Sorrow's Anthem

by Michael Koryta

  “Yeah. It bothers me. I’m a guy that likes his distance from the cops, asshole. That’s all you need to know.”

  “Easy, Jimmy, Lincoln’s not challenging you.” Draper’s tone made it clear that if I was challenging him, I’d better stop it.

  We drank for a bit, none of us speaking. Draper finished his cigarette and took the pack out, but didn’t light another one.

  “You guys were gone, what, ten minutes before he got hit by that car?” he asked.

  “Not even that.”

  “But enough time to talk a little, right?”

  “We talked. He was pretty drunk. His mind was going places without taking me along.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Seemed like he was talking to himself as much as he was talking to me,” I said. “He’d hint at some stuff but not get specific. When I asked questions, he jumped in new directions.”

  Draper stared at the table, sliding the pack of cigarettes back and forth between his fingers.

  “He was into some trouble,” I said, and Draper looked up. “You know anything about that? Who he was dealing with?”

  “As far as I knew, he was clean and had been for years.” Draper stood up. “I’m going to grab another beer. Be right back.”

  He slid out and then it was just me and Jimmy Cancerno in the booth. Cancerno worked on what was left of his whiskey and looked bored.

  “Was he a good worker for you?” I asked.

  He spoke over the glass. “Good as any of them. Showed up on time and went home on time and billed for the time he’d worked. We do things a little different on my projects, see. Not a lot of paperwork. Pay in cash. It was a good job for him.”

  “What kind of projects was he working on?”

  “Fixed houses, mostly. Was supposed to be fixing the one he burned down. It was a small job; I wouldn’t have made much off it. Now I’m likely to get sued thanks to the son of a bitch.”

  “I thought the house was empty.”

  “It was,” Cancerno said as if he were explaining something to a child. “But the property company that owned the place wanted it fixed. So they could sell it, right? Go figure.”

  I leaned forward, suddenly glad Cancerno was here, after all. “But he had a reason to be on the property, then?”

  Cancerno hacked something up and re-swallowed it. Attractive.

  “We hadn’t started the work on that house yet, but he knew it was coming, and he had the keys. Could be he went over to get a look, maybe think about what materials would be needed.”

  “Well, that’s pretty damn important,” I said. Cancerno looked as if he couldn’t care less.

  “That’s better beer than I remembered,” Draper said, sliding a fresh Moosehead across the table to me and dropping back in the booth. “I sell it, but I don’t drink it much. Might have to change that.”

  I didn’t touch the bottle. “I need to know what that girl was to Ed.”

  Draper raised his eyebrows. “That’s what the cops said to me. I can only tell you what I told them—I have no clue. I asked him last night when he showed up here, and he ignored me. Just said he didn’t kill her and asked for a drink while he figured out what he needed to do next. Told me to get my ass back downstairs because the cops would be looking for him soon and he needed me to deal with them. I’d hardly sent them away before you showed up.”

  “So you’ve got no ideas at all,” I said.

  He shook his head, his eyes sad. “Wish I did, Lincoln. Wish I did.”

  “Who else was he close with?” I said. “Was there a girlfriend, anything like that?”

  “He wasn’t seeing anyone.” This time Draper’s answer was confident. “Worked a lot and came in here and drank and watched baseball. That was really about it. The last couple weeks, he hadn’t even been in here.”

  “He told me he went to the prosecutor about something, Scott.”

  He frowned. “He went to the prosecutor?”

  “Yeah.”

  He shook his head again. “Can’t help you. Like I said, he’d been out of sight for the last few weeks.”

  I was frustrated with the lack of help. I’d counted on Draper knowing more. I wasn’t sure if he was really this clueless or if he just didn’t want to let me know anything, which was also quite possible. It would be foolish to assume his old bitterness had been washed clean in twenty-four hours.

  “He hung around with a guy named Corbett a lot,” Draper said, thoughtful as he sipped his beer. “One of Jimmy’s guys.”

