I approached Flora a bit apprehensively. I’d phoned and offered help, but she hadn’t responded.
“Flora,” I said.
“Don’t talk to me.” She turned away as if to straighten a flower arrangement.
I stepped around her and got into her face. “What’s the matter?”
The lines in her face were deep as ravines. “I’m sure you didn’t mean to cause trouble.”
“Cause trouble? I was trying to solve trouble.”
She leaned in toward me and hissed, “No one had to know. What difference does it make?”
I said quietly, “You didn’t know, did you?”
“No,” she whispered harshly, and repeated, “What difference does it make?”
She was too upset to be reasonable, so I just said, “I’m sorry, Flora,” and backed off.
I wondered whether the attendance had gotten jacked up by the frankly sensational news that Domenica had whacked to death a productive member of society before she died. For that news indeed had gotten out, for Domenica’s fingerprints had indeed materialized under the ghostly powder the lab techs had feathered over that bat, besides those of young Timothy Pomeroy, who had been on an atoll in the South China Sea studying sea turtles since January and who had not made it back for the funeral.
I chatted with a few other mourners who seemed to know more people there. Evidently Domenica’s only sibling, a brother named Louis, had died a few years back. It was his grandson whose bat had been employed by Domenica against Abby Rawson. There seemed to be a few younger relatives, cousins and second cousins of Flora. I perceived her features in a few faces: the long, tapering nose, the high cheekbones, the wide, light-colored eyes.
It was pointless to write up something for Ricky, given his monthly-magazine lead time, so I wrote a short scoop for the Free Press and collected my measly hundred freelance bucks. I held back all the interesting stuff about how weird the Pomeroys were, and I certainly held back the bits and pieces I had about Abigail and the Happy Van. The other news organs picked up on the unusual story, and they reported it in typical hands-to-their-cheeks style. So yeah, word had gotten around.
While the mystery of who killed Abigail Rawson had been solved, there remained the question of what she’d been looking into that had upset and frightened her, causing her to stash evidence in her camper.
----
On Thursday of that week, I arrived home after a long morning out to find Mr. McVittie, my landlord, up on a ladder doing something to one of my living-room windows. He had it propped open with a stick.
“I saw some rot!” he shouted, as I came up the walk. He and Mrs. McVittie owned the house and lived in the lower flat. I loved my upper: cozy, lots of light, with a lovely old horse-chestnut tree shading my balcony. The tree dropped tons of useless nuts, and Mr. McVittie spent hours every autumn raking them into piles, but we all loved that tree.
“Yeah?” I shouted up to him, extra loud in deference to his increasing deafness. I’d learned to simply start out at full volume with both Mr. and Mrs. McVittie, who were pushing ninety.
“I get up here and find the whole lower sill is rotted out!” He was a tough old dude, with snow-white hair and dentures. “I tore it out and replaced it.”
“You did all that already?”
“Leave it open until the varnish dries.”
“OK!” I held the ladder while he climbed down. He refused my help in carrying the heavy thing to the garage.
I went up and found Raquel agitated but safely in her crate. I’m sure she’d growled the whole time Mr. McVittie had been working, but he probably didn’t hear her. I carried the crate into my bedroom, got the stuff I needed to clean it, then shut the door before I let Raquel out. She ran to the door and sniffed under it, as if wanting more of the outside air drifting in from the living room, then attempted to climb my dresser. I finished the job in a hurry. “Back into your happy, fresh-smelling home now, honey,” I said, throwing a towel over her to capture her. I moved the crate back to the living room. She enjoyed the apple and peanuts I gave her with her fresh water. I thought raccoons always washed their food, but she didn’t. Occasionally she’d dip something into her water first, but mostly she didn’t.
