The Greeks of Beaubien Street

by Jenkins, Suzanne

  He met Christina in Sunday school. They grew up together, best friends through high school. Their friends called them “The Odd Couple”. He took after Eleni’s side of the family and was shorter than Nick, the other brothers and their father. While Gus’s hair was thin and blond, his brothers had the thick, wavy hair of the Zannoses. Lovely Christina was tall for a woman; not taller than Gus but gave the illusion she was when she wore high heeled shoes. She was slender and had an athletic build. Gus’s friends teased him all the time. “How’d you get Chris?” they asked. He wondered the same thing.

  Gus went to college in Philadelphia while Christina stayed in Detroit, commuting to Marygrove. She lived with her grandparents and widowed mother and they were reluctant to let her go too far from home. Going to an all girl’s college was good for her. There were no distractions and she liked the nuns. She spent her free time in the kitchen with her grandmother learning to make Greek pastries and bake the breads she grew up eating.

  One month after they graduated college, Gus and Christina got married. Nick and Eleni had a party in the apartment above the store with all the Canadian family and Gus’s seven older brothers and sisters and their families. Christina was an only child; her father died when she was a baby, so Gus’s brother Nick who was the closest friend to the couple walked her down the aisle. While Gus talked shop with his father and mother, Nick took pity on the new bride and danced with her. She later said that her palms were sweating for the wrong reasons. Nick was so handsome!

  She would do all the baking for the store. Christina’s specialties were wedding cookies dredged in powdered sugar and a round New Year’s loaf of bread with a dime baked into the center. On New Year’s Day, whoever got the piece of bread with the coin received good luck for the rest of the year. Christina imagined a special paper sleeve for the bread printed with the words ‘Caution! Contains Coins! Choking Hazard!’ but Eleni was afraid it would scare customers. They had an undeclared battle going on, the mother-in-law trying to keep her daughter-in-law from taking control. It had the right effect; eventually Christina stopped trying to initiate any change, losing interest after a short time and looking for something else to be enthusiastic about. The newlyweds settled into the apartment above the store, their predictable life stretching out as the lives of their ancestors had.

  Chapter 16

  Albert Wong returned to Dearborn to interview Gretchen Parker’s coworkers at the bank after he saw her parents and her best friend Leah. Whenever he came into Dearborn, he was always surprised at how different it was from the city. It was so green. Beautifully landscaped lawns in modest neighborhoods spoke of pride of ownership. In the more affluent areas historic homes were mixed in. He drove past a lovely cemetery, an oasis of park-like forested hills. The ancient trees stood as sentries guarding the mausoleums. Albert saw an elderly couple walking a path to gravestones. It was serene and peaceful. No traffic noise had penetrated the area. An eighteen-hole golf course dominated the center of the neighborhood. Gretchen Parker was raised here. The variety of styles of homes, from hundred-year-old brick colonials to modest timber Cape Cods were unified by their lovely gardens and verdant expansive lawns. The Parkers lived in one of the smaller Capes.

  In the driveway Albert saw a bright candy-apple red Chevy Malibu; Gretchen’s car. What the hell was her car doing there? He got on his phone right away to Dearborn Police discovering that they had completed a cursory exam of the car, and found nothing of importance. Albert avoided a screaming match with them; he called his commanding officer instead who would be the one to do it. After a text to Jill about the car, Albert walked up to the door of Jacob and Marianne Parker’s perfect, white house surrounded by a picket fence that was covered with late summer blooming roses. The juxtaposition of the tortured body of Gretchen Parker over this idyllic scene rang false. There was a lot going on under the surface here; Jill was correct, as usual. He lightly tapped on the glass door, the lace curtain covering it not hiding the silhouette of Jacob Parker watching him. Marianne Parker opened the door.

  “Yes?” she asked. Albert could see she was exhausted. Her eyes were swollen almost shut and bright red. “I didn’t think we would see you so soon.”

  “Mrs. Parker, could I have a look at Gretchen’s address book? We’d like to talk to her friends. Also, did she keep a diary, or a journal?” Jacob Parker flinched slightly, Albert noting it. He’s hiding something.

