A Welcome Grave lp-3

by Michael Koryta

  “Write a guidebook,” Joe said. “Around the Midwest in Fifty Jails.”

  He shook my hand and opened the passenger door for me, as if I were a visiting celebrity.

  “No red carpet?” I said.

  “Thought it might piss the cops off. You know, rubbing it in their faces?” He got in and started the car.

  Still standing on the sidewalk, I turned back to Amy. “Are you all right? Did anything—”

  “I’m fine. As fine as I could be, at least. I’m okay.”

  “When I saw you in that trailer . . . saw you were alive . . .”

  I stopped talking then, and she looked away, and I knew we were both thinking about Andy Doran and the shot that dropped Gaglionci as he’d kicked the door open and stepped inside with his shotgun, going for Amy.

  “Can I drive us somewhere?” Joe said. “Longer Lincoln stands on the sidewalk in front of the jail, more likely it is someone will think he escaped, throw him back in.”

  We got in the car. While Joe drove, he and Amy caught me up on what the police hadn’t.

  “I haven’t heard anything about Thor,” I said.

  Joe looked at Amy in the rearview mirror. “Hopefully, you won’t. We made a decision not to volunteer anything about him. It looks like you did the same.”

  “But Gaglionci and Reed?”

  “Gaglionci hasn’t spoken at all. Not yet. We’ll see what happens with him. As for Reed, cops have interviewed him probably ten times, and he hasn’t mentioned Thor once. Says you and I came in and threatened him, alone.”

  “Good.”

  “Reed’s rolling on Gaglionci now, says the only reason he ever helped him was because Gaglionci had threatened to kill him.”

  “No surprise there. Reed’s the type who’ll do plenty of talking when he sees charges ahead.”

  “Should help you, though. He’ll seal some things up with Gaglionci. Who was, I might add, arraigned this morning on one charge of kidnapping, two of murder. There’s a team doing background on Paul Brooks, too. Found out he was arrested for sexual assault out east, during college. The girl backed out on her accusation, and charges were never filed. About the same time that happened, the girl started driving a new Lexus, and Brooks came home to Cleveland.”

  “Fenton’s heavy hand.”

  “You got it. He’d already been diagnosed with his cancer by the time Monica Heath was killed. Knew he was dying.”

  “Seems he was willing to go pretty far to protect the legacy.”

  “I wonder how many times Jefferson’s son thought about what might have happened if he’d just called the cops instead of his dad,” Amy said. “Told them the truth.”

  “I’m pretty sure,” I said, “he thought of it the night I met him. I left that damn note on the kid’s door, and he expected Gaglionci and Doran were in town to finish the job. Yeah, I’d say he thought about it then.”

  I woke up in Amy’s apartment the next morning, with her hair soft on my shoulder. I watched her for a long time, following the slow rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, relieved to see that she’d found sleep. We’d remained awake well into the night, and she’d told me the things she had not told the police, the things she’d felt and feared when she woke up in the van, the things she’d thought when Doran crawled back into the trailer with the sound of gunfire echoing outside. She told me that Gaglionci had hummed to himself while he cleaned his gun, waiting for Doran to get back, that he’d smelled of cologne and smiled at her in a way that made her go cold with fear, that even when I’d entered the trailer she’d felt hopeless because Doran was there, and when Thor holstered his gun she knew it was over.

  She told me all of those things, and I told her some others, and at some point we slept. It was nearly nine now. I forced myself out of bed and onto my feet. Amy didn’t wake when I moved. I went into the bathroom and took a shower and came out and brewed a pot of coffee.

  Thirty minutes passed, and Amy didn’t wake. I hoped that she would, that she’d come out and talk and we could waste the morning and delay the visit I had ahead. That wasn’t going to happen, though. Amy needed sleep, and I needed to deal with a conversation I’d hungered for once and wanted nothing to do with now.

  The day was clean and crisp after the rain, a cold sun still putting up a hell of a fight to work its way past the clouds and through the bare branches that surrounded Alex Jefferson’s house. Karen came out into the driveway when I pulled up. When I got out of the truck, she came over and put her hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t need to be, Karen.”

