Dev Haskell Box Set 8-14 (Dev Haskell - Private Investigator) Page 3

  Crickett picked up a glass of white wine from the counter. The glass was maybe half full and had condensation along the outside. “You want some wine?”

  “Thanks, but I better not. Got any coffee?”

  “Yeah, I think there’s some left.” She opened a cabinet and pulled down a coffee mug that matched the two in the sink. “Cream or sugar?” she asked reaching for a pot that held maybe a half cup.

  “Black is just fine.”

  “Would you like something to eat? I guess since it’s almost noon I could call somewhere, maybe get a sandwich delivered or something.”

  “No thanks, coffee will do.”

  We chatted for a few minutes until Oliver’s screech erupted from some sort of monitor plugged into an outlet. Apparently he was waking up from a nap. “Oh, God, I better go get him or he’ll just keep screaming. I’ve got someone coming over to watch him when I go to the morgue. I’m really not looking forward to that,” she said and shot me a glance.

  I nodded. I had been to the morgue once or twice before and I knew from past experience it wasn’t the first place to go for a fun time.

  “Say, Dev,” she said and drained her wine glass. “I was just wondering. Could I impose on you to go with me? Daryl’s dad can be such a jerk and well, I could really use some moral support.”

  “The morgue?”

  She nodded like it was just an offer to accompany her to the grocery store or a walk around the block. Oliver screeched out from the monitor again.

  “God, alright I’m coming,” she said, then jumped up and pushed back through the swinging door mumbling. “Calm down, Jesus I’m coming.” She must have been climbing the stairs because her voice gradually faded, a moment later I heard her footsteps overhead while I sat there thinking ‘the morgue!’

  Chapter Six

  I’d been here before, and just like before, by the time I caught site of the entrance to the small parking lot, I’d already driven past and had to go around the block. Crickett gave me a quick look, rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything.

  As I pulled into the lot she said, “Oh shit, there’s Charlie just getting out of his truck. See it, the red pickup?”

  There were just five parking spaces so he was pretty hard to miss. He’d grabbed the only spot labeled ‘Family Parking’. I pulled into the spot reserved for police vehicles.

  Officially the morgue was called the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office. It’s a nondescript, one-story tan-brick building, dwarfed by the massive Regions Hospital complex next door. Those of us still breathing entered through the front door emblazoned with an ‘Hours 8-4’ sign. The dead were unceremoniously hauled in via the loading dock in back. I wasn’t sure what the hours were back there.

  “If you open up the glove compartment there’s a manila envelope in there. Would you give it to me?”

  Crickett opened the glove compartment and handed the envelope to me. I had printed off a ‘Police Vehicle Official Business’ sign some time back. I pulled it out of the envelope and placed it on my dashboard. “Let’s go.”

  She waited until Charlie entered the building. She dawdled long enough getting out of my car that it had stopped sputtering by the time she closed her door. We walked in the building and came face to face with Charlie in the small lobby. He was dressed in jeans and a denim work shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He wore a black baseball cap with the words ‘Vietnam Veteran’ embroidered across the front.

  “Charlie,” Crickett said and gave a slight nod.

  He nodded back, then glanced at me and muttered, “Figures, I knew it wouldn’t take you too long.”

  “This is Dev Haskell, Charlie. Actually, he’s a private eye, he was going to get all the charges dismissed against Daryl, but well…” her voice trailed off, she gave a shrug and then headed for one of the chairs.

  “Please accept my condolences, Mr. Bergstrom,” I said and held out my hand.

  He shook my hand, nodded and sort of gave a sigh like it had already been a very long day. Under the circumstances I could understand.

  The lobby was painted a nondescript off-white color with gray carpet. Three framed landscape prints hung on the walls. The ink on the prints had faded over time and gave off an overall bluish cast. A couple of well-tended potted plants sat against an exterior wall growing up toward a small skylight.

