Untitled (35 page)

  Vinny grabbed a bagel and went off to work. Danny walked her out the door. He looked sad as she drove off. There was nothing worse than a man who wasn't making money, having his woman work, a woman who had been shot, at that. Danny walked back to the kitchen and sat with Marshall.

  "Hey, man," he said.

  "So, I take it your hearing didn't go well," said Marshall.

  "No. I'm still out. And they're going to file a lawsuit against the city this week."

  "It'll probably settle, but that won't solve your problem."

  "I know that's right," said Danny. "And check this out, these muthafuckas want me to take a psychological exam."

  "It's routine. In fact, it's a good sign. They might be looking for a way out of it."

  "Not to me it ain't good. I ain't crazy. Fuck all of them in the ass." Danny grabbed a bagel and took a big bite.

  "Good to see you're taking it well," said Marshall. "So, yesterday something happened to let me know that Chemin didn't have anything to do with Jessica's death."

"You had sex with her, didn't you?" asked Danny.

  "No, and stop being so goddamned smart. I found out something, something big. And I'll need your help on it."

  "Okay, it ain't like I got anything else to do these fuckin' days. So, what is it?"

  Marshall wasn't sure his house wasn't bugged so he took Danny outside and told him everything he knew, then asked him to find Moses.

  "Two guys and a fat chick? Man, that's some sick-ass shit, you know?"

  "That's your reaction to a national conspiracy and four murders?"

  "Sorry, man. This is a lot of shit to swallow, that's all. Look, I can get on your brother's trail today. There's a chance he's still around. A lot of lowlifes don't feel comfortable in other cities. You grow up in shit and you like to stay around it."

  "Aren't you going to say you're sorry about the things you thought about my wife?" asked Marshall.

  "I would, but you still don't know for sure. Why did she burn those clothes?"

  "I'll find out this morning. I'm meeting her for breakfast."

  "That's cool, you two need to get your shit together. Whether she did it or not, I think you two should talk."

  "I'll take that as a compliment. It's the best I'm gonna get from your sorry ass."

  "You got that right," said Danny. He laughed.

Marshall walked into the Original Pancake House in Southfield and took a seat. The place was crowded as usual, but he managed to get a table near the back. He was meeting Chemin and didn't want to draw too much attention to himself.

  Chemin walked in the restaurant ten minutes later. She was dressed in a nice suit. She looked good. Whenever she wasn't feeling right, she always dressed up to feel better. It had a different effect on Marshall. He saw her as he had the first time they met. Beautiful, sexy, and confident. He wanted to run to her, kiss her, and tell her that everything was okay. Chemin sat down and even managed a little smile.

"You look great," he said.

"Thanks," she said. "I got a lot of sleep last night."

"How's work?" asked Marshall.

  "It's fine," said Chemin. "My boss went apeshit without me for a while, but it's cool."

  "I want to apologize for what Danny and I did. It's the—" Marshall stopped. Chemin had heard about how hard his cases were too often. If he said it, the statement might damn him to hell in this meeting. "I'm upset about a lot of things. I got carried away."

  "I guess I haven't been acting so stable lately."

  A waitress came by, and they ordered. Chemin asked for something they didn't exactly have on the menu. She always liked to create her own food. The waitress was suitably annoyed.

  "I want you to come home, Chemin. I'll do anything you want, just come back to me."

  Her face turned serious, as if a shadow had come over it. She looked at him for a moment then looked down at the table.

  "Don't you want to know about the clothes I burned?"

  "I do, but I don't want to get into another fight about it. Neither of us have been acting like ourselves lately. I'm sure you had a good reason to do what you did."

  "My psychologist told me to burn the clothes." She stopped for a second, as if what she was about to say was difficult. "They were maternity clothes."

  Marshall expressed surprise at this. She wanted a baby so badly that she'd been planning it without him. "I see. So, how long had you been doing that?"

