Grind City

by Gary Hardwick

  “Yes,” said John. “I see.”

  “Good. You know, someone else will come to replace Every. All you business people here can stop that by banding together. Easier than waiting for someone to do what someone did to Every.”

  “You’re pretty smart to have figured all that out,” said John.

  “Not really,” I said. “Every Wadson was a bad person and sooner or later guys like that get got by someone. Dealers would have either dumped him or just disappeared his ass. I knew it wasn’t a pro and since most murders are committed by men, here I am talking to you, instead of your wife. But this is all still theoretical.”

  “Why do you want me to complain about you then?” asked John.

  “Don’t think you should be asking questions right now,” I said.

  He just nodded. It had been quite a day for him and I didn’t want to make it any worse. I reminded him not to leave town and said goodbye. I turned to leave, then something important occurred to me.

  “Oh, can I get a number two to go?” I asked. “I’m gonna be hungry in a minute.”

  8

  THE BELLS

  Thom Ross drove up to the guard house. He saw the old black man wave like always and like always, he ignored him. His wife loved to stop and chat with the help, but it was not his style. He had no guilt about the lower classes. There were reasons people were separated and he believed in them.

  He drove into the circular drive of his home in Grosse Pointe Shores. The beauty and serenity of the three story mansion and its wintery backdrop stood in stark contrast to what he was feeling. Inside, he was a raging mixture of emotions but he had to keep it all very low for now.

  “These are the times that try men’s souls,” he said quoting someone he could not remember.

  Renardo had unsettled him a little the other day. He was not nearly as smart as he had thought. He was hoping the black man would be happy but just like a lot of his people, he didn’t know the difference between money and wealth. Renardo thought just getting money guaranteed him wealth but it does not work that way. Wealth was akin to power and that was built over time. When an opportunity came, you took it, then moved on. Most of his kind had the lottery mentality.

  Thom was mad when he left. Renardo had out-negotiated him. The black man would probably try to strike back at him after he got paid, but Thom had a plan for that.

  He was going to a place where he could not take a man like Renardo and it had nothing to do with his color, well, it did a little but there were realities to life that we all had to accept. No one knew that as well as he did.

  Thom got out of the car as one of the house staff came and took it to be put away. He entered the home and another staffer took his coat and scarf.

  “Good evening sir,” said Thelma, one of their house workers. She was a maid although he had trouble thinking of her that way.

  “Evening, Thelma,” said Thom. “Is Mrs. Ross about?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Thelma, a middle aged woman who wore immaculate wigs each day. Today’s wig was jet black and very pleasing, he thought. “She’s taking dinner. She didn’t want to wait.”

  As Thom walked toward the small dinning room which was in the east-wing of the house, he made an effort not to look at the walls of family portraits of the Bells.

  He knew those pictures very well. They started with Ewan Lukas Belleten, an immigrant from Scotland and his wife, Gerta Steinhaus, a German. They were married, then a quick slash to the name and Belleten became Bell.

  They settled in Michigan and became traders and lumber dealers and later invested in gas, oil and a new thing called the automobile. The family became wealthy very quickly and several of the Bells lost vast sums of money through foolishness. That was when Ewan Bell came up with the family trust that has protected them and their money ever since.

  In the modern age, the Bell family passed to Quinn Bell, a famously hard man who had built the family fortune with his father and grandfather.

  Quinn was a soldier, a hunter and a notorious ladies man, who was rumored to have several mixed race children. He carried on the tradition and built even more wealth in the industrial age of America.

  Over the years, the Bells were involved in just about every major event in the nation one way or another. They helped black slaves flee to Canada and ran whiskey across that same border during Prohibition. They supported wars but sold arms and goods through intermediaries to our enemies. They supported the Civil rights Movement but oppressed blacks in tenements and engaged in red-lining in the 1960’s. They were a giant octopus with tentacles in everything good and bad as long as it was also profitable.

  When Thom’s wife, Sandra and her brother, Evan were born a year apart, the pictures all focused on their anointing as the heirs to the vast fortune.

  Thom could not imagine the life they had, even with their cruel and abusive parents, they still had the best of everything. One magazine had called them the prince and princess of the Midwest.

  Sandra was a gifted student and attended Harvard Medical School. Evan went to Harvard as well and graduated with a business degree.

  When Sandra brought Thom home to meet the family, he remembered the suspicious looks he’d gotten. He was handsome sure but he had lost his business and was now one of their many employees.

  Sandra was no winner in the looks department and the prospect of pretty grandchildren seemed to please her relatives, which did not include her parents, who were dead by then.

  Evan was chilly to Thom. He was a snob and a little jealous. He was part of a famous brother/sister couple. They did everything together and suddenly, she was being photographed with Thom all over town and landing in the newspapers.

  After he and Sandra got married, Evan had gotten married just a year later to a former Miss Michigan, a stunning girl from a working class family in Warren. It was then Thom knew he’d stepped into some kind of family quagmire. Who competes with his sister like that?

  Evan had been a pain in the ass since then, always reminding Thom that he was an outsider and even thwarting his plan to get them on a reality show about wealthy families. The family was very conservative financially and that cash would have been all his and not more of their largess.

