“Ellen,” I said. My throat felt like 60-grit sandpaper.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up,” I managed.

“Oh, come on,” she said. “I let you saw logs all night. I know how much you need your beauty sleep, but it’s time to make your statement.”

“I already did. I said shut up. That’s my statement.”

She sighed, and I heard the scrape of a chair across the floor. Now the voice was next to me. I opened my eyes, and she was handing me a glass with orange juice in it.

“Drink up, Gilligan,” she said.

I took a drink and tried to sit up. My ribs ached, and I had a few thousand sore spots on my body. I took another drink and turned a small corner toward feeling human again.

“Start with when you left the scene of Molly’s murder,” she said.

It took me the better part of a half hour, with plenty of breaks, to describe the shootout with Erma and Freda, the connection I made between Rufus Coltraine and Memphis Bornais, and then my decision to meet Shannon on my boat.

When I got to the part about Teddy and his hired killer showing up, I said, “It was him, Ellen.”

“Who?”

“The guy with Teddy. It was him. The guy who killed Benjamin Collins.”

“Come again?” she said.

“I haven’t lost my mind, Ellen.”

“You need to rest,” she said.

“No, I don’t. It was him, Ellen. The guy I turned Benjamin Collins over to. The guy who cut him up and tossed him in the lake.”

She held up her hands. “Okay, okay, let’s finish talking about this later.”

“But—”

“Shannon Sparrow showed up at the station this morning,” Ellen said. “She has a little tape recorder she carries around for song ideas. She recorded her manager admitting to orchestrating the murders of Memphis and the others.”

“And Teddy?”

She shook her head. “Gone.”

That made sense to me. If he was connected, whether to the Mob or just the criminal underground in general, he’d probably have a way to hide. Who knew how much of Shannon’s money he had squirreled away?

Ellen left then, and I retreated into my favorite hobby.

Sleeping.

Chapter Forty-Seven

People from across the border in Canada, people from Ohio, Indiana, and as far away as Chicago, began to show up as early as eight hours before the concert. Everyone was talking about the event on the radio. “Shannon Sparrow’s free concert!” they boomed across the airwaves.

Coupled with the media attention the murders had created, Shannon’s name had been splashed across the public’s eye more times than could be counted. Some had even put forth a conspiracy theory that it was all a giant publicity stunt.

The show was being put on in the middle of the village. There were cop cars everywhere, roads had been blocked off, and the village was swarming with people.

I took Anna and the girls, and picked up Clarence Barre on the way. Shannon had given us all VIP passes so we could watch the concert from off to the side of the stage.

One of Shannon’s roadies provided us with five chairs, and we sat down, at least the adults did. The girls were singing and dancing around, too keyed up to sit.

“Is this what your shows were like?” I asked Clarence.

“Yeah,” he said. “I gave a lot of free shows too, but only because no one would pay me.”

I had never really seen a happy Clarence before. Not that I would call him “happy,” per se, but it did seem that a giant weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He’d taken the news well when I told him that a songwriter, Memphis Bornais, had arranged to have Jesse killed. And that, ultimately, Shannon’s manager had tried to cover it all up.

He shook his head. It upset him that Jesse hadn’t told him she was beginning to write songs. It made sense to me, from what I’d learned about her through Nevada Hornsby. Jesse was independent. She didn’t want to tread on her father’s name. And knowing that if she told him, he’d probably call up producers and performers he knew, using his contacts to give her a break, she had decided to go her own way.

“Gosh, they’re beautiful,” he said, gesturing toward my daughters. Isabel and Nina now had their arms around each other and were doing some kind of chorus line. Christ, what a couple of hams. Took after their mother obviously.

Anna put an arm around Clarence’s shoulders.

“I’m glad John could help you,” she said. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, but I can guess that it feels good to have it resolved.”

He nodded, his big, silvery mane flowing like expensive silk. Damn, Kenny Rogers was back.

A local disc jockey appeared on stage and did the usual big introduction for Shannon, and then amid thunderous applause and a few pyrotechnics, she appeared.

Shannon wore a short skirt, cowboy boots, and a white blouse. I recognized her band mates even though most of them now looked sober. I’d only seen them when they were drunk or getting stoned.

Anna, Clarence, and I all applauded.

Shannon slung the guitar over her shoulders.

It was a beautiful instrument, handmade by Jesse Barre. The cops eventually found it at Memphis Bornais’ farmhouse, in her music room. On public display. The cops actually gave it to Clarence, but he felt that it was intended all along for Shannon, so it was hers now.

Shannon stepped to the microphone.

“I’d like to dedicate this concert to a very special person,” Shannon said. “Her name is Jesse Barre. She had beauty inside her. And she created beauty in everything she did.”

I stole a glance at Clarence. He was already starting to cry.

“She made this guitar,” Shannon said, and she lifted it off her chest away from her body, toward the crowd. It truly looked spectacular under the lights. The very embodiment of beauty.

“She also had just begun to write songs, before her life was tragically taken from her.”

Clarence stood, and Shannon looked at him.

“I’m going to record her songs and put out a CD next year,” Shannon said. “The proceeds of which will go to the Jesse Barre Foundation.”

The crowd applauded. I admired Shannon. She was trying to do the right thing.

“Here’s a little something she wrote. I don’t know for sure if she had her father in mind when she wrote it, but I have a feeling she did.”

Shannon put the pick to the strings, and the song seemed to flow out of her. I thought of all the tragedy, the killing and lives wasted over the music I was hearing now.

I hugged Anna.

I hugged the girls

And I even hugged Clarence.

Shannon was right.

Jesse Barre created beauty.

I was seeing it right now.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Ellen was in a meeting with a task force from Wayne County, which was formed to track down a prostitution ring believed to be bringing in teenage girls against their will from cities like Chicago and Cleveland.

I sat in Ellen’s office, listening to the cop chatter in the hallways, the traffic out on Mack Avenue.

For the first time in my life, I felt hope. Hope that one day I might catch the man who killed Benjamin Collins. They say that you never know what life will bring you. That what initially appears to be great misfortune can often turn into great opportunities.

When Teddy Armbruster showed up on my boat, I thought it was all over.

Now, I realized, it was a new beginning.

•

“Haven’t you given me enough paperwork to deal with?” Ellen said, breezing into her office, the leather of her gun belt creaking like an old saddle.