The Greeks of Beaubien Street (16 page)

“Okay, what’s going on?” she asked. Gus smoothed his hand over where his hair used to be. He had to let his daughter know what the talk was about before anyone got there. Jill was known for her
foot-in-mouth disease
as he called it, and a little preparation might help avoid family drama.

“Andy wants to move into the city with the children, and Big Andy and Anne are talking about joining him occasionally. There is more than enough room for all of us. Big Andy will be close enough to his golf buddies, and Anne can help out here and also watch the boys when they aren’t in school.” He paused, searching the face of his daughter for clues to her reaction. She was working at keeping her poker face on. Why wouldn’t her cousin move into his parent’s house?

“And what will my good cousin and uncle do with their respective homes? If I may ask,” Jill added. She was feeling a little possessive of the building this old store was in; she knew her father paid the mortgage off himself long after his parents died. The building was his and she didn’t want anyone to think differently.

“They will keep their homes, at least Andy and Anne will. Andy needs to take his time deciding what to do.” Gus was lonely and he looked forward to having a house full of people again. “It won’t change anything for us,” he said, looking at her. “You and I will still have our date every morning and every night.” He didn’t add that having the extra help would make it possible for him to expand the store a little bit. Gus’s Greek Grocery was the only grocery store nearby. It could use a little expansion. Jill’s immediate response was to feel possessive, but she reserved judgment until she had time to mull over what it would mean to have other people living there. Big Andy and his wife were among her favorite relatives, and she loved Andy. The children made her nervous, but she would get used to them, she hoped.

“How does all this make you feel, Papa?” she asked. “Dana just died yesterday, correct? Isn’t it a little early to be planning a big move already?”

Jill thought about what it must have been like for her father when her mother died. He had a small child to raise alone, but it was made easier by the presence of his family around them. Jill never noticed a big difference in her life after the car accident and she thought it was because of their intervention.

She tried to imagine Andy and his children being in the apartment around the clock. Gus would always have someone with him, which would take a lot of her guilt away. Big Andy and Auntie Anna too? Something deep down in her heart stirred and warmth spread through her body. She tended to prefer isolation. An unrealistic dream was to own a cabin in the north Michigan woods she would call ‘The Hermitage’. It would be solar powered so they could live off the grid. She would get sheep and learn to spin their wool, use weeds to dye the yarn, and knit it into - something. She saw Alex wearing a wool plaid shirt and hunting wild game. When she described this life, he looked at her in disbelief.

“I work in a morgue because I can’t stand to see living people suffer. How do you suppose I would be able to kill a defenseless animal? Besides, I don’t see you without cable TV,” Alex said. He didn’t say,
And unless you brought your father with us, you’d have to learn to cook, too. I don’t see that happening either.

“Well!” Jill exclaimed indignantly. “You don’t have to insult me!” But she was laughing. She did like her History and Discovery channels.
Oh well, a person can dream, can’t they?
But now it could be a possibility because there would be someone else to take over the grocery for Gus when he’d had enough. She gave a sigh of relief thinking,
having more family here will be a good thing. I’m glad that loneliness may no longer be an issue for my father.

Chapter 22

Albert Wong asked for a search warrant for the Parker household as soon as he got back to the precinct. He had Marianne Parker’s consent to search Gretchen’s closet, and probable cause to seize the camera because of its evidentiary value. He hoped that it wouldn’t be missed. He was sure that Jacob Parker would destroy any tapes he had laying around if he discovered the camera was gone. But it would be okay, because the one tape in the camera was enough. He felt physically ill watching it. Jacob and Gretchen had what appeared to be a consensual incestuous relationship. The tape began with Gretchen walking out of the bathroom with a towel around her body. Jacob was sitting on her bed talking to her. Gretchen was smiling and laughing. She opened the towel and flashed her father twice. He got up and with his back to the camera shielding her from view, they embraced. Her arms reached up around her father’s neck and the towel fell to the ground. Albert couldn’t watch anymore. It was enough evidence. The warrant was granted and issued at midnight, so Albert asked the detective on call that night to go with him rather than call Jill out from her night on the town. She deserved a short holiday from the case.

