A Welcome Grave

by Michael Koryta

  “I’ll take you over there, but you’ve got to promise me you aren’t ruling out help, not yet. This is a hostage situation, Lincoln. Okay? We’re not ready to deal with this, not alone. If you’re hoping Karen will pay and we’ll just play it straight up, that’s one thing. But if she won’t, I’m not going to go along with you. We’ll need help, need the best team the police can get out there.”

  “Let’s make that decision after we talk to Karen.”

  He didn’t like that, but he was kept from responding when my phone began to ring again. In the second before I got it out of my pocket I think we were both sure it would be Doran or his partner. This time the number wasn’t blocked, though.

  “Targent,” I said.

  “You could answer. Tell him what’s happening.”

  “Not yet.”

  “He might know something. Why call so early unless—”

  “Not yet, Joe. I want to see Karen.”

  The long driveway was a problem. We drove the street twice, down and back, and saw no sign of a surveillance team. The driveway was hidden, though, blocked by the trees. If a cop was in the house, we wouldn’t see his car until we were all the way up the drive.

  “I don’t think they’d leave someone with her around the clock,” I said. “Twenty-four-hour protection isn’t something CPD does often, and now that she’s agreed to cut me off, they’ll have less reason to watch.”

  “Hope you’re right.” He was approaching the driveway again, at slow speed.

  “Make the turn,” I said.

  He took the driveway, and we rounded the bend and passed through the trees, and the house came into view. No car, no evidence of police. They could have left one guy inside and driven away, but I trusted my instinct. Without a hostage involved—and nobody else knew there was one—Karen’s situation wouldn’t have been elevated to that sort of police coverage. Not yet.

  Joe parked, and I got out of the car fast and went up the steps. The protective order was Targent’s idea, but that didn’t mean Karen wouldn’t take it seriously and call the police when she saw me. I was already knocking on the door when Joe got out of the car. The ornate windowpane beside the door gave a distorted view into the house, but through it I saw Karen approaching. She had the cordless phone in her hand.

  “Shit,” I said softly, and then louder, “Karen, it’s Lincoln. You’ve got to talk to me for a few minutes.”

  She stopped short a few feet from the door, but she didn’t lift the phone.

  “No, Lincoln. You can’t be here. I’m supposed to call the police if I even hear from you. Please leave.”

  “They’ve kidnapped another woman,” I said. “It’s bigger than either of us now, Karen. You’ve got to let us in and talk about this.”

  While I watched, she took another step back from the door, deeper into the hallway.

  “I can’t do that. You need to talk to the police, not me.”

  “Karen!”

  “Leave now, Lincoln. I’m calling.”

  She lifted the phone and turned it so she could see the numbers to dial, and when she did I acted without pause for thought. I stepped back and lifted my foot and drove my heel into the center of the door with everything I had, splintered the wood in the frame and busted the spring lock but didn’t get past the dead bolt. She screamed when I did it, and then I kicked again, and this time the dead bolt failed, tore out of its hasp, and I was across the threshold and into the house as the alarm began to shriek and Karen turned to run.

  I caught her at the end of the hallway, grabbed the phone and took it out of her hand, and wrapped one arm around her waist and held her against me so she couldn’t run. Joe stepped through the door then, and when I turned back and got a half-second glance at his face I felt like I was no longer myself. His expression was a mirror image of what he saw before him: I’d just kicked in a door to run down a woman who had a protective order against me, to stop her from calling the police. It was something he’d seen in nightmare situations of domestic violence, and now it was his partner.

  “They kidnapped Amy Ambrose,” I said, holding Karen tight against me as she tried to twist her way free. She was facing me, and the suspicion in her face that I’d seen when we were with Targent had been vanquished, replaced by terror. She was petrified of me. The look hit me harder than any of her physical struggles, and I loosened my grip and she stepped free and ran into the living room. I watched her go, then looked back at Joe standing in front of the shattered door, and I wondered what had happened to my life.

