Sweet Smell of Sucrets

by Renee Pawlish

  “What do we have here?” asked one of them, a tall woman with angular features and auburn hair pulled into a ponytail.

  “Guy’s drunk and decided to plow his car off the road,” Blankenship said.

  The paramedics stopped a few feet from me and the woman came over, bent down and started peppering me with questions: what’s your name, what happened, and so on. I was feeling woozy again and, based on the looks she gave me, I’m sure my answers made little sense. They took my pulse and blood pressure, pressed something on my bloody nose, then got me situated on the stretcher. I laid back, stared up into the gray sky and watched snowflakes drop down on me. The stretcher started to move and I closed my eyes. Somewhere in the background I heard the woman talking to Blankenship. Then I blacked out again.

  ***

  The next thing I remember was lying on a different stretcher in the hospital. The chaotic sounds of the emergency room pummeled through the thin curtain that had been drawn around my bed for “privacy”. Yeah, right. Couldn’t they keep the noise down? Machines beeped, equipment rolled across the tiled floor, and voices chattered in staccato manner. A clock over on the wall read 1:43. A.M. or P.M? I thought. And what happened?

  I still felt drunk and wobbly, and my head pounded. I touched my left temple where a bandage covered a wound. I winced as I felt the stitches underneath the bandage. My swollen nose ached. I sighed. I was in no mood for this. I sat up and immediately regretted it. I took deep breaths and waited for the nausea to pass. The room reeked of medicinal smells and whiskey, which didn’t help. Then I noticed there were bags over my hands. What?

  “Hello?” I called out after a moment.

  The curtain pulled back and Blankenship stepped into my little area.

  “How’re you feeling?”

  “Peachy,” I said. I pointed a bagged hand at the clock. “Is that morning or afternoon?”

  “Technically morning, but it’s the middle of the night.”

  “When can I get out of here?”

  He held up a hand. “Not so fast. I’ve got to do a blood test, and I’ve got a Detective Spillman who wants to talk to you.”

  My stomach flipped. “Did I kill someone on the road?”

  “No, luckily it was just you.”

  “Then what does she care about a DUI?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just got word to keep you here until she arrived.”

  “Great,” I muttered. “What’s with the bags?”

  He shrugged again and left the room.

  A few minutes later, a nurse came in, stuck a needle in a vein and filled a vial with my blood. I could’ve refused, but that was considered an admission of guilt. Hell, I was guilty. I was going to have to battle this one to prove extenuating circumstances.

  “Now what?” I asked after she was gone.

  “Sit back and wait.” With that, Blankenship left.

  I did as instructed. Beyond the curtain, I heard him talking to someone, and then I recognized Ingle’s nasally voice.

  A long time later, the click-click of heels on tile drew near. The curtain jerked back to reveal Detective Sarah Spillman of the Denver Police Department. I’d run into her on some past cases, and her being here couldn’t be good for me.

  “Since when do homicide detectives care about a DUI?” I slurred. “Especially out of jurisdiction?”

  Ever the professional, Spillman wore a dark skirt, pink silk blouse, and heels that added a few inches to her already tall frame. She frowned at me as she tapped a folded piece of paper on her palm. “They don’t.”

  I didn’t like her dark aura. “Did I interrupt a date?” I asked, hoping to lighten the mood.

  “Geez, how much have you had to drink?” She waved a hand in front of her face.

  “I don’t know,” I said peevishly.

  The curtain moved again and Willie rushed in. She had a pair of my sweats in her hand.

  “Reed! What happened? Oh, your face!”

  “How did you get here?” I asked, stunned.

  “The cops called me.” She came over and lightly touched my cheek.

  I flinched. “What? When did they call you?” I had no recollection of giving them her number.

  “A while ago. They said you were drunk and ran your car off the road.”

  “It wasn’t quite like that,” I said.

  She held up the sweats. “I figured you might need these.”

  “Thanks.” I took them from her.

