26

JOY ROAD

John and Lenora Baker sat with Olittah Reese talking quietly about something. Danny stood behind them straining to hear and worried that they would see him.

The Bakers looked robust and healthy and Ms. Baker wore a bright yellow hat. Olittah looked even better, sexy and vibrant as she laughed at something. Suddenly, Olittah Reese turned and winked at him. But now she was the dead Olittah, pale and water-damaged. Next to her, Danny saw his mother. Sorrow lined her pained visage and she held up her hands in a pleading gesture.

“Why, son?” she asked in sorrowful voice. Then she tumbled down a dark abyss, pulling the others with her….

Danny awoke in bed alone, breathing hard. He got up and went into the kitchen and poured a big glass of water. He wasn’t particularly thirsty, but needed to do something physical to remind himself that he was indeed awake.

Vinny had not called or left any message since her departure. He took this to mean that he should not call or leave a message at her sister’s. In his head, he saw them all sitting around, talking about him, making those excited sounds women make when they’re talking about something juicy. Worse were the pictures of Vinny in the arms and bed of another man, purging herself of guilt and celebrating her new life without him.

He wondered how he could mend his relationship with Vinny before it was too late. It’s a fucked-up thing to be a man, he thought, to realize that most of what you’re about is trying to figure out women—and you never will.

He decided to take his own advice and concentrate on the case. His evening with Marshall and Chemin had shaken him in ways that he could not fully explain. He’d always thought of black people as one people. Now, Danny was seeing them as gradations on a living line of color. Erik was very dark in complexion like Hamilton Grace and his sons; Marshall and Chemin were about the same dark color. Janis was a light brown, like Kelly, Hamilton’s wife. Jim Cole, his boss, was fair-skinned, and the victims were all even lighter than that.

And then, me, thought Danny. Next on the line was white itself.

He got a pad and wrote down what he knew about the case so far. It always helped to see the shape of what he was up against:

The first thing he noticed was that he had a lot more suspects than victims. The killer wasn’t a rabid dog, tearing his way through a list. He was cold, calculating, and sure of himself.

SUSPECTS	VICTIMS
Hamilton Grace (Lost millions. Disliked Bakers. Olittah Reese might have cost him in the election.)	The Bakers (Scammed their friends. Stole millions. John had hooker friend.)
Jordan Grace (Adopted. Overly protective of father.)	Olittah Reese (Solicited people for bogus company. Affair with judge.)
Logan Grace (Rebellious. Hates father?)
Reverend Boltman (Shady past. Violent assistants capable of killing.)
Virginia Stallworth (Lost money and social face.)
Oscar Stallworth (Connection to underworld.)

Danny thought that he could find the next victim by seeing who else had been involved with the company, but as far as he knew, only the Bakers and Olittah Reese had done the solicitations.

Then he wrote:

Money

Danny thought about the missing money that went through New Nubia. Everyone assumed the Bakers had stolen it, but in fact all of the money was never found.

Maybe the killer was looking for it. And maybe he was willing to kill anyone who he thought might have it.

That would explain the meticulous nature of the killer and why he might be asking his victims questions. Then he wrote:

Color

The skin tones of the suspects ran the gamut, from the darkness of Grace to the almost Caucasian hue of the Stallworths. But the victims were still all light-skinned. He wrote:

Baker thought Castle still existed.

Then Danny wrote:

What if it did?

“Stallworth,” said Danny to himself. Oscar and Virginia were such snobs and she had that picture of her family with the Castle Society prominently displayed in her home. So there was a history. And Virginia had made it a point to tell him that it didn’t exist anymore. He might have suspected Hamilton Grace, but he was too dark.

“Too dark,” said Danny out loud as if he needed to hear it. And then he went back to bed.

Danny did not get any sleep before the morning came. He drifted off now and then, but the fear of another nightmare about his mother would pump adrenaline into his blood and he’d wake right up. Finally, he hustled out of bed and went into work early.

 

Thirteen hundred always seemed spooky early in the day, and this was no exception. Behind the clean interior was a long history of crime, death and struggle. In the academy, Danny had heard stories of the place being haunted, and he believed every one of them. Danny didn’t think the troubled souls on both sides of the badge would ever rest peacefully.

He entered the office and was surprised to find Janis already there alone, looking at some papers. He said hello, then sat down at his desk and started to read the case file again.

The two sat in silence for a while, not looking at each other. In the distance, Danny heard sounds of other people in the building.

