King of the Corner (31 page)

“Just what I said, you’re friends. Close enough for her to have confided in you that Starkweather Hall was her son.”

No reaction.

“After I saw Hall at her house, she tried to distract me by making me famous. Having you shake my hand in front of a camera was extra insurance. I don’t know what excuse she made; I don’t really care. My guess is you weren’t aware she was harboring Hall. You break a lot of rules but aiding and abetting the escape of a suspect in a police killing isn’t one of them.”

“I’m not aware of it now.”

Doc let it go. “Just in case a puff piece like the Mahomet dinner and the attention you gave me there didn’t make the front page, the Marshals tried to crash the affair and got themselves arrested. That’s hard news and the press would have to go some to keep from giving it plenty of play.

“For a while I thought you or Mrs. Lilley might have had something to do with that, but I’d rather believe someone set it up on his own initiative, thinking he was doing someone a favor. Needles Lewis, one of the M-and-M’s arrested that day, told me the suggestion to disrupt the dinner came from a drug dealer named Antonio Lewis, no relation to Needles. I figure this Lewis, or someone he works for, knew about the situation and decided to help out.”

He paused. The mayor had picked up the baseball game and resumed trying to place the BB’s in their holes, but it was clear he wasn’t concentrating. Here in private, Doc considered that the robust front Young put up under the spotlight covered a deteriorating constitution; his face looked bloated, his eyes puffy and dull behind the glasses. The tight skin of his forehead glistened wetly in the air-conditioned office and he was developing liver spots on the backs of his hands. Five elections, a paternity suit, and a parade of grand juries had opened cracks beneath the seemingly impenetrable surface.

“You know I was involved in a shooting in my brother’s neighborhood recently,” Doc went on. “At first I thought Needles Lewis or the other M-and-M’s who played ball with me every Saturday on that corner were the target, but while I was in the hospital waiting to have my arm set I did a lot of thinking. For one thing the shooting came too close to another I was indirectly involved in, the one that killed Starkweather Hall. I asked some questions of my own, and last week I found out one of the undercover detectives who happened to see Hall trying to steal that car in Birmingham and shot him was Antonio Lewis.”

Young put down the game. “I don’t know any Antonio Lewis.”

“I believe you. Whoever does is someone who knows about the relationship between Alcina Lilley and Starkweather Hall and knew about the plan to keep me so busy with interviews and things I wouldn’t be able to think straight, and who put the two together. He has some connection with the police, because he put Lewis up to prodding the Marshals into trying to break up the dinner and he knew or at least suspected when a deal was in the works to turn Hall in. That’s why he sent Lewis and another undercover to take Hall out of his mother’s house, kill him, and rig it to look like a legitimate shoot-out between a wanted fugitive and the police.”

“Why kill him?”

“From Antonio Lewis’ standpoint that was an easy decision. I think he was as dirty as Ernest Melvin, the undercover Hall killed. Hall never even knew Melvin was a cop. Hall had to know and trust at least one of the men who came to get him at his mother’s or there’d have been a struggle that would have alerted Mrs. Lilley’s neighbors. Maybe they told him they were smuggling him out of town. So Lewis was dealing, and he couldn’t afford to let Hall stand trial in case that came out. His boss had other reasons. He was shielding you, or thought he was. Well, it’s all in the article.”

“Everything but who.”

Doc shifted in his seat. His arm was hurting again. “That’s up to you. Chances are I wouldn’t recognize his name if I heard it. Kenneth Weiner has the police ties and if he’s guilty of half the things he’s charged with maybe I wouldn’t put murder past him, but he’s in jail and his defense is taking all his time. I saw enough of guys like him in Jackson to know that where there’s one Weiner there’s likely to be at least one more. It might help you identify him if I told you he’s probably the man responsible for acquiring the clothing store.” Or woman, he added silently; but what he had observed during the past week of the mayor’s system of checks and balances told him that it was aggressively masculine.

Young was quiet for a moment, and even picked up the baseball game and appeared to be absorbed in it. And in that moment Doc was certain the mayor knew whom they had been discussing.

“You got to be six kinds of a son of a bitch to run this town,” Young said, “and I’ve never been accused of being unequal to the task.
One
kind of a son of a bitch I’m not and never will be is the kind of a son of a bitch that lets himself be blackmailed.”

Doc said, “I’m no blackmailer. The only thing I’ve got in the way of evidence is that paper trail linking Detroit Technologies to the M-and-M’s, and you just destroyed that with one telephone call. The rest is speculation. If I published that article, assuming any reputable newspaper or magazine would accept it, you’d sue, and you’d collect. That’s the only copy. This, too.” He laid the computer printout on top of the typewritten pages and slid them across the desk. “Do what you like with them.”

Young took them and held them under the edge of the desk. There was a whirring noise and then he placed his empty hands on the glass top. Doc wondered idly what an electrical engineer needed with a paper shredder.

