A Welcome Grave

by Michael Koryta

  “You can’t do that, Targent. That’s your idea, not hers. This son of a bitch calls and now you’re trying to cut me off from her? Not happening. I’m going over there.”

  “Then you’re going to jail. One phone call, and you’re going to jail.”

  I looked at Joe and saw nothing but helplessness in his eyes. What was Karen doing right now? Listening to Daly nurture the ideas Targent had planted?

  “We can make this go easier,” Targent said, leaning toward me, half of his face lit by the dome light, his elbow propped against the steering wheel. “If you didn’t kill the guy, now’s the time to talk. Tell us who did. Tell us what you know. Do that, and things can be a lot less painful.”

  “I gave you every damn detail. Doran’s the guy, and his partner was hired by Jefferson.”

  “I’m done listening to that shit, Perry. I’ve busted open some of your lies already, and I’ll keep right on doing it, and the longer you sit there with your mouth shut, the more certain I am that you ran the whole show. That you killed Jefferson.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Dwell on that,” he said. “And get out of my car.”

  32

  They towed my truck out of the park, and Targent drove off and left me standing there in the rain. The same sergeant who’d been so eager to pass the buck to Targent took pity on me now; he offered me a jacket and asked if I needed a ride home. I told him Joe would take me.

  By the time we left, Joe was rubbing his bad shoulder, water dripping down his scalp and out of his hair and beading up on already saturated clothes. He turned the engine on and cranked up the heater. We sat there while the vents blasted us with tepid air that soon warmed and fogged the windows.

  “I had him,” I said. “Could have shot him in the knee, dropped him, been done with this thing.”

  “You wouldn’t have been done with it. Not if Doran didn’t kill him.”

  “Maybe he knows who did. At the very least he could have cleared me for this phone call. I should have taken the shot, Joe.”

  “You think?”

  I pictured Doran running across the breakwater, saw his back over the barrel of my gun again, and I shook my head. I wouldn’t take the shot now for the same reason I hadn’t then—I believed him. Believed him when he said he didn’t kill Jefferson, and believed him when he said he’d been set up for the murder of Monica Heath. That didn’t mean having him in custody wouldn’t be a tremendous help to me. It just meant I wasn’t ready to shoot him in the back.

  “His partner is driving this,” I said. “He must have made that phone call. I doubt Doran even knew about it.”

  “The invisible, nameless partner. No wonder Targent’s not a fan of that explanation. Who the hell is this guy, Lincoln?”

  “Whoever Jefferson hired to kill Doran. We know he tried to recruit Thor and failed. Clearly, he didn’t give up there. Somewhere along the line he found someone who was willing to help, and that’s the guy. He joined up with Doran, maybe even killed Jefferson.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No?”

  “This guy decides to partner with Doran for what purpose? Blackmailing Jefferson into a big-league payout, is what we’ve decided. So why kill him before the paycheck arrived?”

  I sighed and ran my hands through my hair. Somehow the heater was making me more aware of how wet I was, intensifying the cold.

  “I want to get out of here, Joe. Let’s go home.”

  The cops were closing up when we drove out of the park, returning to patrol cars with nothing to show for their search but wet clothes and muddy boots. Below us, rain hammered the big slabs of stone on the breakwater. I tried to find the fence, to locate that hole where Andy Doran and Monica Heath had descended five years earlier with a bottle of rum. It was too dark, though, and the rain was falling too hard.

  When Joe dropped me off outside of my building, my eyes went up the street and found a car parked in a space always vacant at night. Long and low, like a Crown Vic or a Taurus.

  “Targent left somebody on me,” I said.

  Joe found the car without needing me to point it out. He stared at it for a long time. Then he said, “You want me to go somewhere else, see if they follow?”

  “Let them sit.”

  I got out of the car and watched him drive out of sight, then went into my building. Upstairs, I took off my soaked clothes and threw them in a pile on top of the washing machine, then got in the shower and turned the water up hot.

  When I was out of the shower and dressed in dry clothes, I stood in the living room with the lights off and looked out at the street. The car was still there, keeping watch. The longer I looked at it, the angrier I got. They’d searched my home and taken my truck, and now they watched me through the night.

  I closed the blinds, leaving the apartment even darker, and called Amy. It was a nice normal-relationship move—come home and share a conversation about your day. In a normal relationship, though, that talk would probably involve board meetings and problems with the fax machine and maybe a dental appointment. With me, it was murder, the taste of a gun barrel, and police interrogation. At least I bring home a little color.

  “It’s Lincoln.”

  “You okay?” Her voice showed she’d either been asleep or close to it, the words thick and unfocused.

  “Been better. You need to get back to bed?”

  “No, no. I just called you a while ago.” I could hear a rustle, probably as she sat up in bed. “What happened today?”

  “My fingerprints were discovered on Alex Jefferson’s money, Andy Doran stuck a gun in my mouth, and Karen fired me before agreeing to request a protective order.”

  There was a pause, and then she said, “I guess I won’t bitch about all the trouble I had with my e-mail, and the flat Diet Coke I got at lunch.”

