Chapter Twenty-One
I woke up a little after the noon hour to a pounding head, at least that was my first thought. Turned out most of the pounding was coming from the patrolmen at my front door, two of them. Another two were stationed at my back door, just in case.
“Devlin Haskell?” The cop asked when I opened the front door. I was in a grungy bathrobe and barefoot. There seemed no point in saying Devlin was upstairs and they could just go upstairs and get the man while I ran down the street “Yes, sir, that’s me.”
“Mister Haskell, we have a warrant for your arrest…”
He stood about six foot three, black, maybe two-hundred-and-thirty pounds. The Kevlar vest he wore beneath his blue uniform shirt made him look even more solid, not that he needed it. The name stitched in gold above the flap on his shirt pocket read Tyler, M.
A partner stood off to the side of Officer Tyler, hands resting on his holster belt. His right hand fluttered close to his Taser. He wore a Kevlar vest, too, had almost no neck and biceps that looked to have been blown up to the size of my thighs. He was a white guy with a baby face, I pegged him for about fourteen years old.
I’d been in this position a couple of times before. I knew enough to know I wasn’t going to talk them out of taking me in. It struck me as a wise idea to address both officers as sir.
“You are Devlin Haskell?”
“Yes sir. I’ll go with you, could I take a moment and get dressed.”
They nodded in agreement then followed me inside and upstairs to my bedroom.
“Mister Haskell, if you could just tell us where your clothes are we’ll retrieve them for you,” Tyler said.
I nodded across my bed to the closet and my dresser. I was tempted to tell him to go up into the attic and get the Santa Claus suit I wore to The Spot at Christmas, but thought better of the idea.
“I’ve got jeans right there hanging on the hook. Third drawer down on the dresser is a shirt, top drawer right is socks, top drawer left is boxers.”
Tyler walked around the bed, retrieved the various items and tossed them my way. I caught a half smile when he handed me my boxers. A yellow sign that looked like it came from the Highway Department imprinted just above the fly stated ‘Open at your own Risk.’
“Cute,” Baby Face said, but didn’t smile.
Tyler searched the pockets of my jeans before throwing them across the bed. Baby Face kept a hand close to his Taser. I caught him out of the corner of my eye glancing up at the mirror on my bedroom ceiling. As I buttoned my jeans I said, “It’s been awhile since I had a three way in here,” which got zero reaction from either one.
“In that closet behind you, there’s a shoe rack,” I nodded to the closet door, “If you could just grab a pair of shoes from there, please.”
Tyler opened the closet door and tossed a pair of shoes to me. I thought for just a nanosecond about making a joke along the lines of having a butler, but figured it might be better to take the stairs back down rather than being thrown out the window.
“Could you hand me my wallet and cell phone, there on top of the dresser?”
“You really think you’ll need them?”
“Just in case,” I smiled.
Tyler grunted and tossed them on my bed.
“Okay, all set I guess,” I said, shoving the wallet and phone in my pockets, attempting to sound agreeable.
“Not quite, just one more accessory,” Baby Face said, and pulled his handcuffs off his belt.
“Hey look, guys, that isn’t necessary.”
“Procedure,” Tyler said, sort of putting an end to any further discussion.
Baby Face turned me around and pulled my hands behind my back forcefully, but not overly so.
A minute later we were standing out on my front porch, Tyler, Baby Face and me, my hands cuffed behind my back. Tyler pulled the door closed and locked it with my key. The two patrolmen from the back door were walking down my driveway toward the street. They looked like they lifted weights for a living and being cops was maybe just a side job. I wondered what all these muscled cops meant for the doughnut business in town.
“Problems?” one asked.
“No, the picture of respectability,” Baby Face laughed.
“Sure you got the right guy?”
Selby Avenue, my street, is busy, lots of traffic. It’s the main route for the 21A Selby to Lake Street bus. But today no one driving past seemed to pay attention to me standing there in handcuffs. Apparently my being arrested had become an everyday occurrence.
An older neighbor lady I’d seen many times before slowly walked past with her dog, little, with curly white hair, the dog that is. On the other hand, she was rather large, swathed in a sort of paisley tent affair with hair dyed a shade of red not found in nature. Her rouged checks seemed to flush with even more color as she glared at me.
“Good morning,” I smiled, Tyler and Baby Face were on either side of me, holding my handcuffed arms as we marched down the porch steps.
“Oh, I’m not surprised in the least,” she growled. As she spoke she shook her plastic bag full of dog shit at me then waddled away.
“You always have that effect on women?” Officer Tyler asked. Then he casually took a card out of his pocket and began to read me my Miranda rights. “You have the right to remain silent…”
I couldn’t help but think this total waste of taxpayer money seemed to be an overreaction to the assault charge Emma Bitch had no doubt gone ahead and filed. I thought it best to wait until I was officially charged before I called Louie my lawyer. He’d mention the withdrawal of seventeen witness statements and we’d see where things went from there.
Chapter Twenty-Two
We were seated in interview room number three. A trendy little affair if gray cinderblock walls and damp air conditioning holding just the hint of nervous sweat was your thing.
I had been left sitting in there for close to two hours, the past thirty minutes with Louie Laufen, my lawyer. I was still handcuffed although the cuffs were no longer behind my back.
“Oh, God,” Louie half burped, then screwed the top back onto a plastic blue Malox bottle. “I don’t know what I ate last night.”
“A bottle of Jim Beam from the smell of that burp,” I said. “Louie, can we get back to the matter at hand here, hello,” I said, then raised my handcuffed wrists.
“Yeah, yeah, sure Dev, just sort of not quite a hundred percent today, that’s all.”
“Oh great.”
I had no doubt Manning was probably watching through the two way mirrors on the wall behind Louie. Probably a number of them, all enjoying the little fun-fest they were having at my expense.
“So tell me again,” he said, burping more bourbon fumes. He looked down at the half page of notes he’d scribbled on the yellow legal pad.
“It was the halftime, the girls came into the locker room all pissed off, swearing, then Emma…”
“Real name Felicity Bard, correct?”
“Yeah, correct. Then Emma begins slamming her helmet against one of the lockers, again and again. She seems to be the most pissed off, says something about kicking a redheaded American bitch’s ass.”
“Typical locker room stuff,” Louie said.
“Pretty much, she, Emma that is, just seems the most pissed off, is my point.”
“Then what happens?”
“Jimmy, their security guy, calls me out into the hall, the girls come out maybe ten minutes later, Emma goes nuts on me. I defend myself, they keep her overnight for observation in Regions Hospital. At the request of my contact…”
“This Justine woman?”
“Yeah. She asks me to call Jimmy McNaughton, arrange to meet and try and smooth things over with Emma.”
“Now as far as you know, at this point all the statements regarding the incident in the hallway have been withdrawn?”
“Yeah, well accept for Emma’s. So, I apologize to her, then as I’m leaving she yells she still might file charges, and here I am.”