“You don’t like me, do you?” asked Janis.

Danny looked up at Janis and was surprised to see her smiling a little.

“I’m not sure,” said Danny. “But you seem like a good cop.”

“I didn’t come to take over your case.”

“Doesn’t matter. You did. You and your boss, but I’m a big boy. I can still do my job. But when I get this bastard, all the newspapers will care about is that the case got closed after the FBI got into it.”

Janis adjusted her glasses. “And that bothers you?”

“No,” said Danny. “The people who matter in the Department will know the truth.”

“And what if I catch him first?” asked Janis with another little smile.

“Then the newspapers will have it right for once,” said Danny.

Danny went back to his list and Janis read from a stack of papers. He wasn’t even sure if she respected him at all. Like all feds, she was hard to read. They must teach them that, he thought.

“I have a profile of the killer for you,” she said to Danny in a matter-of-fact tone. “I spent all last night putting it together.”

“A serial killer profile?” asked Danny. There was a note of challenge in his voice.

“Yes. I still believe I’m on the right track,” said Janis rather defiantly. “Do you still have doubts?”

“You’re the doctor,” said Danny.

“That’s not an answer,” Janis said, a little annoyed.

“I’m working on my own theory,” said Danny. “There are solid, normal reasons for these killings. I think I’ve already met the killer on my interviews. I just need to narrow it down.”

“Well, let me read the profile to you,” said Janis. “Perhaps I can change your mind.” She cleared her throat. “‘I am a black man, twenty to forty years old. I’m intelligent, possibly possessing a secondary college degree. I have had a tortured childhood, possibly traumatized or abused at an early age. As a young adult, this continual abuse mutated my normal pattern of thinking, and I began to experiment with venting my rage, first on inanimate objects, then on small animals. I found that violence lessened the pain I felt inside, so I kept killing animals and destroying things, changing my life to revolve around this occupation. I learned to appear normal to others, and I am even considered charming among my friends. I may have turned my tortured self into another personality, an avenger who carries out my will against my enemies. I plan each kill meticulously, and I am searching for an answer to the end of my internal pain. I am not insane. I am special.’”

Janis looked at Danny, pleased with herself. She slid the papers over to him, and took a drink of coffee from a cup on her side of the desk.

“And what about the color thing?” asked Danny. “How does that figure into your profile?”

Janis took a moment, and for the first time Danny noticed that they were in the place alone. The lights were kind of low, and she looked good with her hair falling down around her face.

“That may be part of the trauma,” said Janis. “If he has a color fixation, it came about in a bad way.”

“A friend told me all about colorism last night,” said Danny.

“I don’t like that word,” said Janis. “I’d prefer a more clinical term for it. Prejudice is prejudice to me. So, what did you learn?”

“That everybody has a story,” he said, then before she could respond, he asked, “What’s yours?”

Janis’s face took on that look of remembered pain for a second. Her brows fell and her smile faded a little. Danny didn’t know if he was asking to continue his education, or if he just wanted to know more about the lady herself.

“Well,” she began. “Your friend is right. As a psychologist, I can tell you that there is no greater sublimation in the black community than the problems with color. It has gone from overt conflict to a kind of foundation of the subconscious. When I used to take patients, I found that many of the problems of black people, particularly women, were at least in part linked to the issue.”

“I’m waiting on the story,” said Danny. He smiled a little to let her know that she had not deterred him with her interesting and clever digression.

“It’s personal,” said Janis.

“How about I tell you mine?” said Danny.

“I can’t stop you, but I doubt it will change my mind.”

“When I was a kid my father put me in a school where there were only three other white kids. I was the only one in my class. To say I caught hell would be an understatement. I…what do you call it when you adopt ways that ain’t really yours?”

“Assimilated,” said Janis.

“Yeah, I did that,” said Danny. “And in the process, I guess maybe I lost myself. I was angry, I had a bad temper, and I was always looking to prove myself, even if I didn’t have to, because I’d been doing it all my life. I’ve shot and killed men in the line of duty, but I wonder if I would have chosen another way if I wasn’t so messed up inside. In the end, my attitude almost cost me everything, and now I’m in therapy trying to figure all this shit out.”

Janis just stared at him for a moment, analyzing. Danny felt that she was assessing the truth of his story as well as its worth in trade for hers.

