Detroit Noir

by E. J. Olsen

  Some of them knew Carl, I said. "I could see him shoving a girl out of a sailboat if she started to be a nuisance. We know he dated Angie and Marjie; for all we know Grace could've fallen for him too. Or that girl from Dearborn—she shopped around here. I am positive it was her in the drugstore. Maybe she bought shoes around here too."

  We went back and forth. Steve could probably stuff corpses into those heavy newsprint tubes, for that matter, Jerry said. But it was doubtful he'd crossed paths with the younger girls.

  It was the money that puzzled me. Mick told Jerry that all of the older girls had gone missing with several hundred dollars on them. Grace had seemed in a big hurry to earn some money. And Theresa had vanished trying to find out why. Was someone touting a getrich-quick scheme? Or offering "modeling" contracts to pretty young women?

  Jerry went to refill our gin but his paring knife slipped on the lime rind and deeply gashed his fingertip. We both froze for a minute, watching the thick dark blood well out and drip on the corrugated drain board. He fished out his handkerchief and I folded it around some ice and pressed it on the cut. Within moments a bright red stain seeped across the bleached white cotton.

  The heat and the gin made me light-headed at the sight. My thoughts swirled.

  Blood. Money. Missing women. Shadowy silhouettes on blazing white blinds.

  The ice burned the palm of my hand and my stomach churned.

  I knew.

  "Jesus, you gonna stand there and let me bleed to death?" Jerry teased. "Run down to the kitchen, okay? They've got bandages and gauze and all that in a locker on the wall."

  Bleed to death. That's what my friend had done. And all the girls before her.

  I felt my pockets for change and ran downstairs. The barroom was smoky and congenial. Someone shoved the quarter tray forward and pool balls clattered down their chute.

  The phone booth was empty. I put my icy-cold finger over the 0 and turned the dial.

  "Oh, miss. Could we get some more butter here, please?"

  It was nice to be the one being waited on for a change. I savored another bite of my Delmonico and added a little more chive-flecked sour cream to the baked potato.

  Mick was picking up the tab. He knew I'd turned down the Ballard reward and insisted on treating me and Jerry to a whitetablecloth dinner a few miles down the avenue at Carl's Chop House.

  I leaned back in the curved red-leather booth and sipped my wine. What I really wanted was more details. Mick wasn't supposed to talk much since the trials hadn't started yet, but we promised to be discreet.

  "Of course, we all thought you were goofy at first," he repeated for perhaps the tenth time. "Why would well-off guys like them get involved in that kind of scheme? Then we thought about the money potential and, well, it seemed worth asking around."

  Buddy, a longtime waitress at Novak's, was the first to crack. Seated at one of the tavern's red-checkered tables, she told detectives she'd been in trouble once too, and she told them who had recognized the symptoms and offered to help her out of it. When Angie had the same problem, she sent her to the kindly dentist at the intersection.

  Then, Mick said, one of Irene Ballard's girlfriends told a similar tale. She said it was well known up and down Green-field that Mr. Smith could help you out of a fix.

  And Marjie, who had apparently succumbed to Steve after all in the backseat of his '49 Ford, heard from a girl at Federal's that the Reverend Gruenwald was understanding about these matters.

  Grace, of course, applied for a bank loan and got a different kind of assistance there.

  "And Theresa?" Jerry asked.

  "She found out what was going on," Mick said, forking up some dessert. "A lot of girls around the intersection knew about Bishop's. They kept it quiet because, well, because of a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I kind of thing. When we realized the volume they were doing, it was obvious the money—a girl or two a week at $400 apiece—made it worth the risk."

  Shaking my head with chagrin, I said, "I thought I knew everything that went on around there, and I never suspected a bit."

  If only Marjie had told me.

  I imagined the terror of those veiled girls being led past the plush parlors of the funeral home through the service door and into the cold, clinical embalming room. The heavy chemical odors. The sinks and the drains. Being ordered to disrobe and to climb upon the same table where hundreds of corpses had been shed of their lifeblood. The curt orders and the pain and fright when one's own red fluid started to flow.

