I didn’t know what to say. I knew what he was going through. I had lost a child too. Not one of my own. But a child I had been responsible for. But I didn’t think that would help him. So I kept my mouth shut. Soon he was able to continue.

“So do what you can,” he said. “If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But I want you to leave no stone unturned. Bring me irrefutable proof that it was random and we’ll be done. But keep an open mind.”

Clarence looked tired and spent. I didn’t just want to take the case. I wanted to hug him.

“Okay, deal,” I said. “I’d like to get started immediately.”

“Just tell me what you need.”

“For starters, I want to see her studio.”

Chapter Nine

In my brief time as a cop, I’d only been to a few crime scenes. To say it’s odd is an understatement. It’s the little things like inspirational notes tacked on the fridge. Message slips next to the phone. Clothes draped over the back of a chair. Notes and letters and bills and grocery lists. Those are the things that suddenly seem like haunted memories.

Jesse Barre’s guitar studio was no exception.

The building was at the end of Kercheval, a stone’s throw from the Detroit border. Like just about every other building on this end of town, it had most likely been through many, many incarnations. Restaurants, furniture stores, craft shops, liquor stores. One and all had been tried. The problem was not too many people in Grosse Pointe like coming down for a reminder of just how close they are to the Big D. Especially at night.

Jesse’s studio was two stories of sienna-colored brick with a small stone inset at the top reading “1924.”

Clarence and I parked then went around to the back. An alley ran behind the building.

“You sure this is okay?” Clarence asked me as we circumvented the police tape stretched across the back door. There was a big square of plywood where a window used to be. Clarence looked at it but didn’t say anything.

“Yeah,” I lied. “I’m pretty tight with the chief of police.”

He nodded. I could see his face, and it didn’t look good. Pale, and his jaw was clenched shut.

“Clarence, why don’t you wait in the car?” I said.

He shook his head. “I’ve been in here once already . . . after. I can do this.” He unlocked the door, and we stepped inside. I pulled it shut behind us and locked it.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. It smelled like a lumberyard. That wonderful scent of freshly cut wood. The second thing I noticed was that the studio was bigger than it looked from the outside. Along one wall was a row of woodworking machines that to my weekend-carpenter’s eyes looked like something only Norm Abraham could understand. I recognized a lathe and a huge old scoping saw, as well as a drill press and table saw, but the rest of them, I had no idea what they did.

Along the other wall was a long workbench, at least twenty feet, with lots of stains and gouges and scratches. It had seen a lot of use in its life. A pegboard hung above it. On the pegboard was a collection of hand tools that looked like they belonged in either an antique store or some kind of torture chamber. I saw more weird-looking clamps and medieval-looking instruments than I knew existed.

At the end of the studio, opposite the entrance was what appeared to be Jesse’s main work center. There was a vast array of lights, and a more sophisticated table with an impressive collection of measuring equipment. There was also the only real chair in the place.

Next to the table was the chalk outline of Jesse’s final resting place. I imagined her body on the floor, surrounded by the tools of her craft. The fragments of guitar pieces looking down at her. Even though I’m not terribly religious, something like a short prayer vocalized itself in my mind.

Clarence came and stood next to me. I could hear his breathing, labored and rapid. He looked down at the other end of the studio and, after a moment, said with a voice that had lost all of its timbre and conviction, “Maybe I will wait in the car.”

I said, “Okay,” and waited for him to leave. Once the door was shut, I walked ahead and tried not to dwell on the giant blood stain still visible on the concrete floor.

I made my way around the workshop. I studied the blood spot on the floor then looked at the ceiling. There were blood splatters that had been noted by the crime scene technician. Despite the fact that there was probably no way Clarence could have missed them, I hoped to God that he hadn’t seen them. The brutality of the crime shook me. A blood splatter on the ceiling meant that after this woman had had her head cracked open and the blunt instrument was covered in blood, the perp had kept beating. Nothing drives home the violence of a crime like blood splatters on the ceiling.

There were a lot of fragmentary pieces—shapes and contours of wood that would eventually be used in a guitar. I recognized a kind of rib framing and several guitar necks. There were boxes of the knobs guitarists use to tune the strings. Off in one corner were a small sink and an old, battered coffeemaker with a hodgepodge of cups surrounding it. A small refrigerator was tucked beneath a makeshift countertop. On a shelf above the coffeemaker was a dusty stereo with stacks of CDs and audio cassettes. Mostly classical music. The majority of them played on guitar.

It was all mundane and not glamorous in the least bit. But most importantly of all to my way of thinking, it was pretty much useless to a petty thief.

I just stood for a moment in the studio. Outside, I could hear the occasional hum of traffic, maybe a voice here or there. The pipes in the building occasionally creaked and popped. Ordinarily you would probably never hear them. But now in the stillness of the aftermath, they seemed like loud intrusions.

I tried to glean any other pieces of information from the room that I could. I re-examined the point of entry for the killer. Took particular time studying the door and the actual spot of the crime.

I took one final look around the workshop then, satisfied, contemplated what to do next.

Clarence had mentioned to me that Jesse lived above the studio in a simple apartment. As he put it, it hadn’t been much, but she hadn’t wanted much. I thought of going up to her living quarters but hesitated. Although entering the workshop was technically illegal, it seemed that sneaking into Jesse’s living quarters was an even bigger violation, although more of a moral infraction.

The guitar pieces hanging from various hooks and clamps eyeballed me as I wrestled with indecision. In the end, I knew I had to do it. If Clarence really wanted me to find out whether or not his daughter was truly the victim of a premeditated crime, it had to be done.

After all, I’d promised Clarence I would find out the truth.

•

True to Clarence’s word, the apartment wasn’t much. A living room with simple furnishings: a comfortable but well-worn leather couch, an old Adirondack-style rocking chair, a wall of bookshelves filled with tomes on art and music.

There was an old guitar resting in a stand next to the rocker. It definitely wasn’t one Jesse had made. It reminded me of those old jazz numbers from the 1920s. At the top, the name “Gibson” was emblazoned across the wood.

I walked through the living room and into the kitchen. It too was simple with a small pine table and two old, wooden chairs. A stove from the ’50s was next to a fridge, most likely from the same decade. To the left of the sink was a small amount of counter and a few simple cabinets painted robin’s egg blue. The small butcher block countertop smelled vaguely of red wine and garlic.