Albert and Detective Riley Franklin went into Dearborn and met up with Aaron Barry and another Dearborn uniformed officer. Jacob Parker was scared enough not to be belligerent.

“I don’t know what you think you are going to find here,” Marianne said. Albert looked at Jacob.

“Do you want to tell her about the video or should I?” Albert asked him, and Jacob went white. But he was going to play dummy.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said. Albert thought he looked sincere.

“Okay, well just remember that the camera had a tape in it, Jacob,” Albert said. The officers neatly went through the house and anything that looked remotely like a video tape was taken. Marianne, playing it smart, wisely kept her mouth shut. She wanted one more night in her home.

~ ~ ~

The previous Sunday evening, Jacob Parker had resumed his search for Gretchen with a vengeance. Marianne tried calling Gretchen’s cell phone repeatedly, but it continued going to voicemail. She left message after message.

“Oh Gretchen! Please, please, please call home! Daddy is so worried about you. Please Gretchen, just call Mother, okay? You aren’t in any trouble. We just need to know you are okay.” She’d never seen her husband so angry. He was beyond irrational.

“I will kill her if she’s with him! Kill her!” He grabbed a bat, a relic from his college days that she didn’t even know he had, and left the house in a rage with Marianne running after him. Jacob started the car, gunning the engine and laying rubber in the driveway and on the street. He went through Dearborn, speeding down Michigan Avenue, and as soon as he got into East Dearborn, he parked on the street and began going into bars, looking for her. He got into a fist fight in the bar on the corner of Schafer and Greenfield, and when the owner called the police, the officer who answered the call was someone Jacob knew well. Once he calmed Jacob down, he was able to talk some sense into him and gave him the idea that he should check the casinos; isn’t that where all young people went these days? Either to Windsor, or Greektown. It had to be fate. As soon as the cop left for another call, Jacob got back into his car and pointed it toward Detroit.

~ ~ ~

It only took Gretchen one day to get into her new role. She’d had a complete transformation. Soud said she had never known a girl to adapt so quickly to the routine. When Gretchen left the hotel for the casino early Saturday morning, she felt like a glamour girl; a slightly drunk glamour girl that is. By the next evening when she had bathed and Soud dressed her in another gorgeous evening gown, she felt fine. The man who was her date that night introduced himself as
Tommy
. At least that was what she was to call him. She got over her disappointment at the lackluster clientele in the slot machine area when he took her to the private gaming rooms where the high rollers played. She fit in well in that milieu. The other women were also young and exquisitely dressed. They looked at her curiously. She was new in town; “Who does she work for?” they asked each other in whispers. Gretchen was confused, having forgotten about her obligation to Soud, but she just smiled and kept her mouth shut.
I work at the bank, is that what they mean?

On Sunday, Soud let her go out without being drugged. Gretchen asked her not to give her anything; she wanted to have fun with
Tommy
. The drugs were only to subdue any resistance a new recruit might be feeling, not to squelch their natural ability to enjoy themselves. Tommy was pleased with the real, animated Gretchen. She was still wearing shoes that were too big, but got used to walking in them. He promised to buy her new shoes that fit as soon as he was finished gambling. They made an odd couple: he was short, aging, and bald, and Gretchen was young, vibrant, beautiful. She was talkative Sunday night and having a great time, and wanted
Tommy
to know it.

“This is the most fun I have ever had!” she exclaimed. She thought that if Mike had simply asked her if she wanted to try it out, she would have said yes.
They didn’t have to drug me to go out with Tommy! He’s the sweetest guy
!
Tommy
couldn’t believe his good fortune. He never had a woman who didn’t need forcing to be with him. This lovely creature was willing and eager. When Gretchen excused herself to go the ladies’ room,
Tommy
called Soud and praised her. Her fee would be paid in full. She didn’t waste any time clearing out of the suite. Tommy would bring Gretchen to Manhattan himself.

