Corktown (4 page)

“Agent Kane, we were told by your superiors we would have your full cooperation. Did I misunderstand this?”

Note to self: Check with Special Agent Reilly on why we were sent.
“You do have our cooperation. I’m sorry if I led you to believe something else.” Why is he so sensitive?

“We’re giving you and your partner full authority on this case. No matter what city a body pops up in, if it has the same M.O., you two will be the senior investigators on it.”

Take on every case? Oh, that sounds like fun. What else can I do around here? Hand jobs for the table?
“What about the other detectives?” I asked.

“They’ll still work the case. Look at them as extra pairs of eyes and hands. Don’t be afraid to use them. Everyone here is behind this. Any resource you need, case files, access to evidence—Lieutenant White is your go-to guy, but feel free to reach out to any of us. Agent Kane, you come highly recommended. We’re looking to you to nip this in the bud.”

Don’t forget about the white male I walked into the room with; he’s helping too.
I never thought I would see a room full of chiefs so scared of their own shadows. It worried me a bit.
It’s not normal. Something isn’t right here.

As usual with briefings like that one, I had been thrown into a situation where I had the full support of everyone, so long as I stuck to the support they were comfortable giving. I also had complete control, so long as I stuck within the parameters of what they felt warranted enough control. Lastly, I had access to all the information they thought I needed to solve the case, not a file more. I knew the routine. It was bull, but I had never let it get in the way in the past and I wouldn’t this time.

Wilkinson and I thanked them with smiles long enough to carry us out of the room, not a step further. My partner leaned in and whispered, “What sort of clusterfuck did we just get handed?”

“The worst kind,” I said. “There’s more going on then the chiefs are letting on. That’s another case we need to crack. I have a feeling it’s the answer to catching our guy.”

10

White led us down a corridor away from the public areas of the precinct. “I’m gonna set you guys up near me. It’s quieter over here.”

Is that so you can keep a close eye on us?

He opened the door to a small office. We peeked inside and saw two desks, two chairs, and a large board for posting or writing on.

“This was an old storage area but we cleaned it out and use it for interrogations every once in awhile.”

I guess the cleaning didn’t apply to the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling?

“It’s your office now,” he continued. “My humble abode is just around the corner, past the men’s bathroom. Don’t be afraid to stop by if you need anything or have questions.” White took a step but stopped and turned back. “You guys have an idea on what kind of information you need?”

“Case files for all the previous murders and current ones to start with,” I said. Just then my cell rang. It was Po Po. I asked Wilkinson if he could continue as I stepped outside the office and walked a few steps away.

“Po Po, is everything all right?”

“Yeah, everything is fine. I’m calling to see when you’re coming home.”

“Wait, there’s a lot of static. Hang on.” I walked toward the front of the building.
Much better.
“I think I’m going to be out here for a while. I’ll see what I can do about coming back for a visit.”

Po Po grunted and then said, “Lucy wants to talk.”

I could hear the phone exchanging hands and then the sound of heavy breathing. “Hi, Mommy. I miss you.”

“Mommy misses you too, Lucy. Are you getting ready for school?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You’ll have to show me what you did today when I get home.”

“When are you coming back?”

“Mommy doesn’t know yet.”

“Oookay.”

Before I could say anything else, I heard rustling and then silence. I walked back into the office. It smelled of turpentine. Wilkinson had already taken a seat at one of the desks. “The lieutenant is having all the case files delivered here. He said to give it an hour or two. Oh, and I cleaned off your chair.”

“Why? What was—”

“You don’t want to know.”

• • •

We spent the next few days holed up in the tiny office. I started to feel like a regular at the precinct—punching the clock and getting to know the vending machines. I even kept a stash of green tea in the break room.

A couple of uniforms had delivered a mountain of stuffed banker boxes to us that first day. Every single one of them filled with files from the previous and current case, so we were told. Without an obvious starting point, we just grabbed a file and started to read.

