Our eyes met, but as usual, the Chief was wearing a game face. No emotions conveyed, not even a recognition of my presence. It’s how it worked in the big office. No quarter offered, none given.

Finally the Chief put down the phone and looked at me.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Does something have to be up for me to drop by?”

“Yes. Now what is it? I’m busy.”

“You can’t talk to me like that.”

She rolled her eyes.

Frankly, I didn’t care that she was chief of police.

She was still my big sister.

Chapter Eleven

“Jesse Barre,” I said.

“What happened to your hand?” my sister said. Her name was Ellen and she didn’t really care about my hand. As police chief, she probably felt like she had to ask. Trust me on this one.

Ellen gave me a bored look that said she knew I was bullshitting her but didn’t care enough to pursue it. She was smaller than me but still tall at five foot ten. Dark hair, blue-green eyes. A nice smile she trotted out once a year, maybe.

“Jesse Barre,” I repeated.

“What about her?” My sister looked at me, and I knew the expression well. Had seen it in the mirror many times. After all, we looked a lot alike. The only difference was that she was a few years older. A little bit tougher. And a whole lot meaner.

“Was it just a smash-and-grab gone wrong?”

She held out her hands. “Does the phrase ‘under investigation’ mean anything to you?” My sister wore her I-don’t-give-a-shit look that I’d seen many times.

“Yes it does,” I said. “It means you didn’t answer the question.”

Ellen had been made chief of police nearly five years ago. The youngest chief in Grosse Pointe’s history. It seemed to surprise everyone but her. And me. She’d managed it well, even with the embarrassment her little brother had brought to the department. In fact, sometimes I believed that my catastrophe, such as it was, had prodded her to work harder and do better. In the end though, it didn’t matter. The truth was Ellen was a great cop. Unquestionably the best cop Grosse Pointe had ever had. She alone had earned the top job. And no one questioned that.

“Who’s asking?”

I took her question as a good sign. If it was a hot case and progress was being made, she probably would have already shown me the door. My sister doesn’t fuck around. So I took the fact that I was still sitting across from her as permission to plow ahead.

“Her father. He wants me to look into it. Figures there’s more to it than a burglary gone wrong.”

“And his evidence?”

“He loved his daughter. Thinks she was talented. Thinks there’s more to the story. Said something about her boyfriend.”

Ellen nodded. “Nevada Hornsby. Runs a lumber salvage business in St. Clair Shores. Has an airtight alibi.”

“Which is?”

“Which is none of your fucking business.”

“Come on, Ellen. It’s not like you’re letting out the secret to making a dirty bomb. Tell me what his fricking alibi is.”

Her phone rang, and she punched it, not gently, sending the caller either into voicemail or, more likely, oblivion.

“He was visiting his sick mother in a nursing home,” she said. “Half a dozen witnesses.”

I nodded. Night-duty nurses. Other patients. Sounded like a good alibi.

“Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out,” my sister said to me.

“Ellen, I’m not here to figure out who killed her. I just want to know if there’s going to be a problem with me taking the case.”

“What’s the deal with your hand?”

“I told you, a paring accident. A kiwi got away from me.”

She stood and walked around to the front of the desk. The leather from her gun belt squeaked. She leaned up against the front edge of the rough-hewn wood desk.

“Are you planning on doing anything illegal?”

“No.”

“Are you going to call me with anything you find before you call the father?”

“Yes.”

She looked me over.

“Kiwi, huh?”

I nodded.

“So it jumped right off the cutting board and slapped you around?”

I pretended to be confused.

“I can see the marks on your face from here, you idiot,” she said, “and I can tell by the way you’re sitting you’ve got a couple of sore ribs.”

Why do I ever try to lie to her in the first place? So I told her what had happened.

“Jesus Christ, John. You come in to ask me if it’s okay to take the case and you already did.”

“I still asked.”

She rolled her eyes and said, “The old man gave you the keys, so no breaking-and-entering. Tampering with a crime scene, however—”

“There wasn’t any tape on the apartment.”

“And didn’t you learn any self-defense moves at the academy?”

“It wasn’t a fair fight, Ellen. He got me from behind, and from then on, I was just a fucking punching bag. Until he tried to saw my hand in half . . . that was enough to clear the cobwebs out.”

“So other than an obvious interest in carpentry techniques, what do you know about this guy?” She looked out the small window with a view of Jefferson when she asked—an interrogation technique perhaps? Or was she honestly bored with me?

I shook my head. “Nothing. He had on a mask. He smashed me on the head right away, and after that, everything was kind of dark.”

“Rough size?”

“Probably around six feet or an inch or two over it. Solid, but not a huge guy.”

She nodded, not bothering to write any of it down. This was all off the record.

“It changes things, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t fucking flatter yourself.”

Her phone rang, and she looked at me. Meeting over.

“So I’m going to keep working on it, okay?”

She went back to her desk and reached for the phone. Ordinarily a sister might suggest that her brother be careful or offer words of encouragement.

Ellen shrugged her shoulders.

“Do what you gotta do,” she said.

Chapter Twelve

The Rockne residence is a brick colonial on Balfour Road in the Park. When we bought it four years ago, it was a fixer-upper in the classic sense. Bad carpet, a grungy kitchen, horrid paint colors, and pink tile. It took a few years for us to fix it up, but we got it done. Of course, the marriage almost went with it, but we got it done.

My wife’s name is Anna. Imagine the stereotypical Italian beauty, and you’ve got my wife. Big dark eyes, black hair, full features, and a temper that could roast meat. She’s tough, sensitive, argumentative, emotional, loving, giving, quick to anger, slow to forgive, frugal with compliments, and sometimes she’s just downright nasty. Naturally I love her like the fool I am and wouldn’t have her any other way. I tell her I love her more times than she tells me. That’s how we are. But she’s tougher than I am, so there you go. We have two girls, Isabel and Nina. Isabel’s five, Nina’s three. They both look just like their Mom, thank God, and naturally I worship them like the miracles they are.

I parked the Taurus in the garage and went inside. Instantly, I wished I hadn’t. I could never have an affair because my wife knows exactly what’s going on with me in an instant. Because as best as I’d tried to keep my hand hidden from her, Anna spun me around and held my bandage up to the light.

She was definitely not happy. And when she’s not happy, no one else in the family is either. It’s a scientific impossibility.

“The doctor said it was one of the worst paper cuts he’s ever seen,” I said.

“A paper cut?” Anna said, repeating my lame improv. The girls were in bed. I was starting to laugh at my wife’s expression, but she was clearly failing to find any humor in the situation.