The ladies’ room in the casino was a bright and clean oasis in the smoky, cavernous casino. The cool splendor of the sitting area reminded Gretchen of Joan Crawford’s bathroom in the movie
Mommy Dearest
. She liked the idea of having a wealthy, carefree life. Was that what
Tommy
was offering her? He was pleasant, he smelled good, and he treated her with respect. She decided that if it came to him asking her to be his girl, she would gladly accept. Her parents would never forgive her, but she couldn’t live with them forever, could she?

As she washed her hands in the basin, she looked at her face in the mirror and smiled. Her life stretched out before her, comfortable, exciting and glamorous. She threw the paper towel in the trash can and opened the door out to the casino. At first she was confused; it was surreal. She saw him standing there, smiling at her, his face bright red, but it couldn’t be, could it? How could it be?

“Daddy?”

Chapter 23

Jill didn’t hang around waiting for her relatives to descend from the suburbs. As bad as she felt about her cousin’s wife, she needed to get to work. She took her coffee and deep fried, cream filled breakfast and went to the precinct early. An exhausted looking Albert was already at his desk.

“What the hell? Did you ever get home?” she asked surprised to see him at the office ahead of her.

“We searched Parkers house last night. You will not believe what we found. Jacob Parker is in custody.” Jill plopped down in her chair after putting her breakfast on the desk. She remembered her vision.

“What happened? Something worse than the video? I mean, this is amazing!” Jill said, feeling numb. Albert looked at her wax paper wrapped food longingly. Jill took a plastic knife out of her drawer and cut it in two, giving him the larger piece.

“How do you stay so thin?” he asked while biting into it, cream-filling squirting out of the sides of his mouth. “Jacob’s not saying a thing, but that’s not surprising,” Albert continued. They had a lot to talk about. He told Jill about Soud Allahem; a coworker said that was who Mike Ahmed was taking Gretchen to see about a modeling job. Jill told Albert about the hotel video and the blood clots that were a match for Gretchen. Albert talked about the video which clearly showed Jacob and his daughter embracing intimately.

The coup de grace was the bat. None of it meant a thing until they found the bat. Jacob had thrown it behind the furnace in their basement. It was damp, as though recently washed off. CSI was called in and a luminol test showed that it’d had blood on it at one time. However, the basement wasn’t the crime scene. They went over the floor with a magnifying glass and nothing came up. If “Daddy” did kill her, it didn’t happen in his house. Albert was waiting for confirmation that Gretchen’s DNA was on the bat.

“What about the hotel? Wouldn’t we have seen Jacob entering the room?” Jill asked.

“The tapes we saw are from the east end of the corridor looking at the adjoining room. We need to find out if there is a camera at the other end of the hall,” Albert said. “We need to put pressure on the casino to hand over their tapes as well. Their security staff was bombarded last night by a bunch of students who went on a theft spree. Our guys were over there until five.” It was clear to them from the hotel security tapes that Gretchen leaving her hotel room in an evening gown on the arm of an older man could mean she was headed to the casino.

“I’ll go. You stay put. What time did you finish up this morning?” she asked.

“We left Dearborn about three,” Albert said. “Marianne was hysterical, screaming for us to kill Jacob. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so tragic.” He fought back a yawn. “We need to do a timeline. There is still something not gelling.”

Jill thought for moment. It was too obvious. Gretchen didn’t have one outward mark of violence on her body except for the laceration of her vagina and the fatal gunshot wound. Would Jacob have used the bat on his own daughter? The tape was disturbing enough, showing the embrace of a man with his naked daughter
.
But that wasn’t all the tapes revealed. No sexual activity between father and daughter had been recorded. He was simply a voyeur, one who liked to hug his daughter’s body and video tape himself doing it
. Unless he wasn’t aware of the tapes.

“I have a feeling Jacob didn’t place that camera in Gretchen’s closet. Do you feel it?” Jill asked. Albert thought about what she said, and nodded his head
yes
.

“Well it’s clear we aren’t finished yet. You wait for the DNA results on the bat and I’ll search for more tapes,” Jill told Albert. She drank what was left of her coffee and put her father’s mug on a shelf next to her desk. That made two mugs. Three more to go.