Dead Boyfriends by David Housewright Read Free Book Online Page B

“I don’t care what you heard,” he said.
    â€œAre you saying it’s not true?” G. K. said.
    â€œI never touched that woman.”
    â€œWill you testify to that under oath?”
    â€œI ain’t testifying to nothin’.”
    â€œWe’ll see.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œYou’re very nervous, Officer,” G. K. said. “Why are you nervous?”
    â€œI ain’t.”
    â€œSure you are you, Boyd,” I said. “I don’t blame you, either. Sooner or later you’ll have to answer questions under oath, and when you do, Ms. Bonalay is going to clean your clock. Then it’ll be my turn.”
    â€œYou want a piece of me? You want a piece of me right now, asshole?”
    Normally I would have been offended, except after what Merodie Davies had called me, Baumbach’s epithet sounded like a compliment.
    â€œOh, yeah. I want a piece. Why don’t you get out of your car and give me some.”
    Baumbach came out of his car quickly. “Let’s settle this like men,” he said.
    I took G. K. by the elbow and pulled her behind me. Baumbach moved close, well within striking distance, his hands stiff at his side.
    â€œLet’s go,” he said.
    I deliberately tucked my hands between my belt and the small of my back and leaned toward him.
    â€œTake your best shot, woman-beater.”
    Baumbach brought his hands up, his face red with anger. But he hesitated. He wasn’t as dumb as he looked.
    â€œGo ’head,” I told him. “The first one is free.”
    He glanced from me to G. K. and back again.
    â€œWhy are you doing this?” he asked.
    â€œYou chicken? C’mon.”
    Baumbach stepped backward until his butt was pressed against his car door. I brought my arms out and folded them across my chest again.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” G. K. asked.
    â€œCameras,” I said.
    â€œCameras?”
    I pointed at the boxes mounted high on the concrete walls at the top and bottom of the ramp.
    â€œSecurity cameras. I provoke Boyd. He takes a shot. I bust his ass using the video as evidence, and he’s the one who does time in a holding cell.”
    â€œI like it.”
    â€œYou sonuvabitch,” Baumbach called me.
    â€œAh, well. It was worth a try.”
    â€œYou’re trying to set me up,” Baumbach said. “You’re trying to set me up because—you ain’t a man. You have a problem, you should settle it like a man.”
    â€œYou’re a bad cop, Boyd, and it’s this childish notion of manhood you have that made you a bad cop. I’m going to take you off the board. It’s my civic duty.”
    Baumbach clenched like a man about to throw a punch. “This ain’t over,” he said.
    He flung a glance at G. K., pivoted, and climbed back into his Impala. The sound of his squealing tires echoed through the ramp.
    G. K. grinned as she moved to the driver’s door of her own car.
    â€œWell, that was fun,” she said.

3
    To say Nina Truhler was smart and sexy was like saying the world was big and round—mere words simply didn’t do her justice. I would have told her so, too. If only she had been at Rickie’s when I arrived.
    It took G. K. twenty-five minutes to drive from Anoka to Minneapolis even though, like me, she considered the posted speed limit to be more of a guideline than a law. She dropped me off at the Dunn Bros, coffeehouse after giving me her business card. On it she had written her personal cell and home numbers, as well as her home address. She told me to call her anytime. I pressed the card between the pages of my notebook and dropped it on the bucket seat on the passenger side of my Audi.
    By then it was already late. Most of the people who weren’t hopelessly tangled in rush hour traffic were probably sitting down to dinner by the time I drove 1-94 from Minneapolis across the Mississippi River