Angela Flournoy - The Turner House

As ambivalent as he felt about being a cop, Troy didn’t want to end up disgraced. Three years before, he would have said that he hated the police, especially in Detroit, where they could take over an hour to respond to 911 calls yet expected residents to respect them. Now that he was one of “them,” he knew that limited resources did play a role in delayed response times, but he’d also seen his colleagues, both black and white, shrug off calls to protect and serve folks in the worst parts of the city in favor of others. Francis Turner had never liked Detroit police. He’d told Troy that the only difference between a southern cop and a northern one was that if the northern one killed you, he would try harder to make it look like an accident.

“Alright,” Troy said. “Just call him.”

He took off his seat belt, reclined his chair. If he were patrolling this area, he’d shine a light into a suspicious car like this, or at least drive by at a crawl to encourage the driver to move on. He considered himself fortunate that his district, the Central District, didn’t include much of the waterfront. He’d heard of cops stumbling upon major drug drop-offs from Canada, catching idiots attempting to dump bodies or guns into the river, violent confrontations. The water attracted a higher-skilled breed of lowlife.

David made the call on speaker. The line rang once, then he hung up. Troy began to say something, but David cut him off.

“This is how we do this,” he said. “I let it ring once, then he calls back.”

David pulled out his smartphone and played a game. Solitaire. Out of all of the new interactive, drag-and-drop and bubble-pop games available on a phone like that, David picked solitaire. Above all, Troy Turner valued potential, and he had begun to suspect that David’s potential for success was outpacing his own. Maybe it was because David had simple desires. He didn’t want everything, like Troy did, so it was easier for him to work slow and steady toward his modest goals. Small business installing cable and Internet; a loft on the newly revitalized RiverWalk; a couple cheap properties throughout the city. It was more than Troy possessed but far less than what he desired.

A few nights before, Troy had sat on his sofa, Jillian’s head in his lap, his hand on her angular shoulder, and tried to conjure up a segue into the topic of his illegal short sale. They watched one of the many food and travel shows that Jillian liked. This one featured a white man in a rumpled dress shirt and slacks in what looked to Troy like Bangkok, peering into pots of local fish stew. The show broke for a commercial, a perfect amount of time for Troy to say what he needed to say and get an answer from her with minimal follow-up questions.

He’d pitched his plan matter-of-factly, as if being concise would make it feel less illegal. He never mentioned forging signatures or falsifying deeds. He’d kept his hand on her shoulder, kneaded it a little.

“Basically, cause you know how these banks are, running through your whole family tree trying to get their money, I was thinking we could short-sell to you. I’d pay the money.”

Jillian jumped up from where she was lying. Troy’s hand flew from her shoulder and smacked him on his own chin.

“What the fuck, Troy?”

“What the fuck what?”

“We just talked about both of us putting more into the savings, and now you’re tryna get me caught up in some money scheme with our money?”

“It’s not some money scheme, Jillian,” Troy had said. “It’s my mama’s house. Damn.”

He had dabbled in less-than-sure things in the past. Once he’d bought in to a classic pyramid scheme, ostensibly selling poorly crafted cell phone accessories, but the real money was made by getting other people to sign on underneath him. That lasted a month. He’d been seduced at mansion parties out in the suburbs, where self-appointed tech gurus, health and fitness gurus, and experts in the emerging Michigan wine market had convinced him to “buy in” to this or that product or service, then foist it onto his loved ones and coworkers for meager profits. He’d never recouped his seed money from any of these “investments.” But he was done with that sort of thing, had sworn it off after the winery venture didn’t pan out.

“I’m really disappointed right now . . . you haven’t put any money . . . in the savings account since February . . . I checked.”

Jillian took a deep breath every few words. Around the holidays they’d had a shouting match that caused her to have an asthma attack so bad she’d ended up hospitalized. Afterward she and Troy agreed not to yell anymore. Deep breaths were how Jillian diffused her anger. Avoiding eye contact and feigning indifference were how Troy attempted to control his.

“It’s not that much money, compared to what we actually owe. It’s the best way to get my mom out that loan—we short-sell it, and the bank just writes off what she owed them as a loss. I’ll start putting more in the savings each month, starting on the first.”

“That’s what you said in February . . . but it never happened . . . How bout you just let me know . . . if you want out of the savings . . . altogether?”

They’d opened a joint account right after Jillian earned her cosmetology license. At thirty-two she’d quit her job as a flight attendant and begun pursuing a dream to own her own salon. The savings was for a down payment on some sort of split-level property in a decent neighborhood where she could have a salon on the first floor and they could live on the second. They’d met at a job fair at Cobo Center three years before, back when Troy was living with Viola on Yarrow. He’d been out of the service for six months, still smarting from the way his ex-wife, Cara, had left him and taken their daughter to Germany. He and Cara had not been doing well, true. He’d cheated three times, yes. Still, Troy thought he was owed one more chance, one more opportunity to straighten up. He never got it. His sister Netti, always thinking dollars and cents, had harangued him into going to the job fair, reminding him that his pension for twenty years of service wouldn’t be enough to live on after paying child support. Jillian was there, a volunteer rep for the airline she worked for at the time. Once she’d sussed out that he was a pensioned vet, not your average deadbeat, she introduced him to the guy at the Detroit Police Department table, talked Troy up to the man as if she’d known both of them for years. There was a big sign at the table saying INFORMATION ONLY. DEPARTMENT NOT HIRING, but Troy still received a call for an interview. Back then, Jillian oozed potential from her pores. When they moved in together, Troy made a vow to himself to do better this time, to simply leave before cheating again. He was getting old for the lies required, all of the ducking and dodging. He’d kept that promise so far. But he now wondered if there wasn’t a better way for Jillian to harness her potential. She had been doing hair for nearly two years and had yet to secure a decent roster of clients to justify her booth rent.

“Do you know how many weaves I’d have to put in to get that money back?” she had continued. “A lot of fucking weaves, trust me. And it’s not like your family needs more reasons to hope we break up. Do you want em to hate me?”

“It’s not even that much money. Like two thousand—”

“The money’s not the point.” Jillian had turned off the TV and searched Troy’s face. “Why do you wanna do this? Why you and me? You act like you’re the only one of the thirteen that could buy the place. Rahul could do it, and I’m sure he’s got better credit than me.”

Troy couldn’t say, and because he offered no convincing reason, Jillian had refused.