What did you do, Ken? What button did you push, what thread did you pull?
There would be no answers here, nothing but wind sounds and sorrow, but I stayed anyhow. When my legs got tired I sat on the top of the hill and stared into the shadows and did not turn when the occasional car passed, disrupting the silence and throwing harsh white light into the trees.
We’re going to see this thing to the end, Lincoln. Twelve years I’ve been waiting for that.
That’s what he’d told me at the start, sitting in my truck with one hand on the door handle, ready to go up to the hotel room where he would spend his last night alive, sleeping alone with a too-loud air conditioner blasting away beside him. I’d responded by telling him . . . what had I said? That we might not get there. Something to that effect, some warning that all the effort might yield no result. He’d shaken his head.
Not this time. No, I’ve got a feeling about it.
My anger rose with the dawn. As the shadows around me changed from shades of dark to patterns of gray and then golden light, I noticed my jaw had begun to ache from the force of my clenched, grinding teeth. I’d had thoughts of Ken earlier in the night, but now he was gone, and Dominic Sanabria and Parker Harrison filled my mind in his stead.
They had done this. I didn’t know who had put the bullets through Ken’s heart and forehead, didn’t know whose hands had carried him from the trunk of a car and released him at the top of this hill, but I knew who’d put it all in motion. I’d seen them personally, looked into their faces and heard their words, and now the intimacy of that filled me with anger that spread like steam. They had left me alive. They had killed Ken Merriman and yet they had left me alive, and in that action their regard for me was clear—they viewed me as impotent. Of course I would accuse them, of course I would come at them with all the resources I could muster. They knew this, and they did not care.
Harrison had told me to step aside before harm was done. That had not been a wild notion, clearly. He’d warned me, and then he’d reached for the phone and called Dominic Sanabria, and a day later Ken—who had not gone home, who had not heeded the warning—was dead.
Harrison had answers.
It was time to get them.
I was close to Old Brooklyn, and that was important, because Harrison left early for work. I didn’t know what cemetery employed him, and I didn’t want to take the time to find out. The MetroParks Rangers who’d drawn Ken’s homicide would surely be looking for Harrison this morning, and I didn’t want to follow in on their heels. By then it would probably be too late. The good fortune I had was that they’d been alarmed by all of the information I’d shared. The stories about Sanabria and Harrison and Bertoli had overwhelmed them, and I knew when they finally released me that they’d take a few hours to talk to Graham and others, working to confirm my claims, before they moved in on people with mob ties and murder convictions. I had a window this morning. It was going to be small and closing fast, but I had a window.
By the time I got to Harrison’s apartment it was nearly six, and the soft predawn light was giving way to a deep red sunrise, the sort of that age-old sailor’s caution. I’d cut it close—almost too close. I was pulling into the parking lot when the door to Harrison’s apartment opened and he stepped out. He was wearing jeans and one of those tan work coats favored by farmers, with a thin knit cap pulled over his head. He wouldn’t need the jacket and the cap—the day was dawning hot and humid—but he was probably used to chill early morning hours, and he wouldn’t yet know of the weather change. He hadn’t spent the night sitting in the woods above a body-dump scene.
Harrison didn’t look up at my truck as he shut the door and turned to lock it. I pulled in at an angle a few doors down from him, leaving the truck across three parking spaces as I threw it in park and stepped out without bothering to cut the engine. Only then, as he put his key back in his pocket and turned from the door, did he look toward the headlights of my truck. When he saw me his face registered first surprise, then concern, and he said, “What happened?” just as I reached him, grabbed fistfuls of his coat, and pushed him against his own door.
When I left the truck I’d intended to say something immediately, shout in his face, but when I caught him and slammed him against the door I didn’t speak at all, wanting instead to just stare into his eyes and see what I saw there. It was only a few seconds of silence as I held him pinned by his shoulders, but what I saw added coal to those fires of anger. His face held secrets. I could no longer tolerate the secrets.
“He’s dead, you piece of shit.”
“Ken?” he said, and the sound of the name leaving his lips, the way he wanted confirmation of it, was too much for me. I lifted him off the door and then slammed him back into it, maybe three times, maybe four, and when he finally made a move to resist I stepped sideways and sent him spinning off the sidewalk and into the hood of the closest car.
He hit it hard, his ribs catching the bulk of the fall, and when he righted himself and turned back to me I saw a new Parker Harrison. He stood with a wide stance, balanced and ready to move in any direction, and took two steps toward me with his hands raised and no hint of fear or uncertainty in his eyes. He was coming to do harm, coming with violence and confidence, and as I stepped off the sidewalk to meet him I wasn’t at all sure that I could win this encounter, knew in a flash of recognition that he had been places and seen things that I had not, and that it was the sort of experience that might well make my advantage in size irrelevant.
That new Harrison lasted only those two steps, though. He brought himself up short as I approached, and there was a moment of hesitation before he moved backward. To a spectator it might have appeared he was giving way to me, but I knew it wasn’t that. He didn’t fear me at all. Not physically. For a few seconds he’d been sure he could take me and ready to do it. The latter aspect had passed. The former had not.