  “Come in,” Marianne said, stepping aside. “Though I don’t know what good it will do.” She started crying again. Jacob Parker didn’t move. He was watching his wife, hands clenched at his sides. “My husband doesn’t want you to have her address book, do you dear?” She looked in Jacob’s direction. He lowered his eyebrows with a menacing look at his wife, but said nothing. “Is there something in it that can incriminate you dear?” Albert was shocked, but kept following her through a narrow hallway and up a steep flight of stairs. She was taking the detective to her late daughter’s bedroom. The door was closed; Marianne turned the handle and pushed it open. A whoosh of fragrant air blew out at them.

  “Watch yourself, Detective Wong. The ceilings are low on this side of the house.” She waited for him to walk through the door. Albert wasn’t used to women’s spaces and this room was all girl. In addition to everything being pink, lacy and ruffled, it was as neat as a pin. It looked newly painted.

  “Did you recently redecorate? Everything looks so fresh and clean.” He stood in the middle of the room looking around, more uncomfortable than he could remember being in a long time.

  “No. The room has been like this since Gretchen started sleeping in a bed. Her crib was in my room for two years. Jacob didn’t want her alone.” Marianne stood in the doorway watching Albert, proud of the room. This is what they had provided for their daughter. “There’s her desk in the corner. You’ll find her address book in the top drawer. If she has a journal, I don’t know about it. Feel free to search her room. There’s nothing to hide.” Albert walked to the desk and looked at the surface. Gretchen was obsessively neat. She had her pens and pencils in a holder, the pen tips down and the pencils all sharpened with leads up. He opened the top drawer and saw stamps and envelopes in neat piles, unpaid bills with envelopes paper clipped to the bills. He pulled the drawer out farther and found the address book and several pads of stationary. He held the address book up.

  “May I take this? I’ll return it to you as soon as I copy it.” He waited until she nodded her head and slipped it into his inside jacket pocket. “Do you mind if I look in her closet?” Marianne hesitated for a second or two but then nodded her head yes. She said she and Jacob had never searched through Gretchen’s belongings out of respect for her. They didn’t have any reason to, either, because “She was about as perfect a daughter as you could get.” As Albert started to move boxes and clothing around in the closet, Marianne continued talking. She spoke as though she were reciting a story, not really telling it to Albert.

  “Gretchen is our only child. Jacob and I didn’t meet until I was thirty-five. We didn’t think we could even have children; Jacob is ten years older than I am. We didn’t have that kind of marriage anyway. It didn’t seem necessary to be together. Do you understand what I am saying?” She waited for Albert to poke his head out of the closet and acknowledge what she was telling him. He was getting ready to get the hell out of there and this was the perfect segue.

  “So Gretchen was a wonderful surprise,” Albert offered, walking backwards toward the door. “You were meant to have her. Thank you for the address book. I better get moving. I am sorry for having put you through anymore sadness by going through Gretchen’s desk.” Albert kept the stream of conversation up until he was out of the door. He walked backward, talking to Marianne all the way down the steps and pathway to his car. Marianne liked this young man. She trusted him.

  Albert Wong was barely able to control himself. He pulled away from the Parkers’ house and drove two blocks until he found a private place to stop his unmarked ca
r and call Jill. His stomach tied in knots; hands shaking as he keyed in her number on his cell phone. And he had almost blown it. She answered on the first ring.

  “Where the hell are you?” she asked. “I’ve got a few exciting things to tell you!”

  “Guess what I found in Gretchen Parker’s closet?” Albert Wong asked, purposely cagy, making her answer him.

  “What? Come on Al, we don’t have all day here,” she said impatiently.

  “You’ll never guess! I am still shaking!” Albert giggled, almost peeing himself. “A video camera! I hidden video camera, aimed at her bathroom door.”

  Chapter 17

  Jill returned to the precinct and took the additional security tapes from the hotel directly to the technical room. It didn’t take her long to figure out that the body thrown over a man’s shoulder was Gretchen Parker. She was wearing the clothes Marianne Parker described and her hair matched. Jill had seen her body nude; this looked like the same person. She had yet to get an ID on the man, however.