  An office and file room were just visible behind a thick, tinted glass window that had a round speaking screen set into it. A handwritten note was taped to the glass, ‘Ring bell for service.’ Charlie rang the chrome bell, and then said to a shadowy figure on the other side of the tinted glass, “I’m Daryl Bergstrom’s father.”

  A moment later a woman opened a door labeled ‘Authorized Personnel Only’ and said, “This way.”

  She led us to Family Room 101 where we waited in silence for another five minutes. When the door opened again, the same woman said, “If you’d like to come this way, please.”

  We walked down a short hallway and into a viewing room. The room was small with an industrial gray tile floor. It was devoid of furniture and anything on the walls, but then there really wasn’t a need. We approached a curtained window and stood there for what felt like a year until the curtain was drawn back. Daryl Bergstrom was laid out on the other side of the window, draped in a shroud pulled up to his chin. Just his face was visible. He had been cleaned up and looked peaceful if you could see past the battered face. An attendant in a white lab coat stood off to the side.

  Crickett let off an audible gasp. Charlie gave an agonized sigh then looked at the woman who had escorted us into the room and nodded. She waited a few moments longer then held the door open for us as we got ready to exit the room.

  “If you would come with me, we can get the paper work in order for release,” she said.

  We filed out of the viewing room with Crickett in the lead making tracks toward the lobby. “You’re not gonna need me, are you Charlie?” Crickett said over her shoulder. Her voice seemed to pull him back to the here and now. “I mean you can deal with this, can’t you? I hate paperwork and forms and shit.” She kept moving toward the lobby door then turned and glanced back at the woman with the surprised look on her face. “We’ll barely have time to grab some lunch before I have to get back to the baby.”

  “I’ll handle this,” Charlie replied softly.

  “Come on, Dev, let’s go,” Crickett said and opened the door to the lobby.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Bergstrom,” I said and held out my hand.

  Charlie shook it. He looked like he was still dazed.

  “You gonna be okay?” I asked.

  “Dev?” Crickett called from the lobby.

  Charlie nodded, “Yeah, just want to get this over with. Thanks, like I said, I’ll handle it.”

  “Dev?” Crickett called again.

  Chapter Seven

  “Fine, you don’t want to grab lunch, I guess you can just drop me back at home,” Crickett said making it sound like dropping her at home would be a really bad decision on my part. We were sitting at a stoplight in the middle of downtown. I couldn’t decide if I should lecture her on basic civility, or just kick her out of my car and make her walk the rest of the way. The light changed and the Aztek sputtered across the intersection.

  “Hey, Crickett, I don’t know what’s gone on between you and Charlie Bergstrom, and I don’t need to know. I just think you were a little hard on the guy. Regardless of the history between the two of you, the man had just identified his murdered son. Probably not his best day, and I’m thinking you maybe could have cut him some slack.”

  “Well, maybe he should have thought about that before he decided to act like such a jerk toward me. Stupid Daryl screws up a simple little assignment and the next thing I know Oliver and I are in mortal danger. Drive from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’, how tough could it be? But dumb shit Daryl thinks he’s gonna play the hero, then instead he screws everything up. No real surprise there,” she said, then fumed and crosse
d her arms as she stared out the window.

  “Of course I’m sure Mr. I’m-So-Perfect-Charlie blames me for the whole thing. He said he’s going to file for sole custody, make me move. Seriously? And now I’m supposed to play nice? I don’t think so.”

  “What? Crickett, I’m not sure what you’re talking about and I don’t really need to know. I’m just suggesting that under the circumstances, well it never hurts to be polite and…”

  “Whatever! Polite. I’m the one with the baby here, Dev. I’m the one who got nothing but grief from dumb shit Daryl since the day he rolled off me. Good riddance is all I can say. And if that bastard Charlie wants to take me to court, I don’t care how much money he has, he’s gonna wish he never crossed me. I know people. You want to take Charlie the creep’s side, that’s just fine. See if I care. Jesus, I tell you what, just pull over and let me out.”

