The Prophet

by Michael Koryta

  The letters were just a game.

  Maybe, Salter had said, he wasn’t that patient. Maybe, when she showed up at his door, it rushed him.

  Adam smoked another cigarette there in the quiet and the cold and then he left to start things the right way.

  11

  IN THE FIRST TWO YEARS after his daughter’s death, Hank Austin had put on forty-five pounds. After-dinner beers became after-dinner twelve-packs. Morning coffees became morning Blood Marys. A half-pack of cigarettes a day became two packs, a slice of pizza became six, and on and on. Excess defined him. When the heart attack took him, it was an August afternoon with a heat index of 105 and he’d decided to sand the deck by hand.

  When Adam found him, he felt relief amidst the sorrow and the shame. His father hadn’t been able to bear the loss, but he’d been a touch too strong to run from it, too. Just a touch.

  Adam was twenty-two then, working as a bail agent in Cleveland. The one semester at Ohio State was a distant memory. Kent was a sophomore in college, a starting quarterback for a small but quality program. Adam was still living at home, if living was the right word. It was where he slept, from time to time. Usually during the day, when his parents were gone. He did most of his hunting at night. His boss loved that, and it suited Adam. He was a nocturnal sort.

  After his father died, his mother moved into an apartment. It had been Adam’s suggestion.

  You’re not happy here, he told her. There’s too much pain all around you. You know that.

  She agreed. Moved into an apartment near the bank where she worked, and Adam stayed in the house. She remained in the apartment for nine years, and then the first stroke came, and a month later the second, and her final four years were in an assisted living facility. The house was left to Adam and Kent jointly, and Adam had three separate appraisals conducted and then offered his brother half of the average, a fair share.

  Kent refused it. Told him they needed to sell the place not for money, but for purposes of moving on. Adam declined. Each month he sent his brother a check for what he deemed half of fair rent on the home. Each month the check went uncashed.

  Once his father was dead and his mother had moved, Adam finally got the room back the way he wanted it. Hank Austin had been firm—the day Marie’s body was found, turning the inevitable into the official, he’d begun to pack her things away, working alone, no sounds but the shrieks and tears of the packing tape and the occasional soft sob.

  Adam understood both the idea and its futility. It was tempting to try, maybe, but it was hopeless. You couldn’t put her into boxes and seal them shut.

  The boxes had gone into the attic above the garage. Sometimes Adam would slip up there and go through the artifacts, handling them carefully, taking in the smell of her, amazed by how it lingered. He was alone with her then, felt close to her in a way he could not anywhere else, and he was certain that she was there with him, somehow aware of the communion and appreciative of it. They talked a little. He couldn’t get through much at first, the tears came too fast. Over time it got better. He apologized often—too often for her, he knew that, but how did you stop?—and he told her what news there was to share. He told her about every skip he tracked down, everyone who jumped bond and tried to hide. He got them all, he was remarkably diligent, his boss in Cleveland was already talking about turning the business over to him, but Adam wanted to come home. He wanted to be in Chambers County.

  They talked about that, too. Whether maybe what he needed was exactly the opposite, what he needed was to get out. In the end, though, that just didn’t feel right. The debt Adam owed had been left here on Beech Street in Chambers, Ohio. There were advantages to leaving town—the stares wouldn’t follow him in other places, the whispers would never be heard, no one would remember because no one would know. Sometimes that seemed so beautiful, so desirable, that it could nearly bring him to his knees. But he would not run, and that was all it amounted to. Those stares, those whispers, those memories? Adam had earned them. They were necessary reminders, needles of agony that refreshed the heart and kept him focused. He was here to offer atonement. That was not a painless task, and it was not one from which you could run.

  He made some promises, up there in the attic surrounded by the boxes that testified to a vanished life. He intended to keep them.

