Returning Fire

by Frans Harmon

  Mace flipped open his leather-bound checkbook, which wasn’t one at all. It was his MBI identification. Anstice displayed her badge.

  “Sorry to disappoint, Kathy, I’m Mace Franklyn, consulting for the Michigan Bureau of Investigation, and this is Sergeant Anstice Behrenhardt of the Detroit Police Department.”

  Kathy’s toothy smile sagged into a worried frown. “DPD, MBI,” she said, with her hands raised and dithering next to her head. “You’ll have to contact our lawyer, Garland Thomas, to address whatever you believe the problem is.”

  Anstice tucked her badge into her jacket pocket. “We are investigating a possible triple murder, the latest being the car fire at Michigan Central Station.”

  “Oh, lord,” Kathy said, “did you see the ball of fire from the Sunoco this morning. It shook the windows.”

  “Yes, we heard.” Mace said, “the data, Kathy?”

  Your firm provided in-home nursing care for Mrs. Dupree?”

  Kathy nodded.

  “And many others, I assume. However, if we must get a warrant for your records, that uh… wouldn’t look good in the press. Now, we don’t think there are any problems with your firm.” Anstice said, “we do not have a complaint, and your tracking service could assist the MBI in its investigation of a crime that has drawn national attention.”

  “Just our due-diligence,” Mace said, “Kathy. Sorry, Mrs. Farmer, may I call you Kathy?”

  She smiled and nodded.

  “Great smile,” Mace said, and leaned forward, motioning to her to lean closer also, as if some profound secret was about to be shared. “Kathy,” he said softly, “just a thought, your refusal might be construed as concealing a murderer, an accessory after the fact.”

  Kathy jerked away and up from her chair, giving a nervous horse laugh complete with teeth. Mace’s serious expression didn’t change. She tugged on her tight skirt and sat down. Then she seemed distracted as she shuffled papers and objects on her desk, her eyes searching for a response. A laugh again, and she locked eyes with Mace. “The family owns the data. They haven’t requested it. I’ll keep it in the system until the end of the month. If they request it before, then, they can do whatever they want with the data.”

  “Fair enough,” Anstice said, handing Kathy her card. “I would call first before deleting anything.”

  Kathy swallowed hard. “I won’t… I won’t do anything. Just talk to the family.”

  Mace and Anstice descended the stairs. “You have an aunt Candace?”

  Anstice smiled. “No. I must be hungry, she had a jar of candy on her desk. First thing that popped into my head.”

  At the street level, Anstice turned to Mace. “I already talked to Kailee Dupree, Mrs. Dupree’s daughter. I can call her again and make the request.”

  Mace nodded. “Do that, and then let’s punch in the origin coordinates into your navigation software. We can start there.”

  Anstice called Kailee, who assured her she would contact Home Care immediately. Mace punched in the latitude and longitude he remembered from Kathy’s display. It came up with an address for the Silver Stream Retirement Center. That is where they headed as Mace jotted down the other data points as his mind pictured them.

  * * * *

  At the retirement center, it became quickly evident that the changes on the graph from the retirement home location was only on the local campus movement, except for the last data point about three miles away. The address, Salpmore Funeral Home and Crematorium.

  Anstice parked in front of the country-house styled funeral home located on the forgotten main street of Springwells Village. The village was one of the many unincorporated towns that fed Detroit’s appetite for growth a hundred years prior. A gust of wind swept a wave of dust over them as they exited her car. Anstice shielded her eyes with a hand and turned from the wind. Her eyes stinging from the dust.

  “You all right?” Mace asked.

  “Grit in my eyes. I’ll have to take out my contacts.”

  They mounted three steps to the porch and entered the main lobby. A pudgy man in a vested black suit approached from the rear of the building. He had a head topped with thick black hair precision parted down the middle, and an oval-shaped face framed in a close-cropped graying black beard.

  “Welcome to Salpmore, I’m Dad, how may I be of assistance?”

  Anstice retrieved a tissue from her purse and was dealing with her contacts, dabbing her eyes.

  “We have some questions,” Mace said.

