DEAD WOOD.

by Dani Amore.

We all need someone we can bleed on...

-The Rolling Stones.

One.

It was New Year's Eve and I was living my dream. I was a cop. The youngest guy on the force, pulling the worst of the shifts but I couldn't have been happier.

I'd wanted to be a cop all my life.

It was a brutally cold New Year's Eve in Grosse Pointe, especially along the lake. A nasty Canadian wind was howling down and blasting Detroit with the kind of cold that ignores your clothes and tears directly into your skin.

I'd been a cop for six months. Just long enough to be taken off probation. Not long enough to be considered anything but a green rookie. I was in my squad car, driving down Lake Sh.o.r.e thinking about the New Years' Eve party ahead, about how my girlfriend and I were going to celebrate.

Elizabeth Pierce was actually more than my girlfriend, she was my fiance and a true Grosse Pointe blue blood. I was definitely marrying up.

I headed down Lake Sh.o.r.e Drive toward the Detroit border. I pa.s.sed a house with three ten-foot angels on the roof. Thousands of Christmas lights lit up the house and yard turning the quarter acre lot into a Las Vegas outpost. Across the street, the surprisingly vast, dark waters of Lake St. Clair stood in stark contrast to the hundred thousand watts supplied by the Detroit Energy Company.

I turned right on Oxford, away from the lake, just as my radio broke the monotony of the wind's fury. I glanced at the dashboard clock. It read 11:18 P.M. It was listed as a 10-107. Possible intoxicated person. I jotted down the address and pressed the accelerator.

It would be my last call for the night. By the time I got back to the office, turned in the car and did the paperwork, it would already be past midnight, probably closer to one a.m.

An image of Elizabeth floated through my mind. She would have her blonde hair tied back tonight, her diamond earrings sparkling, a gla.s.s of champagne ready for me. She might even be a little drunk. We'd hang out, go to a couple of parties, then retire back to my place and ring in the New Year the best way of all.

I cruised up Oxford Street and flashed the spotlight on the street numbers until I came to 1370. I called in to dispatch, got out of the cruiser and walked to the front door. The wind wasn't letting up farther from the lake. The sweat from my hand momentarily froze on the bra.s.s knocker and stung when I broke my hand free. I banged the knocker against the oak a few times, noticing the small, worn indentations where the metal had been knocked raw. An elderly woman in a glittery blouse with a cigarette between her fingers opened the door.

"He was staggering down the street," she said, gesturing with a shaking hand toward the other end of the street. The cigarette's red, glowing end bobbed in the dark with each tremor of her hand.

I could smell her breath, a strong dose of stale smoke. She was ancient, probably between eighty or ninety with saggy skin and deep creases everywhere.

"How long ago?" I said.

"Just a few minutes. The poor boy was going to freeze to death. He wasn't wearing a shirt, even. These kids." She shook her head. "Sometimes they act like animals!" Her voice was raspy and thick. She ran her tongue over her lips.

"Can you describe him?"

"Thin. Pale. Young." She squinted at me through the cigarette smoke. "Younger than you."

"Which way did he go?"

She nodded with her head. "He's probably still staggering around. Look under a shrub or two, you'll find him." Her little laugh sounded like a cat coughing up a hairball.

"Thanks for the advice, ma'am. Have a good New Year."

I turned before I could hear her response. Back in the squad car, I called in again to dispatch again and put the car in gear, then prowled slowly up the block. The homes were alive with lights and colors, glimpses of holiday sweaters, hands clutching egg nog cups or champagne gla.s.ses. The twinkle of trees decorated with Christmas lights sparkled through the big picture windows.

On the second block down, I saw him.

A smear of white skin in the night. I pulled the squad car up next to the kid, radioed in to dispatch then parked and got out.

"How you doin' tonight?" I said, and pointed the flashlight in the kid's face. Young. Maybe around eighteen, I figured. Big brown eyes, his hair wild, his shirt gone, in jeans and barefoot. I didn't see any signs of frostbite, but he couldn't be out in this cold much longer. His skin was nearly purple.

The kid looked at me, but recognition was dim. He mumbled something but it was incoherent. Not a single identifiable word escaped his lips. I could smell the booze, though. Strong. Almost fruity. Like peach schnapps or something.

"Sending the year out in style, are we?" I asked. "There must be a h.e.l.luva party somewhere."

The kid mumbled something and tried to walk away. I grabbed his arm and he sagged. I knew what I had to do. Put him in the back of the squad car, book him for public drunkenness, and let him dry out in jail. s.h.i.tty way to kick off the New Year.

