by Dan Ames
From what I’d heard, the kids these days were done with Facebook. Apparently, the adults had moved in and it was no longer anywhere near being cool. Supposedly, Twitter had become the next hot thing but then that had faded and now the big site was Instagram. And if you were female, Pinterest. There was also something I’d heard called Snapchat but I had no idea what the hell that was. I was pacing myself with these things, hoping that some of them would fall by the wayside and I wouldn’t have to waste time learning them.
Marvin Cotton had given me a sheet of paper with most of Kierra's usernames and one password, which was for Facebook. He had explained to me that the one condition they’d insisted upon was for Kierra to give them her password when she first got Facebook.
That had been many years ago. I had very little hope that she hadn’t changed her password since then.
I typed in the information and it went to her profile page.
Excellent. She hadn’t changed it.
A quick glance at her profile page and I was immediately disappointed. The last post was from nearly two years ago. Apparently she had gotten the news, two years ago, that Facebook was no longer cool.
I took a quick look at the most recent pictures she had posted anyway. She was a beautiful girl. I had no way of knowing if anything from two years ago would be valuable.
Nonetheless, I dragged the photos onto my desktop and printed them off. You never knew what witnesses I might find and how long ago they had last seen her.
Just in case I bookmarked her profile and then tried the same password with her Twitter handle.
That she had changed.
And her profile was locked.
The Facebook password had been preciousbaby, named after the Cottons’ miniature poodle. So I tried variations. Preciousthing. Precious. Precious followed by their address number. Preciousgirl.
Preciousgirl did the trick.
Another disappointment. She hadn’t tweeted in nearly a year. But I did notice that the last tweet was about her getting an Instagram account.
So I bookmarked her Twitter, then opened up Instagram, typed in her username and tried preciousgirl.
Bingo.
I was in.
And this time I felt a small surge of adrenaline when I saw that this page was current.
The first image I saw was of Kierra, looking a lot different than she’d looked on her two-year-old Facebook page.
That Kierra had been beautiful and youthful-looking in a healthy way.
This Kierra looked much thinner. With an edge.
In the first photo, she was holding a champagne bottle and wearing a skimpy top. Her brown skin was shiny with sweat and the muscles in her neck were visible.
She looked like she had been partying hard. For awhile.
In the images that followed she was frequently in the arms of a young man. He was tall and slim, with a snapback Detroit Tigers baseball cap and a gold chain. I read one of the captions.
“Me and AJ poppin’ bottles.”
Hmm.
I printed off that picture and added it to my growing collection.
Most of the images were party pictures, along with a few selfies in bathroom mirrors.
I managed to find a couple recent pictures of Kierra with two female friends who appeared in the images more than once.
With a scanner app on my phone, I scanned the image of Kierra with AJ and texted the image to Marvin Cotton and asked him if he knew who the young man was.
I scanned in the other photos, too.
My phone buzzed and I checked the screen.
It was a text from Marvin.
Antoine James, it read. Somewhere on Lakepointe in the Park.
That was Lakepointe Avenue in Grosse Pointe Park.
Not too far from me.
Well, I had his photo and that section was only a few blocks. I figured I could ask around and find him.
It would also give me a chance to swing by the police station and find out who was handling Kierra’s case.
I sort of had a source in the police department.
6
Located on Jefferson Avenue between the library and St. Ambrose Catholic Church and within a stone’s throw of the border with Detroit, the Grosse Pointe Police Department headquarters is a new, modern building with spiffy landscaping.
All of the cop cars and sleek new Ford sedans and Ford Explorers. One look at the police station and you understand that Grosse Pointe has a very solid and robust tax base.
I parked the car in one of the thirty-minute library parking spaces and hoped that it wouldn’t take any longer than that. Inside, I turned right and went to the window where I introduced myself and said that I had an appointment to see the Chief. The door buzzed and I pushed my way through.
At the end of the hall, the last office on the left was the Chief’s spot. I took a peek in and saw that the office was empty.
“Who let in this Peeping Tom?” I heard a voice say behind me.
As I turned, the Chief brushed past me and dropped into her chair behind the desk.
“This isn’t good for my image, you know,” she said. “Being seen with a known pervert.”
The Chief’s name was Ellen. Ellen Rockne. Yes, my sister. After my unfortunate break with the police in which I had to turn in my gun and badge, she had nonetheless persevered and made her way to the top. I was proud of her, but I would never tell her that. The Rockne clan would never be confused with a Hallmark feel-good made-for-tv special.
“Don’t underestimate us,” I said. “If not for perverts, you wouldn’t have dated in high school.”
She sighed. Ellen looked like me but without the typically pleasant expressions. When we grew up and the neighborhood bullies knew not to mess with Rockne, they weren’t talking about me.
“What do you want, John? I’ve got an actual job, you know.”
“Kierra Cotton,” I said. “Who’s in charge of her case?”
“The missing girl, right?” she said.
“That’s the one.”
“Now why would I give a nosy private investigator any details regarding an active investigation?” she said, flipping through a few files. She made her selection, opened it and did a quick scan.
