Motor City Burning Read Online Free

only thing that could possibly be his undoing. So instead of parking in his usual spot—out in the open at the curb near the corner of Pallister and Poe—he guided the Buick up the narrow driveway that ran between his apartment building and the scorched shell next door. He had to move some tires and old paint cans to make room in the garage. Then he pulled the Buick in and covered it with a tarp and closed the garage door.
    He didn’t want to give the cops a thing. And he damn sure didn’t want to find out—from them or anyone else—exactly what had happened on the night he’d spent the past nine months trying to forget. But the world wouldn’t let him forget. It was like a stone in his guts—the killing guilt that lurked there, waiting to pounce if it turned out he had killed a woman in cold blood.

2
    S ATURDAY MORNING NOT QUITE TEN O ’ CLOCK AND F RANK D OYLE had the Homicide squad room to himself. The place was quiet, flushed with spring sunshine. If he didn’t know better, he might have believed the city of Detroit was at peace with itself.
    When he sat down at his big ugly brown metal desk with the Free Press sports page and a fresh cup of forty-weight from the Bunn-O-Matic, the first thing Doyle noticed was the manila envelope in his IN box. It said INTEROFFICE and CONFIDENTIAL . That sounded promising, but before he could open it his telephone rang. Not even ten o’clock on a Saturday morning and already the calls had started coming. What was he thinking? This was Detroit. The calls never stopped coming.
    Though he’d come in to clear up some paperwork and was, technically, off the clock, Doyle picked up the receiver. You never know. Police work is all about luck and squealers, and maybe this call would bring him luck. The good kind, for a change.
    â€œHomicide, Doyle.” More than a year on the job and he still got a little jolt every time he heard himself say the words.
    â€œFrankie, it’s Henry Hull calling from the Harlan House. Sorry to bother you on the weekend like this.”
    â€œNo problem, Mr. Hull. You know I’m always glad to hear from you.” It was true, sort of. Whenever Doyle heard that familiar squawk, his first thought was, The little bug-eyed bastard’s never going to give up, God bless him . Doyle put a smile in his voice and said, “Before we go on, Mr. Hull, I’ve got to tell you something. You’re the last person in the world who still calls me Frankie, and if you don’t knock it off I’m going to drop this investigation.”
    â€œHold on one minute, young fella. You drop this investigation and I’m going to report you to Sgt. Schroeder. You and your brother both.”
    â€œReport us? For what?”
    â€œShoplifting. Every day on your way home from school you and Rod stopped by the market. I mighta been behind the meat counter but Helen was behind the cash register and old Hawkeye never missed a trick. Every day, she saw you pinch a Bazooka Joe bubble gum and your brother snagged a Tootsie Roll. Every day—for years.”
    â€œYou knew? Why didn’t you say anything?”
    â€œBecause the Doyles were good people. It doesn’t hurt a boy if he believes he’s slick—so long as he doesn’t take it too far. Which you and your brother didn’t do, obviously.”
    The Hulls’ Greenleaf Market was the unofficial social hub of the Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood, the place everyone went for bread and milk, for cigarettes and candy and gossip, to argue politics or talk sports. The Hulls were generous with credit, especially if a customer was visited by hardship, which was a regular occurrence in a city that lived and died with the boom-and-bust cycles of the auto industry. They were also, as Doyle had just learned, lenient with the right kind of shoplifters.
    â€œFrankie, you’re not gonna believe it,” Henry said, “but I found something we