The Prophet

by Michael Koryta

  Come on down, Clayton, he thought. Or I can come in. It’s totally up to you.

  Footsteps. Just like his knock—measured, steady, and clear. Sipes was not trying to hide his presence inside the house, and he was not trying to run. He was coming to the door. Adam’s breathing and heart rate had slowed at the sound of the approaching steps, and his finger tightened on the trigger, adding a few pounds of pull, bringing it to the brink.

  You can hold him here. Hold him here and call the police, you’ll be a damned hero, everyone will see your picture in the paper again and this time they will think different things.

  Then the door opened, and the slender man with the shaved head and the ring of tattoos around his neck looked at Adam and smiled, and any thought of holding him here and calling the police evaporated. Sipes was still shirtless—he had a sheen of sweat across his torso and his chest and arms were swollen, as if he’d been working out—and his smile was amused, taunting, and he held a gun in his left hand. Unlike Adam, though, he held his pointed down.

  “He sent you instead of coming himself?” Sipes asked.

  “You know who I am. Good for you.”

  “Yes, Adam, I know who you are. Your brother sent you instead of coming himself. An interesting choice. Not a surprising one, but a little disappointing, don’t you think?”

  If being discovered rattled him in the slightest, Sipes didn’t show it.

  Adam said, “I would like to talk with you.”

  “Weapons aren’t conducive to good conversation, Adam.”

  “That didn’t stop you from using the same approach with my brother.”

  “Come on in then. Enter, please.”

  Adam shook his head. “We’ll walk together. The guns go away, and we walk.”

  Sipes considered this, the two of them staring at each other through the empty storm door frame. Beyond him the chipped, mildewed linoleum stairs led up to darkness.

  “Fine, Adam,” he said. “We will walk. If you’ll allow me to put on a jacket, then—”

  “You’re good,” Adam said. “I think you can stand the chill, Sipes.”

  The smile returned, and Sipes pushed open the storm door frame and stepped out to join him, Adam moving backward and keeping the gun up. He shut the door behind him, and then he tucked his pistol into the waistband of his pants, looked at Adam with mock reproachfulness, and said, “What was that promise about the guns?”

  Adam slipped the Ruger back into the pocket of his sweatshirt but did not remove his finger from the trigger.

  “There we go,” he said. “Let’s walk, Sipes. We’ll walk, and talk, and then you’ll leave.”

  “I’ll leave,” Sipes echoed, leading the way out of the yard and to the sidewalk. When he was in front of Adam, the gun tucked into the back of his pants was visible for the first time. He made no move to reach for it, and offered no comment about it. A car passed but no one looked at them. “That sounds like an ultimatum.”

  “It is.”

  “How very Wild West. I like the touch. Your idea or the coach’s?”

  “Mutual.”

  They were moving north on Erie Avenue, the steel plant to their right, the dead end ahead, and the great gray lake beyond.

  “My understanding was that you were not close with your brother.”

  “We’re brothers,” Adam said. “It does not get much closer.”

  “Are you proud of him?”

  Sipes was three feet ahead of him and just to the left, walking exactly as Adam wanted him to without requiring any instruction. The butt of the gun protruded above the waistband of his jeans. Sweat ran down the small of his back toward it.

  “I think you’re confused on a few things,” Adam said.

  “How so?”

  “I’m not here to answer your questions, Sipes.”

  “I’m sure that you’re not. I assume your intent today is to threaten, perhaps to assault? Because you didn’t come here without the police to do anything within the bounds of the law, did you? That wouldn’t make much sense.”

  They’d covered several blocks and the dead end was approaching. Sipes said, “I’ll need to know where we’re going, Adam.”

  “All the way to the end of the street. Through the fence. I’d like to look at the lake.”

