The Prophet

by Michael Koryta

  It was a shrewd argument. Adam had always been shrewd, and he’d always understood how to motivate Kent.

  “I’ll spend every night outside your house watching for this bastard if you want me to. Every night. You have a chance to do the same. To help protect me.”

  For a long time, Kent was quiet. The image from the front page of the newspaper returned, that glimpse of his brother’s flat eyes and bloodied hands. 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.

  “Clayton Sipes,” Kent said. He’d expected it to come out in a whisper, but his voice was clear and strong.

  “Clayton Sipes.” Adam echoed the name in a measured way, like someone tasting wine before accepting the bottle.

  “I brought him here,” Kent said, and then he told him all that had happened, from the first prison encounter to the previous night. “He’s here because of me.”

  “Seems that way.” Adam’s voice was tight. He removed a cigarette and lit it, and it took him five tries to get the flame steady, his thumb trembling on the lighter’s flywheel.

  “You want to say something about the circumstances, get it out now,” Kent said. “Go on and tell me that if I didn’t go parading into prisons with a Bible, none of this would have happened. Go ahead and tell me that and whatever else—”

  “Shut up, Kent.”

  Kent looked at him, watched Adam exhale a wreath of smoke.

  “You’re thinking it,” he said. “And in this case, at least, you’re not wrong.”

  “All I am thinking,” Adam said, “is that a man who killed a seventeen-year-old girl is out there, free. And he walked into my home—into our home—and removed our sister’s property. That’s what I’m thinking.”

  Kent didn’t answer. The sun hadn’t so much as creased the clouds but still he had his Chambers High cap pulled very low over his eyes.

  “Do what you say,” Kent told him, “take precautions, stay vigilant. But the other ideas… Stay away from those thoughts, Adam.”

  “It’s hard to stay away from thoughts, Kent. They have a way of chasing you down, you know? It’s awfully hard to relocate from your own mind.”

  It was quiet for a moment. Adam blew smoke into the wind, and then he said the name again, soft. “Clayton Sipes.” He nodded, and he looked calm when he rose to his feet and offered Kent his hand. “You did the right thing, telling me.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Trust me,” Adam said. “You did the right thing.”

  34

  CLAYTON SIPES HAD EARNED his sentence at Mansfield for sexual assault and stalking. He’d been twenty-nine when he went in, was thirty-four when he walked out.

  And vanished.

  August. The same month Rachel Bond’s supposed father had contacted her to inform her of his release.

  While he read about Sipes, Adam smoked four cigarettes in the time he usually allotted for one, not realizing it until he picked up the pack and was startled to find it empty. There was a tightness along the back of his skull. Too much nicotine, too fast.

  The tightness didn’t go away when he stopped smoking, though. It spread into his neck as he sat at the computer and studied the newspaper accounts. Sipes was from Cleveland, and had been arrested there, a janitor at Case Western Reserve who’d taken an unhealthy interest in a twenty-one-year-old engineering student at the school. The first complaint from the victim had been made three years prior to the final arrest, proving that it was not a passing fancy. Clayton Sipes, the Gideon who’d tracked Rachel Bond, was a patient man. Devoted, diligent. Kent was not likely wrong in his assessment of the man’s guilt. Sipes fit the profile.

  After multiple unsettling encounters with Sipes, the victim had finally contacted the campus police, saying she felt intimidated. Sipes was warned to keep his distance, but he was not charged. Five months later, having failed to keep his distance, he was fired from the school and charged with harassment. The charges were dropped, but Clayton’s interest in his victim was not. Over the following two years, he appeared again and again. Calls were made to the police, investigations were conducted, but Sipes had alibis, and no further charges were filed. It wasn’t until three years after he first showed interest in the woman that he was finally arrested on her porch, carrying a .357 and wanting to talk to her about the way she was ignoring her destiny, while fondling her breasts and smelling her hair. She managed to hit redial on her cell phone while it was in her pocket; a friend picked up and, thankfully, amazingly, listened instead of dismissing it as an accidental call. Heard enough to hang up and dial 911 and the police found them there on the porch. Sipes was charged with violating a restraining order, sexual assault, stalking, and attempted kidnapping. The last charge was dropped, and he was sentenced to eight years, which meant with good behavior he’d walked in five.

  Adam’s first step was this background gathering. He had to understand Sipes before he began to hunt; that was imperative. He had to know as much as possible about the man. There was a hot anger in his blood as he looked at the booking photographs, saw the smirking, taunting eyes projecting indifference to the camera.

  Lost him, he thought. They lost him.

  How? How could you take your eyes off a sick son of a bitch like that? How could you just let him wander away, show no real concern over it until a girl was dead in a ditch?

  He could not set things right. He understood that was beyond his grasp; there was no way to make such a thing right. But there was penance, and there was punishment, and those things he could administer.

  He wanted to begin the search now, but by the time he’d finished his information gathering, it was edging toward dusk and he knew he needed to be at his brother’s house. Days he would hunt, nights he would stand guard. And if Sipes would cooperate and make another appearance, then the hunt wouldn’t even be necessary.

