“She died in that dress. I can see stains around the edges,” Brayman replied. “Muscles relax at death, bowels release. She defecated recently, right here.”

  “I think I’ll take your word on that.”

  Using the toe of his shoe, Walter snagged the strap of the woman’s small black purse from the floor, tugged it closer, and picked it up. It was open. He riffled around inside. “No wallet or ID. We’ve got lipstick, eye shadow…” He took out a small canister and held it up. “Pepper spray and, holy shit—” Reaching back inside, he took out a wad of cash. The bills were rolled up and held together with a rubber band. “This wasn’t a robbery. There might be a grand here. Three condoms, too. Could she be a working girl? Woman, I mean? Working woman? A working grandma? Christ, is that a thing?”

  Brayman was studying what was left of her fingers. “Let me see one of those photos from the Edison. Our other vic’s hand.”

  Walter handed the best close-up to Brayman, who held it up next to the woman’s hand.

  “They’re bitten off for sure, right at the first knuckle. Same as our first vic. We’ll need a mold to match teeth marks.” When he lifted her hand, he paused, set it back down, and did it again. He did this several more times before turning back to Walter. “I think rigor is starting to set in. She definitely died within the past few hours. I’d bet my life on it.”

  Walter took in her appearance again. It wasn’t possible. She looked like a damn mummy, easily dead for months. If someone told him she’d been dead for a year, he wouldn’t be surprised. But only a few hours? “What the fuck is this?”

  Brayman didn’t answer. He didn’t say anything, only shook his head.

  Chapter

  19

  When Walter O’Brien stepped into his apartment at a little after seven at night and dropped the mob files on the kitchen counter, he could still smell the woman’s body from the bus depot, like the scent had followed him home. Not the dry, rotten scent, but the sugary odor he had detected beneath, and which had seemed to intensify the longer they were at the bus depot.

  While Brayman had supervised the techs from the crime unit and waited for the ME, Walter had spoken to the woman and daughter who’d found the body. Thinking they were alone in the bathroom, the mother had led her four-year-old to the open door of the handicap stall for the extra space—she’d managed to pull her daughter away when she spotted the dead woman, but not before the little girl got an eyeful.

  He’d talked to the bus depot custodian next, a Guatemalan man in his fifties, who swore the woman hadn’t been there when he’d cleaned the bathroom just before five a.m. He’d shown Walter a clipboard and pointed at the line that said 4:57 with today’s date next to WOMEN/RESTROOM 3. There were no cameras to back him up—the three installed in the terminal hadn’t worked for months—but the station manager said the man was reliable and he had no reason to doubt him. That meant the body had been there for less than an hour when the woman and girl had found her.

  Neither the two people working the ticket counter nor the security guard had seen the woman come in, and all three insisted that an older woman dressed like that would have stood out, particularly at that early hour. Hell, anyone dressed like that at any time at the bus depot would have stood out. As for whether someone had carried her body in (maybe in a large bag or suitcase), nobody had noticed that, either, and the security guard was quick to point out he would also have noticed someone passing through with luggage large enough. However, the manager admitted that unlike the custodian, the security guard did have a habit of napping between four and six in the morning. Walter was more inclined to believe someone had rolled the body right by the security guard in a beat-up suitcase than he was to believe the woman had walked in on her own.

  Dead end.

  Dead end.

  Dead end.

  Back at home, Walter pressed his shirtsleeve to his nose and sniffed.

  That damn smell.

  He took a quick shower, but the odor was still there. He picked his clothes up off the floor, emptied the pockets, and shoved everything deep into his overflowing laundry bag, buried them at the bottom before putting on a pair of jeans and a fresh oxford.

  The wadded-up receipts from Giovanni’s were in his hand along with the dog collar as he made his way back to the kitchen, took a beer from the refrigerator, and looked at the stack of mob-related files. He’d told Brayman he’d go through them tonight. He planned to run through his homework, the files on various bite victims, while waiting for the preliminary autopsy findings on their Jane Doe. They’d compare notes first thing in the morning.

  A partial address in his scribbled handwriting seemed to glare from the topmost receipt, an apartment no more than ten minutes away on foot. He could easily check that one and be back home in under an hour. Plenty of time to review the files.

  Plus there was the smell. Still there. Faint, but hanging on. A quick walk, some fresh night air—that would be enough to get rid of it, get it out of his head.

  One hour.

  No more.

  Then the files.

  Walter finished the rest of the beer, fastened his secondary weapon to his ankle—a small .380—and was out the door. He moved fast, before his common sense had a chance to weigh in.

  He managed to get to the apartment in eight minutes, not ten, but when an older man answered the door, he knew he had the wrong place. After seeing Walter’s badge, the man nervously confirmed that he and his wife had eaten at Giovanni’s for their twenty-second anniversary. Walter congratulated him, thanked him for his time, and without further explanation was back out on the street, looking at the second receipt. If he hurried, he had time.

  Damn it, Walter, this is stupid.

  He went anyway.

  He took a cab to the Newport Village Apartments on St. Antoine, an eighteen-minute ride, and told the car to wait for him. This, too, was a bust. Although nobody answered the door, the next-door neighbor told him a Hispanic couple and their four kids lived there.

