Dead Wood Part 27

Shannon stepped to the microphone.

"I'd like to dedicate this concert to a very special person," Shannon said. "Her name is Jesse Barre. She had beauty inside her. And she created beauty in everything she did."

I stole a glance at Clarence. He was already starting to cry.

"She made this guitar," Shannon said, and she lifted it off her chest away from her toward the crowd. It truly looked spectacular under the lights. The very embodiment of beauty.

"She also had just begun to write songs, before her life was tragically taken from her."

Clarence stood, and Shannon looked at him.

"I'm going to record her songs and put out a CD next year," Shannon said. "The proceeds of which will go to the Jesse Barre Foundation."

The crowd applauded and I admired Shannon. She was trying to do the right thing.

"Here's a little something she wrote. I don't know if she had her father in mind when she wrote it, but I had a feeling she did."

Shannon put the pick to the strings and the song seemed to flow out of her. I thought of all the tragedy, the killing and lives wasted over the music I was hearing now.

I hugged Anna.

I hugged the girls And I even hugged Clarence.

Shannon was right.

Jesse Barre created beauty.

I was seeing it right now.

Forty-eight.

Ellen was in a meeting with a task force from Wayne County formed to track down a prost.i.tution ring that was believed to be bringing in teenage girls against their will from cities like Chicago and Cleveland.

I sat in Ellen's office, listening to the cop chatter in the hallways, the traffic out on Mack Avenue.

For the first time in my life, I felt hope. Hope that one day I might catch the man who killed Benjamin Collins. They say that you never know what life will bring you. That what initially appears to be great misfortune can often turn into great opportunities.

When Teddy Armbruster showed up on my boat, I thought it was all over.

Now, I realized, it was a new beginning.

"Haven't you given me enough paperwork to deal with?" Ellen said, breezing into her office, the leather of her gunbelt creaking like an old saddle.

"Hey, I'm just another taxpayer making sure I get my money's worth. Public servants like you need to be kept to task, my dear," I said.

"G.o.d you're such an a.s.s," she said.

"I want the Benjamin Collins file."

She laughed outright. "Oh, sure. A private citizen demanding police files open cases at that. What next? You want a shotgun? Borrow a squad car? Take a couple Kevlar vests for the kids?"

"The case is open?" I asked.

"Did I say that?" she said.

"Yeah, you did."

"Well, I guess it is, then."

"Had it been moved from the cold case files?"

She didn't answer that right away.

"Come on, Ellen, it's me, John. Your brother."

This softened her just a bit, although she still didn't say anything.

"Has Teddy started talking?" I asked.

Armbruster was busted in Chicago, trying to go undercover with his Mob friends, but he got caught on a FBI surveillance camera going into a house. He was brought back to Detroit the day before.

She shook her head. "He's dummied up with the best Mob defense lawyer money can buy."

"It'll be a long trial," I said.

She nodded.

I took a deep breath.

"I need that file, Ellen."

"What are you going to do with it?"

I knew what she meant, but instead, I said "Go to Kinko's and copy it have it back on your desk in fifteen minutes. No one the wiser."

She looked at me, really studying me. "Are you going to do anything stupid?"

"Of course I am, that's my whole modus operandi."

"I know, but something that will get you killed and leave Anna and those girls without a father?"

I shook my head. "Absolutely not. But now that I know Benjamin Collins was most likely a hit a contract kill that changes everything."

She sighed and pulled the file out of one of her desk drawers. I knew she didn't usually keep files there, so she had it ready for me. This was all a pretense a warning to take it easy and take it slow.

I would do my best.

I took the file and said, "I'll be back in fifteen minutes."

"Don't bother," she said. "That's a copy."

She smiled at that.

"Thanks," I said.

"Just trying to keep the taxpayers happy," she said.

Forty-nine.

It had all started with the lake.

I pulled my car off Lake Sh.o.r.e Drive, parked it on an opposing street and walked down to the water's edge.

It was a calm morning, the lake a sheet of blue green gla.s.s. I had the file in my hand and I sat down on the gra.s.s. The gra.s.s was cold and damp, but somehow, everything felt good and felt right.

I felt like I belonged here.

They never found the man's body. The next day, divers had gone down to my boat which had broken up into a few hundred pieces. They found lots of debris; wood, and pieces of the radio and minutia from the boat's cabin.

But they didn't find a body.

I knew there was no way he could have survived being impaled, and then taken underwater. He would have had to somehow swim to sh.o.r.e with a devastating injury in the middle of five foot waves.

Impossible.

It didn't matter to me, though.

He was alive now in my memory. And dead or alive, I knew he would lead me to the final answer to what happened to Benjamin Collins.

That's really all that mattered.

I looked at the file in my lap. This was going to be my chance to set things right. Redemption, I guess.

I took a deep sigh and ran my finger along the inside of the file's cover.

I held my breath.

And opened the file.

THE END.