Read Online Motor City Burning by Bill Morris - Free Book Online Page A

the Plymouth and eased down Twelfth Street. The brothers and sisters on the sidewalks all stopped what they were doing and gave the unmarked their very best Motor City hate stares. There was heat in those stares. Doyle turned left at Grand Boulevard, ending his little trip down Memory Lane and turning his thoughts to what Henry Hull could possibly have for him on this fine spring morning.

    As always, the door to Room 450 was ajar and Henry Hull was sitting alone on the sofa. Henry’s skull was as smooth and white as an onion. He was barely sixty years old but looked eighty, the flesh on his face sagging. His eyes, once so bright, were now lifeless and dull, the light gone out of them. Doyle knew the man well enough to know that his sorrow went even deeper than his personal losses, for Henry Hull, like most native Detroiters, was immensely proud of his hometown, of its swagger, its work ethic, its dirty fingernails and thick wrists, its ability to accommodate a crazy quilt of races and ethnic groups, shoulder to shoulder. Sure, there had always been tension—labor organizers were regularly beaten during the Depression, and thirty-four people died in a vicious race riot that started on Belle Isle in 1943—but in Henry Hull’s eyes such flare-ups were inevitable in such a big rough city, and they were the exception, not the rule. Detroit had always been a city that worked, in both senses of the word. Now, for the first time in Henry Hull’s life, there were disturbing signs that it had stumbled so badly it might never pick itself up.
    â€œKnock, knock,” Doyle said, pushing the door open.
    â€œCome in, Frankie,” Henry said, rising from the sofa. “I just brewed a fresh pot. You want a cup?”
    â€œSilly question.”
    There was nowhere to set their mugs on the coffee table because it was buried under drifts of paperwork—the autopsy, Doyle’s typed report of the crime scene, newspaper accounts of the killing and the ongoing investigation. Pinned to the room’s walls were blown-up maps of the blocks surrounding the motel, and Henry’s endless lists of addresses and phone numbers and names, all the far-fetched leads that had failed to locate Helen Hull’s killer and, in Doyle’s opinion, probably never would. He’d learned that the twelve hours after a homicide are the most crucial for a detective and that a case that stays open for a month is likely to stay open forever. That meant the Helen Hull case had been open nine times forever.
    â€œLet me see, let me see, it’s right here somewhere,” Henry said, digging frantically in the pile of papers. His doggedness and the futility of his quest filled Doyle with admiration and sadness. Sometimes he found himself wishing the old guy would simply give it up, pack his belongings, check out of the motel, and get on with his life. But Doyle knew that was out of the question, and deep down he was glad it was. He’d vowed to find Helen Hull’s killer the day he stood at the corner of Jefferson and Piper looking at the burned-out shell that had been the Greenleaf Market. Henry had just come back from identifying his wife’s body at the morgue. Watching him spray-paint the words THANKS FOR WHAT YOU ’ VE DONE on the market’s charred walls, Doyle broke down and wept.
    â€œHere it is!” Henry cried, unearthing a photocopied map. “I don’t know how we could’ve missed it.” He had drawn a dotted line in red ink from the motel to a street corner behind Henry Ford Hospital on the far side of the Lodge Freeway.
    Henry stood up and grabbed his binoculars. “Come on, Frankie,” he said, starting for the door, “I’ve got something to show you. Let’s walk through what happened again.”
    For the thousandth time, Doyle thought, following him out the door.
    â€œOkay,” Henry said, turning right in the hallway, Doyle on his heels. “Helen