The Greeks of Beaubien Street (15 page)

Andy got in his car and headed toward home. Rush hour traffic was thick, but he didn’t mind. He was happy that his children were being raised in a nice town like Novi. The schools were excellent, it was conveniently located for his commute into Detroit, shopping was great. But still his wife was miserable. She wanted to move out further west toward Lansing. Her mom and dad bought a big piece of property and built their dream house on it. They offered five acres to Andy and Dana to build on. Dana let it be known whenever she could that it was selfish of her husband to insist on staying at that horrible grocery store in the ghetto rather than getting a real job in Lansing so they could move to Stockbridge. In addition, Andy was sure she was seeing someone. She showed all the signs. She’d lost weight, took time with her appearance when slopping around the house in a dirty sweatshirt was good enough for five years, and he could never reach her during the day anymore. They no longer made love or spent any private time with each other and the worst part: they fought constantly. He learned to bite his tongue, not responding to her baits and her insults. It wasn’t worth hurting his little boys. So he did something that made him physically ill to think of; he hired a private investigator. And sure enough, she was having an affair with their son’s t-ball coach.

The PI met him in the city at a coffee shop on Jefferson. Andy could tell by the look in the man’s eyes that he found something awful about Dana.

“I don’t like to give bad news over the phone,” he said when they sat down. He reached down in his briefcase and pulled out a file. Fortunately, the pictures it held were all of a fully dressed Dana and her scruffy lover. The PI said it didn’t look like they ever went to a hotel, preferring to have sex in the guy’s back seat or in the public restrooms at the ball park. It made Andy sick. But he felt terrible about it not because he was jealous or hurt; he would be relieved if she left him. The difficult part about being happy was being married to someone who wasn’t. And making her happy would be an act of sacrifice he knew he didn’t love her enough to make.

The grocery in Greektown was his life. He knew exactly what his grandfather had in mind when he said he wanted to do something that he could leave to his family. He wanted to support his people. Andy thought of his father, a dynamic man who had loved living in the city as much as Gus did, yet he left without a glance back to satisfy his suburban born and raised wife. Andy didn’t love Dana that much anymore. And Dana hated the city in return. Anna on the other hand often wished that they had lived in the city. She loved going in to shop, often manipulating her husband and his brother into allowing her to stay overnight. It was a dichotomy.

Soon, he would have to make a decision. Would he simply allow fate to dictate the course of his life? Or would he take the bull by the horns and move forward? Andy would ask Dana for a divorce. He might even tell her he knew she was being unfaithful and show her the proof. Use it as leverage. He only wanted her gone. He wanted to share custody of his kids. His job was in the city, not in Stockbridge. The children couldn’t be moved that far away from him unless he agreed and the courts concurred. He would allow her to move if and only if she let him have the boys every weekend, from Friday to Sunday night, every holiday and all summer long. Or vice versa. Allow them to go to school in the city and live at the grocery with he and Uncle Gus. There was a highly regarded private school not far away, so saying he would be subjecting them to the city life couldn’t be substantiated.

By the time he pulled into his driveway, his plans were made. He would ask her tonight. As he retrieved from the backseat the box of pastries he bought home for his family, he looked up and saw his mother-in-law standing in the window, pulling the curtains back looking for him. She had a tissue to her face and was sobbing while his children, crying too, were waiting for the only parent they had left.

Chapter 19

Jill was feeling drained. In one day she and Albert had made a lot of headway on the Parker homicide. Most of the evidence they uncovered was the kind of stuff that usually took longer to find. She didn’t know what it meant. Either they were spinning their wheels, accumulating a lot of facts that had no importance, or just the opposite. She felt in her gut that it was the kind of case that may have catastrophic consequences if she wasn’t careful. There were so many unconnected parts to it. She would have to look at the facts and see if she could find any correlation between them.