  I looked at Cancerno, who nodded. His glass was empty and he’d been looking at his watch.

  “Mitch Corbett,” he said. “He was Gradduk’s boss on the work sites. An old-timer. Mitch is a good guy. Between his opinion and Scott’s, I actually felt good enough about hiring that son of a bitch Gradduk that I gave him a raise.”

  I took a long drink, letting the cold beer soothe the anger that had risen with Cancerno’s words, then said, “Would Corbett know if Ed had a reason to be in that house the day it burned?”

  Cancerno nodded. “Probably. If he’d had a legitimate reason, Mitch would’ve given it to him.”

  “I’d like to talk to him, then.”

  “To who? Mitch?”

  “Yes.”

  Cancerno smiled humorlessly. “Me, too, kid.”

  I frowned at him, not getting it.

  “Corbett hasn’t shown up for work in two days. And the son of a bitch won’t answer his phone, either.” Cancerno got to his feet. “Do me a favor, right? You talk to Corbett, you tell him he better give me a call within the next forty-eight hours if he wants to keep his job. I don’t have the patience for his shit on top of this deal with Gradduk.”

  Cancerno said something to Draper before he walked toward the door, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was thinking about Mitch Corbett with a sense of unease. His boss had delivered the news of his absence casually enough, as if Corbett had been known to miss a few days of work before. I didn’t like it, though. It came too close to everything with Ed.

  With Cancerno gone, Draper turned to me. “Sorry about that. He came down here just ahead of you, wanted to see what I knew about Ed. He’s pretty angry about it all, and blaming me because I was the guy who sent Ed to him in the first place.”

  “This guy Corbett,” I said, “you think he was pretty tight with Ed? Might know something about whatever Ed got himself into?”

  Draper shrugged. “Better chance Corbett will know something than anyone else I can think of.”

  “And you don’t think it’s strange the guy’s missing?”

  “A little early to say he’s missing, Lincoln. Dude blew off work, is all.”

  I nodded, but by now I was convinced I wanted to look for Mitch Corbett. When I got up, Draper followed me to the door. “I appreciate you coming down here,” he said. “I felt bad about the way things happened out there. We were all friends, once.”

  “Yes, we were.” Draper had never been as close to me as he was to Ed, but we’d spent enough time around each other growing up. I stepped onto the sidewalk and leaned back, looking up at the old brick building.

  “You going to keep the place going, Scott? It’s the last of the old neighborhood bars.”

  He leaned against the doorframe. “Hell, yeah, I’ll keep it going. It’s all that’s left of what this neighborhood used to be—a bunch of Poles and Czechs who worked hard and drank harder. Three generations in my family, I’m not going to let it go under that easy.” He gazed up the street. “Clark’s changed, man. Changes more every year. The Hideaway stays the same.”

  A flier stuck to the old wooden door read: SEE FOUR ON THE PORCH LIVE ALL SUMMER.

  I pointed at it. “What’s Four on the Porch?”

  “A band with one good-looking black girl who can sing and three drunk white guys with no apparent talents,” Draper said. “They’re fun, though.”

  “So even the Hideaway’s not staying entirely the same. Live music is new.”
/>   Draper gazed at the poster. “Yeah, it is. I’ve got to find some way to make money, though. Not enough of the old crowd left. Have to bring people in somehow.” He shifted his eyes to me. “And I guess you’re doing okay, with both of your businesses going. The gym and the detective thing.”

  “I’m still afloat. That’s all I can ask for. How’d you know about the gym?”

  He stopped looking down the street and met my eyes. “Ed told me. He kept tabs on you, as they say. Didn’t talk to you, maybe, but he knew your score.”

  I gave that half a nod. “I had that feeling.”

