The Greeks of Beaubien Street

by Jenkins, Suzanne

  He sketched for thirty minutes and then found his paint case; he got tubes large and small and began to squeeze paint out on the waxed paper. The brushes he used were stored immaculately in mason jars lined up on the window of his one room apartment. He mixed and applied paint for hours. Finally, at four in the morning, he’d reached his limit. He didn’t need to be up until eight; he would have to be okay with four hours sleep. He put his pallet carefully in the tiny, empty freezer. As he walked slowly back to the area where his easel stood, he put his hands up to his face, frightened to look at his work too closely, but knowing that if there were major changes to be made, he needed to do it now, while the paint was still workable. Walking around to the front of the painting, he gasped with joy. It was exactly what he had in mind. The proportions were lovely, the colors vibrant so far. He lowered the thermostat, just in case it didn’t look as good in daylight. Hopefully it wouldn’t dry out too much. He stripped his clothes off and dived onto his cot, falling asleep immediately.

  Chapter 31

  Marianne Parker was having a miserable night in jail. She realized that this was a temporary place, and that once she was sentenced she would have a permanent cell in a prison outside of the city. She’d probably have to share a cell; after sleeping in a room alone for most of her life, that would be the most difficult thing to adapt to, the lack of privacy. She also wore ear plugs; the simple sound of the furnace blower going on, or the wind hitting the window of her bedroom would wake her and she often found it impossible to fall back to sleep. Would she be able to get ear plugs in jail? She was sitting on the edge of the cot in the jail cell, looking at the paint chipped table, the rickety chair, the water spotted aluminum toilet. The cell smelled like urine. She thought a man must have occupied it before she did, peeing all over the floor like they were known to do, and that no one had washed up before she was placed there.

  Hands folded in her lap; she bowed her head and closed her eyes. Her thoughts were calm for a woman who had just confessed to assaulting her own daughter. The detectives would be back in the morning to get her statement when her attorney could get there. She didn’t want to relive the details of that night. As she remembered what was done to her daughter, her blood pressure slowly climbed. They had driven to their storage locker after the hotel incident. Jacob had gone there with one motive and that was to get to a private place where they could punish Gretchen without the neighbors hearing. It was bad enough that her picture was posted all over the TV and newspapers with the word Missing. Now they would know she had joined an escort service. Oh God, the humiliation. As they stood in the locker, Gretchen was crying, clinging to Marianne’s pristine blouse. She slapped away the clawing hands from her chest, but the child must have known what was going to happen. It fueled Marianne’s anger, seeing Gretchen out of control like that.

  “Momma, I’m sorry! I am so sorry!” She repeated it over and over. Marianne sneered at her with contempt.

  “What are you sorry for? Which thing, Gretchen; the affair with your dad? Or being a whore? Which is it?” So close to her daughter she could smell her familiar smell, of soap and water, her breath warm and sweet. “You’re a virgin, so then what were you and daddy up to? Tell me Gretchen, I’m confused!” She shook her daughter, trying to understand what it was they were doing together. She knew it was sick, but was it just playful? Or sexual? How long had it gone on? She’d never get an answer from Jacob and she had to know.

  “We didn’t do anything, momma! He couldn’t get hard,” Gretchen whispered. “We just fooled around, I swear to you.” Hearing her daughter speak like that, admitting they had attempted intercourse but thank God Jacob’s dick wouldn’t cooperate, enraged Marianne. She gasped, but caught herself in time, not allowing the tears to begin. Examining her daughter’s face, she tried to understand what had happened. Did boredom and the comfort of home lull her husband and daughter into a false sense of security so that innocent play turned into something sexual? She wanted to find the thing that would justify what Jacob had done so she could forgive them and move on. At what point did they cross a line?

  “When did it start?” Marianne asked softly. “How often did you play around?” It was so quiet in the locker; she could only hear their breathing. Jacob was in the car, waiting for, what? He wanted Marianne to punish their child for making them worry. Jacob didn’t know yet that Marianne had discovered the relationship he had with Gretchen. Marianne’s body responded to the stress by shedding tears without her crying. The water poured from her eyes.

