The Last Time She Saw Him (2 page)

I know it by heart.

Detective Navarro is true to his word. The early-evening sky is free of any TV news choppers circling overhead, and the Mount Elliott block where the body was found is void of any other media buzzing around like vultures, ready to pick apart any crumb of new news they can find.

I drape my press pass around my neck and head toward the charred shell that was once a building on Mount Elliott Street. I dodge under the yellow tape and make my way up three cement stairs a tagger spray-painted in blue and orange letters, T
HUNDER
13. The officer who is supposed to be playing babysitter to the street must be in the back of the house securing the scene, so I continue on inside. If no one is there to tell you no, they might as well be saying yes. As my eyes adjust inside the dark hallway, the smell hits me, and I instinctively begin to breathe through my mouth. It’s not the stench of urine and feces left behind from a rotation of homeless squatters who most likely called this place home. It’s the smell of death.

I make my way through what was once most likely a living room and toward a sliver of light shining under a doorway.

“Hey, what’s she doing here? No press. Get back outside!”

I’ve been made known. I turn on my heels to see if I know the officer who spotted me so I can try and talk my way into staying. The door with the light underneath it bangs open and the dark hallway is flooded with blinding white light. I shield the tops of my eyes to try and make out the details of what I assume is the crime scene. Portable high-powered lights are set up in the four corners of the cramped space, which was probably once used as a bedroom. I know I have seconds before I am physically escorted out, so I do a quick scan of the contents of the room. Filthy mattresses stained with plumes of yellow and brown are stacked up against one wall, and the floor of the room is littered with cardboard and discarded fast-food containers. Directly across from me is the room’s sole window, affixed with a set of rusted safety bars. Underneath the window, Navarro huddles on the floor near a slight, crumpled shape someone tried to conceal with a frayed rug. I take two steps closer and see a brand-new set of gleaming blue and yellow sneakers poking out from beneath the rug. The adrenaline of getting the story instantly leaves my body, and I freeze in place. The shoes are small. Little boy’s shoes. The shoes Laveeta Boyner said she bought Donny as a reward for bringing up his math grade from a C to a B.

A meaty hand wraps around my upper arm and yanks me backward. “I told you, no reporters. What do you think you are doing in here?”

I look up to see Detective Leroy Russell, Navarro’s partner and a thoroughbred jackass. His Mr. Clean bald head shines like a lit globe against the backdrop of the heavy lights. Russell is pushing fifty, but is built like an aging linebacker who still has a few good bone-crushing games left in him. Since I’m five-foot-seven and a hundred and fifteen pounds with my shoes on, Russell easily spins my body away from the room and pushes me toward the front door.

I don’t try and argue my way into staying. I know technically I shouldn’t be there, at least as far as the cops are concerned. But more than that, I don’t want to see the body of the little boy once the rug has been pulled back. I tried to train myself long ago to emotionally detach from the people I wrote about. I can get lost in the juice of the moment as I chase the story, but once it’s written, once I’m alone, their stories, their faces always come back to me. They never let go. Especially when the victim is a child.

I drop on the broken front step of the house and wait for Navarro as a steady stream of neighborhood gang-bangers drives by, idling curiously until they catch sight of police officers filtering in and out of the crime scene.

“I thought you would put up more of a fight.”

Navarro stands in the doorway, his tall and muscular frame almost filling it up. Navarro is hardcore Jersey, even though it’s been at least fifteen years since he moved from his hometown of Newark. Navarro runs his fingers through his thick shock of dark hair and gives me a nod.

“Didn’t feel much like fighting today. That’s Donny Boyner in there, right?” I ask.

“Pending ID from his grandma, yes. Come on. Let’s take a walk to your car.”

The police know Navarro is my best source, but he at least wants to appear discreet, so I wait to drill him for information until we have some privacy. He opens my driver-side door, and I slide across the front seat of my SUV. I roll down the window and Navarro leans inside.

“What can you tell me?” I ask.

“Off the record or on?”

“Both. Let’s start with off for background, and then we’ll take it from there. What do you think happened?”

“We found the kid’s backpack tossed in a Dumpster two blocks from here. We think whoever took Donny lured him into a car on the way to school. Probably someone he knew. There were no defense wounds or bruising, which means he didn’t try to get away. Whoever did this most likely killed him somewhere else and then dumped the body. Pending an autopsy, it looks like he drowned.”

