Dying in Detroit (A Bright & Fletcher Mystery) Read online

  “Sir? Do you want me to drive?” Lorenz called after him.

  “Find your own fucking way home, Harvard,” Schultz shouted as he took the stairs two at a time, but there was no satisfaction in the quip.

  He was cooked, and the little weasel probationary knew it just as surely as he did.

  * * *

  Darren brought a plate of deli meat, cheese and grapes with him and seated himself in between the two women on the terrace. A glass of Crown and Seven was sitting on the table in front of him and he offered Theresa a thankful nod of the head.

  The big woman puffed on a cigarette. Issabella looked seasick.

  “I want to throw up,” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m also famished. I’m going to sit here and eat in front of you guys. Probably in a very ungentlemanly fashion, with much noise and mess.”

  He had a pile of thinly sliced roast beef in his mouth when Issabella turned to look at him for the first time since he’d sat down. She’d combed her hair and washed her face, but hadn’t been able to wash away the heavy emotional toll of hearing the truth about her father’s scheme. She looked tired and sad and—most painful to Darren—guilty.

  “You’re not your father,” he said. “And you couldn’t know what he was capable of. You saved my life. Actually, twice now if we count that business up in Marquette last year. Which we should.”

  “I still don’t understand,” she said. “I just don’t get it.”

  “I think I do,” he replied, and took a long swallow of his drink. Beside him, Theresa was silent, but seemed to be listening with patient interest.

  “Here’s what I can piece together,” he went on. “Howie’s a bit of a con artist, right?”

  Issabella nodded her head and sighed.

  “Yes. For sure, that. My childhood was punctuated with him disappearing and reappearing. He had a thousand stories to justify whatever trouble he was in, and a thousand more to serve as backup in case my Mom or I caught him in the first lie.”

  Darren folded a slice of cheese around a mound of ham and shoved it into his mouth, making good on his earlier promise. Once it was chewed and swallowed, he leaned back from the table, though his eyes lingered on the plate of food like it was a lover who has just threatened to leave.

  “Right. So, your Dad eventually bails on you and your Mom. And we don’t know anything about what he was doing while she was raising you. The next thing we do know is that he was locked up in an Arizona prison for embezzlement until a little less than a year ago. Which also coincides with a significant change in his daughter’s life.”

  Issabella looked stricken.

  “No.”

  “Yep. You met me, kid. And more importantly, you and I made some headlines together. Like the one that’s framed and hanging in the hallway outside our offices.”

  “He targeted us,” she whispered in disbelief. “My father read about us in the news and targeted us for extortion? Targeted you? Darren, this is insane.”

  “I dunno. Pretty smart, if you’re an amoral opportunist with zero redeeming qualities. He poked around, I bet. Probably wanted to see who his daughter was involved with, at first. And somewhere in there he found out I was a jackpot.”

  Issabella opened her mouth, but he held a hand in the air.

  “I know. And I plan on telling you about the money, very soon. I should have told you before. I was...I don’t know. Embarrassed. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is what the Ortiz woman told me after she shot Solomon to death.”

  Theresa huffed a plume of smoke out her nose and scowled.

  “I was supposed to shoot him,” she mumbled. “Lugged that stupid shotgun everywhere with me in case I got the chance, and she goes and does it herself. I didn’t get anything out of this.”

  Darren and Issabella both stared at her, looked at one another and broke out laughing.

  “I mean besides gettin’ you back safe,” she hastily added. “Stop laughing. I’m serious as a heart attack. I’d have shot that son of a bitch and gone to make a sandwich before he had time to reach room temperature.”

  Issabella wiped at her eyes and said “I love you, Theresa Winkle.”

  “Oh, Christ. Keep it together, Princess. I’m going in for drink refills. Izzy, I’m making you something but don’t ask me what. I’ll figure it out.”

  She stood and walked back inside.

  Issabella seemed to have regained some of her color, and ventured to pluck a piece of ham off Darren’s plate.

  “So what did she say to you after she killed Solomon?”

  “Howie called her from my bedroom phone,” he said, and drained his glass. “He explained to her where he was and that he was free of the cops. And I guess that’s when she decided it was time to go back to Solomon and remove him from the plan. So she does, and then she tells me it’s a bullet to the head unless I tell her how to get her hands on whatever amount of cash I can summon up. Considering how she’d just murdered her partner, I believed her.”

  Issabella digested both the ham and what he had said. The little wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows. To someone who studied her face as much as Darren did, that was a red flag announcing she was puzzling something over.

  “I see,” she said after a minute. “Getting me and Theresa to leave the apartment was just a ploy to give him the time to steal your money from the closet and get away. She was never going to drive us around hunting for an ATM or whatever.”

  “Yeah. She waited fifteen minutes after she hung up with you. Then she called back and I heard her tell him what I told her. There was five hundred thousand dollars in a hidden safe under my closet carpet. I gave her the combination.”

  She was staring at him like he’d grown another eye in the middle of his forehead.

