Chapter Four

He stood outside my office door, a tall, broad-shouldered figure in faded blue jeans, a colorful shirt, black leather vest, and shiny, black cowboy boots. His powder-white hair was thick and combed straight back. The eyes beneath the white brows were blazing blue and unclouded, twin shafts of cool set on a lined, weathered face. But there was more than just age on his face. More than fatigue as well. It was something I’d seen only a few times in my life—but once you see it, you remember.

“Can I help you?” I asked, the keys to my office in hand. I felt tired and full from lunch. I don’t know if it was because of Nate’s eating problem or what, but I always ate more when I was with him. Or at least that was my excuse and I was sticking with it.

“Are you John Rockne?” Marshal Dillon asked. His voice had a deep gravel to it—whiskey and cigarettes and two a.m. closing calls.

“Guilty as charged,” I said, stifling a belch. I unlocked the door and let him into my office. “How can I help you?”

He took a brief look around and then turned and faced me. He held out his hand and I took it. “Clarence Barre,” he said. “You’re the private investigator?”

I gestured toward the door, which read Grosse Pointe Investigations. “Like the sign says . . .”

An uneasy smile crossed his face. Most clients had the same look. It was part shame, part anger, part fear. Going to see a PI wasn’t much different than going to a shrink for most people. It was all about letting a complete stranger into their personal lives. And in most cases, the deepest, ugliest part of their personal lives. Not an easy thing to do, for anyone.

My office was on the second floor of a small brick building built in 1927. The ground floor was a jewelry store that I went into once a few years back, thinking I might buy my wife a necklace. I soon realized that asking her to sign the paperwork for a second and third mortgage would spoil the surprise. I haven’t been back since.

My office consisted of a small waiting room, complete with two chairs and a table. The chairs are from the fifties, the table the seventies, and the carpeting’s genealogy is too hard to trace. I’d say it was coming off the textile rolls right around the time Jackie was scrambling off the back of the big Lincoln in Dallas.

There were a few framed paintings of sailboats on the walls, even though I’m not a big fan of the water, as I already mentioned. A lot of clients seem to expect pictures of sailboats from a Grosse Pointe PI. Sometimes people are reassured by the cliché, and I don’t like to disappoint prospective clients.

The place reeked of coffee. To me, it was a great smell, especially on a cold winter day. I always had a pot brewing. Nate would probably not put that into the article, because it is a bit of a cliché. But hey, I fucking liked coffee . . . damn them if a bunch of other PIs did too.

On the table were magazines. Police Times, Small Firearms Journal, S.W.A.T. Illustrated. I wanted my clients to feel confident in my ability. Somehow, six months worth of Martha Stewart Living might make them think twice about hiring me.

I went around behind my desk, a small oak number that weighed about five hundred pounds. A laptop computer, a phone, and a stack of files sat on top.

“Have we met?” I asked. “You seem familiar.”

He just looked at me and then from deep within him came a baritone hum. It changed pitch and soon a short melody became apparent.

“Get the fuck out of here,” I said. I knew that tune, and I knew that voice.

“Mississippi Honey?”

He nodded. “That’s right. Clarence Barre, country singer/songwriter.”

I loved that song. Actually, it was a bit of a source of embarrassment. I’d finally gotten a girl into the backseat of my car in high school. “Mississippi Honey” was in the tape deck, playing along as I’d gotten Tracy Woeburg’s pants down and then had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do next.

In the middle of my reverie, I realized my potential client was staring at me. I caught myself, felt kind of foolish about what he may have seen play across my face.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “That happens all the time. I consider it a compliment. That my song evokes . . . memories.”

He smiled then. A sad, weary gesture. And suddenly, it came to me where else I remembered the name. I knew Clarence Barre because he had been a relatively well-known musician for a brief period in the seventies. He was from Detroit, and after his career, he’d moved back to Grosse Pointe.

So I knew the name Barre. Had heard it recently.

But not a man. Not Clarence. The recognition must have shown on my face because the small smile that had lingered on his face now vanished.

Whatever stupid thing I was going to say got stuck in my mouth. Clarence rushed to fill the pause.

“I’m here about my daughter,” he said. “Jesse.” Suddenly, all of the color in his face seemed to vanish, draw back in on itself and pool in his eyes. They smoldered, two pools of blazing blue.

Now it was my turn to nod. The killing had been big news in Grosse Pointe. Probably for two reasons: one, there weren’t a lot of murders in Grosse Pointe. And two, Jesse Barre had been a very beautiful young woman. A guitar maker, I remembered.

“She was killed during a robbery, as I recall,” I answered.

“You’re half right,” he said.

The look on my face was a question.

“She was killed. But it wasn’t a robbery. Someone wanted her dead.”

Oh boy, I thought.

“Is that what the police think?” I said.

He shook his head. “It’s what I know.”

“You want me to find out who killed her?”

“Nope,” he said. “I already know who did it.”

My face was again an open question.

“I just want you to help me prove it.”

Chapter Five

“His name is Nevada Hornsby,” Clarence Barre said. He spoke slowly and softly. Enunciating carefully. Not out of respect, but because his emotions were running so strong it took every effort not to insert an expletive.

I had a million questions: did the police know? If not, why wasn’t he talking to them? How did he know Hornsby killed her?

As much as I wanted to ask, I decided to wait Mr. Barre out. He’d just lost his daughter. I thought he deserved a chance to explain himself.

“I told Jesse time and time again not to get involved with him,” he said. “She wouldn’t listen. In fact, she told me to back off. So I did. And look where it got us.”

He paused again.

Just when I was about to start the questions, he said, “The cops don’t think he did it. They say he has an alibi. Well, of course he does! Who the fuck couldn’t come up with an alibi? Only the stupidest of criminals can’t come up with a friggin’ alibi, for God’s sake. So they’re believing his bullshit, but see, they don’t know him. I do.”

His voice had grown in intensity. And this was a man who had used his voice to great effect for many years. It didn’t fail him now.

“Okay,” I said.

He fixed his eyes on me, willing me to understand. I leaned in toward him, hoping to give him the nudge he needed to tell me just what the hell he was getting at.

“He’s an ex-con.”

“Okay,” I said. I got out a notepad and pen. “Do you know what he was in for?”

“I’m sure it was something bad. Assault. I remember Jesse saying something about a fight. She claimed he hadn’t started it. Christ, he had her hook, line, and sinker.”

“Do you have a reason to doubt his alibi?”

“I met him,” he said.

I wrote the word “NO” down on my notepad and underlined it.

“I know all about men like that. They don’t value life. Prison teaches them to look at everything differently. Jesse didn’t realize that. She was overly sympathetic. That’s how I would put it. Wanting to prove that she respected people for who they are, not who they’ve been.”