The Silent Hour

13

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Joe didn’t like it. That was hardly a stunner. He grumbled and grunted and offered dire predictions and then told me I was an ass for not checking Ken’s background out before agreeing to help him. When I explained that I had, he just grumbled and grunted some more.

“You had one of Ohio’s last major mob figures standing in your apartment after one afternoon of work on the case, LP. That wasn’t a clear enough warning sign to you?”

“Warning sign, sure. Stop sign, no.”

“I knew there was a reason I always drive when I’m with you.”

“Well, why don’t you put that damn Taurus in gear and point it north, come back and run the show again.”

“In time,” he said. “In time.”

Amy was a bit more receptive. That, too, wasn’t exactly surprising—Amy’s curiosity level can generally override her good judgment, a trait that Joe no longer shares. Or never shared. As a kid, he probably did background checks on the neighbors before trick-or-treating at their houses. Still, while Amy was at least lukewarm to the idea, her normal enthusiasm was tempered, and I understood that. It hadn’t been so long ago that one of my cases invaded her life in a horrifying way. We rarely spoke of it now, and her typical bravado remained, but I’d also seen the pepper spray she’d added to her purse, and I’d heard the new steel security bar fasten behind me each time I left her apartment. Those were good things, maybe, the sort of precautions that would have pleased me had I not known that I was the reason for them.

“It’s a bizarre story, and I can see why you’re intrigued, but I also understand what Joe’s telling you about the risks,” she said as we sat on my roof that night, after Ken Merriman left for Pittsburgh. We had the Indians game on the radio and a bottle of pinot noir within reaching distance. I’d swept up the broken glass from the previous night. Found plenty of dust on the roof, but nothing as black as what had come from Parker Harrison’s shattered bones, and no silver coin. Reassuring.

“I understand that, too, Amy, but I only agreed to help the guy. Give him some advice.”

“Lincoln Perry, technical adviser?” She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’ll go well.”

“What are you saying?”

“You know, I’m sorry. The more I think about it, the better it sounds. Instead of getting yourself arrested, like normal, you can get him arrested.”

“It’s not a long walk home to your apartment. I’d be happy to throw you down to the sidewalk so you can get a faster start.”

“Ha, ha.” She stretched out in the chair, put her feet up. “I’m not saying you should pass on this, Lincoln, but you can imagine what’s going through my head, too. Sanabria already came to your home once.”

The implication was heavy, an unspoken reminder of a day when a man I’d angered had come to her home instead of mine. It was a memory that chased me through my days, that could bring me up short with a grimace of agony seemingly out of nowhere, striking my heart like a sudden and unexpected muscle cramp. The possibilities of what might have happened loomed even larger than the pain of what had happened. I’d been in this business for far too long to keep such images at bay; I knew what the world could do, knew the savagery and senselessness of it all too well. It was this that had invaded my mind when Dominic Sanabria came to my apartment, and now she was remembering the same incident and worrying about me. I thought of him again, and of a body laid in a Shawnee grave in Pennsylvania. I thought of those things, and I looked at Amy, and I felt afraid.

“What?” she said. She was watching my face, and a frown had gathered on her own as she studied me.

“I can stay out of it,” I said. “I should. It’s the right thing for you.”

“For me?”

I nodded.

“That can’t be the issue, Lincoln. It needs to be the right thing for you.”

“No,” I said. “Not anymore. We’re together, right? So we make decisions that are the best for both of us. That’s the whole point.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to let myself be shoved around by fear, Lincoln. It was hard for a while, after what happened. It still is, sometimes, but I’m trying not to let that dictate my life. If you start doing the opposite, you’re going to scare me more. Can you understand that? I need support, not protection. There’s a difference.”

It was quiet for a while, and then I said, “I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“For leading the sort of life that makes things like that go through your head.”

“Hey, my fault, right? Nobody forced me to date a detective.”

“You got a profession you’d prefer? Something safer? Sexier?”

She cocked her head to the side. “Now, that’s a good question. What would the ideal profession for a romantic partner be? Hmm . . . do you have one?”

“Reporter, of course.”

“Coward. Try again.”

“Singer. Jazz or blues, or maybe a country-rock style. Someone with the right voice, you know, kind of smoky and sultry. Bit of an attitude when she’s onstage, nice long legs—”

“Pig.”

“What?”

“I ask about the ideal profession and you start describing the physical features of another woman.”

“I was trying to play along.”

“Try harder next time. Or smarter, at least.” She laced her hands behind her head, smiled. “You know what I’d choose? A carpenter. Strong and capable, right? Handy.”

“Hey, I replaced that shelf at your apartment.”

She lifted her head and stared at me. “The shelf you broke?”

“Well, be that as it may, I also hung the new one—”

“How many trips to the hardware store did that take you?”

“Just because I didn’t have all the materials at first—”

“You tried to put it up without using a level, Lincoln. It wasn’t a shelf, it was a ramp.”

“I corrected that.”

“In a mere five hours. Yeah, stick to detecting, buddy. Even if it gets you into trouble.”

I leaned forward and turned the volume on the radio down, a serious concession with two on and two out. “Think about another writer approaching you to guide them through a story, Amy, and then tell me what you’d say. Somebody in your business comes to you for help, you try to do it if you can. At least that’s the way I’ve always operated. He put his ego on the shelf and came asking for help.”

“Do you trust him?” she asked.

I hesitated, which is never a good sign when offered in response to a question of trust, but then nodded. “He checks out.”

“I didn’t ask if he checked out. I asked if you trust him.”

“Yes.” I nodded again. “So far, I haven’t seen anything that warns me not to. The way he showed up after a call from Sanabria, I guess, but since then, in the conversations we’ve had . . . he seems genuine.”

“Same thing you said about Parker Harrison at first.”

That stopped me. I gave her a grudging nod.

“Maybe it is, but Ken doesn’t share Harrison’s history. Besides, I’ve been in his position, okay? In two regards. Once when Karen left”—Amy made the face one should expect when he mentions his ex—“and once with this sort of case, dealing with a client who came to me hoping I could explain what happened to his family. I remember the way that felt, the sort of burden John Weston handed over to me.”

“As I recall, it didn’t feel much better when you handed the answers back over to him.”

I was quiet, and Amy reached out and laid her hand on my arm.

“I get what you’re saying, Lincoln. I do. If you think you can help him and you want to try, then it’s a simple choice.”

“I really don’t know how much of a choice it is. Ken’s asked me to get involved. Graham probably will.”

I was passing the blame off to every external party, but the truth was it came down to my decision, and I couldn’t fully explain the motivation to her. Couldn’t explain that when Ken had smiled at me and said, “This is what you are,” it had felt less like he was trying to coerce me and more like he was defining me. While his definition was accurate, I didn’t know how much I liked it.

This is what you are.

“All of it’s irrelevant,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“The idea that I had some sort of choice to make about stepping into this. I was already in it, Amy. From the time Harrison sent that first letter. He picked me, and I’ve been in it ever since.”

“Why?” she said. “Why did he pick you?”

The silence built and hung around us, and eventually I reached out and turned the radio back up. We listened until the final out, but I don’t think either of us could have told you the details of the game.