  “Turn that off,” I said. The alarm was still wailing, and soon it would summon police. Karen was standing in the middle of the living room, watching warily, waiting for me to move. “Turn it off and listen, Karen. Then call the police if you want to. But give me five minutes. The same people who killed your husband have an innocent woman now. You have to listen to me.”

  “Please,” Joe said behind me, and her eyes went to him and found reassurance. She hesitated only a moment and then moved back down the hall—making a wide circle past me—and found the alarm box, punched buttons until it went quiet.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Karen, I’m sorry. But they’ve taken a woman who has nothing to do with this, taken her because she matters to me. This is how they intend to get their money.”

  “It’s what they told me would happen. That you’d be the one to ask for the money.”

  “Karen, you can’t believe I’m part of this.”

  She didn’t say anything, just made another nervous step to the side, moving away from Joe, back toward the stairs.

  “We were together for years, Karen. Remember that. Remember me. Then think about what they did to your husband. They tortured him, put tape on his mouth and—”

  “I know what they did!”

  “And you know me!” I shouted back at her, and for a few seconds it was silent, the three of us standing like separate points in a triangle, everyone afraid to close the gap.

  “Do you believe I could have been involved?” I said. “Honestly, Karen, can you believe that?”

  She was starting to cry, but she shook her head. “No.”

  “Then you’ve got to listen to what I’m saying. They will ask you for money today, and they’ll tell you things about me, involve me somehow. I need to be able to talk to you. To communicate while we try to get Amy back. I’m going to need your help.”

  “The police—”

  “If I go to them, it’s a big risk for Amy.”

  “That’s not what I meant. The police won’t let me talk with you. They listen to the calls—”

  “We’ll leave you my cell phone, or Joe’s, something I can use to talk to you.”

  “They’ll be here, Lincoln. The police will be in the house all day. They’re on their way now.”

  “What?”

  Her chest was still rising and falling fast with fear, fear that I’d put there. She glanced at Joe and then back to me.

  “You’re going to be arrested. Detective Targent just called and told me. They’re sending someone here to protect me until they get you.”

  “Arrest me?”

  She nodded, but she also stepped back into the living room, closer to me.

  “He told me a man named Donny Ward was murdered. The one you said told you those things about Andy Doran. They found his body last night. There was more money hidden in his house. It had your fingerprints on it.” She paused, eyes locked on my own, and said, “And my husband’s. It had both of your fingerprints on it.”

  I looked at Joe. Didn’t say a word. What I’d predicted in our office had just come true. It was Jefferson’s money, and my fingerprints were on it, and now they could arrest me.

  “Donny Ward,” he said. “Shit, Lincoln. We were at his house. He might have been inside then, dead. The neighbor saw us.”

  I turned back to Karen. I held her eyes and tried to see her as I’d known her once long before, tried to show her myself as she’d known me. I don’t know if you c
an do that through a desperate look fogged with fear, but I tried.

  “I did not do this. I did not kill your husband, or Donny Ward, or anybody else. They can put me in jail for it, though. Fine. I’ll let them do that. Turn myself in. But not until Amy’s safe.”

  “I believe you, Lincoln. I’m scared, okay? I’m scared, and I’m confused, but I believe you. That’s why I’m warning you.”

  I took a few steps across the living room without purpose. The numbness that settled in me at first after the morning’s call returned as I thought about Donny Ward and a stack of cash covered with fingerprints from me and Alex Jefferson.

  “We’re on our own, Joe. We can’t go to the police now. It’s not even an option. They’ll arrest me for murder when they see me, and my story about Amy is going to seem like a distraction, a smoke screen. By the time they confirm that she’s really gone, too much time will have been wasted.”

  A car pulled up to the house then. We heard the tires and the engine, and then it went quiet and a door opened and closed. Joe was closest to the door, and he looked out and said, “Cop.”

  Karen’s eyes didn’t go to the door. Didn’t leave mine.

