King of the Corner by Loren D. Estleman

Ance, from the moment he had leaned menacingly on the clerk’s counter until they got away from Sergeant Battle, when a wrong word could have revoked his parole, he had felt more alive than at any time since the two-hitter he had thrown his last day in Jackson.
    A uniformed officer carrying a large manila envelope down the hall directed Doc to Major Crimes, where he almost collided with Battle coming out of the squad room. The sergeant, in striped shirtsleeves and a burgundy leather shoulder clip that actually matched his tie, caught himself with a hand on the doorjamb, thanked Doc for coming in, and asked him to wait in the lieutenant’s office.
    The lieutenant’s office was the only enclosed cubicle in a room full of desks and detectives talking on telephones. It had glass walls that stopped short of the ceiling and was just big enough for a desk half the size of Kubitski’s, two chairs, and a row of gray steel file cabinets stacked with folders that had overflowed the drawers. In spite of that the room was neatly kept, the telephone, calendar pad, and portable scanner on the desk squared in line with the corners and a fistful of yellow pencils standing at attention in a rubber cup with their razor points directed at the ceiling. Doc felt certain that Sergeant Battle used the office more than anyone. He wondered idly if the sergeant owned a matching gun rig for every tie in his wardrobe.
    Atop one of the cabinets a portable TV set was tuned to CNN with the sound off. When a still photograph of Wilson McCoy appeared on the screen, Doc went over and turned up the volume. The report of the discovery of McCoy’s body was sketchy and, like every other news event Doc had ever witnessed firsthand, bore little resemblance to what he remembered. Biographical footage followed: McCoy at twenty in jungle fatigues with the sleeves cut off, haranguing an all-black crowd with a banner behind him bearing the initials B.L.A.C.; McCoy in handcuffs and streaked coveralls being escorted to a squad car by white Detroit Police officers in uniform; McCoy standing on the steps of the City-County Building wearing the same coveralls but without manacles, raising a fist in the Black Power salute to a mob hooting and pumping placards reading FREE WILSON; McCoy, many years older and almost unrecognizable in a blue county jumpsuit with his hair cut short and no goatee, being arraigned before a judge on three counts of first-degree murder and one count of interstate flight; McCoy looking much as Doc had seen him last night, graying and emaciated, entering the auditorium of the Detroit Light Guard Armory with the crowd, turning to look at the camera with an expression that reminded Doc of the uncomprehending faces of the old people he had seen in the nursing home in Warren. The last shot dissolved to the still photograph he’d seen before, over the dates of Wilson McCoy’s birth and death. In the late footage he had looked much older than forty-four.
    The program turned from there to a second Detroit story, wherein a group of journalists were asking Mayor Coleman Young for his reaction to a number of allegations made against him by yet another of his aides currently standing trial for misuse of public money. His reply was mostly bleeped out and after thirty seconds he shoved his way through the pack and out of the frame. Sergeant Charlie Battle entered the office then and turned off the set. “Nothing wrong with this city couldn’t be cured with an asshole transplant, you old fart,” he said, stepping behind his desk. He opened the top drawer, took out a typewritten sheet, looked at it, and laid it on Doc’s side of the desk. “I typed up what you told me last night from my notes. Anything else you remember, tell me now.”
    Doc read the statement. It was almost word-for-word what he had given the detectives. “I didn’t see you taking any notes.”
    “I did all that later.”
    “Can’t see someone’s eyes when you’re writing down their