Page 60 of A Winter of Discontent for Henry Milch
I thought that a bit of a stretch, but he might sell it to a jury. I tried to think back, did anything Melanie say contradict this? I didn’t think it did, but she was going to have to give a detailed statement to the police. I did have one question though…
“You told me Bobbie killed a man down in Detroit. I think you were lying.”
She sighed, heavily, and said, “That has nothing to do with this.”
Which convinced me it did.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
After we finished our interview with Patty, Bernie went and talked privately with Detective Lehmann. Alone. That was annoying. Honestly, I didn’t understand why I didn’t get to join them. The general area outside the offices was now empty, the deputies and Gloria Lehmann were gone.
I took a moment to call Hamlet with an update. When he picked up, I asked, “Are you okay? When I talked to you earlier, I heard shots.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. No one was shooting at me. Of course, I’m a lot less interested in marriage now.” Moving on quickly, he asked, “Weren’t you supposed to send me a report and an invoice?”
That was completely true. I tried to sidestep it. “Not since the last time we talked.” I mean, I never sent one, but if I had it wouldn’t need updating from the last few hours. Although, actually it would…
“Bernie is really upset that his aunt confessed, though she’s adamant.”
“She was at Three Friends when Bobbie took her fall. Right?”
“And then Bobbie mooched off her for, like, nine months.”
“Is she saying why she decided to kill Bobbienow?”
“Not really. And…”
“And what?”
“Patty says she strangled Bobbie while she was asleep. But… I saw Bobbie’s face after she died. She looked terrified, like she knew exactly what was happening.”
After a moment, he said, “Did you tell that to Bernie?”
“Not yet.”
“Keep it to yourself for now. We’ll see how things develop. Good job, though.”
“Speaking of which, we need to talk about how much?—”
Lehmann’s door opened and Bernie came out. I said to Ham, “Gotta go.” And clicked off the call.
When he reached me, Bernie said, “They’ve got a search warrant coming in half an hour. I want you to go out to Aunt Patty’s house and be there while it’s searched. I would do it but, a) it’s going to be super boring, and b) I have to get Aunt Patty bail. Not going to be easy. You’ve been to the house, you remember where it is?”
“I do.”
“Make sure they give you a receipt for everything they take. Also, read the warrant and make sure they don’t take anything that isn’t specifically listed.”
“Is it going to take long? I can only be there until four-thirty.”
He frowned at me. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take. It depends on whether they drag their feet or not.”
Then he stared at me until I said, “If they run late, I’ll try to get a babysitter.”
He looked a bit confused by that statement. I decided not to explain since he’d managed to find out I was a drug addict and arguably a slut. If he couldn’t figure out I was taking care of my baby sister that was his problem.
“You’d better get going. I don’t want them there without you.”
I did manage to make it there before the deputies arrived. Which meant I was standing in the open doorway—yes, the front door was unlocked—when deputy Twiss and his two buddies got out of a black SUV and walked up to the door.
