Mike Faricy - Bombshell

“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.

“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.

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“Jesus Christ you told them, didn’t you. You said I was under surveillance so they figured it was all over, they were safe. Right?”

“I didn’t tell them.”

“No? Well someone did and they figured they didn’t have to worry because the prime suspect, namely me, was essentially under lockdown at home. Right?”

Manning didn’t say anything, but his ears looked red and the top of his head was quickly growing a hotter pink.

“How do you know I didn’t sneak out a back window?”

Manning glanced down at the open file in front of him.

“Let’s see you made a phone call a little after nine. You were online from about nine-thirty until one-fifteen in the morning. A number of different porn and escort sites. What? Did the word finally get out about you and now you have to pay for it?” he laughed at his little joke.

“You’re paying for it, too, Manning, you just don’t know it yet.”

“Drunken Mommies, Girls Gone Wild, Back Page, Date Night…”

“Okay, okay, I was just looking, which isn’t a crime, at least as far as I know.”

“Much as I’d like to tie you into this, unless you flew up your chimney, over to that hotel on a broomstick and then back, it doesn’t work for me.”

“How was she killed?”

“Throat slit.”

“That’s up close and personal, someone she knew, maybe.”

“Gee thanks, Sherlock.”

“Signs of a struggle?”

“How ‘bout we handle the investigation end of things for right now. I need your help in that area, you’ll be the first to know. Okay?”

“So what do you want from me?”

The color seemed to drain from Manning’s face. He actually looked pained, swallowed, and in almost a whisper he said, “I could probably use your help, maybe.”

A lesser man would have said no. Would have made him crawl, or stood up and walked out. I sat there staring into the paper cup at the baby-shit-brown Latte, too shocked, too stunned to do anything. After a long moment I looked up.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Look, you don’t want to help and give this jerk a chance to slip away, there’s nothing I can do about that. Not that I’m surprised. I thought you might want to help us out with something that can quickly turn into an ugly international incident here, but if…”