A Welcome Grave lp-3

by Michael Koryta

  “That would work. But how did they get in the gym office?”

  “These guys? I don’t think that would be much of a problem.”

  “Your cameras show the gym office, right? We can go back and look at the tapes and—”

  “They don’t show the office.”

  “What? You spend all that money on cameras, don’t you want one on the money?”

  “It was never about that. The cameras show the gym so people feel safer, and it helps with my insurance liability. I wasn’t worried about security in the typical sense, someone breaking in and stealing a few dollars.”

  He studied me with uneasy eyes, then got to his feet and walked to the window and looked down on the street. He had his hands in his pockets, and his shoulders—good one and bad one alike—were stooped. Usually, he stood so damn straight you wanted to salute and break out into a goose step.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks, Lincoln.”

  “That’s comforting. Because it looks damn bad.”

  He turned from the window. “We don’t stop. Okay? We don’t let this stop us, or even slow it down. We keep working, countering every one of Targent’s moves with one of our own.”

  “He’s the one countering, Joe. Each time we make a discovery, he does, too. And his seem to carry more weight.”

  “There are still things we can prove. Robert Walker, for one. That should be easy. Let’s call the department and see if they’ve ever had a detective by that name. If they have, maybe that’s even a bigger break. Maybe he’s the one who can explain some of this.”

  I gave in on that, found the number for the CPD records division, and asked for a woman I’d known for years. She asked for ten minutes to check. It took her five.

  “I’ve got no record of a Robert Walker in this department in the last twenty years,” she said when she called back. “There have been seven Walkers, but none of them have Robert as the first or middle name, and the only one who was a detective is still here, and he’s a black guy, first name Darryl. Not who you’re looking for.”

  I thanked her, ended the phone call, and turned to Joe. “No Robert Walker. Jefferson brought in a fake cop, and one who matches the description of the guy who threatened Donny Ward.”

  He nodded, but there wasn’t much excitement there. We’d both known Walker wasn’t legitimate, so this wasn’t news, just confirmation.

  “Ward’s killing me,” I said. “If he’d be honest, if we could show Targent that the guy who threatened him and the guy who came with Jefferson to see the Heath family were one and the same . . .”

  “So let’s try it. Go out and see him again. Make him understand the importance.”

  “Whatever he says to us won’t mean a damn thing, though. It’ll only count if he actually goes through with it, talks to Targent.”

  “Let’s try him,” Joe said. “And this time, let’s bring a tape recorder.”

  The tape recorder was a good idea, and maybe it would have paid off if we’d been able to find Donny Ward. He wasn’t home, though. We stood on the porch beneath the sagging roof, water from the last rain still trickling through the breaks and cracks, dripping off ruined gutters, and pounded on the door, waited, pounded again. Nobody answered. We tried yelling for Donny, and the only response that provoked was a long, forlorn howl from one of the dogs.

  “His truck’s here,” Joe said.

  “Could be out in the woods. Could be someone drove him into work. If he actually works.”

  “Door locked?”

  I tried the knob and nodded.

  “Last thing we need to do is force the door, give Targent an excuse to arrest you.”

  “Probably not the best idea.”

  It was closing in on five now. The sky was already dark with the rain clouds, but now the day was disappearing, too. We could sit on Donny’s porch all night. Maybe he’d show up, maybe he wouldn’t. A neighbor came along in a wheezing Honda hatchback and gave us suspicious eyes and slowed before driving on.

  “Hate to think we wasted another drive all the way out here,” Joe said.

  “Should we wait?”

  He ran a hand along his jaw, staring at the shadows growing along the porch. “By the time we get back to Cleveland, it’ll be late. That attorney should be home, or headed that way. Cole Hamilton.”

  “You think we should try him?”

  “I think we should take a swing before Targent does. Once he sets up a pattern of lying to the cops, he’ll likely stick with it. If we can make him bend first, it would be a help.”

  “All right.”

