Roses Are Dead (30 page)

While he busied himself drawing these conclusions, twenty-two floors up in a new skyscraper in suburban Warren, Sunsmith was twelve feet away drinking lemonade laced with vodka on the sofa inside the main office. His suit today was green, with a thin purple stripe that picked up the deep bluish tinge of his skin. The glass vanished once it was inside his big fist so that when he brought it up to his lips and then replaced it in the little recessed area on the arm of the sofa with its contents half gone he appeared to have pulled off a magic act. The soft sheen in his moist black eyes brightened when the alcohol struck bottom.

“You mix a respectable drink, Mr. Constable. I don't think I've had that combination before.”

“Thank you. It's my own invention. I call it a Yellow Boy.”

Sunsmith nodded, his scalp catching the light. The man seated in the leather chair across from him was white—very—with blond hair so light it was difficult to tell where it stopped being blond and started being gray. He wore it short on top but brushed over his ears on the sides to conceal a slight tendency toward sails. His steel-rimmed glasses were tinted amber and he wore a beige sportcoat over a pale yellow shirt and canary tie. Yellow seemed to be his favorite color.

“I see you've made an addition to your company,” Constable said.

“He's a policeman. It was either that or move my congregation to the chapel at the Wayne County Jail. The mayor wants to keep me alive.”

“That's odd, considering you're on opposite sides of the casino gambling question.”

“A martyr is hard to beat in an election.”

Constable measured out an inch of smile and sipped at his own Yellow Boy. His office looked like a living room, with good abstract oils on the walls and floor lamps with soft white bulbs. The desk was parked in a corner by the curtained window; he never entertained from behind it. “How much this time, Reverend?”

“That's up to your conscience, Mr. Constable. Yours and your employer's. Did I mention that all donations are legally deductible?”

“Every time. I can't help wondering what you do with the money.”

“The church needs a new roof and the youth center needs more room.”

“I had your file pulled after you called for this appointment. We've made donations totaling sixty-three thousand dollars over the past fifteen months. That must be some contractor you're using.”

“Faith is expensive.”

“I can't help but suspect this firm is helping to finance your campaign against legalized gambling. Which I find counterproductive, seeing as how Charles Maggiore is our major stockholder.”

“Has he complained?”

“Rather loudly. But he hasn't shut off your credit.”

“
That
would be counterproductive.”

“Not as much as you might think,” Constable said. “True, we benefit from the return on investments logged officially as tax-deductible charitable contributions, and your church takes in more in collections than many secular businesses in which we hold interest. But we stand to gain far more if the gambling measure is passed.”

“The police think Mr. Maggiore is trying to have me killed.”

“We both know they're wrong. You don't invest in dead men.”

“A record of his donations would be a handy thing to reveal when the police try to charge him with my murder,” Sunsmith suggested.

“It might be, were there such a record.”

“Well,
someone
is trying to free my soul.”

“Just who that is is as much our concern as it is yours.”

“I hardly think that. ‘Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal.'”

“Solomon?”

“Longfellow.”

Constable ran a polished nail around the lip of his glass. “Is it at all unreasonable to ask you not to persecute the measure quite so energetically?”

“Gambling is a sin before God,” intoned Sunsmith, not smiling. “My soul is not on the block.”

“Mr. Maggiore understands that. It's why he trusts you to honor his investments even if they're off the books.” Constable rose. “Will ten thousand take care of the roof?”

“I will ask the sisters to pray for him each time it rains.”

“He'll be relieved to hear it.” He went over to buzz the receptionist.

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Any Man's Death
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A Biography of Loren D. Estleman

Loren D. Estleman (b. 1952) is the award-winning author of over sixty-five novels, including mysteries and westerns.

Raised in a Michigan farmhouse constructed in 1867, Estleman submitted his first story for publication at the age of fifteen and accumulated 160 rejection letters over the next eight years. Once
The Oklahoma Punk
was published in 1976, success came quickly, allowing him to quit his day job in 1980 and become a fulltime writer.

Estleman's most enduring character, Amos Walker, made his first appearance in 1980's
Motor City Blue
, and the hardboiled Detroit private eye has been featured in twenty novels since. The fifth Amos Walker novel,
Sugartown
, won the Private Eye Writers of America's Shamus Award for best hardcover novel of 1985. Estleman's most recent Walker novel is
Infernal Angels
.

Estleman has also won praise for his adventure novels set in the Old West. In 1980,
The High Rocks
was nominated for a National Book Award, and since then Estleman has featured its hero, Deputy U.S. Marshal Page Murdock, in seven more novels, most recently 2010's
The Book of Murdock
. Estleman has received awards for many of his standalone westerns, receiving recognition for both his attention to historical detail and the elements of suspense that follow from his background as a mystery author.
Journey of the Dead
, a story of the man who murdered Billy the Kid, won a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America, and a Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.

In 1993 Estleman married Deborah Morgan, a fellow mystery author. He lives and works in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Loren D. Estleman in a Davy Crockett ensemble at age three aboard the Straits of Mackinac ferry with his brother, Charles, and father, Leauvett.

Estleman at age five in his kindergarten photograph. He grew up in Dexter, Michigan.

Estleman in his study in Whitmore Lake, Michigan, in the 1980s. The author wrote more than forty books on the manual typewriter he is working on in this image.

Estleman and his family. From left to right: older brother, Charles; mother, Louise; father, Leauvett; and Loren.

Estleman and Deborah Morgan at their wedding in Springdale, Arkansas, on June 19, 1993.

Estleman with actor Barry Corbin at the Western Heritage Awards in Oklahoma City in 1998. The author won Outstanding Western Novel for his book
Journey of the Dead
.

Loren signing books at Eyecon in St. Louis in 1999. He was the guest of honor.