“In college, I dated this guy, Nelson, a teaching assistant in the psych department,” Janis started. “We got along fine until his parents came to visit from Nigeria. When they saw me, I knew something was wrong. They were short with me and refused to make eye contact. Well, a week later, Nelson and I broke up. It seems his father and mother thought I was too light, ‘too mixed up,’ is what he said. They didn’t understand American blacks, didn’t know what they were. I argued with him, but his parents held the purse strings on his education. Then a month later, I saw his new girlfriend.”

“Darker,” said Danny knowingly.

“No,” said Janis. “She was white. It seems the problem was that I wasn’t pure. Nelson’s parents could accept a dark black girl, or a white one, but not one who was somewhere in between. So, I thought to hell with him, right? I mean, if he couldn’t accept me for what I was, then screw him, only I was the one who felt screwed. Like—”

“Like you were nothing?” said Danny, recalling what Erik had told him.

“Something like that,” said Janis.

Danny let some time pass before he spoke again. The silence was almost poetic as he felt himself move closer to Janis. Even though she was kind of prissy and elitist, she was strong, and more interesting than he’d first thought.

“So,” she said, breaking the beautiful silence. “Did that help you?”

“Yes,” said Danny. “The killer is linked to the Internet scam New Nubia as well as the color of the victims. If we have another victim, he or she will be fair-skinned and in the same groups of investors.”

“So where will you start?”

“I’ll have Jim get security on everyone on the list. Then I want to see a lady named Virginia Stallworth. I think there’s an elite secret society within the black upper class in Detroit, and I think she knows about it.”

“So, when can we talk to her?” asked Janis.

“Erik will be checking with the Fraud guys on the Internet company when he comes in. Today, it’s just me. I was planning to catch her early.”

“Great, let’s go.”

“I thought you were stuck on the serial killer angle,” said Danny. “I guess I’ve convinced you to give it up, huh?”

“No. I just want to see you in action,” she said. “I want to see this deductive mind your partner talked about.”

Danny and Janis got a car and drove out as thirteen hundred was filling up. He was hoping to take on Virginia Stallworth alone, but he didn’t mind Janis coming as long as she didn’t mess up his flow. If Virginia Stallworth would cop to there being a new Castle Society, then maybe he could find the next victim before it was too late.

Danny got on the Lodge Freeway and headed uptown. They passed the tangle of cars going into downtown.

“The freeway, thank God,” said Janis. “The city looks so much better from here.”

“You’re a guest,” said Danny. “Be nice.”

“I can see why your childhood was so traumatic. Detroit is a hard town.”

“Traumatic. Didn’t nobody say nothin’ about that,” said Danny. “The city changes you, but it don’t make you sick.”

“If you say so,” said Janis.

“We probably have some time to kill,” said Danny. “In the meantime, let me show you what I mean.”

“How?” asked Janis.

“I didn’t have breakfast. I need a piece of fruit.”

Danny got off the freeway at Grand Boulevard. They drove to Woodward Avenue. Danny watched as Janis looked at the area with amazement and scorn. This was the world her parents warned her about, and here she was in the middle of it.

“The mayor has a lot of work to do on this town,” said Janis.

“Black people have run this town for the last thirty years or so. What do you think of that?” asked Danny.

“That’s a complicated question,” said Janis. “We’re just now getting to the root of the problems of large urban areas. And there was a lot of trouble we inherited that was started by other people.”

Danny turned left on Clairmount and headed west. The neighborhood was rough. Old gray buildings, potholed streets, and unkempt sidewalks, hopeless-looking old black men and dangerous-looking young ones. He felt invigorated by the sight of all these things. Janis’s eyes narrowed and her face took on a look as if she smelled something bad. She could see that there was no joy on Joy Road in Detroit.

Danny stopped at a shabby-looking market on Joy. The parking lot had a few cars in it by the building. Two cars filled with black men sat in a corner away from the store, engines running.

“Why are we stopping here?” asked Janis.

“They have good fruit here,” said Danny. “Come on in.”

They went inside the market and Danny immediately smelled the strong aroma of fresh onions and produce. There were a few customers already in line. A young black girl holding a handcart of goods talked on a mobile phone. A white woman about thirty scolded her two kids in a voice that sounded decidedly black. Danny looked at her for a moment and saw the contrast. That was how people must react to me, he thought. He had to admit it was weird.

“This place is in a bad neighborhood,” said Danny. “In fact, the crime rate here averages twenty percent higher than the rest of the city. But this store gets one of the first runs from the market, so their produce is the best.”

Danny and Janis went to the produce section and took in the lush beauty of the fruit and vegetables piled high. The rest of the market looked shabby, but this section was immaculate.

