You Fit the Pattern

by Jane Haseldine

  “Hey, Julia.”

  She turned to see the ref, Jeremiah Landry, walking in her direction. “What are you doing here? There aren’t any scheduled games today, just open gym. Is Logan going to play? I’m here to pick up my paycheck, but I can stick around if you’d like me to work with him. Your boy’s got talent.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but I’m solo this time. I’m here to talk to a parent,” Julia said. She kept her poker face intact, since the Detroit PD had pressed her not to reveal anything about Charlotte’s disappearance.

  “Is it Steven’s dad? He’s in the gym. Steven’s shooting around. Usually, it’s only his mom here. The dad shows up once in a while for games. I was glad to see him with his son. That kid lights up when his father is around.”

  “I was in the area and Logan had something of Steven’s he needed to return, so I told Mr. Perkins I’d drop it off,” Julia lied.

  “I’m glad I had the chance to run into you again. I just swung by to clean out my locker and get my last check. I got a student teacher job at Davison. It’s K through eight, so it’s an elementary-slash-middle school. I’ll be helping out with sixth-grade English. I’m not exactly sure how much actual teaching I’ll be doing, as opposed to passing out tests and doing grunt work for the real instructor, but I’m excited. It’s funny, this being my last time here. There were days I hated pulling into the parking lot. I could do without most of the parents, present company excluded, but now that I know I’m leaving, I feel kind of sentimental. I’ll miss the kids. Most of them anyway. Please give Logan my best. He’s a really nice boy and he has some mad burgeoning basketball skills.”

  “I’ll let Logan know and congratulations. The school is lucky to have you.”

  “There are times in life when you have to work a crappy job just to pay the bills, and if you’re lucky, you meet a few people who treat you with respect instead of like you’re below them because of the job you’re doing. You fall into the category. Take care of yourself, Julia. And watch out for those obnoxious parents,” Jeremiah said, and whistled cheerfully as he exited the building with his jacket slung over his shoulder.

  Julia continued on into the gym, where Charlotte’s husband, Joe, was sitting on the front bleacher while Steven played in the far court. Joe’s eyes were bloodshot and he was wearing a wrinkled shirt that looked like he had fished it out from being long-lost for years between sofa cushions.

  “Mr. Perkins, thank you for agreeing to meet with me,” Julia said, and outstretched her hand. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  Joe ran a hand through the stubble of a fresh beard and looked on while Steven made a layup. “I haven’t been able to tell my boy about what happened to his mom. I know I’m going to have to. But just look at him. He’s a regular, sweet kid whose biggest problem in the world right now is that his parents split. It’s going to crush him. Steven and Charlotte were really close. I want to believe she’s okay, but deep down, I know she’s not coming back.”

  Julia took a seat next to Joe and watched the probable last few hours of a boy’s innocence play on in front of her. “I’ve been a reporter for fifteen years and have some personal experience in a missing person’s case. I’ll be honest with you. In this circumstance, it doesn’t look good. But, if there’s no body, there’s always a chance. That’s what you hold on to.”

  “I don’t want the press coming for me. I got cleared by the cops, but they always look at the husband or the ex first. If you need to check my alibi, I went bowling with Steven last night after the game and then we went out for pizza. I’ve got a list of a dozen people who saw us.”

  “Like I told you over the phone, I’m not trying to connect you to Charlotte’s disappearance. The police probably already asked you this, but did Charlotte mention anything about a person who might have bothered her, or maybe someone she started dating or was interested in?”

  “Charlotte didn’t tell me about her love life. That would’ve been awkward.”

  Perkins shifted his gaze away from Julia and looked down at the ground, his body language telling Julia he wasn’t telling her the full truth.

  “If you know something, it could mean the difference between Charlotte coming home or not. Is there something you should tell me, Mr. Perkins?”

