Dead_Wood

Six

After Mr. Barre left my office, I logged onto the Internet and searched for newspaper accounts of Jesse Barre’s murder. I found nothing in the local paper, but that didn’t surprise me. The Grosse Pointe newspaper was legendary for not publicizing any stories of crime. Why? Because on the scale of priorities, Grosse Pointe residents placed property values on the same level as breathing. Perhaps even a nudge higher. A weekly report of all the petty crimes that occurred mostly on the direct border with Detroit, more frequently that most would like to admit, might make people think twice about plopping down a half-million dollars on that picturesque Tudor with three fireplaces and an annual tax that could make a grown man choke on his bacon-wrapped filet mignon.

Anyway, I found what I was looking for on the Detroit Free Press website. The articles there gave me the basic facts: the murder took place at Jessica Barre’s studio on Kercheval, just a few blocks from the border with Detroit. It was an abandoned shoe repair shop that she’d converted to a guitar-making studio. The murder took place at approximately 11 P.M. Forced entry. Blunt force trauma. DOA. The article said it appeared to be a robbery but didn’t elaborate. The murder weapon – a heavy hammer that belonged to the victim, was left next to her body.

It was all very straightforward to me. Although Grosse Pointe was by and large a very safe community, when you spent that much time right on the border with Detroit, sometimes bad things could happen. On the Alter border, it was pretty common for bicycles and children’s toys to be snatched from the yard. Patio furniture was even known to sometimes get up in the middle of the night and walk across the border into Detroit never to be heard from again. Same goes for grills and portable basketball hoops.

The other street that bordered Detroit, Mack Avenue, was legendary for carjackings, purse snatchings and even the occasional bank robbery.

Hey, your neighbor is one of the most dangerous cities in the country, you have to expect it. Grosse Pointe residents had become over the years naturally inured to the bullshit, although on the few occasions something really bad happened it often gave pause to consider a move to the northern suburbs where McMansions and golf courses rule the land.

I skimmed the Free Press article once again. It all seemed pretty clear cut to me. Someone had probably seen the guitars, a woman working alone, late at night. They broke in, killed her and grabbed what they could. Leaving the murder weapon and wiping it free of prints indicated a certain sophistication, I had to admit, but for the most part, it was probably what it seemed: a robbery that had gotten rough. Innocent people in robberies were killed all the time. Fast food workers killed execution style in the walk-in freezer. Why? Because some cold, sadistic psycho didn’t want any witnesses left alive. Or maybe a punk with a gun wanted to feel the ultimate power. Who knew?

There was only one thing that seemed to stick in the back of my brain as I re-read the article. It seemed odd to me that a thief, even taking into account the fact that not all thieves are terribly clever, would choose to knock over a guitar studio. It’s not a cash business. It wasn’t sexually motivated, at least there was no mention of an assault in the papers. And guitars would not be a terribly hot item on the market. From what I’d read and from the impression Clarence Barre had given me, the guitars Jesse Barre made were unique. I wasn’t exactly an expert on robbery and the fencing of stolen goods, but it seemed like trying to sell a Jesse Barre guitar locally would likely present problems. It also held that most guitar stores would not only recognize one of Jesse’s guitars, but would also have heard of the murder. My guess was that the cops had already called all the guitar stores and told them to be on the lookout for the kind of guitars she made. They would urge the shops to get a description and if possible, a license plate, of anyone trying to sell a Jesse Barre guitar. Pretty standard procedure.

I took a deep breath and thought some more. What if Clarence was right? What if this Hornsby had killed Jesse Barre and made it look like a robbery? That too was a trick as old as the hills. I suspected the cops had looked into it, Clarence said Hornsby had an alibi, but alibis can be manufactured. Good ones take a lot of time and effort and planning. Would this Hornsby, the ex-con, be able to do it?

I saved the article to my computer’s desktop and pushed away from the desk, propping my feet on the low bookcase next to the wastebasket. I put my hands behind my head and thought about Clarence Barre. I knew that I liked him. And my wife has told me time and time again that I put a filter on my brain when it comes to people I like. That I see too much of the positive in people, sometimes even create it when it’s not there. Maybe so. There was the off chance that I was looking for something that would justify my case for taking on Clarence Barre as a client.

But objectivity is a bastard. The fact was, I knew that the criminal mind is not a bastion of logic. Throw some booze and drugs into the mix and you’ve got a human being reduced to his or her most base instincts. A desperate person walks by a studio that may or may not be some kind of cash business, it’s night, a woman is working alone on loud woodworking machines; the perfect opportunity for a smash and grab. Maybe the woman tries to defend herself or her products, and things get out of hand. It happens.

