Machine City: A Thriller (Detective Barnes Book 2) Read online

  OTHER TITLES BY SCOTT J. HOLLIDAY

  Detective Barnes Series

  Punishment

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Scott J. Holliday

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503903401

  ISBN-10: 1503903400

  Cover design by Michael Heath | Shannon Associates

  This book is dedicated to my sister, Heather.

  I never met her, as she was born before me and died from an undetected brain tumor at three months old. I know she lives on in my mother’s heart, but I like to think that mentioning her name and telling her story gives her back a little of the life she never had.

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

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  17

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  22

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  31

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  37

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.

  —George Bernard Shaw

  PROLOGUE

  DETROIT, MI—Officials issued an AMBER Alert Monday as the Detroit Police continue the search for 10-year-old former Starmonizers contestant Cherry “Little Cher” Daniels, who disappeared from her Corktown home Tuesday night.

  Cherry’s mother, Hannah, pleaded for her daughter to be returned to safety.

  “We’ll do anything, just bring her home safely,” Daniels said, staring into a WXON news camera at the scene outside of her home. “She’s a good kid. She gets good grades. She’s nice to people. You all know her.”

  Little Cher captivated audiences during the nationally televised children’s singing competition show, eventually taking fourth place due to her soulful renditions of Motown classics such as “What’s Going On,” “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” and “Superstition.”

  Hannah Daniels stated she came home from work on Tuesday evening to find that her daughter, a latchkey kid and a walker from the nearby elementary school, was missing. The last time Hannah could recall seeing her daughter was the same morning when she sent Cherry off to fifth grade at Cross Elementary.

  Police have reported there was no sign of forced entry in the home.

  The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office has stated that crews spent all day searching the city for the girl. A spokesperson for the Detroit Police, Lieutenant Detective William Franklin, told WXON, “It’s all hands on deck for Little Cher. We’re doing everything we can.”

  Cherry’s mother describes the girl—who is 4´ 6˝ tall, weighs about 90 lbs., and has blonde hair and brown eyes—as “full of laughter” and “everyone’s best friend.”

  Little Cher has so far been unable to turn her competition success into fame outside of Detroit but has performed at local events, including last season’s Governor’s Ball for charity and the national anthem at the Lions Monday night game this past season. She is currently scheduled to perform at Cobo Hall on the final day of the upcoming Auto Show.

  1

  Former Detroit homicide detective John Barnes sat on the wooden steps that led up to his porch, his leather tool belt unbuckled and set at his side. There was a framing hammer in the steel loop, 16d sinker nails in the main pouch, a twenty-five-foot measuring tape buttoned in its place. He sat with his forearms on his knees and a beer held loosely in his right hand, dangling in the space between his legs. It was Friday afternoon, and the foreman had let the crew off early. Barnes had come home to an empty house, pulled the beer from the fridge, and headed out to the porch, letting the cheap screen door bang and rattle as it closed behind him.

  He took a swig, set the bottle down, and examined his hands. They were calloused and muscular now, lightly coated with drywall dust and blue snap-line chalk. His silver wedding ring was battered and beautiful. He clapped his hands and rubbed them together, sending dust into the air. He then ran his fingers through a full head of hair. His surgically repaired shoulder ached. There was titanium in there now, beneath the scars. Same with his knee. They both gave him trouble at times.

  Barnes placed a hand on the scar above his heart. He pressed down on it like a button. It tickled and stung. He waited for the victims in his head to comment, but they were quiet now. Had been for some time. He smiled and leaned back against the stairs, placing his elbows on the step above and behind him. He kicked out his legs and crossed them at the ankles.

  A school bus appeared at the end of his road. The air brakes sounded off as the bus came to a stop at the corner. Jessica was waiting there alongside two other mothers. It was a warm autumn day but growing crisp as evening approached. Jessica wore a sweater and a long skirt.

  Richard J. Barnes hopped off the bus with both feet and landed like a paratrooper, Batman backpack firmly attached. He ran a few circles around his mother before taking her hand. They spoke with each other as they headed down the sidewalk toward home.

  The boy’s face lit up when he saw his dad.

  Richie ran out in front of his mother and down the sidewalk toward home, arms pumping at his sides. His hair flew back and his backpack shifted across his shoulders. Never had the boy looked so much like his namesake—Barnes’s kid brother, Ricky, dead and gone now for more than twenty-five years.

  “You’re home!” Richie said. He clambered up the steps and hopped into his father’s arms.

  Barnes caught Richie with a huff and a laugh. He stood and hugged his son to his chest, the boy’s feet dangling at his father’s thighs. Richie smelled of scratch-and-sniff strawberry and pencil shavings, paste and construction paper.