  When the house was his, no one left to object to a little rearranging, Adam moved Marie back in. It was a painstaking process. The large objects were no problem, he remembered where they belonged, but on smaller issues, the order of the books on the bookshelves, the arrangement of posters on the walls, he had to stop and think and, sometimes, simply ask for her approval, apologize, and put the things where they seemed to fit. He had not paid enough attention to the details when he’d had the chance, but he was certain that Marie understood and forgave him.

  When he was done, when he’d hung her sign on the door, the last step, he felt cleaner than he had in years. She would not be boxed away, would not be forgotten.

  Kent had problems with it. That had been one of their true blowups, second-to-last of the effective end of their relationship. He came in and saw the room and said it was a sick thing to do, that Adam needed help, needed to learn how to move on, and that there was no honor for Marie in what he’d done. They’d disagreed strongly on that point. Then came Kent’s visit to Gideon Pearce. Adam found out about that in the papers. He’d gone to Kent’s house, and would always regret that. He shouldn’t have allowed it to happen with Beth present. That argument ended with blood. Since then, they’d circled each other with carefully preserved distance.

  Adam knew that Marie hated that, but he did not know how to make it right. Maybe in time. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be made right.

  Adam returned from Shadow Wood Lane clear-eyed and sober. He drank a glass of water at the sink, rinsed and spat, trying to rid his mouth of the cigarette smoke, and then he took a deep breath and climbed the stairs to his sister’s room. Knocked twice. Paused. Turned the knob, opened the door, and entered, then shut the door behind him.

  The twin bed was in the corner, with a white comforter that had been a recent change from the pink she’d had for most of her childhood, a step toward maturity, tired of anything that suggested a little girl. Stuffed animals vanishing from the room, replaced with stained-glass pieces and candles. The stained glass was a mixed collection, some professional items, some her own handiwork. She’d fallen in love with it at a camp that summer, started taking lessons. Her favorite was a giant turtle with a multicolored shell; she’d done all the cutting and soldering herself, and while it was a beautiful piece, it was too big to hang in the window, so she had settled on resting it on the top of the bookshelf just below, where it still caught sunlight and sparkled. She called the turtle Tito. Nobody knew why, and she was content with that.

  The candles were the other obsession of her final year, and a constant source of friction with their father, unusual in their relationship. She’d been her daddy’s girl, didn’t make many moves that raised his ire, but he was certain she’d burn the house down with the candles. For her last Christmas, Kent and Adam had gone in together on a set of wall-mounted candles with mirrors behind them. They threw the light around the room and caught the stained glass and painted everything with surreal, tinted glows. Marie loved them.

  He lit all the candles now, one at a time. There were thirty-three in the room, from small tea candles to a massive stump-shaped thing that crackled like a wood fire. Initially, he’d debated whether he should light them, knowing they’d burn down eventually and have to be replaced, and he did not want to replace anything that had been sacred to her. But she’d loved to have them lit, loved the flickering glows and the incense mix of smells, and so he decided that was best.

  When they were all lit, Adam sat on the floor with his back against the wall, facing the bed, the way he used to on the nights she called him in to talk, or when he simply barged in to pester her. She hated that—hence the sign she’d put on t
he door—and that made it all the more entertaining for him. If he heard her talking on the phone, he’d beeline for the room, crash through the door, and loudly say the most embarrassing thing he could think of.

  Marie, the doctor called to say your toe fungus is contagious.

  Marie, you left your training bra in the bathroom.

  Marie, Dad’s pissed that you stole his porn again.

  Then there’d come the shout of indignant outrage, the thrown shoe or book or whatever was handy, and the cry for their father. Hank Austin would come up the steps and, depending on his mood, kick Adam out with a smile or with true irritation. Then Marie would slam the door but not lock it—locked doors weren’t allowed in the Austin house—and when she finally emerged, Adam would look at her and smile. She’d try to keep the anger, she’d try so damn hard, but it always melted. She was not someone who could hold anger.