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I thought Clarence Barre was most likely off-base and wrapped up in the emotions of a grieving father and that I had somehow fallen victim to his genuine earnestness.

My first impression of Clarence Barre was that he was a good man. Had probably been a good father. And he was a man who loved and cherished his daughter above all else, including logic. He was a good man, but he was probably wrong.

It seemed like there was really one right decision here.

But you know, I’ve made so many f*cking mistakes in my lifetime that one more wouldn’t hurt.

I would take the case.





Seven





London

The Spook was disappointed.

The investment banker’s apartment was extremely luxurious. Marble floors. Turkish rugs. Original artwork worthy, in some cases, of museums.

All of which didn’t surprise the Spook. After all, the banker had been skimming profits, stealing from the bank’s partners for years. From the dossier that had been given to him, the Spook learned the investment banker had pilfered nearly twenty million dollars. The man’s partners, some of whom had ties to various illegal activities themselves, were not happy. Undue attention in their business could prove to be lethal.

None of that disappointed or even interested the Spook. What upset him was the quality of the guitars. Surrounded by trappings of extreme wealth, the guitars were a joke. A run-of-the-mill Yamaha acoustic, a new Fender and that was about it. Even worse, the guitars were dusty and out of tune. The strings hadn’t been changed in ages. A disgrace.

The Spook was a guitar player. Although he loved his work, loved to get paid to kill people, he lived for music. The piercing wail of a bent third string, the soul shaking shudder of a bluesy vibrato, it moved him in ways nothing else could. He looked at the guitars and shook his head.

This man deserved to die.

The Spook checked his watch. The banker’s name was Gordon Springs and the Spook knew from countless hours of surveillance that he was due home in ten minutes. A routine that the man never failed to repeat, day after day, month after month. The human need for structure made the Spook’s job all that much easier.

He went to the nearest guitar, the Yamaha acoustic and picked it up from its holder. Finding a pick and a slide – one couldn’t very well perform intricate fingerwork wearing surgeon’s gloves – he tuned the guitar to an open G and played a few notes. It didn’t sound that great. The strings were very old and there was a rattle near the bridge. To the Spook, it was how a social worker must feel to hold a neglected baby.

He made some adjustments, then played the opening to “You Got The Silver” from Let It Bleed. One of his idol’s masterpieces of subtlety. No one could make a guitar do things the way Keith Richards could. Keith was more than just the famous guitarist of the infamous Rolling Stones, he was the Spook’s god. The Spook felt that what he was to the profession of assassins, Keith was to the profession of rock and roll.

He finished off the song and set the guitar back in its stand. The guitar pissed off the Spook. To be here, in London, Keith Richards’ home stomping grounds, and to see an apartment filled with expensive shit but mistreated guitars…well, it went against everything he believed in.

He checked his watch. Any minute now.

He went back to the guitar and turned the third string’s tuning key until the string itself began to sag and hang away from the body of the guitar. The Spook continued unwinding until he could pull the string through the tuning key’s hole, and then he popped the plastic peg that held the string in place at the center of the guitar’s body. When it was free, he took two kitchen towels, placed them in the palm of his hand, then wound an end of the string around each hand.

Moments later, he heard the key in the lock and he disappeared into the darkness of the apartment. He heard the door swing open, a pause, and then the door clicked shut. He heard Mr. Springs sigh. Relief at living another day without falling off the tightrope that is the criminal life. The Spook knew Mr. Springs had a mistress, a drinking problem and a severe lack of self-control, but he didn’t care. Mr. Springs wasn’t a person, he was simply an assignment.

The Spook listened as footsteps echoed on the hardwood floor. Then the footsteps stopped. The Spook knew exactly what the banker was doing.

He emerged from the shadows.

The banker stood in the kitchen, his back to the living room. The Spook had rented a flat directly across the street with a perfect view of Mr. Springs’ apartment. Because of this, the Spook knew that Mr. Springs’ answering machine was on the kitchen counter and that every evening the first thing Mr. Springs did when he got home was put his briefcase on the kitchen’s island, then turn his full attention to the answering machine.

The Spook stood behind the British investment banker for just a moment, then reached up and looped the guitar string, cross-handed, over the man’s head. Springs heaved back but the Spook easily pivoted and brought him down, then kneeled on the man’s back. He worked the thin metal cord back and forth like saw until it had thoroughly cut through the soft flesh of the banker’s neck. The Spook heard a scream reduced to soft gurgles and Springs thrashed for several seconds before his nerves received their final instructions.

