Sorrow's Anthem

CHAPTER 10

Live in an apartment along a busy city street long enough and you learn to tune out traffic noise. In the time I’d been in my current building, the roaring motors, squealing brakes, and harsh horns of the busy avenue below had gradually become just background noise.

When I woke the next morning, however, the sounds penetrated into my brain in a way they would usually not. I was lying half-awake in bed when a car out on the avenue slammed on its brakes. There was a brief shriek of tires skidding on pavement, but no subsequent crash as I’ve heard on other mornings. The tires were enough, though. I opened my eyes wide, fully awake, then closed them again as I recalled Ed in the street, the Crown Victoria blasting into him.

The image sickened me. I lay with my palms pressed over my closed eyes, as if the added pressure could drive the memory from my mind. I thought of the way his body had snapped, his shoulders and legs moving in toward the car even as his waist headed in the opposite direction. That was the last position I’d seen him in, for all of a fraction of a second, before his body was sucked beneath the still-moving car and disappeared.

And the sounds. I would never forget the sounds. A muffled whomp of impact after the scream of tires and squeal of brakes. A wet popping as the tires passed over his body, like a champagne bottle opened underwater. And then the same sound, but duller, the champagne gone flat this time, as they’d passed over him again.

I pushed out of bed and went to the window. It was just past seven, traffic building to its rush-hour peak. I watched the cars move and I thought of Ed Gradduk and the blood that had been hosed off the pavement on Clark Avenue, how quickly it had dried. A thousand cars must have passed over the spot already. More than that. I wondered if any had slowed.

The light up the street changed and the cars beneath me moved again, the procession passing through the intersection by our office a few blocks west. They moved quickly during the green-light cycle, then backed up again when it went red, came to a stop under my window, impatient drivers craning their necks and looking ahead to count the cars, try to figure out if they’d make it through the light in the next cycle, if they’d get to the office before the bagels were gone and the first pot of coffee cold.

I left the bedroom, left the apartment, walked down the steps, and out into the parking lot. The gravel was cold and sharp against my bare feet. I wore nothing but a pair of gym shorts, but I walked around the building to the front sidewalk, stood there, and stared at the street as curious motorists gazed back at me.

You can see something happen right before your eyes, something profound and important and consuming, and yet you can somehow miss really seeing it. I knew this from years of taking eyewitness testimony. The eyes bring information in and the brain processes it. Simple enough. Except that when the eyes tell the brain that they have just seen something go wrong, badly wrong, the brain doesn’t want to process it that way. If at all possible, it rationalizes, offers a sense of perspective or understanding that the eyes don’t have. The brain, you see, exists to explain. You can’t discourage it from doing that.

But then there’s memory, that obnoxious little bastard of the subconscious. Memory holds the scene, holds what the eyes have shown. And, down beneath the conscious layer, memory holds it accurately. Holds the picture without the perspective. When I was a cop, that’s what we tried to get to. It takes a trigger, generally, something that affects the senses in such a way that it provokes the subconscious into action. Something like the squeal of tires I’d heard this morning.

Joe was at the office when I arrived, a cup of coffee from the corner doughnut shop in his hand. His computer was humming through its preliminary motions, and he looked at me with surprise as I stepped inside. Joe usually beats me to the office by at least half an hour.

“You run the Jeep plate number yet?” I said.

He sipped his coffee and shook his head. “Just got here.”

“It’s going to belong to Jack Padgett or Larry Rabold.”

“Because they’re working on Gradduk’s case, so interest in Corbett wouldn’t be unreasonable?”

“No,” I said. “Because they killed Ed Gradduk.”

“Right. But that was an accident . . .” He stopped when I began to shake my head.

“I’m not so sure it was.”

He watched me with narrowed eyes and took a few swallows of his coffee. “That’s a hell of an allegation, LP. And I don’t understand where it’s coming from. Gradduk ran in front of their car. You saw it happen.”

“I know. They backed up over him, Joe. After they’d already hit him. And at the time I assumed they were just trying to clear away from the body.”

“Probably they were.”

I shook my head again. “They’d rolled the front tires right over him. I heard the sound it made; they had to feel the rise of the tires. They knew they’d run him over, but they backed up anyhow and went over him again. I think it was to make sure he was dead.”

Joe took a long, slow breath. “Come on, LP. Think about how fast that happened. Imagine if you’d been the driver. Hell, he was probably more horrified by what he’d done than you were standing there watching it. His first impulse was going to be to move away from Gradduk. To try to take it back, in effect.”

“They didn’t slow until after he fell. He went down and they kept going for a second or two, then hit the brakes. By then they were way too close to stop without hitting him.”

