Amy was quiet, watching us, and I could imagine Ken’s expression from the concern in her eyes. This case mattered to him. I knew that by now; he’d made it damn clear. Still, I didn’t know what else to tell him.
“So you want to stop?” he said. “This is the end? Go home and forget about it?”
“I’m not saying that.”
“Yeah, you’re not saying anything. What do you think, Lincoln?”
I drummed my fingers on the bar, not looking at either of them for a minute. The bartender pointed at my empty glass and gave me a questioning eye, and I nodded at him. I didn’t speak again until the fresh beer was in my hand.
“I think that you care about this one too much to go home and forget about it—but I also want to point out that it’s been twelve years since they took off, and six months since his body was found. Plenty of time’s already passed, right? So I don’t see the harm, really, in letting it breathe for a few more weeks. Let Graham get his lab results. On a case this old, the breaks usually do come from the lab.”
“What if they don’t?”
“If they don’t, we figure out how to move forward, yet after talking to Graham tonight, I think it’s a good idea to let it breathe, Ken. At least for a few weeks. We want to assist the police investigation, not slow it down by fighting with them.”
He was quiet, clearly unsatisfied. He looked up at Amy as if searching for support, then flicked his eyes down when he didn’t find any there.
“So I head home,” he said.
“I’m not telling you that. Graham is. Although I think there’s probably more smoke than fire to that. Besides, he’s angry.”
“You just said you wanted to let it breathe.”
I shrugged.
“Basically, Graham wants me out of it. Right?”
“It wasn’t a one-person decree.”
He shook his head. “Maybe not, but I’m the one he doesn’t trust in it. What was it he said today? Something about how he’d essentially asked you to babysit me, make sure I didn’t cause any trouble. That makes sense, too. I can’t fault him for that. You’ve got the experience on a real investigation. I don’t. Hell, I’m the one who already had a shot at this and couldn’t come up with a damn thing to show for it, right?”
“Nobody else has, either.”
“I guess I can take comfort in being part of a group failure.” He sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “So what’s your take, then? Should I listen to him and pull off?”
“Let’s figure it out tomorrow. Come to the office in the morning and we’ll talk.”
He nodded, but the energy had gone out of the night, all of us quiet now, flat.
“Hey.” I slapped the bar, got both of them to look up. “I think we should tie one on tonight. Go downtown, hit some bars. Got six innings left to play, we could even buy some cheap tickets and watch the end of the game. Drink to crazy graveyard groundskeepers and asshole cops.”
“And pompous, untalented editors,” Amy said, lifting her glass, trying to fall in line with my forced enthusiasm. “I’m game.”
Ken gave an empty smile and shook his head, standing and reaching for his wallet. “I’m out,” he said. “Sorry. Not tonight.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “What else do you have to do?”
“Call my daughter, for one thing.”
“So call her, and then we’ll go out. Show you what this beautiful city of Cleveland is all about.”
“Not tonight, Lincoln. I think I’ll head back to the hotel and go over my case file, make some notes.”
“How many times have you been over that file? What’s going to be gained from one more look?”
“You never know. Maybe I’ll shake something loose yet. Convince Graham he’s making a mistake.” He tossed some money on the bar, then put out his hand. “We’ll talk tomorrow, right?”
“Absolutely,” I said, shaking his hand, then watching as Amy stood up to do the same. “Come on down to the office, and we’ll get things figured out.”
It didn’t feel like enough, though.
Last words never do.
24
__________
It took a while for me to determine anything was wrong. I lingered at the bar with Amy long after Ken left, and when we finally departed it was for her apartment and a night that began in the shower and ended in the bedroom. I was aware of her moving around the next morning but managed to tune it out and return to sleep, didn’t come fully awake until almost nine.
By the time I returned to my own apartment, showered, shaved, and dressed, it was nearly ten, and when I finally got to the office I expected Ken might be waiting. He wasn’t, but a voice mail from him was. His voice was hurried, almost breathless.
Lincoln, I think we’ve got something. You got us there, we just needed to see it. Last night, I finally saw it. I’m telling you, man, I think you got us there. I’m going to check something out first, though. I don’t want to throw this at you and then have you explain what I’m missing, how crazy it is—but stay tuned. Stay tuned.
I called him immediately. Five rings, then voice mail.
“What in the hell are you talking about?” I said. “Get your ass down here and tell me what you’ve got cooking.”
I hung up and sat and stared at the phone, both impatient and irritated. My excitement was up, certainly—or at least curiosity—but I also didn’t like being shut out so suddenly. He’d come all the way up here to ask for my help, practically beg for it, and against all better judgment I’d cooperated. Now he felt like he had a break and he’d gone off to field it solo? It was a greedy move, and I’d known some other investigators who pulled it when they had a chance for glory. This case was Ken’s baby—he’d been working it for twelve years, not me—but I still wasn’t impressed.
Thirty minutes passed. I called him again, got voice mail, didn’t leave a message. Waited an hour, called again, left another message, hearing the annoyance in my own voice and not caring. It wasn’t just a greedy move, I’d decided, it was a damned foolish one. With his total lack of experience on homicide cases, he could screw this up. Whatever this was.
