Returning Fire

by Frans Harmon

  She pushed upward from a coarse cotton surface. “No,” a voice hesitantly mumbled behind her, “you… need… rest, sweetie.”

  Sharlene hesitated. Was she in danger? What kind of women would thrust their bodies so close to hers? A cold wave roiled, she drifted down into their warmth. She wasn’t in the damp musky room; at least she didn’t think so. She became more aware. She was fully clothed, that was a plus. The top and back of her white silk blouse were damp. Her hair wet, perspiration on her forehead, another tremor racked the length of her body.

  Her lips quivered. “Where are we? What happened?”

  “Shhh.” The one in front of her breathed.

  “I… I must know. Oh God, am I going to see my daughters?”

  The woman behind her sighed. “I’m Coria. I was taken by Sar, I think the same way you were, almost a year ago. Trina’s been here six months.”

  “A year, six months, oh my God, why?”

  “That we can’t answer.” Trina said, “I see him every day. He doesn’t say much, except it will happen soon.”

  Trina rolled onto her back and pulled Sharlene to her.

  “No, what are you doing.”

  “Trying to help you,” Trina said, “You are sweating, you have chills, you are sick. We don’t have blankets, just us to keep you warm. Give in. Lay down. You definitely will not see your daughters again if you’re dead.”

  Sharlene gave in and laid on top of Trina. Coria climbed on top, clasping hands with Trina, who pulled them all tightly together.

  Trina cradled Sharlene’s head. For an instant, Sharlene was afraid she was going to kiss her. “What we do know,” Trina said in a hushed voice, “is that Sar did some sort of bloodletting, and that is why you are sick.”

  “Then the bastard raped you,” Coria said.

  “Raped? No, that can’t be.” Tears began streaming from her eyes. “No, I don’t remember anything like that. How do you know?”

  “Because,” Coria whispered, “it happened to us.”

  Sharlene sobbed, her body shaking constantly, she felt her strength seeping away. She yielded to sleep, a deep healing slumber. But a stubbornness born of her heritage was clawing its way back.

  Chapter Ten

  Mace took his time descending the stairs to the basement. He still had a paycheck, but as far as Sharlene’s case was concerned, little else. He had promised to help her, and it wasn’t giving up now. He reached the basement where a yawning door to the parking garage, it’s closer loose and hanging precariously, idly knocked an adjacent wall. The sound waking his senses to the icy December air drawn chimney-like into the stairwell. He snatched the door handle, frosty from the wind, and yanked the door closed. He starred at his hands.

  Cold. That’s why his gut said it wasn’t Sharlene. She was alive. The legs he grabbed in the burning car; they were cold, frigid, not those of someone just incinerated. In his mind, the air of certainty in Dorian’s office, that Jirair, the Vulcan, was behind these murders just developed a horse barn odor.

  He entered the basement corridor. It would be tough to prove, Cassandra locking him out of the case left him with little more than shoe leather for resources, and the precious window of time to save Sharlene was crashing closed. He had to find another way back in. Is that what Cassandra was suggesting?

  The cold case section was in a small office carved out of a cavernous room, simply known as the archives, which consumed nearly the total footprint of building one. It was filled with five-hundred off-white rolling file cabinets, each capable of holding multiple evidence boxes spanning ten years of MBI investigations.

  A simple wooden sign over the door read Mo’s Place. Mace stood in the open doorway. The upper portions of the interior walls were large windows that gave an expansive view of the archives, Mo’s office gave the impression that he didn’t have any filing cabinets at all. Gray and white boxes striped with blue tape were stacked on his desk and along the wall below the glass and created a cardboard fortress image. But a plaque prominently positioned on the desk, stating Sergeant Peter Mock, Chief, Cold Case Processing, left no question. Mace was at his new assignment.

  Peter was talking on his land-line phone. His physique, massive shoulders, and broad face dwarfed everything around him. A bear-paw sized grip buried the phone against a stove-pipe shaped head, an image made complete by his dense black curls. His muscular arms were the size of most men’s legs, and his ample torso filled a black silk collarless shirt that seemed stretched to the limit around a thick muscular neck. His eyes caught an awkward smile from Mace.