  He sat on the floor and looked at the bed, remembering tossing a football back and forth with her and giving her hell about boys, watching the flush rise in her cheeks as she hotly denied every suggested crush. He’d made a lot of jokes about chaperoning her to dances and sitting behind her at the movies. Protective older brother, that was his role, and he played it so well.

  Until the night it mattered.

  “Hi,” he told the empty room. Silence answered. Colored lights danced as the candles burned amidst the stained glass. “I’ve got something to tell you. You won’t be happy. It’s bad, Marie, but I’m going to make it right. I promise you that. I’m going to make it right.”

  His voice had thickened, and he didn’t like that, so he paused. He wanted a drink, but he would never drink in this room. Never. When he felt steadier he said, “Good news first, okay? Kent won. They’re undefeated. They should have a shot at it, Marie, they really should.”

  He always gave updates about Kent, told her the results of every game, and this return to normalcy helped a little. He could breathe easier and his voice was his own.

  “All right, then,” he continued. “Let me tell you the rest. Let me tell you what I did, and what I will do to fix it.”

  He bowed his head and spoke to the candlelit floor. He told her all there was to tell, and then he told her that he was sorry, again and always, and he got to his feet and blew out the candles, one at a time. Once the last of the light was extinguished and the room was lost to darkness he slipped out, closed the door behind him, and went to see Rachel Bond’s mother.

  12

  ADAM HAD IMAGINED THAT the girl with the glitter nail polish had grown up somewhere pretty and safe and secure. When he saw the shitty apartment building, one in which he had two current clients and countless former, he was at first surprised. Then he remembered why she’d come to see him—her father had been in prison for years, her background was not anything that suggested upscale living—and realized that he was doing it again, the thing he could not do: he was turning Rachel Bond into Marie Lynn Austin.

  There was a van from one of the Cleveland news stations parked in front of the apartment, but the crew appeared to be loading up equipment. Adam cracked the window and smoked a cigarette and waited until they were gone. Then he got out of the Jeep and went to the door to make his promise.

  She would have heard a lot of them by now. None quite like his.

  The first response to his knock, shouted, was, “I told you I got nothing more to say!”

  “Not a reporter, Mrs. Bond.”

  There was a pause, then the sound of footsteps and the ratcheting of the deadbolt. The door opened and a small dog, some sort of mutt with a shiny black coat, rushed forward and shoved his nose against Adam’s jeans. Above the dog stood Penny Gootee, a thin, weary-looking blonde with red-rimmed eyes. She was wearing jeans and a white sweater that was covered in dog hair. Beyond, Adam could see an open beer on the coffee table, a cigarette smoldering in an ashtray beside it, and, on the couch, a worn comforter and a giant stuffed penguin.

  Those last two would be Rachel’s things, he knew. Penny had been on the couch with her daughter’s blanket and stuffed animal, having a beer and a cigarette. Adam felt a red pulse behind his eyes, had to reach out and put one hand on the doorframe.

  “Mrs. Bond,” he said, “my name is Adam Austin. I came to—”

  “Ah, the great coach.”

  “I’m not the coach.”

  She tilted her head, and when she did, her neck cracked. “Who are you, then?”

  He willed his eyes to stay on hers as he said, “I’m the guy who gave her the address. I’m the guy who told her where she could find the man who was pretending to be her father.”

  “Fuck you,” Rachel Bond’s mother said.

  Adam nodded.

  Tears tried to start in her eyes but didn’t find the mass or the energy needed to spill over. The dog jumped up and put his front paws on Adam’s legs and licked his hand, tail wagging.

  “She lied to me about her name and her age,” he said. “I wish she hadn’t. But I should have been paying better attention.”

  Penny reached out and pulled the dog down from Adam and back to her, held his collar.

  “I want to be alone,” she said.

  “I understand that.” He was struggling for his voice now, wanted to turn from the sight of her grief as if it were a bitter winter wind. “I just had to come by to say a few things.”