  Barnes looked up to find Jessica walking up the sidewalk toward the porch. Her hands were clutched together at her waist. She wore the strained smile of a worried mother, a concerned wife. “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “My day ended early,” Barnes said. He rolled his eyes toward the developing storm clouds overhead.

  Jessica stopped walking, looked stunned.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve still got a job. It’s only—” A lightning bolt flashed across the sky. The thunderclap followed quickly, rattling the home’s front windows and the porch’s wooden slats. Richie squeezed Barnes tighter, buried his face into his father’s neck. Barnes smirked at Jessica. “The weather.” He set Richie down on his feet.

  The sky darkened and the storm clouds swelled as J
essica stepped onto the porch and stood with Barnes beneath the awning.

  “Want to see what I made at school?” Richie said. He started peeling off his backpack.

  “I sure do.”

  “Not right now,” Jessica said, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “After dinner.”

  Richie’s delighted face went hangdog. The wind picked up and tossed his hair. Too long for a boy, Barnes thought. It should be cut. He lifted his son’s chin with two fingers. “After dinner. Okay, Dynamite?”

  Richie smiled. “Okay, Hurricane.”

  Barnes held out his hand in monkey bite formation—index and middle finger opened like scissors, the fingers curled in toward his palm. Richie responded with his own monkey bite formation, which they connected and clamped together for their secret handshake.

  Jessica held the screen door open. Richie sped past her into the house, sending her skirt swirling around her legs. She eased the door closed and stayed on the porch. “It’s Dynamite and Hurricane now?”

  The professional wrestling characters from young Johnny and Ricky’s favorite arcade game, Mania Challenge, were technically Dynamite Tommy and Hurricane Joe, but to the boys they were Dynamite Ricky and Hurricane John.

  Come get some, Hurricane.

  You’re dead meat, Dynamite.

  Barnes offered a wry smile.

  “You sure everything’s okay?” Jessica said.

  “Of course. What is it?”

  Jessica tilted her head and put a hand on his cheek. She regarded him for a moment, examining his face. A lock of her hair fell across her eyes. She pulled it back behind her ear. “It’s nothing.”

  “It doesn’t feel like nothing,” Barnes said.

  She leaned in and kissed his lips. Her touch was light and soft, tentative as a bird. A shy girl snatching a kiss from an aloof boy. She pulled back and regarded him again, eyes searching.

  “What’s going on?” he said.

  “Just come inside, okay?”

  Barnes bent down to pick up his tool belt, but the sound of an approaching vehicle interrupted him. As the rain began to fall, an unmarked sedan pulled up to the curb with Lieutenant Detective Franklin in the driver’s seat, plus a man Barnes didn’t recognize in the passenger side. Probably Franklin’s new partner. Raindrops bubbled on the sedan’s windshield. They ticky-tacked the aluminum awning over Barnes’s head.

  “I’ll leave you three alone,” Jessica said, raising her voice above the increasing downpour. Barnes turned, but the screen was already closing behind her. The door banged shut. She walked down the hall, a fuzzy vision through the mesh.

  The sedan’s suspension squawked as Franklin emerged from the driver’s side. His big head appeared above the car’s roof, which was growing slick and shiny from the rain. Franklin appeared to have aged two decades in the six years since the two had worked together. The black in his hair was hanging on, but it was mostly streaked with gray. His dark skin was ashy at the edges. He still wore the finest suits, though some of them—this one included—were in their golden years.

  The other man stayed in the car. He stared out through the windshield with his head tilted back in a cocky sort of way. New cops were like that. Made of steel until the city heat softened them. Barnes had been new once, too. He recalled walking a beat in uniform, arresting dopers and domestic abusers, chasing runners and subduing fighters. Afternoons kicking in door after crack-house door, hauling in the same perp a dozen times. Small-time criminals were processed through the system quicker than crap through a goose. You brought them in at night and then passed them by on the sidewalk the next morning.

  “Morning, Sam.”

  “Morning, Ralph.”

  Then came the rookie hazing after he made detective. Salt poured in his coffee while the old guard stared on, waiting to bust their guts while he cringed from the taste. A bubble-wrapped desk. His car filled with shaving cream. They’d started out calling him Slick, but the nickname never stuck. The Calavera case had changed all that. So much time on the machine. The voices, the physical abuse, the murders he relived, over and over. Hard to call him Slick when his face eerily resembled the skeletal mask of the man he chased. Hard to bust his balls when his body was broken and his mind was filled with voices.

  The serial killer’s deeds had been Barnes’s personal trials of Job, and that was just the time he spent on the machine. Getting shot three times in real life didn’t help. He’d nearly bled to death in Whitehall Forest, his back against the door of that old boxcar to trap Calavera inside.