  He hung up the phone. “I take it your Mace?”

  Mace nodded. “That’s me, Pete.”

  “It’s Mo, and how come I only get the troublemakers. A consultant, now that’s rich, but it does tell me what the muckeity-mucks think of my job – punishment.”

  Mace moved a stack of two boxes from a chair to the floor and sat down. “I… I don’t think so, they just want me out of the public eye.”

  “You’ve got that in spades, here. And you can’t leave those boxes there.”

  “Oh, sorry, mess up your filing system?”

  Mo pushed back from his desk, his hands splayed out on either side of him, a what-don’t-you-understand look on his face, and revealed he was sitting in a wheelchair. “No, cause I can’t get out.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Mace moved the boxes into a corner. “How’d it happen?”

  “Drug bust two years back, warehouse on Chalmers near Seven Mile, perp caught me from behind, and this is all I get, paperwork. Be nice to work a case again.”

  “Sorry, Mo, must be tough to see a lead and not work it.”

  “Yeah, don’t get out much, but that is where guys like you come in, that’s what you do.”

  Mace felt the possibility of keeping current on the case getting stronger. “A’right, let’s get to work.”

  “Hold up, what did you do to get stuck here?”

  “Baggage from my days in the FBI. Didn’t go well back then, and the public associates my name and remembers what I bring to the case.”

  “The car fires? The Vulcan, oh that FBI agent.”

  Mace cleared his throat, stifling a bitter reply. “I rest my case. So, where is my desk?”

  “Hmm, you’re at it.”

  Mace spun around and realized the stack of evidence boxes behind him had wholly covered a desk.

  “Your first task is to move those back into the archives behind us,” he said, nodding toward the interior windows. The bin, column, and shelf number are on tags, box top, and sides. Locate the bin, punch the column and shelf as a four-digit number on the bin’s keypad. It opens the bin, and you file it on the shelf. I search the cases in the database not being worked, usually ones dormant for twelve months or more. And you reverse the process, but only for case files marked for cold case follow-up, blue tape.”

  Mace nodded. “Any cold cases involving a car fire in Romulus?”

  Mo cocked his head and stared at Mace. “You are going to be trouble, aren’t you? Okay, just so’s you know, you owe me.”

  Mo typed on his keyboard, and his computer screen, out of sight from Mace, responded. “Yeah, Romulus PD carrying an old case there, a cute dame by the photo here, ID’d as Coria Brien, but it’s off-limits, Gavin McIlrath has it flagged as part of an active investigation.”

  “Hmm, well, now I have a name. How about Wayne?”

  Mo grimaced. “You are trying to get me in trouble. I don’t need anymore.”

  “No, hey, forget I asked.”

  “Good, now you can file those cases and clear off your desk, while I tap a kidney,” Mo said, and he pushed back from his desk and wheeled his chair around his desk toward the door. “My screen will go blank in ninety seconds.”

  Mace stepped out of the room as Mo rolled out the door and out of sight. He was liking his new assignment and his new boss. Mace understood the meaning of Mo’s words and went behind his desk. He copied down the location information of the Brien file
on a scratch pad and stuffed the note in his pocket. He filed two boxes from his desk into the automated archives, and as he did, he discovered his desk was a simple, well-worn table with a single drawer.

  Returning, he grabbed the last evidence carton, and the description froze him in place. It contained files for a missing person case reported at the Eddystone Apartments on the same night he confronted Jirair. A memory he had managed to bury deep in his sub-conscious. But the car fire and this box were changing that.

  “Lewis Tuller the third,” Mo said as he wheeled behind Mace to his desk.

  Mace’s eyes followed Mo. He set the box down on his desk.

  “His great grandad Lew Tuller built the Tuller, Park, and Eddystone hotels back in the ’20s. Others torn down years ago, but the Eddystone without its fancy canopied entrance lasted longer. Lew, the third, was living there until one night he wasn’t.”

  Beads of perspiration began to form on Mace’s forehead. He sat down. Was this a coincidence or something more? “Five years and no body, no contact?”

