The Lioness Is the Hunter

by Loren D. Estleman

  She said nothing, waiting.

  I fished out a card and held it level with the pennies. “We’re conducting a missing-person investigation, and the name Peaceable Shore came up. I’d like to ask you a couple of questions.”

  The other leg of lamb rose and a stunted-looking hand took the card. That hand was a disappointment, sprouting like a child’s pinwheel at the end of that arm. At that it was twice the size of mine. The tiny lips writhed over the printed words. “Who’s ‘we’?” The pennies wandered past my shoulder to the empty Cutlass.

  I smiled. “We’s me. The plural sounds more official. Actually I’ve got all the authority of a Cub Scout. I’d consider it a personal favor if you could spare me a few minutes so I can move on from here.”

  Her neck accordioned while she consulted a tiny octagonal gold watch sunk into the suet of her wrist like a microchip. “Five minutes. I’ve got a referral on the way and one stranger’s enough in their condition.” She stepped aside, still holding the screen door.

  The place smelled like Grandma’s, cheap furniture oil mixed with apple-nut bread baking somewhere. Behind me she closed and rehooked the door and I flattened against the wall to let her take the lead. I followed her between shoulder-high wainscoting, watching her tea-colored muslin skirt swing from side to side like a bell without a clapper, a pair of muscular calves ending in black walking shoes, no ankles in between, the floor planks shifting under her weight. Her hair in back also reached her waist, or where a waist belonged. I figured her for a retired Olympics shot-putter, if not a transsexual slaughterhouse employee.

  I put all that aside when we passed through a door marked PRIVATE at the end of the hall and she sidled around a gray steel desk with a composition top and sat with her back to a framed diploma on the wall. Someone named Lois Champion had graduated from a Neuropathy program in Minneapolis with a degree in mental and physical therapy.

  “Dr. Champion?” I asked, sitting in a vinyl-upholstered kitchen chair opposite her.

  “Mrs.” She settled into the space between the arms of her chair; I thought of a bear relapsing into its rings of tallow. She picked up my card from the desk where she’d put it, without looking at it this time. “I doubt I can help you, Mr. Walker. All our people are present and accounted for. We take the roll in the morning and do a bed check at night.”

  “Rehab?”

  “No. They come here from drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinics to prepare for returning to the outside world.”

  “Halfway house?”

  The ovals bunched in displeasure; I thought. Considering the amount of spatial and weight displacement, she might have been stroking out or suppressing a burp. “I never use the term. We had difficulty obtaining a permit to use this property because the neighbors thought they’d be living next door to ex-convicts. Many of our guests have violated no laws except those that apply to controlled substances. The more severe cases stole from relatives to support their habit.”

  “I don’t get it. Rehab places are supposed to prepare them to return to society. How many hoops do they have to jump through before they can apply for a driver’s license?”

  “You don’t know the statistics. Alcohol and drug abuse is the twenty-first-century’s answer to the Black Plague. The clinics have their hands full detoxing the residents, and only so many beds to restrain them during the process. They can’t spare any to piece together their shattered souls once they’ve gotten the poison out of their system. Without places like Peaceable Shore, their chances of remaining straight are next to nothing.”

  “Okay.” I changed positions on the uncomfortable seat. I wanted to smoke, but I supposed she’d consider that abuse of a controlled substance. “Why do you think the name of your establishment came up while I was looking for Emil Haas?”

  The ovals shifted again. “I know that name.”

  “He and his partner are investors. They’ve been buying up delinquent properties in Detroit for renting and resale. The partner hired me to find Haas after he vanished. Carl Fannon’s the partner’s name.” I watched her, but all that flesh was an almost impenetrable insulation between me and what was going on behind it.

  She returned my card to the desk, squaring the corners in its exact center.

  “The murder, yes; if that’s what it was. I was right, I’m no help. I know nothing more of either man than what I’ve heard and seen on the news. The only offers I’ve received on this property are from an auto dealership looking to expand and a developer who wants to glut what little is left of open country with McMansions, basketball hoops, and speed bumps. I turned them down—despite the profit I would make. I didn’t spend four years studying the bundle of nerves that is the human corpus in order to drink Cosmopolitans in Myrtle Beach.”