  "Not long, but my doctor didn't think it was good to fool myself and plan for something that might not happen. So, it was kind of a ritual. I actually felt better after I did it." She smiled again.

  Whatever doubts he'd had about her were now gone. His wife, this remarkable woman, had not been driven over the edge by him. She was still a great person, the love of his life, and he wanted her back.

  "I guess a little wardrobe barbecue never hurt anyone. So, when are you coming home?"

  "I'm not, Marshall. And don't get upset, just hear me out." She stopped and took a breath. She'd obviously planned what she was about to say. "I don't think you know what life is like for me. You'll still be able to have a family when you're sixty, but not me. A woman's childbearing period is a small life within a life. I don't want mine to pass with regrets. I want children, I need them, and if you won't give them to me, I'll have to find a mate who can."

  It was classic Chemin. Short, logical, and to the point. He was overwhelmed. She hadn't said the word
divorce
this time, but it was implicit in her statement. She wanted out. She was going to leave him after everything they'd meant to each other. She didn't mention his indiscretion with Jessica, and he thanked God for that.

  "Okay, Chemin," said Marshall. "I'll do it. We'll have a kid. I'm ready."

  She laughed a little. "You can be so sweet sometimes, you know. I know you mean it. But a baby is a lifetime commitment, Marshall. It's not the kind of decision you make on a whim, or to keep your wife with you. You have to want the baby. You have to want to put your life in second position. And make no mistake, that's just what you'll have to do."

  "I can get there, I know I can," said Marshall. Even he could hear the pleading inside his words. There was a time when he would have never sounded so desperate, but he felt as if he were losing more than a wife and a marriage. He was losing a friend. He was losing his life.

  "I need you there now," she said. "I talked to my mother about this and—"

  "You did?" asked Marshall. He was suddenly ashamed of himself. He adored Chemin's mother, and the feeling was mutual. It hurt him to know that she might now think less of him.

  "Yes, I did," Chemin continued.

  "What did she say?" asked Marshall. Somehow he didn't think he really wanted to know.

  "She was actually on your side," said Chemin. "She said that forcing a man to have kids was stupid and had never worked in the recorded history of mankind."

  It was good to know that Chemin's mother agreed with him, but the essence of her statement still lent itself to a divorce.

  Chemin looked at him with such compassion that he forgot all the pain he was feeling inside.

  "And so?" asked Marshall.

  "I agree with her. That's why I'm doing this. That's why we should separate."

  They ate in silence then left. Marshall walked her to her car outside. The morning was cold, but the sun was out, causing the snowbanks to gleam with light. It was strangely beautiful. Chemin stopped by her car door and smiled at him.

  "Don't be sad," she said. "Sometimes people just need to step back and agree that it isn't going to work."

  "You're leaving me. What do you want me to do? You're not giving me a chance."

  Chemin looked down at her feet for a second. It was the second time she had looked away. He knew this was big. She was not the kind of woman who was shy about anything she said or did.

  "I know I'm a hard woman," she said. "But I'm sure I'm doing what's right for both of us. I was lucky to have a man like you, Marshall. I know most women would laugh at me for what I'm doing, but I can't be controlled by the forces of society, I have to be their master, otherwise, I'm a fool."

  This was all too true of his wife. Her strength had caused her to turn away from everything that looked like weakness. And she didn't understand that her attitude might be construed as weakness itself.

  She took a step to him and kissed him. Her face was warm, and she smelled like heaven. In that moment, he had everything he wanted. All his trouble and fear melted away, and he wished for a life without the terrible baggage of humanity. He hugged her tightly and didn't want to release her. She gently pushed him back.

"I'll see you," she said.

  He didn't want to answer. To him, that would be an admission that it was over, and he couldn't believe that. Chemin got into the car, pulling her long legs inside. The car started up, and to him the engine sounded like thunder. Then she pulled away and rolled into the bright morning.