  Franklin strolled through the falling rain toward the porch, stepping on the wet spots collecting on the pale concrete. His shoulders were no longer wider than his waist, but they were still impressive. His arms and hands were like heavy plate weights stacking up to connect with his powerful frame. The wooden porch steps creaked as he came up.

  “Beer?” Barnes said.

  “No thanks. Here on official business.”

  “Is that right?”

  “How are you feeling?” Franklin said.

  “I feel like I’m wondering what official business means.”

  Franklin opened his jacket and reached inside. He slid out a white envelope, the back side facing out. “I got a letter here . . .” He put on a pair of reading glasses and looked at the front of the envelope. “It’s addressed to Detective John Barnes of Homicide, care of Detroit Police, First Precinct.”

  “And?”

  “What do you say to that?”

  Barnes looked puzzled. “I say let me read it.”

  “It’s not addressed to you.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You still a detective?”

  “No,” Barnes said, “but it’s got my name on it, right?”

  Franklin handed Barnes the letter. “Don’t open it yet. That’s not why I’m here.”

  Barnes glanced at the envelope. The return address was DILLMAN & ASSOCIATES ESTATE LAW, NEW ORLEANS, LA. He folded the letter in half and slid it into his pocket, crossing his arms over his chest. “Shoot.”

  “We need you.”

  “We?”

  “The police.”

  “No thanks,” Barnes said.

  “A favor, then,” Franklin said. “For me.”

  “That’s dirty.”

  Franklin raised an eyebrow.

  “What could the Detroit police need so badly that you’d call in a favor on me?”

  “We need someone on the machine.”

  Barnes blinked. He stepped backward. Coldness emerged in his needle-scarred elbow pits. Numbness raced up toward his head, turned toward his internal organs. His scalp tingled. He ran his fingers through his hair. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Fuck you for even asking, partner,” Barnes said. “You know what that thing did to me.”

  “A man’s life is at stake.”

  Barnes balled his hands into fists. “You’re damn right there is. Mine!”

  “Flaherty.”

  “Who?”

  “Detective Adrian Flaherty,” Franklin said. “Remember him?”

  “What’s he got to do with me?”

  “He’s gone missing.”

  “So find him. You’re a detective.”

  “You know the machine is outlawed now.”

  “And?”

  “Thought you might still have contacts.”

  “You can have them.”

  Franklin sighed.

  “Oh, I see,” Barnes said. His chest began to heave. “Everyone saw how the machine fucked up Barnesy, so now no one wants to take the ride. Outlawed for investigative and recreational use, servers retired, machines dismantled, but Barnes still knows of a few, eh? He’s got contacts, maybe even a med card. Hell, he’s probably still a munky. How am I doing so far?”

  “Spot-on.”

  “Well then, here’s the news of the day, partner. I don’t have a med card, and I haven’t been on that thing in years. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve
got a life that I’d rather not have destroyed, so to hell with your favor.”

  Rain had filled the gutters, clogged with leaves and beginning to overflow. Water peeled down in sheets from the awning, framing falling leaves like they were suspended in glass. Franklin looked out over the street. “Sorry I asked.”

  Barnes took a beat. He calmed his breathing, unclenched his fists. He snatched up his beer, took a slug, and then followed Franklin’s sight line. The big man was looking between the houses across the street. There was a coyote there. Skinny. Starving. The neighborhood seemed overrun with them lately. More and more wild animals were circling back into suburban neighborhoods as the spread of humanity kicked them out of their forest homes. The two men watched the coyote sniff around between the houses, look up suddenly at a passing car, and then return to sniffing. Barnes moved his eyes back to Franklin’s sedan and found the man in the passenger seat, now a blur of cop-shaped color behind the fogged-up glass.

  “That your new partner?” Barnes said.

  Franklin pursed his lips. “You could say that.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Who?” Franklin said.

  “Flaherty.”

  “Abducted, we think.”

  The coyote slunk in behind one of the houses. Through the drumming rain came the faint rattling of a chain-link fence. The thing must have been struggling to crawl beneath it, losing back fur along the way.

  “This has something to do with that girl,” Barnes said. “Cherry Daniels, right?”

  Franklin nodded. “Little Cher.”

  “Let’s see if I can add two and two,” Barnes said. “Cherry Daniels goes on AMBER Alert, Flaherty tracks her down, gets close, and ends up missing, too?”

  “You’re in the ballpark.”

  “Got any leads?”

  “A few,” Franklin said. “But hey, I gotta run, okay?” He offered his palm.

  Barnes shook his former partner’s hand. “Sorry I can’t help.”

  “I shouldn’t have asked,” Franklin said. “Take good care of that family you’ve got.” He stepped into the rain and headed down the sidewalk but stopped halfway to his car. He turned back. “Hey, remember that time we sat on the precinct roof taking potshots at the old Denbo water tower?”