Shot In Detroit

by Patricia Abbott

  Wylie Edwards, the Jackson kid whose truck was hijacked along with his life, looking younger than his years. Ted might not be willing to include him. He didn’t fill out his clothing and didn’t begin to fill out his bone structure. His mouth looked like a set of braces had been recently removed, a bit unnatural still, but resigned. All the deaths had been unfair, but his seemed the most so.

  Ancil Battle, the loan officer. His photo turned out better than I expected. A solemnity that caught the eye. Watchful, careful. He probably would’ve moved up in the bank quickly. A black man with a good education and nice looks—but here he was with the rest of them. There was no escape in Detroit.

  Nine dead men. I worried incessantly that the photos wouldn’t be distinct enough—a dozen black men of a similar age, all dead, all lying in a casket, each shot from the same angle. Would they be like the shopping carts? But Bill helped out by giving each a unique look through his attire. It was eerie, unsettling, and I loved it. I loved Bill’s work, but did he love mine? Did he believe in this project? Why was I still holding out with him over Ted Ernst’s part in it? How long had it been since he offered me a compliment on any of the photos? My approval or appreciation of Bill was evident in the work. I’d made it an essential element in the photographs. His appreciation had yet to be won. Did he see my work as more than reportorial—like that first picture of the soccer player? Or exploitative—as he hinted more each time? Was I like the photographer in Wisconsin Death Trip to Bill? Cataloging death for the record. Artless and automatic. Hardly more talented than the guy he brought in when people requested a photo.

  Shrugging off this unsettling thought, I went over and got the best photo I’d shot of the hands and feet Derek had found, one of the ones I’d enlarged before Inspector Saad took the contact sheets away, and set it alongside the others. I knew I wouldn’t use it, but it was also about death, perhaps a more potent look at it. Standing there for a minute or two, I noticed something for the first time. I walked across the room, and it became clearer still. I went to the worktable and pulled a magnifying glass out of the drawer. How could I have missed it? That oblique illumination I’d mustered through the use of Derek’s lanterns had cast a shadow in the right spot, creating a contrast. Damn. Now what?

  Detroi Free Press: Father Walter Bertram, age 39, of St. Alban’s Church, died Friday of an AIDS-related illness. Rev. Paul Patterson, who runs Sanctuary House in Detroit, identified the priest’s illness openly at Father Bertram’s request in an attempt to make the public aware of the epidemic of AIDS among priests. “Most affected priests suffer in solitude, often not seeking treatment due to the stigma attached to the disease for those in the priesthood,” Rev. Patterson stated. Six out of ten priests, responding to a recent survey, said they knew fellow priests who had died of an AIDS-related illness. One-third knew of a priest living with AIDS.

  (August 2011)

  Diogenes was late. I sat in the Apollo Restaurant impatient and nursing a glass of red wine, the kind made from retsina—whatever that was. I had the impression it was a substance closely related to paint thinner. It’d probably provoke a headache within the hour, but the waiter was so pleased with my choice, I didn’t have it in me to send it back. After the same waiter’s third or fourth inquiry as to whether I’d like an appetizer I gave in and ordered the flaming cheese dish, saganaki.

  “Opa,” the waiter shouted, bringing it to the table seconds later, a dark-eyed hand-maiden at his elbow to assist him, both of them appearing vastly relieved I’d ordered Greektown’s signature dish.

  Patrons at nearby tables smiled their approval; a light applause broke out. I watched politely as the waiter held the blazing platter up, setting it down on the table carefully, as though the cheese was sacred: a holy Greek ritual. The handmaiden flourished a lemon and a lid, making sure the flame died without incident. This ceremony took place repeatedly at the Apollo and at the half-dozen other Greek restaurants on Monroe Street. It didn’t disappoint. On inspection, I wasn’t sure the waiter was Greek; Russians and Eastern Europeans seemed to have taken over serving food to Detroiters. His accent was certainly suspect, and I thought the girl had called him Serge.