  “You’re the owner?”

  She flattened her palms on top of her desk, her face reddening until it blended with the blush on her cheeks, and rose. “That’s as much time as I can give you, Mr. Walker. I’m sorry.”

  “No need. You’d be surprised how many places call themselves Peaceable Shore. This one’s just another bead on the abacus. Mind if I look around outside, just so I can say I did?”

  “I thought your client was dead.”

  “He was. Still is, I suppose, but his check cleared before he died.”

  “I can’t honor your request. I was serious about how many strange faces my guests can tolerate at this point in their passage. I’m not running a petting zoo. I employ people to maintain the safety of the people I’m responsible for.” She peeled the card off her desk and held it out.

  “That’s all right, Mrs. Champion. I found out it costs just as much to print five hundred as to print one, and they wear out so fast, the way people keep picking them up and laying them down.”

  I used the succession of doors. It was like passing through the various chambers leading from a plant room. As I put distance between us I felt the pressure relieving, like the change of temperatures from one climate-controlled enclosure to another, but I hadn’t heard the door to her office close and was sure she was watching me in case I doubled back or ducked down one of the halls to right and left. When the screen clapped shut behind me I breathed in the smells of cut grass and sunshine, but I knew I’d be smelling baked apples and lemon Pledge the rest of the day.

  SEVENTEEN

  The watching went on, if only in my head, as I swung the car around and drove back to the road. A paved intersection at the end of a country block changed to limestone a few hundred yards after I turned onto it and I towed a plume of white dust for a quarter-mile, where a gravel road crossed my path, slicing the rural section into a perfect square of mostly turned earth: From the air, that part of Wayne County would look like a brownie pan. Now I was looking at the farmhouse’s sagging back porch and the other side of the barn from a distance of some sixty acres. The gardening guests were still at work, but other figures in what might have been green work clothes but were probably uniforms wandered about, apparently aimlessly. That would be the security patrol. They weren’t carrying rifles or shotguns, and I was too far away to see if they wore handguns. I didn’t have to. People have a certain way of walking when they’re packing pistols on their hips.

  Nature and prudence had provided windbreaks in the form of mounds of unworked dirt anchored by weeds and rocks heaved up by a restless planet. It looked like Lyme-tick country, so after I got out of the car and tossed my coat and tie into the backseat I tucked my pants cuffs into the tops of my socks. It made me look like Little Boy Blue and wouldn’t do a damn bit of good against a determined arachnid, but no one likes to admit he’s helpless against assault. That’s why they make fallout shelters.

  Ten feet in I spooked a garter snake sunning itself on a patch of clay, and when I came down from the stratosphere I picked up a fallen walnut branch about two feet long to swat at its more venomous relatives. We only have one of those in Michigan, and massasauga rattlers rate down around bumblebees. Sue me. I’m a city boy and prefer m
y enemies with legs.

  As the sun climbed I began to perspire. Although it wasn’t as hot as it would be later in the season, the ground was uneven and I worked up a sweat stumbling over hard clods of dirt and straddling molehills. I was limping now, thanks to an old encounter with a high-powered rifle in similar country. If I tripped or turned an ankle stepping into soft earth and broke something, it would be just my luck that one of Mrs. Champion’s human pit bulls would be the first to find me. We were minutes away from one of the busiest cities in the state, but I had the impression Peaceable Shore considered itself an island outside all other jurisdictions.

  Halfway across, I got someone’s attention. One of the uniformed security guards turned his face my direction, climbed into a frog-green two-seater ATV, and charged. He kept the little motor wound up tight, bucking over the ruts and nearly separating himself from the automatic rifle slung over his right shoulder. That was careless bordering on criminal. I had his measure then: The weapon was just part of his costume, all straps and buckles and boots to his knees.

  Which made him twice as dangerous as a professional. You never know what an amateur will do next, even more than he does. I reached behind my hip bone and touched the Chief’s Special to make sure it was still riding in its holster.

