Shot In Detroit Read online

  I took enough photographs of Albert Flowers to be sure I’d have the perfect one and stowed my gear. I took fewer pictures now, knowing better what was needed. I hung around a little longer, hoping for an invitation or even a conversation. But Bill got a phone call, and after that his accountant wanted him to look at some figures, so I gave up and left without Bill ever mentioning seeing me that night or any other night. Once again, we hadn’t had sex in weeks. Hadn’t done more than squabble over my damned project.

  At home, there was a message on the machine. I pushed “Play,” expecting a client’s voice.

  “It’s me,” a slightly familiar voice said. “Derek Olsen.”

  A long pause followed—as though Derek believed I might not remember the name and needed time to summon up his face. Before that fetus, possibly. Since that night, no.

  “Guy on Belle Isle, right. One who brought a fetus over your house. Look, I think I have something. Down here on the island.” I felt him pause as he probably looked at the time. “It’s about six o’clock now and you probably won’t get this message until late.” He chuckled again. “I don’t know why but I always picture you out on the streets turning over trashcans or rocks, looking for the nasty.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, why don’t you come down early tomorrow? Dawn maybe. Bring a little light along too.” He paused. “I mean enough light to shoot with. Not a flashlight.”

  “I guess,” I said, forgetting he was on the tape because it was oddly conversational for a phone message. I didn’t want to go to Belle Isle at five in the morning. But I’d set this scheme into motion, so I supposed I’d have to drive down. It’d probably be something akin to the hood ornament or fetus but still…

  He’d left his number, “In case you misplaced it.”

  Was this a cell or his mother’s landline? He couldn’t spend all his time on the island. What happened when it rained?

  In the hours before our rendezvous, I tried to summon up enthusiasm. But the attraction Derek Olsen held for me several weeks earlier was gone. I was well into this new project now, and the stuff Derek might come up with would be a diversion at best. The project was too well defined. Ted Ernst was in on it now. Perhaps even Bill had mustered up some respect for my project if not for me.

  And I’d forgotten how creepy Derek was. That fetus in the kitchen sink. Our midnight burial in my neighbor’s compost pile. What ghoulish find did he want to show me tomorrow? What did he have secreted away in his little hidey-hole? The problem was—it was probably nothing. I’d show up and be treated to a closer look at his work. His new stuff would be like my old stuff. Mundane, amateurish, mawkish. But still—it wasn’t like I was pressed for time. I might as well go down. Bill wasn’t going to call.

  The sky was olive pewter when I crossed the bridge. The island smelled cleaner, if a little sulfuric, in the aftermath of an early morning thunderstorm. Perhaps the goose dung, littering surfaces lavishly and indiscriminately, had been neutralized by the rain. The birds were shadowy specters along the shoreline. As I drove along the southeast tip of the island, I saw a line of parked cars and looked around for a predawn event that had brought out the crowd. A race? A religious service? A fraternity rite? Silence reigned. My car lights picked up people inside several cars as I made my way north: a few in pairs, others seemingly alone—most appearing to be asleep under covers probably dank from humidity; I caught a few in an embrace and looked away. It was so damned quiet; that was the scariest part.

  In two or three of the cars, I could make out single men sitting upright at the wheel, looking on guard, wary. Drugs? Hookers? Male partners? A man, youngish and underdressed for temperatures in the fifties, walked along the sidewalk, head down. Headlights flashed at him from several cars, but he didn’t look up. Whatever mission he was on, it wasn’t here or wasn’t this. Was it sex the men in the cars wanted? Drugs or companionship? A muted beep, a foghorn on the river, a birdcall, and the young man disappeared into a fissure, a passage through the dense green.

  Now it was my slow cruise drawing their interest. Catcalls and invitations erupted from several vehicles when I slowed at a stop sign.

  “Hey, baby,” one man called, throwing open his door. “Got something fine to share with you.” He laughed raucously. “Bet you thought I meant my dick. But it’s NZ Green! Ever hear of it?”