Ellen raised an eyebrow and looked at me.
“Well, this particular private investigator is notoriously tight-lipped. Even under torture I never give up my sources,” I said. “Plus, I’m only curious if the case has leads or if it’s gone cold.”
She snapped the file closed.
“Not cold. Room temperature.”
I started to ask another question.
“You know what,” she said. “You’re not my favorite brother, so that’s all you get. If you were my favorite, maybe I’d answer one more. But since you’re not, I won’t.”
She got to her feet, the leather from her gun belt creaking.
I let myself out.
7
The part of Grosse Pointe that butts up against the border with Detroit is a collection of mostly rental properties known as the Cabbage Patch. The area is bordered on one side by Jefferson Avenue and the other by Alter Road. The entire area basically consists of twenty square blocks.
Lakepointe is in the middle of the Cabbage Patch and I parked my car in the midway between Jefferson and Mack.
I really couldn’t think of any other way to try to find Antoine James. There was nothing online in any of the directories and no public records under his name or anyone with the last name of James that I could see owned property on Lakepointe.
So all I really had for AJ was his name, photo and the name of the street where he probably lived.
Having exhausted the more modern approaches to finding people it was time for an old-school approach. In other words, it was time for some good old-fashioned door-to-door detecting.
The first door I knocked on was the one directly to the right of my car. No better place to start than at the beginning, I figured.
In a folder at my s
ide were some of the photos of AJ and Kierra I had printed off from the computer.
Using the brass knocker on the door, I rapped out a nice little rhythm. I waited, knocked again, but there was no answer.
One house at a time, I worked my way all the way to Mack, crossed the street and knocked on doors all the way back down the other side of Lakepointe, past where my car was parked. No one knew of AJ or Kierra, and no one could remember ever seeing anyone who looked like them.
It wasn’t until I got to the last group of homes on Lakepointe that I got my first answer. A skinny old white guy with thick glasses and a goatee that looked like dried vomit told me that AJ’s family lived two doors down from him.
“Best be on your toes,” he said, just before slamming the door.
I was always on my toes. That explained my excellent posture.
Ignoring the man’s pinpoint description, I went to the house next door and tried them first. There was no answer.
So with the photos in hand, I knocked on the door that supposedly belonged to AJ and his family.
It was a three-story home, split up into three apartments. It was made of brick, painted white, and there was a large flower pot on the porch with a few brown stems, the remains of a plant that most likely died about five years ago or so.
I rang the first bell and waited.
I rang the second bell.
“Yeah?” A man’s voice said.
“Is AJ home?” I asked.
“Course not,” he answered. Then, “Who’s askin’?”
“A friend of Kierra’s,” I said. “She’s missing.”
“You a cop?”
“No.”
A car drove by and I watched it turn onto Jefferson.
I heard footsteps on the stairs, and then a woman appeared behind the door. She had wild, straggly hair, sweat on her face and a huge gap between her teeth. In fact, it wasn’t just a gap, she appeared to actually be missing several teeth. I smelled smoke and booze, not necessarily in that order.
She unlocked the door and opened it a crack.
“He ain’t here,” she said, her voice like rock scraping across concrete. Easy to see why I had misappropriated genders.
“Do you know where I might find him? Or do you have a cell phone number?”
She rotated her head from side to side. I actually heard her hair sway with the movement. “He always change phones anyway.”
Her eyes squinted at me.
“You know about that place over on Wayborn?” she asked.
I acted as if I could almost place it.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think I met him there once.”
“He prob’ly there,” she said.
“That’s the place right over by…uh…” I looked up into the sky, desperately trying to remember something I never knew.
“Corner of Conner, behind that mall with the Foot Locker and the Aldi,” the woman said. “Where that girl got shot last week.”
I snapped my fingers. “Oh yeah, that place. Of course.”
Before I could ask another question, the door shut in my face and I heard the locks turn.
“Nice chatting, sir. I mean ma’am. I mean, sir-ma’am.”
8
The border between Grosse Pointe and Detroit wasn’t foreign to Clay. He had robbed a few rich people’s homes in Grosse Pointe, where there were tons of cops, then scurried across Alter into Detroit, where you could call 911, claim a hundred terrorists were running around with rocket launchers, and the cops still wouldn’t show up for an hour or two.
Wayborn was a side street off of Alter Road and it ran for nearly six blocks. Most of those blocks were completely deserted. The empty lots were overgrown with grass that was at least four feet high and weeds that were even taller. The grass was home to a booming population of pheasant, which could occasionally be seen crossing the street, probably heading for a liquor store.
Piles of garbage were strewn here and there, most in black trash bags, probably full of toxic shit the people from the suburbs didn’t want to have to pay to get rid of. Much easier to just drive into Detroit after dark and give your unmentionables the old heave-ho.
Clay hated Detroit because it was full of scumbags. Most of the deadbeats around the city were practically subhuman. Oh sure, they could be pretty clever occasionally, but hell he’d seen a YouTube video of a squirrel plucking out a rhythm on a giant harp. Who knew, maybe the assholes that were everywhere in his America would elect a squirrel President. The First Varmint. Wouldn’t be much of a difference from the chump that was in there now, he thought.
