The Lillian Byrd Crime Series Read online

  “OK, let’s go talk to him,” Ciesla said. “Is that what you said—he’s at the coroner’s now? Let’s go.” He turned back to me. “We won’t need you to run that drawing, then.”

  “I’ll talk to you when you get back.”

  I walked over to the window and gazed out at the street, at the Eagle Eye office, at the Eagle Tap Room next door. I looked down again at the picture in my hand. It was Jean, all right. Iris Macklin? What else did Porrocks say? Her husband identified her? Husband? This was news to me, news to the newswoman.

  2

  My mind traveled back a couple of Saturday nights to the Snapdragon. It was a melancholy night—everybody’s melancholy when they’re going through a breakup, right? Judy and I had been together about three years, three nice years. It was a joyful period for her, because she’d finally found someone who would accept her love as she wanted to give it: fierce, greedy, final. But it was a sweet-sad time for me, as I gradually came to know I’d have to leave her.

  She was, to me, simply beautiful. She would enfold me in her heavy warm body, presenting herself to me and at the same time claiming me, and I’d feel safe, safe, safe. Her face, framed by delicate golden tendrils, was high-boned and ruddy, her expression always questioning and hungry. What did I want? If she could give it, I would have it. She wanted to be my everything: lover, mother, child. A powerfully attractive combination. Except those roles don’t mix, not really. Try to mix them and you’re in for some long-term problems.

  Ah, but she understood me, she loved me. She spoiled me. Love notes taped to my windshield, back rubs and breakfast in bed! That was the nurturing part of her—then there’d be the resentful child. The child jealous of my time away from her, the child who was always late—such a tiny but potent insult!—the child who had the shocking habit of undermining the friendships of others, if she felt excluded. And my faults? Why, my faults are legion, God and my friends know. Boy, do they know. But faults and fixes, well, they’re not exactly the point here, are they? With patience you can cope with imperfection in others and yourself. You have to.

  I would take her face in my hands and look into it, loving her and feeling sorry at the same time. She would see the love but not the sorrow; or rather, she would mistake the sorrow for a deeper love that wasn’t there. That was my problem. I wanted to love her so much more than I did.

  This wasn’t destined to be a quick breakup, one tidy wrench and then over. I had to try to explain, to somehow justify myself. How do you say I just don’t love you enough? Or, it’s taken me a while to figure this out, but I think you’re the wrong life partner for me? Or, I don’t know why, but I simply need to leave? But I had to try to explain. So we talked. Oh God, did we talk. We talked until our throats were sore, until the air in our apartment filled up with sentences, exclamations, clauses, punctuation.

  How can words do justice to the most mysterious of emotions? After a point it felt as though we were trying to dissect a moth with a chain saw.

  There were tears, rivers of tears. Mostly hers. Some people say it’s as painful to be the one to initiate a breakup as it is to be broken up on. Some self-serving wretches even claim it’s more painful to be the one to make the break. Well, if you’ve been on both ends, you and I both know it’s easier to leave than be left. Sure, you suffer if you leave; it hurts like hell, the worst thing knowing you’re causing pain to another human being. But at least you know you’re doing the right thing for yourself—nay, the right thing for everybody in the long run. At least that’s what you hope you’re doing.

  In a shower of words and tears, I moved out, along with Todd, my pet rabbit. We took an upper flat in a house in Eagle owned by an elderly couple who lived in the lower. But as I say, this wasn’t to be a quick breakup. Judy and I continued to see each other on a reduced-intimacy basis, tapering off as it were, her hoping, I know, I’d change my mind. For me, the tapering off was a safety net: What if I did change my mind? I fooled myself into believing my chief motivation was the desire to be humane. Taper it off, she’ll get used to it, we’ll stay friends.

  I was never much for the cruising scene, but loneliness can be a powerful influence. I mentioned a Saturday night at the Snapdragon. That afternoon had been a gorgeous one, balmy and sunny, just the kind of Saturday that Judy and I would’ve pounced on together; perhaps taking a road trip out to the country for a round of golf, or produce-buying, or just riding and dreaming.

