Sorrow's Anthem

CHAPTER 25

He left us in the office while he stepped out into the dark warehouse. Joe and I didn’t say much while he was gone. It wasn’t an environment that encouraged conversation. Cancerno was gone maybe five minutes before he returned, trailed by Ramone and the mountain man. The old guy who’d driven the van wasn’t with them, but I heard an engine start up outside.

“They’ll take you back now,” Cancerno said. “I hope this visit straightened some things out for you. Hope it made some things clear.”

We got to our feet, and Cancerno pulled the door open and held it. Outside the sky was still dark, but the rain had held off. Warm air whipped around the parking lot, blowing dust and bits of fine gravel in our eyes. I squinted as I stepped through the door. Joe came out behind me, Ramone and the huge guy on his heels. The green van was running already.

When we were outside, Joe turned to Cancerno. “Tell you what, we’re going to pass on the ride this time. Thanks, though.”

“What?” Cancerno said.

“We’ll take care of ourselves,” Joe said. “Got a few stops to make around the neighborhood, anyhow. Then we’ll catch a ride back. Don’t need to trouble your employees here with the task.”

Ramone, standing close to Joe, turned and looked to Cancerno for instruction. Cancerno leaned against the doorframe and tilted his head, studying Joe.

“You don’t trust me? I bring you down here, tell you things you want to know, and you don’t trust me?”

Joe shook his head. “That’s not the issue. But seeing as you’re such a trustworthy guy, I expect you’ve got no problem letting us go on our way here. Don’t take it as disrespect.”

Cancerno considered it for a moment, then shrugged and stepped back into the office. “You got it. Go on and walk home in the rain, if that’s what suits you.”

The door closed behind him. Ramone gave us one last long stare, then turned and reached for the doorknob to follow Cancerno.

“Give me back my gun, Ramone,” I said.

He didn’t say anything, but walked back out to the van, leaned in the open window, and said something to the guy behind the wheel. Then he stepped back with my Glock in his hand. I walked toward him, hand outstretched. When I was almost to him, he gave the gun a toss. It sailed over my shoulder and clattered on the pavement.

“Thanks, asshole,” I said. He smirked, walked into the warehouse, and slammed the door shut.

I picked my gun up, dusted it off on my pants, and placed it back in its holster. Joe was standing beside me, shoulders hunched against the wind, eyeing the sky.

He began to walk toward the street. “Interesting conversation, huh?”

“Damn interesting,” I said.

“You buying it?”

“What he said about being the one who told the old story to Ed, maybe. It’s the trigger that got all of this rolling. When Ed started to explain it to me, he said a man told him a story. I asked him what story, and he said, the one he didn’t want to tell. Cancerno was regretting it today. Admitted he’d hesitated to tell Ed about it in the first place.”

Joe nodded, walking fast as we rounded the corner of the building and came out on the sidewalk.

“Some bad blood between Cancerno and Corbett, that’s for sure,” he said. “And until this morning we didn’t have a logical motive for last night’s fires. But understanding there’s conflict between Cancerno and Corbett, it might fit. Why’s Corbett care if half the police department rolls out to look at those fires? They’re just going to focus on Cancerno. Be a hard sell for someone like Cancerno to convince investigators he had nothing to do with it, you know? A guy like that is an ideal smoke screen for Corbett.”

“And what does it gain for Corbett?” I said.

“Gives him a way to come at Cancerno. Because it seems the man is awfully scared of Cancerno. He’s hiding, afraid to use his credit cards, afraid to go home. Cancerno didn’t hide how bad he wants to find the guy—basically offered to kill him if you do the finding. So maybe Corbett’s returning fire. Making a preemptive strike, rather.”

We were walking east down the sidewalk, Joe moving fast and purposefully. I realized I had no idea where he was going. It certainly wasn’t in the direction of the office.

“You weren’t so sure the van’s intended stop was the same as ours?” I said.

“Don’t like being a passenger. Besides, we got places to go.”

“Yeah?”

“You catch what Cancerno said when he got to explaining why he’s so sure Corbett burned those houses?”

“That he had access to all of them.”

“Uh-huh.”

We reached an intersection but caught the light right, walked across the street without a pause.

“Well,” Joe said, “suppose you were hiding from some people. Suppose you were so scared you wouldn’t use your credit cards or bank accounts or seek help from friends. Where would you go?”

I turned to face him, slowed my pace. “You’re thinking the houses?”

He shook his head. “No. There’s work being done on them, people from Cancerno’s crew going in and out, neighbors watching. And, hell, most of them burned down last night, probably at Corbett’s hand. Think beyond that.”

“The school.”

