Let It Burn (2 page)

When I got inside, I saw the light flashing on the answering machine. I don’t get a hell of a lot of calls. I hit the play button and listened to a voice from my distant past.

“Hey, Alex McKnight! This is Tony Grimaldi. Remember me? I was a sergeant in the First Precinct, way the hell back when. I hope you’re doing okay, and I hope you don’t mind me calling you out of the blue. But I’m really just making a courtesy call, and I’d appreciate it if you could give me a call back.”

He gave me his number. Then he signed off.

I stood there looking down at the machine, wondering why in God’s name a desk sergeant from the old precinct would be calling me. I checked the time. I was in early, thanks to Jackie being an extra pain in the ass that night. So I figured what the hell, give the sergeant a call back.

I dialed the number, making note of the 734 area code. That was one of the new codes split off from the original 313. If you still had a 313, that meant you were either in Detroit or close enough to see it from your front door.

“Alex, is that you?”

“Sergeant Grimaldi,” I said. “How have you been, sir?”

“You can call me Tony now. I don’t wear a badge anymore.”

A half beat of silence then, as we skipped over my comeback. I wasn’t wearing a badge anymore, either. I hadn’t worn one in many years.

“How long have you been out?” I said.

“It’s over ten years now. Hard to imagine. But most days I don’t miss it much, to tell you the truth.”

“I hear ya.”

“Nothing like it, of course. You know what I mean.”

Another half beat.

“I know what you mean,” I said. “You’re absolutely right. But how did you ever think to get hold of me after all this time?”

“Well, like I said in the message, it’s just a courtesy call. I play golf with a few of the actives, and one of them happened to mention you. He was going to call you himself, but I told him I’d love to catch up with you.”

“Okay. Glad you did.” That’s what I said, but it still wasn’t making any sense.

“I understand you’re still drawing the disability, so obviously they had all of your contact information.”

Disability. Not exactly my favorite word in the world, but I guess that’s what you had to call it officially. When an officer gets shot on the job, he’s eligible for two-thirds of his salary for the rest of his life. I don’t make a point of telling most people that, because they’ll inevitably look at me and try to see how it is I’m supposedly disabled now. I mean, I can’t raise my right arm all the way anymore. I can’t throw a ball, which would have been more of a big deal back when I was a catcher, I realize, but not so much now. If you really pressed me, I’d just have to tell you that I took three bullets and only two came out, and I’m supposed to go get periodic X-rays to make sure that third bullet isn’t migrating closer to my heart, at which point it could kill me.

I’m supposed to go get those X-rays every year, but I don’t. I’m supposed to feel guilt or gratitude or a mixture of both every time I get one of those checks in the mail, but I don’t feel that, either. Mostly I just try to forget it ever happened.

“So what did you have to tell me, Sergeant? I’ve never gotten a courtesy call before.”

“I told you, call me Tony, please. But here’s the deal. You remember a case you worked on, that last year you were on the force, where you ended up putting away a guy named Darryl King?”

I was confused for exactly one second, because I never made detective and so technically I never really worked on a “case.” But as soon as I connected the name to the crime, it all came back to me. You don’t see a crime scene like that without remembering it for the rest of your life.

“Darryl King,” I said. “In the train station.”

“You forgot ‘With the knife.’”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, bad joke. You know, like in that game? Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the lead pipe?”

That’s cop humor for you. A way to distance yourself from the most horrible crimes of all. A way to keep your sanity.

“I’ve been away too long,” I said. “But seriously, why are we talking about Darryl King? Don’t tell me he’s getting out.”

“He is. Believe it or not.”

“That makes no sense. He drew a lot more time than that, didn’t he?”

“Tell me about it. But remember how he was, what, sixteen years old?”

“I don’t remember exactly, but that sounds about right.”

“Yeah, sixteen. Tried as an adult. It’s been a real thing in the court lately, going back over those cases with youthful offenders.”

“Like what, we were supposed to just send him home with a warning because he was a minor? Stop killing people or we’ll take away your allowance?”

