Dead Wood (21 page)
Authors: Dani Amore
Forty-eight
E
llen was in a meeting with a task force from Wayne County formed to track down a prostitution ring that was believed to be bringing in teenage girls against their will from cities like Chicago and Cleveland.
I sat in Ellen’s office, listening to the cop chatter in the hallways, the traffic out on Mack Avenue.
For the first time in my life, I felt hope. Hope that one day I might catch the man who killed Benjamin Collins. They say that you never know what life will bring you. That what initially appears to be great misfortune can often turn into great opportunities.
When Teddy Armbruster showed up on my boat, I thought it was all over.
Now, I realized, it was a new beginning.
• • •
“Haven’t you given me enough paperwork to deal with?” Ellen said, breezing into her office, the leather of her gunbelt creaking like an old saddle.
“Hey, I’m just another taxpayer making sure I get my money’s worth. Public servants like you need to be kept to task, my dear,” I said.
“God you’re such an ass,” she said.
“I want the Benjamin Collins file.”
She laughed outright. “Oh, sure. A private citizen demanding police files – open cases at that. What next? You want a shotgun? Borrow a squad car? Take a couple Kevlar vests for the kids?”
“The case is open?” I asked.
“Did I say that?” she said.
“Yeah, you did.”
“Well, I guess it is, then.”
“Had it been moved from the cold case files?”
She didn’t answer that right away.
“Come on, Ellen, it’s me, John. Your brother.”
This softened her just a bit, although she still didn’t say anything.
“Has Teddy started talking?” I asked.
Armbruster was busted in Chicago, trying to go undercover with his Mob friends, but he got caught on a FBI surveillance camera going into a house. He was brought back to Detroit the day before.
She shook her head. “He’s dummied up with the best Mob defense lawyer money can buy.”
“It’ll be a long trial,” I said.
She nodded.
I took a deep breath.
“I need that file, Ellen.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
I knew what she meant, but instead, I said “Go to Kinko’s and copy it – have it back on your desk in fifteen minutes. No one the wiser.”
She looked at me, really studying me. “Are you going to do anything stupid?”
“Of course I am, that’s my whole modus operandi.”
“I know, but something that will get you killed and leave Anna and those girls without a father?”
I shook my head. “Absolutely not. But now that I know Benjamin Collins was most likely a hit – a contract kill – that changes everything.”
She sighed and pulled the file out of one of her desk drawers. I knew she didn’t usually keep files there, so she had it ready for me. This was all a pretense – a warning to take it easy and take it slow.
I would do my best.
I took the file and said, “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”
“Don’t bother,” she said. “That’s a copy.”
She smiled at that.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Just trying to keep the taxpayers happy,” she said.
Forty-nine
I
t had all started with the lake.
I pulled my car off Lake Shore Drive, parked it on an opposing street and walked down to the water’s edge.
It was a calm morning, the lake a sheet of blue green glass. I had the file in my hand and I sat down on the grass. The grass was cold and damp, but somehow, everything felt good and felt right.
I felt like I belonged here.
They never found the man’s body. The next day, divers had gone down to my boat which had broken up into a few hundred pieces. They found lots of debris; wood, and pieces of the radio and minutia from the boat’s cabin.
But they didn’t find a body.
I knew there was no way he could have survived being impaled, and then taken underwater. He would have had to somehow swim to shore with a devastating injury in the middle of five foot waves.
Impossible.
It didn’t matter to me, though.
He was alive now in my memory. And dead or alive, I knew he would lead me to the final answer to what happened to Benjamin Collins.
That’s really all that mattered.
I looked at the file in my lap. This was going to be my chance to set things right. Redemption, I guess.
I took a deep sigh and ran my finger along the inside of the file’s cover.
I held my breath.
And opened the file.
THE END
Also by Dani Amore
Be sure to check out Dani Amore’s other hard-hitting crime novel,
DEATH BY SARCASM
.
Praise for
DEATH BY SARCASM
“Packed to the gills with hard-hitting action and a non-stop plot.”
—Savannah Morning News
“Death by Sarcasm cuts like a knife.”
—Bluffton Today
“A welcome shot of estrogen into the private eye genre.”
—St. Augustine Record
“Mary Cooper is tougher than Stephanie Plum, smarter, and would reduce her to tears in under 30 seconds.”
—Jacksonville News
About the Author
Dani Amore is a crime novelist living in Los Angeles, California. You can learn more about her at
www.daniamore.com
Copyright © 2011 by Dani Amore
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
Edition: August 2011
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