Catch Me When I'm Falling

by Cheryl A Head

  “How’s the agent doing with selling your place?” Gil asked. “With your riverfront location, you must have a slew of buyers.”

  “If Detroit’s economy was better that’d be the case, but the luxury condo market isn’t hot right now. My agent says not to worry. If I don’t find a buyer by Memorial Day, he says I can easily make it a rental property.”

  “How’s the packing going?” Judy asked.

  “I hate it,” Charlie said before she could catch herself. “But it’s for a good cause.”

  Judy squinted her eyes at Charlie. “I can help, you know. Moving is in my wheelhouse.”

  “I don’t want to impose on you.”

  Judy’s face took on concentration and within a few seconds she had the Broadway musical she could reference. “Ah, those good old days when we were useful; suddenly those good old days are gone; ten years we’ve been rusting; needing so much more than dusting; needing exercise, a chance to use our skills,” she sang.

  Charlie laughed. “That’s a good one.”

  Don rolled his eyes and pushed his chair back loudly.

  “Which one is that?” Gil asked.

  “‘Be Our Guest’ from Beauty and the Beast,” Charlie said, sharing a delighted smile with Judy.

  Don couldn’t stand it anymore and was already on his feet. “So, Mack, you want me to check in with the coroner’s office?”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “I better get back to work, too,” Gil said, scooping bread crumbs into his empty soup container and grabbing his lemonade. “I have to finish writing my response to the insurance company attorneys.”

  Don left his lunch cleanup to someone else and preceded Gil into the office bull pen. Charlie and Judy stared at Don’s back and then started cleaning the table.

  “I really don’t mind helping with your move, Charlie. I don’t have a lot to do right now. I could forward the office calls to my cell phone, and help you pack up.”

  “Could you really, Judy?” Charlie said giving a guilty, but hopeful look. “I’d be so grateful.”

  Chapter 3

  Charlie and Don had a 9:30 a.m. appointment at Detroit police headquarters at 1300 Beaubien, and later Charlie was scheduled to meet Ernestine’s homeless friend, Reggie McCandless, at the downtown McDonald’s. Don found parking at a meter across from the Greektown Casino. They were fifteen minutes early so they sat, windows down, enjoying the cool morning air that had a touch of spring.

  “You been attacked by the one-armed bandits lately?”

  “No. With the move and trying to sell my house there hasn’t been any time.”

  “Moving’s a big deal.”

  “Mandy’s a big deal for me.”

  Neither said anything for a few minutes. They watched the movement of blue-shirted cops going to police vehicles parked on both sides of the street. At the casino’s valet entrance, a bus dropped off a group of Japanese tourists.

  “I haven’t told you this, but I’ve often envied the life you and Rita have. I’m looking forward to being settled down and domestic.”

  “So, you’re okay with this whole gay thing?”

  “I’m okay with loving Mandy. It really feels right. You know what I mean?”

  Don had served a three-year tour of duty in Kandahar and returned to his family in Hamtramck a changed and troubled man. Eventually, he’d heeded his mother’s advice and began seeing a therapist, and volunteering with the St. Stanislaus Athletic League. That’s where, one Saturday afternoon, Rita Serraut, the aunt of one of his baseball players, caught his eye. Don and Rita dated for a year before they were married. She was a schoolteacher, and Don had just rejoined the Detroit Police Department as a patrol officer. Their son, Rudy, was almost three years old when he was tested and diagnosed with autism.

  “Well, domesticity sure does separate the men from the boys,” Don said, rolling up the windows. “Come on let’s go see Travers.”

  Police headquarters was housed in what had been one of the city’s magnificent early twentieth-century structures. The floors of the vintage building were dark marble with oak woodwork—including window sashes and bannisters, antique light fixtures, and ceramic-tiled floors. However, decades of disrepair had placed the building, designed by the architect Albert Kahn, on a long list of Detroit properties that were to be condemned.

