A Welcome Grave lp-3

by Michael Koryta

  My throat had tightened around the most unpleasant of dry tickles, as if there were a blade of grass caught there.

  “You know this is a lie,” I said. “You have to know that, Targent.”

  He held his hands up, spread them wide. “You shouldn’t be telling me that, you should be telling Mr. Meyers. He’s convinced that he’s working on your behalf. Brewer wants you back down there. Says he’s going to throw the same charges at you. I cautioned him that with the cash payment, this may be tougher to prove than he realizes. I anticipated your, uh, brilliant defense of total denial. Warned him that you’re less than forthright, less than cooperative.”

  “You have no evidence. Brewer has no evidence. You’ve got a secondhand account and ten grand in cash that could easily have come from Brewer himself.”

  “They recovered the envelope. Postmarked in Cleveland.”

  I was silent.

  Targent smiled. “That concerns you?”

  “Not really. I was just thinking that maybe you’re the one who mailed the cash.”

  “Of course. You’re the conspiracy victim, right? Sorry if I keep forgetting that.”

  “I don’t have ten grand to spare, trust me, Targent. You want to see my bank account history, go for it.”

  “Ah, but Alex Jefferson had some cash, and fifty grand of it is missing. Cash withdrawal, not seen since.”

  “So, what, you think he paid Lincoln to kill him?” Joe said. “Makes a lot of sense.”

  Targent shook his head. “Remember that someone could be extorting the Jefferson family, Mr. Pritchard. Where’d that money go? Possibly to the person who laid on the pressure.”

  “What pressure would Lincoln have to lay on?”

  “I was hoping he’d explain that.”

  “This is important,” I said. “If someone actually hired this guy, pretended to be me . . . that’s a pretty damn big deal, Targent, and finding out who it was will be—”

  “Someone pretended to be you. That’s what you’re telling us.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t hire him, and if he’s serious in thinking that I did, what other option is there?”

  “I suppose that’s it. Either someone’s pretending to be you, or you’re lying. Those are the options.”

  “You can scratch the second one.”

  “So what’s the point? Huh? Why pretend to be you? Why pay out ten thousand dollars to a PI when there’s no guarantee he’d even be caught? If he just snagged the reports and sent them on back to you—I’m sorry, back to your imposter—then what would have been accomplished?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He smiled at me and nodded. “Of course you don’t. Of course. I’m beginning to feel sorry for you, Perry. Because if you’re not lying to me, than you’re the most clueless son of a bitch I’ve ever seen. Makes my heart ache for you. But, being a kindhearted guy, I’m going to help you out. All those things you don’t understand? All those questions? I’m going to explain them. Every last one. I’m going to do that just for you.”

  He nodded at Joe, then turned and moved for his car, walking briskly and whistling, the sound teasing the air between us.

  17

  You can stand on a riverbank and study the water and think it looks languid and warm, inviting even, well worth a try. Then you dive in, and things surprise you—the cold, the current, the snags underfoot.

  That’s how I felt now. Karen’s request that I track down her dead husband’s son had been a safe enough thing to accept. All that money for such a routine task. Sure, there was a clear note of warning—I was on the police suspect list, no matter how far down. But I’d ignored that over a simple tenet I’d explained to people constantly when I was a cop: If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.

  I’d done nothing wrong, but with each passing hour it felt like I should have more to fear. The latest, this discovery by Brewer, changed everything. Before, I’d been dealing with nothing more than coincidences. While they were a pain in the ass, they could be dismissed, at least in my mind. Now that was gone. Someone had impersonated me, invested ten thousand dollars into the effort.

  “It started when you went to Indiana,” Joe said. We were sitting on the trunk of his car in my parking lot. Targent had gone.

  “Seems to.”

  “Cops came to see you when Jefferson died, then they went away and nothing pointed back to you. But when you went down to find that kid, something changed. You attracted someone’s attention there.”

  “Yeah—the cops’.”

  “Somebody else, LP.” He was rubbing his shoulder, and I saw for the first time how tired he looked. It had been a long day for him, two hours of driving on top of a therapy session.

  “Go home, Joe,” I said. “Get some dinner, take a painkiller, relax.”

  He stopped massaging his shoulder and shook his head. “Nah, I’m good. We ought to spend some time on the computers, look into this Doran guy, try to set up an interview. It’s clear someone is on the offensive with you. Be a good idea if you started preparing a defense.”

  “Doran’s not going anywhere. He’ll be in the same cell tomorrow as he is today. It’ll hold till morning.”

  Proof of his fatigue showed when he nodded and gave in. “Okay. We’ll get back at it early, though.”

  “Yeah. And thanks again.”

  He waved me off and opened his car door. “Want a ride?”

  “I’ll walk it and see you in the morning. We’ll make progress tomorrow. Already did today.”

  “What do you know, the day you start making progress just happens to be the same day I get involved.”

  “Too bad you didn’t get involved a little earlier,” I said. “Then maybe my face wouldn’t look like it was run over by a truck.”

  He got in the car, started to pull the door shut, and then stopped. “Remember when I told you I didn’t like your decision to burn that photograph?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think I’ll retract that statement,” he said, and then he closed the door.

