by Dan Ames
“Uh . . .” he said.
Shit, I didn’t want to lose him.
“You know, this is really a bad time,” Puhy said.
“I know it is, but another person has died, Mr. Puhy.” I was starting to get mad. People were dying, and this guy’s Beef Fucking Stroganoff was more important.
He must have heard the tone in my voice.
“Hold on!” he shouted to the people in the background.
“All right,” he said. “Let me think.” We both waited. A freighter nosed its way out of the Detroit River, heading north. The clatter of silverware sounded from the Puhy kitchen.
“Okay, I think I remember,” he said.
“Shoot.”
“It wasn’t a letter or anything,” he said. “I think I overheard him talking about it.”
“Was he talking about it with Laurence Grasso?”
“Yeah. How’d you know that?”
“Just a hunch.”
“Yeah, I think I overheard Coltraine saying something about getting out and going there.”
“Where, Mr. Puhy?”
“Home,” he said.
“Home where?”
“I’m pretty sure it was, um, Tennessee.”
A shiver ran down my spine. The little thing that had been dancing around in my brain finally let itself be known.
“Where in Tennessee?” I asked, even though I already knew.
A giant block had slammed into place.
“Memphis,” he said.
41
Something about a house. Fuck. I was losing my mind: short-term, medium-term and long-term memory loss. All at the same time. I pounded the steering wheel with my hands. Think, think, think. I pulled onto Vernier from Lakeshore, heading toward I-94.
I needed to start making more connections. That feeling of being close wasn’t good enough.
Where had I been when I felt things starting to come together? At the party. The first time. Talking to Shannon’s entourage for the first time.
A car pulled in front of me, and I reefed the wheel to the right, sped up, and floored it past him.
Something about a farmhouse?
What the fuck was it? We were all sitting around, talking about escapes or something. And Memphis mentioned something about looking at a house. Was she buying?
Finally, it clicked.
A lighthouse. That’s right, a lighthouse. Because she said she was on Harsen’s. The island at the other end of Lake St. Clair.
I pounded the wheel again and roared onto I-94. Harsen’s Island. A lighthouse. And someone had said something about Memphis milking cows. A joke that I assumed meant she had a little farm or something. Farms on Harsen’s weren’t unheard of.
I glanced at the clock on the dashboard.
It’d been nearly three hours since Molly had been killed. If the same person was headed for Memphis’, he or she had a big jump on me.
I pushed the pedal all the way to the floor.
•
Harsen’s Island is the biggest of a small group of islands at the north end of Lake St. Clair. The lake narrows and eventually turns into the St. Clair River for a brief thirty miles or so before opening back up, this time into Lake Huron.
I exited I-94, sped across Harper and pulled into the parking lot at the ferry harbor. Fifteen minutes later, the ferry dumped us on the island, and I hit the road running. Even though Harsen’s has its own yacht club and for years was a miniature summer playground for Grosse Pointers, it still feels like you travel back twenty years or so. Mostly summer cottages and the occasional bait shop/convenience store.
The entire island is only a couple square miles with one main road that runs along the outside border. The road is aptly named Harsen’s Boulevard, and I steered onto it from the ferry dock. It had been over fifteen years since I’d been on the island, and then I was a high-schooler driving out to my buddy’s cottage to get drunk.
I’d never seen a lighthouse on the island, or if I had, I certainly didn’t remember, didn’t know that one even existed out here.
I also figured there weren’t many cops out here either. So I hammered the pedal down and turned Harsen’s into my own private Indianapolis 500.
After about five minutes, I sped around a steep curve and saw the lighthouse—although, technically, it was more like a light post you see in the suburbs. A tiny harbor had a few boats tied off, and I looked at the surrounding land.
No sign of a farmhouse.
I did, however, see an older woman walking a Bassett Hound. I pulled the car up next to her.
“Do you know of a farmhouse around here with a view of the lighthouse? It belongs to a songwriter named Memphis Bornais?” I said.
She looked at me with bloodshot blue eyes. They looked just like the dogs’. I thought she was going to tell me that Harsen’s residents were a private people and that if this Memphis woman wanted me to find her she would’ve given me directions.
Instead, she jerked an unusually large thumb in the direction behind her.
“Third mailbox down,” she said. The Bassett Hound gave a soft bark, and they went on their way.
I thanked her and sped down to the mailbox—instead of the little flag sticking up from the box it was a metal musical note. I knew I had the right place.
The driveway was dirt and gravel, and it immediately climbed. From the road, the tall trees blocked any view of the houses behind. But once I got near the top of the driveway, I realized there was a very small bluff. And perched on top was a little white farmhouse, with a picket fence and a red barn behind it.
It was a cross between Mayberry and Martha’s Vineyard, before Billy Joel moved in.
I skidded to a stop in the roughly hewn semi-circular drive and jogged to the front door. I rang the doorbell and waited, but I heard nothing from inside. I tried the knob. Locked.
