by Dan Ames
There was a police magazine on her desk, and I started reading about the latest weapons. By the time Ellen came in ten minutes later, I was ready to buy an automatic pistol that held seventeen rounds and came with a laser guide and a night scope.
“What do you want?” she said, with all the enthusiasm of a middle-aged man submitting to a prostate exam.
“Big meeting?”
“Big laughs,” she said, smirking.
I waited for the punch line.
“That conference room looks out on the parking lot. We saw this middle-aged loser pull up in a white Sunbird. Trying to park as far away as possible to avoid the humiliation. It didn’t work.”
“It’s a rental.”
“All this schmuck needed was a bald spot and a gold chain, and we’ve got a mid-life crisis in full alert.”
“If that was a meeting about Rufus Coltraine, I’m mad I wasn’t invited,” I said, ignoring her delight at my ride. Actually, the more she made fun of me, usually the better her mood. Sometimes, though, it was just the opposite. I wondered if she’d found something out, and more importantly, if she planned on sharing.
“It was, and your invite must’ve gotten lost in the mail.” Her expression resembled newly dried concrete. Flat, emotionless, and no sign of cracks.
“What’d you find out?” I said.
“None of your fucking business, Mister Sunbird.”
I waited a moment then said in my most caring, parent voice possible, “Mom and Dad were very clear on the importance of sharing.”
She sat down and rubbed her hand over the top of her head. In Ellen’s repertoire of tells, this meant she was frustrated.
“All the music stores and pawn shops turned up squat,” she said. “No Rufus Coltraine. No Jesse Barre guitar. We even sent emissaries down to fucking Toledo. No dice. If he hawked a guitar, it most likely wasn’t around here.”
“And if he didn’t hawk it,” I said, “how’d he get the dope and why was a valuable guitar sitting in his apartment?”
“Twenty bucks buys enough dope for what he had in him,” she said. “You don’t need a guitar for that.”
I didn’t rise to the bait. Instead I said, “How’d you get the call on him?”
“Landlord. Neighbor said they saw someone in that apartment doing drugs.”
“Which neighbor?”
“Landlord didn’t know.”
I nodded. “Ever hear that one about the big pink elephant in the room?”
She crossed her eyes at me.
“They say it’s like living with an alcoholic who won’t admit the problem,” I said. “It’s like a big pink elephant sitting in the room, but everyone pretends it’s not there.”
When she saw where I was going, she flushed a little.
“Coltraine was set up,” I said. “No one wants to admit it, but he was.”
“Prove it,” she said.
“That’s what I’m doing.”
“No, you’re speculating.”
“Which is the first step in proving something,” I pointed out.
“I need evidence.”
Which meant that maybe Ellen felt something was wrong but didn’t want to come out and say it.
“Right now I’ve got evidence that links Rufus Coltraine to the murder of Jesse Barre,” she said. “Maybe he was walking by, saw her in the workshop alone, and did what he felt he had to do. Maybe he killed her and then got high right away, planning to sell the guitar later.”
“What about the Shannon Sparrow guitar?” I said. “Where’s that?”
She didn’t have an answer for that.
Her phone rang, and she picked up the receiver, “Hold on just a second,” she said. She grabbed a few sheets of paper and shoved them at me then lifted her chin at the door.
“The Sunbird is calling,” she said.
30
My mind was on Jesse Barre. Thoughts about the case were hopping and skittering across my brain like stones skipped across a lake. Rufus Coltraine, aspiring musician, dead from an overdose. The connections started to come fast and furiously. I had a sudden, urgent desire to learn more about Shannon Sparrow. After all, it was her guitar that was missing. She had a link to the deceased. By the nature of her occupation, she had a link to the dead ex-con. And there was something about her and her people that made me want to dig. I don’t know if it was the arrogance of her manager, or the seediness of the hangers-on, or maybe just Shannon herself.
I fired up the Internet, and after less than an hour, I’d dragged about fifty articles onto my desktop. I tried to read them in a rough chronological order, and by the time I’d gone through five or six, I started speed reading, passing over the expected redundancies. There were the obvious details: an early gift for music, a great ear, a few important teachers, and breaks along the way.
And then there were a few surprises. Her parents had both died in a plane crash in Mexico a few years before their daughter broke through. There were unsubstantiated rumors of drug use that may or may not have had anything to do with the tragedy.
Shannon had apparently moved on. There had been an early marriage that, according to what I could find, had lasted less than a year. She had been young, probably seventeen or so.
The next twenty articles or so all said the same thing, talking about what kind of makeup she wore, which boy toy she was currently seeing, her inspiration for her latest album. I noticed that not long after she really exploded –when her first hit began to climb the charts and she signed on with powerhouse manager Teddy Armbruster—all the articles started to sound the same. In fact, they’d changed from the more direct, more honest appraisals to a glossy version, highlighting all that was great and grand about Shannon Sparrow.
By the time I was three-quarters of the way through my cyber-stack, I realized I wasn’t going to find anything else. I started to drag the whole fucking mess into my trash can, and then I stopped. Maybe if I went back through the articles and information before she signed on with slick Mr. Armbruster, there would be something I could uncover. So I trashed the later articles, made a folder for the earlier stuff, and then dug in.
