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Authors: Loren D. Estleman
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Myrtle that year.”
I wrote it all down. “What about Kindnagel?”
More rustling. “No connection I can see. He was in on the ground floor of the Labor Zionist Movement locally, helped organize most of the Jewish laborers in the city while everyone was watching Bennett’s bullies kicking Reuther and Frankensteen down the steps of the Miller Road Overpass. Maybe the most nonviolent union takeover in this town’s history.”
“I forget what he died of.”
“Just plain living, as I hope to. Went in his sleep about the time the article ran. One time when those jerks on the Sunday side were right to sit on a piece for six weeks. Sold every copy but the ones on file. He was ninety-two. Everything else is in the story.”
I thanked him and broke the connection with my thumb. Holding down the button, I thought for a beat, then let it pop back up and tried John Alderdyce’s extension at Detroit Police Headquarters. I got him on the first ring.
“Hornet?” he barked.
“Housefly, I think,” I said. “But it’s not bothering anybody up there on the ceiling. How’s the homicide rate?”
“It’s doing fine, same as my flu. We’re the ones losing ground. What is it, Walker? I’m expecting Sergeant Hornet with a bullet from a picket fence on St. Antoine.”
“What’s a picket fence doing on that street, collecting limericks?”
“That bang you hear is me ending this conversation.”
“Second, John. I need a line on a side of beef you boys pried out of a trunk at Metro two years ago. His name was Philip Niles.”
He sneezed, blew his nose loudly, and said, “That it? Sure you don’t want the ballistics on the Abe Lincoln burn? Call Records, goddamnit.”
“Second, John.”
“That’s just what you’ve got, friend.”
“Does it happen you know an Inspector Ray Blankenship, who took his papers early from Homicide eight months ago?”
A little time passed. Voices droned a mile away. He never closed the door to his office when he was alone in it. “What about him?”
When it came, it came hard and fast. I said, “I don’t know what about him yet. That’s why I’m asking. I never heard of the guy, and I thought I knew all the inspectors in the department.”
“They kicked him up on retirement, to goose the pension. They do that when they like you upstairs. I hear. He was lieutenant in charge of the detective squad at the Fourteenth Precinct. As of three this morning, though, he’s nothing. He ate his service revolver. They’re still scrubbing up.”
10
“I HAVE TO ASK the question,” Alderdyce said.
But he didn’t ask it. I parked the receiver in the hollow of my shoulder and set fire to a Winston. Waving out the match: “I’m on the bottom step of a missing person. He had a newspaper squib about Blankenship’s retirement in his possession. Right now I’m just scratching at pebbles.”
“Would I know this missing person?”
“Yeah.”
He waited. Then he blew his nose again. “It’s not my hot handle, so who cares. It’s not even Fitzroy’s anymore; they’re closing it out as suicide. What’d you do, pull the son of a bitch out with your teeth?”
This last was directed away from the telephone. I heard Sergeant Hornet’s wheezy fat man’s voice and the word “bullet.” To me, Alderdyce said: “If it’s okay on your end I’m going to hang up in your face now. My hobby calls.”
“Blankenship was Fitzroy’s?” I asked quickly.
“Yeah, but you don’t want to talk to Fitz today. He’s awful mad at you for some reason I’d rather not know anything about. Sergeant Grice was the dick on the scene. He’s poking at a kill on Montcalm today. A bag lady. They’re going after the derelicts this season.” Click.
I cradled the receiver gently, the way a mortician lowers the lid on a coffin when mourners are watching. Montcalm, the part of it where a murdered derelict was likely to turn up anyway, was a two-minute drive from 14th and Myrtle, where Jed Dutt had said
I wrote it all down. “What about Kindnagel?”
More rustling. “No connection I can see. He was in on the ground floor of the Labor Zionist Movement locally, helped organize most of the Jewish laborers in the city while everyone was watching Bennett’s bullies kicking Reuther and Frankensteen down the steps of the Miller Road Overpass. Maybe the most nonviolent union takeover in this town’s history.”
“I forget what he died of.”
“Just plain living, as I hope to. Went in his sleep about the time the article ran. One time when those jerks on the Sunday side were right to sit on a piece for six weeks. Sold every copy but the ones on file. He was ninety-two. Everything else is in the story.”
I thanked him and broke the connection with my thumb. Holding down the button, I thought for a beat, then let it pop back up and tried John Alderdyce’s extension at Detroit Police Headquarters. I got him on the first ring.
“Hornet?” he barked.
“Housefly, I think,” I said. “But it’s not bothering anybody up there on the ceiling. How’s the homicide rate?”
“It’s doing fine, same as my flu. We’re the ones losing ground. What is it, Walker? I’m expecting Sergeant Hornet with a bullet from a picket fence on St. Antoine.”
“What’s a picket fence doing on that street, collecting limericks?”
“That bang you hear is me ending this conversation.”
“Second, John. I need a line on a side of beef you boys pried out of a trunk at Metro two years ago. His name was Philip Niles.”
He sneezed, blew his nose loudly, and said, “That it? Sure you don’t want the ballistics on the Abe Lincoln burn? Call Records, goddamnit.”
“Second, John.”
“That’s just what you’ve got, friend.”
“Does it happen you know an Inspector Ray Blankenship, who took his papers early from Homicide eight months ago?”
A little time passed. Voices droned a mile away. He never closed the door to his office when he was alone in it. “What about him?”
When it came, it came hard and fast. I said, “I don’t know what about him yet. That’s why I’m asking. I never heard of the guy, and I thought I knew all the inspectors in the department.”
“They kicked him up on retirement, to goose the pension. They do that when they like you upstairs. I hear. He was lieutenant in charge of the detective squad at the Fourteenth Precinct. As of three this morning, though, he’s nothing. He ate his service revolver. They’re still scrubbing up.”
10
“I HAVE TO ASK the question,” Alderdyce said.
But he didn’t ask it. I parked the receiver in the hollow of my shoulder and set fire to a Winston. Waving out the match: “I’m on the bottom step of a missing person. He had a newspaper squib about Blankenship’s retirement in his possession. Right now I’m just scratching at pebbles.”
“Would I know this missing person?”
“Yeah.”
He waited. Then he blew his nose again. “It’s not my hot handle, so who cares. It’s not even Fitzroy’s anymore; they’re closing it out as suicide. What’d you do, pull the son of a bitch out with your teeth?”
This last was directed away from the telephone. I heard Sergeant Hornet’s wheezy fat man’s voice and the word “bullet.” To me, Alderdyce said: “If it’s okay on your end I’m going to hang up in your face now. My hobby calls.”
“Blankenship was Fitzroy’s?” I asked quickly.
“Yeah, but you don’t want to talk to Fitz today. He’s awful mad at you for some reason I’d rather not know anything about. Sergeant Grice was the dick on the scene. He’s poking at a kill on Montcalm today. A bag lady. They’re going after the derelicts this season.” Click.
I cradled the receiver gently, the way a mortician lowers the lid on a coffin when mourners are watching. Montcalm, the part of it where a murdered derelict was likely to turn up anyway, was a two-minute drive from 14th and Myrtle, where Jed Dutt had said
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