Dying in Detroit (A Bright & Fletcher Mystery)

by Jonathan Watkins

  He stopped in the glow of a streetlamp, across the street from where he’d parked his car. He groped around in his pants pocket until he had the torn log-in sheet he’d stolen before seeing Howard. He raised it up in the light, holding the two halves together. The woman’s signature was illegible, but underneath it the Deputy who had checked her in had printed her name and the number of her driver’s license. The license was from Arizona.

  The woman’s name was listed as Samantha Ortiz.

  Darren stared at the name for a long moment, as if it were some ancient rune he might puzzle out and unlock.

  Samantha, he thought. Did you try and kill Izzy’s dad? Did you just try and murder my client?

  No answers were forthcoming, so Darren marched out of the streetlamp’s glow, into the darkness of the parking lot beyond.

  The lot was nearly empty, only a few vehicles filling spots. He glanced at the attendant booth several spaces away. The interior light was on, but he couldn’t make out the attendant inside through the dirty pane of the glass service window.

  Samantha Ortiz. It was a start. A name was a start, something that could be tracked down and chased until it produced a person—a person with an address, an email, a phone number and all the other hallmarks of identification the modern world attached to people. She could be found.

  Darren pushed the remote button that unlocked his Lexus, and came to a halt at the driver’s door.

  It’s time, he conceded. You got her name. But, now it’s time. You need to take this to the authorities, Darren. You need to let other people help her.

  It was an easy conclusion to reach, now that he’d had some small success. Inwardly, he felt foolish that he’d needed even that before coming to the rational conclusion that he couldn’t solve this situation alone, with no help. Some part of him had needed to show Issabella that he would...what? Protect her? Leap on a white stallion and charge the field of battle?

  Darren, you, sir, are a fool. Pure and simple.

  He grabbed the handle and pulled the door open.

  “You had the right idea, you know.”

  It was a chirping song of a voice, just behind him, and Darren felt it in the base of his neck before he heard it.

  Something grabbed him in that exact spot, by the neck, and smashed his face against the rim of the Lexus’s roof. Pain exploded inside his skull, a detonation that blew every thought right out of him.

  Solomon White repeated the act twice more, and on the last one Darren Fletcher fell to the ground, loose-limbed and unconscious. Solomon leaned over and lightly pushed the car door shut, extinguishing the interior light.

  “You should have stayed in your tower,” he said.

  He dragged the lawyer by his wrists, and in no time Darren Fletcher was laying in the Ranger’s bed next to the dead attendant. Unhurried, Solomon bound the lawyer’s wrists and ankles with plastic zip ties. A thin nylon cord was tied between them, binding the lawyer’s feet and hands in such a way that any struggling by one set of extremities would wrench painfully on the other.

  Then he yanked the tarp over Darren, tucked its edges under the man’s body and got into the cab of the Ranger.

  “Shining and squeaky, counselor,” he chimed as he washed his hands with the antibacterial soap, and then his face and scalp. “Clean and cleaner still. Washed away. Washed away. Washed away.”

  Solomon guided the Ranger out of the lot, a merry whistle playing on his lips.

  * * *

  When the digital clock on Issabella’s phone read midnight, her nervous concern melted into panic. Schultz watched her numbly push the speed dial for Darren and listen to it go straight to voicemail. Darren’s recorded voice was a faint murmur to him as she held the phone to her ear. She didn’t hang up until the entire message had played. When she set the phone down, her eyes followed it and stayed fixed on it.

  “I think we need to have that talk now,” Schultz said.

  She looked at him across the little terrace table and he hoped she could see concern in his eyes. He knew he had been intentionally dismissive throughout the first couple hours of her unsuccessful attempts to contact Darren. He had only been putting up a front for her, to keep her from the terrible fear that was rolling over her now.

  She nodded and set the phone down.

  “Alright. Yes.”

  “He could be on his way home, now,” Schultz offered. “So let’s not dwell on things we can’t know. Let’s just start with whatever it was you said you needed to tell me. Anything you know about this man who did these things. Everything. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “I should go wake up Theresa.”