  We walked off the porch, and the dogs milled around our feet, friendly now, even the one who’d growled at us on our first visit. Now we were familiar, or maybe they were just hungry, waiting on Donny’s return. When we got into the car, they whimpered, as if they were sorry to see us go. The rain was opening up again, fat drops sprinkling the windshield, then a fast, fine rain by the time we got to the end of the rutted lane. The wind was a steady tug on the trees, peeling away the few leaves that remained on the branches and dusting them across the road. In another month, these heavy clouds would be dumping snow instead of rain, letting loose over Ashtabula County in the way they always did, the wind howling in off the lake, bending the pine boughs and snapping frozen power lines. This was the heart of the Snow Belt, recipient of more annual snowfall than anywhere else in the state. Those lakeside villages, so busy in the summer, would be long-since empty by the first snow, Ohio’s version of Maine’s south coast—visitors welcome in the summer, but you better be a hardy bastard to hang around in the winter.

  We didn’t talk much on the drive back, just watched the highway fill with headlights and tried not to think about fingerprints and stacks of fifty-dollar bills. Amy would be home by now, maybe. Be damn nice to pick her up for a proper dinner, share a relaxed evening, no worries of police or fugitives or the faceless associates who swirled around them. I thought of her, and my mind flashed on that picturesque gazebo in the Indiana orchard, cloaked in the smells of the autumn woods. What a gorgeous spot, right up until the blood had pooled on the deck boards and dripped into the shimmering dark water of the pond.

  At least he has a reason. You’ve got nothing but greed.

  The city was glowing when we got back, the downtown bridges lit with colorful floodlights. We drove past them and on to the west and got off the interstate at West 150th, headed for Lorain.

  “Stopping by the office first?” I said.

  “You got Cole Hamilton’s address on you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then I guess we better.”

  The rain had stopped, at least temporarily, but when we got inside the building it was dark in the stairwell. The only glow was coming from the emergency lights in the jewelry store at street level and the exit sign over the door.

  “Power outage,” I said. “You write that guy’s address down, or will we need to go somewhere else to use a computer?”

  “I’ve got it on paper.”

  We made our way up the steps through familiarity rather than good vision. At the top of the steps, Joe reached for his keys, but I already had mine out, and I reached past him, got the key in the lock and turned it, stepped halfway inside, and reached for the light switch, sliding my hand along the wall.

  “Power’s out, remember,” Joe said.

  “Right. I’m an idiot.”

  I gave up on the light switch and dropped my hand from the wall just before I felt a hand on the back of my neck and tasted metal as someone pushed the barrel of a gun into my mouth.

  30

  It was completely dark inside, and I banged against one of the filing cabinets, stumbling. I still had the gun in my mouth but couldn’t see anything other than the silhouette of the man who held it.

  “Come on in, Pritchard,” he said, and then I knew it was the same man who’d attacked me on the street and called after obliterating most of my gym. “I’m sure you don’t want me to pull this trigger any more than y
our partner does.”

  Joe stepped slowly into the office, and the door was kicked shut behind him. Then the gun slid away, the sight cutting a furrow through the roof of my mouth.

  “Doran,” I said.

  “Excellent guess. Now, Pritchard, you want to walk across the room and sit down behind your desk, please? And don’t worry, I already took the gun from your drawer.”

  Joe shuffled across the room and sat down. I was still standing, free for the moment, but Doran was right beside me, the gun close to my side. I had the Glock, but it was holstered at my spine. The doors to the building and to the office had been locked, but locks appeared not to be much of a problem for Doran.

  My eyes were adjusting, and I could see Doran as more than just a dark shape. He was thinner than he’d been in the case file photographs, and he’d been thin in those. His face looked gaunt, and his body was wiry and tense, laden with a quality of speed. The military buzz cut had grown out into long light brown hair that hung across his forehead and over his ears. He was wearing boots and jeans and a fleece jacket.