She had an inner conflict about the father and the mother of the victim. On one hand, Jacob Parker was just creepy. It was human nature to focus on him as a suspect because of his repugnant mannerisms and demeanor. When Jill was in the presence of the couple, after the initial wave of disgust directed at the father, she noted something about Marianne Parker. She was a woman who’d been pushed to the limit of her tolerance. Jill wasn’t sure if it was her husband who had done it for her as she originally thought, or her daughter. It was a stubborn thought that she would have to deal with and investigate further.

But not tonight. She knew what she was going to do. Her father had a delicious dinner waiting for her. She would eat with him, take food home to Alex if he wanted it, and after they ate, she and Alex were going out. It was a request she rarely made, but she needed to be distracted tonight. She wanted to dance. Bleu had the best DJ in town and she wanted to go there and forget what she did for a living, forget who she was. Unfortunately, Alex was well known at Bleu. She hoped no females would approach him while he was with her, but she understood in that environment, finesse was underrated.

Alex wanted to eat at Gus’s after all. The food was great as usual. They helped her dad lock up and after she kissed him goodbye, told him she’d see him in the morning. Alex took her hand and they walked to her apartment.

“Are you sure you don’t mind going with me as a date?” Jill said, pulling his leg. “I mean I don’t want to cramp your style or anything.”

“I guess I’ll be alright, this time. Don’t get angry if all my babes come around to be with me.” Alex looked down at Jill and smiled. “It’s all in their imagination, you realize that, right?”

“Whatever Alex,” she replied exasperated. “Let’s not get carried away, okay? I know what a hot item you are at the clubs.” He started laughing and she joined in. Alex was about as self-deprecating as a man could get while still having a little self-respect.

They talked about the case. Alex knew she was on edge about it so he changed the subject; he told her about a new painting he had started, a large landscape of the city. It was unlike anything he had done so far, having limited his work to abstracts. This would the first time his painting spoke out loud. He loved Detroit and finally had the confidence to paint something that he hoped people would recognize. It would be reminiscent of the big murals Diego Rivera painted for Ford Motor Company in the nineteen thirties, without being derivative. Jill was excited for him, and grateful that he had succeeded in getting her mind off that case.

“I’m really doing the piece for you,” he said. “A gift of thanks, for putting up with me.” He squeezed her hand.

“What are you talking about? If anyone puts up with anyone, you put up with me. I’m grateful to you, too.” They walked the rest of the way in silence, aware that they had just had a
moment
in their relationship. Neither Jill nor Alex were easy to be with.

Getting dressed was simple because Jill had two standard outfits: white shirts with long sleeves that she rolled up with black pants, or black tights and a black long sleeved t-shirt. Tonight, she was mixing things up. She would wear a white shirt with black tights. She pulled her black hair into a severe ponytail like Albert’s, but she wore hers a little higher. It looked perky. Lots of eye make-up and bright ruby red lipstick, and she was ready. Alex whistled when she came out of the bedroom.

“Wow! Look at you!” He shook his head and started laughing. “Maybe I better do something about my appearance.”

“You look fine! You’re Alex!” He was tall and lanky, and had the same uniforms that Jill did; white shirts with black pants and black t-shirts with jeans. It was easy to buy several of the same things when he found clothes that fit. He didn’t care that he looked the same all the time. He also pulled his hair back into a ponytail, seemingly the hairstyle of choice downtown, but it was light brown, peppered with gray. They made a striking couple, and heads turned when they walked by. As they strolled down Beaubien Street toward Brush, a familiar car pulled up. Albert Wong was on his way home from work.

“Boy, you are both gorgeous. Going to Bleu?” he said.

“We are! You’re out late,” Jill said.

“I had a few things to clean off my desk. Have fun you two.” He waved and took off toward his apartment on Jefferson.

The couple continued down the street holding hands, at peace. As she had feared, women came up to Alex all night, and Jill went along with it, laughing with him and pretending to not mind, pretending that it didn’t bother her. She knew Alex wouldn’t be able to survive without her, that he needed her like he needed that weekend binge once in a while, or his paints and brushes. She occasionally allowed doubts about Alex and her relationship with him creep into her thoughts but tonight, she pushed them down into the recesses of her mind. They would dance until the club closed.

