Grosse Pointe Pulp

by Dan Ames

  There was a line of trees a few hundred feet from the water’s edge. He had to get there and take cover.

  It helped his cause that the storm was still raging, with a black sky and sheets of rain coming down in waves. But he had learned long ago not to put faith in the belief that no one was watching. Because there was always, always someone peeking out through a living room window. Or sitting on a back porch in the dark with a bottle of booze between their legs.

  He struggled to his feet. The earth tilted as he righted himself, his head swayed and his body refused to cooperate. His legs felt like they were planted in the wet muck of the shore.

  Finally, the message got through to his legs and he took one tentative step, followed by another and eventually he made it to a stand of trees and a wooden fence. He sagged against the fence, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The trees were evergreens, with wide branches that sheltered him from the rain. The ground beneath his feet was littered with fallen pine needles and he had a momentary temptation to just lie down and go to sleep.

  He dismissed the idea. It wouldn’t do. First thing in the morning someone would come out and go for a walk along the lake’s edge, see him passed out underneath the tree. Call the cops. And it would all be over.

  No, he sagged against the fence and thought things through. The fence belonged to someone with a backyard, and a gate with steps that led down to the lake. He could see the roof of what looked to be a little house. Something to his right caught his eye. It was a flash of white. He peered through the lashing rain and saw what he thought was a camper trailer parked at the corner of the property. It was unhitched, its tongue up on cinder blocks.

  The wind shifted and rain lashed at his face. Chills shook his body. He had to get moving.

  The Spook walked along the fence line, using it to conceal himself if anyone in the house should look out the window, and reached the side of the camper that backed up to the trees. The climb over the fence was clumsy and agonizing, but he accomplished the task, swallowing any cries of pain. He leaned against the camper and tried to catch his breath. Each heave of his chest caused fresh pain to lance through him.

  Finally, he mustered enough strength to test the door of the camper. He hoped it was unlocked, but no luck. He’d heard that Canadians were typically very trusting people, but apparently not this one.

  The wind was still howling and rain poured down all around him. It hit the top of the camper with a steady continuous pounding. The Spook wasn’t worried about noise. He spotted a rock the size of his fist and smashed it through the window that was located about halfway up the camper door. Then he reached through the opening and down, managed to unlock the door with his clumsy, half-frozen fingers. The door swung open. He stepped inside, yanked the door shut, locked it, and pulled the small curtain across the broken window.

  The Spook staggered to the back of the trailer where he saw a bed with a pad. His teeth were chattering and he said a silent prayer to God and Keith Richards that there was some sort of blanket or spare sheet stashed in a storage bin. Keith must have been listening because he found a stack of sheets in a drawer below the bed. He wrapped them around himself and sank onto the bed. Even though it was hard and smelled of mold and mildew, it felt like pure heaven to him.

  He closed his eyes, and thought about how it had all gone wrong back on the boat. As the tightly wrapped sheets trapped what little body heat still remained, his face relaxed and he felt the first waves of sleep come to him.

  The Spook knew he needed to rest, clean himself up, and go back and finish the job he’d started way back when.

  Back when he had strangled Benjamin Collins.

  3

  Grosse Pointe Police headquarters is located on Mack Avenue, just down from Alter Road and the border with Detroit. It shares its parking lot with the Grosse Pointe Public Library; which is convenient if you get arrested because you can check out a few books to read while you’re in the slammer.

  I was buzzed through by a cop named Jacobs who didn’t even bother to say anything to me. He knew me and obviously knew Ellen since she was his boss. Like most of the cops on the force he preferred to keep contact with me to a minimum. Maybe they thought I was bad luck, or they had a policy of not being too chummy with the local private investigators.

  Either way, it didn’t bother me.

  Ellen was on her computer when I walked into her office.

  “On Facebook again?” I said. “The least you could do is respond to my friend request.”

  She didn’t even bother looking at me.

  “I’m actually on the sex offender database,” she replied. “Why didn’t they use a better photo of you?”

  This is how it goes between us. But honestly, I can’t help it if she got the family mean streak and I ended up being the nice one. It’s a burden she doesn’t always handle so well.

  “I wanted to let you know that I’m going to head out to Birmingham to talk to Amanda Collins,” I said, dropping into the chair across from her desk.

  “Another one of your bad ideas,” she said, still tapping on the keyboard. “How do you keep coming up with them?”

  “It’s a gift.”

  She shook her head, leaned back in her chair and looked at me. “She doesn’t know anything. A detective talked to her when she first came back.”

  “When was that? It wasn’t in the file.”

  “Little less than a year.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Whatever she said, it’s in the file, John. Remember, we’re not the leads on this one.” It was true. Once it had become a cold case, the Benjamin Collins investigation had gone to the Michigan State Police. They had a homicide division that caught all of the state’s cold cases. I had reached out to them, but they weren’t interested. What little information I got I had to access via Ellen. They kept her in the loop, but their investigation had stalled, too. And they apparently didn’t feel that the latest development necessitated a reawakening of the investigation.