  Joe Perkins gave Julia a side, furtive glance and then looked back to the floor. “I feel like a real shit about this, but I looked at some of Charlotte’s texts a few nights ago on her phone. She dropped Steven off at my house and went up to his bedroom to help him unpack. Her purse was on the table. I don’t know why I did it. It was my idea to get divorced. I was seeing someone on the side, but still, I didn’t like the idea of Charlotte dating. I wanted to know if she was, so I went through her text messages.”

  “I won’t judge you. But the clock is ticking. What did you find?”

  “Charlotte is friends with this idiot woman I can’t stand. Charlotte texted the woman about being pulled over by a police officer she thought was hot. She said the cop asked her out.”

  “Charlotte mentioned something about this to me. Did she say what the cop’s name was?”

  “No. But Charlotte texted her friend that she gave the creep her number because she felt intimidated by him, like if she didn’t, things weren’t going to go well. That’s when she came downstairs and caught me with her phone. We got into it. I told her she was stupid and naïve, and the sleazebag probably pulled her over because he saw a pretty woman driving alone and made up some bogus story to pull her over. I don’t know if it’s true or if she was trying to make me jealous, but she mentioned she was thinking about going out with him. I figured it was a dig because I cheated on her, so I responded in true asshole fashion.”

  “Do you remember when Charlotte said this happened, the cop pulling her over?”

  “I do. Only because a buddy of mine was thinking about giving me a ticket to the Tigers game, so it was exactly two weeks ago Saturday. Charlotte picked up a last-minute wedding job, since the regular florist was sick, and she made me watch Steven because she couldn’t find anyone else. I was pissed because I wanted to go to the game. That makes me sound like an asshole now, doesn’t it? Anyway, she got back home around two in the afternoon, I think.”

  “Did Charlotte say where the cop pulled her over?”

  “Okay, yeah, I remember now, because it wasn’t in a great part of town. Third Street in the Cass Corridor, a block away from the homeless shelter. I’m pretty sure that’s what she told me.”

  * * *

  Julia took the off-ramp from I-75 into the city toward the Cass Corridor, a once-seedy area of Detroit that was becoming gentrified and reclassified as part of Midtown, the new moniker, in part, an effort to shed the neighborhood’s past reputation. While the Cass Corridor was becoming more hip and less ’hood, there were still drug dealers and pockets of crime that had burrowed deeply into footholds that refused to leave.

  Anxious to find out if the cops had anything new, Julia placed a call to Prejean after her call to Navarro went to voice mail.

  “Well, friend, I’m guessing you already know Tillerman is no longer the lead suspect, since you beat the Detroit cops on verifying his alibi,” Prejean answered. “Well done, girl. Where you at?”

  “I’m heading over to the Cass Corridor to check a lead near Third Street and the homeless shelter. Apparently, Charlotte was pulled over by a cop there a few weeks ago. I wanted to check with Navarro to find out who usually patrols the area, but since I couldn’t reach him, I’m going to take a swing by there myself.”

  “I’ve got some time on my hands with my feet on Russell’s desk. Hang tight once you get there.”

  Julia cruised past Third Man Records on Canfield Street, the place founded by musician Jack White of the White Stripes, which was a combination record store and performance-and-recording studio.

  As Julia drove deeper into the Cass Corridor toward Third Street, the trendy restaurants and bars disappeared, and the old, tarnished part of the neighbo
rhood that still hadn’t died surfaced. Julia stopped at a light and didn’t make eye contact with a heavily tattooed, skinny white man in a Sex Pistols T-Shirt, who was leaning against a boarded-up building. He was smoking a cigarette and looking like he was in desperate need of a fresh fix.

  The light changed, and Julia wondered if this was the spot where the cop stopped Charlotte.

  Julia did a slow cruise down the block, ignoring the driver behind her who leaned on his horn, and then pulled her car to a fast stop when she saw the rear of a patrol car poking out from a side street.

  Julia hugged close to the side of the building that connected to the corner of the dead-end street and did a quick pan of the scene. Parked in back of the patrol car was an older silver Honda with weathered, peeling paint and a broken bumper that was hanging on to the vehicle by four thick overlapping strips of gray duct tape.

