Corktown

by Ty Hutchinson

I looked around as best I could. The structure was fairly small, maybe eight feet by twelve feet. Gardening tools hung along one wall, and lawn maintenance equipment lined the other side. There were bags stacked high behind me—fertilizer most likely. I figured I was in the shed I had seen earlier in the garden. The only source of light was a small window. It was filthy. I doubted anyone could see me inside while passing.

  Time was not on my side. I knew I had to get out of there. Whoever tied me up had plans to come back. I worked to free my hands, but duct tape had them secured tightly behind the chair. A dull pain was noticeable in both of my shoulders. It felt like any sudden movement might pop them out of their sockets.

  I wasn’t sure how long I had been unconscious, but gauging from the temperature in the shack, it couldn’t have been long. If the temperature outside had increased to triple digits, I would have literally baked alive inside that tin oven. Maybe that’s the plan?

  • • •

  A slap to the face woke me up again. The heat reminded me of where I was. My tongue was sticky, and my throat was scratchy. Sweat seemed to be leaking from every pore on my body. My jeans and blouse both clung to me like thirsty sponges. I no longer had any feeling in my shoulders and part of my arm.

  Another slap to the face got me to focus on the man sitting in front of me.

  “It was you,” was all I could manage.

  A smile grew across Leon Briggs’ face before he slapped me once more. He enjoyed slapping me. That last one had him giggling.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why? Bitch, you know why. You brought this upon yourself. Investigating shit you’re not supposed to be investigating. That’s your downfall. You think it’s what makes you good at what you do. Uh-huh.”

  “I get it,” I said. I lifted my head so I could look at him. “I could have gone home after capturing the Carters, but I didn’t. I was told to forget about Blade Garrison, but I didn’t. I had numerous warnings, and I ignored them all. But that’s not my downfall. No, that’s exactly how I solve crimes. I investigate everything.”

  Briggs leaned in. His eyes were dark and held steady on me. Sweat snaked its way along the sides of his face. “You must have been a nosy kid growing up, always in everyone’s business. I bet you weren’t liked much. Still aren’t, right? Yeah, I know the type.” He took a handkerchief out from his pocket and wiped his forehead, then folded it back up neatly. And then he slapped me again.

  I couldn’t help but chuckle after that one.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “I was going to say you slap like a bitch, but then it dawned on me that I know a bitch, and she slaps harder than you.”

  I must have been hit really hard after that, because I don’t remember anything but him waking me up again. That time, I decided I would do the talking. “I know about the Carters. When you found out about them from the surveillance team, you opted to put them into your own version of a witness protection program. You used them, like they worked for you. That was the deal in exchange for their freedom, right? Then you set them loose on the street people.”

  “Genius isn’t it?” Briggs said as he relaxed his posture a bit and let his ego show. “That’s what I call being creative with the situation. Now people love coming to downtown Detroit. It’s vibrant. Restaurants have reopened. It doesn’t smell like piss. What’s not to like?”

  I spit to drain my mouth. “You didn’t cut a deal with them to clean up the city. That was a byproduct. You wanted them for something else, an ace in your back pocket.”

  Even though he still had a grin on his face, I knew he had understood what I had said. And he wasn’t denying any of it.

  “You used them to kill the RRs. That was your plan all along, wasn’t it? You realized Katherine wanted revenge for her father, but she really didn’t know who the RRs were, did she? You filled her in. You told her everything she needed to know. That’s why she didn’t try to go after them sooner.”

  We stared at each other, neither saying a word. Briggs wasn’t about to confirm any of what I had just said.

  “You have a wild imagination, Agent,” he finally said.

  “Why did you suddenly want them dead?” I asked.

  Briggs didn’t respond. He didn’t blink. He didn’t move. He only smiled.

  Why? I asked myself again. But then I realized it wasn’t about the why; it was about the how.

  “I’m sorry. I just realized I’ve been asking you the wrong questions, Mr. Mayor.”

  He shifted in his seat, but I’d like to think he squirmed.

  “Only the right question can yield the right answer. You see, it’s not so much why would you kill them. It’s more about how—how did you know they existed?”

  The politician continued to fidget like a little boy caught in a lie. I asked him once again, articulating each word. “How. Did. You. Know?”

  For the first time, I watched his smile diminish in size. Hardin had been right all along.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  It was my turn to grin and chuckle. It all made perfect sense.

  Briggs was the sixth RR.

  92

  “You’re one of the RRs.”

  Briggs sat there unresponsive, so I continued.

  “You were the silent one. Only Dennis Walters knew about you.”

  Briggs swallowed. I had him feeling uncomfortable. The tiny rippling that appeared near the rear of his clenched jaw confirmed my suspicions. “What’s your connection to Walters? The group was tight, and they all worked at GM. Don’t take this personally, but you don’t seem like GM material.”

  Finally, Briggs spoke. “I worked for the union.”

