by Mike Faricy
“Excuse me, I—”
“Hey, you hear what the hell I said? No one’s here, so beat it,” the older of the two said. He had a beer belly, could have been maybe fifty, needed a shave, and given the attitude, deserved a hard kick in the butt.
“I’m looking for Eli Cummings.”
“What’d he do now?”
I ignored his question and asked, “Do you know where I can find him?”
“If you find him, you’ll have to get in line behind us and probably a dozen other folks. Owes me two months’ rent plus damages.”
“So he’s not here.”
“Does it look like he’s here? You see him around anywhere?”
“I’m just surprised he left this high-class place. List must be long of folks wanting to get in here and deal with your charming personality.”
His partner, standing behind him, smiled at my comment.
“Be a good idea if you got your ass out of here.”
“I think you’re probably right, for a change. Enjoy the rest of your day,” I said and left. As I stepped into the hall, I heard fatty say to his partner, “What the hell are you laughing about?”
I drove down to the office. Louie was seated at his picnic table desk, talking on his cellphone. I gave him a wave and unclipped Morton’s leash. Morton headed to his pillow next to the file cabinet and settled in. I poured the remnants from the coffee pot into my mug and took a sip. It tasted like it had been on the burner for the past forty-eight hours. I emptied my mug in the sink, made a fresh pot, and settled in at my desk just as Louie set his phone down.
“How’d it go? You find that guy Tubby’s looking for?”
I shook my head and said, “Typical. I went to his last known address over on the Eastside. Not surprisingly, a real dump. The charming landlord was there working. Actually, he was nailing some red curtains over the entrance to a closet.”
“What?”
“Like I said, the place was a dump. Tubby’s guy owed two months’ rent and apparently disappeared. The guy said, if I was looking for money, I’d have to get in line.”
“That figures. What do you plan to do?”
“I’m calling Tubby, right now, and telling him I couldn’t find this guy, and he’ll just have to deal with it.”
“Be careful,” Louie said.
I filled my mug with fresh coffee and pushed the speed dial number for Tubby Gustafson. Unfortunately, he answered on the second ring.
“Tell me you’ve found him,” was his opening line.
“Good morning, sir. I’ve just come from his place, actually his former place. I spoke to his landlord. Cummings owes him two months’ rent and took off for places unknown. The landlord seemed to think he left town. He even suggested he may have left the country. He told me Mexico most likely,” I lied. “If you want, I would be willing to go down there and try to find him. He seemed to think it was one of those all-inclusive beach resort areas where—”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’d love to go down there and waste your time and my money. No, absolutely not. Now, I want you to find this idiot before I decide to make you responsible for the debt he owes and—”
“Make me responsible?”
“I stand corrected, Haskell. God knows you are anything but responsible. Find him and fast.” Click.
“You’re off to Mexico?” Louie asked.
“Hardly. Looks like I’m back to square one. I need to find this character. If you skipped out on rent and don’t have any dough, where would you go?”
“I’d maybe try to land with a sibling or a pal. You think the guy might have a girlfriend? I’m guessing in today’s world, it would be pretty tough to try to rent without any kind of recommendation. Any landlord is going to want at least a month’s down payment, references, probably employment information.”
“I don’t know, maybe he—” My phone ringing cut me off. I glanced at the screen, ‘unknown.’
“Tubby calling you back?” Louie asked.
I shook my head and let it ring a couple more times before I answered. “Haskell Investigations.”
“I’d like to speak with Devlin Haskell, please.”
“Ms. Wright?”
“Oh, Devlin. I wasn’t sure that was you.”
“Yeah, it’s me. Everything okay?”
“Yes, it is. I’ve contacted my insurance company. Have you contacted yours?”
“Oh, my insurance company? Umm, yeah, I mean yes, I contacted them right after the accident. I’m just waiting for a call back,” I said, thinking the last thing I needed was my insurance rates to go up. The damage to my Crown Victoria Police Interceptor wasn’t that bad, and I could live with it.
“Well, I contacted mine. That’s the reason I’m calling. I’m wondering if there might be a time we could get together and discuss what we intend to do.”
This sounded like it was going to cost me money. “You want to discuss? Isn’t your insurance company going to cover you?”
“Oh yes, they’ll do that, at least cover a portion. In fact, they’ll be more than happy to do that, and then my rates will immediately go up, and in twenty-four months, I will have paid more to them than if I paid the cost myself. Which, I hasten to add, I have no intention of doing.”
“Okay, I get that. But what do you want to talk about?”
“I have an idea. I think you may find it interesting. At least, I hope you will.”
Oh, God, she probably wants her house painted or something. “Yeah, sure, I suppose we could meet. You pick the place, and I’ll be there.”
“Are you busy today?”
“Today? Well, I have a number of meetings,” I lied. “But you choose a time, and I’ll adjust my schedule.”
“Wonderful, how does the noon hour sound?”
“Yeah, I’ll move things around so I can do that. Where would you like to meet?”
“Let me give you my address.”