  Di arrived at ten, a dangerously late hour to order a legitimate dinner on a weeknight in Detroit. But the staff seemed to know Di, and the waiter took the order without the frowns and head-shaking usually accompanying attempts to dine late. My stock always rose when a man accompanied me, especially a well-known Detroit mortician or chef. If only I was half as famous as my escorts. Di picked up the menu and ordered for us both, selecting items he deemed semi-authentic.

  After the waiter scurried off, he said, “So what’s up, my little jailbird? Any more run-ins with Detroit’s finest?”

  I filled him in more fully on the events at Belle Isle.

  “I’m flabbergasted they let you take off after this last incident. Who has a better motive than you to get rid of old Eric?” I started to correct him but he jumped in. “Right, Derek. Wonder if they’re following you? The cops. Isn’t that what happens in Law and Order? Don’t the cops let you leave the station so they can follow you to your lair and bring down the kingpins too? Who’s your kingpin, Vi?”

  “I feel pretty damned horrible,” I began, “though I’m positive he’d have acted no differently once he saw those—body parts.” The distance I’d kept between me and other people my whole life had been healthy. Now it’d closed in, and I was nauseated most of the time.

  “You should feel guilty! He was trying to get into your pants, no doubt, and figured it’d take severed body parts to do it.” This was said with the dose of irony Di seldom left behind. He took a sip of my wine and blanched. “How do you drink this stuff?” He slapped the glass down on the table. “I bet our young Derek believed he was going to get laid. That’s how boys in their twenties think. Give the lady a severed hand and she’ll give you a hand job. Need I add a similar maxim about toes?” I shook my head, and he slid the half-eaten plate of saganaki across the table, frowning. “Are you eating this artery-clogging cheese, for God’s sake? Good rule, Vi, if it congeals on the plate, pass it up.”

  “I think you’re crediting me with way too much influence. The kid had pretty weird stuff hanging from his concrete slabs long before I came along. He would’ve found those body parts and mounted them regardless. You didn’t see the dog’s jaw or doll’s head.” I took another bite of the saganaki. “It was more a meshing of two minds. Derek’s and mine, I mean.” I was saying these things but didn’t exactly believe them.

  “Did you say ‘a messing of two minds’?”

  We looked up together as the waiter brought us sea bass with steamed spinach and lentils. Di took an experimental bite and smiled up at the waiter, who beamed his relief. A little more lip and teeth than was absolutely necessary too if I read him correctly. Di didn’t pick up on it though. He was boringly faithful to Alberto. Had he ever strayed? Was I missing that specific gene, the quality that made you stick it out through thick and thin? Well, what example did I have in my father?

  After the waiter left, Di said in a low voice, “Food’s passable and not unhealthy so let’s be thankful. Why do you choose this place so often?”

  We looked around at the battered wood paneling, the dog-eared posters of Greece, the dusty fan spinning motes above us, the waiters in ancient tuxes and yellowed white shirts. “Can’t be the ambience and I doubt it’s the food.” He squeezed lemon over his spinach and held out what was left.

  “No thanks. As you should know by now, twenty years into our friendship, I’m pretty indifferent to food. Place is cheap and midway between us.” I looked around pointedly. “And it’s not pretentious—like other area establishments that will remain nameless. Plus it has the added value of making you crazy.”

  “Well, it makes me physically ill to hear that you take good food so lightly. Let me pick the restaurant next time. I’m sure I can find a new spot to tickle your taste buds.”

  I took a bite of the fish. It
tasted fine if dull. Fish was fish, why pretend otherwise?

  “Something else, isn’t there? You have a distracted look on your face.” He reached across the table for my hand. “Romantic troubles, sweetie? Bill giving you a hard time? Holding back in the bedroom now he’s supplying bodies?” Di let go of my hand and sat up straighter. “Mixing love and business, especially your kind of business, is dicey. Bill’s probably looking for a woman who takes his mind off the corpses, not a girl who’s turned on by them.” He sniffed. “Smells like you’re beginning to bring the odor home with you.” He looked at me suspiciously. “Where were you before coming here?”

