Mind, body and soul; locked and loaded; forever and always.
We should have had T-shirts made . . .
My mother wore a navy spaghetti-strap dress, navy high heels and a yellow silk floral shawl. She rocked it like a telenovela star on the red carpet at my graduation from the academy. She wept as only a loving mother can at the sight of her child framed in a crowning moment of achievement. My father looked recruitment poster perfect in his DPD dress blues. He gave me a stern look and said, “Well, you’ve really stepped in it now, jarhead.”
At my graduation party at the house on Markham Street he took me aside, sniffed me and said, “Ah, that new cop smell. Like—fresh panties and blooming daffodils.” Then with tequila-glazed eyes he said, “What’s the mission now, son?”
“To Serve and Protect,” I said.
“No,” he snarled. “It’s the same as it was in Afghanistan: find the enemy, hunt the truth. Kill one, set yourself free with the other. And God help you if you lose focus ’cause that’s when some second-rate bagpiper follows your coffin into the boneyard. Ain’t no damned grateful public. Ain’t no pats on the back. And like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, you gonna have a Judas or two in blue. So again, boy—what’s your mission?”
“‘Mind, body and soul; locked and loaded; always and forever.’”
“Well.” My father laughed brightly. “I guess you did listen to the old man from time to time.”
As a child and adolescent I’d always thought my father was preparing me to be a man. He wasn’t. He was preparing me for war. A war waged every day on men, women and children. A war waged on the poor and disenfranchised regardless of race or sex. And a war that would most likely never be won save for the occasional fragile battle victory.
With Eleanor Paget’s death there was no enemy in sight. No scent or tracks leading me to an undiscovered truth. All I had was a deep-seated suspicion that death had not come to Paget by her own hand. That, a couple mil, Catholic guilt and my family home in a necrotic part of southeast Detroit.
Meanwhile, FBI Special Agent Megan O’Donnell provided me with the perfect opportunity to brush up on my evasive driving skills.
On my way back to Mexicantown from the suburban grocery store where I’d talked with Frank the ex-security guard, I noticed her navy-blue Chevy Suburban three cars behind me as I drove east on West 12 Mile Road. It was four o’clock and rush hour traffic was at the beginnings of its stranglehold.
Whoever was chauffeuring O’Donnell was doing a pretty good job: Not following too close. Dropping back every once in a while. But being followed by a Chevy Suburban was like Goliath tip-toeing inches behind David.
I threw O’Donnell’s driver a curve by making a quick “Michigan left,” heading west on 12 Mile Road and taking the first entrance into a subdivision called Barrington Green.
Most of the streets in Farmington Hills subdivisions were narrow and serpentine. If you had a good lead, it was easy to lose a tail in any one of these subs, considering each was its own little Bermuda Triangle. I managed to round a long curve through look-alike early ’70s homes, then backed into the tree-shaded driveway of a yellow two-story house with black shutters.
O’Donnell’s car—dangerously exceeding the 20 mph speed limit and blowing past a “Deaf Child” caution sign—rounded the curve, its wheels screeching as it passed the yellow house where I sat. Sliding out of the driveway, I eased up behind them and flashed my headlights.
The Chevy Suburban pulled to the side of the narrow subdivision road and I pulled alongside it. The rear driver’s side window lowered and I lowered my window in kind.
“Nice fall day we’re having, isn’t it?” I said to Agent O’Donnell.
“We need to talk,” O’Donnell said, once again proving that she either didn’t like or didn’t understand my particular brand of humor.
“Always a pleasure to chat with the FBI,” I said. “Where to? I could fix a nice late lunch at my house. Or maybe a pricey little restaurant out here, your treat. Antonio’s is just up the street. Really good Italian.”
We settled on my house in Mexicantown.
“You need the address?” I said. “Oh, wait. You’re FBI.”
Five minutes after I’d lost them on the Lodge and I-75 South they parked in front of my house on Markham Street. A few neighbor curtains edged back, eyes in the shadows carefully assessing the young, petite blonde with the altogether too serious look.
Her driver stayed in the SUV.
O’Donnell looked around the house, nodding approvingly. “Nice digs. Not so sure about the neighborhood, though.”
