The Silent Hour

by Michael Koryta

  "Okay, then who did call you, Ken— Who sent you up from Pittsburgh to ply me with booze and get me to talk—"

  "Booze was your idea. I just fell in line."

  "We're not going to accomplish much," I said, "if neither one of us is willing to say who we're working for. That's fine with me. There's nothing that I want to accomplish. That doesn't seem to be the case for you."

  "If I tell you who tipped me, do I get reciprocity— Will you tell me your client's name—"

  I shook my head.

  "Damn," he said. "I was afraid of that. But the good news, Lincoln, is that ultimately I'm not too worried about your client. That's not why I'm here."

  "No— Then what is it—"

  "I want you to work with me. Or, rather, I'd like to work with you. I've done some background research. Seems like you're awfully good. I need help on this one."

  "By this one, you mean…"

  "Finding out who killed Joshua Cantrell."

  I shook my head. "No thanks, Ken."

  "Sanabria scared you that much, huh—"

  "It's not just that, though I'll admit he did a damn good job. There's nothing in it for me. I have no interest in it."

  "Really." His Guinness was almost gone. "I'm surprised to hear that. Because what this one has, man, is some intrigue, and most of the detectives I know, well, they go for that sort of thing. The challenge. At least the detectives who are worth a damn."

  "Then I must not qualify for that list."

  "So if I were to say I could fill you in on Cantrell's history, tell you about the happy couple, what they did up until the time they vanished, you'd say no thanks— Prefer not to hear about it—"

  "All I care to hear about is how you learned that I'd inquired about their house."

  "You want to know that, I'll tell you," he said, "but you'll have to sit through the rest of it, too. Because if I start, I'm starting at the beginning."

  I didn't answer.

  He slid out of the booth and got to his feet. "You want a pass on that, I'll walk out the door and drive back home. If you want to hear about it, though, then I think I better buy another round."

  Somebody burst into loud laughter at the bar while Ken Merriman stood above me, waiting. Then the laughter faded and it was quiet.

  Merriman shifted and spread his hands. "Well—"

  "Bring me another Moosehead," I said, "and a bourbon. I think I'll need both."

  He'd been hired by Joshua Cantrell's parents, James and Maria, about two months after their son and daughter-in-law left the house near Hinckley for places unknown. It wasn't an especially close-knit family—the Cantrells hadn't been on the best terms with their son in many years, too many social and ideological differences—but it was also unusual for weeks to pass without any word. When they finally called, they learned the phone was disconnected.

  "Took them about another month to grow concerned enough to hire me," Ken said. "They drove out and saw the house was empty, then went to the local police, who nosed around enough to determine that Alexandra had made arrangements for the care of the place. That implied a willing departure, not a crime. Nothing illegal about ignoring your parents."

  James and Maria Cantrell couldn't believe their son would have made such an abrupt, unannounced departure, and as the weeks went by and still no word came, they grew certain something was terribly wrong.

  "When they came to see me that first time, they were petrified," Ken said. "It was difficult to get anything close to a fact out of them."

  What he found, once he began looking into the situation, was that there weren't many facts. The only person who'd had any knowledge of the couple's plans to leave was Anthony Child, and he'd been contacted by phone. Child swore that he knew Alexandra's voice and believed without a doubt that she was the one who'd given him his instructions.

  "For twelve years the police have refused to look into this because that woman's contact with Child suggested they'd just gotten a wild hair and taken off somewhere," Ken said when he returned from the bar with two more beers and two more bourbons. "Until the body was found, at least. That's shaken things up."

  The problem, Ken admitted, was that the couple seemed like the type who might get a wild hair and take off. They were an eclectic pair, and most of their interests—holistic practices, faith healing, spiritual retreats—suggested a life outside of the ordinary. Those close to the Cantrells, while surprised by the disappearance, had to admit it seemed to suit them.

  Ken worked the case for months and never developed a lead on the missing couple's whereabouts or the reason for their departure. What he did learn was a great deal about their past, including one particularly interesting detail: For years, the couple had maintained a relationship with the state's department of corrections, helping to transition violent offenders through the early stages of parole.

  "They met when they were both studying offender rehabilitation in graduate school," Ken told me. "Found some sort of mutual interest there. Academic for Joshua, personal for Alexandra. You can imagine why. Her father had been in and out of jail before being murdered, and her brothers were moving quickly down the same path. Anyhow, once they were married, she and Joshua teamed up to write a few papers, conducted some studies, and got hooked up with an alternative program that snagged a federal grant. At that time, the state was real concerned with engaging the offender's family to help with reentry. The problem that the Cantrells raised was, what about the offender who has no family, or whose family is a cancer to him—"

  I sipped my beer and kept my eyes on the table while I listened, not wanting to react in a way that suggested this was anything but new to me. I still hadn't decided whether I'd disclose Harrison's identity, but this twist in the conversation had me wondering if Ken would bring him up of his own accord.

  "A police detective called me a few months back, after Cantrell's body was found," he said. "They'd heard I'd investigated in the beginning, and he wanted to know if I'd come across anyone who could work as a homicide suspect. I told him, yeah, I've got twenty-eight names."

