by Dan Ames
Easy Prey
A John Rockne Mystery
Dan Ames
Contents
EASY PREY
Foreword
PRAISE FOR THE JOHN ROCKNE MYSTERY SERIES
EASY PREY
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Also by Dan Ames
Afterword
About the Author
EASY PREY
A John Rockne Mystery
* * *
by
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Dan Ames
Foreword
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Copyright © 2017 by Dan Ames
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
EASY PREY is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved.
PRAISE FOR THE JOHN ROCKNE MYSTERY SERIES
Dan Ames' writing reminds me of the great thriller writers -- lean, mean, no nonsense prose that gets straight to the point and keeps you turning those pages.”
–author Robert Gregory Browne
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"As gritty as the Detroit streets where it's set, DEAD WOOD grabs you early on and doesn't let go. As fine a a debut as you'll come across this year, maybe any year."
-author Tom Schreck
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“From its opening lines, Daniel S. Ames and his private eye novel DEAD WOOD recall early James Ellroy: a fresh attitude and voice and the heady rush of boundless yearning and ambition. Ames delivers a vivid evocation of time and place in a way that few debut authors achieve, nailing the essence of his chosen corner of high-tone Michigan. He also deftly dodges the pitfalls that make so much contemporary private detective fiction a mixed bag and nostalgia-freighted misfire. Ames’ detective has family; he’s steady. He’s not another burned-out, booze-hound hanging on teeth and toenails to the world and smugly wallowing in his own ennui. This is the first new private eye novel in a long time that just swept me along for the ride. Ames is definitely one to watch.”
-Craig McDonald, Edgar-nominated author
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“Dead Wood is a fast-paced, unpredictable mystery with an engaging narrator and a rich cast of original supporting characters.”
-New York Times bestselling author Thomas Perry
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“In DEAD WOOD, Dan Ames pulls off a very difficult thing: he re-imagines what a hardboiled mystery can be, and does it with style, thrills and humor. This is the kind of book mystery readers are clamoring for, a fast-paced story with great heart and not a cliché to be found. DEAD WOOD is a hell of a book.”
–Amazon.com
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“Dan Ames is a sensation among readers who love fast-paced thrillers.”
–Mystery Tribune
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“A smart detective story stuffed with sharp prose and snappy one liners.”
–Indie Reader
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"Packed to the gills with hard-hitting action and a non-stop plot."
-Jacksonville News
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"Cuts like a knife."
-Savannah Morning News
EASY PREY
by
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Dan Ames
"He who does not trust enough…
… will not be trusted."
-Lao Tzu
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“Three can keep a secret if two are dead.”
-Benjamin Franklin
Chapter One
It was the kind of neighborhood where the rats outnumbered the humans. The grass was five feet tall, the homes still standing were abandoned, plundered by gangs and homeless people, and garbage was piled everywhere, both from illegal dumping and a sanitation department who had stopped making the rounds years ago.
Even they had given up on the city.
Hawks occasionally circled overhead, drawn by the vast number of rodents and other vermin darting in and out of overgrown bushes and dead trees whose branches had fallen and become enmeshed in the abundant ground cover. There were sporadic signs that the area had once been inhabited by human beings. A portable basketball hoop, tipped over, with its rim missing and a base cracked and scarred. A mattress, a charred laundry basket and a Chevy bumper dotted the ragged urban landscape.
Occasionally, a living human being entered the boundaries of one of Detroit’s numerous no-man zones. A homeless guy looking for beer cans tossed from moving cars, a suburbanite who’d missed a turn or was looking for a place to buy heroin, or a kid on a bike, bored, checking out new territory.
It was one of those kids, a girl on a pink bike, who first spotted the Buick. She stopped in the middle of the street, fearless because there was rarely any traffic at all, and stared at the vehicle.
She had just turned ten years old a month ago, and the pink bike had been her big gift. She had even given it a moniker: Pinky.
It wasn’t new, rather refurbished. Where the paint was thin she had been able to make out a faded green color. And the silver on her tire rims was a little too shiny. Not new, but new paint.
The ability to notice these tiny details was what caused her to stop and give the Buick a second look. First, the back window wasn’t smashed in. There wasn’t rust all over the bumper. And she could tell that the frame was correct, meaning it didn’t lean from one side to the other, like most of the cars she’d seen abandoned in lots around the neighborhood.