  Come to me, Adam thought as he slipped on a shoulder holster and put a Glock semiautomatic into it. Chelsea watched with unsettled eyes.

  “You think this is a good idea?” she asked.

  “The son of a bitch showed up at their house already, Chelsea. He may come back. I will not leave them alone to face that. I can’t.”

  She accepted that with a nod, then kissed him and held him. A little too tight, a little hard. Not happy that he was leaving, and he understood that, but there was nothing else to be done.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said, pulling free from her. “I’m sorry.”

  That night Beth kept calling Kent back to bed.

  “Please,” she said. “You’re just making me more nervous when you pace like that.”

  He wasn’t pacing, he was trying to make sure they were prepared. He checked the alarm, he checked the windows, he watched the yard. Stood on the porch with his fingers wrapped tightly around the rubber grips of the Judge—he had not shown it to Beth; she was opposed to firearms and he doubted even in this situation would be accepting of one in their home—and stared into the shadows, listening to the dry leaves whisper over the boards of the privacy fence, every one of them sounding like a potential footstep at first, and then, when he realized it had not been, more like a soft, taunting laugh.

  “I won’t sleep ten minutes if you keep wandering the house,” she said. “The police are making their patrols. Trust them.”

  Right. The only problem with that was he’d observed only two passes from a police car in the last three hours. They were present, sure—Salter had been good to his word on that—but the gaps in between patrols went thirty or forty minutes. That was so much time. Kent, who spent his life watching games decided in a matter of seconds, who had once lived with his sister only a ten-minute walk from their own high school, understood just how little time it took for things to go terribly wrong.

  “Get some rest,” Beth told him.

  He promised her that he would, and then he lay beside her and watched the bare limbs cast dancing shadows over the
windows and kept his eye on the jacket pocket in which he’d left the Judge. When he could tell from Beth’s breathing that she was asleep, he slipped out of the bedroom once more, went downstairs, and called Adam.

  “You out there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Nothing’s happening?”

  “Police cruise by pretty often. If they’re aware of me, they aren’t bothering to stop and talk. If they’re not aware of me… well, that’s hardly encouraging.”

  “I appreciate it,” Kent said. “Really. The extra presence is a good idea.”

  “I’d have been here regardless of whether you agreed to it. You make sure you’re carrying that gun from here on out, though.”

  “I just want it at night.”

  “You don’t need to worry about nights. Nights I’m here. Days, you should carry it.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind. Listen, if the police stop to talk to you, please tell them—” He was interrupted when a shadow moved on the steps, nearly shouted before he realized it was Beth, watching him. “I’ve got to get back to my family,” he told Adam. “Thanks again.”

  “Sure thing, Franchise.”

  When he hung up, Beth said, “Who are you talking to?”

  “My brother.”

  “At one in the morning?”

  “He’s outside.”

  “What?”

  “He’s watching for Sipes.”

  “Just… sitting in his car?”

  “I guess so, yeah. It was his idea, Beth. And I thought it was a good one.”

  “Why outside?”

  “Huh?” He honestly couldn’t follow the question.

  “Why did you make him watch from outside? If you think it’s a good idea to have him here, let him be here. Inside the house.”

  “I didn’t want to frighten the kids. Or you.”

  “You were just asking him if the police had stopped him, Kent. And he was just arrested for fighting with the police. You think the best idea is to have him outside in the car? Open the door and let him in.”

  Adam could not remember the last time he’d been in his brother’s home. He hadn’t crossed the threshold since the day he punched Kent in the driveway.

  Now he stood in the living room in the dark, wearing a Glock pistol in a shoulder holster, unconcealed by a jacket, and shook hands with Beth, who was making an obvious effort not to stare at the weapon. Obvious and unsuccessful.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she told him.

  “I think it’s a good idea. And I was fine in the car, that didn’t bother me at all.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

  He didn’t argue.

  “Well… I’m going to bed,” she said. “Thank you, Adam.”

  “Of course. Get some rest, Beth.”

  She went to the bedroom then, leaving him alone with Kent in the living room.

  “How you doing, Franchise?” Adam asked. “Holding up?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “How’s the team look?”

  “I hardly saw them today, honestly. Mind was elsewhere.”

  “Relax on that,” Adam said. “Focus on them, let me deal with this.”

  “You and the police.”

  “Right.” Adam nodded and said, “Tough one coming up. Saint Anthony’s.”

  “Big game.”

  “Probably the biggest. You get past them this week, you ought to be in pretty good shape if your boys stay healthy. Think you can do it?”

  “I need Mears to make some catches.”

  “You ought to play him at corner. Or let him play defensive special teams at least.”

  “What?”

  “I watched that kid. Tell you what he needs: to do some hitting. Tough for a receiver, right? But if he gets the chance to knock somebody down, put blood in somebody’s mouth, he’ll come back around. Right now he’s got to leave some emotion out on that field. He wants to play fast and mean. It’s hard for him to do that split out wide right. The kid needs to hit.”

