Bryan Gruley - The Skeleton Box

“You have a ways to go.”

“How did you get stuck with him?”

“Stuck with him? I’m glad to have him. The guy’s a pro.”

“OK.”

“What does that mean?”

She pulled her hair back on her head. “Rumors. I don’t know.”

“Come on. Anything in particular? Or just beer blather at the Anchor?”

“Evidently he’s quite the wheeler-dealer.”

That was no surprise. I decided not to tell Joanie about Whistler and Tawny Jane Reese. During her Pilot days, Joanie had called T.J. “Twitchy-Butt.”

“Well, his clips looked great.”

“Yeah?” Joanie said. “How many had solo bylines?”

“There were some JVs in there. The guy was getting ready to retire.”

“He’s not that old.”

“Hell, I’m all for retiring at fifty-six. Anyway, he said he was mentoring the youngsters, letting them have bylines.”

“Huh. He might’ve had it backward. I think he smashed more computers in the last few years than he wrote stories.”

“This isn’t just a Times thing, is it?” I said. “You know-he’s a Freep reporter, therefore he sucks?”

She grinned. “Of course. You want me to ask around about him?”

“Knock yourself out. Did you get me that appointment?”

“I got us the appointment.”

“Ah.” I’d expected that. She wasn’t letting me have anything to myself.

“Nine a.m. At a golf course in Redford.”

“Redford. Why a golf course?”

“That’s what the flack wanted.”

“What flack? What do they need a PR guy for?”

“Got me. That’s who called me back.”

She stood and walked across the room to the nail where her jacket hung. She came back wrapping herself in black leather to her knees. She kept coming until she was standing so close that I could smell the almond wash again. She pointed a fingernail shellacked in scarlet at the half-moon scar on her chin.

“You know how I got this?” she said.

“Nope.”

The music, Creedence now, ended abruptly in the middle of “Lodi,” the 3:15 silence as sudden as a shriek.

“A puck.”

“At a Wings game?”

“My center throws me a cross-ice pass.” She took a step back and positioned her hands as if they were holding a hockey stick. My center throws me a cross-ice pass? When Joanie was in Starvation, she’d had no use whatsoever for the game I loved.

“I’m about to catch it on my backhand when this idiot from the other team shoves his stick in the way and the puck flies up and catches me.”

“Get out of here. You’re playing hockey?”

“Novice. Lots of leaners out there.”

“Benders,” I corrected her.

“Right.”

“And tripods.”

She pushed her face in close to mine, and for half a second I thought she might kiss me. Joanie McCarthy, who had called me a coward to my face when she had worked for me. Now she was sending me weekly e-mails about my coming to Detroit for a visit. And she was one of only a handful of Pilot subscribers who had the paper mailed to her in Detroit. “I’m not a tripod,” she said.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“See. You really did teach me things.” She looked at my beer. “You going to take that with you?”

“I’d rather drink Freon.”

“Freon’s a gas. You can’t drink it. If you want to know more about this Breck dude, you’re coming with me.”

“I’ve got to get some sleep. At least an hour or so. I don’t suppose the cops would appreciate me snoozing in my truck.”

“You’re coming to my place. We need a computer. Leave your truck. We’re not going to get much sleep.”

I had heard that line from a woman or two before, and it hadn’t had anything to do with computers. I must have sounded stupid when I blurted, “Why?”

She was already halfway down the stairs. “Now,” she said.

Joanie lived in a rented loft apartment near the Eastern Market. The old floors creaked as we made our way down the shadowed corridors. Passing one door, I heard the muted cadence of a weatherman telling Detroit it would be cloudy and cold. No news there. I smelled bread toasting, pictured someone climbing out of a shower.

Secretly, I felt a little nervous as we made our way to the end of one hallway and Joanie’s place. I’d once had a girlfriend who had lived two floors up in that very building and, so far as I knew, still did. She worked at the Free Press and was often out schmoozing sources this late. I’d shot five a.m. pool with her at Aggeliki’s, in fact; she was damn good at sinking the nine on the break.

I was relieved to have Joanie’s door shut behind us.

Her apartment was spare and neat, except for the two cheap wooden desks shoved against the wall beneath her loft. A knot of wires and surge protectors surrounded two computer terminals and keyboards crowded atop one of the desks. The other desk was stacked a foot deep with dog-eared files, stuffed into accordion folders. More files were piled on the hardwood floor next to the desk. Leaned against that stack was the backpack from her Pilot days.

“Still got that thing, eh?” I said. “It’s big enough, you could use it for your hockey gear.”

Joanie was lighting a candle. It smelled of tart berries. “The guy next door smokes like a chimney,” she said. “Back in a minute.” She disappeared behind a door in the wall behind the wooden ladder ascending to the loft.

I listened. From behind the door came a few clicks, then a mechanized voice. “You have one new message,” it said. “Call received today at twelve fifty-eight a.m.” There came another click, then a whooshing sound, probably traffic, maybe in a freeway tunnel. “Hey, babe,” echoed a man’s voice. “I think I got what you-”

Joanie cut it off before Frenchy could say anything more. But an alarm of recognition already had gone off in my head. Frenchy was the guy my old girlfriend, the one who’d lived upstairs, had thrown over for me years before. I had never met him. But I had heard that voice, the one I’d heard over the pool table at Aggeliki’s, on an answering machine just like Joanie’s in an apartment just like Joanie’s. My old girlfriend’s apartment. He left a lot of messages on that machine. Too many.

He had been a computer tech at the Free Press. My girlfriend, whose name was Michele, had called him Albert, or Bert, or Bertie. I didn’t remember her calling him “Frenchy.” She would have thought it a silly nickname, which it was. Maybe he’d given it to himself later. I did remember the things he had threatened to do to her after she had stopped taking his calls. And how, instead of squealing to her bosses at the paper, Michele instead mentioned the guy’s threats to a couple of cops she knew, who had a men-to-man talk with him. After that, she never heard from him again. He eventually left the Freep amid rumors that he kept showing up at the college dormitory of a summer intern he’d had a fling with.

I sat down on one of the vinyl-backed chairs at Joanie’s kitchen table, wishing I was back in Starvation. Joanie emerged barefoot in gray sweats and a white River Rats jersey striped in gold and blue. I recognized it immediately as one I had worn as a kid. The number, 35, was faded, and the “R” and second “E” in “CARPENTER” across the back had peeled away.

“Where did you get that?” I said.

“Your mom. She sent it with a nice note about the time I spent with her up north. Would you like to read it?” She looked ruefully at her desk. “Not sure I could find it.”

“I think I’ve had enough surprises for one day.”

“I think your mom’s sweet.” Joanie motioned toward the fridge. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“No, but I’m starving.”