  Instead, I deep-cleaned my new flat, a satisfying enough activity. By deep-cleaning I mean working over every surface with water and a cleaning agent. By every surface I mean not just the tops of things, but the sides and innards.

  For instance, you don’t just wipe off the stove after you’ve cleaned the oven, you pull all the grates and burner pans up and wash them in the sink with a brush; you scour the edges of the oven door, and you pry off the knobs and soak them in ammonia water, and you take a toothbrush and a mini bucket of water with Spic and Span dissolved in it, and you brush the grime from around the oven handle, from the chrome trim, from around the clock face. You take hold of the stove and walk it away from the wall, and you take a rag and wipe out the greasy dust from the back of the stove and all under it. You deploy steel wool against the caked-on drips down the sides. Then you take a rag soaked in nothing but clean water, and you wipe down the whole thing. Reassemble.

  I listened to some Scruggs-style banjo music while I did this—you know that Folkways record? Loud and fast.

  I dusted the tops of all the doors and the baseboards with a piece of damp chamois leather, the kind people use on their cars. It’s the best dust cloth there is. Once a speck of dust touches that chamois, it stays on it. I took down all the overhead light fixtures and washed them in soapy water and dusted the bulbs. I vacuumed, then spot-dusted again. The bathroom: scouring pad to the tile, sponge to the ceiling and walls, rag to the floor.

  Back in the kitchen there was a little closet that must have been used as a garbage depot by previous tenants. I got in there with a bucket of water and Spic and Span. For about ten minutes I thought somebody had painted the baseboards black, but at last the grime gave way and pretty yellow paint showed through.

  Then as the sun faded into a molten ball low over the rooftops of Eagle, I took a long hot shower and dressed up for the Snapdragon. I put on my least baggy jeans, a plain white linen blouse, and my newer oxblood Bass Weejuns in case I wound up hitting the timber. My sinuses were nice and clear from all the cleaning agents.

  The Snapdragon bar was tucked between a rent-to-own shop and an abandoned gas station in northwest Detroit, on Livernois near Seven Mile, not far from my neighborhood in Eagle. The gas station had been boarded up for as long as I could remember, probably still is. Parking was tight, as always; I left my 1985 evergreen Chevrolet Caprice in the alley and gave the keys to the security guard, a relentlessly cheerful fellow named Emerald who jockeyed cars and watched the street life all night. He made a point of learning people’s names. I lingered with him for a few minutes.

  A breeze was sweeping off nearby Palmer Park, and the summer weeds were bustin’ up from the cracked pavement. “Do you like Detroit, Emerald?”

  “This is where I’m from,” he said. He had a caterpillar mustache and kind eyes.

  “But do you like it?”

  “You are really white, you know? Lillian. Lily. Lily-white! ‘Do you like where you live.’ You gotta bloom where you’re potted, baby.”

  I thought about that.

  “You know I live right over there?” he said. “I walk to work. Yeah,” he went on, “it’s different from before. You’d think as time went by there’d be less bullshit, but there’s more. People don’t learn.”

  I don’t suppose Detroit is the only city where bars like the Snapdragon have to worry about security, but the clandestine ritual of going in always made me feel like a bit player in some grungy drama.

  The vestibule was a little wooden structure built onto the back door, the front door being per
manently barred. I stood in the dim, musty-smelling hut and positioned myself in front of the steel security door with its one-way glass window and pushed a white button, hearing it ring faintly inside.

  You always had to wait for Sandra to put down her drink somewhere in the passageway and recognize you through the window and then buzz you in. She collected my dollar cover charge. Though the owner, Bonnie, invariably ignored me, her lackey Sandra gave me a friendly hello.

  Bonnie had purchased the bar a couple of years before from a splendid aging queen and transformed it from a men’s G-string joint to a women’s pub. The women of metro Detroit were grateful for this, as God knows in any burg the men’s bars outnumber the women’s by about a jillion to none. Bonnie got a softball league going, organized dances and talent shows, and in other ways drew women to her joint.

  Nobody seemed to know her well, though. She was friendly only toward certain people. I could never figure out what her friendliness criteria were.

