Alley Katz (Dev Haskell - Private Investigator Book 27) Read online

  “It’s not an iPhone, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “Mmm-mmm, okay, show it to me anyway, will you?”

  He frowned but pulled it out of a jacket pocket and held it in his hand.

  “Can you turn it on for me? I want to check the screen brightness. Mine is nice and bright, and I want to be sure whatever kind I get is the same way.”

  “Oh, well, umm, see the battery just went out. I gotta recharge it.”

  “Oh, so it must have gone off right after you left the message for your mom.”

  “Yeah.” A guilty look washed over his face.

  “Your name really Taylor?”

  “Yeah,” he said, looking up and sounding a little offended at my question.

  “You living rough?”

  “Huh?”

  “Are you on your own? I’m guessing you don’t have anywhere to stay. Maybe you ran away from home, maybe something went wrong. You were gonna spend the night in the school, weren’t you?”

  He focused on the sidewalk again, staring about a foot in front of him, and slowly nodded.

  “Okay, tell you what. I got a spare bedroom at my place, and I was thinking of maybe cooking something when I got home. You’re welcome to crash at my place tonight if you want.”

  He looked up and studied me for a moment.

  “My name is Dev, Dev Haskell,” I said, holding my hand out to shake.

  “Taylor,” he said, taking hold for a half-second and then letting go.

  “Look, Taylor, it’s starting to cool down at night. You stay out here for any length of time dressed like that, you’re gonna catch a cold, or worse, maybe pneumonia. I got a guest room, and I’m guessing you haven’t had much to eat lately. I’m gonna cook up a couple of pork chops and some boiled potatoes. I’ve got homemade chocolate chip cookies for dessert.” At the mention of chocolate chip cookies, he looked up at me, nodded, and slowly got to his feet. It suddenly dawned on me how lean the kid was.

  “You can crash at my place,” I said as we walked toward my car. “But I gotta warn you. I got a golden retriever named Morton. He’s liable to lick you to death.”

  “I like dogs,” he said then stopped and looked at my black Crown Victoria Police Interceptor.

  “You a cop?” he asked.

  “What? Why would you ask… Oh, the car, no, I bought it at a police auction. The cops in this town are too smart to have a guy like me working for them.”

  It was a ten-minute drive home. Along the way, he started asking questions. “Where do you live?”

  “About two blocks from the cathedral.”

  “You married?”

  “I haven’t found a woman patient enough to put up with me. I’m still looking. How about you? You got a girlfriend?”

  He shook his head. “No, most everyone stays away from me. Girls are kind of afraid. The guys just give me a hard time.”

  I glanced over at him. He was either a runaway, or he was maybe from a family with a lot of problems. He seemed nice enough, but kids can be mean, and if he was being singled out at school, he could be a target. He’d be the guy a certain group would pick on.

  “You know, I’m thinking, I got pork chops, or I’ve got chicken breasts. Which one are you hungry for?”

  “The pork chops sounded pretty good. This is your place?” he asked as I pulled into my driveway.

  “Yeah, all of it. And it seems like there’s always something that has to be fixed,” I said, opening the driver’s door. “Come on in. I’ll give you the cook’s tour.”

  He climbed out of the car, took a careful look around, then followed me down the driveway and up the sidewalk to the front porch. I unlocked the front door and stepped inside. He closed the door behind him, and I locked it.

  “Come on back to the kitchen. Let me get that dinner started, and then I’ll give you the tour. You want something to drink? I got water or a couple of root beers.”

  “You gonna have anything?”

  “Maybe just a water for me,” I said, flicking on the kitchen light. “Help yourself to a root beer in the fridge. Let me just get out a couple of pans while you’re doing that.”

  I pulled some pans out of the drawer below the oven and set them on a burner. I filled one pan with water, turned on the burner, and dumped in a number of small red potatoes.

  “Pull out a stool and grab a seat while I get these pork chops going.”

  As he sat down, I grabbed three pork chops from the refrigerator, placed some oil in the pan and sprinkled lemon pepper on the pork chops. Taylor guzzled down almost the entire contents of the root beer bottle in the five minutes it took me to get the pork chops arranged.

