by Dani Amore
“Get the hell out of my house. You’re pathetic.”
I hesitated and then figured I had my answer. I walked past her, smelled her perfume, saw the blind rage on her face.
She slammed the door behind me.
I stood for a moment, wondered if the ghosts of the nuns had heard Elizabeth curse me out. I hoped so.
As I walked to my car, I played back her reaction.
Elizabeth was angry, no doubt about that.
She was also lying.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
A funny thing happens when you suddenly look at your past in a whole new light. What was that phrase? Revisionist history. You know, when someone changes what happened in the past to fit an argument they’re currently making. Essentially creating a brand-new version of past events.
Well, my history was being revised, and I didn’t like it.
But I had known Elizabeth well. We had spent a lot of time together. A lot of intimate time. Even though we’d spent years apart, every fiber of my being told me that her display of anger was a sham. It was a lie. Something had been going on. There was a connection between her and Benjamin Collins. I just didn’t know what it was. Not for certain.
The problem was, I still didn’t want to believe it.
I needed to verify it somehow and there was only one person who could do it. Well, two. But Benjamin was dead.
No, I needed to see Tripp Collins. He was the one that had delivered the news, so I needed to know his source. Initially I thought his source was might be his own demented imagination. But now I wasn’t so sure.
Since I’d already been thrown out of one house I decided I might as well go for two. So I swung down to Jefferson Avenue, and then turned onto Bedford until that spilled me back onto Windmill Pointe Drive. The estate sale had ended and the wide street was totally devoid of parked cars.
I didn’t care. There wasn’t going to be any subterfuge this time. I was going to exhibit all of the delicate grace of a battering ram.
The Bentley was parked in the driveway and I pulled the Taurus in behind it, went to the front door and rang the bell. I could hear music and laughter inside. Actually, it wasn’t music. It sounded more like someone was trying to play the piano while wearing boxing gloves.
The piano music stopped and the door opened a crack. I heard the high-pitched lilt of female voices whispering and then the face of Tripp Collins filled the opening.
“Fuck off!” he shouted at me and tried to slam the door but I threw my shoulder into it and plowed ahead. The heavy door swung inward, knocking Tripp Collins on his ass and spilling his drink all over the floor. The Asian girls scattered and Tripp tried to get to his feet. I grabbed him by the front of the shirt and pinned him against the wall.
“Listen, you miserable drunk,” I growled at him. “I know that at least one of your harem here is underage. So unless you want to be investigated for statutory rape, I suggest you tell me what you know about Benjamin and Elizabeth Pierce.”
He pushed me away and I let him get all the way to his feet.
“You think because your sister is the head cop around here you can get away with this?” he said, but his voice lacked the conviction it needed.
“What do you know about Benjamin and Elizabeth?” I repeated, advancing on him.
He backed into the great room. Ordinarily, I might have been worried about a gun, but I think the only thing Tripp Collins was interested in grabbing was a glass of Scotch.
“It was a guess,” he finally said.
“Bullshit,” I replied. “You’re not that creative. Try again.”
He had broken out in a sweat and he coughed. I walked over to the Scotch decanter, pulled out the stopper and splashed some into a glass. I handed it to him and he chugged it, held the glass out for a refill. I tipped more into it and held the decanter away from him.
“Talk,” I said.
He sank into the brown leather couch and stared at the empty fireplace. Took a long pull from the glass.
“He had a laptop that he carried everywhere with him. It made me nervous when he sat in his room and used it. One night, someone came and picked him up and he left his laptop in his room. It was something he had never done. I was home. I’d had quite a bit of this stuff,” he held up the glass in case I didn’t know to what he was referring. “So I went into his room and looked. His screen was blank, but I launched his browser and checked his history. I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t doing anything illegal.”
I bit my tongue on that one. And Tripp must have recognized the hypocrisy of what he’d said, because his eyes flicked toward the rooms upstairs where his harem was taking cover.
“It was mostly empty, his history,” he said. “But while I had the browser open a window appeared with a private message. It was very sexual in nature.”
“And it was from Elizabeth?”
Tripp Collins sighed. “You know, I’m a fairly wealthy man. I’m used to the finer things in life. Now, I had the impression that Benjamin had met someone. I didn’t have any proof. But he seemed to be going out more often, spending weekends away, and he seemed….different.”
His glass was empty so I filled it all the way up with Scotch.
“Then, when I saw a Patek Philippe on Benjamin’s wrist, I understood that the person he was seeing most likely had a fair amount of money to be able to give Benjamin a gift like that.”
None of this made sense. There was no expensive watch found in Benjamin’s belongings. No laptop. Nothing.
“That night, when Benjamin was picked up? His friend was driving a Porsche,” Tripp added.
Another little something gave way inside me.
Back then, Elizabeth had driven a Porsche 911. A gift from her father.
“So then that private message popped up, clearly from a lover,” he said.
“But how did you know it was Elizabeth Pierce?” I asked.
