The Silent Hour (6 page)

    "Lincoln,
there's stuff in here… hang on. It says that Cantrell is related by marriage to
organized crime. To the Sanabria family."

    "Yeah,"
I said. "I was recently informed of that."

    "What
in the hell is Parker Harrison trying to do—"

    "I
have no idea, but I guarantee you he knew Cantrell was dead when he sent me out
here. He knew, and he didn't tell me."

    "You
don't think he killed him— That he's playing some sick game now because the
body was found—"

    "I
don't know if he killed him, but, yeah, he's playing some sick game—and I'm
going to end it."

    I
called Harrison from my truck and told him to meet me at the office. I didn't
say anything else. The clouds built overhead as I drove back to the city with
both hands tight on the wheel and the stereo off, the cab of the truck silent.
The rain started when I reached the stoplight across from the office and was
falling steadily as I walked into the building, but the air was still warm,
reassuring us that this was a spring, not winter, storm. Harrison was already
inside, and he met me at the top of the stairs with a smile.

    "When
you said you'd be in touch, I was expecting a bit more of a wait."

    I
didn't say a word. Just unlocked the door and walked inside and sat behind the
desk and stared at him while he took the chair across from me, waited while his
smile faded and his eyes narrowed.

    "What's
the problem—" he said.

    "Did
you kill him—"

    If
I'd been expecting a visceral reaction to that, I was wrong. He lifted his hand
and ran his fingertips over the scar on his cheekbone, let his eyes wander away
from mine. "No, I didn't kill him. If you're referring to Joshua
Cantrell."

    "If
I'm referring… listen, Harrison, you twisted prick, what the hell kind of game
is this— Why do I need to play it—"

    "Hang
on, Lincoln."

    "Shut
up. I shouldn't have ever let you in the door, and when I made that mistake I
definitely
shouldn't have been stupid enough to buy your story. It was a
good one, though, compelling, and you reeled me all the way in with those
questions about whether I believed in rehabilitation, whether I believed in the
system. A nice, subtle guilt trip. I'm sure there's a better word for it, some
psychology term, and you probably know it because you had fifteen years to sit
in a cell and read books and come up with games to play. But you shouldn't have
involved me, Harrison."

    I was
leaning toward him, loud and aggressive, and if that made the slightest impact
he didn't show it. He waited till I'd wound down, then said, "I told you
the truth."

    "Like
hell you did."

    "Lincoln,
I worked for the Cantrells as a groundskeeper for one year, and ever since I've
wondered what—"

    "Oh,
stop it already." I waved him off. "All that may be true, and I don't
care if it is or if it isn't. What I care about is that you lied to me. You sat
there and talked about Joshua Cantrell as if you didn't have the faintest idea
that he was dead. Talked about wanting to find him."

    "I
said nothing about wanting to find him. I said I want to find
her.
In
fact, I assured you he was not the reason she had stayed out of touch."

    "You
already knew he'd been murdered and didn't bother to tell me that. Like it's
insignificant information, Harrison, that the guy is dead and the woman is the
sister
of a Youngstown mob figure— How did you get tied up with those guys
in the first place— Last I knew, the requirement was to be Sicilian, not
Shawnee."

    "I
was never tied up with them."

    "Sure."

    "I
shared minimal facts," he said. "That I will admit."

    My
laugh was heavy with disgust. "Shared minimal facts— Shit, that's brilliant.
You should've been an attorney, Harrison, instead of a murderer."

    That
seemed to sting him, and for a moment he looked entirely genuine again. Looked
hurt.

    "Would
you have taken this case," he said, "if you knew all of that
beforehand—"

    "No."

    "See,
that was my reasoning. I didn't think you would, but I knew if I could get you
to go out to the house, to stand there in that spot under the trees and feel
the energy of that place, that things might change. I knew that was possible,
because I knew this one was meant for you, that you'd been—"

    
"Shut
up!"
I hammered my fist onto the desk between us. "I don't want
to hear any more of it. I'm not going to take the case. We're done."

    I
stood up and walked to the door and opened it for him, just as Child had done
for me an hour earlier.

    "You
saw the house—" he said without turning.

    "Yeah."

    "You
didn't feel anything—"

    "No,
I did not," I said. Was there a tug somewhere along my spine at that— Some
twinge that comes from telling a lie— No, couldn't be.

    "All
right," he said. "I'm sorry you're offended. Sorry you feel
betrayed."

    "I
don't feel betrayed, I feel stupid. I'll give you this heads-up, though: I'm
going to track down whatever police agency is investigating Cantrell's death
and tell them about your request."

    "You
think I was involved—" He still had his head down, and now, standing above
him, I could see another scar, long and ugly, across the back of his skull and
neck.

    "I
don't know," I said, "but you've killed before, and you seem awfully
fascinated with this couple, one of whom happens to be dead. I think the right
cops ought to be told about that."

    "It's
my past that bothers you. That's why you refuse to give me any
credibility."

    "Yeah,
Harrison, that does bother me. Just a touch. Sorry."

    "Let
me ask you one question," he said, keeping his back to me.

    I was
silent.

    "Can
a good man commit a horrible act—" he said.