  The Snap was busy but not packed. I liked it that way: plenty of potential dance partners, plus you had room to breathe. I noticed Bonnie hunkered in her usual spot at the center of the bar. I made respectful eye contact as I passed; she dropped her eyes to my clothes, then my shoes. I found a little table with a good view of the room and ordered a drink from Kevin, the mascot waiter.

  Kevin was slim and handsome, with a strong jaw and a gorgeous head of dirty-blond hair. Thus, you would expect to find him on staff at one of the men’s bars—Banjo’s or even the old Stock Exchange where he could really shine—but he was shy. Plus for about a year he’d been going with a possessive accountant who partially supported him. So Kevin watered the garden of women at the Snapdragon, where his personality, not his looks, got him the good tips.

  Now, don’t start with me about how lesbians and good tips can’t be in the same sentence. I reject that. I tip well, and so do my friends, damn it.

  “Kevin, is that a new blouse?” I asked. He beamed and turned so I could see the back. Delicate shirred fabric dropped in a cloud from his shoulders. “It’s beautiful,” I told him. “What’re you doing wearing it to work? One of these brutal dykes could spill a drink on it.”

  “Oh, I like to look nice all the time.” He had a lofty little way of talking. “Besides, Ralph’s picking me up later.”

  When he brought my Dewar’s and a splash—no ice, short glass—he said, “We haven’t seen you in a while, Lillian.” His face showed that indefinable level of concern that communicated the full sentence: It’s a Saturday night, and I see you’re not with Judy—does this mean what I think it means?

  I admitted, “Yeah, Judy and I are about three-fourths split up. I moved out.” Guiltily I gazed down at my drink. “I’m trying to extricate myself. I shouldn’t go over there anymore.”

  “Is there someone else?”

  “No.” I looked up. “Just—it just doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t feel like I should stay with her anymore. I don’t even have a clear idea of what I want. I’m just restless, I guess.”

  “Stop saying ‘just’ all the time, like you’re an old dog dish. I know Judy, too, you know. I always thought she was too maternal for you.”

  “You think so?”

  “Oh, yeah, way, way—everybody could see it. So you’re trying to be responsible and end something before you get petrified into it. What’s wrong with that?”

  “That’s what I keep telling myself. So why do I feel like such a shit?”

  “Because, dear heart, without guilt to keep us going, we’d all die. We’d simply shrivel to bits.” He made a weary spiral motion with his hand. Then he gave a little start. He closed his eyes for a moment, then blasted them at me. He bent down close and said, “Would you say you’re on the prowl?”

  “Oh, God, no. Well, not yet, anyway. I mean, I guess it depends. Why?”

  He shot a glance over the top of my head. “The new DJ is why. I think she’s your type, Lil. Just turn slowly.”

  Well, wowie, there was a hell of an angel behind the glass in the disc jockey booth. Looks aren’t everything, I harshly reminded myself, then Kevin said, “She’s really a dear. But cool and aloof! Oh, God, she’s perfect for you. This is coming straight from my gut, you understand. Her name’s Jean. Gotta go.”

  Jean. I couldn’t say my heart stood still, but it sure, well, paused. The light that spilled into the DJ booth highlighted her close-trimmed jet-black hair, her high handsome forehead, her slender arms. She was wearing a scoop-neck T-shirt, black.

  I scooted my chair slightly and, in the quiet luxury of darkness, observed. The dance floor stretched between me and the booth; women swam back and forth in my field of vision, hiding then revealing Jean. I found myself swaying slightly in opposing measure to their movements so that Jean would come into view a split-second earlier and go out of view a split-second later.

  Jean had the coolest job at the bar: spinning tunes, conducting the emotions of the women on the dance floor, adjusting their heartbeats with tempo and lyrics. Unlike some DJs who are, oh, sort of egotistical, in love with being a bonbon under glass, Jean appeared matter-of-fact and professional.

  Her hands moved expertly among the records and CDs, adjusting the controls with minimal gestures. From time to time she sipped from a red plastic thermos cup. Her face shifted smoothly between expressions, now focusing calmly in the middle distance, now smiling slightly at perhaps a line in a song.