  “Then let’s have a look.” They reached the end of the road, and Sipes stepped through the weeds and pulled loose one of the torn sections of chain link and ducked through. Adam kept the gun pointed at him while he did this, but Sipes made no move to reach for his own weapon. Adam was tensed as he slid through the fence himself—this was the best opportunity for Sipes to strike—but the man made no attempt, just stepped over a broken vodka bottle and continued on, out to the slabs of rock where the lake slapped and sloshed, some of the waves breaking high now and then and trapping themselves in puddles behind the stones.

  “What interests me,” Sipes said, “is that he sent you and not the police. That seems so unlike him. Unless the fear is beginning to extract its pound of faith, of course. Unless the—”

  “Kent did not send me,” Adam said.

  “Forgive me if I call you a liar on that point.”

  “Kent did not send me,” Adam repeated. “My sister did. And so did Rachel Bond.”

  Sipes nodded in approval. “That’s wonderful stuff. Wonderful. I told your brother you might be more fascinating than him, and I think I was right. It’s a shame we haven’t met before.”

  They were alone on the lakefront. A few miles out, a low shadow on the horizon, a freighter moved northeast for the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the ocean at its end. Sipes spread his arms wide.

  “Here we are,” he said. “You have your view of the water. You have your captive audience. Let’s hear what you came to tell me, Adam. What you were sent to tell me.”

  Adam ran the tip of his tongue over his lips. “Why Kent?” he said.

  “Because he said he could not be broken,” Sipes told him. Voice calm, patient. “Because he believes it.”

  “That’s enough reason for you to murder a girl who had nothing to do with him?”

  “Nothing would be a stretch, I think. He promised me that his faith could weather any challenges, Adam. I’ve come to see that for myself. Tell me, do you agree with your brother? I’ve heard otherwise. I’ve heard that you were anything but pleased with his decisions.”

  Adam was listening to the waves break on the rocks. It was so quiet out here today. Usually it was, this time of year. The day they’d found Marie, the quiet broke, though. There’d been helicopters, Adam remembered that, television cameras watching from above. It had been maybe two miles from this spot. Not far. Not all that far.

  “There’s something I would like to know,” Sipes said. “Is your brother aware of this?”

  Adam shook his head.

  “That’s a shame,” Sipes said. He seemed to mean it.

  Shoot him, Adam thought, and he wanted to, but he couldn’t. So close, so close, all he needed was to add that last bit of pressure. Find a way to call it up. Somehow.

  “Go ahead and take your gun out, Sipes.”

  Sipes smiled and shook his head. “I’m fine, thanks.”

  Adam’s hand was starting to tremble. He tightened his grip, felt old aches. He’d broken that hand once, a long time ago. The bones knit back together fine, but sometimes, in cold weather like this, you still had the aches.

  “You’re here to protect your brother,” Sipes said. “That’s the idea?”

  “I’m here to make you accountable,” Adam said.

  “For what?”

  “All that you’ve done.”

  “You know nothing about what I’ve done, Adam. You know nothing. I understand all that you are, and you understand not the first thing about me. You’re not here for your brother, or even for Rachel Bond. You’re here for your sister, you said that much yourself, and you know what? I didn’t kill her. I never laid eyes on the girl. Now, I do feel some level of… closeness, I think that’s th
e word. You’ve preserved her so well in that bedroom that when I entered it I honestly felt her presence. It was remarkable. I’m sure you understand that, though. You and I are certain to agree on that point. She has a remarkable presence after all these years, doesn’t she? And yet I never saw her. Pictures, that’s all. You look a bit alike. The eyes, certainly. The cheekbones. There are traces of her. And in your niece, well, that’s quite different. More than traces there. They look so similar, it’s almost as if—”

  Adam brought the trigger home, and the Ruger blew a .45-caliber bullet through the center of Clayton Sipes’s chest.

  Sipes did not show any panic, not even surprise. The smile was gone, at least, the smile was gone as if it had never existed, but he wasn’t panicking. He took a stumbling step away, and reached behind his back for the gun he’d believed he did not yet need, and Adam shot him a second time. This time the bullet caught him higher, just below his throat, and he went down, and life went with him.