  Captain Gerald Travers’ office on the third floor was flooded with light from two huge windows. He sat behind a large desk with neatly stacked folders on both sides, and a single sheet of paper at arm’s length. At the front of his desk was an expensive pen set and a Tiffany-style leaded-glass lamp. At his back, a credenza showed off framed family pictures. Travers was in his mid-to-late fifties with salt-and-pepper hair, giving him a distinguished look. His shirt was crisply pressed, and his smile offered straight white teeth. He had, so far, survived the FBI investigations of the beleaguered police department. He and Don greeted each other warmly.

  “It’s also good to see you again, Ms. Mack. You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “No. I’m sorry I don’t, Captain.”

  “Don’t be. It was some time ago at a Kappa fraternity party. You and Franklin were newly engaged. How is he?”

  “I think he’s fine. I haven’t spoken with him in some time. We’ve been divorced a few years.”

  “So I heard,” Travers said with a Cheshire cat smile.

  Charlie, annoyed, shifted in the thick cushion of the leather chair. Don moved the discussion to the business at hand.

  “As I mentioned on the phone, we’re wondering if DPD has any information on murders in and around Cass Avenue involving burned bodies.”

  “That seems an odd case for a private investigation firm. Who’s paying you?”

  “No one,” Don said. “A friend flagged the murders for us. Someone who knew the second man the papers reported on. His name was Eddie Rodriguez.”

  “We’ve not released the names of any victims.”

  “Why is that?” Charlie asked.

  “It’s still an ongoing investigation, Ms. Mack.”

  “But can you confirm for us that Rodriguez is one of the dead men?” Don asked.

  Travers gave a quick glance at the paper on his desk. “Yes, he was one of the men.”

  “So you have detectives assigned to this case?” Charlie asked.

  “As I said, it’s an open investigation.”

  Charlie decided she didn’t like Captain Travers. She splashed on a smile and looked down at her notes to break eye contact and give Don the signal they used when she wanted to take a backseat to the conversation. She pretended her pen wasn’t working, then reached into her bag for another.

  “Is there anything else you can tell us?” Don asked. “We were told there might be more of these murders.”

  Charlie felt Travers staring at her, but she didn’t look up from her notebook. She hoped her dismissiveness irritated him.

  “This information is off the record, but we’re investigating nine similar murders.”

  Charlie’s head whipped up to Travers’ face. He gave her a smug smile. She glanced quickly at Don before reinserting herself into the conversation.

  “You have nine men who have been burned to death?”

  “Eight men and a woman,” Travers corrected. “Over the last six months.”

  “That sounds like a serial killer,” Don noted.

  “We don’t know that. We haven’t been able to identify most of the bodies, and there’s no clear cause of death for many of them.”

  “So they weren’t burned to death?” Charlie asked.

  “Three, we know, were shot before they were burned. Two died of asphyxiation.”

  “Why haven’t you warned people?”

  “We don’t have any clear information to provide to the public. Besides, these murders are affecting only a small segment of the population.”

  “Yeah, the segment that the police don’t give a damn about,” Charlie said derisively.

  # # #
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  “Well, that went well,” Don hollered, trying to catch up to Charlie. “Hey, slow down.”

  Charlie twirled around to face Don. “What?”

  “Travers is just doing what it takes to survive. It’s not very stable on the force right now.”

  “That’s why I think he’s blowing smoke when he says they’re investigating these murders. They have nine bodies, Don. Nine.”

  “I know. After you stormed out, Travers reminded me that information is off the record.”

  “Why do you think he told us?”

  “He probably wouldn’t mind if we can actually help him with the case. Also, I think he was trying to impress you.”

  “It’s too late for him to impress me.”

  “Why, because he brought up Franklin?”

  “Because he’s a prick.”

  “Prick or not. He was very clear. He does not want the media to play up the notion that there is a serial killer.”

  “But what if there is?”