  When another car door started to open, I picked up speed. It was getting late and I realized it only when two joggers in reflective vests with flashlights ran by, nearly blinding me. I wondered if there was a way to capture this scene, this early morning procession of parked cars, warm desire, fluid bodies, desperation, loneliness: each car telling a different story. Or maybe the same one.

  Derek waited in the spot I’d parked in before; I could barely make him out though he held up a lantern flashlight that bounced light off both our faces.

  “Come on,” he said, motioning with the light. “It’d be better to get this over with before it’s too light.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that, but I followed him anyway, still mesmerized by my voyage along the river.

  “Hey, you don’t seem so anxious to see sick stuff today. Thought you were the gutsy one who wanted to take pictures of fresh bodies.” He stopped for a minute, putting the lantern down and his hands on his knees, wheezing a bit. “Sorry, the night air makes my asthma kick up.” He reached into his pocket for an inhaler and stuck it in his mouth. After a few puffs, he added, “Not usually on the island at this hour. Bad air for asthma. Humidity from the storm…”

  “I could’ve come later. You set the time. Right?” Derek seemed a tad nuttier than last time. “Don’t you usually sleep here?”

  “No, I told you before. I sleep at my mother’s.”

  He put the inhaler away and looked at me as if my failure to remember his words was a surprise. “She doesn’t kick me out till morning.” He saw my look and clarified his comment. “Okay, she doesn’t actually kick me out. Not like the homeless shelters do anyway. She likes me to do stuff in the daytime—get out of the house, keep busy. Right now she thinks I’m on my way to deliver flyers in Livonia.”

  “Deliver flyers? Do you get paid more than a pittance for that?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, but Mom likes to think I’m trying to make my way in the world. Trouble is, you have to get yourself to the spot where they pick you up too damned early.” He looked at his watch, a surprisingly expensive-looking one. “If you get chosen—if you look fairly clean and sober—they dump you along with the flyers miles away. You’re not sure where you are. No one drops flyers in Detroit. Only ones I’ve ever tossed here were for gambling, addiction, and cancer of the mouth. Do black people get that a lot? Probably from that damned city incinerator.” Before I could answer, he shook his head and continued, “Occasionally, they pick you up afterward but not always. Certain drivers think it’s funny to leave you hanging.”

  He’d recovered his breath and we started walking. “Once they sent me downriver, and neither the other guy nor me had any idea how to get back to the city from—where was it?—Wyandotte, Lincoln Park? One of those downriver ’burbs. Guy with me was hardcore and in need of a fix by the end. Shakin’ and sweatin’ and swearin’ his head off. I managed to hitch a ride at a truck stop, but the trucker wouldn’t take him.”

  “So you left him alone there?”

  “Lucky I did. For him anyway.”

  “Why?” There had to be a punch line in this.

  Derek stopped again, but this time to shake his index finger. “You don’t wanna be doing that too often, Violet. Hitching rides from those guys. Truckers get lonely and horny and want you to blow them while they drive. Fellate them, I heard a guy call it on a cop show. The polite word for somethin’ that ain’t too polite. Does fellate sound any better than blow to you?”

  “So did you?”

  Derek grinned noncommittally and continued toward his space. I followed, leaving a bit of distance between us, not exactly happy with the direction his conversation
was taking. Talk of sex usually led to an attempt to procure it, and I was not having sex with Derek no matter what he showed me today. He was a kid—and a half-addled one. Gallery guy was one thing, barmy boy another.

  “Those truckers—they’re flying from doing speed in those rigs, and they like to drive with your head in their lap at eighty miles an hour,” he said, his back to me.

  So he had done it. He turned around, making a face when he saw mine.

  “Most of ’em don’t wash down there too often either,” he added, pointing. “Got crotch sweat from their bellies hanging over their balls all day long in those rigs. A real bad smell when you get up—or down—close.”

  So he’d done it more than once. Cripes! “Enough,” I said, holding my hands over my ears.

  He stopped, suddenly looking serious, professorial almost. “Now, what you’re gonna see today is probably the start of something big goin’ down. A vendetta maybe.” He looked around. “That’s why I called you down here before daybreak. Before other people got turned on to it.”

