by James Tarr
“No, I haven’t. Actually, I haven’t been able to get in touch with him for several days, which has me a little worried.”
“Has he worked for you since the, ah, incident?”
“No, I told him to take some time off. I talked to him the day after, that morning, but since then haven’t been able to get him on the phone. Went to his house the day before yesterday, but he wasn’t there. Have you talked to his partner Aaron?”
“Aaron. Um, from the armored car company?”
“Yeah, they’re friends. If he’s talking to anybody, it’s him.”
“Do you have a phone number for him?”
“No, sorry, but Absolute can probably give you a cell phone number. Have you been by Dave’s house?”
“Not personally, why?”
John frowned. “Just wondering. I’m worried about him.”
Ringo grunted. If Phault only knew.
There was no answer at Anderson’s house, and none of his neighbors reported seeing him for a couple of days at least.
“Shit,” Ringo muttered. He walked around the outside of Anderson’s house, peered into all the windows, but there was no sign of anything amiss inside. “Shit.” He walked around to the last side of the house, and looked through the window into the garage. No car. “Where are you, boy?” he mumbled.
He remembered that Arlene had a 7 p.m. appointment with her son’s school guidance counselor, and that she wanted him to go with her, so Aaron started putting together tomorrow’s lunch for the both of them not long after getting home from work. He was using the provolone and the pepper jack cheese slices in alternating layers with the capicola, mortadella, and hot sopressata, making sure not to drop any cigarette ashes into the sandwich as he worked. He was just reaching for the Worcestershire sauce when someone knocked loudly on the door.
Aaron pulled open the door and looked out the screen at the man on the step. Short, dressed in a well-fitting off-the-rack suit, Aaron made him for a cop right away.
“Yeah?” he said, Marlboro bobbing in the corner of his mouth.
Detective Billy Dixon blinked at the man standing in the door. The 70s porn star moustache and too long jet black hair were to be expected in a trailer park, but the uniform shirt and holstered gun—and it was big damn gun—put him a little off his game. He knew both Anderson and his partner worked for an armored car company, but why was this guy wearing his uniform and gun at home, in his house? “Aaron Abruzzo?” he asked. “I’m Detective Dixon, wondering if I could ask you a few questions about David Anderson?” He flashed the badge on his belt, and his own gun.
Aaron frowned some more. “You got any ID?” He made no move to open the screen door.
Dixon dug out his ID and opened it so Abruzzo could read it through the screen. “Is Mr. Anderson back working at Absolute?” Dixon started out by asking. He hadn’t planned on asking it first, but he was curious.
“What’s West Bloomfield’s interest in this?” Aaron asked him. He’d looked everything up on a map, knew the shitstorm had started in Troy and ended in Shelby Township, dragging an Oakland County dep in on the fun, but West Bloomfield was way the hell on the other side of Woodward. “You here because of the shooting?”
“I’m here on a related matter,” Dixon told him. “Do you mind if I step inside to ask a few questions?”
He was starting to reach for the handle of the screen door when Aaron said, “Yep, I do. I was in the middle of something. Something more important than talking to you.”
That brought Dixon up short. “Is there a problem?” he asked the armored car employee. Maybe he didn’t like Anderson.
“No problem, I’m just not talking to cops. It might have something to do with the fact that Dave just dumped three of them, and I don’t know which ones of you might be pissed at him and looking to return the favor.” It also might have to do with the fact that you’re from West Bloomfield, he said to himself.
That made some kind of sense, but Dixon wasn’t about to get shut down by mullet-wearing trailer trash. “I can assure you I’m here on official police business, and interfering with or obstructing my investigation is not something you want to do.”
“I don’t remember,” Aaron told him.
“I—what? You don’t remember what?”
“The answer to any question you’re going to ask me. Ever since my ma dropped me on my head as a baby, I can’t remember shit. It also did horrible things to my manners, so you’ll have to excuse me when I tell you to fuck right off.” And he closed the door firmly on the detective.