  # # #

  Reggie had two fish filet sandwiches, fries, and a large coffee for his noon meal while Charlie opted for fries, a Quarter Pounder with cheese, and a Coke. They sat at a booth near the front window where Reggie had prepared their dining spot with two stacks of napkins, straws, forks, and four paper ramekins filled with ketchup. He removed the paper placemat from the tray and laid it in front of him, then delicately opened the wrapper on his first sandwich, smoothed out the wrinkles, and poured a scoop of fries onto the paper.

  “I don’t get to eat McDonald’s food very often,” Charlie said, starting the small talk.

  “Neither do I,” Reggie responded.

  He’d cleaned up for this meeting. He had stood in line that morning at the Presbyterian church’s clothes pantry and had picked out a pair of gray cotton pants, a green plaid shirt that was a bit too big for him, and clean underwear and socks. Then, at the Salvation Army shelter, he’d taken a shower and washed his hair. The only evidence of his homeless state was his worn, dirty sneakers.

  “Your mother, Eddie, and I ate here before,” Reggie added.

  Charlie gave Reggie an earnest look, but he looked down at his food and glanced up only once while she spoke. “You don’t know how grateful I am for the help you gave my mother last summer. Things might have been really bad for her if you and Eddie hadn’t been there.”

  “She’s a very good woman. She already told Eddie and me you were grateful.”

  “You miss him, don’t you?”

  Now Reggie looked up. His watery blue eyes were red-veined and watery with the stress of his body’s separation from alcohol. His hands vibrated a bit against the paper. He gave a wistful smile, revealing a missing front tooth.

  “Every man needs a friend like Eddie,” Reggie said. “He let you be yourself. Didn’t try to tell you what to do, and when you were full of shit he’d tell you so. We didn’t have to talk all the time. We could just sit together and be who we were. I’d spend time with him almost every day, so when I couldn’t find him, I knew something bad had happened.”

  “Were you the one who found his body?”

  “No. But when I heard there was another burning behind Cass Liquors, I knew it was Eddie before I got there.”

  “How did you identify him if . . .” Charlie wanted to be sensitive in her wording. “If the body was burned?”

  “I recognized his shirt.” Reggie saw Charlie’s puzzled look, took a drink of his coffee with shaking hands, and continued.

  “He was wearing three shirts. That’s the way you dress on the street. He always wore a Superman T-shirt. His coat and his outer shirt were burned, but the scorched ‘S’ was the first thing I saw when I walked up on him, lying on his back in that alley. Somebody just dumped him there.”

  Charlie shuddered, and sipped her drink. She knew what it was like to be dumped and left for dead. She pushed that dark memory away and realized Reggie was staring at her.

  “Your mother told us what happened to you in Birmingham. That was some bad business. How did you decide to become a private investigator?”

  “It’s like I told my mother. A black woman being an investigator seems obvious. We’ve been solving complex problems all our lives because we know how to put two and two together, see past the BS, cut through red tape, and get things done.”

  Charlie took a big bite of her Quarter Pounder to punctuate her statement. Reggie gave a bigger grin, this time also revealing dark gums.

  “I see the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “Yeah, I have to admit, I’m a lot like my mother.”

  “I bet you’re wondering about me. How I got to be in this state.”

  Charlie shook her head to disagree, but Reggie interrupted her. “Of course you are. You just said it yourself. You want to know that two and two adds up to four. I don’t mind telling you my story.”

  He dipped a few fries into his ketchup and took another gulp of the still-hot coffee, then laced his fingers together and began to talk. He’d been a seminary student once, well on his way to being ordained when he was faced with a choice of conscience. He’d discovered one of the priests in the diocese had molested boys for years. He went to a bishop with the scandalous information—someone he admired and who had been one of his teachers—and was made to feel guilty and disloyal. After he left the seminary and the church far behind, he enlisted in the army’s chaplain corps, deployed to Vietnam. That’s where he first met Eddie Rodriguez, and they survived two years together.

