In less than two minutes I heard the wail of sirens in the distance. I wanted to go to a window and look out but Duncan had told me to stay put. Half a minute later I heard another siren, and another. As the sounds of sirens grew louder and closer I started thinking about the Doppler Effect. I had some trouble remembering the significance of the Doppler Effect in relation to sound, just like in high school where I failed earth science. The class was taught by a gym coach. He spent most of his time telling stories about his service in the Korean War. The rowdies at the back of the classroom always got him going on Korea.
By now the sirens were dropping to growling whirs both at the rear of my building as well as the front. I heard a lot of shouting. It sounded like the voices of men who knew their business. I remained by the phone. I had the bizarre urge to call someone and say that I was standing in the midst of chaos. But my friends had gotten tired of that long ago.
Then I heard a pounding on the interior stairwell and more shouts. I realized that the men who knew their business were hammering on tenant doors. Pretty soon they got to my door. I decided to violate Detective Duncan’s directive and move from my spot. The last time someone had hammered on my door it was a S.W.A.T. team, but I don’t have time to get into that.
“Open up!” a man shouted.
I yanked my front door open and saw firefighters dressed in yellow rubber spacesuits, including scuba tanks.
“We’re evacuating the building, you’ll have to come with us!”
I went with them. I had been expecting policemen. My reaction was Pavlovian I suppose. The S.W.A.T. team had pointed guns at me, but again no time to explain.
When we exited the front door of the building I saw a fire truck parked at 13th Avenue near a hydrant. There were cop cars all over the place. Emergency lights were flashing. I could see red glows bouncing off the trees even though it was broad daylight. Standing across the street next to a firefighter was Keith. He was wearing normal clothes. His eyes were as big as ping-pong balls. I looked around the neighborhood but didn’t see any other tenants, I saw only Keith, and it occurred to me that everyone else was probably at work. I tend to forget that most people have real jobs. I would have hated to have interrupted their daily routines. Thank God for honest labor.
I was about the ask the firefighter if he wanted me to go across the street and stand with Keith, then I saw Detectives Duncan and Argyle coming around the corner from 13th Avenue at a fast walk. I hadn’t seen them in quite a while. It felt like old home week. If you have ever spent Christmas with your relatives then you know how I felt—I braced myself, swallowed hard, and wondered if I should apologize for letting them see me again. This is a psychological tic from which I will never be cured unless I leave town forever, presumably under cover of darkness.
Duncan walked right up to me and said, “Are you okay, Murph?” “I’m okay.”
Duncan nodded at a firefighter and said, “O’Malley,” in obvious greeting. The firefighter nodded at Duncan and said, “I brought this man down from the top floor.”
Duncan nodded. “This is Mr. Murphy,” he said. “We need to speak with him.”
O’Malley nodded. “All right. The fire investigator might want to talk to him later.”
Duncan nodded.
I felt like a “thing” that they were discussing in an official capacity. To a certain extent, I was.
O’Malley walked away. I glanced across the street. Keith was looking right at me. I debated whether to give him a little wave of greeting. I decided against it. There were policemen and firefighters all over the place and I was afraid I would look like one of those cocky homicidal maniacs who hobnob with reporters during a perp walk.
“Come with us, Murph,” Duncan said.
We walked up to 13th Avenue, turned right and walked for a quarter of a block until we came to the entrance that led to the parking lot behind my building. I saw another fire truck blocking the avenue beyond the entrance. I saw more police cars. There were also two ambulances. But the best thing I saw was a DPD bomb-squad wagon parked in my lot. It was not far away from my Chevy. Neither was the bomb crew. They were crawling all over my car. The hood was up. So was the trunk lid. This didn’t surprise me. My trunk stopped locking years ago. I rely on gravity and a small loop of twine to keep it generally closed. Two men were on the ground peering beneath the frame. The doors were open and the backseat had been removed.
One of the men saw Duncan and began walking toward us. He had the rank of “captain” written all over him although I didn’t know if that was an actual rank in a bomb squad, but it might as well have been. He looked like every captain I ever met, and believe me I’ve met a lot of captains. He was wearing a safety helmet with a Plexiglas visor. He was wearing a protective vest and gloves. I’m sure you’ve seen bomb-squad gear on TV. If not, you need to watch more TV.
