Dying in Detroit (A Bright & Fletcher Mystery)

by Jonathan Watkins

  Humanity asserts itself, Solomon thought with sour dissatisfaction as he watched the shabby, blue-jeaned man approach. He knew that people didn’t like silence, couldn’t abide any real sense of solitude. Even the ones who told themselves they were independent, or thought of themselves as self-reliant, would seek out company sooner or later. And so, this new imminent encounter.

  This one, with his loose, unshaven jowls and rat’s nest of hair looked to be skimming along just above the level where the rest of society would label him a transient. He looked like a Detroit nobody, a little weed of impulses and appetites struggling along with the rest of the weeds that apparently had overtaken this detestable, grime-crusted town.

  Solomon sighed wearily at the unavoidable contact and got out of the Ranger. He was in the shadow of the building, having chosen this spot to park and wait because it was in the back of the lot, between the office building and a big, green city Dumpster. The rest of the lot was less than half full of cars, and his Ranger had a clear, unobstructed path out for when he needed to leave.

  “Hey,” the attendant called out when he was near. “Geez, I was wondering if you fell asleep back here.”

  Solomon watched him come to a stop a couple paces away.

  “Nope. Just waiting for a friend.”

  “Giving someone a ride?”

  “Yes indeedy.”

  The man was in his middle years, but had the deep lines and haggard wear of someone older. His yellow attendant’s vest was heavily wrinkled and stained in several places. Solomon took a breath in through his nose and could smell the man’s dissolute stink—his sweat, the rich smell of meat and, beneath it, whatever cheap alcohol he subsisted on in that little shack.

  “We get a lot of that in this lot,” the man kept on, oblivious to the revulsion crawling up and down Solomon’s skin. “Every couple hours they let a bunch of ’em out. You can always tell when it’s about to happen because the lot fills up with people coming to give ’em a ride home.”

  While he said this, the attendant shot a thumb back over his shoulder. Across the street on the far end of the lot, the Wayne County Jail rose up out of the earth. It was a sandy-stoned monolith, its walls ringed in razor wire. Police cars were littered here and there at its base.

  Solomon stared at the jail for a moment, let his gaze sweep away and back to the black Lexus parked near the other end of the lot. Satisfied that it was still there, he looked at the stinking heap of humanity in front of him and put on a smile he did not feel.

  “I guess you see a lot here,” he said. That was all the invitation the man needed.

  “God, you have no idea,” he agreed with a rueful shake of his head. His posture changed, settling in and becoming comfortable like he was going to be there a while. “You see some crazy shit if you sit and watch long enough. I mean, granted, it’s mostly junkies and drunks get let out of there. But not all of ‘em. I seen plenty of guys come out of there wearing three piece suits. You know? Hell, I’ve seen women look like someone’s granny get let out of there.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Oh, sure. Last month there was this old bird got let out. I mean old, like she should be in a home, right? And she shuffles on over this way to the guy waiting for her, like you’re doing, right? And he’s just ancient. I mean, this guy was in the civil war, okay? Cane in one hand. All stooped over and dragging his feet to come over and help her across the street. Saddest sight you ever saw.”

  “That sounds pathetic.”

  “It was,” the man enthused, and his whiskered mouth curved into a smile as he warmed up to the story. “But, get this—they start fighting. I mean, not him. He’s all reaching out to give her a hand, right? And I’m feeling bad, like maybe I’ll go out and help her, too. But she just hauls back—I mean, actually cocks her arm back like a quarterback—and punches the old bird right across the head! No shit, she just walloped him!”

  “That is crazy.”

  “No, no. That’s not the best part. So the old guy goes down, right? He’s out for the count. Just lying there in the middle of the road. And Granny? She kicks him! Kicks him like three times. And I’m walking over now. I’m going to pull her off him, you know? But there’s cops standing there outside the jail, and they’re watching all of this, too. So they get there first. One of them gets her handcuffed and escorts her back inside. Another’s helping up grandpa and calling for an ambulance. So I get interviewed by the third cop, you know? I mean, I guess I’m a witness, so I have to tell him what all I saw.”

  Solomon had been weighing a few factors in the back of his mind ever since the man had first begun walking toward him. Now, that decision-making process accelerated into a higher gear. He nodded politely as the attendant talked, but his eyes were sweeping the lot and the street beyond. It was late, and he saw no other souls. He would be easy to remember, as big as he was, if the attendant was ever questioned.

  And the man had breathed the word “witness” into life.

  “So now you’re a part of it,” Solomon said.

  The attendant was animated, his hands making broad gestures in front of him as he built to the end of his story. He seemed like a man who had been waiting for the chance to tell it.

  “Exactly. But I don’t mind. I mean, I see a lot out here. They want to put me down in their notebook? I don’t care. But the kicker is, this cop tells me that Granny was in there for domestic violence. I know! How crazy is that? She’s a fossil! But then he says it’s because she caught the old buzzard with his live-in nurse. Turns out this guy is worth a bit of cash, so he’s been doling it out to some gal and in return she’s, ah, polishing the silverware. Get it?”

