Color of Justice (13 page)

Janis started to write notes furiously on a pad. Then Jim stopped by and he and Janis started talking about the process of gathering information on odd crimes in the city.

Danny sat down at his desk not knowing what to make of her last statement. He didn't feel that he saw color any more or less than anyone else. But this observation was intraracial, he thought, color within color.

Danny was suddenly filled with a sense of dread. The killer had already proven to be deadly and elusive. Janis's words and observations only enhanced this fact in his mind. They scratched at the edges of his thinking, bringing clouds of menace into his normally focused mind. And somehow he knew that if he existed, a black serial killer was a more terrible force than a white one.

Danny drove the car with Erik riding shotgun. Janis sat in the back, taking in the scenery. It was strange to Danny having another cop in the car, and he tried not to think of her as an intruder. The FBI had a long and distinguished history of working with the Detroit police, so any objections he had wouldn't matter.

They were headed to the Bakers' house, then to see Fiona. Janis wanted to examine the crime scene. She wanted to get the feel of the place. From just being there, she would get a sense of what their killer might be like. Danny didn't know what that meant, but he was going along with it. Since Olittah Reese was found in the river, Janis would have to be satisfied with whatever Fiona had for them.

“I didn't see the Bakers' blood work,” said Janis.

“That was my bad,” said Danny. “I forgot to include it. I'll get it to you.”

“Your bad?” asked Janis in a very formal tone.

“Yeah,” said Danny. “My mistake. I screwed up.”

“Oh, right,” said Janis. “I hear the young kids say that on TV.” There was mild derision in her tone.

“This is Detroit,” said Erik. “You got to be cool to make it here.” He laughed and Danny joined him. Janis said nothing as she looked out the window.

No one had said anything about the skin color of the victims since it had come up, but Danny was thinking about it. Blacks had long made differences among one another based on skin color within the race. It was something of an embarrassment, and no one liked to talk about it much. But whereas Erik and Janis might have been slow to make a big deal out of it because they had learned not to, Danny wasn't. And of all the things he knew about black people, this was the one thing he knew the least about. After all, he was always the outsider in every room growing up.

Danny had heard people making conversation about it, but they always seemed to stop when he came around as if they were afraid to air dirty laundry in front of a white person, even one who was a friend.

He didn't want to force Erik and Janis into a discussion of skin color just now. If the killer was motivated by the differences in the color of his black victims, Danny had to know everything about it.

“Is this your first time in Detroit?” Danny asked Janis.

“Yes,” said Janis, her tone muted.

“Why do you say it like that?” asked Erik. “Like you just stepped into hell.”

“Well, no offense, but the city isn't much to look at,” she said.

“You haven't seen much of it,” said Danny.

“I've seen enough,” she said quickly. “Aside from the development downtown, the city is in pretty bad shape. And this casino thing will never work. It ruined Atlantic City and they had more resources.” She made the last statement as if she had thought about it for a long time.

“Tell us how you really feel,” said Danny.

“They're building new houses in the city,” said Erik. “New jobs are coming, how about that for ruining the city?”

“That's right,” said Danny. “The shit's been bad for a while, but Detroit is back, baby.”

“You stay here awhile and you'll never wanna leave,” Erik added.

“I know. I can't get outta this muthafucka,” said Danny. Erik laughed with him.

“Have you always sounded like that?” Janis asked Danny in her best head-shrinker's voice.

“Yes,” said Danny, not making a big deal out of it.

“The shit used to trip me out, too,” said Erik. “It's like one of them movies where they change a guy's voice.”

“I'm not shocked,” said Janis. “Just interested.
So, Danny, where did it come from?” She spoke these words as if he were her patient. Erik chuckled softly.

“I don't know,” said Danny. “I just talked like the kids I knew growing up.”

“But your parents didn't speak that way at home,” Janis said quickly. “Cavanaugh, that's Irish, right?”