  I turned on the burners and said, “Come on. I’ll give you the quick tour. Bring the root beer or feel free to finish it and grab another one.”

  He drained the bottle and then opened the refrigerator door just as Morton appeared in the kitchen.

  “Well, look who decided to join us. Taylor, meet Morton. Morton, this is Taylor.”

  Morton walked over, sniffed, and Taylor reached down and automatically gave him a good scratching behind the ears.

  “Oh, man, Taylor. You just got a friend for life. That’s what I do to him every morning. Come on. Let me show you around.” We wandered through the first floor. I showed him the TV and told him how to work the remote. We headed upstairs. I pointed out my room. I showed him the guest room and the bathroom.

  He eyed the shower in the bathroom, and I said, “It’s going to be a while on those potatoes. You wanna grab a shower? I could toss those jeans and that t-shirt in the laundry.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Let me get something for you to change into and just bring the clothes down when you’re out of the shower. I’ll toss some clothes for you on the bed in the guest room. That sound okay to you?”

  He gave me a nod. I went into my room, grabbed some sweat pants and a sweatshirt from a drawer, tossed them on the guest room bed, and went downstairs. Morton curled up on the floor in front of the bathroom door.

  Taylor and Morton were downstairs a half-hour later. Taylor had the sweatpants rolled up on his ankles and the sleeves on the sweatshirt rolled back. He carried his clothes under his arm.

  “Let’s get that stuff in the washer, and then we can grab some dinner,” I said. I opened the door to the laundry area and said, “There’s the laundry detergent. Dump a cup of that into the washer, drop your clothes in, and push this button here. That’s all there is to it. I’ll get dinner ready. Sound okay?”

  He nodded and pulled the detergent off the shelf. I stepped back into the kitchen and dished up dinner. The pork chops smelled wonderful, and Taylor hurried out of the laundry room as I set the plates on the kitchen counter.

  “Dig in,” I said as he pulled out a kitchen stool. He did just that while I made idle conversation for the next few minutes, and he inhaled his food. When his plate was clean, I said, “I cooked up three pork chops if you’ve got room for another one.”

  “Don’t you want it?”

  “No, I’ve had more than enough. But it would be a shame to let it go to waste.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, just a second, and I’ll dish you up,” I said, grabbing his empty plate. I placed the third pork chop on the plate, set it in front of him, and he attacked immediately. Three minutes later, the plate was clean. I took a plate filled with chocolate chip cookies from the cupboard, pulled off the cellophane, and set the plate in front of him. “Help yourself, man.”

  “You going to have any?”

  “One of the problems with me is, if I eat one, I’m liable to eat that entire plate. You have as many as you want, and you’ll be saving me from putting on more weight.”

  He didn’t need any encouragement. Once the washer stopped, I tossed his clothes into the drier. We talked about nothing particular, Taylor asked me questions about Morton, and we went upstairs to bed. I gave him a spare cord to charge his phone, and Morton followed Taylor i
nto the guest room as if it was an every night occurrence.

  Chapter 19

  I was up before my alarm went off. Morton wasn’t in the room, and I presumed he was probably in the guest room with Taylor. I showered, shaved, got dressed, and headed down to the kitchen. I had a text message from Barbara asking about Taylor. I sent her a message back saying he’d spent the night at my house and didn’t know much else other than he seemed like a nice kid.

  I pulled his clothes out of the drier, folded the jeans and the t-shirt, went upstairs, and laid them on the floor in front of the guest room door. I’d finished the coffee, sent Louie a text message I would be in around noon, and was scanning YouTube for morning news when my phone rang. Barbara Wright.

  “Good morning, Barbara.”

  “Give me an update,” she said.

  “Not too much to tell. He seems like a nice kid. He’s still asleep upstairs in the guest room. I’m beginning to think he’s not a runaway. He mentioned the girls at school stay away from him, and the guys give him a hard time. I’m thinking if he were a runaway, he’d probably have a pals house he could stay at. Just the way he talked about it, and he didn’t say much, but the way he talked suggested this has maybe been an ongoing situation. Maybe there’s no father, or there’s a drug or alcohol problem on the home front. I’ll hopefully learn more, but I don’t want to pressure the kid.”