“That automobile is clear,” he said, removing his headgear. “No evidence of an explosive device of any sort.”
Let me pause here a moment to talk about the adrenaline that had been coursing through my system ever since I had heard the first siren. I was barely aware of it, which is the peculiar nature of adrenaline. You become physically hypersensitive to the extent that you don’t notice the adrenaline itself because you are too busy seeing and hearing things that you never perceive in the normal course of existence. Your nerves register every sight and sound within the vicinity, and Time seems to slow down. It’s like being in a David Lean movie called I’m Dying Now So Don’t Bother Me—it goes on forever, and in CinemaScope. This is all tied in with the anticipation of imminent danger. It’s only after the danger has passed that you become aware that the adrenaline is making you vibrate like jelly because jam don’t shake like that.
“No bomb?” Argyle said.
“Nosir,” the captain said. “No bomb. All we found in the car were these.”
He handed the Rocky cap and the nose-spray bottle to Duncan. Duncan examined them, then looked at me. “Are these yours, Murph?”
“Yes,” I said, without too much deliberation.
I forgot to add that there was a faint ringing in my ears. Adrenaline does this to me, too. But the ringing was beginning to fade. Time had accelerated back to normal speed, which I guess would be from a negative velocity up to the rate of zero. I don’t know if that’s possible, but that’s what happened.
I looked around at all the policemen and firefighters and bomb crew. I looked at the police cars and fire trucks and ambulances and bomb-squad wagon. Then I looked at Duncan and Argyle. They were looking at me, the last thing on earth I wanted them to look at.
“Hi, Artie,” my mouth said.
“Hello, Murph,” Detective Argyle said. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“What made you think there was a bomb planted in your Chevy?”
I smiled at him with my lips closed. Then I looked at Duncan with my lips still closed. I finally opened them and started to say, “I have a vivid imagination,” but something stopped me. The “stranger” I supposed.
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“Make it short,” Argyle said.
I looked at the captain. He was gazing at me with an expression bordering on curiosity. I say “bordering” because I was afraid to look on the other side of that fence.
“Someone threatened to shoot me at Union Station last night, and I was afraid they were still out to get me.”
Glance.
Duncan and Argyle did this—meaning they glanced at each other. All cops do this when I talk. It happens so often that I sometimes resort to the word “Glance” just to save time. I don’t know why. I guess I like to think I’m efficient.
“Did you see an object attached to your car that you thought was a bomb?” Duncan said.
“No.”
“Do you have any reason to believe that there is a bomb planted somewhere in this neighborhood?”
“No.”
The captain was now peering at me with an expression on his face that I will describe as somewhat “doleful.” Or maybe “doubtful.” Or maybe “disgusted.” Or maybe all three. He reminded me of Captain Gertler. Especially when he growled, “Is this the man who phoned in the false bomb report?”
“We haven’t fully established that the report was false,” Duncan said. His words seemed to indicate that he was on my side, although I couldn’t say the same thing about his tone of voice.
I heard a vibrating sound. I looked at my fire escape. Two bomb-squad men were coming down from my crow’s nest. The door to my kitchen was wide open. Had my Fourth Amendment rights been violated? I hoped not. The last place on earth I wanted to defend my rights was in a courtroom, but this had always been true.
“We will be taking custody of Mr. Murphy,” Duncan said. “Why don’t you have your men put his car back together. Then you can go.” The bomb-squad captain pursed his lips and gave me the 3-D look again, then turned and walked back to my Chevy and started giving orders. I gazed at my car dolefully as the crew began putting it together like a jigsaw puzzle. I wondered if they had found anything lying under the backseat. I had never looked under there before. I once found one hundred thousand dollars lying under the backseat of my taxi. It almost caused me to take up a life of ease.
“With your permission, Murph, my partner and I would like to escort you upstairs to your apartment. We have a few questions we would like to ask you.”
I nodded. I put the Fourth Amendment conundrum behind me. I had the feeling that there were a lot of other amendments that I should be more concerned with right then, except for the Second Amendment. I don’t own a gun, but the police already knew that from the one-hundred-thousand-dollar debacle.