  I went home, scrambled some eggs for dinner, and ate quickly with the intention of going down to the gym to work out when I was done. I gave up on that idea while I washed the dishes. I didn’t have the energy for a workout, and I didn’t want to be alone tonight. My thoughts had been on Alex Jefferson and Karen and Targent, but Amy was invading them regularly. I dried my hands on a dish towel, grabbed the phone, and called her.

  “You around tonight?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “If by ‘around’ you mean am I willing to sit on the couch and drink a beer, yes. If by ‘around’ you mean am I willing to go out somewhere, then, no.”

  “Homebody mood, I take it?”

  “Already changed into comfortable clothes. No way you lure me out into the world after that point in the evening unless it’s for something damn relaxed.”

  “I was thinking of a toga party.”

  “That’s what I like most about you, Lincoln. The high level of sophistication.”

  She came in wearing old jeans and a sweatshirt—not the designer jeans and the sweatshirt made of pima cotton or whatever the hell it was Karen had worn, but the kind you dig out of your closet and throw on when a night turns cold.

  “I’ve got Beck’s and Budweiser,” I said. “Take your pick.”

  “You ever going to make it farther into the alphabet with your beer selection?”

  “Don’t see the need.”

  “Beck’s.”

  I handed her a beer and opened another for myself. When I turned from the refrigerator she did a double take, and I remembered for the first time in a few hours how my face looked.

  “Oh, yeah. I haven’t told you about my evening, have I?”

  She reached out and touched the skin under my eye, then winced and pulled her hand back.

  “That looks really bad, Lincoln.”

  “Didn’t feel much better.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  We went i
nto the living room and sat down on the couch, and I drank some of the beer and told her about the past twenty-four hours. When I got to the part about Thor, her already concerned face took on a whole new gravity.

  “Thor’s involved? The same Thor who makes men disappear like it’s his day job?”

  “Technically, I think it is his day job.”

  “Not funny.”

  “No.”

  “If the police connect you to him, Lincoln . . .”

  “Yeah. It won’t go well. But right now Thor’s not as unsettling to me as this PI in Indiana. Somebody sent him ten grand in cash while pretending to be me, Amy. That’s a sizable investment. I’m wondering what sort of a return they’re looking for.”

  “You in jail,” she said.

  “Blunt.”

  “But true?”

  “I don’t know. If it involved Alex Jefferson it would make more sense. Whoever did kill him would want to point the cops elsewhere. But his son committed suicide.”

  “The two are so connected, though. If you can be made to look guilty for the son’s death . . .”

  “The father’s takes care of itself,” I said, and I felt that blade of grass in my throat again.

  She stood up and went into the kitchen and came back with two fresh beers. We stayed there on the couch and talked and drank, maybe an hour of it, talked about Thor and Jefferson and Targent. I loved talking to her. Needed to do it. She’d become that person in my life now, the one I knew would be there to discuss the difficult things, providing better answers than the walls of the empty apartment—my usual sounding board—ever did. I’d gone a while without someone like that, and although I could do it again, I didn’t want to. I was aware of her beside me on the couch in a way that sometimes made it hard to focus on what was being said, my mind led away by the curve of her hip against the couch and the trace of perfume she wore.

  She was asking something about Targent when I interrupted.

  “I was about three seconds from kissing you the other night when you told me a friendship is the only thing that can work for us.”

  Her eyes widened. “Wow. That was an abrupt conversation shift.”

  “Sorry.”

  It was quiet for a moment, and then she said, “Three seconds away, huh?”

  “Maybe less.”

  “Damn. If I just talked a little slower.” She laughed, but it was awkward, tense.

  “I probably shouldn’t have said that. You seemed pretty set on the conclusion you’d reached while I was down in Indiana. And maybe you’re right.”

  “Maybe I’m right? I thought that decision was your baby, Lincoln.”

  “I know. But since when do you give me any credit for intelligent decision-making? You know better than that.”

  She started to say something, then stopped and shook her head.

  “What?” I said.

  “It’s just interesting timing. I get upset with you for this bizarre relationship we’ve developed, and then you decide you’re going to make a move for the first time? Damn, if I’d known that would’ve worked all along . . .”

  “It wasn’t because you got upset.”

  “I won’t debate that with you, but I could.”

  “I know.”

  Her gaze was intense. “So you were ready to make a courageous first move, and then you chose to abort the attempt.”

  “Yeah, the news you had kind of killed that.”

  “I’ll be kicking myself over that, of course.”

  “Listen to her lie.”

  “Truer words were never spoken, Lincoln.”

  There was a comfortable silence for a few seconds, and then I leaned over and slid my hand behind her neck and pulled her in and kissed her. She returned it, gently but passionately, and then broke away. Her eyes could have been happy or sad. Probably somewhere in between.

  “Now who’s not being fair?” she said.

  I nodded. “It’s not fair. I understand that, Amy.”

  Her face was inches from mine, her hair soft against my hand. “So stop it.”

  “Okay,” I said, and then I kissed her again. She separated from me once, said, “Damn you, Lincoln,” and then we were back at it, twisting on the couch so that she was above me, her body resting lightly against mine, her hair hanging down against my face.