That irritated Danny a little, but he didn't let it show. Her question brought back a flood of memories about his family and his deceased mother. Danny glanced at Erik, who knew Janis had unknowingly hit a sore spot. His sympathetic look was comforting.

“Yes,” said Danny, “but my friends were more of an influence. Like any kid, I wanted to fit in. You know how it is.”

“I know?” said Janis.

“Yeah,” said Danny. “If I didn't know you were black, I'd think you was white by the way you talk all proper and shit. So, you must have come up around white folks.”

Erik turned and gave Danny a look that suggested that he'd insulted Janis. Danny heard her shift her weight in the backseat.

“I did,” she said. “Well, I grew up in an affluent neighborhood, black and white, if that's what you mean.”

“Yeah, I guess that's what I mean,” said Danny.

“Some black people would consider that an insult,” said Janis. “To say they speak like a white person.”

“I know I would,” said Erik. His laugh broke the tension that had built.

“And it's a compliment to say I talk like a black person?” asked Danny.

“White people aspire to blackness,” said Janis. “It's like being thought of as cool. Black people aspire to the accoutrements of the ruling class, but we don't like to think we haven't maintained our culture.”

“You mean keepin' it real?” said Danny.

“What does that mean?” asked Janis. “I hear it all the time.”

“Means the same as all that shit you just said,” said Erik, and he and Danny laughed again.

Danny checked the rearview mirror and saw that Janis was not laughing. No sense of humor, he thought, all goddamned business.

“Speaking of affluence,” said Janis, changing the subject, “I've been thinking about the victims. They were all high society.”

“So does that mean our killer is some crazy-ass millionaire?” asked Danny.

“Could be,” said Janis. “That could explain how he knew the Bakers' house so well and how he got close to Olittah Reese.”

“So, when you say things about the killer like that, you're just speculating, right?” asked Erik.

“Yes and no,” said Janis. “I don't know if it's ultimately true, but in the theory I'm building it is, so I treat it like a proven fact.”

“We'll get him,” Danny said. “All these guys fuck up and when he does, I'll be on his ass.”

“Serial killers are the craftiest of all criminals,” said Janis. “Twice as smart and more cautious. This guy's not going to just leave a receipt somewhere with his name and address on it.”

“Not like that,” said Danny. “But all scumbags are created equal and they all screw up. It'll just take the right kind of man to know how to read it.”

“And that would be you, of course,” said Janis.

“Damn skippy,” said Danny. “Reading the street and its people is what I do best. It's like you see things and associate the shit with behavior then bam, you got the answer.”

“And you've acquired this special power by being raised black?”

“Something like that,” said Danny.

“He ain't lyin',” said Erik. “I've seen this man walk into a situation and know everything that was going on. The shit is spooky as hell.”

Danny smiled at Janis proudly, as if Erik's endorsement was a validation to his statement.

“Don't be too proud, Detective,” said Janis. “Sherlock Holmes invented your special skill a hundred and fifty years ago.”

“Yeah, but Sherlock Holmes would get his skinny white ass capped on Mack and Van Dyke,” said Danny.

Erik and Danny laughed and again Janis remained stone-faced.

“I won't argue with that,” said Janis. “But you would do well to familiarize yourself with the material I brought on serial killers. These are danger
ous men. They are driven by a compulsion to kill, deriving from repressed emotional trauma at a young age. Their rage is a deviant response to pain. So they would do anything, risk anything, to keep on killing.”

“I feel the same way about stopping them,” said Danny.

Janis had an annoyed look on her face, like a teacher whose student is too thick to get the day's lesson. It made Danny feel a little dumb, but he wasn't going to hold it against her.

“One thing I don't understand,” said Janis. “Most multiple murderers take trophies from their victims, body parts, or personal items. Our guy didn't take anything.”

“He's not a complete sick fuck, so what?” asked Erik.

“They need to relive the expunging of their pain by looking at the trophies and fantasizing about their kill,” she said. “How is our guy doing that, if he doesn't take trophies?”