  “I’ve talked to the police. I’ve heard about most of it, although I’m sure there are a thousand details I don’t know or don’t understand. What I do know is that it’s over, and that you made that happen. And I’m so sorry, Lincoln. I never wanted to believe any of the things that were being said about you, but every day it seemed like there was something new, and I just—”

  “You just responded like they hoped you would,” I said. “They wanted to play with your emotions. Targent and Gaglionci both. They wanted to turn you against me, and they did a damn good job of it. You don’t need to apologize for that. In the moment when it mattered most, when that cop showed up, you trusted me. Enough to let me leave, at least. Without that . . .”

  “They told me about your friend,” she said. “Amy Ambrose. I’m so glad she’s safe.”

  “She’s doing fine. You helped let that happen.”

  “Okay.” She took her hands off my shoulders and stepped back. The wind picked up and blew her hair over her face, temporarily obscuring the fear and the fatigue and the pain that were in it. I ached for her in that moment, thinking of the memory I’d held of her on the day we’d rented that boat in the Bass Islands, the smile she’d been capable of back then. A smile like that wouldn’t come to her again after all of this, or at least it wouldn’t come easily.

  “When all of this got started,” she said, “when Alex was killed and the police couldn’t tell me why, I called you.”

  “Yes.”

  “I called you because this family had too many secrets. Or at least it felt like that to me. The breach between Alex and his son . . . it was something I always wanted to understand. When Alex was murdered, that changed. I had to understand it.”

  I didn’t want to meet her eyes anymore. There was such a sense of bracing in them, of preparing for fresh anguish.

  “Now I know you can do that,” she said. “You can help me understand. And all of a sudden, I don’t think I want to anymore. I don’t think I want to at all.”

  She forced out a laugh that was on the edge of tears and shook her head.

  “But I need to know. I’ve heard some of it from the police, and I need to know the rest.”

  ______

  We stayed outside while we talked. Sat on the steps in front of the house, side by side.

  “If what the police think is true,” she said, “then Alex always knew that Andy Doran was innocent.”

  I held her eyes for a moment before I looked down.

  “Here is what I can tell you, Karen. Paul Brooks killed Monica Heath. He confessed to it in front of me. Andy Doran thought your husband’s son killed her. So did I, for a while. We were both wrong.”

  “But they knew,” she said. “Alex and Matthew, they knew what had happened.”

  “Yes,” I said, and a swell of sorrow passed through me when I saw the look on her face.

  “Alex helped,” she said. It was not a question. “He helped put Doran in prison when he knew who had really killed that girl.”

  “It cost him a lot. He lost his son, Karen. Saved his client’s son from the proper punishment and lost his own.”

  “Lost his son,” she echoed. “Yes, he did. And when his son committed suicide . . . when his son shot himself in the head because he thought someone else was going to do worse, he blamed Alex for that. Didn’t he? He thought Alex was the reason it was
happening.”

  “I think he blamed himself, too. He wasn’t a child, Karen. He was encouraged to identify Doran, yes, but the decision was his own.”

  She was quiet for a few minutes, then said, “You think Alex was evil, don’t you? How could you not? He helped send this innocent man to jail, made a profit from it. You think he was evil.”

  I shook my head. “No, Karen. I don’t. I think he deferred to money and power on that night, and once he’d deferred, he felt trapped. I don’t think he envisioned what would happen as it continued, and once it got rolling he didn’t know how to get out of it. And he paid dearly for what he did. More than he should have. More than anyone should have.”

  She sat with head bowed, silent.

  “Have they told you why he died?” I said.

  “Paul Brooks was afraid of him. Afraid he’d tell people what he knew.”

