Reporters shouted questions at Dallas and me across the barrier of yellow police tape, which encompassed her Mercedes, four squad cars, and my Toyota. Their questions were beyond idiotic—coarse, vapid, vulgar, predictable. Tabloid TV questions, geared to appeal to the dimmest of wits who might tune in. And they got paid to do it. Is this a great country or what? Forget education or class. All you need is an eighty-dollar haircut, two hundred if you’re a woman, and a mouth unfettered by sensitivity or intelligence.
Chief Menteer was keeping us well away from them, but video cameras intruded, lenses set on full zoom, glinting in the sunlight. Dallas was photogenic as hell, I was her ex, and Jonnie’s head, his head for Christ’s sake, had been found by the aforementioned ex in the trunk of her car. The word “Scandal,” with a capital “S,” hovered over us like a neon cloud. An erupting volcano in that parking lot couldn’t have drawn as big a crowd or incited as frenzied a feeding.
Through the predictable law enforcement whirl, preliminary forensic busywork, and the sheer noise, excitement, and strangeness of it, I focused on Dallas—keeping an eye on a pair of RPD detectives Menteer was in the process of assigning to work her over. And me, of course. Dallas was still weeping softly, mascara running.
“Don’t say anything,” I told her as the two detectives drew near.
“Who the hell’re you?” the male of the team asked me, a guy in his forties who bore an uncanny resemblance to Buddy Hackett back in the day.
“My husband,” Dallas answered, an automatic response that made my day. “I…I mean…my—”
“Mortimer Angel, the ex,” said the other detective, Shannon Neely, a woman in an attractive blue-gray skirted suit, evidently more up on current events than her partner. My face had been on television too, briefly, one small sideshow in the media circus.
Hackett, whose day-to-day name was Russell Fairchild, said, “Oh, yeah, him,” catching up like a greyhound. “We’ll get to you in a minute, big guy.”
“You won’t get to either one of us out here,” I informed him in my best IRS-like voice.
“Say what?”
I nodded at the burgeoning horde of paparazzi, backed up by a growing throng of onlookers. “Not here, not with them out there. It’s too hot and I was promised lunch.”
In fact I wasn’t, not that they would care. I was only promised the fun of changing a flat in the sun as the temperature approached a hundred, but I could tell that would have to wait for calmer times. I have a sense about these things.
Russell glanced at his partner and shrugged. I had him pegged as a man who liked the word lunch. He was paunch-bellied and round-shouldered. His polyester tie was pulled loose at the collar.
Shannon returned his shrug. “It is awfully hot, Russ.”
Out of hearing, Dallas’s and mine, they got the okay from Chief Menteer. One look at the TV crews convinced him. After he’d asked a few “how and why” questions for show, which I answered, the four of us took off in a marked unit, Russ driving, Shannon up front with him, Dallas and I in back where the door handles don’t work. Two RPD cruisers ran interference for us, cutting off half a dozen news vans as we got the hell out of there. I put an arm around Dallas’s shoulders. She didn’t look well, and I hoped for her sake that whatever ordeal lay in store wouldn’t drag out.
Russ headed for a yellow light, went through on red with the siren wailing. The two cruisers stayed with us. Menteer wasn’t about to hand over two prime murder suspects to Russ and Shannon without rolling backup as escort.
“So, how about Rapscallion?” I said to Russ. “I hear they’ve got a pretty good luncheon menu.”
“Seafood. You got it.” He grinned at Shannon, happy to be the guy in charge of the scamp who might have killed and beheaded his beloved mayor. Rapscallion, on Wells Avenue, is arguably the best mostly fish place in Reno. But Russ, the idiot, made a wrong turn and we ended up downtown at RPD headquarters on Second Street instead, south of the river in one of the least attractive buildings in all of Reno, butted up against the municipal courthouse.
Dallas and I were taken to separate rooms. Mine had chairs bolted conveniently to the floor and a plain wooden table, stained and gouged by countless suspects, who, from the looks of it, had been allowed to keep their knives. Dallas went off with Shannon, and I was left with Russ and a taciturn blue-uniformed officer by the name of Clifford Day. Day was noticeably bigger than me. Six-six, three hundred-plus pounds. The word on me must’ve gone out. God only knows why—the most violent thing I’ve done in the past few years is occasionally laugh out loud watching episodes of Breaking Bad, but I guess these guys weren’t taking chances.
No rubber hose, but they Miranda’ed the hell out of me. I waived my right to shut up and/or have my attorney give them a hard time for $400 an hour, not an expense I cared to take on, which is the Catch-22 in that arrangement, and they set up a recorder and began asking questions.
Before switching on the recorder, Russ gave the door a glance and said, “So, that’s your ex, huh?”
“Yep.”
He shook his head. “Man, I wouldn’ta let that one off the hook.” Out of his bed, he meant. Dallas would’ve been thrilled to the point of speechlessness by his interest.
“She threw me back,” I said.
“Weren’t big enough, huh?” He punched Day on the shoulder, happy that he’d made a joke. Day grinned.
