I gave that a grudging nod and returned to my chair. “Okay. I hear you. So what’s our play then? Start with the cameras?”
He tugged at his tie and frowned. “I don’t think so. The best way to get the truth about them is probably to break Huggins down, and I think we can do that by connecting him to Padgett and Rabold. I’d rather start with a hard look at those two. I want to know where they’re from, how long they’ve been cops, what cases they’ve worked, who they drink with, who they sleep with. First things I want to look at when I’m investigating sleazy cops are their conduct evaluations.”
“Think we can get those?”
He allowed a rare cocky smile to slide across his face. “I can get the chief’s checkbook if I want it, LP.”
“Then make the call. But you’re forgetting about something.”
“Oh?”
“Mitch Corbett.”
He let his breath out loudly and nodded. “Shit, you’re right. I had forgotten about him. If he’s important to Padgett, he needs to be important to us.”
I told him what little I’d learned with my phone calls the previous night.
“His brother wasn’t helpful,” I said, “nor was he fond of Mitch. Could be the truth, or it could be a smokescreen he’s putting up because his brother’s hiding out at his place.”
“All right,” Joe said. “Let’s do it like this: You work Corbett this afternoon. Get everything you can. And I’ll do the background on Padgett and Rabold.”
Family hadn’t proved particularly helpful in my quest for information about Mitch Corbett, and I didn’t know any of his friends other than the dead one. That left me with coworkers. Jimmy Cancerno was Corbett’s boss, but he hadn’t appeared to be too interested in cooperating the previous day. I decided I’d drive out to Cancerno’s construction company anyhow, talk to whomever I could find, and see where it led me. If Ed and Corbett had become friends on the job, it stood to reason there had been a couple other guys in the mix.
Pinnacle Properties, Cancerno’s contracting company, was located on Pearl Road, just south of Riverside Cemetery. On the other side of the interstate was MetroHealth, where my father had worked as a paramedic for years. MetroHealth was home to the city’s busiest emergency room, and that had provided a constant sound track to the neighborhood when I was growing up. As I drove, an ambulance siren was wailing a few blocks away, and as soon as it faded, I could hear the thumping of helicopter blades as a medical chopper headed north for the landing pad on the roof of the hospital.
Pinnacle Properties was housed in a long prefabricated warehouse that gleamed in the afternoon sun. A small office was built into the front of the warehouse, and a half dozen cars were in the parking lot. I got out of the truck and walked into the office.
A young, blond girl with a good smile was behind the only desk inside. I told her I was looking for Mitch Corbett, just in case she had more up-to-date information than I did.
“Hmm,” she said, “Mitch hasn’t been working this week. I don’t know what that’s about. I can radio out to the site and see if he showed up late today, though.”
“Tell you what, you tell me where those guys are and I’ll drive out and have a word with them myself. If Mitch isn’t around, I can always talk to . . .” I frowned, thoughtful, then pointed at her for assistance, as if I’d drawn a momentary blank on the name.
“Jeff.”
“Right, Jeff.” I smiled at her. “I’ll talk to Jeff if Mitch isn’t around. Where are they?”
She gave me an address on Erin Avenue. I thanked her, returned to my truck, and drove north on Pearl until it became West Twenty-fifth Street just past Clark Avenue. A left turn onto Erin Avenue, and then I slowed down to look at the house numbers. I found the one I needed without bothering to look at the address; a Pinnacle Properties pickup truck was parked in front of the house. The home itself was a narrow, two-story duplex that had seen better days. A pile of trash and debris was at the curb, and a weather-beaten sign stuck in the weed-riddled front yard claimed the house as a NEIGHBORHOOD ALLIANCE ACQUISITION.
I parked across the street and walked over and up the driveway. I could hear a stereo going inside, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gimme Three Steps” playing just as I was on my way up the three front steps of the house. Then the side door opened with a bang and a thick guy with red hair and no shirt stepped outside, followed by a Hispanic man with chiseled muscles. Each held bulging garbage bags in their hands as they marched down the driveway. They tossed them on top of the pile, and both bags promptly rolled off and fell on the sidewalk, something inside one of them shattering. The Hispanic guy turned around, indifferent, and spotted me standing at the door. The redhead was replacing the fallen bags to the top of the garbage heap.
“This is private property,” the Hispanic guy said. “You got a reason to be up there?” His companion turned around at that and gave me a curious glance.
I left the front door and walked down to the driveway to meet them. “How’s it going? I’m looking for a Jeff?”
“You got him,” the redhead said. “Jeff Franklin.” He pulled off a thick work glove and offered me his meaty hand. We shook, both of us squinting against the sun that shone down uninhibited by any trees. The Hispanic guy spat on the sidewalk and looked bored.
“My name’s Lincoln Perry. I was hoping you could help me find someone.”
“Yeah?”
“Mitch Corbett.”
Jeff Franklin gave me an interested look as he pulled a red bandanna from his back pocket and wiped his face with it. His barrel chest was soaked with sweat beneath a mat of curly red hair, and his upper arms were all freckles.
“Mitch’s missing, I’m afraid,” he said. “Hasn’t been in for a few days.”
