Sorrow's Anthem

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 inside.

“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.

Joe had stepped into the house behind me, his complaints ceasing for the moment. Together we moved out of the kitchen and into the adjacent living room. A few issues of Sports Illustrated were on the coffee table, and an empty beer can was on the floor beside the couch. I picked the can up and studied its top. It was bone-dry, the contents not recently consumed.

I replaced the can as Joe walked past me, down the narrow hall that led out of this room. I trailed. He opened a closed door and stepped into what turned out to be a laundry room. There was nothing inside but a washer-dryer combination, water heater, a few mops and brooms, and a cat’s litter box. We moved out of that room and continued down the hall, past an empty bathroom and on to another closed door on the right. Joe and I hadn’t spoken since entering the house, and now he opened this door without a word and held it while I walked into a small spare bedroom furnished with a ragged couch and a thrift-shop-quality desk. We left that room and went on to the last room in the little house, this door closed, too.

This was the main bedroom, and it, too, held nothing other than the expected. A small desk was in the corner of the room, and I pulled a few of the drawers open, but found nothing more interesting than a videotape for the continuing-education programs at Cuyahoga Community College.

“Satisfied?” Joe said. “No corpses, no signed confessions of setting up Ed Gradduk.”

“Also no Mitch Corbett,” I said. “And somebody broke into this house not long ago.”

“Could have been him, Lincoln. Have you ever locked yourself out of your apartment?”

“It wasn’t him. And you don’t think so, either.”

“I want to get out of this house,” he said. “Your door-kicking approach to investigation leaves something to be desired.”

We walked back out the way we’d come in and closed the carport door behind us. It still locked, but even a slight bit of pressure would pop it open now. Good thing the owner was a carpenter.

Joe spotted the tail before I did, which was embarrassing because I was driving and should have been paying more attention to the mirrors than him.

“Check out the black Jeep Cherokee behind us,” he said when I was at a red light. I shifted my eyes to the mirror and found the vehicle in question. Its windshield was tinted but I could make out two occupants in the front seat, both male.

“Yeah?”

“It was parked up the street from Corbett’s house,” he said. “Maybe five houses down and across the street. Right where I’d put it if I was watching the place.”

“And it pulled out when we did?”

“Uh-huh.”

The light went green and I pulled away. The Cherokee stayed with us, lingering a few cars back but always pulling closer when we neared an intersection, so there was little chance of losing us at a red light. It’s the way you drive when you’re working one-car surveillance.

“Well, hell,” I said.

Joe grunted.

“I’m growing curious,” I said. “You?”

“We could lose them easily enough,” he said. “But that wouldn’t tell us anything.”

“Exactly. So what’s our move?”

He scratched the side of his head and sighed. “I suppose I’ll shadow the shadowers.”

“Tough to do when you’re in my car.”

“Take me to the office and pull in at the curb. Make it look like you’re dropping me off. I’ll go back in the parking lot and get my car. Then you swing around the block. When you pull out, I’ll fall in line behind them.”

It took us five minutes to get back to the office, and the Cherokee was still with us. When I pulled up to the curb in front of the building, the Cherokee slid into a street parking spot about a hundred feet back.

Joe gave me more instructions. “I’m going to stand on the sidewalk and talk to you for a bit, make it look more casual, like we’re oblivious to them.”

“Okay.”

I sat with the engine idling while he stood beside the truck, leaning in the door with his hand on the roof.

“I’ll stay here until traffic thickens up,” he said. “That way you’ll have to wait to pull back into the street and it won’t look like you’re just killing time.”

Joe was the best details cop I’d ever known, and he was proving it again today. When the cars had backed up at the red light in front of us, he slammed the door shut, waved at me, and walked into the parking lot with his hands in his pockets. I stayed at the curb till the light changed and the waiting cars slid through the intersection, then pulled back into the street. The Cherokee pulled with me.

I made a right turn on Rocky River Drive even though I had no place to go but home, which was in the opposite direction. There was a gas station on the north side of the street, and I swung in there and topped off the tank. The black Cherokee cruised past the gas station and pulled into the parking lot of the strip mall behind it. I went inside, paid, and came back out to the truck. When I pulled onto Rocky River again, this time headed back toward the office, the Cherokee slid out of the parking lot and followed, with Joe’s Taurus behind. We were a regular caravan of curiosity.

I turned left onto the avenue, passed the office, and drove the seven blocks to my building. It wasn’t quite five yet, which meant the gym office was still open. My manager, a sharp-tongued, gray-haired woman named Grace, smiled when I stepped inside. I’d lost track of the Cherokee by this point, but I was sure Joe still had them.

“Hey, boss,” Grace said. “Off early today?”

“We’ve already purged the city of crime,” I said, trying to go with her good humor even though my mind was elsewhere.

“That easy, huh?”

“You bet.” I took a protein shake from the cooler behind the desk. I hadn’t eaten lunch, and my stomach was aware of it. “I’m going to run upstairs and change clothes, then come down for a workout. Is it crowded in there?”

“Mobbed. Six people instead of our usual three.”

“Funny.”

I went up to my apartment and changed into shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, then came back down to the gym, cell phone in hand. Joe would call me when he had something, I was sure. I just didn’t know how long that would take.

I was halfway through my third set on the bench press when the phone rang. It was Joe.

“We’re all still watching your building,” he said. “I’ve got a plate number from them. You want me to bail and use the plate number to see who they are, or stick around and see what they do?”

“It’s up to you. You’re the one wasting time on them.”

“I’ll give it another hour.”

I finished my chest workout and moved on to back exercises, pausing occasionally to talk with some of the gym regulars. Grace had closed the office and gone home, but the members could still come in after hours by using the keycard entrance at the front of the building.

It was nearly six when Joe called back. I was done with the weights and doing some stretches before going out for a run. I paused to answer the phone.

“You taking off?” I said.

“Don’t have to make that decision, because they already lost interest in you.”

“They left?”

“Uh-huh. And I followed. All the way to the police station.”

“What?”

“You heard me. They’re cops. Pulled into the officer parking lot and got out of the car. One of the guys was plainclothes, the other was in uniform. He went in the building while the plainclothes guy went home.”

“Recognize either of them?”

“I was too far away to place them, if I actually knew either one. I’ll use the plate number to get a name tomorrow.”

“If Corbett’s absence has attracted police interest, why hasn’t he been released as a missing person yet?” I said. “And why are they watching his house instead of going out looking for him?”

“And,” Joe said, “why does it appear they are doing it while off-duty?”

We didn’t have the answers for those questions. Not yet, at least.