  “A lot of broken men came back from that war,” Charlie said.

  “Broken in different ways. After I was discharged I volunteered with the Veterans Administration doing group counseling sessions. That’s how I reconnected with Eddie. He had just gotten divorced, and his sister had kicked him out of her house in Saginaw.”

  “How did you both become homeless?”

  “Eddie was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He couldn’t stand to be indoors at night, and couldn’t sleep, so he walked around all night. But that behavior doesn’t work when you live with other people—like a wife or a sister. So he took to the streets.

  “And me? I’m an alcoholic. Plain and simple. I gave up pretending I would stop drinking years ago. Eddie didn’t judge me or try to change me.”

  Reggie’s shaking became more prominent as he talked. He’d eaten only his fries, and one of the fish filet sandwiches. Several times, he ran his thin fingers through his graying blond hair and tightened his eyes. Charlie thought he wouldn’t be able to concentrate much longer.

  “Mom believed what you told her about there being more burned bodies. We confirmed it with the police today, but that’s off the record.”

  “They didn’t even believe me when I told them it was Eddie,” Reggie said with welling, bloodshot eyes. “He asked me to walk with him the night he disappeared. But I was tired, and I had half a bottle left so I put out my sleeping bag. I never saw him again.”

  # # #

  “So he used to be a priest?” Don asked, standing over Charlie’s desk.

  “He left the church before he was ordained, but he was serving as a pastoral counselor.”

  “Did he ask you for money?”

  “He said he wanted to buy a bottle, so I gave him twenty bucks. You should have seen him. He was about to come out of his skin.”

  “He’s a white man with an education and a lot of options, and he chooses to be a drunk,” Don said with contempt.

  “I’m surprised at your attitude. We don’t know the stories of any of the people we saw yesterday. I’m thinking ‘there but for the grace of God.’”

  “Nah, Mack. You’d never be an alcoholic. You’re too much of a control freak.”

  “Alcoholism is a disease. You don’t get to choose your disease.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Don wasn’t going to be moved from his bias, so he stopped the argument and sat in Charlie’s side chair.

  “I think we have to try to get the identiti
es of the other people who were killed. Maybe Parker can help us. The NSO must keep client records.”

  “You’re assuming all the dead bodies are homeless people?”

  “Yes. For now. You think Travers would give us the identities of the others?”

  “He said most of the bodies were John Does, but if we gave him something, that might help.”

  “Okay. Call Parker. Tell him as much as you can about our conversation with Travers. See if he has any ideas about who the other victims might be. Ask him if there are clients who have dropped off their radar lately.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Well, it looks like we might have a real case here so I’m going to let Ernestine know.”

  # # #

  Ernestine was shaken by the news. It was a pleasant afternoon, and she’d been reading on her balcony when Charlie joined her. “Nine souls,” she said, looking sad. “I didn’t really want to believe Reggie. Immolation is a horrible way to die.”

  “The police say some of the people were dead before they were burned. We’re trying to get more information. Most haven’t even been identified.”

  “I want to help, Charlene.”

  “You’ve already been a help—you and Reggie. Now maybe we can get some attention for these victims.”

  “I mean I want to help with the case. You know I’m a very efficient researcher.”

  “I know that, Mom, but . . .”

  “Charlene. I need to help. It will give me a way to repay Reggie and Eddie. They saved my life.”

  “I don’t know about that. They certainly came to your aid . . .”

  Ernestine interrupted again. “You weren’t there.”

  The words hung in the air. Like most mothers, Ernestine knew what buttons to push to invoke Charlie’s guilt. They glared at each other in a mother-daughter standoff.

  “That wasn’t fair,” Charlie finally said.

  “I know.”

  “It could be a big help to us if you could verify some of the information we’ve gotten about Eddie,” Charlie said, acquiescing.