Sweet Dreams, page 12
“Let me check my schedule and get back to you.”
Kate thanked the Windsor Constables and she and Charlie headed for Detroit.
“What was that about with Giroux?”
“He wants to go out with me.”
“I think you make a cute couple,” Charlie said deadpan.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
Twenty-one
Ray was adjusting the viewfinder, zooming in on Yumi’s face when she came out of the bank, looking for the car. He wondered what she was thinking. And when she realized the car wasn’t there, he saw fear in her eyes. He watched her speed-walking past storefronts, fighting the urge to run, the sounds of sirens getting louder and closer.
The first time Ray saw Yumi, she had looked radiant in a stylish summer dress. He was having lunch at Nico’s in Windsor, salt-crusted branzino and a glass of Gavi di Gavi. He glanced out the window as she was crossing the street, and he did something he’d never done before, got up, walked out, and met her as she stepped onto the sidewalk. “At the risk of making a fool of myself, I have to say you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.” He had always been attracted to Japanese women.
Surprised and embarrassed, Yumi thanked him in her tiny voice and tried to move past him. “Have lunch with me.”
“I have just eaten.” She smiled. “Do you always wear a napkin in your shirt?”
“It’s a new style I’m trying out. What do you think?” Ray had forgotten about it but left it there tucked in the neck of his light blue Oxford dress shirt. “Have desert with me.”
“I have to return to work. I am already late.”
“Have dinner with me.”
“I really must go.”
Ray covered his heart with his hands in a theatrical gesture. “Watashi no kokoro ga kowarete imasu.”
“Dekimasen.” The girl smiled again. “Where did you learn Japanese?”
“In Japan, Tokyo, have you been?”
“I was born there.”
That’s how they’d met eighteen months ago. Yumi was an impressionable twenty-four-year old who had recently taken a job at Beam Suntori at the former Hiram Walker Distillery and didn’t know anyone in Windsor. Her family, originally from Tokyo, now lived in Toronto, and she missed them terribly.
Ray had taken his time getting to know her, gaining her trust, holding off getting intimate for a few weeks, and four months later, they were living together in the apartment on Riverside Drive.
One night having dinner on the balcony, looking out at the water, Yumi said, “Ray, can I ask you something? What do you do? You don’t seem to work, and we have a wonderful life. Where does the money come from?”
“I rob banks.”
She smiled and sipped her wine. “If you don’t want to tell me that’s okay.”
“I told you. I rob banks.”
Yumi put her wine glass on the table. “Are you serious?”
Ray nodded.
“Why?”
“That’s where the money is.” Ray sipped his wine.
“What if you get caught?”
“I’ve been doing it for twenty-seven years.” He dipped a shrimp in cocktail sauce, brought it to his mouth, but stopped. “Do you want to help me?”
“What would I do?”
“Go into the banks before I rob them, draw a diagram of the layout, tell me how many teller windows there are, where the manager sits, where the guard stands, where the cameras are positioned. How many ways in and out of the building.”
A few weeks later, nervous and afraid, Yumi went into a Detroit bank, looked around, made the necessary observations and walked out. What surprised her was how much she liked doing it. Casing a bank was way more exciting than working at Beam Suntori, where the work was boring and the salesmen, often intoxicated, flirted with her constantly.
The way Ray saw it, bringing the little Jap cutie in with him lessened his risk and made her an accessory.
When they started living together Ray told Yumi to call him shujin, which meant house master. Thinking he was serious she nodded and bowed. He told her there was a time when women in Japan weren’t allowed to own property and were totally subservient to men. Jesus, they could bring that rule back any time.
Once they were working together Yumi started to change, disagreeing and talking back, always asking for money—they were partners. She deserved a share.
Then, according to Yumi, he was losing too much at the racetrack. Her female instinct to fuck with him coming on strong. In Ray’s experience all women seemed to have it—some more than others—and it was just a matter of time till it emerged.
She was also talking about getting married and having kids. Yumi wanted a daughter she could dress up and take to the park. Then they would have a boy. Wouldn’t Ray like a son, someone he could play catch with? Yeah, that sounded like a lot of fun. The relationship was going sideways in a hurry, and Ray knew he had to do something but didn’t know what, until Yumi—tired of waiting for him to get off his ass—said she could rob a bank and he saw a way out.
Ray set the tripod in the soft grass near the riverbank and aimed the telescope at Canada some five-hundred yards away. A freighter appeared, creeping in from Lake St. Clair, and a couple speed boats zipped by. He felt free, no longer tied down in a relationship that was unraveling fast.
Behind him he could hear the heavy bass line of a hip-hop tune coming from a boom box. A black guy and his girl were sitting close on a blanket, smoking a joint on a hill behind him. Adjusting the viewfinder, Ray brought the apartment building into sharp clear focus. There was a Windsor police car parked near the entrance. He tilted the telescope moving up the facade to his balcony and saw two cops.