  “I know,” he repeated. “I know. I really do want to talk about the whole money thing, Izzy. Just not right this minute.”

  “Half a million dollars.”

  “To the penny.”

  “In your closet.”

  “Not really germane anymore. But...okay.” His mouth pursed into a tight frown and when he spoke again it had the sound of a confession. “I’m a trust fund kid, Izzy.”

  “Come again?”

  “There’s a trust. With an ungodly amount of money it, growing all the time. And I’m one of the beneficiaries. That’s why I live up here. That’s how I got our downtown office. That’s how I happened to have a closet full of cash.”

  Issabella stared at him for a long while, with the flat exasperation a parent usually affords a wayward child.

  “You’re an idiot,” she decided.

  “I know.”

  “That’s what your big secret was? You’re from a rich family? What kind of big, dark secret is that? Darren, I was half expecting to find out you used to work for the mob or something. For Pete’s sake—”

  “It’s not that cut and dried.”

  Issabella made a scoffing noise and laughed softly in bemusement.

  “You, sir, are a drama queen. I don’t care where your money is from. But...wow. All that secrecy and mystery and you’re not hiding a stolen fortune? No smuggler’s treasure or mafia payola? Sweetheart, I am supremely disappointed.”

  Darren scowled and was about to protest again, but she leaned in and kissed him gently on the tip of his nose. When she leaned back, her smile was fond and forgiving.

  “It’s not an issue. I love you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And the silver spoon you were born with.”

  “That’s kind of you.”

  Theresa reappeared and set another glass down in front of Darren. She set her cola down, then placed a third glass in front of Issabella. The liquid inside was a swirling mixture of pink and orange.

 
“What is it?” she asked, and took a tentative sip.

  “I dunno. I just threw some booze and different juices together.” Theresa lit another cigarette and smiled.

  “Wow, that’s really good.”

  “You’re serious? I never made a good drink before. Gimmee that.”

  Issabella passed the glass over and Theresa took a sip before handing it back.

  “Fruity,” she said. “I’m calling it Unicorn Stampede. That’s your drink now if you ever come by my place.”

  “If you can remember how to make it.”

  “Well, yeah. If not, I’ll start keepin’ some wine around the joint.”

  Darren leaned back, watching the exchange between the two women with an astonished smile creeping across his face. He had found a bandage under his bathroom sink in a box of assorted toiletries. It was taped over his forehead now, and he gingerly reached up to touch that spot. The gash was an inch long, but once he’d showered and cleaned the caked blood from his face, it was revealed to be fairly shallow and not so wide that he thought he would need to go to the hospital anytime soon. It still throbbed painfully, and had begun to itch.

  “Do you feel better?” Issabella said, and batted his hand away from the bandage. “Don’t mess with it.”

  “I’m fine. Sore. But perfectly fine.”

  “We’ll need to go see the FBI soon.”

  Darren nodded, and stared out at the downtown skyline. He sipped his drink and exchanged a big, enthusiastic grin with the women on either side of him.

  “I will, kid. But not now. Now, I just want to sit here with the two of you and enjoy it.”

  * * *

  Together in bed, Darren held Issabella between bouts of lovemaking. When it was very late, she began to cry. She rested her head on his chest, tangled their legs together, and shook with the sobbing that welled up out of her.

  “I’m so sorry,” she moaned. “I feel like everything has just fallen apart.”

  Darren held his arms around her and stroked her hair.

  “It’s going to be fine, Izzy. There’s nothing to worry about now.”

  “You almost died. I...I was crazy. I went crazy thinking about it. I felt like I was dead.”

  “This is all going to fade away,” he whispered. “All of it. It won’t even be worth remembering. And you’ll still be here with me. That’s all that matters.”

  Her sobbing subsided, and Darren was certain she’d fallen asleep. But then she moved up and kissed him, pushing her lips hard against his, hungry. Her cheeks were still warm from the tears. They made love again, desperately. It was over quickly, both of them heaving for breath and mumbling endearments to one another.

  Half an hour later, after she had fallen asleep, Darren gingerly disentangled himself from her and slid out of bed. He stood there for a moment, staring down at her. He leaned over, gathered up the overstuffed comforter from where it had gotten kicked to the floor, and draped it softly on top of her.

  Moments later, he was standing in front of his living room’s window-wall, staring out at the winking lights of the night-shrouded city. The casinos were palaces of neon among the decay. Long, winding lines of traffic fed in and out of them. The Renaissance Center’s shiny silver coat swam with the reflected lights of the out-of-towners streaming in to feed the gambling tables and resort spas. That little corner of the city was alive and vibrant, jumping with the unique energy that could only be found in a modern American metropolis. Money was passing back and forth, people from near and far were drinking too much, laughing in little clusters of camaraderie and romping in clean, well-appointed hotel suites.

  Darren’s eyes trailed away, past the lights and the merriment. Outside that little corner, the rest of Detroit was a landscape of dark shapes and empty avenues. The abandoned towers ringed the thriving downtown like a cage of rotten teeth. And beyond them, the low flat lengths of neighborhoods where nobody lived anymore.