  Ellen leaned forward, clicked a few more times on the keyboard, gave one more emphatic tap on the keys, then turned to look at me again.

  “You’re not going to Birmingham dressed like that, are you?”

  I looked down at myself. Jeans. Black hiking shoes. A halfway decent shirt without too many wrinkles.

  “Come on,” I said. “She must have said something. A complaint about how rude you were, certainly.”

  “Nope. She wasn’t close to Benjamin. Knew very little about his life, what he was doing. Left right after he was killed. She’s moved on, apparently.”

  Ellen put a little emphasis on the ‘moved on’ bit. As in, people need to move on. Like me.

  There was a commotion in the hallway outside Ellen’s office and she got to her feet. It sounded like they had an unruly prisoner.

  “Duty calls,” she said. “Probably one of your clients.”

  “Well, I’ll let you know how it goes,” I said. “I can tell you’re very interested.”

  “I already know how it will go,” she said. “Badly.”

  I didn’t respond because I figured she was probably right.

  I hate when that happens.

  4

  The address in the file led me to an interesting house on a steep hill near one of the many little parks near downtown Birmingham.

  For years, Birmingham has been the epicenter of greater Detroit’s wealthy suburbanites. It has a downtown of ultra high-end shops and restaurants. Just down the road from Birmingham is Somerset Mall, the fanciest and most expensive mall in the area. It’s also near Cranbrook, a private school with annual tuition in the thirty thousand dollar range.

  I don’t get to Birmingham much. Despite its snobbish reputation, it’s a happening little place. When I had a couple hundred bucks to drop on lunch for Anna and the girls, maybe I’d bring them out. Then again, maybe not.

  The address I had for Amanda Collins led me to a neighborhood a few blocks north of downtown. There was a
stream nearby with a wooden bridge and some walking trails, even though you were about as far from nature as you could possibly get. My guess was that most of the trails spilled you out in front of a manicure/pedicure shop or a gourmet grocery store featuring fifty different kinds of olive oil.

  I parked the Taurus in front of the house and studied its architecture. The house was made of dark wood and had a wood-shingled steeply-pitched roof. In parts of northern Michigan there are houses called A-frames and this sort of looked like one, but the roof didn’t go all the way to the ground like the cabins up north. That was one thing about Birmingham, the architecture was pretty varied. In Grosse Pointe, you usually see colonials and Tudors, along with the occasional train wreck of modern architecture in which some homeowner gives a designer free rein and an unlimited budget. In Grosse Pointe, variety was never the focus. But in Birmingham, they did it right. A lot more to look at.

  Okay, enough stalling.

  I got out of the car, locked it, and went up to the front door. I’m not going to lie; I had a sick feeling in my stomach. A big part of me, the coward part to be frank, wanted nothing more than to turn around, go back to my car and get the hell out of there.

  Even though I would never forgive myself for what I’d done, and I was fairly sure Amanda Collins would never forgive me either, I had attempted to move on. Who knew, maybe Benjamin’s sister had moved on too. Dredging it back up was what I was about to do. I didn’t expect to like the results and I sure as hell figured she wouldn’t like them, either.

  But I would not rest until I found out what happened to Benjamin. And why.

  So I sucked it up and pushed the doorbell.

  I heard a soft bell ringing inside and then a few moments later, the door opened and I came face to face with Amanda Collins.

  Over the years, I had pictured Benjamin often. Usually in nightmares. In fact, sometimes at odd moments his face would flash before me as if he was a ghost. Eventually, those visions went away.

  But now, seeing Amanda Collins, the similarity was striking. She was fair, with pale skin, light brown hair, and hazel eyes. A very beautiful woman.

  She must have recognized me, too, because her face went from a generally welcoming expression tinged by curiosity, to a fixed mask of dread. Truth be told, I was shocked that she recognized me. It had been years, after all.

  “Are you Amanda?” I asked. Stupid question, but it was all I could come up with.

  She hesitated and I plowed ahead. “You probably recognize me but my name is John Rockne.”

  “I know who you are,” she said, her voice flat and deeper than I had imagined. She made no move to open the door.

  “Would you be willing to answer a few questions?” I asked. “I was involved in a case recently that may be related in some ways to what happened to your brother.”

  Amanda Collins visibly stiffened at the sound of me saying the word ‘brother.’ Again, I couldn’t blame her.

  She looked at me, her mouth slightly parted like she was about to say something. And then no words came out. It was as if she changed her mind two or three times before she finally made a decision. Her shoulders relaxed slightly, she stepped back, and let the door swing all the way inward.

  “Come in,” she said.

  I walked past her into the open room. I was struck by how unusual the interior was. It had a soaring ceiling with great log beams lashed together with rope, exposed woodwork and beautiful hardwood floors. The windows were small and high up. Their frames were made of a dark wood that was almost black.

  “What a beautiful house,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she said with an even tone. “It’s a minka house. Japanese.”

  She led me to a sitting area with a fireplace that had logs and kindling ready to go, just waiting for someone to put a match to the right spot.