  Jerry squeezed my hand and smiled. Mick was talking again.

  It might never have come to light, he said, if it weren't for some newfangled equipment Bishop installed. I cringed as I recalled his boasting and Foster's animated questions; obviously embalming gear wasn't all he was buying with Littmann's generous bank loan.

  "Don't forget, most of the girls made it out okay," Mick added. "Between them, Bishop and Foster had the anatomical know-how; the other three supplied the patients. The vast majority of women were in and out with no problems."

  Then things started going sour. Grace wasn't the first but she was the closest. Theresa, who shared a room with her sister and had noticed her bouts of nausea, figured out the scheme and confronted the undertaker.

  "She had a couple of hypo marks on her arm and neck," Mick said. "It wouldn't take much embalming fluid to put her out. And of course he had the perfect setup for hiding unwanted corpses."

  Detectives yearned to dig up every casket Bishop had closed for the past couple of years, to find out how many carried an extra occupant. They had found Theresa in with an elderly woman way over at Mt. Olivet, and poor Marjie stuffed beside a middle-aged man right up the avenue in Grand Lawn.

  But Bishop's mortuary helper, Stan, realizing he could face a murder rap or ten, was likely to turn state's evidence, Mick said.

  "At least it'll help us narrow things down," said the cop, waving to the waitress for the check. "But there are going to be a lot of gravediggers busy between now and the trial."

  The scandal was keeping me hopping too. In the weeks since the news broke, complete with grainy newspaper photos of the manacled businessmen, Grand River and Greenfield had become a regular tourist attraction.

  The new pharmacist, a white-tuniced Wayne State grad, was appalled but had to admit it was great for business. Everyone wanted to see Bishop's lair, light a candle at Holy Cross, and stop for Coke or a tube of toothpaste at Cunningham's infamous drugstore.

  Gawkers edged out the regulars at my counter, prying for details between bites of tuna or grilled cheese. I obliged as best I could and my uniform pockets bulged with extra-big tips from grateful curiosity-seekers. But I tried not to glance out the window to my right, where Marjie's storefront booth was dim and empty.

  A lot of my quarter tips found their way out to St. Hed-wig's Cemetery in the form of a wreath of pink roses, which I carried one day to my friend's shiny new gravestone. I sat for a while and talked to her about the usual—the fall fashion's at Hudson's, and the new show Jerry was taking me to one night, and how nice it was to get a break from the heat. Somewhere down there she was lying still, wearing her grandmother's pearl cross and the new nylon stockings she was saving for good.

  SNOW ANGEL

  BY E.J. OLSEN

  Grand Circus Park

  In late December, Mrs. Rose Erwell passed away slightly ahead of schedule. She'd been diagnosed with Stage IV bone cancer back in August, and the only thing they could do for her was increase the painkiller dosage in the IV drip every week. Palliative care, it's called, and it usually means keeping the patient too stoned to care about the terrible pain. The way her doctor told it later, Mrs. Erwell's condition "had not yet progressed to its terminus," and she was scheduled for a few more months of suffering before the motor shut down. He backed it up with a bunch of statistics.

  In the previous three months, seven terminally ill people in Detroit died before they were supposed to. Being of sound mind and failing body, th
ese seven folks elected not to wait for their respective conditions to reach the ultimate conclusion and ended their lives with very strong narcotics. Not street poison, but clean, prescription-grade pharmaceuticals. End of suffering. They simply floated away on a pink cloud of dope. In all seven cases, the friends and relations of the patient were sympathetic to the decedent's wishes, but ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing. In all seven cases, the cause of death was a combination of drugs other than what was prescribed for the patient. In all seven, the last visitor these people had was a man who wore a Roman collar; a man who called himself Father David.

