Part 23 (1/2)

Ellen didn't respond when I finished.

”So what's your best guess?” she said.

”Honestly,” I said. ”I have no clue.”

”You don't know what she was trying to get to you?”

I shook my head. Ellen turned and looked out at the lake.

”Her neck was broken,” she said. ”Apparently.”

”Ah, Jesus.”

”They're saying she fell down the stairs.”

That brought me off the car. ”You've gotta be f.u.c.king kidding me. Fell down the stairs? I don't think so.”

”No other signs of injury. Two witnesses say they saw it happen.”

”The pork queens? Erma and Freda?”

”They heard a loud crash,” Ellen said. ”Rushed in and found the victim at the foot of the steps.” I could tell Ellen wasn't buying it either, she was just laying out the official story so far.

”Oh my G.o.d,” I said. ”What total bulls.h.i.+t.”

”It isn't bulls.h.i.+t until it's proven to be bulls.h.i.+t.” I heard what she was saying.

”If it's the last G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing I do,” I said.

I kept thinking of Molly. Of her crisp way of speaking, her little daily planner clutched to her chest. So in control. And then the vision of her sprawled out at the base of the stairs.

”We did a quick search on the vic,” Ellen said. ”She looks clean as a whistle. No record, not even a speeding ticket.”

I thought about my interaction with Molly. Precise. Efficient. Maybe a tad on the cold side. But that was her job. To protect her boss.

It looked now like she should have been a little more worried about protecting herself. Whatever it was she'd found, she was trying to get to me. But why me? If it had something to do with the murder of Jesse Barre, why not go to the cops? I knew the answer as soon as I asked the question.

She was worried about what might happen to her.

So she was going to let me get the evidence.

In short, she wanted me to take the fall.

I winced at the irony.

Ellen went back into the crime scene where I still wasn't allowed, so I turned my attention once again to the lake. When you lived in Grosse Pointe, you couldn't help but a.s.sociate the lake with events in your life. Lake St. Clair sat there, a silent witness of the community next to it. I had my own personal history with the lake. Culminating in the death of Benjamin Collins. His life ended in the lake. Along with what used to be mine.

And now, here I was back at the lake, working a case that was spiraling out of control. Every one of my instincts told me that my meeting with Shannon later tonight was a setup. Shannon luring me to the park after dark. The death of her a.s.sistant only a few hours old. Someone was trying to tie up loose ends.

But I didn't believe Shannon was in on it. She was kooky. She played the star thing to the hilt. But for some reason, I didn't think she was a killer. Maybe I'd been taken in a bit by her beauty. No, not her beauty. The warmth of her beauty. Some women are beautiful like crystal. Cold, cool lines. Others have the beauty of a glowing fire. I felt Shannon was the latter.

But I'd been wrong plenty of times before.

Something was nagging at me. Like a hair-trigger on the verge of being pulled. My mind kept going back to Laurence Gra.s.so. He was a trigger, too.

Rufus Coltraine had been the second to die. There was something about his role in this thing, too. Something about him that kept coming back to my mind but I just couldn't put my finger on it. Something about- Family.

And then something sparked in my mind. Family. Joe Puhy, the prison guard at Jackson had said he thought Coltrane would head South to see his family. So why hadn't he? And Puhy had said that Coltraine didn't get any letters so how did he know he had family in - where was it?

G.o.dd.a.m.nit. I pulled out my cell phone. I almost had it, and then it would slip away. If Puhy worked at Jackson, he probably lived in the area. There were only a few small towns nearby. Plymouth. Ann Arbor.

I punched in the number for information and asked for Joe Puhy's number. There were three of them. I jotted them down and called the first. I got a machine but when the voice of the answering machine clicked on, I knew I didn't have the right one. The Puhy I'd spoken to was older and gruff.

Exactly the voice I got on the second try.

”I'm very sorry to bother you at home, Mr. Puhy,” I said. ”This is John Rockne, the private investigator. We spoke earlier about Rufus Coltrane and Laurence Gra.s.so.”

”Oh, yeah,” he said, not happy at all. ”I remember. Look, we're about to sit down to dinner.” I could hear voices in the background.

”I'm terribly sorry, sir. This won't take more than a minute.”

He sighed. ”You're a friend of the House, right?”

The House was my buddy who worked on Cell Block A who'd initially put me in touch with Puhy. Thank G.o.d for the House. I owed him one.

”Yeah,” I said.

”All right, go ahead.”

”I was just looking back through my notes and I saw that you said you thought Rufus Coltrane would go down South to see his family. Or that you thought he had family there.”

”Uh-huh.” More dishes clattering in the background. I had to make this fast.

”But you also said that you didn't recall him getting any letters or anything from family members,” I said.

There was a pause as Puhy thought about the contradiction.

”Uh...right.”

”So how did you know he had family down there?”

This time the pause was longer. I heard more voices in the background, including a woman calling out, ”Joe!” She had that kind of voice that you ignored at your own peril. Kind of like my wife's.

”Uh...,” he said.