  “Your friend? Why?”

  “She’s met the man.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No,” she said and got up. She walked stiffly off the terrace, her expression bleak and drawn. Schultz watched her go, inwardly aghast.

  From what Schultz had heard around town over his years of working in the Detroit field office, Darren Fletcher was a lot things—and few of them conventional. He had a reputation as a drunk, sure. But if every lawyer who was known to keep a bottle of scotch in their briefcase was to face disbarment, the entire court system would lurch to a standstill overnight.

  The rest of what he’d heard from various prosecutors and deputies wasn’t flattering. Issabella’s boyfriend was constantly under threat of contempt, in and out of the drunk tank, marching in front of the disciplinary committee and prone to outrageous behavior in court. Other lawyers were known to show up in court just to watch him leap into an impassioned, rambling off the cuff oratory at the podium. He was a flameout waiting to happen.

  Shultz’s gaze fell on the terrace doorway Issabella had just passed through, and he silently chided himself.

  Yeah, he sounds like a shambles. And you sound jealous.

  The fact was, second place didn’t agree with Isaac Schultz, not in the least. He was careful not to acquire a sense of entitlement, or arrogance—but that didn’t mean other men with his list of accomplishments wouldn’t easily begin to view themselves as inherent winners. From early on he’d been the golden boy who scored in sports, scored with girls and scored on tests. He’d been hurtling obstacles all his life, every one of them leading to a respected and admired position with the FBI, where he was liked and depended upon. Women in the office gave him the same quick smiles women had been giving him ever since puberty had broadened his shoulders and pushed him up past six feet. Other men wanted to share a drink with him and be counted among his friends.

  And in a little regional hospital in Marquette, Michigan, Issabella Bright had made it clear that her heart was already owned by the man who lived here, just beneath the clouds. Any thought he’d had of telling her how he felt had died in that hospital as he watched her stand sentinel over Darren’s wounded body. Even if he had found an opportune moment to confess his newly-blooming feelings for her, one look at the singular and unwavering affection she held for the man had convinced Schultz of a truth: it would never have been a contest.

  In the darkness, Schultz sighed and felt petty for letting it bother him. He didn’t wear jealousy well because he’d so rarely ever tried it on for size.

  Across the table, Issabella’s phone vibrated. He leaned over and looked at the screen.

  Darren.

  Oh, thank God.

  Schultz snatched the phone up and hesitated for only a moment, considering jogging inside and handing it to Issabella before her voicemail picked up. Instead, he answered it.

  “Darren?” he said.

  Nothing. Schultz had stood up. His eyes scanned the landscape of city lights and a restless northeastern wind fretted over the terrace.

  “Darren, you there? This is Isaac Schultz. Do you remember me?”

  He could have sa
id, “Darren, this is FBI Agent Schultz, and we need to talk,” but the truth was he shared Issabella’s dark suspicions about what might have happened to Darren Fletcher. She was most definitely being stalked by a sociopath. There was no doubt in his mind, not after seeing her cat’s head used as a paperweight to pin down a hand-written Bible verse. As far as road signs pointing to dangerous psychosis went, they didn’t get any clearer than that.

  “Darren, are you there?”

  A long moment trickled away before a voice answered. It was lilting, almost singsong, and at the sound of the very first syllable, Isaac Schultz felt a horrible thrill of recognition. It was the voice of one of the things, the others who walked around in human clothes, with human faces, and nothing but an insatiable void inside them.

  “I’ll wait for the girl,” the high, wind-chime voice promised.

  The connection went dead, and Schultz let his arm fall slack to his side. Behind him, he heard a soft footfall and he spun on his heel to stare at the doorway.

  Issabella and her friend, Theresa, were standing shoulder to shoulder, regarding him with unveiled terror. Far away, somewhere in the streets of Detroit, a siren plaintively wailed.