And then Springs was dead.

His contract with the bank’s partners fulfilled, the Spook stood, wiped the blood off the string with one of the kitchen towels, then went back to the guitar. He threaded the string back through the tuning key, tapped the peg back in place and wound the string tight, tuning by ear.

The Spook picked up the glass slide and confidently eased into the opening licks of “Moonlight Mile.”

He only had time for one or two songs.

The guitar sucked, sure. But his hero had played on worse.

This one definitely went out for Keith.





Eight

The address Clarence Barre had given me was on a street called Rivenoak, along the small strip of homes east of Jefferson. It was a valuable stretch of property, bordered on one side by Lake St. Clair. On the other side of Jefferson was the bulk of Grosse Pointe, acting as a thick layer of insulation from the depravity of Detroit proper.

The neighborhoods here were very upscale. Big lots, big houses, big money. The royalties from Clarence’s backlist must have been both large and frequent.

The house itself was a statuesque Colonial. It was between two larger Tudors and just a few houses in from Lake St. Clair. A small cul-de-sac with benches and wildflowers was at the end of the street. Clarence could stroll down here after dinner, smoke a cigar, and watch the boats pass by and the gulls doing their thing. He probably would have done something like that before his daughter’s death. Now, my guess was that if he did come down and look out over the water, he’d think the kind of thoughts no parents should have to entertain. Someone once said the most painful thing in the world is to outlive your children. Seemed to me to be a pretty safe bet.

I parked my car, a utilitarian gray Taurus, in the stamped concrete driveway. I went to the door and used the brass knocker, trying to tap out the bass line to Clarence’s “Mississippi Honey.”

He answered the door wearing the kind of outfit he’d worn to my office; jeans, a colorful shirt and a black leather vest. Shiny, pointed toe cowboy boots as well. They looked to be of the same kind of leather as the bolo tie around his neck.

We shook hands and then he showed me in to his living room. It was like the man himself; warm, rugged and comfortable. Leather furniture, dark Persian rugs, some gold records on the wall as well as some pictures of a younger Clarence Barre with some minor and not-so-minor celebrities.

“Can I get you anything, Mr. Rockne?” he asked.

“Please, call me John. No thanks, I’m fine.” We each took a leather club chair and he looked at me questioningly.

“So...”

“What can you tell me about Nevada Hornsby?”

An almost imperceptible smile crossed Clarence’s face. He knew I was taking the case. In fact, he’d probably known before I had.

“He runs a salvage operation out of St. Clair Shores,” Clarence said.

“Salvage – like sunken ships?”

“Wood. Old lumber that sunk hundreds of years ago. It’s valuable stuff. Jesse used it to make her guitars.”

“So that’s how they met,” I said.

He nodded. “Ironically, in my mind, when she started using that salvaged lumber was when her career really took off. She’d tried different stuff, built a pretty big following with exotic woods. But when she started using the stuff from Hornsby, everything changed. For the better.”

“Even her personal life,” I added.

He didn’t like that. “That’s how she saw it, I’m sure. But I never liked the guy from day one. Real quiet. Standoffish. Like he had something to hide.”

“Such as...”

“Who knows?”

I looked at my notes. “He’s got an alibi.”

“The alibi is bullshit,” he said. “Probably bought and paid for.” Clarence’s face had turned slightly reddish in color. I had a feeling pissing him off wouldn’t be a good idea.

“What is the alibi? Do you know?”

Clarence shook his head. “The cops wouldn’t tell me. Said it was an official matter. Official my ass.”

“If you don’t know what the alibi is, how can you be so convinced it isn’t valid?” I asked.

“Because of what Jesse said,” he said. His voice was full of exasperation. I felt like the dumb kid in class and no matter how hard the teacher tried, I just couldn’t grasp the concept at hand.

“That he was possessive,” Clarence said. “Jealous. Christ, the guy’s practically a hermit. Just him, his ship and dragging dead wood out of the lake. No wonder he latched onto Jesse.”

A silence hung in the air for a few moments.

“Are you going to help me?” he asked.

“Here’s what I think,” I said, leaning forward. “My advice is if you are determined to have the outcome of this investigation be the uncovering of a complex murder plot involving your daughter, don’t hire me.” He looked at me, almost a glint in his eye. It reminded me of Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven.

“I’m ninety-nine percent sure that if I do further investigation,” I continued, “I’m going to find that it was, in fact, a burglary gone wrong. Maybe you’ll get mad and won’t want to pay me or maybe you’ll just try to beat the shit out of me. Whatever. If, however, you truly are interested in uncovering the truth – even if that truth isn’t something you agree with, then we can talk. So you tell me what you want out of this, and we’ll see what we can work out.”