  My father’s funeral is on a Tuesday, and it rains. I have the week off for bereavement leave, but I’ve already decided to go back to work on Wednesday. Better to keep my mind occupied. The turnout is small, maybe because of the weather, or maybe because my father had been a fairly quiet man who’d kept to himself. My sister, Jennifer, is there, as is my father’s sister, his only sibling. Since flying in from New Jersey, she has spent most of her time telling me how proud of me my father was, how many times he called her and told her of this pride. I appreciate her effort, but it bothers me slightly, because I know she is not being honest. My father was proud of me. I know this. He would not talk of his pride, however—not to my aunt, to me, or to anyone else. It was not his nature. My successes are my own, and while he enjoys them, I know he wouldn’t speak of his pride in them. The quality I most respected—and envied—of the man was his humility.

  We stand huddled together near the casket, staying close because it is hard to hear the voice of the minister over the rain pounding on the umbrellas. I don’t have one, and I’ve declined offers. After five minutes of it I am thoroughly soaked, my suit saturated, my hair plastered against my skull. I like the smell of the rain on the earth they’ve dug up to make room for my father’s bones. It is a fresh smell, one with some promise to it, and while it seems misplaced in this setting, I am grateful for it.

  “Dear family and friends, please accept my sincere sympathy in your grief over the passing of Thomas Perry,” the minister says, struggling to make his voice heard. He is an older man, and he looks frail and ill. I wonder what it feels like to make a business of funeral speeches when you’re in such condition.

  “Thomas was a devout man, one who knew his maker well during his time on earth, and I am sure Thomas knows Him even better today,” he continues. “We are aggrieved that we shall not see him again in his earthly being, except through the eye of memory. Today that memory brings sadness, because the pain of loss is so near. But I promise you that sadness will give way to the pleasant remembrance of him as he was in the fullness of his life, and someday, hopefully soon, the memories will bring a loving smile in place of an aching soul.”

  While he speaks, my eyes wander. I do not wish to stare endlessly at the casket, and I cannot keep my eyes on the ground, as everyone else is doing. As I scan the cemetery, I become aware of a figure under a tree on a hill some fifty yards from us. He is the only person other than me who does not have an umbrella, but he stands tall, oblivious of the rain pounding at him. Surely, he cannot hear a word of what is being said, but he stands there anyhow, removed from the group, but present. He is a young man, average in height and build, and there is a familiar quality to him. I look closer, and he lifts his own face and meets my gaze. It is Ed Gradduk.

  Four years have passed since I last spoke to Ed, and then it was in an interrogation room, him giving me cold eyes while I told him I couldn’t buy any more time—either he talked or went to jail. He went to jail. Stayed three years.

  I stare in his direction for a while, then look back at the minister, who is concluding what he had promised would be a brief message. He said it would be brief because that was the unassuming nature of my father, but I think the ever-intensifying rain has played some role in the decision.

  “With sure and certain hope, I commend Thomas Perry’s soul to the mercy of God, his creator. May he enjoy forever the company of God together with his loved ones who preceded him in death,” he says, and I think of my mother and smile for the first time in several days.

  “In your loving kindness, please keep Thomas in your memory, as he kept you in his heart during his time with you,” the minister concludes. We file up to the casket then, one at a time, and drop a flower on its rain-soaked surface. I go last, and when I have laid the carnation on the casket, I turn my eyes back to the hill in time to see Ed Gradduk disappear over it, walking away without a word.

  I call him that night and leave a message. He doesn’t call back. The next day I return to work.

  CHAPTER 8

  “But you say his boss didn’t seem particularly concerned,” Joe said.

  I shook my head. “No.” I was back in the office, filling Joe in on my conversation with Draper and explaining my interest in locating Mitch Corbett.

  “So maybe he’s a guy who’s been known to sleep or drink through a few workdays in the past.”

  “Maybe,” I admitted.

  Joe sat behind his desk with his feet propped up on the edge of it. “And maybe there’s more to it.”

  “Either way,” I said, “I’d like to know where he is, because I’d like to talk to him.”

  Joe nodded and swung his feet down from the desk, pulled his chair closer to the computer, and clicked the mouse a few times, opening up one of our locator databases, probably.

  “I know you won’t want to hear it,” he said, “but learning that Gradduk was working on that house doesn’t do anything to help his case.”