“What happened?” he said, circling away from me as I continued to pursue him, back on the sidewalk now.
“Somebody killed him, and you know who, you son of a bitch.”
“I don’t.”
“Harrison—”
“I didn’t want this,” he said. “Lincoln, I did not want this. When I told you to leave it alone, this is what I wanted to avoid.”
“What do you know?” I shouted it and was dimly aware of a light going on in the apartment beside Harrison’s.
He didn’t answer, moving backward in short, shuffling steps.
“This is what you wanted to avoid? How did you know it would happen? Stop lying and say what you know!”
We were beside his apartment now, and I punctuated the last shout by pounding my first into his door.
“You called Sanabria,” I said. “You told me to quit, and then you called him. Didn’t even wait until I was out of the parking lot. Why?”
“How do you know that?”
“Answer the question!”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
I almost went for him again. Almost gave up the questions and came at him swinging. It was close for a second, but I held back. My hands were trembling at my sides.
“Did Sanabria have you kill him, or did somebody else do it this time?”
“I haven’t killed anyone.”
“Did fifteen years in prison for shoplifting?”
“That’s got nothing to do—”
“It doesn’t? You’re a murderer.”
The muscles in his jaw flexed, his eyes going flat.
“You killed Joshua Cantrell,” I said. “Didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Bullshit. Somebody else gave him a Shawnee burial?”
“I didn’t kill—”
“Bullshit!” As I moved toward him, the door to the apartment next door opened and a young woman in a pink robe stepped out and pointed a gun at me.
“Stop it,” she said. The voice was weak, but the gun was strong. A compact Kahr 9mm, and though her voice shook, the gun didn’t do much bou
ncing, just stayed trained on my chest.
“I called the police,” she said. “You can wait for them, or you can leave.”
Parker Harrison said, “Kelly, go inside. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t move. Behind her, the door was open, and somewhere in the apartment a child was crying. This woman, who looked maybe twenty-five, was wearing a pink robe and standing barefoot on the sidewalk and was pointing a gun at me while her child cried in their home.
I said, “There’s going to be a lot of police here in the next few days, ma’am. They’re coming for him, not me.”
Neither she nor Harrison responded.
“Do you know he’s a murderer?” I said. “Do you know that he killed a man with a knife?”
She said, “Please leave,” and now the gun had started to tremble.
I nodded. “I’m going to. I’m sorry. I’m sorry . . . but he . . .” The words left me then, and my strength seemed to go with them, and suddenly standing seemed difficult.
“I’ll burn your lies down,” I said to Harrison. “All of them. Every lie you’ve told and every secret you have. Understand that. Tell Sanabria.”
I could hear the sirens when I drove out of the parking lot.
26
__________
I went to the office, walked upstairs, and logged on to the computer. For a moment I stared at the phone, thinking of calling Amy. The last time I’d talked to her had been after the police released me and before I’d gone to Mill Stream Run to see the place where Ken’s body had been found. She’d been awake then, and I had a feeling she’d be awake now.
I also knew what she’d tell me. She’d tell me to go home, tell me to wait on the police, tell me to do anything but drive out to see Dominic Sanabria. I left the phone untouched while I ran a database search for his address.
A few minutes later, back in my truck with a printed-out map of Sanabria’s neighborhood in Shaker Heights beside me, I reached over to the glove compartment, opened it, and took out my gun. It felt good in my hand. Too good. I sat there for a while, caressing the stock with my thumb, and pleasure spread through me and filled my brain and circled around my heart. When I put the gun back, I made sure I locked the glove compartment. Wouldn’t want the wrong person getting in there. The sort of person who would use a weapon without need, who’d pull the trigger for reasons of rage and vengeance rather than self-defense. No, I didn’t want anybody like that getting ahold of my gun.
It was a slow drive out to Shaker Heights, fighting the build of rush-hour traffic. The house turned out to be in a gated community, which gave me a few seconds of pause, sitting just outside the main drive with my truck idling while I wondered how to get through. I decided it was always a better bet to try the straightforward approach first, so I pulled up to the gate and put my window down and told the kid in the security uniform that I was here to see Dominic Sanabria. I doubted Sanabria had many house calls at eight in the morning, but you never know.
The kid nodded at my request, asked for my name, and then waved me ahead, but he was looking at me strangely as he put the gate up. I kept my eyes in the mirror as I pulled forward and saw that he reached for the phone even before the gate was down. Standard procedure, or was this something he’d worked out with Sanabria, always to call if somebody showed up? Most of the gated communities I’d been through wouldn’t let you pass until it had been cleared by the resident. I’d expected him to call before he let me through, not after.
That curiosity stayed with me as I followed the curving road to the right, past dozens of ostentatious homes that all looked generally alike. A few people were out on the sidewalks, walking small dogs that yipped hysterically at my truck. Sprinklers hissed here and there in the perfect lawns, and every car I saw was high-end, lots of Lexus and Mercedes SUVs, one Jaguar sedan. It was a place where most people went off to work each day in law firms or brokerage houses, maybe showing commercial real estate. Sanabria was probably their favorite neighbor. Nothing made better conversation at a cocktail party than saying you had a mob player living in your gated community.