He eased himself out of his chair and walked toward the pictures on the wall. He passed by the ones featuring himself and other celebrities. He paused at the end of the row. I couldn’t see what he was looking at. But his big shoulders slumped slightly. For just a moment, he looked like a tired old man.

“My wife was a pessimist,” he said. His voice was low and gentle. “Back then, I was just a studio musician and a songwriter doing small solo gigs at backwoods clubs. She was a secretary who came to see me play once. Introduced herself. She was so goddamn beautiful. Blonde hair, gray eyes that could twist your insides if she looked at you a certain way. This was before my would-be manager approached me and told me he could make a star out of me. That I was a hit-making machine waiting to be put into production.”

I leaned forward in my chair, trying to get a better look at the photos on the wall as he told his story.

“Anyway, we started seeing each other and got married only a few months later,” he said. “I was writing, singing and playing whenever I could. Hell, all the time. But it was just me and her back then. That wasn’t just love. It was intense love.”

He turned back to me and his eyes blazed at me. Jesus, I thought, this guy is old-school.

“See, she didn’t want to have kids,” he said. “It was that pessimist in her. She thought most people were bastards through and through. A truly low opinion of human nature, of society in general. She was sort of a split personality, which I found very attractive. She had a heart of gold, but her take on the world was that it was the equivalent of a pack of hyenas trying to rip off a chunk of the carcass.”

“Why did she think that?” I said.

He just shrugged his big shoulders. “She never really said. I think her parents splitting up had something to do with it. I don’t think her childhood was the greatest. But it’s not like she was a sad sack, either. She was happy go lucky most of the time. But it was hard to get her to give people the benefit of the doubt, you know?”

“I do.”

“She loved me, though. I guess she thought I was the exception to the rule.”

I nodded. Like so many theories on human behavior, there was a grain of truth to it.

“But when it came to people and the world around me, I was Mr. F*cking Optimistic. The world was my oyster, boy. I knew I could make good music. The future was full of joy, happiness and success. And money, too. To me, that was all a given. But what I really wanted was a family. I wanted kids, man. To me, that was the end all in life. And hell, I didn’t think people were all bad. Sure, there were jackals. But there are good people, too.”

He walked back and sat down in his chair. There were tears in his eyes and he didn’t try to hide them. By now, they were probably old friends to him. “So we had Jesse. And my wife died of cancer a few years later. And now…Jesse’s gone. I feel like my wife was right. I never should have brought a child into this world unless I could protect that child completely and indefinitely. It’s my fault she’s dead. I couldn’t protect her. But I can find out who did it. Find out which jackal it was. And I can make them pay. It won’t bring her back. But…I guess…” He raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I guess it’s all I can do,” he said.

I didn’t know what to say. I knew what he was going through. I had lost a child, too. Not one of my own. But a child I had been responsible for. But I didn’t think that would help him. So I kept my mouth shut. Soon, he was able to continue.

“So do what you can,” he said. “If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But I want you to leave no stone unturned. Bring me irrefutable proof that it was random and we’ll be done. But keep an open mind.”

Clarence looked tired and spent. I didn’t just want to take the case. I wanted to hug him.

“Okay, deal,” I said. “I’d like to get started immediately.”

“Just tell me what you need.”

“For starters, I want to see her studio.”





Nine

In my brief time as a cop, I’d only been to a few crime scenes. To say it’s odd is an understatement. It’s the little things like inspirational notes tacked on the fridge. Message slips next to the phone. Clothes draped over the back of a chair. Notes and letters and bills and grocery lists. Those are the things that suddenly seem like haunted memories.

Jesse Barre’s guitar studio was no exception.

The building was at the end of Kercheval, a stone’s throw from the Detroit border. Like just about every other building on this end of town, it had most likely been through many, many incarnations. Restaurants, furniture stores, craft shops, liquor stores. One and all had been tried. The problem was, not too many people in Grosse Pointe like coming down for a reminder of just how close they are to the Big D. Especially at night.

Jesse’s studio was two stories of sienna-colored brick with a small stone inset at the top reading “1924.”

Clarence and I parked, then went around to the back. An alley ran behind the building.

“You sure this is okay?” Clarence asked me as we circumvented the police tape stretched across the back door. There was a big square of plywood where a window used to be. Clarence looked at it but didn’t say anything.

“Yeah,” I lied. “I’m pretty tight with the Chief of Police.”

He nodded. I could see his face and it didn’t look good. Pale, and his jaw was clenched shut.

