The Greeks of Beaubien Street

by Jenkins, Suzanne

  “So, she wasn’t dead when it was done to her.” Jill’s anger rose to the surface, increasing at the notion that someone would torture this young woman in such a brutal way. It deepened her determination to find Gretchen Parker’s killer. Wasserman could see the transformation and stifled the impulse to comment. Jill’s eyes narrowed, her jaw set. He proceeded gently.

  “No. And that isn’t all. She was a virgin; remnants of her hymen were present. So, she wasn’t a career girl, unless it was her first day. She also had someone else’s pubic hair on her back and the back of her legs, like she’d been on a dirty bathroom floor; washed off carefully, but placed on the dirty ground. It makes no sense. We’ll get a profile from it, but I don’t know about this.” Wasserman looked at her intently, concerned. “Are you getting anything yet?” They’d worked together for so many years that he was one of the few people who knew she often got a feeling about a case that would later result in an arrest.

  “Nothing yet, outside of the disgust you’d expect. Maybe after I see the scan,” Jill said softly. Wasserman looked out into the cafeteria, pushing his chair back and standing up.

  “I better get back. I’ve got a backlog. The report should be dictated by this afternoon,” he said.

  “Thanks, Sam.” Jill got up, too.

  “It’s such a waste,” he said, putting his tray on a shelf and taking his second cup of coffee with him.

  “Twenty-six years old,” Jill said. They got to the elevator and Jill said goodbye to Wasserman. The fact that someone would brutalize Gretchen Parker, but then take the time to comb her hair and bathe her would fester in the recesses of her mind.

  She’d go see her father before she went to the precinct. It would make things better for a few minutes. They would sit in the back of the grocery and drink the strong coffee he made for her. It took her less than five minutes to get there from the hospital. Greektown was in the middle of everything. When she pulled into the alley behind the store, he was waiting for her at the back door. He watched her get out of her unmarked cruiser and she could see the smile slowly spread across his face. She’d been an officer for almost fifteen years, a detective for ten, yet he reacted as though he had just found out whenever he saw her in that car. He was so proud of her. Anyone who would listen heard the story of his cop daughter. But she worried for her dad. It wasn’t always a popular thing to have someone so close to you in the police force.

  Jill grew up in Greektown. Other Greeks moved to the suburbs of Grosse Pointe and Saint Clair Shores , but not Jill’s family and the Nickopoloses. The Nickopolos family owned a gun store next door to Gus’s Greek Grocery. Frank and Estelle Nickopolos, their son little Frank, and Frank Senior’s mother, Dido lived above the shop, just like the Zannos family did. Dido was blind and looked like a gnome. She stood about four feet six inches tall and was just as wide, wore black shirtwaist dresses that strained across her ample bosom, with a black babushka on her head, a caricature of Greek womanhood. Frank placed a stool for her outside of the main door and Dido sat on the stool all day, spitting at people as she sensed them passing by her, shaking her cane in their direction. Only serious gun shoppers dared to cross the threshold of the store because it meant an attack by Dido. Once inside, they then had to tolerate the screaming voice of the family’s parrot who spoke only Greek. He was actually reciting Scriptures, but it sounded like the worst vileness. In spite of, or maybe because of, Dido’s presence and that of the bird made life more difficult for Jill when she was small girl. Those people and their damn bird were also Greeks and therefore clumped together.

  She never felt accepted, even by her own people. Going to school in Corktown didn’t help. Originally populated by the Irish who fled their homeland during the potato famine, now it was a mixed community of Germans, Arabs, and Mexicans. In late summer, Jill and her mother would walk the few blocks to the Woodward Avenue J.L. Hudson store to buy clothes for the new school year. Her classmates wore clothes from Sears and other discount stores, but her mother wanted something better for her daughter. Jill could still see the pretty dresses, patent leather shoes, frilly slips, and underpants her mother bought her. She’d have everything delivered. Jill remembered the confused look of the deliveryman when he pulled up in front of the grocery store, their apartment right above it. She saw him thinking, how did these gypsies afford all this merchandise from Hudsons? She might be the best-dressed little girl in her elementary school class, but she was still a Greek. Her parents spoke a foreign language, their food was different, and she looked different from the children she went to school with in Corktown.

