as I’ve walked into Detroit Police Headquarters, it still makes me nervous.
I can’t think why. I’m not a criminal. But my heart thuds like a Ford engine on a cold morning, then gains rpm’s and pounds hell against my ribcage. My nerve begs for a shot of anything. My senses are never sharper.
You know the feeling. The nervousness causes one of three reactions at any given time: fear (always visible in one form or another), cockiness (on the defense and ready to take on anything and anybody), or innocence (coupled with a determination to prove it by keeping a low profile). Point of fact: any one of these emotions will put the cops on red alert.
We’re screwed, no matter what.
Today, I opted for low profile. Lieutenant Harold Bittenbinder had asked me to come by for a piece of birthday cake that the department had ordered. Rumor had it Harry was turning 55 on Saturday. Since my father never reached that age and Harry doesn’t have any daughters, I was honored to be included.
I made it through the metal detector without a peep from either of us. That always surprises me.
Down the hall, just outside the bank of elevators, was a display case containing memorabilia for sale. I wondered how many of the navy blue coffee mugs emblazoned with Detroit P.D. in gold were being unwrapped on the fourth floor by our birthday boy.
By the time I arrived the party was in full swing. Harry spotted me and made his way through the post-battle confusion of uniforms and smoke, a Polaroid shot in one hand and a mug from the case downstairs in the other. Instinctively, I looked at his desk. Triplets.
If a two-hundred-forty-pound German American can bubble, Harry was bubbling. “Look at this, Mary!” He shoved a photo of the cake up to my face. It had been designed in the image of a double-nickel speed limit sign. Catchy.
“Where’s the real thing, Harry? I haven’t eaten all day.”
“You don’t wanna see it. It looks like a train wreck.”
I was starving, so I took my chances. After surviving two pieces of cake and countless curious stares directed my way, I went back in search of Harry. I hadn’t planned ahead, but hoped he was free for dinner. When I found him, he was talking with a young uniformed officer who looked like she’d be more at home on the cover of Vogue than in a squad car.
“Lee Khrisopoulis,” Harry said, “meet Mary Shelley, a good friend and a hell of a PI. Mary, Lee’s one of the best cops we’ve got.”
She awkwardly shifted a cigarette to her left hand and took my extended right. I noted that her grip was as firm as my own.
“Harry says you’re the best PI since Philip Marlowe.”
“That’s saying a lot, coming from this old man.” I squeezed his arm. “The cake was great, Harry, but I need to find something more substantial. Can you join me?”
Just then, Harry was hailed from across the room. “Can’t. I’ll call you later.” He left, and I turned to Lee.
Her smile behind the olive skin was still intact, but her dark eyes told me something was up. “Meet me. Pegasus. Fifteen.”
I nodded, understanding, and smiled. “A pleasure meeting you, too.”
I walked out the front door and onto Beaubien, fed the meter on the way past my Chevy, then turned the corner and took in the aromas of skordalia, baklava, and ouzo. If I worked down here, I’d gain back every pound I’d lost since my divorce.
The only person I know who can bake better than the Greeks is my son, Vic. He learned in Michigan’s culinary institute called the state prison system from a French-trained chef who had used his knife to fillet a restaurant owner for shorting his paycheck.
As I walked, I caught myself hoping that Officer Khrisopoulis was being melodramatic. Vic was joining me for the Fourth of July festivities, with a Tigers game and some cold ones thrown in, and I didn’t want to spend my time playing gumshoe.
When I arrived at the Pegasus, instinct told me to search out a more secluded table. I ordered a beer and a sampler plate of appetizers that included spanakopita, dolmathes yalantzi, and saganaki. Apparently, I’d bastardized the pronunciations so much that the waitress repeated my order of spinach triangles, stuffed grape leaves, and cheese that’s been set on fire in English so I’d know what I was in for.