He nodded. “Huge old building, sitting empty. Locked up, but Corbett’s got the keys. No work scheduled to begin on it for months yet.”

“That’s where we’re going?”

He shook his head. “No. First we’re going to find a convenience store. I think we’ll need a flashlight.”

The ground-floor windows were securely boarded up, the doors fastened with heavy steel chains and new padlocks. Entry into the building wasn’t going to be easy for someone without a key. And while Corbett might have had one, we did not.

Joseph A. Marsh Junior High had once been a gorgeous building—three floors of brick walls with limestone inlay around the doors and windows on the outside; on the inside, oak woodwork and tile floors built with a skilled craftsman’s greatest care. Everything in the blocks around the building had been knocked down and rebuilt at least twice in the lifetime of the school, and I figured that would be true for several more cycles. As we circled the building, looking for a point of entry, I remembered trudging through the grounds in sun, snow, and rain, Ed and Draper generally beside me. We’d been part of the last classes at both Joseph A. Marsh and West Tech, and looking back on it, there seemed to be something damned appropriate about that—Ed and Draper and I were the last vestiges of the old neighborhood, in a lot of ways.

“Basement window,” Joe said, coming to a stop and pointing. There was a narrow window just above the foundation, and while there was a piece of plywood over it, the corner was raised, showing that someone had pried it away.

I knelt beside it and hooked my fingers under the edge, gave it an experimental tug. The board rose easily, with a harsh scraping noise. I put both hands under it and yanked harder, and this time it came free.

“You know what’s down there?” Joe said.

“The metal shop.”

“Metal shop in a junior high?”

“This school fed into West Tech, so they had more trade offerings. Hell, Tech even had a foundry. There was a time when classes like that got some kids jobs when they came out of school.”

“That time was a few decades ago, LP.”

“You think it’s an accident that the school closed?”

He passed me the flashlight. I stretched out on my stomach and extended my hand, shining the light into the dark room. A musty smell rose at me, but there was more to it than that—the scent of metal and stone and, somehow, of heat, even though it had been years since any activity had taken place here. I passed the beam of the flashlight around the room, saw nothing other than old boxes and bare walls.

“We’re good,” I said. “Little bit of a drop to the floor, but not bad. Six feet from the window, maybe. Think you can make it?”

“I can make it.”

“All right.” I went first, sliding my feet through the window, then shoving my upper body in and dropping. The floor came up faster than I expected, giving me a jarring landing. I turned the flashlight back on and showed the floor to Joe, who was leaning down, eyeballing his entrance. He slipped through the window and dropped down smoother than I had. Thirty years my senior and still he moved with an athlete’s grace.

“You remember your way around here?” he said.

I nodded while I passed him the flashlight and freed my gun from its holster. “Well enough, at least.”

“Lead the way, then.”

It took us an hour to clear the building. We moved in silence through dark, musty corridors that I’d once walked through daily, past the classrooms where I’d devoted more time to studying girls than books and a principal’s office that Ed and I had known better than our homerooms. We’d had fun, though, and at the end of the day I don’t think we were the type of students that drove teachers to drink. Drove them to a bottle of Tylenol, maybe, but nothing stronger.

Even knowing that the building had been closed for years, the sight of the disrepair stunned me. Debris littered the halls, mice scattered at the sound of our footsteps, and dank puddles from countless leaks spotted the empty rooms. Looters had moved in once the building had been closed, tearing free everything of value. Most of the light fixtures were gone, faucets torn from the sinks, ceiling panels removed so people could get at the copper wiring.

In a room on the second floor, in what had once been the English department, we found the remains of several candles beside a filthy blanket, a broken bottle of Southern Comfort, and a few empty Campbell’s soup cans not far away. A dented metal waste-basket had been pulled up close by, and old ashes were inside. Joe ran the light around it and shook his head.

“Very old,” he said. “Some homeless guy sneaking in to get out of the snow, I bet.”

That was the closest we came, though. We didn’t speak at all on the third floor, just moved through the rooms in total silence, Joe scanning the floors with his flashlight, me standing behind him with my gun out.

Neither one of us felt much like attempting to climb back out of the basement window we’d used to enter. It was too narrow and too high. All of the double doors had been fastened from the outside with chains and padlocks, but the single doors had been locked only from the inside. We found one leading out of the back of the auditorium, unlocked it, and stepped back outside into the overcast day.

“Damn,” Joe said as I locked the door behind me and let it swing closed again. “I thought we might have some luck with that.”

“It was a good idea,” I said. “As good as any other we’ve had with this guy, at least.”

We walked out of the schoolyard and back to the street. Overhead, the clouds were roiling. Looking up at them was like looking down on an angry sea. The rain was light, though. Cold, teasing drops. Thunderclaps that were louder and closer.

