Detroit Noir

by E. J. Olsen

  "I know," I said.

  * * *

  Baker was stopped at a traffic light. The heat rose in wavering vapors from the hot asphalt, dissipating into the pale yellow sky. There was a sulphurous smell in the air that pricked my nostrils even through the closed car windows.

  "Can we stop at Angela's?" I asked Baker.

  He nodded and turned right, heading to an apartment building over on Winder. I had met Angela about three years ago. She was working in a strip club up on Eight Mile, trying to do the best she could for her twelve-year-old daughter. Angela had just married Curtis Streeter, a mostly unemployed construction worker with flat black eyes and the names of his two ex-wives tattooed on his bicep. As a wedding gift, he had added Angela's name to his arm.

  It was two nights after the wedding that Baker and I made our first visit to their place. We found Angela crumpled in the corner of the tiny yellow kitchen, bloody hand prints smearing the oven door. The daughter was in her bed with a split lip and her hair chopped off above her ears by dull scissors. Punishment by her stepfather for sassing back.

  Angela had been strong at first, fueled by her pain and the sight of her daughter's ragged hair. But in the days after, she began to withdraw, the pain turning to regret and self-blame. I knew that without Angela's testimony, Streeter would walk free.

  For the first time in my career, I went the extra mile for a victim. I spent nights digging into Streeter's past, but I didn't find anything that could send him away. Though I did find something I hoped might steel Angela's resolve.

  A few years before he hooked up with Angela, Streeter had been living with a woman who had an infant son. Six weeks into the relationship, the mother carried her dead son into an emergency room. The baby died of a head injury, like his brain had ricocheted around inside his skull, the doctors said. The mother said the baby had fallen down some stairs. No one believed her. But when Streeter's alibi was backed up by three of his punk friends, the only thing the cops could do was charge the mother with neglect.

  I pulled out the coroner's photos of the dead child and I showed them to Angela, telling her Streeter had shaken that baby to death. A week later, Angela stood in court and begged the judge to put Streeter away. Because Streeter had a record and his battery charge on Angela violated his probation, an impatient judge gave him seven years.

  In the four years I had been working the special crimes unit, I could count on one hand the number of abuse cases that came close to a successful resolution. Angela's was one of them, and I had been keeping loose tabs on her ever since. Maybe I took a sort of pride in the fact that I had helped her turn some corner.

  That's why I had asked Baker to swing by. That, and I needed something to wipe the image of Justin's bloody crib from my head.

  The outside of Angela's building was as bad as I remembered. But behind the triple deadbolts she had fixed up her place. Fresh mauve paint, rose-patterned curtains I knew she had made herself. The place smelled of simmering beef and green beans.

  Baker posted himself at the window to watch the cruiser below. Last week on this same street a squad car had been stripped while the officer was inside taking a report.

  Angela emerged from the kitchen carrying a can of Ver-nors ginger ale. She looked good, even with a few extra pounds. Her hair was bright yellow with a recent coloring. Men tipped well for blond hair, she had once told me.

  When she handed me the can of pop, an odd scent drifted off her body. Someone who had given birth would have recognized it more quickly, but it wasn't until I picked up on Angela's expression—child-bright with a secret—that it hit me. The smell was breast milk.

  "I had a baby," she said.

  I scanned the room for evidence that a man now lived here. I saw nothing except a baby seat pushed into the corner near the television.

  "When?"

  "Three months ago. Want to see him?"

  She didn't give me time to answer and I followed her back to the bedrooms. The first room was painted pink, adorned with posters of pop singers and kittens. The daughter's room. She'd be fifteen or so now.

  At the door of Angela's room, I slowed, but she waved me over to the bassinet near her bed.

  A halo of curls around a chubby face. Long brown lashes that fluttered with dreams. His tiny body filled only a third of the mattress.

  "Who's the father?" I asked.

  Angela picked up the baby and placed a soft kiss on his cheek. "He's out of the picture," she said. "He was married, and I'm okay with that. He paid for everything, though. Still sends me money when he can."

  I found the news oddly comforting. "So you're doing okay?"

  Angela nodded, yet wouldn't meet my eyes. There was something she wasn't telling me, but I wasn't sure I should push. Baker had said I couldn't be both protector and friend to the victims I met. The line between the two was too thin.

  "Sheffield," Baker called out.

  Something in the way he said my name compelled me quickly back to the living room. I stopped short, staring into a pair of flat black eyes.

  Curtis Streeter stood there, smiling at me.

  I didn't smile back.

  "Curtis has been paroled."

  Angela's voice was small behind me. I didn't turn to look at her, just kept my eyes on Streeter.

  Angela sidled past me, still carrying the baby and going to Streeter's side. He gave her an odd hug, his hand gently pushing the baby to Angela's hip so he could flatten himself against her body. When he broke the embrace, his eyes came back to my face. He wasn't smiling anymore. It was clear he remembered me.

  "He doesn't have anyplace to go," Angela said. "I'm letting him move back in."