I led Duncan and Argyle upstairs to my apartment. They entered behind me and left the kitchen door open. We walked into the living room. I would have bade them sit down but there was no place for them to sit. I have only one chair, my easy chair, which is located directly across from my TV. After my cable was installed I spent an entire evening lining up my chair so that it was aimed perfectly perpendicular to the TV screen. It has never been moved since.
“Have a seat, Murph,” Duncan said.
I sat down on my chair and looked up at them.
Detective Argyle was holding my Rocky cap and the nose-spray bottle. It occurred to me that those two items ought to have been sealed in a plastic bag as evidence, but I didn’t say anything. Duncan and Argyle knew their business, this I knew.
Duncan blew out a sigh that puffed his cheeks. “We have a problem here, Murph.”
I nodded. I didn’t know the nature of the problem but I knew it didn’t matter. Whenever cops talk to me, it’s always in the nature of a problem. “Last night you reported that one of two men pulled a gun on you at Union Station, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Detectives Ferguson and Boyd investigated that claim, and they were unable to come up with any evidence that anything you said to them was true.”
I nodded. “They did tell me that they were unable to find any corroborating witnesses.” I said “corroborating” because I thought it would sound like I was hip to cop lingo and thus would make me a sympathetic figure.
“They took a look at locker ninety-six,” Argyle said. “The key was in the lock.”
“I know,” I said. “I left it there last night before I went out and got into the taxi.”
Glance.
“My partner and I spoke with your supervisor down at Rocky Cab. Mr. Hogan told us that he has no first-hand knowledge of the existence of this lawyer named Mr. Heigger. There is a phone record of a call that came to Rocky Cab last Friday ordering a taxi to go to an address on 10th Avenue. Aside from that he knows nothing about the person who made the call. But he did say one interesting thing.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“He said you called Rocky Cab on Saturday and asked an employee named Stew for a phone number of a Heigger & Associates. You said that you had gone to that office on Saturday but the place had been cleared out.”
“That’s right.”
“We checked into this, and we could find no Heigger & Associates listed in the phone book or any other directory. In fact, we came to the conclusion that Heigger & Associates does not exist.”
“Me too,” I said.
“What do you mean, Murph?”
“I couldn’t find the office in the phone book either.”
“According to the story that you told Detectives Ferguson and Boyd, you went to this office two other times, once on Thursday and once on Friday.”
“That’s true,” I said. “The office existed on those days.” “You told them you spoke with Mr. Heigger.”
“Yes, I did. I spoke with his friend Mr. Weissberger, too.”
“And you drove him to an address up near Broomfield, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Can you tell us anything about Mr. Weissberger?”
“He pulled a gun on me at Union Station.”
Glance.
“And you subsequently squirted him with ammonia, correct?” “Correct,” I said. “I carry ammonia in that bottle whenever I drive my taxi. I do it for self-protection, but I have never squirted it while on duty.”
Argyle nodded and held the tip of the bottle to his nose. He gave it a quick sniff.
“This doesn’t smell like ammonia to me,” he said. He handed it to Duncan, who gave it a quick sniff. He shook his head no.
“What do you mean?” I said, sitting forward in my chair.
Duncan held the bottle out to me. I took it. The bottle felt full. I held the tip to my nose and took a bunch of quick tiny sniffs—I was still gun-shy from the high school debacle.
Argyle spoke: “That smells like ordinary nose spray.”
I lowered the bottle and sank back into my chair. “Last night it was filled with ammonia,” I said.
Duncan held out his hand.
I returned the “evidence” to him.
“You reported last night that someone pulled a gun on you at Union Station,” Duncan said. “And this morning you reported that a bomb might be planted in your car.”
He stopped talking and stared at me.
I stared back. I didn’t know what else to do.
“We have not been able to find any evidence that any of your claims are true,” he said. He held up the bottle of nose spray. “How do you account for the fact that this bottle does not contain ammonia?”
I stared at the bottle for a while, then said, “Perhaps it’s not the same bottle.”
