EXERPT FROM THE BOOK
PROLOGUE
THE D
Someone murdered Detroit.
It hadn't died like they said in the news.
Detroit didn't pass from a natural cause. It was "got" as they say on the street, like it had been killed
by the dead-eyed drug-fiend with a jagged pipe or the cold street hitter who'd pop you, then go roll with his crew to get
something to eat.
Detective Danny Cavanaugh thought this every time he looked at a street and saw the lost
youth hanging around waiting to die or the missing homes that dotted each block.
He thought
it when he could see three streets over through the gutted body of a dying neighborhood. He thought it when he saw the prostitutes; dealers and night
people push their way from the inner city to its borders. Only a true, old time Detroiter could understand the tragedy
of a hooker walking boldly on Telegraph Road in broad daylight.
Detroit had many names, Motown of course,
Motor City and of late, Hockeytown. But for many inner city inhabitants it is simply called the "D."
Danny Cavanaugh is a big man, with an easy-going handsomeness framed by dark, reddish hair that he keeps cropped
short. His eyes are intense, piercing some would say and a shade of green that would make any Irishman proud.
His shoulders are broad, flowing into thick, muscular arms and torso.
But it is when he speaks
that people get a full measure of him. His intonations belie the white face and bring to mind a man of color, a black man
specifically.
He has
come by this voice naturally, having been born and raised in the heart of The D.
It
is an odd combination that has sometimes been a gift and at other times, a nuisance. He is intense and enigmatic and
so people think many things of him but one perception is common: he is not someone to fuck with.
Tonight
Danny is sure his city is dead as he watches the paramedics take the injured boy from the incident house.
He's seen this one before: a Black single mother barely holding on to her sanity and life; raises a sweet little
boy who receives his philosophy of love and manhood from street life.
The boy grows into a
vessel of anger filled with hopelessness, loss and ignorance, always one moment away from igniting.
Then one night, the mother pulls a controller out of a videogame because she needs to get some sleep and a few
minutes later, someone is on the floor bleeding.
Only this time, it was the son being loaded
on a gurney by the paramedics. Maybe the mother just lost it or maybe she knew it was only a matter of time before her
little boy would find her useless in his violent life and threaten hers.
The woman had argued
her dominion and adulthood to the young man but he refused to recognize these respectable truths and then made the mistake
of calling her a vile name. So the mother made her point again, this time with a baseball bat wrapped in duct tape,
a weapon she kept by her bed for intruders.
Then standing over her now unconscious son
and smoking a no-brand cigarette, the mother called the cops and waited to be taken to jail.
Danny talks
with a young uniformed officer who'd stepped out of the house looking rattled. She reacts a little hearing the black
man's voice coming from the white man's face. Danny hardly notices as he is used to this by now.
Danny comforts the young officer and sets her to an assignment away from the house. This is good because
at that moment, the attendants bring out the injured boy and it is clear that if he recovers, he will never be normal again.
This is the kind of crime that brought Detroit more unwanted press, Danny thinks. The city is a media fascination
but not the good kind. The news outlets quote the staggering unemployment rate, the murder rate, the poverty rate and
the shrinking population. They talk incessantly of leadership gone bad and government gone wrong. So, whenever
some talking head wants an example of the failure of America, they have only to invoke the name of the city by the narrow
river.
Detroit's new mayor hadn't helped the situation either. Everyone held so much hope
for him when he was elected. Sure, he was young but youth was what the city needed, they had all said. He would
be the one, the messiah, the man who saved Detroit.
But it had not happened.
The young leader so far turned out to be just another politician, an arrogant bully, trampling on good intention
and incapable of living up to the nobility of the city he led. All the celebratory fireworks anointing him had quickly
turned to crap and rained down on everyone.
So the media have their joke, Danny thought.
But they don't know the city was murdered, killed by neglect and sins that have festered for decades.
Danny loves his city. He couldn't explain it to a person who didn't live there. It's like an old
dog. Detroit is loyal and loving and you respect it for the innocence and greatness it harbors inside.
And when anyone dares to assail his city, he is ready to defend, if not fight for its honor. To mess with
Detroit was to taunt that old, sweet dog and find its mouth full of sharp teeth.
The paramedics
roll off as the police finish taking their witness statements. The little crowd that dared to come out starts to go
back inside their homes and Danny wonders if any of them will sleep this night.
The female
uniform comes back to him and says that the officer in charge is done and thanks Danny for coming out. He waves at the
officer in charge who he knows from work.
Danny turns and walks the short distance between the crime scene and
his home, which is just across the narrow street.