  “Got it,” Solomon said, and extended his arm toward the grinning man. The antique Solingen’s blade drew a deep red line across the man’s throat.

  The attendant’s hands shot up and groped at the red shower jetting out below his chin, and his eyes beamed a panicked, unvoiced question at the stranger who had killed him. Solomon reached over, grabbed him by the back of his neck, and threw him down onto the pavement beside the Ranger. The attendant struggled to his knees, gurgling incoherently. Solomon planted his shoe in the center of the man’s back and shoved him back down onto his belly.

  Solomon remained still and scanned in all directions, his foot still pinning the dying man to the earth. A car glided silently past on its way to destinations unknown. The jail was a silent geometric mass in the late evening gloom.

  “I know a funny story, too,” he said eventually, in his high lilting tone. The attendant’s feet kicked weakly against the pavement, and his gurgling grew softer. “But I’m not going to tell it to you, old boy.”

  A minute later, the gurgling noises stopped and Solomon took his foot off the corpse of the shabby parking lot attendant.

  Inside the cab of the Ranger, he had a twelve ounce bottle of antibacterial soap, a tub of baby wipes and his bag of toiletries. Carefully, he cleaned the Solingen’s blade with a baby wipe, folded it into its pearl handle, and slipped it back into his pocket.

  He heaved the corpse into the bed of the truck, lifting the man with little effort—Solomon was exactly as strong as his huge frame suggested. He’d bought a canvas tarp after leaving the hotel that morning, before he’d parked and waited for the lawyer to exit his penthouse sanctuary. He used the tarp to cover the dead man’s body, and didn’t feel the slightest bit disturbed about the unexpected turn of events.

  After all, the Ranger’s bed wasn’t so small that it couldn’t accommodate more than one body.

  Chapter Eight

  The visitation room was little more than a closet containing a small table and two chairs. The steel door had a large window in the center of it so the guards on duty could maintain visual contact on any inmate who might be trying to either receive contraband from their lawyer or, more likely, assault them. Th
e door was heavy, like all the others in the jail, and made an ominous metallic thud when it shut behind Howard Bright. The deputy who had escorted him in turned the lock, which fell into place with a loud clank, and disappeared.

  “What happened to getting me out on bond?” Howard snapped as soon as they were alone.

  “Sit down, Howard,” Darren said from across the little table. He had several papers laid out in front of him, and had been deciding on the order of his questions.

  Howard scowled, no sign of his very bright smile or his easy, talkative nature. If anything, the bruises under his eyes had deepened into near black, and his nose was a swollen, tender-looking blob. He sat.

  “You failed to mention a few things,” Darren began. He had settled on taking a prosecutorial stance with Howard: put the man on the defensive with accusatory language, make him defend himself and, in so doing, he would spill out the information needed. Early on in his career, Darren had learned that a great deal of a defense lawyer’s communication with clients was best performed in this fashion. It allowed you to find out what lies would be told, and to understand how the client might appear in front of a jury. Sometimes, it was the only way to get anything like real information out of people who, by and large, did not consider their lawyer to be someone operating in their best interest.

  “Failed to mention?” Howard protested. “What...Darren...what’s going on? I need to get out of here.”

  “Why? In the hope Arizona doesn’t find out you’re here before you walk out the doors? Well, you can forget that. They already know. And they put a hold on your release. When you get out on this charge, you’re getting transported right back down there to their department of corrections.”

  Howard looked ill. His skin had a washed-out and clammy pallor and his eyes were watery orbs. He rubbed at his stubbled jaw and let out a long, shuddering sigh.

  “Shit.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were on parole?”

  “It’s not the sort of thing I brag about.”

  “It’s the sort of thing you tell your lawyer, Howard.”

  “You weren’t my lawyer! I came to you to get help, but not legal help. It was hard enough telling you I was the man who left Izzy. I was supposed to also say ‘Oh and I also did some time in a state prison’?”

  “For embezzlement,” Darren added.

  When he’d returned home with Theresa in tow, Issabella had handed him print outs of what little she’d been able to find online about the building projects Howard had been involved in. While she had busied herself helping Theresa settle into a spare bedroom, Darren had run his own internet search—for the criminal history of Howard Bright.

  “Yes,” Howard snapped and waved his hand like he was shooing a fly. “Embezzlement. I made some very bad decisions. I went to prison and did my time. I’m not going to sit here and apologize for it now.”

  “And, oddly enough, here you are being chased by some very angry people,” Darren said. “And this time, wouldn’t you know it, it’s because you embezzled more than half a million dollars from a building fund. What a coinkydink.”

  “Can we get past the part where you beat me up? I’m doing enough of that on my own, okay?”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Darren—”

  “Tell me about Roland Burton, Howard. Tell me about him, and tell me about Gunther Kriegs. Let’s talk about them, okay? Let’s talk about the men who sent some kind of psycho out here to collect their money from you.”

  As he spoke, Darren slipped Howard’s criminal record to the bottom of the pile and scanned the printout Issabella had given him. It was a webpage for Red Mesa Luxury Living. Among the marketing photos and hyperbolic descriptions of the paradise that was Red Mesa, Roland Burton and Gunther Kriegs were listed as the developers. Potential buyers were directed to contact one Howard Bright.

