Howie fell silent and looked contemplative. He sipped his drink and stared into the mirrors full of mingling downtown professionals. It was the first time since Darren had met him that the man looked his age.
“Look, it’s not a hopeless situation,” Darren said eventually, feeling sorry for the tanned, glad-handing man.
One thing Darren had learned in his years as a lawyer was that there was a particular stage in the criminal process where the accused person becomes manic, even deluded. It was the stage where his psyche tells a man there’s a way out that doesn’t involve the ugliness of the court process. That someone will believe him. Someone will wave a wand and this reality will vanish, replaced with the old reality where he wasn’t being threatened with losing everything. All he has to do is talk, or work angles or scheme or something, and things will fall back into place.
Darren realized he had just shoved Howie out of that stage, rudely delivering him to the next. Now Howie had to sit there, feeling alone and confronting the fact that he was not going to magically extricate himself from reality.
He cleared his throat and put a hand on the man’s shoulder.
“I can find you the right lawyer, Howie. I can find you the exact lawyer you need.”
“You don’t understand, Darren.”
“Of course I do. Look—”
“I don’t need a lawyer.”
Howie sipped his drink, hunch shouldered, and offered Darren a weary, despondent expression.
“Um. What?” Darren managed.
“I never said I needed a criminal lawyer.”
“You walked into my office, Howie. Is...what is this?”
“I walked into Darren Fletcher’s office,” Howie agreed. “I walked into Issabella Bright’s boyfriend’s office.”
Throughout his life, there had been very few times when Darren could have been said to be speechless. But as he stared into the pale blue eyes of the man next to him, he couldn’t force words from his mouth. He felt like a mouse baited with cheese, happily ambling into a trap that had just now snapped shut on him. The fact that the cheese was actually booze and red meat only meant the man next to him had sized Darren up and identified his weaknesses.
Howie stuck out his hand for the second time that day. “I’m Howard Bright, Darren,” Howie said. “I’m Issabella’s father.”
Chapter Two
A month ago, Issabella had finally achieved success in baiting the stray cat that lurked around outside her apartment. She used a plate of tuna fish, swooping down from her front door and snatching the cat into her arms while it was busy scarfing down the rare feast. The stray was entirely black, what Issabella thought of as a Halloween cat.
Now it was morning and she was awake only because the former stray had bounded up on to her chest and perched itself there, it’s big, hazel cat’s eyes staring implacably into Issabella’s own bleary, sleep-crusted human eyes.
“Hello, Miss Kitty,” she yawn-mumbled. She scratched behind the cat’s left ear and Miss Kitty closed her eyes, purring mechanically. Her right ear was half gone, the upper point of the triangle having been shorn away some time in the days before Issabella had met her. That, added to the line of white scar where no hair would grow above Miss Kitty’s right eye, had prompted Issabella to assume Miss Kitty was really Mister Kitty. It had been the veterinarian who, while administering vaccines, explained that the tough-looking survivor of uncountable hunts and scrapes was a girl.
“Does that make me a bad feminist, Miss Kitty?” she said to the black lump on her chest. “Was my assumption about your gender identity a symptom of patriarchal brainwashing?”
When the alarm went off, Miss Kitty (though Issabella toyed with the notion of renaming her Ms. Kitty) leaped in a black streak from the bed and out the door.
Issabella was showered and munching a bagel in her underwear when her phone vibrated on the kitchen counter beside her. She reached for it, knocked her orange juice over and yelped as a pulp-free, titian wave swept over the counter’s edge and down the face of the cupboards below.
She seized a roll of paper towels and shouted, “Hello,” into the phone with a frustrated, frantic tone that might have been justified if someone had interrupted her while she was busy fighting a house fire, but was wholly outsized considering she was cleaning spilled juice. She winced, hoping she hadn’t just barked at someone she needed to like her.
“Hey, Izzy.”
“Oh. Hey, Theresa. Sorry.”
“For what?”
Issabella mashed squares of paper towel down on the orange juice and started scrubbing at the cupboard doors. Miss Kitty appeared, sat on her haunches in the center of the kitchen, and watched the scene with feline disinterest.
“I’m cleaning up a spill.”
“Great. So, Darren got pinched for bar fighting. Needs you to post for him.”
Theresa Winkle owned an unprofitable little Detroit bar named Winkle’s Tavern. As far as Issabella had been able to discern, the bar served only two purposes: functioning as Darren’s home away from home and serving as a pasture in which Theresa could corral her ever-expanding collection of unicorn figurines. Every square foot of the little bar was festooned with little plastic and pewter members of her acquired herd, all except the booth in the back corner. That booth was where Darren had spent years running his law practice and perfecting a drinking problem before Issabella had insinuated herself into a case of his. Before the two of them had opened a partnership downtown. Since occupying an actual office across the hall from her, Darren still managed to spend a large amount of his time at Winkle’s, as he and the big chain-smoking proprietor were something like surrogate siblings.
Issabella stopped scrubbing at the cupboard. She felt the skin between her eyebrows crease as she crouched on the linoleum.
