Broken Monsters (27 page)

“New recruit?”
Croff says, indicating the heap of abject unhappiness that is her daughter, slumped in Gabi's chair with her sneakers on the desk, tapping and swiping at her phone. “This isn't daycare, you know.”

“Lay off, Mike. I know you have the perfect family, but I don't have
a wife
to stay home and take care of things. It's for a couple of hours, all right?”

“Touchy, touchy!” He throws up his hands.

“Where's Marcus?”

“Haven't seen him yet today.”

“And Bob?”

“In the briefing room with Washington. Going through the footage on your citizen journalist friend's phone.”

“What are
you
doing?”

“About to go relieve Stricker, who's cleaning up your mess. You know it's going to take them five days to process that scene?”

“I'm sorry it's such an inconvenience for you. Or were you angling for overtime?”

“Your kid shouldn't be here,” he snipes, stalking away.

She finds Boyd with Ovella Washington, scrolling through the videos, marking the ones that are potentially interesting, getting screengrabs, printing them out and pasting them up.

“How'd the interviews go?”

Boyd groans. “We got nothing. Crazy artists. You get more sense out of junkies. It's all in the file for you. Only the first round, though. Those were the most obvious ones. I'm going through the list again. We've got the curator guy coming in first thing tomorrow to look at the names again.”

“I thought we were holding him?”

“He got a lawyer, who got him a doctor, who wrote him a note. Shock and alcohol poisoning. He's home with some happy pills and assures us he will be here tomorrow to facilitate us with our inquiries.”

Gabi sighs in disgust. “Thanks anyway, Bob. Ovella, you're cross-referencing the artists' names against the ceramics place?”

“Yup. So far I've got over thirty people whose names have come up as participating artists and people who have used the pottery at one time or another. Slow going. I haven't even got to your slaughterhouses yet.”

“Can't Sparkles do that?”

“I think he's helping out on scene. Stricker's down there.”

“I know, I ran into Mikey, who is being a gigantic a-hole.”

Boyd shrugs. “Earth goes around the sun, bears shit in the woods.”

“Well, get someone else to make the calls until Sparkles shows up. What do you have on that graffiti?”

“Your blogger friend, Jonno Haim, did a video report on it. See for yourself. Problem is that he's made it a thing—whatchoocallit?”

“A meme,” Washington supplies.

“Exactly. You got copycat artists in other cities doing their own doors. Plenty here in Detroit, too. They've posted pictures to the comments.”

“So how do we tell our man's from the others?”

“Our killer uses chalk. Some of these others are spray-painted. Some people are doing really elaborate ones, sticking actual wooden doors up, or painting them all realistic.”

“Dammit. We're going to have to check each one.”

“Guess I'll get my hat,” Boyd says.

“Want to grab coffee first?”

“Nah, I just had one,” he says, but then he catches on. “Oh, right. Okay, caffeinate me.”

In the kitchenette, Gabriella speaks softly. “Layla's got herself into a sewage plant's worth of the brown stuff. I need to sort it out. Two sets of parents and a hospital, can you believe. Do you think you can handle this for a few hours?”

“Now?!” He is incredulous. “Your daughter sure has timing.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Don't worry. It's all good. We're chasing what we got. We don't need you right this minute. I can do the door sites on my own.”

“Thanks, Bob,” Gabi says, “I'll get back to you as soon as I can.”

“No problem. But don't forget your homework,” he says, and dumps a pile of files on her.

“Hey, this
is Jonno,” he says, the phone wedged between his chin and his shoulder. One of “10 Bad Workplace Habits That Cause Back Pain,” he knows, but he's clicking through Instagram and Tumblr accounts tagged with #Detroit and #artparty and #dreamhouse.

His phone has been going nuts, so it's infuriating to get that bubble of silence that indicates he's about to be connected to a chipper telesales recording offering him better cell phone rates.

“He-llo? Anyone there?” It's the last tag that's screwing up his search, he realizes, pulling up lots of ironic pictures of ruin porn. He refines it to #dreamhouseparty.

“Hi,” a girl says, her voice calm. “This is Layla. Layla Stirling-Versado. You messaged me.” She sounds older on the phone.

His hand goes up to the phone automatically, as if to keep her from getting away. “Sure, Layla. I was so hoping you'd call.” He's trying for casual. “How are you?”

“Not so good, actually.” He can hear traffic in the background, like maybe she's calling from a parking lot. The single whoop of a police siren in the background.

