Dead Wood - By Dani Amore Page 0,12
a given. But what I really wanted was a family. I wanted kids, man. To me, that was the end all in life. And hell, 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 circumvented 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