They rode in silence for a while as they all thought about Janis's inquiries. She did seem to understand these bastards, Danny thought. Danny wondered what the killer was taking from his victims. Maybe information. They thought he was asking questions of his victims, at least he did to the Bakers. Maybe their answers were what he needed. It didn't seem plausible though, so he didn't bring it up. He felt it was time to broach the taboo subject on his mind.

“What about skin color?” Danny asked. “How does that fit into the killer's psyche?”

“It probably doesn't,” said Janis. “It probably just means he's part of that group.”

“Group?” asked Danny. “The light-skinned group?”

“Yes,” said Janis. Her voice was ever so slightly lower as if she was sorry she had said it.

They arrived at the Bakers' house, which was still covered in crime-scene tape. They'd gotten a lot of calls from the rich neighbors to take it down, but they ignored them. The police needed the place designated until they were done with it.

Janis asked to go in alone and Danny and Erik didn't argue. Every cop has his process, so they left Janis to hers. They saw Janis pass by a window talking into a recorder and gesturing with her hands as if holding a conversation with some unseen ghost.

When she was safely inside, Erik turned to Danny, still with an amused look on his face.

“Why don't you two just do it right now,” he said.

“Do what?” asked Danny.

“What do you think? The way you two fight, I can almost see the clothes flying off. And don't even deny the shit. I'm way too smart to be thrown off the track.”

“She's smart. And I kinda like fighting with her,” said Danny.

“And I suppose them titties and that nice ass of hers don't affect you none, huh?”

“Yeah, she's fine, but I'm trying not to make a big deal out of it. I think she's gotten a lot of shit for it.”

“Like how?” said Erik.

“Like another cop she's riding with talking about her titties and ass,” Danny said pointedly.

“It's just a little man talk,” said Erik with absolutely no guilt in his voice. “I respect the woman. Hell, she's a doctor, a Ph.D. Doctor of psychology. And I think you're her next case subject, my brotha.”

“She's just wondering how some big, dumb white guy sounds like a big, dumb black one, that's all,” said Danny.

“Well, I'd be careful, Danny; you got a bad habit of ending up in bed with your partners.”

Danny didn't respond. He knew Erik meant it as a caution, not a joke at his expense. The truth was, Janis's interest in Danny was the last thing on his mind. He was more concerned with the killer and what he was planning next. And they didn't have any clues except the hooker and the color of the victims. One they couldn't find, and the other was, so far, meaningless.

“Why is this skin color thing making you so upset?” Danny asked Erik.

“Most blacks have some white blood in them,” Erik said. “Only some of us are more white than others, and it makes a difference. The shit runs deep, you know, like nobody likes to talk about it.” Then without missing a beat, he started a story. “When I was fifteen, there was this girl whose
mama wouldn't let me go out with her because I was too dark.” Erik's face took on an angry and hurt expression then he went on. “I was all fucked up about it, you know, then I said forget it, it's just a girl, but it wasn't, you know, it was my own people not being my own people, and I felt like nothing.”

Erik grew silent after this. He was not a particularly private man, but the things he kept to himself he considered sacred, and Danny had learned to respect that turf.

This story was obviously an important moment in Erik's life. Danny felt special that he'd shared it with him. Still, it sounded like more of a confession than a revelation, as if he was still ashamed of how he'd been mistreated, or maybe he was ashamed that it had happened at all, that his people were mired in some unhealthy consideration of color within their own race. Whatever it was, it had humbled this normally funny and outspoken man.

“Do you think we should take Janis with us to look for that hooker?” asked Erik in an effort to change the subject.

“No,” said Danny. “We're doing it off-duty, and she don't seem like the kind to approve of that.”

“Just wanted to hear you say it,” said Erik. “I think we should go tonight.”

“I'm down with that,” said Danny.

They watched Janis in the murder house and
didn't speak for a long while. Danny was thinking that Janis would be of great assistance to them but the key to the case was still somewhere on the streets of Detroit.