This was what he was expecting. The police had arrested Yumi, confiscated her passport and cell phone, checked her phone log, and interrogated her. But what could she tell them? What did she know? His name was Ray Carrick. He had cell phone service with Telus. He lived at 8052 Riverside Drive E, Windsor, Canada. The cops went inside and now a blonde-haired girl in street clothes came out and stood at the railing and appeared to be looking across the river at him.
“Dude, I like your ’scope, bet you can see the planets with that, huh? Big Dipper, Milky Way, and such. That’s some Star Wars shit.”
Ray stood and turned, looking at a cut black guy in a wife beater, early twenties, dreads, and muscles.
“What do you want?”
“Look through your ’scope.”
“You want to see Windsor? Drive over, check it out.”
“What’s your problem, man?”
Ray’s guess: the guy wanted more than the telescope. He started for the car and the guy moved with Ray, trying to cut him off.
“Where you going? I ain’t finished yet. Give me your money, motherfucker. Like a tariff. I let you go, let you off my island.”
Ray reached behind his back, pulled the silenced Beretta .380, and racked it. He looked for the girl but didn’t see her.
“What you think you gonna do with that?”
Ray shot him and got in the car. Driving now, he dialed Gord Spaling, let it ring half a dozen times.
A tired voice said, “Hey, there, sir. I was just gonna call you.”
“What were you gonna tell me?”
“You’re all set, furniture’s in storage with just enough room. Let me know when you want to move it back. Have you returned from your business trip? Are you in town?”
“What did you say to the police?”
There was silence for a couple beats, and then, “Wait just a minute. I didn’t say a darn thing. Sir, I don’t know anything.” Gord was defensive now, trying to backpedal out of a lie
“Who was the blonde cop you were talking to?”
“She’s a US marshal.”
“What’d you tell her?”
“I moved your furniture to a storage facility.”
“Did you give them the keys?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“It’s too late.” Ray hung up, picturing the marshals and Windsor police going through his things. The marshals, if they were any good, might find his fingerprints on various personal items. But he’d never been arrested, so the prints wouldn’t lead anywhere.
Ray stopped the car and got out. Walking toward the river, the nose of the giant freighter was almost to him. He threw the phone as far as he could and saw it disappear in the blue water. He had one loose end to tie up and decided there was no time like the present.
Twenty-two
Driving out of the tunnel into Detroit, Kate called Melvin Weston. “Melvin, you haven’t retired yet, I hope.”
“That you, McGraw? What’s up?”
“Bank robbery in Ferndale. Japanese girl, Yumika Sato from Canada, is in custody.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. What, they don’t have banks in Windsor, she’s gotta come over here?”
“She lived with a guy named Ray Carrick who fits the Shooter’s description. Positively ID’d from bank surveillance photos by the manager of the apartment building where he was living.” Kate heard voices in the background. “Where are you?”
“Crime scene on Belle Isle. Homicide. Looking across the water at Canada as we speak.”
“What happened?”
“This is a strange one. White man with a telescope set up on the edge of the river shoots a young black dude. Whole thing witnessed by the dude’s girlfriend.”
“What was the white guy looking at?”
“I don’t know.”
Was that who Kate had seen from the apartment balcony? At the time she didn’t think anything of it. But now it might mean something. “We’ll be right there.”
•••
The medical examiner was crouched next to the body as Kate and Charlie got out of the car and moved toward the crime scene where three Detroit uniforms stood outside the yellow tape, talking and smoking. Melvin saw them and said, “What, you’ve apprehended all the fugitives, got nothing else to do but help us with our murders?”
“Melvin, you know Charlie.”
“How’re you doing?”
Charlie gave him a nod.
Kate glanced at the dead man. “Who is he?”
“Darnell Hicks,” Melvin said. “Small timer tryin’ to stay clean. Now it’s not gonna be a problem.”
Kate turned her head to the riverbank and saw the telescope. She walked down the slope, crouched and peered in the viewfinder, looking at the balcony of the apartment building where she had stood hours earlier.
Charlie walked up behind her. “What you got?”
“Take a look.”
Charlie went down on one knee, looked through the lens, studying the scene across the river. “You believe this guy? He’s a freak.”
Kate said, “Why did Skinner leave the telescope?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “Maybe ’cause the dead guy was trying to hold him up.”
“He’s aware we’re onto him,” Kate said. “Wants to know what we know.”
Melvin walked down the slope and joined them. “Wanna talk to the girlfriend? Better do it now. She’s getting restless, wants to go home.”
“Where is she?” Kate said.
Melvin pointed at an old Plymouth sedan parked on the road.
“What’s her name?”
“Da Shae Morrison. Just graduated high school, taking it easy with her man on a hot summer day. Smokin’ a blunt, sippin’ on some ’Sco.”