  “He’s never lined up at corner in his life, Adam.”

  “He’s played against them his entire life. Let me ask you this: if that kid had arrived on your team with stone hands, where would you have played him? He’s, what, six-two and runs the forty in four-point-four?”

  “Four-three.”

  “Okay. Now imagine that he couldn’t catch a cold if you spotted him a sneeze in the face. Where do you use him?”

  “Corner, sure. But I can’t move him over there now.”

  “In press coverage, you could. He knows all the routes, he’s got all the right skills. If it’s just him covering another kid running the same routes, with less impressive skills, he’d be fine.”

  Kent shook his head, then said, “Why are we talking football?”

  Adam smiled. “Following your own advice, Franchise. Let’s distract ourselves, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Wait on the police to do their jobs.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a damn good plan,” Adam said. “Now, go back to your wife, and get some sleep.”

  “Feel bad, making you stay up.”

  “I won’t have any trouble with it.”

  That was the truth. It was as he’d explained to Chelsea: the four people in that house were all that he had left of a family.

  When Kent went upstairs, Adam sat alone with his hand on the butt of his gun and watched the street, and he had no trouble staying awake.

  35

  HIS TEAM LOOKED CRISP on the field, polished, and Kent almost wished that they weren’t. He felt swollen with emotion and wanted to find an outlet, release his fear and frustration into a shouting session about poor effort or technical shortcomings. The kids didn’t grant him that, though; they were precise and intense, and it was a short practice because most of the time would be devoted to watching video, the only chance all week that the coaches would have to review video of the opponent.

  They went into the school, breaking up into offensive and defensive units to study football, sitting at desks in the same classrooms they’d so eagerly left an hour earlier.

  The assistant coaches ran the video sessions so Kent could drift between the two groups and offer input to both sides of the ball. Today he started with the offensive group, where Steve Haskins ran through the various defensive fronts Saint Anthony’s had played during the season. Unfortunately, there were a lot of them. Scott Bless liked to mix it up.

  “Any additional thoughts, Coach?” Haskins asked Kent.

  “Their cornerbacks are not fast enough to keep up with Colin,” Kent said. “They’ll play a safety over the top, like we’ve seen all year, but these kids are a half-step behind, all the time. We’re still going to have the vertical game there if Lorell can put the ball in the right spot. Think you can do that, Lorell?”

  This was by design, of course. He wanted everyone to think his only question was with his quarterback’s ability, that Colin’s hands offered him not even a flicker of doubt.

  “I can do that, yes, sir,” Lorell said, but he was looking at Kent with a knowing stare. Colin wasn’t looking at anybody.

  “Glad to hear it,” Kent said, “because those kids cannot keep up with him.”

  He nodded at Haskins, who moved on to blocking schemes for inside runs, and then slipped out of the offensive classroom, paused in the hall, and called Beth.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “Everything good?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just checking,” he said. It was the fifth call of this sort he’d made today. He was trying not to make so many, not to feed her paranoia with his own, but it was hard. He’d be focused on something and then he’d see Clayton Sipes, remember the intensity of his eyes and the way the prison’s fluorescent lights had cast a shine on his shaved head, remember the way he’d smiled when Kent told him that there was no fear that could break his faith.

  “Everything’s good,” Beth
said. “Kids home, doors locked, alarm on.”

  “I’m not trying to scare you.”

  “I know.”

  “Home soon.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.” He hung up and started for the defensive group, thinking about Agent Dean, who knew damn well that Clayton Sipes had killed that girl. How in the hell could they not find him? It was the FBI, it was what they did, why couldn’t they go out there and get it done? And why in the hell had Kent gotten into it with Sipes in the first place? Dan Grissom was right; he’d responded to the man’s attack in the wrong way. He’d worn his faith like a chip on his shoulder and promised Sipes that nobody could knock it off, and now Rachel Bond was dead and Kent was calling his family every thirty minutes and if he’d just…

  He paused halfway down the hall between the offensive and defensive classrooms, thinking of how many calls he’d made out of fear today and trying to remember how many times he’d prayed. Had he prayed? Surely he had.

  But he couldn’t remember.

  He was preparing to kneel there in the hallway, a quick prayer but a needed one, when he heard the squeak of wheels on tile just before the janitor’s cart appeared.

  “Hey, Coach.”

  “Hey,” Kent said, straightening. He didn’t want to be seen on his knees, not even in prayer. It felt like weakness to him today. He listened to the wheels of the cart approaching down the hallway, found himself thinking, Clayton Sipes was a janitor at a school, just like him, he was just like him, and then he held the man’s stare for a long moment, gave him a curt nod, and walked on toward the defensive classroom, head high, no longer bowed.

  Adam slept for two hours in the morning, then went in to the office, where Chelsea was already at work, and began the hunt in the only way he knew how, treating Sipes not as a murder suspect but as a skip. He printed out an address history report, developed a list of neighbors from that, found phone numbers… and stopped. Stared at it, shook his head, and swore softly. Chelsea looked up.