  Her fingers slid over my shoulders and up to my neck, and when her hand moved on me a quick line of electricity seemed to dance along my spine. She pushed her hands through my hair, and when her fingers crossed over the lumps on the back of my skull, a surge of pain passed through, a momentary reminder of Alex Jefferson and Karen and Targent and a nameless man with a grudge and a gun. Then I was sliding that old sweatshirt off of her, my hands gliding over her small, smooth back, and the pain and the problems and all of the rest of it faded away.

  Later, in my bedroom, she lay warm beside me, her leg hooked over my knee and her head nestled against my neck. Her breathing was slow and easy, moving toward sleep, but I was awake and alert, watching shadows slide across the ceiling as cars passed along the avenue.

  “Remind me why we never did that before,” I said.

  “I used to have standards,” she said, her breath hot on my neck, and then she bit my shoulder gently.

  18

  The phone rang, shrill and insistent. I lifted my head and blinked, searching for the phone in the darkness. Beside me, Amy stirred but didn’t wake, sleeping as if she had a winter’s hibernation ahead of her. I pushed myself up with the heel of my hand and reached over her and grabbed the phone from its base. Then I climbed out of the bed and walked into the hallway, squinting to make out the number in the display as it rang a third time. Karen’s house.

  I answered the phone just as my eyes found the clock in the living room and saw that it was ten minutes to three.

  “Karen, what’s wrong?”

  “He called me, Lincoln. Just now.” Her voice was terse and frightened.

  “Who did?”

  “The man who killed my husband! He asked me how much money Matthew would have inherited. I started yelling at him, I was hysterical almost—”

  “Slow down, Karen.” She was talking so fast I could hardly understand her.

  “He told me I didn’t have to die,” she said, and this time the words were slow and clear.

  “What else?”

  “He said that all he wanted was whatever had been coming to Matthew, provided that it was reasonable. He actually said that. Provided that it was reasonable. Then he said that all further instructions were going to come through you.”

  “What?”

  “He said I was supposed to tell you that you have a conference call coming on the phone in the gym. He told me to call you immediately and tell you that.”

  I was standing in the kitchen now, the tile floor cold on my bare feet. “He told you I had a conference call coming on the phone in the gym.”

  “Yes. Lincoln, what—”

  “I’ll call you back, Karen.”

  Amy was pushed up on one arm when I went back into the bedroom, her eyes bleary with sleep but concerned.

  “Who was that?”

  “Karen. My friend from the other night has apparently requested that I take a phone call in my gym.”

  Now she sat all the way up, holding the sheet to her chest. “Lincoln, do you really think you should—”

  “I’ve got to,” I said. “It’ll just be a phone call.

  He doesn’t want to kill me.” He hadn’t the last time we’d met, at least, but of course I had spent the past twenty-four hours ignoring his instructions.

  “I’m going down with you.”

  “No, you’re not.” I pulled a shirt over my head and looked at her. “Stay here, Amy. Stay here, and if it sounds like there’s anything wrong, call the police.”

  I went into the extra bedroom and got my Glock out and checked the load. When I stepped back into the hall, she was standing in the door of my bedroom, a pool of light from the street at her feet
.

  “It’ll be fine,” I said, and then I left.

  I was still barefoot, and the pavement was hard and cold as I crossed to the gym, got the key in the lock, and opened the door. Everything was still, the way it should be at three in the morning. Standing with my back to the wall, I slid my hand around until I found the light switch and got the lights in the office turned on. Then I pivoted, keeping low, and pushed inside, sweeping the room with the barrel of my gun. Empty.

  The overhead lights in the gym had been turned off by the last member to leave, but a ring of low-wattage emergency lamps around the room offered a dim glow. You never want a twenty-four-hour facility to be entirely dark, even when it’s empty.

  I wanted to check the rest of the building, but I also wanted to remain close to the phone. The phone won out, and I sat down on the edge of the desk with the Glock in my hand, waiting.

  When the phone out in the gym rang, I almost emptied my clip into the wall. I’d been ready for the desk phone, so having the sound come from someplace else caught me off guard. There’s a phone on the wall in the weight room for members to use, but it’s a separate number from the office line. It rang again, and I stood up and took a deep breath, rocking the gun in my hand.

  “All right, asshole,” I said aloud. “I’m coming.”

  I was halfway across the weight room when the front window exploded. Glass blew into the room, and with it came cold air and the staccato rattle of a semi-automatic weapon. I hit the ground and rolled to my left, trying to push myself behind the concrete pillar that stood in the middle of the room and supported the weight of the building. Bullets shredded the wall behind me, nicking off chunks of stone and shattering metal and glass. I got all the way behind the pillar, pressed my back against it, and ducked my head and put my forearms against my ears as the deafening rattle continued, the wail of the alarm from the broken window still not drowning out the gunfire. Bullets drilled into the pillar and decimated the paper towel dispenser attached to the opposite side, shards of plastic scattering around me. There was a brief pause, and then more bullets were emptied into the room, an east-to-west sweep that rippled past me.