Catch Me When I'm Falling

by Cheryl A Head

  After leaving her mother’s apartment, Charlie drove the four miles to the Mack Agency where Don and Gil sat at their respective desks in the office bull pen. Judy pulled up a chair next to Charlie at the desk that had once belonged to Charlie’s father. Their modern office suite in downtown Detroit was one of the trappings of an up-and-coming private investigation firm.

  “I don’t think there’s much to this investigation. It probably won’t take more than a couple of days, and I’m obviously not going to charge my mother for this work,” Charlie said to her partners. “So, what do you think?”

  “Well, we’re not hurting for money right now,” Don said. “The fee from the auto show case should keep us healthy through summer.”

  Judy nodded. She took care of the accounting. “Our books look good. In a few weeks, we’re to start the employee clearance checks for Wayne County Courts. That’ll be a nice paycheck as well.”

  “That gives us some downtime unless a real case comes along,” Charlie said.

  “I have a couple days of work on the filing for the class-action suit,” Gil said. “The hospital has pushed back on allowing one of the patient depositions. I’ll be clear after that.”

  “Then it sounds like it’s a go,” Charlie announced. “This morning, I’ll drive around the area where the bodies were found to get the lay of the land, and then sometime this week, maybe tomorrow, I’ll meet with Reggie.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Don said. “Cass Corridor was my first patrol area.”

  “I don’t really know much about the Corridor,” Gil said.

  “It was once a thriving neighborhood. An enclave of artists, activists, and ethnic populations,” Charlie said. “It’s where the old Chinatown used to be.”

  “What I remember is the chronically homeless, the do-gooders, rowdy students, and fleabag hotels. But, there were some good restaurants,” Don conceded.

  “My older brother’s high school graduation dinner was at the Chin Tiki,” Judy said. “It was the place all the kids wanted to go after the senior prom.”

  “Mom talked about that restaurant, too,” Charlie said. “They had the fake volcanoes inside, drinks with umbrellas—a whole Polynesian theme.”

  “Yes, that’s how my brother described it,” Judy said.

  “The place was closed down by the time I became a patrol officer, but we drove by it every day. I believe the sign and carvings are still on the door. You’re too young to remember, Acosta.”

  “No, I’m not,” Gil said to Don. “The Chin Tiki was in Eminem’s movie, Eight Mile.”

  Don’s face went blank, and he looked to Charlie for help.

  “You’re too old to remember, Don,” Judy said with a smirk.

  # # #

  As usual, Don insisted on driving. They headed north on Woodward, passing near Ford Field—the new home of the Detroit Lions—and the iconic Fox Theatre and acrossing the Fisher freeway. They turned west onto Temple Street, crossing over Cass Avenue and passing the Masonic Temple, then continued north on Second Avenue. Don drove slowly along block after block of empty lots and vacant buildings. The blight was occasionally broken by a house in need of paint and a lawn mower, or a small business struggling for a foothold.

  “Eddie’s body was found on Peterboro,” Charlie said, looking at her mother’s news clippings, then pointing. “Over there in the alley behind that liquor store.”

  Don pulled into the narrow gravel alley. A vacant car hindered their ability to drive all the way through, so Don turned into the parking lot of an adjacent liquor store.

  “You want to get out and look?” Don asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Charlie said, looking at her suit slacks and designer boots. “I’m not dressed for alleys today. Before I spoke with Mom this morning I was just going to use the day to drum up some business.”

  “Okay, you stay here. I’ll give things a quick peek, and then let’s go in the store and see what the owner has to say.”

  Don walked to the alley, while Charlie scanned their surroundings from the car. An orange Camaro with black racing stripes pulled into the lot from Second Avenue. A young man, maybe Black or Hispanic, hopped out of the passenger door and retrieved something from the car’s trunk. The driver pumped up a rap song filled with the N-word, and glanced over at Charlie. She rolled up her window. When Don rounded the corner from the rear of the building, Charlie joined him.

