The Prophet

by Michael Koryta

  Salter let him snap, watching him without judgment, and somehow in the man’s patience Kent found only more fury.

  “If you find him now, he’ll be happy to discuss it with you, I’m sure. But you need to find him, damn it.” His voice rose too loud at that, went into coaching tone, and he regretted that immediately because he knew it would carry upstairs, undermining every soothing word Beth was offering to Andrew and Lisa.

  “Was there anything in the conversation,” Salter said, carrying on as if Kent hadn’t spoken, “that felt foreign to you?”

  “Foreign?” Kent stared at him. “The man was pointing a gun at me and talking about murder. It all felt a little foreign, yes.”

  “I mean anything that didn’t ring true to your past conversations. To the letter he left.”

  “No. It was the same guy, using the same words, with the same sick mind. Only this time he was holding a gun and he was at my home. Those were the elements that changed. Just two of them, but a significant two.”

  “The exchange about Gideon Pearce—was that in keeping with what you’d discussed on your visit to the prison?”

  “Absolutely. He didn’t mention the biblical version then, but I’m sure he’s had plenty of time to read since I last saw him. And he admitted to breaking into Adam’s house. He said that he’d been in my sister’s room, described the way Adam has… has re-created it.”

  “Offer any sense of when he was in there?”

  “No.” Kent stood, walked to the window and looked at the dark street, then said, “I should tell Adam about that.”

  “I’d prefer you didn’t.”

  “What?”

  “This is a complex investigation, Coach. We’ve got to be extremely cautious in how we proceed. You understand that. You’ve told me repeatedly how intelligent Clayton Sipes is.”

  “If the man was in my brother’s home, Adam has a right to—”

  “Not from you,” Salter said. “We will handle discussions with your brother. I would think you’d understand, after his latest response, the need for discretion in approach.”

  “I’m not asking you to put up a billboard announcing the guy is a suspect. I’m asking you to disclose to my brother the identity of the person who broke into his house. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.”

  “Nor do I. But let us do it. I’ll consult with Agent Dean and we’ll discuss it with your brother. Until then, we need your cooperation.”

  “My cooperation,” Kent echoed. “Well, you’ve got it, Salter. When a murderer shows up at my door, the first person I call is you. There’s cooperation. What I need from you is protection. Can we discuss that?”

  “You’ll change the locks? Keep the alarm in use at all times?”

  “Obviously. But I don’t consider that proper security at this point. We’re talking about a murderer, someone with a history of stalking. I’d like to hear some better ideas for protecting my family than ‘use the alarm.’ ”

  “We’ll have patrols in your neighborhood regularly. Multiple passes per hour.”

  “Can’t we have someone here around the clock?”

  “We don’t have that sort of manpower. I’ll make sure we have a very visible presence, but I can’t promise twenty-four-hour surveillance.”

  “Are you getting closer to finding him?”

  “We’re moving as fast as we can in every facet of the investigation.”

  “That’s evasion. Not an answer.”

  “We’re working with the FBI and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and we’re making progress. Your continued cooperation can only help.”

  Kent nodded, but he couldn’t look at Salter anymore, was feeling more detached from the man with every word. It took them four months to find Marie’s killer, Adam had reminded him, and then it was police in another town who caught a lucky break.

  He couldn’t argue with that. He’d tried to once, and now he wondered why.

  Part Three

  TROPHY HUNTERS

  32

  ADAM AND CHELSEA WERE just out of the shower, coffee brewing but not yet poured, when they heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Chelsea looked out the window, and Adam said, “Who is it?”

  A pause. “Your brother.”

  “What?”

  She nodded.

  He’d had all the conversation he cared to have with Kent in the locker room the other night, and he didn’t like him showing up at Chelsea’s house. It felt invasive. Why couldn’t he have just called?

  “I’ll deal with it,” Adam said, and then he went outside, closing the door behind him.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Kent said, “For what it’s worth, I wish I’d called you before I gave the police the key.”