  The twenty-eight names belonged to the violent offenders Alexandra and Joshua had helped transition back into the world. We had another round of drinks while Ken recited their crimes, which ranged from bank robbery to rape and murder. As of Ken's last count, nineteen of them were still free, and two were dead.

  "That means only seven of the offenders who worked with the Cantrells returned to prison," he said. "You know anything about recidivism numbers—"

  "Enough to know that's a hell of a lot better than average."

  "Yes," he said. "It absolutely is. So whatever they were doing, it seemed to work."

  "What were they doing, exactly—"

  "At first, they were acting as, well, I guess you'd call it a sort of foster family. They kind of adopted these guys, stayed close to them, counseled them, things like that. By the end, after they bought that land in Hinckley, it changed. They would hire these guys to work for them, kept them on for six months to a year. They paid them well, but the catch was the guys also had to live there."

  "In the house—"

  "Yes. Imagine that, welcoming convicted killers into your home. Also, while everything out there was modern enough—running water, electricity, all that—they insisted that all the work be done by hand, and without power tools." He grinned at me. "Weird stuff, huh—"

  At first I thought they were crazy for requiring that… Then I came to understand how important it was. How the sound of an engine would have destroyed what was there.

  "Weird," I agreed and finished my beer.

  "Alexandra contended that a great contributing factor to recidivism was a loss of touch with the natural world," Ken said. "That prolonged incarceration created this traumatic sense of isolation."

  "Okay."

  "I talked to a woman with the state parole office who worked with the Cantrells, and she said that Alexandra's vision was for a new sort of prison, one that didn't isolate the inmates from na
ture. As you can imagine, making that sort of change was going to be difficult. So she brought the same ideas over to the reentry side."

  "She wanted the parolees to, what, bond with nature—"

  "Evidently. She had all these studies. One demonstrated that just a view of nature from a hospital window reduced reliance on pain medication; another showed inmates who participated in a gardening program had improved recidivism rates. Since she couldn't get the support she wanted, she created the program of her desires on a very small scale."

  "How were the parolees chosen—" I asked.

  "The Cantrells would review their files, their case histories, and then extend the offer. The offenders were under no obligation to accept, but they always did. The pay was good. The Cantrells had one stipulation: They'd only take violent offenders. Preferably murderers."

  "That's different from the requirements I've had for roommates over the years."

  "Not a request you see in a lot of personal ads, either."

  "So how many of these guys did they actually have out there, working for them—"

  "Four," he said. "None of those have shown up back in prison—but one is dead."

  "How'd he go—"

  "Mysterious death," he said. "Not long after leaving the Cantrells' care."

  It was quiet for a moment, and then I said, "Seems like it was a hit-or-miss program," and Ken's smile returned.

  "Yes. Seems like it was. Apparently they were hoping to use the handful they'd worked with to get a larger program going. Those first four were test subjects, I guess."

  "Okay. So you've got twenty-eight violent criminals who worked closely with the couple, and you've got the daughter of a bloody mob legacy. Not hurting for suspects."

  "No."

  "So where did you get with it—"

  He looked down at his glass. Empty again. We'd gone through a few of them by now. I'd lost track. Bourbon with a beer back can do that.

  "Absolutely nowhere, Lincoln. I got nothing. I wanted to pursue it, but the parents didn't have much money, and they couldn't pay to keep me running back and forth from Pittsburgh. Originally they hired me because they wanted someone they could meet with face-to-face, someone local, but I blew through their budget and didn't turn up a damn thing, and I couldn't justify taking more of their money. They didn't have much."

  "This was twelve years ago—"

  "Eleven years ago, by the time they pulled the plug."

  "So what the hell are you doing up here now—"

  His easygoing humor had faded, and he seemed uncomfortable. "You want another round—"

  "I want you to answer the question."

  He was quiet.

  "Who told you about me—" I said.

  "That's what you're worried about— It was your buddy Sanabria."

  "He hired you—"

  "Didn't hire me. I'd crossed paths with him briefly when I got started on this years back, and apparently he hadn't forgotten my name. Called me last week to ask if you were working with me or for Cantrell's parents. I told him no way to the former and no idea to the latter. He seemed dissatisfied with that."

  "I've seen that reaction from him, yes."

  "So that was how I got your name, and I was curious, right, because this case hadn't left my mind over the years, and it really came back to me when Joshua's body was found. I did a little research on you, saw that you've done some major work—some serious, serious stuff—and I thought, what the hell, why not drive up there and make a pitch."

  "I don't understand the pitch."

  "I want to work the case, man. With you, ideally. Without you, if you say no.”

  "You've got no client, Ken. What's the point—"

  He braced both forearms on the table and leaned closer. "The point is I've been in this business for fourteen years and never investigated anything that mattered. You know what I've done, year in and year out— Insurance work and infidelity cases. That's it."

  "That's how you pay the bills. Isn't that the goal—"

  "No! Bullshit it's the goal." He slapped the table and leaned away again. "You're doing this just to pay the bills— Really— That's why you got into the business—"

  "I got into the business because I got fired, Ken."

