Dead Wood

by Dan Ames

  “Whatever,” she said.

  Grasso had already been bagged and tagged. The crime scene technicians were done and gone. Ellen turned to me. “So why don’t you tell me how you ended up presenting your ass to Grasso.”

  “It was some fine detective work, if I say so myself” I said.

  “Luring an ex-con with your sweet butt? Isn’t that entrapment?”

  “Very funny,” I said.

  “You know, sodomy is illegal in Michigan. I should take you in.”

  “Nothing happened.”

  “Not what I hear,” she said. “I heard you were caught in flagrante delicto. At least, that’s what the boys down at the station are probably saying.”

  “Would you please shut up?”

  “Mom would roll over in her grave if she knew you were sleeping with an ex-con,” she continued.

  “Okay, that’s enough.”

  “Why don’t you just tell me what happened,” she said.

  I filled her in on my questioning the dancer at the Lucky Strike. How one thing had led to another and I’d found myself on Barrington.

  I also told her about the woman in the kitchen.

  “Never got a look at her?” Ellen asked me.

  “Nope.”

  “Would you recognize her voice?”

  “Maybe.”

  Ellen thought about that for a moment. “The house is clean. Nothing to tie Grasso to anything, from what we could find so far.”

  “So what were they doing here?”

  She shrugged.

  “Well at least we know now that Grasso wasn’t working alone and that Jesse Barre’s murder wasn’t just an ordinary robbery gone wrong.”

  “Don’t jump to any conclusions.”

  “Oh, come on, Ellen. You’re not going to pin this all on Grasso, are you?”

  “Why don’t you let us do our jobs before you start telling me what I’m doing wrong?”

  “Okay,” I said. “Fair enough.”

  Ellen looked me over. “Does your wife know what happened?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why don’t you go home and tell her all about it. Stay out of the investigation for a little while.”

  It was at times like this that I could really tell she was pissed. Apparently I’d overstepped my bounds again. Well, goddamnit, I couldn’t help it if every cave I stuck my nose in had a bear inside.

  I left the scene of the crime, as it was. And went home to tell my wife that I’d been shot at again.

  I hoped it wouldn’t ruin dinner.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Ellen called me at my office the next morning.

  “I want you to come and look at something,” she said.

  “What, is your toilet running again?”

  “Like you’d have a fucking clue how to fix it,” she said. “I want to get your take on some stuff we found out about Grasso. I have no idea why, but I do.”

  “I thought you said you wanted me to stay out of the investigation,” I said. “I got the definite feeling you’d tired of your favorite sibling.”

  “You’re my only sibling.”

  “The two have nothing to do with each other.”

  I listened to Ellen sigh on the other end of the line. It was always fun to know I’d irritated her slightly. Besides, I couldn’t just let her get away with telling me one day to fuck off and then the next day welcoming me back. I was getting whiplash from the sudden changes of direction.

  “As much as I would like to keep our work separate, the fact is, Grosse Pointe’s a small town,” she said.

  “Especially for an ego like yours,” I said.

  “Shut up, John.”

  I complied.

  “What I mean is, a small town means that we’re bound to cross paths once in a while,” she said. “Considering that we work in similar fields.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “Besides, you’ve done some good work on this case, chasing down Grasso and making some connections.”

  “Was that a compliment? You gotta be kiddin’ me,” I said. “Who is this? Am I on Candid Camera? Where’s Allen Funt?”

  “God, do you ever shut your piehole, John?”

  “Occasionally,” I said. “Usually during the holidays.”

  “Call it professional courtesy, but I thought you might like the opportunity to see what we’ve found,” she said. “Say no and I’ll never be nice to you again.”

  “When did you start?”

  “This is the sound of the phone being placed near the cradle,” she said. I actually heard her voice getting softer.

  “Wait!” I called.

  Now her voice was really distant. “It’s also the sound of your private investigator’s license failing to be renewed for lack of cooperat—”

  “Hold it!” I shouted into the receiver.

  Her voice came back on, this time at normal volume.

  “Yes?” she said, her voice thick with innocence.

  “You fight dirty,” I said.

  “I fight to win, my friend.”

  I grabbed a pencil.

  “Spill it,” I said.

  * * *

  •

  * * *

  Expecting a rat trap, I wasn’t disappointed. The deceased Mr. Grasso had on his person at the time of his death several forms of false identification portraying him to be Phillip Carmichael. Through the efficient work of the Grosse Pointe Police Department, an address belonging to the pseudo Mr. Carmichael was discovered. It was over the border from Grosse Pointe into Detroit proper. A fabulous piece of real estate comprised of two abandoned buildings, three abandoned lots, and a whole lot of garbage.

  When I arrived, I could see why Grasso had chosen to spend his free time at the stripper’s house with a fridge on the porch. At least there was a fridge. This place, a single-story, sagging house, was certainly on the condemned list along with a few ten thousand other properties the absentee Detroit government hadn’t gotten around to clearing.

  Ellen was already inside, another cop waited just outside the front door. I found her in the main room of the house, which held one duct-taped sofa, a couple dead rats, and two worn-out boxes. My sister stood over the boxes.