  Both vehicles were unoccupied.

  Across from the Honda, the faint cry of a woman’s voice sounded from inside a boarded-up building with the sign VITO’S RESTAURANT hanging above the door in tarnished red and gold, like a reminder of its possible glory days.

  “Please. I don’t want to do this.”

  The front door of Vito’s was locked with a dead bolt, so Julia ran around to the back of the abandoned restaurant and came to a lot that consisted of ragged open space, overgrown with tangled weeds and a chain-link fence, with a pit bull snarling on the other side.

  “You can’t take my car. That’s all I got.”

  Julia moved to the back door of Vito’s, which was open a few inches, and peered inside to a large room that appeared to be a kitchen.

  A cop in a patrol uniform, with his hands on his hips, faced away from Julia.

  In front of him was a pretty young black woman whose fingers were knotted together as if in prayer. She was backed up against an industrial-sized commercial dishwasher with racks filled with dirty dishes. At the end of the dishwasher’s counter lay a few loose pieces of cutlery, including a long, two-tined carving fork at the edge of the stainless-steel surface.

  “What we have here is a problem. And what you need to do now is figure out the best solution. You have an expired license, no insurance, and your car isn’t registered. What do you think we should do about this?” the patrol officer said, and looked closely at the woman’s license in his hand. “Nadine. That’s your name? It’s real pretty, just like you.”

  “Please, I’m begging you. I got a job I need to get to.”

  “I ran you through the system. You’ve got two prior drug convictions. I’m offering you a way out. No one is going to believe a former druggie with a record. What you need to realize is that I’m doing you a real big favor here. Now it’s your choice. Which way do you want to go?”

  “I don’t do drugs anymore. I’ve been clean for a year.”

  “Nice try, but I don’t believe you, and neither will any other cop. You know why I asked you to come in here?”

  “Please don’t do this to me, sir.”

  “The way I look at how this could go, you have two choices. We can impound your car and send you to jail. Or you have an alternative, like none of this ever happened. Your choice. What do you want to do?”

  “Jesus, please.” The woman was thin with large dark eyes that filled up as the officer put his hands on her shoulders. “Okay. I’ll do what you want.”

  The patrolman pushed the woman down to her knees, and as he reached for his zipper, he shot a quick glance at the door, revealing his face to Julia.

  “Who’s out there?” Officer Branch LaBeau called, and turned away from the young woman. He instinctively put his hand near the holster of his gun, which was secured on his duty belt; sensing someone was just outside, watching.

  Julia reached for her phone to call 911, but it was too late. The young black woman, seeing her opening, jumped to her feet, scrambled across the length of the room, and pushed the door to the outside wide open. The woman brushed by Julia in her escape and ran until she disappeared around the corner of the building.

  LaBeau stepped back in surprise when he saw Julia, but kept his hand latched on the grip of his weapon.

  “What are you doing here?” LaBeau asked. He smiled at Julia like everything was completely normal and walked purposefully in her direction.

  “Let me ask you the same question,” Julia said.

  “I’m working.”

  “No, you’re not. You pulled that woman over, just like Charlotte Fisher. You lay in wait to pick up single young women driving alone. With Charlotte, you probably didn’t solicit her for sex, but you harassed her. You had her license number and address, so you followed her. If we go back to the station and run a search, I’m betting you also pulled over April Young, Heather Burns, and Christy King. Am I right, LaBeau?”

  LaBeau’s smile remained intact as he closed the space between them. “You shouldn’t have come here, Julia.”

  Julia reached for her phone, but LaBeau grabbed Julia’s hand and pulled her into the building.

  “This is a problem, Julia. A big problem. I like you. I really do. But this is not how this was supposed to happen.”

  Julia tried to fight off LaBeau, but he spun her around and shoved her against the wall, pinning her against the dirty surface with a meaty arm and then pressing the barrel of his gun against the back of her head.

  “It’s a dangerous job, your beat. Sometimes you wind up in places that you shouldn’t. You come down here, chasing a story, and walk into some criminal’s drug den, and you get popped. Just. Like. That,” LaBeau said, leaning so close to Julia, she could feel his breath on her cheek.

