Mike Faricy - Bombshell

There were, however, three separate incidents back in the UK of property damage to some of the Hustler’s cars while the team practiced at night. One was spray painted, another had a windshield broken and a third had all four tires slit. All this occurred in the two months before they flew over for their fundraising tour.

I drove back to the hotel to soak in the Jacuzzi and gave Manning a call. The Jacuzzi was an octagonal affair that would easily fit a half dozen people. It sat in a mirrored room off the bathroom so no matter which direction I looked I could see myself through the steamed up mirrors. The phone was mounted on the wall behind me and I had the Jacuzzi jets rumbling, causing the bubble bath to form a mountain of suds.

“Who’s calling?” I thought it was the same guy who’d answered the phone earlier in the morning, but I couldn’t be sure. It still sounded like he was doing a number of different things while he answered my call.

“Dev Haskell.” I expected to get a sense of him straightening up when he heard my name.

“Let me see if I can find him,” he said, then dropped the receiver on the desk or maybe the floor. The bang caused me to jump. Things must have been getting back to normal because Manning didn’t pick up for a good five minutes, I almost dosed off.

“Detective Manning.”

“Dev Haskell,” I said, then waited, a very long moment before I followed with,” I was doing some checking, on the computer.”

“And?” Manning said. I had the feeling he may have counted to ten before speaking.

“And, I found at least three incidents of damage to vehicles belonging to members of the Hustlers team back in the UK. Before they came to the states.”

“Okay,” Manning said, then sounded like he was whispering to someone else.

I waited for a further response, but one didn’t seem to be coming.

“Well, I thought it might be of interest. Someone or some group, vandalizing their vehicles before they came over to the US, the first incident was almost two months before they arrived here.

“Yeah, that was the spray paint, right?”

“Yeah, and then the windshield about three weeks… Oh, so you’re aware of all this?”

“Yeah, Sherlock, the last incident, someone slit her tires, all four of them. Maybe about a week before they came over.”

“Her tires?”

“What?”

“You said her tires, all three of these incidents targeted Fiona’s car.”

“Yeah, of course it’s hard to miss a red Mercedes S400, but you didn’t hear that from me. And why aren’t you busy watching soft porn in your penthouse suite or lurking around the hotel lobby annoying female guests instead of wasting my time with yesterdays news? Where the hell are you, anyway?”

“I’m at the hotel.”

“Sounds like you’re riding in the back of a truck, what the hell is that noise?” he asked.

“I think they’re vacuuming out in the hall,” I said, then turned down the Jacuzzi jets. “It would have been nice to know about the vandalism to her car. Three separate incidents? Think it’s the same guy? An S400, that’s kind of pricy, don’t you think?”

“If you have to ask, you can’t afford, things go for about ninety grand and up. But, last time I checked you weren’t a part of this official investigation. Look, Haskell, don’t take this wrong, I’m genuinely sorry about the dumb headed, jackass incident yesterday. Honest, I really am, you didn’t, well in fact, no one deserves that. And, I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of it. Now I appreciate your help. That said, there is still an official, ongoing investigation into the death of Fiona Simmons and unless I’m told differently, you’re not involved.”

“Anything on the DNA results from the fingers?”

“Like I said, you’re not involved, Mister Haskell. Now, I should probably get back to work and see if I can accomplish something today and you can spend more of the city’s money in that luxury suite if there’s nothing else.”

“No, I guess that’s about it, Detective.”

“Good, hey, appreciate your concern, soon as we have something confirmed, we’ll alert the media. You can learn about it that way. Thank you,” he said and hung up.

I had a vision of Manning standing in his cubicle once he hung up, head going scarlet and screaming at everyone within earshot. “From now on, no one is to answer my stupid phone calls.”

He did set me straight on one thing. If it was the same guy in the UK and over here whoever he was, he hadn’t been targeting the Hustlers. He’d been going after Fiona right from the start. And the car, a Mercedes S400? If only I could figure out why he did this I had a better shot at figuring out whom?

Who knew you could order a laptop from room service? Thank God for Manning’s advice to spend the city’s money. I felt like a movie star. I had pushed aside the dishes from my steak dinner and was working my way through an ice bucket crammed with chilled bottles of Summit Extra Pale. It was a little after midnight. The curtains were still pulled back on the windows and outside the moon reflected off the surface of the river, an occasional car’s headlights slowly illuminated the downtown bridges as it worked its way across. The city appeared to be asleep.

I’d been reading online about the Hastings Hustlers beginning with their inception forty three years earlier. Fiona Simmons had been just the latest legend. Their fund raising success seemed to revolve around one major super star, Fiona had been the most recent. Did that suggest a jealous boyfriend or husband? Maybe, although her husband had been in the UK watching their kids the entire time, pretty tough to tape a finger to a bus door in Denver or shove it under the hotel room door in Chicago from that distance.

Did she have a boyfriend? Maybe, but from my brief dealings with her it seemed unlikely. After all, she hadn’t made a pass at me, just kidding.

The team website posted a roster. I made a note to myself to place some phone calls to the girls in the morning. I shut down my new computer, clicked the porn channel on with the remote and promptly fell asleep.

“You see the news this morning?” Louie asked, it was just after ten and a gorgeous sunny day. The river sparkled like someone had sprinkled gold glitter up and down the channel as far as the eye could see. Small boats raced back and forth passing under the downtown bridges, no doubt heading to beaches or favorite fishing holes.

I was wrapped in the hotel’s white terrycloth bath robe, just finishing my order of Eggs Benedict. The phone was wedged between my ear and shoulder as I stuffed the last corner of English muffin, ham and hollandaise sauce into my mouth, then scooped up more hollandaise and licked the fork.

“They’re having that big memorial bout for Fiona Simmons tonight, at the Veteran’s Auditorium,” he said.

“Really? I better get off the phone, I’m sure they’re trying to call me right now to help with their security concerns.”

“Yeah, well don’t hold your breath. Besides, as far as they know, you’re under lock and key in the darkest, blackest hole in jail.”

“Oh yeah, that.”

“You are staying put, right? Please tell me you’re not going out and doing anything crazy?”

“Me? No I’m staying here, I got a massage scheduled for one, probably a nap after that, room service, that’s as wild as I plan to get.”

“Nice work if you can get it.”

“Yeah, well I don’t recommend the route I took to get here.”

“Oh this doesn’t even begin to count on what we’re going to get. I went ahead and subpoenaed the news footage. That old broad, holding the bag of dog shit will play beautifully in the defamation suit.”