Michael Koryta - The Prophet

“What do you think of your team’s effort today?” Kent said.

There was a murmured “Not great” from Damon, a “Poor” from Lorell, and a nearly shouted “Awful, sir!” from Colin.

“So no one is impressed?”

Three heads shook.

“Anyone feel like we’re ready to win with this effort?”

“No, sir.”

“All right then. We’re going to keep at it down here, and while we do, you can hit the bleachers to demonstrate the sort of effort that you want, as captains. Move.”

They moved—off the field and through the fence and into the bleachers and began to run, six feet hammering on the aluminum in unison.

“When they see enough from you,” Kent said, turning back to his team but shouting loud enough for the benefit of the three running the bleachers, “they’ll come back down to join us.”

He saw heads turning from him, eyes drifting away, and for an instant he was enraged—they were still not going to give him focus?—but then he saw the police uniform by the fence, and he, too, was distracted. It was Stan Salter.

“Coach Byers, get these boys fired up,” Kent said, and then he walked over to Salter.

“How’s your team doing, Coach?”

“Could be better. How’s your investigation going?”

“Could be better.”

Kent nodded and waited. Salter had sunglasses on, and he looked from Byers up to the rattling bleachers. Damon Ritter stumbled, slipping in the burgundy leaves that were raining silently down. That would be perfect, wouldn’t it? Kent’s best defensive player blowing out a knee running sprints to make a point to the team.

“That the Mears boy you got running?” Salter asked.

“It is.”

“How’s he holding up?”

“This will help him.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Salter nodded, took a deep breath, and said, “You spoken to your brother?”

“I have not.” Kent was still staring into the bleachers.

“I could use your help with him.”

“He’s not going to be any more cooperative with you if I’m the middleman. If anything, it will make things more difficult for you.”

“You don’t know that he’s investigating Rachel Bond’s murder, I take it.”

Kent turned to Salter, seeing his own reflection in the cop’s sunglasses.

“Investigating?”

Salter nodded. “I got a call today from a woman of… potential value to the investigation. Seems your brother went out to interview her yesterday morning, then called again today. Told her he was a private investigator. She didn’t think much of it at the time, because his name didn’t resonate with her. Then she talked it over with a friend this afternoon and realized how disturbing an answer he’d given her when she asked who he was working for.”

“Who is he working for?”

“His sister,” Salter said. “That’s what he told her, at least. He said he was working on behalf of his sister.”

Kent leaned on the fence, tightened his right hand around the chain link. “He said that?”

“Yes.”

Neither of them spoke then. Behind them the coaches shouted instructions and the kids grunted with effort and the tackling sleds slapped and rattled on their frames. Beside them the bleachers shook and Colin Mears screamed out encouragement as he took the steps— Come on, show them something, show them how we do this! The wind was pushing across the field in strong gusts, fat orange and crimson leaves tumbling.

“I would like,” Stan Salter said, “for your brother not to jeopardize my investigation. I understand that the two of you are not close. But I need you to understand that I can’t have him doing what he’s doing.”

“On behalf of his sister,” Kent repeated. “That’s what he told her?”

“Yes.”

“And what did his sister want, Lieutenant?” Kent’s voice was choked, the whistle back in the corner of his mouth now, teeth grinding against it. “Do you know?”

“Suspects.”

“Suspects.” Kent nodded. Spit the whistle out. Looked away. “Tell you what, Lieutenant. You let me talk to my brother.”

“Thought you didn’t do much of that.”

“I don’t. But it’s time.”

15

IN THE YEARS SINCE HE’D faded into the mists of memory, Rodney Bova had drifted out of Chambers County and then returned, with stops at three jails and one prison in between.

The first bust—at least the first available to the public, his juvenile record was protected—had been in 1994, for selling weed. He did thirty days in jail in Sandusky and then got out and migrated back east, pausing in Cleveland to be arrested for trafficking with an inmate at the Cuyahoga County Jail and sentenced to three months. Back out again, long enough to sniff the fresh air and decide he didn’t like the smell, and then through the revolving door and into the Lorain County Jail for a three-count conviction involving assault, drug possession, and an unlicensed firearm after he was arrested during a bar fight. The judge in that case had less patience with young Rodney and sent him to prison for an eighteen-month stay. Mansfield Correctional had been his home from the autumn of 1998 to the spring of 2000.

The facility had also been home, those years, to Gideon Pearce.

And, later, to Jason Bond.

Something began to tick inside Adam as he read through the arrest records and constructed his timeline. It wasn’t a bad feeling. Not at all. More like the application of a match to a part of him that longed for heat, ached for it.

He was lost in the web of overlapping names and dates and prisons when his phone began to ring, and he silenced it without a glance, didn’t look at the display until the second call, an immediate, impatient follow-up effort, and then it froze him.

Kent was calling.

Kent did not call.

Five rings before voicemail, and he let it get to four before he picked it up.

“Yeah.”

“It’s me.”

“I noticed that.”

Silence. Kent said, “We need to talk, Adam.”

“Do we?”

“Yes. I’d rather it be in person.” There was a hard edge to his younger brother’s voice. The coach’s tone, that’s what it was, the ruler of young men, captain of the ship, and it raised a bristle in Adam. Always did. Coach your boys, Kent, don’t coach me, he’d said more than a few times, back in the days when they spoke.

“I’m not at home.”

“That’s fine. Tell me where you are.”

“Busy.”

“That’s not a place, Adam.”

“It’s a condition, Kent. So you’re right. But it’s still true.”

“True for me, too. I’ve got a game tomorrow, I’ve got two kids and a wife at home, and I’ve got police calling me, looking for you. But I’m making time, and you will, too.”

Adam let a few seconds and a few responses float by, and while he did that, Kent said, “Tell me where I can find you, all right? Just do that much.”

“Let’s go to Haslem’s.” This was designed to get a rise out of him, just the sort of needle Adam couldn’t bring himself to put down with Kent, even when he tried.

“I’m not meeting you at a strip club.”

“The house, then.”

The only place that would appeal to Kent less than the titty bar was their childhood home. You could practically see his skin crawl when he crossed over the threshold. How long had it been since he was inside? Adam couldn’t remember.

“Okay,” Kent said after a pause, and then Adam pulled back on the offer, a poker player immediately regretting his bluff.

“Like I said, I’m not there. Tell you what, Coach, I’ll come out to the school. Meet you in your office. That way you can get some work done while you wait.”

“I don’t want to wait.”