  The Shrine of the Learning Tree was out there, somewhere in that dark expanse. And surrounding it were another thousand abandoned spots, all of them holding ugly secrets and buried lies. He had very nearly become one of them. He knew that was the terror which still plagued Issabella. Her father had almost destroyed them both.

  And now Howard Bright was gone, vanished off into the unknown from whence he came. And if he reappeared, what then? What would happen if Darren’s stolen money ran out, and the man with the very bright smile decided to try his luck at the well a second time? When Issabella sobbed and her eyes went hollow with dread, this was her fear. Her father had become a bogeyman.

  I can’t let it run her down. What good is living through something like that if it just preys on Izzy forever?

  Darren lifted the living room’s phone up off its cradle and dialed a number from memory. It rang three times before picking up. A man’s voice answered, calm and unperturbed despite the very late hour.

  “Darren?”

  “I’m alive. I’m back in my home.”

  “Thank you for calling.”

  Darren rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and began to pace back and forth in front of the window-wall. A coiled tension had slipped into him. After neither of them said anything more, the man on the other end of the line cleared his throat.

  “I’ll contact the trustee in the morning,” he said, brusque and perfunctory. “He’ll have the hold on the accounts lifted by the end of business tomorrow. Is there anything else?”

  “Hold?”

  “You were abducted. If whomever was responsible were to apply enough coercion—”

  “I didn’t call about money,” Darren said through clenched teeth. “I need to speak to your man. Tonight.”

  “There are many persons under me who might wear that appellation, Darren.”

  “You know who I mean. Your investigator.”

  “Ah,” the man acknowledged, his voice growing smoother and less business-like now that the topic had moved away from money. “You mean Mister Link.”

  “I need you to get him on the phone.”

  “Mister Link is a very busy man, Darren. Quite industrious. Considering his fee, we tend to make certain he always has something to do.”

  “Well, I’m asking. When was the last time I asked for anything?”

  “Why would you? All of your needs and wants are provided for.”

  “Luther, it’s important.”

  There was another long silence, and Darren squeezed his eyes shut and took a long, deep breath in through his nose.

  Just hang up. Find a different idea and hang up and never call that damned number again.

  But then Luther was back.

  “Here’s his number.”

  Darren listened and repeated the number a few times in his head.

  “Alright. I have it.”

  “I’m tempted to say good luck. But I have no idea what I’d be wishing you fortune in. So I’ll just say goodbye, little brother.”

  There was a click, and then a dial tone thrummed in Darren’s ear.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Darren placed the typed sheet of paper in front of Isaac Schultz and extended his hand. Schultz took both before settling back into the swivel chair behind his office desk. The office was small and cramped with file cabinets and assorted official-looking notices pinned across the walls. A series of framed awards were arranged on the wall above Schultz’s head.

  “It’ll help,” the agent said. “I’ve still got one or two more ass-chewings lined up in my near future, but a glowing testimonial from the guy who survived a kidnapping can’t hurt my cause any.”

  Darren nodded and leaned against the door jam.

  “I mailed copies to the local stations and the Freepress. I can’t promise they’ll run any of it, but I figured it was worth a shot.”


  “I’m glad you got out alive, Darren.”

  “I’m glad Solomon White didn’t.”

  “So you’re ready to tell me now? After what...a week?”

  “I just don’t know much.” Darren sighed and shrugged his shoulders. He reached in his pants’ pocket and pulled out the crumpled visitor intake form he’d stolen from the jail. He set it on the desk between them. “The name she gave was Samantha Ortiz. I don’t know if it’s her real name, but I kind of doubt it. She wanted money. Solomon wanted...I don’t know what he wanted. He was insane. He grabbed me and I don’t think she knew he was going to. I don’t think it was part of the plan. He kept me under most of the time with what I’m guessing was a chloroformed rag. But I think he kept getting more out of hand, and she kept seeing the case in the papers, and finally she added it all up and figured she could balance the equation a lot easier if she removed him from it.”

  Schultz listened until Darren stopped, his flat cop’s gaze giving nothing away as to whether he believed any of what was said or not. He reached out and plucked the crumpled paper off his desk, smoothed it out and read it.

  “Uh-huh,” Schultz said. “And Issabella’s father? Where does he fall into all this?”

  Darren didn’t blink or hesitate.

  “I wish I could say. But I kind of took on his case when he got busted for bar fighting. I can’t talk about Howard Bright. Not unless he shows up and releases me from confidentiality.”

  Schultz was incredulous.

  “You’re standing here, telling me with a straight face, that you can’t help catch the man who had you kidnapped and nearly murdered in a... a fucking abandoned building? That’s what you’re telling me?”

  “In so many words.”

  Schultz stood up, his hands planted on his waist. The lantern-jawed former athlete glowered and shook his head in disbelief.

  “You know what happened,” he spat. “Those three were in it together. And he was probably the one who planned the entire thing! Jesus, Darren, how the hell can you stand there and feed me that shit? You almost died!”