After another half hour of poring over most of the articles I’d already skimmed, I came across a surprise. It was a reference in one article to a different interview Shannon had done. In the current article, Shannon wouldn’t talk about it. The reference was to a magazine called Women on the Rock.
I immediately searched and found that the magazine was defunct. Still, I wasn’t about to give up. I did a search for the individual Women on the Rock issue that featured Shannon’s controversial interview and found two links. One took me to one of those annoying “page not found 404” messages.
The other one led me to pure gold.
A devoted fan of the magazine had put all the issues online, and I found the one I was looking for. It had each page scanned like microfilm in the library.
Apparently the magazine was for women recovering from domestic violence or abuse of some kind. And the article was really small, just a sidebar interview of sorts, but in the interview Shannon was asked about her first marriage. She said the marriage was stormy, that there was abuse, and that she’d finally found the strength, mainly through her music, to get out of the situation. It was one of the last things she said in the interview that caught my eye. When asked about where her ex-husband was now, Shannon replied, “Where he belongs.”
Alarm bells started going off, and I immediately went back to the computer. I did a search under different headings for Shannon Sparrow’s ex-husband. Three search engines turned up nothing, but then finally I hit pay dirt.
The article was from the Free Press, nearly eight years ago, just before Shannon’s career took off. It was a short article, just a few paragraphs:
DETROIT MAN CONVICTED OF ATTEMPTED MURDER
Associated Press—Laurence Grasso, thirty, of Detroit was convicted in Wayne County Circuit Court of first-degree attempted murder, intent to commit bodily harm, and vio
lation of a restraining order. He has been sentenced to thirty-five years in prison. Grasso, married briefly to singer Shannon Sparrow, will be eligible for parole in fifteen to twenty years.
I hit print and soon my printer was spitting out a copy of the article. I went back to the Internet and did a search for Laurence Grasso. I immediately got a hit.
It was again from the Free Press, and it was a few weeks after the first article. It contained only one nugget of information, but it was big enough to make me sit back and take a deep breath. The article detailed where Mr. Grasso would be serving his fifteen years.
The same location Rufus Coltraine had called home.
A little place in the country called Jackson State Prison.
31
Ellen was in her office when I arrived back at the station. Normally I would have called, seeing as how I had just been there. But I felt this new information merited a back-to-back visit. Besides, I knew my sister absolutely cherished time with her little brother. She couldn’t get enough of me. Who was I to deny her of this intense joy created by my presence?
I walked into her office, and she let out an audible groan.
“Christ, you spend more time here than I do,” she said.
I filled her in on what I’d found out about Shannon Sparrow—her early marriage and the later exploits of said hubby. I said, “Let’s dig up a photo of Mr. Laurence Grasso and see if he’s the guy I think he is.”
“Have Becky hook you up,” she said.
I went back out to the lobby and found the department’s resident computer guru. Becky Kensington was a bleached-blond, solidly built woman in her late forties. She had something like eight or nine kids, but I never knew her to look tired or frazzled. I only have two kids, and there are days where I’m looking for a noose and a strong ceiling beam.
“Chief What’s-Her-Name wants a file on this guy, Becky,” I said, handing her the sheet of info I had on Mr. Grasso.
“So how you been, John?” she said as she took the sheet of paper and led me back to the department’s tech center.
“Keepin’ busy,” I said. “You?”
“All those kids in school, all I see are upper respiratory viruses, colds, sinus infections, and the occasional strep throat,” she said. “Our house is a petri dish with a leaky roof.”
“Cupboards full of amoxicillin?”
She nodded as she typed.
I watched the screen, anxious, then sensed movement behind me and saw Ellen watching too.
“Turn around,” she said, cuffing me not so gently on the back of the head. I was never fast enough to duck those.
Becky laughed, and I said, “That’s a quick glimpse of my entire childhood.”
“The childhood that never ended,” Ellen said. We would have kept going, but the computer screen blossomed into a black-and-white mug shot of Mr. Laurence Grasso. He was a sandy-haired, slightly buck-toothed guy with high cheekbones and eyes that looked bored but that would clearly entertain the idea of violence. I compared it to the face I had seen behind the wheel of the black Nova.
“Fuckin-A,” I said.
“Spit it out,” Ellen said.
“Hello, Randy.”
•
Of course, we had no fixed address for Mr. Grasso. I supposed his nickname growing up was Asshole Grasso, which considering my experiences with him, would have been entirely appropriate. Anyway, his last place of residence was vacated. There were no known family members in the area.
The initial search was best left in the hands of the capable police, namely my sister and her counterparts at the St. Clair Shores Police Department, who were leading the Nevada Hornsby investigation.
They would use all their resources to find Grasso and they would be able to do it faster than I could. On the other hand, if they didn’t have luck right away, I would have to see what I could do.