  “You’re holding the cold case file, pal. Should tell you something.”

  “Yes, guess that’s the answer.”

  “I hear it still has the grand staircase from when it was a hotel. Something to see, I understand.”

  “Mind if I take a run at it.”

  “Knock yourself out. Going to implode the building soon as the last tenants get moved out. Not many left, I understand. So, you are holding a real iceberg of a cold case.”

  A journey back to the Eddystone apartments might reveal the truth of what happened that night, but Mace couldn’t help but wonder if he would suffer Pandora’s fate.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mace sat in his car in the Henry W. parking garage facing Park Avenue. From his vantage point, he could see the roof and the signboard where it happened. The memory of it disturbing, he needed answers.

  That morning I got a cell phone hit and was able to locate him finally. An hour later, they terminated me. A CI called said Jirair was at the Bookie’s Hideaway, a dive at Clifford and Henry, three blocks south of the Eddystone Hotel. I waited across the street. Some abandoned store, a pawn shop, I think, yeah, the Rainy Day. The weather was just that, a cold, relentless, sometimes freezing drizzle. Typical for October. Fever and chills racking my body in the cold, I wouldn’t let go. Stubborn, stupid stubborn, but it was my last and only chance. I spent hours watching that bar. I felt like a turtle. My head drawn into my heavy P-coat, I shuffled my feet to keep warm, but the frigid chill penetrated to my bones.

  Mace shook the memory from his head, exited his car, and took the nearby stairs to the street, mid-block on Park. He looked North towards Sproat and Park. A renaissance of retail space had the block bustling with foot traffic, but gone were the recessed doorways flanked by expansive display cases, common back then. As he stood, his thoughts returned.

  I waited and waited. The sunset, the frigid air seared my lungs. Nothing happened until nine. Jirair came out. He moved North in spurts, snaking through the shadows of Clifford’s U-shaped storefronts, frequently stopping to check his surroundings. He didn’t want to be seen, and I didn’t want to be noticed. I held back. That was a mistake. He got to Sproat and Clifford, and I was mid-block. He had three ways to turn; I was losing him. He went into a convenience store on the corner, and I thought that was my chance to catch up. My encephalitis clogged my head and gnawed away my breath. I struggled but managed to step quickly along the opposite side of Clifford to the corner. I spun around looking, but he was gone. Then, I got lucky. My eye caught movement down the short block back to Park. I ran, hoping it was him.

  A truck rattling by brought him back to the present. Mace crossed Henry and walked the long block to a pearl from the golden era for hotels during a booming Detroit. The Eddystone, no longer a hotel, had a belt of boarded-up retail stores on the first floor and dark lifeless apartment windows populating the twelve stories above. A weathered sign over the entrance suggested the building’s demise; it was now the Eventide Senior Residence.

  Unmarked police vehicles occupied the curb fronting the hotel, and much of the Sproat beyond. Mace maneuvered around a ramp leading to a long moving van and headed towards the main entrance. A few steps in that direction and then a familiar head of red, trussed in a tight ponytail emerged from one of the police sedans. She had on a short black leather jacket with her badge showing from a breast pocket.

  “Mace, what brings you to the Stone,” Anstice said, placing herself between Mace and the entrance of the building.

  “They still calling it that?”

  “Habit, it’s been the Eddystone for years, since forever, Eventide just the past three. So, what’s up?”

  “Oh, cold case, Lew Tuller, just following up.”

  “Five years ago, yeah, I remember, high profile, but that case is Artic cold.”

  “Right, well, I thought I might talk to the apartment manager, any resident, see if anyone remembers anything before it is all gone. What brings you here?”

  Anstice nodded. “Evictions, sheriff doing the heavy lifting, I’m making sure everyone has a place to go.”

  “That normal rotation for a major crimes detective?”

  “Just volunteering today.”

  “Good for you, I’m sure they appreciate the support. Say, do you know where I can find the manager?”

  “Al, yeah, sure, I’ve got to check on miss Linda anyway, so follow me.”