  “What was it like?” Spillman interjected.

  I turned to her. “What’s this all about? Why are you here?”

  “You want to tell me why I found your gun at a murder scene?”

  Willie gasped.

  “What? My gun? Who was killed?” I fired back. Then I realized why I had the bags on my hands. Gunshot residue.

  Spillman crossed her arms and contemplated me. “So it’s like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “You’re going to play dumb.”

  “I’m not playing dumb, I am,” I retorted, then grimaced when I realized what I’d just said. Spillman suppressed a grin. “You know what I mean.”

  Spillman’s gaze cut through me. She and I had a history, strictly professional, going back to the time when I’d had to rescue my friend and neighbor Deuce Smith. Normally I was able to handle her brusque manner, but right now I wasn’t firing on all cylinders.

  I held up my hands. “You know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t kill anyone.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “Do I?”

  “Why don’t you tell me what this is all about?” Willie reiterated my question. “Instead of keeping us in the dark.”

  Spillman ignored her, which couldn’t have made Willie happy. “Where were you at about eight last night?”

  I thought for a second. “I don’t know.”

  Spillman glared at me. “You’re not helping.”

  “I don’t remember!” I said. Which was true. My mind was mostly blank. “I was in Black Hawk yesterday around five…and…then I was driving down a snowy road. I must’ve crashed because Blankenship and his partner showed up, and then I woke up here.”

  “You were in a blackout?” Willie asked.

  “I guess,” I said.

  “That’s it?” Spillman said incredulously.

  I nodded.

  “Um, Detective Spillman,” Willie murmured out of the side of her mouth, “he’s drunk.”

  Spillman let out a huge sigh. “You’re right, this isn’t getting us anywhere,” she said. She handed over the paper she had in her hand. “I’ve got a warrant to take samples for gunshot residue on your hands and to take your clothes for testing.”

  I stared at her, shocked. She held up the paper and I read it, but it wasn’t registering. “Fine,” I said, pushing the paper away with a bagged hand.

  A police technician came in, removed the bags and swabbed my hands and fingers. Then I had to undress and hand over my shoes, jeans and shirt. “That’s my blood,” I said, indicating the spots on my shirt.

  “We’ll find out,” Spillman said as she placed it all in a brown paper bag. She gave that to the tech, who quietly left. Then she placed her hands on her hips. “So, this is how it’s going to go. You will come down to the station tomorrow at ten for an interview. At this point, no charges are being filed, but if you want a lawyer, that’s your choice. Got it?”

  “Sure,” I said as I stood in my underwear, all fight gone.

  “I’ll make sure he’s there,” Willie piped up.

  “Good.” With that, Spillman spun around and left, leaving an uncomfortable wake behind.

  “Wait! Who was killed?” I said uneasily.

  Willie stared at me. “You don’t know? Or are you trying to cover up something?”

  “I don’t remember,” I said for the umpteenth time.

  She gave me a long look, then leaned forward and kissed me. “I believe you, hon.”

  I pulled her close, putting my head on her shoulder. “Can
we go home? I feel like crap.”

  She pulled away and gestured at the clothes. “Get dressed and we’ll go.”

  My body ached and I needed Willie’s help to get into the sweats. She completed the paperwork for the hospital, expediting things because she was herself an emergency room admissions nurse and she knew some of the hospital staff. Soon we were on our way.

  I hoped that when my fog lifted, I would have the answers that Spillman wanted. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “So tell me what happened,” Willie said.

  It was the next morning, Tuesday, and Willie and I were sitting at the kitchen table. Correction, she was perched in a chair across from me in her robe, legs crossed, every bit the vixen that I’d grown to love. Even the frown on her face was cute. I, on the other hand, was slouched low in my chair, in a T-shirt and sweats, one hand propping up my head, the other hand clutching my coffee cup. Not only did my head throb, but a cut on my left temple had required a dozen stitches, both eyes were black from the airbag deploying in my face, and my jaw was so sore I could hardly move it.

