Dead Wood

by Dan Ames

  He eased himself out of his chair and walked toward the pictures on the wall. He passed by the ones featuring himself and other celebrities. He paused at the end of the row. I couldn’t see what he was looking at. But his big shoulders slumped slightly. For just a moment, he looked like a tired old man.

  “My wife was a pessimist,” he said. His voice was low and gentle. “Back then, I was just a studio musician and a songwriter doing small solo gigs at backwoods clubs. She was a secretary who came to see me play once. Introduced herself. She was so goddamn beautiful. Blond hair, gray eyes that could twist your insides if she looked at you a certain way. This was before my would-be manager approached me and told me he could make a star out of me. That I was a hit-making machine waiting to be put into production.”

  I leaned forward in my chair, trying to get a better look at the photos on the wall as he told his story.

  “Anyway, we started seeing each other and got married only a few months later,” he said. “I was writing, singing, and playing whenever I could. Hell, all the time. But it was just me and her back then. That wasn’t just love. It was intense love.”

  He turned back to me, and his eyes blazed. Jesus, I thought, this guy is old school.

  “See, she didn’t want to have kids,” he said. “It was that pessimist in her. She thought most people were bastards through and through. A truly low opinion of human nature, of society in general. She was sort of a split personality, which I found very attractive. She had a heart of gold, but her take on the world was that it was the equivalent of a pack of hyenas trying to rip off a chunk of the carcass.”

  “Why did she think that?” I said.

  He just shrugged his big shoulders. “She never really said. I think her parents splitting up had something to do with it. I don’t think her childhood was the greatest. But it’s not like she was a sad sack either. She was happy go lucky most of the time. But it was hard to get her to give people the benefit of the doubt, you know?”

  “I do.”

  “She loved me, though. I guess she thought I was the exception to the rule.”

  I nodded. Like so many theories on human behavior, there was a grain of truth to it.

  “But when it came to people and the world around me, I was Mr. Fucking Optimistic. The world was my oyster, boy. I knew I could make good music. The future was full of joy, happiness, and success. And money too. To me, that was all a given. But what I really wanted was a family. I wanted kids, man. To me, that was the end all in life. And hell, I didn’t think people were all bad. Sure, there were jackals. But there are good people too.”

  He walked back and sat down in his chair. There were tears in his eyes, and he didn’t try to hide them. By now, they were probably old friends to him. “So we had Jesse. And my wife died of cancer a few years later. And now . . . Jesse’s gone. I feel like my wife was right. I never should have brought a child into this world unless I could protect that child completely and indefinitely. It’s my fault she’s dead. I couldn’t protect her. But I can find out who did it. Find out which jackal it was. And I can make them pay. It won’t bring her back. But . . . I guess . . .” He raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I guess it’s all I can do,” he said.

  I didn’t know what to say. I knew what he was going through. I had lost a child too. Not one of my own. But a child I had been responsible for. But I didn’t think that would help him. So I kept my mouth shut. Soon he was able to continue.

  “So do what you can,” he said. “If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But I want you to leave no stone unturned. Bring me irrefutable proof that it was random and we’ll be done. But keep an open mind.”

  Clarence looked tired and spent. I didn’t just want to take the case. I wanted to hug him.

  “Okay, deal,” I said. “I’d like to get started immediately.”

  “Just tell me what you need.”

  “For starters, I want to see her studio.”

  Chapter Nine

  In my brief time as a cop, I’d only been to a few crime scenes. To say it’s odd is an understatement. It’s the little things like inspirational notes tacked on the fridge. Message slips next to the phone. Clothes draped over the back of a chair. Notes and letters and bills and grocery lists. Those are the things that suddenly seem like haunted memories.

  Jesse Barre’s guitar studio was no exception.