Months later, Doc came across a news item almost lost in the wake of Kenneth Weiner’s conviction and Police Chief William Hart’s indictment on multiple counts of embezzlement from the secret police fund, relating to the resignation of one Woodrow Courtland from the civilian police commission for personal reasons left unstated. Courtland in private life was an investment counselor. Shortly thereafter, an FBI sting operation resulting in the arrest of eleven current and former Detroit police officers for providing protection to known drug offenders netted Antonio Lewis of the Narcotics Squad and his lieutenant, Thomas Horatio Talbot With that, Doc knew the names of everyone involved.

“So in return for being a concerned voter who comes in to make the mayor aware of a troubling situation,” Young said, “you get—what?”

“Not much. After Hall was killed Antonio Lewis or his boss tried to tie down the last loose end by shooting me and making it look like just another drive-by. All I got out of it was a broken arm. Needles Lewis was killed. Also an eight-year-old boy whose only crime was having a baseball player for an uncle. Nothing can make up for that.”

“That being said, what do you want?”

“Two things. An unconditional release from my prison sentence. No more visits to my parole officer.”

“Impossible. Only the governor can grant a pardon.”

Doc refrained from pointing out that Coleman A. Young elected the governors in that state. Diplomatically he said, “Your recommendation would carry a lot of weight.”

“What’s the second thing?”

“The deed from the City of Dearborn to those adjacent lots where the shooting occurred. I’ll get you the plat numbers later.”

“I know where they are. You’re costing me a lot of markers I might need some other time. What you planning to do with the property, put up a God damn monument like they did for that plane that went down on I-94?”

“Just a small one. A sign. THE SEAN MILLER MEMORIAL YOUNG PEOPLE’S BALLPARK. If there’s any trouble with zoning I’d like your help on that too.”

“Why not name it after Epithelial Lewis? He was killed too.”

“It’s too late for the Needleses in this town. The Seans still have a chance.”

The thin white moustache turned up. “Going to clean up the whole city with one of those whiskbrooms the umpires use to sweep home plate?”

“Just my corner of it.”

“Well, at least you got ‘Young’ in the name.” The mayor rested his chins on his chest for a full minute. Then his shoulders started to shake with silent laughter. He leaned forward and stretched his hand across the desk. “Deal. This is my contract.”

“This is mine.” Doc laid one more paper in the available hand.

He had consulted Maynard Ance, the former lawyer, on the wording, which was simple and mentioned only the last two points they had discussed, including the part about zoning; “in appreciation for services rendered the Detroit community and Mayor Coleman A. Young.”

Young read it twice, then produced a gold fountain pen, signed the bottom of the sheet with a flourish, and slid it across to Doc. Again he stuck out his hand. “Now?”

Doc grasped it. It was as strong as before, but it should have been warmer. It should have been hot.

The body of 87-year-old Loyola MacGryff was discovered by a family member yesterday morning lying on the living room floor of her house on Trumbull. Police said she had been beaten to death.

The house had been broken into and the suspected motive was robbery.

Mrs. MacGryff, a lifelong Detroit Tigers fan, was to throw out the ceremonial first ball to open the baseball season at Tiger Stadium yesterday. Tigers owner Tom Monaghan performed the ceremony when she failed to appear.

A feature story about Mrs. MacGryff’s nearly nine decades of dedication to the Tigers appeared in last Sunday’s
Detroit
magazine.

Police said they have no suspects in the slaying.

Loren D. Estleman (b. 1952) is the award-winning author of over sixty-five novels, including mysteries and westerns.

Raised in a Michigan farmhouse constructed in 1867, Estleman submitted his first story for publication at the age of fifteen and accumulated 160 rejection letters over the next eight years. Once
The Oklahoma Punk
was published in 1976, success came quickly, allowing him to quit his day job in 1980 and become a fulltime writer.

Estleman’s most enduring character, Amos Walker, made his first appearance in 1980’s
Motor City Blue
, and the hardboiled Detroit private eye has been featured in twenty novels since. The fifth Amos Walker novel,
Sugartown
, won the Private Eye Writers of America’s Shamus Award for best hardcover novel of 1985. Estleman’s most recent Walker novel is
Infernal Angels
.

Estleman has also won praise for his adventure novels set in the Old West. In 1980,
The High Rocks
was nominated for a National Book Award, and since then Estleman has featured its hero, Deputy U.S. Marshal Page Murdock, in seven more novels, most recently 2010’s
The Book of Murdock
. Estleman has received awards for many of his standalone westerns, receiving recognition for both his attention to historical detail and the elements of suspense that follow from his background as a mystery author.
Journey of the Dead
, a story of the man who murdered Billy the Kid, won a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America, and a Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.

In 1993 Estleman married Deborah Morgan, a fellow mystery author. He lives and works in Ann Arbor, Michigan.