“please” and “sir” that is like the way an animal trainer says “sit” and “roll over.” I backed out of the driveway and waited obediently for the city car to take the lead.
Twelve
T HE ADDRESS ON Ferry Park was ten minutes and two worlds away from my cozy Hamtramck neighborhood, a crumbling monument to the last city administration, whose mayor hadn’t owned any property there and so left it undeveloped: Grass speared up through buckles in the asphalt out front, pheasants nested in the weeds of the empty lots on both sides, and every time a long-haul semi thundered down the nearby interstate, shingles showered down from the roof like dandruff. It was a squat house with all the paint rubbed off the boards and a patch of burnt lawn wormy with mole tunnels. The bars on the windows were the only improvement it had seen in forty years.
Against this frayed backdrop, the yellow police tape encircling the lot looked garish, the throbbing red and blue strobes of the parked police cruisers as frivolous as Christmas lights at a vigil for the dead. I parked at the curb behind the Tactical Mobile Unit and got out. The big black sergeant who had shone the flashlight in my face asked me to wait there and ducked under the tape. A small group of local residents in fuzzy bathrobes and knee-length football jerseys had gathered on the sidewalk in front, staring at the house and at the officers quartering the yard with flashlights, not looking as if they expected much in the way of entertainment. Police activity in that neighborhood would be almost a nightly event.
The sergeant’s partner, a lean cob with a withered-looking face, leaned back against the cruiser, arms folded, daring the crowd with his bitter little eyes to make some move that would give him the opportunity to dazzle them with his fast draw. I saw videotape in his future.
The sergeant leaned his big head out the front door and beckoned to me with his arm. I felt a dozen pairs of eyes on me during the trip up the cracked front walk.
“The lieutenant will see you now,” said the sergeant.
“Which lieutenant?”
“Thaler.”
That was good news, aesthetically speaking. I found Mary Ann Thaler in the tiny living room, conversing in a group that included a pair of officers in uniform, one of them female, and a young Asian male in a snappy white turtleneck and a corduroy sportcoat with leather patches on the elbows. The lieutenant was a trim 115 pounds or so wearing a red blazer over a silver blouse, black miniskirt, black hose, and moderate heels. She wore her hair longer these days, tumbling in rich light brown waves to her shoulders, and glasses with large frames in a color that matched her hair. The plastic police ID she had clipped to her handkerchief pocket was a fashion don’t, but she carried it off. The room was just a room with some furniture in it. It needed cleaning, but then so did mine.
“You look like the tattered end of a long day,” she said by way of greeting.
I said, “You look like spring blossoms. Nobody else in Armed Robbery does justice to a miniskirt.”
“It’s Felony Homicide now, and watch your unenlightened mouth. This is Albert Chung from the coroner’s office. Amos Walker.”
The Asian shook my hand. “CID?”
“P.I.,” I said. “Who’s dead?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but Thaler cut him off. She had her notebook out, a nifty slimline pad with imitation alligator covers. “You’re working for a Mrs. Neil Catalin in West Bloomfield?”
My inner stem wound itself a notch tighter. “It’s Catalin?”
“Missing Persons took a report from her this afternoon. I’m starting to like our new computer system; it cross-references complaints. Mrs. Catalin’s maid says she’s out for the evening. Sergeant Binder and Officer Wise burned twenty-four dollars in city money waiting for you at your place. You dating clients now?”
I shook my head. “I’m not putting them on electronic tethers, either. Who am I
Twelve
T HE ADDRESS ON Ferry Park was ten minutes and two worlds away from my cozy Hamtramck neighborhood, a crumbling monument to the last city administration, whose mayor hadn’t owned any property there and so left it undeveloped: Grass speared up through buckles in the asphalt out front, pheasants nested in the weeds of the empty lots on both sides, and every time a long-haul semi thundered down the nearby interstate, shingles showered down from the roof like dandruff. It was a squat house with all the paint rubbed off the boards and a patch of burnt lawn wormy with mole tunnels. The bars on the windows were the only improvement it had seen in forty years.
Against this frayed backdrop, the yellow police tape encircling the lot looked garish, the throbbing red and blue strobes of the parked police cruisers as frivolous as Christmas lights at a vigil for the dead. I parked at the curb behind the Tactical Mobile Unit and got out. The big black sergeant who had shone the flashlight in my face asked me to wait there and ducked under the tape. A small group of local residents in fuzzy bathrobes and knee-length football jerseys had gathered on the sidewalk in front, staring at the house and at the officers quartering the yard with flashlights, not looking as if they expected much in the way of entertainment. Police activity in that neighborhood would be almost a nightly event.
The sergeant’s partner, a lean cob with a withered-looking face, leaned back against the cruiser, arms folded, daring the crowd with his bitter little eyes to make some move that would give him the opportunity to dazzle them with his fast draw. I saw videotape in his future.
The sergeant leaned his big head out the front door and beckoned to me with his arm. I felt a dozen pairs of eyes on me during the trip up the cracked front walk.
“The lieutenant will see you now,” said the sergeant.
“Which lieutenant?”
“Thaler.”
That was good news, aesthetically speaking. I found Mary Ann Thaler in the tiny living room, conversing in a group that included a pair of officers in uniform, one of them female, and a young Asian male in a snappy white turtleneck and a corduroy sportcoat with leather patches on the elbows. The lieutenant was a trim 115 pounds or so wearing a red blazer over a silver blouse, black miniskirt, black hose, and moderate heels. She wore her hair longer these days, tumbling in rich light brown waves to her shoulders, and glasses with large frames in a color that matched her hair. The plastic police ID she had clipped to her handkerchief pocket was a fashion don’t, but she carried it off. The room was just a room with some furniture in it. It needed cleaning, but then so did mine.
“You look like the tattered end of a long day,” she said by way of greeting.
I said, “You look like spring blossoms. Nobody else in Armed Robbery does justice to a miniskirt.”
“It’s Felony Homicide now, and watch your unenlightened mouth. This is Albert Chung from the coroner’s office. Amos Walker.”
The Asian shook my hand. “CID?”
“P.I.,” I said. “Who’s dead?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but Thaler cut him off. She had her notebook out, a nifty slimline pad with imitation alligator covers. “You’re working for a Mrs. Neil Catalin in West Bloomfield?”
My inner stem wound itself a notch tighter. “It’s Catalin?”
“Missing Persons took a report from her this afternoon. I’m starting to like our new computer system; it cross-references complaints. Mrs. Catalin’s maid says she’s out for the evening. Sergeant Binder and Officer Wise burned twenty-four dollars in city money waiting for you at your place. You dating clients now?”
I shook my head. “I’m not putting them on electronic tethers, either. Who am I
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