  I sniffed too, detecting only garlic, and shook my head. “At home surveying my recent work if you must know. And I was damned impressed with myself.”

  Di was examining a piece of fish—probably for bones—so I tapped his plate with my fork to get his attention. “Things aren’t going well at the moment with Bill and me, but that’s not the immediate problem.” I put down the fork and reached for my bag, pulling out the photo I’d brought along. “Look at this, will you?”

  Di took the photo and did a double take. “Couldn’t you have warned me what was coming across the transom? Jeez! I thought it might be that boy toy chef in Troy you photographed.” He looked again, turning greener. “You might be used to this stuff by now, but I only see severed hands and feet when I butcher animals. These,” he made another face, “are clearly human remains.”

  “I thought you knew the kind of pictures I’ve been taking, Di. You’re the one who brought me that appalling book.”

  “The bodies in Death Trip were intact, centuries old, almost fictional, certainly mythical. I hardly believed in them at all. This photograph’s in a whole different realm.”

  He put the photo facedown on the table, pushed his plate away, and took a deep breath. Pulling a pair of tiny glasses from his pocket, he looked around furtively as he put them on, flipped the photo over, and took another look.

  “Lord, girl, it’s a wonder the cops didn’t cart both of you away after seeing this.” He whistled softly. “Don’t know what’s worse, Derek nailing these body parts on his concrete or you taking a photo of it. Quite a pair, aren’t you? Any wonder the murderer disposed of him? Probably thought your boy saw the whole thing go down.” He looked up. “Do they use that phrase anymore in criminal activity? Go down. Seems to be only a sexual reference nowadays.”

  “Back to the picture,” I said, tapping it gently.

  “Must’ve happened right on the island.”

  He still wasn’t looking at the right spot. Perhaps it took a practiced eye.

  “You don’t see it, do you? I don’t think the cops noticed either.” Di looked at me with a puzzled look, clearly at sea. “I didn’t see it at first either. Look more carefully, Di.” I pulled the magnifying glass out of my bag and passed it to him.

  “I can see the body parts, as we seem to be calling them tonight, pretty damned well without any help. Don’t need to look at the saw marks, do I? Isn’t that what was used? Some big-assed hacksaw?”

  “Nobody’s shared any information with me, being I’m their number one suspect. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Look at his ankle. The right one.” I pulled the photo away from Di and pointed to the spot.

  “What the hell is it?” he asked, taking the photo back and using the magnifier now. “Is it a tattoo? Sure looks like a tattoo.”

  “I thought so at first, but I think it’s the mark or tracing a tight ankle bracelet makes on your skin if you wear it all the time. You know, like a watch makes on your wrist. It’s lucky there was enough light to get the impression on film.”

  “It is a man, right? What kind of man wears an ankle bracelet? And I ask that question coming from—well, where I come from.”

  “He’s a man all right. Look at the size of those feet.”

  His feet were huge. Probably a size thirteen or fourteen.

  “Difficult to judge size with nothing to compare them to. Maybe they look big because it’s an extreme close-up.”

  “Trust me, those babies were big. I saw them firsthand,” I said. “Could the ankle bracelet be a military accessory? Sort of a Green Beret emblem or logo?”

  “Do you think I know squat about the military?” He looked into the air for a few seconds. “Wait just a minute. Could what we see here be the tracings of a home detention tag? I’m not sure if those things leave marks though. Seems like that would be a violation of civil rights. Marking you for life like that. What did the inspector have to say about it?” Di put the picture down but picked it up again, wincing. “No marks at all on his hands. So he wears ankle bracelets but no rings or a watch?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t think Saad or any of his people noticed the marks,” I repeated, lowering my voice. “At least, not as of yesterday. They might’ve taken a better look at my photos by today though. Now that another death’s occurred.”

  “So how do you know the marks weren’t on their pictures too? The ones the police photographer shot?”

  “Saad happened to fan a bunch of police photos in front of me and I’m almost positive there were no marks on the ankle in those shots. He’d blown them up bigger than these. I would’ve noticed.”

  “How do you explain it?” Di was whispering too. “No marks on their copies.”