  “The mother never called, never showed up?”

  “I’m pretty sure he never contacted her. I had him show me his phone, and the battery was dead. I’m guessing it had been dead for a while. Hopefully, he recharged it when he went to bed. All he seems to have are the clothes on his back. I cooked him dinner last night. He ate two pork chops, about a dozen potatoes, and all the chocolate chip cookies.”

  “Shouldn’t he be at school by now?”

  “Yeah, maybe if things were normal, but they’re not. I’m going to take him out and get some clothes, a couple pair of jeans and some shirts, maybe a haircut if he wants.”

  “I wonder if you shouldn’t contact the school. I can give you the name of—”

  “I thought about that, but I’m worried they may be required to alert child services, and then he’d end up in a facility or something.”

  “Mmm-mmm, possibly. I think they’re probably required by law to contact child welfare or maybe even the police.”

  “I’d like to give it a few days, maybe get him stabilized, not that he’s crazy or anything. But it might help him to be someplace that he doesn’t have to worry about where he’s going to sleep or where the next meal is coming from.”

  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Yeah, definitely. I washed his clothes last night. Unless he has things hidden somewhere, he’s got a worn pair of jeans and a soiled t-shirt. He didn’t say it specifically, but he’s the kid at school everyone makes fun of. No friends, girls stay away, and the boys tease him. I think I can help this kid, Barbara.”

  I could hear her take a deep breath. “Well, all right. Please call me with any questions or concerns. I think what I’ll do if you don’t mind, is quietly poke around and see if I can find out anything. Did you get the last name?”

  “No, but in fairness, I didn’t ask for one. I just want him to get comfortable with me. Hopefully, I can begin to reduce some of the everyday stress he’s dealing with. It’s got to be pretty tough paying attention in school when you don’t know where you’re going to be sleeping that night or how you’re going to get something to eat.”

  “I’m sure he’s been living off of the school lunch program. That’s probably been keeping him going.”

  “I didn’t think of that, but it makes a lot of sense. He’s very lean looking. Hey, I should ring off. I can hear some movement upstairs. Let’s touch base later today. I’ll give you a call.”

  “I’ll give you a call this afternoon,” she said and hung up. Twenty minutes later, Taylor and Morton arrived in the kitchen.

  “So, how’d you two sleep?”

  “I was out about thirty seconds after my head hit the pillow. That’s the most comfortable bed I’ve ever been in.”

  Unfortunately, he probably wasn’t kidding. “You mean Morton didn’t take up all the room? He didn’t try to steal the covers?”

  “No, he was great.”

  Morton walked over for his morning head scratch. Once I was finished, I said, “Hey, Taylor, let Morton out the back door, and I’ll get going on breakfast. Pancakes sound okay?”

  “That would be awesome.”

  “All right, I can make you coffee if you drink it, or I think there’s some orange juice in the fridge if you want to check.”

  He poured himself an orange juice and settled onto a stool at the kitchen counter while I mixed up the pancake batter. “Grab some plates out of the cupboard, Taylor, and the silverware is in that drawer,” I said, pointing to the drawer.

  I had my largest frying pan on the stove and poured enough batter into the pan for three pancakes. Once the pancakes were cooking, I leaned against the kitchen counter and said, “You up for one of my ideas?”

  He got a troubled look on his face and said, “Maybe. What’d you have in mind?”

  “You should be in school this morning. In fact,” I glanced at the clock on the stove, “you’re late.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “I’m thinking we should use the morning, and let’s do a little shopping. Maybe get you a couple pairs of jeans, some shirts, underwear. I think you could maybe use a decent jacket. After all, it is Minnesota, and it tends to begin to get chilly at this time of year.”

  “Well, see, I don’t really have any money, Dev.”

  “Not a problem. My treat, you don’t have to pay me back. But let’s get you some decent clothes. Those guys that are giving you a hard time, maybe it’ll be a subtle way to begin to tell them to get screwed.”

