The Silent Hour

14

__________

By noon the next day my prediction to Amy was validated. I was involved now—thanks to Ken Merriman’s urging and Quinn Graham’s approval.

It was Graham who called, but he quickly blamed Ken.

“Your buddy doesn’t have the best touch with police,” he said. “Calls me up today, says he wishes to inform me that he’ll be running his own investigation. Wishes to inform me. No bullshit, that’s what he said. Not ‘Yo, Detective Graham, I was wondering if I might be able to assist.’ Not ‘Excuse me, Detective Graham, I understand this is a cold case in another state and you might actually, for once in your career, be in favor of a PI’s involvement.’ No, Linc, instead he wishes to inform me that he’s going out on his own. Whether I approve or not.”

“Hmm,” I said.

“Hmm? Hmm? Yeah, hmm is right, Linc. That’s about what I had to say, too. Might have added a few more colorful terms, I don’t recall. Your buddy, though—”

“Don’t know that you can really call him my buddy, Graham. I met him two days ago. You two go back much longer than that. I figure, with that history, maybe he’s really your buddy.”

“Oh, you’re not working with him on this? Because he said you were. He said, I believe this is a direct quote—‘Perry and I are going to see what we can shake loose.’ Shake loose, Linc. You not shaking? He shaking by himself?”

“I said I’d back him up. That’s all. You know, give some advice—”

“Oh, some advice. Good, good. That’s what I want to hear. You’re giving advice to a guy who’s never been any closer to a murder case than his TV screen.”

“You don’t want me to help him, then I’ll just explain that and stay the hell out.”

“Uh, no. Not at this point. Too late for that. Your buddy, he’s in the game now. Already informed me, as I said. And if he’s in the game, Linc? You better be, too. Because at least you been around. At least you know what you’re doing. I did a little checking on you. Found out, my man Linc, he’s a big shot.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Okay, we won’t say that. Here’s what we will say: I’m counting on you to keep Kenny from hurting this investigation. If he helps it, great, I’ll be the first man down to shake his hand—but I am not going to let him hurt it, and I’m counting on you to help.”

I rubbed my temples.

“Kenny does bring something to the table,” Graham said. “I’ve got to admit that.”

“Yeah?”

“He brings us an excuse to get you back in touch with Harrison. I was worrying on that one while I drove home yesterday. If you blew up on Harrison the way you said, then it’d feel wrong to have you go back, wanting to talk. Don’t you think?”

“Sure.”

“So we needed an excuse to open that door again. Needed one that felt right. I couldn’t decide on it yesterday, but then this morning your buddy calls, and while I’m listening to him go on, I thought, yes, sir, this is the ticket. Kenny is the ticket. It’ll be easy to sell as the truth, because it is the damn truth. Kenny looked you up, told you he wanted your client’s name, and you agreed to give it to him. You might not want to work for Harrison, but he can. There’s money in it, right?”

“Yeah.” I could hear loud voices in the background, somebody swearing profusely, everybody else cracking up. Cops. Something about it hit a chord of absence that had been quiet for a long time.

“So you two, you’re going to go see Harrison,” Graham said. “You’re going to talk, and you’re going to tape.”

“A wire?”

“Yeah. I’ll get you set up.”

“I’ve got one. Got a couple.”

“Good quality or cheap shit?”

“They’re good.”

“All right. I’m considering you an informant, not a cop, understand? This isn’t your investigation, it’s mine. What you hear, I hear.”

“Tell it to Ken. I’m just an adviser, remember?” Even I wasn’t buying that anymore.

“Yeah, my ass. Anyhow, go easy this first time. Feel Harrison out, check his attitude, see what you think.”

“You want me to tape everything?”

“Every word, Linc. Every word. Now, you get a good talk going with him, there’s a name I’d like you to drop. Bertoli. Salvatore Bertoli.”

“He’s of interest?”

“Man died at the same time the Cantrells decided to make their exit. Man also used to run with some boys in Youngstown and Cleveland who were close to Dominic. Man’s plenty interesting, is what I’m saying.”

“Is he tied to Dominic through ten degrees of separation or two?”

“Two would be high, I think. He was definitely in Dominic’s circle, though. Definitely.”

“Well, that’s a hell of an important fact, don’t you think? How did he end up with the sister if he’s—”

“Just ask Harrison about him. See if he takes you somewhere different than he took me.”