  “Here’s how we’re going to do this,” he said. “Pritchard, sit behind that desk, stay there, don’t make contact with anyone. Perry, you and I are going to take a ride. You’re going to drive, and we’re going to talk. If your partner does exactly what I told him to do, just sits here and shows some patience, then you’re coming back here alive.”

  For a long moment, nobody spoke or moved.

  “Sit tight, Joe,” I said. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

  Doran nodded. “What Perry knows is that I’ve had a couple of opportunities to kill him already, and passed. He’s thinking that he’d rather trust me than test me.”

  “All right,” Joe said. “I’ll sit here, and I’ll wait. For a little while, at least. And then, if he doesn’t walk back through the door, I’ll go out and find you and kill you, Doran.”

  Doran smiled at me as a passing headlight bathed his face with a white glow. “Loyal guy, your partner.” He walked back to the door and pulled it open, then tilted his head. “You first. Down the steps, then out the back door and over to your truck.”

  I walked out the door, and a second later it closed behind me, Doran on my heels, Joe alone in the dark office. We went down the steps and out the back door and into the parking lot. Doran was walking close to me but a half step behind. We got into the truck, and I started the engine as he settled into the passenger seat with the gun, a big Colt Commander, resting in his lap, pointed at my stomach. His hands were covered by thin gloves.

  “Go out of the parking lot and turn right and stay on that street,” he said.

  I turned onto Rocky River and drove north, as he’d requested. The radio had come on with the car, and Doran didn’t turn it off. U2 was singing of a city of blinding lights. Maybe Doran was a Bono fan.

  “You’ve been busy,” he said. “Nice file you’ve put together. I didn’t bother going through the whole thing, though—it’s pretty familiar to me.”

  “I’d imagine.”

  “How long have you been working on me?”

  “A few days.”

  “Got to me fast.” He nodded as if in approval. “Maybe this is good. Maybe you understand some new things, or understand them in new ways. You see my situation, don’t you? I can’t go away from this without some money, Lincoln. Got nowhere to go.”

  “You’ve got nowhere to go? I’m on my way to prison thanks to you.”

  “Looking to the wrong person for sympathy, Lincoln. I’ve been to prison thanks to Jefferson.”

  “So now you want to pull the same trick on somebody else?”

  “Take the next street,” was his answer.

  I pulled off Rocky River and onto West Clifton, which continued north. We crossed Detroit and went over the old Norfolk Southern railroad tracks, and then West Clifton joined Clifton Boulevard, an east-west street running past beautiful old homes on tree-lined lots.

  “Go right,” Doran said, and I turned again, headed east.

  We went a few blocks before he ordered a left, giving me an idea of where we were going. Lakewood Park was down here, a busy place on a summer evening but probably plenty desolate on a cold, rainy October night. Doran had me pull into the lot and then asked me to get out of the car. He hadn’t checked me for a weapon, which seemed like a substantial oversight, but maybe he was just that confident in his ability to kill me if I went for it.

  There was no one at the park. Doran ordered me to walk down toward the lake, past the picnic tables and shelters and swings. Then he moved me toward the edge of the tall fence that bordered the park, with strands of barbed wire across the top. There was a hole in the fence at this corner, probably cut open during the summer by kids who wanted to get down to the lake and drink or make out. Doran waved the gun at it.

  “Go through.”

  I looked back at him as I reached for the loose section of fence. Ahead of us was a steep decline leading down to the jagged boulders that made up the breakwater along the lake’s edge. Doran might have said he didn’t intend to kill me, but he was taking me to a place where doing so would be convenient. It was isolated down there, and loud, with the water beating on the big rocks. Easy chore to kick a body into the lake, too.

  “Go through,” he repeated, his voice firmer, the gun raising a few inches. I pulled the loose fence back and stepped through the opening. He followed close behind, jamming the gun into my back. He put it up high, above my kidneys, so that it didn’t touch my own weapon, but I was still afraid he might have seen the Glock’s outline under my jacket.

