by Mike Faricy
Chapter Nine
Morton and I were at the coffee shop fifteen minutes early. I tied him up to the wrought-iron railing out front then went inside and grabbed a coffee. I described AJ and told Jimmy, the barista I’d pay for her coffee and anything else she wanted.
I watched AJ approach with Lady Godiva about twenty minutes later. Godiva was lean, sleek, and appeared to be very well trained. AJ was wearing a pair of skin-tight shorts and a top with spaghetti straps and a plunging neckline. When they stopped on the corner and waited for a car to pass, Lady Godiva immediately sat. Then they stepped off and the dog kept perfect pace as they crossed the street. A guy driving past tooted his horn a couple of times, but AJ ignored him.
She greeted Morton outside with a big rub under his chin, then she attached Lady Godiva’s leash to the wrought-iron railing right next to Morton’s and came inside. A couple of heads turned as she waved at me and signaled she was going to order a coffee.
“Oh, that was sweet of you,” she said, giving me a little peck on the cheek as she sat down. “You didn’t have to buy me coffee.” She placed her mug on the table, some frothy thing, Jimmy had made a design in the shape of a heart floating on the top.
“I thought it was the least I could do. Would you like a pastry or anything? They’ve got a great apple tart.”
“I’d love one, but it will go right to my hips so I’ll just take a pass. Well,” she said and took a sip. “How have you been?”
“I just want to say in person how very sorry I am about the other night, I…”
“Dev, it’s okay, we all make mistakes. I’m hoping we can just move on.”
“I’d like that.”
“So, tell me what you’ve been up to,” she said, then took a sip from her mug and sexily ran her tongue over her upper lip. “Mmm-mmm.”
“Well, I just took on a new case, looking into someone trying to work an angle on people with disabilities. I…”
“What? God, some people can be so low. Can you imagine? I hope you get him, jail would be too good. Who in their right mind…” She went on for the next ten minutes about how awful people could be. I might have added to her rant a little by telling her I was doing the case pro bono, that I just wanted to set things right. I didn’t mention Austin Hackett by name and only slightly embellished certain aspects. Naturally, I didn’t mention Heidi.
“You really are a sweet guy, Dev,” she said once she’d finished her rant. Then she slid her chair over, reached beneath the table, ran her hand back and forth along the side of my leg a few times and smiled. “I’m glad we’re talking again, I really missed you,” she said.
There was laughing from the front of the room and about a half dozen people were standing and staring out the window. One guy started clapping and some woman yelled “Oh my God.” I was curious, but didn’t want to interrupt the AJ action under the table.
The couple at the table next to us got up and moved to the front window to see what the commotion was all about. AJ gave a subtle look around and then moved her hand onto the top of my thigh, sort of tickling with her fingers, moving a little closer with every rub to where I hoped she’d end up.
She smiled and stared into my eyes. I could tell her breathing was as heavy as mine. “I’ve wanted you ever since the first time I laid eyes on you,” she said then started to rub her nails along the inside of my thigh as her eyes flared. “Do you think you have enough dog food for two dogs at breakfast?”
“If I don’t I can always go get some. I’d like to do an up close study of that little tattoo you have.”
“I’ve been counting on it. Shall we continue this at your place?”
Two women shrieked in the crowd up by the front window, now there were at least a dozen people crowded around looking at something and laughing. Virtually everyone in the place, except AJ and I, stood at the window. Jimmy, the barista, was hurrying our way.
The same woman screamed again, “Oh my God!”
“Hey, Dev, we’ve got a sort of situation out front. Is that your dog, looks like a golden retriever?”
“Morton, yeah, why? What’s he doing?” I asked.
AJ said a worried sounding, “Lady Godiva,” removed her hand from inside my thigh and hurried toward the door. I was right behind her. A number of heads in the crowd turned as we stepped outside.
One guy called, “Thanks for the show.”
Some old bat yelled, “Absolutely disgusting.”
AJ gave a short scream and yelled, “Morton, get off her. Dev, do something. Oh my God.”
I stepped out to see Morton mounted on Lady Godiva. A city bus was stopped on the corner. The driver had opened the door and just sat there staring and smiling as Morton rode Lady Godiva for all he was worth. For her part, the Lady seemed to be giving as good as she got, letting out deep groans that suggested she just might be enjoying herself. All of the passengers on the bus were looking out the window, pointing and laughing. A couple of cellphone cameras flashed.
“God, Dev do something, do something,” AJ shouted. Her mood had definitely changed from just a moment ago.
“Morton, damn it, come on, get off, get off,” I said undoing his leash and gently tugging.
Morton gave me a look that suggested, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Come on, Morton, come on,” I said coaxing him off Lady Godiva.
AJ had untied Lady Godiva’s leash from the wrought-iron railing and was encouraging her in the opposite direction. Gradually we broke their embrace. Clapping and cheers erupted from inside the coffee shop and on the bus as folks slowly returned to their normal activities. Some guy in the coffee shop took a cellphone picture of AJ.