“Which was?”

“Nowhere. Now, I don’t want you getting too heated with the questioning, Linc. You keep it toned down. We’re just feeling our way in the dark here. So you introduce Harrison to Kenny, and if the chance is there, maybe you ask him what he thought of the Italian guy, Salvatore. Whatever, we’re treading lightly at the start.”

Does it matter how lightly you tread on a land mine? I wondered.

Ken Merriman returned the next afternoon, to a hotel just off I-71 where he’d reserved a room for a full week. It was called a business suite and consisted of a bedroom, living room, and kitchen jammed into the same space as an ordinary hotel room, and when I made a joke about the place he told me I’d be more impressed by it if I’d seen the apartment he’d been living in since the divorce. I didn’t make any more jokes after that.

I’d already located Parker Harrison’s address and decided the way to approach him was in person and without warning. His sort of style. Besides, I wanted to see where he lived. There aren’t many things that give you a sense of people faster than seeing them at home, in their own environment. Maybe he wouldn’t let us in, but it was worth the try.

By the time I picked Ken up I was wearing the wire, just a simple seed mike that clipped to the inside of my collar and connected to a digital recorder fastened on my belt. I had a button-down shirt on, untucked over jeans, and it hung low enough that it covered the recorder even when I lifted my arms over my head.

In addition to the recorder, I had my Glock in its holster at my spine, and the feel of those things, the hard press of the gun and the cool, light touch of the wire running along my back, reminded me what I loved about my job. At some point during that preparation, testing the equipment and putting it on, I began to relish my role. After a few weeks of insisting I wanted no part of it, I was ready to go. A man had been killed and buried in the woods, and for twelve years nobody had answered for it. Whether Parker Harrison had killed him or not, he’d wanted to play games with me, writing his letters and telling his half-truths. Well, all right. If he wanted a game, I was ready to give him one.

The adrenaline was still riding with me when I got to Ken’s hotel, and as I stood in his cramped room and explained things to him, he began to grin.

“What?” I said.

“You’re fired up, aren’t you?”

“Just ready to go. That’s all.”

“I was expecting more of the whining,” he said. “You know, gloom and doom, all the reasons we should be playing chess or knitting or whatever instead of working this case.”

I thought about what he’d just said and shook my head. Holy shit, I was turning into my partner. I was turning into Joe.

“You want me to take the gun out, fire a few rounds into the ceiling?” I asked. “Maybe bring along a pump shotgun?”

“It doesn’t need to be that exciting.”

“All right. Then let’s get to work.”

Harrison lived in an apartment in Old Brooklyn, not far from what had been Deaconess Hospital when I was a kid. My father was an EMT who’d worked out of Deaconess for a while. It was an area that had gone through plenty of cycles in a fairly short time, hit hard by poverty and crime only to come back a few decades later with skyrocketing house values. Harrison’s apartment building wasn’t attractive—a two-story brick rectangle with all the aesthetic appeal of a shoe box—but it was clean and bordered on either side by nice homes. There were only ten units in the building, and Harrison’s was located at the front, on the ground floor. I had no idea what he did for a living or what he drove, so it was anybody’s guess whether he’d be home. One way to find out, and that was a knock at the door.

He didn’t answer. Nobody did. It was pushing on toward five, but early enough that most people would still be at work. We got back in my truck and went up to Pearl Road, found a restaurant with a bar, and killed an hour and a few Coronas. At six we returned to the apartment building. There were more cars in the lot, including an older Toyota pickup parked directly in front of Harrison’s unit.

I pulled in next to it, cut the engine, and resisted the urge to double-check my recorder on the off chance that Harrison was watching. That’s one of the challenges of wearing a wire: You’re constantly aware of it, but your goal is to make sure nobody else is. I’ve found the best approach is to try to let it float at the back of your brain. Don’t forget you have the thing on—do that and you’re bound to screw up—but don’t worry about it, either.

When we reached the door, I could hear music inside the apartment, some soft blues that was turned off as soon as I knocked. A brief pause, Harrison probably taking a look through the peephole, and then the door opened inward and he said, “Don’t tell me the check bounced.”

It sounded like a joke, but his face held all the humor of a brick wall.

“Didn’t even cash it,” I said. “Mind if we come in?”