  Adam stared at him. “All right.”

  “I wish I’d called,” Kent repeated, and he was jingling his car keys in his hand. Restless, nervous. Adam figured this visit had to be Beth’s idea. Kent didn’t want to be here. Kent was even driving Beth’s car instead of his own. The obviousness of it was infuriating.

  “Came all this way because you need to apologize? Shit, Kent, just because I’ve been charged with a crime doesn’t mean you need to start making your standard visits. Wait until I’m in jail, with the rest of your favorite people.”

  It was unnecessarily harsh, he was trying to pick a fight, but he just wanted Kent gone. He didn’t need to be preached at, didn’t need apologies, didn’t need whatever attempt this was to make real a relationship that no longer existed.

  “Focus on your football team,” he said, losing some of the edge. “My problems are not your fault or your concern, and I won’t keep you off the front page for long, don’t worry. I intend to be a little more silent running at this point. I won’t give them anything else to—”

  “I would like to borrow a gun,” Kent said.

  Adam stopped talking, tilted his head, and stared. “Say that again?”

  “The man who killed Rachel Bond was at my house last night. While I was gone, while Beth and Lisa and Andrew were alone inside.”

  Adam said “Holy shit” in a soft voice, and now he came down the steps to join his brother. “Did he try to get in, or—”

  “He waited for me. He was on the front porch. Stole my car. Just drove away, and they haven’t found him, and I don’t think they will. I’ve called the police, and they’re doing patrols. I’ve done everything I can think to do, but I… I…” Kent stammered, swallowed, and gathered himself. “He was at my house, Adam. With my wife and children inside.”

  Adam felt the sensation he’d had when the stained-glass turtle broke in Marie’s room, a pool of rage with no drain, seeking any fissure, any release.

  “We can’t have that,” he said. “No. We will not have that.”

  Kent wiped a hand over his mouth. “I’m trying not to scare Beth. But I… I’d just like to know there was a means of protection if we needed it. Do you have a gun? May I borrow one?”

  “I have plenty. But do you know how to shoot a gun, Kent?”

  “I was hoping you’d teach me. I’m not asking to become a marksman overnight. I just need to be able to… if I needed to use it, I’d want to know that I could.”

  Adam nodded. “All right,” he said. “You got some time now, we can go to the range.”

  “I’ve got time.”

  “Hang on.”

  Adam went back inside, and Chelsea gave him a questioning look.

  “Finding the son of a bitch who killed Rachel Bond might be easier now,” Adam said. “He’s apparently stalking my brother.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yeah.” He took a deep breath, feeling the aches left from the Taser, and then he said, “I’m going to be late getting to the office, Chelsea.”

  She did not argue.

  He took Kent to a private range south of town. It wasn’t really a range at all, just property belonging to a gun nut who’d devoted several acres of field to shooting, put in a
berm, and let friends come by. Adam was a friend. The guy wasn’t home, but Adam knew he wouldn’t care.

  “You’re not going to be a marksman overnight, just like you said,” he told his brother. They’d driven separately; Kent said he wanted to follow. “So the right choice is going to be something that can do a lot of damage without requiring a lot of accuracy. I like this one.”

  He handed Kent a revolver with rubber grips and a short stainless steel barrel. “Kind of a unique piece,” he said. “It’s a pistol that will shoot both shotgun shells and .45-caliber bullets. Holds five rounds. We’ll load it with two shells, and then three of the .45s. If the guy is anywhere near you, you’ll put him down with the shotgun shells.”

  Adam had dragged out a sheet of plywood, something they used for holding targets in place. He stood fifteen feet in front of it, pointed the revolver, and fired twice. Clouds of woodchips flew into the air.

  “Trust me,” he said. “That’ll put him down. And then…” He walked over to the plywood, placed the barrel just an inch away from its surface, and fired again. This time a .45-caliber bullet blasted through. “You make sure he stays down.”