  Inside, the lobby was as Mace remembered it. The sweeping grand staircase Mo mentioned reduced to an L-shaped boxed affair with a mid-level landing, and the crystal chandeliers were now bare bulb fixtures. The perimeter retail spaces had been converted to apartments, and the area reduced to a stairwell, a bank of post boxes on one wall, and an out of order elevator on the other.

  Anstice walked to the open door of a converted apartment. “Al, you have time? We need to ask you some questions.”

  A portly man, bald with vanity strands of hair combed back over his head, emerged. His sleeves rolled up; he finished toweling his hands. He wore black baggy pants held up by red suspenders over a white shirt, and he had dark eyes deep-set, made to seem more so by a bulbous nose. He licked his thick lips and cocked his head back. “What, questions I’m done here.”

  “Al, this is Mace Franklyn. He’s with the Michigan Bureau of Investigation—"

  “Actually, the state police, cold case division.”

  “Really, when did that happen?”

  “This morning.”

  “Well, anyway, Al, he would like to ask you a few questions about Lew Tuller’s disappearance. I have EMTs coming to help Miss Linda down the stairs. I’m going up to check on her.”

  “Tuller,” Al said, tossing the towel back into the apartment, “can’t remember, that was years back, memory doesn’t go that far back anymore.”

  “Give it a shot, Al. What can you tell me about him.”

  “Kept pigeons, reminded of that every day.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Kept them on the roof, still flock there out of habit, I guess. The only thing he ever did was worry ‘bout those pigeons.” Al paused, then scratching the side of his head, said, “Come to think of it, last time I saw him, he was headed up there to tend to ‘um.”

  “On the roof, can you show me that?”

  “What, you crazy, thirteen floors.”

  “Not going to have many more opportunities, Al, our last shot at justice for Lew.”

  Al rubbed his chin, then nodded. He walked over to the elevator, inserted a key in the control panel, and the doors opened.

  “That safe, Al?”

  “It’s old, funky, slips now and then, but you get used to it.”

  “Why you posted the out-of-order sign?”

  “That, and, at my age, it’s better for me.”

  Mace gripped a rail, mounted inside the elevator, anticipating a faltering ride, but they rode in silence. The only hint of ponderous progress was the glowing
numbers, on the floor indicator over the door, grudgingly marching across until their jump from twelve to fourteen, the thirteenth floor. From there, they took the access stairs to the roof. Al unlocked the door and ushered Mace forward.

  The high-pitched cooing and slapping of wings surprised Mace as twenty startled pigeons took flight. To the left of the door, their forgotten roost, a leaning matrix of rusting chicken wire covered in white bird dropping, stood precariously. To the right corroded trusses backed a signboard that once declared the grandeur of the Eddystone, and now torn red ad copy hawking cigarettes was its forlorn message.

  “That’s it,” Al said, pointing to the tilting structure, “spent most of his time, cleaning, feeding, letting them go, and dancing when they returned. He loved his pigeons.”

  Mace noticed metal brackets protruding from a corner of the roof over the stairwell. “You had cameras up here?”

  “He did. One back that way too,” he said, pointing to a second stairwell roof behind the coop.

  “Where are the tapes now?”

  “Don’t know,” said Al shaking his head. “Look, you can hang around up here as long as you want. I expect you’ll want to look at his apartment. Nothing changed there since he left. Estate still owns it. His apartment was thirteen-oh-three. But I’ve got to get back to my packing, that moving van out front is for me, and tick-tock if you know what I mean. I’ll unlock thirteen oh three on my way down.”

  Mace nodded and looked around the roof, then back down the stairwell as Al descended out of sight.

  Jirair had sprinted from the convenience store to the Eddystone Apartments. I was lucky to notice him enter when I reached the corner. When I got inside, the lobby was more extensive then, but empty. Breathing heavy, it was all I could hear. I took a deep breath and held it. That is when my gut paid off again. I heard faint, quick steps fading upwards on the grand staircase. I grabbed the railing and lunged up a few flights. But my body revolted, almost lost my lunch, my head was spinning. I closed my eyes, but that made it worse. I couldn’t hear any footfalls. I had to keep moving.