  “I don’t remember exactly, momma. I think when I twelve or thirteen. You weren’t home and I wanted to try a tampon. Dad helped me with my bath all the time. It seemed natural to go to him and ask him,” she said, sniffing. Marianne was shaking, appalled. She wanted to lock her child in the locker and leave her there. It would be safer to pretend none of this had happened. Who heard of such things? A loving father turned molester? A perfect daughter turned prostitute? At first, she wanted to believe that Gretchen was innocent. But hadn’t she seen her daughter exposing herself to her father? Jacob probably just couldn’t resist. He was more interested in wearing Gretchen’s underwear than seeing her in them.

  “But you need to tell me the truth Gretchen. You need to tell me what daddy did to you.”

  “Okay, Momma, I’ll tell you everything. I’ll tell you the truth,” Gretchen said. Marianne was preparing to push her daughter down on a box so they could sit and have an old fashioned mother-daughter chat, but suddenly the door to the locker slammed up against the wall and Jacob was in the doorway with his old service pistol. He was crying and shaking, but when he fired, it hit Gretchen perfectly in her heart and with such force that she flew into the air, landing on top of the pile of cardboard boxes her mother was going to have her sit on.

  Gretchen died immediately, before she could tattle on her father. The rest of the evening went by in a blur. There was a bathroom on site at the storage facility where they washed her up. Jacob kept saying they needed to take her back to the hotel in Greektown so whoever she was with there would be blamed. He found a big tarp to wrap her body in to keep the trunk of his precious car clean. The last thing Marianne did to Gretchen before they threw their daughter’s body out onto Cass was to pass a comb through her gorgeous hair.

  Marianne actually talked herself into believing that they wouldn’t get caught. When the police called the house Monday morning, Jacob’s histrionics stemmed from remorse and shame, but it served to get them two more days of freedom. He sure wasn’t acting like a guilty man acted. He used those two days to browbeat his wife into believing she was an accessory and just as guilty as he was. Now, sitting in the jail cell, she couldn’t bear the pain. Her anger at Gretchen succumbing to Jacob was spent. She was a silly young girl, after all. She probably didn’t have enough common sense to know that a sex game with one’s father was sick. Any more than she would know that dressing up like a whore and being someone’s escort was unacceptable as well.

  Marianne shook her head. Why did it happen? She would never know. She glanced down at the leg of the cot with its sharp metal edge and the cotton sheet on the mattress. Not planning to take her life at first, it suddenly seemed logical. She took the sheet and tore it into strips using the sharp edge of the cot leg to get it started. She knotted it securely, noting the metal cage around the light bulb with its two -fold use; to prevent bulbs from getting broken and to provide a place for hangers to tie their nooses. She struggled to get the table below the bulb, and then put the chair on the table. For an old lady I’m pretty agile, she thought. She climbed on the bed and then onto the table, and then carefully, up on the chair. She got the sheet knotted around the cage and then a foot or so down, around her neck. It was simple to push the chair off the table with her foot so it would fall on the cot and not make any noise. She wanted to be sure she was dead before they found her swinging.

  Chapter 32

  Jill didn’t get much sleep after all, but the three hours she got w
ere deep and restful thanks to the yoga. The jail called her at four to tell her about Marianne Parker’s suicide. She couldn’t believe it. Now they would have to rely on Jacob’s testimony alone for the facts. Not able to go back to sleep, she decided to go into the precinct to get as much done as she could before Dana’s funeral. She might go see Jacob before breakfast.

  For a brief moment or two, she allowed some sadness to come into her thoughts. Senseless deaths and family secrets. They sure all had them. She thought of her dad and his archaic ways; maybe he clung to those old-fashioned beliefs because in doing so, he thought he could protect his daughter from the ways of her mother. Jill imagined how scandalous it would have been if the affair between Nick and her mother had been made public in the family when it was happening. The birth of Christopher would have made a field day for gossips. She thought of her brother and the sadness increased. She never saw him interact with the family, yet most of them visited him regularly and had relationships with him. Had anyone ever planned an event where the whole family got together to see him? What would he be like in a circle of his friends and relatives? She would think about it for a while. Maybe it would be her responsibility as the sister to plan something like it in the future.