  He looked back at Kent. “Can you do that? Because you’re going to need to. The shotgun rounds will drop him, but they won’t keep him down. Not a four-ten shell, which is what this takes. So you’ll need to be able to finish it. Can you do that?”

  “I hope not to have the opportunity to find out.”

  “Can you do it?” Adam said. “Because otherwise, there’s no point, Kent. Go buy some pepper spray and hope the neighbors hear when Beth screams.”

  Kent winced. Then he extended his hand for the gun.

  “If he is in my home, and I need to defend my family, yes, I can put him down. I will.”

  Adam nodded, then spun the cylinder open to reload.

  “Let’s see how you like it,” he said.

  Kent shot thirty of the shotgun shells and fifty of the .45 bullets. His hand was steady and his aim wasn’t bad at all. An old quarterback. The hand-eye coordination hadn’t left him yet.

  “If you can do that,” Adam said, watching him, “you’ll be fine. Just remember to finish it. Don’t leave him on the floor and go for the phone. Finish it.”

  Kent turned the gun over in his hand, studying it.

  “Pretty nasty weapon.”

  “It is. Not a very accurate pistol, but for close-range self-defense, I think it’s the best thing out there.”

  “What kind is it?”

  “A Taurus. The model is called the Judge.”

  Kent seemed uncomfortable with the name, which was funny, because it had never struck Adam as having any significance. “The idea was that a judge would wear it in court, I think,” he said. “Close-quarters protection, you know, if some lunatic rushed the bench or whatever.”

  “All right. Listen, I appreciate it. The gun and your time.”

  “Stop, Kent. It’s my niece and nephew you’re talking about. I know you don’t want to worry Beth, but I could work nights outside the house. She’d never know I was there.”

  “I don’t know if it’s a good idea, with the police going by all the time. They’d notice you, and with the situation you’ve got right now…”

  “I’ll deal with it,” Adam said. The wind was blowing hard, flattening the dead grass around them, a few raindrops beginning to spit out of a gray sky. “Keep this in mind, though: you don’t want to come across a day when you wish you’d asked me. Remember that.”

  “You’re willing to?”

  “I’d like to.”

  “I can pay you. It’s a job, and I wouldn’t—”

  “Are you really saying that to me?”

  Kent stopped talking and nodded. “Sorry. And, yeah, if you don’t mind… maybe just tonight at least. Until I hear from the police. I’m sure it will be soon.”

  “Right,” Adam said. “It will be soon. Now, do you want to tell me about this asshole? You say you saw him. Spoke with him.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know him? Can you identify him?”

  “I know him.”

  “Yeah?” Adam’s heart rate had been up all morning. Now it seemed to slow, as if his blood had thickened, and he had to wet his lips before he spoke again. “If you’re so confident, and the police already are looking at this guy, why hasn’t there been an arrest?”

  “He’s missing.”

  “Missing.”

  “Was released from prison this summer. Hasn’t made his parole meetings. There was already an arrest warrant. They’re looking for him.”

  Of course there was already a warrant. Of course they had already been looking for him. Of course they had fucking lost him and not bothered to find him before this.

  “Who is it?” Adam said.

  Kent was silent, eyes back on the gun, still turning it over in his hands, adjusting his fingers around the grips as if they were laces on a football. Adam remembered the way he’d looked when he knew the defense was going to bring a blitz. So restless, so amped. He’d execute against it just fine, but Adam had always hated the body language he displayed in the pocket when pressure was coming. Even though he could handle it, he looked like he couldn’t. He looked scared. Today Adam watched him handle the gun and thought, He knows, damn it, he knows this prick’s name, and he will not tell me. The anger began to surge and he fought it back, reached out and grabbed Kent’s shoulder and squeezed.

  “Tell you what, Franchise. You asked me for a favor, and I granted it today. I’m going to do the same now.”

  “Adam, the police told me that I had to—”

  “Let me get the favor out before you say no,” Adam said.