  “Of course, it is a confusing time. Please, allow me to help you,” he said and swung an arm in the direction of a small office.

  Dad sat behind a highly polished cherry desk, Mace and Anstice took seats in two plush brown leather chairs. “Johansson or Dupree?”

  Mace looked at Anstice, who reached to expose her badge. Mace took her hand and kissed it, and Anstice was puzzled by a tingling warmth traveling up her arm.

  “Dupree, she is, uh, was our great aunt, the last of our parent’s generation,” Mace said, drawing his face into a quivering pout, “like losing them again.”

  “I see, it is so unfortunate.”

  “I hate to ask, but you see, we just flew in from the coast, it’s been a year since we last…”

  Mace said, stopping to cover his mouth with a hand, “and… well, would it be possible for us to see her.”

  “I’m terribly sorry, mister…”

  “Franklyn.”

  “Franklyn, yes, I’m so very sorry and aggrieved to inform you, but Mrs. Dupree viewing was the past Wednesday, and she went to the crematorium Thursday.”

  Mace grimaced.

  “It can be quite traumatic,” Dad continued, “but I can show you the guest book, and photos from the viewing. Miss Kailee asked me to mail them to her. Oh, perhaps you would like to take them to her.” Dad pulled two leather-bound binders from the shelf behind him and placed it in front of Mace and Anstice.

  Anstice had enough frustration. She pulled her hand away from Mace, pulled her badge from her waist, and planted her shield on top of Dad’s binder. “That so, then how did her body show up inside the car that exploded at Michigan Central Station.? Huh, explain that, daddio.”

  Dad lurched back in his chair, wide-eyed surprise melting into a knowing smile. He spoke into the intercom on his desk. “Sar, do we have the certificate and ashes from the crematorium for Mrs. Dupree?”

  “Mrs. Dupree? Yes, Dadua, I was about to bring them up for packaging. Do we have family here?”

  “No, police.”

  The intercom was silent.

  “Sar?”

  “The elevator then, I’ll place her remains there now.”

  Anstice replaced her badge in her waistband. “Your name isn’t really Dad, is it?”

  “Dadua Salpmore, S-A-L-P-M-O-R-E, the ‘P’ is silent, and Dad is more comforting and natural to say,” he said and spread his hands apart over the desk. “Now, I have two viewings to prepare for, so unless you have a warrant for her remains, you must leave.”

  “Anstice glanced at Mace and then pulled her communicator from her belt. “Dispatch, Sergeant Behrenhardt, please request Wayne County Patrol to sit on remains at Salpmore Funeral—"

  Dad shook his jowled face. “Fine, all right. You can have them, the books too, but you must sign for them.

  They signed for Mrs. Dupree’s ashes and books. Anstice gave a grimacing smile to Dadua, and they walked out of the office. In the lobby, she became aware of eyes staring. Glancing back, Anstice saw a doughboy looking man with a shaggy beard standing in the back. She pulled on Mace’s arm. He glanced back as the man slipped into a hidden corner and out of view.

  Anstice felt a chill. “I got a bad feeling.”

  “My guess is that it’s Sar. Seems curious.”

  They exited and slid into her cruiser.

  “Back to your office?” Mace asked while fastening his seat belt.

  “To drop off the ashes. I’m betting they are not human. But first, I’m thinkin
g of a consultation downtown.”

  “Downtown, what’s there?”

  “The river, Joe Muer’s raw bar, and dinner. I haven’t eaten all day, and I bet you haven’t either.”

  Mace shrugged and waved her forward. Anstice reached under her front seat and placed a magnetic flasher on the roof. “It is time to see if I can beat my record to downtown.”

  Mace had a pained look on his face as he asked, “What’s your record?”

  “Fifteen minutes from Detroit Metro to Jefferson Ave.”

  “That’s twenty-five miles if it’s one.”

  “Yeah, I love a challenge.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Anstice drove the four-hundred horses under the hood hard. With each quick cut, Mace became convinced it was a life or death matter. My life, my death. He thought while white-knuckling the dash and exchanging a grimace for her delighted kid’s grin.

