Let It Burn (17 page)

When we were back in the car, I found some takeout napkins in the detective’s center console. I used those to wipe off my pant leg.

“Thanks for your help,” he said. “You handled all of that pretty well.”

“It’s all right.”

“You know how to talk to people. It’s something they can’t teach at the academy.”

“There was a lot of anger in him. Not that I can blame him for most of it.”

“I’d stay away from him if I were the husband. At least for a while.”

“I wasn’t about to tell him my wife’s going to Wayne State, too. Which I guess would make me just as bad.”

Bateman shook his head. “You can’t blame the whole city. It’s a good school.”

“Yeah, tell that to him.”

He pulled out onto Twelve Mile Road, heading west. Away from the freeway that would take us back to the precinct.

“Where are we going now?” I said.

“I’ll give you one guess.”

*   *   *

All we had to do was cut down Orchard Lake Road to Eleven Mile and we were at the town house owned by Tanner Paige and the late Elana Paige. It was nothing near as impressive as the Grayson house, but what the hell, they were still relatively young, only married a few years, no kids yet. A little town house in Farmington Hills was all they needed.

“I actually tried to call him,” Bateman said as we pulled into the lot. “Yesterday. Then today. I haven’t gotten an answer yet.”

We went to the front door and rang the bell. It was one those places with four separate town houses in one building. Then another building next to it, looking exactly the same. Then another and another.

Nobody answered the door. Bateman rang the bell again. After a few seconds passed, we both looked at each other, and I could tell the same thought was hitting us at the same time.

“You don’t suppose…” he said.

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

He stepped back and looked up at the second-story windows. “I think the lights are on up there. It’s hard to tell in the daylight.”

I was picturing our grieving husband either hanging in the closet or else lying face up on the bed, an empty pill bottle on the floor beside him. I was wondering if that was a suspicion I should be calling in to the station immediately, so we could get someone out here to open the door. Or better yet, at least find out what kind of vehicle he was driving, so we could check the parking lot before doing anything else.

Then the front door opened.

Tanner Paige stood there in the doorway. We’d already seen some red eyes that morning. Tanner’s set a new standard. He was wearing a robe, sweatpants, and slippers. He obviously hadn’t shaved, showered, or done anything else for himself since that first evening we saw him. You couldn’t have drawn a better portrait of a man who’d given up on everything.

“Mr. Paige,” Bateman said. “We’re sorry to bother you. Are you okay?”

He just looked at us like he’d forgotten the English language.

“Mr. Paige, can we do anything for you? Come on, let’s go inside.”

He pushed the man backward, into the town house. Mr. Paige didn’t offer any resistance. He let himself be led to the couch in the living room. He let himself be lowered into a sitting position.

“Have you been eating?” Bateman said. “What can we get you?”

He gave me a quick nod, and I went into the kitchen. The whole town house was just as much a wreck as the owner. He didn’t have a maid to keep things in order, like his in-laws.

“Mr. Paige,” I heard Bateman say, “you need to have someone here to help you. Is there somebody you can call?”

“My wife,” the man said, finally speaking. “You can call my wife.”

A warm half gallon of milk was sitting on the counter. I opened it and poured it right down the sink. Then I heated up some water and found some tea bags. I wasn’t sure what else to do.

The in-laws all have each other, I thought. I didn’t know why this man was left alone like this. It was clearly driving him insane.

When the tea was ready, I brought it into the living room and put it on the table in front of the couch. Mr. Paige looked at it like he wasn’t quite sure what it was.

“Here, drink this,” Bateman said, picking up the mug. “This might help you feel better.”

Mr. Paige took the mug. He gave it an experimental sip. Then he closed his eyes and began to drink. I knew it was a little too hot to drink this fast, but I wasn’t about to stop him.

When he was done, he took a few deep breaths. Then he opened his eyes and looked back and forth between us.

“Detective Bateman,” he said. “Officer McKnight, was it?”

I nodded.