I helped him to his feet, planned to take him to the car and on into the station when the man appeared from around the corner.

"Ah, Officer!" he called. I turned. The man was bundled up in a thick winter jacket and he had a wool fedora, the kind with the built-in ear flaps, pulled down. At first, I thought he was a woman from the way he ran. His hips moved with a swishing motion. His thick black gla.s.ses were nearly steamed up with the melted snow glistening on the lenses. He was a little older than the kid, probably in his mid to late twenties. But it was hard to tell.

"Oh my G.o.d Benjamin," the man said, and produced a leather coat which he helped onto the boy. His voice was high and wavering with a thick lisp. "This is my responsibility, Officer, not Ben's. This should never have happened." He shook his head like a disappointed mother. "He had an office Christmas party today and then he was. .h.i.tting the c.o.c.ktails when I left to get thyme for the chicken and when I came back, he was gone. I've been going crazy trying to find him."

"Could I see some identification, sir?" I said.

The man, wearing gloves, gently withdrew a wallet from his back pocket. I looked at the address on the license as the man put the coat on the boy. The address was just a few blocks over. I glanced at the picture and the name on the license. The picture matched.

I handed the license back to the man and studied the kid once more. "Benjamin, what's your last name?" I shone the flashlight in the kid's eyes. He didn't wince or look away.

"Collins, Officer," the man said. "His name is Benjamin Collins. I'm so sorry about this, sir," the man continued, his voice high and nervous. I stepped back to the cruiser, called dispatch, and had them run Benjamin Collins through the system. The name came back clean. I had dispatch run the man through, too. He came back without any hits.

I thought about it. The kid was in bad shape. By the time he was booked, printed and in an actual jail cell, he'd be even worse. I thought about one time in high school when a cop pulled me over. I had a beer between my legs and a twelve-pack in the trunk. He made me dump everything out and go home, rather than taking me in, calling my parents and basically ruining my life. That act of kindness was a better lesson than being thrown into a holding cell with a bunch of lowlifes.

Well, I thought, now's my chance to return the favor. Besides, it was New Year's Eve. Who wanted to start the year off in jail?

I walked back to find the man slipping winter boots onto the kid's feet. "Okay," I said. "Get him home. I'll give him a warning this time, but if I ever see his name come up again..."

"Perfectly understood, Officer," the man said. He shook my hand heartily. "Again, I'm so sorry. He's a beautiful, beautiful person, but when he drinks, sometimes...."

The man put his arm around the boy and began walking away, practically carrying the younger man. The wind had picked up and was now packing a ferocious wallop.

"Want a lift?" I asked.

"That's quite all right, Officer." The man's voice was nearly lost in the wind. "We're right around the corner."

I watched them turn the corner, then got back in the car and wiped the snow from my face and called in my position.

In my mind, I had done my final good deed of the year. I had finished out the New Year the best way possible, doing something nice for someone, and now it was time to see a beautiful girl about a gla.s.s of champagne.

The call came at five twenty-one in the morning. About an hour past mine and Elizabeth's final lovemaking session of the night.

I untangled my body from Elizabeth's and listened to the voice of Chief Michalski telling me to get down to the Yacht Club immediately.

Fifteen minutes later, I watched as Benjamin Collins' body was loaded into the coroner's van. They'd found his i.d. on the frozen pier just twenty feet or so from where his nude, mutilated body had been seen bobbing in the small patch of water heated by the Yacht Club's boiler runoff.

I stood there in the cold, as numb and unfeeling as I'd ever been in my entire life. They let me look at the body. It was a sight I would never forget.

By the end of the day, I'd given my version of the events of the night before well over a dozen times. To the Chief. To internal investigators. I desperately wanted to join in the search for the man to whom I'd turned over Benjamin Collins, but I was kept away from the investigation. Left to sit in a room and think about what I'd done.

No one had chewed me out. No one blamed me for f.u.c.king up, but it was there just the same.

Finally, the Chief called me in and asked for my gun and badge. It was administrative leave. Until things were sorted out and the killer was caught. Until then, I was gone. The department might be liable should Collins' relatives seek litigation. I left his office, taking one last look at my gun and badge before he swept them off his desk and into his drawer.

I never got them back.

Six Years Later.

The gloved fist smashed through the gla.s.s of the shop's back door. The impact as well as the sound of shards tinkling to the floor went unnoticed by the workshop's sole occupant. The woman at the large workbench heard only the high-pitched buzz of the random orbit sander.

Nor did she hear the sound of the deadbolt thrown back, the doork.n.o.b turning and the heavy door swinging open.