When Lee arrived by way of the back door, she slid into the chair opposite me and ordered coffee. “I don’t have much time, so I’ll cut to it. The powers that be want to partner me up with a new cop on the force for a special detail. I’d like to know more about him beforehand.”
My brows shot up. “You pulled cloak-and-dagger crap on me for this? Why didn’t you have someone at headquarters get you the lowdown? Harry, for instance?”
“No. Even if I weren’t a female cop—which I am—it’d be difficult to check out another officer.”
“Yeah, for all of us. Do you have any reason not to trust this new cop?”
“Nothing like that. Just trying to watch my back is all.” The waitress put our drinks in front of us. Officer Khrisopoulis gulped the steaming liquid and set the cup down with a thud. “No one can know about this. Not even Harry. Got it?”
“I can handle that.”
“I’d like a daily report, too. Meet me here at the same time every day and I’ll pay you for the extra trouble. Can you handle that, too?”
I said I could. “But I’ll warn you, I may not have much to report by tomorrow. Could be a challenge to dig up much on a new cop, working from the outside in.”
“Easier than from the inside out.” She pulled a cigarette from her pocket and lit it and took a ragged drag. “The cop’s name is Joey Partello. Just over six feet, dark, buff—some would say sexy, if you’re into the Italian lover type.”
“Anything distinguishing?”
“That’s not distinguishing enough for you?”
“I like my men short and near-sighted. Less competition that way.” I waited for a smile. She didn’t oblige. “What does he drive?”
“When he’s off duty, he drives a dark blue Jimmy, loaded.”
“Off duty is when?”
“The harsh, bright light of day.”
I nodded.
The waitress showed up with my appetizers, touched a match to the saganaki and yelled Opaa! Khrisopoulis was gone before the flames died out.
It was getting close to five o’clock, so I made the appetizers serve as dinner, then searched out the pay phone and called my source at the Secretary of State’s office. If you’re not in Michigan, you probably know it as the DMV. There is the seldom, wonderful occasion when the computers aren’t down, and this was one of them. I obtained Officer Partello’s address, and decided to make a swing-by to check it out.
For the most part, the old Italian neighborhood hadn’t changed since FDR was president and Ford was making bomber parts for the war effort. Joey Partello’s house looked pretty much like the other clapboard homes that lined the street—for now, anyway. A sign out front boasted TRIPLE A CONSTRUCTION and on the driveway were stacks of smooth-planed lumber. Sacks of cement formed a barricade in front. Footings had been trenched along the east side of the original structure, about ten feet out; they cornered and continued out of sight around back.
Our Officer Partello was sinking a hefty chunk into a major addition.
I drove to the next block and pulled over to where a plump Italian woman was walking along the edge of the yard, picking tomatoes from vines that formed a frame around the property and hammocking them in a red-stained apron. Anywhere but here and I’d have thought it was blood. Hell, I’d have thought the same thing in an Italian restaurant. In the safety of the neighborhood, though, it was always tomato sauce.
“Nice house,” I said by way of introduction.
She glanced up, then went back to picking tomatoes. When she spoke, her accent was as thick as marinara. “We’ve been here since ’42.”
I took that to mean she liked the place.
She stopped picking, then, and sized me up. “You looking for a house?”
I love it when they make the job this easy. “Yes, ma’am. I thought that was a for sale sign.” I pointed toward Partello’s. “Turns out it’s a construction outfit advertising what they haven’t done yet.”
“That’s the way of things these days. Joey would like to sell out, but—” she paused to cross herself—“he knows his mother would haunt him from the grave, so he’s changing everything he can about the look of the place.” She pulled a guilty look, as if she’d spoken out of turn. Apparently in order to absolve herself, she added, “He’s paying cash, though. That’s a good sign he’s sticking with the old ways.”
“A tough order nowadays.”
“For some, I suppose.” She paused, then picked up a small basket of tomatoes and handed it to me. “Go home and make some spaghetti. You’re rail thin.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her I couldn’t cook.
