Thomas O`Callaghan - The Screaming Room

“HankySpankyOne and LazyOldFreak.”

“Original,” said the Lieutenant.

“Moving on to Francis Palmer. He was a big fan of freshwater fly fishing, according to the Web sites he frequented. His Favorites List supports that too. He paid his bills through South Texas online banking. He did a fair amount of shopping over the Internet. Had accounts at Amazon, Best Buy, and a number of others that appear innocuous enough. We’ll know more when we get a complete list of his purchases. Mr. Palmer did have a flip side.”

Driscoll leaned his head forward as though his action would raise the volume. Perhaps he’d been wrong about a Web site designer knowing how to cover his ass. Or the guy could have been plain stupid.

“Seems Palmer made room on his Favorites List for other pleasures. He was a big fan of Nero. Not Nero Wolfe, mind you. Nero, as in Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, aka, emperor of Rome. And from the looks of what Palmer tapped into, Nero had a passion for orgies. According to his findings, at Nero’s first-century hothouse, nothing was off-limits. Didn’t matter if you were heterosexual, bi-sexual, or had a hankering for the younger set, which is where the emperor reportedly leaned. Palmer was fixated on a figure from Greek mythology. Priapus, to his friends. A well-hung fertility god. Here’s Priapus talking. Palmer had highlighted it in red. ‘I warn you, my lad, you will be sodomized; you, my girl, I shall futter; for the thief who is bearded, a third punishment remains. If I do seize you, you shall be so stretched that you will think your anus never had any wrinkles.”

“Quite a guy.”

“Palmer?”

“Priapus.”

“You ready for Palmer’s handle?”

“Ready.”

“AwwShucks.”

Margaret said we’d find him in Disney. “AwwShucks as in Winnie the Pooh land?”

“’Fraid I’m not much of a fan of the Pooh Man. That Barney guy neither. On to the USA. I’m sorry to report that Miss Shewster wasn’t much of a computer fan. No collection of hero worship like Palmer. There was an unopened e-mail in her mailbox. It was from her father. He wanted to know if she needed money, how things were going in therapy, and if she was still going to the meetings. Made me wonder if she was in some sort of recovery program.”

“She shoulda been.”

“Not much else. No frequent visits to any particular dotcom. And a very short list of favorites. Three. Victoria’s Secret. Tiffany amp; Company. I’ll let you tell me which site held the third spot.”

“TwoNaughtyFreaks.”

“On the mark as usual, Lieutenant.”

“Make my day. Tell me Abigail Shewster had an exotic Internet handle.”

“Not by my definition of exotic. It was GwennyPenny.”

Driscoll ended the call, checked his watch, and was about to exit the cafe when his beeper sounded. Unpocketing it, he discovered it was Aligante. Retrieving his cell phone, he accessed her from his address book and hit SEND.

In a matter of seconds, she was on the line.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Just around the corner on Tenth.”

“I tried to reach you on your cell. What’s wrong with your call waiting?”

“Damn! I was on the line with Lieutenant White from Tech Support. He had a ton of info for me. I guess I got too engrossed in the call to hear the beep. Why? What’s happening?”

“Plenty.”

Driscoll was seated at a table in the back room of PC Haven. Across from him was an extremely elated Rita Crenshaw who, upon his arrival, had announced she was going be a gazillionaire.

It took the Lieutenant a couple of minutes to get her to focus and stop saying “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” When he finally succeeded, he told her he was aware she had an exciting afternoon and asked her for her patience while he asked her some questions.

“Fire away!” she said.

“Miss Crenshaw, would you mind if I called you Rita? I don’t want this to feel like an interrogation.” The Lieutenant needed her to feel comfortable speaking with the police. God only knew what Shewster led her to believe.

“Sure. You can call me Rita.”

“Thank you, Rita. I’d like to know what brought you and Mr. Shewster together.”

“I spotted the picture of that Angus fella in the newspaper. Three million dollars is a lot of money! I wasn’t sure what to do at first, but considering the guy was wanted for murder, I called the police. After that, I called the eight-hundred number in the paper. Some guy. I never did get his name. Anyway, he seemed very interested and asked me first for my full name and phone number and then asked why I was calling. I described the guy, Angus, who had come in to buy a laptop computer and that I checked him out.”

Her attention was drawn over Driscoll’s shoulder. When the Lieutenant turned, he saw another young lady, in a PC Haven bib, standing outside the room, waving to Rita while yelling, “Way ta go! Way ta go!” Rita responded by shouting “Whoo-hoo!” He was glad the interruption didn’t prompt another round of “Oh, my God!”

His eyes found hers.

“That’s Cindy. She’s my backup.”

“Sounds very happy for you.”

“She’s a sweetie!”

“Seems everyone is nice around here. Please, go on.”

“Okay. Getting back to the guy who took my call. I told him the customer was a dead ringer for the photo on the front page of the Daily News. Except for the color of his hair. Even with the hood the photo looks like someone with light hair. I told him aside from that, he’s the guy! Then I told him he paid seventeen hundred in cash for the notebook. His voice perked up. He sounded even more interested. Anyway, he read back my name and asked if the number I gave him was a work number. I told him it was. He then asked if it would be okay to call me at work if he needed to. I said yes, ’cause my supervisor, Adeline, is okay with that.”

I’ll bet, thought Driscoll.

“Five minutes later she tells me I have a phone call. I says, ‘Nah. Nobody works that fast.’ But guess what?”

“He called you back.”

“Not him, but another man who said he’d been given the message. ‘Is this Rita Crenshaw?’ he asked. I nodded. Go figure! I was excited. He asked again. And I blurted, ‘Yes! Yes!’ He asked me where I worked. I gave him the address. He then asked if I would meet him on the corner of Tenth and Fifty-sixth, in front of the Duane Reade. Said something about not having a permit to drive a stretch limo on West Fifty-seventh. Who knows? But when he said ‘limo,’ I said, ‘Step aside, Britney.’ It wasn’t like he was someone I met on the Internet. It is broad daylight. I figured a guy who could afford to shell out three million wouldn’t be driving a Chevy.”

Driscoll felt offended, but quickly dismissed it.

“I was told he could be here in five minutes. Yikes! I almost asked him if he’d have the money with him. I don’t think I did. At least I hope not. So, before I knew it, I had switched lunch with a coworker and was on my way to meet him.”

“Did you tell your supervisor about it?”

“I think so,” she grew silent and began counting on her fingers.

Driscoll watched. It appeared she was going over some sort of checklist, perhaps about the events that had rapidly taken place. She leaned in, conspiratorially. Driscoll noted she was blushing. “I don’t want to sound disrespectful,” she said. “Adeline’s a sweetheart and I believe I told her I was meeting someone for lunch in front of the drugstore. But, between you and me, if you looked in her right ear, you’d see out her left.”

“The men who you spoke to, what’d they sound like?”

“Whaddya mean?”

“Did they sound young? Old?”