He chugged the entire glass of Scotch.
“I didn’t. That’s why I never said anything to the cops.”
Yeah right, I thought. The Pierce family was very powerful in Grosse Pointe. And UAM may or may not have been involved with them. That’s why Tripp probably never mentioned anything.
“So what makes you so sure it was Elizabeth now?” I said. “You seemed pretty confident about it in my office when you threw it in my face.”
“Well, it said so,” he replied. “Right at the top of the message bar.”
He set the glass down and looked at me.
“Lpierce.”
Chapter Thirty
My wife snores. I tease her about it but honestly? I think it’s so cute. They aren’t big, fat guy kind of snores. They’re these gentle sounds that remind me of a puppy or something.
So it wasn’t some kind of giant snort that made my eyes snap open at four in the morning.
It was the fact that I had barely been sleeping anyway. A headache crowded my eyes and my mouth was dry.
I swung my feet out of bed, went downstairs to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. At the kitchen table, my reflection in the bay window stared back at me. A guy looking for answers. Sounded like it could be the title of my autobiography.
My mind wandered as the coffee brewed. When the steam finally announced the completion of the brewing process, I had begun wrestling once again with what Tripp Collins had told me.
I poured myself a huge cup of coffee, carried it up to my home office. Making sure the speakers were set to silent, I roused my computer from its sleep.
The brightness of the screen made me wince.
AutoDyne.
The name was lodged in my brain.
How many different ways did I need it proven to me that Benjamin and Elizabeth were lovers? Everything Tripp had said, plus, according to his sister, a new job at AutoDyne. A company owned by the Pierce family.
But then I wondered, why AutoDyne? Nate had said it was just one of a bunch of shell companies. So why had Benjamin told his sister it was AutoDyne
?
A brief Internet search gave me the basics. AutoDyne was an auto parts supplier. No big shocker there.
There were hundreds of AutoDyne type companies scattered around Detroit. So why had Benjamin gone to work there? Had Elizabeth just picked it at random because of a job opening?
I was about to close the window when I spotted the last item in the search. It was an article about a government audit into a company that supplied parts to the military. This company had provided key components for the Army’s vehicles. Everything from Humvees to cargo haulers to fuel trucks.
An investigation had been started, but I couldn’t find any trace of where the probe had gone.
At the end of the article, it stated the company being investigated was AutoDyne.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
AutoDyne didn’t even have a corporate website, but I had access to a private database of company information that wasn’t technically legal, but not horribly illegal, either.
I ran the name AutoDyne and it spat out some general information, including a list of the Board of Directors.
And when I saw the second name on the list, I realized that all of my assumptions were wrong.
Chapter Thirty-One
The printer spat out a collection of photos I had pulled together and I snatched them up, threw some clothes on and ran out to the Taurus. I realized that it was still early in the morning, but I had a feeling that the man I needed to talk to was already up.
I drove as quickly as I could, keeping in mind that Grosse Pointe Shores cops were especially vigilant when it came to speeding on Lake Shore Drive. I didn’t have time to deal with a speeding ticket.
There was no sign of life at the home of Desmond Jamison, but I figured Melvin was probably already awake. Guys like Melvin are up early, getting things done. He’d probably already had his coffee and was watching the news or reading a newspaper.
I rang the bell and waited.
Melvin Jamison opened the door and looked at me.
“Good morning,” he said. “I remember you.”
I smiled. “I remember you, too. Mr. Jamison, is there any chance I could come in and ask you a quick question or two?”
He looked me over and then made a decision.
“Sure,” he said. “Want a cup of coffee?”
I agreed, even though I was already highly caffeinated.
We went into the kitchen and I was impressed with the size of the place. It looked even bigger on the inside. Melvin led me to a huge kitchen with gleaming appliances and miles of granite countertops. The older man poured me a cup and one for himself.
He was dressed in black sweatpants with a black Nike warm up jacket.
Melvin gestured to the kitchen table that looked out onto the backyard and the swimming pool.
“I keep telling my son to fill that thing in, no one uses it,” he said, looking at the pool. “All it does is catch leaves and turn green. It requires more maintenance than a high-strung woman.”
A joke about taking a long time to heat up was on the tip of my tongue but he spoke before I could share it.
“Now what do you want to know?”
I brought out the stack of computer printouts.
“You told me that when your son bought the house, it was sold to you by a corporation, not an individual.”
He nodded. “Yep. For the life of me, though, I can’t remember the name.”
“Bluestone Limited.”
“Yes, that’s it,” he said, nodding emphatically. “I remember because the first time I heard the name I thought the house might have been owned by a musician. Because I thought the guy said Blues Tone.” He smiled. “My hearing, though…”
This was a gamble, but in my heart I knew it was right. Still, I said a silent prayer that my hunch was correct.
“Now, even though it was probably staged for sale, sometimes there are little personal effects in a house,” I said. “A shelf of photos. A couple pictures on the side of the refrigerator.”