There wasn’t much more I could do that night, so I went home and drew a hot bath in the old clawfoot tub I’d rescued from the junk pile that came with the place. After an admirable attempt at becoming a prune, I set my alarm for God-awful early and turned in.
At three minutes after seven the next morning, I was at the intersection of Clinton and Beaubien when Partello pulled the Jimmy out of police parking and headed over to Brush. Tailing the cop was as easy as following a train down a railroad track. He took a left on Madison and nosed the Jimmy in for valet parking at the Detroit Athletic Club. I breezed on by.
The DAC. I knew the place, only because I’d once had a client ask me to meet him there in the Grill Room. With the annual membership fee of thirty-five hundred dollars, I had to wonder if I should trade in my plastic badge for a cop’s shield.
While Partello spent the next hour working up a sweat in the comfort of an air-conditioned weight room, I trolled for parking under anything that looked like it might offer some shade. Giving that up, I sat and perspired.
My Corsica’s air conditioner blew as hot as Ross Perot and by the time my cop emerged at eight fifteen, I was mopping up rivulets of sweat that ran between my breasts and down my stomach with a Subway napkin I’d found under the front seat.
The Jimmy took off and I tailed it until it entered Partello’s neighborhood. I figured him to be going home for some sleep. I made my way to the City-County Building, thinking that a peek at some of the cases featuring Partello would give me an idea about how this new little rich cop was getting along with the fine citizens of Detroit.
As I walked past the bronzed, muscular statue of a man known as the Spirit of Detroit, it only served to remind me how much time had passed since I’d been laid.
Public records are a private eye’s best friend. According to them, Joey Partello had been on the Motor City’s payroll longer than Chrysler had sucked hind tit to Chevrolet. I traced cases back five, ten, twelve, sixteen years—Partello’s name was all over the place.
It didn’t make any sense. I wasn’t sure how long Lee Khrisopoulis had been with the force, but she’d have to have her head buried not to know that Partello was a fixture. I knew one thing: Our prearranged meeting wasn’t soon enough.
I drove to headquarters.
The officer standing guard at the metal detector checked his roster and told me that Khrisopoulis was on days off.
I debated looking in on Harry, but what was I going to say? I was admittedly confused, even a little ticked off. But until I knew what this goose chase was about, Lee Khrisopoulis was my client and I had promised confidentiality. I’d give it, too, at least until the odds showed that I needed to do otherwise.
For the second time in recent history, I called the Secretary of State’s office. My source asked if my calls were going to come in threes, like death.
“You never know until that third one hits, do you?”
He didn’t have a comeback, so he gave me the information I needed and hung up.
The house looked like a Norman Rockwell painting in a Norman Rockwell neighborhood, light years from the barred windows and graffiti of downtown Detroit. I hurried up the concrete walk that led to the front door, noting that the flower gardens were in need of weeding. I had a sudden image of America’s Painter turning in his grave.
I stood head-on in front of the fisheye, figuring that any smart cop would check the peephole before opening the door.
Lee Khrisopoulis didn’t disappoint me. She flung the door open and yelled, “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Turn that question around and walk it right back at yourself.” I eyed her evenly. “Joey Partello has been on the force nearly as long as Coleman Young was in office. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
She grabbed my arm and pulled me inside. As thoughts of police brutality shot through my mind, she slammed the door, jerked the cigarette from her mouth, and jammed her eye to the peephole.
I’d never seen anyone look more disgusting with a smoke. But I hadn’t been sent here from Lung Patrol. “You’re paying me for this little game,” I started, “so here’s your money’s worth. He’s got some dough. I don’t know how he’s making it, but I can find that out, too, if it’s important to you. Also got a major remodel going on, and he’s apparently making enough money to join the crowd at the DAC.”
She turned, surprised. “You got all that in twenty-four hours?”
“Hell, don’t you know anything about gathering information? I had all that before your first cup of coffee this morning.”