  She pointed at the rats. “Couple of your PI colleagues?”

  “Very cute,” I said.

  Ellen nudged a box with her toe. “Check it out.”

  I bent down and leafed through the papers inside. There were newspaper articles, letters, pictures, and a few pieces of cheap jewelry.

  “Notice what they all have in common?”

  I had. They were all about Shannon Sparrow. Pictures of her concerts. Articles about her. Notes from fans. I assumed the necklace and bracelet had once been hers. Even though it was all in a couple of flimsy boxes, they were very organized, and you could tell they’d been labored over. Someone had spent a lot of time studying these things. Obsessing over them, in fact.

  “Her number one fan, apparently,” she said. “The flame never died out.”

  I knew where Ellen was going with this.

  “So you’ve got everything you need,” I said.

  “He was still in love with her. Obsessed with her. Had to have her.”

  I thought I’d help her along. “He dreamed about her in prison,” I said. “Read about the wonderful Jesse Barre guitars and how much Shannon loved them, decided to kill Jesse, frame his old prison mate, and present the guitar along with himself to Shannon.”

  Ellen nodded. “In the context of a sociopath, it works.”

  “Except for the mystery woman,” I said.

  “Could have been anyone,” she said. “A girlfriend. A junkie friend. A neighbor. An innocent in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  I shook my head. “You didn’t hear the authority in her voice when she told Grasso to just kill me. She’s no innocent. There’s more to it than Grasso, Ellen.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “You may be right. But he’s dead. And for now, the case is eventually goin
g to be closed.”

  “So why bring me here?”

  She gave me a look of exasperation, like I was a kid who didn’t appreciate a birthday gift. “I thought your client might like to know about this. And on the off chance that Grasso wasn’t working alone, and that there might be future violent episodes, you should know about this.”

  I looked at her. What a load of bullshit. She had stopped doing me favors a long time ago. Unless I was in real physical danger, but even then she would still think about it.

  “You want me to keep digging, don’t you?” I said. “Not in an official capacity, but you think there’s more to it, don’t you?”

  She raised her eyebrows and placed a hand across her heart. “Moí?”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The star innocently shaving her pubic hair was gone. I found Shannon Sparrow seated at a wrought iron patio table, holding a long-stemmed wine glass with her gently tapered fingers.

  I’d tracked her down through Molly, the ambitious personal assistant who’d told me that Shannon was at a “friend’s” house. I coaxed the address out of her by telling her that I had information I’d rather tell Shannon than my best friend, the reporter. Personal assistants apparently have a huge phobia regarding the press.

  The house was another giant fucking monster along the lake. Made of stone, huge picture windows and a yard worthy of a pair of goal posts.

  After being shown in, I was whisked to the rear of the house by a courteous manservant where I found Shannon and her entourage. Even among the group, she stood out. Whether it was her beauty, or the unconscious positioning of the other people around the person of power, I didn’t know. But she was clearly the epicenter of the crowd, even if everyone went out of their way to act as if she wasn’t.

  I looked at Shannon. She seemed more pale than the last time I’d seen her. Her wineglass was huge. A fucking fish bowl set on top of a tiny pencil of glass. It was a dark red, heavy with sediment.

  Before I could even get a hello in, Molly arrived with a gray-haired gentlemen in a tasteful, charcoal-colored Armani suit.

  “Ah, Mr. Rockne,” the man said, extending a tanned hand. I shook it.

  “Paul Kerner,” he said. “Ms. Sparrow’s attorney.”

  “One of many, I assume,” I said.

  He laughed. What a polite man. “I’m afraid Ms. Sparrow has nothing to say today.”

  “Under your orders?”

  “The decision was mutual,” he said.

  Over his shoulder, I saw Shannon catch my eye and then look away. She took a sip of wine. Or was it more of a gulp?

  I turned to Mr. Kerner. I have a confession to make. I never really had a problem with attorneys. In fact, I got a lot of clients from their referrals. Sometimes, though, you can spot a pinhead a mile away.

  “Don’t you think it would be in your client’s best interest to shed some light on what’s happened?” I said. “It will only help her both in the short- and long-term.”

  Mr. Kerner pretended to debate the idea.

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  I sensed the twin hulking shadows of the East German weightlifters. I turned and looked into the ham-like countenances of Erma and Freda.

  “Mr. Rockne, I believe our business is concluded,” Mr. Kerner said.

  The entourage was watching. Shannon wasn’t. She was now looking into the empty cavern of her wineglass.

  “I’ve got some information about her ex-husband she might be interested in,” I said.

  This brought Shannon’s head up, and an audible gasp from the hangers-on.

  The shadows moved in closer.

  “Business is concluded,” Mr. Kerner said.

  “It is time for you to go,” said Erma or Freda. I turned to them, surprised that they actually spoke.

  “Piss off,” I said, sounding like a little kid on the playground who was about to get his ass kicked.