  Thom had almost been happy when Evan died earlier this year. It was a terrible accident and he had not died right away. He lingered in the hospital for weeks before it was over.

  Sandra had been so distraught, that she was hospitalized too and put in a room on the same floor as her brother.

  Thom entered the dining room to find Sandra sitting alone, eating and looking upset. He still told himself that she was not a homely woman but it was no use. She had gotten none of her mother’s beauty and instead took after her father, who was himself not very handsome. Her brother had gotten the looks then took them to his grave.

  Thom sat across from her at the end of a long table as a staffer brought him the first course.

  “Something wrong?” he asked as he began to eat.

  “It’s Wednesday,” said Sandra with little emotion. “You’re usually late on Wednesday.”

  “No meeting tonight,” said Thom matter of factly.

  “And no shower,” said Sandra. “You always come home late smelling like you took a shower, but not now. Now, you just smell like… you.”

  “You going to start that again?” asked Thom, dropping his hand on the table hard. The handle of his knife banged loudly on the table.

  “No. I don’t need to, do I?” she said.

  “Honey, I know you’re still sad about your brother’s death, but that’s no reason to punish me.”

  “Don’t say his name,” said Sandra sharply. “You don’t get to talk about Evan, not to me. Let me mourn in my own way.”

  “We’re all in mourning, remember?” said Thom. “Or did you forget that? You know, I think I’ll take my dinner in the study tonight.”

  “I’m leaving,” said Sandra. “I have yoga class. You can have the room to yourself. And don�
��t wait up for me. I may do a shift at Mercy. They’re short-handed.”

  He started to ask her to stay, to talk and get by this but it was no use. He was wedded to her and this life and it came with both good and bad.

  Thom listened to Sandra leave as the second course came. He dug into it, suddenly hungry.

  9

  WYANDOTTE

  I finished the last of Regina’s chicken as I watched DeAngela talk to a room with eight police officers in it. I was in a little office, watching a live feed on camera. I was there alone, as we did not want anyone to know I was on the case. DeAngela’s team was assembled in the observation room down the hall.

  These were the men and women who were deemed to have been responsible for security and surveillance the night of Ivory’s death: Watch Commander Clarence Dolan and Officers, Bill Wiznewski, Lance Olof, Erica Claiborne, Rick Newson, Chance Whitehall, Jacob Vilatinni, Jamilla Cole and Dobbs Harson.

  There were others there that night but these eight had direct access to cameras and equipment and should have known if a prisoner were brought in. And the officers on patrol were the only ones to come in during the gap in the surveillance.

  The POA reps lined the walls and the whole thing was being recorded. Funny looking at a room full of cops, knowing one of them is a killer.

  DeAngela and her team had already interviewed them separately along with every man and woman in the precinct that night. So far, they had nothing. Some conflicts existed but the blue waters were deep and so far, there was no direct evidence.

  Fiona’s report was still ongoing, so no one knew about the fetus except me and DeAngela and that was our ace in the whole. But in case the science did not bear us out, we had to see if we could get a break the normal way.

  “So, the story we have, is the deceased just materialized in a cell between ten and six am that morning and strangled herself,” said DeAngela. “No one saw her come in, no one saw her assaulted, no one filed an arrest report and she’s not on any surveillance camera, which by the way, conveniently malfunctioned and has gaps in it.”

  DeAngela paced back and forth, looking sexy as hell in her business suit. Some of the cops were having trouble concentrating and I saw one of them checking out her ass. Couldn’t blame him.

  “How much longer are we gonna do this shit?” asked a POA lawyer named Harry Hunnington. He was an old hand and a damned good lawyer. “The surveillance equipment is old and the city is too damned broke to buy anything new. There was a bankruptcy in case you didn’t hear.”

  “They told you what they know,” said a female POA rep named Reid. “Make your case or don’t. The clock is ticking, Ms. Gomez.”

  “We will,” said DeAngela. “In the meantime, I’ll be petitioning to switch from administrative leave with pay, to unpaid leave pending this investigation.”

  The room exploded in shouts and cursing. Hunnington, who was obviously the leader, calmed them all down.

  “You can request anything you like, DeAngela” said Hunnington. “But if you want to stop the livelihood of any officer in this room, you will have to file for an indictment or I assure you, it won’t stick.”

  This drew a chorus of approval from the cops and curiously, a smile from DeAngela.

  She nodded to the camera and in a few seconds, the door to the room opened and in walked Jesse King, the county prosecutor’s lead trial lawyer.

  I smiled as I saw the faces of all the suspect cops go pale and Hunnington got out of his seat.

  “What is this shit, Jesse?” asked Hunnington. “You can’t be here.”

  “How are you Harry?” asked Jesse.

  The only lawyer who might be smarter than my best buddy Marshal Jackson, is Jesse King. He’s the real deal. Born just a few blocks from me and hardened in the ‘hood in a way I really understood. He was incorruptible and had put away Gregory Cane, maybe the most evil man to ever walk the streets of Detroit. Cane would have guys like Every Wadson for breakfast.