“Harry told me you were good,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Did Harry put you up to this? Tell him April Fools was three months ago.”
“No, Harry doesn’t know about this.” She took another drag, went for the peephole again, then backed up and fanned smoke like she was fighting off bees. “I meant it when I said no one else could know about this. I had to be sure you could do a job quickly and without anyone getting suspicious. Besides, I figured my odds were better with you since you’re a woman. I thought you would understand.”
“The first thing you need to understand is that acting like a damn woman will bring six courses of hell down on you. Start acting like a cop.”
“You’re right.” She made a sound that could’ve passed for either a laugh or a cry. “Of course, if I weren’t a woman, I wouldn’t be in this damn mess.”
“You’re giving men way too much credit.”
“Possibly, but I have reason to. Do you know what kind of danger you’ve put me in by coming here? Not to mention yourself.”
“Since you seem to be playing some sort of game with me, how the hell am I supposed to know? It took me no time to get the scoop on Joey Partello. I sure as hell wasn’t going to wait around for our meeting this afternoon. Now, are you going to tell me what this is about, or do I walk?”
“I’m paying you five hundred a day.” She turned and glared at me. “That should be enough to make you stick to the game plan.”
“I don’t play games, Officer.” I grabbed for the doorknob.
She stopped me. “You can’t leave now.”
“Watch me.”
“I’m not the one watching.” She let go of my arm and nodded toward the door.
It was my turn to check the spy hole. There was a blue sedan parked up the street, the same one I’d noticed earlier when I’d pulled up.
She started walking. “Come sit down. I’ll tell you the whole sordid story.”
The officer’s home was immaculate, except for an ashtray full of butts on the coffee table. When she started to light up another smoke, I frowned. She paused, then slid it back in the pack. “I didn’t smoke before…well, before everything. Thought it would calm my nerves, but it probably just shows how much of a wreck I really am, doesn’t it?”
“Pretty much.”
She nodded. “Have you ever had your privacy violated, Mrs. Shelley?”
“Mary.”
“Mary. Your home invaded? Things taken?”
We were seated on the couch, angled toward each other. I shook my head, waited for her to continue.
“It started three months ago. I work the Property Room at headquarters. Items began disappearing. When I reported what was going on, I started getting threats.
“Then someone gained entry to my house, my home. It wasn’t a B and E, and it didn’t look like anything was missing. But I knew someone had been in here.” She shuddered slightly, then went on with her story.
“Do you know what it’s like to realize that? To walk into a room and know that someone had been there? To wonder, Did he sit on that chair? Did he go through my clothing? Did he see his reflection in the bathroom mirror—the mirror I have to look in every day? And the kitchen. Did he put poison in my orange juice? Did he hide something in the cereal box?
“It almost drove me insane. I ended up throwing out everything in the house. But I couldn’t figure out what he’d been doing here.”
“How do you know it was a he?”
“He called, finally. Asked if I’d determined what was missing.”
“So he did take something.”
“Oh, yeah, he took something, all right.”
I waited for her to tell me what it was. She didn’t offer. “So?” I prodded.
“How in the hell do I say this?” She buried her face in her hands.
“Just say it, Lee. You’re not going to shock me.”
She looked at me. “Okay. Panties. He stole a pair of panties from the bathroom hamper.”
“Panties? Why in the hell would he want—” I stopped. There could only be one explanation, unless he was a pervert. “DNA, right?”
“Yes. Damn it. Partello found out I was having an affair with a married man. Worse than that, actually—a fellow officer. The DNA from the panties can prove it.
“That’s why I think he’s the one. Partello. The one who was here, the one who’s been calling, threatening me, threatening us. And if my friend’s wife finds out, well…It will kill him if he loses his wife and kids.