Clay cruised in the Ram down the Detroit streets, driving right in the middle of the lane. If a car came toward him, he refused to move over and made them veer closer to the weedy lots. It wouldn’t hurt their cars anyway, he reasoned. Most of the clunkers on the streets were full of rust, had broken windows, and looked like they’d been in a smash-up derby.
About the only thing he liked about Detroit, and this area in particular, was that you could sit for hours in a parked car and no one would think twice about it. Since there weren’t any cops around, you could do whatever you wanted to. Places like this were the Wild West, and Clay thought of himself as a badass gunfighter.
So Clay had parked the Ram a block away from the house his new boss had noted on AJ’s information. Ol’ John Wayne had written down that this place was a possible drug house where his loser quarry sold most of his merchandise.
And someone was moving some serious dope out of that house, Clay could tell. The problem, he realized, was that all of these brothers with their pants hanging low and snapback baseball caps looked exactly alike. He looked again at the picture of AJ. Nothing really special. A narrow face. Big nostrils. He did have on a pair of glasses, though. Not many of the dudes going into the house had glasses.
Clay put the picture away.
He was getting bored. With the first of the cash, he had swung into a liquor store and bought some smokes along with a pint of Early Times whiskey. What the hell kind of name was that for a whiskey? Early Times? That didn’t sound good. He hated early times, especially in the morning. Who did they pay to think of these stupid-ass names? They should hire him. He’d take their big paycheck and sit in their fancy office and think of names for whiskey. Like…Nice Ass Whiskey. There, that was a great one. Couldn’t you see the commercial? Two guys sitting around. Hey, I got some Nice Ass last night. The guy’s buddy is jealous. The hero smiles knowingly.
Clay sighed. It would never happen. He’d never been able to hold down a steady job in his life. Plus, now he had to pee. And he was in the mood for something. What, he didn’t know. But he usually felt it as a vibration. Most times, in the leg, and the leg would start twitching and he would be tapping his feet and pretty soon both legs were jumping around and his hands were tapping and then he’d realize he was grinding his teeth. When it got to that point, he’d find a bar, or a meth dealer, or a hooker. Or he’d pick a fight and beat the shit out of someone, or cut them up.
But he was on the job now.
Two more hours passed and both legs were now moving around and Clay was about to throw the Ram into gear and crack open the Early Times whiskey when a vintage Corvette pulled up in front of the house. A black guy climbed out. Wearing glasses.
No doubt.
It was AJ.
Clay put the Ram into gear and drove around the block so he could pull up right behind the Corvette.
He reached into the glovebox, pushed aside the pint of whiskey and pulled out the little .380 automatic, slid it into the front pocket of his jeans and touched the handle of the knife at the back of his waist. He also grabbed the lead-filled leather sap he had taken from an off-duty cop a couple years back. The idiot had actually tried to stop Clay from kicking around a stripper who’d foolishly held on to some of Clay’s cash.
The cop lost a lot that night, including the sap. And the stripper lost more. As in, everything.
The sound of a voice from the house g
ot a little louder and Clay slid from the truck, not shutting the driver’s door all the way.
He was halfway up the cracked and weed-choked walkway when the door opened and AJ came out. He looked directly at him and Clay returned the stare. It was the normal thing to do. Clay noted AJ looked him up and down, saw the tattoos, knew he was probably being registered as a junkie.
They passed each other and as soon as AJ was past him, Clay quickly turned and swung with the sap, connecting with AJ’s head just above his ear.
The sound was as solid and sick as Clay had ever heard. He loved that sound.
AJ started to go down but Clay caught him under the arm and dragged him to the Ram. He shoved him in the foot space on the passenger side and drove off, making a point to pull within inches of the fancy Corvette and snap off the car’s side view mirror as he drove by.
The noise of it breaking off was his second favorite sound of the day.
9
As I drove toward the direction of the drug house the man-woman had told me about, I vaguely remembered the story of a shooting a week ago. It had happened just across the border from Grosse Pointe in Detroit.
Turned out a couple of Grosse Pointe high school students had bought some weed and pulled over on a dead end street to get high. Problem was, they were in Detroit. Last time I checked, they don’t kid around in Detroit. So when a car pulled up behind them, they weren’t ready. They weren’t on guard. They were kids from Grosse Pointe who maybe thought it was exciting and daring to buy drugs in the bad city. But what happened was a guy with an assault rifle got out of the car and opened fire on the high schoolers. Maybe he’d followed them from the drug house. Maybe he was just a bad dude from the neighborhood and didn’t like strangers in parked cars smoking weed. Or maybe he wanted to rob them.
One girl, sixteen years old, died immediately. One of the rounds had hit her directly in the head. Dead instantly. The kid behind the wheel somehow managed to pull the car out under the barrage of gunfire and get away. He drove directly to a nearby hospital’s ER but it was too late for the girl. Two other kids were shot, but they survived.