  The thing that had once been Clayton Sipes existed no more in this world.

  Adam used his shoe to roll the body over, and then he wiped the gun on his sweatshirt, pulled his arm back, and whipped it toward the water, flinging the Ruger into the lake like a discus. The wind was with him and it carried well out, splashed, sank. He considered dragging Sipes out into the water but saw no point. The waves would carry him back fast enough. Adam’s gunshots had echoed loud over the water, and it was time to move, and move fast.

  He turned on his heel and left the way he had come, walking fast but not running, crossing the rocks and sliding through the fence and returning to Erie Avenue. There were no sirens yet. He thought someone might have been able to hear the shots up here, but maybe not. Or maybe it didn’t even matter if they had. It was a bad neighborhood, and most of the people who would be occupying it in the middle of the day were not the type who would rush to call the police.

  He walked to the old Robard Company plant where his father had once worked, and then, finally out of sight from the street, he began to run.

  40

  FOCUS HAD NOT COME EASILY all week, and Kent was struggling to attain it Thursday afternoon as he considered the use of a six-man defensive front, wondering if it might allow Chambers to put enough pressure on Rob Sonnefeld, the Saint Anthony’s quarterback, to force him into mistakes, when Stan Salter arrived.

  His first thought at the sight of the cop was fear, but he hadn’t even finished the question before Salter answered it.

  “Your family is fine, Coach. Nothing’s wrong.”

  Fear quelled, what replaced it was a vague irritation. If nothing is wrong then leave me alone in here, I’d finally gotten away from it all, can’t you let me stay in here with the door shut?

  “How can I help you, then?” Kent said.

  “You probably can’t.” Salter was leaning against the doorframe. “I just wanted to let you know that Clayton Sipes will trouble you no more.”

  The statement washed over Kent like a breaking fever.

  “You got him?”

  Salter shook his head. “We have him. We didn’t get him. Someone else beat us to that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Clayton Sipes was found shot to death by the lake this morning.”

  Kent stared at him. Adam, he thought. How did he get him? How did he find him? Video of Saint Anthony’s was still running on the screen, and he clicked the projector off.

  “You don’t know who killed him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “There were no witnesses, nobody who saw–”

  “Too early to say. We’re working on all of that, obviously. We just got the positive ID back. I figured you ought to know.”

  Kent opened his mouth, then closed it. Salter raised his eyebrows and said, “Yes?”

  “I was about to say that I was sorry to hear it happened like that,” Kent told him. “But you know what? That’s hard for me. Right now I’m just… I’m just glad to hear he’s gone.”

  “Understandable. But there are some difficulties presented because of it.”

  “Such as?”

  “Resolution for Penny Gootee for one,” Salter said. “I’ve got a homicide investigation to close. That doesn’t go away with Clayton Sipes.”

  “Not the way you want it to, at least.”

  “Not in any way,” Salter said. “That case is not closed. Now there’s another one. I need to find out who killed Sipes, too, regardless of what he was. I still need to know.”

  Kent nodded.

  “Your brother staying with you as some sort of protective measure?” Salter asked.

  It was said casually, but Kent felt invaded. “How do you know my brother’s been staying with us?”

  “You wanted us to pay extra attention to your home, Coach. I told you we would. When somebody pulls into your driveway these days, we’re running plates. That’s to help you. I thought it was what you wanted.”

  “Sure,” Kent said. “I just… I hadn’t heard from you.”

  “Well, we’ve been watching.”

  “Great.” He didn’t know why the word sounded so hollow. “Yeah, Adam has been a sort of security blanket for us. I know you’re not a fan of his right now, but he’s more experienced with this sort of thing than I am. I just felt better having him around in case Sipes came back.”

  Salter nodded. “Fair enough. Well, Sipes won’t be back.”