  We were double-parked at Downtown Coney Island. My partner, Tucker, was outside in the unmarked while I was accepting an illegal bribe from the proprietor in the form of lunch. Gus Manos loved to see cops in his joint. All that blue was good insurance. In the sixty-odd years he'd been open he'd never been robbed. An absolute miracle in Detroit. An ancient, grease-spattered Philco was tuned to WJR, and it told us that the Pistons dropped another game to Cleveland. Gus shook his head and shrugged. I shrugged back, and thanked him for the food. As I reached for the door, my partner's immense frame blocked out the dull winter daylight.

  Tucker was a man of few words. He was tall and wide, like a human vehicle. He wore his hair very short, but it didn't look paramilitary like so many of the rookies these days. He was quick and light on his feet, and in all the time I'd ridden with him, I never heard him curse or even raise his voice. In fact, he hardly talked at all. It was kind of like working with the Buddha.

  He held up his cell. "Priest."

  Tucker drove. We hit I-375 and had the Coneys gone by the time we took the McNichols exit. The address was on Dequindre above Seven Mile. The neighborhood was mostly ranches. Aside from the bars on all the windows and doors, it could have been a suburb anywhere. Not so remarkable if it wasn't a pocket surrounded by the urban prairie that was reclaiming the city. The areas just a few blocks west of Mrs. Erwell's trim little beige home were filled with pheasant and possum, most of the homes long since demolished or fallen in. All that was left was a grid of streets, sidewalks, and light poles squaring off fields of weeds as tall as a man. It was spooky to see how fast all traces of us disappear.

  We pulled up behind the van marked WAYNE COUNTY CORONER and headed up the walk. The infamous Jack Kev-orkian certainly had his detractors back in his day, but the "right-to-die" pathologist also had his supporters. Tucker and I met one in the person of Mrs. Nora Combs, sister of Mrs. Erwell. She stood in the doorway with her arms folded and cranked up before were we halfway to the door.

  "My sister was ill and sufferin'. No earthly reason to make a lovely human being go through all that pain. No earthly reason."

  We stepped onto the porch and flipped our badges.

  "I knew you were police. Why else would a white man and a …" she looked Tucker up and down, "dumptruck be coming to visit Rose?"

  The corner of Tucker's mouth tightened. I'd worked with him long enough to know that this passed for a smile. I gestured at Tucker, then myself.

  "Sergeant Tucker, Sergeant—"

  She waved me off. "Come on. They're back this way." She disappeared inside the house.

  We followed and stepped into a neat living room. A floral-patterned couch with matching recliner faced the picture window. Both pieces wore plastic slipcovers and looked showroom new. In the corner opposite the recliner a wooden TV table held an old nineteen-inch Zenith complete with rabbit ears. We heard Ms. Combs's voice calling us from a hallway off the living room and headed that way.

  Two guys from the coroner's office stood murmuring in the corner of a bedroom. They nodded when we walked in. A huge fourpost bed dominated the room. The wood was dark and polished to a proud shine. In the center of the bed, a tiny brown woman lay under an enormous antique quilt. Thin wisps of gray hair fanned out on the pillow beneath her head. Her mouth was pulled in slightly at the corners, as if she were smiling at some pleasant memory. Mrs. Rose Erwell looked for all the world to be asleep.

  There was a small nightstand beside the bed, and it was filled with prescription drug bottles. The coroner guys were watching me now. I looked at them and raised my eyebrows. The one in charge, a gray brush cut named Marty, flipped though his notebook.

  "Decedent is one Rose Mary Erwell, age seventy-nine." Flip. "Chondrosarcoma, advanced. Treatment was basically pain management at this point. Mrs. Erwell wasn't responding particularly well to either the treatment or her ultimate prognosis. Her primary care guy," more flipping, "a Doctor Bainbridge … recommended antidepressants." Marty looked serious. "Patients facing end-of-life conditions sometimes have problems with depression."

  Tucker rolled his eyes.

  I said, "Please tell me no one is surprised that the terminally ill don't go out singing and tap-dancing."

  Marty smirked and shoved the notebook in his shirt pocket. "Cause of death was likely an overdose of something strong, like the others, but we'll need the autopsy to confirm."

  I pointed to the bottles on the nightstand. "Could it have been this stuff?"