“What?”
“Yep. He’s in the clink.”
“Again?”
“I gotta go, Izzy. Food’s getting cold. Bring five hundred with you.”
Issabella sat back on her butt and folded her legs in front of her. She scratched at her scalp in frustration and shook her head.
“Theresa, I’ve got orange juice on my bra, a pretrial to run in an hour and a half-hour drive to get downtown. There’s no way I can—”
“Yeah. He said you had that. Had me call the court and tell them you had an emergency and wouldn’t show. Lady over there said the judge would just bump it off the docket.”
Issabella drew a long breath in through her nose and closed her eyes.
“Izzy? You there?”
She let the breath out and spoke very evenly into the phone.
“Theresa, you’re going to have to bail him out,” she said. “I don’t know why he thinks I’m his designated bail bondsman, but I just don’t have the time for it today. And, frankly, if he’s getting in drunken fights at your bar, and if you two are such great friends, then why don’t you clean up the mess you guys started?”
It sounded harsher than she had intended when she’d formulated it in her mind. The silence on the other end of the phone seemed to confirm it; she had just made it sound like she was questioning Theresa’s friendship with Darren.
“Listen, Theresa—”
“Wasn’t at my bar, Izzy. And maybe he wants you to bail him out since you’re the one rolls around naked in bed with him. Dunno. Just a guess.”
Theresa hung up and Isabella was left standing there in her juice-stained underwear with a creeping suspicion that nothing about the day was going to get any better. She knew she’d hurt Theresa. The big, homely bar owner was gruff and direct, even rude at times. But Issabella knew that the woman’s blunt exterior was a shield she’d developed to protect herself from the mocking and ridicule that every overweight girl has to weather from grade school forward. Theresa Winkle collected unicorns inste
ad of friends and had retreated into her bar like a hunted beast. The one person who’d managed to brave her den was Darren Fletcher, who drank the drinks Theresa made for him and offered her unconditional friendship in return.
And now Issabella had taken a swipe at that relationship.
“Ugh,” she groaned at Miss Kitty, who gave the little puddle of orange juice a tentative poke with her tongue. “Well, we still have each other, kitty. Feminine solidarity, right?”
Miss Kitty ignored her and padded out of sight.
“Bitch,” Isabella whispered.
* * *
His head was shaven clean, oiled to a gleam, his eyes were cold green stones, and when he walked through the front door of Winkle’s Tavern, Theresa Winkle knew he was trouble.
She had been about to stuff her phone back into the pocket of her sweatpants, but something in the way the stranger stared directly at her prompted her to keep it in her hand. She remained seated at her spot behind the bar, as she had since getting up, washing and pulling on a pair of pink sweatpants and a gray T-shirt that said The Answer is NO in big red letters across her bosom.
The stranger did not look away from her as he advanced across the threshold. He didn’t glance at the menagerie of unicorns superglued throughout the dim, smoke-heavy interior of the little bar. He didn’t peer around to see if anyone else was there besides the two of them. He walked right at her, unhurried and unblinking, as if he knew she would be sitting in that exact spot before he had ever opened the door—had somehow seen her through the brick wall and been focused on her before she ever knew he existed. The thought sent a trembling jolt up to the nape of her neck, and she imagined him standing on the sidewalk outside, drawing deep, slow breaths through his nose, staring at her for long minutes before suddenly stalking inside.
Only when he was standing directly in front of her did she notice that he was wearing a tan suede suit coat and, underneath that, a shiny black shirt. A slim scarlet necktie hung like a fresh wound beneath his chin.
He continued to stare directly at her exactly long enough to make it uncomfortable to the point that Theresa opened her mouth, ready to ask him what he wanted.
Instead, he spoke over her in a voice that seemed mismatched to his considerable size. It should have been a rough, guttural voice. Instead it was smooth, almost lilting.
“Theresa Winkle,” he said, and the familiarity in his voice dialed Theresa up from apprehensive to frightened. He might have been an old acquaintance bellying up to the bar from the way he curved his mouth around her name, but for the predatory bent of his stare.
“Yep,” she said, nonchalant. She felt anything but.
He nodded and offered her a smile, a white slash of little even teeth that made her think of a shark stalking dark depths, with glittering green eyes that cut through the ocean gloom like baleful lanterns.
Those eyes slid off her for the first time since he’d entered, and he stared dispassionately down the length of the little bar. He took in the lane of tables and booths, and as he stood there Theresa was certain that he was only confirming for himself what she already knew; they were alone.
“Well, I guess it’s a little early yet,” he said, and offered her that same ugly smile.
“You want a drink?” she managed.
“If I wanted a drink, cunt, I’d ask you for a drink.”
Nothing had changed in his expression. He said it as casually as he’d said everything thus far, through that upturned smear of little teeth and thin lips.
And that was all Theresa Winkle needed. She stooped suddenly, and when she straightened she was holding a shotgun across her chest.