  “I’m not going to pretend I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I’m not going to ask you to,” Salter said. “I didn’t come here with the idea that I was going to be breaking bad news to you, Coach. I know tomorrow’s a big day for you, but I hope you can make yourself available to Agent Dean.”

  “Dean?”

  “The FBI.”

  “Yes, I remember him. Why would he need me?”

  “I don’t know that he will,” Salter said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised. You’ll cooperate with him, I’m sure.”

  “Of course. I don’t know what I can say that would matter at this point.”

  “He may have some ideas about that,” Salter said.

  “I’m here if he needs me. I’m just glad that it’s resolved.”

  “There’s a lot left to resolve,” Salter said. “For me, at least. There’s a lot left.” He said it absently, then shook his head, as if to remind himself that Kent was still in the room, and swung his body away from the doorframe. “I’ve got to get back to work, Coach. You do the same. Everybody’s rooting for you. Everybody wants a win tomorrow night.”

  “Yeah,” Kent said. “We’ll try to get it.”

  He left the school and drove to Adam’s bail bond office. His brother was inside with Chelsea Salinas, their desks angled to face each other.

  “Hey, Chelsea.”

  “Hello, Kent. You doing all right?”

  “Hanging in there, yeah.”

  Adam was shepherding him toward the door. “I need a cigarette. Let’s talk outside.”

  It felt like an obvious move to force the conversation into a private exchange, and Chelsea seemed to read it the same way but let it pass with a quizzical stare and a shrug of her lean shoulders, returning her attention to the computer. They went outside into the fall day, and true to his word, Adam shook a cigarette out and lit it.

  “You’ve heard?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t know if you had.”

  “I work a block from the police station, Kent. I’ve heard.”

  “Salter come to see you?”

  Adam shook his head and said, “I’ve got a source. People always talking, you know.”

  “Sure.” Kent looked at him and tried to find the words. How did you ask something like this? “Are you worried about the investigation?” he said finally.

  Adam exhaled a stream of smoke and said, “What?”

  “Somebody killed Sipes. They’ll be trying to determine who.”

  Adam looked at him with flat eyes and said, “Yes, I’d expect so. I’m sure as hell not go
ing to worry about it, though. What I was worried about was him.”

  Twin engines of relief and guilt began to turn over within Kent, and he said, “Right, I just meant… you made a lot of threats, you know, you did a lot of talking.”

  “Talk’s an empty thing,” Adam said.

  “Okay. Good.”

  Adam leaned forward and put his hand on Kent’s shoulder. “Relax, Franchise. The problem is gone. Don’t you get that? Your problem is gone.”

  Yes, it was. Kent took a deep breath, let his lungs empty, and said, “I wish I didn’t feel so happy to know that the man is dead, but after the things he—”

  “You should be damned happy,” Adam said, his voice harsh. “Anyone who knows anything about it should. That son of a bitch is gone, and we’re better off for it. Everyone. Not just you, or me, or your kids. Everyone.”

  Kent nodded. “I’d like to think otherwise, but maybe you’re right. With Clayton Sipes? Yeah, you’re probably right, Adam.”

  Adam put the cigarette back to his lips, looking not at Kent but up at the police station, and said, “I hope they find enough to tell Rachel’s mother that it was the right guy.”

  “They’re working on it. I don’t know anything about the place where they found him. Whether he was staying there, or what the situation was. I don’t even know if Salter had any idea yet. But hopefully there’s something there. She needs the closure.”

  “Yes,” Adam said. “She certainly does.”

  “Listen, Adam, I want you to know how much we’ve appreciated—”

  “No worries, Franchise. I don’t require a thank-you card, either. I’m just glad it’s done.”

  Kent paused, unsettled by the curtness, and then said, “Okay. Just know that it was appreciated. And don’t stay away.”

  “You’ll see me around. I’ll be at the game tomorrow night, for one thing. Put up a win for me, would you?”