“Asshole,” Aaron muttered as he went back to his sandwich construction. Although that reminded him, he should call Dave. He hadn’t talked to him in a few days. Not that he hadn’t tried, but Dave wasn’t answering his phone.
“Motherfucker,” Dixon swore as he stared at the closed door, then walked back to his department sedan. Beside the driver’s door he looked back at the ratty trailer. There was just the concrete parking pad in front, and two vehicles, an old classic Mustang and a tiny pink SUV. No dark-colored sedan, and nothing parked on the street nearby. Abruzzo had been working with the suspect for at least three years, near as he could figure out, and he didn’t have any vehicles other than the Mustang registered to him, but Dixon’d hoped bracing him might turn something up. He hadn’t turned up shit.
For a smart, apparently personable kid Anderson didn’t seem to have very many friends to talk to, and Dixon felt like he was banging his head against the wall. He’d read something in the notes of one of the detectives working the shooting that Anderson had a girlfriend, but he’d yet to find out where she lived. Maybe he could work on that. Guys always said shit to women they shouldn’t.
With a grunt he climbed into the Chevy and pulled away from the trailer. Getting turned around trying to find his way out of the maze of a trailer park didn’t put him in a better mood.
Aaron had the big sandwich sliced up and in the refrigerator, and was changing out of his uniform, when Arlene showed up. “Hey, you back there?” she called out.
“I thought the thing wasn’t until seven,” he yelled from his bedroom.
“It’s not, I wanted to stop by and see your ma.”
Aaron popped out of the open bedroom door wearing boxers and a tank top that had once been white but was now faded to a dishwater gray. “She’s not here, she’s at Julie’s for the rest of the week.” Aaron’s sister lived about forty-five minutes away, and had taken some time off of work to spend with their mother, seeing as they didn’t think she had a whole lot of time left. Peanut was with her as well, she didn’t travel anywhere without Peanut, even though she was officially Aaron’s dog.
“Oh, crap, I forgot about that. Well, anyway, you should check out the car.”
“Yeah? Hold on.” Aaron tugged on a pair of black jeans and a polo shirt, then took care of priorities and kissed his girlfriend. When that was done he swung the front door the rest of the way open and looked out at the Taurus parked on the street behind the other vehicles.
“What, he couldn’t find a green bumper?” He pushed out through the screen door and headed toward the Taurus in bare feet.
“Nope, but he said you could spray paint that easy, and hardly anybody’d be able to tell,” Arlene said, holding open the screen door.
Aaron checked out the repair job, walking all around the front of the car and then getting down on hands and knees to peer under it. “Looks okay,” he said. “Although I’m pissed about the black bumper. How much did he charge?”
“Only a hundred and fifty bucks, plus you have to make him spaghetti. Black was all he had at the junkyard. But he sprayed the hell out of the inside with Febreeze or something. Almost smells like a new car inside, now, instead of a pool.”
“You and your bionic nose, I never could smell a thing. Well, I wish it looked like a new car, but for a hundred and fifty bucks plus spaghetti I can’t complain.” Aaron looked at the front end of the car. It didn’t look new, but with the hood, gri
lle, and front bumper replaced it just looked tired, not tired and beat up. Remembering the detective, he looked up and down the street, but there was nobody in sight. The asphalt was hot against the soles of his feet. Arlene headed toward the trailer, and he pulled out his phone. He got Dave’s voicemail again.
“Dude, you’re really starting to piss me off. And get me worried, too. Give me a call back, let me know what’s going on. I hope to shit they didn’t decide to arrest you after all.” He made a mental note to watch the evening news, see if there was anything new on the shootout or Dave.
“What are you doing?” Arlene called to him. “Get in here. We’ve got an hour to kill, and I’m not going to drive all the way over here for nuthin’.” Through the screen door he could see her pulling down the zipper of her Brinks coin room coveralls, then she stepped out of view.
Smiling, he forgot about the detective and headed back to the trailer.
