Part 3 (1/2)

”What is the alibi? Do you know?”

Clarence shook his head. ”The cops wouldn't tell me. Said it was an official matter. Official my a.s.s.”

”If you don't know what the alibi is, how can you be so convinced it isn't valid?” I asked.

”Because of what Jesse said,” he said. His voice was full of exasperation. I felt like the dumb kid in cla.s.s and no matter how hard the teacher tried, I just couldn't grasp the concept at hand.

”That he was possessive,” Clarence said. ”Jealous. Christ, the guy's practically a hermit. Just him, his s.h.i.+p and dragging dead wood out of the lake. No wonder he latched onto Jesse.”

A silence hung in the air for a few moments.

”Are you going to help me?” he asked.

”Here's what I think,” I said, leaning forward. ”My advice is if you are determined to have the outcome of this investigation be the uncovering of a complex murder plot involving your daughter, don't hire me.” He looked at me, almost a glint in his eye. It reminded me of Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven.

”I'm ninety-nine percent sure that if I do further investigation,” I continued, ”I'm going to find that it was, in fact, a burglary gone wrong. Maybe you'll get mad and won't want to pay me or maybe you'll just try to beat the s.h.i.+t out of me. Whatever. If, however, you truly are interested in uncovering the truth even if that truth isn't something you agree with, then we can talk. So you tell me what you want out of this, and we'll see what we can work out.”

He eased himself out of his chair and walked toward the pictures on the wall. He pa.s.sed by the ones featuring himself and other celebrities. He paused at the end of the row. I couldn't see what he was looking at. But his big shoulders slumped slightly. For just a moment, he looked like a tired old man.

”My wife was a pessimist,” he said. His voice was low and gentle. ”Back then, I was just a studio musician and a songwriter doing small solo gigs at backwoods clubs. She was a secretary who came to see me play once. Introduced herself. She was so G.o.dd.a.m.n beautiful. Blonde hair, gray eyes that could twist your insides if she looked at you a certain way. This was before my would-be manager approached me and told me he could make a star out of me. That I was a hit-making machine waiting to be put into production.”

I leaned forward in my chair, trying to get a better look at the photos on the wall as he told his story.

”Anyway, we started seeing each other and got married only a few months later,” he said. ”I was writing, singing and playing whenever I could. h.e.l.l, all the time. But it was just me and her back then. That wasn't just love. It was intense love.”

He turned back to me and his eyes blazed at me. Jesus, I thought, this guy is old-school.

”See, she didn't want to have kids,” he said. ”It was that pessimist in her. She thought most people were b.a.s.t.a.r.ds through and through. A truly low opinion of human nature, of society in general. She was sort of a split personality, which I found very attractive. She had a heart of gold, but her take on the world was that it was the equivalent of a pack of hyenas trying to rip off a chunk of the carca.s.s.”

”Why did she think that?” I said.

He just shrugged his big shoulders. ”She never really said. I think her parents splitting up had something to do with it. I don't think her childhood was the greatest. But it's not like she was a sad sack, either. She was happy go lucky most of the time. But it was hard to get her to give people the benefit of the doubt, you know?”

”I do.”

”She loved me, though. I guess she thought I was the exception to the rule.”

I nodded. Like so many theories on human behavior, there was a grain of truth to it.

”But when it came to people and the world around me, I was Mr. f.u.c.king Optimistic. The world was my oyster, boy. I knew I could make good music. The future was full of joy, happiness and success. And money, too. To me, that was all a given. But what I really wanted was a family. I wanted kids, man. To me, that was the end all in life. And h.e.l.l, I didn't think people were all bad. Sure, there were jackals. But there are good people, too.”

He walked back and sat down in his chair. There were tears in his eyes and he didn't try to hide them. By now, they were probably old friends to him. ”So we had Jesse. And my wife died of cancer a few years later. And now...Jesse's gone. I feel like my wife was right. I never should have brought a child into this world unless I could protect that child completely and indefinitely. It's my fault she's dead. I couldn't protect her. But I can find out who did it. Find out which jackal it was. And I can make them pay. It won't bring her back. But...I guess...” He raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ”I guess it's all I can do,” he said.

I didn't know what to say. I knew what he was going through. I had lost a child, too. Not one of my own. But a child I had been responsible for. But I didn't think that would help him. So I kept my mouth shut. Soon, he was able to continue.