  “Hey, this isn’t a competition over who had the toughest day. I’d be happy to listen to your woes.”

  “What a mature approach to communication.”

  “I learned it in relationship school. Been taking online classes for your benefit.”

  “You can use the help.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You want to come over here, as long as you woke me up anyhow?”

  I started to say yes but stopped. “Probably not a good idea. A police surveillance team will follow me down there if I do, and I don’t want these idiots to get involved in your life, too.”

  “The fingerprints . . . are those something they can use to actually . . .”

  “Send me to jail? Maybe. Any chance you have a conjugal visit fantasy?”

  “Eh, no. I guess I’d have to break you out.”

  “Just tell me where to find the tunnel when you dig it.”

  “No tunnels. I don’t like dirt.”

  “Over the wall, then?”

  “Oh, yeah. Much more style. I’ve got a grappling hook in the closet just begging for use.”

  The stupid jokes and silly conversation were helping me in a way nothing else could have, letting some of the tension out of my muscles, pushing that surveillance car on the street into the back of my mind.

  “I can’t tell you how much I’ve needed you this week,” I said. “And, no, not as a surrogate Joe.”

  “I already apologized for that, Lincoln.”

  “I know. But you get what I’m saying.”

  “Yes. I’m glad.”

  “When this ends, let’s go somewhere. Take a weekend. Be alone, and without cops parked outside the door.”

  “I hear Indiana’s lovely this time of year.”

  “Bad joke.”

  “Yeah.”

  We talked for a long time, and then I realized that it was very late and she had to work in the morning, and I said goodbye and hung up the phone and walked back to the window to check on my watchers. They were still there, rain dancing off the roof of the car. Without the lights on they probably couldn’t see me, but I showed them my middle finger anyhow, just in cas
e, and then I went to sleep.

  When the phone rang, I thought it was another call in the middle of the night. Then I opened my eyes and saw a gray light in the room. I checked the clock and found it was just past seven—ten more minutes and the alarm would have gone off anyhow. The phone was still ringing, and I reached for the handset before I realized it was my cell and grabbed that instead. The number was blocked. I answered and said hello, offering more of a croak than a clear word.

  “Hate to wake you,” an unfamiliar male voice said, “but this is the biggest day of your life, Lincoln, and it’s probably a good idea to get an early start.”

  “What?” I sat up, trying to place the voice, knowing only that it wasn’t Doran or Targent or anyone else I’d talked with recently.

  “Payday, Lincoln. Payday. You’re going to make that happen for me. Someone needs to convince Karen Jefferson to move that money. You volunteered for the job.”

  “She’s not paying, and I can’t talk to her, asshole. Thanks to everything you’ve done, she has a restraining order against me.”

  “You’ll find a way to convince her how important this is, because I’ve certainly found a way to convince you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Want to say good morning to your girlfriend?”

  I got to my feet and stood beside the bed with the phone in my hand, every muscle suddenly very awake, every nerve very cold.

  “You understand what that means? Or you want me to explain in detail? Okay, here goes—I’ve got your girlfriend, Perry. Right here with me. I’d let her talk, but she’s not really in the mood right now.”

  “You son of a bitch. She’s got nothing—”

  “To do with this? No shit. Neither did you, but you decided to join in. Well, now you’re in. And since you made it so damn clear you’d like to be involved, we’ve decided to deal directly with you. The blond bitch here didn’t think it was the best method, but I’ve assured her she’s wrong. Now, tell us one more time that Jefferson’s wife won’t pay?”

  “I can’t get her to pay. I can’t even talk to her. Cops are all over that house, waiting to arrest me if I show up.”

  “Sounds tough. You’ve got the rest of the day to figure it out. I’ll find a way to keep myself occupied. Maybe with your girlfriend.”

  “If you touch her—”

  “Shut up. She’s fine, but you’re in no position to make threats, either. We’re going to get our money. Not in some meeting under the highway like this was a movie, either. You’ll never see us, so don’t worry about getting any opportunities to stop this. Your only opportunity is to follow instructions. You’ve got the rest of the day to convince Jefferson’s wife to get the money ready to move. I’ll be calling tonight with an account number and some simple instructions. She’ll move the money to it herself, using a computer. When we’re satisfied that we’ve got the money and that the transaction wasn’t rigged, you’ll have an opportunity to collect your girlfriend. That’ll be on our terms, too. As of this moment, you’ve lost all control of the situation.”

  “You’re the reason I can’t talk to Karen. You set me up, then expect that I can convince her to pay you? That’s not possible.”

  “You’ll need to make it possible. Go ahead and make a decision on the police, too. You want to bring them in, you know the risk. I think you’re smarter than that. Cops aren’t going to work fast enough to give you a prayer. And, Perry? For all the work you’ve done on this, have you seen me yet? Even know my name? Think about that.”

  He hung up.

  PART THREE

  GUILTY MEN

  33

  I lowered the phone and flipped it shut, my fingers moving from instinct, disconnected from my brain. For a moment I stood still; then I crossed the room to the window, spread the blinds with my hand, and looked out to see the unmarked car still parked on the street.