“Drowned?”

“Yeah, I know, that’s a new one. We’re checking every public swimming pool in the city to see if anyone saw Donny, but more likely, he was probably killed in someone’s home.”

Navarro’s gaze moves down to the steering wheel, which I suddenly realize I am holding in a death grip. Embarrassed I’ve lost my poker face, I quickly drop my hands in my lap. When my hands start to tremble, I shove them under my legs so Navarro won’t notice. But my attempt at a last-minute save is too late.

“You all right?” Navarro asks, his rough voice softening to a raspy hum. “Anytime the victim is a kid, it’s hard, even on us.”

“I’m fine,” I answer and try to redirect his attention elsewhere. “You’re not going to see me around for a while. I’m taking some time off. I’m going to the lake house for the summer with the boys.”

“Your place in Decremer?”

“Yes. There’s a story I need to work on too.”

“Like a freelance assignment?”

“Something like that.”

“If you get in a jam, let me know. Just because you’re not officially on the beat doesn’t mean you can’t call me if you need some help,” Navarro says.

Navarro’s deep-set hazel eyes fixate on my face for a beat too long.

“Why don’t you call me after you file your story? I’ll be here for a while, but maybe we could meet up later and grab something to eat. I remember you used to like that hole-in-the-wall diner that was open all night over in Greektown.”

“You’ve got a good memory. I forgot about that place,” I answer. “Thanks, but I need to get back home to the kids when I’m done.”

“Just a friendly offer.”

“I didn’t think anything otherwise,” I answer.

“Fine then. Just take care of yourself, Gooden,” Navarro says. He raps hard on my car’s roof with his knuckles and heads back inside the house to the crime scene and the little boy who will never get the chance to grow up.

I decide to file my last story from my home in Rochester Hills. I know Primo will be pissed off, but I don’t care. I look off into the distance at the Detroit skyline. Ribbons of pink and orange clouds hang low on the horizon, looking bright and hopeful as they silhouette the Ambassador Bridge. I put the car in drive and hit the gas hard. I want to get out of the city as fast as I can.

CHAPTER 2

D
onny Boyner wasn’t the tipping point that drove me out of Detroit. Or Ben. Or what the psychiatrist said. It was all of it, but especially Logan and Will. I felt the boys would be safer at the lake house, far removed from the dangers of the city. When I was still on the beat and driving home to the suburbs after a day of writing about murderers, thieves, drug dealers, and pimps, I never felt secure as I watched Detroit disappearing in my rearview mirror. I knew the drill. The bogeyman doesn’t just lie in wait behind Dumpsters in alleyways or in shadowy corners of graffiti-infested tenements of the city. He’s also lurking with a crowbar in the bushes of your middle-class cul-de-sac next to a N
EIGHBORHOOD
W
ATCH
sign, just waiting to make his move to your back door after you and your family fall asleep. No place is immune from danger, but I was confident the lake house would provide us a safe haven.

Decremer is a tiny, “don’t blink or sneeze or change the radio dial or you’ll miss it” kind of town along Lake St. Clair. David and I bought the house in Decremer as our weekend vacation retreat two years ago, right before Will was born.

I pulled the U-Haul into the gravel driveway of the lake house in late May. Three days in, I didn’t think I could take it anymore. I missed the buzz of the newsroom and the juice I got from the beat. But after a while, we fell into routines of subdued normalcy and the comfort of simple daily routines. The boys and I spent every day down by the lake. I never took my eyes off them as Logan perfected his rock-skipping technique, and Will stuck to his big brother and mimicked his every move until I thought Logan was going to lose it.

At some point, the constant longing for the newsroom eased as the muggy Michigan afternoons passed without notice and I learned to slow down. And then Labor Day quietly arrived without warning, heralding along with it unwanted responsibilities: my upcoming return to the paper and Logan’s first day of third grade.