“Hey, I’m just the messenger here, Alex. You’re preaching to the choir.”

“Sorry, it’s just…”

“I know, I know. Believe me. I’ve seen a few other cases like that. Maybe not as bad as this one. Bottom line, the kid’s spent his whole adult life in prison. I don’t know where he’s going to live, what he’s gonna do, but I do know he’ll be out in a few days. Not that I expect him to come looking for you or anything.”

“No, probably not. Good luck finding me, even if he wanted to.”

The sergeant laughed at that. “Yeah, what, you’re where, in Paradise? I gotta be honest, I had to look up where that is before I called you.”

“It’s a long way from Detroit,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll have to watch my back.”

“No, like I said, I don’t expect this kid to do anything. I keep calling him a kid, I realize, and he’s not a kid now. But you know what I mean. You just need to let people know.”

“I understand. So you called me…”

“And Detective Bateman, yes.”

“Wow, Arnie Bateman,” I said. “Another name I haven’t heard in a long time.”

“Yeah, he’s off the force now, too. Left right around the same time I did. Things were just getting a little too crazy in the department. More and more politics every year.”

“Okay, so me and the detective. I assume you’re letting the victim’s family know, too?”

“The court system does that. Certainly won’t be me, and no thank you, anyway. That would be a whole different thing.”

“I can’t even imagine,” I said. “I remember talking to the husband. It’s been a long time, and maybe he’s moved on with his life. Gotten married again, I don’t know. But in a way it probably feels like it just happened, you know?”

“Exactly. Now they’re telling you the guy who killed your wife is going to walk free.”

“I still can’t believe it,” I said. “Was it first degree murder in the end?”

I wasn’t there for that part. I was in the hospital when the trial took place, or maybe I was already out of the hospital and off the force and living through my lost year.

“Second degree, I think. After they cut that deal or whatever they did. But still. It’s not right.”

“Well, I appreciate the call, Sergeant. It was good to hear from you.”

“Tony, damn it. And you know what? We have to have a drink sometime. You ever get down this way? I live in Plymouth now.”

“Plymouth? Really?” Last I saw it, Plymouth was a little town in the middle of a cornfield or something, twenty miles west of Detroit on the way to nowhere.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t recognize the place now. Look who’s talking, anyway. At least you don’t have to look up Plymouth on the map.”

“Fair point.”

“But I mean it, Alex, I should have called you a long time ago. It’s not right to lose touch like that. You gotta get down here so we can catch up for real. We’ll have that drink, and your money’s no good down here.”

“Next time I’m downstate. I promise.”

“You’d better, Officer. That’s an order. You take care of yourself, all right?”

I promised him I would. Then we both hung up, and I’m not sure either of us really thought we’d ever see each other again.

*   *   *

An hour later, I was still thinking about the call. That name, Darryl King, which had been so important to me, so long ago. To the whole city of Detroit, really, in that one hot month of June. I had done my small part to bring him to justice, and then my own life had gotten turned upside down, just a matter of days later. I had had no reason to ever think about him again. Until now.

I was in my truck, rolling down to the end of the logging road, past four empty cabins. The family in the second cabin had just left that morning. That left only the couple in the last cabin, the same couple I had seen that evening, down at the Glasgow. The lights were on when I pulled up. I could see that they were inside.

I took an armload of firewood from the bed of my truck and stacked it next to the front door. Then the door opened and the man was standing there, looking out at me.

“Don’t mean to disturb you,” I said. “It’s just getting a little cold tonight, so I thought I’d leave some wood.”

“It’s August,” he said, with some kind of fake outrage. “It’s not supposed to get cold.”

He thought that was pretty funny. When he was done laughing, he thanked me for the wood.

“This has been such a great week,” he said. “We really love it up here.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that.”

“It’s not even that cold in here, but I think I’ll start a fire anyway. It really gets Gloria in the mood, if you know what I mean.”