Billy Dixon didn’t get to where he was in life by giving up easily, but he was damned if he knew what to do next. He found himself driving all the way across Metro Detroit to stare at the crime scene on the range driveway in Shelby Township. There wasn’t anything to see, just a dirt road leading off a narrow asphalt one. The cars were still in evidence, actually being stored by the Michigan State Police as they were the only ones who had an evidence garage big enough to handle four cars from one incident. Dixon had seen the crime scene photos, and imagined the evidence techs had been having orgasms at the sheer number of bullet holes in the cars.
Seeing as he was in the area, he drove to Troy and checked out the first crime scene. The only evidence still remaining of what had occurred there were the skid marks of Anderson’s Mustang as he accelerated away from Edward Mitchell. Dixon tried to imagine what that must have been like—just sitting there, minding your own business, in your own damn neighborhood, and some dude walks up and blows the shit out of your car. Whatever else he may or may not have done, Anderson had big clanking balls. Dixon stood in the street next to his car for a while, thinking. Own damn neighborhood…..hmm. He’d been to Anderson’s house before, years ago, right after his parents had been killed. Talked to him—for as long as he was willing to do that, which wasn’t long—and did a neighborhood canvass, trying to verify his alibi that he was home alone.
Dixon got back into his sedan and drove down the block, seeing if he could find his way through the neighborhood to Anderson’s house without pulling it up on GPS. He had a good head for numbers, and remembered Anderson’s street address…..all he had to do was find the street.
After a few lefts and rights he found Willard, but had no recollection of where the house was on the street. As he coasted along at walking speed he suddenly saw he was in front of Anderson’s house, and there was a girl getting out of a car parked in Anderson’s driveway.
“Excuse me,” Dixon called out, then threw the sedan into Park and climbed out. He badged the young woman as he walked up the driveway. She didn’t seem surprised to have a cop walking up on her, but after what Anderson had been through the neighborhood had probably seen more than its share of police officers in the past week.
“If you’re looking for Davey, I don’t think he’s home,” she told Dixon. “You here about the shooting?”
“Are you his girlfriend?” Dixon asked. “I think I remember something in the interview files about him having a girlfriend.”
She nodded. “Gina.” Between the slope of the driveway and her high heels she had three inches on him, and he tried not to stare at her tits.
“How’s he handling all this?” Dixon asked her.
She made a face and shrugged. “He doesn’t really talk about stuff like that, you know? Not really a share-your-feelings kind of guy.”
“Still, he shot three guys. Three cops—dirty cops. Dirty SWAT cops. Had to freak him out a bit. He talking to any of his friends?”
“He doesn’t really have that many friends. Aaron, at the armored car place, that’s about it. A few guys he shoots with.”
“He seeing a counselor or therapist or anything for post-traumatic stress?”
She snorted. “A shrink? Please.”
Dixon nodded. “So, how long have you and Dave been seeing each other?”
“Three, four years, something like that.”
“Is it serious?”
Gina tilted her head. “I don’t know.”
Dixon smiled. “Four years and he hasn’t proposed yet? He got cold feet?” If Anderson had been dating this smoking hot sex popsicle for four years and hadn’t proposed, then either he was a closet fag or she was a cast-iron bitch.
“Nah, it’s just…..neither one of us has ever gotten too serious. I don’t know….he wants to get into the FBI, and with my line of work….”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a stripper,” she told him.
Dixon blinked. After a second he said, “Most girls that do what you do say that they’re ‘dancers’.”
She laughed. “Oh, I dance, but what I get paid for is to take my clothes off. I just don’t lie about it, to myself or anybody else. And I make a shitload of money doing it.” She put a hand on her hip, and Dixon glanced down at her jeans. How the hell did women even put on jeans that tight?
“Where do you dance—er, I mean, strip?”
“Goldfinger’s, on Eight Mile.”
“Did you meet Dave there?”
“Yeah. No…..” She thought for a while. “No, I guess I met him before that, when I was at another club.”
“Which one?”