  Marty shrugged. "It could have been. Any of her pain meds would've stopped a rhino. But the home nurse …" he pulled out the notebook again, "Shauna Collins, company is General Hospice … says all the heavy stuff is accounted for. Right down to the pill. The lab guys were here and they dusted everything. Said the only prints on the bottles belonged to the decedent and the nurse."

  "Where did the lab guys go?"

  "Had another stop. Said to call them if you need details, otherwise their report will be ready tomorrow."

  I nodded. "Thanks."

  They zipped up Mrs. Erwell and carted her to the van outside.

  We poked around for a minute, then I looked at Tucker.

  "Where's the nurse?"

  Tucker shrugged.

  We caught Marty before he pulled away. Nurse Collins had called her company to report the death and they'd sent out a car to pick her up.

  "The guy behind the wheel said he was her supervisor. Said she'd already given you guys a statement, and gotten your okay to take her in for a company deposition. Some internal procedure thing."

  I didn't say anything.

  Marty looked stricken. "Oh shit. I bought a line, didn't I?"

  Tucker tried not to appear exasperated.

  I gave Marty a sympathetic smile. He felt bad because he should know better. "Don't worry about it. They're doing corporate CYA, but this will cost them." I waved him on.

  Tucker called in and sent a couple of squad cars over to collect the nurse and her supervisor. General Hospice wouldn't like that, but interfering with a police investigation is serious. You step on the playing field, you're in play.

  Ms. Combs was crying softly when Tucker gently touched her shoulder. She shook her head and pulled away. "All right. Ask me the damn questions." Mrs. Combs was angry about being questioned, but she told the truth like all the others. She was not present when her sister died (doctor appointment). She had not met the priest yet (planned to do so), as his visits began only recently (last two weeks). She only knew that the priest had been "recommended" by someone whose identity Mrs. Erwell would not divulge to her sister. After eight of these, it was sounding like a script. But not fiction; the thing was set up so the relatives didn't get their hands dirty, and therefore couldn't be charged as accessories. An act of kindness for those left behind to deal with the mess. It almost made me feel warm inside.

  We thanked Mrs. Combs and walked out to the car. As we pulled away, I could see her in the rearview, holding herself on the front porch and frowning in the cold gray afternoon. Another old woman whose world had just gotten smaller by one. I looked away from the mirror and drove.

  It turned out that General Hospice had a compelling reason to try and sequester Shauna Collins: She was not actually a nurse. Instead of hiring actual RNs or licensed hospice workers, General Hospice recruited former retail workers through a company website and sent them out to medicate their term
inal clients. Armed with three days training and a cheap cell phone, Shauna was to follow the medication schedule provided by the company. If things got dicey, she was to call in to the actual trained medical personnel at headquarters. For this, she was paid ten dollars an hour; no benefits. Not surprisingly, General Hospice was making record profits. In the end, a whole bunch of GH executives were arrested at their beautiful homes in Bloomfield Hills and Grosse Pointe.

  You should have seen their faces.

  We spent the morning of the next day in the police headquarters. I pushed paper around my desk for a while, then Tucker and I grabbed an unmarked and headed out to question Mrs. Erwell's neighbors. Outside, the sky was the color of a fading bruise.

  "Snow coming," said Tucker.

  The cell phone chirped just as we were headed for the 375 entrance ramp. There was a homicide over off Gratiot, on the city's near east side. Since we were the closest detective car we picked up the slack. I made the siren whoop a couple of times while Tucker cut off a bunch of gesturing commuters. We hit the grill lights and rocketed out Gratiot.

  Gratiot was the old artery out to the east side and its storefronts were sturdy monuments to the durability of the past, even as they died slowly in the present. Ugly signs defaced the old buildings, offering nothing more than pagers, liquor, or the sucker bet of the Lotto. Former neighborhood banks anchored major intersections, but now they were charismatic churches or strange shadoweconomy shops that seemed to fade in and out with the seasons. Some of the places had been empty for most of my tour of duty. And that's further back than I want to think about.