  What she played I couldn’t tell you. Although I love to dance, I’m bored practically to suicide by bar music. I try and try to relate to that disco-beat café music, but I can’t. Even most Women’s Music, with those capital letters, leaves me needing oxygen. So dip me in shit. What do I like? Real rock ’n’ roll. Bluegrass. Or classical, for God’s sake. If I never have to try to dance to “Bette Davis Eyes” again, it’ll be too soon.

  Of course, I immediately assumed Jean was unavailable—the first line of defense when the heart is awakened to a new and uncertain possibility. Get back to reality, said the little voice of reason in my head. I say “little.” I mean it.

  I looked down at my drink and swirled it. My thoughts drifted. I wondered if I could hold off grocery shopping for another few days; I worried about Judy; I tried to come up with an idea for the coming week’s editorial—maybe something about blooming where you’re potted. Maybe I could relate it to recycling.

  After a moment, still gazing into my drink, I became aware of a looming presence. My peripheral vision registered a sturdy leg encased in heavy blue denim. A work boot flew up from the floor and landed with a bang on the seat of the empty chair next to me. I didn’t have to look up to know it was Lou.

  But I did look up, out of reluctant politeness. I’m not short, but from my seated position it was a long way up from Lou’s booted foot to the yawning crotch of her overalls to her loud plaid shirt to her column-like neck to her stern red face, tonight sporting an aggressive smile for me.

  She leaned down and propped an elbow on her knee. She’d been letting her iron-streaked hair grow out, I noticed; she had it in a rather bouncy ponytail that took a few years off her. She was a Snapdragon regular.

  “I was hoping you’d come in tonight, and you did,” she said, a note of triumph in her scratchy voice.

  Lou had liked me for a long time, way before the Snapdragon existed. I thought she was a nice enough person, from a distance anyway. I have nothing against husky women in overalls who happen to be a little lacking in manners. I just didn’t like Lou the way she liked me. Over the years at the Snap and other places—blind pigs and house parties—I’d managed to dodge her advances without hurting her feelings. But tonight she was especially intent.

  “You and Judy,” she said, and drew a finger across her throat.

  “Well,” I said, “not exactly. Um...”

  She heaved her boot back to the floor, yanked out the chair, and straddled it. She appeared perfectly capable of devouring me in one bite. Her eyes locked into mine. “Are you or aren’t you two
together anymore?”

  “Well, Lou, see—”

  “Are you or aren’t you?”

  I stared down at my drink.

  “You look nice tonight, Lillian,” she volunteered in what she must have intended to be a tender tone. “Have you done something new to your hair? The color?”

  “No. It’s naturally brown.”

  “You’re cute. I’ve always thought you were very cute.”

  I am not cute. I’m homely. I’m a skinny, homely biscuit and I know it. I once socked a boy in junior high for calling me cute. We weren’t little kids on the playground, we were fourteen and right in the library, but I just couldn’t stand it.

  I make the best of things with fastidious hygiene and simple good clothes. And I make a point of getting quality haircuts and dental work.

  Lou bore down on me for a few more hellish minutes. After silently debating with myself, I decided on the honesty method.

  “Look, Lou, I’m really not interested. OK?”

  She pretended not to hear, so I had to repeat it, louder. Then she wanted to know why, and she wanted to argue with me about it. She wanted me to dance with her. She wanted me to acknowledge her qualities. She wanted me to appreciate her, goddamn it. The more I said, the worse it got. So I finally fell silent, forced into the rudeness method.

  After a while she shambled sorrowfully back to the pool tables where the other regulars were hanging, watching. I heard muffled hoots.

  I went back to scrutinizing Jean, whose beauty and charm were increasing by the minute. Yes, OK, she certainly gained by the contrast with Lou.

  Eventually I got up with my drink, intending to move over to the bar. I was feeling mellower. The Snapdragon was a fine place, truly, I mused. Kevin came by: “Need another? I should think you do. I saw you squirming over there under Lou’s, uh, attentions. But hey, what do you think of Jean?”

  “Don’t need another yet, thanks. Um, yeah, she seems nice.”