  The adult Jill continued to feel like an outsider. Alex argued that this was because she was a snob who thought most people weren’t smart enough for her to waste her time with. She was keeping her distance from them, not the other way around.

  “Oh, go to hell,” she said. “If I were a snob, why would I be with you?” He laughed at her, their teasing and bickering often a prelude to lovemaking.

  “Good point,” he agreed, wrapping his arms around her.

  ~ ~ ~

  Gus Zannos had the coffee made and a slice of fresh, crusty bread with olive oil and tomato waiting, Jill’s standard breakfast. The period of time she would spend here with her father was a good segue from the autopsy to seeing the crime scene video.

  “So tell your father about this new murder.” Gus got to the point. He lived vicariously through his daughter. He often had good advice for her, too. “Already they have the details on the news. So quick!”

  “Yeah, it’s typical to broadcast a few facts, like the body being found after her parents filed a missing persons report over the weekend.” She took a bite of bread, the thin crust snapping to expose the fluffy white interior, without regrets. She was thin and a few extra carbs would be okay. “She was from Dearborn. Did they say that?”

  “Yes, they did. Why would a beautiful girl from Dearborn end up in an alley downtown? Stay home with your family where you belong!” He tapped the table with his finger for emphasis. Jill laughed. She lived six blocks from her father. “Do you have any ideas yet who could have done such a thing?” She shook her head no, her mouth full of bread.

  “Not yet Papa, not yet. I haven’t even seen the crime scene video.” He was fascinated by her work, and their brief visit energized him. She pushed her plate away.

  “Okay, I’m stuffed. And I need to get to work before I fall asleep. Can I take your cup?” She asked the same question every morning, standing up and holding out the white china mug to him. She took one to work daily, filled with coffee her father ground and brewed especially for her.

  “Of course,” he said, going behind the deli counter to pack her lunch. He put fresh romaine lettuce, feta cheese, kalamata olives, a hard-boiled egg, fresh tomato, and two anchovies into a plastic container. He stuck the container into a brown paper bag and added a slice of the same bread she had for breakfast and a small container of his homemade, fragrant salad dressing, garlic-free for a workday. At the end of the week, she would return the five white china mugs, and the following Monday the scenario would repeat itself. He walked her to the cruiser and held her coffee cup while she got in with her lunch bag.

  “Come by after work and get your dinner, Manari mou. Stuffed peppers tonight.” She reached up and with her hand through the window opening, patted his cheek.

  “Okay, Papa, see you tonight!” Gus stood and watched Jill as she sped away, kicking up a little gravel for effect. Arriving at the precinct minutes later, heads turned and noses sniffing the air, teasing her, jealous that her father packed a lunch every day.

  “Zannos, how many times do we have to tell you that it’s no fair? Bring some for everyone or leave your damn food at home!” the chorus of voices from the bull pen said.

  “It’s just a salad! Gus is waiting for you to come for lunch.” I must smell like my dad’s cooking, she thought to herself. But they were only teasing her, thinking she might be a self-conscious target, not realizing she’d
love to aggravate them with her food. She wound her way through the crowded desks to her own little piece of real estate. Her desk was up against that of her partner, Albert Wong who was deep into a heated telephone conversation. Jill put her lunch in a small refrigerator behind their area. Next to it was a large green board that had a chart drawn in chalk, listing the active cases and the detectives assigned to them. At the end of the list, because it was the latest addition, was the name Gretchen Parker with Jill and Albert’s names written next to it. Jill looked and let it sink in. She would never grow tired of seeing her name listed under the word Detective. She went back to her desk just as Albert was hanging up.

  “Sorry. My bank is having trouble keeping track of my money,” Albert said. He rummaged around on his desk. “Okay, here it is: video and scan. Any revelations at the autopsy?” She sat down facing him.