I hung out in my living room and thought about Abigail Rawson. I tried to talk things over with Raquel, as I’d done with my beloved Todd. Communication, however, was difficult through the wire door and plastic walls of the crate, like talking to someone in prison who can’t relate to anything you’re saying about the outside world. Nevertheless, I went over the case aloud with Raquel. “Abby lost her life more or less in the line of duty, OK. But I want to know what she was looking into, and I want to know what was in that pantry in that camper, and I want to know who took that stuff, whatever it was, and I want to see where that goes, and I want to write a dy-no-mite story on it for my buddy Ricky at the Motor City Journal, and I want the story to blow some shit wide open, and I want to win a Pulitzer for it.”
Raquel’s masked face peered at me impassively from the shadows of her cell.
“Not just because I’m broke,” I went on. “Perhaps it’s my destiny to be broke. But if I’m gonna be broke, at least I can enjoy myself and do some good in this shitty city.”
I downloaded a copy of the Detroit city budget. A more dismal fiscal document you’ve never seen. That year pensions were higher than department payrolls; income was pathetic; and the only camouflage was the lack of fine detail. I scrolled until I found the line items for DeMedHo. Not much was broken out in that budget (surprise), but here were the key numbers:
Salaries/Wages: $14,296,062
Operating Expenses/Supplies: $1,044,100
You read it right: a payroll of more than $14 million. Benefits were about another $10 million. I thought about the tiny, quiet office with the souvlaki-eating receptionist and only three—it would seem—other employees. I brewed a pot of coffee, made a liverwurst sandwich, and ate it at my old white enamel-topped kitchen table. I did some math, made some notes, and developed a plan. I called up my friend Lou and told her what was on my mind.
“I can help you with that,” she said without hesitation.
----
The next afternoon—this was a Friday halfway through July now—I slid the Crown Vic into a curb spot around the corner from the Penobscot building, and Lou and I got out. She wore her full animal-control officer’s regalia, with equipment belt and radio, and I had on a pair of blue coveralls she’d lent me. They were huge, but I’d rolled up the cuffs and buckled a black leather belt around my waist.
“Don’t you have,” asked Lou, “any like boots or anything?”
I looked down at my Chuck Taylors. “No.”
“You look like Dennis the Menace.” She paused. “But cute. Why don’t you eat more?”
“I feel like a menace.” I put on my orange logging helmet and lowered its black mesh face guard. The helmet, which I’d scored at a garage sale a few years ago, had come in handy as a disguise before, when I needed to gain access to a patch of private woods near Keego Harbor. I was attempting to check out a hyper-sounding rumor that a religious cult was building a compound there, but didn’t find anything. I hauled Mr. McVittie’s ancient lawn sprayer out of the trunk. It was a three-gallon galvanized tank with a spray wand attached. At least all this was taking my mind off Jackie and the insane thing Carmen had told me.
I looked at Lou. “Let’s go.”
A few minutes later, we burst authoritatively through the door of the DeMedHo offices. The receptionist, who, in a screwy coincidence, was devouring the exact kind of souvlaki sandwich she’d been eating when I’d first met her, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked up at us.
“Pest control,” said Lou brusquely. For good measure, she wielded her catch pole, its wire noose bearing the gnaw marks of countless dogs, raccoons, opossums, and God knew what else. She checked her watch. “Four o’clock. We’re right on time.”
Shirlene Cord’s door was h
alf open; I heard the roll and short squeak of an office chair being pushed back from a desk.
“We didn’t call for pest control,” said the receptionist, whose nose resembled a small potato.
“Right,” said Lou. “Didn’t management tell you? You know Wally, the building engineer? We’re supposed to do three floors a week, and today it’s—”
“You look like a dog catcher.”
“That too. I’m on flex.”
Shirlene Cord appeared in a boss-lady gray suit. The hair was as architectural as ever, its sheen like spun licorice. Her makeup emphasized her already impressive cheekbones with slashes of bronze and rose, her eyes with swaths of indigo.
“Pest control,” repeated Lou.
“We’re busy,” said Shirlene. “What do you have to do?”
Lou said, “Hey, ma’am, in case there’s been a mistake, let me do a quick inspection. So we don’t have to put you out unless it’s absolutely necessary.” She reached across the swinging gate that extended to the side of the reception counter, let herself in, and unholstered her flashlight. She busied herself crouching and looking behind the copy machine, and then she crawled around a partition.