  “Like a crime?” I’d almost forgotten our mission, lost sight of it in picturing the scene in the truck.

  He nodded. “This kind of thing—what you’re gonna see in a second—couldn’t have happened without help, that’s for sure.” He reached for my arm. “Are you ready or have you gotten more jumpy since you first told me you wanted to see a dead body?” He looked at me quizzically. “I don’t want to freak you out. Was that embryo more than you could take? ’Cause this is a helluva lot worse.”

  “I’m ready.”

  The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. What the hell was going on? Had he gone out and killed someone? Upped the tension level to get my attention? He seemed too gentle. His hand on mine was negligible.

  “Is that what it is, Derek—a dead body?” My voice was shrill in the morning’s quiet.

  He shook his head, putting a finger to his lips. As the light sharpened and I began to see better, he led me to his sculpture—or whatever the hell it was—the one farthest from the pathway. Up close, his sculptures were not so different from the shopping carts I’d photographed all those years ago. Hundreds of found objects were attached to each base; it was kind of like Stonehenge with clutter.

  “I got another flashlight around,” he said, hunting through a pile of objects left on the shore. He came up with one and tossed it. “Now, position the light there,” he said, pointing toward one side of the piece.

  I pointed the light toward the spot he’d indicated and for a minute I only saw a doll’s head. Its curly blonde hair and staring blue eyes gave me a start though.

  “Oh man, if a doll’s head freaks you out, you’d better go home,” Derek said, looking at the beam of light and dancing in glee. “You talk a good game, but you’re a girl at heart.”

  “I was startled.”

  Not wanting to be called a girl, I braced myself and looked again. Below the doll’s head were several indescribable objects. Teeth? I’d started to speak when he grabbed my arm again, moving it to the right. The light shone on two hands and two feet, all four fastened to the structure with huge iron nails. I gasped.

  “What the fuck, Derek—is this for real?”

  Of course, they couldn’t be genuine. This had to be a bad joke. Derek had found a life-sized doll or mannequin and amputated the hands and feet. It had to be that.

  But he was nodding. “And it shouldn’t be any time at all before the head washes in.” Derek was partly proud but partly something else. Maybe terrified. “I found all four of ’em on the beach night before last. They were scattered around but easy enough to find. Took me another half-day to get the nails and mount them. I never hung pieces like this before. Had to go out to Home Depot in Harper Woods and get these special nails.”

  I shivered at Derek’s practicality—going to Home Depot to finish his grisly task. Probably by bus. Oh, he couldn’t be right in the head to be this casual about it. But still my questions came.

  “What about the torso?” I started to walk closer.

  “Might want to stand back, Violet. Awful smell. I may have to throw bleach or vinegar on ’em if it doesn’t go away.”

  I backed up, noticing it then myself.

  “Rest will wash up too, I bet. Probably take a little longer. Heavier body parts.” He paused a minute. “Although you never can tell—a freighter might push the torso or head upstream. They could’ve gotten caught on a rock or a tree limb too. It’s unpredictable. Neighbor of ours, out walking alone, fell in a couple years ago up in the Pointes and they never found his body. Shaped like a saucer up there—once it turns into a lake. Easy to slip in. Impossible to climb out.”

  “I didn’t know bad shit ever happened in the Pointes.”

  He smiled appreciatively. Nobody ever minded a dig at the Grosse Pointes.

  “How did they know that’s what happened to your neighbor? Maybe he got into his car and drove north. Escaping from his wife perhaps.” Like my father had.

  I continued to talk, but my eyes were glued to the crucified feet. They were big feet with nails needing trimming, and it looked like a corn on one toe. Feet were damned ugly; why would anyone become a podiatrist or want to give pedicures? Nature didn’t put feet so far away from the eyes, nose, and mouth by accident.

  Despite what was sitting in front of us, Derek continued with his story. “Nah—he wouldn’t have left his dog behind. The dog was still sitting there when the cops went to the lake to look for him. Damned dog ran back to the same place whenever the door opened after that. Learned how to jump the fence in their yard after a few weeks. Eventually they put him down. His grief was awesome.” Derek smiled slightly. “Guy’s wife though, she married a man down the street the next year. Makes you wonder.” He laughed again. “So do you want to take pictures—when the sun comes up?”

