“Be… shut up, you pervert.”
“Just checking, who’s the victim?”
“The room looks great,” she said ignoring my question. “How soon can you be out of here?” She stepped into the room, took off her earrings, placed them on her dresser, then kicked off her sandals. She unbuckled the white belt on her shorts and started to walk out of the room.
“Don’t mind me, I’d be happy to check out that all over tan for you?”
“Interesting offer, but umm, no thanks. I want you out of here so I can get ready,” she called from the kitchen.
I checked my watch, it was twenty minutes before five, I was almost an hour and a half ahead of schedule.
“I’ve got a little time, I could wash your back in the shower for you, if you like?”
“No, I don’t like.” she said coming back into the room, she carried three or four shopping bags. One I recognized, bright pink, Victoria’s Secret. “How soon before you leave?” she asked.
“Hey, I can be lots of fun. Date underwear?” I nodded at the Victoria Secret’s bag.
“You are still on double secret probation with me, so please get out. Come on, Dev, get going, please. I’ve got a really big night planned.”
“Okay, okay, just let me carry this stuff to the basement…”
“Just leave it, I’ll take care of it and straighten up. Thanks, room looks great,” she said, moving her arms as if to shoo me out the bedroom door.
“My loss,” I said, gave her a peck on the check. I looked wistfully at the Victoria’s Secret bag then headed toward the front door.
She followed me, like she was herding sheep, just to make sure I left. “Thanks,” she said as she closed the front door behind me, then snapped the lock while I was still standing on the front porch.
My monitor call came through about eight-forty that evening. I spent the rest of the night running through the cable channels, over a hundred options and not a damn thing that interested me.
Chapter Forty-Eight
I was still wrapped in bed sheets when my phone woke me a little before six-thirty the following morning. This was getting ridiculous. I listened for the monitor message.
“You asshole!” That didn’t really narrow things down much, except it was a woman screaming. That still didn’t narrow things down.
“Hunh?”
“Oh shut up, you knew what would happen.”
“Mom?”
“Shut up. You figured out a way to ruin my night, didn’t you?”
“Heidi, Jesus calm down. What the hell time is it?”
“A lot later than when you’re stupid call came through, fuckwit.”
“What are you screaming about? God can you just tone it down for a minute and tell me what happened?” I was still half asleep.
“What happened? You hid that stupid little phone under my bed, then had one of your fake boob, slutty, stripper girlfriends call, didn’t you?”
“I honestly don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about.”
“Oh really? This isn’t yours? A navy blue and shinny…”
Shit, my pay-as-you-go phone.
“… some drunk slut called and then just sat there breathing not saying a fucking thing.”
“That’s my phone, but I didn’t leave it there on purpose, honest. In fact I’d planned to get rid of the thing.”
“Well, not to worry, I’m gonna smash it. Course it serves you right, by the third time she called I let her have it.”
My mind was spinning so fast with questions I didn’t know which one to ask first.
“She got the message,” Heidi snarled.
I had no doubt.
“What did you, no wait, Heidi, back up and tell me from the start what happened.”
“What do you think happened? The first call came through a little after one, right in the middle, it interrupted us, totally ruined the moment.”
“Sorry.”
“I got things back on track after about twenty minutes then the second call came in. I…”
“Did you say anything?”
“You mean like hello? Like a normal person would? Yes,” she said, she was calming a little, I think.
“Then what?”
“Whoever she was on the other end, the stupid cow still didn’t say a fucking thing, but I could hear her breathing. So I just hung up.”
“How do you know it was a her?”
“What, you going both ways all of a sudden, having guys call you in the middle of the night?”
“No, of course not, but why do you think it was a woman?”
“I just know, Dev, okay. Anyway, now I’ve got to do some heavy duty explaining. Idiot Robbie thinks it might be a boyfriend or something and…”
“Robbie?”
“That’s who I was with.”
“Was he over eighteen?”
“Not funny, and stop interrupting, it’s none of your damn business, anyway. So I’m trying to get him calmed down, explain the phone belonged to you, you’d been working here during the day, the God damn thing rings again and I go ballistic.”
I’ve been on the receiving end of Heidi going ballistic, it’s not a fun place to be.
“I pick up the phone and just let the bitch have it. I screamed, he’s not here bitch, Dev Haskell isn’t here, but before he left I fucked out what little brains he had. Then she hangs up, so there you go, you’ll probably have a lot of explaining to do. I can only hope.”
So much for subtle.
“You okay?” I asked, it was more rhetorical than anything else. If it was Kiki, she’d gotten whatever confirmation she may have wanted. If it was the cops, they probably had my house surrounded.
“Yeah, I guess, sort of.”
“I’m sorry Heidi, I didn’t do it on purpose. You know I hadn’t finished cleaning up, and you whisked me out of there so damn fast. I guess I just left the thing laying around. I didn’t mean to, honest.”
“So who is she?”
I ignored her question, playing for time.
“How did Robbie take it, did he get back in the saddle?”
“Very funny, not. No, as a matter of fact he got dressed and got back in his car.”
Probably had an eight o’clock class wherever he went to high school, but I kept that thought to myself.
“Oh, I’m really sorry, Heidi, really I am.” Served her right I thought, what a bitchy thing to do, still…
“Ahhh, he wasn’t that great.”
“Make it up to you?” I asked.
“Not today, I’m still really pissed off at you. You mean it though you really didn’t leave it under my bed on purpose?”
“No, believe me, it’s a long story. I was planning to get rid of the thing, and just completely forgot about it when you shoved me out the door.”
“Well there you go, that leaves two of us unsatisfied. Hey, I gotta run, client meeting later this morning.”
“Wait, can I get that phone back from you?”
“I’ll leave the damn thing inside my back door. But I’m warning you, if it’s there by the time I get back home, I’m trashing it, got it?”
“Yeah, got it.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
I picked up the phone at Heidi’s back door a little after nine. I’d just gotten back into my car when the monitor call came through. I responded, then drove to the office. The same three coeds were waiting for the bus, they looked half asleep and no more fun than the last time I saw them. It was too late in the morning to leer at the girls going to work.
I scrolled through the incoming calls on the pay-as-you-go phone. All four were identified as caller unknown. I had to get rid of this thing, permanently. It took me about five minutes before I figured out how to open the damn thing up. I took out the battery, then removed the SIM card and cut it in half with a pair of pliers. I kept the two sections of the phone separate.
I drove across the High Bridge, tossed half the phone into the Mississippi river from the city side of the bridge, tossed the other half into the water on the far side. I dropped the battery into a trash can up by the St. Paul Cathedral. Then tossed half the SIM card down a sewer on Selby Avenue, the other half I flushed down the men’s room toilet in Milton Mall. Then I drove back to my office and stared out the window for the rest of the day.