  My eyes flicked to Baker, still standing at the window. He wasn't watching Streeter. He was watching me. He gave me a subtle shake of his head. I turned away.

  Tonight I have the windows closed, even though it is still eighty degrees. I lay here in my narrow bed, staring at the shadows. Finally, I can't stand it anymore and go to the window, throwing it open. The heavy night air pours over my body.

  I stand at the small casement window, looking up at the ground that encloses me, and then up further to the small slice of night sky I can glimpse. No stars, no moon.

  I crawl back to my bed, my head thick with sleeplessness. Just as I dare to close my eyes, it starts, a single low roar. Then another in answer, and finally a third, forming a raw chorus of overlapping, repetitive bellows.

  Closer, a night bird calls, its tiny sharp pleading punctuating the roaring.

  The night has awakened, and its creatures—large and small— are proclaiming themselves to the world.

  "What's with you today?"

  I stayed silent. A part of me was glad that Baker picked up on my mood because I hadn't been able to think of a way to tell him what I needed to.

  "Sheffield, what the hell is wrong?"

  I let out a long breath. "I'm thinking of bagging it."

  "Bagging what?"

  "This. I can't do it anymore. I can't take it anymore."

  Baker was quiet, chewing on his toothpick, his hands steady on the wheel. The soft chatter from the radio filled the car.

  "This got anything to do with Angela?" he asked.

  "No. Maybe. Shit, I don't know."

  "Sheffield, for chrissake …"

  I held up a hand. "I can't do this anymore, all right? I can't keep telling myself that what I do makes any difference in this shithole place."

  Baker was quiet.

  I was afraid I would cry. "I'm tired," I said. "I'm tired and I just feel so alone."

  Baker still said nothing, just put the car in gear and we moved slowly forward. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

  I don't know how long I stayed like that, in a half-sleep state, lulled by the murmur of the radio and the movement of the car. When I realized we had stopped, I opened my eyes.

  We were in a deserted parking lot. The peeling white fa-çade of Tiger Stadium loomed in the windshield. Baker was gone.
Then I saw him coming toward the car carrying two Styrofoam cups. He slid in and handed me a cup and a pack of Splenda.

  For several minutes we sat in silence, sipping our coffees.

  "My dad used to bring me here for games," Baker said, nodding toward the stadium. "We were in the bleachers for the seventh game of the '68 series when Northrup hit a two-run rope into center to win. It was great."

  "I wasn't even born then, Baker," I said.

  He gave me a half-smile, set his coffee in a holder, and put the car in gear. We headed down Michigan Avenue, past empty office buildings with paper masking their storefront windows. It had started to rain again, and in distance I could see the gleaming glass silos of the Ren Cen.

  Baker slowed and pointed to the abandoned hulk of the Book-Cadillac building. "My mom took my sister and me to have tea there once," he said, nodding. "I guess she was trying to give me some class. I guess it didn't take."

  I stared at the old hotel's boarded-up windows. There was a sign in one saying, FRIENDS OF THE BOOK-CADILLAC, with a website for donations.

  At Grand Circus Park, Baker swung the cruiser around the empty square and slowed as we moved into the shadows of the People Mover overhead. "My dad used to bring us down here to the show," Baker said. "The Madison is gone now but the old United Artists is still there. That's where I saw Ben Hur."

  I stared out the windshield at the abandoned theater's art deco–like marquee, now covered with gray plywood. I knew that Baker had grown up in Detroit and that after his wife died fifteen years ago, he had sold their house in Royal Oak and moved back. But he never talked about the city or its steady deterioration.

  Baker pulled to a stop at the curb. We were in front of the Fox Theatre now. In the gloom of the rain and late afternoon, the tenstory neon marquee with its winged lions pulsed with light. Tickets were now on sale for Sesame Street Live.

  "They almost tore this place down, you know," he said. "But that millionaire pizza guy bought it. Fixed it up, reopened it, and then relocated his business offices upstairs."

  I looked out over the empty street. "Why would anyone with any brains invest in this place?"

  "Maybe he couldn't take seeing one more good thing die," Baker said.

  I stared at the winged lions. I heard the snap of Baker undoing his seat belt and looked over.

  He reached under his seat and came up with a crumbled brown paper bag, molded in a distinctive shape I instantly recognized.

  He pulled the gun from the bag and handed it to me. It was an older S&W Model 10 revolver. The bluing was chipped along the barrel. The gun was clean but it had seen its share of street time.

  "Remember me telling you about Hoffner?" Baker asked.

  "Your first partner," I said. My mind flashed on the photograph of the jowly man on the memorial wall at the Beaubian station. Shot to death during a drug bust.

  "That was …" Baker paused, searching for the word he wanted. Cops had a way of doing that, selectively choosing words that could be interpreted one way by other cops and another more benign way by the rest of the world.

  "Hoffner and me, we called that gun our third partner," Baker said.

