The first police to arrive were several officers in uniform whose names I didn’t catch. They were followed by a pair of detectives. One of them, a young Hispanic-American woman named Juarez, read Ted his rights. She and her partner, an older black man named Gideon, asked the basic who-what-where-why questions. Then, satisfied that such action was appropriate, they and two of the uniforms took Ted off to the lockup.
A Detective Hawkline, a middle-aged white woman who was a dead ringer for the late Spencer Tracy, and her equally white partner, Detective Seestrunk, a thirtysomething beer keg with ears and bloodshot eyes, took more detailed statements from Lee, A.W., and, finally, me. Hawkline and Seestrunk, it turned out, were the lead detectives investigating the shoot-out at the Vosburgh mansion.
Since I had no idea how Lee had spun that situation, it was a good thing the detectives were working under the assumption that I had not been involved. They knew who I was. They knew I was a person of interest in the Gallagher murder investigation. They did not know why I wound up being a witness in what appeared to be an attempted murder in the hospital. That was the focus of their questioning, which was done primarily by Hawkline.
I kept my story as close to the truth as I could. Because I had received threats on my life, my employer, Commander Vernon di Voss, had hired InterTec to make sure I came to no harm. Bettina Noor was one of my bodyguards. When I learned of her misfortune, I decided to visit her in the hospital, where I and my other bodyguard, A.W. Johansen, interrupted Ted Parkhurst attempting to smother Ms. Noor.
Seestrunk seemed satisfied with my explanation. He appeared to have something more important on his mind, like hitting the nearest bar and grill. Hawkline, on the other hand, was one of those dog-with-a-bone investigators.
“Any idea why Mr. Parkhurst should want to kill Miss Noor?” she asked.
“No idea.”
“But you knew Mr. Parkhurst? Had what might be described as a friendly relationship with him?”
“I’d thought we were friends.”
“Was he a friend of Miss Noor’s, too?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
She changed the subject, asking if Detective Solomon would corroborate my “story” about the death threats. I replied that I had not bothered to tell him about the threats, since we were in an adversarial situation and he didn’t seem to believe anything I had to say.
She nodded and looked at Seestrunk, who was focusing on a spider in a corner of the ceiling. She nodded again and asked if I knew why Bettina Noor had gone to a deserted mansion earlier that day.
I said that I did not.
She asked if I knew a man named Stephen Gault, and I replied that I did not know him.
“Could Miss Noor’s trip to the mansion have had anything to do with your death threats?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“What about this Parkhurst guy? Think he might have been the source of the threats?”
“He’d be near the top of my list,” I said.
“Why do you think he’s got it in for you?”
“You’d have to ask him.”
“And why would he have it in for Miss Noor?”
I was beginning to like Detective Hawkline and the way she threw those questions right across the plate. I actually wished I could lay it all out for her—Felix, the kidnapping, the whole works. Just unburden myself. But that would have been foolish. Instead I said, “I don’t know.”
“This gonna take much longer?” Detective Seestrunk inquired.
Detective Hawkline told him she thought it would and smiled when she said it.
Shortly after that, she got a phone call. She listened awhile, emitting little grunts of mild surprise. She made a few whispery comments behind her hand that I couldn’t hear, being neither a dog nor a teenager. Then she put away the phone.
“Good news for the bars in town, Seestrunk, you’re through here,” she said, rising. Her body was a little like Spencer Tracy’s, too.
“What’s up?” I asked.
Detective Hawkline gave me a look of bemusement. “Good-bye, Mr. Blessing,” she said. “I imagine Detective Solomon may be checking in with you to talk about those death threats.”
“I’d rather talk with you,” I said.
“I appreciate the compliment, if that’s what it is,” she said. “But we have nothing more to discuss.”
“I’m not sure what that means.”
“The case against Theodore Parkhurst is no more. It expired with Mr. Parkhurst.”
“Say what?”
“Mr. Parkhurst died. Dead. Taking a dirt nap,” Detective Hawkline said over her shoulder as she followed Seestrunk out the door. “Good night, Chef Blessing.”