  “Crickett, I’ll drive you home. I was just suggesting that maybe…”

  “Pull over, Dev, I want to get out. Now, damn it, pull over,” she said and grabbed for my keys.

  I slapped her hand away. She hit me on the shoulder and reached for my keys again.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “I said let me out, let me out now,” she screamed and started to open the car door.

  I felt like stopping right there in the middle of the street, but I pulled across a lane of traffic and skidded to the curb.

  “Fuck you,” she screamed, then pushed the door open with enough force that it bounced back, and slammed into her ankles, as she was sliding out of the passenger seat. “Ahh-hhh, damn it, you did that on purpose. God I hate you,” she shouted, then hobbled onto the sidewalk.

  I accelerated away from the curb, reached over as I picked up speed and pulled the passenger door closed, then hit the lock button. My heart was thumping, and I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my body. I could see her in the rearview mirror red faced, giving me the finger, and screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs. A couple of the drivers around me seemed to back off so I would get ahead of them. I took a right on the very next side street.

  Three blocks down, I pulled over and began to calm myself. I thought for half-a-second about going back to get her and make sure she was alright. That idea quickly passed. Instead, I decided to drive back to the Medical Examiners, and check on Charlie Bergstrom.

  I pulled into the parking lot and back into the space I’d vacated not fifteen minutes earlier. Charlie’s red pickup truck was still in the ‘Family Parking’ space. I decided to just wait for him outside. He didn’t need me adding any more trauma to an already bad day.

  It was another half-hour before Charlie came out the door. He ignored my car, or more likely he didn’t even know it was me.

  “Charlie, excuse me, Mr. Bergstrom,” I called.

  He turned in my direction with a look on his face that suggested could things possibly get any worse? Then he simply stood his ground as I approached.

  “Mr. Bergstrom, I just wanted to offer my condolences, well and to see if there’s anything I could do for you.”

  “Do for me? I just lost my son, you think you can make that right?”

  I sort of shrugged, and didn’t know what else to say. I mean, he had a pretty good point.

  “Look, I’m sorry. It hasn’t been my best day. Tell me your name again.”

  “Haskell, Dev Haskell. Please, call me Dev.”

  “Okay, look, Dev. I’m really pretty overwhelmed at the moment. This whole affair, it’s just the logical conclusion to a series of really bad choices Daryl has been making.”

  I nodded and pretended like I understood.

  “Seeing her here, your friend, Crickett. She’s just another bad choice in Daryl’s long list of bad choices. Anyway, look, not your problem. Like I said, not my best day.”

  “Mr. Bergstrom…”

  “Please call me Charlie.”

  I nodded, “Okay, Charlie. Can I buy you lunch?”

  “You think that would help?”

  “Could it hurt?”

  Chapter Eight

  It was close to three in the afternoon, we were one of two tables lingering over lunch at Shamrock’s. We were seated at a high table, sitting on stools with no one in earshot. I brought another round of beers back to our table, and slid the pint glass across the table to Charlie. He was sort of absently twirling a French fry through a large puddle of ketchup and a million miles away.

  “Thanks,” he said, but didn’t bother to look up.

  “So you were telling me about Daryl being an honors student,” I said climbing back onto my stool.

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Yeah, of course that was high school. He earned a scholarship to the U. Things seemed to be going pretty well up until his mother died. Car accident, drunk driver. One minute she’s got our lives all organized, the next she’s taken from us, that fast,” he said and snapped his finger. “Middle of Daryl’s sophomore year, his grades just went down the drain. He got involved with the wrong crowd, including what’s her name, your friend, Crickett. She was probably ten years older and a good half-dozen lifetimes in experience.” He looked up at me and held my gaze.

  “I knew her a while back. To tell you the truth I hadn’t seen or heard from her in a long time. Well, that is until she sort of ran into me the other day and asked about getting the charges against Daryl dropped.”

  “And could you, get them dropped?”