  The building was at the end of Kercheval, a stone’s throw from the Detroit border. Like just about every other building on this end of town, it had most likely been through many, many incarnations. Restaurants, furniture stores, craft shops, liquor stores. One and all had been tried. The problem was not too many people in Grosse Pointe like coming down for a reminder of just how close they are to the Big D. Especially at night.

  Jesse’s studio was two stories of sienna-colored brick with a small stone inset at the top reading “1924.”

  Clarence and I parked then went around to the back. An alley ran behind the building.

  “You sure this is okay?” Clarence asked me as we circumvented the police tape stretched across the back door. There was a big square of plywood where a window used to be. Clarence looked at it but didn’t say anything.

  “Yeah,” I lied. “I’m pretty tight with the chief of police.”

  He nodded. I could see his face, and it didn’t look good. Pale, and his jaw was clenched shut.

  “Clarence, why don’t you wait in the car?” I said.

  He shook his head. “I’ve been in here once already . . . after. I can do this.” He unlocked the door, and we stepped inside. I pulled it shut behind us and locked it.

  The first thing I noticed was the smell. It smelled like a lumberyard. That wonderful scent of freshly cut wood. The second thing I noticed was that the studio was bigger than it looked from the outside. Along one wall was a row of woodworking machines that to my weekend-carpenter’s eyes looked like something only Norm Abraham could understand. I recognized a lathe and a huge old coping saw, as well as a drill press and table saw, but the rest of them, I had no idea what they did.

  Along the other wall was a long workbench, at least twenty feet, with lots of stains and gouges and scratches. It had seen a lot of use in its life. A pegboard hung above it. On the pegboard was a collection of hand tools that looked like they belonged in either an antique store or some kind of torture chamber. I saw more weird-looking clamps and medieval-looking instruments than I knew existed.

  At the end of the studio, opposite the entrance was what appeared to be Jesse’s main work center. There was a vast array of lights, and a more sophisticated table with an impressive collection of measuring equipment. There was also the only real chair in the place.

  Next to the table was the chalk outline of Jesse’s final resting place. I imagined her body on the floor, surrounded by the tools of her craft. The fragments of guitar pieces looking down at her. Even though I’m not terribly religious, something like a short prayer vocalized itself in my mind.

  Clarence came and stood next to me. I could hear his breathing, labored and rapid. He looked down at the other end of the studio and, after a moment, said with a voice that had lost all of its timbre and conviction, “Maybe I will wait in the car.”

  I said, “Okay,” and waited for him to leave. Once the door was shut, I walked ahead and tried not to dwell on the giant blood stain still visible on the concrete floor.

  I made my way around the workshop. I studied the blood spot on the floor then looked at the ceiling. There were blood splatters that had been noted by the crime scene technician. Despite the fact that there was probably no way Clarence could have missed them, I hoped to God that he hadn’t seen them. The brutality of the crime shook me. A blood splatter on the ceiling meant that after this woman had had her head cracked open and the blunt instrument was covered in blood, the perp had kept beating. Nothing drives home the violence of a crime like blood splatters on the ceiling.

  There were a lot of fragmentary pieces—shapes and contour
s of wood that would eventually be used in a guitar. I recognized a kind of rib framing and several guitar necks. There were boxes of the knobs guitarists use to tune the strings. Off in one corner were a small sink and an old, battered coffeemaker with a hodgepodge of cups surrounding it. A small refrigerator was tucked beneath a makeshift countertop. On a shelf above the coffeemaker was a dusty stereo with stacks of CDs and audio cassettes. Mostly classical music. The majority of them played on guitar.

  It was all mundane and not glamorous in the least bit. But most importantly of all to my way of thinking, it was pretty much useless to a petty thief.

  I just stood for a moment in the studio. Outside, I could hear the occasional hum of traffic, maybe a voice here or there. The pipes in the building occasionally creaked and popped. Ordinarily you would probably never hear them. But now in the stillness of the aftermath, they seemed like loud intrusions.

