Mike Faricy: Bombshell

“No more like four to six months.”

“Four to sixth months,” I half shouted.

“No one’s called in to say they’re missing a finger. We can do some cross referencing, but it would only be for the greater Denver area. We aren’t hooked into other departments around the state, let alone the rest of the country.”

“Anyone call the Feds?”

“The FBI? On a finger? That’s what we need, a bunch of suits coming in here and screwing up the three thousand plus ongoing investigations so we can see who taped a finger to the door of a bus. Not sure how you guys work up there, but we like to stay as far away as possible from those folks.”

“Any guesses?”

“You mean who taped the damn thing to the door?”

“Yeah?”

“Some jackass, just like the jackass attacked that little girl up there last night. My guess, check him out, he certainly sounded stupid enough.”

“Thanks, we’re doing that,” I said.

“Look, I get a chance I’ll make a call, see if they got any thing, but with the budget cuts and all…”

“Anything you can do would be appreciated.”

Things didn’t seem to go a whole lot better in Chicago. I spoke to a Sergeant Anthony Howe, he had a decided south side Chicago accent.

“St. Paul, hunh, something about that sitting on my desk when I came in this morning. You guys nail that flake been sending fingers to them English broads?”

“We’re working on it, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“You ask me, it’s that piece of shit attacked one of those girls up there last night. Let me question the son-of-a-bitch for about five minutes, I’ll get you answers, the answers ya want. Still got the bastard locked up? Or did he get all lawyered up and he’s out on the street? Probably casing some grade school as we speak. I tell you the court system in…”

“Sergeant Howe, did you process that finger, the one that was sent to the Hastings Hustlers?”

“Yeah, in a manner of speaking.”

“Manner of speaking?”

“I don’t know how things are up there maybe you don’t have a lot of scum bags like we do. With all the bad apples we got down here, some guy mails a finger, folks down here probably just worried he got the right postage on the envelope. You know? What the hell, you guys dealing with an occasional assault with an icicle or something, right?” he laughed at his own joke.

“You said you had the finger processed?”

“The one that got mailed?”

“Yeah, with the correct postage.”

“Hunh? Yeah we sent it in, ain’t come back yet. Like I said, matter of priorities. With the budget cuts and all…”

When I could get a word in edgewise I thanked him for his time. I got the same sort of response in Kansas City, it wasn’t a priority and with budget cuts…

The guy in St. Louis spoke with a lisp, a Detective Sexton. He had the same story as the others, no results, he’d call me when the reports came back, but don’t wait by the phone.

“Look, I’ll give you a call when they come in, but you’re probably looking at months not weeks, budget cuts and all that shit.”

“Yeah, that’s what everyone seems to be fighting.”

“God, it’s getting worse than dealing with the bad guys. So you work with some guy named Manning up there?”

“Yeah,” I said, immediately getting cautious, sensing I was being pushed out onto thin ice.

“That guy as big a jerk as he sounds like on the phone?”

“No, bigger.”

“Figures, some things never change. Look, got a few hundred irons in the fire just a little hotter than this. I run into anything I’ll let you know, okay.”

“Appreciate your time.”

An afternoon wasted.

I was sitting in The Spot when my phone rang. I had stopped in to check for messages and nurse a Leinenkugel before I went home.

“Haskell Investigations.”

I had to step out the side door to hear as I answered my cell, the juke box was blaring Bob Seger singing about Old Time Rock and Roll.

“Detective Dev Haskell?” the voice asked, not sounding too sure.

“That’s me,” trying not to sound too cautious.

“King Quinn, Denver. We spoke earlier. This your office phone?”

“No, my cell, I’m out at a crime scene right now.”

“Crime scene,” he said, not sounding too convinced.

“Did you find anything for me?”

“No, meaning yes. Nothing turned up in a DNA match, either someone’s not in the CODIS data base or, well that’s just it, they’re not in the data base.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning whoever is missing that finger, they most likely aren’t or weren’t a sex offender or convicted of a violent felony in the past umpteen years.”

“Back to square one.”

“Yeah, I can tell you this much, finger was from a Caucasian male. Aged between twenty-five and forty, and one other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“It was frozen, the finger.”

“Frozen?”

“Yeah, not when we recovered it, but it had been frozen.”

“What sense does that make? Why?”

“Maybe this guy has a stash of them, on ice. When he needs one he grabs it out of the freezer and mails it off.”

“Or tapes it to the door of a bus,” I added.

“That too,” he said.

“Of course, that still suggests someone who has access to them, the fingers.”

“Maybe a hospital worker, morgue, undertaker, someone along those lines.”

“Yeah, maybe. Detective, thanks for the effort and the call back. You come across anything else please let me know.”

“Sure thing, Detective.” He said the last word like he wasn’t quite sure but played the party line just in case. “Give my best to all those English girls.”

“I will.”

“And Detective Manning.”

“I will.”

“Just kidding, don’t,” he said and hung up.

Actually, the smart thing to do would be to call Manning in homicide, give him the information I’d just received and let him follow it up. Instead, I called the guy in St. Louis with a lisp, Sexton. He didn’t speak too kindly about Manning and I hoped to maybe use that to my advantage. I left a message.

Next I phoned Jimmy McNaughton, just to touch base. I treaded carefully, he may be in touch with Manning, though I doubted it.

“What can I do for you?” Jimmy asked, he sounded preoccupied.

“Just keeping you up to date. So far none of those fingers match up to anyone in our data bases here.”

“Your contact with the police tell you this?”

“Manning? No, actually he’s got a lot on his plate right now. I went ahead and contacted the other departments, Denver, St. Louis, Chicago and Kansas City. Wanted to see what I could learn from them.”

“And what’d you learn?”

“Just what I said, they can’t get a match to anyone here. I thought if we could find where the fingers came from it would help in finding out who sent them.” I purposely didn’t tell Jimmy about the finger in Denver having been frozen.

“Felicity was released this noon from your Regions Hospital,” Jimmy said.

“Oh, I hope she’s okay.”

“Probably best for both of us not to comment at this stage. I did get a visit from three of the girls.”

“A visit?”

“Seems they wanted to withdraw their statements.”

“The statements about what happened between Emma and me, that bullshit about groping and attacking her. Fantastic, they came to their senses and said nothing like that happened, that it?”

“Not exactly, they said they were too far away and maybe just joined up in the heat of the moment. Thought better of it and as much as they’d like to see you brought to justice, upon further reflection they didn’t see enough to sign a statement.”