  “I went to meet Noel Farrell at Black Hawk,” I began. “He asked me to meet him in the Ameristar Casino parking garage.” I closed my eyes and tried to picture what happened. “I remember looking around, and that’s the last thing I know until I was driving in that snowstorm.”

  “Where did you go drinking?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, now I remember a bottle of whiskey in my face. Seems like I had a lot.”

  “No kidding,” she murmured.

  I glared at her, then finished my coffee. “I’m going to go take a shower,” I said as I pushed myself to my feet.

  “I’ll drive you to the station for your meeting with Spillman,” she offered.

  “I can drive my – oh, yeah. Where is the 4-Runner?”

  “They towed it last night. I’m not sure, but it might be totaled.”

  “It was brand new.” I groaned. I’d owned 4-Runners for as long as I could remember, and I’d recently had to get a new one when my old 4-Runner had burned to a crisp when someone blew up my garage. That was a strange case, but it had brought Willie and me closer together, so I couldn’t complain.

  “Yeah, sorry, hon.” Willie smiled over her coffee cup.

  “So you want that ride?”

  “Yeah, thanks.” I stood and stared into space for a moment. I felt so confused. “It’s like the details are right there, just below the surface, but…”

  “You have a head injury and you drank too much,” Willie said. She came over to me and laid her hand on the side of my face. She stared into my eyes as if she were trying to figure me out. “Short-term memory loss. I’ll bet something will jar you and you’ll remember.”

  “I hope so.”

  Her eyes scanned my face. “Boy, those bruises have turned a nice shade of purple-black.”

  “Yeah, I’m going for the boxer-after-a-fight look. Pretty sexy, huh? Like Robert Ryan in The Set-up.”

  “Huh?”

  It’s a bad day when no one gets the film noir reference. “Never mind.” I put my cup in the sink and headed for the bedroom.

  ***

  “It’ll be fine,” Willie said an hour later as she stopped in front of the police station. “You sure you don’t want me to come in?”

  I shook my head. “You’ll be bored. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

  I got out and shut the door, then waited as she drove off. A cold chill whirled about me as I walked into the station. I told the desk sergeant I had an appointment with Spillman and after he surveyed my battered appearance for a moment – no doubt wondering what this nefarious character wanted with her – he escorted me to a stark interview room that had nothing in it but a beat-up metal table, two chairs and what I presumed was a two-way mirror on one wall.

  What kind of trouble am I in? I thought as I pulled out the chair opposite the door and sat down. It was hot, the air was stale, and after a few minutes of waiting, I took off my winter coat. I didn’t feel good and by the time Spillman came in, I was downright surly.

  “Sorry I kept you waiting,” she said. She sat down across from me and slapped a legal pad down on the table. In her black slacks and a turquoise V-neck sweater, she looked a lot more comfortable than I felt.

  “I’ve got nothing better to do.” My sarcasm was clear.

  She gave me a hard look. “You look like hell, Ferguson.”

  “That’s good. I’d hate to look different from how I feel.”

  “Watch it,” she said slowly.

  “Fine.” I held out my hands. “You want to tell me what’s going on? Who’s dead?”

  “Noel Farrell.”

  I sat back in my chair and let the words sink in.

  “You know him,” she said.

  “Yes, well, sort of. I never actually met him.” My mind raced back to last night at the ER. “And my gun was found at the murder scene.”

  She nodded.

  “It was used to kill him?”

  “I’m waiting on the ballistics report,” she said. “But it’s a pretty good guess it was.”

  “You know I had nothing to do with his death.”

  She pursed her lips. “Based on your history, that’s probably true. But things can change.”

  “Come on, Spillman, I only talked to Farrell on the phone.”

  “About what?”