We dubbed all the victims before the Comerica Bank heist “pre-bank” murders. Anyone killed after that we called “post-bank.” It made it easier since there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to how the files were organized. I assumed all the information we needed was there; we just had to make sense of it.

It wasn’t until the third day that we found what we were looking for, something we should have had from the very start of the investigation.

“Got it,” Wilkinson waved a file in the air.

We had been searching for the original killer’s case file from the moment we got the boxes. Up until that point, we had developed a good grasp of who the victims were, but we didn’t know much about him.

“Michael ‘Blade’ Garrison,” Wilkinson read aloud. “Grew up in Sterling Heights. Did a year at Oakland Community College—”

“No med school?”

“Nope, not that I can tell.”

“Strange, you’d think this guy would have had a medical background given the way his victims died.”

“He could have gotten his information in a public library or online.”

Self-taught?
“What else is in the file?”

“No previous arrests until he was caught robbing the bank.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”
How did he get so good at being a bad guy without slipping up?
“This guy terrorizes the city for five years, and it’s not until he robs a bank that they catch him. That make any sense to you?”

Wilkinson threw his hands up. “Why on earth would a serial killer suddenly want to rob a bank? It’s not like the skills transfer over.”

I listened as he continued to read out loud. “In a nutshell, he tried to rob the main branch of the Comerica Bank. Things went wrong. The police showed up. He took hostages and ended up killing fourteen people by either shooting them or cutting them before SWAT stormed the bank. He was found guilty of those murders, attempted robbery, and a slew of other stuff. Looks like that’s how they put him away. Sounds like amateur hour if you ask me.”

“What about the other murders?” I asked.

Wilkinson continued. “Well, it says he confessed to them.”

I picked up a file on one of the victims. “This one says, “Closed. Case solved.” I grabbed another. “Hmm, says the same thing here too.” It appeared as though Garrison did indeed confess to all the murders.

“Sounds like the dream case,” Wilkinson said. “Talk about caving in.”

My gut didn’t agree with what we had discovered. The guy they arrested for robbing the bank and killing the hostages turned out to be the serial killer they’ve hunted for five years. Talk about miracles.

Wilkinson looked at his watch and stood up. “You want the same thing?”

I looked at my watch; it was noon. “I’m sorry. I like chili dogs as much as the next guy, but I can’t eat another one of those things. It’s making me constipated.”

Wilkinson pulled his face back. I knew he hated it when I talked about bodily functions. He somehow had it in his head that there were only two things that ever came out of a woman’s body: babies and pee.

11

We took a two-block walk to the Coney Island restaurant where Wilkinson had been buying the chili dogs. Turns out they sold salads, too.
Wish I knew
. There were a couple of open booths, so we parked our butts in one.

“What are you thinking so far?” Wilkinson asked.

I scrunched my lips together before answering. “It’s like they took whatever they had and stitched the case closed.”

“You saying the stitching’s crooked?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“He did confess. Whether it was coerced, who knows? Does it matter if corners were cut on his case?”

“Good question,” I said with a head tilt. “The case against Garrison may not have been airtight, but everyone around here bought into it. He’s in jail.”

Wilkinson nodded at me. Just then, the waitress arrived and took our order. I waited until she was out of earshot before speaking again. “Let’s come at this a different way. All of the previous victims died from excessive bleeding, but not all of them were cut the same way. Some only had incisions to the carotid artery while others included the femoral artery as well.”

“You thinking there’s a reason for that?”

“Well, they bleed faster.” I sat back in the booth and flipped through a couple of case files I had brought along. “Hmm, just as I had suspected.”

“What?”

“Based on the sampling I have here, the victims that sustained three cuts were found in secluded areas, like a house or an alley. The victims that were found in public spaces had fewer cuts.”

“So Garrison didn’t always have time.”

“The more public the venue, the faster he had to be.”

“One cut, two cuts at the most.”

I nodded as I took a sip of my ice tea. “He needed to know exactly where to hit them. An incision elsewhere wouldn’t kill the person. Might even end up being a superficial wound.”

“And that’s where the medical training comes into play.”