  “Now it makes sense. You helped ease the closings on your side of the fence and in return… What did you get? Money? Favors you could call in down the line? The RRs all went on to be successful in the auto industry. It would be advantageous for the mayor to be friendly with them, right? That is, until one of them gets a conscience. Is that what happened? Did Dennis Walters start to feel guilty in his old age? Were you worried he might spill the beans, write a tell-all memoir? Huh? Should I speak slower?”

  I knew mouthing off wasn’t helping me out of that situation, but it sure felt good. I wished I would have had a plan, but I hadn’t made much progress with loosening my hands.

  “You’re a lot smarter than I thought, Agent,” Briggs said, surprisingly calm.

  “Your plan all along was to get rid of the Carters once the RRs were out of the picture, wasn’t it? That’s why I was brought in. You knew I would catch them. But why did you get rid of all the files on the hostages? Why cover up that information?”

  “If you had that knowledge, you would have caught them a lot sooner than I would have liked, Agent.”

  “So you gave the Carters just enough room to do the job, but not too much that I wouldn’t catch them. That’s a tough formula to figure out.”

  The mayor laughed. “Please, I had a contingency plan in place in the event you turned out to be too dumb. But I knew you would solve it.”

  “And in the end, the Carters would either end up dead or end up in prison for life. The best-case scenario.”

  “It’s the perfect plan, isn’t it?” Briggs’ smile got wider and his chuckling grew into contained laughter.

  I couldn’t believe it. I was a pawn who, like everyone else, did the bidding of the mayor. Now what? Was there more to his plan?

  I wasn’t sure if I imagined it or not, but after a few more seconds, I recognized a siren, and it was getting closer. My luck had changed. The funny thing though—Briggs was still relishing in his success and hadn’t stopped patting himself on the back for a job well done.

  “That siren isn’t for me, is it?” I asked.

  “Oh no, no, no. You see, there’s been a breach at the property of the mayor’s residence. Some nut was seen walking around with a gun.” Briggs put on a pair of leather gloves that he removed from the front po
cket of the jacket he had on. He then reached behind him and removed my weapon from the back of his pants. He placed it on the shelf next to him. He then removed a second handgun from his pants.

  “I feared for my life,” he continued, “so I locked and loaded my personal firearm, allowed me by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, for my protection.”

  Briggs pulled the slide back on his Glock and chambered a round.

  “I saw someone run into the shed. I was positive they had a gun.”

  Briggs stood up and opened the door to the shed. He then picked up my gun and fired two rounds at the house before returning it to the shelf.

  “I went outside to investigate. That’s when I saw the intruder in the shed firing at me.”

  Briggs started walking backward.

  “I feared for my life,” he said. “I had no choice. I had to defend myself.”

  He raised his gun and took aim at me. A beat later, he fired.

  93

  I opened my eyes and saw Briggs lying face down on the lawn. Lieutenant White stood behind him, holding his gun with rigid arms. It took a few seconds for me to realize that Briggs had not fired his gun.

  White had yet to move from his firing position. His eyes were locked onto Briggs, looking for any sort of movement. Neither one of us said anything. I drew a sharp breath, unaware of how long I had been holding it—enough to grab White’s attention as he looked at me. He slowly lowered his weapon. Seconds later, he untied my hands.

  “He had it all set up,” I said, squinting. “There was a break-in.”

  “I know. I got your note right around the time I got a call from him.”

  White cut the last of the tape, freeing my hands. My shoulders felt better immediately. I looked at him. “You were in on this.”

  “Sort of. Normally Stevie Roscoe would have arranged for the officers to come out, but that wasn’t going to happen. Lucky for you, Briggs called me.”

  “Why did you shoot him?”

  “I couldn’t let him kill you. He had taken enough innocent lives in this town. It had to stop. The time had come to chop the head off the snake. If I didn’t do it,” White motioned around with his hand, “this would all continue, and I don’t think I could have taken it anymore.”

  I looked at the mayor’s body. “What now?”

  “This is an easy clean-up,” White said with a smile. “A call from the mayor’s residence came in a little after 9:00 a.m. An intruder had entered the premises. Officers were dispatched but arrived too late. It’s unfortunate, but the mayor was found shot to death.” White handed me back my weapon. “He has no friends, you know? Everyone will eagerly go along with what happened.”

  “But your gun… it was—”

  White waved his hand. “It’s not my gun. Don’t worry about the details, Agent.”

  I stood up and walked out of the shed, shielding my eyes from the morning sun. I walked over to where Briggs lay—glad he was face down. I looked back at White. “He was the sixth RR, you know.”

  White put his hands up. “The less I know, the better. I just want to focus on things getting back to normal. I got a wedding coming.”