“God, what is wrong with you two?” she said glaring first at Morton, and then at me. Her face was red and she wasn’t looking all that happy. More like she wanted to kill. Fortunately, the bus pulled away. We could both hear the scattered applause as it headed down the street.
“I don’t know what to tell you. He’s never done anything like that before. Is your dog in heat?” I didn’t feel the need to tell her about Morton impregnating Princess Anastasia at the dog show last spring.
“God,” she screamed, red-faced, just as a cellphone camera flashed from inside the coffee shop again. I glared at the guy and he gave a little wave before returning to his table.
“Come on, let’s head over to my place and maybe things will look a little better after…”
“Your place? Are you crazy? After this?” She half screamed, then yanked on Lady Godiva’s leash and took off down the street.
“Hey, AJ, AJ,” I called, but they kept on moving and didn’t look back. Some guy drove past and whistled out the window at the two of them. AJ gave him the finger and shouted something I couldn’t quite make out.
Morton gave off a little whine as we watched them depart.
“Don’t even start, you.”
Chapter Ten
My luck seemed to be running about the same the following morning. The girls in the apartment were nowhere to be seen and it was raining out, so all the women at the bus stop were clad in rain coats and hovered under umbrellas. Morton was busy, ensconced in his bed in front of the filing cabinet and working on an old chew toy I’d found in the back of a desk drawer. I was online reviewing the Austin Hackett links and not really coming up with anything new when Louie came in.
He was wearing what was probably a wrinkled navy blue pinstripe suit except that he was dripping wet and so a lot of the wrinkles had disappeared along with any crease left in his trousers. “Man, it’s pouring out there. I’m soaked to the bone. The apartment girls sleeping in?”
“I think they may have left early. You know, maybe you should hang that coat up so it can dry, at least a little.”
“Good idea,” he said then peeled off his coat and hung it on one of the pegs next to the door. His shoulders and halfway down the back of his shirt were soaked as well, water dripped off the ends of his suit coat sleeves.
“Actually
, I wonder if it wouldn’t work better if you put that suit coat on a hanger.” I gave a nod toward a wooden hanger dangling from the file cabinet where Morton was busily chewing.
“Oh yeah, sure,” he said, then draped his coat haphazardly over the hanger and hooked it on the handle of the file drawer. He bent down and gave Morton a good rub, then drained the coffee pot into his mooch mug. “Okay, don’t spare any details. Tell me about your date. Hopefully someone around here got some action last night.”
“Oh, someone did, it just wasn’t me.”
“Well, don’t look at me. I’d be the last guy. You said it was a sure thing. What the hell happened?” Louie asked then grimaced after taking a swallow of coffee.
“Morton.”
“She’s into…”
“No, not that.” I proceeded to tell Louie the tale. I maybe doubled the size of the crowd, might have mentioned a few more people taking pictures, but the basic facts remained the same.
“God, Morton,” Louie laughed. “I don’t know if I should give you congratulations or a warning.”
“It was really going my way, too. I’ve already phoned AJ with what’s becoming my standard apology.”
“What did she say?”
“She didn’t. I just got dumped into her voice mail.”
“I don’t know, Dev. Maybe this one just wasn’t meant to be.”
“Man, and we were so close. We were literally going to head over to my place and she was going to spend the night. But idiot over there had other ideas.” I nodded in Morton’s direction. “He could have had action all night long, but no, he thought it would be more fun to please a crowd.” My computer made a sort of ding sound signaling a Facebook message.
“Think she’ll phone you back?”
“I’d say there’s probably less than a fifty-fifty chance. The little I know it seems she’s pretty protective of her dog. I mean, I guess I really can’t blame her for being pissed off. But on the other hand, if the thing was in heat, why would you tie her up in front of a building on a busy street corner? That’s just asking for trouble, especially since it was her idea for the dogs to meet and get to know each other. Of course Morton being Morton…”
Morton looked up at me with his tongue hanging out.
“Well, at least someone got some action. He’s apparently doing better than you or me,” Louie said
I clicked into my Facebook account, then clicked on messages. “Don’t go taking his side, Louie. He…Oh shit.”
“Problem?”
Terry Davis was a guy I sort of knew just to say hi to. I remembered seeing him at Nina’s last night, although we’d just exchanged nods. His Facebook message read, “Thanks for the show last night”. He’d posted an image of me tugging on Morton’s leash while he rode Lady Godiva. Terry had tagged me in the image. Fortunately, he didn’t mention AJ. “She’s gonna kill me.”
“Can you delete it?”
“Yeah, first I better remove my name.” I clicked on the Facebook edit and removed my name, then deleted the image from my site. I sent Terry a message explaining the situation and asking him to delete the image. “Damn Internet,” I groaned.
“Look at it this way, Morton is now world famous.”
“I’m not sure that really helps.”
“Hey, I did some checking yesterday after my court appearance. Asked around about your pal, Austin Hackett. Got some names for you,” Louie said, then opened his computer bag and took out a couple of bar napkins. One was from the Black Dog pub with two names written on it and the other, from the Gopher Bar, had three names written down.