  “He was going to do that, Karen. He told Gaglionci he was ready to talk to the police and tried to convince him to do the same. He wanted to send Gaglionci back to find Doran and give him his money and assure him that he’d be cleared. He just needed a few days to prepare for it, I guess. To talk to you, I’m sure. He might have gone to jail. Probably would have. Even in the best case, his career would have been over, and he would have been shamed in a way that’s tough to imagine. He was willing to let that happen to get his honor back, Karen. To protect his son, to set right what he’d made wrong.”

  She was crying.

  “I think when he found you, it helped him,” I said. “Gave him an escape, almost. You were young and good and so far from being in his world, and I’m quite sure that he needed to be with someone who was all of those things.”

  I was thinking of her on the boat again, the smile she’d had that I would never forget, the overwhelming sense of youth and energy and joy she gave off back then, like a pulse. I imagined Alex Jefferson meeting her in the aftermath of his greatest sin, and I understood what she would have done to him. I understood it very well.

  She used her fingertips to wipe tears from her eyes. I reached out and rubbed her back, squeezed her shoulder until she ran out of tears. When they’d stopped, I put my hand on her neck and turned her face to mine.

  “You told me that Alex said you healed him. That when he said that, you felt like he needed you in a way you couldn’t fully understand.”

  She nodded.

  “That,” I said, “was probably as true a statement as you’ll ever hear, Karen. And it should matter to you.”

  We sat there for a while, and then I got to my feet. She stood with me, and I hugged her and held her and then it had gone on too long and was accomplishing too little, and I walked to my truck and drove away and left her there with her grief. Sometimes, that’s all you can do.

  46

  I didn’t talk to her again in the weeks that followed, but I saw plenty of her. Unplugged the television so I wouldn’t have to stumble across another picture of her on the screen, listen to the commentators explain her husband’s actions, tell the sad story of Andy Doran.

  Soon the newspaper was reporting she’d left town, gone to stay with family. Two weeks after Doran and Paul Brooks were killed, movers were taking furniture out of her house, loading it into trucks. A real estate agency had control of the home, but the word was they’d wait a few months before putting it on the market. Tough to sell a place that has news crews camped out on the lawn.

  Sometimes, I thought about calling. The day Cole Hamilton was arrested on charges of conspiracy was one. The day traces of Alex Jefferson’s blood were found in Tommy Gaglionci’s van was another. Gaglionci had washed the van with bleach and water, but that’s the thing about blood—it’ll find places to hide, crevices perfect for disappearing, and just when you think it’s washed out of your life, it makes another appearance.

  I never called, though. Lacked the words, and without them the telephone’s pretty damn useless. Maybe a call around Christmas, I thought. Maybe a card. Maybe she’d call me. Maybe there was nothing to say.

  ______

  The media coverage was relentless. I had to change my unlisted home number, then my cell number. The more enterprising reporters took to waiting in the parking lot beneath my apartment, but they didn’t get any quotes, either. Nobody did. My involvement was the subject of endless questioning in the newspaper, my relationship with Karen became a fifteen-minute feature on one of the morning news shows, and numerous mentions were made of the arrest warrant for murder even though I’d never been charged. My attorney called to suggest a lawsuit against Targent and the department for wrongful arrest. I told him not to call again. If I required his services, I’d let him know.

  Since I ignored the phones, reporters took to sending letters requesting interviews. Going through a stack of them one day, I found a postcard from Indiana. On the front was a photograph of a covered bridge in autumn, surrounded by crimson trees. I flipped it over and read the short note.

  Mr. Perry—

  It appears I was wrong about you. Please accept this admission, and my apology. Also, please do not ever return to my county.

  Best Wishes,

  Lt. Roger Brewer

  I flipped the card back over and moved my hand to cover the bridge, so all I could see were the trees. It was easy to imagine they stood above a pond and gazebo, an orchard nearby. The leaves would all be gone by now, just bare limbs watching over cold water.

  I went to Indiana for the money. That’s what I told Joe and Amy. If not for the money, just because I wanted to help. An honorable thing. I’d wanted to help. In my more dishonest moments, I could try to leave it there. Not anymore, though. Not with Karen gone and Matt Jefferson and Andy Doran dead.