    I
stood there at the door, looking at his bowed head, and then I said,
"Harrison, get out."

    He
nodded and got to his feet. "Okay, Mr. Perry. Goodbye." It was the
first time he hadn't called me Lincoln.

    I
stood at the door while he went through it, and then I crossed to the window
and looked down as he walked out of the building and into a hard, driving rain.

    A my
was in my apartment when I got home, and she was cooking, some sort of Italian
dish that had filled the rooms with a thick scent of tomatoes and garlic and
made the place feel more welcoming than at any time I could remember.

    "Did
anyone give you permission to touch my valuable implements—" I said,
lifting a cheese grater off the counter. Amy had never cooked a meal in my
apartment before.

    "You
want to be the only one to touch your implements, I can make that happen."
She shifted a pan on the stove and adjusted the heat.

    "Seriously,
to what do I owe this—"

    "You
sounded a little rough on the phone. Like it hadn't been the best day."

    I
listened to that, and watched her move around the kitchen, and I was grateful
to see her there. She was right; it hadn't been the best day—but those were the
sort of days that could stack up on you easily, and it was a new and welcome
thing for me to end them with Amy. It beat the hell out of ending it alone,
with a bottle of beer and the mindless noise of some TV show.

    "Thank
you," I said. "Really."

    "I
wouldn't say that till you taste this."

    "What
is it—"

    "I
call it Mafia lasagna. In honor of the Sanabria family."

    "Weak
humor, Amy. Very weak."

    She
dried her hands on a towel and turned to face me. "If you're interested,
I've got a bunch of printouts discussing Joshua Cantrell—or at least the
discovery of his body—over on the table. As for Alexandra, there's not much out
there. She's the quiet one of the Sanabria family, I suppose."

    I
walked over to the table and looked at the stack of papers there. Lots of
articles. The discovery of Cantrell's body had made plenty of news.

    "I
can't believe the name didn't register with me," I said, flipping through
the articles.

    Amy
turned to look at me over her shoulder, a few strands of hair glued to her
cheek from the steam rising off the stove. After months of fighting to
straighten her naturally curly blond hair, she'd finally given up again, and I
was glad to see it. She'd looked too corporate with the straightened hair—an
observation that had gotten a pen thrown at me once.

    "You've
been pretty removed from the news lately." She pulled the oven open and
bent to look inside, leaving her voice muffled as she continued to speak.
"Can't say the last time I've seen you with the paper."

    It
was a good point. Ordinarily I would've read about the discovery of Cantrell's
body, and probably remembered the name when Harrison said it, but I'd stopped
reading the papers and watching TV news shows back in the fall, when I was
making all-too-frequent appearances in them. I hadn't gone back to them yet,
but now I was thinking maybe I should. It's dangerous to be uninformed, as
today had demonstrated.

    "That's
just good taste," I said. "You know the sort of crap they write in
the newspaper these days. It's a wonder they still refer to those people as
journalists."

    She
closed the oven and stood up. "I am close to knives, you know. Large,
sharp knives."

    "Good
reminder." I moved the stack of articles out of the way. They could wait,
or maybe I'd never read them at all. There was no need to. I'd taken a silly
nibble today, but now I saw the lure and its hooks and knew better than to hang
around. The Cantrell case didn't need my attention, and I needed even less the
attention of the Sanabria family.

    "Food
is almost done," Amy said, "and you better realize the only reason
I'm feeding you is because I want to hear the story. Not some half-assed
version of it, either. The real story, with all the details."

    "You'll
get it," I said, "but let me pour some wine first."

    It
was a nice evening that turned into a nice night, and she stayed with me and we
slept comfortably and deeply in my bed while another round of storms blew in
off the lake and hammered rain into the walls that sheltered us. Amy rose early
and slipped out of the house sometime before seven to return to her own
apartment before starting the day. We'd been together a while now, but still we
both clung to own routines and our own space, and I wondered at times if maybe
that wasn't the way it would and should always be, if maybe we were the sort of
people who simply didn't cohabit well. At other times, I'd come home and sit
alone in the apartment and wonder why in the hell I hadn't proposed.

    She'd
been gone for almost an hour, and I'd fallen back into a surface layer of
sleep, not quite awake but never far from it, either, when the tapping began. A
gentle series of taps, five or six at a time, then a pause followed by another sequence.
I don't know how many sequences had passed before they finally carved into my
brain and I sat up in bed and realized that someone was knocking on my door.
Knocking, it seemed, with extraordinary consistency and patience. Never loud,
never urgent, but never stopping, either. Tap, tap, tap, tap.

    I got
out of bed and tugged on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, made it to the top of
the stairs as another calm sequence of knocks began, reached the bottom just as
it came to an end. Then I had the door open and was squinting out into the
harsh daylight and the face of a small, dark-haired man with a raised fist.
There was a ring on his finger that seemed brighter than the sunlight behind
him, some hideous collection of gold and diamonds so heavy that I hoped he wore
one on the other hand to keep from becoming lopsided. He was getting ready to
bring it back down on the door, continue the knocking, but when he saw me he
just held the pose for a second and then slowly lowered the hand to his side.