“Take your time, no rush, I’m on the clock,” she smiled and sipped.
I had another thought about asking her upstairs to help me pick out the right outfit, on second thought decided that might not be the best idea and left to get dressed.
I was back downstairs in under eight minutes. Officer L. Trang was leaning against my kitchen counter, next to her empty coffee cup, smiling. She looked me up and down, if she’d been one of my ex’s I think she might have said something like ‘You’re not going out dressed like that, are you?’ Instead she just leaned against the counter and continued to smile.
“You know the last time a police officer was here I was handcuffed up in my bedroom.”
“Really? Interesting,” she said, sounding not at all surprised. “Ready to go?”
We were outside walking down my front steps. The same large woman from the other day was waddling past with her little white, curly haired dog.
“Humpf,” she sneered then shook her head in disgust and stopped to watch us.
“Same day different shit,” I said, nodding at the bag she carried.
“Mister Haskell,” Officer Trang smiled and stood next to the open rear door of the black and white.
“Shouldn’t he be handcuffed? He’s a menace and a detriment to the entire neighborhood,” Fatty said.
“We did that upstairs, used the hand cuffs,” I said, and winked at her.
“Well, hopefully you’ll loose the key when you lock him up this time.”
“Yes ma-am.” Officer Trang said, then closed the door behind me and walked around to the driver’s side. She was smiling when she got in behind the wheel.
“I’ve already been told I have that affect on women.”
“Menace and detriment?” She said and started the squad car.
We were maybe ten minutes from the police station. Not far in terms of distance, but the start and stop of rush hour on streets in a permanent state of construction did nothing to get you where you wanted to go. We hadn’t said anything since she pulled away from the front of my house.
“What’s the ‘L’ stand for?” I asked.
“The ’L’?”
“Your first name, it’s on your uniform.”
Oh, sorry, it stands of Linh, L–I-N-H,” she spelled it out for me.
“Pretty,” I said.
“It means gentle spirit,” she said.
I waited for her to expound, but nothing else followed. I caught her glancing at me in the rear view mirror a couple of times, probably wracking her brain for ‘Wanted’ posters.
“My instructions are to escort you up to four,” she said, fifteen minutes later. She opened the rear door for me and smiled. We were parked in front of the brick building that served as the police station. We were directly across the street from the dusty, pot holed lot where I’d waited for Louie the other day.
“Do you want to cuff me?” I asked, then held up my writs and smiled.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? No, but I was thinking of using the Taser,” she replied, gave me a quick laugh and headed for the front door.
Manning was in a burgundy and beige cubicle, seated behind his desk. The cubicle looked ten years old, the scuffed wooden desk closer to fifty. He was half hidden behind four stacks of thick manila files. The top of his head was a shinny pink outlined by his close cropped red fringe. When he looked up his blue eyes were like lasers beaming in on me.
“Any problems Officer Trang?” he asked, sounding hopeful, then cracked his ever present gum.
“No, he was an absolute model citizen,” she said.
“Surprising. I’ll call you when we’re finished. Sit down, Haskell.” Manning directed, and indicated a chair for me. The chair was tarnished chrome with olive drab highlights and looked to be army surplus.
I sat down, then stared as officer Trang walked back down the hallway in one of the better fitting uniforms I’d seen. I continued to stare then said to Manning, “I’d tell her anything she wanted to hear.”
“Just a word of caution, she’s Midwest regional champ three years running in her weight class for kickboxing.”
“I’m thinking of the possibilities, maybe just a light spanking,” I said.
“You requested a Latte,” Manning said, ignoring my comment. He reached over the stack of files and handed me a barely lukewarm paper cup, the kind dispensed from a machine. The contents consisted of a sort of creamy coffee colored sludge with a definite blue oil scum drifting across the top.
“What’s this?”
“It passes for a Latte down here, or coffee with extra cream and sugar, depending.”
“Gee thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” Manning said.
“You having anything?”
“You kidding? I wouldn’t touch that stuff,” he seemed surprised I even asked.
“So, you wanted to chat, just the two of us,” I said, setting the Latte or whatever it was on the edge of his desk.
“That’s right.”
“About?”
“Have you had any contact with the Hastings Hustlers since we last chatted?”
“Last chatted? You’ve got to be kidding? You can’t possibly be referring to the hours of interrogation where you grilled me and my attorney in that stuffy, depressing little room the other day?”
“That might be a little harsh.”
“I don’t think so, look, do I have to have him here, my attorney? If I’m going to be charged I want my attorney present.”
“No, I’ll level with you. Much as I’d like to nail you, I don’t think you did anything, at least not in relation to the Hustlers, those fingers or that fire bombing.”
“You’re kidding?” I was genuinely surprised, shocked might be a better word.
“No, believe me, no one is more disappointed than me, but I’m pretty sure you don’t have anything to do with this, other than your usual wrong place at the wrong time which seems to be a pretty standard routine of yours.”
“You’re saying you believe me when I tell you I’m not involved.”
“At least as far as I can determine at this point.”
“Well then, can I have my refrigerator back?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said and wrote something down on a piece of paper.
We sat quietly for a moment, studying the competition across the desk from one another. I finally broke the ice.
“What’s going on here, Manning?”
He seemed to size me up, aggressively cracking gum with his front teeth as he did so.
“Fiona Simmons, Harlotte Davidson, she was murdered last night,” he said, and then stared at me.
Chapter Thirty-One
“I think I should have my attorney present,” I said, and felt the color draining from my face.
“You’re not being charged, you’re not even a suspect. Jesus Christ, we’ve had you under surveillance for the past two days,” he said, then threw his pen on the desk.
“Under surveillance?”
“Once again you haven’t failed to disappoint.”
“Oh gee, sorry. Why would you think I had anything to do with this bullshit? She’s dead? How? What? She’s dead? But she’s so nice, I mean…”
“Her roommate found her earlier this morning.”
“Earlier?”
“A little after one.”
“What was she doing, the roommate, Felicity…”
“Felicity Bard, she was out with a few of the other girls listening to music at some club. Nothing wild or crazy. The Simmons woman was in the hotel after the women left for the club. A number of people saw her. At least four women were with Miss Bard the entire evening.”
“She’s involved, Emma Babe, the Bard woman, she’s involved somehow.”
“And you make your living as an investigator? Did you happen to hear anything I just said?”
“Let me guess, after all that’s gone on they didn’t have security outside the door of the room did they?”
“Apparently not.”
“Apparently? For God’s sake, they got severed fingers being mailed to them across the country, some maniac fire bombed their hotel room. Why in the hell would they possibly pull their security at the… It’s because you had me under surveillance isn’t it.