Dead Wood

by Dan Ames

  Dead Wood

  A John Rockne Mystery

  Dan Ames

  Contents

  DEAD WOOD

  Foreword

  PRAISE FOR THE JOHN ROCKNE MYSTERY SERIES

  DEAD WOOD

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Afterword

  Also by Dan Ames

  About the Author

  DEAD WOOD

  (A John Rockne Mystery)

  * * *

  by

  * * *

  Dan Ames

  Foreword

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  * * *

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  Copyright © 2014 by Dan Ames

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  DEAD WOOD is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  PRAISE FOR THE JOHN ROCKNE MYSTERY SERIES

  Dan Ames' writing reminds me of the great thriller writers -- lean, mean, no nonsense prose that gets straight to the point and keeps you turning those pages.”

  –author Robert Gregory Browne

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  "As gritty as the Detroit streets where it's set, DEAD WOOD grabs you early on and doesn't let go. As fine a a debut as you'll come across this year, maybe any year."

  -author Tom Schreck

  * * *

  “From its opening lines, Daniel S. Ames and his private eye novel DEAD WOOD recall early James Ellroy: a fresh attitude and voice and the heady rush of boundless yearning and ambition. Ames delivers a vivid evocation of time and place in a way that few debut authors achieve, nailing the essence of his chosen corner of high-tone Michigan. He also deftly dodges the pitfalls that make so much contemporary private detective fiction a mixed bag and nostalgia-freighted misfire. Ames’ detective has family; he’s steady. He’s not another burned-out, booze-hound hanging on teeth and toenails to the world and smugly wallowing in his own ennui. This is the first new private eye novel in a long time that just swept me along for the ride. Ames is definitely one to watch.”

  -Craig McDonald, Edgar-nominated author

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  “Dead Wood is a fast-paced, unpredictable mystery with an engaging narrator and a rich cast of original supporting characters.”

  -New York Times bestselling author Thomas Perry

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  “In DEAD WOOD, Dan Ames pulls off a very difficult thing: he re-imagines what a hardboiled mystery can be, and does it with style, thrills and humor. This is the kind of book mystery readers are clamoring for, a fast-paced story with great heart and not a cliché to be found. DEAD WOOD is a hell of a book.”

  –Amazon.com

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  “Dan Ames is a sensation among readers who love fast-paced thrillers.”

  –Mystery Tribune

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  “A smart detective story stuffed with sharp prose and snappy one liners.”

  –Indie Reader

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  "Packed to the gills with hard-hitting action and a non-stop plot."

  -Jacksonville News

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  "Cuts like a knife."

  -Savannah Morning News

  DEAD WOOD

  by

  * * *

  Dan Ames

  We all need someone we can bleed on . . .

  The Rolling Stones

  Chapter One

  It was New Year’s Eve, and I was living my dream. I was a cop. The youngest guy on the force, pulling the worst of the shifts . . . but I couldn’t have been happier.

  I’d wanted to be a cop all my life.

  It was a brutally cold New Year’s Eve in Grosse Pointe, especially along the lake. A nasty Canadian wind was howling down and blasting Detroit with the kind of cold that ignores your clothes and tears directly into your skin.

  I’d been a cop for six months. Just long enough to be taken off probation. Not long enough to be considered anything but a green rookie. I was in my squad car, driving down Lake Shore, thinking about the New Year’s Eve party ahead, about how my girlfriend and I were going to celebrate.

  Elizabeth Pierce was actually more than my girlfriend: she was my fiancée and a true Grosse Pointe blue blood. I was definitely marrying up.

  I headed down Lake Shore Drive toward the Detroit border. I passed a house with three ten-foot angels on the roof. Thousands of Christmas lights lit up the house and yard, turning the quarter acre lot into a Las Vegas outpost. Across the street, the surprisingly vast, dark waters of Lake St. Clair stood in stark contrast to the hundred thousand watts supplied by the Detroit Energy Company.

  I turned right on Oxford, away from the lake, just as my radio broke the monotony of the wind’s fury. I glanced at the dashboard clock. It read 11:18 p.m. It was listed as a 10-107. Possible intoxicated person. I jotted down the address and pressed the accelerator.

  It would be my last call for the night. By the time I got back to the office, turned in the car, and did the paperwork, it would already be past midnight, probably closer to one a.m.

  An image of Elizabeth floated through my mind. She would have her blond hair tied back tonight, her diamond earrings sparkling, a glass of champagne ready for me. She might even be a little drunk. We’d hang out, go to a couple of parties, then retire back to my place and ring in the New Year the best way of all.