Noon came and went, and I thought about lunch but didn’t go for it, not wanting to leave the office phone. I was seething over the fact that he’d called the office line instead of my cell anyhow. He’d wanted to be sure he got a head start on this thing by himself, which was bullshit. I didn’t give a damn who got the credit, supposing he had made a break—though that seemed like one hell of a long shot to me—but it was my ass that was on the line with Graham.
At two o’clock, Graham called. I recognized his number and hesitated before answering, part of me afraid he was already aware of whatever Ken was attempting and pissed off about it, another part thinking it was my job to warn him. Either way, it wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have, but I answered.
“I don’t know whether I should give you blame or credit,” he said, “but whatever you did to stir Harrison up, he’s in action again. That could be good or bad.”
“What do you mean, he’s in action?”
“I checked the phone call from last night. The one you mentioned.”
“Yeah?”
“He called Sanabria.”
Neither of us spoke for a minute, just sat there across the miles holding our respective phones and considering the possibilities.
“Okay,” I said. “That’s one call. Right after I left. Right after he’d told me to hang it up. Were there any others?”
“Uh-huh. One more, made day before yesterday, in the evening.”
Just before Harrison had called me to ask for a meeting.
“Sanabria told him to get rid of me,” I said.
“Possibly.”
“How did he know I was working with Harrison to begin with? You said there hadn’t been any other calls between them. Not since the body was discovered.”
“They don’t always have to use the phone, Linc. In fact, I’m surprised they do it this ofte
n.”
“I guess.”
“Another possibility is your buddy.”
“Ken? Are you crazy?”
“Linc, you remember how he found his way to you?”
I was quiet.
“Sanabria,” he said. “Right? Dominic Sanabria called him. That’s what he told you, that’s what he told me. So they’ve been in communication. Who says it stopped with that call?”
“Do you have any records saying it didn’t?”
“No.”
“Then I’m not—”
“Remember, there are plenty of other ways they could have had contact. Face-to-face, through an associate, e-mails, other phones. All I’m saying is let’s not rule Kenny out of the mix entirely. He around?”
“No.”
“Gone home?”
“No. He’s in the field.”
“In the field, you say? Doing what?”
“I have no clue.”
“Excuse me?”
I told him about the message and said it was the only thing I’d heard from him all day. He responded, as expected, by reaming me for letting Ken head off into unknown avenues of investigation. My patience wasn’t strong enough to take it today.
“I’m not his caretaker, Graham. I don’t know the guy any better than you do, and if you want somebody monitoring him, you better get an officer on it. Last night, I told him I was done. That it was time to back off. If he doesn’t do that, it’s your problem, not mine.”
The words sounded childish, petulant, and that only contributed to my growing anger. It had been directed at Ken originally, for cutting me out, now at Graham for blaming me for that, and only built after I hung up the phone. Another hour passed before I finally forced myself to admit that another emotion was bubbling beneath the surface: fear. I was beginning to hear the first drumbeats of dread. Where was Ken?
In the next hour, I called his cell six times and got voice mail every time. I left two messages, then called his hotel and asked to be put through to the room. Again, just rings and a voice mail option.
At twenty till five, I got in my truck and drove to his hotel, went up to room 712 and pounded on the door. No answer. I took the elevator back down to the lobby, stood in the corner, and looked the reception desk over. Two clerks working, one male and one female. I’d talked to a guy on the phone, which meant he’d be more sensitive to Ken’s name. Ken had been there a few days, and there was a chance both of the clerks knew him by now, but it was a big hotel, busy, and I thought I’d take a chance. I waited until the guy took a phone call, then approached the woman with a rapid step, feigning great annoyance, and told her I’d locked my keycard in the room.
“Okay, sir, if you could tell me—”
“Room 712, the name is Merriman.”
“All right, 712 . . . I’ve got it. Now, can I see some ID?”
I gave her my best look of condescending patience, as if I were dealing with a child, and said, “Um, I’m locked out, remember?”
She stared at me.
“Wallet’s in the room,” I said. “I was just running down the hall to get some ice.”
No ice bucket in hand, but she didn’t seem likely to notice that or care.
“Well, I would have no way of knowing that, would I?” Snippy now, offended. She looked down at the computer screen, then over at her co-worker, who was still talking on the phone.
“I’ll just scan you another one. Hang on.” She grabbed a blank keycard, ran it through the scanner, hit a few keys, and passed it over. I thanked her and went back to the elevator, rose up to the seventh floor, and walked back to stand in front of the closed door to 712.
I knocked again, just in case. Nothing. Then I slid the key in, waited for the green light to flick on, and pushed the door open.
The so-called living room was in front of me, the bedroom beyond it, with the little kitchen jammed in between. Nothing seemed out of place—no corpse on the bed, no blood splatters on the walls.