”So do what you can,” he said. ”If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But I want you to leave no stone unturned. Bring me irrefutable proof that it was random and we'll be done. But keep an open mind.”

Clarence looked tired and spent. I didn't just want to take the case. I wanted to hug him.

”Okay, deal,” I said. ”I'd like to get started immediately.”

”Just tell me what you need.”

”For starters, I want to see her studio.”

Nine.

In my brief time as a cop, I'd only been to a few crime scenes. To say it's odd is an understatement. It's the little things like inspirational notes tacked on the fridge. Message slips next to the phone. Clothes draped over the back of a chair. Notes and letters and bills and grocery lists. Those are the things that suddenly seem like haunted memories.

Jesse Barre's guitar studio was no exception.

The building was at the end of Kercheval, a stone's throw from the Detroit border. Like just about every other building on this end of town, it had most likely been through many, many incarnations. Restaurants, furniture stores, craft shops, liquor stores. One and all had been tried. The problem was, not too many people in Grosse Pointe like coming down for a reminder of just how close they are to the Big D. Especially at night.

Jesse's studio was two stories of sienna-colored brick with a small stone inset at the top reading ”1924.”

Clarence and I parked, then went around to the back. An alley ran behind the building.

”You sure this is okay?” Clarence asked me as we circ.u.mvented the police tape stretched across the back door. There was a big square of plywood where a window used to be. Clarence looked at it but didn't say anything.

”Yeah,” I lied. ”I'm pretty tight with the Chief of Police.”

He nodded. I could see his face and it didn't look good. Pale, and his jaw was clenched shut.

”Clarence, why don't you wait in the car?” I said.

He shook his head. ”I've been in here once already...after. I can do this.” He unlocked the door and we stepped inside. I pulled it shut behind us and locked it.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. It smelled like a lumber yard. That wonderful scent of freshly cut wood. The second thing I noticed was that the studio was bigger than it looked from the outside. Along one wall was a row of woodworking machines that to my weekend-carpenter's eyes looked like something only Norm Abraham could understand. I recognized a lathe and a huge old scoping saw as well as a drill press and table saw, but the rest of them, I had no idea what they did.

Along the other wall was a long workbench, at least twenty feet, with lots of stains and gouges and scratches. It had seen a lot of use in its long life. A pegboard hung above it. On the pegboard was a collection of hand tools that looked like they belonged in either an antique store or some kind of torture chamber. I saw more weird-looking clamps and medieval-looking instruments than I knew existed.

At the end of the studio, opposite the entrance was what appeared to be Jesse's main work center. There was a vast array of lights, and a more sophisticated table with an impressive collection of measuring equipment. There was also the only real chair in the place.

Next to the table was the chalk outline of Jesse's final resting place. I imagined her body on the floor, surrounded by the tools of her craft. The fragments of guitar pieces looking down at her. Even though I'm not terribly religious, something like a short prayer vocalized itself in my mind.

Clarence came and stood next to me. I could hear his breathing, labored and rapid. He looked down at the other end of the studio and after a moment said with a voice that had lost all of its timbre and conviction, ”Maybe I will wait in the car.” I said okay and waited for him to leave. Once the door was shut, I walked ahead and tried not to dwell on the giant blood stain still visible on the concrete floor.

I made my way around the workshop. I studied the blood spot on the floor then looked at the ceiling. There were blood splatters that had been noted by the crime scene technician. Despite the fact that there was probably no way he could have missed them, I hoped to G.o.d Clarence hadn't seen them. The brutality of the crime shook me. A blood splatter on the ceiling meant that after this woman had had her head cracked open and the blunt instrument was covered in blood, the perp had kept beating. Nothing drives home the violence of a crime like blood splatters on the ceiling.

There were a lot of fragmentary pieces shapes and contours of wood that would eventually be used in a guitar. I recognized a kind of rib framing and several guitar necks. There were even boxes of the k.n.o.bs guitarists use to tune the strings. Off in one corner was a small sink and an old, battered coffeemaker with a hodgepodge of cups surrounding it. A small refrigerator was tucked beneath a makes.h.i.+ft countertop. On a shelf above the coffeemaker was an old, dusty stereo with stacks of CDs and audio ca.s.settes. Mostly cla.s.sical music. The majority of them played on guitar.