“They were going fast because they saw he was running across the street.”

“They were going fast because they didn’t want him to make it across the street.”

He shook his head. “If you’d come to me with this theory the night it happened, maybe I would have bought it. But not now. You’ve had too much time to consider it, restructure what you saw until it gave you something to work with.”

“Wrong. When I saw it happen, I assumed it was an accident because that’s the way my brain was trained to think. You don’t expect cops to intentionally run a man down, so you assume that they didn’t. But they did.”

“No, Lincoln. They didn’t.”

“Answer me this, then: Why did Padgett and Rabold go to Ed’s house to make the arrest in the first place?”

“Richards said they got the tip from the liquor store owner.”

I nodded. “Exactly. They got a tip even though it wasn’t their case. And rather than follow police protocol, which they both know from years on the force, and pass the tip along to the detective on the case, they went down alone. And Ed fought them and ran. Why? If he was innocent, why’d he run?”

“Maybe he wasn’t—,” Joe began, but my look shut him down and he looked away and nodded. “Right. We’re assuming he was.”

“He told me he was,” I said. “And I believed him. Still do.”

“It’s a hell of a thing to suggest. You’re talking about two cops, LP. You know what you’re going to get started with this?”

“I’ve got an idea.”

“I don’t know a thing about Padgett, but I’ve been around Larry Rabold more than a few times. Seems like a nice guy. Solid cop, too.”

“Run the plate number,” I said. “See if I’m wrong.”

After a long pause, he turned away from me and logged on to his computer. Private investigators in Ohio have access to the motor vehicle bureau’s database, and it isn’t hard to run a license number. He was busy for a few minutes and then looked up.

“The Jeep is registered to Jack Padgett.”

We sat and looked at each other.

He groaned and rubbed his face with his hands. “Shit, Lincoln.”

All I could do was agree.

The first thing I wanted to see was a copy of the officer’s incident report from the botched arrest of Ed Gradduk. Such reports aren’t public record, not the details at least, but that’s the advantage of having worked with the police department. We could always find some old friend who was willing to help out with the minor stuff. Well, Joe could, at least. I had my contacts at the department, sure, but Joe was a legend. He had friends with the police he hadn’t even met yet.

He made a few calls and got a promise that the report was on its way. When he’d hung up, he lifted a newspaper off the desk and held it in the air. “You read Amy’s article yet?”

“No.”

I’d almost forgotten about Amy’s discovery, thanks to my preoccupation with Padgett and Rabold. Now I took the paper reluctantly. A glance at the front-page, above-the-fold headline was almost enough to make me put it down: MURDER SUSPECT WAS UNWANTED PRESENCE IN VICTIM’S LIFE.

I read the article, then folded it so the front page was hidden and stuffed it in the garbage can.

I couldn’t call it editorializing, because it wasn’t. All Amy had done was take her quotes and lay them out there: Gradduk allegedly had an unpleasant exchange with Sentalar at a bar; Gradduk apparently made numerous calls to her office and residence; Sentalar’s law partner, a guy named David Russo, said the dead woman had viewed Gradduk as a nuisance and seemed at times to be afraid of him. Amy had written what she’d been told, and I supposed the television news stations were cursing her for beating them on the story. That didn’t make it any easier for me to read.

“What do you think?” Joe said.

“I think it’s bullshit.”

“Has to be some fact to it, LP. Has to be.”

“Sure, there might be some fact to it, but without explanation or context the readers are going to take one look and make a snap judgment that Ed was some sort of stalker.”

Joe smiled wanly. “And that’s Amy’s fault?”

“I didn’t say it was her fault.”

“But you’re thinking it.”

I stood up and walked over to the fax machine, checked the display to make sure it was on. No sign of the incident report yet.

“You know she couldn’t have enjoyed writing it about your old friend,” he said. “But it’s her job.”

“She talk to you?”

“No. I’m just seeing your reaction and warning you to take a step back. You’re from a police and PI background, LP. You build an investigation one day at a time, then produce your result. Amy doesn’t have that luxury. When she has a productive day of investigation, she has to slam it into the next day’s paper, or she’s considered a professional failure.”

“But it makes him look—,” I began, and Joe interrupted with a snort.

“It makes him look bad? Makes him look like something he wasn’t? Spreads misconceptions, encourages unfounded gossip? No shit, Lincoln. Welcome to the world of the media. You’d think you’d never encountered it before.”

“I’ve encountered it.”

“Exactly. So think about that and then ask yourself if you’d be this mad if it hadn’t been Amy breaking the story.”