  I took a moment to consider my situation. On the one hand, I knew I was innocent. Then again, I was having trouble remembering much past about five o’clock yesterday. I had no idea how my gun ended up at a crime scene, and I had no way of proving my innocence to Spillman. Maybe I should get a lawyer before I said more. But wouldn’t that be like admitting my guilt? It could complicate things in a way that would keep me from doing what I needed to do, namely to find out what was going on.

  “What did you talk to Farrell about?” she repeated.

  “He called me yesterday,” I said, then told her the same thing that I’d told Willie. “He said he was working on something that was really big, but he needed some help. I tried to brush him off, but he insisted, so I finally gave in. I remember being in the parking garage and…” In my mind, I saw someone approaching me. “I think maybe Farrell was there, but I don’t know if I talked to him. Someone must’ve conked me on the head because the next thing I remember is those deputies talking to me.”

  “Why would a two-bit P.I. call you for help?” It was her turn to be sarcastic. But it was a good question, one that I’d been asking myself since I’d gotten into this mess.

  “He didn’t say,” I said.

  “And you just decided to go meet him?”

  I shrugged. “I wasn’t doing anything else.”

  She stared at me pensively, then glanced at the legal pad. “What about the two men forcing you to drink?”

  “Wha –” It suddenly came back to me. I’d completely blanked on that part of the story. “That’s right! After I got knocked out, I woke up tied to a chair. There were two men. One of them asked me about Farrell and when I told him I didn’t know anything, he beat me up. Then they forced me to drink a bunch of whiskey and made me drive down that road.”

  “Why did they do that?”

  “To kill me but make it look like an accident, I guess.”

  “It didn’t work.”

  Did I detect disappointment in her tone?

  “Why would they want to kill you?” she asked.

  “That’s the big mystery. I don’t know who they were or what they wanted, or what their connection to Farrell is.”

  “This…” she paused, searching for the right word, “assault…where did that occur?”

  “How the hell should I know?” I snapped. “They had me blindfolded. I didn’t see anything until they put me in the 4-Runner. They untied my hands and of course I pulled the blindfold off.”

  “They didn’t find any blindfold in the 4-Runner.”

  “I guess that guy took it.”


  “So you got a look at these two guys then?”

  “They wore ski masks.” I felt my face getting hot. My story didn’t sound plausible, even to me. And by the look on her face, I could see she wasn’t buying it either.

  “What can you tell me about these men?” she asked.

  “The one was about my height and had a high-pitched voice. The other one was big, like a bodybuilder. He had a deep voice,” I said. “And he had a cold.”

  “Ferguson, quit kidding around.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “He coughed and snorted a lot, and when he got close to me, I smelled cough drops on his breath.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Oh yeah? What flavor? Mint? Cherry? Maybe lemon?” I shrugged. She sighed. “I’m looking for a guy with a high-pitched voice and a big man with a cold.”

  “Yes.”

  “And in a few days, the guy who coughed a lot will get over his cold and I won’t have a clue who he is.”

  “They say colds last about two weeks, so I guess you’ve got a little time.” She was not amused. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  “You have no idea how these two guys are connected to Farrell?”

  “None,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me what happened to Farrell?” She sat looking at me, but didn’t answer. “Come on,” I said. “You know I didn’t have anything to do with his death.”

  She leaned forward. “I can tell you this. Noel Farrell was shot in his home. At around six o’clock, the neighbors next door thought they heard a commotion, and when they looked out their window, they saw someone about your size running across his front yard. There’ve been some break-ins in the neighborhood, so they went next door to check on Farrell. The front door was open so the husband called 911. When the police arrived, they found Farrell dead in his living room, shot in the head. A Glock was found nearby. We checked the registration and found that the gun belongs to you. Now how do you suppose it got there?” More sarcasm.

  “I took my gun with me when I went to meet Farrell, but I have no idea how it came to be at the crime scene.” And I couldn’t believe I’d just told her that the guy with the high-pitched voice was about my height. Way to walk into that one, Reed, I thought.