Let It Burn (9 page)

“Yeah, we did a quick pass through the waiting room,” I said. “I don’t think our suspect ever went in there.”

“You might want to take a quick look through the train yourself, before we let it go. I mean, you never know, right? Maybe he’s on board right now. We’ve caught dumber criminals.”

“Last I saw him, he was running away. I can’t see why he’d double back.”

“Just humor me, all right? Maybe you saw someone else. An accomplice or something. Maybe seeing him will jog your memory.”

I knew it was beyond a long shot, but I got on board anyway. I walked down the aisle of every car, giving everyone the once-over. Some of the passengers were clearly annoyed to be kept waiting. One of them actually stood up and asked me when the train would finally be moving. He was wearing a suit, and he reminded me of the man who had wrecked his Saab earlier that day, his time and convenience clearly being more important than anything else. God, how long ago it seemed now, just a routine accident on a day that started out so normal. Now I had this man in my face and I felt like taking him off the train, into the station, up to that abandoned balcony. Here’s your reason, you pompous jackass. Now go back to your seat and sit the hell down.

When I got off the train, having looked at every face, it slowly pulled away from the station. It was heading west. First stop maybe Ann Arbor, then on to Chicago.

“Okay, so now that we’ve got that out of the way,” the detective said, “tell me exactly what you saw.”

We were standing outside between the station and the tracks. He looked just as fresh and energetic as he had that morning at roll call, but the man who had come looking for basketball players, the man my partner and I had both made fun of, was long gone. The sun was low in the sky, and I swear that gold shield on his belt was practically glowing.

“Because the last I heard,” he said, not even bothering to let me start explaining, “you were asking for two-eleven on a suspected drug dealer running away from here. Then a few minutes later … we’ve got this poor woman on the floor upstairs?”

“Have you identified her?”

“Yes,” he said, taking a step back. “Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. The victim’s name is Elana Paige. She was … Well, you saw the crime scene.”

“Multiple stab wounds?”

He shook his head. “From what I’m hearing, way beyond multiple. Somebody just stabbed her and stabbed her. God knows how many times.”

“What else do we know about her?”

“Twenty-eight years old, married, no kids. Lives in Farmington Hills. Not employed at the moment, but she’s taking classes at Wayne State.”

Out of everything he was saying, that’s the one thing that stopped me short.

“My wife is taking classes at Wayne State,” I said. “They might even know each other.”

“I suppose that’s possible. Although it is a big school.”

“I know. I’m just saying.”

“It does bring it home, yes. This woman could have been from anyone’s family. Yours, mine…”

“Any idea why she was here?”

“Not yet. We’re contacting the husband right now.”

I walked away from him. It was getting harder and harder to keep the scene out of my head. Now I was imagining being the husband, too. Hearing that knock on my door, opening it up and seeing two police officers.

“So tell me,” Bateman said. “How did you end up checking out that balcony?”

“I was coming back and I saw the open door. I thought it was worth investigating.”

He walked down the tracks to the far end of the station. The door was propped open now. I could see the sudden bursts of flashbulbs from inside. The crime scene unit was up there, doing their work.

“That door right there,” he said. “You’re saying you didn’t actually see him coming out of the building?”

“No. Like I said, he was on the tracks.”

He stood there looking at the door, then down the tracks, then back at me.

“I didn’t know it went down that way,” he said. “I’m sorry if it sounded like I was trying to find fault. Under the circumstances, if you really didn’t have any knowledge of the suspect being in the building…”

“It’s all right, Detective. It’s a tough day for everyone.”

“This whole back end of the building is abandoned, anyway. How could you have even known? I mean, how did you even think of trying that door?”

“It was just a hunch.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding like he was deep in thought, his mind already racing ahead to something else. “That’s good. But go back to that first pursuit. He goes east down these tracks, right? You were calling for backup at Bagley Street?”

“That’s right. I saw him throw something. I assumed it was a bag of crack.”