Chapter 6
Ms. Wright lived in the Phalen Park end of town. A nice neighborhood built around Phalen Lake. She lived in a two-story corner house with an attached double garage, a well-kept lawn, a trimmed hedge against the front of the house, and a large, multi-colored garden of flowers.
I spotted the house from a half-block away because her red SUV with the broken taillight and the dented rear quarter panel was parked in the driveway. I parked at the curb, climbed out, and walked up the driveway to the paved path leading to the front door. I glanced at the flower garden. Gladys would have loved it.
I’d stopped at a local florist and gotten a small pot full of some kind of little blue flowers as a gift in the hopes Ms. Wright wouldn’t try to get me to pay more than the repair would cost. I still thought at least fifty percent of the accident was her fault. I tried to avoid looking at the damage to her car as I walked past. I rang the doorbell, and she answered the door while the bell was still chiming. “Well, Devlin, come in, come in. You’re right on time.”
“Here, I know you like flowers, so I got you these,” I said, holding out the pot with the little blue flowers.
“Oh, Devlin. Forget-me-nots, so very thoughtful of you. Thank you, that’s very kind. Come on into the kitchen. I’ve got a little lunch prepared for us. I hope you haven’t eaten.”
“No, I haven’t, but don’t worry about making lunch. I—”
“It’s already made, so you can just relax,” she said as we walked through a dining room and into her kitchen.
The kitchen smelled delicious, and I noticed a pan of something sitting on top of the brushed chrome stove. The stove had six burners with two side-by-side ovens below it. The cabinets appeared to be cherrywood with white marble countertops. Two place settings were arranged on the counter. She set the blue flowers on the counter between the place settings.
“Now Devlin, I have coffee on, but if you would prefer a glass of wine, I have a nice chilled Sauvignon Blanc.”
“Coffee will be fine for me, but don’t let me hold you up if you’d like the wine.”
“Mmm-mmm, I really shouldn’t, but maybe just one.” As she filled a white mug with coffee, she asked, “Do you take cream or sugar?”
“No, black is just fine.”
She set the mug at one of the places at the counter and said, “Grab a seat.” I walked around the counter and pulled out a stool as she took a wine glass from a cupboard. She opened the double door refrigerator and pulled a half-filled bottle of white wine from the shelf on the door. She filled her glass, returned the bottle to the refrigerator, and settled onto the stool at the end of the counter. “Well, thank you for coming, and thank you for the flowers,” she said and raised her wine glass.
I raised my coffee mug in response.
“So tell me what you’ve been up to since graduation.”
“Oh, a little of this and that. I tried college for a bit, but I just wasn’t cut out for it.”
“Oh, but you were so smart in high school. I think that was one of the things that caused you to be bored with classwork. You could see well beyond it and became easily bored. You were known as the class clown. Anyway, enough of that. So, where did you go to college?”
“I was at the U, but it just wasn’t for me. I didn’t enjoy it at all. I dropped out after three semesters, went in the service, got out, and was looking around at things, the trades and whatnot. Eventually, I wound up where I am.”
“And your business is called Haskell Investigations?”
“Yeah, it puts food on the table. I occasionally meet some interesting individuals.”
“I can only imagine. But you enjoy it?”
“Most of the time. Sometimes I end up dealing with either an individual or a situation that isn’t all that great, but yeah, all in all, I enjoy it. I office with an attorney pal. I have friends on the police force, and like I said, I meet a lot of characters.”
She smiled at that last bit and said, “You must meet some dreadful people, too.”
“Once in a while. If someone is hiring me, it’s usually because of a problem, someone missing, a spouse maybe misbehaving, a court case with a decision they didn’t want, all sorts of things. It’s never dull for very long.”
She nodded as I spoke and eventually said, “It’s interesting you do what you do, and in a way, I’m not at all surprised. I could tell when you were in my class that you would be taking the… How can I say it? You would be taking the path less traveled.”
I chuckled and said, “You make it sound like I would be looking for buried treasure or something.”
“No, not exactly, but it sounds as though you’re always searching for answers. Where did someone go? Is someone true in their relationship? Was thus and such done fairly, legally?”
“I never thought of it like that, but I suppose you may be right. What about you? You told me you had retired.”
“Yes and no. I did retire from actively teaching and earning a paycheck. Now I volunteer, essentially doing the same thing, helping children, only now I’m not paid.”
“You didn’t get your fill of that, dealing with kids like me?”
“Every student I’ve had is a unique case, a special entity, and if I can just unlock the door for them, the world would be their oyster. In fact, that’s why I wanted to chat with you. I’ve wondered about you often over the years, and to be honest, I had always thought you were one of the ones who got away. Someone I didn’t quite connect with.”
“The teachers used to say they didn’t want any Dev Haskells in their classroom.”
“Yes, Milton Kennedy, our chemistry teacher if you’ll recall. I told you he and I had a little talk about that.”
“Yeah, I think he was always mad about the bag of dog poop I put in his desk.”
“You’re the one who did that?”