Melvin slowly shook his head.
“No, I don’t believe there were,” he said.
I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet.
“Look, here’s the truth. I’m interested in who lived in the house just before you bought it,” I said.
“What does this have to do with the Players Association?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’m a private investigator. There was a young man murdered not far from here about six years ago, just before you bought the house. I’m looking for the previous owner. I just want to ask him some questions.”
Melvin sipped his coffee and looked at me. “I wasn’t buying your previous story, just so you know.”
I smiled. “I don’t doubt it a bit.” I took a deep breath. “Now, do you remember anything at all about who lived in the house before? Maybe when you went through before the sale?”
The old man closed his eyes. “There weren’t any photos anywhere. I remember joking about the house being vacant. It was like no one lived in it. The only time I saw anything of a personal nature was something in a kitchen drawer. Only reason I saw it was because the realtor wanted to write something down and he didn’t have a pen so he opened the drawer and there was a photo. I recall the real estate agent closed the drawer kind of fast, like he didn’t want me to see for some reason. I just figured it was some weird thing white people do.”
The stack of paper was burning in my hands. There was only one way to find out.
I turned the top page over.
“Was this man in the photo?”
Melvin Jamison looked at it. I repeated the process with the next three images, set them all out in front of him. They were of the same man.
Finally, he spoke.
“Yes, sir. That was one of the men in the photo.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
So this was Grosse Pointe.
The Spook had been here before. A couple years back, maybe. He recalled killing some accountant who had been skimming from his clients’ funds. It just so happened that one of those clients was a major player in the Mafia and didn’t take kindly to being robbed.
Needless to say, the Spook got the money back. And the accountant disappeared.
Now, he parked across from the jewelry store below Rockne’s office and looked at the street. It was pretty full with people either going to the Kroger a few doors down, or the CVS on the other side of the street, a couple blocks up.
The Spook left the car, went around behind the building and walked past where Rockne usually parked.
No sign of him.
He went to the back door, climbed the stairs and went down the hallway to the door marked Grosse Pointe Investigations.
It was locked, but not for long.
He went inside and shut the door behind him. Took in the little reception area with the goofy paintings of sailboats.
The Spook thought back to the Benjamin Collins job. He remembered Rockne as a fresh faced cop. Totally gullible. It would have been so easy to kill him then. But that wasn’t the assignment. So he hadn’t.
Past the lobby was Rockne’s office. He stepped inside and looked around. A desk with a computer. A couple of chairs. Some storage. Not much to look at.
The Spook sat down behind the computer and hit a key. It came to life.
While the screen warmed up, he glanced over at the framed picture next to the computer. A woman with two daughters. All three of them looked alike.
He smiled. Rockne’s future widow.
The Spook waited until all of the icons appeared on the screen and then he launched the Web browser. Once it appeared he scrolled up to the menu bar and clicked on the History button.
The past seven days’ worth of Internet traffic appeared on the screen. He breezed through it quickly, and then closed the browser.
He’d seen all he needed to.
It was tempting to send Rockne a little message. Maybe a bullet into the computer. Or smash the picture frame.
>
But neither one did much for him.
Besides, he figured Rockne wouldn’t live long enough to see it.
Chapter Thirty-Three
There wasn’t time to talk to Ellen in person, so I called her on my way out to the south side of Detroit, the location of AutoDyne’s headquarters.
After some harsh insistence, I finally got her on the line.
“What’s your problem?” she said. “Only I can snap at my staff. Not you.”
As briefly as possible, I filled her in on my theory.
“You’ve got no proof, John,” she said. Her voice carried the tone of a parent trying to be patient with a wayward child. “Why don’t you come in, we’ll put it all down on paper and see if we can kick-start the investigation. I’ve developed a good contact with the State Police detective. He might listen to us.”
“I can’t do that Ellen,” I said. “I need to strike while the iron is hot. Besides, who knows where that lunatic is right now. My guess is he’s probably trying to figure out how to wrap up some loose ends.”
“All the more reason for you to come in and bring more people into the loop,” she said. “People who actually know what they’re doing.”
I appreciated the jab.
“I’m on my way to AutoDyne right now, Ellen. I’ll call you afterward. It’s time to end this once and for all.”
“What are you talking about?” she said. “You’re not going to end anything. If you’re right, which has rarely ever happened, you’re just going to tip your hand.”
The anger flared up inside me. Not at Ellen, but at all of the wasted years. It was time to make someone pay for all of this. “I want to see their faces,” I said. “I want to know. I have to know. Right now. I’m not waiting.”
I hung up and blasted through Detroit, hooked a right onto a street aptly named Industrial and used my GPS to bring me to AutoDyne.
Or should I say, it brought me to the gate outside AutoDyne.
The sign outside the building was made of concrete. The letters were blue and not very big. Apparently they weren’t attempting to attract drive-by shoppers.