  She went to the precinct and got the CSI report from the storage locker in Allen Park. Even though three days passed since the murder it was still a gruesome site, the blood still appearing bright red, pieces of her heart and what Jill imagined was Gretchen’s back skin sprayed all over the contents of the locker. It was pretty simple to see that whoever had shot her was standing in the doorway. Gretchen had been standing half way into the locker, in front of the boxes. He was either an expert marksman or extremely lucky. When Marianne alluded to responsibility for the killing, Jill didn’t believe it. She poured a cup of coffee and picked up the case file; she’d walk over to the jail to see Jacob. Walking through the tunnel from the precinct to the jail gave her a feeling of entitlement. She belonged there. The precinct was her home away from home.

  Other night owls passed by her, clerks or cops working swing shift, and they acknowledged her as someone who was familiar, who was there to stay. She took the stairway instead of the elevator. The officer at the desk looked at her badge and buzzed her into the section in which Jacob was being held. A chaplain had recently visited to tell Jacob about Marianne’s suicide and Jill could hear sniffing and soft crying sounds. Poor Jacob.

  He could hear footsteps coming toward his cell and just as Jill came into view, he wiped his nose with the back of his hand and stood up. Jill dug through her pocket for a tissue and stuck it through the bars. He took it from her.

  “Did you hear?” he asked. “I can’t believe it.” Jill got a definite feeling from him that worry about placing the blame for Gretchen’s death on his late wife bothered him more than her suicide.

  “I did hear. I’m sorry for your loss, Jacob. Do you feel up to talking to me about Gretchen, or would you like me to come back later?” Jill was keeping her facial expression as neutral as she could, but there was a tick in her left cheek, a muscle that wouldn’t stop twitching. She often got the tick when she felt she could pummel someone with her fists.

  “I can talk now. What’s the point of waiting? They are both dead. There is nothing left for me to live for.” Jacob lowered his head, plunked down in his chair and started to blubber again. “Gretchen was my life. I loved her like a man loves a woman. But I swear to God I never had sex with her. My wife was like a maniac about finding her in the casino and she’s the one who did the bat thing. I would have never been able to hurt her like that! Oh my God!” He dissolved into a mess of tears, a real show of emotion. Jill was disgusted.

  “Pull yourself together, Mr. Parker,” Jill said with as much compassion as she could muster, glad he was behind bars for his own safety. “Falling apart won’t do either woman any good now.” She wondered if his attorney told him about the video of him with Gretchen. “Tell me about you and Gretchen,” she asked, stomach turning. “You were a devoted father, but what’s this about ‘loving her like a man loves a woman’? That’s not okay, you realize that, right?”

  “So what are you gonna do about that? She’s dead! My wife killed her!” He started sobbing again. Jill decided that she was feeling too antagonistic to interview Jacob without making him the same way. She turned to walk away from him, but he called out for her not to go. “Don’t leave! I’m sorry!” Then, more crying. Jill had about had it with him, dead family or not.

  “I’ll stay if you start talking about what happened in that storage locker. And don’t lie. The blood spatter told a story that will hold up in a court of law. You’re a cop. You know what I am talking about.” Jill picked up her phone and dialed the guard.

  “Can I get a chair in front of 226?” she asked. She put her finger up to Jacob to signal one minute and walked toward the guard who was waiting at the gate for her. She thanked him and started walking back to Jacob’s cell. She remembered the jail scenes in Silence of the Lambs and snickered. Placing the chair against the wall in front of Jacob’s cell, Jill sat down and got out her notebook to take notes. She set a small recording device on the floor next to her chair. Albert had already interrogated Jacob, but that was before Marianne died.

