“Lo.” Louie sort of groaned into the phone.
“Hi Louie, Dev Haskell, got a moment to talk?”
“Lo.”
“Hello, Louie, can you hear me.”
“No one there, man,” I heard Louie say. His voice faded as he pulled the phone away from his ear. I could hear him mumbling, the background noise of glasses clinking, music, laughter, it all suggested he wasn’t at a church service. Then we were disconnected, meaning Louie hung up. I called back three more times, Louie never answered, his mail box was full so I couldn’t leave a message.
The monitor call came through at about eight-forty-five, interrupting my internet viewing of ‘Double D and Disorderly’.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I’d been sitting in the KRAZ parking lot for twelve minutes, eating a couple of blueberry muffins and sipping half decaf coffee from my travel mug. I couldn’t taste the difference in the coffee. I was bored, you’d think at a few minutes before nine in the morning someone, somewhere, would pull into the parking lot for work. As far as I could tell, I was the lone source of activity.
My cell phone rang, as usual I glanced at the numbers, but couldn’t read them.
“Haskell Investigations,” I prayed it wasn’t the monitoring folks picking up on the fact I was outside KRAZ.
“Dev?” a groggy voice rasped, then cleared the throat a couple of times.
“Yeah.”
“Dev?”
“Yeah, Louie, that you?”
“I was working and missed a call from you late last night.”
“You weren’t working, Louie, and it wasn’t late, it was a little after five. You were…”
“That’s late.”
“You were in some bar somewhere, it sounded like you’d been there for quite a while.”
“I was doing some research.”
“Yeah, sure you were.”
“Anyway,” again with the clearing of the throat, I have to admit it actually did make his voice sound better. “I missed your call.”
No point in arguing.
“Yeah, thanks for calling back. Look, I’ve been doing some research myself and investigating on my own and I’ve come up with some things.”
“Please don’t tell me you’re stupid enough to go anywhere near that Kiki Barkwell chick or her brother, I really don’t need to hear that.”
“Give me a break, how stupid do you think I am, relax.”
“Thank God. Okay, investigating what?”
“I was online…” I went on to tell Louie what I’d learned, especially the Vegas stuff, Kiki married to Farrell. The Early Bird Saloon closing then finishing up with the drug sales, the same concoction my toxicology report indicated had been fed to me. As I spoke I watched a sleek, dark blue BMW pull into the lot and glide into a parking place close to the front door.
“Look, I’m driving right now man, can you …”
Farrell climbed out of the driver’s side of the BMW. He had a white gauze bandage around his index finger and right hand. I could only hope he’d slammed the thing in his fancy car door. A half second later Kiki climbed out the passenger side, looking fabulous and taking a bite out of an apple. He waited for her, gave her an extremely unbrotherly across her rear. She smiled, tossed her shiny brunette hair, then glanced over in my direction, I couldn’t tell if she recognized the DeVille or noticed me. If she did, she didn’t seem to react or say anything to Farrell. Twenty seconds later they’d disappeared inside the building.
“Dev, you there?”
“Sorry about that, must have hit a dead spot, you know, no phone service.”
“Okay, look, I’m driving too, can you call me in about fifteen minutes, let’s go over this shit when I can pay attention, take some notes. Jesus, lady, signal or get off the God damn road. Oh, sorry ‘bout that. Give me a call in fifteen, okay.”
“Yeah, I’ll call you.”
I waited until we disconnected before I started the car, sat for a minute, took down the license number on Farrell’s BMW, then drove to my office. I phoned Louie’s cell, phoned again after twenty and then twenty-five minutes. I phoned his office number at the half hour mark and left a message. Louie returned my call about an hour later.
“Yeah Dev, man its crazy here, took forever just to find some aspirin. Got a pounding headache, God I hope I’m not coming down with the flu or something,” he said, slurping what I hoped was coffee.
At the moment I was gazing out the window at what I guessed were three co-eds waiting for a bus across the street. One of them wore tight shorts and a gray t-shirt with purple letters, UST, University of St. Thomas, stretched across the front. She had on purple flip-flops to complete her ensemble. They all looked like they’d be a lot of work.
“Tell me again what you’ve got. I’m probably gonna interrupt, I’m taking notes,” Louie cleared his throat.
“Okay, I started doing a search, online,” I bragged, “starting with Thompson Barkwell’s marriage.” I went on from there, told him about the Vegas information, the Early Bird Saloon, Loopy Hinz, Kiki’s marriage to Farrell. We went back over things, every time Louie asked a question and he asked quite a few, it brought up new questions. After a good half hour we were more or less finished.
“I’m thinking I should get in touch with Detective Manning, let him know this stuff,” I said.
“You didn’t contact him, did you?”
“Not yet, that was gonna be my next call.”
“Bad idea, Dev, very bad idea.”
“You kidding, this stuff puts a whole new spin on things.”
“If Manning had his way you’d be in the electric chair by now.”
“But this stuff could really…”
“You get where I’m coming from? The guy is not your biggest fan. Past history I’m guessing.”
“Maybe a little,” I saw no point in going into any detail.
“Look, let me get this to Manning. I want to have someone from our office verify this information and…”
“How long will that take?”
“It shouldn’t be that long. I know you’re hot to get this over with, Dev, but let’s do this properly, then we can walk away, free and clear of all charges. Someone has a burr up their ass to get you, so let’s just get everything nailed down, okay.”
“Yeah, okay, it’s just that…”
“Just that nothing, this is why you pay me, so listen up. Continue investigating, online. Stay away from Farrell Early and his sister, or wife or ex-wife, Kiki, whatever in the hell she is, just stay away from her. Your job, and I know it’s tough, but your job is to look like a model citizen right now. Try and fool everyone into thinking you’re a decent guy. Got it?”
“I’m not sure I can pull that off.”
“Humor me.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
As much as I hated to admit it, I couldn’t argue with Louie. It made sense that his office, rather than me, should turn over verifiable information to the police as part of the ongoing investigation. My particular problem was I wanted everything cleared up yesterday, I didn’t want to wait another minute.
I phoned Louie’s cell toward the end of the day just to check on his progress. I was staring absently out the window as a bus pulled up and a stream of tired looking women poured out after another work day. I got disconnected while listening to the recording that said his mailbox was full. I phoned his office, he was out so I left a message. The receptionist assured me “Mister Laufen will return your call just as soon as he’s able.”
‘As soon as he’s able’ covered a multitude of sins where Louie was concerned.
Later that night, I was at my dining room table, finishing up the last microwaved burrito. I’d been deeply involved in more online investigation, reviewing twenty years of “Girls Gone Wild at Mardi Gras”. I still had twelve years to cover when my cell phone rang.