  I remembered trying to smile, but I had felt conflicted. Yet another cover-up in the making, and I had taken part in it. Was that what it had come to? I had always done what was right. Going along with White’s plan, that wasn’t who I was. Yet for some reason, it didn’t bother me like I imagined it would. It could have been because that dead bastard on the ground tried to kill me, twice.

  “Don’t overthink it,” White said as he walked over to where I stood. “You did good. Sometimes justice presents itself in strange ways.”

  Was justice served? Was that truly the end? Even though we had cut off the head, there was no guarantee another wouldn’t grow in its place.

  But that wasn’t my problem. It was Detroit’s.

  94

  As much as I didn’t want to, White convinced me to spend a day in the hospital for observation instead of heading home. True to his words, no one came to question me about what had happened at the mayor’s residence. I had been filtered out of the situation.

  I lay in bed and watched the media report of the murder of Mayor Briggs, just the way White said it would go down. The sentiment—a terrible incident and Mayor Briggs would be missed.

  As for Stevie, well, it was reported that he’d been missing for a few days. Don’t ask me how they covered up his body at the hotel. I’m sure my rape kit no longer exists.

  As far as the general public knew, Mayor Briggs discovered his chief of staff had a drug problem and planned on firing him before he disappeared. That, of course, led Metro Detroit Police to investigate Stevie’s disappearance and his possible connection with the Mayor’s death. It looked like Stevie Roscoe would take the fall.

  When I first arrived in Detroit and discovered Garrison might have been framed, I never would have suspected what my investigation would uncover. How could so many people entrusted with upholding the law disregard their duties and the oath they had taken? The irony was, I had found myself in the same position. And yet somehow, in my head I had justified it. I knew it was wrong, but in return, we had gotten rid of a larger, more dangerous type of wrong. Right?

  • • •

  Not once had I thought about Detroit after leaving. I didn’t miss the Coney Islands or the urban decay. I was happy to put that case behind me. I had almost gotten away with it until Lieutenant White sent me an email. He had attached a picture of his daughter at her wedding. She looked beautiful, and the reception looked expensive; good thing he had a job. He mentioned he had two more months until retirement. I wrote him back and congratulated him. He deserved it.

  I was back to normal hours and able to spend time with Ryan and Lucy. Every weekend, the kids and I, and sometimes Po Po, would explore a nearby neighborhood or a city. Sometimes, we would spend the entire day there, and sometimes only a few hours. We had one rule; we had to pick a different location each time until we saw all of the Bay Area.

  Last weekend we rode BART across the bay and trounced around the city of Berkeley. We shopped on 4th Street, had lunch at Cheeseboard Pizza, got ice cream at the Ici Ice Cream shop, and much more.

  Of course, being in Berkeley reminded me of Wilkinson, but I didn’t dwell on it. I thought that was a good thing. It meant I was moving on. I didn’t want to live in the past and be sad. I had given enough to those emotions. And to be honest, my kids brought me so much happiness, there was no way I could be sad. They kept me looking forward instead of back. And I was grateful for that.

  Po Po continued to passive-aggressively fight me for mothering duties, but my mom skills had improved greatly; soon I would have the edge. Just yesterday, I had returned from my run early and beat her to breakfast. The kids had eggs that day. Hooray.

  As far as I could tell, I was on pace again to beat her to breakfast. I was wrapping up another morning run and approaching my favorite part on Stockton Avenue, right by Washington Square. It was there that three dogs always slept stretched out across the sidewalk. The city had turned a blind eye to them since they were so loved by the neighborhood. Their names were Salametti, Finocchiona and Sopressata, or Sala, Fino and Sata for short.

  The three dogs spent most of their time outside of Fanelli’s Deli. They really belonged to Mr. Marziello, the owner of the deli. Regardless, everyone helped take care of the animals. People would even sign up on a list to walk them. I liked the dogs for one other reason; at my height, they were often perfectly spaced apart that I could relive my days of track and field. I ran the 110-meter hurdles.

  When I approached my first sleeping hurdle, usually it was Sala, I pretended I had heard the crack of the starting gun and flew out of the starting block.

  My left leg shot straight out while my right leg lifted up and out to a horizontal position, bent at the knee. My right arm reached ahead while my left arm pulled itself back. I had perfect form. Years of training had res
urfaced and taken over. Three strides—hurdle. Three strides—hurdle. When I sailed over Fino, my favorite of the three, I smiled and thought to myself:

  You still got it, Abby.

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  Thank You

  A lot of people helped me with this book. I’d like to let them know that I appreciate them. A big thanks to my beta readers: Erica Kim, Ethan Jones, Ke’ala Pasco and Sharon Hutchinson. I’d like to give a special thanks to my editor, Kristen King. I know it seemed like the writing of this book went on forever. I’d also like to thank my proofreader, Ashley Case. Lastly, I want to give a big thanks to my FBI source, a long time friend of the family. You know who you are. You helped me turn Abby Kane into Agent Abby Kane. Okay, cue the music and kick me off the stage.