  I tried to glean any other pieces of information from the room that I could. I re-examined the point of entry for the killer. Took particular time studying the door and the actual spot of the crime.

  I took one final look around the workshop then, satisfied, contemplated what to do next.

  Clarence had mentioned to me that Jesse lived above the studio in a simple apartment. As he put it, it hadn’t been much, but she hadn’t wanted much. I thought of going up to her living quarters but hesitated. Although entering the workshop was technically illegal, it seemed that sneaking into Jesse’s living quarters was an even bigger violation, although more of a moral infraction.

  The guitar pieces hanging from various hooks and clamps eyeballed me as I wrestled with indecision. In the end, I knew I had to do it. If Clarence really wanted me to find out whether or not his daughter was truly the victim of a premeditated crime, it had to be done.

  After all, I’d promised Clarence I would find out the truth.

  * * *

  •

  * * *

  True to Clarence’s word, the apartment wasn’t much. A living room with simple furnishings: a comfortable but well-worn leather couch, an old Adirondack-style rocking chair, a wall of bookshelves filled with tomes on art and music.

  There was an old guitar resting in a stand next to the rocker. It definitely wasn’t one Jesse had made. It reminded me of those old jazz numbers from the 1920s. At the top, the name “Gibson” was emblazoned across the wood.

  I walked through the living room and into the kitchen. It too was simple with a small pine table and two old, wooden chairs. A stove from the ’50s was next to a fridge, most likely from the same decade. To the left of the sink was a small amount of counter and a few simple cabinets painted robin’s egg blue. The small butcher block countertop smelled vaguely of red wine and garlic.

  A short hallway ran off the kitchen to two bedrooms. One had a small bed with a pine night table. There was a painting over the headboard that looked original. It portrayed a Northwoods Harbor empty save for a few small boats. It looked cold and gray.

  The second bedroom was nearly empty save for a few guitar cases, a steel folding chair and a small stereo. There was a bathroom between the bedrooms. I peeked inside and saw that it was small and cramped but impeccably clean.

  I walked back to the living room and tried to imagine Jesse Barre, a talented guitar maker, daughter of a talented musician, working all day in the shop, then coming up here to relax. When? Did she eat in the studio or up here? What time did she finish? Dinnertime, or later? Was she a night owl? The living room looked hardly lived in. There was no television. No stereo. Just the couch, the rocking chair, a lamp, and the books. Did she spend all day laboring over the machines, the grinding and cutting and sanding and shaping of wood, then retire up here with a glass of wine and a good book?

  Not a bad way to go, really. Awfully solitary though. Was she antisocial? Working all day alone, then coming up here alone? How often did this Nevada Hornsby come by?

  I looked around the living room for pictures, spotted a small shelf to the left of the rocker. I crossed the room and studied them. There were about seven all together. All very small frames. There was one of Jesse, who at the time looked to be in her early twenties, with a woman who was considerably older. Her mother. Where was Clarence? I studied the pictures and saw two with him, one younger and one probably a couple years ago.

  I heard a footstep behind me.

  I picked up the picture and started to say to Clarence, who had probably gotten tired of waiting in the car, “So tell me about this picture—”

  The blow came out of the darkness, sent pain shooting through my middle. My kidneys flattened, and I instantly sank to my knees. I tried to turn my head, but a walloping smash that felt like a brick being broken over my head toppled me over onto the floor. Instantly, my attacker was on top of me. He had on a mask. A knife flashed in front of my face, and then I felt its razor sharpness against my throat. I could feel his breath on my face. It smelled like beer and hamburger.

  “Where is it?” he asked.

  I tried to answer but my tongue and brain weren’t connecting. Some kind of wiring had been rearranged.

  “Don’t play dumb, motherfucker. I’ll split you in two right here.”

  I saw the flash of teeth through the fabric of the mask. I tried again to speak, but nothing came out. I felt blood in my mouth, and there was an enormous pressure against my eyes. My head was going to explode, I was sure of it. Suddenly, he grabbed the neck of my shirt and dragged me across the floor.