I ran to the back of the house and saw a silver 7 Series BMW backed up against the house. I went up the back porch steps and was about to knock on the door when I saw that it was already open.
I went through it, into a small mudroom. There were potted plants and gardening gloves and an umbrella. The door leading from the mudroom into the kitchen was open as well. Inside the kitchen, I saw a few dishes in the sink, a pot on the stove, and a small cat bowl with food in it.
From the kitchen, I went through a doorway into a small dining room and off the dining room was a living room. The place was furnished with big, overstuffed chairs and throw rugs. A small fireplace sat off to one side of the living room. I saw on the mantle a collection of photographs.
To my right, I saw a stairwell and heard a bumping noise from above me.
“Hello!” I yelled up. No one answered.
I climbed the stairs two at a time and came to a hallway with three doors. The first door on my right was open, and I could see tile as well as the edge of a pedestal sink.
To my left was another door, closed. And straight ahead, the third door was open, and I could see shadows moving inside. I walked forward, my heart beating from exertion and fear.
For the first time in my career, I desperately wished for a gun.
I peeked into the room and immediately understood the bumping sound and the moving shadows.
Memphis hung from the ceiling fan, her neck stretched in a way that could mean only one thing. The ceiling fan was on, slowly spinning her body, her foot occasionally bumping against the bed’s footboard.
I froze, unable to tear myself away from the image of Memphis’ face, her lips frozen in a look of terror, blood dripping from her nose—
Blood dripping . . .
Fresh blood . . .
An electric spike shot down my spine just as I heard the whisper of a shoe on carpet, and I ducked, but the blow cracked along my vertebrae between my shoulder blades. I hit the floor. I rolled and caught the sight of Erma’s—or was it Freda’s?—face flushed red, her teeth gritted, a Taser in her hand.
She cursed in German, and I rolled into the bedroom
where Memphis hung.
And I rolled right under Freda.
She’d been standing behind the door. While her sister had been in the bedroom with the door closed. As I watched them descend on me, I realized they knew I was coming. Somehow, they knew. They’d staged the scene to lure me in.
The first one pounced on me, sat on my chest, and pinned my arms under her knees. I tried to head-butt her in the face, but she pulled back easily, and all I caught was air. I felt an incredible weight on my legs and realized the other one was kneeling on them.
If I had any doubts about what they were trying to do, those doubts ended when the first one grabbed a handful of my hair and brought her gun up toward my mouth. I gritted my teeth, but she let go of my hair, brought her forearm down and pinched my nose shut.
I held my breath, knowing what was going to happen. When I opened my mouth to breathe, she would jam the gun in and blow off the top of my head.
Then they would jot a little note.
Double suicide. Or murder/suicide depending on which story they went with.
I’d killed Memphis for some reason, and then they’d bring out my past. An ex-cop ate his gun. Happens all the fucking time. Every day, in fact.
I didn’t think my sister would let it ride, but hey, these two fuckers were pros. They’d make it look very good, very real.
My lungs were on fire, and I knew I couldn’t hold my breath very much longer. The first one had a little smile on her face. She looked like a mean little kid who’d pulled the wings off a fly and was now happily watching it die a pathetic little spasmodic death.
It pissed me off.
Every muscle in my body slammed into place, and I bucked with everything I had.
The first one barely moved.
But move she did.
Just enough to free my left arm.
I reached up and got her neck and bucked again, this time bringing her head toward me as I rammed my head forward. I heard and felt her nose squash against my forehead. Blood sprayed, and now my right arm was loose. I grabbed the gun as the woman on top of me sagged. The gun fired a round, and the explosion brought the three of us into a burst of frantic energy.
I’d hoped that I’d knocked the first one out, but her eyes cleared just as I was bringing the gun around. She had the advantage, but I had momentum on my side. I gave one more shove, and the gun came around toward her chest.
I pulled the trigger.
Just as she was knocked back, the second one let go of my legs and reached for her gun. I put three rounds into her chest, and she staggered back into the hallway and fell on her ass, her feet still in the room. She had a look of utter sadness, looking down at her dead sister. She toppled over then, her big body landing with a thud.
The smell of gunpowder was overwhelming, and I felt stars shooting across my forehead.
Everything started to go black, and I was suddenly scared I’d been shot.
But then I realized why.
I was still holding my breath.
42
The first thing I did was vomit. I made it to the toilet, worrying about destroying evidence, but hurl I did. My whole body was shaking, probably from both fear and the aftermath of having an ungodly amount of volts shot through my system. I was having a near-death and an out-of-body experience at the same time.
Somehow, I found my way back to the first bedroom, where one of the twins had been hiding. I assumed the note was meant to be written in my hand, and sure enough, there was a slip of paper. It was the one on which I’d jotted down my name and phone number and given to someone in Shannon’s entourage, maybe Molly?
It was standard, depressed prose: “God forgive me, I’m a failure . . .” The note said I had begun an affair with Memphis, fallen in love, and when I told her it was over because I was a relatively happily married man, she killed herself. Which then weighed so heavily on me that I could only deal with it by killing myself as well.