Ken’s suitcase remained, a pair of pants and a sport coat draped over it. Tossed there casually, the way you would if you knew you were coming back soon. The air-conditioning was humming away even though it wasn’t much past seventy outside, turning the room into an icebox. I let the door swing shut, stepped into the cold room, and made a quick circuit through it, looking for anything noteworthy and finding nothing. Housekeeping had already made a pass through—the bed was made and the bathroom cleaned, with fresh towels and soap out. If anything had gone wrong in this room, word would have been out long before I conned my way into a keycard.
I saw a charging cord trailing from the bedside table to a wall outlet, and that made me wonder if he could have left his cell phone behind in the room, explaining why he hadn’t answered. I took my phone out and called his number, waiting hopefully as it began to ring, thinking I might hear it in the room. There was nothing, though.
As I stood there amid his things, I began to feel intrusive. I had no right to be there, not just from the hotel’s point of view but also from Ken’s. He’d been gone a few hours, that was all. Hadn’t returned my calls yet. That hardly gave me justification to break into his room and go through his things. Now that I was in here, away from Graham’s suspicions and Harrison’s questions and the collision those things had with my faith in Ken, the sense of urgency faded a bit. He’d turn up soon, and then I’d have to admit that I’d done this and hope he’d be more amused than angry. It would be an embarrassing moment for me. Right then, though, I was looking forward to that embarrassment. By the time I could feel shame over my actions, he’d be back.
I walked out of the bedroom and back toward the door, then stopped in the living room and looked down at the coffee table. His laptop sat there, closed but with a blinking green light indicating it was still on. There was a blank CD in a clear plastic case on top of the computer. I leaned over and picked it up, read the scrawled Peter Case, CTB written with a black marker across the disc. “Cold Trail Blues.” The song he’d promised to burn me, his surveillance song.
I put the CD into my pocket. Even the guilt I was feeling about breaking into his room didn’t give me pause. I don’t know why that was. Maybe it was just that I knew the CD was for me. Maybe it was something darker and more instinctive. Either way, I took it.
I’m glad that I did.
The day faded to evening, and I went back to my apartment and called Amy, asked her to come by. She picked up some Chinese takeout on the way, and while we ate that together I told her about Graham’s call and Ken being MIA. She put her fork down and looked at the clock, and her forehead creased with worry lines.
“He’s not obligated to call, Amy. He’s not our kid, staying out past curfew.”
It was forced nonchalance, though, and she knew it.
“You could call someone else, ask if they’ve heard from him,” Amy said.
“Who? His ex-wife?”
That silenced the conversation, but it shouldn’t have, because the idea wasn’t bad. His ex-wife did hear something before me, when she was called as next of kin and notified that Ken Merriman’s body had been found in one of the Metroparks with two small-caliber bullet wounds, one through his heart and one through his forehead.
The ex-wife heard first, and she gave the police my name. Apparently Ken had spoken of me to his daughter. It was eleven thirty when the phone rang. I was sitting on the couch with my arm around Amy, trying without success to focus on the TV, and for a few seconds before I got to the phone I was sure it would be Ken. They were a pleasant few seconds.
I wish I could have them back.
25
__________
Where his life ended, the police weren’t sure. They knew only where the body had been found, and at four o’clock in the morning, long after I’d widened their eyes with my list of possible suspects, I stood there alone in the dark.
Ken Merriman’s corpse had been discovered on a short but steep hill near the edge of the tree line in Mill Stream Run Reservation, s
nagged in a thicket of undergrowth that was full and green with late-spring enthusiasm. There was honeysuckle nearby, the sweet cloying scent pushed at me by a breeze that rose and fell like long rollers breaking on an empty beach. The breeze was warmer than the still air, and damp, a messenger sent ahead with promises of rain.
At the top of the hill and beyond the tree line, a small field ran across a parking lot. A walking and bike path snaked away from the lot, a silver thread in the darkness. No cars were in the lot but mine, and no traces of police activity remained. The body had been found at eight that evening, and the Metroparks Rangers who interviewed me said they thought it was found soon after it was dumped. Twenty, thirty minutes earlier and they might’ve had an eyewitness.
Instead, there’d been only the discovery, made by two brothers from Berea who’d ridden their bikes down past the YMCA camp with a glow-in-the-dark football. The police had the football now, because one end of its neon green body carried a crimson smear. The kids had tossed it into the woods, where it took one good bounce into the thicket and landed directly on Ken’s body. Throw got away from him, the older brother, who was fourteen, told the police. Then he started to cry.
Maybe I’d come down here to cry myself. Or maybe to rage and swear. Maybe I thought Ken Merriman would speak to me somehow, that alone in the dark in the place where his blood had drained into the earth and then gone dry under the wind I’d be able to feel his presence, understand something about his end and find direction for the justice this required.
None of that happened. I didn’t scream, I didn’t weep, I didn’t hear any voices of dead men. Instead I smelled the honeysuckle and felt that warm, ebbing breeze and wished that I’d turned Ken away the night he arrived from Pennsylvania.
Where had he gone, what had he done, who had he provoked? Why was his body out here in the brambles instead of mine? We’d worked side by side on this since he’d arrived in Cleveland, right up until those last twenty-four hours when I sat at the office waiting on him to show up and he’d gone out and gotten killed.
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