Double Trouble (Dev Haskell - Private Investigator Book 10) (13 page)

The rest of the afternoon was uneventful. I waited for the rush hour traffic to more or less die down then headed east on Interstate 94 and out to the Holiday Inn.

Royal had been right, there wasn’t much around the place. It looked like ten acres of soybeans planted across the road and the six-story building was surrounded by parking lots on all four sides. Unfortunately, the part about the hotel being quiet wasn’t quite happening tonight, there appeared to be a wedding going on. Lots of folks dressed to the nines were heading into the hotel, a number of them carried gift-wrapped packages.

I had to park in the back of one of the side lots. I pulled a sport coat out of my trunk and shook some of the debris off before I put it on. I took my time walking around to the front door of the hotel. The only thing I saw even halfway suspicious was a couple in their car. She appeared to be reading the guy the riot act while he just kept staring straight ahead.

The lobby was about a third the size of the Gresham, with no fireplace, no oriental rugs and no fancy ceiling trim. It did have a couple of vending machines and people, lots of people. I guessed upwards of a hundred folks were milling around waiting for the wedding to begin. I counted four guys in grey tuxedos, but didn’t see anyone resembling a bride or bridesmaids. I stood close to the entrance and prayed they’d all move into a banquet room soon.

My prayers were answered about seven-thirty. The crowd gradually drifted into a banquet room just past the bar. A few minutes later the doors were closed. I took up my position in a recently-vacated wingback chair that gave me a view of the lobby along with the front of the building and waited.

Tony’s car with its dual mufflers rumbled to the front door at about ten past eight. Actually that seemed to make sense since Ashley prided herself in arriving late, causing the level of expectation and excitement to rise in her client, and cutting down on her working time.

She stepped out of the car and Tony rumbled maybe just twenty feet away to a parking place and pulled in. So much for subtle, apparently he hadn’t learned much in the intervening forty-eight hours.

For her part, Ashley looked stunning in a very short silky dress with a wide black belt, skyscraper heels and enough cleavage to hide a fifth of Jameson. She held a small beaded bag in her right hand. She strutted into the lobby and headed straight for the elevators in a deliberate manner, strutting in that fashion model runway walk, one foot directly in front of the other. There were only a half dozen people in the lobby, but they all stopped whatever it was they were doing and just stared as the show walked past. Unfortunately, none of them held a cellphone or anything remotely resembling a camera.

Tony rushed in a half-minute later. He took a quick look around, gave me half a glance and a momentary sneer then made his way to the barroom. Ashley had already disappeared into the elevator.

That was about the extent of the excitement. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. The parking lot appeared to be devoid of people. Three of the guys who had ogled Ashley in the lobby as she strutted toward the elevator climbed into a yellow taxi and drove off. There were two women wearing blue blazers behind the hotel desk and me.

About twenty minutes later, the elevator door opened and Ashley stepped out. She either ignored me or didn’t see me and made a beeline for the barroom. Just as she entered the bar, the doors to the banquet room opened up and the lobby filled with a tsunami of happy, well-wishing wedding guests, quite a few of whom were taking photos. About every third person drifted into the barroom right behind Ashley.

I got up and made my way through the crowd and into the barroom. They were already standing four deep all along the bar, waving cash and credit cards as two rather harried-looking bartenders fell further and further behind. Ashley and Tony were seated down at the far end of the bar, scowling at the growing crowd. They sat just below a flat screen that was playing one of those reality music talent shows.

It took me some time to make my way through the crowd, but I finally got to them.

“I think we might as well try and leave. This looks like it could go on for the rest of the night,” I said.

“What the hell is this shit?” Tony said then took a long sip from his pint glass. I noticed his fingers were red, like he’d painted them.

“What do you think it is, it’s a damn wedding, Jesus,” Ashley snapped.

“There’s no way we’re going to be able to spot anyone with all this going on,” I said. I had to raise my voice and lean into Ashley’s shoulder so she could hear me. When I did I caught a brief whiff of her perfume, very nice.

“Did you get him? See anything, anyone?”

I shook my head. “Plenty of folks watching you as you made your entrance, but no one with a camera or cellphone.”

Four women at the table closest to Tony had placed their arms over one another’s shoulders and were squeezing together for a picture. A fifth woman was standing in front of them holding her cellphone and seeming to take an inordinate amount of time focusing to get everything just right. She’d caused two people to lean far back in their chairs so she had room to take the picture. By this time the smiles on her subjects had begun to appear pasted on, she remained oblivious.

“I think you should get out of here, Ashley. That guy could be taking pictures of you right now and we’ll never even see him. It’s sort of like open season on you in here,” I said.

There were more than a few guys staring at Ashley as they waited in line for drinks. Tony was looking at her and you could sense the wheels slowly beginning to turn in his one-watt brain.

“You think he’s in here?” she asked Tony.

“Course he is, and the son of a bitch has all the cover he needs. Great move asshole,” Tony said sneering at me then slammed his empty pint glass on the bar.

“Tony’s right,” I said ignoring the last part of his comment. “I think we should get you out of here, Ashley. With all these people, the guy could be right in front of us and we’ll never know it.”

She seemed disappointed, but nodded and we headed toward the door, Ashley was in front of me, parting the waters as she strutted through the crowd. Guys stepped aside and stared at her while Tony brought up the rear and attempted to intimidate guys with his scowl; it didn’t seem to be working.

Although the lobby had a number of people in it, compared to the barroom, it felt almost felt empty. We were halfway across the lobby when a shorter guy caught my attention. He seemed to take a long look at Ashley and then ran out the door. By the time we made it outside the guy was kneeling down and seemed to be waiting for us. He was just a few feet from the door holding his cellphone out getting ready to take a picture.