“Clarence, why don’t you wait in the car?” I said.

He shook his head. “I’ve been in here once already…after. I can do this.” He unlocked the door and we stepped inside. I pulled it shut behind us and locked it.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. It smelled like a lumber yard. That wonderful scent of freshly cut wood. The second thing I noticed was that the studio was bigger than it looked from the outside. Along one wall was a row of woodworking machines that to my weekend-carpenter’s eyes looked like something only Norm Abraham could understand. I recognized a lathe and a huge old scoping saw as well as a drill press and table saw, but the rest of them, I had no idea what they did.

Along the other wall was a long workbench, at least twenty feet, with lots of stains and gouges and scratches. It had seen a lot of use in its long life. A pegboard hung above it. On the pegboard was a collection of hand tools that looked like they belonged in either an antique store or some kind of torture chamber. I saw more weird-looking clamps and medieval-looking instruments than I knew existed.

At the end of the studio, opposite the entrance was what appeared to be Jesse’s main work center. There was a vast array of lights, and a more sophisticated table with an impressive collection of measuring equipment. There was also the only real chair in the place.

Next to the table was the chalk outline of Jesse’s final resting place. I imagined her body on the floor, surrounded by the tools of her craft. The fragments of guitar pieces looking down at her. Even though I’m not terribly religious, something like a short prayer vocalized itself in my mind.

Clarence came and stood next to me. I could hear his breathing, labored and rapid. He looked down at the other end of the studio and after a moment said with a voice that had lost all of its timbre and conviction, “Maybe I will wait in the car.” I said okay and waited for him to leave. Once the door was shut, I walked ahead and tried not to dwell on the giant blood stain still visible on the concrete floor.

I made my way around the workshop. I studied the blood spot on the floor then looked at the ceiling. There were blood splatters that had been noted by the crime scene technician. Despite the fact that there was probably no way he could have missed them, I hoped to God Clarence hadn’t seen them. The brutality of the crime shook me. A blood splatter on the ceiling meant that after this woman had had her head cracked open and the blunt instrument was covered in blood, the perp had kept beating. Nothing drives home the violence of a crime like blood splatters on the ceiling.

There were a lot of fragmentary pieces – shapes and contours of wood that would eventually be used in a guitar. I recognized a kind of rib framing and several guitar necks. There were even boxes of the knobs guitarists use to tune the strings. Off in one corner was a small sink and an old, battered coffeemaker with a hodgepodge of cups surrounding it. A small refrigerator was tucked beneath a makeshift countertop. On a shelf above the coffeemaker was an old, dusty stereo with stacks of CDs and audio cassettes. Mostly classical music. The majority of them played on guitar.

It was all mundane and not glamorous in the least bit. But most importantly of all to my way of thinking, it was pretty much useless to a petty thief.

I just stood for a moment in the studio. Outside, I could hear the occasional hum of traffic, maybe a voice here or there. The pipes in the building occasionally creaked and popped. Ordinarily you would probably never hear them. But now in the stillness of the aftermath, they seemed like loud intrusions.

I tried to glean any other pieces of information from the room that I could. I re-examined the point of entry for the killer. Took particular time studying the door and the actual spot of the crime.

I took one final look around the workshop, then, satisfied, contemplated what to do next.

Clarence had mentioned to me that Jesse lived above the studio in a simple apartment. As he put it, it hadn’t been much, but she hadn’t wanted much. I thought of going up to her living quarters, but hesitated. Although entering the workshop was technically illegal, it seemed sneaking into Jesse’s living quarters was an even bigger violation, although more of a moral infraction.

The guitar pieces hanging from various hooks and clamps seemed to be watching me wrestle with indecision. In the end, I knew I had to do it. If Clarence really wanted me to find out whether or not his daughter was truly the victim of a premeditated crime, it had to be done.

After all, I’d promised Clarence I would find out the truth.

• • •



True to Clarence’s word, the apartment wasn’t much. A living room with simple furnishings; a comfortable but well-worn leather couch. An old Adirondack style rocking chair. A wall of bookshelves filled with tomes on art and music.

There was an old guitar resting in a stand next to the rocker. It definitely wasn’t one Jesse had made. It reminded me of those old jazz numbers from the 1920s. At the top, the name ‘Gibson’ was emblazoned across the wood.

I walked through the living room and into the kitchen. It too was simple with a small pine table and two old, wooden chairs. A stove from the 50s was next to a fridge most likely from the same decade. To the left of the sink was a small amount of counter and a few simple cabinets painted robin’s egg blue. The small butcher block countertop smelled vaguely of red wine and garlic.