According to my map, Sanabria’s house was four right turns—or right curves, really—from the gatehouse, and I made it through all of them before I finally understood why the kid had waved me in and then picked up the phone. The police were waiting.
There was a single cruiser parked on the street across from Sanabria’s house, and even before I slowed my truck they hit the lights without turning the siren on. Yeah, they had a description of my vehicle.
I brought my truck to a stop facing the cruiser, and both doors opened and two police in uniform got out. The one behind the wheel was a woman, tall, close to six feet, and her partner was a young guy with a ruddy, freckled face. He hung back while she approached, and when I started to put the window down she shook her head and motioned with her hand.
“Step out, please.”
I took a deep breath, put the truck in park, and got out, giving the cruiser another look as I did. Shaker Heights Police Department. All right, they hadn’t come here from Harrison’s. They’d been sent to wait for me.
“There’s no problem,” I said as I got out. “I just came here to talk to him.”
The cop smiled. She was young, couldn’t be thirty yet, but she had cool, no-bullshit eyes.
“I’m sure that’s the case,” she said, “but we got a call from Cleveland city, said they didn’t want you talking to him, Mr. Perry. Said they want to talk to you, and then they’ll talk to him.”
“I’ve got every right to knock on the man’s door.”
She shook her head. “I’m going to have to bring you in to talk to city, Mr. Perry. They have a complaint. Woman says you assaulted her neighbor.”
“I didn’t assault anyone.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. Still, like I said, they have the complaint.”
“They sent you out here?”
“That’s right. They said you threatened Mr. Sanabria.”
I started to object again, started to say I’d never threatened anyone, but the energy went out of me then, and I sighed and nodded.
“Call them,” I said. “Tell them I’ll come in to talk. You don’t need to take me.”
She frowned. “I was asked—”
“To arrest me, or to keep me from bothering Sanabria? Doesn’t look like you’re arresting me.”
“No.”
“Then tell them I’ll come in. Tell them I’m cooperative and I’ll come in.”
She studied me for a moment, then shot her partner a glance and nodded. “Okay. Do me a favor and go wait in your truck. Let me see what they say.”
I turned back to my truck, and my eyes passed over it and went up to the house, and I saw for the first time that Dominic Sanabria was standing in front of the door. He hadn’t been there when I pulled up, must have come outside when he saw the police lights go on, but now he was standing on his front step wearing workout pants and a fleece jacket, holding a cup of coffee in his hand. I stopped short when I saw him, and when he realized he had my attention he lifted the cup of coffee at me and nodded his head. A neighborly greeting. I was too far away to see if he was smiling, but I imagined he was.
“Mr. Perry?” There was a warning in the female cop’s voice, and when I looked at her I saw that she was watching Sanabria, too. “Get in the vehicle, please.”
For a moment I didn’t move, and then she spoke in a gentler tone. “I know who he is, Mr. Perry. I don’t know the details of your situation, but I know who he is. All the same, though, I need you to get in the vehicle.”
I nodded without speaking, and I got into the truck, and while I waited on her to come back I did not let myself look at Sanabria. Or at my glove compartment.
27
__________
Things didn’t get ugly until Graham got to town. The first few hours I spent with the Cleveland cops who’d responded to Harrison’s house and the Metroparks Rangers, getting everyone updated. Nobody arrested me, and i
t seemed Harrison’s version of events had been largely sympathetic. When Graham arrived around noon, I let him have a short briefing and then asked if I could speak to him alone. I wanted it to be just the two of us when I told him about the mistake I’d made, the one I hadn’t even considered until I was driving back through the gatehouse of Sanabria’s neighborhood.
“You had anything to eat?” he said when the other cops left the room. “Any breakfast, lunch, cup of coffee?”
I shook my head.
“Let’s get out of here, then. Go somewhere, grab a sandwich.”
He was calm, contained, but he’d never had trouble meeting my eyes before, and today he did. Anger, maybe, but probably some guilt in there, too. Ken was dead, and Graham had been in charge.
We left the station and drove back to my office, Graham following behind me, then walked across the street to Gene’s Place. It was close and it was comfortable, and only after we walked through the doors did I remember that it was also where I’d gone for lunch on the day Harrison came to see me and I agreed to take his case. That weird, warm day, when all I’d wanted to do was stand outside and drink in the air, feel the sun and the wind and the knowledge that we’d finally shaken winter.
Graham got a cheeseburger, and I had a cup of soup and picked at a club sandwich while I went through cup after cup of coffee, the fatigue slamming me now. I told him everything I could tell him. He listened and ate his burger and didn’t look at me often.
When I was done talking, he leaned back from the table, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and said, “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Both of us. We’re sorry, and he’s dead.”
His chest filled with air, and he shook his head. “Maybe we didn’t do everything perfect, but . . . well, let me correct that, Linc. I know we didn’t do everything perfect, know that I didn’t, but we also didn’t kill the guy. We didn’t get him killed, either.”
The Silent Hour lp-4 Page 19