  She’d wanted me to come to her apartment, and I’d declined because the police would have followed. Because the police would have been present and watching all through the night.

  “She’s not part of this,” I said, and the apartment didn’t answer. She was part of it now, though. Thanks to me.

  There were decisions to be made, but I couldn’t focus on them. The options slid in and out of my brain mixed with snapshots of her, the way she’d looked in that oversized T-shirt and her glasses, how she’d promised to break me out of jail with a grappling hook because it had more style.

  It was seven twenty in the morning. Outside, traffic was picking up on Lorain, the day getting started, people who would deal with nothing more critical than a tax form or an oil change today already in motion as I stood frozen in my apartment, listening to them pass by.

  “Move, Lincoln.” I said it aloud again, and the words rang loud and foreign through the empty room. “Move.”

  I pulled on clothes and tied my shoes, fastened the holster against my spine and dropped the gun inside. Nothing I touched felt real. Seven thirty now. Fifteen minutes since the call, and I was still at home, nothing accomplished. The desire for speed, for swift action, was building, and I had to make a conscious effort to push it back down. Speed without purpose was useless and would cause mistakes that I couldn’t afford. Even leaving the apartment required pause for thought. If the police saw me leave, they would follow. I couldn’t have that now. I went down the steps and out the back door and found no one waiting. That wasn’t a surprise; to park with a clear view of my small parking lot would have been far too obvious. I crossed the lot and put my hands on the top of the board fence that ran behind my building, got my foot on one of the two-by-four braces, and hopped over, landing in the alley. Across that and over another fence and into a backyard, then out on Chatfield and moving for Joe’s house at a jog.

  He was awake, sitting at the kitchen table with coffee, newspaper spread in front of him, a normal morning until I arrived. He’d left the front door open when he went out for the paper, and when I stepped through it he looked up and half-rose from the table.

  “Lincoln?”

  “They have Amy.”

  “What?”

  “They have Amy. Doran and his partner. I just got the phone call.”

  He started to shake his head, as if he could refuse my news.

  “Karen’s supposed to move the money tonight. I’m supposed to convince her to do that.”

  “You can’t talk to her.”

  “Yeah. I tried to say that. Didn’t help.”

  I told him the rest of it, recounting the phone call as completely as I could, and when I was done he shook his head again.

  “Lincoln, we’ve got to get help. Call Targent. This is a kidnapping.”

  “They’ll kill her, Joe.”

  “They may kill her anyhow.”

  I looked at him, and he held up a hand and said, “Sorry.”

  “No. You’re right.” The numbness that had been lodged inside me melted and turned to fear. “They could kill her anyhow. Even if Karen pays him, they might. The decision we have to make is which option will protect Amy. I don’t think going to Targent is that option, Joe.”

  “So what is?”

  “We have to at least preserve the idea that Karen will pay. The image that things are proceeding the way they want.”

  “This is someone else’s life, Lincoln. This is Amy. You want responsibility for the way this works out? You want to go into this alone?”

  I could feel the Glock against my back, a hard lump in its holster. The press of it teased and tormented me. I wanted to feel the weight of the gun in my hand, pull the trigger, and watch bullets explode out of the barrel and bury themselves in . . . who?

  “It wasn’t Doran,” I said.

  “On the phone?”

  “Yeah. It was his partner, but not Doran.”

  “We don’t even know who he is,” Joe said. “We don’t know who he is or where he is, and we don’t have the time to look. We can get the FBI hostage people involved, have them ready when Karen’s contacted,
try to negotiate.”

  “Cops screw this up, and Amy . . .” I didn’t say and Amy dies. I wasn’t ready to put it that coldly and bluntly, not about her. It was that cold, though. That cold and that real.

  “We screw this up, and it works out different?”

  “I need to talk to Karen,” I said. “That’s where we start. They’re going to contact her, and she needs to know what’s changed before that happens. Needs to know that there’s another life at stake.”

  “Will you ask her to pay?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Lincoln?”

  “I don’t know. It’s easier to get money back than a human life, and Karen will understand that.”

  “They own you,” he said. “You understand that? They’ve spent days laying the framework to show you’re the one going after Karen, and now they’ve convinced you to actually do that. If you pressure her into paying, do you think that’ll be the end? That Amy walks out unharmed and you sit down and explain the thing to Targent and it’s all over? That won’t happen. They’ll have another play, one that finishes you off.”

  “We need to give them the image that things are moving the way they want. That buys us time.”

  “Time to do what? We don’t have the first idea how to find these guys.”

  “I want to talk to her, Joe. They’re going to contact her, and when they do, she needs to understand the situation.”

  “We go over there and find out they’ve got a cop watching her place, you’re done. They’ll arrest you for violating that protective order, and you’ll have to try to explain this from jail.”

  “I’m going to try,” I said. “Now do you want to drive me, or should I find a car?”

  Joe’s face was anguished. He wanted to go through the proper channels, wanted desperately to get the cops and the FBI involved, approach this the way he would tell anyone else to if it weren’t Amy, if it weren’t someone he knew and cared about deeply. Wanting that didn’t mean he could ignore my point, though. He knew the risks on both sides.