  “You’re going to tell me where it is or you’re going to fucking die. Those are your choices.”

  His voice was raw and angry. He was slightly out of breath. I tried to fight him, tried to raise my arms, but my vision came in bursts, followed by oceans of black. My limbs were numb and useless. I felt myself falling, banging off the stairs, the wall, the handrail leading down into the shop. I saw snapshots of wood and plaster, felt stabs of pain in my back, shoulders, and face. Everything went black. But it was only for a second, because a blurred canvas of colors washed across my brain before I heard his steps and then felt his hands on me again.

  There was a roar in my ears, and he pulled me into a sitting position, pinning me against a base cabinet. Now, the roaring was closer and louder. One of my eyes must have already been swollen shut because I couldn’t see anything to my left. All I could see out of the other one was the rounded edge of a woodworking machine. He grabbed my right arm and pulled it toward him. He changed his grip, holding two of my fingers in each hand. He pulled them apart so they formed a V, opening up a path that would go directly into the middle of my hand. My fingers were pulled so far apart I was sure he was going to rip them right out of my hand. I twisted as best I could, heaved against him in a panicked fury, but to no avail. He leaned against me, pinning me still, my hand a helpless sacrifice to whatever he intended to do.

  “Where . . . is . . . it?” he asked me again. I could practically hear his teeth grinding as the words choked from his mouth.

  I turned my head so my good eye could get a better look, and what I saw sent my body and mind both screaming in panic. The roaring was the high-pitched whine of a glorified scroll saw—a thin blade moving up and down with nearly incomprehensible speed. My hand was pressed onto the cutting surface, the blade already in the middle of the V, just an inch or so away from the webbing of where the fingers met the palm.

  Before I could react, he pushed my arm forward and a searing pain shot up my palm to my arm to my brain, and I exploded as I saw the blade sink its teeth into my flesh. I crashed against the man, and we both fell against the saw. I felt the blade rip from my hand, and then the man screamed in pain. We both toppled to the floor. I heard his knife clatter across the concrete just before my head banged against the floor, and then he was on top of me, punching and kicking and the lights were swirling.

  I lashed out at him, but my blows caught air or glanced off him harmlessly. I was going to die, a few feet from where Jesse Barre’s blood still stained the concr
ete—then the color of the flashing lights changed from a throbbing, dull yellow to bright white.

  The blows suddenly stopped, and he was off me in a rush. I struggled to get up, but my legs didn’t want to cooperate.

  I heard shouting and then glass breaking as the windows and walls of the studio were now awash with incredibly bright light. Maybe this was Heaven. I looked for Jesus, thinking he would wave me in. Instead, I saw a thick wave of gray hair.

  “Grandma?” I asked. “Should I come toward the light?”

  For just a second, everything started to spin, and the spacious room looked like a dance floor. Only instead of teenagers consumed with the throes of adolescent love, the only thing happening at center stage was a thirty-five-year-old father of two bleeding and overcome with more pain than he’d ever thought possible.

  The figure in the light moved and said something I couldn’t understand.

  Just before I blacked out for good, I figured out who was calling me to Heaven.

  It was Kenny Rogers.

  Chapter Ten

  The last time I had stitches, I was eight years old. I’d gone ice skating for the first and last time. I took a header and fell flat on my face, my front tooth slicing through my lip. A lip the size of a ping pong ball resulted, with four stitches sealing up the cut.

  Now, at Bon Secour Hospital’s emergency room, I got the same number in the middle of my hand.

  “That’s a really ugly cut,” the doctor said to me. “How did it happen?”

  “I was building a bird feeder, and I got careless,” I said. “I was thinking ahead to the cardinals and blue jays, not about what I was doing.”

  He nodded like he heard it all the time.

  “You know that older guy you came in with?” the doctor asked. “Where do I know him from?”