  “That’s them,” Howard whispered, nodding his head shallowly. “They’re partners in a lot of things in Maricopa. Building is just part of it.”

  “Who are they?”

  Howard seemed to struggle to find his voice. He opened his mouth, shut it and frowned. Finally he leaned forward heavily on the table, twining the fingers of his hands together and shrugging his shoulders.

  “They’re the sort of men who would hire a convicted felon to run the sales end of their building development,” he whispered. “The sort of men who would hire me.”

  “What does that mean? Like, Maricopa Mafia? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Howard smiled bleakly.

  “If there’s such a thing as Maricopa Mafia, then Roland and Gunther would be it.”

  “And that’s who you chose to steal from?”

  Howard didn’t make any move to answer. He stared at his hands folded in front of him, despondent and wane. The large head of a guard appeared in the window for a moment. He scanned the room, confirmed nobody was dead or in possession of smuggled drugs, and walked away out of sight.

  “I know there isn’t much to recommend about me right now, Darren,” Howard said softly, still not looking up. “I know that. And I know it’s all my own fault, and that I’ve brought all this horrible mess to your doorstep. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to put anyone else in danger. I just...I just want to know what to do to get out of it. If I can get out of here, I swear I’ll go straight back down to Phoenix and walk into their office and just let them do whatever they want to me. But I can’t help from in here, can I?”

  “That’s true,” Darren snapped, unmoved. “Ironically enough, you’re the only person who’s actually safe.”

  Howard looked up then, his eyes big and swimming with misery. The skin of his face, where it wasn’t bruised, had a slight greenish tint to it, like the color of seasickness. Darren realized that Howard wasn’t just beleaguered. He was worn out to the point of actual illness.

  Venting at him isn’t going to solve anything. You came here for information. Maybe put away Prosecutor Darren and see if you can get him to talk about this woman—

  Howard’s face contorted into a pained grimace and he seized the edge of the table in a death grip, as if suddenly afraid he would pitch violently away from it if he let go. Darren rose, one hand reaching out for Issabella’s father.

  “Howard?”

  Howard’s death grip on the table brought it crashing onto its side as he tumbled down off his chair. His eyes snapped open as he landed on his back, his legs straight out and rigid as two planks.

  “Howard!”

  A thick, milky plume of vomit erupted up and out of Howard Bright, splashing across him and onto the floor. A wretched gagging sound followed. He clawed at his stomach, fingers twisting in the thick orange denim of the jail jumpsuit.

  “Hey!” Darren shouted, pounding a fist on the window in the center of the steel door. “Hey! We need help in here! Now! Help!” A deputy stationed at a control desk across the hall glanced up, started to look back down at his monitor, then registered that it was an emergency. As soon as the man started to walk out from behind the desk, Darren squatted down next to Howard and got one arm under the man’s shoulders.

  “It’ll be alright,” he said, and shrugged Howard onto his side, just as another heaving bout of vomiting started. Darren could see ribbons of bright red blood swimming in the milky pool.

  “Darren—” the older man gasped.

  “Relax, Howard.”

  “She,” Howard wheezed, his torso shuddering as he concentrated to fend off the next bout of vomiting. Darren leaned in closer. “Came...here.”

  “I know. It’s alright.”

  Howard shook his head and gritted his teeth against whatever agony was roiling around inside him. His eyes were screwed shut again, his hands balled into white-knuckled fists.

  “No! That wo-man,” he said, gasping for breath. “Promise
d. Promised I...die...in here.”

  Someone strong hauled him away, and Darren was propelled backward out of the little room as two deputies shouldered their way inside. Darren stood there, dazed, with Howard’s bleak revelation stuck in his ears. Two more deputies arrived, one hauling a collapsible stretcher. People were shouting. Across the hall, inmates held in other rooms pressed their faces to the glass and leaped into a chorus of whooping and jeering.

  One of the guards grabbed Darren by the arm, roughly.

  “Time for you to go,” the deputy ordered, indicating the way down to the sally port that would deliver Darren back to the land of the free.

  Darren shook free of the deputy’s grip and pointed a sharp finger at the man. Darren’s Lawyer Voice—his voice of authority, which he’d earned over years of pretending he knew what he was talking about at all times—poured out of him.

  “I’m that man’s lawyer,” he said. “And I’ll testify to everything I saw in there. You get any idea about just letting him get better on his own in some segregated cell, think again. He gets transported to a hospital, or this turns into a civil suit with your name on it.”

  A minute later, the frowning Deputy managed to get Darren through the sally port and out of the jail, pushing the lawyer’s papers and briefcase into his hands. Nobody acknowledged his threat, but as Darren gathered the papers back into the briefcase and stalked off toward the parking lot, he was slightly more confident that Howard wouldn’t be allowed to languish in some cell. Jail guards were threatened with lawsuits on a daily basis from inmates, family of the incarcerated and, yes, even by incensed lawyer like Darren Fletcher. They were inured to what were, in reality, hollow threats with no real teeth.

  But Darren’s particular Lawyer Voice was better than most, and he was very rarely disappointed in the results it garnered him.