  “Anything?”

  “I saw a dead cat, but nothing else. I assume the police checked the alley when they took the body.”

  The driver of the Camaro abruptly turned off the music, and he and his two passengers gave Don and Charlie their attention as they entered the store. The business was part liquor outlet, and part junk-food paradise. The side walls held various alcoholic offerings, and the length of the back wall was refrigerated storage for beer, wine, nonalcoholic drinks, and water. In the center of the store were six plastic racks filled with assorted chips, popcorn, candy, gum, nuts, packaged cheese-and-crackers, cookies, cake slices, sleeves of donuts, and packaged pies.

  The proprietor was an unshaven white man with black hair stiff from gel and unblinking dark eyes. A toothpick dangled from his mouth and his hands were hidden behind the counter.

  “You the cops?” His voice was husky.

  “We want to ask you a couple of questions,” Don said, sidestepping the query, letting him believe they were police.

  “What about?”

  Charlie picked up the interrogation: “A few weeks ago a man was found dead in the rear of your building. The body was burned. What can you tell me about that?”

  “Like I said to the other cops, a customer ran in here and told me about it. I didn’t even know there was a body back there.”

  “You Russian?” Don asked out of nowhere.

  The man gave Don a “fuck you” look, and Charlie didn’t allow the pissing contest to escalate.

  “You happen to know the dead man?”

  “No.”

  “What about the customer who told you about the body, know him?”

  “Parker. He works over at NSO.”

  “You know anything else?” Don interjected.

  The proprietor glared at Don and sucked his teeth. “The only thing I pay attention to is who comes in and out of that door, and this cash register.”

  The Camaro still idled in the parking lot as they left the liquor store. Don walked behind Charlie, and when they reached the car made a big deal of letting her into the Buick. He threw a look back at the Chevy guys.

  “What was that all about?” Charlie asked.

  “I’m making a point.”

  “What point is that? You Tarzan, me Jane?”

  “I just want that crew to be aware I know they see us, and we see them. Where to?”

  “Let’s drive around a bit more, and then we can go to NSO, that’s the Neighborhood Services Organization. It’s over on Third.”

  Don turned onto Second Avenue toward West Canfield, where the Traffic Jam and Snug restaurant, affectionately known as TJ’s, was a mainstay. It was lunchtime, with diners coming in and out.

  “When I was a student at Wayne State, I spent many an hour in TJ’s drinking beer,” Charlie said.

  “I didn’t know you liked beer.”

  “I don’t really. I prefer wine. But back then, drinking beer was the thing to do.”

  “My patrol partner and I ate dinner there at least once a week for two years,” Don said. “I love their meatloaf.”

  “I was a fish and chips girl.”

  “That’s really good with beer.”

  On West Canfield, they drove one block east to Cass Avenue, then turned south. They traveled slowly, taking in the sights of hotels, an auto parts store, a couple of church missions, and several homeless shelters. They crossed over Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and continued down Cass. There was only the occasional pedestrian, and they passed an elderly lady pushing a grocery cart filled with bags and clothes.

  �
�I’d hate to think she’s homeless,” Charlie said.

  “Hard to tell. She could live in one of the rooming houses in the area, and there aren’t a lot of options for grocery shopping or doing laundry, so she’d need a cart.”

  They traveled across the busy Fisher freeway again and saw the shell of the Chin Tiki.

  “There she is. Still boarded up,” Don said.

  “Okay, this is basically where we started out. Let’s turn around and head over to NSO. We’ll pass the place where the first body was found.”

  They rolled by two more liquor stores on the east side of Cass Avenue and the long-standing Temple Bar.

  “That place used to rock on Saturday nights,” Don said.

  “I haven’t been in that bar for years.”

  “I’m surprised. They get a big gay crowd. Thought maybe you and Mandy went there to dance.”

  “Not quite our scene,” Charlie responded.

  They crossed Charlotte Street, and Charlie pointed. “There, next to that building, that’s where the police found the first burned body.”