Six-thirty a.m. The alarm wails like a hateful siren. I slam the off button and roll toward the edge of the bed, instinctively expecting David to pull me back. But those were happier times. I get out of the empty bed and hurry to the bathroom, slide on my jeans, and put on a white button-down, fitted shirt. I use my fingers as a makeshift hairbrush through my thick, dark hair until it is somewhat tamed and curtail any other maintenance besides a dab of lip balm out of the sheer necessity of time. I do a quick inspection of my face for any wrinkles, which I’ve been able to ward off so far. But at thirty-seven, I know it’s just a matter of time.

I leave my vanity behind in the mirror and fixate instead on my morning journey with the boys. I head to the kitchen and begin to load up breakfast on the run, DVD players, and other necessities to survive the ride to Target, where I’ll join other last-minute parents as we paw through the slim available pickings in the dreaded back-to-school aisle.

I fight off a kamikaze deer fly on the front porch, snag the newspaper, and give the front page a thorough look, starting with the dateline: Monday, September 3, 2007. The color piece above the fold is the mandatory Labor Day story. This year it’s a parade with workers from the Big Three, Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler, waving flags and offering pointed predictions that the automotive industry could be headed for a major downfall. I give the paper a final, quick scan until I am satisfied it doesn’t include the byline of the freshly minted and hungry college grad from Syracuse University who temporarily replaced me on my cop beat.

I pause in the hallway and listen for movement or groans or other little boys’ just-waking-up sounds. But Logan and Will are still fast asleep, which is just what I was hoping for. I need to make my annual call before I wake them up.

Like some sort of dark holiday tradition, I’ve called Detective Michael Leidy every Labor Day for the past thirty years. Leidy was just a few years out of the police academy when he took Ben’s missing persons case, and Leidy has since risen to the ranks of director of the unit’s cold case division.

I slip into the office, pull down the worn, red album from the bookshelf, and begin to pore through its entirety: a dozen or so yellowed newspaper clippings about Ben’s abduction and my scribbled theories on possible motives and suspects. On the album’s last page is a story I saved from the
Detroit Free Press
from ten years earlier. It featured the state’s then major unsolved crimes. The lead art is Ben’s third-grade class picture. In the photo, Ben is wearing his favorite red shirt, which offsets his jet-black hair and olive skin, bronzed and lightly freckled from what we thought would be endless childhood summers at the shore. Ben looks especially proud in the picture, despite the fact that we were dirt-poor back then. He is forever captured looking back at the camera with an air of confidence, like a little boy who knew he was going to be something special one day.

I trace my finger along Ben’s strong jawline in the photo and remember our final day together at Funland. After the carousel ride, Mark Brewster cornered us. He was the middle-school bully who could smell the blood of two vulnerable kids from a mile away.

 

Right before Mark could throw his first punch, a lanky security guard in a blue polyester uniform made his way toward Ben and Mark.
“
What are you kids doing? Break it up, you two!” he yelled.

 

I file the red album back on the bookshelf and speed dial the number for the St. Clair Sheriff’s Department. Even though it’s early and a holiday, I know Leidy will answer. But after the fourth ring, I am about to admit I am wrong when Leidy picks up.

“Detective Leidy here,” he answers in his flat Michigan accent.

“Detective, it’s Julia Gooden.”

“I’ve been expecting your call,” Leidy answers without missing a beat.

I look down at my usual script of questions for our annual go-round.

“Anything new on Ben’s case?”

The sound of papers shuffles in the background until Leidy finally resurfaces.

“Nothing new. We had a little girl go missing this summer down in Algonac. A farm kid. Turned out her grandma snatched her up when she found out her son-in-law was cooking up meth instead of harvesting corn.”

“We were at Funland the day Ben was taken,” I interrupt. “He got into a fight with a boy there, Mark Brewster. His dad was powerful, owned the big cannery outside of town and was the president of the St. Clair County Council.”

“Hard to believe a nine-year-old or his daddy would take a kid over a dustup at an amusement park. But we questioned them, along with at least fifty other people including several of your dad’s business associates,” Leidy answers.

My heart begins to race as I recall the frequent parade of heavy drinking and late-night parties my parents hosted as my dad tried to hook would-be investors to his latest shady business scheme.

“The man who was taking pictures by the carousel. I’m pretty sure he took my photo with one of those old Polaroid cameras. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but now I know it was odd for a grown man to take a picture of a child he didn’t know. I can’t believe no one ever found him.”