  Schultz knew what needed done. All of his suspicions were confirmed with that phone call. Darren was at the mercy of the same thing that had broken into Issabella’s office, the thing that had taken her cat and made a gory message out of it.

  The time for hand-holding and positive thinking was over. He needed to take charge of the situation. And that required his delivering an awful truth.

  Schultz looked at Issabella and forced the words out.

  “Someone has kidnapped Darren.”

  * * *

  What had Agent Schultz said?

  Issabella couldn’t remember. She stalled at the kitchen. On the counter, a blur of color at the corner of her eye, a touch of red amid the stainless steel. The wooden bowl Darren kept stocked with apples.

  An apple was the first gift he’d ever given her. In the office of a crematorium, of all places. Darren had munched on a dark red apple while he listened to her make her case about...about what? Something that had been important at the time. They’d traded places. His turn to make his case while she sat and tried to shoot holes in whatever he said. A game between them. A way to turn their investigation work into something fun, something animated. Darren’s game. He’d suggested it. And he’d brought an apple for her, too. Dark red. Crisp. Sweet like wine on the first bite.

  She was starting toward the stairs. She was going to...she didn’t know what she was going to do.

  What had he said? She couldn’t remember.

  “Izzy.”

  Theresa was in front of her. She tried to move around her and get up the stairs, but Theresa reached out with strong hands and held her in place. Theresa looked terribly, unspeakably frightened. She wasn’t crying, not exactly. Tears were streaming over her round cheeks, but Darren’s friend wasn’t sobbing. She was talking.

  “Izzy, sit down. Let’s sit down. Can we sit down?”

  “Of course.”

  Theresa kept hold of her and she felt herself being guided over to the living room sofa. It was black leather and too overstuffed. The kind of shiny, impractical thing a bachelor would buy. She never sat on the sofa. No, that wasn’t true. Darren had pulled her down onto it the day she’d brought over the majority of her clothing and toiletries from her condo in Canton. He’d been overjoyed that they would fall asleep together and wake up together from then on. He’d shown her how overjoyed he was, on that sofa, with kisses that lingered on her skin long after the love making was complete.

  “What did he say?”

  “It’ll be okay, Izzy. Let’s just sit a minute.”

  “I can’t remember what he said.”

  Isaac Schultz appeared as abruptly as Theresa had. He was on his phone and pacing back and forth while he spoke softly, but hurriedly, into it. He looked frightened, too. He looked drained of life, smaller than he usually was. His worried eyes passed over her, shot away as he kept talking, then wandered her way again. Theresa wrapped one arm around her and they sank deeper into the cushions, Issabella’s head on her shoulder. Schultz paced and she saw his mouth form a word, even if she didn’t hear it.

  Darren.

  She remembered now. She knew what he’d said. How silly was that, to forget? He’d only said it a moment ago, out on the terrace. She remembered. He’d said it and the world had instantly become a soundless horror.

  “Someone has kidnapped Darren.”

  Theresa smelled like cigarettes.

  Schultz paced the carpet and kept making calls on his phone, summoning his men, rousing them from their sleep to scour the land and find the stolen light of her heart.

  “Don’t be true,” she whispered.

  “Nothing’s true yet, Izzy,” Theresa whispered back. “We don’t know anything.”

  “Don’t be true,” she said again.

  Chapter Nine

  The little metal box that had once sat outside the Greyhound Bus terminal on Howard, offering the day’s edition of the city’s paper, was gone. In its absence, all that remained was a slab of sidewalk several shades darker than the sun-bleached blocks surrounding it.

  The broad-shouldered man squinted in the stark afternoon light, having just arrived in town. The interior of the bus had been bright enough, but his fellow passengers were the sort that put him on edge with their loud banter and jostling. So he’d spent the trip with his eyes closed, sunken deep down inside himself and away from the other passengers.

  He let his eyes adjust there on the sidewalk, staring at the dark patch where the news of the day used to offer itself for sale. He breathed deep through his nose and wiggled his toes in his worn workman’s boots. Detroit seeped in, flooding his senses—the rumble of traffic, the hard stone under his feet, the faint and far away odor of a rib joint’s kitchen.