  “No cars are parked around here, and there’s no foot traffic even in the middle of the day,” Don noted. “If these men were killed at night, there’d be nobody to see.”

  “You heard back from your police contact yet?”

  “No. Not yet. Maybe I’ll call him again. I’m sure the department knows more about these murders than the papers are reporting.”

  “Hey, let’s stop at the Avalon Bakery. Keep going up Cass and take a left at West Willis.”

  “Good idea. I could use a couple of donuts.”

  “They don’t have donuts. But they bake an out-of-this-world sourdough bread, and there are oatmeal cookies that’ll make you want to slap your mama.”

  The Avalon was a woman-owned local bakery whose mix of organic flour, yeast, sugar, and other ingredients was blended with social consciousness and a commitment to community. They often hired people from the neighborhood, and they supported local growers. The place bristled with students, early lunchers, and coffee drinkers. Charlie spotted only a half-dozen oatmeal cookies in the display case. She prayed with each forward step in the line that the goodies would be there when she got to the register.

  “Have you been helped? How are you today?”

  “Good,” Charlie said, pointing and smiling. “I want those.”

  The cashier gave her a knowing look. “You know, huh?”

  “Yep, I know.”

  Charlie left the bakery with two cups of coffee, a loaf of sourdough bread, and the six oatmeal cookies. She passed the coffee through the car window to Don, then opened the door.

  “Try these; they’re oatmeal raisin.”

  Don took a tentative first bite of the moist cookie. A satisfied look came over his face. He ate the rest of the cookie in two enthusiastic bites and swallowed a gulp of black coffee. Charlie watched and smiled. After Don reached into the bag for another cookie, Charlie grabbed two and stuffed them into the bag of sourdough to save for later.

  “These are good,” Don said, swigging another swallow of coffee to wash down the second cookie.

  “I couldn’t tell you liked them.”

  “I talked to my guy at the department,” Don said, brushing cookie crumbs from his jacket. “He has new information about the bodies. Said he could see us tomorrow.”

  “Okay. That’s good. Maybe I’ll schedule time to meet with Reggie tomorrow, too. Let’s double back and see if we can talk to this Parker guy.”

  The scene outside the NSO was not as pleasant as at the bakery. A free lunch was being served out of a church van set up near the parking lot, and a long line of people inched ahead for the food and drink. The sidewalk waste containers overflowed with trash, and many of the plastic food containers and cups gathered along the curbs on both sides of the block. Along Third Street a snaggle-toothed row of white plastic chairs was occupied by the homeless as they ate and lingered.

  “This is a sorry sight,” Don stated.

  “Homelessness doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There are a lot of reasons people end up in these desperate situations, and NSO takes on the hard-core population. To look around, you might think it’s a black problem, but it’s not, Don.”

  “How do you know so much about it?”

  “My mother’s opinion pieces for the newspapers.”

  # # #

  After backing the Buick into one of the visitor spaces, they entered the front door, and approached a security guard sitting behind a desk. He apparently served as the receptionist as well.

  “Hi. We’re here to see Mr. Parker,” Charlie said. “We don’t have an appointment, but we have some important business with him.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Charlene Mack.”

  “Does he know you?”

  “No. But here’s my card.”

  The guard looked at the card, and then to Charlie and Don with some skepticism. His expression registered a ton of questions, but he didn’t ask any. Don and Charlie held their ground.

  “Let me see if he’s available,” the man finally said, pointing. “You can have a seat over there.”

  Across from the security desk, a see-through door with a keypad led to a small courtyard. The adjacent lobby had six rows of worn chairs, and several wood coffee tables with a variety of brochures and flyers about available programs and services. A water fountain had a handwritten sign taped to its front, which read, “out of order.” Charlie and Don sat in the last row of chairs with a good view of the room and the double doors of the entryway, which was flanked by two planters of artificial ferns.