“You see, my friend found out about a crooked cop ring. He doesn’t have proof yet, but he’s getting close—and it looks like Partello is the leader. So, my friend confronted him—I begged him not to, but he really thought he could use the cops’ unwritten code of loyalty. Partello just told him that loyalty was a two-way street. Apparently, he started doing some investigating of his own. He threatened to expose us. Leverage, you know.
“Only now, my friend is wondering if he should bust the ring—for the greater cause. He feels that less people will be hurt in the long run, that it may be worth risking his marriage. It’s eating him up.”
I waited, taking it all in. When she didn’t volunteer any more information I said, “What do you think?”
“At first, I thought all I wanted was to get the panties back. Remove the incriminating evidence from the equation. But now, laying it all out like this?” She shrugged. “Nothing makes me sicker than crooked cops. The police department is supposed to be made up of people who are willing to serve and protect. Sounds corny, sometimes, when you boil it down to that. But I don’t want to see the department under siege from within.”
“You’re a twenty-first-century Beaubien.”
“What?”
“Mademoiselle Beaubien?” I watched her face, but nothing registered. “Don’t tell me they let you work at 1300 Beaubien without telling you where the name came from. Chief Pontiac united all the Indian tribes in the Northwest Territory to lay siege against Fort Detroit.”
“When the hell did this happen?”
“Something like three hundred years ago. This young French woman named Beaubien—I don’t know her first name—learned of it and warned the Fort’s commander. Saved the day, as it were. More than that, really. She saved Detroit.
“You’re our Beaubien,” I continued, “only you’re already on the inside. You need to dig the department out of this. We just have to figure out how.”
“I don’t know about that, but I do know one thing. I don’t want this to hinge on an incriminating pair of panties.” She lit a cigarette, then laughed bitterly. “Sounds like the damned White House, doesn’t it?”
“Just like,” I said.
“Well, I can’t help that. But I can tell you that I haven’t been with my friend since Partello was in my home.”
“The property that’s missing. What is it?”
For the first time, she looked truly frightened. “Drugs,” she said. “Meth, crack, coke, heroin, GHB—a.k.a. the date-rape drug—tons of marijuana. Drugs. Lots and lots of drugs.”
We talked over options, laid some new ground rules that we both could live with, and worked on our strategy.
I asked about the blue sedan.
“One of Partello’s boys. Been watching the house, but I haven’t caught anyone tailing me while I’m at work. My guess is there are enough cops involved to watch me while I’m on duty.” A tremor shook her body. “It’s scary, not knowing who to trust.”
I told her where I’d parked and asked if my car was blocking hers in the garage.
“No. I’m on the other side.”
“Good. I’ll leave it here for now.” I told her my plan while I made a call from my cellphone. I wasn’t sure if I could trust her line not to be tapped.
In twenty minutes, Vic was following my instructions to the letter, slowly pulling through the alley behind Lee’s house. I darted across the lawn, keeping the house between me and the surveillance goon. On my cue, Vic made a rolling stop and I slipped into the back seat of his beige Plymouth.
The bland set of wheels was the last thing you’d expect someone who looked like Vic to drive. He’s got a shaved head, more holes than Dillinger, and he’s on the annual Christmas card lists of four tattoo emporiums.
He’d recently begun working for a lawn service so he was tanned, and his tall, slim physique was quickly showing some muscled definition. He’d be perfect for the job I had in mind.
I asked him to swing by MC Sports on the way home. He frowned, but obliged, and I made a quick run inside while he circled the parking lot so he could keep the air conditioner humming.
Plastic bag in hand, I crawled back into Vic’s car and told him to swing by my office. Prometheus Investigations offers about as much leg room as a crop-duster, but its location just off Woodward is handy to my downtown haunts.
“You’re always wanting to help out, right?” I asked Vic after we’d climbed the stairs to my office.
“Sure,” he answered, giving the word an extra syllable with a wary lilt. He lit a Camel as if he knew he was going to need something to steady his nerves.
I handed him the shopping bag. “Here’s your costume.”