The fax machine ground to life then, sucking a blank page from the feed tray and pumping it through. I grabbed it as it came out and saw a Cleveland Police Department cover sheet. This would be the incident report.

It was seven pages long, and I ran it through the copier before I read it, so Joe and I could take a look simultaneously. The incident report had been written by Sergeant Jack Padgett the morning after Ed’s death. It began with the tip.

On the afternoon of August 12, at approximately 3:45 P.M., I received a phone call on my cell phone. The number is one I frequently distribute to witnesses, informants, and others who could be of assistance to police business. The caller identified himself as Jerome Huggins of the Liquor Locker on Train Avenue. Mr. Huggins asked me if I was familiar with a fire on Train Avenue. He said the fire had occurred the previous day. I told him that I knew about it. He then told me he believed his security camera had captured information that would be of value to the police. Mr. Huggins chose to call me because I had previously worked with him on a robbery that had occurred in his business a few years earlier. I told Mr. Huggins that I would stop by to look at his film.

Upon arriving at the Liquor Locker, I was shown to a small television monitor by Mr. Huggins. He then played the portion of tape that he found relevant. Some of this tape showed the fire, other segments showed a white male entering and leaving the vacant house shortly before the fire began. In one segment the man’s vehicle was visible. I asked Mr. Huggins if he thought the man in the tape was familiar, and he said he did. He identified the male as someone from the neighborhood. He suggested the man’s first name was Ed, but he could not recall the last name. I obtained the license plate number from a careful study of the tape. I then called in to dispatch and asked them to run the plate match. They informed me that the plate was registered to an Edward Gradduk. I then asked Mr. Huggins if he believed this individual could be the man he identified on the tape, and he told me that he believed that to be true. At this point myself and Officer Rabold took the surveillance tape to be entered as police evidence and went to locate the suspect, Edward Gradduk. At this point myself and Officer Rabold believed we had probable cause to suggest that Mr. Gradduk had trespassed on private property shortly before a criminal act of arson was committed at that property.

“‘A criminal act of arson,’ he says.” I looked at Joe, who just grunted and continued reading. I dropped my eyes back to the paper.

Dispatch informed me that Edward Gradduk’s home address was on Clark Avenue. Together with Officer Rabold, I proceeded to this address in order to determine if the suspect was home. His vehicle, a Ford sedan, was found to be in the driveway ofthe residence. Officer Rabold requested that he remain outside to watch the house in case Gradduk tried to leave from the back, and I approved. I myself entered the house with permission of an older white female who identified herselfas the mother of Edward Gradduk. We stood in the kitchen and waited for Edward Gradduk to come down the steps. He came down at his mother’s request and seemed immediately to resent me being in the house. I told him that I wanted to speak with him about a fire on Train Avenue and asked if he would be willing to come to the police station for questioning. At this point the mother grew hostile, shouting at me and insisting that I leave. Edward Gradduk told me he wanted to call an attorney. I said he could call an attorney to meet him at the police station but that I would be taking him into custody as a suspect in an arson and homicide investigation. It was at this point that Edward Gradduk struck me in the face with his right fist and exited the residence through the front door. Officer Rabold had been watching the rear of the property and did not see Edward Gradduk leave.

The report went on to describe the arrival of backup, the delegation of duties in the search for Gradduk, and the medical condition of Padgett, whose nose turned out not to be broken, just bloodied. There was a mention of their encounter with me, followed by a concise description of the “accidental” death of Ed Gradduk, which was described as “unavoidable contact during pursuit of a fleeing homicide suspect.”

I’d finished the report before Joe, so I flipped through the pages again until he’d read the last page and set it aside.

“The detail is a little sparse for an incident report that resulted in a suspect’s death,” he said. “But other than that, it doesn’t seem especially unusual.”

“Other than the tip.”

“I don’t see anything particularly odd about the tip. If Padgett knew this guy Huggins from a previous robbery case and from working in the neighborhood, it’s not surprising that he’d get the call. If there’s one breed of businessman who appreciates his local street cops, it’s the liquor store owners.”

“I still don’t like it.”

Joe shrugged. “I’m not telling you to like it. Just saying it isn’t enough to base such a serious charge on, and wondering what you’ve got planned from here.”

“I want to talk to Huggins, and I want to talk to Alberta Gradduk.”

Joe nodded, looking not too subtly at our stack of active case files.

“If you’re worried about the paying clients, I’ll work it alone. Dock me for a couple vacation days.”

He rolled his eyes and stood up. “There’s nothing on our plate that can’t hold a day. And no limit to the trouble you’ll get into if I leave you to go at this alone.”