  I cruised up Oxford Street and flashed the spotlight on the street numbers until I came to 1370. I called in to dispatch, got out of the cruiser, and walked to the front door. The wind wasn’t letting up farther from the lake. The sweat from my hand momentarily froze on the brass knocker and stung when I broke my hand free. I banged the knocker against the oak a few times, noticing the small, worn indentations where the metal had been knocked raw. An elderly woman in a glittery blouse with a cigarette between her fingers opened the door.

  “He was staggering down the street,” she said, gesturing with a shaking hand toward the other end of the street. The cigarette’s red, glowing end bobbed in the dark with each tremor of her hand.

  I could smell her breath, a strong dose of stale smoke. She was ancient, probably between eighty or ni
nety, with saggy skin and deep creases everywhere.

  “How long ago?” I said.

  “Just a few minutes. The poor boy was going to freeze to death. He wasn’t wearing a shirt even. These kids.” She shook her head. “Sometimes they act like animals!” Her voice was raspy and thick. She ran her tongue over her lips.

  “Can you describe him?”

  “Thin. Pale. Young.” She squinted at me through the cigarette smoke. “Younger than you.”

  “Which way did he go?”

  She nodded with her head. “He’s probably still staggering around. Look under a shrub or two, you’ll find him.” Her little laugh sounded like a cat coughing up a hairball.

  “Thanks for the advice, ma’am. Have a good New Year.”

  I turned before I could hear her response. Back in the squad car, I called in to dispatch again and put the car in gear, then prowled slowly up the block. The homes were alive with lights and colors, glimpses of holiday sweaters, hands clutching eggnog cups or champagne glasses. The twinkle of trees decorated with Christmas lights sparkled through the big picture windows.

  On the second block down, I saw him.

  A smear of white skin in the night. I pulled the squad car up next to the kid, radioed dispatch, then parked and got out.

  “How you doin’ tonight?” I said, pointing the flashlight in the kid’s face. Young. Maybe around eighteen, I figured. Big brown eyes, his hair wild, his shirt gone, in jeans and barefoot. I didn’t see any signs of frostbite, but he couldn’t be out in this cold much longer. His skin was nearly purple.

  The kid looked at me, but recognition was dim. He mumbled something, but it was incoherent. Not a single identifiable word escaped his lips. I could smell the booze, though. Strong. Almost fruity. Like peach schnapps or something.

  “Sending the year out in style, are we?” I asked. “There must be a helluva party somewhere.”

  The kid mumbled something and tried to walk away. I grabbed his arm and he sagged. I knew what I had to do. Put him in the back of the squad car, book him for public drunkenness, and let him dry out in jail. Shitty way to kick off the New Year.

  I helped him to his feet, planned to take him to the car and into the station, when the man appeared from around the corner.

  “Ah, Officer!” the man called. I turned. He was bundled up in a thick winter jacket, and he had a wool fedora, the kind with the built-in ear flaps, pulled down. At first, I thought he was a woman from the way he ran. His hips moved with a swishing motion. His thick, black glasses were nearly steamed up with the melted snow glistening on the lenses. He was a little older than the kid, probably in his mid to late twenties. But it was hard to tell.

  “Oh my God, Benjamin,” the man said, producing a leather coat, which he helped onto the boy. His voice was high and wavering with a thick lisp. “This is my responsibility, Officer, not Ben’s. This should never have happened.” He shook his head like a disappointed mother. “He had an office Christmas party today, and then he was hitting the cocktails when I left to get thyme for the chicken, and when I came back, he was gone. I’ve been going crazy trying to find him.”

  “Could I see some identification, sir?” I said.

  The man, wearing gloves, gently withdrew a wallet from his back pocket. I looked at the address on the license as the man zipped up the coat he’d put on the boy. The address was just a few blocks over. I glanced at the picture and the name on the license. The picture matched.

  I handed the license back to the man and studied the kid once more. “Benjamin, what’s your last name?” I shone the flashlight in the kid’s eyes. He didn’t wince or look away.

  “Collins, Officer,” the man said. “His name is Benjamin Collins. I’m so sorry about this, sir,” the man continued, his voice high and nervous. I stepped back to the cruiser, called dispatch, and had them run Benjamin Collins through the system. The name came back clean. I had dispatch run the man through the system too. He came back without any hits.

  I thought about it. The kid was in bad shape. By the time he was booked, printed, and in an actual jail cell, he’d be even worse. I thought about one time in high school when a cop pulled me over. I had a beer between my legs and a twelve-pack in the trunk. He made me dump everything out and go home, rather than taking me in, calling my parents, and basically ruining my life. That act of kindness was a better lesson than being thrown into a holding cell with a bunch of lowlifes.