He leaned over a round coffee table the size of a Frisbee, ground out the cigarette in an ashtray with HOLIDAY INN printed in the bottom, and headed for the bathroom.
Plastic crackled on the other side of the bathroom door, then everything was quiet. When Vic spoke, I could barely hear his voice from the other side of the door. He’d uttered a confused-sounding What the hell? that was followed by more silence.
Then: “No way!”
That, I could’ve heard from Cleveland.
“Mom,” he said then with that two-syllable singsong he’d used as a teenager when he was annoyed with me, “you gotta be shitting me.”
“You can get in the men’s locker room at the DAC a hell of a lot easier than I can. Besides, you pick locks better than I do.”
He was still cursing as he walked out of the bathroom, wearing the tennis whites and carrying a racket and a navy duffel bag. “I look like a damn Harvard prep.”
“Not yet you don’t. Tuck in the shirttail and lose the nose ring. Where’s the belt I bought?”
Getting the panties was as simple as throwing fifty bucks out the window. There’s always someone around to pick it up.
Vic told me how he’d gone about it, how the kid gathering up towels in the locker room had told him he looked ridiculous in that get-up.
Vic paused and gave me a told-you-so smirk. When I didn’t say anything, he got back down to business.
He’d agreed with the guy, then cut to the chase and told him it was a front. This excited the kid, so Vic pulled the fifty from his pocket and asked which of the vertical coffins belonged to Partello. The kid spit out the number, took the bill, and offered to stand watch while Vic picked the lock. The red lace panties were zipped up tight in a plastic evidence bag inside a sneaker.
Sometimes you had to wonder how a crooked cop ever hooked together enough brain cells to pull off a scam.
I arranged a meeting with Harry while Vic paid a few calls to his connections in Detroit’s underworld. Don’t ask; I don’t and I never will. After getting Vic out from under his father’s spell, I learned to thank God for every day I have with my son. I can’t do much more than that. After all he’s been through, my son is in many ways a lot older than I am.
We—Vic and I—reconnoitered at my office and, after an all-clear from Lee, swung by her place and picked up my Corsica. I checked the glove compartment first thing for my Smith & Wesson .22 snub-nose.
We subverted, snaking our way along backroads and through subdivisions in what we determined was a successful job of arriving at my house un-tailed. We had a pizza delivered and waited for nightfall.
Besides the oppressive humidity, another drawback of summer is the challenge of where to hide a gun on you without the benefit of jackets. At least my weapon’s small, so I can usually come up with something.
Tonight I opted for a stylish rendition of a fishing vest I’d bought in khaki and dyed black for just such occasions. It’s longer than a man’s vest and the zip pockets are priceless for stakeouts, bugouts, and my all-too-infrequent campouts. It’s made of lightweight cotton with an elastic insert at the middle of the back which provides just enough gathers to camouflage the .22 I had tucked in my waistband.
I was parked down Beaubien, as far away from police headquarters as I could get and still be able to see anything. I’d driven my pickup—a ’56 GMC stepside, ginger metallic—in case Lee’s goon was watching for my Chevy, and had let Vic out to walk from my office.
I watched for him now, using the binoculars he’d given me for Christmas. When I saw him climb the steps and go through the doors of 1300, something gripped my chest like a vise and I regretted having ever dragged him into this.
I thought about the conversation I’d had earlier with Harry. I’d persuaded him to trust me on this one, told him that Vic had a great in, that he was going to tell the guy in Property to use his cellphone and call the cop ring’s street connection to verify that Vic had been sent there to pick up the goods.
“Vic’s not in that racket anymore,” Harry had said.
“I know that, and you know that. As it turns out, the other guy doesn’t know that.”
“Hell, Mary, how can you be sure?”