  I turned the weapon over. The serial number had been acid-burned away. But this gun was so old I doubted it had a registered owner anywhere. I knew why. Hoffner's gun was a throw-down, a handy way of fixing the worst mistake a cop could make—shooting an unarmed suspect.

  "Did this partner ever have to do any work?" I asked.

  "Not on my watch."

  "Why are you giving it to me?"

  "Because every officer should have one."

  "And you think I might need it one day?"

  "No," Baker said. "I think you need it now."

  I need to know why. I need to know why they do it.

  So I find this book about lions and I read it, because I have this idea that if I can find out why they roar I can figure out a way to stop it.

  I read about the lions of the Serengeti, how they have different sounds to mark their territories, to attract female lions, to find each other when they are separated, to call their cubs when they are lost.

  But that awful group roaring that comes every night. What is that?

  I read on.

  … When a strange male lion comes into a pride he kills all the cubs too small to escape him. He kills because it ends the mother lion's investment in her cubs and brings her back into fertility sooner.

  But …

  Sometimes the female lions band together and roar as a group to drive the killer male away. They roar as one to make sure their cubs survive.

  That night, when the roaring builds to its crescendo, I lay there and listen. I listen, trying hard to interpret the sounds, trying hard to hear my own heart.

  I was sitting in my personal car, Hoffner's old chipped gun on the seat next to me. I hadn't brought my service weapon or either of the other two guns I had locked up at home. I didn't want to take any chances that I would somehow screw it up and use the wrong one.

  I had never worried about things like that before.

  Confusing guns or being seen somewhere I shouldn't or worrying about performing my duties in the way I had been trained. I was a professional.

  But I had never killed someone before.

  Not even in the line of duty. Until now, I had been grateful for that. But somewhere in the last few days, and more so in these last few hours spent sitting outside Angela's apartment building, I had the unforgivable yearning to know what it felt like to kill.

  I checked my watch. Nine p.m.

  Angela had left earlier for her job, turning to blow a kiss to her teenage daughter who stood in the doorway holding the baby.

  I was relieved that Angela had not left the baby alone with Streeter, but I was worried for the daughter.

  I knew I couldn't go up there. I needed to be invisible right now, to Streeter and to my fellow cops. I only hoped that I could make my move before Streeter made his.

  If he made one.

  My thoughts were shifting again, drawn to that basic human hope that men were not wild animals. And for a moment, I questioned what I was doing. But only for a moment, because this job had taught me different.

  I checked my watch again. Nine-twenty.

  A light went out in the apartment. I knew it was in Angela's bedroom and I let out a breath, thinking that Streeter was going to bed. I would have to wait. Wait and hope he didn't do anything.

  I had just reached for the keys when the apartment door opened and Streeter hustled out. His leather jacket caught the orange beam of the streetlight before he disappeared into the darkness.

  I started my car and followed slowly, hugging the curb but keeping my distance. He seemed intent on his destination, his pace quickening as he crossed the street and made a turn south.

  I thought he may be heading to the bar over on Woodward, but then he just jagged east, head down, hands sunk deep into his jacket pockets. As he entered a block of abandoned houses, he slowed, looking to the structures as if he wasn't sure which one he wanted. I knew then what he was doing.

  Out of prison three days and already sniffing out a new supplier.

  He found it at the corner.

  It was a listing shingle-sided house missing half its porch. The windows were boarded up but a faint light was visible behind a web of curtain in the small upper-story window.

  Streeter stopped on the sidewalk, half-hidden behind a mound of trash. He stood in a glistening puddle of broken glass, his head swiveling in a nervous scan of the street. I had stopped halfway down the block and was slumped low in my seat, confident my rustpocked Toyota didn't stand out in the ruins around us.

  He went inside.

  I waited.

  He was out again in less than three minutes, hand again in his pocket, unable to resist fondling the rock of crack as he walked. I slipped down in the seat but he didn't even look my way as he hurried past. He was already tasting his high. It would be the only thing on his mind.
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br />   I rose, and in my rearview mirror I watched his retreat. I started the car and eased away from the curb.

  He was going home.

  And I would get there before him.

  In the few seconds before he arrived, I took small, calming breaths and I hoped for things I had no right to hope for.

  I hoped the T-shirt I had brought to put over the gun would muffle the sound. I hoped the people who lived here were too used to gunfire to even hear it anymore. I hoped no one had seen me move from my car to the shadows at the side of the apartment building. I hoped Angela would not grieve for this man too long.

  I heard his footsteps before I saw him.

  It kicked my heart up another notch and I drew what I knew would be my last full breath for the next few minutes.

  I raised the gun. Kept it close to my side so it was partially obscured.

  The sheen of his leather jacket caught the glow of the streetlight first. Then I saw a slice of skin and the glint of an eye that for a second looked more animal than human.

  Two steps further and his entire body came into focus. He was walking straight toward me, but the emptiness of the night made me invisible to a man seeing only the weak yellow light of his front door.

  He stopped at the stoop, nose and ears turned up to the air, as if he could smell my presence.