The stickers on the back were weird, too. “Yale.” What was a Yale, she wondered? Usually those stickers are for sports teams. Or maybe a college. She’d never heard of Yale. And the letters DYC. Those meant nothing to her. Don’t You Care? Do Yourself Cake?
The girl looked around. There was no one else here, like always. She could vaguely hear the freeway a few blocks over. A dog barked, but that was far away. A deep bark, probably a pit bull. Everyone had pit bulls around here.
Her stomach rumbled and she realized she was hungry, suddenly remembering she was supposed to be home for dinner by now. She didn’t see what the big deal was, dinner was never ready and it was usually her brother making another box of that awful mac ‘n cheese. He usually didn’t mix it right and there was powder at the bottom of her bowl.
Gross.
In the end, what won out over her fear wasn’t curiosity, but greed. If someone had stolen the
Buick and dumped it, there could be something inside they missed. Maybe a phone. She’d seen all the kids around her neighborhood with phones but she didn’t have one.
The pink bike was walked to the curb. She put the kickstand down and stepped off the street.
The vehicle, she knew it was called an SUV, had been driven into a dirt alley between two houses.
Whoever had driven it in must not have known what they were doing. It was one of those unofficial paths people used, not a road at all. Maybe they’d gotten stuck? It had rained the day before and it might have been muddy when the dummy had pulled it in.
The girl decided to get it over with as fast as possible. She ran up to the side of the vehicle, raised up on her tiptoes and looked inside.
She recoiled as if the vehicle had given her an electric shock.
Her feet flew as she raced back to her bike, hopped on, and took off for her home.
Even as she pumped her pedals furiously, she also tried to block out the image of what she’d seen.
A face, turned blue.
With a rope around its neck.
Chapter Two
“You’re a goddamn loser,” he slurred at me. “I know all about you. You’re a goddamn piece of shit.”
The drunk facing me was not a bad guy. And considering what he’d just said, I had to admit that maybe he was quite perceptive, too.
“Have you been talking to my family again?” I asked.
Adam Barnes leered at me from beneath his half-lidded eyes. He had on khakis, a dress shirt and a sport coat. A tie, unloosened, swung crazily beneath his chin. He looked like your average suburban father, except for his liver. That was more like your average drunk on skid row.
Adam’s wife, Carrie Barnes, had hired me to follow him for a few days because she was convinced he was cheating on her. He was, but not with a woman. He was having a torrid affair with a hot little Swedish beauty named Absolut Vodka. Occasionally, he’d invite her over for an orgy with Jack Daniels.
Carrie had known her husband had a drinking problem, but my job was to find out if something else was going on. It wasn’t, from what I could tell. It was a good old-fashioned addiction to whiskey old-fashioneds, among others.
I was glad to see that Adam still had his job, although I knew it was a huge step down from his previous gig. At one point, he had been the CEO of a major healthcare network, with an impressive compensation package. Now, he was basically a salesman shopping around ad space on healthcare-themed websites.
“…fuck at’s pposed to mean?” he slurred.
“Just a joke,” I said. “Now how about you hand me your keys and we’ll get you home safe and sound?”
It was one of those things that sometimes happened. I tried not to get involved with someone I had put under surveillance. In fact, I had tailed Adam yesterday when he was drunk, but that had been when he was at a local Grosse Pointe bar, just a few blocks from his home. This time, he had gotten plastered at lunch and decided he wanted to pick his kids up from school. I had called Carrie but gotten her voicemail. There simply was no way in good conscience I could let Adam in his shitfaced state pick up his kids and drive them home. He could barely stand.
“Come on, I’ll give you a ride home,” I said. “Or take your kids home and you can drive yourself. Or get an Uber.”
“You…leave my kids…kill you,” he said. He stepped toward me and I glanced around. No one was watching. I saw his fist bunch up and I knew he was going to take a swing at me. I was hoping it would be a big wide looping punch.
It was.
He swung and it was like a slow-motion video. I leaned back a hair, let it pass by me and then threw a short right that landed right on the button. Adam went down like a sack of potatoes that had been distilled into potato vodka.