Chapter 20

After Andy’s in-laws left, and his mother and father got the boys to sleep and went into the guest room, after Uncle Pete went back to Northville, and Andy’s friends and neighbors went home, he was finally able to think. His mother had taken him aside and asked him if Dana could have been involved with the coach. She’d thought that already. So it wasn’t going to be a big secret. If his mother who thought the best of everyone would come right out and say it, everyone else would surely be thinking it too.

When the police came to see him, he gave them copies of the PI report. But it wasn’t necessary. He had nothing to hide. He was in Detroit when the murder occurred. The boys were waiting in the car for their mother when the coach pulled a gun out of his bright blue gym bag right in front of them. They saw her scream, saw her put her hands up over her face, saw her look over to the car where she had left them unattended, and then saw him pull the trigger. The blast “splashed her face all over the place,” his youngest son told the police. Andy wondered if they would ever be able to sleep through the night again. He would soon know. The police said that Dana and the t-ball coach had been having sex in the public bathrooms and that other parents had complained to the recreation commissioner about it. They’d been warned. The coach, a Don Johnson lookalike-was crazy, obviously, and crazy about Dana. He was jealous and possessive, and according to Dana’s friend Brenda, had been begging her to file for a divorce. Brenda claimed that Dana didn’t want a divorce; she wanted to get out of Novi and away from
Don
. She said Dana was regretful that she had ever started the affair, but that she didn’t love Andy anymore. Andy was taken aback by this news. If she expected him to leave a job he loved to move to the unknown, wouldn’t it have been a little nicer to lie and pretend she loved him? Having given Andy more information than he needed, Brenda apologized, started crying, and left the house.

Andy thought of the times that he disappointed Dana. He didn’t show her the love she needed, or didn’t make love to her the way she wanted, or didn’t give her the right Christmas gift, or make enough money, or impress her friends and family. He had failed her in every way. The final desecration was that he hadn’t read her mind to know that she wanted him to move her to another town so she wouldn’t get murdered.

He went into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of vodka out of the freezer. He poured two fingers full and added a splash of something purple out of a juice box that was open on the counter. He went out on the deck, shutting the lights off first. He didn’t want his neighbors seeing him out there, just in case he smiled.

Chapter 21

No one was murdered in Detroit during the night, so Tuesday morning, Jill took her time getting up, letting Alex sleep and making her way to the grocery store for her morning coffee. She was troubled by an early morning dream that woke her out of a sound sleep, both scaring her and thrilling her. In the vision, she saw a ravishing Gretchen in her gorgeous gown, shocked, saying the word, “Daddy?” In the periphery, a bug-eyed Jacob Parker stood in a brightly colored rainbow of flashing lights. Jill sat up in bed with a start.

Gus was waiting for his daughter, sadness and concern on his face. He told her the shocking news about Dana and that Andy wanted to talk to Jill about the murder.
He obviously wasn’t coming to work, correct?
“Wrong,” Gus said. He was coming that day with his kids in tow and his mother and father. They needed to be with the family. Uncle Pete was coming without Aunt Joan, who still worked as a nurse. Uncle Nick and Aunt Paula would be there later. Aunt Sophia and Aunt Maria were coming from the west. The entire family would be together, impromptu. Jill was glad she had the excuse of pressing work at the precinct.

“This just doesn’t make any sense, Papa. There is more here than meets the eye.” She suspected that it was a romantic tryst gone awry, but didn’t burden her father with it. It didn’t make any difference why Dana was murdered. “Poor Andy.” She couldn’t imagine what he was going through, being left with two little boys.

Gus made Jill her favorite breakfast: stuffed fried bread. He took day old bread, cutting a thick slice and slitting a pocket in it, filled the pocket with pastry cream, soaked it in egg wash with vanilla and sugar, and then deep fried the entire thing. When it was crispy and brown, he sprinkled it with ground walnuts and powdered sugar. The final decoration was a drizzle of honey. She wondered why he made her this dish today when it was usually saved for Sundays. It scared her. She looked at the plate and then at her father.