I just nodded at that one. Definitely more than I needed to hear, but what the hell. You’re lucky enough to be alone with someone who loves you, in a nice cozy cabin at the end of the road in the most remote place you could ever find yourself in. Your real lives, all of your responsibilities and all of the demands, they’re all back home, three hundred miles away. Why not pretend you’re newlyweds again?

“You have a good night.” I got in my truck and drove back down that lonely road to my lonely cabin. I had already made the decision by the time I got back inside.

I called back my old sergeant, surprising the hell out of him, I’m sure. I told him I’d be coming back downstate to take him up on his offer of a drink.

Then I made one more call.

CHAPTER TWO

Another summer, the one that would turn out to be my last wearing a uniform. Half my life ago. Detroit, back when Detroit was still on its feet. It was a wobbling prizefighter, holding on to the ropes with one hand, but nobody was counting it out yet.

Seven thirty in the morning, on the first day of June. I remember that part because the first day of any month was hell for most Detroit police officers, on account of something they called MAD. It was a three-shift system for patrol officers,
M
for midnight,
A
for afternoon,
D
for day. You did one month on one shift, then you switched over to another. If you were lucky, you got a day off on the switch day, but of course you can’t give everyone the same day off, so most of the time you had to do a quick turnaround. Day-shifters going home and grabbing a few hours of sleep before reporting back at midnight, midnight-shifters going home in the morning and then coming back for the afternoon shift, which started at 4:00 p.m. Or on that particular day for me and my partner, coming off the afternoon shift at midnight, stumbling home, and trying to get as much real sleep as possible before that alarm went off and you had to be right back for morning roll call. The smarter criminals in Detroit had a rule—never mess with a cop on the first day of the month.

Sergeant Tony Grimaldi was doing the roll call that day. He was about as Italian as the name would suggest, an eastsider from Warren, where a lot of the Italians seemed to come from. He had been a high school baseball star who went on to play for a small college, so he took a natural interest in my minor league career, and it was obvious he thought both of us had come one inch from making it to the majors, even though he never even got a tryout. It was harmless, of course, and he was a sergeant. So I let it slide.

“All right, listen up,” he said, standing up there by the chalkboard. “Welcome back to the daylight, Officers. Hope you all have some coffee in you. Before we get to the announcements for the day, I’ve got a special guest star who wants to say something to you.”

Sometimes we’d actually get a genuine celebrity stopping by the precinct to say hello. One of the Red Wings, maybe, because we were the precinct closest to Joe Louis Arena. I think I remember Bob Seger stopping by one morning when I wasn’t there to meet him. But no, today we weren’t getting anybody like that at all. The door opened and in walked Detective Arnie Bateman.

“I thought you said we had a special guest
star
,” my partner Franklin said. It was the kind of thing he could say, being all of six foot four and a few pounds over his two-forty playing weight.

“Just give him a minute of your time,” the sergeant said. “He was so gracious to spare some of his, after all.”

The detective nodded at this, with a smile on his face like he really was giving up some of his valuable time just to favor us with his wonderfulness.

“Thank you, Sergeant. Good morning, men.”

He was dressed just so, as always, still sporting a Detroit version of the
Miami Vice
look, including the stubble on his chin. His eyes were bright, and he was practically humming with energy, unlike the rest of us overcaffeinated short-shifters, because homicide detectives almost always work regular hours. His gold badge was displayed prominently on his alligator belt. I’m pretty sure he polished that badge at least three times a day.

“As you know,” the detective said, “we’ve got the big annual basketball game against the Thirteenth coming up. They’ve been taking it to us the last few years, but this is the year we turn it around.”

The Thirteenth Precinct was our big rival. The First Precinct extended up Woodward Avenue from downtown, and the Thirteenth was just up the street from us. That left the precincts sitting right on the dividing line in this city, separating the east side from the west side, and it also meant that the infamous “Cass Corridor,” where much of the drug activity in the city was concentrated, ran from one precinct to the other. We’d take turns being the precinct with the highest homicide rate. Once a year we’d try to forget that with a basketball game.