“Yeah. I'm sorry. It must have been terrible. I mean, you found the body, right?”

There's a long stretch of silence.

“Layla? You there?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.” Her voice is strangled. He's got to take it easy, get her to save the tears for when there's a camera pointed at her.

“I was serious about the offer. I want to tell the story right, you know? So many people just parachute into Detroit, make all these proclamations of what it is or isn't, and that's not the place we live, am I right?”

“Right.” She doesn't sound so sure, but that's okay. As long as she's agreeing with him.

“This isn't one of those exploitative pieces. I want to show how this affects people, what we have to live with, what this is doing to us.”

“You said there was a budget.”

“Yes, for sure. This is an important film.”

“How much?”

“I'm paying fifty dollars an interview, but because you're an eyewitness, it's a hundred dollars. That's a hundred smackeroos for half an hour of your time.” More like three hours, but who's counting.
Smackeroos?
His troll shudders.

“A hundred bucks?” She's incredulous, but not in the damn-that's-a-good-deal way he was hoping for.

“I'll make it two hundred.”

“This was such a mistake.”

“Hey,” he says. “Hey, hey, Layla. Listen. Don't hang up. You're the detective's daughter, right? Gabriella Versado?”

“You worked that out from our last names, genius?”
Teen sarcasm. Gotta love it
.

“Which means you know how much pressure your mom is under. The mayor's office is going mental about this case. You know that they're putting Detroit's reputation ahead of solving the crime? They're so worried about bad PR they're willing to compromise your mom's investigation. They're letting this murderer get away with it.”

“What are you even talking about?”

“Why haven't they released any photographs, Layla?”

“Because they always keep some details back, so if a tip-off comes in, they know whether it's real or some crank.”

“You got it,” he scrambles. “But there's a point where holding back does more harm than good, because the rumor mill is going crazy. I mean dead kids and animal parts and clay ovens and art parties? Have you seen the speculation online? Reddit's got more posts trying to solve the mystery of the Detroit Monster than they ever did on the Boston Bombers. There's like a thousand conspiracy theories, and it's getting in the way of your mom's investigation. She needs to get some intel out there. But she's not allowed to.”

“Because of the mayor's office.”

“Exactly.”

“But you do.”

“And so does your mom. She would never say it. The mayor's office has her practically handcuffed.”

Oh, nice one.

“I can help. It won't be exploitative, I promise. But if I can put some images out there, it might spark off something in someone's head. Remind them they saw something suspicious. You would be helping your mom and the victims and maybe even saving someone's life, Layla. This guy is still out there. Right now.”

“Oh, fuck,” she says, back on the edge of tears. One more nudge and he'll have her.

“You're in some kind of trouble, right? Don't worry, Layla. I don't want to know. I'm not going to ask. Look. You get me photographs, some video footage. I'll pay you for it, you can sort your shit out. That's what it's going to take, right? Money?”

“Yeah. It's magic like that,” she says.

“You're a cool girl, Layla. We can help each other out, and we can help your mom nail this creep. I'm not going to ask any questions about where you get the images. If it's from your mom's cell phone or her computer, that's none of my business. You can make up an email account and Dropbox them to me.”

“How much?”

He takes a stab in the dark. “Two thousands dollars for exclusive crime-scene photographs.”

“I need ten.”

He leaves her hanging while he does frantic math. “That's a lot of money, Layla. I'd need everything for that. Video footage of the scene, shots of the bodies, close-ups.”

“And I don't have to do the interview.”

“Not if you don't want to.”

“Will my mom get in trouble?”

“There'll be a fuss. But ultimately it's going to make the difference between catching the killer and trying to bury the whole mess under the rug.”

“And she won't ever find out it was me?”

“Journalists have a moral obligation to protect their sources.”

Journalist? Moral? Ha.

“It's a big department. This isn't just the DPD, remember, but the medical examiner's people, the mayor's office, I figure even the FBI is looking at this. Anyone could leak it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, okay? As in deal?”

“But if I send you the files, you send me the money right away. Same-day clearance. I don't care if your bank charges extra.”

“Me neither! If it's what we've agreed on, I'll be happy to give it to you in hundred-dollar bills in a glowing briefcase hand-delivered by Samuel L. Jackson.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Thank you, Layla. This is important. This is going to be a game changer.”

“I hope so. I really hope so.”