“Gatsby’s.”
Dixon licked his lips. “Really? I think I’ve been there on a case. Three or four years ago? Who was the manager?”
“Wow, that was a long time ago. Uh…” he could see her thinking. “Paulie. Paulie…something Italian. Big guy. Total asshole.”
“Hmm. And you met Dave there? He was watching you dance?”
“No, I got a flat tire leaving work one night. It was almost three o’clock in the morning and he was driving by and saw me. I didn’t have a spare, but he waited with me until the tow truck showed up.”
“What was he doing out so late?”
“Coming back from a surveillance, I think. I saw he had a gun, but it didn’t scare me. I thought he was a cop, a rookie, at first. He looks like a cop.”
“That’s nice. What kind of car?”
“What?”
“Your car. With the flat. What kind of car were you driving at the time?”
“A new VW Bug.”
“Hmm.” Dixon glanced at the house. “So he’s not home?” The house was dark.
Gina glanced over her shoulder. “No, I don’t think so. He called me a couple of days ago, said he had to get out of town for a few days, and asked me to get his mail until the post office Stop came through.”
“Where’d he go?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Did he say when he’d be back?”
“Nope.”
“He really doesn’t tell you a lot, does he?” He checked out her car, but it was a tiny little two-door coupe. “Well, I’ve got his cell phone number, I’ll try calling him again, leave him another message. Nice meeting you.”
As he walked back to his car, he was thinking, Gatsby’s, Big Paulie, a convenient flat tire….holy shit. He’d been looking for some kind of connection, and boom! There it was. Anderson just happened to date a girl who worked for Big Paulie, meet her what sounded like only a couple of months after Paulie’s case was thrown out? Coincidence my ass. Had the kid been doing surveillance on the club?
The meeting with the school guidance counselor hadn’t gone that well. Aaron knew it wouldn’t. Arlene’s son was a foul-mouthed little snot, and the only reason Aaron hadn’t broken his nose for him was because he was thirteen, and Arlene’s son. Billy had called the cops on his mother when he was nine and she’d taken his Xbox away, then started cursing at the cops when they wouldn’t grab it back from her. Complete as
shole, just like his father, wherever that loser was.
Aaron wouldn’t be surprised if Arlene kicked Billy out of the house when he was old enough, if the kid didn’t leave on his own first. Hell, he was hardly home to begin with, and Arlene had no idea where he was going. His grades were horrible, and Aaron was pretty sure he smoked, but where he was getting the money for the cigarettes was anybody’s guess.
It was almost nine o’clock when there was a knock on his front door. “Seriously?” he bitched. It better not be that short asshole cop from West Bloomfield.
“Who’s that?” Arlene called from the back of the trailer.
“I don’t fucking know,” he yelled back as he headed to the door. “All right, who are you with?” he asked the obvious cop standing on the steps.
Ringo held up his badge. “Detroit. Detective John George. I’m actually trying to locate Dave Anderson, but I’m not having much luck. When was the last time you saw or spoke to him?” Ringo could have called, but he’d wanted to drive by Abruzzo’s residence in case Anderson was hiding out there.
“I think the day after the shooting. How’d you track me down?”
“Anderson’s boss at the PI company, John Phault. So you haven’t talked to him for several days? Do you know where he might be? I went to his house, but no one answered, and there wasn’t a vehicle in the garage.” A woman appeared behind Abruzzo and Ringo nodded at her. “Ma’am.”
“He hasn’t been answering my calls for a couple of days. Actually, I haven’t talked to him since the day of the shooting. Late that night.” Aaron looked at the detective. “What do you want with him?”
“I’ve got to talk to him about the case.”
“Detroit detective….you must be pretty pissed that he killed a bunch of Detroit cops.” Aaron cocked his head.
“Shot the hell out of your guys,” Arlene added helpfully.
“No, that’s….not something I’m concerned with. Investigating. Actually, I’m the one who figured out who it was hitting the clubs.”
“I thought the FBI did that.”