A short hallway ran off the kitchen to two bedrooms. One had a small bed with a pine night table. There was a painting over the headboard that looked original. It portrayed a northwoods harbor empty save for a few small boats. It looked cold and gray.

The second bedroom was nearly empty save for a few guitar cases, a steel folding chair and a small stereo. There was a bathroom between the bedrooms. I peeked inside and saw that it was small and cramped but impeccably clean.

I walked back to the living room tried to imagine Jesse Barre, a talented guitar-maker, daughter of a talented musician, working all day in the shop, then coming up here to relax. When? Did she eat in the studio or up here? What time did she finish? Dinnertime, or later? Was she a night owl? The living room looked hardly lived in. There was no television. No stereo. Just the couch, the rocking chair, a lamp and the books. Did she spend all day laboring over the machines, the grinding and cutting and sanding and shaping of wood, then retire up here with a glass of wine and a good book?

Not a bad way to go, really. Awfully solitary, though. Was she anti-social? Working all day alone, then coming up here alone? How often did this Nevada Hornsby come by?

I looked around the living room for pictures, spotted a small shelf to the left of the rocker. I crossed the room and studied them. There were about seven all together. All very small frames. There was one of Jesse who at the time looked to be in her early twenties with a woman who was considerably older. Her mother. Where was Clarence? I studied the pictures and saw two with him, one younger and one probably a couple years ago.

I heard a footstep behind me.

I picked up the picture and started to say to Clarence who had probably gotten tired of waiting in the car, “So tell me about this picture—”

The blow came out of the darkness, sent pain shooting through my middle, my kidneys flattened and I instantly sank to my knees. I tried to turn my head but a walloping smash that felt like a brick being broken over my head toppled me over onto the floor. Instantly, my attacker was on top of me. He had on a mask. A knife flashed in front of my face and then I felt its razor sharpness against my throat. I could feel his breath on my face, it smelled like beer and hamburger.

“Where is it?” he asked.

I tried to answer but my tongue and brain weren’t connecting. Some kind of wiring had been rearranged.

“Don’t play dumb motherf*cker. I’ll split you in two right here.”

I saw the flash of teeth through the fabric of the mask. I tried again to speak, but nothing came out. I felt blood in my mouth and there was an enormous pressure against my eyes. My head was going to explode, I was sure of it. Suddenly, he grabbed the neck of my shirt and dragged me across the floor.

“You’re going to tell me where it is or you’re going to f*cking die. Those are your choices.”

His voice was raw and angry. He was slightly out of breath. I tried to fight him, tried to raise my arms, but my vision came in bursts, followed by oceans of black. My limbs were numb and useless. I felt myself falling, banging off the stairs, the wall, the handrail leading down into the shop. I saw snapshots of wood and plaster, felt stabs of pain in my back, shoulders and face. Everything went black. But it was only for a second, because a blurred canvas of colors washed across my brain before I heard his steps and then felt his hands on me again.

There was a roar in my ears and he pulled me into a sitting position, pinning me against a base cabinet. Now, the roaring was closer and louder. One of my eyes must have already been swollen shut because I couldn’t see anything to my left. All I could see out of the other one was the rounded edge of a woodworking machine. He grabbed my right arm and pulled it toward him. He changed his grip, holding two of my fingers in each hand, and pulling them apart so they formed a “V” and opened up a path that would go directly into the middle of my hand. My fingers were pulled so far apart I was sure he was going to rip them right out of my hand. I twisted as best I could, heaved against him in a panicked fury, but to no avail. He leaned against me, pinning me still, my hand a helpless sacrifice to whatever he intended to do.

“Where…is…it?” he asked me again. I could practically hear his teeth grinding as the words choked from his mouth.

I turned my head so my good eye could get a better look and what I saw sent my body and mind both screaming in panic. The roaring was the high-pitched whine of a glorified scroll saw – a thin blade moving up and down with nearly incomprehensible speed. My hand was pressed onto the cutting surface, the blade already in the middle of the V, just an inch or so away from the webbing of where the fingers meet the palm.

Before I could react, he pushed my arm forward and a searing pain shot up my palm to my arm to my brain and I exploded as I saw the blade sink its teeth into my flesh. I crashed against the man and we both fell against the saw. I felt the blade rip from my hand and then the man screamed in pain and we both toppled to the floor. I heard his knife clatter across the concrete just before my head banged against the floor and then he was on top of me, punching and kicking and the lights were swirling.