The note stopped there, probably when I entered the house and interrupted the forger at work.
I thought about what to do next. I should call the police. Yes, call the police. They would arrive, I’d make my statement, a few hours of questioning, and I’d be released around midnight. No, don’t call the police. I stood there, shaking, trying to pull myself together.
Shit. I checked my watch. It was late—I would have to hurry to make my meeting with Shannon.
Leaving the scene of a crime was a felony. So was killing people, and I had two dead bodies to my name, and a third hanging from a ceiling fan.
With the old woman and the hound, and the people on the ferry, I knew there was no way I could avoid facing the cops. The question was: when did I want to face them? Leaving the scene of a crime would be more than enough to have my PI license revoked.
Still, I was hot on this thing, and I had a feeling that my meeting with Shannon would bring it to an end.
I decided to compromise. First, I did a quick run-through of Memphis’ house, looking for anything that I could use with Shannon. It felt good to be moving, to be doing something.
I went through every room in the house but came up empty. There was no other choice. I left the house and made a beeline for the silver BMW. It was either Memphis’ or the twins’, but I didn’t know which.
I looked inside and saw a bag in the front passenger seat’s floor space. It struck a chord with me, and for some reason, I didn’t think it belonged to one of the twins.
In fact, I could’ve sworn that I’d seen the bag somewhere. It looked neat and organized, made of brown leather. I could see the Franklin planner inside.
I had seen the bag before.
It was Molly’s.
I tried the door and found it was locked. At the back of the house was a small flower bed with a border of river rocks. I picked up the biggest rock, went back, and smashed in the Beemer’s window.
The alarm went off, and I grabbed the bag.
On the way back to my car, I lived up to the other end of my compromise.
I called my sister.
She didn’t like what I had to say.
43
I wasn’t really in the best shape. I ached from the Taser blast and a blow one of the twins had laid on my spine. But mostly I was in shock from killing two women. The sight of blood, especially my own, made me very uncomfortable. And right now, I was doing everything I could to not think about what had taken place at Memphis’ farmhouse. I’m sure the cops were there by now, wondering where I was, scouring the scene, trying to figure out what had happened.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell Ellen where I was going. Suffice it to say, if there was any way to reach through the phone line and strangle someone, she would have popped my head off like a champagne cork.
Now I was just trying to keep it together.
I was early for my rendezvous with Shannon. I parked my car in the Windmill Pointe Marina parking lot and hurried out to the dock. The wind was picking up, and the chop had graduated from stiff to severe. Above me, the night sky showed no stars, and I could see the black inkiness of serious storm clouds.
The benches normally taken by fishermen going after the perch that hung out close to shore were empty. As were the picnic tables and beach chairs. The whole fucking place was empty except for me.
And maybe Shannon Sparrow.
•
A flash of lightning threw a spotlight on the lake. There wasn’t a single boat. Even the buoys looked like they wanted to come in and get out of the wind.
My boat was called Air Fare because it was owned by some pilot who’d had money to burn, but then lost his job. I had a feeling it was due to drinking, because when I took ownership of the boat and went down below, the smell of gin was overwhelming. Something told me that the pilot was most likely never far from a martini. A man after my own heart, to be honest. I could use about a baker’s dozen of martinis right now.
It had occurred to me that maybe someone had dropped Shannon off. After all, a woman of her
stature usually had a driver. Maybe she’d had someone drop her off then would call to have someone pick her up. I hadn’t noticed anyone in the parking lot. There weren’t even any cars, other than a black pickup truck and a white Toyota Tercel, both of which I knew belonged to park workers.
The boat looked just like I’d left it. The dark-red spinnaker cover was snapped into place. The mooring lines were all taut. The deck was neat and clean.
There was no sign of Shannon.
I turned back toward the parking lot. No sense standing out there waiting for her. I boarded the boat and unlocked the doors to the cabin down below.
The smell was a mixture of marine oil, gasoline, booze, and cleaning products.
I flipped on the generator and turned on some of the interior lights, careful to make sure the curtains were drawn. A glimpse into Molly’s briefcase had confirmed the rising feeling. Things were falling into place, and this meeting with Shannon was going to prove everything I believed to be right.
At least, that’s what I hoped.
•
“John?”
I heard her voice from the pier. I’d been lost in thought but now stepped up onto the deck and called back. “Shannon.”
She had on blue jeans, a windbreaker, and topsiders. A large bag was slung over her shoulder. Her hair was loosely pulled back. She looked . . . normal.
“Nice boat,” she said.
“It’s a tub of shit, but thanks,” I said.
She stood there, uncertain. It was odd seeing her by herself. No gang of hangers-on swarming around like a pack of bloodthirsty mosquitoes. She seemed smaller, less sure of herself. Maybe I was reading too much into it.
She stepped off the main dock and walked along the dividing dock between my boat and the one next to me.
I held her hand as she hopped onto the deck. Without saying a word, she went down the stairs to the cabin. After taking a quick look around and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I followed her below.