Kate sat in the backseat of Melvin’s car across from the girl but left the door open. Da Shae had cornrows and wore black horn rims. “Hi, I’m Kate. I’m with the Marshals Service. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”
Da Shae, looking out the window, didn’t respond.
“Tell me what happened?”
Da Shae turned and faced her now. “We was just chill, you know, listening to Kendrick.”
“Who were you just chill with?”
“My boo, Darnell. So this white dude’s over there with the telescope. Darnell said he gonna check it out.”
“Where were you?”
“Up there.” She pointed at the top of a grassy ridge.
“Why do you think the man shot Darnell?”
“Was a racist motherfucker.”
“Did Darnell try to rob him?” Kate took a bank surveillance photo out of her bag and held it up. “Did you get a good look at the man? Is this him?”
Da Shae studied the image. “I think so.” And now trying to convince herself, she said, “Yeah, that’s the dude. That’s the motherfucker.”
“Did you see what kind of car he was driving?”
“Was a Malibu. My sister got one like it.”
“Anything else you remember that might help us catch the man?”
“Darnell was shot, right? Didn’t know what happen till I saw the man drivin’ away and I seen Darnell on the ground. Then he stops, gets out the car, throws something in the water.”
“What was it?”
“I think was a cell phone.”
“Thanks for your help.”
Kate went back to the crime scene. Charlie said, “Get anything?”
“Not much. She thinks it was Skinner but wasn’t especially convincing. She did positively ID his car, a Chevrolet Malibu. What about you, Melvin, got anything?”
Detective Weston reached in his sport coat pocket and brought out a plastic evidence bag that had a casing in it. “Head stamp says it’s a .380.”
“From a Beretta semiautomatic would be my guess,” Kate said. “Did you retrieve bullet frags at any of the banks?”
“As a matter of fact,” Melvin said.
“And did you dust the telescope?”
“Step ahead of you, McGraw.”
“I hope so.”
•••
Kate knocked on the door to the judge’s chambers, opened it, and went in. Judge Steve was at his desk, a Dire Straits tune playing in the background. He glanced at her. “This better be important, McGraw.”
She never knew what he was going to say but expected a friendlier reception after saving his life. “Good to see you, too, Your Honor. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“What do you want?”
“I have a situation. I need a favor.”
“Sit down and tell me about it.”
Kate sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. “I have a witness with inside information about a serial bank robber operating in the Detroit area.”
“You’re talking about the Shooter?”
Kate nodded.
“What’s the problem?”
“The witness was arrested for driving under the influence. He’s going to trial next week and then—and I’m only guessing—to the Oakland County Jail.”
“How many DUIs?”
“I don’t know.”
“What city?”
“Birmingham.”
“Who’s presiding?”
“Judge Zimmer.”
“I know her, and you do have a problem.”
“Is there anything you can do to help?”
“I have no jurisdiction or authority with the state court. I’ll have to think about it, think of an angle.” Judge Steve looked across the room. “You might have a better chance on your own. Zimmer doesn’t particularly care for me. You’re a federal officer. Why don’t you tell the judge your situation?”
Kate didn’t say anything.
“Who’s the witness?”
“My father.”
“Your father, huh? This is getting good. Why do I get a feeling there’s more to it than you’re telling me?”
“He’s an ex-con, did eighteen years in Victorville for armed robbery.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know. Frank was released about a month ago and looked me up.”
“You call your dad Frank?”
“That’s his name.”
“Not ‘dad’ or ‘father’?”
“I don’t think of him that way. He took off when I was six.”
“Did your mother tell you what happened to him?”
“All she said was he didn’t want to be married anymore, didn’t want to be a father. I thought it was my fault. Every time I brought him up she’d say she didn’t want to talk about it.”
“The marriage fell apart, and you felt partly to blame.”
“Now you sound like Judge Judy.”
His Honor gave her a dirty look and broke into a smile. “Judge Judy, huh? That’s the worst thing you could say to a real judge.”
“I knew you’d see the humor in it.”
He paused. “Okay, I’ll call Zimmer for you.”
Kate was surprised by his sympathetic point of view, surprised by his interest and willingness to help. And surprised by what he said next.
“I owe you that at the very least. But I’m not promising anything.”
•••
Kate unlocked the apartment door and heard voices. Walking through the living room she saw Frank and another man at the kitchen table. They were drinking beer and talking loud.
Frank saw her and said, “We’ve been waiting for you. Honey, this grizzled old fool is Bill Thompson, my benefactor. Bill, my daughter, Kate, the US marshal.”
“Kate, nice to finally meet you.” Thompson stood and offered his hand and they shook.
“Pour a glass of wine and join us,” Frank said.
“I have to take care of a couple things,” she said, trying not to sound angry. Kate wanted to take it easy after a long day and now had these two half-drunk ex-cons to deal with.
