They say we’re living in the post-modern age; that, according to the banner stretched across the front of the building, was the name of the exhibit taking place at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Maybe someday our language will make as much sense as a jump-rope rhyme.
I was early, so I killed time in the foyer, admiring Diego Rivera’s mural wrapped around all four walls glorifying assembly-line laborers at work in the Ford River Rouge plant, popping their biceps and baring their teeth in concentration. Ford had replaced them with robots, and soon also the drivers of the automobiles built there. My own redundancy was getting to be contagious.
We’d agreed on the location because it was the middle of the week, the weather was grim, and hardly anyone downtown cares to swim through drizzling rain in order to spend his lunch hour looking at bent sheets of copper on pedestals and yards of colored cloth pinned up on walls; the same went double out in the neighborhoods. It’s as private a place to conduct sensitive business as any in our zip code. Also admittance is free.
Five minutes before eleven the morning after we’d spoken, I reported to the cafeteria, where I spotted her at one of the few occupied tables. She looked older than she had behind the bank counter, but at a certain point in their twenties, most people look younger with a gun pointed at them. Past thirty, given the same circumstances, they age by the second.
At that she was young enough to make a vintage heart ache; twenty-five at the outside, an ash-blonde who wore her hair straight to the shoulders with leftward-sweeping bangs—Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary style—a strong straight nose, and a diamond-shaped face set squarely on a long neck. Her eyes were set wide and she appeared to be wearing no makeup of any kind, which meant she knew how to apply it. Her coral-colored boat-neck top displayed her collarbone to advantage. I’m a pushover for a well-formed clavicle.
“Christine?”
She jumped. She’d been looking away as I approached. A cloud of fear scudded past the diamond-shaped face. Then she focused on me. “Chrys, actually; with a y.” She spoke as low as she had on the phone, but there was no straining to hear. Her voice was as clear as a glass chime.
“That’s unusual.” I slid into the chair facing her.
“It’s short for Chrysanthemum.” A slight flush replaced the cloud. “My parents were neo-hippies.”
“I’m paleo myself. You’re not eating?” There was nothing in front of her on the table.
“I don’t do breakfast.”
“We’re going to get along. Coffee or tea?”
“Coffee, please.” She unslung a shoulder bag from the back of her chair, black with a yellow metal clasp.
“My treat,” I said. “How do you take it?”
She smiled. I knew there was one in there someplace. “Neat.”
“Better yet.” I got up, went away, and came back lugging two steaming ivory mugs. She tasted hers and made a face.
I nodded. “Art students come in sometimes to copy the old masters. I think they use these cups to mix their paints.”
She lifted her shoulders and let them drop. There was something Gallic in the movement. Her last name was Corbeil. “As long as it’s hot.”
“That’s the spirit. I saw your interview on Fox. You handled yourself well.”
“You didn’t see what they did to me on Channel Seven. They started to rearrange all my furniture to lay their cables. They broke a glass. When I told them to stop they said I was violating the First Amendment. I said, ‘Let’s call the police and see who they arrest.’ At eleven o’clock all they showed was me slamming the door in their faces.”
“And you thought the gun part was the worst.”
Her expression went dead. “It was.”
“Sure it was. I was trying to cheer you up. That’s what we paleo-hippies do.”
Her smile this time was obligatory; not much more than a tic. She slid the mug to one side and leaned forward, folding her arms on the table. Her tone fell almost to a whisper, but still it came through clearly. “You said on the phone our conversation would be confidential.”
“It is.”
“How can I be sure?”
I scratched a number on the back of one of my cards and slid it across the table, along with the pen. “That’s John Alderdyce’s direct line. He’s a special consultant to the Detroit Police Department with the rank of inspector. He’ll tell you what it’s like to fish in my pond. It won’t be complimentary. Keep the pen,” I said. “I’ve got a drawerful back at the office. I swiped this one off his desk day before yesterday.”
She picked up the ballpoint and looked at it. It was dark blue, with DETROIT POLICE DEPARTMENT printed on it in gold. She hauled a satchel-size handbag up from the floor and took out a phone. After bouncing it on her palm a couple of times she put it back, lowered the bag, and laid the pen on top of the card.
“Okay. I’ve got an older brother, and I mean older; he was grown and off to college before I was two. That’s where he was arrested.”
“Where’s that?”
“University of Detroit. He was studying drafting. He chose a Catholic school over Michigan, so he could study cathedrals. His chief interest was in Gothic and Romanesque architecture. Albert Kahn was his hero. You know Kahn?”
“Hard not to, in this town.”
“I didn’t. Since then I’ve had a crash course, thanks to Dan. That’s his name, Dan Corbeil.”
“Short for Dandelion?”
“No, he came along before Woodstock Two, where our folks were converted. I never got to know him well until recently. By the time I was old enough to form a real impression, he was in prison in Jackson.”
“You said someone’s dead who shouldn’t be. Does that mean your brother’s in for murder?”
“Yes. You might have heard about it. A girl was found dead in the bathtub in her apartment off the U of D campus. She was a freshman. Dan was a junior. They’d been going out for some time, so of course his fingerprints were all over the place. The police kept at him until he stumbled all over his answers.”
“They do that. They don’t need rubber hoses anymore. They’ve all taken psych classes. Some of them could make Saint John the Baptist plead to serial rape, through a combination of persistence and the power of suggestion. A good lawyer can get that kind of evidence thrown out of court on the basis of duress.”
“Our parents were sure his innocence was enough. They hired a public defender, straight out of law school. Dan’s been locked up for nineteen years.”
“Where’d he go after the state closed Jackson?”
“The Huron Valley Men’s Correctional Facility, in Ypsilanti.”
“Uh-huh.”
She jerked up her chin. “What?”
“Don’t read too much into it. There have been incidents that could’ve been avoided, but that’s what happens when you pay the guards minimum wage. Most places do. HVMC’s no worse than most. It’s a long way from a hell hole.”
“Depends on your definition of hell. I’m terrified for him.”
“Has he had trouble with the officers or his fellow inmates?”
“He hasn’t said; but I don’t think that’s it. I’ve been seeing him every visiting day for years. He was gaining weight at first, the way I’m told some do, from lack of real exercise and eating those fatty foods they serve to keep them too out of shape to make an escape attempt, but lately he’s been wasting away. I—I think he’s planning on killing himself.”
“Say anything specific?”
She shook her head. “It’s just a feeling I got. He used to put some effort into sounding positive—for me, I mean, so I wouldn’t worry—but now he seems not to care. That’s got to be some kind of sign, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know,” I said. But I did.
I drank from the mug and set it down as carefully as Viennese crystal; stalling for thought. “You said you didn’t really get to know him till recently. Are you sure you know him now? Inmates get more practice than the rest of us at making an impression favorable to their case. I’ve been to parole hearings and seen it firsthand.”
“No!” She said it loudly enough to draw attention from the other diners. Compared to her usual ultra-quiet speech she might have been bellowing. She clenched her fists, turning down the volume by force. “Maybe you’ll understand if you know the victim’s name. It’s the April Goss murder, Mr. Walker; twenty years ago.”
“Ah.” I sat back.