“I guess I can’t be, but Vic told me not to ask questions. He just said that the thing he has on this drug dealer is a hell of a lot more dangerous to the guy than a few crooked cops.” I closed my eyes, as if that would erase my fears. “Harry, if I knew the things Vic learned under the tutelage of his father and his years in Jackson prison…well, it would scare me a damn sight more than his trying to buy drugs from a cop while you’re hiding in the wings.”
Bittenbinder sighed heavily. “What if something goes wrong? If Vic gets hurt—”
“You think I haven’t thought of that? If I didn’t think Vic could handle it, I’d nix the whole thing right now. But remember, Harry, you have no choice. You can’t use a cop on this one. We’ll just have to make sure we cover every base. You can position yourself so that Vic’s covered. Lee will be there, too.
“You know how good Vic is with electronics,” I went on. “He’s rigged up a recorder in this huge gothic cross he wears on a chain around his neck—”
“We’ll modify it,” Harry said, “make it a wire and put one of my men at the other end.”
“Let’s get on it, then.” I’d said, glad to see that Harry was back in cop mode.
I knew I wouldn’t make it past the metal detector, so I gave Harry a call like we’d planned earlier and he got me in by way of an old service entrance that most of the newcomers don’t know about. He stashed me in a supply closet and told me to stay put until it was all over. I said okay. The lie came easily. But I wasn’t about to hang back when my son might be in the cross fire.
I’d learned the layout of police headquarters earlier from Lee, so I knew I wasn’t too far from the Property Room. I stepped into the hallway and moved close enough to hear what was going on inside.
“You Rutledge?” It was Vic’s voice.
“Who’s asking?” Cocky attitude.
I could envision Vic pointing to his tee shirt, which was being used as the code. It had a picture of Curious George lying unconscious on the ground beside an open bottle of ether. “George needs something to wake him up.”
“Then I’ll need to call the doctor for a prescription.” More code.
I could hear the faint, high-pitched beeps as Rutledge punched buttons on a cellphone. “Yeah, Doc. I gotta sick monkey here.” A pause, then: “Ether. Yep. That’s the one.” Another pause. “Okay. Got it.” Another beep sounded as he ended the call. “Doc says you’re cool. I’ll go in back and get the stuff. Anybody comes down here, you play like you’re lost, got it?”
“Got it,” Vic said.
The time stretched on with the flesh-tingling tension of a Hitchcock film. I considered going in, but thought I heard some sort of movement so I stayed put. More time passed.
The next thing I heard was Vic ask, “What’s goin’ on?”
“Looks like the doctor is in.” That was Rutledge’s voice, sarcastic.
There was a shuffling noise. I moved closer to the door. I wanted to peek inside, see how many there were, but decided not to take the chance. Not yet.
“We’ve got a deal, Rutledge,” Vic said. “I gave Doc, here, fifty large this afternoon. Now, tell your goon to get the gun off me.” Goon. The guy from Lee’s house, the blue sedan.
“Trouble down here?” It was Lee’s voice. Her coming out of hiding meant only one thing: The deal had turned sour.
“Nothing that a little showdown won’t fix.” This was a new voice.
“Don’t try it, Partello—” Lee’s voice—“I’ve got you covered.”
“The only thing you’re covering is your boyfriend’s ass.”
“Wrong, Partello. That would be Bittenbinder covering my ass.” I figured this had to be Lee’s friend. “He’s bearing down on you right now.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
I’m not sure why, but I took that as my cue. Maybe, if I could get in there in time, Partello wouldn’t check whether or not Harry was behind him. Maybe the wondering would slow him down. I pulled my gun and walked gingerly through the door.
The only thing that registered when I got in there was the gun pointed at Vic.
Words can’t describe what I felt, seeing that gun zeroed in on my son. In that instant, I saw Vic—the infant I had bonded with as only a mother can; the toddler who had come to me when he fell down; the schoolboy who had come to me when he was knocked down; the teenager who had gotten snared into white-collar crime by his own father; the man who had overcome it. I saw all the incarnations that were my son, and I knew that I would kill the man who was holding a gun on him now. I knew I was going to kill Joey Partello.