  I frowned. “What are you talking about? It gives him a legitimate reason to be on the property the day the house burned.”

  “Also gives him a reason to choose the house as a good place to dump a body.”

  I hadn’t considered that. He had a point, but I shook my head anyhow.

  “I’m convinced he didn’t burn that house, Joe. The tape would have been worthless in court with that twenty-minute lapse between the time he left and the time it went up in flames, and there’s a reason for that—too much reasonable doubt.”

  “So if he didn’t burn the place, why’d he run when the cops came for him?”

  “Panicked,” I said. “That’s my best guess.”

  The printer began to hum and he pointed at it. “There’s an address match for the only Mitchell Corbett I could find in this city. Says here he is forty-five years old. Looks like he lives just off Fulton Road.”

  “That sounds right,” I said. “Same neighborhood as Ed and Draper.” It felt as if I should include myself in that sentence, but several years had passed since I could. It wasn’t just that I’d moved out of the neighborhood, I also hadn’t so much as stopped by the Hideaway for a drink or even walked the sidewalks.

  Joe got to his feet. “All right. Let’s see what Mr. Corbett has to say.”

  The house was a small, one-story structure tucked on the back of a lot that was large for the neighborhood. Corbett had obviously used some of his trade skills on his home—a new carport and fresh paint and trim made the tiny house look nicer than its larger counterparts.

  I parked in the driveway, which was empty.

  “If the man’s home,” Joe said, “he’s home without a car.” The street parking in front of the house was also vacant.

  “Let’s take a look, anyhow,” I said.

  We got out of the car and walked up to the front door. The mailbox was an old-fashioned style that hung on the wall next to the door, and as we approached, I could see the lid was held open about two inches by the large stack of mail that had been jammed in the small container.

  “Nobody’s taken the mail in for days,” I said.

  “Three newspapers on the ground.” Joe pointed at the rolled-up papers that lay in front of the door.

  I pulled the storm door open and rapped on the wooden front door with my knuckles. The sound was loud and hollow. I let the storm door swing shut and stepped back. We waited. Nobody came to the door, and no sound came from insi
de.

  “There’s definitely no one home,” Joe said. He was gazing up the street.

  “Let’s walk around back.”

  We went to the right and stepped out of the sun and into the shade of the carport as we moved toward the backyard. Joe stopped and put his hand on my arm.

  “Check out the side door.”

  A door led into the house from the carport, and this one didn’t have a storm door protecting it. It was closed and looked solid enough to me. For a moment I couldn’t tell what had attracted Joe’s interest. Then I saw the heavy black scuff beside the knob.

  “Looks like somebody kicked it,” he said, stepping closer. He bent beside the door and ran his fingers along the frame, then twisted the knob and pushed inward. The door was locked, but it gave a little and there was the sound of cracking wood. Joe grunted with approval and pointed.

  When I leaned in beside him, I saw a split in the doorframe. It was yielding a bit to Joe’s pressure. A few jagged splinters still protruded from the frame, indicating the damage was recent. There was no dead bolt on the door, just a simple but fairly new spring lock.

  “Whoever kicked this door open assumed it’d be easy because there wasn’t a dead bolt,” Joe said, releasing the knob. “The lock was stronger than they thought, though. They kicked it harder, and it opened, but it split the frame.”

  “Kick it open,” I said. I was suddenly sure we would find Mitch Corbett inside, but in no condition to talk.

  Joe frowned. “Are you crazy?”

  I answered by lifting my own foot and driving my heel into the center of the door. The crack in the frame widened with a tearing sound and the door swung open. It hit the wall and bounced back toward us. Joe put out his palm to stop it from swinging shut. He stared at me.

  “This is not the way I like to do things, Lincoln.”

  “Sorry, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.”

  I stepped past him and into the house. The side door led into a small kitchen that smelled of lemon Pledge. It was clean and tidy, no dishes stacked on the counter, no bag of chips open on the table. No body on the floor.