Darren had picked the weapon out, bought it and installed the little hard plastic brackets that had been cradling the shotgun for over three years now. “It’s Detroit,” he’d told her, and that was true enough that she hadn’t put up any real fuss. She’d mostly forgotten about the shotgun, only reminded of its presence when bumping her knuckles against it while reaching for something else.
“Get on out,” she said, her voice thick with the swell of adrenaline.
“Right! Hold on, I know this scene. You tell me to get out. And then I say, ‘What if I don’t?’” the shark-mouthed stranger chirped. “And you say, ‘I give you the business end of this here shotgun, mister!’ And I go, ‘You wouldn’t dare!’ And then you shout, ‘Don’t think I won’t, buddy!’ And then...wait...what comes after that?”
“I pull the trigger,” she said, and turned the gun on him. She pointed it directly at that unnerving slash of teeth and sighted down the length of it. “Get on out of here.”
Instead, he raised his arms straight out at his sides, long fingers splayed wide. His smile broadened with a knowing confidence, and he leaned forward to lightly rest the bridge of his nose against the end of the shotgun’s barrel. He stared down its length into Theresa.
“I guess if you want to just pass along to the lawyer friend of yours that Howie is bad, bad business, then maybe I won’t ask you for that drink at all. You do that for me and I won’t have to. Tell the lawyer. Howie owes. Howie owes something terrible. Anyone tries and get in the way of that, then they owe just as sure as he does.”
“Get out,” she hissed, blinking against sudden, swelling tears. The shotgun was growing heavy now. The muscles along her arms were constricted with anxiety, aching under the weight of his stare as much as the gun itself.
“You tell the lawyer for me, won’t you?”
“Get out.” It was all she could manage, the single thought that could remain solid and real in her mind. Get out so I don’t have to kill you. Get out so I don’t have to find out if this shotgun is loaded or not. Get out.
He did. The menacing green eyes lifted away as he straightened, turned and walked out of the bar. Theresa was stunned at the abrupt end of it all. One moment she was going to kill a man. But then he was gone, sweeping away through the door, drawing all the violence out after him.
When the door swung shut on the daylight, the shotgun clattered noisily down on the bar top and Theresa collapsed onto her stool. She watched her fingertips shake in front of her, and drew quick shallow breaths for several moments. She tried not to cry. She hadn’t cried in a long, long time. Not since childhood.
She managed to round the bar and lock the front door. She sat back down and lit an unfiltered Pall Mall. Then Theresa began to sob.
Chapter Three
Darren let out a ragged cough, muffling it against his fist, and stared miserably through the windshield of Issabella’s beaten old Buick sedan. Across the parking lot, both cops and citizens milled in and out of the Wayne County Jail. Around them, the hollow-eyed and rain-stained monoliths of Detroit’s downtown loomed, slate-gray sentinels waiting for the decades-long promise of renewal.
“This is actually a story you want to hear,” he said, and sipped the lukewarm gas station coffee Issabella had brought for him.
“No it isn’t, Darren. It’s a story you want to tell. There’s a difference.”
“You like my stories.”
“I like having my court schedule not screwed with, too.”
“Granted.”
“And having a partner who isn’t thrown in the drunk tank on a regular basis.”
“How would you know if you like that? You’ve never had one.”
She turned her head and stared at him, looking him up and down. His suit was wrinkled, but that was nothing new—Darren didn’t own an iron and he only used a dry cleaner when he had a trial. His shirt was open several buttons, and she noticed that the buttons were in fact gone, presumably shorn away in the drunken scuffle that had landed him in the tank. His tangled mop of dark curls was particularly unkempt, his chin was dotted with stubble, and his eyes were shot-through with hangover redness.
And yet, he looked charming. The u
nkempt, wrinkled mess that was Darren Fletcher was attractive. To her. His eyes were full of mirth and his smirking, devil-may-care attitude never aimed to hurt. He was a man who fell into trouble often, stabbed around blindly until he was extricated from it, and came out looking better for it. Issabella wanted to slap him.
She settled for saying, “You smell like jail, Darren.”
Jail actually did have a distinct odor. And not just Wayne County’s. It was the first thing she would notice about a client when she interviewed them inside. It was in the fabric of their jumpsuits and in their hair. But mostly it was in their breath, a sour and fetid stink that lingered in the air long after they were done lying to her about whatever had landed them in lockup. Someone like Darren, who had only been there a handful of hours, didn’t smell as ghastly as the inmates who were doing month-long stretches, granted, but nobody could get out without some hint of it on them.
Darren hit the button to send his window down.
“How bad is it? Are we going to have to save the story for after I shower?”
“Ugh. I don’t need to hear the story. You go home and clean up. I’m going to see about getting on the noon docket and maybe salvaging my day. I’ll come by and have dinner with you after—”
“I met your dad last night, Izzy.”
“Darren, that’s not funny. My dad is—”
“Howard Bright. Very blue eyes. Not bad in a fight.”
“I’ve got to go.”
Was that her voice? She didn’t think it was hers. But she saw her hand reaching for the keys in the ignition. Darren put a hand on her shoulder.
Dying in Detroit (A Bright & Fletcher Mystery) Page 2