  That wasn’t the only source of his uneasiness. At the Eddystone, on Thursday, she questioned why he was there. Mace answered, but did she believe him. The car jolted to the right, jamming him against the door panel.

  Anstice was a cop’s cop with good instincts, a reason to be careful. Then there was this morning.

  She swerved to the left, pinning him against the center console. The fire unlocked something in police business you carefully guarded, emotion. Now it was clear they shared an attraction, intense feelings out of the bottle and impossible to ignore. He thought about Helyn.

  * * * *

  His face was flushed, and his strong hands were clamped onto the dash. The scrapes on his forehead and right side of his face gave him a roguish look. She liked it. Anstice drifted her cruiser onto I75, the Fisher Freeway, heading west. Mace sat back. The exit for the John C. Lodge Freeway was a mile away. She knew it well, a long-banked curve onto the main artery into downtown Detroit. It was like the first turn at the Indianapolis Speedway, where she honed her police pursuit skills.

  She was doing eighty, barely outpacing the impatient Michigan drivers, and felt an urge to tease. The curve was good for a hundred, and she decided to prove it. Chuckling inside, she stamped down on the accelerator. Mace shot her a large-eyed look. Her laugh erupted.

  Her cruiser was a pursuit vehicle, engineered with power and balance for just this sort of driving. She swung wide on the curve. Her tires shooting behind the accumulated stones from the shoulder as she squeezed past startled drivers. The sign for Joe Louis Arena was a blur. Anstice jammed on the brakes.

  They shot into the Cobo Hall tunnel. The yellow ribbon of ceiling lights quickly separating into individual fixtures as she reigned in her Mustang. With scant moderation, she pulled into a parking garage in the General Motors Renaissance Center. Across the street in the corner of a mall complex, perched above Atwater street, sat Joe Muer’s.

  “Thirteen and half minutes,” she said, a triumphant grin turned toward Mace.

  Mace swallowed hard and dipped his head. “Okay Parnille, you proved your point, you’re a hell of a driver.”

  “Hold the high score record for the FBI tactical evasion course.”

  “For a woman.”

  “And how would you know that?”

  “Because I hold the record. Just never been a passenger before. The death seat is a new perspective, it stimulates an instant review of one’s life.”

  His comment was met with silence, and then a burst of laughter from them both. They exited Anstice’s Mustang. She pulled a white silk scarf out of her purse and wrapped it around her neck, transforming her gray pants suit from all business to relaxed and ready.

  Mace self-consciously stroked his stubble and then pulled up the open collar of his shirt. “I’ve heard great things about Joe Muer’s, but hard to get into.”

  “I’m feeling lucky,” she said as they descended the stairs.

  They reached the street level. “It’s not often that I get out like this, but I really enjoy it. I try to savor it like a rare wine.”

  “Did you really say that. You should get out more, Mace.” She was enjoying this. Mace was scratching the back of his head, looking anywhere but not at Anstice. They crossed Renaissance Drive.

  * * * *

  His mouth dry, Mace was feeling like a school kid on his first date. “No, no, I mean, you know, a leisurely cocktail, plenty of time to wind down and catch up. Stretch out the dinner, appetizers, salad, a good Merlot, get a warm glow, and slow drive home where we… uh, that is…”

  They reached the opposite sidewalk. Anstice, stifling a chuckle with a hand over her mouth, watched as his eyes searched space for a way out of his self-inflicted trap. She dropped her hand, exposing a face in a tug-of-war between a mischievous smirk and innocent expectation.

  Her smirk won out. “Where we?” She asked.

  “Flail my way… carried away,” His face glowing as he bumbled, betraying his feelings and an old problem. He and Anstice exchanged a giddy look. He barked a laugh, and with a shake of his head, banned his timidity. He was going to let the flakes of fate fall where they may.

  They climbed up the sloping sidewalk to the entrance of Joe Muer’s Seafood House perched on an ancient knoll overlooking the River, alternately called the Detroit or St. Clair. He tried to look relaxed, uncommitted, but a persistent smile and constant lock on her face said otherwise. Her impish grin and frequent glances as she approached the maître’d stand told him he would not soon forget this night.