  “Detective Targent or someone else?” she asked.

  “Patrol officer. Young one.”

  She moved then, a swift blur, walking past Joe to the open door. I watched her go and looked at the backyard and wondered if I should chance it. We wouldn’t get Joe’s car out of the driveway with the cop there, but if I made it out of the yard I could find another car, steal one if I had to, do what it took to stay out of a cell until Amy was safe.

  “Hello,” Karen said, and then the cop was inside the house and it was too late for me to move. I turned to face him, and he looked at Joe and me, and his eyes went guarded and his hand inched toward his gun.

  “Mrs. Jefferson?” Still looking at me. He was very young, early twenties, just a patrol officer, and unless he’d been shown a photograph of Joe and me he would not know us. I watched him and knew that he did not. He was suspicious enough to indicate he’d heard a description at least, but he wasn’t sure.

  “Thank you for coming,” Karen said. She stood close to the door frame, using her body to hide the damage I’d done. “Detective Targent told me he was sending someone.”

  “Uh-huh.” The kid looked uncertain. He was watching me as if ready to go for the gun, but Karen’s calm didn’t fit with what he’d thought of the situation, and now he was confused.

  “This is John and David,” she said, pointing at Joe and me. “Friends of my husband. I asked them to wait with me until you were here.”

  He squinted at her, trying to pick up on any sign of a lie, but she met him with a composed stare.

  “You were fast, though,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “Uh, yes, ma’am.”

  We had a chance. She’d given us that. Time to get moving.

  I walked up to Joe and gave him a soft pat on the back, nodding at the door. “Probably should get out of here, let the officer do his job.”

  “Right.”

  We walked to the door, and I expected the cop to stop buying it at any second, go for the gun, and radio for backup. Instead, he stepped aside as we approached.

  “Thanks for coming,” Karen told us. “It meant a lot.”

  I leaned down and embraced her, put my face against hers, and whispered “Thank you” into her ear before stepping outside.

  “Good luck today,” she said, and she stood in the door, blocking the ruined trim around the frame until Joe drove us out of sight.

  34

  We rode in tense silence for a few miles, both of us watching the mirrors and waiting for the sound of sirens. Nothing happened. If he’d seen the door frame, she’d provided him with a convincing excuse. It had been a hell of a thing for her to do after I’d just lost my mind like that, kicking my way into her house. She knew me, though. After everything else, she still knew me. It was a small thing, maybe, but it had been enough in that moment.

  “Donny Ward,” Joe said. “The poor son of a bitch. Do you think it was Doran? You told him about Donny.”

  “Doran already knew about him. I don’t know who it was, and I can’t worry about that now. It’s about Amy, Joe. She’s the only thing. I meant what I said back there—get Amy back, and I’ll turn myself in and let it go the course. But I can’t go to the police now. Not to turn myself in, or for help. That option was just eliminated.”

  “I know.”

  “More of that damn money,” I said. “They’re throwing away a lot of it just to set me up. Makes it seem they’re pretty confident about the chance of success with Karen.”

  “This was supposed to be the trump card. I don’t think Doran and his partner wanted to show it so early.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is enough for the warrant, enough to put you in jail. After they get their money, it’s perfect—you command all the police attention, and they disappear. But to find Ward’s body so early doesn’t help them. It makes it impossible for you to maneuver with Karen, and they needed that.”

  “If they know that . . . If they find out how useless I just became . . .”

  “They could panic.”

  We didn’t need more discussion of what panic meant while Amy was with them.

  “We’ve got to find them before that happens and before they go for the money,” I said. “That’s the time frame, Joe. It’s that fast now.”

  “It’s too fast, Lincoln, Marshals and cops have been looking for Doran for weeks. How are we going to find him in a few hours?”

  “We’ll get help.”

  “I agreed with that this morning, but if there’s an arrest warrant for you, then going to the police—”

  “Not that kind of help. Not the police.”

  “Then who are you thinking of?”

