Bill Morris - Motor City Burning

He found a Big Boy on Telegraph and picked at a slice of apple pie and drank half a dozen cups of coffee while reading the Detroit News . He was relieved to see that they’d played Alphonso Johnson’s confession on the metro page instead of the front page, but they ran a long sidebar about the ongoing Helen Hull investigation with a picture of Henry and Helen in their aprons out in front of the old familiar Greenleaf Market, back before this city lost its mind. Doyle left his half-finished pie on the counter and headed back to Oakland Hills.

He found Bob Brewer sitting alone in Dick Kowalski’s office reading Time magazine, his bow tie loose, his waiter’s jacket unbuttoned. Handsome guy, but he looked tired. Brewer stood up when the detective walked in, shook his hand, looked him in the eye. Doyle decided to open the conversation on a genial note. “Dick Kowalski tells me you’re the best waiter he’s got on the staff, Mr. Brewer.”

“He said that for real?”

“Scout’s honor. You sure do put in some long hours.”

“Yeah, these private parties tend to run late. Car guys, you know.”

“Right, car guys. But you work hard even when you’re off the clock.”

“Sir?”

“You’ve managed to put together quite an impressive little real-estate empire.”

Bob Brewer stared at the detective. “I can see you do your homework,” he said, and there was an edge to the compliment. His way of announcing that he didn’t appreciate having a cop snoop around in his private affairs. So much for the genial note.

“Just doing my job,” Doyle said, giving him the bland smile.

“You know, it’s a funny thing,” Bob Brewer said, but he wasn’t smiling. “For once I feel like the world’s playing right into my hands.”

“How’s that, Mr. Brewer?”

“Well, you’ve obviously researched the public records. So you know I bought up most of that real estate in the past three years — and a bunch of it since the riot. I’m picking up nice pieces of property at fire-sale prices, so to speak. And you know why?”

“Cause whitey’s heading for the hills?”

The man in the starched jacket smiled for the first time, and Doyle could see that he had beautiful teeth. Black people had the best teeth and the prettiest babies. “That’s exactly right,” Bob Brewer said, chuckling at the irony of Detroit’s panicked real-estate market and at the detective’s candor about such a delicate racial topic. “Cause whitey’s heading for the hills. You happen to notice all those For Sale signs on my block?”

Doyle filed this away. If the man knew he’d already been to Normandy Street, then the wife had obviously called to alert him. Wise, wary people. Doyle respected that. “As a matter of fact I did notice the signs, Mr. Brewer.”

“They’re not my fault.”

“Your fault? I don’t follow you.”

“You see, I’m no pioneer. I wasn’t the first black man to buy a house on Normandy Street. I was the third. I waited and went in six months after the riot. Bought that big Tudor for a song. Like I say, the world’s playing right into my hands.”

“That’s great, Mr. Brewer.” Doyle could tell the small talk was loosening him up, so he decided to keep the ball rolling. “Were you born here in Detroit?”

“No, I’m from Alabama originally. Little town called Andalusia.”

“Andalusia? Never heard of it.”

“Nobody has. It’s a little dot on the map bout halfway between Tuskegee and Mobile. Came up here when I was nineteen and never went back. Feels like I been here my whole life.”

Enough small talk. Doyle cleared his throat. “Mr. Brewer, I need to ask you a few questions about your rental property at the corner of Pallister and Hamilton, the Larrow Arms.” And with that, the oxygen in the room changed, went from cool geniality to deep frost. “One of your tenants, Mrs. Charlotte Armstrong, tells me something happened in the building on the morning of July 26th last year. That was a Wednesday, during the riot.”

“You spoke with Mizz Charlotte?”

“Yes.”

“She’s a great lady, my dream tenant. But she’s getting on in years—”

“She may be getting on in years, Mr. Brewer, but she’s not blind and she’s not deaf. She saw two black men get out of an older model car beside the building sometime after midnight that night. One was fat, the other was tall and thin. She heard them enter the building and climb the stairs to an upper floor. Then she heard voices coming from the rooftop. Then she heard gunshots. Nine of them.”

Doyle waited for this to sink in, watching Bob Brewer’s expression. So far, nothing. Doyle pushed on. “You know of any tenants from last summer who might’ve had an older model car? One with a red-and-black interior? Lots of chrome?”

Bob Brewer ran his fingertips along his jaw. His fingernails were shiny. Doyle supposed he was lining up his lies, for the First Commandment of homicide work is that everyone, absolutely everyone, lies. There were glints in Bob Brewer’s close-cropped Afro, probably from one of those sprays the brothers use. Finally he said, “No sir, I’m trying but I can’t recall anyone in that building last summer who drove an older model car. I’m sorry.”

“Do you have a list of your tenants from last July?”

“Aw shit, Detective, people come and go so fast in that part of town. . ”

“But you strike me as the kind of guy who keeps pretty good records. Cancelled checks, things like that.”

“Oh sure. But a lot of people pay their rent with money orders, even cash. Some have leases, some don’t. Some sub-let, some let friends stay. I’ve got too many tenants to know exactly who was where and when they were there.”

It was time to shift gears. “Mrs. Armstrong tells me the fifth floor is kept locked, that tenants store things up there.”

“That’s right.”

“And I assume you get to the roof from the fifth floor.”

“That’s right. There’s two doors that open onto the roof.”

“Any idea who has a key to the fifth floor?”

“I got one somewhere.”

“Anybody else?”

“The super’s got one.”

“And what’s his name?”

“Thompson. Anthony Thompson.”

Doyle took out his notebook and wrote the name down, nice and slow. “Anthony live in the building?”

“Ground floor, right side.”

“He a good man?”

“So-so. He drinks. Sells a little burial insurance on the side. I hear he did a little time once, but he seems to’ve straightened out.”

“You know what he did time for?”

“Can’t say as I do. But I spect you could find out.”

“Was Anthony in the building early in the morning last July 26th?”

“I got no idea. You’ll have to ask him.”

Like pulling fucking hen’s teeth, Doyle thought again, and it struck him as a shame that this city’s — this country’s — bad history was coming between Bob Brewer and himself, two men who, despite their many differences, wanted many of the same things. But Doyle had lived through enough to know that this country’s history would always tell the same story. It would always tell the black man that the policeman was the enemy, and it would always tell the policeman to suspect the black man without giving him the slightest benefit of the doubt. Honkies versus niggers, till death do us part. Two armed camps, Doyle thought sadly, with the arsenals growing bigger, the distrust growing deeper, the future growing dimmer by the day.

“Mr. Brewer, you’ve been a tremendous help. One last question.”

“Sure thing.”

It was a longshot, but it was something Doyle and Jimmy had been toying with for weeks, and Charlotte Armstrong’s story about the duffel bag made Doyle think they might be on to something. “Did one of your tenants at the Larrow Arms last summer serve in Vietnam, by any chance?”