  Well, I thought, now’s my chance to return the favor. Besides, it was New Year’s Eve. Who wanted to start the year off in jail?

  I walked back to find the man slipping winter boots onto the kid’s feet. “Okay,” I said. “Get him home. I’ll give him a warning this time, but if I ever see his name come up again . . .”

  “Perfectly understood, Officer,” the man said. He shook my hand heartily. “Again, I’m so sorry. He’s a beautiful, beautiful person, but when he drinks, sometimes . . .”

  He put his arm around the boy and began walking away, practically carrying the younger man. The wind had picked up and was now packing a ferocious wallop.

  “Want a lift?” I asked.

  “That’s quite all right, Officer.” The man’s voice was nearly lost in the wind. “We’re right around the corner.”

  I watched them turn the corner, then got back in the car and wiped the snow from my face. I called in my position.

  In my mind, I had done my final good deed of the year. In my mind, I had finished out the New Year the best way possible, doing something nice for someone, and now it was time to see a beautiful girl about a glass of champagne.

  * * *

  •

  * * *

  The call came at five twenty-one in the morning. About an hour past mine and Elizabeth’s final lovemaking session of the night.

  I untangled my body from Elizabeth’s and listened to the voice of Chief Michalski telling me to get down to the Yacht Club immediately.

  Fifteen minutes later, I watched as Benjamin Collins’ body was loaded into the coroner’s van. They’d found his ID on the frozen pier just twenty feet or so from where his nude, mutilated body had been seen bobbing in the small patch of water heated by the Yacht Club’s boiler runoff.

  I stood there in the cold, as numb and unfeeling as I’d ever been in my entire life. They let me look at the body. It was a sight I would never forget.

  By the end of the day, I’d given my version of the events of the night before well over a dozen times. To the chief. To internal investigators. I desperately wanted to join in the search for the man to whom I’d turned over Benjamin Collins, but I was kept away from the investigation. Left to sit in a room and think about what I’d done.

  No one had chewed me out. No one blamed me for fucking up, but it was there just the same.

  Finally, the chief called me in and asked for my gun and badge. It was administrative leave. Until things were sorted out and the killer was caught. Until then, I was gone. The department might be liable should Collins’ relatives seek litigation. I left his office, taking one last look at my gun and badge before he swept them off his desk and into his drawer.

  I never got them back.

  Chapter Two

  Six Years Later

  * * *

  The gloved fist smashed through the glass of the shop’s back door. The impact as well as the sound of shards tinkling to the floor went unnoticed by the workshop’s sole occupant. The woman at the large workbench heard only the high-pitched buzz of the random orbit sander.

  Nor did she hear the sound of the deadbolt thrown back, the doorknob turning, and the heavy door swinging open.

  The only noise to reach her ears was that of the sander as its 220-grit sandpaper gently bit into the five-hundred-year-old wood. She moved the sander along the wood’s surface with confident precision. Her honey-colored hair was tied back in a ponytail. Thick shop glasses distorted the Lake Michigan blue of her eyes as the powdery sawdust flying from the sander coated her hands and covered her hai
r like a thin veil.

  The woman leaned back from the workbench and flicked off the sander. As the whine of the motor instantly began to descend, she brushed the layer of dust from the wood. Even through the gauze of the powder, the beauty of the grain was apparent. This had been a special batch: ancient elm, filled with grain patterns and whorls that would be breathtaking after a light stain and varnish were applied.

  She leaned back and studied the beginning stage of the guitar. It was to be a semi-acoustic twelve-string, made from centuries-old elm salvaged from the bottom of Lake Michigan. It was for a rocker in California, who had paid her the first half of the price tag: five thousand dollars. She was taking her time with this one, especially after the monumental task she’d just accomplished.

  She glanced over at the finished guitar in question. A jumbo acoustic, her most ambitious and most expensive guitar yet. Made from the rarest, most expensive woods of all: virgin tiger maple, hickory, ash, and ebony. All of it salvaged from the bottom of Lake Michigan. All of it priceless. All of it breathtakingly, stunningly beautiful. And she had used all of her skills, all of her powers to turn those woods into a guitar. A guitar with a sound so rich and so pure you almost forgot how beautiful it looked.

  And it already had a buyer.

  Jesse brushed her hands off on her jeans and went to the guitar. She picked it up and felt the perfect weight of it.

  She sat back on her stool and strummed the strings, the full beauty of the sound echoing in the shop’s interior. Her fingers naturally picked out a melancholy melody, and she played quietly, confidently.