  "I know that. You got canned as a police detective, and you set up shop as a private detective. Why—"

  "It's all I was qualified for."

  He blew out a disgusted breath and looked away from me.

  "I get your point," I said. "This has more appeal than an insurance case. If I here's one type of detective I've never trusted, though, it's a glory hound."

  "That's not what I'm after, damn it. That's not what I mean at all." He sighed and ran both hands through his sandy hair. His face had taken on a flush, and his eyes were beginning to show the booze. "All I'm trying to say is, in fourteen years I've had just one case that really mattered, and I didn't accomplish anything on it. Didn't find their son. Now the son has been found, and he's dead, and I'd like to be able to tell them why."

  I looked away from him, suddenly wishing I'd let him go for that next round.

  "You've had cases like this," he said, voice soft. "I've read about you, Lincoln, I already told you that. You've had cases that mattered. Had cases that… that people cared about. People other than you, people other than your clients."

  "Ken," I began, but he was still talking.

  "My daughter—she's fourteen—she's a fan of the police shows. You know, the TV bullshit, none of it's close to reality, but she enjoys them. There are times… times when she asks me about my job, and I find myself… not lying maybe, but I'm spinning it, Lincoln. Trying to make it sound like more than it is. More than chasing cheating spouses and taking pictures of accident scenes." He pushed his empty glass away and forced a laugh. "I've had one too many if I'm telling you this."

  I didn't say anything.

  "You don't have kids," he said.

  "No."

  He nodded. "You don't have kids, you've never been divorced. You haven't watched some other guy step into your daughter's life. Some other guy who is a damn doctor, Lincoln. A surgeon. Saving lives, right— That's what he does. I'm out there taking photos next to a Dumpster, hoping to get a picture of some loser kissing some tramp, hoping to go back to my client and say, yeah, turns out your husband is an asshole—can I have my check now— Meanwhile, my daughter, she's going home to that big house, waiting for her stepfather to drive up in his Porsche with a story about a liver transplant or some shit."

  His voice had been rising steadily, closing in on a shout, and he caught it at that point, paused. The bar had filled in as the night grew later, and there were other people in the dining room. I had my back to them, but I could feel the stares. We sat there in silence, though, and once the rest of the room realized

  Ken's rant had concluded, they lost interest and went back to their own conversations and drinks.

  "I know it's petty to care," he said. "I know that, but you try not caring about something like that. You give that a shot."

  He reached for his empty glass, wrapped his hand around it, and held it.

  "Ken," I said. "This case… nothing good comes out of working it. You do understand that, don't you—"

  He shook his head. "No. No, I do not understand that. What I understand is that the man and his wife went missing, Lincoln, vanished and did not appear again until his remains were found. So now he's dead, and she's still missing, and his parents still have no idea what the hell happened. They have no idea what went wrong in their son's life, how his bones ended up in the woods an hour's drive from the million-dollar home he left without a word."

  He looked me in the eye. "I want to tell them what happened. I don't give a damn if it's the Sanabria family or the Manson family, or who that guy was married to, I want to be able to go back to those people and tell them, this is what happened to your son."

  He lifted the glass, remembered it was empty, and lowered it again. "I'm not good enough to
do that on my own."

  I shook my head, but he was already shaking his own right back at me.

  "Lincoln, I've tried to do it on my own. I didn't succeed."

  "There's no reason to think I'd do any better."

  "I disagree."

  There was a long pause, and then he said, "How about this— How about I bring my case file by your office tomorrow. I run through it with you and talk about approach. Talk about where I'm going from here. You could offer some input, right— Is there a reason in the world why you couldn't at least do that—"

  I was sure there was, but it didn't come to mind fast enough to save me.

  "All right," I said. "I'll do that much."

  He toasted me with the empty glass.

  * * *

  Chapter Nine

  That night strips of coal-colored clouds skidded over a bright three-quarter moon, pushed by a spirited wind off the lake. I sat on the roof of my building and marveled at their speed, stared long enough that the lights and sounds of the street below faded and I was held by the rhythm of the clouds, by the vanishing and then resurfacing moon. If I looked long enough, it seemed I wasn't on the roof anymore, could instead be miles out at sea, nothing in sight but that moon and those clouds.

  Yeah, I'd had a bit to drink.

  I'd called Amy on the drive home, but she hadn't answered, and I'd soon realized that was for the best—I shouldn't have been driving, let alone driving and using a phone. I put the windows down and took Lorain all the way back, a simple and slow drive, stoplight to stoplight until I got home.

  I missed her, though. That was different. That was something new. Any night I spent without her, I missed her. Sounds like a bad feeling, but it's not. Having somebody in your life to miss… always good. I missed Amy when she was gone, and I'd missed Joe for many months, and all of that meant I wasn't truly alone. There were people who belonged near me, and I felt their absence when it occurred. It was almost a healthy sort of existence. Didn't seem to suit me at all.

  It was a warm night, overcast but without rain, and I didn't even turn the lights on in my apartment, just poured a glass of water in the dark kitchen and took it up on the roof. I settled into one of the lounge chairs and watched a sky that seemed determined to entertain.