  “You don’t think this is the end of it, do you? That you can keep these—appendages for yourself? You have to report this, Derek. Or have you already?”

  The hands were better cared for than the feet, I noticed next. Each nail was cut squarely—like the guy had trimmed his nails moments before. Or someone gave him a manicure. Of course, people see your hands all the time and are more likely to be able to identify them. This guy cared about his hands—or the murderer had cared about what they gave away about the victim and hacked them off. Or maybe he’d been stuffed in a small place before he was dumped. A space so small, he’d have to have been dismembered to fit. I’d never realized my mind could work this way—putting together a possible story. Maybe I was not just about pictures.

  “I know, I know. I gotta call the cops, but I thought you might want a picture first. I promised you a nasty find, right? If I have to give ’em up, at least I’ll have a picture of it. Maybe just another day or two.” He seemed tranquil in his decision—like he’d kept a bargain. “Wasn’t this what you had in mind?”

  Was it? I stood silent for a minute, considering the situation, slowly pulling out my camera and taking a look. “I’d like to wait a bit. Got a few minutes?” It was all too ludicrous—the two of us standing in front of this installation. Both of us with a cell phone and not using it to call the cops. Both of us selfish the way artists are selfish.

  “I’m in no hurry.” He sat down on a camp chair and pulled out a crumpled pack of Salems, holding it out. “It’s up to you if you want to risk being around here when the sun’s up. Soon as someone catches sight of this, there’s gonna be bedlam here.”

  I waved away his offer of nicotine. “Is smoking good for your asthma?”

  Damn, when did I start lecturing people on their health?

  “Only smoke one or two a day.”

  “You’d better call the cops this morning. What you’re doing here has got to be some kind of crime. Withholding evidence, at the very least.” I looked up at the hands and feet again. “And tampering with it, Derek. You probably destroyed some valuable forensic material hanging those body parts up like that.”
/>   The nails or whatever it was he’d pounded through the hands and feet must be the biggest Home Depot carried. Jesus nails.

  “They’ll take them down soon as I call, Vi. The cops will. How would you like them to mess with your work?” He lighted the cigarette. “I think of them as mine. Had to swim fifty feet out into that pisspot of a river to grab the second foot. It was about to float out of reach when I grabbed it. And if the smell seems bad now, well, it was much worse back then.”

  “Well, sure they’ll take them away,” I said, fanning the smoke. “It’ll help them to identify the victim. They can probably match up a weapon with the cut marks on the limbs. Must be a lot of other evidence.”

  I’d learned all of this from television, of course. And maybe a bit of it from Bill. I wondered if semi-knowledgeable citizens made the job of the police easier or more difficult.

  “I’ll have to call them if you don’t.”

  “Go ahead,” he said. “But if you’re gonna tattle, don’t take a picture.”

  “Why? Taking a picture won’t hurt your work. You said you wanted one yourself.”

  “Why should you get to do your art if I can’t do mine? Why should you get to use my hard work, my find? You wouldn’t know about any of this if I hadn’t called you.” He stubbed his cigarette out. “They’ll find the rest of him soon enough. Then they’ll ID him. If not, I’ll call in a few days.”

  “You don’t know that. The rest of him might’ve been dragged out into the Great Lakes.” I thought about it for a minute. “I bet he’s decapitated too. If hands and feet are used to identify a body, heads would be considerably more important with teeth and recognizable features.”

  I walked over to the sculpture again. No rings: nothing special on the hands and feet. Or at least not from what I could see in the half-light. Though feet were never pretty, remove them from a body and they became grotesque.

  There was a considerable amount of dried blood on the ankles; it looked like the job had been inexpert. Or maybe the tool used hadn’t been heavy-duty enough. At some point, the murderer began to hack and saw away at them. The skin color was impossible to assign. Greenish-grayish; he could be white, black, Asian, Hispanic. Who could tell? No telling what the river water would do to skin color.