  I knew the feeling.

  “First off, I just want to apologize–”

  “Please,” she said. “We’ve all moved on. That was a long time ago. I don’t hate you, but I also don’t feel a great need to talk to you, either. If you have any information that can help solve Benjamin’s murder, I’m willing to listen. Otherwise…”

  She nodded toward the front door. Her voice was firm and in control. I got the impression she was a formidable woman.

  “I understand,” I said.

  I took a deep breath. “I now work as a private investigator. On my last case, a contract killer tried to murder me.”

  Her face remained neutral, but I realized that I might sound like a lunatic.

  “You might have read about the story in the newspapers,” I added, trying to let her know that I wasn’t making it all up. That the story could be verified if she chose to do some research.

  “This was that murder having to do with Shannon Sparrow and the guitar builder?” she asked.

  I nodded. Whew. “Yes. That contract killer was the same man who was with Benjamin the night he was killed.”

  There was an opening a mile wide for her right then, if she wanted to take it. All she had to do was say, you mean the murderer you turned my brother over to even though you were a cop supposedly there to protect him?

  If the thought occurred to her, she passed on the opportunity.

  “So what does that mean?” she asked.

  “It means that Benjamin’s murder wasn’t arbitrary.”

  It still wasn’t getting through to her, so I added one more thought.

  “It means someone other than just his killer wanted him dead.”

  5

  The silence woke him up.

  The rain had stopped, the wind was now barely a whisper, and his entire body hurt. He twisted in his cocoon of stale sheets and struggled to get to his feet. He unwound himself and let the bedding fall to the floor of the trailer.

  He needed a mirror.

  The Spook stepped into the tiny hallway between the living area and the eating nook. A closet smaller than a phone booth held a toilet, a stainless steel sink, and a mirror.

  Dear Jesus.

  Even his idol, the great Keith Richards, had never looked this bad.

  His thin dark hair was plastered to one side of his head, streaks of dried blood crisscrossed his face, and his clothes were in tatters.

  With a great degree of difficulty, he stripped off what remained of his shirt and found that one corner was still wet. He used that portion to wipe the blood from his face. When he finished that task, he was able to clearly look at himself and see what had become of his upper body. It wasn’t pretty. His chest was bare and the gash that had scraped across his torso stood out in all of its gruesome clarity.

  Higher up, there was an ugly little puncture wound still seeping blood. It looked minor compared to the gash, but most of the pain he was experiencing emanated from that tiny gouge.

  The majority of the laceration wasn’t too deep so it had clotted and he saw no signs of fresh blood. Its biggest problem was the sheer size and ugliness of the wound.

  John Rockne, he thought. He shook his head. Rockne was an amateur. How had he let this happen? They’d been rammed on the boat, that’s how. In the middle of the storm someone had crashed into them and that had thrown his plan out the window, and him into the water.

  Well, Rockne wouldn’t get lucky again.

  The Spook judged himself in the mirror. This just wouldn’t do. He had to clean himself up, get some medicine and hopefully something to take the edge off the pain.

  He wasn’t terribly familiar with Windsor, the community just across the river from Detroit. He knew there was a big casino and about 99% less crime than its neighbor. It was also home to a plethora of strip clubs. Local Detroiters referred to the trade as the Windsor Ballet.

  But the Spook knew enough to realize that walking down the street bare-chested with a great bloody gash across his body was not going to fly. Even in a small community like Windsor. People tended to call the police when they saw someone walking around visibly bleeding.

  He left
the bathroom, went to the front of the trailer and looked out the window. It was already evening which meant he had slept far longer than he would have thought possible. He remembered getting hit in the neck and head by something as well during the boat crash, and wondered if he had a concussion. Probably.

  The sleep had done him well, though. He wasn’t shivering anymore and although he felt weak, he felt a lot better. His stomach rumbled and he realized how hungry he was. That was a good sign.

  He slipped out of the trailer, careful to stay in its shadow and peeked around the corner toward the house. There was an older car, a Buick, in the driveway. The yard was well-cared for but there were no toys, no basketball hoop and no clear sign of any occupants other than the car’s owner or owners.

  It was now dark enough to conceal his movement, so he crept to the side of the house, moved along its foundation until he got to a window.

  The Spook took a quick look inside before ducking back.

  The image was clear in his mind. A recliner with the ottoman raised, a television displaying a twenty-four hour news channel, and the top of a head crowned with gray hair facing the television.

  There were two options. He could risk it, and try to find a pay phone somewhere, make a collect call to his contact and ask for an extraction. Or he could keep his condition and location to himself. Inside this house would be money, a phone, and keys to a car.

  He hated depending on others. As a young man, he had learned the hard way that usually you couldn’t depend on others. That most of the time, they weren’t as committed. Weren’t willing to truly do what needed to be done. In other words, most people were very much unlike him.

  Decision made.

  He slipped back around to the rear of the house and paused. The driveway opened directly onto the road so when he was at the back door he would be fully exposed to anyone who happened to pull in or drive by slowly.

  It was a chance he would have to take.