  When he opened his eyes, it was time to go. He was not a man who lingered in reverie, or indulged in nostalgia. Detroit was home, but that word meant nothing more to him than an acknowledgment that this was a place he knew better than other places. Given enough time, he could call any place home. It wasn’t about kinship or fond memories. It was about knowing the dark places, knowing where each street ended, and understanding the rhythms of the local humanity. Detroit was home to him in exactly the same way the forest at night is home to the wolf.

  Centered, Malcolm Mohammed hefted his luggage up off the sidewalk and drifted away from the bus terminal. He walked in silence for ten blocks west and one more north.

  He took what had been his regular spot in a corner booth of the Coney Island on Lafayette and Michigan Avenue. It was afternoon, and the lunch crowd had already come and gone, so Malcolm set his briefcase full of art supplies to the side. Once the dinner rush started he would begin to sketch anyone who struck him as interesting. If the clientele proved interesting enough, he could lose himself in that process for hours.

  “You’re back. People were thinking maybe you died or something.”

  She was in her fifties, very black-skinned, with tired eyes offset by a warm smile. For as long as Malcolm had frequented the Coney Island, she had been waiting tables. He had never asked her for her name or wondered what it might be.

  “I went to see family,” he lied. Malcolm had no family.

  “Vacation, huh?”

  “Yes. A long vacation.”

  She started to say something—some easy patter of conversation—but stopped and seemed to catch herself. Her tired eyes took him in, examined him anew, as if they were working to remind her of a truth she had forgotten.

  Malcolm had a wide, round face and a clean-shaven skull. His brown skin was of a medium hue, neither dark nor light, and the absence of wrinkles across his face gave him an agelessness, a
disquieting impression that Malcolm had been breathed into creation fully formed, without history or future working upon him. Beneath his broad forehead, the little black eyes that stared out at the world betrayed the carefully guarded intelligence that lurked behind them.

  The waitress put her smile back on, but the wariness with which she had always regarded him in the past returned. Malcolm was glad for it. It saved him from interacting with her more than he needed.

  “You want the usual?”

  “Please. And the paper if you have it.”

  He was halfway through his scrambled eggs and coffee when he found the article in the paper about the kidnapped lawyer. Malcolm set the paper back down on the table and looked carefully around the restaurant. The handful of diners chatted or kept to themselves. The wait staff busied themselves with their tasks. Outside, through the big plate glass windows, traffic meandered by.

  Nobody was watching him. Even the tired old waitress, who had always kept her distance as if she sensed something just a tad off about Malcolm, seemed to have forgotten him once his meal was served.

  Satisfied, he lifted the paper back up off the table and read the article:

  FBI Describes Kidnapping Suspect

  Local lawyer abducted outside County Jail

  By: Kaye Drummond

  Staff Writer

  Two days after first reporting the kidnapping of local lawyer Darren Fletcher, the FBI has released a description of the man they believe is responsible.

  Special Agent Isaac Schultz, in a morning meeting with local news agencies, described the suspect as “a white male, middle aged. He is very tall, around six-and-a-half feet in height. He is bald, clean-shaven and has green eyes. From what we know, he was seen wearing a brown suede suit jacket, a black dress shirt and a red tie.”

  Darren Fletcher, who made headlines last year for his involvement in uncovering a drug-dealing and murder conspiracy within the ranks of the Detroit Police Department’s TAC unit, has been missing since his apparent abduction outside the Wayne County Jail Tuesday evening.

  Additionally, James Overton, who has been employed as an attendant in the same parking lot in which Mr. Fletcher is believed to have been abducted, has been missing for the last two days. When questioned about Mr. Overton, Agent Schultz declined to either confirm or deny if Overton is a suspect in Mr. Fletcher’s abduction. Coworkers of Mr. Overton, when contacted by the Freepress, denied that he matched the physical description of the suspect provided by Agent Schultz.