  “Not going to happen. Drop the gun and get on the ground. Now.”

  Julia stood stock-still when she heard Prejean’s voice.

  LaBeau turned Julia around, his arm still wrapped around her neck and his weapon now pointing at her temple as the two faced Prejean.

  “I’m not going down for this. I swear,” LaBeau said. “This is a mistake.”

  LaBeau began to back up with Julia, dragging her through the kitchen to an open doorway that led to another section of the restaurant.

  “You’re a cop. You’re trained to do the right thing. It’s in your blood. Let Julia go and we’ll talk it out together,” Prejean said. “Just you and me. You’re a young guy. You got a lot of life left in you.”

  LaBeau kept backing up until Julia could see the counter of the kitchen’s dishwasher immediately to her left. She did a quick mental map of the room in her head, trying to remember where everything was in reverse, and glided her hand below her until she felt the surface of the stainless steel.

  “Drop it, LaBeau. We’ll figure it out. I saw the young woman running out of here. You pull her over, bring her back here out of sight? She does you a favor and you don’t give her a ticket or send her to jail. There are two sides to every story. Remember? Innocent until proven guilty. You let Julia go, and you tell us where Charlotte Fisher is, you got the power. It puts you in the negotiation seat.”

  “My life is over.”

  Julia ran her hand over the cool metal of the dishwasher, willing that what she thought she saw lying at the end of the counter earlier was really there.

  “We’ve got units from the Detroit PD pulling in any minute. I called them when I saw your black-and-white parked in the alley. You want to go down like this in front of your fellow officers?”

  LaBeau continued to drag Julia backward, now halfway to the end of the industrial dishwasher, until Julia’s fingers slid across the rough handle of the carving fork. She prayed LaBeau wouldn’t see her as she plucked it from the counter and slid it down to her side.

  Prejean’s jaw set tight, obviously picking up on Julia’s move, but his eyes stayed on LaBeau, not giving her away.

  “You got family, LaBeau? A wife and kids?”

  “I know what you’re trying to do. My wife is a bitch. I don’t care what she thinks of me. Those women, they were nobodies. They didn’t matter. It wasn’
t hurting anybody with what I did. The classy ones, I never made them go back here. Not once. You’ve got this wrong.”

  “We can talk about this later, the women you killed. You had the cops on a chase.”

  The sound of police sirens wailed down the alleyway and LaBeau lowered his gun for a second as he took a quick look at the door to the street.

  Julia gripped the handle of the carving fork with all her might, reared her hand up, and then jabbed the two-tiered prongs of rusted metal deep into LaBeau’s upper thigh.

  LaBeau howled and spun around with his gun as Julia dove under the space below the dishwasher. She scrambled behind a thick metal storage bin as a shot rang out and the bullet pierced through the wall behind her, just inches above her head.

  “Drop your weapon. Now.”

  Navarro’s voice hung in the room as Julia crawled backward.

  “I’m not going out like this.”

  “Don’t do it,” Navarro said.

  A second shot exploded in the kitchen, and Julia curled herself into a ball.

  “Shit,” Navarro said. “Julia, are you hurt?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “Hold on a second,” Navarro said.

  “There’s nobody else here. The room is clear,” Prejean said. “It’s over.”

  Julia crept up from her place of protection and looked at the scene. Russell was at the door, while Prejean and Navarro were bent over LaBeau, who was lying on the floor. LaBeau’s feet were splayed awkwardly under him, and his own gun was inside his mouth as a stain of red gushed from the back of his skull.

  CHAPTER 29

  Julia sat in the hard metal chair in the police interview room and drummed her fingers impatiently on the desk in front of her. After LaBeau’s suicide at the abandoned restaurant in the Cass Corridor, she was taken to the Detroit PD. She had been questioned extensively for the past hour on what LaBeau said, but more so, on what he didn’t say, about staking his claim as the Magic Man Killer.