“You’ll have to excuse me. It’s been a rough couple of days. I haven’t slept at all since … I mean, if I do I just have these nightmares where she’s…”

“It’s okay,” Bateman said. “We understand.”

“I assume you have news,” he said, putting the mug down. “Have you caught him yet?”

“I’m afraid not,” Bateman said. “But we were down the road at the Graysons’. So I thought we’d stop by.”

“I don’t understand. Why come out here if there’s nothing to tell us?”

“Your father-in-law asked us to come out. He’s going to put together a reward for any information leading to an arrest.”

“Is that going to make any difference?”

“It usually does, yes. A large sum of money tends to make people get over their reluctance to call the police.”

“Okay,” Mr. Paige said, nodding slowly. “Okay. So that’s good. That should do it, right?”

“We hope so.”

“Detective Bateman,” he said. “That first night … I think you promised us that you’d catch this guy. Didn’t you?”

“I’m sure I promised you that I’d do everything I can to catch him, yes.”

“No, no. You said, ‘I promise you, we’ll catch this guy.’ Or words to that effect. But that was the message. We’ll catch him.”

“I don’t remember exactly what my words were,” Bateman said, hesitating. “You understand, we can only do what we can do. Some things are out of our control.”

“All right, so if you said that and you don’t really mean it, then promise me something else.”

Bateman looked over at me.

“What is it you want us to promise you?” I said.

“Promise me that if you catch this guy, you won’t take him right to the station.”

“I don’t understand. Where else would we—”

“Bring him here,” Mr. Paige said, grabbing my arm. “That’s all I ask. Bring him here for one hour. So I can have him first.”

Bateman dropped his head and rubbed his forehead. Mr. Paige kept his eye contact with me, his grip still tight on my arm.

“You have to promise me,” he said. “I’m not letting you go until you do.”

“Mr. Paige,” I said. “You know we can’t bring him here. That’s not how it works.”

He kept squeezing my arm, with surprising force for a man who probably hadn’t eaten a real meal in three days. Then he let go.

“God, listen to me,” he said. “I’m so sorry, guys. I’m just…”

“It’s all right,” I said. “I’d probably be thinking the same thing, believe me.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “What
thing
do I do next?”

“Maybe we can send somebody over to talk to you,” Bateman said. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow, too. And the day after that. Okay? We’re not going to let you face this alone.”

“I appreciate that,” he said. “But at the end of the day, I’m the one who has to try to sleep in that empty bed.”

“You should get out of this place,” I said. “Go somewhere else for a while.”

He nodded.

“It’s a great idea,” Bateman said. “Is there someplace you can go?”

“I’ll find a place. You’re right. I’ll just go crazy here.”

He stood up then. He went into the bathroom and slapped some water on his face, tried to do something with his hair. When he came back out, he looked like he remembered how to be a human being, at least.

“I appreciate you guys coming over,” he said. “I guess I needed somebody to knock some sense back into me.”

We left him with a promise to get back to work and to let him know the second we had a break. The detective and I walked back to the car in silence. We got in, he started it, and we headed back to the freeway. Back to work.

“Grief’s a bitch,” Bateman finally said.

I nodded my head once and watched the other cars as we blew by them.

“So that reward…” I said, a few miles later.

“Yeah, I hope you’re ready,” he said. “We’ll get a thousand calls by the end of the night.”

*   *   *

We got the calls. Maybe not a literal thousand, but our phone did not stop ringing for more than a few minutes at a time. Most of them were fishing expeditions. A young man down the street who always acted suspicious. He kind of looked like that portrait in the newspaper.

Some of the calls were more specific. This young man next door, he came running home that same evening as the murder. I haven’t even seen him since then, which is weird because he’s always hanging around front with his no-good friends. Now it’s like he disappeared off the face of the earth.

Those were the calls we followed up on, right away. A drive out to the house in question, a knock on the door. A quick census of everyone who lived there. Your older son, ma’am, where might he be? Oh, there he is right now. Okay, that’s not who we were looking for. Sorry to disturb you. Have a good night.