  He smiled at that.

  I turned around and flipped the pancakes, not a moment too soon. A couple of minutes later, I placed the pancakes on a plate and handed it to Taylor. “Eat up. There’s more if you want.”

  I poured three more pancakes into the pan. By the time they were ready, I placed two of them on Taylor’s empty plate and kept one for myself. We sat and talked as I ate, and he devoured. He told me about the classes he was taking. I mentioned doing the two nights in detention in the cafeteria. I told him about Ramona and the other girls doing papers on Dennis’s tattoo business. I didn’t mention To Kill A Mockingbird.

  “You’re the guy that lined that up? I heard some kids talking about it. That is really cool. Everyone says so. I think they were going to go back there and take some pictures of the tattoo parlor. It had a pretty awesome name, but I can’t recall what it is.”

  “Inkredible,” I said.

  “Yeah, that’s the place.”

  “As a matter of fact, they’re going back there tonight to talk to my pal. Are you in that class?”

  He nodded and said, “Yeah, but I have it during a different hour than Ramona. She’s one of the hot eleventh-grade girls. Believe me, she doesn’t even know I exist.”

  “Well, what do you say we start to take care of that? Let’s get the kitchen cleaned up, and we can head out to the Mall of America. You up for that?”

  “Dev, that’s really nice of you, but I, I can’t pay you back. I told you. I don’t have any money.”

  “I didn’t ask you to pay me back in cash. Here’s how you can pay me back. Let’s get these clothes, and then, let’s get you focused back on school. You’re going to be living on the street for the rest of your life if you don’t have an education. That’s the only way out of the situation you’re in, so let’s do it. You can crash here as long as you follow the rules.”

  “What are the rules?”

  “You just keep being the nice guy that you are. Oh, and one other thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You gotta take Morton for a walk once in a while, but right now, let’s get yo
u some clothes to wear. Deal?”

  He smiled, held out his hand to shake, and had a much more solid grip than last night.

  Chapter 20

  We drove out to the Mall of America. I’m not a shopper. Over the course of the next two hours, we went through a couple hundred shops. Taylor picked out two pairs of jeans, four shirts, two sweaters, six pairs of boxers, six t-shirts, a pair of casual shoes, a belt, and a jacket. It cost me close to four hundred bucks and was worth every cent and a lot more just to see the smile on his face.

  He was wearing his new shoes, jeans, and a shirt on the way home from the mall. I took a slightly different route, turned onto Hamline Avenue, and said, “Hey, I’m not suggesting anything, but do you want to grab a haircut? We’re going to pass a place that’s really good.”

  “You think I need one?”

  “I’m not judging. I’m just asking if you want one. It’s your head.”

  “At a barbershop?”

  “Yeah, a place called Schmidty’s. I know the guy. No pressure, man. I’m just asking.”

  He nodded and said, “That would be great. I’ve never been to a barbershop before.”

  “You stick with me, Taylor. I’ll show you the big time,” I said, and we both laughed.

  Fortunately, at half-past eleven, there was only one guy in the barbershop, and Schmidty was handing him a mirror to look at his finished product. Two minutes later, Taylor was seated in the barber’s chair.

  “So how do you want this done?” Schmidty asked.

  As Taylor told him, Schmidty nodded and said, “No problem.” He started cutting hair and said, “Dev, what have you been up to?”

  “I remain the most boring guy in town.”

  “Yeah, right. Anything ever happen to that guy you were after, the one who knocked off the jewelry store and got all those diamonds?”

  “Yeah, that wasn’t a jewelry store. It was actually two jerks, and the guy they robbed was a diamond merchant about eighty years old. I grew up around the corner from him. Nice guy, I shoveled his sidewalk and cut his grass as a kid. He kept all his diamonds in these little envelopes and lined up the envelopes in shoe boxes. He worked out of a little office in a building in downtown Minneapolis. He thought the place was secure, but obviously, it wasn’t. Those two clowns roughed him up and stole a couple of shoeboxes full of diamonds. I don’t think they had any idea of the value. He ended up in the hospital for a day or two.”