“Oh yeah. I did it on a dare. He knew it was me, but he could never prove it. I think he even had someone come in and try to pull fingerprints off his desk. Not that it did any good. Well, except it kind of got me interested in the crime and evidence aspect.”
She laughed at that as she got off her stool and went over to the stove. “I remember the fingerprint episode. He was obsessed with finding out who did it. Now, I made a lasagna, and before you say anything, let me warn you. It was my mother’s recipe, so eat it and don’t complain.” She placed a large piece on a plate and pushed it across the counter to me. She dished up a smaller piece for herself, topped up her wine glass, and sat down.
Chapter 7
We ate and talked some more, just catching up. I told her about a couple of people who had been in my class and what they were doing. It turned out she knew about a lot more people than I did and filled me in. Nine people had died, three in the service. Two guys had died of cancer, another guy of a heart attack. A couple who were high school sweethearts died in a car accident. One girl went off a mountain in a skiing accident out in Colorado. We talked about a number of people who disappeared, which probably meant their families had moved out of town.
Eventually, we came back around to the reason I was there, the damage to her car. “So, the estimate I got was thirty-eight hundred dollars to repair the damage to my car,” she said.
“Thirty-eight hundred to fix a broken taillight?”
“Yes, along with replacing the back bumper and a new rear quarter panel. Thirty-eight hundred dollars. You are more than welcome to get your own estimate on what it will cost. But I think you know as well as I do that the cost will undoubtedly be in that neighborhood.”
“That’s an awful lot of money,” I said, thinking about all the trips I could take for thirty-eight hundred dollars. The dates I could go on, the drinks I could buy. I could pay in advance at The Spot and run a tab there for the better part of six months. I thought of a couple of women I could take to a topless beach, maybe two at the same time, and we…
“I have a couple of thoughts,” she said, bringing me back to the here and now. “You could always write me a check for that amount and go your own way. You could pay me in monthly installments, say a hundred dollars a month for thirty-eight months. Or, I may have one other idea.”
Against my better judgement, I asked, “What’s the other idea?”
A few of us volunteer twice a week at the high school, helping students with homework. But the group is much more than simply helping with homework. It’s more or less a last-ditch effort to keep the students from dropping out. We’ve got a few bad actors. There’s the occasional student that’s having a problem with a particular class. We’ve got students who speak English as a second language, and the help they would normally get from, say, parents or other family members just doesn’t exist. And, we’ve got students like you were, who, for whatever reason, don’t seem to be the least bit interested. It doesn’t mean that they’re stupid. On the contrary, they’re oftentimes very bright, but nothing seems to catch. I’m wondering if you would be interested in helping us?”
“Me?”
She looked around the room for a moment then said, “I don’t see anyone else in here, Mr. Haskell.”
“What’s this group called?”
“It’s called a lot of things, and officially it’s referred to as the Independent Learning Initiative.”
“And unofficially?”
She smiled and said, “Something near and dear to your heart, those of us in the group call it After School Detention or simply Detention.”
“I think I spent a good part of my high school years in detention. I’m not sure I could be of much help to any of these kids.”
“Why don’t you let me worry about that? I happen to think you could be exactly the sort of person we need and so seldom get. If I may be so bold, you usually were in detention for things you were caught doing, the dog poop episode with Mr. Kennedy aside. It’s a different world today, Dev. It’s actually a lot harder on these kids than it was in your day and certainly a lot harder than my day. Even the word detention has been softened to Independent Learning Initiative.”
“How often would I be doing this
?”
“We meet twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday evenings for two hours, six until eight o’clock. A number of us interact with the kids on the weekends or other times, but usually, that’s just for a project or maybe a paper they have to write. As for how long you would have to do this? Let’s just take it one day at a time, but certainly, no longer than fifteen weeks. That’s a semester. If you wanted to continue after that, we’d love it, and if not, that would be okay, too.”
“Tuesdays and Thursdays?”
She nodded. “Yes, from six until eight, your first day would be tomorrow.”
“And it’s at the high school?”
“We meet in the cafeteria at five forty-five. Fifteen minutes before the students arrive. It’s not mandatory anymore, so we never know how many students we’ll have on any given evening.”
“Okay, Ms. Wright, I’ll give it a try. I might be coming to you for help when they ask me about punctuation, history, or God forbid algebra.”
“I think you’ll find you might just enjoy it. Oh, and Devlin, please call me Barbara.”
“Oh, thanks, and you can call me Dev.”
“Deal?” she asked and held out her hand to shake.
I extended my hand and said, “Deal,” as we shook.
Chapter 8
I spent the better part of the next day trying to find anything on Eli Cummings. I pretty much came up empty-handed. I placed a call to my pal on the police force, Lieutenant Aaron LaZelle, but ended up leaving a message. I drove back to the house on the east side where Cummings had skipped out on the rent, but the crabby fat landlord wasn’t around, the door to unit two was padlocked, and no one answered when I rang the other four doorbells.
I drove back to the office and looked up the property tax records and got the name of the LLC listed as the owner of the property. I called the phone number listed.