A
s Marshall drove to Masonic Temple he kept seeing Chemin driving off in her car like the end of a sad movie. How did he blow it? he thought. Life was strange that way, it sneaked up on you and kicked you in the ass, and before you knew it, all you had were memories and regret. He thought that he would beat his family's curse. After all the trouble in his life, it seemed for a while as if he was going to dodge the bullet. But he'd been shot by fate and doomed to failure in his marriage.

  He arrived at Masonic Temple and parked. He went inside and was soon standing on the stage where Douglas was shot. He looked up at the crawl space Mbutu had used. It was so small. How could anyone else have been up there with him? If the real killer had been too far away, the trajectories of the shots would have shown that the shots were beyond the margin of error.

  Marshall checked the blueprints he'd gotten from the case file. Nothing. It was impossible for a second shooter to be there unless he was suspended in the air.

  Marshall went up to the space itself. He took off his jacket and went inside. He lay down just as Mbutu must have and looked out of the hole that he used to shoot.

  There was nothing smarter than a killer, he thought. When you commit the vilest of crimes, you brought to bear all of your power. Those left to catch you had to make due with ordinary smarts.

  Marshall backed out of the crawl space. He had to go backward, and his hands and elbows hit the floor as he did. Suddenly, he stopped and started again. The sound of his body hitting the floor of the crawl space was weird, it was a round, airy sound, and then he understood.

  It was hollow.

  Marshall hit the floor and heard the wonderful sound again. That was how a second shooter could have been suspended under Mbutu.
He was under the floor.
Marshall tried to pull up the floorboards, but they wouldn't move. Nothing. What was the answer? He leaned against the wall. Suddenly his eyes widened. He went out of the room and checked the wall adjacent to the space that had been used. He hit the wall and heard the hollow sound again.

  Marshall went back to building services and inquired about the wall. He was given another set of blueprints, an earlier set that showed an old ventilation system that had been abandoned back in the early 1970s. There was an air duct in the wall, and beneath all of the crawl spaces there was an area that was used for vents.

  Marshall's heart raced as he went into the basement of the building. It was a cavernous place that was smelly and ancient. The head engineer, an amiable man named Darryl, showed him the old ducts.

  After Darryl was gone, Marshall went to the duct that led to the area beneath the crawl spaces. It was huge. It had long been disconnected from any boiler or furnace. He looked inside into the blackness. Shining a flashlight inside, he saw handles in the side of the duct that must have been used for climbing. He took off his jacket, turned on a flashlight, and climbed up.

  He went up past the seats on the floor, past the balcony, to the end. He climbed out and looked around. The duct had led under the spot where Mbutu would have been.

  It was dark inside. Marshall felt around the front of the space. The killer had to have looked out of an opening and closed it back up. Marshall shined the light against the front of the space and saw that the vents had been covered up. Then the light caught something that looked like a small handle. Marshall grabbed it and pulled. An old vent panel slid to one side about a half foot. He looked through it and saw the stage.

  "I got your ass," he whispered.

  He climbed back down and cleaned himself off as best he could. He knew that he could go to Nate and Toby with this, but what would they do? If they couldn't be trusted, then that evidence was useless and maybe he would be too.

  He had to have an airtight case. Only that would protect him and anyone else who was in danger. He had found his habeas corpus, the body of his crime in this mystery, but it would take more to convince others.

  Whoever got into that second space had to have been there long before Mbutu got into his, maybe hours before. And he probably was there when they did the investigation, under the lab techs, breathing softly, waiting for them to leave. A patient man, a smart man, a very dangerous man.

  Marshall went back to the office, excited about his discovery, but a little fearful of walking into an office he knew to be bugged.

  He thought of Roberta. What if she had gone over the edge and confessed to someone? That could spoil everything.

  He walked into his office and checked for the bug. It was still there. That meant Roberta was still on board. Marshall went into her office and found her there with a pile of books on her desk hard at work.