The building itself was an ugly structure that probably hadn’t met a housing code since Nixon took office. You certainly wouldn’t find it on any of the brochures at the Grosse Pointe Hospitality Center.
The coroner’s van was already outside.
I parked the lovely white Sunbird right out on the street. I sort of hoped someone would steal it—that way I could share the embarrassment a little bit.
I climbed the steps and walked inside, where I saw my sister standing in the doorway. She had her hand on the butt of her gun and was watching the coroner and crime scene technicians doing their thing. She turned to me as I got to the top of the rickety steps.
“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” she said. No place was sacred when it came to my sister giving me crap.
“Your buddy Nate call you?” she said. Ellen lifted her chin, and I saw him outside, talking on a cell phone. He was eating what looked to be a corndog. I looked around to identify the possible source of the corndog, maybe a diner or something. Nothing. You had to admit, the guy was pretty impressive.
“My instincts brought me here,” I told her.
“Your instincts are about as sharp as the vic’s,” she said, and gestured toward the inside of the house. She walked off in that direction, and I followed. She hadn’t invited me to tag along but she wasn’t telling me to take a hike, either. I wasn’t sure why she put up with me. On good days, I believed she liked having me around to watch her back. On bad days, I was certain she did it for me out of pity. The successful sister, chief of police, pitying her disgraced, deadbeat PI brother. The duty of the sister just as important as the duty of the law. Maybe there was a little bit of both in her reasoning to let me hang out. I doubted I would ever know. I sure as hell knew Ellen wouldn’t tell.
I followed her deeper into the apartment. I wouldn’t have imagined it possible for the inside of this place to look worse than the outside, but that was the case. The smell was bad, of course. My sense of smell, always reasonably astute, told me that the death hadn’t happened terribly recently. Maybe not long after Jesse Barre had been killed.
We got to the doorway to the living room, and I said to Ellen, “Who is the vic, by the way?”
She stopped outside the room where crime scene technicians were finishing up. Flashbulbs were still popping. I saw fingerprint dust spread all around, and the coroner was in the process of removing the body.
“His name was Rufus Coltraine,” she said.
“Never heard of him.”
“Released from Jackson a few months ago.” Jackson, as in Jackson State Prison.
“What had he been in for?” I said.
“Armed robbery. Assault. Attempted murder.”
“Nice guy.”
“See what’s over in the corner?” she said. I stepped past her. There, propped up against the wall, was an astonishingly beautiful guitar.
A Jesse Barre Special. I knew it instantly. The incredible grain of the wood. The styling of the frets, the craftsmanship that was so apparent in every wormholed inch of the thing.
“How’d he die?” I said.
“Nobody taught him portion control.”
Ellen didn’t have to give me her version of what had happened—it was obvious. The recently released Mr. Coltraine, like so many convicts unable to adjust to life outside, instantly reverted to his criminal past and went on the prowl. He spotted a lone woman working late at night, and he broke in and gave her a little bit of what he learned in prison. So he killed Jesse Barre. A crime of opportunity. Mr. Coltraine snatched a couple of guitars, bought some crack or heroin or whatever he was into to celebrate, and had just a little too much of a celebratory toot.
End of story.
I looked over the scene before me in the living room. It was a dump in every sense of the word. Stains on the floor, holes punched in the drywall.
Apparently Mr. Coltraine had fallen off the rickety, gutted couch onto the living room floor. Truly a party gone bad. Plastic baggies, spoons, and other paraphernalia were carefully marked on the floor.
And a couple feet away was a guitar. My sister walked over to it, stepping carefully. I followed suit until we both stood over it, looking down.
It was a beauty, all right. The wood had a grain I’d never seen before. Almost like a sixties rock concert poster, full of weird vibes and deep patterns you could almost fall into. It was beautiful. A work of art.
“Can you say, ‘Case closed’?” Ellen said.
I looked at the guitar again, this time more closely. I had learned a little bit on my studies when I took the case. I recognized the incredible grain of the wood, naturally. I recognized the grain and styling of the neck as well. The bridge. The pick guard. And I knew what the fancy stuff was.
However, there was one giant flaw in the guitar.
I didn’t see Shannon Sparrow’s name on it.
I remembered what Clarence Barre had told me about the guitar Jesse was building for Shannon Sparrow. He had said that Jesse put a little brass piece of metal somewhere near the top that bore Shannon Sparrow’s name. Like the one on B.B. King’s guitar that says “Lucille.” I saw no such mark.
I looked at my sister.
“Something’s not right,” I said.
The other people in the room, the crime scene technicians and a few fellow officers, didn’t really stop, but it seemed to me that things got a bit quieter.
“What did you say?” Ellen asked me.
“My client told me that Jesse had built a guitar for Shannon Sparrow,” I said. “It was her masterpiece. She was making it for Shannon to play at the free concert she’s putting on here in Grosse Pointe. With Clarence Barre’s help, I’ve looked for it everywhere. It’s gone. It had to have been stolen during the robbery. And this guitar isn’t it. Her father described it to me—”
“How did he know?” Ellen interrupted me. “Did he see it?”
“I don’t know. She might have told him about it.”
“So he didn’t actually see the guitar himself?”
I turned to her. “Look, Ellen. I don’t know what he saw or didn’t see. All I’m telling you—”
“You’re not telling me anything. And you know why? Because you don’t know anything. Come back and talk to me when you do.”
That’s thing about my sister. She’s as stubborn and pigheaded as anyone. She’d pieced together what happened. She was going to clear the case and wasn’t ready to look at a different viewpoint. Which was fine. It was that single-minded, tenacious approach to things that had made her a success. But maybe once she’d had a chance to settle down, she’d be more receptive to alternate theories. Doubtful, but I am a highly positive man. The Norman Vincent Fucking Peale of Private Investigators. That would look great on my business card. Note to self.
She turned back to me. “Look, even if it isn’t the guitar, who cares? So Rufus here stole two guitars, sold one, took the money, and got high. He kept the other one for a rainy day. Unfortunately, the drugs were too good, and he never got around to selling his nest egg.”
I nodded. “Sure,” I said. Here was where I should tuck tail. Pick it up again later. Of course, I never follow my own good advice.
“You have to admit, though, ol’ Rufus might have had a little trouble selling a highly recognizable guitar like a Jesse Barre Special to anyone.”
“Yeah, fences are usually pretty picky,” she said.
“It was, after all, stolen,” I said. “If a fence got caught with it, he’d lose his investment. So not anyone would be willing to take it.”
“Yes, people dealing with stolen goods are highly risk-averse,” she said.
“But let’s say he found a fence.”
“Which he probably did, if in fact, he had this Shannon Sparrow guitar. Maybe he never took it. You can’t prove he did.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “If Rufus Coltraine had stolen two guitars that link him directly to a homicide, and he finds a fence who’ll buy them, would he really decide, ‘oh, what the heck, I’ll keep one’? Even if it means life in prison? For a rainy day?”