I insisted on driving—no way was I going to let a minor woodworking accident turn me into an invalid. After we got in and I pulled out onto Jefferson, I thought for a moment before speaking. With my hand bleeding so badly, Clarence and I hadn’t really had a chance to talk about what happened. Now that I was okay, I needed to hear his side of it.
“So tell me what you saw,” I said.
“At first, nothing,” he said. “I was fiddling with the radio a lot, trying to find some decent music, but all I kept getting was this synthesized Britney Spears kind of shit. Then I realized I wasn’t listening to the radio but one of your CDs.”
I could feel his eyes on me, and I visibly squirmed. “I was just making sure it was acceptable for my daughters.” God, I hated being busted.
Clarence ignored me and said, “So I finally found a decent country station and laid back and closed my eyes, thought about Jesse.”
“Which explains why you didn’t see or hear anything.”
“And then, I don’t know why, but I sat up and looked over, and I thought I saw some shadows moving inside. I mean, it was hard to tell. But even so, it seemed like there were two shadows.”
“So you came to investigate.”
“I turned off the radio and heard a saw. And I thought, what the fuck is he doing? Building a coffee table in the dark? And it kind of pissed me off, that you would feel like you could just turn on one of Jesse’s saws. Those things are personal to a craftsman.”
“So you . . .”
“So I walked in, thinking you had bumped up against one of the machines and probably couldn’t figure out how to turn it off.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Hey, no offense, but you don’t seem like the handy type.”
I let that one go and said, “So you turned on the light.”
“And the guy was already through the window because I guess he heard me come in through the door. I didn’t see anything but blue jeans, a leather jacket, and a ski mask.”
I nodded and waited.
“I would have called the cops right away, but I figured we weren’t supposed to be there in the first place. I didn’t want to get either one of us in trouble.”
He had a funny look on his face, and I knew what was coming next before he even said it.
“It was Hornsby. I know it was him.”
“But you didn’t get a good look,” I said.
“It was him. I’ve met him. Same build. Same movement.”
“Was he wearing a ski mask the last time you saw him?”
Clarence didn’t say anything to that, but I knew he would claim it was Hornsby. My attacker could have been a black Parisian midget and Clarence would have somehow argued it was Hornsby.
We rode in silence as I drove toward Clarence’s house. I wanted to believe him, but Jesus Christ . . . I practically get my hand turned into a dovetail joint and Clarence had no idea anything was going on? Pretty convenient that he had his eyes closed and the radio on. See no evil, hear no evil. I imagined a scenario in which Clarence made a call to someone to come and rough me up. But that was paranoia. Why would he do that? Why would he hire me and then have someone turn me into the classic shop teacher with a missing digit or two?
“What now?” Clarence said.
I pulled into his driveway to let him out.
“Well,” I said, “a crime was committed, and I guess I have to report it to the police.”
“And then what?”
“Then I talk to Nevada Hornsby.”
•
There are three main roads from Detroit that cross the Alter Road border into Grosse Pointe. They are Jefferson, Kercheval, and Mack. There used to be a rumor that at those three main intersections, a Grosse Pointe cop car could always be found, idling, waiting for any Detroiter, most likely with dark skin, to come across the line. At which point, the Grosse Pointe cops would spring into action.
If it ever was true, it certainly wasn’t any longer. However, the Grosse Pointe police station, for the part of Grosse Pointe known as the Park, is located just off of Alter Road on Jefferson, one of the main intersections between the two disparate communities. Certainly, a Detroiter would think twice about ambling across the city line on a path that would take him or her directly in front of the cop shop.
I’m sure the location of police headquarters is just a coincidence. Honestly.
Like just about everything else in Grosse Pointe, police headquarters were very clean. The building itself was made of brick that fit nicely into the surrounding architectural style. Inside, the carpet was immaculate, modern desks free of clutter, and a squad room that smelled more like a bank than a home to cops.
Every time I came back, which was quite often, I couldn’t help but think of my first day on the force so many years ago. The offices had changed a little, new carpet and paint, different desks, the layout of offices and cubicles had all been changed. But it was the same place. It wasn’t as terrifying to me now as it had been back then, when I was a rookie, fresh from the Michigan Police Academy on his first assignment. Back then, I was sweating beneath the dark-blue uniform, my palms slick with nervousness as I shook hands with my new coworkers. My brothers in blue.
It’s funny, in retrospect . . . how, when you’re nervous, you tell yourself that you’re making too big a deal out of whatever’s causing your anxiety. You imagine a worst-case scenario and then imagine that it will never get that bad.
It’s funny and it’s not. Because looking back, I had no idea just how right my fears would turn out to be. And in fact, I hadn’t been exaggerating. The truth was, at the time, I was grossly underestimating just how fucked up everything would become. I had low-balled it in a way I never could have conceived.
Now, I walked to the front desk and saw Suzy Wilkins, the receptionist. She was in her mid-forties, a clear, strong face with hair that was shot through with gray. But the steel in her eyes had a way of discouraging any bullshit. Always a good trait in a police department receptionist.
“The Chief in?” I asked.
She nodded, the telephone headset emitting the sound of someone on the other end of the line. She fingered the buzzer beneath the top of her desk, and a deep buzzing sounded as the main door into the squad room unlatched. I walked through the metal reinforced doorway and down the hall. There were framed pictures of the department’s officers on the walls, most with commendations for public service, a few for awards. The Chief was pictured in many of the stories and articles, a look of proud stoicism that I knew very well. The Chief hadn’t been the chief when I started on the force. That happened a few years after the murder of a certain young man.
I passed a couple of patrol cops in the hallway. We nodded our hellos. It was always a tad awkward. I used to be one of them, but not anymore. They all knew me, knew my story—the most important element being the fact that I had left the force in disgrace. Something they were embarrassed about, and really didn’t want to be associated with. Hey, who could blame them? Certainly not me.
I got to the end of the hallway, in the southwest corner of the building, to the Chief’s office. I peeked in, saw Grosse Pointe’s top cop talking on the phone. The office was big and well ordered. A large oak desk sat along the far wall. A bookshelf ran below the windows facing Jefferson Avenue. Two visitor’s chairs faced the desk. On the wall behind the desk were pictures of the Chief winning awards, honors, even a few marksmanship awards. There was also a picture of the family on a low shelf. Nice family. The happy husband and wife, two sons and, the youngest, a daughter. They were three, five, and seven. All spaced sequentially, all products of planned passion. The Chief never did anything half-assed or unorganized. And that applied to procreating.
I sat in one of the chairs and watched the Chief talk on the phone. The voice was always cool and authoritative. Clipped words with precise questions. I had no idea if the conversation was with a convicted felon turned informant, or one of the kids. You could never tell.