“Been holding off all day,” I said, looking at the sky.

“Humidity building, though. Bound to cut loose soon.”

“We need to get a cab.”

“What, you’re not up for the walk? Can’t be more than a hundred and thirty blocks.”

“The rain’s coming,” I said. “Otherwise, I’d be right there with you. Good exercise.”

“We’ll take the rapid.”

There was a Rapid Transit station maybe fifteen blocks away. We walked west down Storer Avenue, then south to the station, took the blue-line train back down Lorain. There was another station at Fairview Hospital, just down the street from the office.

We were upstairs and Joe had his key in the door when the office phone began to ring. He unlocked the door and got to the phone quickly, spoke in low tones for just a few seconds, and hung up.

“Richards,” he said.

“He finally got the message?”

“Didn’t say anything about that. Just told me he wants to see us immediately. Says your boys from last night are with him.”

“Mason and Dean?”

“Yeah. They’re in Berea.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t say. Just told me to get to Berea City Hall.”

“City Hall?” Berea was a small, middle-class suburb just southwest of us, home to Baldwin-Wallace College. I wondered what had brought a Cleveland homicide detective and members of the corruption task force together there.

“Uh-huh. He didn’t explain it other than to suggest we haul ass down there. He didn’t sound particularly happy with us.”

“Pissed off that I didn’t call him after the fires, probably.”

“Could be.”

I’d turned to go back out the door when I saw Joe had taken the snub-nosed Smith & Wesson he favors out of his desk drawer and slipped it into a shoulder holster. While I watched, he pulled a light jacket on over that. The rain was beginning again, pattering against the window.

“Planning to shoot a cop today?” I said. Joe always avoids wearing a weapon when he can, so to see him putting one on before we went to meet with police was damn strange.

“I’ve been put in the backseat of a van by an asshole with a gun in his hand once too often today. That kind of got under my skin.”

He led the way out of the office and shut the lights off behind us. The stairwell was filled with an eerie green glow. When we opened the door and stepped out into the parking lot, the air seemed to hum with the building storm’s energy, greenish clouds skimming across the gray ones as raindrops splattered against us. Joe moved to his Taurus, but I took my truck keys out of my pocket.

“I’ll drive.”

“No, thanks,” he said. It was a control thing, for both of us. Anytime we were heading into unknown circumstances, we both wanted as much control of the situation as possible. Driving didn’t give a whole lot of that, but it was better than nothing. Joe slid behind the wheel of his Taurus without allowing a chance for further debate.

He drove out of the parking lot and across Rocky River, hung a right on Lorain, heading west. Instead of following Lorain as it headed over the bridge, though, he slipped off onto Old Lorain Road, a two-lane offshoot that wound down into the park, past Fairview Hospital. It was the same route we ran together several nights each week. This road would tie into the Valley Parkway down in the river basin, and we could take that all the way into Berea. The speed limit was reduced, but there weren’t the stoplights or traffic delays you’d get on the main roads. The rain was falling harder, and Joe clicked the wiper setting up a few notches, the blades sweeping rapidly across the windshield. The soft patter of raindrops abruptly turned to a harsh clatter.

“Hail,” Joe said. “Great. Probably put dents all over the car.”

His voice was almost drowned out by the pounding of the rain and hail on the car. Rivulets of water rushed alongside the road. A roll of thunder began with a slow rumble and built into a harsh, clattering crescendo, like sheet metal passed through the gears of a powerful machine. A strobelike flash of lightning followed, and for a moment the tree-lined road was bright. I saw that the leaves on some of the trees had rolled upside down, the way they will when responding to the energy of a severe storm. Then the thunder and lightning faded and the world grew darker again. This time, the darkness was heavier, though. The clouds were shifting again, the green glow gone in favor of blackness.

“Hell of a storm,” Joe said. “Car behind us doesn’t even have its lights on yet.”

Joe’s headlights had turned on automatically, the sensor telling them it was night even though it was midday. We wound down a series of S-curves that would eventually straighten out and point us at the river. Behind the trees outside Joe’s window was one of the MetroParks golf courses, brief glimpses of bright green fairways showing when the lightning flashed.

“What the hell,” Joe said, twisting around to look behind us as he eased the car around one of the steep curves. The car that had been running without headlights had suddenly swung into the opposite lane, just off our rear bumper. Now the driver hit the accelerator hard, and the car, a black sedan, pulled close.

“Shit,” Joe said, then he pressed down on his own accelerator while I reached behind me and freed my gun from its holster.