He rubbed his chin. “But that would take him back to being just a dealer,” he said. “Why throw away a few dollars of crack if you just killed somebody?”

“In hindsight, it doesn’t make much sense.”

“Hell, maybe this kid isn’t our killer after all. Maybe he just happened to be here at the wrong time, huh?”

“It’s possible.”

“Are you sure he wasn’t throwing away a knife?”

I played the scene back in my head. “I don’t know exactly what he threw away,” I said, “but a knife I would have recognized. This was something smaller. I didn’t even really see it once it left his hand.”

“Show me where that happened,” he said. “Whatever it was, we should try to find it.”

I walked with him, retracing my steps along the railroad tracks. I tried to remember when he had thrown the object, but there weren’t any good landmarks to measure how far down we had gotten. It was, after all, just unbroken lines of metal with identical ties at regular intervals.

“It’s gotta be around here,” I said, slowing down. “I can’t be sure exactly. I could be off by a few yards either way.”

Detective Bateman was already scanning the ground.

“Which way did he throw it?”

“He was running in this direction.” I was thinking back again, trying hard to re-create every detail in my mind. “He threw with his right hand, toward the other tracks.”

The detective stepped over the tracks, to the second set running parallel.

“Did he make it this far? To the other tracks?”

“I’m going to say yes. I’m pretty sure he did.”

We were inside the fenced-off part of the track now, about twenty feet wide. There was the rough gravel at the base, then the railroad ties, then the tracks on top. The detective was walking right down the center of the rightmost tracks, looking closely at every inch of the ground.

“I don’t imagine anybody else got back here to pick up whatever it was,” he said. “Not with this fence and all. But if another train came by…”

“It did,” I said. “I just remembered.”

He looked up at me.

“When I was in the building. A train came by. It didn’t stop.”

“A freight train?”

“Yes.”

“Heading in which direction?”

“Into the tunnel. To Canada.”

“So on these tracks,” he said, looking back down at the ground. “If it was something light, it could have been blown God knows where. Right through the fence even.”

He kept looking for another few minutes. Then he pulled the radio off his belt.

“I need some officers down the tracks,” he said. “While we’re at it, can we get the train traffic held up until further notice? I don’t need anybody getting run over here.”

*   *   *

An hour later, we were still out on the tracks. There were eight officers, including Franklin, Detective Bateman, and myself. It’s exhausting work, bending down low enough to see the ground, tossing aside the random trash and hoping for something significant. Every few minutes I’d stand up and stretch my back. I’d look down the tracks and see the crime unit specialists going in and out of the building. They still hadn’t brought out the body.

It was Michigan and it was June, so that meant light until at least nine o’clock. But the sun was getting lower and everything was losing its bright focus. I decided to walk back to the station and to re-create the whole chase scene one more time, second by second, hoping to pinpoint exactly where we were when he threw away the object.

The detective watched me. I went to the exact spot where I had first seen my suspect. Hey, hold up. Stop right there. The kid turns and runs. Stop. Stop right there. Police.

I’m running after him now. My gun, my flashlight, everything on my belt bouncing up and down as I make my way down the tracks. He’s opening up a lead. Don’t be an idiot. It’s not worth it.

No, wait. I hadn’t said that yet. He had already thrown the object. Like right around … Here.

I stopped a good twenty yards short of my fellow officers and peered at the ground.

“Do we need to shift back?” Bateman said.

“Yes,” I said without looking back. “I think we were looking too far down the tracks.”

The officers moved closer to me. I glanced up and saw Franklin limping, one hand holding his back as he bent over again. I felt bad for him, but I wasn’t about to stop him. The best way to make it easier for everyone would be to just find the goddamned thing the kid threw away.

The detective picked up his radio and listened to it. He said a few words, then returned the radio to his belt.

“The family is on their way down,” he said to me. “I need to be there to let them know what’s going on. If the crime scene is done, they’ll be bringing the body over for identification, too.”

He stopped, closed his eyes, and rubbed his forehead.

