Page 43 of Stand By You
“From the time we left the zoo until mid-morning the following day,” Wizard said. “That’s when Carlton arrived and took over.”
Simons nodded. “And after you left the kid, what did you do?”
“We went home, and I crashed for a few hours. I had to be at work that afternoon,” Wizard said. “When I got off we both got haircuts and bought these new messenger outfits. Pretty don’t you agree?”
“Narley,” Slick said.
“Gentlemen,” Simons said. “Let’s stay focused. What else did you do?”
“We went to work the next day but saw the amber alert so we ditched our shifts and hid out so no one could find us,” Slick said. “We didn’t know if we’d be arrested. But after talking it over, we decided to talk to Carlton, but he wasn’t in when we got to his office.”
“Yea, so we smoked a little weed last night to calm our nerves and went back this evening to catch him before he left for the night,” Wizard said. “But we found him lying on the floor, bleeding out from the gunshot wound to the chest.”
“Yea,” Slick said. “It was horrible seeing him lying there.”
“Sounds like you watch a lot of police procedurals on TV,” Simons said.
“Old Starsky and Hutch reruns are my favorite,” Wizard said.
“I like Dragnet,” Slick said.
Simons shook his head, not believing these two even knew about those shows.
Slick snapped his fingers. “Hey, dude, do you know who done it?”
“Not yet.” Simons frowned. “Did Delvecchio ever say who he was working for?”
They looked at one another again as if trying to come up with the answer then they shook their heads.
“But you’d think it was his mother,” Slick said. “Wouldn’t you? If the PI was working for someone to take the kid awayfrom the creep of a dad who wouldn’t even give him his medicine.”
“When I got to thinking about this kid, having his dad, and here we were taking him away from him,” Wizard said. “Even a bad dad…it made me question, was what Carlton said true. Had we done right? Then there was that alert. We were only trying to be helpful. Honest. We didn’t think we were doing anything wrong.”
Simons nodded. “We’ll get this sorted out. Carlton paid you to do this job I suppose?”
“Hell, yea,” Slick said. “We got $1500 each. More money than we could make riding our bikes in a week.”
“Had you worked for him before?” Simons asked.
“No, first job,” Wizard said. “But he talked like he was going to have us do more for him.”
The door opened and Kohl returned. He carried two legal pads and pens as well as a twenty-ounce bottle of Sundrop. He gave it to Wizard and laid the pads and pens on the table, and beckoned Simons into a corner.
“I spoke with Travis’ nanny,” he whispered. “She confirmed that he isn’t diabetic and has never taken insulin. She gave me his pediatrician’s number, and I’ll call him in a few hours when his office opens to have his medical records sent over as confirmation.”
Simons nodded. “That patch couldn’t have held insulin,” he murmured. “Given insult to a non-diabetic could be dangerous.” When Kohl’s eyes narrowed, Simons added,” My sister is a nurse.”
“So, the patch was some kind of long-active sedative?” Kohl guessed. “Something to keep Travis knocked out?”
“Probably,” Simons agreed. “Those two are damn lucky whatever that patch was didn’t kill Travis. Did Jillian say anything else?”
“Yeah,” Kohl said. “Jillian wants to talk to these two. She’s having Nick bring her down right now.”
Simons shook his head. “They’ve already told me everything, what more does she think she will get out of them?”
Kohl shrugged. “She’s Travis’ nanny. Maybe she’s thought of something else.”
“Okay,” Simons said. “Tell her she can come.” He turned back to his suspects. “All I need from you is a detailed statement of how things went down. From the time you met Carlton, how he approached you to do the job, your instructions, the events at the zoo, where you took Travis afterward and left him with Carlton. What you did afterward until you found Carlton’s body at his office. Then sign and date it. Do you both believe you can write that up for me? Then we are going to keep you here for your protection. If Delvecchio was murdered for what he knew, then that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t be next.”