32
I was by no means a cyber sleuth. I did use the Internet for business, but mostly just e-mail. Lots of e-mail. I scrolled through my mailbox and saw one e-mail, whose subject line asked me if I wanted to see hot, horny housewives in action. I deleted it without opening it.
I cursed myself once again for ordering a sexy outfit for Anna from an adult catalogue because now I was on their e-mail list. Their latest offering was a product called the Fleshlight. It was a masturbatory device for men that looked like a flashlight, but one end was actually . . . well, you get the idea. Clever, but no thanks.
There were several messages on my answering machine from potential customers. I returned their calls, left two messages, and on the third call, I set up a meeting to talk to a woman who had some “concerns” about her husband. This usually meant she was concerned that his knockwurst was making the rounds. And usually it was the right call.
That done, I put my feet up on the desk and clasped my hands behind my head. No word from my sister yet, so I let my mind wander to thoughts of Shannon Sparrow’s ex-husband Laurence Grasso. Probably Larry to his friends, though I doubted he had any.
So ol’ Mr. Grasso had found the beautiful, young, talented, driven Shannon Sparrow, seduced her, probably controlled her, and then married her. Once she got a little older and a lot smarter, she dumped his genetically shortchanged ass. Free from the steadying influence of someone with a brain, Larry was free to slide into the life of crime for which he was destined. Not too much later, he wound up at the big house—the same house where Rufus Coltraine sat, ten years into his twenty-year sentence for armed robbery and second-degree murder. Rufus was probably playing his guitar in his cell.
I also wondered what their first meeting had been like. Maybe Grasso had tried to shank him. Or Coltraine had saved Grasso from being raped by the brothers. Who knew? The house of detention could apparently make very strange bedfellows.
I picked up the phone, scanned my notes, and called my favorite Jackson State prison guard, Joe Puhy. I wasn’t sure if he would talk to me because I’d never come through on the beers I owed him. After several transfers and sitting on hold, he came to the phone. I re-introduced myself, and he remembered who I was. He didn’t seem pissed. After my apologies and reassurances that I would take him out for some refreshments, I got to the point.
“Tell me about Laurence Grasso,” I said.
There was a soft chuckle then a low whistle.
“Stay away from that one,” he said.
“What do you know about him, other than the fact that I should keep my distance?”
“He’s a bastard. Nasty. Mean. Crazy.”
“Did he know Rufus Coltraine?” I said.
“He sure did. I always wondered about them. They never seemed to fit.”
“How so?”
“Rufus was easygoing, laid back; he had his music. Larry was the opposite. A tried-and-true Detroit boy with a chip on his shoulder, something to prove, always looking for trouble,” Puhy said. “And he was a sneak too. Any little way to bend a rule, or even just plain ol’ break it, Larry was the guy.”
“So were the two of them buddies or something?” I said.
He thought about it for a moment. I could almost hear him scratching the stubble on his jaw. “I wouldn’t say they were buddies exactly,” he said. “More like guys who maybe had something in common in here, but outside, would never hang out.”
“Was Grasso into music? Did he play?”
“Not that I know of,” Puhy said. This was a mild surprise to me. “He seemed to like Coltraine’s music, but he didn’t play anything himself. ’Cept probably the skin flute.”
Prison humor—it gets me every time.
“So what the hell were they doing together?”
“Talking mostly. Sometimes, just sitting and listening to Coltraine’s music.”
How quaint, I thought.
“I don’t know,” Puhy said. “I wish I could tell you more. Maybe I could ask around, see if anyone knows anything. Be like a consultant for you.”
Like a bonefish on the flats, I heard the sound of bait hi
tting the water.
“Would you?” I said. “That would be great—maybe I could come up with a finder’s fee or something.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Puhy said in a tone of voice that indicated I should very, very much worry about it.
We said our goodbyes, and I hung up. What a pisser. Two guys with nothing in common hanging out in prison together. Both get out, and one tries to kill me while the other one is being killed and possibly framed for the murder of Jesse Barre. So was it Grasso who killed Jesse? Why? Did he have some score to settle with Coltraine—and was Jesse just in the wrong place at the wrong time? That didn’t make sense. After all, Jesse was building a guitar for Grasso’s ex-wife. Somehow the two were connected. Maybe Coltraine was in on it with Grasso. Maybe Coltraine really did kill Jesse. Maybe he wanted one of her guitars for recording purposes, knew he couldn’t afford one, and killed her for it. And then maybe he stole Shannon’s guitar, and Grasso went and ripped off his old prison mate. It didn’t sound too convincing. And if I wasn’t convinced, I knew Ellen wouldn’t be either.
I started to get a headache. Too much thinking did that to me.
Still, the idea that I was closing in, that I was just a connection or two away from cracking this thing, got my blood going. It was time to find Laurence Fucking Grasso. Since my sister hadn’t called, I figured she wasn’t having any luck.
But I had an idea.
•
I could rule out all the things my sister would be checking on. Past acquaintances. Family. Places of employment. Former landlords. The cops would check out the logical places. Whether or not they would have any luck, I had no idea. So far, Shannon Sparrow’s shit-for-brains ex had proven to be crude but effective.