He was wearing jeans and no shirt, and his body was more muscular than I would’ve guessed. Not cut from working out, but strong and free of fat in the way you can be if you eat right. Something told me Harrison probably ate right. He regarded Ken with a curious but not unfriendly gaze, and then he nodded and stepped back, and we followed him into the apartment.

It wasn’t spacious—the rooms were narrow, and the ceilings felt low—but it was clean and laid out with a nice touch, furniture carefully situated to keep the small space from seeming cramped. There was a large piece of art on one wall, an elaborate wood carving in a symbol that meant nothing to me.

Harrison watched me look around and said, “It’s not my first choice. I don’t like living in apartments. I’d rather have some space, but I can’t afford that yet, and the neighborhood here is quiet. Besides, I spend all day outside.”

“Do you?” I looked away from the wood carving, back at him. “What is it that you do for a living, Harrison?”

“I’m a groundskeeper. For a cemetery.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “It suits me.”

Ken said, “How unsettling,” in a flat voice that was pure Bogart and would have made me smile anywhere and anytime else. Harrison gave him one quick, hard stare, then returned his attention to me.

“Can I ask—” he began, but I interrupted and pointed at Ken.

“He’s the one who wants to talk with you. It wasn’t my choice.”

His eyes went to Ken and lingered there, studying, but when he spoke again it was still to me.

“If he wants to talk to me, why did he go through you?”

“I’ll let him explain that.” I walked past Harrison and sat on his couch. He watched me but didn’t say anything, and after a short pause Ken sat down, too. Harrison stayed on his feet.

“Well?” he said, speaking directly to Ken this time.

Ken launched into his story, explaining the twelve-year-old case, the way it had eaten at him, how he’d promised Joshua Cantrell’s parents he’d deliver an answer. I listened and tried to look bored, a little put out, as I was claiming to be. The seed microphone was cool and firm against my collarbone, but so far it hadn’t taken in anything worth hearing, just Ken talking and Harrison staying silent.

“So when I found out Lincoln had looked into the house, I asked him about it,” Ken was saying. “Wanted to know who his client was, who had an interest in the family.”

Harrison looked over at me, no trace of emotion showing yet. “You provided that information.”

I nodded.

“That’s not confidential?”

“Usually.”

He waited for more, but I didn’t say anything. Finally he said, “Why wasn’t it in my case?”

“You’d already broken my trust, Harrison. I told you that. You sent me out there asking questions like a fool, no idea the man was dead and his sister was related to Dominic Sanabria. You know who showed up at my home the other day? Sanabria. That’s your doing, Harrison. You think I owed you confidentiality after that bullshit?”

I’d put some heat into the words, but he didn’t change expression or break eye contact. Just listened, gave it a few seconds to make sure I was done, and then turned back to Ken.

“So what do you want from me?”

“A job,” Ken said.

“A job?”

“Why not? You wanted Lincoln to work for you, right? Well, he backed out. I won’t. I want to see this through, and I need someone to bankroll it, Mr. Harrison. I’m not going to take any more money from the family, and they don’t have any to give me. They’re not well off. They still want to know what happened to their son, though, and supposedly so do you.”

“What will you do?” Harrison asked. “No offense meant, but if you’ve had twelve years at this . . .”

I was surprised by the flush that rose into Ken’s cheeks. Either he was a hell of an actor or that sort of remark got to him even when it came from the lead suspect.

“It wasn’t like I worked at it full-time for twelve years,” he said, his voice measured and tight. “When I got started there was no body, no evidence of a crime. They just went away, that’s all. Went away and didn’t leave a trace. Now there’s a trace.”

“The buried body,” Harrison said. “That’s your trace?”

His tone had changed when he said the buried body, dropped and chilled. Ken hesitated, as if he’d heard it, too.

“Sure,” he said. “That’s one hell of a trace, don’t you think?”

“The body was found months ago. Has the trace helped you since then?”

It felt cold in the room now, and there was something in Harrison’s eyes and the set of his jaw that I didn’t like. Ken was sitting forward on the couch, his arms braced on his knees, and I was leaning back, out of his view. Ken shifted his head slightly, as if he wanted to look at me, but then stopped, realizing Harrison would see any exchange between us.

“Well?” Harrison said. “Has the trace helped you?”

“Sure,” Ken said.

“In what way?”

Again a pause, Ken unsure of himself now, and Harrison repeated his question.

“In what way?”

“It’s given me some suspects.”

“Really? Who?”

“Salvatore Bertoli,” Ken said.

