Bill Morris - Motor City Burning

Charlotte Armstrong returned with a silver tea service and motioned for the men to sit in the matching chairs that faced across the coffee table toward the sofa, where she installed herself, regal as a queen. The chairs were wrapped in hard plastic and they crackled when the detectives sat down. There was a plate on the coffee table stacked high with bricks of fresh-baked crumb cake. The men did as they were told and helped themselves. It was delicious, still warm, loaded with brown sugar and cinnamon, and there was a long reverent silence as they ate.

Doyle got things started by asking Charlotte Armstrong if she was feeling better.

“Yes, I’m better today, praise the Lord. Like I tole you on the phone, I been in bed the past two days with a misery in my back.”

“Is that your husband?” Jimmy asked, motioning toward the grinning man on the I-beam.

“Yes, that’s my Charles. He passed last Christmas.”

“I’m sorry for your—”

“Rose to treasurer in his ironworker’s local, first time a Negro was ever elected an officer. Made good money, too, a hundred and sixty a week plus overtime, enough for me to have my own car. That picture there was taken on the twenty-first floor of the new Pontchartrain Hotel downtown. Heights didn’t mean a thing to Charles. Worked forty-one years on high iron, what he did his whole life.”

Jimmy was thinking about how Detroiters love to boast about their wages when Doyle said, “Looks like Charles loved his work.”

It was the perfect thing to say. Charlotte Armstrong beamed at him, and again Jimmy had to marvel at his partner’s knack for putting people at ease, getting them to tell him things.

Doyle pointed at two pictures of a young man in a gold frame: one a muddied but grinning football player holding his helmet against his hip, the other a beaming graduate in an indigo cap and gown.

“That your son?” he asked.

“Yes, thas my James. He’s the spit and image of his father. The Lord done raised me up a holy son. He’s an accountant at Ford’s. Yesterday were his birthday.”

“And how old he got to be yesterday?” Jimmy said.

“He done made twenty-six. Spent the whole afternoon in that chair you’re sitting in. He do comfort my gray hairs.”

In one smooth move Doyle shifted gears — finished his crumb cake, put down his tea cup, took out a notebook and ballpoint pen. “Now Mrs. Armstrong,” he said, “Mr. Hull tells me that when he came to visit you, you told him about some things you saw last July 26th. Tell us, what exactly did you see that night?”

She put down her tea cup, pinkie extended, and patted her lips with her napkin. She was enjoying herself. Doing her civic duty.

“It must of been after midnight,” she said. “Yes, it was definitely past midnight because Charles and I stayed up to watch the late news about the riot. Then he went on to bed because he had to get up early for a job he was just starting out in Troy at—”

“Yes, it was after midnight. . ” Doyle could keep people on track without them realizing there was a track.

“I had all the lights off on account of the snipers, naturally, and I was sitting by that window there, looking out across the freeway. It looked like a war over on Grand Boulevard. Tanks and guns going off. Fire trucks and po-lice. Sirens. I probably shouldn’t of been so close to the window, but it was a furnace-hot night and there was so much noise weren’t no way I could sleep.”

“What did you see next?”

“A car pulled up right down below that window.”

“What kind of car was it?” Doyle had started writing in his notebook.

“Oh goodness, Detective, I don’t know much about cars. And the street was dark on account of they shot out all the streetlights. There was a moon, though.”

“Were the car’s headlights on?”

“No, but when the car doors opened I could see by the inside lights that it were real pretty. Shiny like. But it weren’t no new car. Had lots of chrome like cars use to have.”

“Do you have any idea what kind of car it was? Was it a big car like a Cadillac? Or small like a Mustang? Or—”

“Gracious no. My eyes aren’t so good anymore.”

Doyle didn’t write that down. He said, “How about the color?”

“Well, the seats were red and black, that much I could see by the inside lights.”

Jimmy said, “You say the car doors opened, Mrs. Armstrong. Two doors, three doors, four?”

She looked at Jimmy. She seemed surprised to see him sitting there.

“Two doors,” she said to Doyle. “And two men got out.”

“Did you recognize them?” he said.

“No, from this angle I couldn’t see their faces. And it being so dark—”

“Could you tell if they were black or white?”

“They were both Negroes, of that I’m sure.”

“How can you be sure?”

“They were wearing short-sleeve shirts. One was fat, the other was much taller. And thin.”

“What’d they do next?”

“They opened the trunk and stood there talking for the longest. Sounded like they were arguing. Then the fat man took something out the trunk. Looked like one a them bags soldiers carry. You know, a, a—”

“Duffel bag?”

“That’s it, a duffel bag. And then he carried it cross the lawn and into the building. The other man followed him. In the moonlight I could see that the fat man, the one carrying the duffel bag, had a limp. I could still hear them talking—”

“Could you make out what they were saying?”

“No, they were talking too low. I’m sorry.”

“That’s fine, Mrs. Armstrong. You’re doing just fine. What’d you hear next?”

“I heard the downstairs door open.”

“Is that door always kept locked?”

“Oh yes. They’s been a buzzer on the front door since we moved in here five years ago.”

“Can you hear the buzzer from up here?”

“Yes, I can.”

“Did you hear the buzzer before the men opened the door?”

“Come to think of it, no. I didn’t.”

“So these men had a key to the front door?” Doyle and Jimmy exchanged a smile.

“Well, yes,” she said, “I suppose so. I hadn’t thought about it, but I suppose you’re right.”

“So the men came in through the front door.”

“Yes, I heard them come up the first flight of stairs — no voices, just footsteps. They passed our door, then kept on going upstairs. I heard someone knock on a door. For a while after that I didn’t hear a thing. I figured they’d gone into an apartment and that was the end of it. I was fixin to go to bed — but then I heard their voices again.”

“Where?”

“Coming from up above.” She pointed at the ceiling. “But I don’t think they were inside the building.”

“Why not?”

“Well, they were laughing, talking loud. The way their voices carried, it just sounded like they were outside.”

“On the roof?”

“The fifth floor’s kept locked on account of that’s where the residents store they spare things. But yes, it sounded like there were two men on the roof, maybe three.”

“Who has a key to the fifth floor?”

“I wouldn’t know. We never stored anything up there.”

“Did you hear anything else?”

“Oh yes.” She smoothed the lap of her dress, brushed away a crumb. Doyle and Jimmy were afraid to look at each other. They could hear the roar of the freeway, the ticking of a clock. Finally she said, “I heard gunshots.”

“How many?”

“I counted nine.”

“And then what?”

“Then it stopped. I heard two men talking very loud — arguing again. They might of been drunk. Before long I heard a car coming up the street — it was a po-lice.”

“Yes? And then?”