Then back to the car, trying not to let the disappointment build when it was one dead end after another. We worked every lead we could that night. We picked up more leads in the morning. The photograph I had in my mind was still
right there.
I knew I’d recognize him the second I saw him. That was the frustrating part. All those doors opening, all those young faces looking up at me. Not one of them was the face I was looking for.

Other murders kept occurring in the city. They weren’t going to stop just because we had one particular case we wanted to solve. They weren’t even going to slow down. It was a hot summer, and there were wars going on over the crack business. The casualties would get rolled into the hospitals every night. Literally every night without fail that summer. You didn’t say it loud, that one drug dealer shooting another was not something that was going to make you lose any sleep. An innocent bystander was another matter altogether. Someone just standing there on the street when a car comes by and the bullets start flying as randomly as raindrops.

The Uzi was big that summer. A compact little machine pistol from Israel, not much louder than a sewing machine. It was the perfect weapon for making a point about who owned a particular corner, and making it dramatically.

Five days after the murder of Elana Paige, we had another high-profile case in our precinct, this time an eighteen-year-old kid from Allen Park who was shot dead over a ticket-scalping dispute outside the Masonic Temple. He’d come down to attend a rock concert, ended up bleeding out on the sidewalk. His assailant had disappeared into the crowd, this time with no police officer around to serve as an eyewitness. Another news story, another grieving family. Another case to eat up some of Bateman’s workday, because there were only so many homicide detectives to go around.

At the end of the week, Sergeant Grimaldi called me aside and told me that the approved overtime for my double shifts could not last forever, and that I’d end up killing myself if I didn’t go back to a normal schedule anyway.

By the start of the next week, it was official. The case wasn’t closed, of course. It would remain open until it was solved, whenever that might be. But there were other crimes to solve, too, and resources had to be put back into balance. Priorities adjusted for maximum effectiveness. Or some words like that. Whatever they were, I didn’t really hear them. Because to me they meant we were all but giving up on ever putting away the man who killed Elana Paige.

I was back on patrol, but I still checked in with Detective Bateman every day. He was usually sitting at his desk, a pile of paperwork in front of him. Often on the phone. Never a smile on his face. Not his usual flashy self at all. Not that month.

“I had to call the family today,” he said one morning. “The Graysons first, then the husband. Naturally, they all wanted to know what the hell was going on. All these days gone by, still nothing.”

He stopped to beat the edge of his desk with a pen.

“I’m not a good liar,” he said. “I’m sure they could hear it in my voice. Everything I was saying was just so useless.”

Later that same morning, he received what he thought might be a solid lead. He called me in from the beat, and we went out together to chase it down. Once again, it turned into nothing. Once again, we were no closer to breaking the case.

So aside from those occasional futile morning trips with the detective, it was back to the squad car for me. Back with my partner, Franklin. He took it easy on me for a while. He could tell I was still wearing the case around my neck.

I kept watching as we drove, of course. Every young black man on the street, that could have been the man I was looking for. One day, I was driving through a neighborhood when I suddenly stopped dead, sending Franklin’s coffee onto his shoes.

“What the hell!” he said.

I was looking at a woman hanging up her laundry in her backyard.

“That’s what made you stop?” Franklin said. “Because all I see is a woman putting out her family’s clothes to dry. Probably doesn’t have a working dryer in the house.”

Out of all of her laundry, the shirts, the pants, the dresses, the towels, it was the one combination that had caught my eye.

“Wait, is it because she’s got some blue jeans on the line?” Franklin said. “Along with that gray shirt? Because I hate to break it to you, but those aren’t exactly exotic items of clothing. I’m pretty sure we could both go home and find that particular outfit for ourselves right now.”

I got out of the squad car and went to talk to her. A minute later, I came back and got behind the wheel. Franklin was still looking around for something in the car to wipe his shoes with.

“Those clothes are hers,” I said. “There are no men in the house.”

“You’re going to drive yourself crazy. You’re going to ruin all of my shoes, too.”