“You can check both those guys on the Black Dog napkin. They’ve gone up against Hackett in court and won, I might add. He may be a jerk. He is in fact, but he seems to have this thing wired and the battles he’s lost in the courtroom only made him adjust tactics and go for a settlement out of court. Just in chatting with folks, I think you’d have to go a ways before you heard anything nice about him. I sure didn’t pick anything up.”
“And these three names you got at the Gopher Bar?” I held up the napkin.
“Those are his ex-wives.”
“He’s got three?”
“Yeah, I thought you might find that interesting.”
“Heidi thinks he’s never been married.”
“Yeah, well just add that to the laundry list. Didn’t he tell her he was a Navy Seal, too? Like I said before, I’m pretty sure he can’t even swim.”
“He told her he was from Chicago. Said he took care of his sick parents until they died, then went into the service.”
“Gee, imagine? Probably an altar boy, too. I wonder where he ever found the time to fit three wives in?”
“You find anything out about these women?”
“Just the names, and the guy I talked to said those were their maiden names so they may have reverted back to that. They may still go by Hackett, or maybe they remarried and are going by a new name.”
“All in Ramsey County?”
“That I don’t know. You gonna call Heidi?”
“God, I’d love to, but I’m going to need some backup proof. She sounded really smitten with this jerk. She never believes anything I tell her unless I can back it up, and even then it’s going to be tough to convince her.”
“Which reminds me,” Louie said.
“What’s that?”
“He’s supposed to be a real control freak.”
Chapter Eleven
Nowadays the phonebook is virtually useless, unless you’re looking for someone over sixty-five years of age. I went online, clicked onto the white pages’ site and began checking the ex-wives names. Connie Adams was the first name. There were nine possibles listed on the site between Constance and Connie. Three more if you spelled the last name with two d’s, Addams. Those were just the names for St. Paul; there were a dozen more in Minneapolis. Of the twenty-four potentials, only two answered their phone. One said she didn’t know anyone by the name of Austin Hackett. The other woman hung up, which didn’t eliminate her as a potential ex-wife. In fact, to a certain way of thinking it may have moved her up to the top of the list. Twenty-four potential names, and that was just the first of three individuals. There had to be an easier way.
I called a guy I sort of knew.
“Ramsey County Records.”
“Ray McCormick, please.”
“One moment.”
After three rings he answered, “Ray McCormick.”
“Ray, long time, Dev Haskell.”
There was a slight pause, then the tone sounded decidedly cooler. “Hello, Dev. Been at least a couple of years. Lucky me. What’s this about?”
“I was wondering if you could look up a couple three names for me, I need some phone numbers and…”
“Well, aside from violating local, state and federal statutes I still can’t do that. If you’re looking for a phone number, you might think about going online or, God forbid, the phonebook.”
“That’s why I’m calling you, Ray. I’ve tried both and just ran around in circles. Listen, you got half a minute so I can explain my situation?”
“I’ll do better than that, Dev. I’ll give you a full sixty seconds before I hang up.”
“Okay, I’m doing some background investigation for the state bar,” I lied. “They’ve got an attorney scamming disabled people. I’m trying to contact his former wives, he’s got three. I’m not sure if the women are even in St. Paul, let alone Ramsey County. But I was thinking, if you could check county divorce records, you know just a cross reference on this guy’s last name, maybe something might come up. I’m really dangling at the end of my rope here.”
There was a long pause before he spoke. “What’s his name?”
“Hackett, Austin Hackett,” I said then spelled out the last name for Ray.
“Sort of rings a bell. What’s his scam?” he asked, I could hear him clicking a keyboard in the background.
“It sounds above board. He goes after buildings and retailer
s that aren’t up with the ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act. He has handicapped people scout the place out, promises them a few grand for their trouble, but then the case never goes any further. He always settles out of court for something in the neighborhood of six to ten grand, sort of legal blackmail. Then he gives the handicapped person maybe a hundred bucks and tells them to get screwed.”
“One of the news stations do something on this guy awhile back?”
I happened to have watched the hundred and twenty second piece online just the night before. “Yeah, as a matter of fact, channel eleven if I’m not mistaken, he…”
“You got a pen there?”
“I do, fire away.”
“I’ve got a Nancette Rilley,” he spelled both names out for me. “That was in December of twenty-fourteen. You said you had three names?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m only finding the one divorce in Ramsey county. Maybe the other two were in another county or hell, maybe even out of state. Here’s the address on the Rilley woman, well at least the address we have. But it wouldn’t be too unusual if she’s moved since this was filed.”
“Can’t thank you enough, Ray. This really helps.”
“I’ll tell you how you can thank me, Dev. These are a matter of public record. You pay a small fee and you can get the info, so please don’t call me again. Good luck, nice chatting,” he said and hung up.
I went back to the white pages’ site, armed with the address and the correct spelling I found the woman I was looking for and placed the phone call. I got dumped into a voicemail and left a message. My phone rang about a half hour later.
“Haskell Investigations.”
“Devlin Haskell, please, I’m returning a phone call he left for me.” She spoke softly and there was the hint of a regional accent, although I couldn’t place from where.
“Is this Nancette?”
“Yes.” She half laughed then said, “I prefer Nancy.”