I forced myself to concentrate. My heart pounded in my ears and I wasn’t sure if anyone was talking, but then someone spoke and the pounding subsided. My focus had never been keener. My aim had never been sharper.
The Property Room was set up similar to an old bank, with teller windows framed in by glass partitions and a single door at one end providing access to the back where the loot was kept. Standing in that doorway was Joey Partello.
In front of Vic, on the other side of the opening, was a young male officer I took for Rutledge, and behind him was another officer—the goon—with a massive forearm across the neck of a very thin man in dark, baggy clothes. Doc. Behind Vic, and off to the right, was Lee Khrisopoulis. To her right was a uniformed officer—the boyfriend.
“Who’s that?” Partello’s tone told me he expected me to identify myself. He didn’t move his aim away from Vic.
“You don’t need to know that,” Lee said.
“Shut up, bitch.” Partello spoke through gritted teeth.
“Watch your mouth.” This was Harry’s voice.
Partello swung the gun away from Vic and toward the back, where Harry had been waiting silently.
Partello had made his mistake. As he swiveled, I put a bullet behind his right ear. He fired as he crumpled, squeezing off three rounds before he hit the ground. Everyone opened fire.
Vic lunged to the floor and slid on his stomach toward me like he was stealing home plate. Rutledge, who had fired at Vic and missed, readjusted and drew a bead on Lee and the uniformed cop opened a hole in Rutledge’s chest, but not before he’d squeezed off a shot. Lee fell.
The goon, who was still holding Doc, swung around to fire on Harry and Lee’s friend capped him before he got off a round. Doc pulled free of the falling man, then rolled himself up in a ball in the corner.
The gunfire stopped.
Vic and I each made sure the other hadn’t been hit, then we both went to Lee. Her friend was already there, cradling her in his arms and stroking her face.
Blood was seeping from her chest, but not enough to cause the dark red puddle quickly growing under her.
I looked at the officer inquiringly.
“Ricochet got her in the back.”
“Mary?” Raspy coughs came from Lee’s throat.
“Yes, Lee. I’m right here.” I grasped her hand.
“That French woman—Beaubien? Was she injured?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“That’s good.” She coughed some more. “I’m a cop. I’m supposed to be ready to die.”
“You’re not going to die. Don’t you know that?”
Lee looked at the man holding her. She tried to swallow, made a choking noise. When she spoke again, her voice was congested with liquid. “No, I can tell. But it was worth it.”
“What was?” I asked.
“Saving the fort.”
We left her alone with her friend.
I looked around the room. It had filled with officers. Many I recognized from Harry’s birthday party, only now their faces were behind guns.
The paramedics arrived, counted fallen bodies, and called for some backup of their own.
Vic and I picked up Harry around eleven on Sunday and headed to Comerica Park. Crappy name for a baseball stadium, if you ask me. I don’t care how many fountains and Ferris wheels they add, it’ll never replace Tiger Stadium. Apparently, though, they’ve got all us die-hard fans by the balls, because we were out in full force, shoving through the wide concrete ramps toward the seats like so many cattle in the chutes.
After Harry and Vic and I had eaten our hot dogs and gotten a second round of brewskies from a vendor in an orange cap with peach fuzz on his face, Harry updated us on what he’d learned so far about the cop ring.
Five officers were involved. The two still alive after last night’s shootout decided to stay that way by singing like Joe Valachi.
In spite of our efforts when Vic picked me up in Lee’s alley, Goon had figured something out and tailed us. He had Polaroids of both of us on his person when he died.
Harry wrapped up by telling us that Lee Khrisopoulis’s funeral would be Wednesday.
We were silent for a while and then Vic asked Harry if he knew the meaning of the word Beaubien.
“No. Do you?”
“Sure. It means ‘beautiful and good.’ You need to teach that to your cops.”
Harry sat quietly and drank his beer.