I lashed out at him, but my blows caught air or glanced off him harmlessly. I was going to die, a few feet from where Jesse Barre’s blood still stained the concrete—

—but then the color of the flashing lights changed, from a throbbing dull yellow to bright white.

The blows suddenly stopped and he was off me in a rush. I struggled to get up but my legs didn’t want to cooperate.

I heard shouting and then glass breaking as the windows and walls of the studio were now awash with incredibly bright light. Maybe this was Heaven. I looked for Jesus, thinking he would wave me in. Instead, I saw a thick wave of gray hair.

“Grandma?” I asked. “Should I come toward the light?”

For just a second, everything started to spin and the spacious room looked like a dance floor. Only instead of teenagers consumed with the throes of adolescent love, the only thing happening at center stage was a thirty-five year old father of two bleeding and being overcome with more pain than he’d ever thought possible.

The figure in the light moved and said something but I couldn’t understand.

Just before I blacked out for good, I figured out who was calling me to Heaven.

It was Kenny Rogers.





Ten

The last time I had stitches I was eight years old. I’d gone ice-skating for the first and last time. I took a header and fell flat on my face, my front tooth slicing through my lip. A lip the size of a ping pong ball resulted, with four stitches sealing up the cut.

Now, at Bon Secour Hospital’s emergency room, I got the same number in the middle of my hand.

“That’s a really ugly cut,” the doctor said to me. “How did it happen?”

“I was building a bird feeder and I got careless,” I said. “I was thinking ahead to the cardinals and bluejays, not about what I was doing.”

He nodded like he heard it all the time.

“You know that older guy you came in with?” the doctor asked. “Where do I know him from?”

I sang, “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run…”

The doctor gave a surprised look and then peeked out of the room toward the lobby.

“Hey,” I said, “Are we done here?”

• • •



Clarence and I walked out to my car in the Bon Secour Hospital parking lot. My hand had a small bandage, but unfortunately not so small that I’d be able to get it past my wife without her noticing. That would be another tussle where I’d end up on the losing end.

I insisted on driving, no way was I going to let a minor woodworking accident turn me into an invalid. After we got in and I pulled out onto Jefferson I thought for a moment before speaking. Clarence and I hadn’t really had a chance to talk about what happened with my hand bleeding so badly. Now that I was okay, I needed to hear Clarence’s side of it.

“So tell me what you saw,” I said.

“At first, nothing,” he said. “I was fiddling with the radio a lot, trying to find some decent music, but all I kept getting was this synthesized Britney Spears kind of shit. Then I realized I wasn’t listening to the radio, but one of your CDs.”

I could feel his eyes on me and I visibly squirmed. “I was just making sure it was acceptable for my daughters.” God, I hated being busted.

Clarence ignored me and said, “So I finally found a decent country station and laid back and closed my eyes, thought about Jesse.”

“Which explains why you didn’t see or hear anything.”

“And then I don’t know why, but I sat up and looked over and I thought I saw some shadows moving inside. I mean, it was still dark in there so I couldn’t really tell. But even so, it seemed like there were two shadows.”

“So you came to investigate.”

“I turned off the radio and heard a saw. And I thought what the f*ck is he doing? Building a coffee table in the dark? And it kind of pissed me off, that you would feel like you could just turn on one of Jesse’s saws. Those things are personal to a craftsman.”

“So you…”

“So I walked in thinking you had bumped up against one of the machines and probably couldn’t figure out how to turn it off.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Hey, no offense, but you don’t seem like the handy type.”

I let that one go and said, “So you turned on the light.”

“And the guy was already through the window because I guess he heard me come in through the door. I didn’t see anything but blue jeans, a leather jacket and a ski mask.”

I nodded and waited.

“I would have called the cops right away, but I figured we weren’t supposed to be there in the first place. I didn’t want to get either one of us in trouble.”

He had a funny look on his face and I knew what was coming next before he even said it.

“It was Hornsby. I know it was him.”

“But you didn’t get a good look,” I said.

“It was him. I’ve met him. Same build. Same movement.”

“Was he wearing a ski mask the last time you saw him?”

Clarence didn’t say anything to that, but I knew he would claim it was Hornsby. My attacker could have been a black Parisian midget and Clarence would have somehow argued it was Horsnby.

We rode in silence as I drove toward Clarence’s house. I wanted to believe him, but Jesus Christ. I practically get my hand turned into a dovetail joint and Clarence had no idea anything was going on? Pretty convenient that he had his eyes closed and the radio on. See no evil, hear no evil. I imagined a scenario in which Clarence made a call to someone to come and rough me up. But that was paranoia. Why would he do that? Why would he hire me and then have someone turn me into the standard shop teacher with a missing digit or two?