  He throttled down a few yards shy of where I stood, shut the ignition, sprang out, and swung the automatic rifle free of his shoulder; all the motions straight from the Gospel According to Jason Bourne. I spread my own feet with hands out from my hips, trying not to seem like I’d done the same thing a thousand times out of a thousand.

  “This is private property, mister,” he said. “Maybe you missed the signs.” You could slice cheese with his Kentucky twang.

  There hadn’t been any signs, but I didn’t argue the point. “Sorry, brother,” I said. “I’m scouting out property; thought I might get to know the neighborhood.”

  He relaxed a little then; at least the rifle drooped a little from its strap. “I wouldn’t know. Personally, I’m saving up for a condo on Jefferson. Let the darkies cut the grass and pop a cold one watching the rich folks sail up and down the De-troit River.”

  “Give us the money, we’ll show ’em how to be rich.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.” He pointed the barrel of the rifle toward the road. “Don’t come back this way.”

  Just then the wind gusted up from behind him, lifting a flap of blue tarpaulin covering a heap in the box behind his seat. I smelled unprocessed marijuana. Just for fun I drew the green aroma in sharply through my nostrils, held it, and let it out, grinning. He answered with a grimace. I turned around and tramped back to my car.

  A rehab unit that furnished drugs to its residents could stay in business longer than Coca-Cola; but that brought me no closer to who had killed Carl Fannon—and where I could find Emil Haas—than I’d been at the start.

  * * *

  The next ball in the pocket was closer to home. It was a former warehouse on East Atwater, close enough to the water to spritz yourself with Detroit River when the wind blew from Windsor. It had stored bags of seed, iron felloes, and stove parts when Taft waddled around the White House, moved crates of Canadian whisky on greased rails under Volstead, and sheltered hundreds of ragged drifters at New Deal time before a new set of squatters stank it up with reefers and patchouli. A syndicate of doctors in Bloomfield Hills had rescued it from demolition, converted it to condos for silicone-chip sultans, but then the century had turned with a ponderous rumble and squashed their portfolios flat. Now the new half-million-dollar roof covered a Goodwill drop-off, a movie soundstage empty since Hollywood emigrated back West, a padlocked meth lab, and the next Peaceable Shore on my list.

  The doorbell summoned a human pipe ladder draped in a faded green caftan that ended in a pool around his feet. His cowl cast his face entirely in shadow. I gave him the friendly stranger’s grin.

  “Scythe out being sharpened?”

  “I get that a lot. I’m Rector North.” His voice belonged to a man three times his bulk, deep and resonant.

  “I’m Brother Walker.” I held up one of my cards. A pair of eye-whites flickered deep inside the cowl, reading without raising a hand to accept it. The wide sleeves of his robe covered both almost to the fingertips.

  “We’re forbidden to touch anything from outside.”

  “Moral contagion?”

  “Physical. Infection can be fatal.”

  “I’ve had my distemper shot.” But I put the card away. “I’m investigating a death for a client. Did you know a man named Carl Fannon?”

  “The name isn’t familiar. I’m assuming he’s the man afflicted with death.”

  “That’s a nice way of putting it. The not-so-nice one is he was murdered. May I ask what you do here?”

  “Everything except sweep the floors. Such work is therapeutic for the residents.”

  “Would you mind?” I swept both hands back from my neck. “I feel like I’m talking to the Dutch Maid.”

  He hesitated, then raised his arms and pushed back the cowl. He was younger than he sounded, but he was as bald as a peeled egg and his face was patched with running lesions. He looked like a topographical map that hadn’t set properly. A pair of cloudless blue eyes mocked my reaction. “Psoriasis. Not leprosy. This is a dermatological clinic. I’m a nurse. As you can see, I’m empathetic.”

  “Why Rector?”

  “Rector’s my given name.” A set of perfect teeth flashed in the ravaged face. “Did you think this was some kind of cult?”

  “The thought crossed my mind. I’ve missed a couple of medical journals,” I said. “When did you go from scrubs to Harry Potter?”