Shirlene watched her with an expression of distaste, her lips tight.
I stood silent, eyes down. My getup, especially the mesh face shield, was enough of a disguise. Neither the receptionist nor Shirlene even glanced at me anyway.
“Whoa, gosh!” we heard Lou exclaim. She emerged from behind the partition holding an enormous, squirming cockroach between her bare fingers. “Well, you guys definitely got a problem.” She clumped over to Shirlene, who recoiled from the creature, who was waving its feelers rapidly.
“Ew, kill it!” said the receptionist.
“Oh, I’ll take care of this one and all of his relatives. Don’t you worry.” She appeared to fumble, however, and the roach dropped to the floor. It shot off for shelter under the reception counter.
The receptionist shrieked and leaped from her chair with the agility of a gymnast.
“Whoopsy,” said Lou. “We gotta do a full spray job, ma’am,” she explained to Shirlene, “and you all need to clear out for the rest of the day. This stuff’s highly toxic in its liquid form. You can come in Monday, and everything’ll be fine.” I started pumping up my sprayer.
The receptionist already was grabbing her purse, and Shirlene said, “Yes, OK, let me get my stuff. But I’ve got to lock up when you leave.”
“Oh, no, ma’am, I’ll take care of that for you.” Lou hitched up her belt like a Southern sheriff.
“You have a pass key?”
“I’ll get building security to lock up after us. I know alla them guys.”
“Well—all right.”
I grunted and pointed at the other two office doors, the one still minus Abby’s nameplate, the other still reading, CLARK JOHNSON.
“Oh,” said Lou, “are the other employees out right now? Will you let them know not to return today?”
“Yes,” said Shirlene over her shoulder, in such a way that I knew there were no other employees—at least none who worked at that office. Where were the rest?
I heard, from Shirlene’s office, a small metallic sound, possibly a key being inserted into a lock, or withdrawn from one?
In a minute, Lou and I were alone in the Friday-afternoon quiet. I threw the bolt on the reception door as soon as I heard the elevator ding shut. I pulled off my helmet and leaned it against door, where it would make a noise if somebody with a key opened it.
Like all older office buildings, this one hadn’t enough wiring for today’s technology, so the walls were marred by the exposed power boxes and wires that had been retrofitted in at some point. The air in Shirlene’s office smelled faintly of her flowery, spicy perfume. She’d done up the room with an ’80s-style credenza, made of walnut inlaid with strips of tan plastic (why? why?) and a tan rug with orange speckles in it. Her desk was a standard-looking metal one, however, as was her file cabinet.
“Did she shut her computer off?” I said.
“Yeah, but that’s OK,” said Lou, settling herself in Shirlene’s Aeron-style desk chair. She pushed the power button on the computer and put on her reading glasses. “I talked to a guy.”
“You talked to a guy, as in called in a favor? Sometimes that stuff comes back to bite you. Favors. I don’t like favors.”
“Listen. When a city’s as crooked as this one is, nobody talks. Because everybody’s got secrets, see what I’m saying? Nobody talks.”
Lou was not what anyone would call a culturally sophisticated sort. She wouldn’t be able to tell you who wrote Hamlet, or when Impressionism began, or how the Marshall Plan worked. Her idea of dressing up was to choose a clean pair of Dickies work pants and match that with a long-sleeved flannel shirt, plus work boots from which all mud had been knocked. But she did know electronics. It had been her hobby for years, and she also had learned plenty about computers.
Beyond that, Lou was also one of the kindest, most sensitive souls you’d ever know. If she could have taken in every stray, abused, or sick animal in Detroit, she would have. She even carried a spare catch-pole in her car in case she came upon a situation when she was off duty. As it was, she kept several dogs and didn’t sentimentalize over the rest.
Shirlene’s file-cabinet drawers (not locked) were crammed with binders of city regulations, procedures, and forms, plus a three-pack of silver sheer pantyhose and about fifty back issues of Vogue, all spines up, in order by date.