“Is that unusual?”
He nodded. “Very. I’ve worked with him for more’n a year and I can’t think of a single sick day he took. Man’s a hard worker.”
“What’re you, a cop?” the Hispanic guy asked, then spat on the pavement again.
“No. Just someone who needs to talk to this man.” I nodded pointedly at Jeff Franklin, making it clear that I had no interest in the other guy, nor any desire for him to stick around. Before he could object to that, Franklin handled it for me.
“Go on inside and help the rest of the guys, Ramone. We got a lot to finish up today.”
Ramone shrugged and went back up the driveway, shoulders slouched, swaggering. Jeff Franklin watched him and sighed, then tucked the bandanna back in his pocket.
“Can I ask why you’re needing Mitch?”
There was something about Jeff Franklin that I liked. He carried himself confidently but without pretense, and I had the sense he would reciprocate straight talk with more of the same.
“I’m a private investigator. And I was a friend of Ed Gradduk’s a long time ago.”
Jeff Franklin gazed at me with sad eyes. “Let’s you and I go sit down. You want a Coke?”
I started to shake my head, but he was already gone. He went out to the pickup truck, dug two cans of Coke out of a cooler, then walked back up the driveway and over to the sagging front porch. He sat down on it, opened one can of Coke, and handed the other to me.
“Ed was a good man,” he said after he took a drink. “He’d only worked with us for about six months, but you get to know a fella pretty well in six months of work. And I liked him.”
“I did, too.”
He drank some more of the Coke, then muffled a belch and studied me. “You think he killed that woman?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t. And that’s why I’m here.”
“Looking for Mitch? What’s he got in it?”
“Maybe nothing. But I won’t know till I ask him. And I’m a little concerned that he’s missing. I was told he and Ed were pretty close.”
“They were.” Jeff Franklin tugged the bandanna out of his pocket again, held it idly in one hand, the Coke in the other. “Mitch and Ed took to each other. Mitch was about twenty years o
lder, of course, but they had a similar sort of personality, you know? Laughed at jokes nobody else thought was funny, noticed things nobody else noticed. Yeah, they got along, all right.”
“How long have you known Corbett?”
He chewed on his lip absently while he thought about it. “I guess almost two years. That’s how long I’ve been working for Jimmy, and Mitch was on when I got the job. He’s the crew supervisor.”
“Longtime construction worker, then?”
“All his life. Went into the army and came out a demolitions specialist, hired on with Jimmy. Been with him ever since.”
“You say he was a demolitions expert?”
Jeff started to nod, then stopped and narrowed his eyes. “You thinking about that fire?”
“Maybe.”
He shook his head. “Mitch is a good man, mister.”
“So was Ed.”
“I agree. And that’s why I like to think neither of them had anything to do with it.”
“You seen Mitch since Ed died?”
“No, I haven’t. Last time I saw Mitch was the day before all that got started.” He crumpled the Coke can and looked at me. “You think those two were into something together, don’t you?”
“Could be. You got any ideas?”
He shook his head, and I believed him. He looked as if he would love to help me if he could.
“I need to talk to somebody who was close to him,” I said. “Hell, close to either of them. I’m starting from scratch here. Take what I can get.”
Jeff Franklin frowned. “I dunno what I can tell you. We all worked together, but not much was said other than the usual, you know? Sports and trucks and women and such. I got four kids, so when it’s quitting time I’m done and gone. Didn’t have much chance to hang out with the rest of the boys. Mitch and Ed ran around together some, I know, but that’s about it.”
“You don’t know anyone else that Corbett spent time with?”
He chewed on his lip. “Well, this isn’t a person, but he had a volunteer job in the evenings and on weekends, working down at some gym on Clark Avenue. Refereeing basketball and keeping the kids in line, that sort of thing.”
“Clark Rec Center?” I said, and he nodded.
“It ain’t much,” he said, “but it’s all I got for you.”
When I left, Jeff Franklin asked me to call him if I learned anything about Mitch, and I told him that I would.
“Nobody around to worry about Mitch,” he said. “No family to speak of, and not many friends. Man kept to himself. I keep wondering if we shouldn’t talk to the police, but everybody else told me not to sweat it. Said Mitch was fine and that he’d be back when he got ready to be back.”
He cocked his head at me. “But you know? I’m not feeling so sure about that anymore.”
CHAPTER 13
Clark Rec had been a special place to me as a kid. Even then, it had been a relic from another time, but that was what made it special. There’s an indoor pool, which is damn exciting to a Cleveland kid during the winter, but it isn’t the stainless-steel tank and glaring light of your modern YMCA pool. It’s a narrow lap pool, the floors tile and the walls painted with murals, everything lit with a sort of mellow aquamarine glow, skylights filtering in some natural light from above. I learned how to swim there, and, when no adults were looking, how to do one hell of a cannonball.
There’s a basketball court, too, and it seems like a cage in a way, the court sunken and bordered closely on every side by stone walls. There aren’t any bleachers for spectators alongside the court, but a balcony rims it, and that’s where you’d sit if you wanted to watch, looking down on the action. CLARK WARRIORS is painted across the side of the balcony, a nickname that probably used to apply to the rec league team, even though I always connected it to West Tech High School’s Warriors when I was a kid. I learned to shoot in that time warp of a gym, learned how to watch the offensive player’s midsection to avoid being faked out on defense, how to box out for a rebound, run the fast break.