Ashley sort of stopped dead in her tracks and moaned. I thought we might have our man, unfortunately so did Tony.

“What the fuck, you see this shit?” Tony half yelled and pushed me into Ashley as he jumped in front of the guy with the cellphone.

It all happened rather quickly. As Tony reached for the guy I heard screams from a woman and two teenage girls who were standing off to the left behind us. Apparently they’d been posing for the photograph.

Tony’s reach was interrupted by the guy grabbing his wrist then flipping Tony up, over his shoulder and slamming him down onto the concrete. The guy hung onto Tony’s wrist then turned and we heard a definite crack. Tony’s scream was cut short by the elbow he received to the side of his head. When the guy let go, Tony dropped like a limp rag, unconscious onto the sidewalk and his head sort of bounced off the concrete a couple of times.

“You want some of this,” the guy said and looked directly at me.

“No sir, I don’t know what got into him. Are you all right?”

“What the hell is it with you city types?” he said, then walked over to the woman, I guessed his wife, and two teenage girls, probably daughters and said, “Come on, were checking out and heading home.” He glared at me while he held the door then followed them into the lobby.

Tony was still out cold lying on the concrete. Ashley was kneeling next to him, slapping him lightly back and forth across the face saying, “Come on, Tony, come on,” as she phoned 911.

Chapter Thirty-One

The paramedics seemed like
nice guys. They collected some general information from Tony. He didn’t realize he’d be getting a bill for somewhere between twelve to eighteen hundred for their time. The cops were nice, two suburban guys from Woodbury. They talked to Tony and Ashley then a handful of witnesses, myself included.

Tony’s story of an assault from behind along with his demand that they send in the SWAT team to hunt the guy down and shoot to kill quickly fell by the wayside. Ashley was purposefully vague when asked what she and Tony were doing at the hotel. I’m not sure, but I got the distinct impression that some prior offenses might have come up on the computer and that sort of changed the course of the officer’s questions.

From what I could determine, the five witnesses, myself included, had no idea who the other guy was and all seemed to agree he had just been defending himself from an unprovoked attack. The officers left while the paramedics were placing Tony’s arm in a sling.

One of the paramedics told Ashley it would be substantially less expensive if she drove Tony to the ER, but she shouldn’t wait until tomorrow to do it. At the end of it all Tony was groggy on painkillers, Ashley looked ready to kill, and a large part of the wedding crowd had drifted out with drinks in hand to see what all the excitement was about. I decided to flee the scene.

“Well, it sounds like you’ll probably be heading to the hospital so I think I’ll just get back to the office.” I sort of took a couple of steps back just in case she tried to hit me with her little handbag.

Tony looked over at me and grinned idiotically, “Wow, guess we showed him, huh?” He had a bruise on the left side of his face, his eye was swollen almost closed and gaining a decided purple cast. Red fingers wiggled out from the edge of his sling.

“Really? You mean you’re leaving me with this?” Ashley hissed.

I couldn’t tell if by “this” Ashley was referring to just Tony, or to the entire situation. Right now I didn’t really care.

“You’re a competent woman, I’m sure you’ll be able to handle things, Ashley. You know your way to the hospital, right? Let’s talk tomorrow. Okay?” I said and began walking backwards to get some distance between us.

Ashley just stared until one of the paramedics asked her something and she had to turn and face him, at which point I beat a hasty retreat around the corner and ran to the safety of my car.

Chapter Thirty-Two

I drifted into the
office a little after ten the following morning and immediately placed a call to Royal Baker.

“Yes, Mr. Haskell, he was hoping you’d call,” Marilynn said in a no nonsense tone. “Let me put you through immediately.”

I waited while the phone clicked then finally started ringing, eventually Royal picked up after a half dozen rings. “Royal Baker.” His usual sing-song pleasant tone was noticeably absent.

“Royal, Dev Haskell.”

Royal waited for a long moment before he said anything. I started to wonder if we’d been disconnected.

“Yes, Dev, I heard from Ashley this morning, she was quite upset. Apparently she had to take Tony to the emergency room last night. What in the world is going on? I know we had an agreement that there was to be no confrontation, but this fellow was taking pictures of Ashley, then he and his cohorts assaulted Tony while you, apparently, just stood idly by content to simply watch the entire incident not bothering to offer the least bit of assistance.”

“That’s what she told you?”

“I got it straight from Ashley early this morning, my understanding is Tony was still sedated. They’re concerned about a concussion resulting from a number of blows to the head. His arm was fractured in the process of defending Ashley, just in case you were interested.”

“Defending?”

“Thank God he was there. Lord only knows what would have happened if he hadn’t been,” Royal said.

“Let me tell you something, Royal. Any conditions resulting from the beating he received are his own damn fault. There was a guy, just one man and rather small as a matter of fact. He was there taking a picture all right, but he was taking a picture of his wife and two daughters. Ashley wandered into the shot, oblivious as usual. That petty thug, Tony pushed me out of the way and attempted to assault the poor guy. Based on the results you just relayed, I’d say he picked the wrong person to try and push around. By the way, multiple blows to the head? I don’t think so, I saw it, Tony got hit on his thick skull just once.”

“That doesn’t seem to jive with Ashley’s rendition.”

“There’s a surprise. Royal, no offense, you seem like a nice enough guy, but I’ve just about had it with your client, Ashley and her tag-along heavy, Tony. Why don’t I just get an invoice to you and we can call it even.”

“Under the circumstances, Mr. Haskell I’m inclined to agree with you. Last night was extremely traumatic for Ashley.”

“Well, she picked the place. Tony attempted to assault the wrong guy and Ashley seems to have her head permanently up her ass, I don’t know what else I can tell you.”