.”
“Please tell me you’re home.”
“You called me on my home phone and I answered, where else would I be? Louie?”
“I thought this was your cell phone?”
“Okay it is, but I’m still at home.”
“Good boy. Keeping a low profile?”
“Yeah, I’ve been horizontal most of the day. Just had a visitor.”
“Who?”
“Sherriff. Served me a restraining order.”
“That Kiki woman?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t worry about it. Be a damn good idea to stay away from her anyway. Look, that’s just the prosecutor piling it on. We got bigger fish to fry.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, the good doctor Nguyen is going to stop by on her way home, probably the next thirty minutes or so.”
“She makes house calls?”
“Not usually. But, she has some good news, she can’t get a match based on her analysis of the impressions she took and the photo displaying the bite mark on your pal Kiki’s very nice ass.”
“Is that her technical description?”
Louie ignored my comment.
“Look, just get all the women out of there, the dirty dishes out of the sink, maybe clean yourself up so you look halfway decent. She wants to get another jaw impression or some damn thing from you. Be a gentleman, we are going to need her testimony.”
I loaded the dishwasher, took a four minute shower, vacuumed, stole some flowers from the neighbor’s garden and put them on the dining room table. Then I watched out the window.
She parked in front about two and a half hours later. She walked up the sidewalk carrying a large sort of satchel. I waited until she rang the door bell.
“Oh, Doctor Nguyen.”
“Hello Mister Haskell, did Louie tell you I was coming?”
“He did, and I cleaned especially for you, come on in.”
“Thanks.”
I held the door for her as she stepped inside and caught a hint of that perfume again.
“This should only take a moment.”
“Do you need anything, kitchen, a chair?”
“Actually, kitchen would be fine, you lead the way.”
I did, and settled on the far side of the kitchen counter.
“Can I get you anything, coffee, tea, water?” I would have offered her a glass of wine but sex machine Heidi had consumed every last drop.
“No thanks.”
She set the satchel on the counter, opened it up. Took out a plastic packet and peeled back the corner.
“Interesting,” I lied, trying to sound interested.
“This is an in-vivo porcine model. I’m going to use it…”
She seemed perfectly proportioned in every way. Elegant nails, gorgeous hair, beautiful face and figure. I should have changed the sheets on my bed, imagining her looking up at me while I…
“… just sign this here, indicating you agree and submitted to this of your own free will,” she interrupted my daydream.
“Yes.”
“What do you mean yes? Were you paying attention? I need you to sign this, right there,” she pointed to a form and the pen she’d slid across the counter to me while my mind was elsewhere.
“Yeah, yeah, I knew that,” I said picking up the pen and quickly signing.
“Good, now I need you to bite down on this. Apply some pressure,” She held out a sort of spongy little disk and inserted it into my mouth, then looked at her watch apparently counting seconds.
Being a trained investigator I noticed she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
“Okay, and release,” she said, then took the disk and placed it in a small plastic case.
“What is that stuff,” I asked, smacking my lips, a taste not unlike envelope glue.
“Porcine.” She said closing her satchel.
“Porcine?”
“Pig skin. The model we made from your impression doesn’t compare with the photographic evidence presented. This is just to confirm that it doesn’t compare.”