I glanced around again. No one had seen me hit him.
My phone rang and I saw it was Carrie so I answered, as I stepped over her husband’s body to block any view of him.
“Can you pick the kids up from school?” I asked before she could even say hello. I bent down and fished the car keys out of Adam’s pocket. I wanted to get him into my car before the school bell rang and his kids might have a chance to see him. No kid wants to see their Dad sprawled out on the street, three sheets to the wind.
Carrie told me she was only a minute away and could get the kids.
I dragged Adam toward my car, poured him into the passenger seat and then got around behind the steering wheel.
I would drive him to his house, wait until Carrie got the kids home and distracted them, and then I would dump Adam in the garage or something. My vote would be to drop him into the compost bin.
He moaned in the passenger seat and I looked at him.
“I won’t make you buckle up,” I said. Immediately my car smelled like a barroom floor. “Jeez, are you drinking booze or bathing in it?” I asked.
Adam responded by snoring.
I put the car in gear and drove down Kercheval to Kensington and pulled up a few houses down from Adam’s house. The Barnes’ current home was a step down from their previous abode, which had been a huge mansion along Lakeshore Drive. Now, they were renting a house that had once been a foreclosure. Carrie was a smart woman, and she had restarted her career as a marketing designer. I admired her loyalty and wondered how long she could hold on.
Adam stirred a bit, opened his eyes briefly and they flicked over at me before closing again.
“Loser,” he said and then fell back asleep.
We reached the Barnes household without any more commentary and about ten minutes later, Carrie pulled up into the driveway in her Volvo SUV and I watched as she and the kids, two girls, piled out of the car and went inside. Carrie paused at the door and I saw her look at my car and nod.
I reached over and pinched Adam’s arm hard enough that he stirred.
“Ow!” he snarled at me.
I opened the door, got out and walked around to the passenger side. I opened it and Adam spilled out, barfing in the process. He puked all over my shoes and for a drunk guy, his aim seemed just fine.
“Shit,” I said as I jumped back, but he had gotten me pretty thoroughly. The stench rose up to my nose and I tried to look on the bright side; it appeared he had drunk his lunch so there wasn’t any food mixed into the mess.
I grabbed him and dragged him out of the car. He staggered to his feet and I half-carried him to the house.
The side door opened and Carrie looked at me. She was a finely boned blonde, with clear blue eyes that were imbued with a deep fatigue that didn’t belong on her still youthful face. “Take him straight downstairs,” she said.
I felt like throwing him down the stairs but I helped him down and saw a black leather couch. With a little shove I pushed him onto it.
Carrie was behind me. “He’ll sleep for a long time,” she said. “And then get up and probably start drinking again.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“There’s a hose outside,” she said, glancing at my legs and wincing.
It was a good offer that I accepted, spraying the regurgitation off my pants legs and shoes. Most of the smell seemed to dissipate as I walked back to the car and heard my shoes make squishing sounds with each step.
The phone rang in my pocket and I fished it out, glanced at the screen.
It was my sister, Ellen. Also known as the Grosse Pointe Chief of Police.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Just hosed a bunch of puke off my pants.”
“Yours or someone else’s?”
“Someone else’s,” I said.
“Good. Then get your ass over to this address I’m about to text you.”
“Who died?” I said, joking.
The tone of her answer conveyed she wasn’t in the mood.
“Your buddy,” she said. “Dr. David Ingells.”
Chapter Three
Shit, there had to be some kind of mistake. Dave Ingells? Dave? The guy I’d done my firs
t beer-soaked road trip with to northern Michigan where we’d ended up in a redneck bar and bragged about trapping beavers?
Dave, who’d approached Rhonda Bridgewater on my behalf to see if she had any interest in going to prom with me and who’d had to endure her explosion of laughter?
Dead?
Dave was dead?
He’d been one of my best friends before, during and after high school. He’d gone to the University of Chicago, eventually became a doctor and moved back to Grosse Pointe to become an orthopedic surgeon. One of the best in the state, even the country.
Car accident, I thought. Had to be a car accident.
I took a quick glance at the address Ellen had sent me, plugged it into my phone’s map app and was surprised where Ellen was. It was in an area of Detroit not too far from Grosse Pointe, but one that was as desolate as the city can be.