  By the time Walter got back in the cab, he knew he wouldn’t be going home until he checked out the final address. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to focus. It was best he just got this out of his system. Prove to himself that it wasn’t her, couldn’t have been her. Then, and only then, could he give 100 percent to his current case. That’s what he told himself, and that, too, was stupid, but it was enough.

  The drive to the final address took a little longer, nearly half an hour. Not an apartment, but a house in Dearborn Heights—the suburbs just outside the city. A two-story colonial with a perfectly manicured lawn and a black Volvo in the driveway.

  Walter had his badge out when the man opened the door.

  That might have been why the man turned so white.

  He looked first at the badge, then at Walter’s bruised face, and seemed to shrink in the open doorway. “I had no idea you were a cop.”

  Chapter

  20

  Amy Archer’s date.

  Walter nearly gave his name and told him he was with Detroit Homicide, then thought better of it. He put the badge back in his pocket before the man could get a good look at his number. The last thing he needed was this guy picking up the phone and calling his new captain. Instead, he said, “Are you Michael Driscoll?”

  He nodded.

  “You and I need to talk.”

  From somewhere behind the man, a female voice called out, “Who is it, Mike?”

  Amy?

  Driscoll turned a shade paler and called back over his shoulder. “It’s a police detective. He’s here about the mugging the other night. I’ll talk to him outside. Get the kids ready for bed. I’ll help you tuck them in when we’re done. Shouldn’t be long.” Before she could respond, he stepped out on the porch and pulled the door closed behind him. His voice dropped lower. “Look, cop or not, you were drunk off your ass and you had no business creeping up on us like that.”

  “You assaulted a police officer.”

  “You didn’t identify yourself. You could barely walk.” He looked nervously at Walter’s black eye, the bruise under his chin. “Christ, you would have done the same thing if somebody snuck up on you like that while you were…”

  The curtain on a window off to Walter’s left moved aside and a woman’s face appeared in the glass. She frowned, then the curtain dropped back into place. Mid-thirties, not overweight but carrying a couple of extra pounds. Her hair was pulled back, and she was wearing a baggy T-shirt.

  Not Amy.

  Walter got it then. “The girl wasn’t your wife.”

  Before Driscoll could answer, he turned and coughed into his elbow. A ragged, wet cough that seemed to go on forever. When he finally looked back at Walter, his eyes were moist, red, and puffy. He looked sheepishly down at the cuts on his bruised knuckles. “I told my wife I got jumped on my way home from work. Said I managed to fight them off, but not before they got my wallet and credit cards.” He shook his head. “Fucking stupid, but I used it to explain where the money went.”

  “Who was she?”

  He hesitated, one eye on the house. “She told me her name was Amelia. Amelia Dyer.”

  “How do you know her?”

  Again, Driscoll fell silent, and his gaze dropped down to his feet.

  Walter started to edge past him toward the door. “Maybe I should just talk to your wife. You know, for the report on the mugging. Always good to be thorough.”

  Driscoll held his arm out to block Walter’s path, but this only brought on another coughing fit. The man nearly doubled over. He braced himself on the doorframe until it was over. “Sorry, I think I’m coming down with something. I haven’t been sleeping well.”

  Walter took a step back. Whatever this was, he didn’t want it. “Who was she to you?” he repeated, growing impatient.

  “I tell you, how do I know you won’t arrest me?”

  “Forget the assault, that’s not why I’m here.” Walter lowered his voice. “Look, I was off duty leaving a bar and I recognized her. I needed to ask her some questions about a case. That’s why I followed you. Help me track her down, we forget the rest,” Walter assured him.

  “No talking to my wife?”

  “Not if you cooperate.”

  Driscoll considered this. Finally, he looked back at the window and sighed. He ushered Walter out into the driveway next to the Volvo. “She’s nobody, just some escort,” he said in a low voice. “My wife and I have been going through a rough patch, and I just needed a break. A buddy at work gave me her card, told me she was discreet. She offered something she called the girlfriend experience.”

  “The girlfriend experience?”

  “Five hundred bucks, and she meets you somewhere, acts as if she’s your girlfriend—dinner, drinks, hotel—she pretends you’ve been out a few times but the relationship is still new, in that honeymoon phase, where you still do things like—”

  “Sex in an alley,” Walter interrupted.

  “Yeah. I got to Giovanni’s with no idea what she even looked like. She knew me, though. I have no idea how; I didn’t give anyone a description. I stood there next to the hostess station like an idiot, almost turned around and left, then she waved at me from the table. No turning back then. Not that I wanted to. I mean, you saw her, right? I did a couple shots with dinner to loosen up. She made it easy. We talked about damn near everything. Started with small talk, then went into work, even talked about my problems at home. She didn’t judge, just listened. I felt like I’d known her my entire life. Dinner was incredible. Like the perfect date. I hadn’t felt that way for years.” He looked over Walter’s shoulder at the taxi waiting in the street. “You took a cab here?”

  Walter ignored him. “Where did you go after the alley?”

  “The Huntley. I booked a suite there.” Driscoll’s skin was pasty, and although he was shivering, thin beads of sweat were trickling down his scalp.