The sedan had the head start, and the Taurus was no race car. Before we made it out of the last curve, the sedan pulled up beside us, and a clatter of automatic gunfire rang out. The sound was deafening, even over the rain and the hail. Glass and metal exploded around us as bullets tore through the car. I got the Glock up but didn’t fire, because Joe slammed on the brake and if I’d managed to hit anyone, it would probably have been him.

The pavement was soaked, and we’d been accelerating just before he hit the brake. The Taurus was a sure-footed car, low and wide, but even it couldn’t take that sudden adjustment. We fish-tailed as we shot out of the curve and toward the straightaway that led to the bridge, the back end of the car whipping first one way, then the next, as the black sedan slid ahead of us. The driver tried to spin the car around and block us, but he soon discovered, as we had, that these weren’t good conditions for fast maneuvering. Before the sedan could get sideways, it skidded across the wet pavement, popped over the curb, and plowed into one of the supports at the front of the bridge. The hood crumpled and the windshield ruptured and spiderwebbed, but that was the last I saw of it, because we were spinning off the road ourselves.

Joe’s abrupt braking had put us out of control, but he’d also done it just early enough to keep us from sliding into the bridge, as the sedan had. Instead, we slid onto the steep embankment on the opposite side of the road. Joe’s foot was still on the brake, but it didn’t matter now—any end to our slide was up to physics, not the car.

We scraped down the embankment at a dramatic angle, and I was sure the car was going to overbalance and roll. Outside my window I could see only grass. Below us was a shallow pool formed by excess river water. Before we went into it, though, we thumped against the slender trunk of the one young tree that stood on the hill. It bowed but didn’t break, holding us perched halfway up the hill.

“You okay?” I said, turning to Joe. I saw then for the first time that he’d been shot.

He was slumped back against his seat, his head at an angle, his face a mask of pain. Blood was running down his jacket, spotting his tie underneath.

“Joe!” I unfastened his seat belt and leaned across the console, trying to see how badly he was hurt. Blood seemed to be coming from his left shoulder and his chest. It was flowing quickly from the chest wound, and his eyes were distant, his face white.

“We’ve got to get out of the car, Joe. They’re going to come down here and kill us if we don’t.”

His answer was a ragged, shallow gasp. His head rolled sideways.

“Shit!” I took off my own seat belt and twisted in the seat, keeping my gun in my right hand. Leaning across Joe, I peered out of his shattered window, up at the road. I saw nothing but a glistening curtain of rain. They’d be on their way, though. I couldn’t imagine that the crash would have killed the car’s occupants, and if they could move, they’d come down here to make sure their task was complete.

I lunged over the center console and into the backseat. There were bullet holes through the door, and the back windows were broken. This entire side of the car had been riddled with gunfire. Joe’s demand to be in the driver’s seat when we’d left the office was the only reason I hadn’t taken the shots instead of him. I didn’t waste time trying to open the door, but just rolled onto my back and kicked at the remnants of the window, knocking the jagged glass away. Then I braced my hands—one still wrapped around the butt of the Glock—against the seat and pushed my legs through the window. A piece of glass raked across my ass, but then I had my feet on the ground and twisted my torso out of the car.

For a moment I paused, leaning against the side of the car and looking up at the road. I could see the wrecked sedan now, crumpled against the far side of the bridge, and I heard a bang. Someone closing a door, or kicking one open. I spun and grabbed the handle of Joe’s door. It had been shot up, but it was intact and should open. When I tugged, though, it stuck. I reached through the broken window, ready to try to pull him out of it, but then I saw the lock was down. I pulled it up and tried the door again. This time it opened.

The door immediately began to swing shut because of the angle we were on, but I got my hip in front of it. Then I slid the Glock back into its holster and put both arms around Joe. He groaned when I lifted him, but I couldn’t take the time to worry about being gentle.

Lurching backward, I got his upper body out of the car. His knees hit the edge of the steering wheel and stuck, though. He shifted, kicking weakly against the seat, and then he was free, falling out of the car and onto the hill. I set him down as gently as possible, then let the door swing shut. There was more noise from the wreck on the bridge, and when I looked up, I saw a man moving through the rain.

I got my gun back in my right hand, then wrapped my left arm around Joe. He wasn’t heavy, maybe 170 at best, and I could drag him easy enough with one arm. His blood ran over my biceps as I pulled him, and he let out a gasp of agony. Slipping and stumbling down the muddy decline, I pushed us into the trees. As soon as I’d heard the door open up on the bridge, I’d known there was no point in attempting to use the car as shelter, or in trying to find a secure position around the trees. The guys on the road had automatic weapons. If they were in good enough condition to climb out of the car, they’d be in good enough condition to sit at the top of the hill and strafe us until there was nothing left for them to worry about.

We had to get into the river.