Duncan examined it. He held it toward me. “It looks like a pretty old bottle, Murph. I notice that the text on the plastic is somewhat worn away. Would you take a closer look and give me your opinion?” I looked at the bottle. I had been carrying ammonia for thirteen years. I had bought the bottle at a drugstore called Skaggs, but they went out of business years ago. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the plastic cap. I handed it to Duncan.
“It’s the same bottle,” I said. “This is the cap. But I can’t account for the fact that there’s no ammonia in it, except that somebody must have removed the ammonia and replaced it with nose spray.”
“Why would anybody do that, Murph?” Duncan said, as he slowly, gently, screwed the cap onto the tip of the bottle.
I shrugged and shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Yes ... why would anybody go to all the trouble of removing ammonia from a squeeze-bottle and then replace it with nose spray, Murph?” Argyle said.
I looked at Argyle. I had just answered that question, but I knew what was really going on. They were playing a softcore version of bad-cop/bad-cop.
“You got me,” I said.
At this point Argyle looked around my apartment. He looked at my TV, then he looked at my RamBlaster, then he wandered over to the bookshelf made of unpublished manuscripts.
“If I remember correctly, you once told us that you were an unpublished writer, Murph. Are you still an unpublished writer?”
“Nothing’s changed,” I said.
“Do you like making up stories, Murph?”
“Yes,” I replied honestly.
“What kind of stories do you like to make up, Murph?”
“Anything that will sell.”
“Do you like making up suspense novels?”
“Yes.”
“Police procedurals?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. I hope you men won’t take this as an insult,” I said, “but police procedurals bore me.”
“Me too,” Duncan said.
“Same here,” Argyle said. “We get enough of that on the job.”
I nodded. “Astronauts probably don’t read science-fiction novels either.”
“Likely not,” Duncan said.
Argyle turned away from the bookshelf. He walked back to my chair and looked down at me.
“Murph,” he said. “We are going to have to ask you to come with us.”
I nodded.
“We want to be honest with you, Murph,” Argyle said. “You have made some fairly serious charges that do not hold up. We will need you to give us a written statement that covers everything you did from the night that Mr. Zelner died in your taxi until you made the false bomb report this morning. We will also need you to explain in detail this business about the key to locker ninety-six.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Before we take off, Murph, we want to ask you one last question.”
“All right.”
“Why did you try to open locker ninety-six instead of turning the key in to the lost-and-found at Rocky Cab?”
I took a deep breath and sighed. I looked at my TV. Then I looked at my bookshelf. Then I slowly stood up.
“I’m not a lawyer,” I said. “But if I was one, I would advise myself to say nothing more until I got me.”
They nodded. They were thoroughly versed in the strange turns my syntax took when my life was going to hell in a hatbox.
I looked around the living room, then looked at the two men. “By any chance would I have time to take a shower before we leave? I have hospital germs on my body.”
“I’m afraid not, Murph,” Duncan said. “You’ll have time for that later. Maybe you should bring a jacket.”
I nodded. I went to the closet and got my “big” coat. As I pulled it on I felt—for lack of a more sophisticated word—icky. I decided I would go to Blanchard’s as soon as possible. Blanchard’s is the name of the coin-operated laundromat down on Colfax where I take my laundry once a month. They serve draft beer at Blanchard’s. Nuff said.
Duncan and Argyle escorted me out to the landing. I pulled my door shut and locked it, then went down the steps. Duncan was in front of me and Argyle was behind me. As we approached the bottom step I noticed that the only emergency vehicle still in the lot was an ambulance. The back doors were wide open. Two men in white were standing beside the doors. They were big men, bigger than Duncan and Argyle, and in a lot better shape than me, which describes everybody in Denver over five feet tall.
Duncan stopped when he got to the ground, which forced me to stop on the bottom rung of the fire escape. Argyle placed a hand on my shoulder. The men in white stepped forward. Duncan turned around and said, “Murph, we would like you to ride in the back of this ambulance.” He stepped away. The men in white gently took me by the upper arms. They led me to the ambulance and helped me climb into the rear.
I was too stunned to do anything except comply.
You can carve that on my tombstone.