  We both looked around; the place had suddenly grown eerily quiet. But a second look confirmed it was quiet because it was empty—empty except for our waiter, who was trying to look nonchalant as he dozed, head on hand, at his service station.

  “I think the marks or imprint must have dissipated or faded by the next day—if that’s the right word for it. Disappeared. Probably twenty-four hours or more had passed by the time the police photographer got there with his camera.” I looked at him. “Is that the right word? Dissipated?”

  “Has to be what happened whatever you call it. Do you think whoever killed the guy ripped the bracelet off so he couldn’t be identified?”

  “Well, duh! If this fellow’s murderers went to the trouble of hacking him up, they’d do that, wouldn’t they? Wonder if any teeth were missing. They always seem to identify people from dental records. Maybe they yanked them too.”

  “They only go to dental records when they’ve an idea about who it is. You have to know which dentist to consult. Right?”

  “No huge dental database to check with yet?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. So what’re you gonna do?”

  I steepled my hands—hands that were sweating. “Am I wrong or is it to my benefit that the guy gets identified? An ankle bracelet’s impression may help. How many men wear them?”

  “For a minute, I thought you were thinking of Derek. I thought maybe you wanted to see his killer brought to justice. “

  “Fuck you. Goes without saying. The two go hand in hand.” I couldn’t seem to stop talking about hands. “Seeing him dead nearly wiped me out.”

  “Sorry, Vi.” And he did sound sincere for once. “Guess you two were closer than I knew.”

  I wished it were true. I wished I’d given more thought to what Derek had been up to on Belle Isle. I lost track of him, but he’d kept going with his own project—an offshoot of mine. That’s the thing about being an artist—if that term doesn’t sound too lofty. It takes over your head.

  “Look, I’ve had to look after myself my whole life, so by now it’s instinctual, second nature. But it’s not sociopathic. I liked Derek well enough, but remember I only saw him a few times. It’s not like we were bosom buddies.”

  He reached across the table to pat my shoulder. “Sorry, kiddo. Anyway, getting back to the ankle. How many men would let anyone know they wear such an ornament? At least once you get out of certain communities.” He pulled his plate back and took another bite of his fish. “You know, come to think of it, I’ve never seen a gay man wearing an ankle bracelet—not that I examine many ankles. I don’t think the bracelet has anything to do with him being gay or straight
.” He picked up the photo again. “You can barely make out the pattern, but it looks like a row of heads. Or skulls. Like you might see on a tattoo. Though clearly it isn’t a tat or it would be on the police photos.”

  We both grimaced involuntarily and studied the photo again.

  Diogenes looked up. “Actually, Violet, it seems like an item you might wear. Or have worn in your younger days. Gothic. Might you have loaned it out?”

  I threw a napkin at him.

  “The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer wishes to be told.”

  Cindy Sherman

  I was headed to the police with my discovery when one of Bill’s assistants called to tell me about the death of a priest. I couldn’t let this one get away—despite my mission and never mind the pun. Ted hadn’t been on my back about the number of finished photos lately, but I was expecting his call.

  “Mr. Fontenel didn’t tell me to call you,” the woman in Bill’s front office said, “but he’s been busy with his mother. I think he plain forgot.” Alice paused. “Father Bertram fits your criteria, I think.” She cleared her throat, obviously uncomfortable with the project and her role in it. “Anyway, the viewing hours start at noon so you’d have to get over here right away.”

  I hung up and made my usual dash downtown, wondering if Bill had intended for me to point a camera at this guy. Whose approval would he get? Did he have a contract with the parish? I doubted it, but a wasted hour or two and a wasted photo wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

  Father Bertram was a priest and was dressed like a priest—a priest back in the days when they didn’t dress vibrantly; the first man devoid of even a touch of color. I was starting to shoot when a voice behind me said, “I beg your pardon.” His tone implied disapproval, and I whipped around.

  Another priest, this one very much alive, stood in the doorway. “I don’t think we requested that any photos be taken of Father Bertram. Or did the diocese call without telling me?”