  * * * *

  Feeling of being a teen again, just snagging the best-looking football player at the sock-hop, the center of attention, she was an empowered woman, a woman desired. She beamed at a familiar tuxedoed maître’d, trim, and seasoned with a military bearing. He responded at the sight of her, his hands ascending, a thin pencil mustache underscoring large blue eyes on a face bursting with delight, he rushed over to take her hand. “Sergeant, my beautiful Sergeant Behrenhardt, how lovely to see you again. Do you have a reservation tonight?”

  “Charles, you know me, I’m a planning wreck. Could you please do your special magic?” she said, placing a hand on his arm. “And how is your son, Andrew?”

  “He is doing well, Sergeant. Without a record of his, um, oversight, he was able to get into State. Of course, I will do my best for you. You will be at the bar then?”

  “Yes, thanks, Charles.”

  Charles nodded and gestured them to continue. Mace followed Anstice across the black-and-white marble floor that framed a room decor frozen in the fifties. They skirted an expansive room-centered raw seafood display to an up-lit neon spirits bar that reminded of a tropical reef complete with bronzed sea creatures fixed in perpetual patrol overhead.

  Greeted as soon as they slid onto the padded bar stools, Anstice was presented with a glass of brown liquid.

  “And what will the gentlemen be having?” the bartender asked.

  “Whatever she is having.”

  The bartender nodded. Mace turned to Anstice. “And what am I having?”

  “Laphroaig, single malt, good Irish whiskey from the Isla basin.”

  She unbuttoned her jacket, exposing her detective shield, and then released a top blouse button, flashing a hint of cleavage.

  Mace noticed. His drink arrived, and he gave it a sniff then a sip. “Whoa, that is peaty. You kind of surprise me.”

  “How so?” she said, savoring another sip.

  “I expected you to be a red wine sort. Not usual for a woman to be drinking something this potent.”

  “You may have noticed the red hair,” she said, raising her glass for another. “Irish, my three brothers and I were practically weaned on this stuff.”

  “So how do you become Detective Sergeant? Not only a male-dominated force but a profession rife with chauvinism.”

  “Mother was an Irish-Scott, dad full-on German, and my brothers are way older. Big guys. It’s as if I’ve trained all my life for this.”

  “No doubt you can handle yourself, but how did you arrive –“

  “You were FBI cha
sing Jirair once,” she smiled, “there more there?”

  * * * *

  Mace tensed; he smiled and dropped his head, fingers tracing tight circles on the bar. The dance, everyone had something to hide. She did also. For him, that was a good thing. Their feelings were entangled, but she had a cop’s instinct, another agenda. Her having a secret could keep certain questions remaining unasked.

  “The perfect storm of bad circumstances,” he shrugged, then lifting his head facing her. “I was lead, chasing a serial killer, the Vulcan, my first as lead. I contracted encephalitis, a debilitating disease. Helyn got it into her head that I had an affair. The usual way it happens

  “That how it happened?”

  Mace flinched his head. “No, got it from a mosquito in a horse barn.”

  She jerked her head back, finished her drink. “Tough break,” Then her eyes fixed on a hockey game on a flat-screen above the bar. Mace figured she was more interested in the change of subject than the thumbnail bio. That raised another question in his mind.

  Chapter Twenty

  Engrossed in the game as they sipped their drinks Mace and Anstice didn’t notice the tuxedoed figure approaching. “Your table is ready, sergeant,” Charles said.

  Anstice slid off the barstool and gave a parting wave to the bartender. Mace hesitated, reaching for his wallet, but the bartender waved him off. “On the house officer.”

  Anstice could hear Mace drop off the barstool and his quick steps to catch up. Feeling mellow, she decided to tease and took longer steps to add to the chase.

  They arrived at a low-backed booth set for four with a good view of the river and mouth of Lake St. Clair further north. Anstice slid into her seat, all the way to the window. “You’ve been here often,” Mace said as he glided onto the bench opposite her. Not what she wanted.

  “You mean the bartender? Well, yes, but not lately.” She glanced out the window into the fading light on the river. She really didn’t see the river, or anything in the room, just Mace. Avoiding eye contact was the limit of her resistance.