The only noise to reach her ears was that of the sander as its 220-grit sandpaper gently bit into the five hundred-year-old wood. She moved the sander along the wood's surface with confident precision. Her honey-colored hair was tied back in a ponytail. Thick shop gla.s.ses distorted the Lake Michigan blue of her eyes as the powdery sawdust flying from the sander coated her hands and covered her hair like a thin veil.

The woman leaned back from the workbench and flicked off the sander. As the whine of the motor instantly began to descend, she brushed the layer of dust from the wood. Even through the gauze of the powder, the beauty of the grain was apparent. This had been a special batch; ancient Elm, filled with grain patterns and whorls that would be breathtaking after a light stain and varnish were applied.

She leaned back and studied the beginning stage of the guitar. It was to be a semi-acoustic twelve string, made from 400-year old Elm salvaged from the bottom of Lake Michigan. It was for a rocker in California who had paid her the first half of the price tag; five thousand dollars. She was taking her time with this one, especially after the monumental task she'd just accomplished.

She glanced over at the finished guitar in question. A jumbo acoustic, her most ambitious, and most expensive guitar yet. Made from the rarest, most expensive woods of all. Virgin tiger maple, hickory, ash and ebony. All of it salvaged from the bottom of Lake Michigan. All of it priceless. All of it breathtakingly, stunningly beautiful. And she had used all of her skills, all of her powers to turn it into a guitar. A guitar with a sound so rich and so pure you almost forgot how beautiful it looked.

And it already had a buyer.

Jesse brushed her hands off on her jeans and went to the guitar. She picked it up and felt the perfect weight of it.

She sat back on her stool and strummed the strings, the full beauty of the sound echoing in the shop's interior. Her fingers naturally picked out a melancholy melody and she played quietly, confidently.

Her mind ran free, loosened by the change from the one-note orbit sander to this instrument of the G.o.ds.

As she played, she thought about how she enjoyed every aspect of building guitars. From the beginning design stages, to selecting the raw materials, to the painstaking construction and all the way through the finishing touches. Each instrument was a unique endeavor, with its own moments of sheer beauty.

At the thought of her craft, a sense of sadness rose within her. The guitar on her table would be the last one she would build for quite some time.

A new chapter was beginning, one that in the deepest, most secret part of her heart, she'd dreamed would one day come true.

Her fingers finished playing the tune with a strong downstroke and the chord reverberated, its beautiful sound echoing through the shop.

And then she heard the gentle sound of a foot sc.r.a.ping the ground behind her. She turned, peering into the darkness behind her.

The man charged at her with astonishing speed. She got no more than a quick glimpse of the face of a man. A man she may have seen before. His hands were raised over his head. She had just enough time to recognize the heavy hammer she sometimes used to tap a chisel along the rough edges of a plank of five hundred year old wood. It was in his hands, raised high, coming toward her.

She ducked her head, and then, in the final act of her life, she put her arms around the guitar and leaned over it, trying to protect it.

Jesse Barre never felt the crushing blow that caved in her skull and drove her from her stool onto the floor.

Her blood pooled on the concrete, the flakes of sawdust soaking up the crimson liquid.

The guitar remained safe, still cradled in her arms.

Three.

"So here's the hook," Nate said.

We were in a booth at the Village Grill, a little Greek diner smack dab in the middle of Grosse Pointe proper. It had big, overstuffed booths, low lighting conditions, and a bar with a bra.s.s rail and a big-screen t.v. The perfect lunch spot for two guys who thought arugula was an island somewhere near the Caribbean.

Nate Becker was the only full-time reporter for the Grosse Pointe Times and a friend from way back. We'd known each other since he was a chubby little kid who got picked on all the time and I was his defender. Unless the wind happened to be blowing the other way and I was one of the kids picking on him. You know how kids are. We were no different.

Now we were both grownups, sort of, and he was doing a piece on me, John Rockne, Grosse Pointe's very own private investigator. It was part of a monthly feature on local businesses. Last week it was the lady caterer whose van was decorated like a giant swordfish.

Prestigious company, indeed.

I hadn't really done anything to deserve the attention, but the business district of Grosse Pointe isn't very big sooner or later, it's just your turn.

"Hook?" I said.

"Yeah, you know, the angle of the story. The unique approach that intrigues the reader."

"What was your hook for the swordfish lady?"

"I didn't need one for her. She was interesting."

"Thanks," I said. "So let's hear it."

Nate spread his hands like he was serving me a platter of caviar. "You're the P.I. who doesn't just fight crime, you fight cliches," he said.