“These are the worst days,” he said. “Makes me wonder why I ever became a cop.”

“Tell them we’ll find him,” I said. “No matter what it takes.”

He looked at me. “You know I can’t promise that. Half the time, we don’t.”

“This time we will,” I said. “I’ll personally go through every face in the city until we find him.”

He let out a breath. “I like your attitude, McKnight. But we still can’t even put him inside the station, let alone identify him.”

I didn’t have an answer for that. Not for the first time in my life, I only had a gut feeling and nothing else.

“I have to get back to the precinct,” he said. “If you find something, bring it right over, okay?”

That’s how he left me. I was down on my hands and knees now, moving along the far set of railroad tracks. I figured I only had a few more minutes before the light went. I didn’t want to have to come back and do this again the next day.

“Alex,” Franklin said, a few feet away, “we don’t even know what we’re looking for.”

“We’ll know when we see it,” I said. “I know we will.”

He stood up and rubbed his bad knee. I kept looking through the rough gravel bed between the railroad ties.

“She was going to Wayne State,” I finally said to him. “Just like Jeannie.”

Franklin didn’t say anything to that. He didn’t have to. He bent back over and kept looking at the ground.

A few minutes later, I grabbed on to the hard metal of the railroad tracks. I dropped my head in frustration.

“I think we’re about done for tonight,” Franklin said. “We can get right back out here tomorrow morning.”

He was right. The sun was too low now. I picked my head up, and as I did, I saw the tiniest flash of light. Probably just a piece of glass or something, but I looked closer. I sifted through the gravel, brushing aside one small gray rock after another.

Then I saw it.

Among the other rocks, pebbles, dirt, sand, cinder, slivers of glass, and all the other small things that by the million make up a railroad bed, that one little stone that stood out from all of the others.

A diamond.

It was just inside the farthest rail, midway between two ties. It had settled into the bed, so I had to get down close to the ground, like an archaeologist brushing away the debris from an ancient artifact. I brushed and I blew my breath on the stones and eventually I found another diamond. Then another. Then finally, against the track itself, I found a long golden strand with several more diamonds still intact. The clasp was broken.

This is what he threw away, I thought. This is what I saw flashing in the sunlight. This is what puts him in that station.

I didn’t touch it. I called out to Franklin to go grab an evidence bag. As I waited, I keyed on my shoulder radio.

“Unit Forty-one at the train station,” I said. “Please pass along a message to Detective Bateman. Tell him I found what we were looking for.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

It was a warm morning. I was sitting on a folding lawn chair on the walkway outside my motel room, watching the traffic going by on Michigan Avenue. Across the street there was a softball game going on in the field where Tiger Stadium once stood.

I took out my cell phone, which was out of date and only occasionally functional. Like myself, I guess. I dialed the number for Sergeant Grimaldi. I’d seen him the day before, of course, but since then I’d seen the train station, gone to dinner with Janet, then seen the station one more time. So by this morning I was in a different state of mind.

The call went to his voice mail.

“Good morning, Sergeant,” I said. “I mean Tony. I just wanted to thank you again for the drink yesterday. Also, I had something on my mind I wanted to ask you about. I’d appreciate it if you could give me a call back.”

I ended the call. Just in time for a big truck to rumble by on Michigan Avenue, so loud I wouldn’t have been able to hear his voice anyway, even if he had answered.

“Okay, now what?” I asked myself when the truck was a block past me. “I can sit here and wait for him to call me back…”

Or what else? I could go back to the train station, stand there and feel that same buzzing I had felt the night before. That feeling that there was something important that I was missing. That I had
been
missing for years.

Or I could just go home. Leave right away and be back for a late lunch at Jackie’s place. Some of his world-famous beef stew, maybe. With a real Canadian Molson. There were worse ways to spend an afternoon.

Or I could even call Janet. Thank her for having dinner with me, maybe answer her question about whether I’d ever consider moving down here again. Not that I knew what that answer would be.