Out in front of the court is a room filled with picnic tables and games like air hockey and Ping-Pong. This is the room I entered from the street when I came from my talk with Jeff Franklin. Kids were coloring with crayons and construction paper at one of the picnic tables, a trim black woman standing over them. I moved left, looking for a less occupied adult, and then I couldn’t resist walking down to peek in at the old pool. Brightly colored fish were painted on the walls now, along with two signs declaring that it was illegal to carry a firearm into the building. There was also a photograph of a young girl, the word MISSING written above her head in bold, black font. I took a deep breath of the chlorine-scented air, shook my head, and walked back into the front room.
It was surprisingly quiet. Maybe a dozen kids were huddled around the tables, but there wasn’t the jumble of voices and loud laughter that you usually hear when kids are gathered together. The black woman was kneeling beside one of the children, a girl of maybe eight who had tears on her cheeks. The woman whispered soothingly to her, and the girl nodded and sniffed. She had long brown braids and big eyes and she looked tired. There’d probably been some sort of an argument or fight between the kids. The woman had probably responded to it by ordering a silent period. That would explain the odd quiet in the room.
Killing time till the woman was available, I walked over to the table and stood a few feet behind the group, glanced over the shoulders of the kids, at their artwork. What I saw made me raise my eyebrows and step closer. One of the girls had drawn a group of people with frowns and big blue teardrops on their faces. A child’s rendition of anguished, grieving people. Above that group she’d drawn clouds, a woman hovering in them, a halo on her head. The boy beside her was working with a pencil instead of crayons, and he had some real artistic ability, more talent at nine or ten than most adults would ever have. His sketch was of a graveyard. A cluster of small headstones surrounded a larger monument. All of the stones were drawn with hard, dark lines, the earth beneath them and the sky above them shaded a light gray. The only color on the page was on the petals of the few flowers he’d drawn near the large monument, their bright hues standing out stark against the black and gray background. It was a hell of a good picture for a child of that age, and I was captivated by him as he worked, handling the pencil so naturally and confidently. He’d probably never had any formal training.
I looked back and forth at the two pictures, then at the weeping girl at the far end of the table. The room was as silent as the empty gym I’d been in a moment earlier. The black woman finally spotted me, whispered a few final words in the girl’s ear, then walked around the table to talk with me. Her nametag identified her as Stacey, and her face was about as cheerful as the artwork on the table.
“Welcome to Clark Rec,” she said in a low whisper. “What can we do for you?”
I forced a smile, which felt out of place in the room. “I used to spend a lot of time here, growing up.”
“A nostalgia visit then?” she said, no return smile.
“An unintended one,” I admitted. “But the real reason I’m here is to ask about a guy named Mitch Corbett. I heard he does some volunteer work around here.”
“That’s right.” She was looking with concern at the girl she’d just left, who was now wiping at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Mitch is a big help with the basketball leagues. Has been for years. These kids would tell you he’s also the best air hockey player in the world.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
Her expression immediately became alarmed. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing’s happened. I’m a private investigator, and Mitch Corbett might have some background information that could help me in a case. I’ve been hoping to catch up with him, but I haven’t had any luck.”
She folded her arms across her chest and took a step back. “I see. Well, I don’t know what to tell you. He isn’t scheduled to he here until next weekend.”
&nb
sp; “When did he work last?”
“Saturday.”
Saturday was four days ago, before the fire on Train Avenue.
“So that was the last time you saw him?” I asked.
“Yes. Are you being honest, sir? Are you sure nothing’s happened to Mitch?”
“I don’t know of anything that has,” I said, which was as honest as I could be.
“Thank goodness.” She laid her hand over her chest. “The last thing I want to have to tell these children is that something happened to Mitch.”
I nodded my head in the direction of the picnic table. “It’s none of my business, but the mood over there looks pretty somber. So does the artwork.”
“It’s a sad day. The children just found out they lost a friend. I had to tell them about it. I suggested they draw some pictures to express how they feel. It’s good for them to have a way to release what they’re feeling. At this age, they sometimes do that better through pictures than they do verbally.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But the picture idea sounds like a good one.”
“They seem very involved with it.”
I was looking at the girl with the brown braids. She had finally picked up a crayon and returned to her picture. Her lower lip was pinched between her teeth as she steeled herself against further tears.
“Was the child who died especially close to the girl you were talking with?”
Stacey shook her head. “Lily has a family situation to deal with, as well. I think she just got overwhelmed by it all today. And the friend wasn’t a child.”
“No?”
“No. It was an adult. You might have heard about it on the news. The poor woman who was killed in the fire?”
I stared at her. She watched me with raised eyebrows.
“Have you heard about that?” she asked.
“Anita Sentalar? The woman who died in a house fire on Train Avenue?”
“Yes. It was awful, wasn’t it?”
I looked away from her, back at the kids and their pictures. “Anita Sentalar worked here?”
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