  Kent glanced at the hand that was still on his shoulder. The flesh over the knuckles was swollen and dark. “What is it?”

  “There’s a place I’d like you to see.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The spot where Rachel Bond died,” Adam said.

  “I don’t need to see that, Adam. And you shouldn’t be there.”

  “I’d like you to have a look.”

  After a long time, still staring at Adam’s bruised hand, Kent nodded.

  33

  THEY SAT ON THE DRIED, cracked wood of the dock across from the cottage, where they could face it but not have to be on the property. The fall winds had torn most of the leaves from the surrounding trees, and already the place was dull and colorless. None of the cottages were in use. The lake was as gray and still as concrete. Kent didn’t like to look at the house, the kill house, the spot where Rachel Bond had sought a final, impossible breath, so he kept his eyes on the water while he told Adam about the visit to Mansfield in the summer.

  He didn’t need to worry about confiding in his brother, his brother with whom he had no real relationship, his brother who had been on the front page of the paper in handcuffs, a bloodied police officer beside him. The police might have asked Kent not to share theories about Clayton Sipes, but Kent was, after all, his brother’s keeper now. Chelsea Salinas had said so herself as he signed the paperwork. Kent had failed to inform Adam of the police search, and he had seen the result. Adam was in trouble because Kent had not prepared him. It could not happen again. For Adam’s own good, Kent needed to keep him informed.

  Prepared.

  “Gideon Pearce was never at Mansfield,” he said.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Adam asked.

  “I’ve been wondering if they knew each other. If the card… that connection to Marie, if that came from research, or from Pearce. It wouldn’t have been hard to find out about. A little while with old newspapers. But I wonder if they knew each other.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “I found out that you met Pearce.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Police told me. You went in to promise him you’d kill him.”

  Adam cleared his throat and spat into the water. “That’s right. If I could have gotten to him that day, I would have
done it then. That son of a bitch’s eyes, Kent… shit, I’d have killed him for the eyes alone, just for the way he looked at me.”

  “Amused,” Kent said.

  “Yes. That’s the word.”

  “Did you mean it?”

  “Mean what? That I would kill him?”

  Kent nodded.

  “Hell, yes, I meant it. One of the saddest days of my life was when he died, Kent. Really. Because I’d been waiting. I wanted the chance. I didn’t care how long it took. If Gideon Pearce had come out of that prison a white-haired old man pushing a walker and hooked up to a frigging oxygen tank, I would have cut his throat.”

  His voice was steady. No shouting, no rage, no choked-down tears. Just steady and firm.

  Kent stared at the house where traces of crime scene tape lay limp along the weathered porch railings, where a man he’d met months earlier had set a trap for a child and ended her life. The wind pushed in a short, chill gust, flapping the tape and putting a momentary gray glitter over the pond. Then it was still again.

  “Why’d you ask me that?” Adam said.

  “I’m worried about you, man.”

  “Worried?”

  “Yeah. You do a lot of talking about killing. First Pearce, now… now the man who killed Rachel. The other day when you came to the locker room, it was the same talk. I understand the anger, I just… you know, I want you to find a way to be at peace.”

  Adam was watching him with an odd smile. “You want me to be at peace?”

  “Of course.”

  “All right. I’ll work on it. You know what would help put me at peace today, Kent?”

  “The name.”

  Adam nodded. “Yes. I would like the name.”

  “I was told not to share it. That the police would.”

  “You’re worried about your family,” Adam said. “Already told me that. Beth’s scared, you’re scared.”

  “We’ll be fine.”

  “I hope so. But let’s remember something—this son of a bitch also came into my home. He got that football card from inside the place where I live. And you don’t think I’m entitled to a name? Suppose this guy is hanging around. Following me, following Chelsea. Wouldn’t it be useful if I could recognize him? Now, if something happens, and you know that had you just shared a name and let me find a few photographs, it might have prevented things… how will that sit with you, Kent?”