  A young woman who looked to be in her early 20s sat on a bench along the wall with three children, all of whom appeared to be under eight. The two younger kids played with miniature plastic dolls with pink and green hair, and the older boy read a book. The only other person in the lobby was a middle-aged white man wearing blue work pants, sneakers, a denim shirt, and a Red Wings baseball cap. He held tightly to a folder overflowing with paper.

  Within a minute a female staffer with an upswept braided hairdo and wearing a long-sleeved white cotton shirt and dark slacks came to the perimeter of the lobby and called out a name. The man with the stack of papers walked reluctantly toward the woman. She said something Charlie couldn’t hear, then held out her hand. The man returned the gesture with a weak handshake.

  “Ms. Mack?”

  Charlie heard her name from behind them. She rose and turned, followed by Don, and they made their way to the door of the courtyard where a youngish African-American man was holding her business card.

  “I’m Jordon Parker. You’re really a private investigator?”

  “I am. And this is Don Rutkowski. He’s an investigator, too.”

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “No. We just want to talk to you about a man who was found dead a few weeks ago. Eddie Rodriguez?”

  Parker looked somber. “You mind if we talk in the courtyard? I was just about to take a smoke break.”

  Charlie sat upwind of Parker’s cigarette, while Don stood near the tiny courtyard’s wrought-iron fence, pleased to have a view of his parked car from that vantage point. Parker looked to be in his early thirties, a thin, handsome man with the beginnings of gray in his manicured beard. He had one stud in his left ear, and wore his hair in the short dreadlocks style a lot of men wore these days.

  “We understand you found Eddie’s body?” Charlie began.

  “No. A client found him. I just walked over to verify that it was Eddie. At that point, nobody had called the police so I’m the one who called it in.” Parker shook his head at the memory and took a long drag on his Newport.

  “Was Eddie also a client?”

  “He was for a while. But he’d moved on to a residential program. Did you know he was a veteran?”

  Charlie shook her head.

  “Vietnam. He had some problems with PTSD and addiction, but he had begun regular counseling through the VA and w
as starting to get better. He was thinking about moving in with his sister.”

  “He has a sister?” Don asked.

  Parker took a final drag of his cigarette, and stubbed it into the sand ashtray next to his bench. He shifted his body to answer Don.

  “Yes. I believe she lives in Saginaw. Eddie hadn’t been in touch with her for a long time, but they’d recently been communicating with each other.”

  Don wrote something in his notebook. Charlie watched Parker take out another cigarette, light it, and pull in the smoke. As he exhaled, he looked at Charlie’s business card.

  “Why are you guys investigating Eddie’s murder anyway? You working with the police?”

  “No. An interested third party hired us.”

  Parker weighed that information. “I couldn’t get the police interested at all. They didn’t ask many questions, just gathered up Eddie’s body and took him away.”

  “Well, I appreciate your seeing us, Mr. Parker,” Charlie said and stood. She nodded at Don, who left his vigil at the gate.

  “Wait. Don’t you want to hear what I told the police?”

  “What was that?” Don asked.

  “I told them there was a rumor about other burned bodies being found in the Corridor.”

  # # #

  “Several bodies? That’s incredible,” Gil said. “Were they all homeless men?”

  “That, we don’t know,” Don said.

  “Burned to death,” Judy said and shivered. “This isn’t the best lunchtime conversation.”

  Charlie and Don had stopped for soup on the way back to the office. Judy retrieved containers of butter from the fridge, and cut open a brown paper bag to make a makeshift cutting board for the sourdough bread. Charlie and Judy had opted for a hearty vegetable soup, Gil had ordered chicken noodle, and Don had decided on chili con carne. The Mack partners ate at the conference table.

  “Well, what do you want to talk about, Novak?” Don asked. He dipped a chunk of buttered bread into the container of chili.

  “Charlie’s move. It’s so exciting. Are you all set for your closing?”

  “Everything’s on track. We’ll do the closing at the title office next week, and Mandy closes on her apartment the week after.”