  Her next move was to go to a computer and find Mike Ahmed’s license photo on the Secretary of State site. When it came up on the screen, the impact was instantaneous; her heart started racing. It was the guy in the hotel video. The body thrown across his shoulders was Gretchen Parker and the man was Mike Ahmed. It was too good to be true. He must have been faking his accent, trilling his ‘r’s when he spoke to the housekeeper. Now she should be able to get a positive ID on him from the hotel desk clerk and the housekeeper. She also needed to find out who the people were who got the room in the first place. Once she accomplished that, they would have the evidence they needed to pick him up for questioning.

  She went back to the security tapes. The next activity on it was of a balding man in a suit at the door of the same room Mike Ahmed took Gretchen. While she was watching, Jill had the thought run through her head that these people possibly involved in a murder had exposed their faces to video cameras all over the city. Suddenly on the screen, the door opened and a beautiful young woman walked out on the arm of the balding suited man. It was Gretchen. She was teetering on unsteady feet; was it the stilettos? Or was she still in the same shape that forced her to ride through the hallways of a Greektown hotel over the shoulder of Mike Ahmed?

  Jill watched Gretchen walk toward the elevator, her dress gorgeous, sparkling with something metallic, her hair tumbling over her shoulders. They were headed toward the casino Jill was willing to take bets.

  She watched two days’ worth of motion detected video camera footage compressed into an hour. Gretchen didn’t return to the room. Jill now had a dead girl, a bucket of blood clots, and a lying suspect to connect in some way. She stood up slowly and stretched her arms above her head, her back stiff from sitting in the same position for too long. When Albert returned, the two would compile the facts they had gathered. In the meantime, she would send someone back to the hotel with Mike Ahmed’s driver’s license photo and see if anyone recognized him. She checked her notes from Albert; the improper car processing made her angry, but the closet findings were worse. She’d thought there was something not right about the father. For now she would stick to facts and use her intuition only to guide her. Jill’s emotions were running strong and she had learned not to trust them long ago.

  ~ ~ ~

  Albert made time to visit his grandmother in the morning between interviews. He grew up in this neighborhood: ethnically diverse, urban, and poor. Her house was a small-detached cottage, sided with fake stone. Albert remembered the story of the siding well; a Greek guy who did home improvements had come door to door and sold everyone but Nana Wong aluminum siding; she got the fake stone from him. The siding fell off the other houses, but fifty years later the stone was still intact. He’d told the story to Jill and she thought the salesman might have been a distance cousin of hers. The flower boxes under the front windows held plastic flower arrangements Nana Wong dug from the neighborhood funeral home trash. She kept her small lawn as neat as a pin in contrast to the trash-strewn yards of her new neighbors. A young single mother with at least two children headed every other household. Nana Wong tried to be available for her neighbors unless she was at her senior center or entertaining her boyfriend. When she first came to Detroit, it was to a vibrant Chinese community not far from Greektown where Albert now worked. Bad planning by the city put freeways directly through several ethnic communities, including Chinatown. With nowhere else to go, Albert’s grandparents moved to Tireman Road.

  Albert parked his car down at the end of the street and walked up the block to her house, along the way teasing and talking to the kids playing on the sidewalks in the end of summer heat. It was a real family neighborhood. Nana Wong, dressed in her usual stretch pants and sleeveless shirt, was standing in the door, looking at her grandson with pride.

  “How’d you know I was coming?” he asked her, confused.

  “A little bird told me,” she responded. “It asked, ‘Why would an unmarked police car park at the end of your street?’” She opened the door for him, taking him in one arm for a hug. Albert could smell Fabuloso, the strong cleaning solution Nana Wong used to compulsively clean her house. “What are you doing so far from home?” she asked.

  “Did you hear about the young girl found on Cass?” He didn’t wait for her response, whispering, “She’s from Dearborn.” He nodded his head and she raised her eyebrows, perfectly applied lines of dark brown eyebrow pencil. Blue eye shadow and false eyelashes were a perfect complement to Nana Wong’s youthful complexion.

  “Those suburban people liked to come into Detroit to die and then give the city a bad name,” Nana Wong said. Grandmother and grandson went to the kitchen to sit and drink coffee together. Nana Wong had high cholesterol so she no longer cooked breakfast for him; eggs, bacon, waffles, and syrup. But if he was starving, she would make little packets of plain oatmeal. Eating together was a comfort for the both of them.