  Both bodyguards stepped back from me, always a bad sign. I can’t resist putting on a little show for a crowd, but I didn’t want to get bitch slapped in front of this many people. There’s something to be said for private beatings. They’re usually more painful, but much less humiliating. I especially didn’t want to take a public thrashing administered by two women, if that was actually their gender.

  Erma, or was it Freda, lolled her head to the side, and I heard a bone crunch. I had a feeling the next one to go would be mine.

  “Hold it, hold it,” a voice said from the back.

  I looked over, and Shannon was pouring wine into a glass next to hers.

  “Come over here and sit down,” she said to me. “You guys leave him alone.”

  Kerner had already left. I smiled at Erma and Freda. They were clearly not happy.

  “We’ll hook up later,” I said, figuring it just might happen.

  * * *

  •

  * * *

  It was my first pop star party, and to be honest, I was enjoying it. Before long, the place was crowded with people, music played from invisible speakers, and my wine glass was empty, then full, then empty, then full. You get the idea.

  And through it all, I talked with Shannon Sparrow.

  “Thanks for saving me back there,” I said.

  “You seem like an honest guy,” she said. “Besides, Erma and Freda . . .” She just shook her head.

  “How come you stepped in as soon as I mentioned your ex-husband?” The words came out of my mouth a little clumsily. Not only was the wine thick with sediment, it was strong.

  “When I think of . . . him . . .” she said, meaning Grasso. “I want to fucking puke. And I don’t mean a gentle upchuck. I mean I want to hurl from the depths of my bowels. I want to just gag and gag and gag . . .”

  “I get the idea, Shannon,” I said.

  “He was scum. Pure scum. I was just too young to know it.”

  “We all make mistakes,” I said.

  “That was a doozy.”

  “Most mistakes are,” I said. “When did you hear that he’d been killed?”

  She just kind of shrugged her shoulders—obviously she never felt like she had to answer questions if she didn’t want to.

  “He was shot, right?” she said.

  “Couple times.”

  “Were you there?” she said.

  “Yep.”

  Shannon slugged down the rest of her wine, her hand shaking a little as she held the glass. She set the glass down and pulled out a joint from her front pocket. She tilted it toward me, and I shook my head.

  I was a regular Boy Scout.

  Shannon looked for a light in her pockets but came up empty. A woman appeared next to her—in her hand was a Bic with a substantial flame sprouting from the end.

  “Are you the PI?” the woman with the lighter said.

  “John Rockne,” I said, holding out my hand.

  She took it and said, “Memphis Bornais.”

  “I think we’ve met before,” I said. “That’s an interesting name. A little American South combined with a little, what, French?”

  Yeah, I sounded a little stupid, but I never did hold my booze very well.

  “Memphis is my songwriter,” Shannon said. I nodded, studying her. Memphis had on red velvet pants and a chocolate-brown lace top. The pants were bellbottoms and the sleeves had giant openings. Her age was hard to tell, could have been anywhere from late twenties to early forties. She had shoulder-length brown hair, fine features, and full lips. Kind of like a nicely aged Jennifer Love Hewitt with a little more meat to her.

  “Do you write all of Shannon’s songs?” I asked her.

  “Most,” Shannon said. “All the ones I didn’t write.”

  “So what exactly do you do?” Memphis asked and sat down in the chair between Shannon and me. As if on cue, Shannon got up with her empty wine glass.

  “I gotta piss,” she said by way of explanation. I wondered if the switch had been planned. Was it something I said?

  “Investigate,” I said to Memp
his.

  “Investigate what?”

  “Whatever someone pays me to do. As long as it isn’t illegal or immoral.”

  “A man with ethics,” she said.

  “A few. Not all.”

  She took a hit from a joint.

  When she exhaled, she said, “God, the lake is beautiful tonight.”

  Something about a grown woman sounding like a stoner made me laugh.

  “I wish I could see my lighthouse,” she said.

  “You have a lighthouse?”

  “I can see it from my farm on Harsen’s,” she said, referring to an upscale island a half hour drive from Grosse Pointe. “It’s not a bad view, but not as inspiring as this.”

  “Speaking of inspiration,” I said. “Where do you get your ideas for songs? Isn’t that what everyone asks?”

  She nodded. “How the heck should I know?” she asked. “That’s what I want to say.”

  “What do you usually say?”

  “Usually something about pulling things in from life. Or that God just beams them down to me. You know, I tailor the answer depending on the questioner.”

  “Did you know Jesse Barre?”

  She shook her head. “I knew of her guitars, of course. Anyone in the industry knew about them. But no, I didn’t know her personally. Why?”

  “She makes music. You make music. I figured the two of you would have crossed paths at some point.”

  “Good guess,” she said. “But no. We never did.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  We sat in silence for a few moments. A few thoughts ran through my mind.

  “How long have you known Shannon?” I said.

  “We sort of grew up together,” she said. “Went to high school together. Played music together. Fell in and out of touch over the years, but when we both got serious, then we hooked up.”

  “Did you know Laurence Grasso?”

  “Um-hm.”

  “Did you hear he’s dead?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you care?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Why not?”

  “He was a waste of a human being.”

  “That seems to be the general consensus,” I said.