  “Just facts,” Jill said as she dug through her purse. Reading from her notes, she related what the post revealed. “She was moved post-mortem; there’s no blood evidence on the sidewalk. Cause of death was exsanguination. Her back was blown out. She had a large laceration of the vagina, but no semen. Sam doesn’t think she was a working girl because she may have been a virgin until whatever it was was shoved up her vagina. Or it was her first night on the job. Someone was mad as hell at Gretchen Parker, but they took the time to comb her hair and bathe her.” She took the package from him and stood up. The video and scan were wrapped in a tevdek envelope. They felt cold in her hands, but alive. They would be her introduction to the hell that Gretchen Parker’s life ended in. She walked out to the hall and up two flights of stairs to a private room where she could watch alone. She put the video in first. An officer started shooting the video immediately upon entering the site, even before the crime scene tape was put in place.

  The film was slightly grainy because of the dark. It had been early, just after midnight. The light on the camera was barely bright enough. The city didn’t have the money to employ a professional photographer with lights or to replace the infrared camera that was misplaced, but Jill didn’t mind. She could see what she needed to see along with the scan. The scene was wide at first. She could just make out the body in the distance. Gretchen was lying on her back, nude one arm thrown over her body, the other at an odd angle at her side. She’d been thrown on the ground. Her thighs were together, but legs sprawled from the knees down. Even in the dark, you could tell she was beautiful. Her hair stood around her head like a halo. As the focus came in closer, Jill saw more. Gretchen Parker had small, youthful breasts, not augmented. If she had been a professional, she might have had large implants. Her crotch was shaved, but that didn’t mean anything anymore. It was getting harder and harder to make generalizations based on personal hygiene. As the camera got closer, Jill could see that Gretchen’s eyes were open. Her mouth was open in a silent scream, her chin mashed down on her chest. Unnatural. The camera swept the area, but it was difficult to see much detail. Then the film went to daylight. The body was gone, but the area was undisturbed. Jill was grateful for the additional footage.

  Even in the daylight, it was a gruesome looking alleyway. The cracked concrete covered in a thick layer of broken glass had the look of abandonment many parts of the city were slowly adopting. A large hotel and several restaurants backed up to the alley. There was a plot of grass with an Ailanthus tree growing through a crack near the body at the entrance to a blind alley. Whoever killed Gretchen had driven slowly by and thrown her out of the car. The camera swept a higher view; the windows of the buildings surrounding the alley came into the shot. She didn’t notice anything suspicious there. The video played a loop and the scene with the body played again. Jill could feel the way the air must have felt on Gretchen’s skin. She sensed the surprise the young woman experienced as she watched someone pull a gun out and fire at her. The impact of the bullet, the caliber large enough to blow her heart apart and take most of her back with it, must have thrown her back several feet.

  Jill’s heart was beating faster. She could feel it racing, irregular. She would watch the scan, too because she had to, but she already knew what happened to Gretchen Parker. She was no working girl. Someone she knew well did this to her. And although she wouldn’t document her thoughts, Jill felt the remorse and sadness of the murderer. Of course, she would have to work the case step by step, but now they wouldn’t have to waste precious time on unnecessary investigative work. She turned the video off and, in the darkness of the screening room, closed her eyes and said, “Thank you, God.”

  Chapter 2

  By nine in the morning, Jacob and Marianne Parker had received the call every parent dreaded. Now, they were on their way to the morgue to see their beloved Gretchen one last time. Traffic on the Interstate 75 was bumper to bumper, but Jacob didn’t notice. In the past, he would have bitched about the “fuckers who drive like a bunch of old ladies”. His hand would fold into a fist and he would shake it out the open window of his Cadillac, screaming at the drivers in the cars on either side of him because the car in front wouldn’t be able to see him. His wife was always mortified, but he would argue, “What use is a good tirade if it isn’t heard?” Today, he was pale and silent, his watery blue eyes red and swollen. Marianne couldn’t stop crying. They were exhausted; sleep had been impossible for the past two nights. Marianne’s hair and makeup had been perfect since Gretchen hadn’t come home from a date Friday evening. She had known, as any mother would, that she may never again see her daughter alive, and she must be ready the moment the authorities called for them.