I nudged Lou aside so I could rifle the desk drawers. The center one was locked, and I think that’s what I heard Shirlene doing a minute ago. “I wonder what she’s got in here,” I muttered. “Do you know how to pick locks?”
“No,” grunted Lou, “but I could break it with a screwdriver.”
“Let’s not do that.”
I went over to the window, which overlooked Griswold. I saw Shirlene and the receptionist emerge from the lobby and go separate ways. Shirlene got into her red BMW, in its unbelievably illegal, traffic-choking spot, and zoomed off. Every other office worker in town seemed to be getting on with their weekends, too.
Cityscapes are always more pleasing the higher your vantage point. An alley full of disgusting garbage cans, for instance, fades into a wisp of shadow at a hundred and twenty feet up. The rats look like ants.
As Lou worked, she talked. “I know a lot of people in this city, Lillian. I took a gamble but not too much a’ one.” Lou’s speech patterns were those of a garage mechanic who had led a sheltered life in, perhaps, the western Upper Peninsula. “Here’s the thing: the city’s got IT people that set up everything more or less uniform,” she went on. “Except stuff keeps breaking. Example: half the male employees spend their time on the job downloading mass quantities of porn, which breaks their computer. Other people upload pirated games, excetera, stuff that breaks their systems ’cause their memory gets maxed out. IT hasta come out or sometimes they do it remotely. They reset everything, and they always give you a new password. They use the date and your building’s address number. I got in touch with my friend in IT, and all I asked was when the last IT call got made here. It was only three days ago.”
“Shirlene could have changed her password again.”
“Yeah, but she didn’t. My guy says ninety-nine percent of people don’t change it. They don’t give a shit, really. Plus most of them just write their password on a piece of paper and stick it by their monitor anyway.” She pointed to a yellow sticky note clinging to Shirlene’s monitor with numerals scrawled on it. “Like that right there. See?”
All I could do was laugh. “You’re just about as crackerjack as a teenage Russian computer hacker.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
“You want personnel records, right?” said Lou, punching keys.
“Yeah, that first. Then anything that references the Happy Van—that would be something called Metro Mobile Medical Services.” I busied myself with the
file cabinets, one standard four-drawer in every office.
The place was dead quiet, which magnified every sound Lou and I made. My coveralls whisked as I moved, and I heard Lou’s deep, purposeful breathing.
Abby’s office felt ghostly. It had been cleared out, but a few of her touches remained. She’d pinned a poster of a pretty seashore to the wall facing her desk. I imagined her looking up from her computer or phone or a stack of paperwork and seeing the sea grass swirling in a breeze, the breakers pounding the sand. I supposed there were times when she wanted to climb right into it. A peppy red sweater hung on a hanger from the coat tree. I fingered the sleeve, but it gave me the creeps.
Her desk was empty, and so was her file cabinet, except for some random office supplies. The same was true for the office of the theoretical Clark Johnson.
Before I returned to Shirlene’s office, I took one more sad look at Abby’s, and it was then that something caught my eye: her file cabinet had its key in the lock. A common thing to do. I removed it and returned to Shirlene’s office. Lou was saying, “Yeah, here we go.” She looked up. “Employee list here, names and salary figures. The actual payroll goes through central, of course, but first everybody’s time sheet goes through the department head, which in this case is Shirlene. Then she sends them in electronically.”
I switched on the printer. “How long is the employee list?”
“Gosh, a hundred? More, I think.”
“Print it out, would you? Plus can you print out the last run of time sheets? Like for the last pay cycle?”
Lou rolled back the chair to tend to the printer, and I tried the key in the desk, which was almost identical to those of Shirlene’s underlings. The file cabinets were of the same make, which is what gave me the idea to try it. The key didn’t fit, so I put it back where I’d found it and went through Clark Johnson’s desk again, this time finding another key rattling around in the bottom desk drawer.
I went back and nudged Lou aside again. “Lemme try again.”
Left Field Page 14