“Where I grew up,” I said. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ve got some leftover Chinese, or I could—”
“I’m not here to eat, Mr. Snow,” she said. “I’m here as a courtesy to warn you off looking any further into Eleanor Paget’s bank. As I’m sure you’re well aware, I don’t have to be courteous.”
I grabbed myself a Negra Modelo from the fridge, flipped the cap off and said, “I’m not looking into Paget’s bank. I’m looking into her death—”
“A suicide?” O’Donnell laughed, even though I was beginning to think she thought very little if anything was funny. “Not much to look into there, bucko. Seems the Grosse Pointe police, the state police, the Detroit police and assorted sundry others have quickly concluded she took her own life.”
“They’re not as smart as me,” I said, taking a healthy swig of my beer. Michigan might be at the forefront of making quality craft beers, but so far none even approached a good Mexican beer. “Nor are they as righteously vigilant.”
“Wow,” O’Donnell said as she scrutinized what few pictures I had hung in the living room. “Is it me that brings out the asshole in you, or is this just you being natural?”
“Don’t mind me, Special Agent O’Donnell,” I said. “I get ner-ner-nervous around pr-pr-pretty women. Makes me think I have to act movie-star tough. I’m really a nice guy who enjoys poetry and cooking.”
“Somehow you don’t strike me as a New Age, kale smoothie kinda guy,” she said. “Maybe something to do with that sizable callous on your right inner palm, eh, gunney?”
O’Donnell continued her stroll around the living room, running a hand appreciatively along the back of my sofa. “I understand you had a close encounter with a Mr. Kosimer Kolochek several nights ago?” I gave her a look. “A.K.A. Bob Franks.”
“Oh,” I said. “Him.”
“What did you and Bobby talk about?”
“Franks—or Kolochek—and his partner made a run at me.” I plopped down on my sofa. I was really beginning to like this sofa. O’Donnell, her head cocked, was evaluating the gravitas—or lack thereof—of my books on the shelves near the fireplace. “I tried to make him understand that such a thing was unwise.”
“And you didn’t think to call me about this?” she said, stopping at the two pieces of art I’d hung on my walls. One was a 2008 campaign poster for President Barak Obama that had been signed by the artist. The other was an oil portrait of Octavio Paz that my mother had painted.
“Didn’t think whatever your investigation is and Mr. Kolochek were connected.” I took another pull of my beer. “Are they?”
“Let’s just say he’s a known low-end felon.” Now she was studying my mother’s painting. “Jersey mostly. Stops in Cleveland and Nashville. Petty larceny. Some extortion. Small time drugs. Nearly beat a guy to death in Toledo over eighty bucks. Public defenders keep dumping him back on the streets. Any idea why he might be in Detroit, Mr. Snow?”
“Maybe he’s here for a ballgame,” I said. “You follow the Tigers? They’re leading the ALC Central, you know.”
“How nice for them.” O’Donnell took a step back from Octavio Paz. “Who did this painting?”
“My mother,” I said.
“Lady’s got talent,” she said, nodding approvingly.
“She’s dead.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Do you know what an ‘amusement park’ is?” I said. O’Donnell turned from the painting and, with her arms folded over her chest, captured me in her dispassionate gaze. “Ask your cybercrimes guy what an ‘amusement park’ is. I bet he’ll know. And I’ll bet you come real close to lighting his hair on fire after he tells you.”
O’Donnell held me in her unblinking ice-blue gaze for several long, hard seconds.
Then she said, “Nice sofa.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “I picked it out all by myself. Works well with the TV.”
“A few more pieces of furniture,” she said, “and this place might actually look like somebody lives here.”
“Would you like to see the bedroom?” I said, giving my eyebrows a Groucho Marx flex. “It’s state-of-the-art.”
“Think she’d mind?” O’Donnell nodded to the photo of Tatina and me near a fjord in Alesund, Norway on the fireplace mantle. Impervious to my charms, O’Donnell left without closing the door behind her.
It would have been easy to dismiss her as a sharp-knuckled, humorless government automaton. Truth of the matter was I was beginning to like O’Donnell, even if the admiration wasn’t mutual.