  Gretchen was never, ever late. Even though she was twenty-six, she still had a curfew. As long as she lived at home, Jacob wanted her back by eleven each night. He couldn’t sleep knowing she was out. It wasn’t fair to him. If she needed to stay out later, she could move. When midnight passed into Saturday morning, Jacob called a friend of his on the force. They waived the forty-eight hour waiting period and put out the missing person report. Marianne put on a white blouse and a pair of dress slacks with a matching jacket and waited. She prepared a pot of coffee and poured two travel cups full. She and Jacob got into their car and began driving up and down every street on the west side of town. They would tackle the east side in the daylight tomorrow if she still wasn’t home.

  Gretchen drove a bright red Chevy Malibu. You could see it a block away. At six o’clock Saturday morning they found it at Blazos, a popular hangout for young adults. Jacob was furious; how many times had he told Gretchen to stay the hell out of the drive-in restaurants in town? A bunch of low-life scum hung out there. Marianne reminded him that she’d had a date with Mike. Jacob hated Mike, so Gretchen stopped having him pick her up at the house. Instead, they met downtown and she would leave her car at Blazos and go off in his Explorer.

  “Where does Mike live?” Jacob asked, looking at his wife.

  “I think in East Dearborn,” Marianne said, immediately sorry because Jacob’s face contorted as he yelled at her.

  “God damnit, I know he lives in East Dearborn! Where, for Christ’s sake?” He didn’t allow Gretchen to date boys from Fordson High School on the dreaded East side when she was a teen, because that was where the Arabs went to school. But now, as an adult, she would date whomever she pleased. And who pleased her at the moment was Mike Ahmed. Jacob left the parking lot at Blazos and drove like a maniac down Michigan Avenue. He was yelling at Marianne, “call four-one-one and get a phone number!” But even simple Marianne knew that was ridiculous; Ahmed was as common a last name as Smith. She hoped they would find his contact information somewhere in Gretchen’s room instead.

  Jacob sped back to their house. They barely waited for the car to stop moving before both jumped out and ran inside. When they got to her door, they stopped, fearful to move into the space, not sure what they might find. Jacob, in a rare moment of thoughtfulness, deferred to his wife and hung back. She went to her daughter’s desk and pulled out the chair to sit. Like the rest of the room, everything on the desk was neatly org
anized. She began pulling drawers open; worried she would expose something that would send her volatile husband into a rage. Under a neat stack of bills waiting to be paid lay Gretchen’s address book. It was an old fashioned, vinyl bound book. With trembling hands, Marianne opened it to the first pages, to the A’s. Ahmed. Michael Ahmed, 144 Indiana Street. There was no phone number. She probably had it programmed into her cell. Marianne picked up the telephone and dialed information. When the automated recording answered, she recited the street address into the receiver. The robot voice responded that there was no listing found for that address.

  “Let’s just go. He might try to hide from us if she is still there and he knows we are coming.” For once, Jacob thought his wife was making sense. They hurried down the stairs and out to the car again. Jacob pulled out onto Outer Drive, pointing the car toward Ford Road. He couldn’t remember where Indiana Street was, but had a GPS. He hollered at Marianne to program the address in and hollered some more when it took her shaking fingers so long to type it. Indiana was as far as you could go and still be in Dearborn. There was a huge fenced-in area with a Water Company sign posted on it. Beyond the water company was Detroit. They found the house easily. There, in the driveway, was Mike’s black Ford Explorer. It was a nice house, mid-century, well maintained in a lovely neighborhood of two story homes. Jacob left the car running and swung the door open, yelling to Marianne to stay put. He dashed up the wide steps to the porch and began banging on the front door of Mike Ahmed’s house. Within seconds, Mike himself came to the door, disheveled and confused. Jacob forced open the screen door and grabbed him by the front of his t-shirt, screaming, “Where’s Gretchen, you son of a bitch!” Marianne opened the car door and struggled out, yelling to her husband to stop. Neighbors were already coming out to see what the ruckus was about.