  “Tell me about Sunday night,” Jill said. She waited for Jacob to start talking, doodling while he composed himself. “Take your time.” She let a little breath out, just enough to let him know she was losing patience.

  “This isn’t easy,” he said defensively.

  “I’m sure it isn’t,” Jill replied.

  “We were sure she was already dead when we hadn’t heard from her by Sunday morning. But I needed to know what happened to her. I left the house again Sunday evening and stopped by a bar on Michigan Avenue near Greenfield. It was one that I knew Gretchen had gone to with Mike. Not many people from the west side of town go there.” That was Jacob speak for Arab hangout. “I got into an argument. A cop I know from my time on the force came in to break things up before it got physical. He’d heard about Gretchen and suggested I check out the casinos. We’d never thought of that. It wasn’t Gretchen’s style. But because she had been with Mike, we didn’t know what to think.

  “We went to Greektown. I couldn’t believe it when I found her there. I almost didn’t recognize her. The look on her face, well, she was shocked, to put it mildly. ‘Daddy?’ she said.” Jacob laughed. Jill could picture the scene, the young woman caught by her perverted father, because she had seen it in a vision. The realization gave Jill goosebumps. Mike Ahmed would be the next person she would visit that day. Dana’s funeral in Novi slipped from the top of Jill’s priority list.

  “I put my arm out for her to take like we were at a prom,” Jacob continued. “Truthfully, I wasn’t as angry as Marianne was. She was steaming. Of course I found out later, just why. She had videotaped me horsing around with Gretchen. It was innocent, I swear to you. We never kissed, or anything like that. We were like a couple of kids playing doctor.” Jill couldn’t believe her ears. Didn’t this asshole know he was admitting to a crime? It didn’t make any difference that the victim was dead. She told him that he should have an attorney present. He refused, saying “I have nothing to hide.

  “She took my arm and I lead her out of the casino. I felt proud to have her on my arm, she was that gorgeous. My wife was waiting in the car. I didn’t realize that she had brought a bat with her,” he lied. “When we got to the car she said it was to ward off any thugs who might take exception to our taking Gretchen with us back home. When she saw the way Gretchen was dressed, and heard that she had gone there with a man after signing on with an escort service, my wife went crazy. She yelled to Gretchen to tell me where to go to get her clothes. She wanted to know what Gretchen had done all weekend. The poor kid started to tell Marianne, not understanding she was digging her own grave. She said she thought she was signing on with a modeling agency, but that it turned out to be a legitimate escort service. I laughed. There is no
such thing. But even with Marianne freaking out, I wanted her to keep talking. I needed to know who set her up. Of course it was Mike Ahmed but I wanted to hear it from Gretchen’s mouth.

  “She said she’d had two dates so far and the men were very respectful. A weird name with a ‘B’ and a guy named Tommy. I thought Marianne would have a heart attack. We got to the hotel and went to Gretchen’s room. Marianne was on a witch hunt. She insisted on checking Gretchen to see if she was a virgin. She swore neither man had touched her inappropriately, but Marianne was livid. She used the bat on my daughter!” Jacob lowered her head and started crying again. “It was awful. I could hear her screams coming from the bathroom. Marianne yelled at me to turn the TV up. I could still hear her, begging her mother to stop.

  “When Marianne was finished, we went to the storage locker. We were afraid someone would have heard the noise and called the police. Marianne said she was going to question Gretchen about the evening and didn’t want the child’s recriminations heard in our neighborhood. We had gone to the locker for arguments between the two of us in the past; I didn’t think anything of it.” Jacob lowered his head again. Jill felt that he was making a decision here. He was going to either tell the truth or fabricate a lie. When he raised his head again, she knew she was not going to get the truth. His face gave him away.

  “I heard Gretchen arguing with my wife and Marianne threatening her to shut up. I left the car then and just as I opened the door to the locker, I saw Marianne take my service pistol out of her pocket and shoot our daughter.” He lowered his head and the sobbing started again. Jill knew that if she replaced Jacob with Marianne, she would have a scenario closer to the truth. She closed her notebook and stood up.