Danny and Janis picked out fruit while behind them at the service counter a heavyset black woman argued with a Chaldean man of about forty. Danny noticed the man passed the woman a few bills then she stomped off, her big necklace swinging and making a jangling noise. The man laughed and put something in a drawer.

“Andy,” said Danny to the man, walking over to him.

Andy looked alarmed at seeing Danny then locked up something behind the counter.

“A friend?” asked Janis.

“Not this time,” said Danny.

“Danny the cop,” said Andy. His Middle Eastern accent was thin, but noticeable. “What do you want?”

“I want to know why you just bought two Social Security checks off that lady who stomped out of here.”

“Ain’t no law against cashing a check,” said Andy.

“Give them to me,” said Danny.

Andy mumbled, then handed Danny the colorful checks.

“I think I’ll call the owners of these,” said Danny, “and see if they’re missing their monthly. They’re probably getting replacements from the government, but by the time they do, these will be processed, right? What did you pay for them, ten cents on the dollar?”

Andy frowned at Danny and said something in another language, which Danny took to be cursing.

“You have a nice day, too,” said Danny. He left Andy some money for the fruit then walked out with Janis.

“Now when we get back out, both of the cars with those brothers in them will be gone.”

When they got outside, sure enough, the two cars had vanished.

“Neat trick,” said Janis. “So what’s the deal?”

“I saw the government check paper flash when the big woman passed it to Andy. But there was a lot more than just that going on in there.”

“I’m listening,” she said. “Dazzle me with this gift of yours.”

“The white girl with the two kids,” began Danny. “The kids were black, but they looked nothing alike. Different fathers or she was babysitting for a friend with a job. And she was buying enough groceries for ten people. She could have more at home, which is not likely, or she stole food stamps and is buying the food to sell it, also unlikely. It’s easier to just sell the food stamps. Or she’s buying groceries for people who can’t get out of the house and charging them a fee. That’s the most likely thing. She was harmless. The young girl on the phone was a drug dealer. She had three pagers on her belt and two cell phones. Her jewelry was expensive and flashy, bling, bling. In her basket she had hot dogs, beans, white bread, and a large Faygo red pop. Her kids are about six or seven, and she don’t like to make complicated food for them. When I busted Andy, she hung up one phone and dialed another. That was her calling whoever those men were in one of the cars and telling him some detectives are around. That’s why both cars ghosted.”

Janis was impressed. She took all this in with a measured and analytical look. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were making this all up to impress me.”

“Let’s just say that I wanted you to see that I’m not traumatized like you say. This is just life, the life I’m used to. The ghetto don’t discriminate. It’s an equal opportunity muthafucka—” Danny stopped as he saw something across the busy street.

“What?” asked Janis.

“I don’t know,” said Danny. “Come on.”

Danny and Janis got into the car and pulled out of the parking lot. He drove down a residential street, trailing a young black man wearing a warm-up jacket and a baseball cap.

“Who is it?” asked Janis.

“Jordan Grace,” said Danny. “His father is—”

“Hamilton Grace,” said Janis. “I saw his name on the suspect list.”

“This kid Jordan is Grace’s illegitimate son. He adopted him, but I get the feeling that he’s still treated like an outsider kid by Grace.”

“What’s he doing in this neighborhood?” Janis asked almost to herself.

“That’s what we’re going to find out.” Danny kept following him, trying to keep a good distance back.

Jordan Grace whipped out a cell phone, then got into a new SUV, and roared off down the street. Danny followed him until he got to the freeway, then Danny stopped and turned around.

“We’re not going to follow him?” asked Janis.

“No,” said Danny. “Whatever he was here for, he finished. He’s headed back home.”

“So what does it mean, Sherlock?” asked Janis.

“I’m not sure,” said Danny. “Not yet.” He didn’t mind Janis calling him Sherlock because she said it with something akin to admiration.

Danny remembered how Jordan Grace was kind of the stepchild in that family, but eager to please his father. What if he wanted to take out the Bakers and Olittah Reese because of the embarrassment they caused his father? Danny noticed for the first time that Jordan was lighter in skin tone than Hamilton Grace and his legitimate son, Logan.

“I think maybe Jordan Grace has another life his family doesn’t know anything about,” said Danny. “I just wonder where that life takes him every night.”

Danny headed back uptown, wondering what terrible thing could have lured a proper, polished kid like Jordan Grace into the worst part of Detroit.