“It was Labor Day and Funland was packed. The whole town was swarming with tourists, and there must have been at least two hundred people at Funland that afternoon. Finding the guy with the camera would have been like plucking a needle out of an eighty-foot haystack.”

I look back at my weathered list of questions. The second one is underlined in red.

“The Indian arrowhead you found under Ben’s bed, that had to mean something, like a hunter who made off with his prey.”

“Seemed like it at the time. The arrowhead was Chippewa. I interviewed members of their Indian community over in Port Huron, but nothing panned out. Most likely, the person who took your brother bought the arrowhead at a souvenir shop on the boardwalk and it fell out of his pocket during the abduction.”

I scramble for a new lead to press Leidy about, but the silence on the phone prompts Leidy to conclude our conversation.

“I promise you, we haven’t forgotten about Ben. I still have his missing-person flyer on my desk.”

And then Leidy adds a piece of advice I don’t acknowledge. “What happened to your brother wasn’t your fault. Sometimes people just can’t remember. I know dozens of people who witnessed horrific crimes, and they’re never able to remember what happened until years later. Sometimes they can’t remember anything, ever. If you’re still beating yourself up, stop. You were just a kid back then.”

“I was in the same room with my brother when we fell asleep that night. I should’ve been able to remember something. Anything. No matter how hard I try, it’s like a black hole of a memory.”

A few seconds of silence pass between us before I muster up the courage to ask Leidy what I never could before.

“Do you think Ben is still alive?”

“Julia, I . . .”

I cut Leidy off before he can finish.

“Don’t worry about it. I know how these things turn out.”

* * *

I load Logan and Will in my SUV and feel the burn of mounting frustration and a renewed sense of helplessness over my nonproductive call with Leidy.

“Just share a bite of your donut with your brother. Help Mom out, buddy, okay?” I ask Logan, who is making a mess of his makeshift breakfast in the backseat.

“It’s not my fault Will dropped his donut on the floor,” Logan answers.

“I know. But you’re the big brother. Be the leader here.”

Will’s little protests begin to escalate into a full-fledged “red-faced, screaming until he stops breathing” temper tantrum.

“Here you go,” Logan says as he breaks off a piece of his glazed donut and hands it to his little brother. Will pops the piece of donut in his mouth and smiles, exposing the gap between his two front teeth.

“Good,” Will says and gives me a wave with his plump hand.

“Thank you, Logan. You’re compassionate beyond your years,” I say.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re especially nice.”

“Dad’s picking me and Will up later, right?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Do we have time to go to the library when we’re done shopping for my school stuff before Dad comes?” Logan asks. “I want to check out the
Guinness Book of World Records
. A guy from Germany held his breath for fifteen minutes and two seconds. I think if I keep practicing, I can beat him.”

“That doesn’t sound safe.”

“That’s the thrill of it. Safe is boring.”

“I like boring.”

Logan makes a face and busies himself picking the discarded donut sprinkles off his lap. I stare back at my two little boys in the rearview mirror and am amazed at how two children from the same parents can look so different. Will takes after David with his golden blond hair and green eyes, and Logan looks like me with his dark features. But his jet-black hair, handful of freckles that scatter across his high cheekbones, and dark eyes that tilt up just slightly on the ends make him a ringer for my brother. Sometimes when I catch Logan in silhouette, his resemblance to Ben is uncanny.

The boys become temporarily engrossed in their DVDs, and I try and snatch a rare moment to myself. I flip on the radio and turn the dial to 760 WJR-AM to catch a repeat of Mitch Albom’s talk show.

My favorite
Detroit Free Press
columnist isn’t on though, just a local news call-in show hosted by some announcer with an overly slick broadcaster’s voice who launches into his early-morning segment intro:
“This is Ric Roberts, and I’m here at the Macomb Correctional Facility for an exclusive interview with Reverend Casey Cahill and his lawyer, Brett Burns. Detroit’s own controversial holy man whom
Rolling Stone
once anointed ‘The Rock ’n’ Roll Jesus of Motor City’ is in the news again and up for parole after his conviction for tax evasion and sex with minors. Reverend Cahill, we’re live. Are you ready?”

A cold shiver runs through me as I hear Cahill’s familiar smooth baritone.