  Whenever he was able, he accomplished this simple act of visiting his grandmother. His parents were in Florida; his sister lived in Manhattan, and his grandfather left Nana six years ago to move in with a Polish lady near Eight Mile Road. Albert and Nana were close. He and his partner Roger took Nana Wong to have Sushi on Friday nights every week, and they all bowled in the same league. He picked her up on his way home from work on Tuesday or she took the bus to their place, and Roger made them dinner; Italian which was his specialty, unless they had Chinese, Nana Wong’s favorite.

  They went on cruises to the Virgin Islands and took Nana along. She came with them to Hawaii and New Orleans. Every October, she rented a small cottage on Goshorn Lake on the west side of the state, and Roger and Albert went to see her and enjoy beautiful weather, the changing leaf colors, and wonderful restaurants. They rented rooms at The Dunes, a gay friendly resort in nearby Douglas. Jill’s Aunt Maria lived in Saugatuck, a neighboring art colony and she welcomed them at her home, too. They were planning to retire there as soon as Roger turned fifty-five, a social worker with the state for almost thirty years. While the interest rates were low, they were looking to buy a place in the area. Albert had never been happier. He had a great life.

  When Albert left Nana Wong’s, he drove the eight or so miles to Telegraph in Dearborn. He was going to visit the bank where Gretchen had been a teller since she was out of high school because daddy didn’t want her to go to college and out of his realm of influence. The bank manager was waiting for Albert. He’d dug through months of security tapes to show one special moment in Gretchen’s career to Detective Albert. It was of Mike Ahmed as he approached Gretchen’s window on that first fateful meeting. He lined up three other tellers who were confidants of Gretchen. She wore her heart on her sleeve evidently, and shared the most intimate details with the ladies, not worried about them gossiping. Her sweet naiveté would turn out to be a boon for the cop investigating her murder.

  He’d interview the three women separately. Albert hoped they might remember more if they weren’t listening to each ot
her’s stories being retold. He asked who wanted to go first. His experience told him that the person most eager to speak would be the one with the most embellishments to her story, either fabricated or imagined. She was an odd young woman; he thought she might be in her early thirties, but she dressed like a much older person in a two-piece dress with padded shoulders and puffy sleeves of an old-fashioned floral fabric. He hadn’t seen anything like it since his grandmother’s church clothes from the nineties. Her makeup was colorful too. She had perfectly applied frosted blue eyelids accented with dark purple highlights, and clear, plum colored lipstick. He actually liked it. Her hair was up to date, and she wore great shoes. Her habitus was off somehow. Albert thought maybe she had recently had a major weight loss and hadn’t grown into her body yet, wearing her skinny clothes from another era. The manager had offered an unused room for the interviews. Albert invited Miss Julie King to come in. She was friendly and confident.

  “Thank you for offering to help us, Ms. King. Have a seat.” Albert pointed to chair and sat down next to her. She pulled a tissue out of her jacket pocket and patted under her eyes, trying to avoid messing up her eye makeup. “I’d like to record this, if it is okay with you.” She shook her head yes and with no prompting on his part at all, started talking.

  “I feel so bad about Gretchen! It just doesn’t make any sense.” She blew her nose and threw the tissue into the wastepaper basket. “She was so excited about Friday night. Mike, that’s her boyfriend’s name, was taking her to meet up with a model scout from New York. He was picking her up at Blazo’s and they would drive to Fairlane together. The woman had a room there. I assume it was a woman. They were going to take some pictures because Gretchen didn’t have a portfolio.” Ms. King burst into tears again. “I thought it sounded fishy, but the other girls said I was jealous. I couldn’t be jealous of Gretchen! I swear it wasn’t that. I didn’t trust that creep, let me tell you. He was a liar. In the first place, my boyfriend works at Ford and there is no way an engineer in this financial climate is going to get the time off he got. Every day he came to take her to lunch. He tried to talk her into calling out sick all the time.” She pulled out another tissue. “Gretchen was too honest to pretend to be sick.” Albert didn’t have to doodle this time; he couldn’t believe his ears.