It was useless. There were blocks and blocks of houses on either side of the street. If we turned down one street we’d see another block and then another intersection. Right, left, or straight, it would just be more of the same. The whole west side of Detroit, all those brick houses lined up in rows. He could have been in any one of them.
“Keep looking,” the sergeant said. “But tell me what happened.”
I gave him the basic facts. Seeing the young man on the tracks, chasing him when he fled, his escape through the fence.
“You called for backup then,” the sergeant said.
“Yes, but at that point it was just trespassing, then evading. I had no idea that…” I didn’t finish the sentence.
The sergeant shook his head, but before he could say anything the radio squawked, looking for Unit Forty-one. The sergeant picked up the transmitter.
“I’ve got him right here,” he said. “I’ll bring him back to the scene.”
He put the transmitter back and swung the car south at the next intersection.
“You’re the only one who saw this guy. Am I right?”
“I’m the only one who got a good look at his face,” I said, looking out the window as we raced back to the train station.
“Sounds like you’re going to be a very popular man.”
There were a dozen cars at the train station. Our car was one of them. Franklin must have been sent to retrieve it. It was going on six o’clock now, two hours past my shift. I knew my night was far from over.
I took a deep breath as I got out of the sergeant’s car. I thanked him. He was officially on duty now, so he stuck around to help coordinate.
There was a train stopped at the station, the air brakes hissing. I saw Detective Arnie Bateman waving me over. After all the time I’d spent avoiding him that day, this was real business, and I knew he’d be right in the middle of it.
“This is the five forty-five Amtrak,” he said as soon as I was in earshot. “We held it up to ask the passengers if they saw anything while they were waiting.”
“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.”