  There was a paved path down here that wound all the way to Edgewater Park. We walked along it for maybe two minutes before Doran ordered me to leave the path and walk across the large rocks that made up the breakwater. The huge blocks of stone were scattered at all angles, making for treacherous walking even during daylight hours. I went slowly and carefully, using my hands to help find balance as I worked my way down to the lake. Behind me, Doran moved nimbly, jumping from rock to rock without any hesitation.

  The farther we got from the path, the closer to the lake, the worse I felt about it. I’d believed him back at the office when he’d told Joe he had no intention of killing me—why not take both Joe and me out if he wanted to kill, after all—but now I was losing that sense of security. He’d had no interaction with Joe; he’d given Joe no warnings. Maybe, in his twisted mind, that gave Joe a pass.

  The rain had started again, light and cold, making the rocks slick. I was almost down to the lake’s edge now, trying to use the sounds of Doran’s footfalls on the rocks to place where he was behind me, and wondering if I had a chance of getting the Glock out before he shot me, remembering that brief struggle we’d had on the sidewalk on Chatfield, the astonishing speed he’d displayed.

  “Stop,” Doran said. The command didn’t mean much, because to keep walking would have required plunging into the lake. I stood on the wide, flat rock at the water’s edge and turned to face him. He was one rock above me, the gun held against his leg.

  “There a reason we couldn’t have this chat elsewhere?” I said.

  He glanced down at the gun in his hand, then back at me. “I hadn’t even planned this out yet, you know? Been thinking about it, but I wanted you alone. Then you two pulled up, and everything changed. I hit the circuit breaker and waited.”

  Great. All of this was a fly-by-the-seat-of-a-psycho’s-pants outing, then. Made me feel even better about standing down here at the edge of the lake, nothing around us but rocks and rain.

  “You understand things a little better now than when we last talked,” he said.

  “Which time? The time you shot up my gym or the time you knocked me out on the street?”

  He raised the gun in a lazy arc and leaned forward, put the barrel against my forehead. The metal was cold and wet against my skin, and even in the darkness I could make out one raindrop resting on his gloved trigger finger.

  “About six years ago,”
Doran said, “I came to this spot with Monica Heath. It was summer, and it was hot. Humid. Just walking down here from the park had my shirt stuck to my back. We brought down a two-liter bottle of Coke and a fifth of Captain Morgan and two paper cups. Had it all in a backpack. There were a couple of boats out in the bay, and one guy was water-skiing, pretty good at it, too. We sat here on these rocks and drank rum and Coke and watched the guy on the water skis and the sun went down and the whole lake glowed orange. Someone started a barbecue up at the park—I remember we could smell the smoke and the meat and hear the people laughing. They tossed a Frisbee over the fence and lost it. Thing fell all the way down here and got caught in the top of one of the trees. By the time the Captain was gone, we thought that Frisbee in the tree was pretty damn hilarious. Then the sun went down, and the lake went from orange to black and the lights came on over at the Jake and we smoked a bowl and fell asleep on the rocks.”

  The gun snapped off my forehead and dropped, and I reminded myself I could breathe again.

  “That,” Andy Doran said, “is as much of a crime as I ever committed with Monica Heath.”

  The rain had increased a bit, speckling the lake behind me and falling silently through the bare limbs of the trees. Doran’s hair was wet now, plastered against his forehead.

  “Did Jefferson’s son kill her?” I said.

  He nodded. “Then his father rigged the investigation.”

  “How’d you find out?”

  “Got a postcard from a friend. A friend who’d helped put me in, by lying to the cops.”

  “Donny Ward. He told us what happened.”

  “No shit? I haven’t looked old Donny up. Figure if I see him, I might kill him. That’s not something I want. He didn’t drive the train, you know? Alex Jefferson did.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I got that postcard, I decided I’d better contact my old lawyer, the guy who convinced me the plea was the way to go. Found out he was working with Alex Jefferson. I got to working it out pretty quick after that. Jefferson’s son lied to the police. I could never understand why he did that unless he was involved in what happened. Found out they paid off my lawyer like that, and the rest of the math wasn’t too hard.”