This was no longer going according to script—Graham had asked that we mention Bertoli, not identify him as a suspect—but Harrison’s reaction was worth the gamble. He’d been unusually still, one of those rare people who can stand in front of others without fidgeting or shifting, but now he stepped closer to Ken and took the back of a chair in his hand and gripped it tight.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

This time Ken did look at me, just one quick glance, and then he said, “You’re not my client yet, Mr. Harrison. I’m not going to disclose any of the work I’ve done. You want to hire me, that would change.”

“I’ll write you a check tonight,” Harrison said, “if you tell me why you said Salvatore’s name.”

“I’ve got my reasons.”

“I want to hear them.”

Ken was in a corner now—he had no reasons for suspecting Bertoli, and no way to avoid answering the question that wouldn’t seem false. He was silent for a minute, weighing his options, and I decided to speak for the first time since he’d gotten started, just to divert the conversation if possible.

“You worked with him, Harrison,” I said. “So you tell us—what did you think of Salvatore?”

He frowned and shook his head, then pointed at Ken. “I’d like to know why you think he’s a suspect.”

“He took a tumble off a warehouse roof the same time they disappeared,” Ken said. “I’ve got a feeling those events weren’t coincidental.”

It was a cop-out, and not enough to satisfy Harrison. He said, “That’s all? That’s the only reason you called him a suspect?”

“It’s the only one I’m prepared to share tonight. Now, if you want to write that check . . .”

“Is he the only suspect?”

“Everyone’s a—”

“That’s a silly cliché. Is he your only suspect?” Harrison was leaning forward now, his weight against the back of the chair, cords of muscle tight in his dark arms.

“He’s a favorite,” Ken said, still dancing, still evading. It wasn’t working well, though. The one thing I was becoming more and more certain about with Harrison was that he could read people, and if Ken kept playing him there was a damn good chance we’d expose too much and learn too little. Every time Harrison looked at me I felt like he was following the wire with his eyes, tracing its path as if my shirt were transparent.

“He’s a favorite,” Harrison echoed. “Well, who are the others?”

“Mr. Harrison, do you want me to work for you or not?” Ken said, and I was glad he hadn’t answered the question, that he seemed to want to bring this to an end, probably sensing the same dangers I had.

“There are some people who would tell you that I was a suspect,” Harrison said.

Ken didn’t answer.

“You said you’re from Pennsylvania?”

“That’s right.”

“Have you talked with Detective Graham?”

Again Ken was quiet.

“Of course you have,” Harrison said. “That would be a formality. A requirement. Who is his favorite suspect?”

“I’m not working with him, or for him.”

“Are you not?” Harrison said, and then he turned and looked at me, as if the question applied to us both.

“You told me you didn’t kill Cantrell,” I said.

“That’s right.”

“So why are you worried, Harrison?”

His eyes seemed darker now than when we’d walked in. He said, “The evidence can always be twisted, can’t it, Lincoln?”

“There something specific on your mind when you say that?”

Harrison looked at me for a long time, and then he let go of the chair and stepped back and turned to Ken. “I’ll think about this.”

“Well, I’d ask you to think fast,” Ken said. “I’ll leave a card, and if you could decide by—”

“When I decide, I’ll let Lincoln know. You keep your card.”

I shook my head. “I’m out, Harrison. If you—”

“No. When I decide, I’ll let you know. You brought him to me, Lincoln.”

His eyes were hard on me, still searching, distrustful. I felt a tingle at my collarbone, where the microphone rested, and I wanted to cover it with my hands.

Ken got to his feet and offered a hand to Harrison, who shook it after a moment’s pause. I stood then, and we moved for the door together. Ken opened it, and I followed him outside, then turned back to face Harrison before closing the door.

“Hey, Harrison. One last question.”

He waited.

“Everybody else came and went from the Cantrells’ in six months. Everybody else worked alone. Why were you there for a year, and why’d you stick when they hired Bertoli?”

He stood in the doorway, framed by the lighted room behind him.

“Because she asked me to,” he said eventually.

“Alexandra?”

A nod.

“Why?”

He stepped out of the apartment, reaching for the door, his hand passing close to my face as he grasped the edge.

“Because she trusted me, and she was afraid.”

“Of who? Bertoli? Her brother?”

He pulled away, and my hand fell from the knob as the door swung shut. A second later the lock turned.