  He smoothed the front of the caftan with his hands, which turned out to be encased in flesh-colored latex gloves. “Insulation. It’s required from heat as well as cold. Some of us are like skinned rabbits. Would you like to have a look?”

  “I’m in the information business. It never hurts to stock up.”

  The space had been partitioned off from the rest of the building, but it was an open plan. People in various stages of dress—a few might have been naked—sat at tables or on chairs and sofas, reading, knitting, building model ships and planes, scrolling cell phone screens, watching TV, or staring off into space. A girl of about eighteen sat combing her fingers through a fall of glistening black hair veiling her features completely; her bare shoulders in a tank top were peeling like old paint.

  White smears of cream, possibly zinc-based, turned some of the faces into masks. Others, uncovered, resembled underdone pastry. Bits of translucent flakes stirred in the ambient air on every horizontal surface, glistening like fish scales on a wharf. They’d be spending most of their time sloughing.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” said Rector North in low tones. “Not all of it, anyway. Many of our residents hold full-time jobs, depending on the tolerance of employers and their colleagues. All are being treated free of charge by some of the top specialists in the world. They come here to learn everything they can about the disease. I don’t know the man you mentioned, Mr. Walker. My acquaintances are limited to fellow sufferers.”

  “What about Emil Haas? He was Fannon’s partner before he went missing.”

  He shook his head carefully, as if to avoid throwing a piece of his flesh into my eye. “Both names are vaguely familiar.”

  “They’re investment barons, lately involved in buying up urban real estate. The name Peaceable Shore came up during my investigation. You should trademark the name. You’ve got competitors operating under the same handle.”

  “Not precisely competitors. This is the only residential clinic specializing in psoriasis in the continental United States.”

  “Is it a painful condition?”

  “You mean beyond the stigma? It can be excruciating.”

  I looked around one last time, then took out my notebook, turned it to the page with the address of the Peaceable Shore in Warren, and showed it to him. “Talk to Mrs. Champion. She
may be able to arrange a connection.”

  * * *

  I ran aground on the Peaceable Shore in Romulus. Black letters snapped into a white panel set perpendicular to Vining Road read:

  P CEA L S ORE

  WELCO E O D TRO T

  The fact that it belonged to a place that advertised itself as a spa didn’t predispose me to be welcomed to Detroit by something called “Piecemeal Sore.” The small, flat-roofed building was identical to the galvanized-iron offices of the chain of privately owned parking lots that lined the road, and had probably been used by a competitor before it was squeezed out of business and its acreage crowded to a narrow apron around the structure. Its driveway ended at the road; but for that and a half-mile of chain link and razor wire on the other side, it would have extended directly into a runway belonging to Detroit Metropolitan Airport. As I stepped out onto the crumbling asphalt, a sleek red-tailed propeller jet with the FedEx logo painted on its fuselage chirped to a landing, roared up to within yards of the fence, and swung ninety degrees toward the terminals at the far end. I unclenched my buttocks and mounted the concrete slab that served as the front porch.

  The usual cluster of decals advertising the Moose, Elks, Masons, and the rest of the brotherhoods decorated a green-painted steel slab without a handle or a knob: I would have to be buzzed inside. I pointed a finger at the hard-rubber button mounted next to the frame, then read a printed notice taped to the door, announcing that the establishment had been closed by order of the sheriff’s office. I figured the sign had hung there since just before the county elections. That’s when the authorities usually notice that the massage parlors operating in their jurisdiction offer more than shiatsu. Most of the personnel are Korean nationals and can’t vote.

  I looked at my watch. It was coming up on two o’clock, and the last place on my list was clear out in Ypsilanti by the Rawsonville Ford plant. My sausages and fried potatoes were wearing off. I ate a sandwich and drank a beer in a tavern in downtown Romulus and drove to Barry Stackpole’s place. I wanted to ask him if he could dig up anything more on the Peaceable Shore in Warren. I was beginning to like that place, and not just because the smell of marijuana made me nostalgic for my youth.