  “You’re sorry, right? Well, great. I’m real glad to hear that. I’m real damn glad, that just means the world, you have no idea how much that helps.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. And, no, that’s not worth a damn. I came here to make you a promise.”

  She knelt to wrap both arms around the dog. When she spoke, her voice was muffled against his fur.

  “She’s in heaven now? Is that your promise? Or is it that you’re going to help them catch the son of a bitch who killed my daughter? I’ve heard both of those a lot today. They mean as much as your apology. Not shit, Mr. Austin. Not shit.”

  “I’m going to kill him,” Adam said.

  For a moment she just held the dog. When she lifted her face, her eyes focused on his for the first time. She looked as if she intended to speak, but whatever she saw in his eyes closed her parted lips. She just sat there on her knees on the dirty carpet holding the dog.

  “I will find him,” Adam said, “and I will kill him. That task is all that I am now. It is all that I will be until it’s finished. He will die for what he has done. That’s the only thing anyone can give you, and I will give it to you. I promise.”

  The dog whined, pulled toward Adam, and Penny Gootee tightened her arms around him and held. She hadn’t spoken. Adam reached in his pocket and removed a business card.

  “I’ll find him on my own,” he said. “But it may be faster with your help.”

  He extended the card, but she just looked at it, then back at his face.

  “I’ll call the police,” she said. “They need to know what you’re talking about. Coming here, bothering me, saying things like that… they need to know.”

  “Tell them,” Adam said. “When they come to see me, I’ll make the same pledge to them. I’ll make it to anyone who asks. It’s not idle talk. I’m going to find him, and I’m going to kill him, and before the end he’ll know why I came.”

  She reached out and took the card. Held it in one hand and the dog’s collar in the other as behind her the room filled with smoke from the still-burning cigarette, a trail of it rising above her daughter’s blanket, draped there on the edge of the couch.

  “He’s still out there,” Adam said. “And as long as he is, I will be, too.”

  He turned and left then, and she did not call after him or shut the door. When he started the Jeep she was still there on the threshold, on her knees.

  13

  IN THE YEAR THEY’D WON the state title, Adam’s position coach was a man named Eric Scott, who wanted one word to be tattooed onto the brains of his linebackers: motion.

  Coach Scott valued strength, yes, but he worshi
ped speed. Players who pursued the ball relentlessly were prized. You couldn’t wait for contact; you had to initiate it. Victory belonged to those in pursuit of it. Life was motion, he would tell them; you had to keep moving or you’d die. Some players rolled their eyes at that, until they realized that their flat-footedness had landed them on the bench. Then, playing careers dead, they’d consider it with a different eye.

  On Sunday morning, Adam rose with motion on his mind.

  Something he knew he’d have to admit from the start—he wasn’t a detective. Had never been police, had never worked as a PI despite holding the license, had never built an investigation into any sort of crime, let alone something as complex as a homicide. But what he was, what he’d devoted his adult life to becoming, was a hunter. And this was a hunt. His challenge now was not only to do a job for which police were far better prepared and equipped, but also to do it faster.

  Speed and pressure. He had to find ways to apply them.

  He was as good as anyone at finding people who were trying to hide. The problem was that he always knew his targets. Not just their names but personal information, a sense of their lives, of who they were. That helped the hunt. In this situation, he had absolutely none of that, and it threatened to freeze him, a bloodhound being told to start the search without being offered an initial scent. How in the hell did you begin?

  Because he was used to pursuing someone with an identity, and because the lack of one was troubling to him, he decided to offer his target a name. Gideon worked nicely, felt just right. Gideon Pearce was dead, but Adam had not been afforded the opportunity to bring about that end. So his new target should be named Gideon. He could not afford to confuse Rachel Bond with Marie Austin, but blurring her killer and his sister’s into one being? That felt right.

  He read the public details available, and after review, he decided to start with the isolated camp on Shadow Wood Lane, the one that had been dangled in front of the girl’s face so gently, a lure with every hook hidden. It was the furthest thing from an arbitrary location.