“Exactly. Garrison had to be skilled. Which means our copycat is as well. Either that or he’s just some lucky nut slicing people up.”

Wilkinson looked at his notes. “Well, everyone of our post-bank victims had three cuts. The house and alley are secluded. They found the fisherman’s body on the shore of Lake St. Clair. It might have been a secluded area. But where does this theory lead us? This guy is a bit more selective?”

I shrugged, not sure if that angle took us anywhere either. “One thing is true; whether it’s one cut or two or three, he still has to know what he’s doing, because the incisions are so precise.”

The waitress placed a plate with two chili dogs and fries in front of Wilkinson and a fried chicken salad in front of me. His plate had more chili than bun and dog, like a big pile of slop. I watched him pick up the bun, and the chili poured off of it in glops. Yellow cheesy strands kept the chili in the plate connected to the chili on his hot dog. He opened wide, but still the thickness of that cylindrical meal was wider than his mouth and left a ring of chili around his lips.
If he wasn’t so damn good looking
…

I dug in to my salad. As I chewed, another thought replayed itself in my head. I tapped my fork at the edge of my bowl. “You know what keeps striking me as motive for Garrison?”

Wilkinson eyed me as he shoved the remaining half of his chili dog into his mouth.

“’He had to enjoy watching people bleed to death. There wasn’t any connection between his victims except how he killed him. He had to be getting off on the blood.”

“Makes sense,” Wilkinson managed as he finished swallowing. “So what does that mean?” Wilkinson asked. “That our current killer likes the blood version of Old Faithful? Also, why are we spending so much time figuring out a case that’s been put to bed?”

“Trust me on this one. The more we understand Garrison, the more we’ll understand our copycat.”

Wilkinson inhaled the last of his second chili dog and chewed. I poured more ranch dressing on my salad and mixed it in. I could sense Wilkinson wasn’t buying everything I said, but as my partner, he was willing to go along for the ride. I appreciated his trust. “This person could have been studying our original guy. According to the newspaper articles, some case details that should have remained off-limits were released. It was completely possible for someone to pick up where Garrison left off.”

Wilkinson swallowed the last of his fries and brushed his hands off. “Why go through the trouble of making the kills so exact? Most copycats are sloppy about it. This person is dead on.”

“Maybe he wants people to think the killer was never caught in the first place.”

We pondered our conversation while I finished off my salad.

Wilkinson broke the silence. “Where does it all go—the food?”

I shrugged, knowing he meant that as a compliment. My body was more athletic than curvaceous. Though, what I wouldn’t do to have more booty. Just for once I’d love to wiggle it, just a little bit. I wiped my mouth and reapplied my lipstick.

“You know, Garrison is being held in a prison not too far from us,” Wilkinson said.

“I guess it’s time for our first field trip.”

12

Grosse Pointe was an enclave for wealthy Detroit. A lot of old money resided in the neighborhood but the
nouveau riche
had started to take over. Either way, Preston Carter’s SUV, a Mercedes, allowed him to blend perfectly.

He parked his vehicle near the corner of East Jefferson Avenue and St. Clair Street and sat comfortably inside, hidden from the pummeling sun thanks to a large oak tree. Etta James crooned softly from the sound system as Preston hummed along. His windows were down, allowing the lazy breeze from the lake to carry its scent by him. He had been waiting for close to an hour with an eye on Strafford Lane, across the street. It led to a quiet cul-de-sac near the lake’s edge.

Almost time for another lesson,
Preston chuckled. He was excited about the work he did. He felt people had to learn that there were consequences for their actions—that they had to be kept in check, made aware of such things.
It’s my job to teach them.

Ten minutes later, an old pickup truck with lawn equipment in the back squealed to a stop at the corner of E. Jefferson and Strafford. The gardener was done for the day. Preston knew he had two hours before the man of the house would return from work. He started his engine and drove to the two-story brick house with white trim at the end of Strafford. Tall hedges surrounded the property to keep the neighbors at bay, with the exception of the side of the house that faced the lake.