  “I don’t know. I never got that far before, well before things ended up the way they did. The little I know, in all honesty, it may have been a set up. Probably was, but they got Daryl on tape climbing into the van, driving it to the parking ramp. That size of a bust, and under the circumstances, it’s pretty hard to think he would have a lot to bargain with other than a name. They wanted him to name someone, make a deal. I have to say all the cards seemed to be in the prosecutor’s hands. Still, I thought the least I could do was to see if he could get a fair shot.”

  He nodded. “The name Ben Gustafson mean anything to you?”

  “Any relation to Tubby?” I half joked.

  “I think he’s his son,” Charlie said, then stared at me like he knew a lot more than he was letting on, and didn’t as much as blink.

  In the cesspool below polite society, there were three givens in St. Paul. Tubby Gustafson had a bad side, no one wanted to be there, and if you were there, it never seemed to work in your favor. Rumor had it, he was involved in everything from women and gambling to drugs. The problem was that’s all it had ever been, just rumor. Tubby Gustafson was not the sort of person who encouraged talking behind his back.

  “And this Ben, Tubby’s kid, he was a friend of Daryl’s?”

  “The two of them flunked out together. I mentioned getting in with the wrong crowd, Ben supplied Daryl with drugs, introduced him to Crickett, and in general was one of the major reasons we are here today.” Charlie spread his hands palms up as if to say, ‘isn’t it obvious?’

  “Ben Gustafson was the one and only bargaining chip Daryl had. I’m pretty sure the cops knew it, probably just wanted Daryl to confirm what they already knew. He tried to play the hero, it didn’t work, and the rest is just, well here we are,” Charlie said then he followed with a healthy swallow from his pint glass. He stared off into space and slowly shook his head.

  “Did Daryl tell you that?”

  He shook his head. “Hell no, those two fools, Daryl and that idiot, Crickett. The first I heard about any of this was the call from the police this morning telling me there had been an incident. An incident, Jesus Christ.”

  “You didn’t happen to stop over there this morning for breakfast or coffee to give her the news, did you?”

  He absently shook his head. “No, I phoned, had to even though it’s my house. She told me a while back never to come over, then made some stupid threat about a restraining order. I decided it was just better for all involved, Daryl, me, the baby, if I kept a low profile. I suppose
I’ll have to crawl through that mine field in the not too distant future, damn it.”

  We sat in silence for a while until I finally asked, “And you know it was Ben Gustafson that asked Daryl to drive the van?”

  Charlie seemed to study me for a long moment then shook his head slightly, as if he reconsidered whatever his original intent had been. “I’m pretty sure he was involved. Tell you the truth, right now I really can’t see much past getting my son buried next to his mother. Beyond that, maybe I’ll try and rescue that little guy, Oliver. Maybe I can get him on a safer path. He doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell the way things stand right now. Look, thank you for lunch. Sorry we met under these circumstances, but if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a pretty full plate just now.” He reached over and made a grab for the bill.

  I got there first. “No, I said I’d get it. I appreciate your time, Charlie. Look, if I can help you out in any way, please give me a call,” I said, and then pulled a business card out of my wallet and handed it to him.

  He took the card, nodded, then pushed his stool back and walked out.

  Chapter Nine

  “God, and I thought things were fucked up before. How in the hell did you get involved?” Aaron LaZelle asked.

  I was sitting across the booth from him in The Spot. He was nursing the same Diet Coke that I’d bought him three beers ago. Aaron is a lieutenant in homicide. A rising star, a force to be reckoned with, a man with a bright future, he was also my childhood pal. Oh well, three out of four ain’t bad.

  “I’m sort of involved through the back door. I was supposed to find evidence that would get all the charges dropped against Daryl Bergstrom.”

  “Sounds like wishful thinking from what I understand,” Aaron said.

  I nodded and followed up with a healthy sip of beer. “Maybe more like ‘Mission Impossible’. I barely got started when this happened. Sounds to me like the kid was just in way over his head.”