  “The Prosecutor, the FBI and the County Sheriff are all watching this case,” said Jesse. “The whole country is watching. We have no intention for this to go cold. What happened in this precinct threatens every man in uniform in this city and perhaps the nation. I am begging you, if you know anything, please tell us now because if you do not, we will get to the bottom of this and I assure you if in the process, I find that any one of you knew something and did not divulge it, I will make sure that you go to prison without any safeguards.”

  The room exploded again as Jesse had just pretty much threatened to kill all of them. A cop who goes to certain prisons is a marked man for sure.

  “Our clients are leaving,” said Hunnington. The other lawyers all echoed this sentiment. “We did this as a courtesy. From now on, you can deal with each officer separately through their counsel.”

  “This is an official police interview,” said Jesse. “Any man who walks out of this office could be arrested for obstruction.”

  “And then I will have my suspension without pay,” said DeAngela.

  All of the officers looked to Dolan, their Watch Commander who nodded. The ones standing sat down.

  “Now,” Jesse continued. “If any officer wants to contact me, you can, and I assure you none of your brothers will know who it was. For now, the IAD has another hour for you to be here. Take some time and think about it.”

  Jesse walked out and DeAngela left with him, leaving the cops stunned.

  I had been watching very carefully and my head was filled with stuff. I had the files on all of them and I knew a couple of them personally. I wish I could say I knew which one of them did it, but this was not like a box of chicken. Whoever murdered Ivory was smart, cold and had help. It had to be more than one of them but which ones?

  Dolan was probably only there because he was responsible for the precinct. You could see on his face that he knew he had just drawn the duty that night. He’d been a real badass when he was on the street and had dodged a big corruption scandal some years ago. He had two ex-wives and was working on a third.

  Bill Wiznewski was a vet and a solid family man with a bunch of kids. He had a good rep but was a bit of a religious fanatic. I saw him sometimes dropping off my father at Mass. He was working back up to Dolan and had dodged that same corruption scandal.

  Erica Claiborne was a relative newbie and was already in law school, angling for a prosecutor’s job down the road. She was tough and determined but had no taste for street duty which was odd because she was one of the best shots on the force and had won two contests. She’d been on administrative that night.

  Lance Olof had been a street cop but was known to be violent and exhibited bad judgment. He was taken off active when he discharged his weapon and almost killed a kid holding a Red Bull. He was in the twenty percent that I would get rid of.

  Olof worked surveillance under Rick Newson, who could not explain the malfunction. Newson was generally a good guy but had some bad habits, like he was a gambler and had gotten caught with a low rent hooker once, which meant he did it all the time.

  Whitehall I knew from around the force. We had worked together on tac squads and I always found him to be capable and even headed which was no surprise because he had been in Special Ops in Afghanistan.

  Vilatinni was a bad egg and we all knew it. He was one of those guys you expected to be found shot or worse. IAD had been trying to get rid of him for years but Vilatinni was too smart and people loved the guy. I knew he was bent but I liked him, too.

  Jamilla Cole was a good cop who was well thought of but had a problem with authority figures. She’d been reprimanded a few times and was known to have a rather short fuse.

  Dobbs Harson was a lot like Vilatinni. Although no one had ever accused him of being bent, he did bend the rules and was known to be a ladies man, which put him high on my list.

  Whitehall, Vilatinni, Cole and Harson had all come in during the window when we think Ivory was sneaked in. These four were seen leaving, but no camera ever caught t
hem coming in the precinct.

  All of them seemed guilty to me and I had a random thought of just beating it out of them one by one. Then I saw something that got my attention.

  Two sets of the cops were partners: Whitehall and Vilatinni and Cole and Harson. One team sat close together and talked with the same lawyer who represented both of them but the other team was totally different.

  Jamilla Cole and Dobbs Harson were on opposite sides of the room and each had gotten their own lawyer.

  Dobbs Harson talked frantically to his lawyer but Jamilla sat stone-faced. They had sat next to each other when DeAngela and Jesse addressed them but as soon as they left, they had separated without a word.

  A police partnership was a sacred thing, almost like family. Sometimes partners were not close or drifted apart but usually that would end the relationship.

  Cole and Harson were riding together and as far as I knew, there was no trouble in paradise— until now.

  There was a soft knock on the door and then Jesse King and DeAngela walked in.

  “Hope you don’t mind but I told Jesse,” said DeAngela.

  “No,” I said. Jesse and I shook hands.

  “I’m not for you being involved, Danny,” said Jesse.

  “I could guess that,” I said. “But you don’t have to worry about me killing the suspect.”

  “See, but I do worry, Danny,” said Jesse. “If I were in your shoes, I don’t know what I’d do.”

  “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me,” I said. “Unless you plan to renege on our deal, DeAngela.”

  “Nope,” she said looking a Jesse.

  “Out voted, counselor,” I said.

  “Okay,” said Jesse. “We got the fetus but if we get into this and jeopardy attaches, we’re fucked if the science doesn’t hold up.”

  “Which is why we need a break,” said DeAngela. “Don’t try the case before its time, Jesse.”

  “I don’t think our scare tactic worked,” said Jesse. “So, do you have anything, Danny?”