  “Thor.”

  I had no idea where to find him. Guys like Thor don’t list phone numbers in the book, and even if they did, I wasn’t sure of his last name. I’d seen it written only one time, on an FBI report, and it wasn’t the sort of name that you glanced at and remembered. Some bizarre collection of K’s and V’s and a dozen vowels, maybe? Without a full name, we’d have to go through his acquaintances, find someone who would be able to tell us how to locate him. Thor’s acquaintances tended not to be the sort of people you sought out if you cared about your health.

  “We’ll try Belov,” I told Joe. Dainius Belov had offered help to us once in the past. It was the sort of offer you never wanted to need, but right now it might be our best hope.

  “That house on Lake?”

  “Only place I know to find him.”

  He shook his head, not liking the idea.

  “He can help, Joe,” I said. “If he’ll tell us how to find Thor, we can get the name of the man who put Jefferson in touch with him. The same person probably hooked Jefferson up with Doran’s partner. We get that much, we’ll find Doran’s partner, and then we’ll get Amy back.”

  “Assuming we can find Thor, and assuming he’ll actually talk.”

  “It’s what we’ve got. Maybe the only thing.”

  “You understand who you’re counting on for help. He’s a killer. An enforcer for one of the worst criminals in this city.”

  “We’ve got to get into this guy’s world, Joe. It’s also Thor’s world.”

  Joe looked over his shoulder, made sure the lane was clear, and then accelerated onto 480 westbound. He didn’t offer any argument, didn’t say anything else for a long time.

  I thought of her while Joe drove, the way she’d looked on the couch, how she slept with her hair over half of her face, breathing slow and deep. Was she awake now? Had they hurt her, knocked her out, drugged her? Was she bound and gagged, or was Doran sitting above her with his Colt Commander? I thought of the possibilities, and my chest tightened and my temples ached and things deep inside of me went cold.

  An arrest warrant had been issued, a piece of paper that wo
uld send me to jail for murder, and that was somehow an afterthought in my mind. It caused me no fear when compared with Amy. If I could get her back from these bastards, the hell with the rest of it. Targent seemed like a good friend compared to Doran’s partner, that voice on the phone.

  Joe’s driving—right at the speed limit—seemed impossibly slow, but I understood his reasoning. The last thing we could afford right now was to be pulled over for speeding. His car would soon be a risk anyhow. Targent would put Joe’s plate out on the radio eventually.

  He drove us into the city, then came back to the west down the Cleveland Memorial Shoreway until we hit Lake Avenue. We didn’t have the address, but neither of us would struggle to locate the house, either. The only time we’d been inside, it had been in the company of Thor and another of Belov’s enforcers. Visits like that tend to stand out in your memory.

  The big Victorian house looked the same, the home and grounds immaculate. I wondered if the neighbors knew what Belov did, or if they guessed about it—real estate, commodities broker, maybe?—while they ate dinner and looked out at his quiet estate and the stern-faced foreign men who visited.

  We parked in the driveway and went up the walk and rang the bell. There wasn’t a sound from inside. Joe rang the bell again, and we gave it a few more minutes, but nothing happened. No one was home.

  “He’s not here, and that means we’re in trouble,” Joe said. “I could go along with you on the idea that Belov might put us in touch with Thor. But without him?”

  “We’ll try the River Wild.” I turned and walked down the steps and back to the car.

  Joe was still standing at the door, looking down at me. “Just walk through the door, clear your throat, and ask for Thor? In that place?”

  The River Wild was a Russian-mob-controlled bar in the Flats, a strip club where Dainius Belov’s crew could often be found.

  “You wearing a gun today?” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.”

  The River Wild was on the east bank of the Flats—the old warehouse district that had been converted into an area of restaurants, clubs, and nightlife. Many of those once successful businesses were gone now, the Flats having fallen on hard times yet again. The River Wild hung on, but it’s easier to do that when you’re backed by mob dollars.