  What took me to Indiana was the Jefferson family secret. I wanted to have it before Karen had it. Wanted to know why the son cut Alex Jefferson off, what evil he’d seen in his father. He was supposed to tell me, and I’d get to tell her. I’d be the one to explain what a bastard her husband had been. Validation, the nice word. Revenge, the true one.

  I’d wanted Matt Jefferson to tell me what his father had done that was so wrong. Now, both of them dead, I wanted ten seconds to tell him what his father had been about to do that was right.

  I found a magnet and put the postcard on my refrigerator. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with the things you need to remember?

  ______

  The office was closed for three weeks while I spent time with Amy, hiding from the media. Being a member of that obnoxious little militia, Amy has great expertise in how to avoid them. While I was gone, clients got nothing but a voice mail saying the absence was indefinite. Joe came by my apartment on the third Monday after I’d closed the office to tell me I needed to get down and open the place again.

  “You stay shut down for another week and you may not recover, LP. When a client takes his business somewhere else, it’s likely to stay there.”

  I nodded. “You’re right. But it’s been a hell of a few weeks, Joe. I couldn’t work. You know that.”

  “I know that. And now I’m telling you it’s time to start again.”

  He was standing in my living room, using his index finger to turn a lampshade that he’d decided was crooked. He wouldn’t look at me.

  “Time to start again,” I said. “Yeah, I guess it is. Does that go for you, too?”

  He stopped playing with the lampshade. “No, LP. I’m afraid it doesn’t.”

  I sat and stared at him. He looked sad but resolved. He stepped away from the lamp and paced across the room.

  “I’m going to take the winter off. Get out of town, go somewhere warm. I can’t do another winter in this town. Not right now. You know I’ve never been gone from Cleveland in the winter? You believe that? All those trips I took with Ruth, they were always in summer or fall. Maybe one in the spring. But I’ve always been here for winter, and, shit, I need a break. I’m thinking Florida, maybe Texas, somewhere down along the Gulf.”

  It took me a minute to say a
nything. When I did speak, all I could say was “Okay.”

  He finally stopped walking and sat down on the chair across from me, ran his hand over his jaw and studied the carpet.

  “I just need a break, Lincoln. Don’t know for how long, exactly, but I know I need to get out of here for a while. You can handle it without me.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but it’s not going to be a whole lot of fun.”

  He snorted. “Damn, almost like a real job. You know, a lot of guys haven’t had the luxury of working with someone like me. Now you’ll have to appreciate it for the treat that it is.”

  I managed a smile. “Okay, Joe. But don’t go down there and get lost. Spring comes and it starts to warm up around here, you damn well better be on your way north.”

  “I will be.”

  He left on the first Sunday of December. His arm was improving all the time, but he still needed help packing the car, and I went down and loaded the Taurus up as well as I could, Joe growling out irritated instructions from over my shoulder. Finally, I wedged the trunk lid shut and stepped back. He handed me his house keys.

  “Don’t forget to water the plants. And remember—no parties.”

  “Right.”

  Amy came out of the house and walked down to join us. “Is that it? You’re really leaving now?”

  “I’m leaving, my dear. And, yes, I know that you’ll miss me.”

  She hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. A brisk wind was blowing, and the broad gray clouds overhead promised snow. The forecasts said it could be heavy. Joe zipped up his jacket and smiled.

  “A few hours, and I’m ditching this thing for a polo shirt and a seat by the pool.”

  “Rub it in,” I said. “Nice.”

  It was quiet for a minute, and then I said, “Be in touch, Joe.”

  “Absolutely.” He put out his hand, and I shook it, and then he got in the car. By the time he hit Tennessee he’d probably have doubled the total miles on that damn Taurus. He started the engine, and I thumped my hand on the trunk and then stepped back and waved. He turned out of the driveway and went down Chatfield toward the interstate ramp at West 150th. I watched him go, and out of nowhere Andy Doran’s voice was in my head. All I had to do was make it through the winter. Just make it through the winter.