  Walter knew the Huntley; it was way out of his league on a cop’s salary. “Anybody see you there?”

  Driscoll grinned. “Everybody saw us there. Girl as beautiful as her, people can’t help but look. I got her upstairs fast, couldn’t risk someone I know spotting us. I had a bottle of Macallan’s waiting up in the room, and I drank way too much; the rest of the night is a blur. I fell asleep, passed out, something, but when I woke up it was nearly five in the morning, and she was gone.” He looked back at the house. “Look, I need to get back inside. I’m sorry I hit you. I’m sorry for a lot of things I did that night. Who knows, maybe she gave me this damn bug.” He coughed again, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “You said you’re a detective. What’d she do?”

  “Where’s her card? Do you still have it?”

  Driscoll fished a tattered business card out of his pocket, glanced at it, then handed it to Walter. The card was black with red lettering. “I don’t want it. I slipped, but I’m not a cheater. I’ve never done anything like that before; I’m not that guy. I love my wife. My family. We’re just going through—”

  “A rough patch,” Walter finished for him. “Whatever.”

  This guy would keep it in check until the remorse wore off, then he’d do it again. A year or two down the road, and Driscoll would be living out of boxes in some cheap apartment trying to piece together how his life came apart.

  Walter walked away without another word. Back in the cab, he told the driver, “The Huntley, downtown.”

  The box of files on his kitchen counter, completely forgotten.

  Chapter

  21

  Built in the thirties by the Carmichael family, the Huntley stood on the corner of Barington and Third in downtown Detroit. Six presidents had stayed there, numerous film and television stars, sports celebrities. Jack Tocco, a famed Detroit mobster, had called the Huntley home for nearly two years before relocating to Florida and running the family business from a distance. It was also one of the few hotels in the country with a thirteenth floor, an oddity that brought in its share of tourists.

  Opposite the large lobby, the Huntley’s restaurant occupied the east end of the first floor. Beyond that was a bar called Retribution, decorated with Prohibition-era memorabilia.

  Walter eased onto a barstool and wondered just how long the thirty-odd dollars he had in his wallet would buy him. He declined to see a menu, ordered a beer on tap and water, and asked to use the phone. All three arrived a moment later, and he took out the business card. It was blank other than a phone number with a 313 area code printed in a red font on black paper.

  He punched in the number and a male voice answered on the second ring. “Yes?”

  Careful not to speak too loud, Walter cleared his throat. “My friend Michael gave me your card. I’d like the same girl he had the other night, Amelia.”

  The voice on the other end went silent.

  Although only a few seconds ticked by, it felt like a minute.

  When the voice still didn’t reply, Walter added, “I’m looking for the girlfriend experience.”

  Still nothing.

  “Hello?”

  “Name?”

  “Walter.”

  “Are you aware of the cost, Walter?”

  “Yes. I have cash,” he lied. “I’m at the—”

  “I know where you are. Move to the far end of the bar. Sit on the third stool from the left.”

  There was an audible click as the man disconnected.

  Walter looked at the receiver, then hung up and slid the phone back toward the bartender. He put the card back in his pocket.

  Only three other people were sitting at the bar—a couple to his right nursing martinis and a man watching a baseball game on one of the televisions a few stools down from them.

  Walter moved to the opposite end and sat where he had been instructed.

  Forty minutes later, he was on his second beer when a slim hand slipped around his shoulder from behind and gave him a gentle squeeze. He felt warm breath on the back of his neck, and when he turned, soft lips found his. She lingered for a moment after the kiss and brushed his hair back, a smile on her face. “Hi, handsome. Sorry to keep you waiting. I got caught in traffic.”

  She set her purse on the bar and sat on the stool beside him, crossing her slim legs and smoothing the silky material of her short black dress down over tanned thighs. Her blond hair fell across her shoulders in loose curls. Her green eyes sparkled.

  She was beautiful, but she wasn’t her.

  The bartender placed a napkin in front of her. “Would you care for a drink?”

  “I think I would. Vodka and cranberry, please?”

  The bartender turned to the bottles at his back, quickly put the drink together, and handed it to her.

  She plucked the lime out and set it on the napkin before holding the glass up to Walter. “To the end of a long day and the start of a wonderful evening.”

  Walter tapped her glass with his beer and took a sip.

  She brought her glass to her lips and drank, then rested her free hand on Walter’s leg and leaned close to his ear. “Payment will be due in full when we get upstairs. For now, let’s just enjoy ourselves. My name is Willow.” She lingered for a moment longer, her lips brushing his neck when she eased back.

  Walter nudged his stool closer to hers so nobody else could hear him. “I asked for Amelia.”

  The smile left her face, but only for a second. “If you don’t like me, I’m sure they’ll send someone else.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “I don’t know anyone named Amelia.”

  Walter watched the girl’s eyes closely as he described Amy, but there was no sign of recognition. “She was here the other night.” He took out the business card and showed it to her as if that would somehow validate what he was telling her, but instead it only made her look uncomfortable.

  Willow took another sip of her drink, then placed a hand on her purse. “I think I should go. This doesn’t feel right.”