“What now?” Clarence said.

I pulled into his driveway to let him out.

“Well,” I said, “A crime was committed and I guess I have to report it to the police.”

“And then what?”

“Then I talk to Nevada Hornsby.”

• • •



There are three main roads from Detroit that cross the Alter border into Grosse Pointe. They are Jefferson, Kercheval and Mack. There used to be a rumor that at those three main intersections a Grosse Pointe cop car could always be found, idling, waiting for any Detroiter, most likely with dark skin, to come across the line. At which point, the Grosse Pointe cops would spring into action.

If it ever was true, it certainly isn’t any longer. However, the Grosse Pointe police station, for the part of Grosse Pointe known as the Park, is located just off of Alter on Jefferson, one of the main intersections between the two disparate communities. Certainly, a Detroiter would think twice about ambling across the city line on a path that would take him or her directly in front of the cop shop.

I’m sure the location of police headquarters is just a coincidence. Honestly.

Like just about everything else in Grosse Pointe, police headquarters is very clean. The building itself is made of brick that fits nicely into the surrounding architectural style. Inside, the carpet is immaculate, modern desks free of clutter, and a squad room that smells more like a bank than a home to cops.

Every time I came back, which was quite often, I couldn’t help but think of my first day on the force so many years ago. The offices had changed a little, new carpet and paint, different desks, the layout of offices and cubicles had all been changed. But it was the same place. It wasn’t as terrifying to me now as it was back then, when I was a rookie fresh from the Michigan Police Academy on his first assignment. Back then, I was sweating beneath the dark blue uniform, my palms slick with nervousness as I shook hands with my new co-workers. My brothers in blue.

It’s funny in retrospect. How, when you’re nervous, you tell yourself that you’re making too big a deal out of whatever’s causing your anxiety. You imagine a worst-case scenario and then imagine that it will never get that bad.

It’s funny and it’s not. Because looking back, I had no idea just how right my fears would turn out to be. And in fact, I hadn’t been exaggerating. The truth was that at the time I was grossly underestimating just how f*cked-up everything would become. I’d lowballed it in a way I could never have conceived.

Now, I walked to the front desk and saw Suzy Wilkins, the receptionist. She was in her mid-forties, a clear, strong face with hair that was shot through with gray. But the steel in her eyes had a way of discouraging any bullshit. Always a good trait in a police department receptionist.

“The Chief in?” I asked.

She nodded, the telephone headset emitting the sound of someone on the other end of the line. She fingered the buzzer beneath the top of her desk and a deep buzzing sounded as the main door into the squad room unlatched. I walked through the metal reinforced doorway and down the hall. There were framed pictures of the department’s officers on the walls, most with commendations for public service, a few for awards. The Chief was pictured in many of the stories and articles, a look of proud stoicism that I knew very well. The Chief wasn’t the Chief when I started on the force. That happened a few years after the murder of a certain young man.

I passed a couple of patrol cops in the hallway. We nodded our hellos. It was always a tad awkward. I used to be one of them, but not anymore. They all knew me, knew my story. The most important being the fact that I had left the force in disgrace. Something they were embarrassed about, and really didn’t want to be associated with. Hey, who could blame them? Certainly not me.

I got to the end of the hallway, in the southwest corner of the building, to the Chief’s office. I peeked in, saw Grosse Pointe’s top cop talking on the phone. The office was big and well ordered. A large oak desk sat along the far wall. A bookshelf ran below the windows facing Jefferson Avenue. Two visitor’s chairs faced the desk. On the wall behind the desk were pictures of the Chief winning awards, honors and even a few marksmanship awards. There was also a picture of the family on a low shelf. Nice family. The happy husband and wife, two young sons and the youngest, a daughter. They were three, five and seven. All spaced sequentially, all products of planned passion. The Chief never did anything half-assed or unorganized. And that applied to procreating.

I sat in one of the chairs and watched the Chief talk on the phone. The voice was always cool and authoritative. Clipped words with precise questions. I had no idea if the conversation was with a convicted felon turned informant, or one of the kids. You could never tell.

Our eyes met, but as usual, the Chief was wearing a game face. No emotions conveyed, not even a recognition of my presence. It’s how it worked in the big office. No quarter offered, none given.

Finally the Chief put down the phone and looked at me.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Does something have to be up for me to drop by?”

“Yes. Now what is it? I’m busy.”

“You can’t talk to me like that.”

She rolled her eyes.

Frankly, I didn’t care that she was Chief of Police.

She was still my big sister.